Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 63: Democracy Dies In Whiteness or, Doomsday Clock to White Genocide

Episode Date: August 2, 2018

This one's got a little bit about "Appalachian-ness" as an identity, and then we take some shots at some nerd who works for the Washington Post.

I'm sitting over here because I'm trying a new thing now. I don't want to sit on the couch anymore. Can I take the couch? You can take the couch. I feel like it's making me soft. It's making me soft in my, in everything. I need hard chairs. I need austere.

I'm a very Spartan guy. I need. He says this as I look over on his coffee table and see a jar of 100% extra virgin coconut oil. In my defense. If there's any adjective I can use to describe you, it's 100% extra virgin. No, my weed dealer sold me a bunch of weed in this. I don't know. Maybe she was trying to tell you something.

How you know you live in a hippie town yeah you fucking get your weed in a shea butter fucking tub i was just trying to roll a joint before you came over here and um man it's so humid everything is soggy my weed is soggy my rolling papers are soggy mine's soggy my mind is soggy um yeah no no, I got to sit in this chair, man. And it's the same way at work, too. I can't have cushioned chairs at work. You never get anything accomplished. I can't.

Just settle right in. I can't have comfort. We're going to see how this works, you know? Hell yeah. Because I just feel like. I already feel like I'm under police question with these track lights in my damn face. Maybe that's why I'm having a hard time over there on the couch.

The couch is very comfortable, but it's... It not goes down a jack. You want me to turn it down a little bit? Just a little bit. Yeah, yeah. It puts a lot of pressure on you. I never thought I would fold under questioning, but I can see how their methods could work.

How's that? That's good. That's kind of seductive. Yes. Went to the sexy lighter. Yes. Well, damn, I meant to show you this before I turned the lights down. The front page of the Mountain Eagle today.

Did you see it? No, I didn't. Deputies recovered $27,000 in fake cash at Millstone. Dude, I was laughing my ass off at this fake cash. Look at the pictures on it. It's got like Ulysses S. Grant on a $50 bill just scowling. Got fucking Andrew Hamilton. Looks more like John Kerry.

You mean Alexander Hamilton or Andrew Jackson? Andrew Jackson. Wait, Hamilton's on a... What's Hamilton on? I think he's on the 10. He's on the 10. Yeah, Andrew Jackson's on the 10. I just thought it was hilarious.

Look at Ben Franklin, though. He's got this pursed-looking mouth. His lips are pursed. That is fucking hilarious. He's like... Yeah, dude. Pretty goddamn funny. God, what's so funny? Look at Ben Franklin. Oh, I know. I know. Pretty goddamn funny. God, what's so funny?

Look at Ben Franklin. Oh, I know. I know. It's weird. It's really funny, though, because I didn't know. None of their expressions fit what they really look like. Well, I try. Trust me.

I look at a lot of money. Well, that's what I'm confused about. I didn't know counterfeiting money was like, did they not? I don't understand. was like, did they not, I don't understand. With modern technology, can't you just like put a paper dollar bill on a printer and just Photoshop the photo of the actual dollar bill onto a dollar bill?

You're making the case for the mark of the beast. You know, an old hustle in college, I never did this, but i know if people that did this was they would take like a counterfeit hundred dollar bill into like a busy bar yeah and then they would go just buy like one beer yeah and when they would change it out they would tiff them out of that change and then just pocket the rest of it oh yeah that is brilliant because it's too there's too much shit going on too dark to see like to know if it's a now they have like i guess the little marker pins i say that like they just came out yesterday they've been around

since then yeah but then like it's what you do like if you get caught you're like oh shit man i must have got that changed out at walmart yeah they'll do that to you at food city if you hand them a hundred dollar bill they do the marker yeah they'll leave that to you at Food City if you hand them a $100 bill. They'll do the marker. Yeah. Or they'll hold it up to the light. You ever say, where are you, the police? It's real goddamn it.

Speaking of college, by the way, I was thinking the other day, do you think that you're, I think I legitimately, do you think that you're the only person with your specific trajectory? You're the only person I know who was in a frat in college and now is a lefty podcaster. Hey, but unless you count Rob. Rob Wiseman.

Rob Wiseman. He was in A different fraternity At the same school as me True Okay fuck Well I don't know that he's

Technically a lefty podcaster I'd say he's a podcaster With left politics Right Right Right Right Well I was laughing

My ass off To myself Thinking about that though I was like man We've got a We've got a special one In that Tom Sexton. Well,

what's funny though is that the two guys even in that similar trajectory in the same scene went to the same fucking bullshit school in Kentucky.

That doesn't even have accreditation anymore, right? No, no, fucking our most prestigious

graduate was fucking what's his face? What's that conservative game show host doing? Steve Inskeep from Let's Make a Deal. No, Steve Inskeep

went there too. But, uh, wording edition. This is Steve Inskeep. Not Wink Martindale. What the fuck is his name? Help me out here. No, he's like

a conservative talk radio guy now. Peter Siegel? No, hold on a second. I'm having a serious break. I'm on day two of keto and I'm already having brain fog. What's keto?

You know, the low-carb thing. And it gives you brain fog? Oh, dude, serious brain fog. I can't fucking do anything. I was standing in line the other day at Food City and the cosmopolitan or some shit said, like, to get rid of brain fog, you gotta eat a lot of fruit fiber.

So I guess, I mean, there's probably truth to that. I gotta Google this, man. I'm fucking. I got a fuckload of blueberries in my freezer right now. If you wanna,

if you want, we can, we can put them in your ass and that's the quickest way to get that fruit fiber, man. Just keep, keep stirring. Yeah.

Stevenski. Stevenske. Not Stevenske. Stevenske is the NPR morning edition guy. This guy hosted fucking morning edition. Hollywood Squares or some shit. Maybe let's make a deal. Dude, I was laughing my ass off the other day thinking about-

Chuck Woolery. Chuck Woolery. Yeah. But he's a right winger. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. A serious right winger. Oh, yeah, Chuck Woolery. Yeah. But he's a right winger. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. A serious right winger. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so he's got...

