Fash Backlash and How We Save our Democracy

them tickets? You still Lookford, y'all? Kada Larvin and trying to start a civil war? Oops, my ship, that's the no fly list. No cry bitch. Nobody likes you when you do trees and after night shift. I need them reparations, but I'm waiting for impeachment. Say black lives matter. Then they tell you we the Heathens were half the country really needs an intervention because they want to go and started insurrection. Tell me what the fun Good Morning to

twenty one. Can't wait to see how I'll be threatened when the insurrection is turned. They yes on the general electorate a healthy recipe of heckling my vesperis and trespassing. I'm like I'm emper annoyed, but it's my specialty. I don't even know if I need to say it. Extra sweeter, extra quiet in the background, because these white clowns they about to come for the Blacks. Now, I ain't really scared.

I'm ready for war, just like they were yelling when they were knocking on the Capitol doors, sing about seventeen seventy six. Like we've seen this happened before, only up to left this pushing back on the fen beforce or rolls let me running kit in two and I'm telling you, I can't take it no more. Not you gotta strike them down, gotta show almost really up because otherwise they're coming for us. They're coming for us. Hey, my name's Dope Knight and we are waiting on preparations. Hey, what's

going on, everybody? So again we're doing it to y'all. We've switched out the episode topic today. We did mention it on Facebook and Twitter yesterday, so if you follow us on those then you'll know that we switched up

what the episode was supposed to be. But what we were going to do and what we've been teasing for the last two weeks is we had this uh plan to do an episode that was about like the black experience and nerd and geek culture and discussing the lines and ties between hip hop and comic books and hip hop and anime and afro futurism and you know what

I mean. We have like a really dope b ass interview with Mega Ran and it's awesome and we have it and it's together, and we would love nothing more than to share it with you guys because it's like kind of fun or it's a lot of fun, and

we're looking forward to it. But just as we handed in our episode last week, is when the siege at the Capitol happened and we didn't get a chance to talk about that, and UM, as we were thinking about what to put out this week, it just kind of felt weird to like, you know, not address what's on both of our minds, particularly in like context for like

my experiences of that day. UM. I was sworn into my first full term as Commissioner that afternoon, and as images started to emerge from d C of the Capitol being stormed, UM reports circulated about Secretary of State Brad Raffensburger being evacuated from the state Capitol. UM as you know, high ranking neo Nazis gathered outside and we're patrolling the

halls looking for him. UH as a person that has like received the violent ire of the right wing UH at numerous points in my public service, I was like, hey, yo, is it really safe for us to be having this swearing in ceremonialside side uh and UH. I found that a lot of my fellow elected kind of like didn't

understand why that would like be a serious thing. Like, yes, we are an hour and a half north of the of the state capital and perhaps would not be as visible a target for the kinds of groups that were gathering in both our nation's capital and our state's capital. UM, but nonetheless opportunities to target like left wing politicians, UM emboldened in recent days by rhetoric from UH, various congressmen, right wing pundits in the president himself, like, you might

as well just be as careful as possible. But in this aftermath, you know, I had a like private ceremony inside the city hall. Meanwhile, my like colleagues did their things to you know, in front of a crowd outside on on the city hall steps. UM. It got me thinking a lot about you know the importance of pretty much everyone speaking out and pushing back against UH, like these emboldened fascists like UH the way that some folks like feel like it's not their business, it's not their problems,

not there like sphere of influence, UM. And that's you know, the way that many corporations have operated for the last four years. That's the way a lot of like businesses and others that have ties to these folks have operated in the last four years. And that's how we got

here in the first place. And so folks aren't like standing up now to say something like this is only gonna happen and and indeed is like you know, looking like additional UH actions, armed groups will be gathering in stay capitals in our capital UM in like the coming days or weeks. And so it's just something that's been on my mind a lot, like what are what is our responsibility as UH folks involved in governance in this

moment um? What is our responsibility as like activists involved in like community organizing and like community self defense if necessary in this moment? And so I just like kind of had that on my mind. I wanted to talk about that a little bit today We've got some songs about rioting and civil unrest for the music discussion, and

we'll have that a little later on. We're going to be joined once again this week by former deputy campaign manager for Daniel Blackman, policy analyst, student of political science at Georgia State, and general badass organizer Paul Glaize, and we will have all of that for you after the jump. Okay, So to give a quick little recap of what went down,

as if most of y'all listening don't already know. So, last Wednesday, they had one of those Trump Stopped the Steel rallies on Pennsylvania Avenue in d C. And the President riled up the crowd into storming the moving their quote unquote protests from Pennsylvania Avenue to the nation's capital. Um a combination of Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump Jr. And some speeches days leading up to General Flynn, they

were ginning up their supporters to act out. It was kind of obvious to everybody that this was going to be something big and something that would probably turn violent, and that's exactly what happened when hundreds, if not thousands, of Trump supporters decked out in full Trump gear, some of them full Camo body armor, vest weapons, bear spray flash bangs. They stormed the capital, forced their way in,

ransacked the place. Uh, and just general, we caused chaos and there's a lot of chaos and confusion now where we stand now, almost a week removed from that situation. There has been no official federal report put out, but the stories being pieced together through good reporting and reviewing of the hours of video that was taken at the day, and it's painting a picture that is quite disturbing and chilling.

It's a picture of extremely organized, extremely planned right wing militant operation that was coordinated with by sitting members of Congress as well as notable figures in the right wing media space. And the end result was what we all saw on the television screen, as well as five people dying, including a Capital City police officer UM, numerous people and police officers injured, and a somewhat tepid response by the federal government in terms of putting down said riot or protests.

So initially, you know, with my co host and and friends being a city official like you were on my mind a lot that day, and I know you're just talked about you know, having to go through the swearing process during while all that stuff was going down, Like how just how did you feel like about just doing it? Like did you feel like you just kind of wanted to call it a day and maybe not go through

with some of that stuff, with everything that was going on. Well, at my first swearing in ten, I set a new precedent for the city in holding my swearing in on the city Hall steps and inviting the public to join in, because I felt it was really important to invite people into our political processes by just like you know, you know, instead of having it in the basement where no one can see, Like, hey, this is how this process works.

