Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 165: No Country For Bulldozers

Episode Date: September 24, 2020

This week it's a full-on examination of the E-CRISIS, followed by coverage of the Breonna Taylor case and yet another look at American cops. Then we top everything off with some Speak Your Piece. Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty And check out Tenure on Spotify! https://open.spotify.com/artist/7D1Mm6G2llKnzscBQuGmrT?si=BHfy6nD_SgqGdlpWGitbgg

I was in the grocery store the other day, and I had one of those moments where the sort of absurdity of everything kind of becomes a little too much to bear. But I was standing there in line, and you know that Rascal Flatts song that's like, summer nights, everybody's feeling sexy. You know what song I'm talking about? I miss summer nights, everybody feeling sexy, but Rascal Flatts.

You don't remember that song? I got off the train with them on God Bless the Broken Road, which has since been immortalized in the Trap Song. They were like a Christian band for... What they were, they were like a Christian band for...

What they were, they were like a secular band for Christians. You know what I'm saying? Like Christians can listen to them and not feel bad about it. Yeah. And in fact, the brother of one of... One of them has a brother who's in a Christian band. Oh, okay. So, it makes sense.

Anyways, this song was written... It was big in like 2009, I think. Maybe, okay. So, it makes sense. Anyways, this song was written, it was big in like 2009, I think. Maybe 2010. Well, that would make sense. 2004 is about where I quit with them. Anyways, I was just standing there and this song was like, summer nights, everybody's feeling sexy.

And I'm like looking around and there's like, people have their shopping carts just packed to the brim with like beans and toilet paper in the midst of a global health crisis everybody's dejected the headline on the

paper next to me is like 12 new deaths in Leicester County the guy next to me has like a confederate flag face mask on I was like nobody's feeling sexy nobody's feeling sexy we're not feeling sexy god damn it dude it's bad out there man that's funny it's uh yeah they had that song uh what was their big Christian song that was like,

he ain't the leaving kind. He'll never walk away. I wonder if that's still true in 2020. But there is a song. Looks like he might have walked away. I mean, I'm not saying he has. I just said I wouldn't rule it out. Are you sure you're not confusing that song with She's Not the Cheating Kind?

She's never fooling around. No, I think they did like a flip, a Christian flip on that. He ain't the leaving kind. He'll never walk away. It's like an emotional. Like God? Yeah, as in God. Interesting. why it's like an emotional like god yeah as in god interesting i would like to believe that i really would like to believe that but the funny thing is the funny thing about christianity is that because during the 20th century americans experienced so

much comfortability and you know elevated living standards like we tend to forget that christianity was forged in the fires of a declining empire the roman empire and so it was quite literally a philosophical system meant for people who saw the world getting worse and knew that it wasn't going to be getting better anytime soon yeah yeah and so how do you how do you face that in the anytime soon. Yeah, yeah. And so how do you face that with the growing evidence that you might not get out of this thing alive?

Well, this is the e-crisis. Do you want to do the long-awaited episode on the e-crisis we've wanted to do? Let's talk about the e-crisis a little bit. All right. Well, you know, we throw this term around all the time, epistemological crisis, right? And in a very loose sense, how would you define it? How would you define what exactly an epistemological crisis is?

I mean, just in layman's terms, I would say it's when no one knows quite what to believe uh-huh that's just my very rudimentary of course you know I could go on about this for hours I have a deep well spring of knowledge about it but just uh brass tacks that's the broad strokes I think that um I think you're right um usually when we refer to an epistemology we are referring to so there's two ways that i feel like it's used the first is like um how do we know what we know yeah you know how how can we trust the information that's coming into us do we do we determine do do we interpret the world through our senses our empirical our ability to read empirical data or do we interpret the world

the reason yeah yeah that's what we should say it's not necessarily like um nobody knows what to believe it's like there what is like objectively true to everybody yeah in in yes like our starting point there's two point yes exactly there's two points to it so there's the one i just said and then there's the one that you just said which is how do you what is the story you tell about the world to make it make sense like what is the social explanation of reality and um so when you talk about an epistemological crisis an e-crisis you're talking about a breakdown in in a sort of collective understanding of how to how the world works interpret realitypret reality. Yeah, right. This is, this is, um,

in some ways the biggest challenge you can face. Yes. It's the big one. Like, the scariest thing that could happen

in the world is an epistemological crisis. Exactly. You can completely lose faith in your ability to interpret reality. Interpret reality.

And it's, uh, well, um, lose faith in your ability to interpret reality and it's uh well um let's keep it to the historical because like look if you're talking about an epistemological crisis you're talking about a not only a personal event but a historical event right so if you look at the long history of philosophy you will notice that during times of despair and uncertainty certain philosophical systems are born so for example look at the hellenistic age the hellenistic age was right after alexander the great perhaps you've heard of him. You know, went around the world from place to place, sort of like Napoleon. Famous for having conquered the world at age 27 and crying because he didn't have anything else to conquer. I mean, experience not dissimilar to my trajectory at 27.

Exactly. exactly but you'll you'll recall that he also died very soon after he conquered the world and didn't have anything what do you do you know i mean you want you you want to go out on top you want to go out while you're still hot that's true that's absolutely true but this plunged the world into political uncertainty um famously his empire was divided up between, I think, three or four different kingdoms. And, you know, this, like I said, this created a lot of

political turmoil. Let me ask you a question real quick before you go any further. How does one get in the conquering business? Like, was Alexander born into some sort of nobility, or did he just wake up and say, eh, i think i just want to pillage and ravage the whole world and make it my own his father was also so he he inherited the family business his father was king philip oh god uh perhaps you've heard of him as well i thought you you were just going to say, yeah, his dad owned a hardware store.