All fans of the spectrum. But he went to Moorhead? He went to Moorhead, yeah. Wow. Billy Ray Cyrus went to Moorhead. Wow. Kenneth Freed, NBA player. Phil Simms, New York Giants legend.

Well, perhaps you've heard of a little school that I went to called South Plains College. Level A in Texas. Go Broncos. What was your mascot? I think it was Mustangs. Mustangs, yeah. I think that's what it was.

I know a guy, my friend Matt. I don't know if you've met my friend. You've met my friend Matt. Big lumbering, goofy guy. Coaches basketball. He was gonna be the coach at South Plains. No shit. Basketball coach, yeah.

Big Juco school, apparently. Man, they've got a, it is. Back from basketball? Yeah. And they've got a really good music program. That's why I went there. Interesting. Yeah.

I was like, I'm gonna, I thought I was gonna be the, I was gonna be like a mixing engineer, like a sound engineer. I thought that was what I was gonna be. And then I got to doing it, and I was like to be a mixing engineer, like a sound engineer. I thought that was what I was going to be. Then I got to doing it and I was like, this fucking sucks. I just want to play music.

I don't want to mix ones and twos. I don't want to do the ones and twos. You don't want to be on the ones and twos? No, only if it's podcasting because it's very easy. There's three channels. Guys, get into it. Everybody's telling everybody podcasting's canceled.

I'm back to death. You think it's coming back? It's a low barrier to entry. We really did get in at just the right moment because if we had just waited another few months, maybe even weeks, maybe even days. Yeah, we would not be here. Really, if, honestly,

if the J.D. Vance clamor hadn't happened when it happened and we got in, if we'd have waited until it died down, we'd have been sunk. Got to get a little luck in this life, too. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. You want to hear some speaker pieces? We haven't done it in a while, but there was a few good ones. Just because the best ones are Christian ones.

Do you want to read them or do you want me to? Let me see what we got over there. I circled some. You got anything circled? I circled some that you should look into. Let me see what we got. Wait, before you start. Never mind.

I like this. This grabs my eye immediately. All you Donald Trump fans should read The Manchurian Candidate. It came out in the 60s. It's like, yeah. I think most of us have either heard or seen the movie that came out since then. With Denzel Washington? yeah yeah the remake was jonathan demme film it's good the manchurian candidate looks so much like donald trump it's

pitiful yeah i don't really know what they were getting at there does are they saying that donald trump is like a super soldier that was like What was the Manchuria candidate? I think it was like about a guy. I didn't watch it. I just know what it is. It was like about a Yeah, it was like a hostile foreign power put a candidate I think it was kind of the sort of

Lee Harvey Oswald thing. It was like a hostile foreign power brainwashes a candidate to hear a certain word and when he hears that word, covfefe or whatever. God, I thought we agreed not to say that. He assassinates the president or whatever. So I don't understand that analogy. Donald Trump is not an ex-soldier.

Definitely not a super soldier of any kind. No. Just a big wet boy uh i think it's simply amazing that a large number of the people who go to church in this country every sunday are going to bust the gates of hell wide open because their preachers preach to them false teaching i circled that for several reasons. First of all, the notion that the gates of hell are just busting at the seams.

Everybody's just trying to get in. Or out. It's just packed. Packed house. But the second reason... Before you get too far down the road, I think it's hilarious that let's say that Christian theology is right,

and if we don't say the right combination of words or feel contrived for things that we've, unseemly things we've done, that we're gonna get sent to this cosmic realm that's really hot and has gates, apparently. Right. If you're already there, what in that scenario makes you think you're going to get at?

Let's say you get past the gates. Then what do you do? You're just kind of like, okay, it's still pretty hot over here, but where are you going? Well, you need to try to stay as close to the gates as possible because that way you'll probably be able to get a draft. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Because the body heat, you like the body everybody's body heats like at a concert that's kind of like what hell is and just being at a concert sometimes that is true yeah yeah yeah but no another reason I thought it was funny was because I think it's really funny that american protestants have this idea that like they're so dialed into their own sort of tiny isolated denomination that they literally think that like they're the difference between a lutheran and a Baptist and old regular Baptist or Presbyterian or whatever is so vast that it will land you in hell, in the inferno. Like they think there's so much distance between those.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, no. I don't, I just don't, I don't know. It's a lot of work to maintain that kind of Christianity or that idea of Christianity, you know? And what makes you think that it's the right way anyway? Right, right, right. Well, I don't know.

I guess it's because maybe the Presbyterian church has better cake than the Baptist church. They have the worst music. Tell you that. Presbyterians have the most dog than the Baptist church. They have the worst music. Tell you that. Presbyterians have the most dog shit boring music. What is it? It's just fucking piano rock. It's not even piano rock.

It's just. It's Billy. It's fucking. They just play piano, man, when you go in there. Right, right. It's Randy Newman. I'm going to pivot on piano rock., when you go in there. Right, right. It's Randy Newman. I'm gonna pivot on piano. The way he's doing it.

I guess I do like Jerry Lee Lewis and Randy Newman. Man, I love Randy Newman songs. Randy Newman. He's got that one song where he says the N word. But it's like, is it okay? Because it is satire. Well, it's kind of as if he's embodying a character. I'd say, I'm not touching that.

You're not touching that. I'm not touching that. Yeah, well, anyways. Moving right along. I'm not touching it. To certain people. Put the paper over your face. face to certain people is it true you all are hackers i was that one was i would have never guessed it i thought you all were above that i really need to pay more attention to what i think are good people. To me, hackers are lazy and spineless. I need to pay more attention.

Yeah. I'm confused here. I'm not entirely sure, but the notion that you call into the Speak Your Peace line, maybe that's what they were talking about. Maybe they were talking about the people at the Mountain Eagle. You're knocking on the door. Are you hackers?

Hey. Hey, you guys hackers. Are guys hackers hackers what happened to the hacker the left needs more hackers i guess you know what i'm saying where you been dog what happened to hackers i mean that's probably the i mean good kind of hackers oh okay you know what i mean like well i just mean that like okay so we're not going to be taking down any kind of, we're not going to be like on the barricades with Kalashnikovs anytime soon shutting the system down.