If you want to stick around after, you can come to our commission meetings and see what're were voting on. And maybe this is the first time you ever sat in the commissi in chamber, maybe it's the first time you've ever heard us speak on issues at a voting meeting and sort of like making it fun and making

it inviting and inclusive. And so it was honestly just like a little sad this time to like to not be able to take part of in that like safely, Like I was reassured in the you know, hours beforehand that there would be UM Athens, Car County police you know, heavily patrolling the area and monitoring downtown for any UM threats.

But as we know now like that, and as I felt then, like that doesn't really make me feel a ton better when we know that, like off duty police officers were some of those that were involved in the

storming of the capitol. Um that uh, there was the conflicting messages being sent by you know, officials about what sorts of response or presence UM like that National Guard and other indies should have on the ground in DC, and so like kind of like awareness of the disparate responses um different kinds of political action and political discent h received from law enforcement, I'm like, I don't really yeah, yeah, Like if we're ting to if we're in the like

snipe snipe me off of the roof of the parking deck across the street, I really don't think there's anything you all gonna do about it. And so we got in, we got out, got it done. It was very different from the first time I was sworn in, and for that I felt a little bit sad, But ultimately we like went into the meeting and you know, did our thing to show the people that in the face of like threats of violence and instability, Um, like, the government

still gets its shipped done. You never really entertained the idea of like yellows cancel this ship today. I mean, like continuity and in stability of government in the face of like unrest is of critical like for us to not show that we're scared or thrown off by you know, that's what they want. They want, they want to distablize the government. The best thing that that the greatest gift we could have given to them was canceling our voting

meeting that night. So I was like, see, oh look, if we you know, threaten them, if we don't even threaten them with thretain people, you know, hundreds of miles away at the capitol, that's enough to see to it that poor people can't ride the bus for free, or they're not voting on these things that are going to make lives better for like the working class and like

people of call her, etcetera. So um, there was I you know, I had to be sworn in in order to do my votes that night, and so there was no question in my mind that like we gotta do this, you know, we gotta make this happen. Well, yeah, I mean bringing up it's good that you bring up that concern about the police, because you know, I mentioned how they've got all these police officers on camera being welcoming to the rioters. There's like motherfucker's giving people hugs, taking selfies.

You know what I'm saying, like leading the way and from you know what I've been hearing today is the situation is even more so like dire because they're starting to suspect that some of this has infected the Secret Service as well, so they're having to reassign members of the Secret Service who have been part of the Trump ecosystem. So there was a story a couple of years ago about Secret Service members staying in Trump hotels like the fancy pent houses and stuff, and it costing the government

hundreds of thousands of dollars. Well this is this is why, because now there's like apparently like a loyalty sect built into the Secret Service. So they're gonna have to at the inauguration, they're going to have to have counter snipers to watch, you know what I'm saying, The police Secret Service, like because they don't trust them as far as with Biden security and stuff. You know, if I was just about to say, if you're of a certain age, but

that's not even really necessary. It's like, if you are American, chances are you've never seen any ship like this before. Um, just in terms of what's going on with the government, this whole threat of like a fascist takeover and ship like that. For the libs out there, the the worst case scenario that you're imagining of how like a fascist takeover of the USA would be like pretty much if you were black before nineteen, like that's pretty pretty much

was your reality. So just imagine that. You know what I'm saying, But that's that's what's gonna go down. We're gonna be joined right now by our homie Paul Glaze, and I wanted to get some of your initial thoughts about what went down, Paul. So the first thing would just be that right now, as we're recording this, it's been reported that UM armed protesters quote unquote are are gathering and surround in the Texas state capital UM right now. UH guns have been banned on the grounds of the capital,

and like, look, I got family from Waco. And I gotta tell you, you gotta be pretty fucking out there before anyone in Texas bans you from having a gun on you. Like that's foundational to their culture. Um. You know, we've known for years, We've had reports for years of white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement. UM. The FBI UM, just a couple of days ago declassified yet another report that had not been public as of yet, saying it's

worse even than we thought. UM. They also today released that there was an FBI office in Maryland, UM that actually used the words these people are coming to war about the d C mob. UM. I mean, like I feel like we right right now, we're still in that like liberal media debate over what word do you use? Like what what what do we call these people? Do we call them a mob? Do we call it a riot? Do you know what do we do with this? Um?

And you know, at the end of the day, like these are Nazis, And you know some people don't like, you know, using the word Nazis or whatever. People cry about it, take cruises on Twitter crying about it. These motherfucker's literally we're like wearing Auschwitz hoodies, Like they literally said six million Jews were not enough, you know, like

that's those are the people that we have out here. Um. And I think it's really interesting that you know, we're recording this here in Athens, Georgia, you know, and in North Georgia, in Northeast Georgia specifically just north of US is where a lot of the organized white supremacists in Georgia, you know, reside, live, organize. UM. But those aren't really

always the people you see at these things. Like the first person we knew from Georgia, it was at them, you know, it was at the capitol, was like a doctor or a lawyer from Alpharetta, you know. So like I think what's really I think what's causing a lot of the panic right now is that a lot of white people in America have been able to live under

the fallacy that this was like a yokel problem. And for years, people like myself and people that organized in rural spaces, in a rural light spaces have been saying, you're really really obfuscating the problem when you put this, when you make the you know, the maga hat stereotype, this trailer trash white guy from the middle of nowhere, because like like those weren't the Nazis. Like the Nazis were the people that were like emboldened and we're like,

oh great, my posse's here. Now I can step up and spend my money and take my ship. Those are

the people you have to worry about, UM. And those people buying large start off when you know, when they're when their family starts coming up, taking jobs like in law enforcement, taking jobs in you know, like middle manager levels, like those are the people that you really really have to be more concerned about in the long run, UM, because at the end of the day, like Joe Dirt from you know, uh Alto Georgia, UM really just kind of wants to drink some PBRs and shoot some ship

