Out of Step With the World

is on par with the insane that I'm used to. Yesterday, on Monday, the Dow Jones by mid afternoon was down over a thousand points, Okay, And on top of that, you were watching reports on the Biden administration warning Americans in the Ukraine and the embassy basically to get the hell out of Dodge, that there is an imminent threat being posed once again by Republicans favorite President Vladimir Putin

to invade the Ukraine. And you know, I know that often I don't necessarily delve into foreign affairs, and I want to say that I don't generally do that because it's not something that I went to school four But it doesn't mean that I don't have an educated opinion or thoughts or deep analysis on where things are and

why they are there. But as I'm watching the Tao tank and you know, your four O one case, maybe your children's future, your fucking stock interests, you know, whatever go off of a cliff because you know, most of us aren't millionaires or billionaires, and so these things cause

us a lot of problems. And as I'm watching the new poll numbers come out by NBC News talking about forty seven percent of Democrats are enthusiastic about the midterm elections, whereas sixty one percent of Republicans are excited, and then balancing that information against the last midterms of twenty eighteen when we had the quote unquote blue tsunami, and then looking at the latest poll numbers with regard to Bidens his numbers right in the administration's numbers, with fifty four

percent of Americans now believing that we are on the wrong track right, which if you go into any grocery store or go to the gas station, that's not a hard thing to see when you know products that you're used to getting in America, you know, without even thinking about it, are no longer available, which is causing us to have to do what millions tens and tens, if not hundreds of millions and billions of people around the world always have to do, which is plu what they're

going to get and when, and knowing that prices change on a daily And it's so funny because I think that Americans are really out a step right with the rest of the world. And that's you know, that's an

obvious thing to say. But unless you actually travel or have traveled to different countries and different regions of the world and spend any time there and I mean like outside of a resort, actually talking to people and connecting with them just casually, you realize that people around the world, in lower wealth nations have had to deal with the issues that we are facing now and we want to throw our hands up. And you listen to people on

the right say this is communism because gas is so expensive. No, it's actually not communism. This is capitalism. This is what happens when you have a problem with production. This is what happens when inflation goes through the roof, This is what happens when you've had an economic downturn because of

a global health pandemic. And then recognizing that, you know, the United States government has always been about controlling certain things that they can, but recognizing that the world has changed right in really significant ways, and the ability for the United States to control oil prices and to control how other nations are producing a third of our products,

like China, which we had mentioned last year, not last year. God, it feels like last year was only last week when we mentioned China, and the fact that severe lockdown measures in various provinces around China are affecting production flow here. And what happens when you become completely dependent right on other nations to make your goods right and produce your services.

What then happens when those areas are not safe right, and then instead of it being sold to Americans that you know, we're the greatest nation and we don't need anybody,

and we're just on an island onto ourselves. Well, maybe now you understand why you're not getting your car or your furniture, or while your grapes and meat and produce and other things are through the fucking roof right now, maybe you would understand connectivity and production and supply chains and all of those things if actually we were teaching those in very real ways instead of just filling our public education system with a lot of gung ho American propaganda.

Now We don't like to talk about our education system as being a propagandist machine, but that is in fact what it is, right. And so when you have no real hold on how the things that you're putting in your shopping arts actually get there, and I mean virtual or physical parts actually make it to your fucking house, right, then you have a real major disconnection problem, which is what right the Republican Party really wants you to have.