His dad was a fur trapper. Yes, dad traded beaver pelts. He inherited the business. One thing led to another. Right. Before he knew it, he owned half the world um but you know in in this era between alexander and the stabilization the stabilizing force of the roman empire you had a a couple of let's call it about 200 years or so this era of political turmoil and uncertainty where things looked like they were just getting

worse for everybody i'm asking this too i don't think you stop but in the ancient world doesn't it seem like time mattered like it's weird because you lived a lot shorter but like what we would consider a decade probably transpired over two or three hundred years back in the day you know what i mean like damn the 80s were wild yeah it's over the fourth fifth and sixth centuries you know what i'm saying it's like our relationship to time is like changed even like that uh i have an author for you if you're interested in that his name is giovanni time speeds up and slows down uh because of capitalist accumulation. Yeah. The regimes of capitalist accumulation. In the ancient world, you didn't have so much innovation. That's why.

Things sort of moved at a glacial pace there in antiquity. Yeah. But in this period is when you have the birth of, like, you know, the four philosophical schools that um we all know and love stoicism cynicism skepticism and epicureanism and um i mean just the names themselves should give you a pretty good idea of why uh these schools of thought were so popular in this time. Do you remember when Stoicism really kind of got an audience with the tech bro scene for a while? I'd say it still does.

It's like, it's weirdly enough, Stoicism is probably the only philosophical school of thought. I'm not including Platonism, Aristotelianism, because those things are baked into Christianity. But Stoicism is baked into all of our natural law, I feel like. Just the TLDR version is adopt a stiff upper lip. Well, yeah, you would see guys buying Marcus Aurelius' meditations. All these dudes are... Oh, man, I read something one time.

I forget who it was. It was one of these billionaire assholes that was like... The thing I liked so much about Marcus Aurelius is that he was... I guess he was the emperor, right? Or what? What was he? He was. He was the emperor.

And he chose to live a moral life he didn't have to he could have had all the wives and concubines and whatever he wanted to but he chose to do the right things and like yeah sure that's how that went down um well that was what made his stoicism so important, I guess. I don't know. It's a philosophical system that can be applied to pretty much anything, right? Say you're a slave. You can be stoic about your situation,

and if you're a king who has to make hard decisions, you can be stoic about your situation. And if you're a king who has to make hard decisions, you can be stoic about your situation. Yeah. It makes sense that it would get purchased with like, uh, the tech billionaires and the Silicon Valley types. There are, I mean,

the, the, the through line with all those guys, they're terrified of death. So it makes sense. The stoicism is what they're adopting is like sort of there. In fairness, I'm not thrilled about it. I'm not not thrilled about it i'm not happy about it either

um but anyways you could say and i think that you'd be correct in saying so the people of that era face their own epistemological crisis okay you know how do you make sense of the world me personally of all these schools of thought i think i probably hew a little closer to epicureanism just because of its foundation like epicurus was kind of a guy he well actually he was very much like us. He was kind of a hypochondriac, but at the same time he was also Legitimately my man had IBS. I think he was always complaining of us fucked up flatulence. He's always shitting his doodoo And so you know that's that's where you get this idea you know the sort of epicurean idea that Suffering is a part of life and you want to maximize your pleasure.

But Epicurean, Epicurus wasn't like one of these guys who says you should maximize your pleasure by being selfish and doing whatever you want. Like, I think it was more along the lines of

you can reject the world, go live in a commune, try to maximize your own happiness because the world cannot be changed. And this is, again, this is, I think, sort of another thing about the epistemological crisis. The idea that humans can actually change the world. Not humans. Regular-ass people like us the idea that regular ass people like us can actually intervene in history and change the world is i feel like a pretty recent one in the grand arc of western thought you know and and so we all we all say we believe this right because like this is is what Marxist materialism essentially was.

But I think that partially the reason we are having an e-crisis is because on one hand we all say this. We all say that we can change the world, that workers create capital for the capitalists, and therefore we can withhold our labor. We can intervene in the stream of history, and bend history towards our will. We all say this. On the other hand, we have had no empirical data to verify that. We've had nothing coming in to say that that's true. And so we're constantly in this space where we think we can change the world on one hand.

Philosophically, that's the optimism of the intellect or whatever i don't even know how this quote goes but on the other hand we know deep down empirically that we can't because we've not done it so far and in fact there's no precedence for this there's exactly exactly so i think that's the e-crisis um it's that space between those two philosophical, I guess, facts. I don't want to use that word, but you see what I'm saying, between those two things. The way that you resolve that, synthesize it and get out of it, I don't have any answers for you there. All I can do is diagnose it you know what i'm saying yeah yeah i mean i mean i i mean i don't know i guess it depends on what

day of the week some days i you know i get really inspired and say well we can you know we just got to keep plugging along and eventually history will open up and we'll be able to step in but most of the time i go around thinking there's probably not a whole lot we can do. Yes, keep doing what you want to do, but it would probably behoove you to maybe get into religion or some sort of spiritual practice or something. There's a lot of booby traps to it. Global pandemic.

I don't know. Barack Obama. It's like every time something like pops up that's like okay this could be the thing this could be something like a catalyst or at least some sort of like start to to something then it seems like something comes along to neutralize that i think that's what liberalism's role in the world is a side hater talks about that a little bit you know what i mean it's like sort of like because liberalism needs conservatism or like that sort of reactionary thinking that like the experience of you know having power seeing it threatened and then like you know doing what you have to do to like maintain it doing what you have to do to maintain it.

Liberalism has to engage with that where leftism does it. So liberalism is that great neutralizing thing in the world. I don't know. It's a little stray nugget for you. Well, it's the thing that tells you that there's no... I don't know. It's the thing that tells you that there's no... I mean, I don't know. It's the thing that polices your political imagination. And more importantly, your sort of social vision. Like, you know, I've been reading that...

