Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 253: Comfort Zone To Danger Zone

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

A little talk about Top Gun and the Profiles in Cancelled Courage, followed by an extended discussion about the latest nonprofit article making the rounds Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

I never knew the lyrics to Danger Zone until just now. Revin' up your engine, listen to her howl and roar. Metal under tension, begging you to touch and go. Cademan's Call. The Cademan's Call version right there. Revin' up your engine, listen to her howl and roar. Metal under tension. Someone should do that. Doing Highway to the Danger Zone in like a

major key. It just doesn't hit the same though. Why is it in It's an interesting song. Let's pull back the layers of that song. How do the lyrics go? Rev it up your engine, listen to a howling roar. It's not a freeway.

It's not a back road. Why do you do back road to the danger zone? Access road to the danger zone. I mean, the meaning is that you're getting to the danger zone? Access road to the danger zone. I mean, the meaning is that you're getting to the danger zone as fast as possible. Right. That's the whole. You can't wait one more second to be in the safe zone. Like you can't be in the safe zone any longer.

You have to get to the danger zone as quickly as possible. Because you're one bad dude. Did you like Maverick? Maybe y'all talked about this in my absence. No, because I saw it on Monday. The best part was I saw it at Norton. You know that thing at the beginning of the movie where Tom Cruise comes on screen and he's like,

we made this for you. We made this for, you know, all the stunts you see, et cetera, et cetera. He's like, we made this for you. We made this for, you know, all the stunts you see, et cetera, et cetera. He's like, we made this for you. And it got quiet. And like, there was only two other people in the theater and it was this old couple, probably in their seventies and like the front row, the top part.

And after he said, we made this for you, it got quiet and the guy goes, thank you. Oh man. Tom Cruise, is he something of a national hero, I guess, now? I guess so. Thank you.

Thank you for your pretend service. It's such a weird time for the movie to come out, right? It's like, it comes out in the middle of these hearings on january 6th you know at the same time that record high inflation is like hitting the u.s it's such a weird movie to come out like right now it is it's like you know i like how they did they did toe the line

as to who the enemy was There was no like real illusions Except for it was in the desert Right Not really even though I guess was it What was it I guess it was more like

Soviet Wintery Leaning It was It kind of had like a Siberian look to it Yeah I guess I just thought that Because they were training there But like really when they flew the mission It was like a siberian look to it yeah i guess i just thought that because they were

training there but like really when they flew the mission it was like a little siberia that was the thing about the movie that like their training area is an exact replica of their target site like what are the odds yeah the thing is though though, this movie does not take place on any earth that we know. No, no. It's a, dude, it's a very disembodied movie. I was very creeped out the whole movie. It's, like, lonely as fuck. Like, Maverick, like, I think Miles Teller even tells him at one point that, like, you're

just, you're just fucking old and washed up. You don't have anybody to take care of you you have no family like no i mean in fairness though he doesn't really need anybody to take care of you looks great you're right what what an existence though i mean it is a certain kind of hell to be as good looking as tom cruise is at that age but to have no one like doesn't even have any friends his only friend he basically killed you know yeah no family his other friends getting ready to die val kilmer had the top time yeah you're right that's you're right well dude that's the thing that's what it felt like it felt disembodied and eerie. It felt like a Gnostic text.

I mean, everybody's trying to like communicate with each other, but through water or something. It was just very ghostly or something. Yeah. For me, that was my interpretation of it. ghostly or something yeah for me that was my interpretation of it i was just very disturbed by how a lonely how much of a lonely movie it is i also liked how that you could run uh like a little shitty bar yeah at a place but still afford a mint condition porsche and whatever kind of motorcycle they had it was just no that's the thing the details like the small details about it like

this isn't realism obviously right this is not describing a world that any of us are familiar with right yeah it describes a world that precisely none of us are familiar with none of us have lived in this world was was this the movie that was the subject of tom cruise getting down everybody's throat about cova and stuff i think so because they delayed this movie for two years it's supposed to come out 2020 all right but i think he needed it to be seen in movie theaters and i respect that right yeah yeah it doesn't to me though that artistic vision does not necessarily make it a good movie to me that makes it makes it a very strange movie how are you rating it well like so i out of five stars i I would give it a three. It wasn't like a bad movie, but it was pretty good. It was entertaining.

I wasn't bored ever. It was surprisingly not that cringe. I thought it was going to be very cringe, but it wasn't. Obviously, it's propaganda, right? Right. right right but at the same time it was propaganda as interpreted by the loneliest man in the world you think tom cruise like the actual tom cruise is lonely i think he's the loneliest man in the world like i said he's he's like that good he has no one. You think he has no one?

I don't know. I guess he's got that cousin that was in those movies. You would immediately recognize his cousin if you saw him. Who's his cousin? He's in all kinds of movies. He's from Louisville. Did you know that, Tom Cruise? Yeah, his parents are from Louisville, yeah. That's so weird.

Tom Cruise cousin. Tom Cruise cousin. You recognize him. He's been in a lot of movies. He looks like a more fucked up version of Tom Cruise, but he's funny. You can tell he's funny. Tom Cruise never had to be funny.

You know what I mean? Yeah, that's true. He's always like a hot guy yeah well too yeah i guess tom cruise is weird and that he's like still kind of the ultimate movie star though yeah you know no i gotta hand it to him look i'm i i respect the craft i see someone's craft and i respect it William You know this about me William Maypother William

Maypother I've never known how to say Their family name Even though they're a Kentucky family I'm on record He does He does He does kinda look like

A fucked up Tom Cruise Tom Cruise yeah But he's funny You can tell Oh yeah You'd have to be with that face So I guess he's funny, you can tell. Oh, yeah, you'd have to be with that face. Mm-hmm. So I guess he's got that guy.

Yeah. And he's got kids and stuff. I mean, listen, I don't condone Scientology, but, I mean. Mm-hmm. The results speak for themselves. I mean, will you be lonely and alienated from your family and whatnot because you've devoted most of your life to a cult for decades? Sure, but... This raises an interesting...

You look great. No, no, you're right. It raises an interesting question. Can you separate the art from the massive secretive cult backing the artist? the massive secretive cult backing the artist oh man that's that's where that's something we're gonna chew on a little bit more no i mean i i uh well i mean results may vary though because look at will smith he doesn't look like he's having much fun these days i don't know yeah you're probably right see i mean i don't know maybe that's why i did the thing is

the thing about scientology could you imagine being one of those guys now because like are young actors getting into scientology that's got to be like i think everybody's like i feel like that was like a 70s 80s 90s thing yeah they've definitely peaked by that particularly with like all like the weird stuff about like people disappearing and shit like that. I really think that, could you imagine being an actor now, like a closeted gay actor now, of that generation, and looking at this new generation, just like, god damn it. Like, I joined this cult so that no one would ever find out. And they just come out and say it? Yeah.

I could have saved 40 good years of my mental state money. Because that's got to be their MO, right? I feel like they find something about you and they basically blackmail you. Say like, if you don't join our organization, we're going to leak this to the public. Scientology really is the danger zone.

Who's the muscle behind Scientology? Yeah, you're right. Who's enforcing the rules in Scientology? They just got like a bunch of bad dudes that no one ever sees. When you stray away, they just come and bring you back in? They have a stable of

bad dudes like okay i like i get that like part of joining a cult has been indoctrinated and brainwashed and what have you but like and i'm not going to say like i'm too smart for that right because like people way smarter than i ever thought about being a joint cult and stuff. But like when you get little inklings of something's not right here. Mm-hmm. Like what is the binding force that keeps you around? The blackmail they have on you. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fear.

About your 17-year-old girlfriend. Yeah, fear and shame. Yeah. Those are the things. Powerful motivators, I have to say. And they eat you alive over time. Yeah. I mean.

