Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The
Speaker 1: Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from
Speaker 1: this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist.
Speaker 2: Miles.
Speaker 1: We are thrilled to be joined in our third seat
Speaker 1: by a writer, speaker, activist, best selling author who works
Speaker 1: on issues of race and identity in America. Her new
Speaker 1: book is Be a Revolution, How everyday people are fighting
Speaker 1: oppression and changing the world, and how you can too. Please,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. The brilliant, the talented Igioma.
Speaker 2: How you doing Welcome?
Speaker 3: I am, I'm doing well. How are you?
Speaker 2: We're doing great. We're doing great. It's great to have you.
Speaker 2: We've we've just finished your book. We're very excited to
Speaker 2: talk about it and pick your brain and ask you questions,
Speaker 2: but not make you do any of the extra labor
Speaker 2: that sometimes you're asked to do in other spaces. Obviously,
Speaker 2: we want this to be a free, fully conversation. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I also have to say you are from Seattle, and
Speaker 2: the first thing I always say to every person from
Speaker 2: Seattle is dis ain't it great? Aren't the fries great,
Speaker 2: and you came with it and said it was part
Speaker 2: of your very substantial moment in your life on your wedding.
Speaker 2: So I'm glad to hear that we have we have
Speaker 2: that in common, just to start. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sometimes it's all you need.
Speaker 1: Mm you don't mind, because dicks aren't. Miles has very
Speaker 1: specific taste in French fries that he likes them. The texture, medium, rare,
Speaker 1: you know, he likes. He likes Matt Saggi mashed potato sticks?
Speaker 2: Is that Matt sticks?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 1: Is that always your preferred type of French fry or
Speaker 1: just Dix? There's something about dis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no, I like all different types of fries.
Speaker 3: And there aren't fries like Dicks anywhere else. Like it's
Speaker 3: there's a Dick's fry and then you can't get it
Speaker 3: anywhere else. But it is a particular kind of soft,
Speaker 3: very salty thing that's beautiful. But it actually tastes like
Speaker 3: real potato when a lot of French fries don't because
Speaker 3: it is just real potato. You can watch them chopping
Speaker 3: them up and tossing him in the fryer. But yeah,
Speaker 3: it's a really specific thing. But no, I like French
Speaker 3: fries other places, but when you want a Dick's French fry,
Speaker 3: you can't go anywhere else.
Speaker 2: That's all there is. Yeah, love it up there, Love
Speaker 2: it up there. Beautiful, You've got it all and a
Speaker 2: great miss. See.
Speaker 1: Well, we are going to dig into your book and
Speaker 1: just all all the work your expertise. But first before
Speaker 1: we get to that, we do like to get to
Speaker 1: know our guest a little bit better and ask what
Speaker 1: is something from your search history that's revealing about who
Speaker 1: you are or what you're up to.
Speaker 3: H The other day, I was trying to figure out
Speaker 3: what happened to Seal Oh, like his singer? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think like Heidi Kluon showed up in my feed,
Speaker 3: and then I was thinking what happened to Cel And
Speaker 3: my partner was like, oh, did he die? And I said,
Speaker 3: I don't think he died, And so I spent a
Speaker 3: good amount of time.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 3: He just seems happy. He was recently at like his
Speaker 3: sister I think, or his cousin had a film released
Speaker 3: and he came and brought kids. Yeah, he seems happy.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's for me a.
Speaker 3: Lot of times it's random things popping up into my
Speaker 3: head of you know, what happened to this person that,
Speaker 3: you know that used to be a part of my life.
Speaker 3: I was thinking about Jaman Honsu the other day too.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's just like really beautiful black men you know
Speaker 3: that popped up in like the nineties, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: where did they go?
Speaker 2: What happened? Yeah? What happened to Jamal Hansu? What's he doing?
Speaker 2: I mean he's always popping up in movies all the time,
Speaker 2: and then like and sometimes in roles. I'm like, Jami,
Speaker 2: you I felt like sometimes you look, it's Hollywood, do
Speaker 2: you do? You do all kinds of roles. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of what the last thing I
Speaker 2: saw him in was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm trying to think he was. I saw him
Speaker 3: in something just a few years ago, but it was
Speaker 3: like a really bit part with some futuristic like space thing.
Speaker 3: I think I remember. Yeah, But like I feel like
Speaker 3: he got type cast so bad, you know, I mean
Speaker 3: we're like the nineties and yeah, you know, of like
Speaker 3: he was only going to do like this trauma porn
Speaker 3: or he was so exotified because of his looks and
Speaker 3: his accent, and I just think that they really put
Speaker 3: him into a corner that made it a hard for
Speaker 3: him to get out of. And you know, and I
Speaker 3: think he has said the same, Like I think I
Speaker 3: remember some quotes from interviews in the past being like, yeah,
Speaker 3: he was absolutely type cast. But you know, my favorite
Speaker 3: memory of him is always going to be the Janet
Speaker 3: Jackson video because that's really where I just watched that
Speaker 3: on repeat, you know, in my little like preteen hormonal
Speaker 3: like explosion of like yeah, yeah, ooh, it's this incredibly
Speaker 3: beautiful human being and just watched.
Speaker 2: It over and over again. Love will never do without you.
Speaker 2: You know, we know that chim In or jim On
Speaker 2: for what fore people called him jam In too. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I know another person I remember I went to
Speaker 2: school with someone who called him Digimon.
Speaker 3: I heard that a couple of times, being like dig yeah.
Speaker 2: It's digital monsters, the cartoon man.
Speaker 1: You know what. I think part of the reason that
Speaker 1: like seal's kind of hard to search online, Like I
Speaker 1: searched steal Urban Legend and they were like, Okay, is
Speaker 1: breaking the seal a real thing when you're out drinking?
Speaker 1: And yeah, I just feel like it's a very specific,
Speaker 1: but Seal is sixty and thriving and touring. Last time
Speaker 1: Google checked out with him, the.
Speaker 2: Last last tweet he had was He's playing Redondo Beach
Speaker 2: Beach Life Festival this May through May third weekend with
Speaker 2: Sting Incubus Devo Fleet Foxes. This is a real interesting lineup.
Speaker 2: What I feel I feel like he should get higher billing.
Speaker 2: He's like on the third line. It feels right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just want to know what crowd is going, like,
Speaker 3: what how people are mixing, like like, oh, you got
Speaker 3: your Fleet Foxes, we got your Sting. Yeah, like I
Speaker 3: can see, I can see whatever the VENN diagram is
Speaker 3: between Sting and Seal being very like, I don't want
Speaker 3: to be in that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of Yeah, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: voted for Obama third term. If I could, and I
Speaker 2: feel like, then.
Speaker 1: You add the Fleet Foxes into that ven diagram becomes
Speaker 1: pretty Yeah, there are three separate circles. Suddenly, yeah, oh no,
Speaker 1: what is something from your search history?
Speaker 5: Wow, I guess you're prepared for the first time ever.
Speaker 2: Not you, It's me.
Speaker 1: I was going to guess that, but Miles guessed not you.
Speaker 2: No you somebody out don't tell me.
Speaker 5: That all I do is like a TikTok now, and
Speaker 5: my latest search on TikTok was for cool animals and
Speaker 5: whatever shows me too many people? I like talk to it.
Speaker 5: I'm like, show cute, funny animals.
Speaker 2: And what did you did you see anything?
Speaker 5: Binter wrong? What a binter wrong?
Speaker 2: Bin wrong?
Speaker 5: Look it up? You ever seen a binter wrong? They're
Speaker 5: so cute and weird they all it's.
Speaker 2: Like a little like a raccoon thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a cool animal.
Speaker 2: Wow, binter wrong?
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 5: Meet me looking up bin to wrongs all day.
Speaker 1: See this is what TikTok so I. I just asked
Speaker 1: the TikTok of my generation Google for animals and they
Speaker 1: didn't give me shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Google sucks now, Yeah, I will say. Actually, the Google
Speaker 5: image search has been ruined by ai. Have you guys
Speaker 5: noticed this? If you look for something, now you can
Speaker 5: look for anything on Google image Search, which used to
Speaker 5: be good, and now all it shows you is AI
Speaker 5: generated images from all these free AI generating sites that
Speaker 5: it's like, oh, you wanted to see like a picture
Speaker 5: of like Jesus drinking a cup of coffee, here's like
Speaker 5: a hundred AI generated You know you you can use them.
Speaker 1: Wait really, yeah, you can hardly find the real picture
Speaker 1: of Jesus drinking a cup of coffee, Jesus working as barista.
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this shit is all real basic. They don't
Speaker 1: have been to wrong, Is that what it is?