I don't want to draw a one-to-one here. This is dangerous territory. But I just want to draw some observations. I'm reading Clyde Woods' Development Arrested. I don't want to draw a one-to-one here, but I'm reading the Gospel of the Minor Prophet Haggai. He has some interesting things to say about the Eucharist, actually. I mean, really, though.

So I've been reading Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy, and that's the only reason why. It's because I've just been like, well, what do people do in previous instances in history when they look at everything that's going on and see things getting gradually worse? everything that's going on and see things getting gradually worse they don't see any inclination of history to get better of material conditions to get better of there to be any hope or optimism and um turns out there's a lot of uh examples of people you know like i said looking around and being like well yeah the it seems like the general trend here is um towards more bad and what's the source what's some of what does uh bertrand say are some of the sources of hope at times like that um well i mean i don't know if really, so it's a very weird book. It's funny because I'm almost done with it.

I'm like 200 pages left. And just recently I read that apparently philosophers hate it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, because I guess they think that he can't like figure out whether he wants it to be like a history or a polemic. Yeah. limit um i don't know if bertrand russell has any um sort of overarching bias his chapter in marx is pretty fascinating um because you know bertrand russell was a socialist but he wasn't

a marxist he was just like a like a democratic social or you know what i mean like a back then you could be a socialist without being a marxist right socialist yeah um but i do have to hand it to him he doesn't like disparage marx or do the whole like marx is responsible for all the atrocities of the past whatever yeah um yeah actually i don't have the book next to me, but actually he does a very fascinating thing where he compares Marxism to the Judaic sort of eschatology. So, like, you know, in his conception, like, the proletariat are the chosen people. You know, capital is the great devil. You know what I mean? It's very interesting. He does make a point.

Marxism does have its own epistemology. It does tell a story about the way things are. But again, I think that's the e-crisis. Because we all read the story and we're like yeah that makes sense but at the same time part of knowing that the story is real is believing deep down that you can change the world and once again we're confronted with the reality that we we can't i mean i'm saying in generalizations because there are examples of victories you know and i don't want to like yeah that's what I mean, I'm saying in generalizations, because there are examples of victories, you know,

and I don't want to, like... Yeah, that's what... I mean, like, I'm always, like, trying to tell myself that when I get, like, derisive about something like voting, for example. Like, everything's like voting now, right? And it's just like... Yeah. I don't want to be derisive of that because, like, I mean, that was an important victory

in the Civil Rights Movement. You know what I mean? At the same time, like, we got to be, we've got to be candid about the fact that it doesn't avail much because of, you know, certain stumbling blocks, you know, gerrymandering or, you know, voter disenfranchisement, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, we talked about this on the Patreon on Sunday, which if you want to hear our thoughts about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, sign up for the Patreon. Although I can't really guarantee you there's a whole lot of profound thoughts. We need the money. But, you know, people on the sort of progressive left just kind of stopped after that you know what i mean like we talked about this with regards to ruth bader ginsburg people

stopped fighting for a better future for more advances and then dug in yeah and so that's why liberals are now obsessed with precedent and what in in the realm of law and why conservatives are now at the activists yeah yeah yeah it's it's yeah it's well i mean it's i i guess that's probably the natural progression though i mean if we're if we're being honest but it's it's weird that like that ground's been ceded to the conservatives. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm sure people listening in wanted 20 minutes up top of dude bros talking philosophy.

And I'm positive I will get people screaming at me for getting something wrong in all of that so you can't touch the ancient world without people having you know a lot of feelings about it of anything that we get nasty comments or letters about it's usually something to do with the ancient world or our understanding of the ancient world seriously people have no idea that a i'm not an expert b i spend all my time reading other people's shit i've never been to grad school i took like one classics course in college we're trying to cobble this together and you don't i mean i guess the cat's out the bag but i'm an idiot that is dude that is true we get more hate mail it's like

man it's like uh yeah you have some you have some very retrograde opinions about the uh about the socratic method method y'all don't know shit about school in athens yeah okay all right well before we piss anymore anyone else off let's pivot to the modern world um so we're recording this thursday september 24th um sorry tanya couldn't make it today um It's been a crazy week in our world And so You're getting the skeleton crew Yeah we're a little thin tonight Yeah

But But it's been a crazy week in the Not just our world but in everybody's world as well So we're recording this The day after It was announced that no charges would be brought against the killers of brianna taylor in louisville on the louisville metro police department except i think one of them is getting charged with like wanton endangerment yeah i

believe because he fired off his... Because they were all firing so many goddamn bullets, a few of them probably went through the wall. Yeah, you can tell that has more to the property damage than the actual loss of life. You can just tell that from the police report. No injuries. It's incredible that they...

By charging that guy with wanton endangerment, they are admitting that they probably shot so many goddamn bullets at a defenseless, helpless person in their own bed that some of them went through the wall and endangered somebody next door. Yeah. But it's not murder. It's definitely not murder, and they definitely didn't do anything wrong. But the whole thing was very bizarre. I mean, they announced, I believe, on Monday, I think, Monday night, that the National Guard was going to be deployed.

