Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 217: Sunday Best

Episode Date: September 23, 2021

This week we talk Teslas, Wuhab Lab conspiracies, Haiti, and the lasting perseverance of 90s (at least when it comes to politics). Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

at the risk of sounding, I don't mean this to come off as classist, if there even is such a thing, but last night I was thinking about, you know how you would get dressed up to go to Sunday school on Sundays? I mean, there's that saying, like, Sunday best. There's even an amazing country band named Asher after it. Five-star band. Five-star band.

Better really than anything else out there. Better than any... Grammy. Right, better than any music that's come out of Eastern Kentucky, that's for sure. Man, I tell you what. They were supposed to stay with us one time and i was just looking forward to the day when i got mad pussy because i knew somebody best and then they just and then they just they and they just didn't end up staying with us i told everybody i was like yeah man

chris and dick let me stay in our place tonight it's not a not a big deal you know it's just we're just boys like that for a brief moment tom and i were running the like whitesburg music scene brothel brothel yeah you all really were but i saw some truly horrific things in that apartment i mean i'm sure rich sure... Like Richie Cotsen taking a shower for him or a guitar player for poison? No, more like two girls fighting so bad

there was makeup and... Blood and weave. Blood, weave, and fake eyelashes on the wall. You call that insane. I call it hot. We have two different... I didn call that insane. I call it hot. We have two different... I didn't say insane.

I said terrifying. You call it terrifying. I was terrified. I was sitting in my bed with my pocket knife in my hand ready to cut someone. Whoever came up with the stamps. Whoever came up with the stamps

was getting fucking cut. That's all there was to it. Well, so anyways where i was going with that was um you know how they just had the met gala like no what oh no you you haven't heard of this i missed that part i missed that you haven't got a lot of hate mail from people saying that you sound like Jimmy Dore talking shit about AOC? No, because I haven't talked shit about AOC. Yeah, good point. I think a good theme for the Met Gala would be Sunday school. You know what I'm saying?

When I was a kid, we couldn't afford like you know the best like fanciest clothes and so you had to like make approximations of what looked nice and so you know like the baggiest jeans mad and like you thought that was in like doc martin knockoffs you know what i'm saying like that was a a solid ass look that like you thought was nice but like yeah you thought an untucked shirt looked just baller just absolutely there is a lot to this

what was your biggest sartorial mishap like one that you just look back on how you were dressed in a photo and you're like what the fuck was that thing oh this one's not even a I don't even have to think puka shell necklace bitch yeah that's a tough one I don't even have to think. Puka shell necklace, bitch. Yeah, that's a tough one to age with.

Love that. I mean, it's kind of... I wonder why my mom let me out of the house, honestly. But in middle school, my favorite fit was this ratty red sports bra under overalls with a fucking uh i mean now it's probably very hip i would not wear it now well actually i have wore that my overall shorts riding bikes but not to fucking school i wore this on picture day i have picture of me wearing a ratty red sports bra no shirt under overalls with a plaid button-up shirt just over it unbuttoned i looked crazy i'm like why did you let me go to school looking like this but i do have some iconic school pictures of me like with a sideways ponytail wearing like fringe like a fringe fucking shirt just looking like an absolute

line dancer that i will never apologize for and that informs my style to this day till this day yeah oh god there are tom only ever wore kentucky wildcat-shirts, so he can't even comment. He has nothing to be ashamed for. I know my worst. I showed up to college wearing a Dickie suit, like long-sleeved, navy blue, like Dickie's work suit. Shaved head, Air Force Ones, and a t-shirt said Free Tony Yayo on it. Oh, my God. It was 2003 and G-Unit was all the rage.

Oh fuck. Right, we had just started the war in Iraq and Tom was not doing any fighting. That's for sure. I looked like I just got out of Chino. But unfortunately my shaved head betrayed what I was about.

Tom had a whole era, which may be continued to this day, where he would get dressed up really nice in one of his nice suits. But he would have one little detail that was off of his nice suits but he would have like one little detail that was off and i would often like try to fix it i'd be like oh your tie is crooked oh this is smack your hand away and you'd smack my hand away and say some french word what this was. It's like the fucking the Christians who put or who make a little who always insist on a mistake in their quilt

because only God's perfect. Right. You know, Tony, I didn't think about it. That's a good way to put that. Only God's perfect. We all have to fall short of the glory i had so i went to a wedding in new mexico um two weeks ago with like a childhood friend like someone i've known since i was at least like probably 10 or 8 or 9, whatever age you're in in fifth grade. And she had reminded me that, like, when she first met me, like, the first, like, back in elementary and middle school,

I used to carry, like, a pocket-sized Bible around, like, in the pocket of those carpenter jeans. You remember carpenter jeans? Yeah, it had a little hook for your hammer. You wore them because that's what Jesus wore. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, your boss was a Jewish carpenter, and you wanted to dress like he would in 2003.

You were dressing like a co-pilot. Yeah. But anyways, Met met gala there you go there's a free idea for you sunday's sunday's finest there you go it's a that's a good theme i honestly think there is something to like country ass people being literally afraid to look good like i i have come to like want to overdress i like to overdress post office grocery store restaurant whatever i want to i want to be overdressed but like a day anyone that goes with me literally is terrified to dress up to go out like oh you could wear this this looks great it. It's like, oh, I don't know. I don't know. You think it's like some internalized... We are terrified to be overdressed in public.

I love it. I used to sympathize with that because I was like, you know, it looks like I got somewhere better to go later. But I'm to the point where I don't think anybody's persuaded I have somewhere better to go later. No. No one cares. No one has looked at me at the post office and been like, who's this bitch think she is? Because no one cares.

Well, yeah, I mean, I've been thinking about it lately because, like, I bought a watch, and it's not like the most expensive watch in the world. You feel like Liberace. You're walking around here. No, it's not that gaudy. It's nice but understated. Right, it's not that gaudy. It's nice, but understated. Right.

It's not like a Rolex or anything, but it's like more than I would have spent on a watch, let's say five years ago, obviously. And so I'm like, damn, do I want to take it up the next step? Do I want to start wearing rings? Do I want to start wearing, you know, a button down shirt with the baggiest jeans imaginable? I don't know.