Well, so I don't know. It was, again, it was a fine movie. I enjoyed it. I would even venture to say that it was good. There were parts that I zoned out a little bit, but for the most part, dude, I did zone out during multiple previews. Like, I never,

who the fuck zones out in a preview? Like, they're specifically designed to hold your attention. To suck you in, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like the Buzz Lightyear preview, I literally zoned out. I just lost like five minutes. I don't remember yeah i mean

there's nothing in it that's maybe they're not trying anymore because they don't really have to yeah i don't think so buzz lightyear is gonna do 200 million box office it's fine whatever cinema's dead baby yeah oh man you see where matt taib he's doing and i for some reason i still get his emails but he's doing a series called meet the censored where he's profiling everybody that that the intolerant left's trying to zip up. Damn. Let's get censored. Let's get canceled, and we'll go undercover into that. This will be, all right, this is a fun fan.

This is a fun fan collaboration. You're going to cancel us, and then we're going to go on the matt taibbi the sensor yeah we're just yeah yeah listen they weren't ready for some of the inconvenient truths we're putting out there matt well apparently all you got to do is suggest that 50 000 children should dress up as sperm and run around a baseball field chasing an egg. And they lose their mind.

He's like, so you're telling me that... He kind of sounds like Don Draper. You're telling me that you proposed dressing 50,000 children up at a baseball game. And at the very end we go... And at the very end we tell him actually we're not canceled we got you bitch yeah you just you just profiled the uncensored you

and that's the damn truth you platformed the uncensored dude we're not canceling it was all a ruse where did we get money to start a baseball team and get 50 000 children come on matt to make it believable you and i would have to like, you know, at the beginning of The Departed where they like set Leo up for a crime to make him look, you know, like he's not a cop. Right. Like it's so that he can go undercover. He needs street cred. So you and I are going to have to do at least a solid one or two years of just living on the streets, not podcasting.

Living on the streets, not podcasting. Really commit to get profiled by Matt Taibbi's sub stack in a 12-minute audio piece. Oh, man. And at the end of it all, just, you fell into our trap, Mr. Taibbi. We got you good, fucker. You walked right into it. Today's, in today's edition of Meet the Censored, he interviews Kara Dansky, who's the feminist author of The Abolition of Sex. Uh-huh. of sex has become the ultimate example of a new propaganda phenomenon,

which denounces leftists as right-wing when they say unpopular things. So wait, the book was called The Abolition of Sex? Yeah, that's the unpopular thing. People are like, boo! Yeah, there's not a lot of things that'll probably get you shouted out of a room now but the proposing demolished sex is is one of just a handful that will oh boy what was her deal what? What was the overall message? I didn't get into it.

I just think it's funny he's doing a series called Meet the Censored. I mean, dude, it's rough out there. From one content creator to the other, you're constantly looking for new segments, and he's just making content just like anybody else. Just like anybody else, man. Just reaching for it all the time. Just reaching for it.

It's no different than those two hour episodes where I'm searching through tabs on my phone. It's the same. It's all the same industry. Speaking of which, what tabs you got for us this way you want to do some tab roulette all the tabs let's do a little abbreviated we got an article we're gonna read but let's do a little abbreviated tab roulette you want to read the article i was really not sure if you'd want to read it or not

i myself wasn't sure if i wanted to read it or not. I was triggered, bro. I was triggered by that article. What was it? See, this is good podcasting, because I didn't do the reading. So I'd be experiencing it for the first time. It's extremely long. It is so fucking long. It's the article on nonprofits

in publication The Intercept, written by Ryan Gr ryan grim elephant in the room meltdowns have brought progressive advocacy groups who stand still at a critical moment in world history god damn meltdowns that that's a great that's a really an insane claim i dj rewind that tape run that back meltdowns have brought progressive advocacy groups who stands still at a critical moment in world history so it's the meltdowns of a group of non-profit employees that is bringing the progressive movement it's actually bringing the curtain down and at a critical moment in world history. Not like anything in political economy. So what you're telling me is I really am a changemaker.

You really? They weren't lying this whole time. They weren't lying this whole time. They weren't lying. I thought, well, man, it's over, so I'm a little bit. But apparently I was the whole time and didn't know. This whole time you were the change maker. So you can either read that or you got tabs.

Let's just go. Most of my tabs are like gastroenterologists in the greater Richmond area. I'm looking at those two right now. I've got to see somebody about a number of concerning symptoms that i as do i my friends so like we could do that tab roulette where tom and i research doctors yeah we'll just go through the health grades i need to see a cardiologist you need to see a gastroenterologist and we just go through the reviews. Call them. On air.

Say, listen, I need you to just give me ten words or less about your bad side manner. You're on the air, by the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're on a podcast called Strobeman. I see you're part of the mdvip network could you tell me a little more about that i wish i could find a doctor any doctors are listening here's what i need i need some advice on i just i'd like to find a doctor that doesn't work in a hospital setting and that also does lab work not in a hospital setting.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. There's nothing I hate worse than going under those jarring fucking halogen lights and getting blood drawn and then just being led in there like a bunch of cattle. See, I'm the opposite. I love it. I've developed a fetish. I spent so much time doing it as a child that I've developed a fetish I spent so much

time doing it as a child that I've developed a weird fetish I actually enjoy going and waiting in the doctor's office I'll never forget that time you got scoped that I was there with you to take you home you got up in the middle and was leaving

and they're like no no no no no no you go I'm fine I'm fine take you home you got up in the middle and was leaving they're like no no no no no no you got you got i'm fine i'm fine just totally gassed out of your head dude it's fucking crazy like the different kind of person you will be like fucked up on those drugs like those kinds of drugs like that yeah you're right like probably like laughing gas but also like the drug that they gave me for that was, I remember the first thing she told me when I woke up was like the drug that they gave me for that was the drug that they gave,

that Michael Jackson overdosed on. That's just exactly the kind of thing you want to hear when you're going down like, oh, by the way, the King of Pop died on this drug. Oh, no. Bring me back. Oh, my goodness. That's the last thing you heard before you just went out.

Michael Jackson died doing this. And then the nurse that said that removes their mask and it's Matt Taibbi. I guess you are one of the censored after all. Don't fuck with the tape. Oh, you're Matt Taibbi, not Dr. Campbell. Shit. Bye, baby. You just see Matt Taibbi's, the nine hairs he's got left. That's the last thing you see before you go down.

nine hairs he's got left that's the last thing you see before you go down oh man damn this is a long article so let's i screenshotted it a lot dude i'm probably gonna regret this uh but you know sometimes we all have to be brave. We have to ride into the danger zone. Let's ride into this danger zone. Let's just get right to it. I did like how the intro was exactly the same. They might have even copied and pasted it from the 1986 movie. I should read this article as the lyrics to that song. Everyone acknowledged that Zoom wasn't less than ideal.

As a forum for a heartfelt conversation on systemic racism. Now that is the highway to the danger zone. All right. Let's see. During the first week of June 2020, teams of workers and their managers came together across the country to share how they were responding to the murder of George Floyd

and what, if anything, their own company or nonprofit could do to contribute toward the reckoning with racial injustice. On June 2nd, one such hurdle was organized by the Washington, D.C. Office of the Guttmacher Institute, the abortion rights movement's premier research organization. Heather Boonstra, vice president of public policy, began by asking how people were finding equilibrium, one of the details we know because it was later shared by staff with PRISM, an outlet that focuses on social justice advocacy. She talked about the role systemic racism plays in society and the ways that Guttmacher's work would counter it. Staff suggestions, though, turned inward, Prism reported, quote, including loosening deadlines and implementing more proactive

and explicit policies for leave without penalty. Staffers, okay, that seems like a pretty uh reasonable set of suggestions including loosening deadlines and implementing more proactive and explicit policies for leave without penalty that seems like a workplace demand it's not like a woke grievance that whatever they've categorized as a work grievance like uh or a wokeance, like a charge of racism or anything like that. This sounds like an actual just workplace demand. Yeah, just your standard. Anyway, Stafford suggested additional racial equity trainings.