You saw businesses boarding up their windows, the city getting ready for something. You know, and nobody knew quite what it was the i want to read this to you because i thought this was fascinating um and i don't know do you remember do you know the name of the guy who was charged with wanton endangerment hankinson okay it was hankinson all right yeah well so you know over the course of monday and tuesday and early wednesday it became this very bizarre theater where like the entire city was bracing themselves which by the way just as an aside it's so absurd to me that the city would be bracing themselves for what they knew was going to be the decision that nobody liked. And, you know, and so you get this situation where on one hand you're being reminded that the people, the citizens of the city are about to receive news that they don't like.

the citizens of the city are about to receive news that they don't like and therefore we don't live in a democracy because if we're is actually democratic justice the citizens would get what they want but on the other hand you're being told at all times to go vote the democratic process is still you know alive and well and must be used to get this guy I mean you know what I'm saying so you get these two conflicting ideas that like you live in a democracy and you don't live in a democracy yeah yeah i mean it's like we're talking about the you know when we opened up with the e-crisis it's like we have we have a disconnect between what is true like the efficacy of voting and what is like it's accepted that we should all just go do that thing like even though there's nothing on the other end of it you know like we know that

and yet you get sneered at you get uh derided as like some sort of like i don't know like some sort of like monster that's's spitting in the face of Martin King and everybody that came before us. If you have questions about the face of probably the biggest crisis we'll ever face threaten our existence. But like, you know, it is... I'm trying to articulate without using a cliche like bringing a knife to a gunfight or something stupid like that. You know what I mean? But it's just woefully deficient response.

Inaddictive, yeah. I mean, liberals themselves are in their own e-crisis. And the fact that they can't own up to it and face that reality is... I mean, if you're an American, you're very... If you're an American in any way invested in the political system, political developments, then you are probably in your own e-crisis. Unless you're like MAGA. Yeah.

Because like the MAGA people seem to be pretty confident and, I mean, batshit insane, but they have their own epistemology, you know, QAnon and all that. Yeah. That makes sense to them. Yeah. Or. But the liberal one is shrinking. You know what I mean? Like they keep taking L's. Well, they're one is shrinking. You know what I mean?

Like, they keep taking L's. Well, they're out of plays. You know what I mean? They're out of plays. Yeah, and now they've lost one of their icons. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

And they're down to basically Amy McGrath and Joe Biden. Yeah. And on the other end of that, what do you tell somebody on the other end of that? Let's say Biden loses. Let's say McGrath loses. Okay. Or let's say, you know, we talked about this a little bit, I mean, I guess probably several months ago now. Like, the Supreme Court, like if Trump, and I don't look for this to happen, but who the hell Court, like if Trump and I don't look for this to happen

but who the hell knows, what if Trump refuses to leave office? You think is Stephen Bayer just going to get out there and like make him leave? Like what is the teeth of the Supreme Court or any of these systems?

Yeah. Elena Kagan's going to be like standing in Tiananmen Square or you know like in front of these systems. Yeah. Elena Kagan's going to be like standing in Tiananmen Square or you know like in front of the tanks. No, I don't know. You see the liberals grappling with this. And on one hand I mean I agree it's kind of concerning

but on the other hand like I found it very bizarre and I just can't relate to it. I mean, I know it's concerning. I know it would cause this huge constitutional crisis if he doesn't leave office, but my more immediate concerns are like what the cops are doing right now, what the police are doing. Like, I i mean i i don't i don't want to say that the democrats are done if they lose in november because i don't think they are and we just talked about this on the patreon episode on sunday like i don't think they're going the way

of the wigs i think that they're probably becoming a lifestyle they're going the way of instacart noober netflix you know yeah you're right exactly they're becoming a monthly subscription service for feeling virtuous and good an mlm a pyramid scheme they're not a political party they're not challenging anything you have to do politics to be a political party as general exactly exactly and so i mean that's that's the that's their way out like they try to innovate out of everything they're trying to innovate their way out of the eat try to innovate their way out of governance is there another way to order the world and they'll find out that there is that's exactly right and it's not good for us it's exactly right um but no you see them

struggling with this like what are we going to do when he leaves office? And the answer's nothing. I mean, there's probably nothing they're going to do. But all that to say is that I was thinking about this last night. I know this is a really kind of dumb stoner-ish point. I made this point on Twitter. But we kind of live in an era where everything is run by a cult that doesn't acknowledge itself as a cult. Right. That sees itself acting in the public interest.

A cult that acts in the public interest. So whether it's the Democratic Party, the GOP and MAGA, or the cops, they're all cults, essentially. Yeah. Yeah. And this really came through when i was reading that email that so did you read this so this came out like the day before the brianna taylor thing was announced the decision was announced um it was louisville metropolitan police department sergeant jonathan mattingly who was being investigated as part of brianna taylor's case i did see this yeah yeah he sent an email to around 1 000 officers at 2 a.m

2 a.m and and i thought it was a fascinating look into the cop mentality because on one hand you're like these guys are monster they're monsters and they're fascists. But on the other hand, I was like, these guys are just, they're dorks, man. It's like you've always said, they're like these tragic comic figures that are like, they're pitiful. So anyways, let me read this. LMPD family, I'm not here to give you a rah-rah, you got this speech. I'm not here to tell you that you signed up to help this community and to keep your head up. I'm here to tell you I'm sorry you have to go through this. I'm sorry your families have to go through this.

I'm sorry the mayor, Amy Hess, and Chief Conrad failed all of us in epic proportions for their own gain and to cover their asses. You do not deserve, all all caps to be in this position the position that allows thugs to get in your face and yell curse and degrade you throw bricks bottles and urine on you and expect you to do nothing it goes against piss they put there but yeah yeah seriously the bricks that we put there for them to pick up they not deserve having that thrown at you it goes against quote or caps everything we were all taught in the academy the position that if you make a mistake during one of the most stressful times in your career the department and fbi parentheses who aren't cops and would piss their pants if they had to I thought that was pretty fascinating.