Incredible. The thought of Terrence putting on a watch and feeling too dressed up to go to a restaurant is my favorite. This is my favorite. Of you just being like, oh, I don't know. It's so blinky. It tells the time. No, I bought a friend a bolo tie.

And we were going out to eat, like, right after I gave it to them. And they were like, I don't know. This is too dressed up. It's a fucking bolo tie. I always kind of wish Terrace would lean more into the Southwestern thing and start wearing bolo ties and fringed leather coats and stuff like that. Yeah, I thought about that like that yeah just some cowboy boots you occasionally rock a cowboy boot don't you terrence yeah for sure every time i put cowboy boots on i feel like it's halloween you know what i mean i just i like them but i just can't wear

them for something oh my god i feel like it's Halloween. I love it. I love my boots. Oh yeah. And I love, I love men in cowboy boots, especially like really masculine men. Cause it's a heel. Like it's got a good heel on it. It's like put, puts a man in a,

in a high heel. My mom, I don't know. My mom's boyfriend is like so butch. He's just like such a, such a dude. He's fucking literal cattle farmer and he always wears boots and they're high heels and i'm just i love it i'm obsessed with it i'm like

i just love that he rocks a high heel mom and she's like what boots are high heels for sure she's like mortified yeah just totally hot queer footwear. You love to see it. And she's like, oh, what time? Jesus, you've given this man a lot to think about. You're going to give him a complex. Yeah, by complimenting him. Yeah, he's like super Christian too. He's a sweetheart i mean he's the only he's the only man i've really liked that my mom's ever been with that includes my dad it's it's a shocker that includes and especially means my father especially all i got from that

bastard was a big nose and bad eyes and i have no thank you no my mom has terrible taste in men worse than me if you can imagine oh boy but this guy's good i don't know he's almost too good to be true he's probably a serial killer we'll see we'll find out let's hope not for she let's say. Yeah. Did you guys see that thread going around about the Tesla that bricked on the side of the highway in the middle of the night? Did y'all see this? No, you're cutting out. I didn't hear what you said the Tesla did. It bricked. It fucked up.

It just shut down on the side of the in the middle of traffic in the middle of traffic in the middle of the night oh boy that's like a horror movie let me let me read some of this thread if i break up i apologize um on the way to dinner tonight my tesla literally locked up in the middle of the highway. A message I've never seen before popped up saying, Vehicle may not restart. Service required. No sooner do I have that thought than the car starts beeping madly saying, Pull over immediately. Insufficient power. And then everything just locks up. No ability to shift to neutral.

No releasing parking brake emergency override car is bricked in the middle of a six lane highway there was no there was no time to even get to the shoulder i'm dead in the water in the middle lane of southbound traffic thankfully the hazards still work and the door still opens don't know for how long though i roll all the windows down just in case i need back and it's time to bail. I run over to the shoulder and contemplate my next move. Is this 911 worthy, I think? It's dark, and if my hazards die, my car will get plowed for sure.

And, like, yeah, like someone, like a family of five will die, too, you know? It's like... Oh, my God, dude. It's like... Well, i want to ask this this does sound like a black mirror episode but is this how is this different than a junker breaking down other than the hundred thousand dollar price tag difference uh it's the hundred thousand dollar price tag difference that's the only difference okay it's the hundred100,000 price tag difference. That's the only difference? Okay. It's the $100,000 price tag difference for me. So, he isn't technically more unsafe than when my 94 pickup broke down in the middle of the road. Yeah. He's not technically more unsafe.

Like, the thing's not going to spontaneously combust. But the thing is, well, I mean, okay. Oh, no. They do that, too. They do that, too that too yeah that's right they do that they do catch fire don't they i mean i guess like the thing has a computer and i guess it could decide like all right i'm gonna turn everything off even the hazard lights which your 94 pickup won't do that because it's not run by a computer you know so like this is like the yuppie version of Stephen King's Maximum Overdrive.

Where that big rig truck has a mind of its own. Yeah, or there was another movie from the 80s that was like an evil car. What was it called? Evil car. Kirby? What was it? What did you say, Tanya? Was it Kirby?

No, that's a good car. A little Beetle. Kirby? I can't, I don't think I know what you're talking about. Christine! That's the one I was thinking of. Christine? Yeah.

Was, did it lock up? As in, he was locked inside? The door's locked too? No, he was able to get out. But I think there have been stories of that. Like people getting locked in and the thing just fucking... Here's what I don't understand. You drop six figures on a trash computer that you're driving around.

I don't care what happened to that thing. There's no way I would post my own fucking l about it on the internet and they just continue these people just continue to own themselves it's like they bought it just to fucking put on the internet what a fucking rube they are well it yeah and what's even funnier is like the thread basically ends with the guy being like well i mean i still you know basically he was like well you know it's not perfect but the car don't run but she sure is shiny yeah that's for damn sure it's not perfect bitch is crazy about a mercury oh my god tesla guys man i don't get them they well that's the thing.

So you asked, like, what's the difference between that and the 94? So, yeah, it's the $100,000 price tag, but it is also, like, the ideology behind it, right? It's, like, this whole movement of, like, Elon Musk stands in this, like, you know, push towards AI, automated driving and stuff. You know what I'm saying? It just i don't know there's a there's a whole sort of like cultural slash intellectual movement behind it that's just completely yeah it's and it don't run right huh shocker i only rode in one once and the annoying thing about riding with like uh i think terrence is with me actually in nashville i think and it's like the whole trip the guy just wants to talk about how great his car is and it's like it reeks of you know uh when somebody's trying to like justify something they did to you

or something they did to you not to you but you know what i'm saying like a purchase they made or whatever ever huh i wrote him one and he in charleston south carolina on it okay so it was my rich uncle who happens to be married to my rich aunt go figure uh it's his co-worker so we had all went out to dinner and we i was drunk as shit on expensive wine and we were just driving from the restaurant to this other place we were going and when we walked to our cars i was like holy shit is that a tesla this was like six years ago and he said yeah and i was like oh my god can i ride with you over there and my mom was like tanya she was so embarrassed that i had that i was drunk enough to like beg this man to let me ride in the back of his expensive car

like i ain't above that even sober sheila but of course he was so happy to have this country bumpkin in his tesla and so my cousin rode in it with me and his wife was in the so we were in the back seat i snapchatted the whole thing but uh that's long gone but anyway him he went straight to 80 miles an hour in a 25 mile per hour street because he's a fucking psycho these are the kind of people that buy teslas but like and he acted so weird um and like three months later he got fired for sexual harassment i was like oh my god i knew this guy was a fucking creep wow i've narrowly escaped this man's tesla but he literally, and I like, once he got over 60, I was like, please stop.