Speaker 2: Been?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Been?
Speaker 2: Oh shit, yeah, like open art. Yeah you really did.
Speaker 2: Just serve me a fucking dumb ass picture of a
Speaker 2: guy with great hair and a beard with a just
Speaker 2: working on something.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's what happens. It just shows you this open
Speaker 5: AI thing where it's like, oh, you want to see
Speaker 5: this thing, we'll make it for you and then you
Speaker 5: can use it for free. And they're all terrible. They're
Speaker 5: all yeah, terrible AI combinations of like images.
Speaker 1: In this one, Jesus is wearing heavy eyeliner for some reason, because.
Speaker 5: You wear eyeliner in the desert to keep it out
Speaker 5: of it out of your eyes, keep it foot out.
Speaker 2: Of your eyes exactly. Oh, it makes sense to me.
Speaker 2: The earliest form of EyeBlack was just the thick eye
Speaker 2: makeup for Jesus.
Speaker 1: But obviously a lot of people don't know Jesus was
Speaker 1: rocking eye black out there in the desert.
Speaker 2: Like John Randall, the Viking style radis all over his face.
Speaker 2: Another washed reference for them out there. Come on, jan
Speaker 2: what's something you think is overrated? All right?
Speaker 6: For this one, I decided to do this the biggest
Speaker 6: argument I've had in my family in the last week,
Speaker 6: which was I was saying how much I enjoy watching
Speaker 6: movies on double speed, and my wife and kids were
Speaker 6: just furious. So my overrated is watching movies at regular speed.
Speaker 6: And because you know, I wanted to see Flowers of
Speaker 6: the Killer Moon, but I'm not going I just did
Speaker 6: not want to spend four hours doing that. So I
Speaker 6: rented on YouTube and you can put it on double speed,
Speaker 6: and it was fantastic.
Speaker 2: The way it was meant by a white man at
Speaker 2: double speaking.
Speaker 6: On my iPhone on the toilet. Yes, I'm sorry, I
Speaker 6: know maybe the experience was like, well, I still felt emotions,
Speaker 6: I just felt them faster.
Speaker 1: I just, you know, I lying at you.
Speaker 6: My My argument is I'm a writer and I don't
Speaker 6: I'm not going in and then yelling at people who
Speaker 6: skim my books or fast. Yeah, yeah, I'm like, do
Speaker 6: what you want. Here's my book, doing what you want, right, right, right?
Speaker 6: So but yeah, I know that my filmmakers and art
Speaker 6: and are not are on my family side that this
Speaker 6: is a terrible thing. But I mean no offense. I
Speaker 6: listened to you on double speed.
Speaker 2: And I why not. I mean, I think it's all
Speaker 2: I do. I do that with Like I watch a
Speaker 2: lot of reality TV, and sometimes I can get through
Speaker 2: it faster by watching it at one and a half
Speaker 2: x speed, like because there's so much dramatic pausing that
Speaker 2: when you actually condense the information down, you're like, oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah great, I got the gist of that inane content
Speaker 2: pretty quickly.
Speaker 6: But with oh yeah, now if you cut out the
Speaker 6: repeats when they say and then let's remember what happened
Speaker 6: before the commercial break, like yeah, there's literally like eight minutes.
Speaker 7: Of actual new stuff. Right, That's right, That's that's true.
Speaker 7: I've never tried to watch a movie at two X speed.
Speaker 7: I've listened to books at two X speed, and some
Speaker 7: of them I'm like, you know, flying through, getting everything,
Speaker 7: and sometimes it's like two dense and I just do not,
Speaker 7: Like I'm I'm thirty minutes and I'm like, I don't.
Speaker 2: Know what the fuck just happened here?
Speaker 6: Like right, Well, there are some shows and movies definitely
Speaker 6: don't like deep. I remember I tried to watch that
Speaker 6: at double speed, and I was like, what the hell
Speaker 6: is going on? Because they are so fast and witty.
Speaker 6: But but yeah, like a slow movie that's you know,
Speaker 6: got lots of nature shots like you mentioned. I can
Speaker 6: deal with that.
Speaker 2: That's probably some kind of like speed comprehension test is
Speaker 2: to like take like a Tina Fey written show or
Speaker 2: ip and watch that as like three X speed to
Speaker 2: be like, did you catch all that writers? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, she watched this episode of thirty Rock three
Speaker 1: every speed and give me a solution. Yeah, yeah, Terrence Malick,
Speaker 1: two X speed like probably just looks like a regular
Speaker 1: like an eighties movie.
Speaker 2: It says like, oh this is this is normal.
Speaker 6: Well, sometimes I think when I listen to MPR normal speed,
Speaker 6: I mean double speed, it just sounds like normal talking
Speaker 6: people talking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they're not like so they're there. There's not
Speaker 1: the pauses and yeah that makes sense to me. Older movies,
Speaker 1: I will say, incredibly slow. Yeah, just long periods with
Speaker 1: people being like, all right, we've got a head to
Speaker 1: the store to like meet up for this package drop
Speaker 1: and then watch them stand up from that table, walk
Speaker 1: to the car, get in the car drive to the store,
Speaker 1: it's like realistic.
Speaker 2: Then like wait you hold on, I forgot my walle
Speaker 2: and okay, I'll turn around right hey, make sure you
Speaker 2: hang your cote up before you go inside. I will.
Speaker 1: There are shots in The Godfather of like somebody's just
Speaker 1: walking down a hallway for long periods of great movie
Speaker 1: and maybe like at the time people needed that breather
Speaker 1: or something, but it's just like man.
Speaker 6: And even old comedies it's hilarious. I remember watching the
Speaker 6: Marx Brothers and they had like they're doing their ANTIQ stuff,
Speaker 6: which is it's not that antic compared to what happens now.
Speaker 6: But then they'll do a five minute harp solo, like
Speaker 6: Harpo will come out and actually play the harp for
Speaker 6: five minutes in a comedy movie, and you're like, what
Speaker 6: the hell.
Speaker 2: Is going on? Well, I mean that legacy kind of
Speaker 2: lived on in our eighties and nineties films where like
Speaker 2: some band inexplicably had a full on song performance in
Speaker 2: the middle of a film when you're like, what, like
Speaker 2: why did they do?
Speaker 1: The Blues Brothers is I mean, I've always said that
Speaker 1: John Belushi is like a little bit puzzling to me
Speaker 1: because I think because he, like Chris Farlee's was my
Speaker 1: favorite like comedic figure growing up, and his whole stick
Speaker 1: was like kind of an evolutionary Belushi. But yeah, the
Speaker 1: Blues Brothers like when they just like break into long
Speaker 1: moments of them doing like white guy blues for you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just like, who is this for other than you guys,
Speaker 1: wether than the performers who made this movie.
Speaker 2: Blame the cocaine man, blame thee you fucking sick dude.
Speaker 2: And then we do like a harmonica so home. But
Speaker 2: everybody fucking.
Speaker 1: Loves that shit. Like people, I know so many people
Speaker 1: who are like, oh, have you seen The Blues Brothers?
Speaker 2: Though, Oh you like comedy? Who are you hanging around
Speaker 2: a bunch of cops? Yeah it's cops.
Speaker 1: It's mostly cops and the cops that I play cards with. Laurrie,
Speaker 1: what's something you think is underrated?
Speaker 4: I guess, well, if I'm going to go sports wise,
Speaker 4: let's say swimming is underrated, you know, as an Olympic sport,
Speaker 4: Synchronized swimming is underrated. Yeah, it's absolutely my favorite thing.
Speaker 4: It's so beautiful and difficult and anytime you post a clip,
Speaker 4: so and post the clip of Martin Short and Harry
Speaker 4: Shearer from SML and it's like, guys, can these athletes
Speaker 4: just do one Olympic big so that happing to see
Speaker 4: that clip please?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: It is, I mean it's iconic, but it's it's one
Speaker 2: of those things that I remember you the second you try.
Speaker 2: That's when you have respect for synchronized swimmers because you're like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: what they're doing under well, okay, I can stay inverted underwater.
Speaker 2: And then you're you're like fucking flailing because you can't
Speaker 2: do like those like micro balance paddles that they do
Speaker 2: like their hands and yeah, respect only that.
Speaker 4: But they they all have to do them exactly the same.
Speaker 4: So you know, but the eight of them and their
Speaker 4: hands are right next to each other and they can't
Speaker 4: mess up, and their legs have to say, their feet
Speaker 4: have to you know, meet at the top that you
Speaker 4: can have one foot you know, one person's feed higher
Speaker 4: than the other.
Speaker 3: So it's so hard.
