Trillbilly Worker's Party - The Situation Before Us

Episode Date: October 2, 2018

We've decided to unlock our Patreon Premium Episode 20, which examines the situation before us today (Kavanaugh, the patriarchy, etc.) using Rosa Luxemburg's "Social Reform or Revolution" as a guide. A lot of disjointed thoughts in this one but we're unlocking it because we hope it will get some thoughts moving in the right direction. Please don't @ us because we're fragile lil bb's. There's more great content like this over at our Patreon, so please hop on over and throw us some support: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

one two one two hey hey hey hey hey you're listening to the stuff you should know podcast hey hey hey hey uh this is more perfect from radio lab is that the supreme court one yeah more perfect more perfect we're going to give you today we're going to talk about um a bunch of shit that doesn't matter felix frankfurter court and some guy that threw up on himself uh i don't know where i was going with that yeah i was trying to free ball it well uh who are some other supreme gorgeous john roberts no he's the current one who's the this is the roberts court with that. I was trying to free ball it. Well, who are some other Supreme Court judges? John Roberts? No, he's the current one.

Who's the... Was this the Roberts court? The Warren court was the... The progressive one. Yeah, the progressive one. Who was the guy... Oliver Wendell Holmes. He was the one who said euthanizing mentally handicapped, mentally ill people was constitutional.

Checks out. Checks out. I don't know. Who else was there? It's a really weird disorientation. Yeah. It wasn't Louis Brandeis' court ever, was it? He was a Supreme Court justice.

He was a Supreme Court justice, but he wasn't ever. Chief justice. Chief justice. I don't know, dude. I took a class in college on Constitutional Law, and it was basically, it was my senior seminar class, and so I had to stay in that motherfucker for three hours

every Wednesday. And it was just basically, my professor was this guy named David Oshinsky. You may have heard of him. Yeah, you talk about Oshinsky grading your papers. Yeah, he's a... And grading them pretty harshly. Total fucking hard ass.

He had a Pulitzer, and that's probably why. He won a Pulitzer for a book on polio. Did he work his tail off for that? I worked my butt off for that, man. I worked my tail off for that. But yeah, no,

he was really into the Supreme Court. He's like, every day, he would be, he really loves the Warren Court, I guess. I don't know, man. Supreme Court, I mean, obviously, it's the big topic du jour, right? Are we gonna touch it tonight? I've listened to three quarters of a season of more perfect that's that's how qualified i am to speak on this research for

this i just know that it's an undemocratic legislature ran by uh basically man you could put a a monkey and a horse in there and do better than these yahoos. Is that what they say? I'm more perfect? No, that's for my analysis. What is the theory behind the name more perfect? Is it like... I think it's just a reference to the preamble, right? No, what's the preamble?

No. Bro, I don't know the fucking constitution. Shit, bro, I forget how it goes. In order to form a more perfect union, i guess this is where we get that from right right right um yeah yeah i don't know you want to touch it what do we have to say about it the the funniest the funniest thing you could say about it i you know because i tried to look in all situations for the funniest actual scenario the funniest actual scenario would be if rbj rbj died tomorrow or would die if rbg died this week or something goddamn dude

dude actually it might be it actually might be the best thing for the left cause for rbg to be our jesus christ uh because then the libs would be spun into a hell world like they would start adopting our point of view they're bombing federal the only reason they're not the only reason they're not embracing leftism is because ruth bader ginsburg still breathes i think it's actually an r't RPG kind of a racist? Yeah didn't she have a racist thing That she said a few years ago? Maybe a year or two ago

I mean granted She's like 97 Yeah exactly I can't expect her to have Exactly If you're in On a long enough timeline All white people

Are going to turn into Virulent racists If they live to be You know The only The only Decently progressive person on the court is Sotomayor.

Yeah. That's about all you got. You know what I'm saying? But I don't know, man. It's probably, it's a reactionary institution, and you know why? Go for it. It's a reactionary institution because it upholds

the um it upholds corporations corporations well here's the thing i don't know i was trying to figure out how i wanted to talk about all this because you know without without you know, I spent... You know, I actually know what we're talking about, really. Well, last night, I had a bit of an insight. You know, your girlfriend said that we need to define our terms. We need to define our terms. She's saying that to you now, too? She was. You weren't paying attention. You were watching football.