It's also funny that just regular patrolmen don't look at FBI as cops. When actually, they're like the ultimate cops. Exactly. would actually they're like the ultimate cops exactly this is kind of why i'm for fascism to work it's really going to need some ideological coherency because it's gonna be some smart people and not just brutes you can't float on brutes forever exactly because like cops like their psychological profile makes them impossible to work together and so like they are competitive with other law enforcement agencies yeah yeah it's funny well it's funny because i was talking to tyrone about this yesterday i called him because i like to keep my fingers on the pulse what the cops are

saying about like cop stuff right our police chief by the way and he was talking about how like steve conrad was a huge piece of shit and like all his officers, he said he's had several votes of no confidence from all the cops in LNPD and all this stuff. Greg Fisher. In a strange way, the cops have figured out how to organize. They topple their bosses all the time. You know what I mean? They get police chiefs ousted all the time like whatever and they get essentially what they want

and this has created like really principally the central thing of this whole crisis of people getting murdered in the streets and everything else is like you now have like an extremely exceedingly powerful

political block that is just regular-ass cops. Yeah. They have their own epistemology, their own social explanation for why things are the way they are. I mean, he says it right here. Your civil rights mean nothing, but the criminal has total autonomy. You're right. The criminal has total autonomy. He says some stuff about good versus evil

in this too, doesn't he? Yeah, he did. This is what he says. He says, We all signed up to be police officers. We knew the risk and were willing to take them, but we always assumed the city had your back. We wanted to do the right thing

in the midst of an evil world to protect those who cannot protect themselves. To enforce laws that make it possible to live in a peaceful society. We as police do not care, all caps, if you are black, white, Hispanic, Asian, and what you identify as, dot, dot, dot, this week. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it sounds like you really believe that right exactly we aren't better than anyone this is not an us against society but is good versus evil we are sons daughters husbands wives partners brothers sisters dads and moms we are human beings with flaws feelings and emotions

like i can kind of like just because of my proximity to um cops in the class that cops come from again most of them come from the working class i can kind of understand this line of thought in the sense that they all think they are protecting society right like they all think that people need protection and they need someone like them to protect them the cop mindset is this i have nothing else to offer society so i'm going to be sort of the front lines against the evildoers and then what happens is the reality is much more complex than that when you're talking about good versus evil who's bad who's not who's whatever so they have certain things they need to be true and then race is one of those modalities that gets played out in that calculus you know i mean exactly because of because of because of you have a legacy of

of anti-blackness dating back whatever whatever whatever time immemorial and so that ends up being like like just sort of a default pitting one against the other yeah that's exactly right i mean and so when you look at it that way it doesn't matter what a cop believes when he's getting into the job it doesn't matter the reasons for why he does it or whatever once he becomes slotted into that system he's going to carry out the functions of that of that role yeah exactly yeah yeah um and i like the little dig there by the way of what you identify as dot dot dot this week i mean very obvious that he's referring to people who are like i identify as a helicopter you know what i mean people who like make fun of pronouns yeah yeah

um anyways he says now i'm just rambling but i want you to know that i'm still proud to be a cop to be an lmpd cop no matter the ineptitude and upper command or the mayor's office, this is one of the greatest jobs on earth. Yeah, it's the sweetest get going. You can do whatever you want with no repercussions. Whatever you want. You ever wanted to kill a person with impunity? Be a cop. That's what I told Tyron.

I said, if you ever wanted to kill somebody, it'd be a good day to do it. Yeah. With that being said, they are going to be long. They are going to be frustrating these next few days. They will put a tremendous amount of stress on your families.

Do not let your ego get you in a trick bag. I don't know what that means. Have your partner six. Deescalate if possible. Do not give the pencil pushers at the top, you know, the ones who are too scared to hold the line a reason to open investigations on you man isn't it weird they've adopted like a weird rhetoric

that's like sort of like plugs into like marxism kind of they've adopted the rhetoric of labor of movements of late you know they've applied a perverse sort of interpretation but it is it is a kind of marxism it's a labor solidarity yeah um not good by the way that does not bode ill for society in the future um because actually you know now i'm thinking about it like once you actually exercise that power the cops are a brilliant example of how powerful that is in society when you are actually exercising solidarity and coordination cooperation with your fellow workers in the political realm the cops exemplify how well that can work yeah absolutely um and every other sort of

and every other like i mean it also too just illustrates how like liberalism is woefully like again, again, woefully deficient in, like, attacking that. Because, like, how do you even, like, give me an example of anything, any tenet of liberalism that can topple a state-funded paramilitary force that is, like, in lockstep with one another and always covers for one another right there's nothing you can do to penetrate that nothing i mean not not in the liberal world vote vote what the fuck's voting gonna do joe biden taught was to if you're gonna vote for joe biden the guy that said we should shoot him in the legs i forgot he said that oh i mean i don't know if you saw this last night. Kamala Harris's statement.

Did you see Kamala Harris's statement last night? No, the top cop. Yeah, she said, Joe Biden and I are keeping the police officers who were shot in Louisville in our hearts, wishing them a swift and speedy recovery. Violence is not the answer, and we must find a way to express our grief, anger, and demands in ways that reflect the world we wish to see.