Please slow down. Please don't do this. Because I started getting terrified. I'm pretty sure I told you all about this when it happened. Yeah, I do remember that, yeah. I think, yeah, I think you're saying something about it. I think Tesla guys are like the guys that like uh they have to have like pappy van winkle bourbon they have to you know what i mean like in the trunk right yeah it's

just like they have it's not because they like it they can tell a difference it's just like status markers for like the lamest people alive you know yeah Thank you. okay tesla's huh so awesome no when you dipped out I was telling Tom that uh my girl Ruby is approaching one year old and getting a little too smart she um she woke up yesterday limping and I do believe she was legit hurt she was limping pretty bad and i was panicked and i had her like laid up on the couch with her paw up and all this shit i couldn't find anything wrong with her paw there was no blood no swelling like i couldn't find anything on it she wouldn't let me touch it but then i finally let got her to let me soak it in some epsom salt water and i think that's what did it

whatever i think something was stuck in it or something you know how they're stuck and do uh-huh but she saw so she started feeling better when she hadn't she felt bad because she wasn't into nothing wasn't acting wild as shit like she does every day she was just laying on the couch couldn't she wouldn't walk around and do nothing she was barely moving but then she finally got the energy to go outside and walk around and i looked outside and she was limping classic classic put on and when she got back to the door i just thought she started feeling better after the epsom salt soak i thought that literally fixed it that was what it did i was almost took i almost took her to the vet but i just couldn't find anything actually wrong i was like am i just gonna take her in I thought that literally fixed it I almost took her to the vet

But I just couldn't find anything actually wrong I was like am I just going to take her in for a sore paw It's like a little bunch She was trying to get drugs She wanted you to take her to the vet So they would prescribe her pills I was going to go in there and see if they could give me Intermectin or whatever

What's your pain level Ten and a half But when she come back to the door as soon as i got to the door to let her in after she was running around fine outside she lifted that paw up she knew she'd get the royal treatment honey but you know what she she's this morning she just immediately come up raising pure hell and let me tell you all what she she's this morning she just immediately come up raising pure hell and let me tell you all what she's done this bitch has went up in the woods and found an old trash bag somewhere and she has been dragging trash into onto the porch that finally i picked

up and looked at a piece to when i threw it away kindle it it expired in 2012 a fucking chocolate pudding cup that expired 10 years ago what the fuck is was it intact yes a 10 year old chocolate pudding cup she's a drug out of the woods well in fairness that shit's probably shelf stable that'd probably be good for 20 more years yeah well yeah like i mean if you buy a pudding cup right now like it probably has like an expiration date of 2023 on it so it's probably even more than 20 years old that are 10 years old that was probably purchased more than 10 years ago i don't know where this trash is it's up in the woods somewhere she's found some fucking bear bear nest or something and is digging trash out 10 year old trash out

oh boy just doing her part to clean up the earth you know you said the ivermectin thing you know i guess a couple weeks ago like the big thing was you know whenever you know all the discourse about ivermectin or whatever and it reminded me of the time that Terrence and I were catching bats, and I thought that I needed a rabies shot. And when I called the Ohio Health Department, they actually suggested that I call a veterinarian because there was a rabies shot shortage of the human kind. So I just want to say

score at least one point for the you know. Well ain't ketamine an animal drug? It is. I mean pain pills they prescribe

the same shit to animals that they do for humans. And that's the same thing with ivermectin. Ivermectin is actually used all around the world by humans. I mean, it's like, I don't, like the doses that some of these people are taking it in, I don't think I would advise that. I wouldn't recommend taking anything you get at Frazier's Farmer's Supply. This from a man who's been deep in a K-hole.

Yeah, I'd have taken my fair share of ketamine for sure. I give the dogs half a Zyrtec for their allergies. Really? Yeah. I give my cat

children's Benadryl when she's being squirrely. We drug these children. Well, yeah, like Tom, for me and Tom to pull off the ultimate, someone needs to make an action heist movie about this, me and Tom trying to get his epileptic cat arrow from Weisberg to Lexington. But we had to. That's the biggest... God damn.

Y'all stressed me out just telling me about that. I swear to Christ. Or the day you found PB. You, the adventures of Tom and Terrence and Pussy are too much. Too much! There's no audience ready for that. Well, the medicine that they gave us to get Arrow, like, medically stable enough to transport her was, like, the same anti-epileptic medicine they give humans.

I mean, it's, we are mammals after all. I think it's the dosage amount that's different. So, like, a horse is a lot, has a lot more body mass than a human so like obviously you know you know i wouldn't recommend taking ivermectin even if you don't have uh even in a small amount but if you do have worms obviously it's not a bad idea it's a good way to get rid of worms but like kovat's not a worm i don't know a good way to get rid of worms. But, like, COVID's not a worm. I don't know where that came from. I don't know.

It was weird. I'm glad that that is over. It seems like that was a weird deal, though, for, like, three weeks there with people like, horse paste. That was a very polarizing discourse. Interestingly enough, the thing that divided us more than anything were were uh you know animal drugs who'd have thunk it who i'd like to know tell me this how many miles have you two driven where it was tom behind the wheel and terrence holding a cat wrapped in a blanket.

We went and saw the one, the creepy veterinarian. What was his name? I don't remember that guy's name. The guy that lived on that Christian compound? It was pretty creepy, though, for sure. Yeah. Well, they witnessed to us and asked us if we'd made a decision for Christ. Because they sensed you were together. Yeah. And then he like pasted arrow's belly up and he goes this could go one of two ways

and he looked at me said she could heal up and be fine or she could spill her guts all over the place and i was like oh my god he had no idea it's a very weird bedside manner you have sir remember when y'all caused a traffic jam and Tom Terrence got out of the car holding a little PB in a blanket, flipping people off? I don't remember that. I don't even remember this.