Okay, well, never mind. That just invalidated everything I just said. Noting that a previous facilitator had said that the last round had not included sufficient time to cover everything. With no black staff in the D.C. unit, it was suggested that Guttmacher do something tangible for black employees and other divisions. Behind Boonstra's and the staff's responses to the killings was a fundamental different understanding of the moment. For Boonstra and others of her

generation, the focus should have been on the work of the non-profit. What could Guttmacher, with an annual budget of nearly $30 million, do now to make the world a better place? For her staff, that question had to be answered at home first. What could they do to make Guttmacher a better place? Too often, they believed, Gutt managers exploited the moral commitment staff felt toward their mission, allowing workplace abuses to go unshaken. I do like that that kind of boils the argument down to being like

these workers actually care about their organization but the bosses they're saying fuck the organization like my organization's not shit we're changing the world you know it kind of it the point i'm trying to make is it shows that this dichotomy is kind of ridiculous because, well, they didn't first really interview a single person that works for a nonprofit in this article, I don't think. Maybe they did a few. I was not reached out to. I have thoughts. Right.

And this affected former nonprofit workers. I am also a type that could have been reached yeah um uh the belief was widespread in the eyes of group leaders dealing with similar moments staff were ignoring the mission and focusing only on themselves using a moment of public awakening to smuggle through standard grievances cloaked in the language of social justice often as was the case okay well are they are they matt ty be right are they are they standard grievances and if so are they cloaked in the language of social justice and if so why like maybe that's the way that they're saying that, like, workplace issues need to be acknowledged and engaged with.

Yeah. Right? I don't know. I don't think, I don't see. It's basically getting at the idea that they're basically just using the moment to push through their own, like. Their own agenda. Right. Right, right, right.

Like, I don't, yeah, I don't see anything necessarily wrong with raising issues of there's nothing axiomatically wrong with raising both workplace issues and issues of like racial justice right yeah it's like especially during a time when it's everywhere i mean that seems like to me like it'd be the time to do it yeah did you i mean who would honestly think that that wouldn't happen? Like everybody would want to talk about it, especially if you work in a quote unquote like political organization, a progressive one.

Everybody's going to want to talk about things that are going on. Yeah. And if... One thing rocking the Sierra Club right now is there was some work, I don't know what you would call them but some some travel to israel oh was there they were going to go to tel aviv for some conference and then now they're doing now they do with the classic non-profit move we're going to bring

in an outside facilitator to finally once and for all hash out this uh this israeli palestinian they cover this like oh finally finally where were you at when the time of anwar sadat you know what i mean that would make a great movie like that's how we need to do things from now on. It's like these great meetings of the mind. You need non-profit consultants to come in to mediate all that stuff. I absolutely agree. Putin, Zelensky.

That situation. To bring out an outside facilitator. Why didn't they go to a consultant? There is an entire consultant class. Blown opportunity. Blown opportunity. Blown opportunity, really. Trust falls. Like Zelensky and Putin doing trust falls.

I'm going to go to Putin. He's going to be like, I don't know if you know this, but there's a class of highly trained professionals that are skilled in, like, you know, arbitrating these things. So you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble if you just if you just deferred to uh i don't know it's for when we do stuff like that it's usually somebody that like teaches meditation or something they do i don't like skits i don't do skits really

yeah you know and one thing i hate about non-profit consulting kind of meetings and stuff like that is they make you do skits. Well, dog, they're trying to get you out of your comfort zone. They're trying to get you out of the danger zone and into the comfort zone. They succeeded. They succeeded. Anyways, yeah, there's nothing, like, on its face wrong with raising any of those issues but anyways the belief was widespread in the eyes of group leaders dealing with similar moments staff were ignoring the mission and focusing only on themselves only we already said this um often

as was the case with gut markers they played into the very dynamics they were fighting against directing their complaints at leaders of color gut marker was run at the time and still is today Alright. So he did talk to some... Well, he talked to a lot of executive directors, it looks like. Maybe that person's telling the truth. I mean, if they're anonymous, how the fuck am I supposed to know? Yeah. Maybe this executive director is a boss.

He's going to fucking lie about his workers. I have been fired from a non-profit take it from me when it comes down to that moment you're just a fucking employee like anybody else number man i mean it's just i mean it's it's just this weird thing that like giving them a voice like this and saying that it's representative of the larger left and what What this article does is it conflates the left with non-profit workers. That's two separate things. Leftist workers...

Non-profit workers can be leftists. You know what I mean? But the left is not embodied in non-profit workers. The NGO grunt sphere. I don't know. In fact, more often than not, they're not. Yeah.

These starkly divergent views would produce dramatic schisms throughout the progressive world in the coming year. At Guttmacher, this process would rip the organization apart. Boonstra, unlike many managers at the time, didn't sugarcoat how she felt about the staff's response to the killing. I'm here to talk about George Floyd and the other African-American men who have been beaten up by society, she told her staff, not quote-unquote workplace problems.

Boonshaw told them she was quote-unquote disappointed that they were being quote-unquote self-centered. The staff was appalled enough by the exchange to relay it to PRISM. The Human Resources Department and Board of Directors in consultation with outside counsel were brought in to investigate complaints that flowed from... I told you, man. Does your clique have the outside counsel?

You can set your watch by it, man. They need the outsiders. You need outside counsel. Anytime you're going through a hard time in life, seek outside counsel. We should start providing outside counsel. And as of right now,

you can get that service for the low, low price of $5. Patreon.com. Yeah, that's part of y'all haven't read the fine print in your Patreon subscription. We also provide outside counsel, arbitration,

and there's a number of benefits to your generous support. Non-profit consultation, really. The Human Resources Department, okay, including accusations that certain staff members had been tokenized, promoted, and demoted on the basis of race. The resulting

report was unsatisfying to many of the staff. What we have learned is that there is a group of people with strong opinions about a particular supervisor. The new leadership and a change in strategic priorities, said Guttmacher. Those staff have a point of view. Complaints were duly investigated and nothing was raised

to the level of abuse or discrimination. Rather, what we saw was distrust, disagreement, and discontent with management decisions they simply did not like once again if you said that about any other fucking business in this country if you were a leftist you would say all right this is pretty cut and dry fuck management right the workers are the ones who should be running the shop well here's where they get hung up in the non-profit world i know their managers are their friends i know that's the thing dude like some people really don't they're still under that illusion yeah it is quite literally a kind of illusion it's like it like makes you it's kind of an op in a way to like make you think that it is somehow apart from political economy that it

sits outside of it that it's like yeah dematerialized or something you know what i'm saying when in fact it is not just like an individual non-profit like the whole industry is a critical part of political economy so it's like it's workers you know they need to be able to organize and make demands like there's nothing wrong with there's nothing wrong with that just because the bosses share the same political views quote- more or less yeah it doesn't change the equation to go paddle down the river on a saturday afternoon it doesn't change the equation yeah it doesn't change the equation like what fucking like is there like a non-profit managers association sort of like how there's like a you know the chamber of commerce or whatever and they pitch

like anti-union stories and stuff i did some chamber of like non-profit chamber of commerce equivalent get to ryan grimm and be like yo i listen we got we got the good shit for you this one a prism reporter reached a widely respect and you know uh apparently ryan grimm follows me on twitter so he fucks with he fucks with your boy he must yeah i like ryan i just i don't know uh i mean this article is i ain't fucking with this article but i think in general ryan's good i mean i don't know he's he seems fine if i had if if he's listening to this let me just tell you you need to leave that dog shit rag you're working at my man it's poisoning your brain a prism a prism reporter reached a widely respected gutmacher board member pamela merritt it's just like the whole fucking point of this website was

set up to like speak truth to power now we're like writing an article about how like non-profit managers have their feelings hurt right it's like who the fuck has the actual power in this situation it's kind of what it's trying to get at and i'm sympathetic to parts of this argument it's trying to get at that there is also an imbalance of power and that people can now leverage complaints about like racism and sexism and all these other things in the nonprofit workplace. Yeah. Like, and that that can be used to derail a larger leftist social movement or project, right?