in his backyard, uh and eat some barbecue and like, yeah, he's brainwashed like anybody else's UM, but he doesn't have the organizing capacity to pull off something like what we're looking at right now. You know, I've been seeing uh in reading like think pieces and stuff about what exactly is what exactly it is that we're looking at right now? You know what I'm saying, like trying to find maybe the socio economic roots of what that crowd was. I kind of struggle to understand what the use of that

information is at this point in time. You know what I'm saying, It just seems like that seems like an academic concern for like history, you know what I'm saying, Like, after we're out of this point, then we can go back and reassess this ship. But I don't understand what the purposes, especially for people who are you know, of the left or left leaning or whatever. I don't understand what the purposes of getting to the root of that

or concerning yourself with that in this moment. You know what I'm saying That it doesn't like it doesn't really matter what percentage of that was economic anxiety, you know what I'm saying, Like, because it's happening now, you know, so it's like unless we'd unless somebody's talking about how we deal with it or what we do to prepare ourselves. To be completely honest with you, it's like, I don't really give a funk what you're talking about, you know

what I'm saying. We we we kind of discussed this yesterday, But for the last five years, this has been my personal like subject of interests or concern where it's like all of the policy things that I care about, and the thing like all the all the progressive policy stuff that I care about, that like I'm you know, ready to argue and duke it out with the fucking liberal or a neolib about For me, it's hard to even get myself in that headspace because the overall impediment to

all those policy ideas is Republicans having power of any kind and within the United States, it's just kind of like for me, that's where I stand at this point, is it's like my number one issue is Republicans can't be trusted to hold elected office, So defeating Republicans at

all costs it out. And you know, perhaps saying that three or four months ago might kind of seem like a a live thing or you know what I'm saying to do like now in the face of actual activated you know, right wing movements, you know what I'm saying. I don't see how that's like a illegitimate focus right now because we can't get any of our ship that

we want done with these people standing in the way. Yeah, I would agree that, like our immediate concern has to be accountability and like crushing fascion m like unequivocally in order for like us to move forward, and so like overly being overly focused on what sort of policy prescriptions are necessary to like bring this country together because like, and I say that because like I agree that it's probably like the petite bourgeoisie or whoever that are actually

you know, who have the organizing capacity to be pulling off things like this, but like their causes gains legitimacy through like millions of people coming out to vote for someone like Donald Trump, which are you know a lot of the I mean that a mixture of like you know, well to do uh, white supremacists, but also like just basic normal uh like dude that lives in mobile home and you know, Northwest Georgia somewhere that dislikes to shoot shit and drink beer like that, Like millions of people

going to vote for a fascist then like len's legitimacy to like their claims of, oh, the election was stolen. Oh, there's so many of us that like, if we rise up and we take this through violence, there's there's millions of people standing with us, and those people who do have that economic anxiety that is driving them to vote for fascism, like there there is policy work to be done to improve their material conditions such that fascionst them

is no longer appealing to them. But I think we're getting I think that, yes, we are getting like the cart before the horse a little bit, and that like all of our focus right now needs to be on accountability and we can work out what polity needs to happen in order to like bring people together and like bring people out of the murk and meyer that like inspires there you know, desire for an authority, you know, authoritarianism. Uh, Like we can get to that ship later, I hear you.

I just I know, like like if you if I when I look at the pictures of that crowd and I try to just in my head to break it down and what percentage of it is what like I'm only willing to give myself like for economic anxiety, you know what I'm saying of that was like, man, that's economic anxiety. These people are in the up situations where they're um predisposed to falling for the Trump drift. I

get it, you know what I'm saying. But I do think that a lot of this ship is in bad faith and a lot of it is purposely depending on people being logical indecent and using that against against them. I mean, I think we got to talk about who's economic anxiety because it's the it's like the economic anxiety if the upper middle class as well, that we're gonna enact redistributive policies that like make it so that they can't crush through the working class under their like still

atos anymore. Like it's not necessarily like the oh, I'm fucking poor and like I'm at a you know, Mexicans and black people for taking my job. It's I'm rich, and I want to ensure that I can continue to funk over Mexicans and black people by paying them seven. It's those people. Yeah, I think it's also important that like we can't I think it's I think it's it's

uh uh. I think we're already buying into the trap when we talk about um falling for the ift, because the fact is that white people have been comfortable living under fascism since white people became white people. There's never been a time where they actually shared power in any kind of like you know, large scale cooperative way. It's never happened. We've never done it. That's you know, like just just being real. Like the places in which we see people of color in power are places where people

of color are the majority and took power. Um. So like I think I think that right there, like even just from the get go, is kind of a false framing. I also think that when we get to it, there's uh one of Bill Clinton's advisors, uh wrote a book called You're Fired um last year. That's mostly schlock um, but it does have one really salient statistic that are like fact that everyone should know, which is that the first time that Democrats ever won a majority of college

educated white people was Hillary Clinton. That's the first time. It used to be up until I mean a little bit before that really, but up until Obama college educated white mint Republican. That's it because college educated white people had money, and we're out to protect their money. And after the election, we saw a whole lot of people, um, you know, try and push back on this narrative of economic anxiety and all that, um by pointing out that

his base by and large was actually fairly wealthy. I do believe that the medium income for Trump supporters se Yeah, no, it's up there, um. And what makes that I think really salient? Um is that and I'm not this is not some incredible insight that like Paul Glaze has given you right now, people way smarter than me, usually women of color have said as before. But we're not looking

at at economic anxiety because of the economy. We're looking at the d like in the chain of things of what begets power and what begets more money, whiteness used to be the top, and whiteness is now no longer the top. Now it is just concentration of money. Concentration of money brings power now because of whiteness. The vast majority of people with the concentrations of money are white in our society, and therefore like that perpetuates whiteness um.