You don't remember when you found PB? I do, but I don't remember there being a traffic jam. Like, Tom had just stopped on the other side of the road and some dude in a big truck was blowing his horn and you got out there being a traffic jam. Like, Tom had just stopped on the other side of the road and some dude in a big truck was blowing his horn and you got out

with PB in a little blanket and your arms flipped him. Don't fuck with me. Don't fuck with me when I've got a cat in my arms. There's a kitten here buddy god damn it um speaking of bats covid no god etc there's um a story in newsweek that came out just yesterday.

The headline is very misleading. It says, Wuhan lab wanted to genetically enhance bat viruses to study human risks, documents show. Oh my God. So, I mean, you know, it seems to be implying, you know, the Wuhan lab theory that COVID originated there. But if you read deeper into the article. Certainly doing nothing to dispel it.

Right, exactly. If you read deeper into the article, though, there's something else going on that is not in the headline. And I'm indebted to the account at Gumby for Christ for this. Thank you, at Gumby for Christ. Great account. Great account, yes, for pointing this out. So let me just read the beginning of this a little bit. Less than two years before the COVID-19 pandemic began,

scientists at the Wuhan Institute of V virology planned to genetically alter viruses to make them more infectious for humans and release them into bat caves that's weird why why are they doing that what that's so weird why would a lab be doing that wow um oh well okay says right here um the wuhan scientists were listed as partners on a funding proposal the environmental health nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, which is a U.S. nonprofit, made to the U.S. government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, also known as DARPA.

Weird. Weird. That's so weird. Weird. The proposal promises to fuel the controversy around the Wuhan lab's role in the pandemic. Yeah, but not DARPA's role. That's weird. Yeah, I was like, rewind a little bit.

Yeah. Um, yeah, uh, so as Gumby for Christ points out, uh, there were six organizations involved in the proposal, including a U.S. government agency. The lead organization's main backers are the Pentagon and USAID. The proposal was submitted to DARPA, which was directly soliciting such proposals. Um, did you say, did you say USAID? Yeah, USAID, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. Yeah, CIA, CIA usa id yes usa yeah oh yeah yeah okay yeah yeah cia cia front yeah yeah um you know and again as they point out darpa turned down eco health psycho proposal but they

doled out millions under this grant program for what sounds like exactly the same type of work all around the world um and it you know lists some of the places that this money went to like autonomous therapeutics in california uh center for comparative medicine and the one health institute in university of california um institute pastor montana state university i mean like it's just i mean great i don't know what happened obviously none of us know what happened but like if this was the case if it was if a lab in wuhan was working on this this newsweek story itself just openly admits that it was working on it for darpa with a u.s government agency admits that it was working on it for DARPA with a U.S. government agency, but it doesn't put that in the headline. Right, right, right.

It makes it sound like it's some sort of conspiracy from Beijing or something. Exactly. You'd be hard-pressed to convince me at this point. Do what? You'd be hard-pressed to convince me at this point that anything bad that happens on this planet that doesn't involve the u.s in some way well i'll be honest with you in to the degree that there's any validity to the savannah syndrome stuff it's a pittance compared to what they deserve it's like you get like you destabilize half the world

you lead multiple genocides uh extrajudicial killings uh global pandemics whatever the fuck else they got their hand in and and in return all you get is a case of tinnitus i'd say that's pretty good trade-off i know y'all have tried to explain this to me before but given the recent congress vote i i i could use another intro to what the fuck this is or at least what they think it is because i still do not understand it's so someone pointed this out the other day um what it is is um there's a new yorker thing about it um but what it is is like all these people who work for the government are saying that like while working at the embassy in cuba china or russia like all the big scary U.S. bad guys. They started having migraines, inner ear swelling, dizziness, stuff like that. Someone pointed out that basically what they're describing is,

and I don't know how to pronounce this, it's called Meniere's disease. Meniere's disease, yeah. Right. It's a disorder of the inner ear that is characterized by episodes of vertigo, tinnitus, hearing loss, and a fullness in the ear. It's been, like, people have known about this since the 19th century. It's not new. But, yeah, I mean, like, there could be,

I think there's several different explanations for it. One of it could be mass hysteria. It could be... My vote. Yeah, I mean, it could be real. Like, it could... Maybe these powers do... Maybe these governments do have the power to, you know,

induce these symptoms with some kind of... Yeah, the Havana gun. Well, okay, So they think that these governments are doing, or they're trying to say that these governments are doing something specifically to give them a disease? Yeah, that's correct.

And it just so happens to be the three or four countries that they want to demonize the most pretty much i mean it's not like power right like it's not like they're picking it up in the sudan you know like yeah it's it's interesting that it's just um the notoriously uh sterling word of cia spooks and it just so happens to be the handful of countries frequently mentioned in things like the axis of evil the perestroika of terror among other titles you know so what did they actually vote on? Like, basically workman's comp. That's basically what it is. It's like a workman's comp thing.

Workman's comp for spooks. Hey, actually, I could sign up for that. Why? Are you a spook? Are you a spy? What the fuck? You should have something you want to tell us 200-something episodes in here. Wait, does spook means spook. It does. My bad.

Well, okay. So speaking of US government speaking of Havana speaking of US government workers did you guys see this thing about the special envoy to Haiti, Ambassador Daniel