But if we had just a few good hackers on our side, man, they could shut down Powerpoint. Wasn't that what? Remember when like everybody thought that's what Anonymous was going to be? Right, right. And then Anonymous just kind of ended up being like a bunch of fucking. There was no coherent, I think in the mid-2000s, late 2000s, maybe everybody was just mad at the system.

And so there was really no coherent strategy or ideology behind it. Anonymous was kind of coincided with Occupy a little bit, right? It kind of did. Or is that the same kind of timeline? I forget now. They happened around the same time.

I remember it was like the Arab Spring, then Occupy. Anonymous was like Time's Person of the Year or something. What a waste. Yeah, you're right. And then Chelsea Manning and WikiLeaks. That was also around the same time. Man. How about like Julian Assange just being a total piece of shit?

I mean, I guess the indications were all there the whole time. Yeah. But. I would say there was plenty of anonymouses that were pieces of shit too. They were all just like, I remember they'd give these like very cryptic warnings to like joe paterno go to remember they do those like youtube bills go to the cops joe paterno we will not forgive we will not forgive we will not forget it was just obama as he was anonymous you um you ignored mike mcquarrie's

testimony you are out here smoking clothes on the streets of wall street you're gonna die in six days but um as your penance we're going to steal all the money out of your saving out of your savings account. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What happened? We need those guys. Those are the kind of shooters we need. Is it though? I'm just saying it could be useful

to have somebody on our side who could shut down a power plant, a dam, huh, yeah? Yeah, yeah. Ste? Yeah? Yeah. Steal people's money. That probably wouldn't be good, actually. No one DSA chapter should have all that power. No one should have a DSA chapter. Right, right.

What else we got? You got any other good ones over there? Oh, let's see what we got here. Oh. We can move on to the next item of interest if you'd like. We don't have to stay on that.

There are several websites that use the term Appalachia. And I invite you to call, but when you call several of them are rude to you. Wait, what do you... Several websites use the term and invite you to call, but when you call, several of them are rude to you. Wait, what do you... Several websites use their...

And invite you to call. Oh, okay. Just keep reading. It'll make sense to you. But when you call, several of them are rude to you. Why do they post their phone number on their website if they don't want you to call and ask questions? You can call Apple Shop and ask questions, and they don't seem to mind. You can call WMTFM, especially on Monday nights

at 10 p.m. Uh-huh. And the DJs will talk to you, but if you call Appalachian Alliance, Alliance for Appalachian, I'm guessing. Yeah, that's what it is.

They tell you to call Appalachian Voices because they've got a newspaper. God bless you and have a nice day. It is. That's only funny if you actually work with these people and at that radio station. Exactly's only funny if you actually work

with these people and at that radio station. Exactly. And we do. And we do. The Bible says, love thy neighbor as thyself. One of the worst things

you've ever done is love thy neighbor. Because when he gets a chance to stick it to you, he will do it. So just stay the heck away from him and be kind. All right. Not wrong. Oh, man. to you he will do it so just stay the heck away from him and be kind all right it's not wrong

oh man oh wait back to the Appalachia thing real quick yeah let's not move on I was thinking of the other day about um uh the movie you ever see the movie Liar Liar with Jim Carrey yeah yeah could you imagine like a movie like that but it's a guy who every time he tries to say appalachia he could only say appalachia like he's like for for 35 years we've been working in the central and southern apple southern he's like looking around He's like looking around Appalachia And then once he actually says Appalachia

Then like 400 app studies nerds dogpiling Yeah You motherfucker You've seen the bumper stickers It's Appalachia Just that look on his Long vowel That's so funny Yeah pretty dumb it's Appalach-uh. Just that look on his... Yeah. Long vowel.

That's so funny. Yeah, pretty dumb. Pretty fucking dumb. Yeah. So what's been going on? What's been going on in your world? Shit, man. I have been... I've been Googling pictures

of Soviet- era tennis players to see if they're wearing corporate logos and stuff on their clothes. They were. They were? Yeah, they were. Interesting. Adidas, Lacoste, they were early Lacosters. Really?

Yeah. Do you think that, I guess, is this tennis player Beholden to like A certain government Like Could you just be A tennis player

And probably They're beholden to the No you have to represent Your Whatever your country's Federation is Like you couldn't be Autonomous

From a country I'm a citizen of the world Well I suppose you could But you wouldn't get Very far Because like They're The like

Country's federation is who sponsors you. You'd have to be ultra rich. Oh, okay. To be able to fund your own travel, which is not cool either. So do you think there's a discrepancy then between the tennis players and the government? The government just wasn't enforcing that?

No, I mean these bodies are like... I guess it's a fair point. I mean, huh, good question. Damn, revisionist-ass tennis players. Maybe the Soviets were like, I don't know. Then I looked at some pictures, it looked like their shoes were falling apart

and they're like, yeah, it was pretty raggedy, but I don't know if that's got anything to do with it. That could have something to do with it. They could have got like hand-me-downs like soviet union is like raiding dumpsters could you imagine they're sending the red army over like kgb operatives to like raid nike dumpsters like 4xl polo shirts shit like that shit that they threw out yeah i want to i want to be pretty tight if that's what they really did i want a government that rate that dumpster dives yeah i'm a dumpster

diver for the government earlier alex said that you had to uh what did she say you had to explain yourself or your story. Yeah, we had a work call. On a work call? Everybody went around and had to tell their connection to Appalachian. I said, well, I'm. Did you say you're of and from these mountains?

I said I'm of and from these mountains and so is my art. What was the response to that they were like so joanne you're next oh fuck i'm tom he him pronouns blah blah blah oh that's cool i'm from one of these mountains from one of these mountains yeah but and of these mountains. Yeah, but it's funny because everybody had to answer the same question, what's your connection to Appalachia? And a lot of them were like, you could tell they were just fucking Hickster nerds who were like, well, the old family homestead.

Anybody that tells me their old family homestead is somewhere in the mountains, I know you're not a real fucking hillbilly because nobody has a family homestead. Exactly. It's true. If you did, you didn't experience the crushing poverty that comes with living here. And so I tend to think that. Right, because no one owns land here. Nobody.