Speaker 4: But the team, the team version of it, you know,
Speaker 4: just the individual stuff on its own is really difficult too.
Speaker 2: But man, is there individual like dancing kind of it
Speaker 2: used to be.
Speaker 4: Like synchronized with the music. That's what they that's what
Speaker 4: they meant.
Speaker 2: But like, oh right, got it?
Speaker 4: No, I mean like individually learning to do all those
Speaker 4: skills and then there's eight of you together learning to
Speaker 4: do it so that you're all you're you're as one.
Speaker 2: Right right right? Holy ship, there's eight of them there.
Speaker 2: I think they lost powers.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to remember.
Speaker 4: It seems like at least six to eight on the
Speaker 4: in the team.
Speaker 2: That's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that ship might as well be like a
Speaker 1: magic trick to me. I'm just like there's something I
Speaker 1: don't understand because that is looks completely impossible to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is really impressive.
Speaker 1: Synchronized diving. Yeah, that was pretty fun. That's like very
Speaker 1: meditative to just like watch people do that over and
Speaker 1: over again. I got into like the last Olympics. I
Speaker 1: would just like sit there and watch that for like
Speaker 1: an hour straight.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's very cool looking. I like they let these
Speaker 4: little sneaky sports in the Olympics.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, somebody made up four years ago, did by.
Speaker 4: Accident when they the same time as your friend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it got invented like when somebody was trying to
Speaker 1: break againness Book of World records, just like trying to
Speaker 1: like I don't know, maybe most dives together.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I mean because in twenty twenty eight, isn't
Speaker 2: we're gonna have flag football? Aren't we in the LA Olympics?
Speaker 2: So is that right? Yeah? Flag? Yeah, it's out there,
Speaker 2: so and I means, like America, you better clean the
Speaker 2: fuck up.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what kids are playing these days. I
Speaker 1: feel like like young kids aren't playing like Pop Warner football,
Speaker 1: at least not the ones who grow up in New
Speaker 1: York City. Like I have nephews who just play like
Speaker 1: flag football.
Speaker 2: That's the version of.
Speaker 1: Football that they play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why not? I mean, which makes sense to me.
Speaker 2: A lot of cautionary tales out there for banging your
Speaker 2: fucking skull over and over and you know turns out yeah,
Speaker 2: not being able to like navigate your own neighborhood. Did
Speaker 2: you ever see that that one that like CT documentary
Speaker 2: is like the one soccer player, this woman who just
Speaker 2: headed the ball so many times, like it affected like
Speaker 2: she needed like GPS to get around her town because
Speaker 2: it was just like affecting so many things like that.
Speaker 2: And that's when I was like, wow, wow, wow, wow wow.
Speaker 4: I read but I didn't I didn't know that documentary
Speaker 4: that's terrible. Was that ever gonna get better or she
Speaker 4: just permanently.
Speaker 2: I'm not did not feel hopeful. It was sort of
Speaker 2: like it was it was sort of covering like all
Speaker 2: kinds of sort of content. It was just like a
Speaker 2: it was sort of showing many different contact sports athletes
Speaker 2: and just sort of the varying degrees in which like
Speaker 2: these like repetitive head impacts kind of like were affecting
Speaker 2: people because it doesn't seem like across the board thing
Speaker 2: with heading the soccer ball at least I'm not. I
Speaker 2: didn't know about that, but that was like the first
Speaker 2: time I saw him, I was like, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hey, he got his bell rung, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's all. That's all. You just got all get
Speaker 2: back up there, man, Back up there.
Speaker 8: Man.
Speaker 2: This kid can take a lick and keep on ticking
Speaker 2: those stars you're seeing. That's your future, kid, when you're
Speaker 2: a superstar, lean into it into it. So brutal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, by the way, I can't navigate my neighborhood without GPS.
Speaker 1: But that's another story. We'll talk about that another time.
Speaker 1: Maybe I need a documentary crew follow me here. Let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break and we'll be right back. And
Speaker 1: we're back. We're back, and this Taylor Swift story just
Speaker 1: won't quit that people. People have some have some theories
Speaker 1: as to how the Chiefs made it to the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. They've made
Speaker 1: it only four of the last five Super Bowls. How
Speaker 1: could they have possibly gotten here?
Speaker 2: I was gonna say what I mean, I'm not an
Speaker 2: NFL fan, but like, at the beginning of the season
Speaker 2: would have been absolutely absurd to think that the Chiefs
Speaker 2: would have gotten close to being in the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: No, they would have been the favorite or one of
Speaker 1: the things.
Speaker 2: They won the championship last year exactly like I love that.
Speaker 2: They're like, yo, man, this whole fucking shit's engineered. So
Speaker 2: we touched on the frantic screamings of the right after
Speaker 2: the Chiefs booked their ticket to the Super Bowl, and
Speaker 2: you know, we talked about all these conspiracies that came out.
Speaker 2: Vivic Ramaswami was like, you'll see this completely fake, propped up,
Speaker 2: engineered duo to help Joe Byron. It'll it'll you'll see
Speaker 2: the impact it'll have in a few months. And now
Speaker 2: it's only gotten like more momentum. Since then I thought
Speaker 2: it would just be like okay in passing, like you
Speaker 2: just want to say something about the fear of Taylor Swift.
Speaker 2: But on Newsmax they really went to an interesting level
Speaker 2: with a combination of satanic panic and anti Semitism. George
Speaker 2: Soros Bookiyman kind of shit. Allison Steinberg, who has a
Speaker 2: show on Newsmax, regurgitated basically a combination of Ramaswamy's tweet,
Speaker 2: like almost word for word, which is very weird. I
Speaker 2: was like, you're saying the vivic Ramaswami tweet but pretend
Speaker 2: to passing it off as your own words, and also
Speaker 2: a combination of like the debunked Pentagon Nato syop where
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift was seen as an asset that we also
Speaker 2: talked about a couple weeks ago, where that was merely
Speaker 2: like just not even it was hypothetical about how a
Speaker 2: celebrity would use their influence on the internet. And I
Speaker 2: think they also talk to you some Game of Thrones
Speaker 2: characters as an example. But anyway, let's just allow her
Speaker 2: to first let people know how like, what's really going
Speaker 2: on here? What are the Democrats really trying? What's their
Speaker 2: endgame here with all this Taylor Swift crap.
Speaker 9: Guys by and can't seem to turn off. The question is,
Speaker 9: with the wide open border and millions of illegals pouring
Speaker 9: and daily, the stealing at the ballot boxes and censoring
Speaker 9: conservative news and Republican incumbents being removed from the ballot
Speaker 9: and financing Nikki Haley and so on, why do the
Speaker 9: powers that be need this dynamic duo to sway the vote?
Speaker 9: Have enough dirty tricks up their sleeves as it is.
Speaker 9: Think about it, Taylor Swift is really owned by Soros.
Speaker 9: We might actually have a rare chance to unite against
Speaker 9: him using Taylor Swift as the trojan horse. Instead of
Speaker 9: pushing the alphabet mafia and murdering of babies to her fans,
Speaker 9: she should be warning about the dangers of the corrupt eleites.
Speaker 2: Anyway, goes on there. Wow, this oughts to do with
Speaker 2: the fact that like Soros apparently was like his one
Speaker 2: of his companies was an investor in buying her catalog.
Speaker 5: Yeah, what's crazy is that Taylor Swift also posted something
Speaker 5: once that was kind of dog whistling about Soros, and
Speaker 5: people were like, oh, man.
Speaker 2: Like Taylor, why didn't they show that, Cliff, Yeah, she's.
Speaker 5: On your sign kind she about the new World Order.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I don't know, like what exactly you know?
Speaker 2: That was her take. And then Greg Kelly, who we
Speaker 2: also talked about a couple like I think last week
Speaker 2: when Trump had misidentified Nicky Hayley as Nancy Pelosi, and
Speaker 2: he was like, actually he was deploying his sinility tactically
Speaker 2: to highlight Pelosi's role in January sixth and really spun
Speaker 2: that shit. He's trying a more as I would say,
Speaker 2: christ based attack on Taylor Swift and why she needs
Speaker 2: to be ignored or at least people need to be
Speaker 2: warned about, you know, h double hockey sticks if you
Speaker 2: go down this road with Taylor.
Speaker 8: I kind of have a problem though, with the hardcore
Speaker 8: Taylor Swift fans. They are totally over the top worshiping
Speaker 8: this woman. Have you seen any of the pictures of
Speaker 8: her in concert? I wouldn't go myself. I don't do
Speaker 8: that kind of thing anymore.
Speaker 2: But I think what they call it is.