Foote, resigning? No. He wrote a letter about it. I thought the letter was fascinating. He wrote it to Antony Blinken, Secretary of State. It says, Dear Secretary Blinken, With deep disappointment and apologies to those

seeking crucial changes, I resign from my position as special envoy for Haiti, effective immediately. I will not be associated with the United States' inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants to Haiti, a country where American officials are confined to secure compounds because of the danger posed by armed gangs in control of daily life. Our policy approach to haiti remains deeply flawed and my recommendation have been ignored and dismissed when not edited to project a narrative different from my own um blah blah blah basically he talks about uh you

know the u.s i mean i could keep reading here he says the people of haiti mired in poverty hostage to the terror, kidnappings, robberies, and massacres of armed gangs, and suffering under a corrupt government with gang alliances simply cannot support the forced infusion of thousands of returned migrants lacking food, shelter, and money. I'm trying to find it in this, but basically what he's saying is, like,

the U.S. government just hand hand picks and props up these haitian governments and then creates the very conditions that like drive them to uh seek refuge in america and then you know we chase them down on horses at the border um and i just thought that was a fascinating thing like that's going on under um it's good that that's going on under biden you know you don't see anything about that really there was uh another something interesting about that this week about the immigrant issue because you know that was the thing that you know you heard so much during the campaign kids in cages etc yeah um and more recently uh kamala saying do not come do not come here right you saw the thing going around where i think it was said in four years trump deported 440 000 people and biden is what in year one hasn't even made it through year one yeah i was already up to almost 700 000 yes i

was trying to find that but that's exactly correct um trump invoked title 42 citing covid 19 but health experts say it has no medical basis um he used title 42 to expel asylum seekers without their right to hearings um trump deported 444 000 people and biden it is yeah close to 700 000 people um and that yeah that's not even in granted the title 42 thing began at covid so it was going on for close to a year but the biden thing hasn't even been going on that long and he's almost managed to double it build back better oh baby fucking crazy oh man it it is truly sadistic the haiti situation did you know that like haiti still pays france money to recognize their independence every year that's true really sick yeah they yeah they i think the agreement they

came up with was when when did haiti declare independence that's what we need somebody right at the ready for a number crunch well it was so there were i guess it's the early 1800s i guess is when the modern haitian state created. Like 1825. Right, right. Yeah. Because they sent Napoleon to take it back, and he got his shit kicked in. Yeah, basically,

the agreement was that the newly formed Haitian government would pay the French government and French slaveholders the modern equivalent of $21 billion for claiming slave owners' property and the land they had turned into profitable sugar and coffee-producing plantations. This independence debt was financed by French banks and the American Citibank and finally paid off in 1947. But later, the corrupt Duvalier family, that's Papa Doc, added to the country's debts and is believed to have used their money to expand their power and for their personal benefits.

In the early 21st century, and especially after the devastating earthquake in 2010, the World Bank and some other governments forgave the remaining parts of Haiti's debt. France forgave a more recent loan with a balance of U.S. $77 million, but has refused to consider repaying the independence debt. That's what I was about to say. Can you imagine this, like, hurricane-ripped country scraping together money to send to fucking France? That's fucking

sadistic. Yeah. So, anyway, basically, France refuses to pay Haiti back $21 billion that Haiti gave to slave owners. I think it was up until fairly recently. So I guess, I don't know if they still pay them money.

But yeah. Papa Doc. Known friend of the U.S. Nah, it's true. he loved him wow pretty crazy um yeah anyway so that's that's yeah french it's not it's not all great with them back to freedom fries am i right it's not it's not all storming the bastille oh man oh hell um so well anyways i mean i thought that was just interesting it's not very often you see like a u.s official resign in like a fit of um you know conscience like i mean obviously there was all those like rogue

accounts after trump got elected and stuff but i just think it's fascinating you rarely see that like when a liberal is in in power um other than like maybe edward snowden or something but like that's a whole different thing and a whole different can of worms who the fuck even knows anything about him but but i don't know it's just i just i just thought that was interesting not often you see that yeah it's uh yeah usually uh yeah if you get into government at this level especially under biden you would think that yeah it's kind of a rare a rare showing of some moral courage from one of these guys. Right. Well, okay.

Last thing I wanted to hit today. There's a story I thought was interesting. Not a story. It's like an op-ed. I don't know. Is it a column? Is it that Lil Nas X covered Jolene? Is it what? What did you say? That Lil Nas X covered Jolene? Is it what? What'd you say?

That little Nas X covered Jolene. Is that what you found interesting? Oh my god. Did he really? Yeah, just a troll, Tom. I saw that. People are giving me hell. Tanya with the interesting.

Tom said he was not interesting. Very, very interesting that he covered the most covered song of all time. Oh, God. Well, you know, there was that like, I feel like there was a, I don't know if you call it

conspiracy theory, but there was this thing maybe like 10 years ago like a book came out it might have been like john ronson or somebody who who had that whole thing that was like talking about how you know tech companies monitor the things you listen to like the algorithms and everything on your phone and so that when you go into a grocery store they'll play what you like and so that that way you'll be more amenable to buying things you know what i mean like you'll feel happier in the grocery store and then you'll want to buy things don't tell me this i can't handle it you walk into ride aid and hear a deep cut from one of your spotify playlists that's no accident yeah right my friend has been staying with me and it's literally getting ads for shit that i buy on

their instagram because they're on my wi-fi oh shit and shit that my ex would buy not even me they're getting ads for shit my ex bought over a year ago yeah you want to talk about hauntings like that like we do have ghosts all around us they are the algorithms basically truly oh god yeah yeah it's no longer uh so you think that little mozix covered joelene just for me is that what you're saying or for tom or tom no i think well i mean one thing is is that no i think well i mean one thing is is that he's not a bad singer but he's certainly not a good singer and jolene's like come on other than like hallelujah by jeff beck it's like the most covered song and ever is it it's i can't even think of many other covers of jolene maybe two others it's uh miley cyrus but you know that's dolly's goddaughter yeah that's his connection to dolly covers of Jolene. Maybe two others. It's Miley Cyrus,

but that's Dolly's goddaughter. Yeah, that's his connection to Dolly, or the Cyrus's. Yeah, no, there's plenty of covers of Jolene. Okay, I want to talk about this. No, it's not going to be Lil Nas X. I want to talk about this opinion

thing I saw in The Guardian, because it's got the funniest fucking like formulation of politics i've seen so it's it's written by this guy named um george monbiot i don't know how to say his last name or monbiot i mean he he's probably familiar to listeners of a certain generation. Like, he's, like, one of these, he's kind of like Naomi Klein. He was big in the sort of Gen X lefty world, you know? Yeah, yeah. More like, you know, niche causes like environmentalism, animals rights, stuff like that.

Like, he describes himself as, like not a marxist or an anarchist like he criticizes marxism and anarchism um arguing that any possible solution to the world's inequalities must be rooted in a democratic parliamentary system whatever the fuck that means i don't know um but he's like i don't know he's british and he's just like one of those gen x like sort of environmental activists who's kind of got like vague lefty politics. Okay, yeah. So he wrote this article in The Guardian.