Because if we started to connect the dots between the different things that they have that politics has its hands in and the evil right people have their hands in, well, then you're going to start raising flags every single way. Right. So, so long as we have an undereducated public that doesn't ask too many questions, isn't really thinking critically, it is just a system of regurgitation, right, recycling and regurgitation, then

all will be well. That's the assumption that Republicans are playing right now as they continue their campaign against critical race theory, which just again for the record, is not actually being taught in K three twelve, It's not even being taught at the college one oh one level. It's actually only being taught in post secondary right, and in

law schools. Right across the country. Nonetheless, Rnda Santis in Florida death Santis, as I like to call him on this show, has once again dipped his whole fucking body in the culture war. And what I want I want to make a connection between what I just said in the opening and now about propaganda in our public school system and why we need to be paying keen attention to what is happening in the twenty eight read Republican controlled states, and why it is really important for Democrats

to wake the fuck up. So here's the scenario that I woke up to on Monday morning. So I'm sitting at my kitchen table slash my studio, slash my office, and I'm watching the news, and all of a sudden, one of the headers that comes across is on a new piece of legislation that is being championed by Rondas Santis that just passed the Florida House, which is being referred to in the press as the Don't Say Gay Bill. Now, what is inside of this bill. I'll give you a summation.

It is basically under the guise of parental control, which is the new buzz word, right buzz phrase for Republicans, and I want and I say that because you're going to hear a lot of things, and for those of you out there that are parents or caregivers of children, you're an usually going to think to yourself, Yeah, well, parents should have a right to control and know what their child is learning. And then I'm going to tell

you why that's a terrible fucking idea. So Rhonda Santis has passed this piece of legislation that would allow parents the ability to sue. Once again, we're a very litigious society to sue schools and teachers for teaching their kids or mentioning anything that has to do with gender identity or sexual orientation. This means even the teaching about let's say a Harvey Milk, Let's say other gay heroes, heroines people right in our society. Let's say that you are

a child who has same sex parents. Well, you would not be able to mention that or talk about that. Say that you yourself or in Kate twelve and you are queer, right, Or say that your school at one time had a GSA, a gay on straight a student alliance, right, which probably they've changed the names of these things now so that it is more inclusive. Say that you go to your teacher, you want to talk about an issue

I hate crime that has happened that is making news. Well, you are no longer going to be allowed to teach that for fear that you can be sued because Governor de Santis, again under the guise of parental control, wants to say what is age appropriate and what is not. Now, this is the same ship that they did around critical

race theory again, which is not actually taught. But they decided also in Florida to past legislation that would make it illegal to mention race or racism, right, to talk about discrimination, to make sure that white people right, and now we're moving into heterosexual people, to make sure that white heterosexuals remain comfortable, right, and that their kids can remain completely and totally fucking ignorant to the world around them, right,

because we want to ensure that our children are safe. Now,

these people the descantenses of the world. These are the people that reproduce bullies and racists and homophobes and transphobes that will in fact bully your kids, beat up your kids, bring newstaces to school, show up as clansmen on Halloween and do all of these things right, But then your teacher and your administration is not actually allowed to tackle those issues or to create an open space for there to be critical dialogue about what America has looked like,

what it looks like right now, and what it could potentially look like in the future. All of the work then that the Obama administration did with regard to creating more inclusive school environments by making it a law right to end discrimination in schools against LGBTQ youth, that that

shit can pretty much be dismissed in Florida. And this is just the first in what will be a series right of new laws that are going to be put in place to put a muzzle on public education in the twenty eight states that are led by Republicans, which

will mean what exactly. Ah, I'm so glad you can ask, because if you think that the current divisions that we are seeing in our political climate are going anywhere, well, we are now moving into an area where we're not only going to have a division with regard to our politics, we're going to have a division in terms of our education and curriculum. Now that has already been happening right

there have been pushes in education for decades. For as long as I have been in education and an education policy, either in the classroom or working on Capitol Hill or anytime thereafter as a lobbyist, I can tell you that there has always been a push to create some type of core curriculum so that if you are a child, right and let's say that you're you're a military kid and your parents move around, or you're a diplomats kids or whatever, or your parents are you know, farmers and

they need to move around during the seasons, that your education would not be disrupted based on where you're moving to. Right that if you were in New York and then you went to Florida and then you went to Texas and to California, that there would be a core curriculum. But instead, you know, we like to in this country provide punishments instead of rewards to our teachers and our administration. We want to burden them with things that they really