Nobody. It's like the cult. It's a dead giveaway that you're full of shit or you're a rich person. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is fine. You know, you can whatever. you're full of shit or or you're a rich person yeah yeah yeah yeah which is fine you know you can whatever but uh but it is weird how like the whole notion of Appalachian identity it has this sort of like component of poverty romanticization to it yeah so it's it's really like once you sort

of box yourself in with that yeah um it's really funny to watch people sort of try to worm their way back out of it. Yeah. Like, oh yeah, I mean I'm Appalachian. I grew up in a little suburb outside of Asheville. Or Knoxville. Are there suburbs outside of Asheville? Pittsburgh, yeah.

I'm talking out of my ass, man. I don't fucking know. Asheville might be a hair bit too small to have suburbs. But yeah, I get what you're saying. You're from Brevard. Brevard. Brevard, Harry said that. That's how they say it down there.

Brevard. Yeah, no. Yeah, no, that's cool. I don't know what my connection to Appalachia would be. If you look at the strictest geographical maps, you're connection to Appalachia would be. If you look at the strictest geographical maps, you're from greater Appalachia. Yeah, there was a little bit of an uproar over that this week. Did you see that?

Yeah, it was somebody posted, there was an op-ed by a guy who made that map that said that like- Oh yeah, the New York Times. Yeah, the New York Times. It said that there was like cultural regions in the United States and that Eastern New Mexico

was part of Greater Appalachia. That's right. And then like there was, God, it was so disingenuous. I've already forgotten about it, but it's almost like they were like trying to play that map off as like a legitimate like electoral map.

They were. You're right. They weren't forthcoming about what it actually meant and that it was entirely the arbitrary contrivance of a single writer, of a single op-ed contributor. Yeah, just completely fucking ridiculous. But I could, you're right, I could say that. I could just start saying that like it's fact.

Like, listen, I'm from eastern new mexico you don't understand we've got it's culturally it's greater appalachia it's greater appalachia and and it doesn't even fucking matter is the thing like who cares where the fucking way's from yeah yeah i mean like yeah you're right you're right you you know where you're from is a important part of your identity right it says a lot about you and it says a lot about like why you are the way you are but at the same time I've lived in at this point in um you know New Mexico Texas and Kentucky you know, New Mexico, Texas, and Kentucky with brief interludes in West Virginia, in North Carolina,

people are pretty much the same everywhere you go. Oh, yeah, totally. I mean, you know, there's some differences here and there. But aside from, like, just being a quirky factoid about who you are, you know, putting it as the forefront of your identity is, I mean, if that's your thing, go for it, whatever.

But I mean, but I think that, you know, maybe identity's hard in 2018, maybe. I used to make fun of Eric Arias because his social media profiles profiles i'll say the first thing is like half filipino you know what i mean and i was like that's kind of a funny thing to lead with but i guess if like you are you know if you're like kind of racially ambiguous maybe it's just best to like for the sake of yeah to kind of get out and just say like's just best to like, for the sake of, Yeah. to kind of get out and just say like,

you know. Well, here's what I think is behind all this. Because white people always have that burning question. Where are you really from? What kind of brown are you? Yeah,

it's really fucked up. But, it's really funny that you say that. It's funny you mention that because, I've, I was thinking about this the other day and it was because I was listening

to this podcast, the Dig podcast and it was because I was listening to this podcast the Dig podcast and they had this guy on there I don't fucking remember his name now Jacob Fry maybe but it was an episode about like white ethnicities

I don't know how to say it other than to say that like ethnic whites like ethnic whites yeah ethnic whites like people are always trying to evade the responsibility for white supremacy and slavery and hegemony and all these things by pointing out they're Irish

or Serbian Appalachian even to a degree that's the point I wanted to make that Appalachian American or Appalachian or whatever serves a very similar function it's basically to say like and almost in our early days i'd argue that i we almost waded into that a little bit you did we yeah i mean uh i did that interview with katie hell for that one time that i'm not terribly proud i've still never listened to it so no no if you do if you go back i think it's on our patreon so if you go if you're a patreon subscriber or you you know uh

are thinking about it and just skip over that one but did you i said some dumb ass shit like man my granddad was paid in script and that's just like a couple of notches away from slavery it's like okay but that's a little that's a that's a little off base i see what you're going for i see the point you're trying to make man but yeah i was new to the left not really new to the left. Not really new to the left, but like, you know. Well, it's, I wanted mine, baby. Well, you know, it's, again, this notion of, you know, culpability and responsibility. And when it comes down to, you know know white supremacy and your complicity in it

it's like white people are very good at sort of evading responsibility yeah yeah fracturing out like their their sort of responsibility and complicity in that and so it's like oh wow I'm Appalachian or I'm you know from West Texas dirt farmers like you know what I mean? We had it hard too. And it's like, I'm not saying that you didn't, but there's really no comparable experience to being stolen from a continent, having your family members sold off, being thrown into this hellscape

of just violence, despair. And plus, the big thing though, really the big thing about it is that most modern American wealth is still a product of all that. All of that. So whether you wanna acknowledge it or not, you are. But also another thing I've been thinking of with the Appalachian thing too is like you know in that whole conversation nobody ever wants to talk about

like the native americans we slaughtered off here before we cleaned these you know what i'm saying like well it's a funny way to make woke people's brains like sort of melt down yeah particularly people that just they're the true believers in these like you know this whole Appalachian thing. well so there's that but then also ah fuck. Take it away. I'm brain fogging again.

Keto baby. Hold on a second. I gotta... So, yeah. So, the point... The larger point... which is that um oh what i was going to say is that there is a um i think a lot of people in like woke circles that are like really into the appalachian thing also uh don't really know about. Appalachia is different from the rest of what could be considered Southern in that our most vile racial histories

have been kind of scrubbed from the history books a little bit. Yeah. I didn't mean to make that sound so kooky. I've been scrubbed from the history books. But like, I mean, we were lynching fucking Italians in East Tennessee. Right.