Like I'm sympathetic to that argument in the sense that like, yeah, if people are disrupting spaces where you're making social advances on behalf of the working class, that might be a problem. But is the nonprofit industry making social advances on behalf of the working class, that might be a problem. But is the nonprofit industry making social advances on behalf of the working class? Like, no, they're just an industry like every other industry.

Well, I mean, what it is is it's walking this balancing act of paying fealty to the donor class while at the same time, I guess, providing some generic benefits to the world but i i'm under no illusion that i'm a change maker try as they might to get me to you know i think that like non-profits broadly speaking they do serve a purpose i mean if you if you go back and you like track the the growth of non-profits it really began in the wake of the war on poverty like i feel like the war on poverty was kind of the the gnaws in the gas tank for this and then once they started dismantling the social welfare state the you know the safety nets and everything in the 80s

the non-profit industry basically stepped in some of them handled these material, a bit of his like, you know, it's like legal aid and food pantries and. Morris Dees. Morris Dees. Who was the guy with the Habitat for Humanity, him and Morris Dees cooked up a. Uh-huh.

Didn't they cook up a scheme when they were in college? They're like, man. They did. We're going to make like millions of dollars i forgot all about that yeah he really was like a scammer from fucking day one really jay mccarter said get some real local people joe put the dog on him but but so like there's those kinds of non-profits but then i think that there's like a kind of

political the the kind of non-profit this article is going for there's those kinds of nonprofits. But then I think that there's like a kind of political, the kind of nonprofit this article is going for. There's like a political grassroots, political activity kind of nonprofit that, what would you classify this as? role is to essentially keep people engaged in various interests. Whether it's abortion or social security or whatever. The climate, the environment. Yeah, the coming climate catastrophe. The coming climate

catastrophe. That's my particular beat. Right. I'm singularly in charge of climate destiny in this country. If I stop coal mining, if I stop coal mining, then it's all on me. There's like two kinds of workers at this nonprofit, I think. There's like, one of them is like the expert,

the policy wonk. There's like a policy wonk, and their job is to basically look at data, interpret it, turn it into some sort of lobbying thing that they can then go to specific bureaucrats. Then go find a former Obama staffer and figure out how to get this motherfucker paid

so he can feel like he's they've got their he's helping out the underground subversive revolutionaries right right uh and then there's the other kind of non-profit worker there's several there's also admin a lot of fuck there's a lot of admin at non-profits you're gonna tell me that those fucking people i mean like again there's their businesses they're run like fucking businesses they have a different corporate structure yeah but it doesn't mean that i got a different corporate structure that's the kind of outside counsel you can get at patreon.com we also do commencement speeches. But then there's like another kind of employee that they have that his job is to interface with, quote unquote, the masses, the public.

So like there's, that's you. That's me. I would put that as, and this is some self-crit. I would describe that myself as rad lib, fake email job haver with no other discernible talents other than my witty repartee. There you go. You know, if you really want to talk about skilled and unskilled labor, it doesn't get more unskilled than my line of work. Being a coordinator. If your job title is coordinator of any kind,

you have no idea what the fuck you're supposed to be doing. I'm an organizing representative. Oh, yes, yes, yes. I dream of being a coordinator. I can only aspire to coordinator. But like what I'm getting at is like there is actually now that I'm thinking about it, there's like three employee classes at a nonprofit and each one of them is designed specifically to interface with its whatever its target is so

you've got like i said the policy wonks and those people they interface with congress with the political system not with congress per se but mostly the bureaucratic agencies epa and the doj and the fucking addc man you know what I mean? Civilian Conservation Corps and Tennessee Valley Authority, et cetera. Works Progress Administration. Alphabet soup. But then you have the fundraising employees and their job is to interface.

That's you. You can speak to that. That was where I was specializing. You interface with the rich people. You can speak to that. That was where I was specializing. You interface with the rich people. You interface with the people trying to give you their money. The donor class. The donor class. And then you have.

They won't let me within a country mile of the donor class. Except when they need some cred or something. When they need like a photo op. They'll do that from a distance still. They're like, I can't be having this guy at a gala, but is he a real hillbilly? I'll take a picture of him and do a video. Do you think the hill,

do you think that he'll say the line for me? What line? You know, daddy can, is it time for me to, I know, I know what you want. I got you.

If I ever pays attention, reckon daddy wants me to feed them hogs. i know what you want i got you if i have everybody's attention reckon daddy wants me to feed them hogs everyone's like yeah that's that shit here's three hundred thousand dollars and then you have the third kind of employee again you that interfaces with quote unquote the people like that is their whole. They run like a triple front thing at all times. It's a three-headed hydra. Wait, how many heads does a hydra have to have to be a hydra? I think at least eight. Eight.

Eight-headed. At the very least. You have seven heads. We run a three-headed hydra. It's a hydra with birth defects. Anyways, nonprofits are very, they're very, I mean, this article, obviously they're not trying to like really dive into the finer details and mechanics of nonprofits.

They're trying to tell a specific story, a specific thesis, which is, what was it earlier? Meltdowns have brought progressive advocacy groups to a standstill at a critical moment in world history. That's the thesis. So, anyways. A prison reporter reached a widely respected Guttmacher board member, Pamela Merritt,

a black woman and a leading reproductive justice activist, while the Supreme Court oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson's women's health organization were going on last December, a year and a half after the Floyd meeting. She offered the most delicate rebuttal of the staff complaints possible. I've been in this movement space long enough to respect how people choose to describe their personal experience and validate that experience, even if I don't necessarily agree that that's what it is they see that that's what they experience sorry um blah blah the six months since then have only seen a ratcheting up of the tension with more internal disputes spilling into public and amplified by a well-funded anonymous operation called repro jobs whose twitter and instagram feeds have pounded away at the organization's management

um i never heard fucking gut gut mocker before this article i do so i mean what do they do it's i think it's abortion rights like reproductive justice or something that's another thing about non-profits like they're all like slotted into these categories, like environmental justice, reproductive justice. It's all... Your entire paradigm, your relationship to it, is that it's all fixed, in a way. It's all static. But then there is...

My favorite, though, is that they've even managed to non-profitify unions and everything. So that's called economic justice or something. You know what I'm saying? Right, right, right. What the fuck is economic justice? Brother, hey, I don't know if you've been paying attention to what we've been doing for the last couple years,

but that's economic justice. You're right. Build Back Better is economic justice. Build Back Better initiative is good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mostly anything that is trying to lessen the burden of the poor and working classes. And by that I mean never give them any money

or resources or anything. But atta boys instead atta girls and this gets this fucking gets into my that episode we did with katie about like the rich young anti-capitalist capitalists like trying to give their money away if you care that fucking much just go down and buy like i don't know a hundred or two hundred thousand ak-47 you could buy an entire military why don't you fucking what you do is just go down buy an entire military for the working class and that would be more helpful than like funneling it through all this like non-profit bureaucracy and you know spraying it out

through these like tax havens there's just the thing that's always befuddled me about it if they are really serious about revolution if they're serious about it if they're not then if they're not then you might want to skip on the private militia thing

yeah I'm just saying it's just an option but if you want revolution that's the surest way to do it. Probably produce some mixed results. You have to change the balance. You have to change the playing field. If you gave the working class like 20,000 nukes with your millions of dollars, then maybe people might start being like, well, all right, this fucking job does suck.