Speaker 8: They're elevating her to an idol idolatry. This is a
Speaker 8: little bit what idolatry I think looks like and You're
Speaker 8: not supposed to do that. In fact, if you look
Speaker 8: it up in the Bible, it's a sin.
Speaker 2: So I don't like that you do that. I like,
Speaker 2: you just lost the train of thought.
Speaker 1: He's just so he acts like he just invented the
Speaker 1: term like pop idol there, like where he just heard
Speaker 1: it for the first time, like we've I don't.
Speaker 5: Know, I'm really making a lot of sense to me,
Speaker 5: Like why.
Speaker 2: You fear that? Yeah? Are you? Are you worried about
Speaker 2: the state of your soul in eternity? Molly as you
Speaker 2: it's like like pop idols.
Speaker 5: And then I was like, wow, worshiping false idols?
Speaker 2: Yeah, damn, go on, Greg Kelly, That's what I'm saying,
Speaker 2: Like it's like, sir, y'all worship at the altar of
Speaker 2: Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: Well, it's also funny that they're like, yeah, normally we
Speaker 5: like football, but now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we love we love the racist name, the problematically
Speaker 2: named football team from his from Missouri, right, and the
Speaker 2: white guys.
Speaker 5: Like this Kansas, Kansas City team with the racist name
Speaker 5: is two.
Speaker 2: Woke, right, right.
Speaker 1: I think they're right to connect this to idolatry and
Speaker 1: the idea that Taylor Swift and like big stars have
Speaker 1: come to replace We've talked about this idea before, but
Speaker 1: like the the size and fervor with which people are
Speaker 1: devoted to their favorite musicians, Like we saw a bunch
Speaker 1: of people like driving their favorite musician to like number one,
Speaker 1: like voting basically just like playing the thing playing their
Speaker 1: songs over and over again as a form of devotion
Speaker 1: to Like I think it was Britney Spears over the weekend,
Speaker 1: but like that is a new yeah, and then Nikki obviously.
Speaker 2: But Jesus.
Speaker 5: Fans of Jesus are the original barbs.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, yeah, but that has gone as that has
Speaker 1: gone down, and as more and more people identify as
Speaker 1: like no religion, this is kind of what has come
Speaker 1: in to replace it, like Star Wars fandom, Taylor Swift fandom,
Speaker 1: And I don't think they're wrong. I just think they're
Speaker 1: wrong to be to moral upset about it because they're
Speaker 1: doing the exact same thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Donald Trump, people shouldn't worship famous people. But they're like,
Speaker 5: you're worshiping the wrong famous people.
Speaker 2: Worship this fuck face? Please you worship our.
Speaker 5: Yeah No, I know, because I saw people too being
Speaker 5: like what, I'm shocked, Why don't maga people love Taylor
Speaker 5: Swift and Travis Kelcey, the all American prom queen and
Speaker 5: king kind of thing. But you know it's also Travis
Speaker 5: Kelcey did a did a vaccine commercial.
Speaker 2: You mean, mister, he's mister.
Speaker 5: So they do think this is kind of a brand alignment.
Speaker 5: Now I'm gonna put on my tinfoil hat.
Speaker 2: Here go ahead.
Speaker 5: There are people who who do think the Taylor and
Speaker 5: Travis thing is sort of a PR stunt. They're moving
Speaker 5: really fat.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't surprise me.
Speaker 5: Well, here, I'll tell you my real opinion, my non
Speaker 5: crazy real opinion, is that she's trying to get back
Speaker 5: at her ex boyfriend. She she was in a relationship,
Speaker 5: no if Joe Alwin, the British guy. Oh okay, she
Speaker 5: was in a relationship, not the racist guy. She's a
Speaker 5: relationship that was her first attempt to get back at
Speaker 5: the boyfriend. She was in a relationship for six years
Speaker 5: that she thought, I think was gonna culminate in marriage,
Speaker 5: and then instead he dumped her and she's very hurt.
Speaker 5: But she's also Taylor Swift, so she's like, I'm going
Speaker 5: to use my huge public platform to make him feel bad,
Speaker 5: and then instead I think it's sort of maybe making
Speaker 5: that ex boyfriend think he made the right decision because
Speaker 5: he was the one who didn't like all the publicity stuff, right,
Speaker 5: that goes along with the Taylor Swift circus. And I
Speaker 5: think she's kind of acting out what she would like
Speaker 5: to be happening in her personal life. And and her
Speaker 5: and Travis Kelcey are kind of shit because like it
Speaker 5: makes sense everybody, just everybody seeing all these Taylor Swift
Speaker 5: friends like freaking out about them kissing on the field,
Speaker 5: you know, after the game and being like he's gonna
Speaker 5: propose when the Chiefs win, He's gonna propose on the field,
Speaker 5: And then somebody else was like, yeah, they've been dating
Speaker 5: for four months, right, yeah, right, you know, And like
Speaker 5: I do think her whole thing is this kind of
Speaker 5: fantasy image of like, you know, falling in love and
Speaker 5: being like the perfect all American gal. But like she's
Speaker 5: got to know on some level, they're like, you can't
Speaker 5: marry somebody you've only been dating for four months, even
Speaker 5: if America wants you to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's already like we already know what that album
Speaker 2: sounds like, like rushing it after four months kind of
Speaker 2: but that just seems like.
Speaker 5: A thing you do after you've been in a long
Speaker 5: ass relationship that you thought you were going to be
Speaker 5: settled down and then you're like, Okay, I'm ready to
Speaker 5: be fucking settled down.
Speaker 2: Who's around, Like, who's the next person?
Speaker 5: Yeah, like I'm ready to get married and that guy
Speaker 5: didn't want to marry me, so so like, oh, this
Speaker 5: football player might want to marry me because as a
Speaker 5: brand alignment, it makes a lot of sense for both
Speaker 5: of us. And he's an athlete who might want to retire,
Speaker 5: and then he could be mister Taylor Swift. And he
Speaker 5: seems to be the first of her boyfriends ever who
Speaker 5: really likes being mister Taylor Swift. Which is a big
Speaker 5: thing she needs in somebody is that they have to
Speaker 5: be willing to like be a fucking idiot for her publicly.
Speaker 5: You know, for sure, she doesn't want a private relationship.
Speaker 5: She wants a public relationship. And he's a football star.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the unique skills that she has,
Speaker 1: is that she is a public figure, like to her core, right,
Speaker 1: there's no part of her that is like I'm secretly
Speaker 1: a private person, but I'm like playing this role. I
Speaker 1: think that like any feelings she has for him are
Speaker 1: like tied up with understanding what that would like. I
Speaker 1: feel like she's camera away when she's in a room
Speaker 1: by herself.
Speaker 5: Yeah, definitely. And I think she's very insecure, and so
Speaker 5: she needs everybody to see that a man wants to
Speaker 5: kiss her in front of everybody, you know, right, I
Speaker 5: think you don't get that famous unless you're seeking validation.
Speaker 5: She seems like she's seeking the public's validation of like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm awesome, right, everybody wants me to be their girlfriend
Speaker 5: because I'm the best, right Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean with the Republicans too, Like it seems
Speaker 2: like a lot of this I mean and that analysis.
Speaker 2: I wish they would do that. They're like starting to
Speaker 2: be like just reading her to be like that's how
Speaker 2: they're going to get her to go the other way.
Speaker 2: They're like, we know what's up, Taylor, Like you want
Speaker 2: this to work so bad? No, I know what's up.
Speaker 5: But I think she wants Joe Alwen to see these
Speaker 5: clips of her, like, you know, spinning around on the
Speaker 5: field kissing this other guy and be like, damn, I fucked.
Speaker 2: Up, right, you know. He's like English, He's like there's
Speaker 2: only one football love. Yeah, so so good, and she's like,
Speaker 2: do you like this? How's this joke?
Speaker 5: He did something amazing, which is that on her birthday,
Speaker 5: when everybody was like expecting him to look, you know,
Speaker 5: looking to see if he would post something on her birthday,
Speaker 5: he posted a pro Palestine thing.
Speaker 2: Mm. That was oh wow, just because he knew there'd
Speaker 2: be so much attention. Joe Alwin Yeah interesting.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Like I think he's you know, because people are
Speaker 5: also like, oh, he kind of like tamp down that
Speaker 5: part of her that's like needs the validation all the time,
Speaker 5: and that's why she was kind of quiet for a
Speaker 5: few years. And then when they broke up, it's like
Speaker 5: the part of her that needs that public exposure just
Speaker 5: went crazy and right. And it's happened before where she's
Speaker 5: gotten so overexposed that people are like sick of her.