You know what I'm saying? Pretty damn racist. Right, right, right. Well, and there was some really, there's some really fucked up insane stuff that happened in West Virginia around like salt mining and salt. Yeah, if you ever heard of the phrase

back to the salt mines like for your job. Yeah. It's got a. A racial. Pretty racial, but also, I mean, also just class tens sort of fucked up thing to it. Yeah, you're right. It all goes back to this question

that we've asked a lot on the show, which is, is Appalachia exceptional? You get locked in. It's really hard to sort of break out of that because it's like, yeah, it is. I mean, it really is, but at the same time. Is it's like yeah it is i mean it really is but at the same time is it is it though yeah i don't know yeah i don't know maybe the difference is that like there was no so i think a lot of people generally sort of look at slavery like there's

two kinds of of um you know like you've got slavery just sort of like isolated incidences of it but then you've got slave societies like america pre-civil war um russia you know during like the surfs you know like serfdom and everything um brazil where like the entire productive capacity of society is is fed by slave labor yeah all the institutions that grew up around it are created by that but I don't know if that really

extended into parts of eastern Kentucky and eastern Tennessee and shit the way that it had in the deep south and so I think well yeah I mean there was I mean in Notting way that it had in the deep south. And so I think that... Well, yeah, I mean, there was... I mean, in Notts County, the slaves worked in the coal mines. Damn.

Yeah, there's... Oh, yeah, we talked about it. Yeah, there's a little antidote in the history of Corporal Fess Whitaker, which is, if you can find the copy, for less than $900, you should get that. That's a foundational text of the Trillbillies, by the way. It is.

You have to read that. But it's weird because... And it makes me curious if, because in that book, if I'm not mistaken, the guy, when he's talking about like his father that owns slaves, and when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation,

he said something that, my dad hated to let his little Jack go. Like, I think Jack's a pejorative word for your black slave. And he was like, but when the greatest American that ever lived says you have to free him, you had to free him.

And it was like- That's crazy. Yeah, it was crazy. But also it kind of made me think because, and I'm not saying this is the case, but Jack Tales are a popular thing in Eastern Kentucky. You think that's where it comes from? Well, I think, I don't know if it's like,

it morphed into something innocuous, but I think it probably started out as something kind of racist. I think it's probably like, you know, anyway. Yeah, we should have an actual scholar on here to have bob hutton or anybody else that listens to the show knows less knows we're talking about our out of our ass about something very sensitive too so yeah which is what which is kind of on brand but right right we like to talk about we like to inexperperiencedly, how do you put that into an adverb? Talk about things that we don't know shit about.

Well, here's the thing now. This is relevant, though, because of this article I wanted to talk about on the show today. I'm kind of bummed Tanya's not here because I kind of wanted to see her face when we brought it up just because I can picture it in my mind, this sort of look with disgust on her face. Why would you click on this? Oh, God. But it's the one that was going around in the Washington Post about white and in the minority.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and the reason I wanted to talk about it, because I think it's kind of interesting for a few reasons. It's by a guy who shares my namesake, which I'm not too crazy about. First of all... Also, just before you get into this, I was trying to be scathing and biting,

but ended up with my fucking worst try-hard earnest tweet ever the other day. It was like, Hey, Terrence, whatever. heart earnest tweet ever the other day it was like a terrence whatever which rich which which rich guy that has a vested interest in keeping blacks and whites separate i saw that and i was like after i after i put up there and let it marinate i was like god damn that's that's uh good job sexton i thought it was uh that was what you were going for at least the trouble with being earnest

I made a few tweets about it and deleted them because I felt like I wasn't really explaining myself very well but there's just a few points I want to make about it the first there's a bunch of obvious points to make about it. So the articles in the Washington Post is called White and in the Minority. She speaks English.

Her co-workers don't. Inside a rural chicken plant, whites struggle to fit in. And on the cover of it, you got this man and this woman sort of, you know, the photo of it is very symbolic of the story and analogy he's trying to make. It's, you know, they're a white couple sort of huddled up at this table alone. Yeah. Which is funny because there's a white guy behind them.

Whatever. Spole's been poked in this already. I guess that would complicate the narrative. But, you know, and then sort of all around them is a bunch of Hispanic workers. It's by a guy named Terrence McCoy. Giving Terrence's out there a bad name. Oh, puss-ass boy.

Not a lot of people are named Terrence. And I'm maybe the only person I know. I'm definitely the only person I've ever met who spells it the way I do. I don't do that. My parents did that. I can't take credit for what my parents did. Spells it the way I did.

I chose to spell it. That's what your name's gonna be. You spell it how you want to, son. I came out the womb like, listen, for 35 years, Central and Southern App... Listen, for 35 years, Central and Southern... Yeah, it's a very interesting article. I read the entire thing.

And the prose with which... I've followed this reporter for a while, and I even... I know where he lives and everything about him. Yeah. I'm like Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver. Yeah. You ever seen what a snub-nosed 38 can do to a reporter's asshole? Yeah, no, I mean, I followed him for a while,

and I even mentioned to you a few months ago I wanted to do an episode about his writing. I don't know if you remember this or not. But the reason I wanted to do an episode about it writing. I don't know if you remember this or not. But the reason I wanted to do an episode about it is because he's written a lot about eastern Kentucky and about Appalachia. And he's got a very distinct style.

His writing, his prose, is very sort of like punchy. It's very commanding. He's a good writer. I'll say that and but he's in the wrong line of work it should be a fiction writer he should be a fucking fiction writer exactly well i mean the thing is is like um he you know he writes this entire article you've got i mean i've got what fucking 17 goddamn pages here this motherfucker's huge and the whole point you know like i i sort of mentioned on twitter i was talking to scott

benson as mentioned on twitter like it opens with this analogy of them sort of like huddled together um while the sort of walls of diversity close in around them and he uses prose to sort of um he uses what he does is he uses a prosaic device to sort of imply that sense of urgency what he does is he's like they've got seven minutes they've got eight ten minutes till the break is over and he and he'll interject seven minutes left five minutes left it's like a ticking a clock it's like it's a device that is intentionally supposed to show, like it's supposed to mirror, I guess, like the white. The urgency. Yes, the urgency.