shouldn't be focused on. And now for these people who across the country really aren't paid very well, aren't protected in any type of way. Now we're all having opening season on all of these educators. There's already a problem with their being diverse representation in our schools. I think that right now, largely in K through twelve education, white women are overrepresented by eighty two percent. Right, eighty two percent of K through twelve educators are white women. So

let's just, you know, wrap our minds around that. And if you are a parent of a child of color, of a queer child, right, a child that has any types of identity that is not white, that is not straight, that is not male, chances are your child is ostracized

by the curriculum that is happening at your schools. And if you are not wealthy and can't afford to pull your child down and put them into a private school or move them around to a different charter school or homeschool them, then basically we are just continuing to create a citizenury of a whole bunch of fucking sheep, right

who don't really know anything and don't have any critical thought. Now, I don't know how you think that in the long run, even in the short run, how that's going to work for or our economy, for our country that is trying to be globally competitive and falling dramatically behind every other

developed fucking nation, right, America. I mean you want to talk about a backsliding democracy, Our education system has been backsliding for decades, right, And so now we are at a place where we were once recognizing that we wanted our children to be globally competitive, that we wanted to create safe zones for them to be educated, because there

are a lot of barriers to learning your ABC's. If you're coming to school hungry, if you're coming to school tired, right, if you're coming to school in fear of whether or not while you're at school your parents are going to be picked up by ice. There are so many fucking factors that teachers, our vastly underpaid teachers have to deal

with on a regular basis. And now, on top of dealing with COVID, on top of dealing with guns, now they have to think about also being sued for trying to educate your kids about the fucking world around them. It is insane when I tell you how fucking livid I was when that story came across my screen yesterday.

There are so many good educators that are leaving the field of education teachers, and that's something that I actually really do want to cover on woke a f it's to see in this ce right of the quote unquote great resignation, how many teachers have been fleeing the field because of COVID, because of the increase in school shootings, and now because of the that they can be called out right that if they're asking children in schools to lift up your mask, that they're on fucking text to

their parents who want to come up to the school, like the Virginia parents said, with a bunch of fucking loaded weapons, Like who are we? What the fuck is

happening here? This shit is not normal, nor should it be normalized on a regular basis by the media talking about Oh, both sides, Because when I heard about that parent in Virginia who threatened to bring in every single one of her guns loaded because of a mask mandate, she threatened to shoot up her child's school because wearing a cloth mask to protect that student's life and those around them is too fucking much. So, mommy dearest wanted to be locked and loaded at the next school fucking

drop off. And then you want to showcase that on the news by saying, quote unquote tensions were high at school board meeting. Are you fucking dumb. Are we serious with this? These people are radicalized, They are dangerous. This isn't just hot talk right on the playground. This is some threatening ass domestic threat that I'm glad that that woman was charged for, but the charges need to be

a lot higher. Right until we're waiting for what that parent who doesn't just provide a verbal warning but then just comes up to the school and starts spraying bullets. This country is on the wrong track. And you do not need to see the latest poll numbers to get a sense of that. All you need to do is open up your eyes and ears and take in what

is going on. Take in what we have normalized and continue to normalize the vicious, violent, threatening behavior of Republicans, and then we want to put them under the category of conservative. You tell me what is considered conservative about

threatening violence? Oh, my kids have rights? You want to tell me you know about this parental control, which folks I tweeted yesterday that this isn't about parental control, but it's the same language that segregationist used in the nineteen fifties to try and keep white and black kids separate from one another. Right to try and keep public school segregation alive, and well, well, your good white children shouldn't have to go to school with those black kids, and

that's not the language that they use. We know that, right, They shouldn't have to sit side by side like they are equal or some shit. So run de Santis, the new George Wallace is sitting around saying, well, what is it that I can what I can do to protect and insulate white people in the state of Florida. And then Abbott will say what can I do to protect them?