Speaker 5: And she's definitely headed that direction again no matter what.
Speaker 2: So but we just needed to last till November and
Speaker 2: then go back into the I.
Speaker 5: Mean, if the team loses, if they don't get to
Speaker 5: the super Bowl and they don't win the super Bowl,
Speaker 5: like that relationship's over.
Speaker 2: I know, right, are there taking are people taking prop bets?
Speaker 1: She leaves him for the quarterback of the forty nine ers.
Speaker 5: No, I mean, I mean, I think she's also doing
Speaker 5: I do think this was sort of a publicist set
Speaker 5: up in the first place. You know that they were like,
Speaker 5: he's he he allegedly was trying to get a famous
Speaker 5: girlfriend all year and was hitting up making the Stallion
Speaker 5: apparently Wow, yeah, like he was. He was allegedly trying
Speaker 5: to become famous. Has this publicist, That's why he hosted SNL.
Speaker 5: He wanted to be a name brand and dating Taylor
Speaker 5: Swift incredible way for everyone to do that. So I
Speaker 5: think even if they are a little bit playing it
Speaker 5: up for the cameras, like they seem to like each
Speaker 5: other enough, you.
Speaker 2: Know, a plus to that publicist.
Speaker 5: I think it's like they it's it's been pointed out
Speaker 5: that they both date like they they're not each other's
Speaker 5: usual types. Sure, she dates little British guys.
Speaker 1: I mean Molly Lambert, one of the great profilers and
Speaker 1: thinkers on celebrity. We're so lucky to have you for
Speaker 1: this conversation. I did not know about the Travis kelcey.
Speaker 1: That the idea that Travis kelce was like on a
Speaker 1: make me famous tour and even considered dating Megan the
Speaker 1: Stallion for a while. Where is that like dumont or
Speaker 1: where is that coming from?
Speaker 5: I mean yeah, basically, you know, yeah, sure, yeah. I
Speaker 5: mean people said, there's somebody else he was trying to date.
Speaker 5: People said, basically he was looking to become a household name.
Speaker 5: He's got a podcast, as we all know with his brother.
Speaker 5: He's trying to become a sports personality who's more, you know,
Speaker 5: who's famous, on top of being an athlete, so that
Speaker 5: when he's not in the NFL anymore, he can be
Speaker 5: like a famous sports personality who's on TV. That's why
Speaker 5: he hosted SNL because he, you know, wants people to think, oh,
Speaker 5: he's funny for an athlete. He's kind of cool for
Speaker 5: an athlete. He's smart for a football player. Honestly, his
Speaker 5: podcast is pretty funny.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean yeah, look, I haven't listened to it
Speaker 2: called Jack, you simply must.
Speaker 5: I like to dip into athlete podcasts. I listened to Tom
Speaker 5: Brady's podcast ones because I just how I imagined it
Speaker 5: in my head was being Tom Brady being like Tom Brady,
Speaker 5: brain don't work so good, right, mouth work fine, But
Speaker 5: you know he talked about he said stuff about football
Speaker 5: he kind of had. I was like, oh, he's got
Speaker 5: I guess I've never heard him talk. He just looks
Speaker 5: like such a dummy that I assumed he would sound
Speaker 5: like one. Right, Travis Kelcey is like, I'm cool for
Speaker 5: a football player.
Speaker 2: I'm not like the other players.
Speaker 5: He's not like the other players. He's funny. He was
Speaker 5: good on SNL also, But like it's definitely like, you
Speaker 5: know there's managers and agents involved in this, that that
Speaker 5: part's not made up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, right, right, yeah, because I mean, like you know,
Speaker 2: that publicist and stuff will be like, here's a menu
Speaker 2: of options to keep you in the news, which one
Speaker 2: would you like to do? You know?
Speaker 5: Yeah? And I think her first attempt to get back
Speaker 5: at the ex boyfriend, which was dating Mattie Healy from
Speaker 5: the nineteen seventy five like, didn't work and blew up
Speaker 5: in everybody's face kind of because he kept saying out
Speaker 5: of pocket things. Unclear how their relationship ended, either she
Speaker 5: dropped him because of the ice by stuff or he
Speaker 5: just disappeared because the heat got too hot. And then
Speaker 5: comes this opportunity to date a football player who is
Speaker 5: very famous and all American, and she's obsessed with looking
Speaker 5: like like she can keep a man that's like her
Speaker 5: main because look, because people that are she's never been
Speaker 5: in therapy famously, and I saw, you know, people that
Speaker 5: are her fans saying, oh, well, you know, she's broke,
Speaker 5: got out of this six year relationship. She should really
Speaker 5: take some time to work on herself before she gets
Speaker 5: in a serious relationship again. She should, like, you know,
Speaker 5: be with herself, be with see what she wants. And
Speaker 5: she doesn't do that. She doesn't fuck that.
Speaker 2: She was like she just conquers the world.
Speaker 5: She just needs a boyfriend because she needs everyone to
Speaker 5: know that she's like hot and desirable, and that's the
Speaker 5: way that she conveys it to the world because she's
Speaker 5: like the most heteronormous person on earth. You know, She's like,
Speaker 5: no one will know I'm hot unless I'm dating a
Speaker 5: big hot football player.
Speaker 2: Just big chunk of beef man. Yeah. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think she's like.
Speaker 5: Addicted to the idea of being in love to an
Speaker 5: extent that maybe it doesn't even really matter who the
Speaker 5: guy is, you know, which I think is a lot
Speaker 5: of people are just kind of like, well, I want
Speaker 5: to be married, So who who's going to marry me?
Speaker 2: Right? I mean just this like with the whole obsession
Speaker 2: with the right on Taylor, it's like, really, I'm still
Speaker 2: trying to figure out, like what the fuck is going on.
Speaker 5: That's what's funny, is like her fans are like, wow,
Speaker 5: you know, fairytale love. She never gives up on love,
Speaker 5: and now she and Travis are in love. Right wing
Speaker 5: people are like, she's a sucubust. She's an unmarried woman
Speaker 5: in her thirties and she's all used up and her
Speaker 5: eggs are dying. That's what I saw from the right
Speaker 5: wing as being like, she encourages abortions and he's mister
Speaker 5: vaccine and together they're leading people away from the light
Speaker 5: of Christ over to the dark side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the dark side of wokeism.
Speaker 5: And they're like and they're like, you guys, can't use
Speaker 5: this all American bullshit.
Speaker 2: That's our thing, right, I Mean, A lot of the
Speaker 2: ink seems to be coming from this poll too recently
Speaker 2: came out that said eighteen percent of voters, not just
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift, fans of voters said they would probably support
Speaker 2: whoever Taylor Swift supported, and then it also said that
Speaker 2: seventeen percent would be put off by a candidate that's
Speaker 2: Swift supported. So like on Fox, you're like, well, that
Speaker 2: just cancels each other out, so we don't have to
Speaker 2: worry about this. We don't have to worry about this.
Speaker 2: But I don't, I mean whatever, that's there's like this
Speaker 2: really interesting fear and like I feel like this desperation
Speaker 2: about talking about her. It feels like twofold right. One
Speaker 2: is they're hell bent on winning by any means in November,
Speaker 2: so anything that could introduce any sort of wobble to
Speaker 2: their confidence is like fucking existential because they say absolutely,
Speaker 2: Like you see all the fucking think tanks going all
Speaker 2: in on Project twenty twenty five and being ready to
Speaker 2: be like, yeah, let's just fucking flip the switch on
Speaker 2: the dark side like this November.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And she also used to stay out of it. That
Speaker 5: was like the thing was she used to not ever
Speaker 5: say anything about politics because allegedly her dad is like
Speaker 5: a Trump voter, you know, and she didn't want to
Speaker 5: stir the pot. And so then she got attacked from
Speaker 5: all sides when she wasn't saying anything where people are like, oh,
Speaker 5: it's because she's secretly Trump voter. It's because she is
Speaker 5: a Biden voter but doesn't want her Trump voter fans
Speaker 5: to know that because it'll affect album sales, but.
Speaker 2: Doesn't seem to have done anything. No, I mean I.
Speaker 5: Think you know, she came out and said she capitulated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she said, yeah. She says as little as she
Speaker 1: possibly can for it not to be a thing. Yes, right,
Speaker 1: but you can't say nothing and have it not be
Speaker 1: a thing.
Speaker 5: She knows a lot of her fans are these kind
Speaker 5: of like Christian Karen's too, where she's like, they don't
Speaker 5: need to know that. I'm like an adult city girl
Speaker 5: who believes an abortion, because then they won't maybe buy
Speaker 5: my records, but I think they will. They for records anyway.