The countdown till white genocide. Exactly. You know how they have those doomsday clocks? That's exactly what I'm talking about. It's like a white genocide clock. A white genocide clock. The editors at the Washington Post, they've made an announcement like,

oh, we're moving the doomsday clock one minute closer to white genocide. Well, that's kind of like what he's trying to do. Two minutes left, one minute left, or whatever. You know what I mean? And they're pressing closer together as more and more Mexicans come around them and talk fucking Spanish. And it's totally absurd

because then they start, they go into her difficulties, the woman's difficulties with not being able, and this is legitimate. I'm not saying it's not. If you work in a work environment that's dangerous, it's important to be able to and this is legitimate. I'm not saying it's not. Like if you work in a work environment that's dangerous, it's important to be able to talk.

For sure. At least be able to communicate basic concepts and ideas with your coworkers. Yeah. But first of all, I've worked in workplaces where I've been the only person really

who talks English and it's pretty badass. Like no one talks to you. You just get to sit there one of the things i fucking hate about working is having to talk to co-workers it's actually a pretty badass scenario when you don't have to talk to anybody just fucking sit there eat your sandwich watch the fucking telenovelas on the tv and go about your day that's just me but i don't know but no people really do need to be able to connect with each other.

And if it's a dangerous work environment, they need to be able to communicate. Right. But he spills all this fucking ink basically showing how that's a problem. That basically spills all this ink to tell these people, or not to tell these people, but perhaps all this trouble could have been avoided if they had just learned the word peligro. That's the thing. She's not a fucking idiot, okay? First of all, she could learn that.

Yeah. But the author himself and the article is doing a lot of heavy lifting, a lot of heavy racist lifting for the couple in the middle of the story. You know, there's just sort of garden variety, white people, racist, probably haven't really given it a whole lot of thought. Just your garden variety reactionary tendencies that exist in the WWC, baby. The white working class Trump country. The motherfucking WWC.

Right. But it's not, but like I said, he's doing a lot of heavy lifting for this couple. Yeah. And he's putting a lot of ideas on the table for them to absorb and agree with. I don't know, like I said, on Twitter, he's working with a specific framing, and I've met people personally who have met this writer and know that that's what he does.

But I'll talk a little bit more about that. So he's a racist. I don't know. We'll tease that out. We'll explore that. Stick a pin in that. I don't, I wouldn't go so far. Okay, he's white.

Yeah, he's probably, he works for the Washington Post. He's probably a racist. Probably a racist. That's a safe bet. Right, right, right. But how racist is he? How racist and what message is he trying to convey? Okay, so he goes through all this sort of, like I said, work.

He goes to her boyfriend's mechanic shop and talks to a bunch of white people and about how they're just coming over here taking our job. Do you think he tries to pull the racism out of them? It's kind of like when you go home and you stick that case knife under your grease-laced fingernails and you pluck it away, you just know that you spent all day just fucking changing these people's oils in their goddamn Audis. All those Indian doctors driving their Audis. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's kind of the impression i get because the anecdote the very last anecdote he uses in this article invalidates everything that he puts before it i'm being 100 serious this is the anecdote he ends the article on the white woman at the center of the story goes to work she's standing outside waiting for her shift to start. Then a Spanish woman, a group of them actually, come up to her. Spanish-speaking woman. Okay. Did he say Spanish?

My bad. Spanish-speaking. Spaniards. Yeah. No, they come up to her and they hug her and they're nice to her and they're talking to her they're trying to like include her in their fucking whatever so it's just like okay first of all the first thing that's wrong is that you've you've got this framework where they've prioritized the grievances and misery or whatever of white people yeah second of all what is going on with these spanish-speaking people outside of this factory

sure maybe they're the majority in this factory but what happens to them once they step outside those walls and they go into the white supremacist society that we live in why is it sure you're the cock of the walk at the purdue factory you know what i'm saying why is that not the story being written why is this the story being written right i mean like me and my co-worker west were joking about this could you imagine going to like saskatchewan or montreal or something and like showing this to a newspaper up there and being and being like like could you imagine this same article framework for like French speaking workers you know what I mean like white French speaking workers in like Saskatchewan it wouldn't exist it wouldn't exist because the whole point the whole point is to invoke white as normal and as hegemonic and as immune, something that should be immune from all the other things.

Everybody else should have to contort themselves around our normal or whatever. Exactly. And that the white people in the story shouldn't have to be doing the kind of work that the spanish-speaking people in the story are doing which you know no one should have to be doing that kind of work and i'm not i'm not saying that like you know one of the what so like for example one take i did see on the internet was like they don't talk about how good these jobs are that's the bad that's a wrong take because these jobs aren't good they're fucking awful but again that's not the story either yeah the story here specifically about how white people are having it worse than anybody because they're isolated paradoxically yeah it's the white the

wwc that has it right right right yeah that's right but this is um and what was that was my whole thing when i like heard that i was like did nobody give this is, that was my whole thing when I heard that. I was like, did nobody give this guy the memo that the whole WWC Trump country, that whole grift ended April 2017? He's trying to just get as much mileage out of that as he can.

Well, he's been a major perpetuator of that sort of concept and framework. Sounds like it, yeah. You know concept and framework um you know so the reason and the reason i know about and the reason why he's on my radar is because he wrote this series on disability fraud in kentucky or not just disability fraud but the the ssi system in general sort of it was more about like the system of social security benefits in general and um they the in the washington post is so it's so bizarre man they they totally like doubled down on this too um he they like made this story that made it sound like everybody and their fucking dog was getting disability checks which

first of all it's incredibly difficult to get signed up for SSI. Incredibly difficult. I mean, and most of the people that get on it don't live very long. No, fuck no. You don't have a whole lot of time left, and you have to prove that you're so disabled that you cannot work.

That's part of the thing. And if they're going to, they're not just going to, like, sign off on a lifetime of benefits, and you don't have a legitimate claim to that. Well, but they've perpetuated this idea in this story, in this narrative, that it's just a widespread issue. That everybody, like I said, everybody and their fucking dog is that. It's so stupid.