Just scold it. Now, I just want to go back to this. We talked about this a few weeks ago. But if you are running for political office, and what she's referring to is last night there were protests after the announcement of the non-indictment of these murderers. There were protests and apparently two cops were shot. That's what she's referring to. indictment of these murderers. There were protests and apparently two cops were shot. That's what she's referring to. If you're running for office, you have two options for what to do about the

protests, the riots, the anger, the justified outrage in the streets. You can either clam down on them hard, the Trump Magaway, or you can harness the outrage and anger towards some sort of intervention on state power, some sort of road or path to reform. And Biden and Kamala Harris, they're not doing either of those things. They are once again policing people. And Biden said this last night. I can't remember what his statement was. It was something along the lines of, don't sullyanna taylor's memory by holding non-peaceful protests i mean again

it's like you're sealing your own fate i i don't i mean they they may they i still believe they'll probably win man but i don't know they're doing everything they can to not though they're doing everything they can to not um so anyways let's go back here um uh don't give the pencil pushers at the top a reason to open investigations on you the same ones that couldn't make decisions to save their lives we need leaders that lead from the front and not in a room under a desk do what you need to do to go home to your fam you your family just do it with dignity and make sure you can justify your actions because everything down there is recorded holy shit that's crazy man um basically saying like if you have to kill a protester make sure you've covered all your bases and have your body cam yeah cross your t's and dot your i's man this is terrifying you know we're talking about

biden and harris there they're afraid of this block i think they're terrified that's that presumably if he wins would assume in a peaceful transfer of power or whatever, will, like, it is like so afraid of them that they walk on eggshells with them. That's how powerful this is. The stuff that we're preaching, this organization, that's how powerful it is. You bring kings to their knees. Once again, it goes back to what I was just saying a couple minutes ago. They're actually organized and exercising their organization and solidarity in the political realm. Look how powerful that is.

Man, it is really sad that, you know, we're talking about precedents and everything. And I'm thinking about God. What could we do? and the two examples i'm looking to are the cops and the bath party that's how bad shit is that's how woefully deficient the left has been too lately yeah i guess we should probably put a disclaimer and say like we're not in any way i I mean, hopefully that's clear, but you never know. Fucking dumb asses.

Listen to this and be like on the triblies this week. Yeah. Turns out the bath is coal miners more than a bit. Um, so anyways, let's finish this. I don't know a lot of you guys, gals,

but I felt the love regardless of the outcome today or wednesday i know we did the legal moral and ethical thing that night he's referring to the night they murdered brianna taylor in her bed defenseless they think he says they did the legal that's probably that is true he did do the legal yeah because there's no repercussions for this shit. Yeah, because there's no repercussions, but the moral and ethical thing? Jesus Christ, dude. He said, it's sad how the good guys are demonized and criminals are canonized.

Put that aside for a while. Keep your focus and do your jobs that you are trained and capable of doing. Don't put up with their shit and go home to those lovely families and relationships. I wish I were there with you leading the charge. I'll be praying for praying for your safety remember you are just a pawn in the mayor's political game i'm proof they do not care about you or your family and you are replaceable stay safe and do the right thing you are loved and supported all caps by most of the community uh now go be the warriors you are yeah warriors capitalized another yeah that's more fashy right exactly but please be safe none of these peaceful protesters are worth your career or freedom he put peaceful in quote unquote godspeed boys and girls sergeant john mattingly fuck you

bitch man you know what's funny it's another thing that happens to liberals when like the fast get organized like this is liberalism has no answers for this because like from the left what we see in a guy like greg fisher is a guy that's like he's just cowardice right like he's afraid to take a lot afraid to do anything he has the power to like at the very least, ax all these guys. He won't do that. And then from the other end, the cops see him as an impediment to what they really want to do. Like a stumbling block, a guy with an agenda. And it's the same thing you see in New York with de Blasio. I forget where I heard is that but like on these like forums like

these like new york city cops would openly make jokes about like raping his daughter and stuff and then this motherfucker just gets out on the podium and praises them as brave and everything else no repercussions it should at this point hopefully you should be starting to pick up on the idea that the problems go they're kind of a little deeper than just voting for them. I mean, even if even in the most generous reading of Joe Biden, you think that he's going to reform the police. Once again, you have to ask, like, doesn't this kind of indicate a culture that is so deeply ingrained it's impossible to reform i mean again i mean it's like you were just saying a minute ago it's so deficient to just say vote because like it almost makes you feel it's like the mr crab meme you know what i mean like when you hear that because it's like so out

of step with reality like the problems are so big it just feels like voting is like a drop in the bucket i mean again i'm gonna do it because i probably don't have a shit going on on november Like, the problems are so big. It just feels like voting is like a drop in the bucket. I mean, again, I'm going to do it because I probably don't have a shit going on on November 3rd. But, like. I need to stretch my legs a little bit. Yeah. Go out for a walk. But, like, I don't know if you saw this.

I think you did. I think you posted about it. But there was a story in Mother Jones about this cop who was on the Atlanta police force who quit because they were asking him to basically uh you know prosecute people to to terrorize people in their homes because a lot like this development company was trying to gentrify a neighborhood it's the exact same thing that got Breonna Taylor killed did you see that that story? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me read this to you. This cop quit. So there's two fascinating things here. First of all, this cop was on the Atlanta police force.

His name was, it's in Mother Jones, the cop who quit instead of helping to gentrify Atlanta. His name was Tom Gissler, 49. He started in April 2017 and quit july 2020 he talks about how like they kept making him go down to this neighborhood to become a cop yeah really like mid 40s yeah but they kept making him go down to this neighborhood and just issue the most petty citations for everything you know parking uh illegal parking nobody can cross street that legal has exactly fee grabbing as you've called it um and so he says how one day he just went down to the neighborhood and started asking people

what what what's going on like what what is with the development why is he being made to do this and this is what he says. A homeowner in the area was very frank with me. He said the guys who own Bedford Pines, who is that development area, got their tax bill last year, and their taxes were assessed based on all the gentrification that's happening in the area. And so they wanted to move everybody out of these apartments and knock them down and rebuild these nice, expensive apartments, and the government said no.