But those benefits UM of whiteness outside of the incarceration state UM and outside of um really like as white people have fled the cities, then there's not a whole lot of bases of economic power that white people can claim like via patronage um and so like, there is economic anxiety, but it's not the same thing as like the way we frame it. What can be done by people on our side to help prepare for this moment or what can they get into. I think that like

organizing community defense is important. UM, like having like a discipline group of folks that are trained in defense of various kinds that can provide rapid response to situation. Since there is both a mistrust of law enforcement based on what you know findings revealed by the FBI as well. It's just like the their occupation of our communities and how that's eroded trust and law enforcement. UM. I think that is like a necessary component of the work to

be done moving forward. You know, we take care of us, but we gotta have like organized and disciplined folks that like know their ship and know their community to do that work. UM. I think that uh I was a part of like a big push early in Trump's presidency, or people who are like contacting their lawmakers to like try to you know, delay the confirmations of various cabinet

members and pressure them around various points of policy. UM. And I think a lot of folks fell out of those habits, uh from a place of nihilism, of of cynicism,

of defeat. But now is a time to step up and start pressuring those people again to step down if they were part of inciting last Wednesday's insurrection, of showing support for the bravery of folks like Corey Bush and Jamal Bowen who as their first acts of Congress are like seeking to expel or investigate like they're felt their colleagues Like that takes some serious balls, I think, and like kind of having their back, particularly as they could be made targets by the right uh in retaliation for

those efforts. UM. I think those are that's important work to do. But from a citizen's perspective, that's those are the first things that come to mind. Even from a cynical perspective, UM, I think I don't always agree with killer Mike, but I think that, UM, black gun ownership is incredibly important right now. UM and this is twofold

one because people got to defend themselves. But also from a cynical perspective, that's a m that gives people that have a vested interest in arming people UM who want to do the community harm a stake in different communities. UM. And that's a really cynical, terrible thing to say. UM. Right now, I would say the number one thing, UM would be establishing community UM uh emergency medicals UM. The

volunteers UM. There are some Israelis in New Year that took a service from Israel to New York City UM where people it's basically like it's a volunteer emergency like UBER network essentially of UM of medical professionals UM and wherever you are UM. If you are, you know, part of part of the app attracts your location and prings the closest person UM and brings them in. And certainly like that that kind of infrastructure is not available to

everybody UM. But if every neighborhood has one or two people that they know, because like look in Georgia, we know that certain communities are overrepresented amongst our ends are are overrepresented amongst UM, the people who are providing most of the medical services in underserved areas UM. And we need to have a hotline for that kind of stuff because maybe we can't afford to see the doctor. But right now in Georgia there are no ICU beds. They do not they are all full, they do not exist.

Most hospitals are one third full of COVID patients. And they just found the first of the UK strain here. So that's only gonna get worse. So right, now until you know, our senators elect can find whatever grift they

gotta do to re establish all of our rural hospitals. Um, then like that's a lifeline that has to be established as it stands there talking about sometime on the sevent and like having a nationwide storming of the capitals, you know, as Paul just told us, they're currently around the Texas capital and they've got all their guns in their signs

as they do, and all their stuff. But I mean they've they've already we already as far as like the terrorism national security end of this, we've already seen their tactics in their playbook over the last five years in terms of what actual how their terrorism is actually gonna take for him. I mean, they're definitely gonna do their nineties style Oklahoma City bombing type stuff. But let's not forget Dylan Ruth happened after Donald Trump came down the steps,

you know what I'm saying. And um, the Parkland shooter was a Trumper and the other I forget it was that Texas church. I forget which incident that was, but it was another one of those shootings back in that guy was a Trumper. The party True of Life Synagogue, the Christ Church in New Zealand. That guy was all right Internet trumper, even he was from Australia or whatever. Um and the dude who shot up the Walmart in

twenty nineteen. When you see these gravy seals and y'all kata talking about civil war, civil war, So none of these dudes are dreaming of like guerrilla style urban warfare with Antifa forces in the streets of Chicago. You know what I'm saying. They're just talking about. When they say civil war, they're talking about I'm gonna shoot up a game club, you know. I mean, A're gonna shoot up a black church, and that's the strategy they're gonna use. So it's all very strong in cell energy. So just

try to stay safe out there. I've been seeing the thing I wanted to pick y'all's brains about this and

see what y'all thought about this. The thing that's been the other things that's been bugging me about some left commentary on the situation at hand, is like I don't understand how we've you know, I've seen some people bringing up the concern about the government's reaction to everything going on, and some leftists bringing up, and I think is a legitimate and good fair point about how like the FEDS might be using this right wing extremism as an excuse

to do the military and adustrial you know, domestic surveillance overreach, you know what I'm saying, Patriot Act two point oh, that sort of thing. And it's like, I totally understand that as a concern. I just don't necessarily like the framing that that is the expected reaction, you know what I'm saying, not at least it's not to me. And

I totally could be wrong. And again we all have to remember everything that I say is from the context of somebody who did not live in the US until I was eighteen, you know what I'm saying, So take take that for what it is. But it seems to me like the expected reaction, like federal government reaction in the face of like a national rising right wing anti diversity movement, would be to look the other way, as

opposed to, oh no, we gotta stop this. I mean, as a principal abolitionist, I have to I do share those concerns, and in the concern that we are continually focusing on catching the problem once it becomes a problem versus eliminating the conditions which can prise to the problem. And so expansions of the surveillance state, um, strengthening of like laws against domestic terror things like that is serve only to like to treat the symptoms of the problem.

And uh, I have some hope that you know, I guess Biden recently it was like, yo, I'm not gonna be like beholden to austerity politics or something like that.