It's also like food stamp fraud. Like food stamp fraud is like percentage, well, it's not even food stamps anymore i should say right wick yeah snap yeah it's like percentages of percentages and everybody like always points to that like i think it's less than 100 million dollars last year right and like like food benefits fraud yeah well so um and then there's one other story i wanted to talk about and i can't i'm not going to do it justice. I just want to do the contours of it real quick.

He wrote a story from Grundy, Virginia, maybe about a year, year and a half ago. And this is very indicative of his kind of writing. What he does is he'll, he, and this is what he did with this story in Grundy. He goes into a community and bases all of these conclusions essentially off of anecdotal evidence. And it's very convincing because like I said, he's a very good writer. And so, with the Grunt.

Poor journalistic integrity. He's letting democracy die in the dark is what he's doing. Well, yeah, and I kind of suspect, well, it's not fair for me to say he has an ulterior motive, but it is fair for me to say, and the story that he did in Grundy was he went in and he was basically talking about how there's this divide in the community over people who get unemployment benefits versus those who don't. And who's on the draw versus who's not, and who's working and who's not. Again, one paragraph in this entire fucking story was devoted to actual empirical statistics.

The rest of it was all anecdotal evidence. And this shit is almost the exact same way. You imagine if we went out here and we're just writing some sort of thing for a major outlet like that on strictly anecdotal evidence. You imagine the batshit nuts things that we would get. Dude, it's the, like we've said before, it's the unicorn coal miner.

It's the Bathurst coal miner. I mean, it's like anything exists anywhere. I mean, you could find anywhere. And you could make anything say anything you want. Exactly. But you can't extrapolate that out. But where this gets really sinister, in my opinion, is he's also written a couple of stories on the alt-right.

He's written, specifically, there was one that he wrote about a group of Charlottesville, a group of neo-Nazis that a group of Charlottesville a group of neo-nazis that essentially went to Charlottesville and then he wrote one about like maybe he was also too a neo-nazi that went to Charlottesville but basically the idea of

Terrence himself was a neo-nazi. No the guy he covered I'm sorry. Maybe he was there with the torch himself. Well that clears up a lot of our questions about ulterior motive. This guy's Dark Terrence. He's anti-Terrence. He's Wario.

Wario to your Mario. Yeah, he's Warence. Or Wa-Terrence. Maybe that would be better. Oh, God. Yeah, no. he uh or wa terence maybe that would be better oh god yeah no um and you know you can you can sort of like have a debate over whether it's useful to sort of cover and humanize the nazis and then look into what their uh beliefs are or whatever else but but what, I guess what I'm particularly confused by is, um, if, if you, you know, and it's a point that we've made it a lot on the show, is that, like,

if you work at an organization who's, um, if you work at an organization who is all the time talking about how you're losing money, you don't have any resources to cover this, that, and the other, who are you identifying as the villains in society? You know what I'm saying? Like, whose side are you taking? And, you know, it is important to be on the side, obviously, of white, poor people working in factories

obviously that's a project of the left but like putting them in sort of like diametrical opposition to their brown counterparts is not right right it's not helping anybody it's certainly only helping the alt-right which this guy seems to have a weird fascination with. He seems to have a weird fascination with white grievance in general in a way that, for me, just doesn't feel very productive. And the fact that, like I said,

he's been very cavalier with a lot of statistics they use, especially in this disability story and everything. You're making the case to fire Terrence from the... Sounds like you're here i'm just saying uh this is a whisper network if you ever come across a journalist named terrence mccoy run far away or tell give them some really hilarious actually that's what we need to start doing we need like that game where you like you start a rumor and see how how much it changes when it gets back to you yeah that's what we need to start doing we need like that game where you like you start a rumor and see how how much it changes when it gets back to you yeah that's what we need to start

doing man uh apple shop you know was we're gonna take back the narrative we're gonna start creating our own media and then maybe you can maybe the opposite end of that spectrum is just just don't talk to the media at all we're just going to start giving them false stories the bath is coal mine it's the wildest shit you ever seen the wildest shit you we're just going to start giving them false stories. The Bathurst coal miner. Bathurst coal miner. It's the wildest shit you've ever seen. The wildest shit you've ever seen, exactly. Man, this story, when I first saw it,

it made me think of when I was in college, we had to do this group presentation over. It's funny because this was my first exposure to ice. This was like 2009. Ice probably hadn't been in existence but a handful of years at that point and like we like the assignment was like just take all these government agencies and just report what they do and so really that's a yeah it's like if you like we and we got ice and we uh so like in my stance on ice it's just that like you know like let's just take away the moral imperative to like you know uh protect immigrants and keep families together and all that stuff they're just a useless law enforcement

agency like all they do besides like terrorize immigrants is like fucking confiscate fake gucci bags from fucking flea markets yeah right it's like we really can do with that like seriously we can really do without them even if you're not a leftist you can really do without that you'll be just fine mean, they provide no value to society. But anyway, so there was this girl, and she was like this Pentecostal girl, and I can only tell because I came out of that, and I can only spot the denim skirt anywhere. And she didn't do fucking shit for the whole project.

We're putting together a presentation or whatever, whatever. Classic. Classic free to look. So she just pops up, and we're like, a presentation or whatever, whatever. Classic. Classic free to look. And, like, so she just pops up and we're like, here, just, you know, we'll just fucking say this, you know, whatever. Well, yeah, we go through our presentation or whatever and then, like, we talk about, like, why we, you know, think ISIS, you know, like, what our opinions are of it.

And, you know, what we came to was that, like, it seems pretty useless to have a full agency devoted to counterfeiting and immigration or whatever. And the girl that didn't show up to anything, she goes, now hold on a second. Went totally rogue on us. Now hold on a second.

You're like, all you had to do was show up all you had to do was stand there and say three goddamn sentences off a post note she goes i'm not sure i feel like that she goes god you see i come from a small town in montgomery county kentucky i'm of and from these hills. These central Appalachian hills. Or not even Appalachian, central Kentucky hills. Right, the bluegrass. And she goes, I can't even put my finger on it, but I don't agree with that at all.