Fuck this shit, man. Fuck this fucking job does suck also earth justice is a nuclear power all of a sudden interesting you would have to take an outfit like that seriously you'd have to take it out it would be funny if every non-profit formed a paramilitary group uh-huh and that was like uh you know yeah a new initiative and it's like uh arms justice or something like that just trying to live yeah yeah would you go work for the arms justice branch of guerrilla warfare justice oh man sorry i interrupted you you're in the middle of something no i wasn't i wasn't i just said you know if we're gonna do um all the different justices economic and reproductive and environment and listen all those things are important i'm not

being trivial with them but you know maybe we'll just do some we'll do some arms justice. Some arms justice, yeah. Some asymmetrical warfare justice. That's what they should be putting their money into. Asymmetrical warfare justice. Like, listen, we could dilly-dally all day

doing this, but like, let's marshal our resources into a viable nuclear weapon yeah a nuclear power i guarantee you none of us would be sitting around having this fucking conversation like why won't they shake off their chains why won't they rise up and like why are we fucked it's like look at us you won't give him a nuclear weapon not fucking hard you give a man nuclear weapon he starts talking different you know he walks into a room with a little more that is a terror it is a terrifying thought. If just private citizens...

Elon Musk could get a nuclear weapon if he wanted to. Definitely. You know what I mean? Definitely. That's kind of a scary thought. Amazon now not only has a militia, but it's the world's largest nuclear power. Then they're like, ah, fuck,

so that's why it was bad to let these guys accumulate on Jack 12. This goes into a list of all of the organizations that this sickness, the sickness of wokeness and cancel culture has taken deep root in the Sierra Club, demos, ACLU, Color of Change, Move Me for Black Lives, Time's Up, Sunrise Mew. Is that what he said? Yeah, it's all in here.

Planned Parenthood. Wait, he really said the disease of wokeness? No, he didn't say that. of wokeness no he didn't say that that's that's but but the point he's trying to make is that all of these organizations right now are paralyzed during a critical moment in human history build back better that's the critical moment tom that they're paralyzed they're paralyzed during are we still trying to build back better well that's the thing that the the people having meltdowns won't let us build back better. Ultimately, this fucking article just winds up being like a case for Biden and build back better. What it is is it winds up being like a case that the kind people in the federal government are willing to sit down with us and talk to us and enact our vision of change on society.

us and enact our vision of change on society but we can't do it because we're hamstrung by our obdurant employees who want to talk about racial justice and wokeness like that is that's what's implicit here it's just like dude fuck off no one in the biden administration is gonna do shit all right nothing all right i've been to all these fucking meetings they just sit sit down with you and say well you know we'd love to do that And then they fucking plug him Like no Who was the guy that used to follow you Used to be the ARC Earl Grohl

Oh I think he still does I think he still fucks with your boy I think he still fucks with the Trillbillies I don't know he might I have no idea I loved Earl Grohl on the program The thing is early on in the show, people were like, oh, look, they're the voice of reason in the mountains.

Fast forward five years, and they're advocating giving a nuclear weapon. Just how fast we've degenerated yeah i'm just kidding it was really always like that in fact it's hard to find a washington-based progressive organization that hasn't been in tumult and even reach the audubon society the disease the woke virus has taken over the autobahn just the lights going out across europe the fucking lamps going out i feel bad like i don't want him to feel that i'm not engaging with this in good faith because like you could tell at some point in the article like towards the end he's like critics are gonna say this is me bashing on employees and all this that's like

all right if you gotta say that you've already admitted don't ever say that dude like it's it's just like it's a writing error it's an unforced error it's an unforced that's fine you'll get you'll get them next time but what it does is it kind of implies to me that he wanted this to be taken in good faith so like all right i'll do it wanted this to be taken in good faith. So like, all right, I'll do it. Like, let's take it in good faith.

Uh, I'm trying my best anyways. Um, Twitter, as the saying goes, it may not be real life, but in a world of remote works, like very much is blah,

blah, blah. To be honest with you, this is the biggest problem on the left over the last six years. Another anonymous executive director concluded this, this whole fucking article could just be named anonymous executive director concluded this this whole fucking article could just be named anonymous executive directors well let me tell you this i don't know for a fact at least for sierra club's concern there is a regular group of former disgruntled sierra club people

including um what's the dude's name mike broon yeah yeah yeah he yeah, yeah. He doesn't work there anymore. No. But they meet for wine somewhere in Oakland on Thursdays and bitch about the non-profits fair. So like my hunch is that some of these

they're probably like I know these motherfuckers plant stories and shit like that. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

It's the biggest problem on the left over the last six years. This is so big and it's like abuse in the family. It's the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. And you have to be super sensitive about who the messengers are.

For a number of obvious and intersecting reasons, I'm not the perfect messenger, but here it goes anyways. I mean, dude, again, if this is an executive director saying this, it's a boss, and at the end of the day, it's a fucking boss whining. I don't give a fuck. This is so big, and it's like abuse in the family also yeah like abuse in the family pity pity the poor fucking uh non-profit admin that pulls down three hundred thousand dollars a year to do fuck all i'm sorry like right right it's just like what it is it's just non-profit cogs who just work their way up the system

playing the competitive game of a nonprofit. You got to get arrested once for a mild protesting offense. That helps facilitate your upper mobile. Yeah, they're all social climbers too. You think people running nonprofits aren't social climbers? Yeah. You fucking break. They're executive directors because they're social climbers.

It can't be yeah your arrest can't have come at like occupy or something of any consequence though it has to come at like i don't know what would be a good example of a protest that was like kind of goofy uh like a circumcisions protest? Maybe not that goofy. You had... What if you were, like... That was the rumor around the office. Maybe you got arrested protesting like the young Republicans in college. Okay, all right.

I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know how Gary got his stripes, right? Listen to this. He used to protest with those anti-circumcision guys down in the corner. He's not a rat. He didn't blow up a pipeline. No.

He was throwing foreskins at people at the corner. Dog, he's father's rats. You know how he cut his teeth? He got his stripes. The anti-circumcision movement. I am anti-circumcision, though, by the way. Are you cut? I'm cut, dude.

I'm the perfect spokesman for the anti-circumcision movement. As a victim myself. For progressive movement organizations 2021 promised 2021 promised to be the year they turned power into policy with a drew that i can't hold it together with the democratic trifecta and the biden administration broadcasting a bold vision of transformational change out of the gate gate, Democrats pushed ahead with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, funding everything from expanded healthcare to a new monthly child tax credit.

And then, sometime in the summer, the Ford momentum stalled, and many of the progressive gains lapsed or were reversed. Instead of fueling a groundswell of public support to reinvigorate the party's ambitious agenda, most of the foundation-backed organizations this fucking article just jumps one article we're talking one paragraph we're talking about the biden administration and then the next we're

talking about it's it's kind of does a deceptive thing because that first sentence there it's like and then for momentum stalled and then the non-profit it's because the non-profits it's like well where'd you get to the non nonprofits? What's the connective tissue there between Biden funding all this shit and that being Ford Momentum? Is it because the nonprofits did it? Like that's a claim that might be true, but this doesn't inspect that. I mean, I don't think that the biden administration was spending all that money at the beginning because non-profits were telling them to i think it was probably

economists right uh yeah it's probably the krugmans this is the fucking thing that drives me crazy about non-profits like they're constantly like they they are like lame isis they just take credit for shit that like other people you know what i mean they're close you're exactly right they're they have like an outsized view or like a you know like an inflated sense of their own sense of their own worth yeah and their ability to change things yeah um uh i mean it's the same thing that like when people talk about like small businesses and entrepreneurs around here like that wouldn't be the case if it wasn't because of these nonprofits. It's like, dude, no capital moves like the kind of like capital flowing through nonprofits.

It's not like accumulating in the way that it is in the quote unquote for profit industry. So like the shit gets done at the level of like massive industry, like coal or healthcare or tech or whatever. It's not like nonprofits are like fucking out there, like moving society forward. Like they have a much more sort of circumspect, uh, role in American life. You know what I mean?