My friend Jack sent this to me, shout out. It says, It's shocking to see so many left-wingers lured to the far right by conspiracy theories. So here we go. It's an uncomfortable thing to admit, but in the countercultural movements where my sympathies lie, people are dropping like flies. Every few days I hear of another acquaintance who has become seriously ill with COVID after proudly proclaiming the benefits of natural immunity, denouncing vaccines and refusing to take the precautions that apply to lesser mortals. Some have been

hospitalized. Within these circles, which have for so long sought to cultivate a good society, there are people actively threatening the lives of others. It's not just anti-vax beliefs that have been spreading through these movements. On an almost daily basis, I see conspiracy theories traveling smoothly from left to right to left. I hate it when conspiracy theories travel smoothly from right to left. I hate that. Classic mobility of conspiracies thing that I hate all the time. I hear right on people mouthing the claims of white supremacists apparently in total ignorance of their origins okay uh i encounter hippies who

once sought to build a community sharing the memes of extreme individualism but like i've got some bad news for you about the hippies man yeah that's so that's if that's if that's who you consider paragons of like they got it right you're in bad shape my man right um something has gone badly wrong in parts of the alternative scene um the alternative what can i ask a question what the fuck does alternative mean well it's fascinating like it does offer a very fascinating look into the sort of psychology or the mindset the worldview of a of a lefty of like a specific age you know like that it was considered subculture or like counterculture in the 90s even though it wasn't by the 90s it was mainstream you know like yeah i don't know alternative mean goth

he's yes the goth scene yes you remember like when you're growing up in like the late 90s it's like alternative rock it was like alanis morissette yeah what do you mean by like nirvana like what are you talking about right who sold more records than nirvana you know what i mean how's that alternative it was mainstream nothing it was certainly mainstream by the 90s that there's no doubt about that i mean you even look at like the people and ideas behind silicon alley like we did that episode about bleeding edge like the silicon alley 1990s scene like these were all like john perry barlow like all of the early entrepreneurs behind the internet and startup industry they were all quote-unquote hippies but it was all mainstream by this point billions of

dollars of capital behind it anyways burning man Burning man, you know? Like, whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There has long been an overlap between certain New Age and far-right ideas. I mean, I won't disagree there. The Nazis embraced astrology, pagan festivals,

organic farming, forest conservation, ecological education, and nature worship goth they promoted homeopathy and nature natural healing intended to resist vaccination dude okay there there was a hilarious like jack of an article like two weeks ago that was like you know who also opposed vaccinations the third reich we should be aware of this history but without indulging what simon shama calls the obscene syllogism the idea that because the nazis promoted new age beliefs alternative medicine and ecological protection anyone who does so is a nazi in the 1960s and 70s, European fascists sought to reinvent themselves using themes developed by revolutionary anarchists.

They found fertile ground in parts of the anarcho-primitivist and deep ecology movements, which they tried to steer towards notions of ethnic separatism and indigenous autonomy. notions of ethnic separatism and indigenous autonomy and we've talked about this before you know like the overlap of like eugenics and environmentalism and stuff you know like environmentalism yeah this is well-trod territory for long-time listeners yeah right but much of what we are seeing at the moment is new this sentence is hilarious a few years ago dreadlocked hippies spreading QAnon lies and muttering about a conspiracy against Donald Trump would have seemed unthinkable.

Like, what? But wait, there's more. I think this is a Mandela effect thing because the QAnon shaman was, in fact, bald. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. And, you know, I'm just saying. He's kind of the poster boy for, like, the sort of, like, Q hippie.

And he did not have dreads. Just a point of order there. Right. But it is also fascinating because have you not spent any time all around dreadlocked hippies? Like, of course some of them are going to be spreading quote-unquote QAnon lies, which I don't even know how you define that. Like, what is a QAnon lie? Like, some of the things QAnon talks about are incoherent. Some of them are lies, but then some of them are true

in the sense that, like, conspiracies go on that go on at the state of at this sort of level of high government so like yeah i don't i don't know even in my even in my mountain justice days there were dreadlocked hippies talking crazy nonsense i couldn't even i mean about, about, God only knows. What at, Tanya? You cut out for a second. Even at what? Mountain Justice.

That Mountain, it was like Mountain Justice gatherings and shit. And that was what, 15 years ago? Right. I wouldn't say that they even have a coherent, like most hippies who wear, who have like dreadlocks and stuff, like I would say that they just kind of have maybe, like, a vaguely anti-authority sort of, like, ideology or worldview. But most of them are probably, I don't want to say most. I hate to generalize. But, like, you know, a not insignificant portion of them are, like, trust fund kids too so like yeah it's like i think the only through i think the

only like vast commonality is just like bad hygiene and drug use there's not much people with white dreads there's no i mean they're they're not that you know there's a diversity of opinion amongst the hippie crowd exactly that's what i'm saying like you can't look at one of these fools and know their ideology, know their value system. You only know that they do drugs and they stink. These are not,

these aren't universal truths about anything else. Well, it does, again, it kind of offers an interesting insight into the way this author sees the world. Like, to him, dreadlocked hippies was like a, and it would make sense

if you were sort of acculturated in the sort of like world of the left in the 80s and 90s. To him, that was the marker of like the quote unquote alternative left. You know what I'm saying? Because there was no organized left in the United States. The third way in Clintonism was ascendant. The Soviet Union had been defeated, etc. was ascendant the soviet union had been defeated etc and so like i i could i can see why he would think that like the subculture of like hippies and stuff was like the fertile ground for like leftist ideas even though we now see that as complete bullshit yeah yeah silly um yeah and

you know i mean the other thing to that too it's like you know we were i was uh texting you some of those pictures of like uh the great speckled bird which was that like counterculture magazine out of atlanta from the 60s and 70s i think even into the 80s and it's like there was at a certain point sort of a melding of like countercultural ideas with like like kind of pro-labor new left kind of stuff and i could see how if you're somebody like of this guy's generation how like kind of pro-labor new left kind of stuff and i can see how if you're somebody like of this guy's generation how you kind of think like those are part and parcel but i really don't think that there's much overlap with the labor movement and like the sort of like people that are like countercultural revivalists or anything like that i could be wrong i don't know

but that's just my sense of it. Well, no, I agree. I mean, it's weird. It gets kind of buried in the discourse, but there were several countercultures, one of which was this back-to-the-land communalist movement. And again, we talked about this in the episode about Bleeding Edge with Jimmy and Dimitri. But it's like, it was this,

it gets back to the sort of land communalist movement that was sort of motivated by individualism and that all of those people eventually went to go work for early internet entrepreneurs, you know? I mean, there was nothing inherently anti-establishment about it. Let me throw you out a couple of hippie companies that came out of that. Apple, Nike, Ben & Jerry's, who's kind of under fire right now for having distribution in the West Bank.