And isolate right, the white parents in Texas and so on and so forth, and so on and so forth, until the next piece of legislation that you will certainly see before the Supreme Court will be another run brown voice versus the Board of Education, right, just under a different name. And if you remember in Amy Covid Barrett's fucking confirmation hearing, when asked if she thought that brown versus the Board of Education was you know, settled law,

she hummed and hot about that. So when you're looking at the news and you're seeing, oh, well crt, well that's not a thing. So Democrats don't actually need to come up with a cohesive response to what that is because you know the American people are smart, No, they fucking are not. You saw what happened in Virginia with the governor's race. We lost and what did young can

run on parental control? And now those parents are all up in a fucking tizzy because now he started out with CRT and Tony Morrison and is now on the Oh, we're repealing your mask mandates. So now your kids are going to school in harm's way. But you didn't fucking think about that, because once again you're only thinking about yourself.

So word to the wise. They start with black people, right, the community of people that white Americans don't give a fuck about and can come up with every excuse as to why they should be treated bad, as to why public schools are bad and high black and brown areas, and to why they're deserving to be beaten and tazed and murdered. They start with the group that no one gives a fuck about, and then they move on to you. Right,

that's how it works. But you vote them in because you're a low key fucking racist, and then all of a sudden you end up like, oh, fuck, now my kid is unsafe. Well, maybe if you had empathy and gave a shit about anybody else's fucking kids or anybody else's community, we wouldn't end up here. But oh, history just loves to repeat itself because we whitewash it or

don't teach it at all. You know, to me, everything is connected, It truly is, and not in the conspiracy theory, you know, aluminum hat type of way, but in the honest type of way. And I started out by talking about the Ukraine, so let me circle back to that for a moment. I want to be very clear as to why our foreign affairs, our foreign relationships in the US are part of our education problem. And what do

I mean by that. I mean that when you have been fed propaganda sin birth since since whether you were born in the United States or become a citizen or show up here or whatever it is, That's what I'm talking about, from birth. If you are here in America and you're in school, even if you're not in school, frankly, you are fed. The America's great. We are the beacon, we are number one, We are the best. Right, we pledge allegiance because we are the home of the brave.

We open our arms to everyone. Oh, we're a mixing pot whatever it is that you want to state. And I'm sure there are so many other phrases in euphemisms that we can use and that are used and peddled all around the world. So we always love to believe because of the line of bullshit that you have been

fed from K through twelve. Right, it's not until college, in all honesty, and it depends on what kind of university that you go to, or if you go to university when critical thinking actually starts, right, because before then it is just remember, recite, regurgitate, that's it. So you're taught that everyone everywhere that the United States goes to intervene, it's because we want to carry democracy with us, that these people from our paternalistic colonizer viewpoint, right, need our

help because they can't do for themselves. And if the United States doesn't intervene, then what will happen. The thing that we are never told because it's not a talking point that people want to give up, is that most times when the United States goes to intervene anywhere, it is based on whether or not that particular area, that particular country is valuable to the United States. Right. It has nothing to do with securing or spreading democracy. It

has everything to do with political power and capitalism. Those are the two things that matter. Because when you ask from the vantage point of countries that we have bombed, where we have killed thousands of civilians, where we have destroyed homes and businesses and communities, and then we want to turn around and offer some charitable aid for the ship that we blew up, and then we run the

pr on that. When you were to actually ask the people that are on the ground about the United States interventions, and I use air quotes, they have a whole different understanding about the United States, and it's not a fucking pleasant one. Right, We do arms deals and trading, and we move around other countries political leaders, prime ministers and presidents like fucking pieces on a chessboard, always protecting our queen right, which is our country. But we will move

every other piece around. We will sacrifice other people's stability and wellness based on what it does to our positioning.