It's, I don't know. It's, it's, uh, anyways, we've got the progress. We've got the formal group momentum stalled.

Instead of feeling a groundswell of public support to reinvigorate the party's ambitious agenda, most of the foundation backed, again, it's like we failed the Democrats. The foundations failed the Democrats. Most of the foundation backed organizations that make up the backbone of the party's ideological infrastructure were still spending their time locked in virtual retreats, slack wars, and healing sessions,

grappling with tensions over hierarchy, patriarchy, gender and power no i'm sorry that was a literal fordian slip sex was literally not in there they're not god whoa wow i saw the word sex but there was not excellent excellent. This man always goes back to sex with this guy. So much energy has been devoted to the internal strife and internal bullshit that it's had a real impact on one ability for groups to deliver, said one organization leader who departed his position. It's been huge, particularly over the last year and a half or so, the ability for groups to focus on their mission. This is, of course, a caricature of the left,

that socialists and communists spend more time in meetings and fighting with each other than changing the world. Again, like, you can't just say, like, nonprofit workers and then just switch to, this is a problem with the left, because, like, nonprofit workers are not the embodiment of the left. Like, there are leftists who work in factories who work in tech jobs who like you know what i mean it's like it's a broad thing i've i've said in many of these non-profit meetings and stuff like that where we're like uh you know talking to people

about you know all the you know the trappings and language of like the rad lib sort of change maker stuff and then i'm it's just funny to imagine that being juxtaposed with like you know um the like some like the internationals and stuff yeah yeah yeah yeah right like it's not linen. Right. Like, no one's giving, like, fucking, like, barn burner speeches. Right, right.

Yeah, they're trying to tell you how we need to prevent burnout by, like, doing self-care. But in the wake of Trump's presidential election and then Joe Biden's, it's become nearly all-consuming for some organizations, spreading beyond subcultures of the left and into major liberal institutions. My last nine months,

I was spending 90-95% of my time on internal strife, whereas before, that would have been 25-30% tops, the former executive director said. Most people thought that their worst critics were their competitors, and they're finding out that their worst critics are on their own payroll,

said Loretta. It's coming from inside the fucking house okay here's the other thing too and again this is not a personal dig at anybody or ryan or anything but like you can't include some shit like that and then fortify this argument that like you know all these that that wokeness is like you know infected the non-profit sphere when it's like clearly this cunt like thinks he has some ownership over people's livelihood exactly you know exactly they're on my own payroll that is exactly right and it has again dude it's it's a fucking perfect example of like it does not fucking matter the personal feelings of the boss.

And I have experienced this. Once the social relation kicks in, like every other time at a nonprofit, that social relation between you and your boss will be mystified. But in the moment that it actually matters, we were at a nice bonfire weeks before you got out did you know yeah exactly having a nice chat that's enjoying the nice it's this it's the social

relation at the heart of the matter it's the dynamic yeah and like that and it doesn't make that that means nothing about the boss or the worker or their personal ideologies it's just a fucking fact a matter of the workplace it's just part of it um all my executive director friends everybody's going through some shit no nobody's immune said one who has yet to depart one senior progressive congressional staffer said that when groups don't disappear entirely to deal with internal strife the discord is still noticeable on the other end i've noticed a real erosion of the number of groups who are effective at leveraging progressive power in Congress.

Some of that is these groups have these organizational culture things that are affecting them. The staffer said, this is killing me. Because of the organizational culture of some of the real movement groups that have lots of, I mean, like, I don't know, just some congressional staffer being like, we would love to work with them if they weren't wracked by this disease.

Again, like, they're not. They don't fucking care. The idea, in theory, is that pushing their public policy demands further and further left widens the so-called Overton window of what's considered possible, thereby facilitating the future passage of ambitious legislation. thereby facilitating the future passage of ambitious legislation this maximalist political demands can also be a byproduct of internal strife as organization member leaders fend off charges of not internally embodying progressive values by pushing external right further left but the aid pointed out there is legislative potential now um and then sunrise is doing their green new deal pledge uh let's see the climate bill is still on the table there's a universe where people are on the outside focused on power and leveraging

power for progressives in congress instead they're spending resources on stuff that is totally unrelated to governing nobody says hey guys could you maybe come and maybe focus on this i mean i don't know. They just seem so disingenuous. If they wanted to pass this shit, they would just pass it. They don't need the nonprofits, like, you know, sending four of their best employees and telling them, you know, with a petition of names. Like, these are all the people that want to see the whatever act passed, the clean water, you know,'re trying to pass they would just do it right right like there's no i don't understand anyways um for years recruiting young people into the movement felt like a win-win uh new energy for the movement and the chance to give a person a lease on a newly liberated life dedicated to the

pursuit of justice but that's no longer the case i got to a point like three years ago where i had a crisis of faith like i don't even know most of these spaces on the left are just not they're not healthy like all these people are just not they're not doing well the dynamic the toxic dynamic of whatever you want to call it call out culture cancel culture is creating this really intense thing and no one is able to acknowledge it no one's able to talk about it no one's able to say how bad it is like i mean i'm kind of i'm i'm sympathetic to aspects of that again right in the sense that like you should be able to have productive conversations in a direction i think i think they're just they're just pissed about the direction that it's going right they're just pissed about the direction it's going because it challenges their cushy gig right right right well the other thing too is like i am kind of

sympathetic to parts of that argument too but i think the trick is in how do you rightly divide like what's legitimate criticism in these spaces i hate to use words yeah whatever but use away but rightly divide like what are legitimate criticisms and dynamics and so forth. And what is just like rad lib horse shit that's just there just to be obstinate and histrionic. Exactly. That's why I think that all nonprofit workers, if they're on the left, just have to start reading Marx. Yeah. left just have to start rooting morgues yeah right i mean that's all i mean that's the only antidote to the rad live uh thing you know right otherwise you're just gonna keep not to give

prescriptions to bosses here right right if you really are genuinely you know concerned with like how people are feeling but that does none of that comes across here right yeah sooner or later each interview for this story landed on the election of trump in 2016 as a catalyst and then it goes through like all the money was poured into organizations like aclu remember that like after the muslim ban and all the money just poured into i mean i was working at a non-profit after the election of Trump right you know like a lot of these organizations did see a fuck load of money and then it talks about AOC

talks about Charlottesville it talks a lot about the ACLU and how the ACLU stood up for the right I didn't even know this maybe I knew this at the time but I totally forgot I guess that ACLU stood up for the right i didn't even know this maybe i knew this at the time but i totally forgot i guess that aclu stood up for the right of the marchers to march oh you know because aclu always like stands up for nazis but it's like it's like they got this huge influx of cash from like

liberals concerned about the proliferation of trumpism. Yeah, and they're like, well, actually, we have to stand behind this. Yeah. And how that, like, triggered this whole internal battle at ACLU. Then we, you know, talks a little bit about the, you know, George Floyd and about the pandemic.

Trying to find some quotes of some really weird stuff because there is some truly weird stuff in here. Hold on. Hold on, Tom. I read this over the course of like two hours. It's so fucking long. There are wins to be had between now and the next couple months

that could change the country forever and folks are focused on stuff that has no theory of change for even getting to the house floor for a vote that was a aid i guess the same one they were talking about earlier um the environment has pushed expectations far beyond what workplaces previously offered to employees a lot of staff that work for me they expect the organization to be all the things. A movement, okay. Get out to vote, okay. Healing, okay. Take care of you when you're sick, okay.

It's all the things. Can you get your love and healing at home, please? But I can't say that. That would crucify me. It's just not the nonprofit world, though. And then they talk a little bit about how it's infected the social, like the corporate world as well. Anyways, you get the idea, man. My friends on Wall Street are dealing with the same thing right now.