You know what I mean? Right. What do you mean for distribution? They sort of became titans of industry in a lot of ways. What's Ben & Jerry's doing on the West Bank? Huh? What'd you say, Tonya? Shit, can y'all not hear me?

Yeah, I can hear you now. I can hear you now. What's Ben and Jerry's doing in the West Bank? Talking about Gaza? I think they stopped selling in the West Bank, and it pissed Israelis off. Oh. Maybe.

Yeah, in any case, yeah, it's like, when I think of all the people who become tech utopian people, I think of Steve Jobs, to some degree, utopian people think of like steve jobs to some degree feel not of nike and other things you know so that's like that to me that kind of that that's kind of the rub with like that sort of strain of hippieism you know what i mean it's like they went on to just again be these sort of titans of industry that you know immiserate people in places like china and yeah you know different places it is one of the most successful lies of our time that there

was something inherently or intrinsically political about the counterculture um and it's also interesting that a lot of these guys like we talked about Stuart Brand in that episode too like they thought that the internet was like LSD in the sense that they thought that it revealed the sort of hidden patterns behind the universe I don't know fast forward like

four years. That's some of that witchcraft you're talking about Tom. Yeah I mean there is an element of that for sure let's see anyways a few years ago dreadlocked hippies spreading q anon lies and muttering about a conspiracy against donald trump would have seemed unthinkable today the old boundaries have broken down and the most unlikely people have become susceptible to right-wing extremism the anti-vaccine movement

is a highly effective channel for the penetration of far-right ideas into left-wing extremism. The anti-vaccine movement is a highly effective channel for the penetration of far-right ideas into left-wing countercultures. For several years, anti-vax has straddled the green left and the far right. Trump flirted with it, at one point inviting the anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to chair a commission on vaccination safety and scientific integrity. Again, I don't know that's weird history because trump also started the vaccine thing with operation warp speed you know what i'm saying so like yeah i don't i don't know um anti-vax beliefs overlap strongly with a susceptibility to conspiracy theories this This tendency has been reinforced by

Facebook algorithms directing vaccine-hesitant people towards far-right conspiracy groups. Ancient links between wellness movements and anti-Semitic paranoia have in some cases been re-established. The notion of the quote-unquote sovereign body, untainted by chemical contamination, has begun to fuse with the fear that a shadowy cabal is trying to deprive us of autonomy there's a temptation to overthink this and we should never discount the role of sheer bloody idiot idiocy um i was i was reading something about uh carlos the jackal you know like later on he well he's still alive but he married that french lawyer i forgot what her name was and i was like reading about them i was like well i don't really know much about carlos the jackal other

than that miniseries but i think me and you watched it one time terence when you're living yeah um but there was an uh an article from his wife who again was a french lawyer i think they met when she was like taking his case or something like that. And she went on a rant about if the Jews were taking the vaccine or whatever. It was just fucking batshit crazy.

Well, listen to this. This is... Where he goes with this is pretty funny. But you gotta hang with it for a second. Some anti-vaxxers are now calling themselves, quote-unquote, purebloods, a term that should send a chill through anyone even vaguely acquainted with 20th century history. In their defense, however, if they can't even get Harry Potter right, purebloods is what the bad guys call themselves,

we can't expect them to detect an echo of the Nuremberg laws. I believe this synthesis of left alternative and right wing cultures has been accelerated by despondency, confusion, and betrayal. After leftish political parties fell into line with corporate

power, the right seized the language they had abandoned. Steve Bannon and Dominic Cummings brilliantly repurposed the left-wing themes of resisting elite power and regaining control of our lives. Now there has been an almost perfect language swap. Parties that once belonged on the left talk about security and stability, while those on the right talk of liberation and revolt.

I won't argue with them. I just want to say something. I just want to say something i feel like that is a little stupid like ronald reagan said what the scariest words are i'm the government and i'm here to help you like right wingers have been saying that shit forever that didn't start with trump and fucking steve bannon that's true that is true but i do think there is something to the idea, and you mentioned it in that Frederick Jameson quote that you sent me the other day, Tom,

that the rise in QAnon and these sort of like militant right-wing groups is kind of a corollary or it is a result of the sort of disorganization of the working class and the failure of the left. I mean, the exact quote you sent me says, historical events, however, are not punctual, but extend in a before and after of time which only gradually reveal themselves.

It has, to be sure, been pointed out the Americans created bin Laden during the Cold War, and in particular during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, and that this is therefore a textbook example of dialectical reversal. But the seeds of the event are buried deeper than that. They are to be found in the wholesale massacres of the left, systematically encouraged and directed by the Americans in an even earlier period. The physical extermination of the Iraqi and Indonesian communist parties, although now historically repressed and forgotten,

were crimes as abominable as any contemporary genocide. It is, however, only now that the results are working their way out into actuality. For the resultant absence of any left alternative means that popular revolt and resistance in the third world have nowhere to go but into religious and fundamentalist forms. I think he wrote that, like, maybe 15 years ago, but it is just as true about America. Right after 9-11 right right it is just as true about america now that like i mean like you know there's a reason why they're why they're storming the fucking congress building and we're sitting on the sidelines i mean like

right i don't know it's pretty fucking scary um more than anything, it's just depressing. I want to be fucking storming the Congress. Parody, a parody, but, you know. Yeah, they're living our dreams awake. You know, and it's funny because there's a lot of people on the left that, again, like we've talked about before on this, that just absolutely are terrified of that notion of, like, taking the Capitol building or whatever. are terrified of that notion of like taking the Capitol building or whatever yeah and I'm not like advocating for like adventurism or for people to like unilateral unilaterally act dumb stuff yeah right but I'm just saying that it does let's be clear that's what that's what this bunch did too totally totally but it does seem like they um they not only have like a historical sort of impetus behind them now or