And so then they said, well, that's okay, we'll just increase the rent. They tried to increase the rent, and the Section 8 guys came back and said, no, you can't do that either. The only way you can evict or do anything like that is if the person who owns the apartment is convicted of a felony. So the Bedford Pines guys just went to the police department and said, we want you to police in here, and we're going to give you a section of bedford pines to actually have office space and i want you to lock up as many people as possible so we can make these apartments vacant and we can knock them down that is literally

exactly what happened to brianna taylor this was part of a larger gentrification effort to exterminate people yeah yeah well yeah and it's like if you can't scare them out then but basically what they did with brianna is they executed her to terrify everybody else around them yeah and what's even crazier about this story this was at the very end i don't know if you saw this so after he quit based on his moral qualms with this this is what happened to him the police started terrorizing him he said the report a report was made to the division of family and children's services alleging abuse in my household also an allegation of animal abuse was made both allegations are very serious for anyone but especially as law enforcement because you cannot operate while under investigation the presumption is that whoever filed the report assumed i was going to stay in law enforcement and the effect would be terror

and hardship um my wife is especially blindsided by the ordeal and was truly terrified our leaving was necessary simply to insulate ourselves from such hijinks and blah blah blah i mean again they just started terrorizing this guy just started reporting him to children's services for abuse it is like it is like omerita or some shit you don't you get in that shit man like i and i've had cops tell me this they won't let me out of it you just don't it's just not something you just roll right out as soon as you want to you know what i mean yeah it's crazy it's uh you know what i mean you know what i mean and i the guys like in louis, like Jill Holland, like Brooke T. Smith, they have culpability in this. And I'm not saying that those guys are responsible for Breonna Taylor's death,

but that culture of gentrification, all that kind of stuff, anybody that's participated in that from a position of power is complicit in that. And so I don't really want to hear from like the captains of louisville gentrification about what a horrible thing this is and all the hand-wringing and the murals you're going to paint whatever like fuck off like you created the conditions to get her killed and you gotta reckon with that it just goes to show you that like all of their pleas for like anti-rac and all this stuff, it's all facile and just skin-dead. Because what this shows is it's not just a matter simply of racism.

It's a matter of race plus class. So these people are targeted not just because of their race. They're targeted because they live in an area that capital needs to just you know ravage uh some more because once again we're sort of in this era of real estate capitalism where all the frontiers of capital accumulation have been exhausted and so all we can do now is just destroy and rebuild and destroy and rebuild and strip every amount of capital out of the commons and previous capital, you know, accumulative sinks, areas, that's all that's left. And so, again, it's a systemic thing.

And when people talk about systemic racism, when liberals talk about it, I don't even think that they see the holistic portrait of this. I don't think they realize that this is all one big sort of mosaic that it has more it's it goes way deeper than just some anti-blackness at the heart of this country which there is don't get me wrong but it is that plus something else that something else is capitalism yeah i don't know yeah it's not uh yeah it's i mean we this is something we debate all the time but it's not uh you know and or situation exactly oh my god um well let's let your county got to say about it all? Yeah, we can do speaking. Yeah, let's see what...

I mean, we talked about a whole host of stuff. Let's see what they're saying locally. In the Appalachians, where I was born and lived as a young boy, our home burned down and we had no place to go. You couldn't find homes or anyone to take you in back in those days so we had a barn and fixed it up we never blamed anybody else and we sure didn't blame the president for the old place burning down in california today they're standing up and saying it's president trump's fault for the fires there don't blame

the president every time you stub your toe he told california what to do and what to do they he told california what to do the last time it caught on fire that's dude that's such a bizarre that is such a bizarre i mean like in the appalachians where i was born and lived as a young boy our house burned down and we had no place to go like the idea of somebody in like 1950 blaming like truman son of a bitch anyway i just want to say a special thank you to a woman and the young girl i guess it was her daughter who were out on us-119 at may king picking up all the trash that our county government is too inept and uncaring to have picked up.

Much of the trash in the May King area comes from bags that fly off the county's garbage trucks, but then the county doesn't pick it back up. Our new county judge, Terry Adams, needs to get a handle on this. Who is the trash man, by the way? Who is? I mean, like, literally, that was his job. who is a trash man who is i mean like literally that was his job financially broke or not nothing stops our county government from taking steps to clean this place up if i were a magistrate or the county judge i'd be ashamed for how nasty this place has gotten nasty just plain nasty man a lot of people got opinions about the wildfires. I see all these fires out there in California, and I know they despise bulldozers out there.

Like, bulldozers are just strictly a conservative thing. Dude, that is hilarious. Virtue signaling about bulldozers. I know those fucking pussies don't like a bulldozer out there. What's funny, man, is California's actually very redneck in most places except for

the cities. It's a very conservative state in many ways. They could cut some bleeders between those tires and get the timber out and pull the dirt down and have a block so flames couldn't jump. I wonder how much value in timber has been destroyed along with those thousands of houses. Editor's note.

The Los Angeles Fire Department and other agencies in California do use bulldozers to fight wildfires. He had to point it out he had this month alone stories and photos about the dangers of the job of wildfire bulldozer operators have appeared in several publications for example on september 9th the wall street journal reported that bulldozers and their operators play quote a key role in helping the state battle blazes they threw that line there just as a hedge against this guy. Right, right, right. Dear, speak your peace.

I heard Ted Cruz the other day talking about Obama and Pelosi visiting the place in Wuhan, China, where they were studying the bat virus. Ted said Obama and Pelosi liked what they saw and so they wanted to give money for the study of the coronavirus now go out and vote mr president god bless you and your family it's it's funny it's like like the conservatives are almost like copying the muslims and and how they greet each other. Right, right, right.

Allahu Akbar. Sir, you will be our next president. We know what the world was like before you got in there. As for not warning us about the dangers of the coronavirus, sir, you didn't want to scare the American people. Oh my God, dude. This blows my mind.

This blows my fucking mind. This is incredible. You acted appropriately to be the president of the United States. God bless you and God bless your family. Build the fence. Build the fence. Wow. That is incredible.