So when we look at what is happening in the Ukraine right now, why don't you ask yourself about how and why the Ukraine isn't allowed to make decisions about its own protection, About why these high, wealthy, high incominations are the ones that get to decide whether or not the Ukraine gets a seat at the table about why we continue to negotiate right with the putents of the world, or how Putin got into power in the first place, or why Afghanistan ended up the fucking way that it did.

The United States, my god, our hands are not just dirty, they are fucking filthy when you look at what we have done. America in a lot of ways creates a lot of fucking problems. But because Americans have very little care about what is happening outside of their front door, let alone what is happening outside their country, you never

hear about those things. It's always those poor schleps over there, and you don't recognize that things are being done in your name without you knowing, just like we continue to uphold Israel and fucking fund that place, and we fund apartheid. But don't have that conversation because you may be looked at as a person that is, you know, not on par not saying the right things is anti Semitic, But

that's not the truth. We spend billions of dollars in countries around the world, and they use that money to oppress their own people, to kill them, to destroy economic freedom and liberty, all of the things that we say that we care about, but we actually don't. We get a third, folks, of all of our manufactured goods from China. China has the worst fucking record on human rights, pretty

much on par with the United States. Now, you see, we don't like to count things like centuries of slavery, right. We don't like to count right internment camps. We don't like to count the trail of tears. We don't like to count our fucking anti Islam watch lists that we've had since nine to eleven. We don't like to count any of those things, or putting children in cages the first time. Right that Anesty International is like Yo America's

on our watch list. The things that we do in this country to our own people and then abroad, and we don't connect the dots because we're not educated on these things. And why would you be, I said last week, there's a reason why the Chinese have no idea about Tianamen Square in Vietnam. They don't refer to the Vietnam War as the Awar. They call it the American War

of aggression. So when we are watching things play out around the world and we're saying like, oh, the United States is going to add troops or this, that and the other thing, understand that they always have a fucking plan for entry and aggression. They never have a plan to get out ever, which is why we were in Afghanistan for twenty fucking years and how we watched their shell of a shamble of a democracy, this hybrid type of model that they had crumble in a matter of

fucking weeks. And then we say, oh, so sorry, I hope you guys can piece that back together. I just

you know what it is. I think that I have reached my level of bullshit, right, I have reached a certain level where I'm like, I'm so cynical in my feelings every time that I see things about troops being deployed, and I'm like, and these are the same people who some of them were on the steps of the Capitol Building on one six, Like, we always want to care about troops and things like that when we're placing them in harm's way, But then we don't really want to

have a conversation about how they're being radicalized, right because of what they see and what they know, because we love right people in uniform until they come back home and actually want to tell us the truth about what is going on. This country isn't just on the wrong track. It is so much deeper than that. It's so much deeper than any one administration. And that's really the problem, right, is that we don't have people in power who have

really strategic planning and thoughts past four years. Right. You know, we're not as a country ever playing the long game.

It's always reactive or how we pop off now like again, using education, we knew well before COVID that a majority of children in the United States didn't have access to broadband, didn't have the tools that were needed for them to be able to get a quote unquote good quality education, whatever the fuck that means when you are literally putting white out over America's history, right, But they didn't have

the tools. We knew that, right. We also knew that by shutting schools down, that millions of kids in America during the pandemic when we were remote learning fully weren't going to receive two meals or one meal that day. Because we have turned schools also into community centers, knowing that children in the wealthiest nation are fucking starving outside

of maybe a school breakfast or lunch. You know there is right now and you may have seen this a mom who I believe is a nurse that went viral on TikTok for sharing her story about the fact that her daughter was born really fucking early. I want to say that the baby was born maybe at like twenty five twenty six weeks or something and was like two

pounds when she was born. And because the mother only received six weeks of medical leave but the baby was in the hospital, she needed to go back to work twelve days after giving birth because of the paid family leave policy, and she wanted to make sure that by the time that her child was actually going to be coming home after spending seventy two days in a niku, that she would be able to spend time with her.