We're all dealing with the same thing right now. Yeah, I don't know. There was a specific, i didn't realize this i ran across this apparently the reckoning was in many ways long overdue forcing organizations to deal with persistent problems of inclusion um progressive organizations are run like shit acknowledge one executive director arguing that the movement puts emphasis on leadership more often called servant leadership now have you heard that on leadership, more often called servant leadership now. Have you heard that term?

You've heard the term servant leadership? I have, but I can't remember what context. Dude, that is dark. What the fuck? What kind of name is that? I think it's the echoes of the scripture in the Bible where Jesus says, the greatest among you will be a servant but ran through the filter of the ngo world it doesn't really translate like that i love this

quote we used to make want to make the world a better place now we just make our organizations more miserable to work at okay this is the thing that i've was i found very confounding maybe you've heard of this. Theorists have developed sophisticated ways to understand how political movements evolve over time. All right. I'm about to drop some, like, totally, probably anti-communist Saul Alinsky type shit on you right now. Okay. I was reading this. It's like social science, like non-Marmarxist sociology non-marxist political science

so strange but now 100 marks free listen to this okay theorists have developed sophisticated ways to understand how political move movements evolve over time bill moyer a former organizer with MLK Jr.'s Poor People's Campaign, who went on to lead the anti-nuclear movement, famously documented eight stages in his movement action plan. Stage one he called normal times, the period before the public is paying much attention to an issue, while only a few activists are working to develop solutions. Normal times is stage one stage two is failure of institutions as the public and activists become more generally aware of a problem and the need for change to uh this is early spring which then evolves into stage three ripening conditions to take the civil rights to take the civil rights uh as an example, moving as an example,

let's see, hold on, sorry. Okay. To take the civil rights movement as an example, Brown versus Board helped ripen conditions as did a rising black college student population after World War II and the return of black veterans from the war more generally, along with a surge in anti-colonial freedom struggles across Africa.

The conditions are set. Next comes a trigger event that shocks the conscience of the public. And I guess that's stage four. Anyways, it's like this weird formulation of how, yeah, social change gets made. But you can see how well it fits into, like, like specialized issue world where like every organization is focused on a kind of you know curated and proprietary set of issues right yeah that's i don't know it's just very strange does history really work like that does history really work that like there's normal times and then normal times create the weak times and then

the weak times create it kind of has that vibe to it then the weak times create the bad times and the bad times create strong times and then tough uh tough times don't last but tough people exactly um let's see where does that put us today The period since Occupy Wall Street Represents the largest mass mobilization Since the 60s And encompass the movement for black lives Women's March, Me Too Climate activism

I mean Is that true? Well if it is It's certainly it's like Surely you could see how you're squandering An opportunity by like Getting frustrated by like language of young activists or whatever.

Exactly. You know? The history is very strange, though, as well. Just, like, people weren't at the Iraq War demonstrations, like, the largest in history up to that point. Maybe there was no, you know, corollary non-profit thing to it. That's probably where

most of these folks working these jobs and so forth kind of got their earlier political education anyway, but yeah.

Mm-hmm. Winning power, this is Ryan now editorializing, winning power requires working in coalition with people who, by definition,

do not agree with you on everything. People want justice, they want their pain acknowledged. But on the other hand, if acknowledging their pain causes organizations to die or erodes the solidarity in the coalition building that's needed for power, it's probably not a good thing.

In other words, it can lead to the opposite, more power for the fascists. Okay. Man, I don't. Okay. All right. I'm on that list. Listen, I'll be the first to tell you that i kind of get annoyed

with some of that sort of talk but like i don't i don't understand whatsoever how you can draw that straight line to fascism and that like oh well if you address everybody's needs and pain and stuff then like these organizations will fold and that's a net negative this is that's the thing if we're gonna have a conversation about that, which I think the left probably should in a reasonable, localized way, not on fucking Twitter and these massive forums. If the organization, the working staff of an organization wants to have a conversation about,

is call-out culture an issue at our organization or whatever, that's an issue among their other workers right not your bosses you do not have a conversation with your fucking boss about whether cancel call out culture is too bad at our organization right like because if if you're you know all prop you know have a class conscious approach to it that's the way it should be seen yeah but like ryan kind of falls into the same trap that these executive directors do when they don't understand that there is a social relation there there's a fucking so there's a power dynamic that is needs to be fucking acknowledged yeah

and not only acknowledge that you're never going to transcend yeah like i don't think i mean i think well the other thing that's funny that kind of chapped my ass a little bit in this. It was one of the former directors when they were like, oh, could you get your love and da-da-da-da-da at home? But no, that's not how that works. Like, da-da-da. It's like, these are the same people that for the previous 10 years before this have fostered this whole, like, sort of gentrification.

We're all a family here, shit. Yeah, well, they even said that earlier. And then and then when people like sort of take the bait yeah that or and think that they can get some emotional and like support and that kind of stuff at work uh-huh then you're just like oh well could you get that at home motherfucker you spent the last yeah you're the dude that was literally a quote earlier in this article it feels feels like abuse in the family. Yeah. You know what? Yeah. I love this.

He's talking to this dude. In fact, I was thrown out of an organization that I founded because of my quote unquote racism. What was my racism? When I tell people things that they didn't want to hear. He had it. Okay, man. Guys like that rule. Generally, that is racist.

Listen, I'm just I'm just spitting the hard truths here And I paid the price for it Might I suggest a program called Called Meet the censored With Matt Day before you I mean it's normal

It's what's happening everywhere Again yeah if that's happening Like if people are getting thrown out I don't know it's complicated. It's what's happening everywhere. Again, yeah, if that's happening, like if people are getting thrown out, like, I don't know. It's complicated, but I just, approaching it from, full stop,

approaching it from the perspective of the bosses, just not a winner. Who cares? Yeah. Anyways, I mean, we could keep going. Ian talks about like foundations and how like nonprofits aren't accountable to the public.

And that's true. They're not. But, I mean, again, that's another feature of the system. They serve a purpose. They serve a role as a tax haven for wealthy people so that the government doesn't appropriate their tax. So, I mean, you have to acknowledge that too. And it does, but it doesn't, you know, it doesn't get into like how that reproduces.

It seems to me that the, what the issue is here is Glenn Greenwald has poisoned the intercept and not, and not necessarily nonprofit workers who make far less than these bosses have poisoned the whale of the ngo world i think you're right that's that's pretty accurate um i'm now at a point where the first thing i wonder about a job applicant is how likely is this person to blow up my organization from the inside again a statement that if it came from like a meat packing plant boss we would rightly be like that's insane that's inside yeah but because it's non-profits um i'm not another leader said the strife has become so destructive that it feels

like an op i'm not saying it's a right-wing plot because we are incredibly good at doing ourselves in but if you tried you couldn't conceive of a better right-wing plot to paralyze progressive leaders by catalyzing the existing culture where internal... Oh, my God, this sentence. You couldn't conceive of a better right-wing plot to paralyze progressive leaders by catalyzing the existing culture where internal turmoil and micro-campaigns

are mistaken for strategic advancement of social compacts... To you, friend, I just want to say say try being a communist and see how you like it yeah exactly this man it is so funny like also this type of person that has like that again that inflated sense of like their own ability to affect change or whatever when it's like well you know the right wingers would jump at the chance to gut us and it's like why well, you know the right-wingers would jump at the chance to gut us. And it's like, why? You pose no existential threat to them whatsoever. No, and they're not going to be able to gut you, and you're not going to be able to gut them.