DJ, DJ, run that back. As for not warning us about the dangers of the coronavirus, sir, you didn't want to scare the American people. That's got to be some kind of a troll. If that's a troll and this person is like, like has drank a little too much of the Kool-Aid. I'm afraid it's real. Sir, as for the very real dangers and, you know, the death toll, you were just acting in the best interest of most people. Yeah.

Oh, my God. There's a few nonpolitical ones in there this week. See if you can get to some of the juicy gossip ones. There's some good ones in there. Oh, my God. I just want to do this one real quick though yeah go for it uh donald trump is the greatest president we've had since ronald reagan i actually cried the day trump took office i feel like there was hope for our nation again i was so glad the misery of the Obama years were over. God has had mercy on

America. That is such a weird idea. People sitting around... I mean, I understand it. If you're a racist, yes, the Obama years were misery. But they were no different than any other presidential... Before or after, yeah.

Jesus Christ. God has had mercy onica the past four years and has given the american people a space to repent and turn from the wickedness of the democratic party 200 mercy looks like 200 000 people yeah well i mean it's the people that believe in a blood sacrifice for can you even begin to imagine the mess our nation would be and now if hillary clinton had been elected and now we have all the democrat vultures coming up to destroy our nation when the coronavirus broke out in china the democrats were busy trying to impeach our president the democrat party is useless to america i will agree with you you're not wrong pal

it would be good if the democrat party was dissolved and done away with so the american people could have a peaceful life hey i'm with you on that yeah i'm with you on that if you value the great united states of america then vote for donald trump i would never vote for a democrat i do not want to be a partaker in their evil deeds. A little palate cleanser here. Oh, my God. That was quite a show two ladies put on for some gawkers in May 2003. Just wondering if there was going to be an encore or if there ever will be.

Some guy I saw two women making out or something. He's been thinking about it for 17 years and wonder 17 years it's like man i'd love to see that shit again to a certain person do you want to know why your mom didn't want to have you move into her place? It's because you were so nasty. She didn't want to have to clean up after you again. You're so nasty. Somebody put Donald J. Trump as a Benito Mussolini wannabe. Yes. Yeah, good one. Oh, shit.

Let's see. Fuck. To a certain person. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, shit. Let's see. Fuck. To a certain person. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, read this one, but there's one after this I want you to read, Tim. To a certain person, you will never in your life believe how much it meant to me to finally get your phone number and tell you right to your ear what a lowlife you are for the way you treated your children. You know who you are, you lowlifelife worthless piece of trash and no i'm

not drinking like you always say i am i am stone cold sober and that meant so much to me i can't imagine what the rest of the eight women you were married to went through with you i know what i went through wow oh man go up one two three from that way the one that starts out with mr president mr president as far as the lady who died i have respect for her but i think you have the right to go ahead and put anyone you want in that chair she sat in. The Constitution is what the Supreme Court is supposed to be about. God bless you. Dude, I love that one because I feel like it perfectly encapsulates, like,

part of the RGB thing that I found so fascinating was, like, I'm going to guess if you were to poll the vast majority of Americans, I don't really think they would know who RPG is, right like maybe i don't know but i just i thought that that one summed it up is like that lady who died i don't really know who she is but i mean i guess i have respect for her yeah i mean like she would probably be the most famous of the justices like nobody knows who you know uh stephen breyer or you know elena kagan or like and you know, Stephen Breyer or, you know, Elena Kagan or like, you know, the old love. You're right. Oh, shit. Well, that probably sums it up for the week of September 24th.

Oh, man. Yeah. Something about Mitch McConnell being cold and calculating and not a caring country gentleman well anyway oh wow well that probably about covers it um like i said at the top of the show if you want takes on ruth bader ginsburg the trill billy takes the uninformed trill billy takes go listen to that although i have to say if you want really good takes go check out that podcast five four their most recent episode about ruth bader ginsburg i felt

was like spot on you know it was obviously by people who knew what they were talking about so like i don't have any fucking clue what i'm talking about when it comes to like the law and the courts as some of you have pointed out in the comments exactly so just go check that out i wish i could just you know copy paste that whole thing into this but if you want to hear our takes go to the patreon p-a-t-r-e-o-n.com slash trailbilly workers party and you'll get an episode every sunday uh delivered right to your inbox or whatever podcast app you use um and i'm not sure when tanya will be back she may not be on the patreon this weekend um we'll see like i said it's been a it's been a bad week over here in tribally land but you know

we're trying we're doing our best to survive we're scratching and surviving that's the name of the game right now to us the name of the game right now. Just like everybody else. Two what? That's the name of the game right now. Scratch and survive. That's right. So anyways, wish us best. Give us your thoughts and prayers and pledge to the Patreon. We always appreciate that. And also, I want to plug my band, Tenure. You don't know how to spell that.

It's that thing you get in college when you teach when you teach at it when you teach at it um we're on spotify uh apple music band camp go check us out got an album on there and two new singles that we just put out and check out the most recent year zero episode if you if you need some informative listening uh about about oil hell yeah so anyways you got a lot of things to go check out and to keep you busy that's your homework we'll see you there's your homework that's right go do all those things we thank you so much for listening. Please try to stay safe out there, especially if you live in Louisville or any other major city where there are protests, riots, etc. Please stay safe.

Look out for each other. And keep fighting the good fight. Because we're with you. So anyways, we'll talk to you next time and uh go with god peace guitar solo And I, I get smoking And it comes and goes a little too late Trying to try, but it only known so far Trying to do right But here we are

It's going round And I don't know what to do Trying and trying But the options are few Keep going round Same old place It's all I can do To keep my head straight

If I went around See it's not okay Let's run around town for two weeks