Speaker 5: And I think she did say something a little bit
Speaker 5: pro choice and like all, maybe even a little bit
Speaker 5: pro Palestine.
Speaker 1: So do we think there's never been a like it's
Speaker 1: always seemed like very out of touch to me that
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party is. So I don't even know if
Speaker 1: it's a Democratic Party or if it's just the mainstream
Speaker 1: media that emphasizes like, well, the Democrats have Katie Perry
Speaker 1: like performing at their you know, and paign event so well, that's.
Speaker 5: Part of it, is like the way that they're just
Speaker 5: completely putting everything on pop culture and being like it
Speaker 5: has always been like idiotic, like the Pokemon go to
Speaker 5: the polls like like, no, give us healthcare, give us
Speaker 5: fucking healthcare.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: The fact that they're like, no, we need to get
Speaker 5: a team of famous people to endorse this candidate because
Speaker 5: that's all anybody cares about. It feels very much like
Speaker 5: the you know, playlist politics, where it's just like, no,
Speaker 5: nobody cares what's on your playlist, Give us any actionable
Speaker 5: change that will improve people's lives because everybody's fucking struggling
Speaker 5: and miserable. Yeah, which maybe is a good segue over
Speaker 5: to Elmo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean, like I think, just like the
Speaker 2: last thing of like I think this is also just
Speaker 2: a perfect opportunity for the right wing media to not
Speaker 2: talk about all the l's Trump's been taking in court recently,
Speaker 2: because like they don't want to talk about the eighty
Speaker 2: three million dollar judgment that was like awarded to Egene
Speaker 2: Carol And now this week we're going to find out
Speaker 2: what what he's going to owe for all the fraudgilant
Speaker 2: bs with the fucking Trump organization and Leticia James is
Speaker 2: seeking three hundred and seventy million, So this dude could
Speaker 2: be close to a half billion dollars in the hole. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but he might still shit goes.
Speaker 5: Be president and they of course, and they might use
Speaker 5: that to be like, oh, they're coming for him because
Speaker 5: he's too powerful, you know, they're trying to take him down,
Speaker 5: and now he's the underdog, which is like how he
Speaker 5: operates is convincing a bunch of privileged people that they're
Speaker 5: the underdog, right.
Speaker 2: I mean he kind of his you know, if you
Speaker 2: think about it, you know, I've just just been he's
Speaker 2: been sitting with that. He's a fighter in down but
Speaker 2: never till the end. But yeah, I think again, it's
Speaker 2: just there's always like an aversion to talk about like
Speaker 2: whatever is happening with him in a negative sense. I
Speaker 2: feel like a lot of this Swift stuff, Like while
Speaker 2: a lot of people are like, oh they're so fucking
Speaker 2: scared of Taylor Swift, I'm like they also don't want
Speaker 2: to talk about the news too. So this is like
Speaker 2: a good thing just to be like, you know, getting
Speaker 2: people on like an anti Swift thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, maybe it is a si op, but from the right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be vary them to like be screaming
Speaker 1: about a syop that they are actually conducting as they're
Speaker 1: screaming about the syop.
Speaker 2: It's kind of their move.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a quick break and we'll come
Speaker 1: back and talk about how everyone's doing. We'll be right back,
Speaker 1: and we're back. And you know, we've been covering this
Speaker 1: show's been we've been doing this daily show for a
Speaker 1: long time, and you know, covering the incredibly consistent energy
Speaker 1: pushing back against ideas like defund the police and abolitionism
Speaker 1: coming from places like The New York Times, you know,
Speaker 1: places that coming into adulthood, I had been told we're
Speaker 1: like liberal or progressive, and it feels like there's a
Speaker 1: lot of parts of the mainstream media that have kind
Speaker 1: of pushed past the idea of defunding the police, like
Speaker 1: it's settled law among people that like defund the police
Speaker 1: with bad politics, Like everybody heard James Carvedll say it,
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, I guess guess that's true. If
Speaker 1: that old swamp creature says it, that old snake say it,
Speaker 1: then I don't like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's backwards idea.
Speaker 1: But how I'd just be curious to hear from you
Speaker 1: on like, how are you seeing progress made in the
Speaker 1: fight for abolishing the current system of like policing and
Speaker 1: human caging. Maybe just talking about like what is abolitionism
Speaker 1: currently as you see it, and what are the areas
Speaker 1: that abolitionists are currently working on.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, I would say it's incredibly broad abolitionism.
Speaker 3: You know, people have multiple understanding of understandings of it,
Speaker 3: but the one I worked from is abolitionism is the
Speaker 3: fight to end enslavement, incarceration, and the exploitation of people
Speaker 3: that is based in the model of chattel slavery. And
Speaker 3: so what we are in is a continuation of that
Speaker 3: of chattel slavery and that exploitation of people, in the
Speaker 3: imprisonment and enslavement of people, and we see it in
Speaker 3: the ways in which our systems have built. Now that
Speaker 3: is broad, because we actually see that in our mental
Speaker 3: health system, we see this in our quote unquote child
Speaker 3: welfare system, and we see it in our incarceration systems,
Speaker 3: in our school systems, and so there are a lot
Speaker 3: of different places to fight this and say, you know,
Speaker 3: people have the right to their own autonomy. We don't
Speaker 3: have the right to say that only certain people deserve freedom,
Speaker 3: deserve liberation, deserve a second chance, deserve to learn and
Speaker 3: grow and change and be a part of community, and
Speaker 3: that we will look at the problems we face as
Speaker 3: a community with the fundamental belief that as a community
Speaker 3: we can solve it because these problems don't exist in
Speaker 3: a vacuum. If these problems are rooted in society and community,
Speaker 3: in our systems, then we can solve them. And I
Speaker 3: think that that is fundamental to this work. And so
Speaker 3: you know a lot of people will try to fight
Speaker 3: that and say, you know, with fear mongering, well, if
Speaker 3: there's no cops tomorrow, what are you going to do?
Speaker 3: As if there isn't a process, isn't the system? And
Speaker 3: often I would say, you know that fear mongering glazes
Speaker 3: over how incredibly brutal the reality is, right, which is
Speaker 3: that you know, we have a system that does nothing
Speaker 3: to deter harm our crime, that is stealing away large
Speaker 3: percentages of our population, that is leading to the deaths
Speaker 3: of hundreds, if not thousands of people by police officers
Speaker 3: every year, that is leading to the thefts of children
Speaker 3: from black, brown and Indigenous homes, that is leading to
Speaker 3: the forced treatment and incarceration of mentally ill people. And
Speaker 3: we're not seafer, We're no safer, right, And so this
Speaker 3: idea that trying something new would be worse how much.
Speaker 2: Yeah than this?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a system that like insert you know, exports
Speaker 1: brutality into the world that we live.
Speaker 3: In, right, and reinforces societal inequities that create brutality, that
Speaker 3: create harm and violence, and you know, and I think
Speaker 3: that's why we're force fat all of these you know,
Speaker 3: stories and cop shows of if it weren't for a cop,
Speaker 3: you know. And I think one of the most important
Speaker 3: things that was said to me by Genia Kahn years back.
Speaker 3: You were talking and they said, you know, cops can't
Speaker 3: prevent crime, they can only respond after it's happened. And
Speaker 3: yet we act as if that's the episode, like you
Speaker 3: can't you know, unharm someone with police officer, and if anything,
Speaker 3: they're showing up and creating a whole new level of crime.
Speaker 3: And so this idea that it would make us safer
Speaker 3: just doesn't make any sense. And so I think it's
Speaker 3: important to recognize like that there's something so deeply hopeful
Speaker 3: and beautiful and abolitionism in that fundamentally it believes in
Speaker 3: people like it believes that we can actually solve this,
Speaker 3: that no one is irredeemable, that we can look at
Speaker 3: societal issues and address them and change the way that
Speaker 3: we relate to each other, that we can heal each other,
Speaker 3: and that yes, we can address safety at the same time.
Speaker 3: And it doesn't mean it's perfect, but oh my goodness,
Speaker 3: what we have right now is is causing more harm
Speaker 3: than good. And so that means that there's so many
Speaker 3: different ways in which we can do this work, and
Speaker 3: you can pick different spots, and yeah, it can seem
Speaker 3: like we'll never get there right that we're not going
Speaker 3: to have a time whether aren't policing, But every time
Speaker 3: that we can kind of remove the task given to
Speaker 3: policing InCAR thural systems, every time that we can dismantle
Speaker 3: pieces of it and strengthen alternatives, we're doing really important
Speaker 3: abolitionists work. And we can do that and still say
Speaker 3: this shouldn't exist. So I always say that, like it
Speaker 3: is abolitionists to say I don't want cops in schools.