And you know, Bernie Terror of the Senate Budget Committee, things like that, like we can get policies in place that again like help stabilize our communities such that fascism, authoritarianism, violence, things of this sort are no longer appealing, you know, through years of struggle, um, for folks that we are we are now having to deal with on the back

end once they have already become problems. Um. And so I'm not I don't get caught up as much in the fear that like, oh, well, if we strengthened the police, stay strengthened, you know, surveillance, give more money to the police, whatever the stuff will be used against the left, because I think that, I mean, it's like, well, sure, um, I'm not looking at this as a left right problem. I'm looking at this as like, what what do we actually what do we actually need to root out these

societal ills? And the FBI being able to better listen into the phones of someone who's already a white supremacist, like, is the like that persons already white supremacist, you already lost,

You already lost the game. I hear you. But as from a I mean the the white supremacist end of it, though, is just what tie they have, though, I mean that from a law enforcement standpoint, that argument could be made for anybody, you know what I'm saying, for any like organized group of people doing you know what I'm saying some sort of like the thing that the only problem that I have with that is is just a lot of the way that fascist operate is manipulating the language

and the argument of the left in order to make their ship easily digestible, because they know that progressive and left leaning, you know what I'm saying, like ship is more more like more appealing to just the bigger, massive people, and they know that their ship is scary and fringe and crazy, and that people don't most people don't want to be associated with it, so they mask a lot

of their arguments and ship like that. Like the Nazis weren't socialists, but they definitely put that name in there because they wanted you know what I'm saying to to to appeal to, like not seem like what they were. And in that sense, we all know how the right wing utilizes, like, for example, the free speech argument, you know what I'm saying, and they manipulate it, and they manipulate like our genuine concerns about civil liberties and free speech for to get out their propaganda when none of

them believe in that whatsoever. A couple of years ago, there was a video that was floating around of Richard Spencer, famous Nazi, actually like having this discussion with a bunch

of other Nazis. They were like, hey, guys, so we don't believe in freedom of speech right, well, no, no, no, no, just for now and then when we take over then though I feel like worrying about things like just in the context of them, like worrying about like, oh man, it's really gonna suck if the government is overreaching and is cracking down on these guys, because they're going to do that to the left. They're gonna do that to

the left anyway. If there's some big leftist movement that's going on, like, there's not gonna be any response from the government. It's like, let's crack down on the white guys. We didn't crack down on the Nazi, so we gotta leave it alone. Right, You're right, Let's that's not how that's gonna happen. They're gonna come down on us anyway. So it's just matter whether we're concerned about this or not.

It's not that I don't think we need more. I think that we're very clearly utilizing the infrastructure currently in place ineffectively by you know, classifying people, you know, like black, like Black Lives Matter people, as like black identity extremists, as opposed to like monitoring closely enough the machinations of the clue klux land So for exam so mac was saying, like, oh, have any Black Lives Matter active has been put on

the no fly list? Like, well, no, but now we see folks that were starting to capital you know, they can't get home and they're crying in the airport because they can't get on a plane now. And so that is an example of using our existing infrastructure effectively. Finally, so not that we need more of it, is that we have all the things in place that haven't been used against these people before. So that's so, I mean, that's another place where I stand on that issue. Yeah,

I tend to agree with Mariah in that. Um. You know, in a perfect world, we would just be re prioritizing people who pose an actual threat and like, you know, intellectually honestly evaluating with the threat levels of different groups. Um. But it looks it's kind of a Faucian bargain. And if the bargain is we need to increase the budget for these organizations, which again historically have been some of the major tools of oppression of indigenous and black power

movements he domestically and internationally. Um, you know, if we have to give them some more money in return for them, you know, like focusing where they need to focus, like as a short term you know deal, I'm fine with that, honestly.

Like that's all right. Another big thing that is gaining support with pretty much everyone, because if you just stick to the message, it's pretty hard to argue against UM is a national registry of police Officers and law enforcement people, so they can't go from state to state or county to county, um and just get a new job after they you know, bust a homeless guy's head open for

no reason. Um. But I think that if we're like, if you're an internationalist, then you kind of have to look at this as are we going to prioritize are we going to strengthen the networks that oppress us here at home, or are we going to strengthen the networks that oppress everyone else everywhere else? Um? As you know, like I I count myself as someone who tries to have international solidarity. I tend to say I'll take the people here, um. But also I have less skin in

the game. Um. You know, so it's not really my place to say all the time. I think that the you know, the the real problem here is that like the surveillance states already complete, Like what else? What else do they need that they don't have? And if you can't answer that question, then then I I kind of think that this is I agree with you Mac that, like it is disingenuous of people to say to use the civil liberties argument to distract from the fact that

for the first time in US history. Um, except for a brief spurt in the nineties. Uh, the FBI and the CIA or whoever are actually looking hardcore at white militia movements and acting in a public way. But they do they do track these people. The issue right now isn't that they It's not that they don't track these people, it's that these people are now there's now a wide enough base of um mentally disconnected, community disconnected white people that are willing to go while out in public as

opposed to concentrated cells of individuals. With the point that you're making rise like and the point that you were making that the surveillance state is like already complete, You're right. I don't think they need to do more. They just need to reorder focus, you know what I'm saying In all fairness, I just I possibly don't know, but I haven't heard anything about like Patriot Act two point oh or like an increased budget for this or increased budget

for that. I haven't heard of that. I just huh No, I'm talking about now, like in like in the within the last weekend show. I'm just I'm just saying, like what I've been hearing has been about a reshifting of focus as far as like where the national security state

is looking, because you know, it's a known thing. In two thousand nine, there was a study that was done that was warning, you know, in the post Obama being elected, it was a you know, national security intelligence briefing that was warning of, Yo, right wing white extremism is going to be the what we're going to be talking about it like in the for the next coming decades. Let's let's get on it. Let's make it a thing. Let's

like put all of our efforts towards that. And Mitch McConnell made a huge thing about it and was like, Yo, if you bring this, if you bring any legislation up out of this, we're gonna like scream bloody murder. The same thing that they did with the Russia intelligence thing, where it's like, if you bring this up, we're gonna scream bloody murder and say that, oh, they got the black president and they're persecuting right wingers. This is about

this is against conservatism. You guys, aren't you know what I mean? This is this you guys are persecuting conservatives and stuff like that. In Obama bitched and backed out and didn't do it, you know what I'm saying. And ten years, fifteen years later, now we're eight years later, we're in a place where uh, right wing domestic extremism has killed more people than any Middle Middle Eastern Islamic extremism.