She goes, all I know is this, is ever since the Mexicans showed up in Montgomery County, everything has changed, and not for the better. What? And, like, in our profiles and courage moment, we said, we don't co-sign this. And furthermore, she didn't show up to a goddamn thing. But she just stayed, slowed her to roll and be cool yeah i'm firmly in the camp i've never rat out anybody however rat out anybody even the laziest bastard

in your circle however if they go on a racist hand tirade it's cool to snitch it's all right to snitch right unless they're like your co-worker or whatever yeah um even then yeah have a talk with them outside of. Exhaust every option before you snitch. Yeah. But just know. Right, right, right. In a pinch, you can snitch on a racist.

Well, what I'm really interested in is the fact that that's not new. I mean, if you were, you could theoretically have written this same article about Lake Whitesburg a hundred years ago when it was Syrians and Italians coming to you know and you've got a lot of people that also don't speak English yeah obviously you had your reactionary racist back then too but like I guess what I'm wondering is like why these articles are just popping up all of a sudden, right? 20 years ago, you didn't see stuff like this in major American media outlets.

I mean, I could be wrong. I'm a pretty young guy, right? 20 years ago, I was 10. What did I know when I was 10? The most I knew was that Bill Clinton got his dick sucked. Well, actually, even that's a lie. He probably coerced Monica Lewinsky or something. I was about to say, that's a hard-libbed term for you, pal.

I'm sorry. Sorry. But you know what I'm saying. Yeah, I got you. And it's just interesting now. And they've all got this sort of imperative tied to them like these articles that are like the whites they're gonna be minorities like they like they themselves create that framework and sure if you go to enough communities and tell poor white people

that they're about to be in the minority that their that their clock at the washington post is ticking right you're gonna get the quotes you want. Let's start. I'm going to start that rumor. I swear to God, I'm going to go out here and I'm going to be like, listen, this is, you're not going to believe this, but I've seen it with my own eyes. The Washington Post newspaper actually has a clock on their wall. Yeah. And all these social scientists and all these people in the know. That's what democracy in darkness stands, that's what it means it's cryptic democracy dies in the dark in the dark that's right it's

racist what it means is that the darker this country becomes the more democracy die if that if that wasn't so racist i swear to god propagate go up and propagate that right now. That's so fucking funny. I mean, it's basically, though, it's basically true. It's basically true. I mean, it's true that, like, I think the Washington Post is, I mean, dude, they've always been a conservative-ass fucking paper. Don't get me wrong. They're pieces of shit.

They copped for the Iraq War. You must have slept through the Post. I definitely did not. I saw it with you. Didn't I? I wanted to sleep through the post. I definitely did not. I saw it with you. Didn't I? I wanted to sleep through the post. I don't remember who I saw with. Yeah, we saw it together.

It was really fucking dumb. Jesus Christ. Meryl Streep played a wine mom. They had to make a really important decision about Vietnam. Yeah, yeah It did have one of my It did have an actress in it that I'm a huge fan of And she's in that show The Leftovers

And I'm blanking on her name Anyways In closing Yeah I gotta scoop out of here Well yeah no I'm glad we were able to cover that article. I wanted to just roast our man, Warrants. Terrence McCoy.

Actually, when I was talking about it, like you were introducing him earlier, I was like Terrence McCoy, but then I thought, no, that's the guy that is Tyga, the rapper's cousin that's in that band, Gym Class Heroes. That's Travis. Oh, fuck. What happened to that band?

I don't care. Damn. Well, that pretty much covers just about everything. Speaking of ice, though, there was a Senate hearing yesterday on the child separation zero tolerance policy. Yeah. It's fucking bleak, man. Senate hearing yesterday on the child separation zero tolerance policy. It's fucking bleak, man. Just the entitlement that these assholes have. Just to like, to, you know,

the idea that they can't be challenged on anything. Yeah. You know, that like, we're just doing our jobs. It's really, it's really dark really dark man what's really crazy though is you've got like john cornyn and um chuck grassley and all these people again this just goes to show you that there is no space there's no distance between trump and John Cornyn and these assholes because these people were basically just totally fluffing up ice in Border Patrol during this entire hearing. Just like, you do amazing work. Don't listen to these libs in here trying to tell you.

And then Dianne Feinstein's like, well, we're just going to get to the bottom of this. We're not here to point fingers at anybody. They've got no teeth. No. If I was Dianne Feinstein, I would say, we've actually created a military force made up of everybody

that bought the Elon Musk flamethrower. And now their new agency is tasked with some acronym called MELTICE it's called M-E-L-T-I-C-E right

yeah no they've got no teeth Senator Leahy's up there like literally forgetting like losing his train of thought halfway through

what he's saying he's like what is it what are you supposed to answer my question what is the border What are you supposed to Answer my question What is the priority of your Dude it's Oh it's bad

It's bad Well Anyways Sign up for Our Patreon everybody Yeah it's the first of the month Yeah Cut in wake up

Does that mean we're gonna get paid soon Yeah we're gonna get paid tomorrow Sign up for Patreon. You can find us at Trillbilly Workers Party. Patreon.com slash Trillbilly Workers Party, no apostrophe. Right. It's not clear if we're even using that apostrophe right, but. That's a good point.

I've thought about that. At my office, we use the S apostrophe. That's the subject of much debate. I don't know how I feel about it. But I feel like there's something. Bait and grammar places classes so. Yeah. Let's just drop it.

Right, right. I feel like there's something else I wanted to plug and I can't remember what it was. I think it's tomorrow night in Harlan, there's a Slut Pill concert. Slut Pills. Carrie Wells concert. Slutpills. Carrie Wells and the Slutpills. Yeah, and Tanya's boo is playing that.

And Tanya, I think, is going to be interviewing them next week for either a free episode or a Patreon. I can't remember which. But we will let you know. So thanks for listening, everybody. And have a great week. Thanks for listening, everybody, and have a great week. These episodes go a lot smoother when I don't get absolutely bogged out of my head stone before every episode. I could actually focus on what I want to talk about.

But it could also be my chair. It could be this chair, baby. Keep me honest. Yeah, it's the hard chair. All right. Well, we'll see you all on the other side.