Speaker 3: It's abolitionists to say that, you know, people need to
Speaker 3: be given alternatives to incarceration. It is abolitionists to say
Speaker 3: that people shouldn't be given, you know, forced treatment for
Speaker 3: mental health issues against their will. It is abolitionists to
Speaker 3: do all of these. And I can say that work
Speaker 3: for and saying I don't want any cops, you know,
Speaker 3: I can say that right while also working towards these
Speaker 3: things that are available to me right now.
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, I think, especially when it relates to policing, right,
Speaker 2: and we, like you said, the status quo is violence
Speaker 2: is dysfunction, is increased harm. It's not solution based, it's
Speaker 2: not about identifying root causes. Yet so many people are
Speaker 2: so frightened to make the change that like the fear
Speaker 2: instantly turns like passionate defenses of the status quo. So
Speaker 2: then the next thing that you get offered, especially from
Speaker 2: legislators politicians, is our reforms. Right, and we talk a
Speaker 2: lot about reform is not we're just We're just you're
Speaker 2: just putting different, a different code of paint on the
Speaker 2: same problem. How do you sort of like balance obviously
Speaker 2: the need for these kinds of like deeper changes or
Speaker 2: these different like different kind of emphasis alongside like the reforms,
Speaker 2: because a lot of the times you get these sort
Speaker 2: of these debates now where people are like, well, don't
Speaker 2: let the perfect be the enemy the good. They're saying
Speaker 2: they're they'll tolling cops to use a slightly lighter baton
Speaker 2: or something, and we're supposed to be like, oh, okay, yes, sure,
Speaker 2: but like, how do we sort of in a world
Speaker 2: where people are so focused and able to say like, no,
Speaker 2: like a lot of our crime is because of desperation
Speaker 2: or lack of support. That's what we need to be doing.
Speaker 2: I don't want to hear about anything unless I mean
Speaker 2: talk to me when we're getting rid of qualified immunity
Speaker 2: or something like that. How do you how should people
Speaker 2: sort of like look at this balance of understanding what glacial,
Speaker 2: incremental sort of reform can do versus trying to like,
Speaker 2: for lack of a better word, hope for something revolutionary,
Speaker 2: something different, something that's sort of upending the status quo.
Speaker 3: That's a great question, and it is something that we
Speaker 3: talk about in the book. It's so vital that we
Speaker 3: understand the difference between like true liberation, liberatory work, and
Speaker 3: harm reduction and recognize what's neither, because a lot of
Speaker 3: what we say is police reform is neither harm reduction
Speaker 3: or liberatory work, and we have to say, at least
Speaker 3: give us some harm reduction. Right, So it's really important
Speaker 3: to listen to the people most impacted by it and
Speaker 3: the people who are actually you know, experts on this
Speaker 3: from the perspective of communities harmed, right, and say no,
Speaker 3: this doesn't work, and we know this doesn't work, and
Speaker 3: listen to that and be really really clear, because people
Speaker 3: will sell you anything and call it revolutionary, and then
Speaker 3: we will they'll label, you know, harm reduction as like
Speaker 3: this huge attack on the system and we're not even
Speaker 3: getting to like the meat of it. Harm reduction matters,
Speaker 3: absolutely matters, because the truth is is if we have
Speaker 3: these long term, big goals, we have to be alive
Speaker 3: to get.
Speaker 2: There, right.
Speaker 3: But that means we have to be honest about what
Speaker 3: it is. And so you know when, first of all,
Speaker 3: if it's offered to us by the system, throw it away.
Speaker 3: You got that idea, Oh okay, we don't want that, right,
Speaker 3: You got to listen. We have to listen and listen
Speaker 3: to the communities who've been building alternatives, right, because communities
Speaker 3: wouldn't we build alternatives. Some of those are revolutionary, some
Speaker 3: of those are harm reduction, right, and so we already
Speaker 3: kind of know what direction works and what direction doesn't.
Speaker 3: And so when it comes to issues that are as
Speaker 3: big as like policing and say, we would hate you know,
Speaker 3: we don't want this system here. You know, harm reduction,
Speaker 3: you know would be things like one, you know, getting
Speaker 3: police out of officers out of schools. Right, the systems
Speaker 3: still exists, but we don't need the officers in schools.
Speaker 3: Studies have shown time and time again that you know,
Speaker 3: it leads to an increase in arrests a black and
Speaker 3: brand and indigenous and disabled students with no actual reduction
Speaker 3: in harm. And it's not in whether they're you know, arrested,
Speaker 3: has no ties to violence in schools, drugs in schools
Speaker 3: or anything like that. It's just do you have black students?
Speaker 3: Do you have cops? Now we have more black students arrested,
Speaker 3: so we know it doesn't work, right, So harm reduction
Speaker 3: would be you know, getting them out, and that isn't
Speaker 3: you know, it's an abolitionist practice in that it is,
Speaker 3: you know, getting them out, but it's not getting rid
Speaker 3: of the system. Other ones would be you know, before
Speaker 3: you start referring making calls kicking kids out of school,
Speaker 3: and getting them in this in these pipelines. You know what,
Speaker 3: who oversees them, right, who approves that? What records do
Speaker 3: you have, whatever things are you trying first? Those are
Speaker 3: all things that are really important to look at while saying,
Speaker 3: while recognizing if the system still stays in place, it's
Speaker 3: not getting rid of the system, and so we can
Speaker 3: work towards that, push towards that, don't accept anything that
Speaker 3: re entrenches the system. And so retraining always re entrenches
Speaker 3: the system. Retraining is never going to be a harm reduction.
Speaker 3: It's just putting more money into a system and asking
Speaker 3: you know, and we've shown that they don't come out
Speaker 3: you know, gentler kind or more understanding of community. They
Speaker 3: come out with more police officers, you know, and they
Speaker 3: come out with more levels of excuses for why they're
Speaker 3: doing what they're doing. And so just listening to community
Speaker 3: on that is really really vital. But when it comes
Speaker 3: to every day and if you're looking at smaller things
Speaker 3: we can do, you know, if you live in an
Speaker 3: area that has cash bail programs, getting rid of cash
Speaker 3: bail is one of the most vital things you can
Speaker 3: do right now, right you know, in Washington here we
Speaker 3: have like to stay where people actually have to pay
Speaker 3: for their incarceration if they work out a deal and
Speaker 3: they want to go in early so that they aren't
Speaker 3: away from their family for three years and maybe six months,
Speaker 3: they have to pay for every day that they're in there.
Speaker 3: And so, you know, things like that are wild classes basist,
Speaker 3: and getting rid of that doesn't get rid of the system.
Speaker 3: But it's also a really really important step that we
Speaker 3: can take right now to reduce the numbers of people
Speaker 3: caught up in this popular in these systems, and how
Speaker 3: long they're caught up in them, and that gives us
Speaker 3: what we need, the strength we need in community to
Speaker 3: keep fighting.
Speaker 1: Just how do you think about the pushback from the
Speaker 1: mainstream media? Just that's been something that I've tried to
Speaker 1: get my head around, trying to picture the editorial meetings
Speaker 1: at these you know, major journalistic institutions where they decide,
Speaker 1: let's go with this story where the police are the
Speaker 1: only source for the information. Do you think of that
Speaker 1: as being put in place by powers, like architecturally structured
Speaker 1: to put this power in place, Because I also feel
Speaker 1: like there's also some some desire for that narrative coming
Speaker 1: from below also, like from the readership, and I'm just wondering,
Speaker 1: like how you think about that? Hey, does that inform
Speaker 1: how you approach people when you're trying to talk to
Speaker 1: them about you know, the car soural system and you know,
Speaker 1: things like that. There's this big infrastructure of power and
Speaker 1: money that is like trying to keep these institutions in place.
Speaker 1: But then there's also people who are just like really
Speaker 1: quick to believe the bullshit stories. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's because that's what they've always had, if it's
Speaker 1: because you know, it preserves their feeling of superiority and protection,
Speaker 1: but just just interested to hear your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3: I think it's a mix of things, right, So one,
Speaker 3: I do think that if people were, you know, if
Speaker 3: the reality of systemic oppression were laid bare for all people,
Speaker 3: and the way in which people have been made to
Speaker 3: participate in the impression of others was laid bare for
Speaker 3: all people, that people would decline to participate in that,
Speaker 3: especially if they were able to see how it impacts
Speaker 3: their own personal safety. No one is safe in a
Speaker 3: police state, whether or not we've been told we are.