You know. So what I've heard has just been a refocusing of, Hey, maybe we should utilize some of the surveillance state to like, actually, look at you know, motherfucker's that actually posed like a threat well and as it and as you you know, look at what you were talking about about, like ye, armed groups outside of the US versus you know, white militias here and white nationalists, and like, like what what we're what we're looking at structurally is we're looking at a Republican party that has

a couple of different factions, but is mostly the Christians, the people with no government infrastructure, and people who are principally motivated by whiteness. Um. And then you have everybody else who, to some degree or another, are either disgusted with the entire process um or are in the Democratic Party UM loosely, you know, like the majority of the

country actually doesn't identify with the party at all. Um. And you know, I do agree with you that just because as like the quote like if if we're looking at like if we're gonna I'm gonna use a gross term and be like if we as Democrats, but like if we as Democrats allow ourselves to get bogged down into quote like like in party fighting, then we're kind of missing the point because regardless, we have to break the back of whiteness, and we've gotta break its back

in our hardcore way. And then when everyone are like, you know, like I'm here, here we go, and I'm about to say some ship that like Trumpers, would you know absolutely say like, oh see if we told you, we told you that they believe in this, like yeah, when they are dependent upon government for jobs, then they're gonna be much less willing to go do funx shit. And I don't like that. That's my people, that's my community,

that's my family. But at the end of the day, when left to our own devices, we have proven to be murderous to literally everyone else on the planet. So like, at the end of the day, we either got a contextualize this within within the entire arc of white society and white quote unquote civilization, or we can you know, buy into this ideological device which doesn't really exist because

the average person and the majority of white people. This is why sometimes it's a lot easier to organize amongst poor white folks, Like I can go to the average poor white folks, like you go to a tea party, like in I would go to like the verscythe County Fair and forsythe county is one of the reddest counties

in the country. It's rapidly diversifying in its southern third and therefore like doesn't look that way now, but like this county didn't desegregate until so, like I go to the prosythe County Fair, and you go to the Republican tent and the Republicans can barely talk to you. I mean like it's it's like not fuck you, like demon

rat all all the ship that they say libtards. You go to the tea party tent and they'll go right to the door of of like a decent materialist analysis and saying like oh no, like these like like the government is just like selling us out to corporations. Like they'll say things like that, and it's like okay, okay, so you do see something, you know, like like there is something happening here, and like, like we can work

with that. The only problem is that's that ship the Tucker Carlson like the pedals and manipulates like and that fucking pisces me off that like some leftists fall for that, not that you were obviously not, but it's just like some people really don't take into consideration that when a right winger says I hate corporations and when a leftist says I hate corporations, those biggas are talking about two completely different things, all right, Like the leftist is talking

about I hate corporations in the way that we traditionally understand that somebody who's left leaning with hate corporations. The right winger is saying, I hate corporations because they don't funk with the Jews. That's pretty much what they mean. That's that's when when Tucker Carlson is talking about, oh, we've got to stop corporate takeover that city bank commercials now kind of ship. Yeah, not yet. So this was a good talk, as you guys can all probably tell

us thing out there. This is definitely been on our mind a bit for the past few days, So thank you for letting us share that. UM, well, we're gonna get into the music discussion, and Paul's gonna stick around with us for the music discussion, so we'll be with that right after the jump. Okay, so that we're not completely mired in the emergency Doom and Gloom tried to We're still gonna have a music discussion for this episode. UM. I tried to find some songs of the past that

had the theme of like revolution or writing. Um. Again, this is strictly just to lighten the mood and listen to some music, but still keeping in touch with the topic that we were talking on up. First, we have this track by d J. Green Lantern featuring Dead Prez both members Saigon is one of my favorites Immortal Technique and just Blaze. Uh. It is called Impeach the Presidents

came out back in two thousand six. Um, like about Bush and the Iraq Ore and ship like that, but with Impeachment in the air, I figured it would be something interesting to listen to. Let's check it out. You also the reason because like that they say, you have the first thing that came to mind as I was listening to this song, it's like the liberal reaction to people calling out Obama was like, well, if all presidents are you know, if Obama was a war criminal, then

so we're all presidents. It's like, well, I mean if you look at if you look at their you know what kind of track record historically, Yeah, I mean you kind of can't be the president. So one this is like exactly my ship, which is like a good classic brass section on the sample. But like, the two things that stick out to me, like first and foremost one is uh, you know, I know we've said this a million times, but the uh give them in a blowjob

so we can impeach him? Um, how far we've fallen that Like that's what it used to take and now you can, you know, just like foment armed rebellion against the state and no one gives a fuck. Um, you know.

But the other thing that I think is like really hysterical is that, you know, the narrative for the people on the ground doesn't really ever change, you know, like we're talking about the same ship the entire time, and you can pretty much play any track like this and it's like the same themes, the same ship, and at the end of the day, like George Bush is responsible for a million dead people in a rock period, point blank. And is that like better or worse than Trump? Like yeah, maybe,

but like either way you can make an argument. But yeah, all presidents are war criminals. You know, I was thinking about this, ship um just last night because you know, I was thinking, damn if George Bush does have that, like he does have that list of bodies because he started the Iraq War. And you know, I know that people make that argument a lot, especially like now that because Trump has been such a train wreck like that, like the Bush name has kind of been shadow rehabilitated

a little bit, you know what I'm saying. And it's like I get it. But the thing that I that I try to look at, and this isn't in no way I mean, ship, I don't think I need to say this like this is in no way any sort of like excusing of George W. Bush or anything like that. But we did go to war for like twenty years, you know what I'm saying, and that that having happened created a level of war weariness in the populace that

Trump actually could use. Yo, not going to war is one of his things to run, you know what I'm saying? But four years later, with what we know about Donald Trump, if just the general American public, like like, don't get me wrong, the war machine has kept going. The industrial

military clans. We all know about all that ship, but like it's kind of like a bright side sort of thing where it's like now, in order to do ship, they have to do like fucking secret clandestine stuff and they can't just like openly like galvanize the country to want to go to like an open ground war with

people and ship. Whereas if we didn't have that weariness already built up because of what George Bush did, can you imagine what Donald Trump would have like done with like the military and just like I mean we're talking now about them trying to push going to war with Iran on like the last days. Like if you think if Donald Trump thought he couldn't get a political benefit out of it, that we wouldn't have been going to

war with Iran like something. I think. The other funny part is that, like, you know, when we think back about the Bush years, and we all know that you know, Dick Cheney is you know, he's the public master, and it's because the line in there about you know, if you can handle. If you can handle Dick and get him out of the way, then you've got you know.