sort of like momentum but i don't know i don't know it's just interesting but largely there because of uh sort of um yeah you know i think for all the blustering that, you know, liberals do and people that are, you know, concerned about the QAnon scourge and, you know, the sort of, you know, so-called epistemological crisis and like the sort of like threats to our democracy and all this stuff. Well, like you should have thought about that when you've been telling lies about this country and its founding for 300 goddamn years on right you know what i mean like you could have rooted that out if uh if you would have uh you know uh like told the truth about slavery for example you know or i think that you can trace a lot the lineage of some of this QAnon stuff goes back to JFK in World War II. Like the fact that they've like they've latched on to JFK Jr. as like the savior who's going to basically rise from the dead.

I mean, yeah, that's fascinating. Or Trump sort of winking to that with like inviting Bobby Kennedy or whatever. Right, right, right. I mean, to me, it shows that like they don't have a particular attachment to the Republican Party per se, but that they have a larger critique of power, that there is like a deeper state working behind the scenes, taking out people like John F. Kennedy. Or, I mean, if you really dig into, like, the theories behind John F. Kennedy, like, you know, one of the big ones, like, you know, sort of pushed by, like, May Brussel and other people

is that, like, this has its basis in, like, the CIA using the Nazi intelligence apparatus after World War II, whole cloth. Literally the Galen organization. Taking the head of Nazi intelligence, incorporating him into the CIA apparatus, and then just using that to fuel the next 60 years of anti-communist meddling and government toppling around the world. I mean, the QAnon anon that's not that's not even anything controversial no that curtis deals with that in in that last documentary no

no no that yeah that's not even that's just yeah that's not even fact yeah exactly that just literally happened and i think the q and i don't know if they would be able to articulate it that like succinctly or or clearly but i think that what they get at kind of does hint at that history and like when you say like the lies we tell about ourselves like that is a fundamental lie we tell about ourselves like oh the nazis used our policies in the west against the native americans and then we incorporated them back into our government like that's seems kind of fundamental and we don't talk about it gee i wonder why this is happening now i don't know

yeah we we became the nazis that's something that nobody wants to talk about yeah well we were the nazis had a brief moment of like maybe we're not and then we're like nah now we are maybe we're not the baddies. Again, you'd be hard pressed to convince me there's anything bad that has ever went on on this planet, at least now, that we don't have a hand in.

Yeah. So, let's see. We are the axis of evil. We are, definitely. It's us. Okay. So how do we navigate this? How do we remain true to our countercultural roots

while resisting the counterculture of the right? There's a sound hippie principle that we should strive to apply. Balance. Oh, boy. I don't mean the compromised, submissive doctrine that calls itself centrism, which leads inexorably towards extreme outcomes, such as the Iraq War, endless economic growth, and ecological disaster. Right, yeah, like, it's centrism that leads to endless economic growth, for sure.

Yeah. I mean the balance between competing values in which true radicalism is to be found. Reason and warmth, empiricism and empathy, liberty and consideration. It is this balance that defends us from co-option and extremism. Now here's the money shot. Here we go. While we might seek simplicity, we need also to recognize that the human body, human society, and the natural world are phenomenally complex and cannot be easily understood. Life is messy. Bodily and spiritual sovereignty are illusions.

There is no pure essence. We are all mudbloods. What? What? what um enlightenment of any kind is possible only through long and determined engagement with other people's findings and other people's ideas self-realization requires constant self-questioning true freedom and virgins from respect for other people i mean just like also also like how many like just to sort of break that down a little bit, like, just sort of a little more granularly, how many times have you heard of, like, the justification of, like, the CIA or, like, any sort of, like, intelligence apparatus thing, law enforcement agency, FBI, whatever,

as, well, the world is messier than you would like it to be. Right. Like, I've heard that as, like, a defense of, like, Obama's activities with, like, drones and stuff. Well, the world's messier than, like like all these idealists want it to be. Right. To the degree that that is like sort of a truism. Like we've had no small hand in making it so, you know?

Right. Definitely. Yeah. Life is messy. I hear every time somebody like, somebody floats floats the idea of disbanding the CIA, all of them are like, well, the world's messier than you would like to think it is. Yeah, no, I think the world would be a demonstrably better place if the CIA and the other 15 or 16 intelligence agencies of the United States government went away.

It would be a literally better place. One million percent. And imagine people's quality of life if that money were delegated correctly. The difference in quality of life, like no homelessness, free healthcare across the world. Yeah.

Well, Georges Monbiot, I don't know how to fucking say his last name, but get with the times, bro. Gonna have to give this one about two and a half Pinocchios. That's just me shooting from the hip, though. Well, all right. I don't have anything else. We're at well over an hour. Thanks for listening today. Sorry we lost the internet connection halfway through,

but we're working on it. You guys have anything before we sign off? I have my new season of My Pod is out, my little pleasure pod. Came out on the full moon happy fall um and my heritage oh my god is it wild downtown it sucks ass it sucks really bad yeah godspeed parents sorry about that i'm not leaving i'm not i'm not coming downtown this weekend i don't recommend it i mean i i would love to follow my nose to a funnel cake, but... What did you say?

You cut out a second. What did you say? That I would love to follow my nose to a funnel cake, but I don't think the risk is worth it. But yeah, I have my new seasons out, and I've opened my tarot bookings back up for the fall and winter. So you can get all that at heytea.com. Hell yeah. Well, you cut out again, but I'm assuming you're plugging your Patreon. It'll be on your...

Yeah, it'll be on my end, I reckon. All right. All right, everybody. Well, thanks for listening. Go check out our Patreon as well. All right, everybody. Well, thanks for listening. Go check out our Patreon as well.

Go pay for our Patreon so we can buy a satellite so we can actually communicate with each other. Yeah. Yeah, send up smoke signals and interpret that into podcast. All right. Thanks for listening this week. Go check out our Patreon. We will see you there on Sunday. Bye-bye.