Speaker 3: Even if you have privilege, only the very select few
Speaker 3: are and often that is only for a limited time,
Speaker 3: but you know, that is something that people don't want,
Speaker 3: and so that is often kept from the people who
Speaker 3: are made to participate most, right, people with the most privileged.
Speaker 3: The reality of how unsafe we are is something that
Speaker 3: many of us can't escape, you know, and which is
Speaker 3: why we're often the first and the most outspoken about
Speaker 3: trying to change it. But that unsafety exists for everyone,
Speaker 3: and that culpability exists, and people want to avoid it,
Speaker 3: and people have been protected from it, and they're you know,
Speaker 3: their bellies are soft to it, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: Like they're they don't they haven't built up that tolerance
Speaker 3: for it, and have been told that they would fall
Speaker 3: apart if they knew the reality that they couldn't handle it,
Speaker 3: and they're fed a constant diet of fear. When we
Speaker 3: look at our media, and this constant fear of the other,
Speaker 3: fear of this danger that is pumped into people. Right,
Speaker 3: we look at these shows where it's just this random
Speaker 3: person gets a thirst for blood and is out murdering
Speaker 3: people who's going to come help you, or you know,
Speaker 3: like this, you know, gang violence where the gang leaders
Speaker 3: are just soul as creatures who popped out of nowhere
Speaker 3: and they're going to take over your city if you don't,
Speaker 3: you know, have this. People are fed that, and people
Speaker 3: who don't have that firsthand experience with the reality of
Speaker 3: these systems and are living this completely alternate reality and
Speaker 3: are being told no other reality exists that you know,
Speaker 3: you you would feel comfortable calling a cop knowing they
Speaker 3: could help you get your out of a tree or whatever,
Speaker 3: and you'd be safe and everyone would because that's your reality.
Speaker 3: Challenging that makes the world terrifying, right, It can make
Speaker 3: the world team really terrifying. Challenging how you've been made
Speaker 3: a part of it can seem really terrifying. It can
Speaker 3: make you feel really powerless in a way that you know,
Speaker 3: many of us have never had the luxury of avoiding.
Speaker 3: And people will put up walls around that. And it
Speaker 3: has little to do with intent. It has. You can
Speaker 3: say you care, you know, and you love, but if
Speaker 3: you're not actively challenging these ideas and willing to sit
Speaker 3: with that discomfort, then you'll have a problem. And people
Speaker 3: don't want to hear it, right, People really don't want
Speaker 3: to hear it. They don't want it to land on
Speaker 3: their doorstep. If they are thinking about things like police brutality,
Speaker 3: they want the name of the one cop that they
Speaker 3: can yell at and blame because if it's a system
Speaker 3: and they're, you know, paying taxes into that system, if
Speaker 3: they've been supporting that system, if they voted for the
Speaker 3: candidate who said they'll bring lawn or and safety to
Speaker 3: their area, knowing that that men it would increase cops
Speaker 3: in black and brown communities, right then there's a whole
Speaker 3: level of culpability. And if that thing that they've been
Speaker 3: pouring money and effort into would endanger their disabled child,
Speaker 3: they don't want to know. They don't want that. They
Speaker 3: don't want that reality, and so it's really important that
Speaker 3: we challenge it while also showing that people are building alternatives,
Speaker 3: and that idea that we could build something else is
Speaker 3: kept from a lot of people who've never had to.
Speaker 3: And so it's always wild to me when people say, well,
Speaker 3: what are you going to do? You know, what are
Speaker 3: you going to do? If someone read you, that's that's
Speaker 3: the thing people say a lot to me, right, especially
Speaker 3: as woman, people will weaponize that against me. And then like,
Speaker 3: first of all, I'm absolutely a survivor of sexual assault,
Speaker 3: as many women have been and please do anything right.
Speaker 3: And my healing, my sense of safety, came from the
Speaker 3: practices that, like my black and brown community had to
Speaker 3: build to try to address list because we always knew
Speaker 3: that we weren't going to find safety in the system
Speaker 3: and we weren't going to find repair in the system.
Speaker 3: And so you know, those kind of ideas, these things
Speaker 3: that are thrown out erases the fact that right now,
Speaker 3: the you know, a large segment of blackground and indigenous populations,
Speaker 3: queer and trans populations absolutely know that they could never
Speaker 3: find safety in our systems and they have to build elsewhere,
Speaker 3: and they have been, but that is completely erased. You know,
Speaker 3: the ways in which we solve conflict is erased, the
Speaker 3: ways in which we ensure safety is erased, The way
Speaker 3: in which we heal each other and ourselves has been erased.
Speaker 3: And it all comes down to you have to trust
Speaker 3: this person with a gun. Nothing else has been done,
Speaker 3: nothing else can work. And so media I think plays
Speaker 3: a huge part in that they're invested in that because
Speaker 3: one they personally don't want to investigate that, and I've
Speaker 3: talked with editors, you know, as a writer who don't
Speaker 3: personally want to investigate it. They want to keep it
Speaker 3: in a comfortable place for them, but also they have
Speaker 3: funders who are systemically, you know, invested in this, and
Speaker 3: there is a real backlash four people publicly taking a
Speaker 3: stand and saying we're going to address the real roots
Speaker 3: of this. People have been made to pay, and I
Speaker 3: do think that people are afraid of that and afraid
Speaker 3: of challenging those assumptions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think one of the most like one of
Speaker 2: sort of inspiring passages for me or just to just
Speaker 2: to kind of put everything into perspective, right, because we
Speaker 2: started off being like revolution just feel like this scary
Speaker 2: idea and like, even though I know, like we need
Speaker 2: to actually look out for everybody, true liberation is only
Speaker 2: when every single person is liberated, like even if they
Speaker 2: don't look like me or not part of my community.
Speaker 2: That there was I think it was Miriam Caaba who
Speaker 2: you were saying, like, what's really put this into perspective,
Speaker 2: was like, it's it's not about like these big things, right,
Speaker 2: It's like, and I might be butchering the quote, but
Speaker 2: it's just about taking out removing just the bricks of
Speaker 2: like these oppressive systems. It doesn't have to be a
Speaker 2: wrecking ball type moment, because if if everybody's taken a
Speaker 2: brick out one by one for them elves, shit will
Speaker 2: start crumbling. That's just there's just no way for something
Speaker 2: structurally to keep it structural integrity if we're always like
Speaker 2: just kind of picking away at it. And I think
Speaker 2: that's a really important message for I think, and I
Speaker 2: really encourage our listeners to really to check your book out,
Speaker 2: because we are in such a time right now where
Speaker 2: I feel like everyone feels like they're banging their heads
Speaker 2: against a wall and they're like, I'm seeing this happen
Speaker 2: right now, am I Like, but we're not doing the
Speaker 2: right things. And I think it really is an empowering
Speaker 2: message a to see these other stories of people who
Speaker 2: a lot of are starting from absolute powerlessness and then
Speaker 2: opening the door to something really really substantive and really
Speaker 2: monumental without necessarily that being the initial intention of it,
Speaker 2: of just it's more just about advocating for yourself. So
Speaker 2: I really thank you for putting all of these stories
Speaker 2: together and your words around it, because as someone who's
Speaker 2: done like worked from all over the political spectrum, from
Speaker 2: being a lobbyist to being like in the streets and
Speaker 2: things like that. I've always sort of grappled with these
Speaker 2: feelings of like where my power lies or how I
Speaker 2: can actually exercise that and what it means to be
Speaker 2: revolutionary or not. And I think it makes it a
Speaker 2: very accessible way, and I think is very powerful, I
Speaker 2: think for people to understand that it's just about these
Speaker 2: small actions, because they all like, we can't just think
Speaker 2: we can't. We have to get out of like the
Speaker 2: superhero mentality of them, like I'm going to figure it
Speaker 2: out by myself right now, rather than can I contribute
Speaker 2: to a community that's doing well, Can I from my
Speaker 2: space say, you know what, maybe we don't need funding
Speaker 2: that's contingent upon us interacting with the police to keep
Speaker 2: our nonprofit going, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: just again I feel like, thank you for putting this
Speaker 2: book out, and yeah, it's really great to just be
Speaker 2: able to speak with you today. It's just been really
Speaker 2: eye opening, and I'm sure our listeners have had the
Speaker 2: same experience too. Yeah. Truly a pleasure.
Speaker 1: All Right, that's gonna do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist.
Speaker 1: Please like and review the show If you like the
Speaker 1: show means the world of Miles. He he needs your validation, folks.
Speaker 1: I hope you're having a great weekend and I will
Speaker 1: talk to him Monday. Bye.