George Bush kind of neutered how long did liberals labor under the delusion that Pince was gonna do something to like rain in Trump's like darker impulses, Like even now this week they're like, oh, Pence, he's gonna do the He's moment, and it's like, y'all, Pince's only job is for White Christianity to have their guy in there as

a check on Trump. Like that's it. And Trump did his job by them, So who cares just to have the the the veneer that he will have to have the check on Trump, not that will actually do it, but he's there so that the Liberals can point to him and that White Christianity can point to him and say like, oh, everything's gonna be okay. Uh as if his mere presence accomplishes the fact when we're saying that he hasn't done shut it's not going to your ship.

He's not going to And I guess even if he did, half the cabinet has resigned, so like conveniently like oh there's something I can do. Shit, it's one right now. So what do you guys think about a song like this coming out back in two thousand and six, And I mean, we've got we've got the spat of songs that we've covered that came out over the summer, and then we have, like, you know, the handful of Donald

Trump songs that were made. Are you this makes you like a bit more disappointed or surprised or whatever that there's not more songs of protests and stuff because this is just a mixtape song Like this is just something that's on like a mixtape with a bunch of rappers, And I guess I'm not even necessarily talking about songs about protests, but just like about like this political situation.

It's political moment, I mean kind of because even if we don't expect and because as I've discussed on previous podcast, I don't like, I don't hate on rappers for waiting into political waters where they don't have an informed opinion to give, Like thank you for staying out of it if you don't have anything to contribute to the conversation. But like a mortal technique is like not inactive like who else on this track dead Press, Like it's not

like they're like not like where are they now? Like these are the kind of cats I would trust to like bring forward like salient and like insightful political analysis on the situation that also bops. Uh So it's like perhaps there is a lack of leadership within the hip hop community that sort of lead the way of like this is what like you can make a protest on that bobs and also is like incisive in its analysis

of what is going on? And ain't nobody really like step up other than like, oh this was my first protests and like a marching and like feels good, I'm standing up standing up for what BRA? Like what do you like? What's your policy prescriptions? BRA? Like what do you want to see happen? Actually I agree, and I agreed with you back then in in that episode too that it's like it's best if you have nothing to say, don't say anything, you know what I'm saying, or if

you have nothing to contribute to the conversation. But I mean it's not necessarily like this song was like a big song. As a matter of fact, it's quite the opposite, you know what I mean, Like this is like a

hidden gem. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, Like I would doubt that it's a significant amount of people who heard the song in comparison to other songs, but just in an industry or art form where we're always talking about the turnover and like how you know, the youth movement is the main component of it, you know what

I'm saying. I hear your point on Like these are like the rappers that are they're not active, Like I did a song with Stick from Dead Press, so like he's definitely still making stuff, Saigon still doing, like everyone Saigon just signed to Strange music. Everybody's still working and it's still active. And these are like voices that have been around, you know what I mean that we could could depend on to drop some real ship. But the songs from two thousand and six, you know what I'm saying.

So it's just like I'm just I'm kind of surprised that, you know, it's not more of a in in in these times, because because it's a sign of what people are are just interested in, you know, So even if if a motherfucker might not have anything super constructive to add to the discussion, it just lets It's just to me, it's another one of those things that lets you know where artist's head is at and lets you know that you're living in the same world. You know what I'm

saying here, we are. We had this whole elaborate episode that we wanted to do about some ship that we were both genuinely into, like on the nerd culture, nerd black culture and ship like that, and then we're like, yo, that really doesn't fit how we're feeling because of the world that we live in, and this is our outlet, so it's going to reflect what we're thinking really limit to make sense. So like we we're dealing with it

in the way that we can. I just expect, you know, especially for some of these guys that you know are like studio rats are always cranking out music. I'm just surprised that it's like not every other day. I'm not saying on this blog here, that blog here, Yo, here's a new anti Trump for anti well, I don't know, pro democracy at this point. I mean, he even gotta be for Joe Biden, y'all know, I'm not, but like, for love of God, like, let our institutions do what

they're supposed to do, I guess. And it's also I think I think there's like two other salient points. One is that I think it's easy to forget in everything that's happened in the last fifteen years, how like formative Katrina was like that more I think, honestly more than more than a rock like Katrina was a real mobilizing, you know event in our in our failures there, I mean, when we lost ten thousand kids of the public school

system just disappeared. And the second is that, you know, now the narrative is kind of changed from like the heads of hip hop like now it's you know, the message, if you can characterize any like over the top message, it's black capitalism. And like when you go to black capitalism, you go to an individualism place, um, and that's not necessarily as conducive to social movements, you know, as a community upliftment. Up next, we got a track by I got a track by ice Cube off of one of

my favorite albums when I was a kid, Predator. This is a song addressing the l A riots called Tear this Motherfucker Up. The song is really dope. Let's check this out. Thanks to get some respect, we had to ted as motherfucker and I heard the song a number

of times but hadn't really like pegged. Some of the references were explicitly uh tied to the two l A riots, like talking about like beating up on the cops that beat up on Rodney King, talking about how your national guarden a and ship you gotta send in the swat. I just never caught a lot of those references before. I just thought he was just on some regular you know,

ice cube shin. I think I think that's like a point of what makes songs like that great in a way is because if you just put it on and you just listen to it, like just not necessarily analytically like that, it's just like a dope rap song, you know. I mean you could just if you're not even really catching that he's dropping the names of the officers and ship. It's like, oh, it's just like rapper tough guy talk.