So didn't want to eat into her fucking limited paid family leave to be by her child's bedside incubator side, because she had to go back to work because we don't have paid family leave in this country. That it depends on your fucking employer and six weeks six to eight if you're lucky, when You're looking at high wealth nations around the world that have a fucking year off or six months, but they will come up with every excuse as to why that can't happen here. But I

thought everything could happen in America. I thought anything was possible here. That's the bullshit you've been feeding me since kindergarten. But then all of a sudden, I start asking for the things that we don't have of note, like universal healthcare, paid leave policies, support for you know, like in any which way, and you tell me to shut up. I should be grateful for the crumbs that I have, but you tell me you're the best, but I don't get

the best. We don't have the best policies. We don't care about workers, we don't care about parents, we don't care about youth. So tell me again about these lies that you've been feeding to me since kindergarten. Tell me again what we are number one in because I'm searching high and low folks and looking for it, and I don't see because you keep telling me that this country is about the it's the land of opportunity and you

can be anything and do anything. But I'm just listening out bouncing back and forth between domestic policy and foreign affairs and nowhere and my seeing where we are doing the best things. We are now a country that won't have abortion, but we're number one, number one in what grief, pain, frustration, resignations, dropouts, minimum wage. People need to be shaken right to their very core. You know, when people say like, I just don't understand why so and so gets it. I want

to shake the shit out of them. I want to shake the shit out of this country and wake them up out of the fucking slumber that they have been in. Walking around on fourth of July waving fucking flags right where in you go to any fucking Trump rally, they are rocking whatever old navy fucking you know flag T shirt and matching pants. Oh we're Americans. We're great, how because the only thing that you're fucking number one is guns? Right? We got more guns in this country than anywhere else

in the world. There are more guns than people in America. So there's your number one. We're number one in school shootings, right, there's another number one. So I don't know where the right gets there fucking false rose colored patriotism from. But I got more questions about what America is great at, other than making more mess than it's necessary. You know, the reality here is that you can't change things, as

Aldwin has said, that you refuse to face. But the main thing here is that Republican politicians want to ensure that you don't have to face things, because they're gonna make it so that you never see it, right, so that all you see is America through these foggy, rose colored glasses that you never have to question or be uncomfortable. And you see, the reality here is that change happens where there is friction, and growth comes from being uncomfortable.

So when you are trying to pacify an entire community of white people so that they are not uncomfortable, so that they're not questioning, and they can continue blindly and stupidly way that American flag and all look at the fireworks, but let me, let me not interrogate any of the things that are happening in between. That's what success looks

like for them. While everything is crumbling around us, you continue to push the lie that we're better than everybody else, because you see, the only way that things shift in society is with an educated citizentury, but an educated citizenury will then hold its elected officials, its representatives accountable. So long as they know nothing, then you don't have to do anything. Do see how that works. This is where we are. Ignorance is not bliss, It is dangerous. The

entire nation needs to be shook. And maybe that only happens when everything crumbles to the ground, because right now America is creating its own earthquake, and I think that it is honestly going to take the collapse of everything, and whoever is left standing when the dust finally settles will be the ones to rebuild. But in whose image. We are at a crossroads right now, at a really scary crossroads, and I don't know which direction we're going to go in, and that is what keeps me up

at night. That is what is worrying me. And I don't think that the Democrats that are in charge for the next couple of months, I don't think that they get the level of urgency that we are at. We have hit whatever the highest deathcom fucking alarm alert is, that's where we are. And all I can say is that y'all better buckle up, because sometimes things don't get better after they get worse. They get bad, they get even worse, they get horrific, and then maybe they start

to make a turn upwards. But that dark period can last for decades. That is it for me today. Here, Folks on Woke a F Daily, you know, if you have thoughts, comments, questions about any episode of the show, please do feel free to float me a comment, dm me hit me up on social media. What direction do you think this country is headed in? And why? Hit me up with the hashtag woke f on all social media platforms. As always, dear friends, Power to the people

and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.