That's the whole point. You all have wealthy patrons that keep you afloat regardless. But it is interesting because there's weird contradictions in this because it talks a little bit about how like the funders sometimes will side with the workers against like the managers because they want to come across as like being pro-worker pro-worker dude the fucking it's so bizarre it's so strange and in an atmosphere of distrust the worst intentions are assumed critics of this article will claim that its intention is to tell workers to sit down and shut up and suck up whatever indignities are doled

out in the name of progress i mean again uh you've you've already put words into the mouths of the audience so you've already lost on that count but um you know if this isn't, once again, like we said earlier, if this is an issue, that's a conversation had among workers. Oh, man, some of these quotes are just so insane. Like this one. I just got the keys and y'all are going to come after me on this shit. One executive director who said he felt like a version of those 70s era black mayors told The Intercept. It's white supremacy culture.

It's urgent no motherfucker it's election day we can't move that day just do your job and go somewhere else it's just like dude fuck non-profits are so bleak it's so weird so fucking bleak it's motherfucker it's election day you can't you can't move that day just do your job or go somewhere else incredible uh also just gets at the i just here's the thing though man is when you're a guy that just pops up at events to give like a little talk and all the little fucking rank and file in your you know organization lose their shit for it and Uh-huh. And that is your job. You can't be casting aspersions about people not wanting to work and stuff like that.

You have made a career of being a professional do-nothing. Exactly. Exactly. And been rewarded handsomely for it in certain cases. And then he goes on to, like, bemoan how this is also what took down that one candidate in New York. You know who I'm talking about? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Was it Morales or something? It was the person running for. Yeah, Diane Morales. So our New York mayoral campaign blown up by staff uprising. And then it goes to Shahid Batar it's just like okay these are all losers who cares yeah that's what took Shahid Batar down

who cares organizations that start out by making significant concessions to staff often get run over in short order said multiple organization heads who watch the process unfold oh yes I have to apologize for thousands of years of oppression and i will never be able to make up it up to you but i will try

people will just roll all over them um i mean yeah i mean i don't know if you're a boss and someone tells you you got to apologize for thousands of years of oppression i think that's the price you should have to pay if you make more money than your employees you have a nicer house like you have more social capital and more upward mobility you'll probably be working in a bureaucratic agency in the next or a lobbying agency or something like yeah you should have to say all right i'll take the i'll take the flagellation the lip the the you know yeah that's just cost a thousand business bro for a cushy salary and all the spoils i mean all you all you have to say is i'm sorry for a thousand years of oppression

it's not that hard you're not getting fucking like beat up or anything just say that it's funny It'd be funny at least. It would at least give your workers a good story because then they would go home and tell their friends. And make fun of you. Today my boss apologized for thousands of years of oppression. If every call out leads a mob to shoot first and ask questions later, we get what we have to have today.

Well, what do we have today again i don't think that the left is the quote-unquote left is failing because of this i mean it's just no it to i always just come back to like what are the conditions like it just doesn't seem like the conditions are ripe for affecting electoral social democratic process change. I just don't think the conditions are right for that. What about the political process right now would convince you that any change is possible through electoral means? Yeah, there's... Other than like some, you know, relief acts here and there, the checks and everything. The entire political process is completely paralyzed right so yeah and those and like in turn like all these fucking

right-wingers just bemoan the inflation you know and all this stuff so it's like i don't know no yeah it's just hard to um hard to make an argument good conscience so there's anything good happened electorally yeah this this was kind of sneaky i thought it talked about the roe v wade thing and then the next morning the staff however was back at work on its union drive with its first post thanking the public for its support of the effort their god damn they were fighting for their god damn rights and couldn't be bothered and they their silly little rights in the workplace to bargain collectively they couldn't be bothered it's just like okay I mean, I know a lot of these people.

I promise you they give a fuck about the Roe v. Wade thing. I don't know. That's basically how the article ends. That is. Not really. That's dishonest of me. That would be a hilarious thing if it's like they start using like issues that pop up

as like a union busting tactic oh like you don't want to observe Juneteenth but you're going to do your silly little your silly little union drive instead of that wow that's exactly right like it's he's doing the exact same fucking thing.

Dude, that is so fucking sneaky. They're going to start acting like, yeah, if you're focused on your, like, rights as a worker and so forth and, like, build up robust unions, then you can't be devoting enough time to the issues. That is so fucking sneaky, dude. It's just that, like, how do you get to that point? I hope I'm never there.

Jesus. I mean, like, again, Ryan, if you fuck with your boy, it might not be you, man. It might be where you work. I can't believe that you are this goddamn dishonest, but maybe you'd say the same thing about me in this episode. I'm just saying. All I can base my shit on is what I've seen working in non-profits and the way that I exited my non-profit job.

So, like, that's my basis for this. I don't know. I just don't know how something like that finds its way into, you know, at least a presumably left publication, you know. Yeah, and again, I'll, like, warrant that call-out culture, whatever the fuck you want to call it, cancel culture, I mean, whatever. Yeah, I mean, there are. Call-out culture begat cancel culture.

It was, like, the the pre version of it one day one day yeah you were getting chastised for playing robin thick's blurred lines and then five years later you were the thing is is that they always fuck up because like at the very least call out culture is extremely we even fucking had a name for it early on in the show the woke reach or the woke straw man like at the very least it's extremely fucking funny the example that we use with someone getting called out for doing the worm and i don't care who you are you're never going to convince me that that has like world shattering, like epic,

uh, you know, insinuations about the future we're inheriting. To me, that is just the funniest fucking thing. Yeah. I got called out one time for wearing moccasins in my own home. I got called out one time because people,

someone misheard me saying the Hillary comeback narrative and someone thought I said comeback. The comeback, oh yeah. I got fucking called out in front of a few. Yeah, because that's a normal thing people say.

The thing is, if someone calls you out like that, if it's totally unwarranted, if it's ridiculous, if it's the woke reach or the woke straw man then like they're gonna look like the asshole all you got to do is just weather and it's actually pretty funny yeah it's just like i just don't think that like i think that the bosses are hearing that i think that like it's one of those examples where the workers are demanding changes in the workplace, and the bosses are hearing personal attacks on them. You know what I'm saying? They're taking it extremely fucking personally.

Because they are social climbers, because they worked their way up through the Byzantine world of nonprofit world, they are themselves deluded. They have not been able to see through the mystification of that social relation. And so they don't understand. They don't understand that they are the boss until they have to fucking fire someone. And they're like, it's just the thing. Like, it's weird, dude. They like delude themselves. They really don't see that it's fucking so bizarre, man.

I'll never understand it. Yeah. Never fucking understand it. Well. Well, anyways, I got to go run payroll and get all the... Coil the uprising of our employers and our employees here. Oh, man. So, all right.

Housekeeping. We have housekeeping. We have an update. A lot of you are asking, where's Tanya Turner? You remember her? Have you seen this woman? Have you seen this woman in your neighborhood? Running through your backyard, Putting spells on your animals.

No, I don't think we ever explicitly mentioned it. Mostly because we were kind of like legally hamstrung for saying anything. But like she basically got targeted by our old pal Chris Verufo. This was months ago. And she's just taking a sabbatical sometimes you just gotta take a sabbatical from things in life and sometimes that means you're left with the two assholes who have nothing else going on uh and i don't know when she'll be back. Maybe never. She'll let us know when she's ready. That's the thing with sabbatical.

When you're on sabbatical, you don't know how it's going to end, and that's the beauty of it. Every day is an adventure. Every day is what you choose to make it. So, yeah, I don't know. As you can imagine, if that happened to you, you'd probably have some second thoughts about going and doing your public radio show, uh,

twice a week. So, um, so anyways, uh, there's that. There's also the fact that you all owe us money. Uh,

we're calling in all our debts. lowest money. We're calling in all our debts. We're dangling you upside down and shaking you. We're calling in all our debts. Go to patreon.com, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com. You and Joe Biden owe me money. That's right. That's right.

And you can support us there. And I guess that's about it. Yeah. And we obviously are thankful for that continued support. And, yeah. All right. Well, go sign up. Until next time, we'll see you over there.

Peace out. Bye-bye.