I'll beat this dude up, I'll go to this dude's house, I'll bring the beef to your doorstet, you know what I mean. But it's like, then if you listen to and it's like, oh, wait, he's talking about all the cops that beat Rodney Kigg, Okay, you know, then it just adds more context to it if you want to listen to it that way, if you're sucking drunk or high and it's just the dope beat and Ice Cep saying some slick ship that's robing dope. Yeah, I'm saying

you can take it that way too. And I think it's one of those things where it doesn't come off sounding like a fucking p s A or like message rap, you know, And that is I think, like as I think I bring up oftentimes on the show, like the underlying political power of hip hop, of creating these like subtle entryways into historical moments or just this cussion of like policy prescription, like through a song that you just put on in the background and jam two when you're

driving to work every morning until the day it hits you that he's talking about how the National guardenship and that you're like waity, oh, wait a second, wait a second. I don't know if this is like a weird comparison, but it kind of reminds me like it kind of makes cube like like a black Charles Bronson from Death Wish, Like it's it's righteous, but it's also it's also a vengeance, um, you know, like like it's it's definitely Uh, I don't

know what. What sticks out to me now, like I guess looking back in is how much more explicit and radical this is than the vast majority of ship that comes out today. Um, like even people that are even people that you know are mask grade and like that. And it's like, man, like the guy didn't have to talk about like literally anything except for this one situation he was in. He didn't have to like bring extra credit with him. He like, it just stands on its own.

And if you contrast that with, um, what was the name of the Little Baby song that came out earlier in the summer, The Bigger Picture? Yeah, if you contrast that with the Bigger Picture, which was a good song

that I did enjoy, you know what I'm saying. But like ice Cube was probably younger than the Baby was when he made this, the Little Baby was when he made this, And um, this is a way like if this had if if this had come out during the heat of the George Floyd protests, I think people would be saying, yeah, this is a really irresponsible song released right now, Like I think audience would feel that way about it. So that's it for the music discussions, just

a little light. Trust me. We have so many songs that we're gonna be talking about next week on the NERD episode, you know, assuming that that's what we're able to do. But um, you know, so we're going to have a long music discussion when that comes along. But um, is there anything else that you wanted to talk about? Marie? What do you think it's a likelihood of of them passing Jamal Bowman's uh who act? Which is it's a it's a um, Jamal Bowman. He's a newly elected congressman

out of New York. Um, you know, new member of the squad. Supposedly, we'll see, you know, I have faith. I'm just like you know. It's a little grain of song. Um. But his bill would commission an investigation into ties between UH police officers, UH and other government officials and the white supremacist that sees the Capitol one day, um, to sort of uncover the depth of that corruption and the depths of the shall we say, uh, what's the word

like entagle vincent? Now like the like the the relationship, Yeah, the degree to which there was coordination, the degree to which there was coordination between these entities, Um, so I don't know, So you hadn't heard of heard about that? Okay, Yeah, because I know Corey Bushes before the bill to expel Republican members of Congress, which is like very unlikely to succeed unfortunately, because I do think they need to go. I mean, I just feel like democraspy weak man. They don't.

I don't like, I don't start playing nasty and then that's completely unwilling to I mean, I if if if he's proposing that, I agree with that. I think that sort of thing and what Corey Bush was just trying to do too, I think I think that is like the most important thing right now to do is to like tackle that ship right now. I think the the thing that's really going to hurt us is if we treat the situation like the Republicans have a leg to

stand on in it, you know what I'm saying. And if if if we treat them like it's like, oh man, you know, we can't really go all out prosecute or persecuting them for what happened, because you know what about when you know, then it's just gonna swing the pendulum so far to that way that they'll start persecuting us when they have power, and and it's like they're going to anyway, you know what I'm saying, Like they're they're they're definitely gonna try to impeach Biden just to be

obstruction as you know what I'm saying. For no reason. They're just like like they're talking about all this ship about cheating elections because they're definitely going to try to cheat whatever elections come up next, you know what I'm saying.

So it's like, we just gotta be prepared for this, and I think that stuff like aggressive legislation, you know what I mean, to at least make it clear that it's like, hey, the people who are cool with this ship, they can expose themselves because they either voted for these you know what I'm saying, these efforts are they voted against it. So we know who's who. And that's an important thing right now, is to know who's who, because this is like some deep seated spy versus spy ship

going on it right now. That's like really kind of scary. Hopefully, I mean the next time that you guys hear us, my birthday is on Sunday, so I'll be a year older hopefully, you know. Hopefully, I don't want to be gloom and doom, but hopefully there's the ship's just talk and it's just internet ship, and then we'll be you know, and we'll be with you guys next week talking about damn you guys remember that last week when we were all scared and fucked up. You know what I'm saying.

But just in case it's not, everybody be safe out there. We do as of now. Next week we're gonna be doing that Mega Ran or the nerd episode where we have the Mega Ran interview. It's gonna be real dope. Let's get into some rappid things. Joel, give me a

beat year since my birthday is on Sunday. Spent this first day rail for my birthday, like four years ago, cool and chilling in my Beat Boys dance tip bucket, watching pet Boys dance some block supply pressure, letting need Moy's hands, even though I thought I never stood a decoy's chance. I don't know what it is. Brains I'll be going against. Used to younger fol show now control when I spit, and I always put the knowledge on the soul of my tembs because I don't want to

see a jail. I have to show what my prints that ain't there, Entyson to be doing. Life in the big life can feel like a prize fight with Tyson the ring. I'm a little back, I realized that, but I'm trying to screams. Get the crumbs, eat the plate and every slice of the thing. It's got to be barriers. Let the steam carry you through the beef grief and survived the leech area. Scary rise in your moment to defeat, even when the hands you lemon's dug you know you

gotta eat. You to it enough to see if my dash is here. But it's a macahettic and Brandish magnis it. When he grabs me, he drags me to a van and put me in the back of it. I say, can I get to my ancestors. He's saying, Lynn, shut the funk up, bitchy screaming. It's bloodshed sweater, God, do you even think about running and get guns? And he's bad And I'll look with that sun dress. And speaking of which I'm gonna need you to undress. They found my corps firstly dead on my doorstep. I think to

myself as an unzipped my orange dress. He wasn't the communist. He probably be gorgeous, he whispers. Is he put the pistol to my forehead? God, damn that was dark. Hey yo, my name's Dope Franca. We are waiting on reparations. Hurry up, see you nice week. Waiting on reparations as a production of I Heart Radio. Listen to Waiting on Reparations on the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.