God damn it. Close that bookcase. I think I unhooked myself here. You can't hear attention. You were watching football. God damn it. Close that bookcase. I think I unhooked myself here. You can't hear yourself anymore? No. Fuck. I got it. I got it.

All right. Hold on. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm back, I think. My bad. My bad.

Oh, man. I'm trying to hide the fact that you've read david halberstam's the best and the brownest that's a pretty fascinating book um there's also another book up there that would probably be relevant to our interests a people's history of the supreme court let's take it where's that uh it's got a it's got an orange spine um dude it's fucking i don't know i don't see it okay well who knows who knows where it is we'll come back to it alex said we need to define our terms she said we need to define our terms and also another thing okay we need to do a few things well yeah okay go for it we know what were you gonna say now go for it we

need to define our terms we need to probably stop being so arrogant and self-righteous another thing though that we have to do as leftists is probably stop be a little more patient we probably with liberals we need to well not just liberals but anybody anybody in general like you know you can't approach this thing going on with the kavanaugh thing like a fuck you told you man yeah okay rotten the whole fucking thing's gotta go so so so the reference being we we upset a couple of friends because perhaps our something that we threw out that was very boilerplate in the niche we occupy is kind of inflammatory yeah to some folks that's not to say that they're stupid they don't understand it's just that you have to understand we spend several hours a day in a

hell world a literal den of iniquity well the thing is is that at this current moment uh we live in a culturally calm being right here i know what you mean in our current moment we live in a culturally unprecedented moment right like i was saying last night we live in a moment that is the contradictions of the system are being pushed into your face more than at any other time in my lifetime well that's not true maybe 2008 financial crisis was like a sort of similar reckoning with like the DNA of this system. You know what I'm saying? Like what is it?

Who is it for? What does it do? You know, who does it serve? What purpose is it? Which is, which honestly, and listen, which makes my, which is kind of another reason for our frequent critiques of obama okay because he had the chance to take the ball there like he had every advantage in a mandate well here's the

thing and coming off the heels of that and this is why this is why we have to go even further beyond that because i was just interjecting there because you said the 2008 crisis. Right, right. Well, the thing is that there's nothing Obama could have done. There's nothing the current state as it is constituted. Where are you going? Say more about that. Where are you going with that, buddy?

There's nothing that the state can do by its very nature. Its entire purpose is to facilitate the expansion of industrial society. Well, that's why i say that it's like if something could have been done it would have been done in the first two years of the obama yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly yeah um but even okay let's run the tape let's run the tape backwards and we get bernie in 2008 there's nothing he could have done no there's nothing that a liberal or progressive politician can do in any of these positions of power that significantly alter the system in any way. Right. Because by the virtue of its basic architecture.

Yeah. It's rot. Exactly. Exactly. And so it's like, you know, and I guess that's what we mean by like. It's like when you put drywall over dry rotted beams in your ceiling. Like your ceiling. Like my ceiling, for example.

My ceiling is a good metaphor for all three branches of our government. Yes, if you want to see what we're talking about, come to Tom's apartment and look at the ceiling. Just crudely speckled paint or whatever the fuck it's called over it. There was an aerosol can in the drywall. I think that could have exploded at any time. Just blown the whole fucking

ceiling off. Oh yeah. Anyway, I'm sorry. That's old news. So, you know. Riff on. That's what we got. We got that. What we mean by, like, it doesn't make any sense to try to, because, like, all I'm concerned with right now, we're not going to spend any time dissecting the hearing. I don't, you know, like, there's nothing we can say about that hearing that hasn't already been said.

You know what I'm saying? that hasn't already been said. You know what I'm saying? It was a grotesque display of power, of masculinity, of domination, of all the worst impulses of humanity, right? Totally. So there's really nothing we can say about it.

All I'm concerned with is how the fuck do we fix it? And that's what everybody's concerned with. This is a point when everybody seems to be asking that question, whether they're liberal or radical or whatever. And I am only saying this because my fucking mentions were filled, have been filled over the past week with people saying, what are the fucking options, man? What are your alternatives? What do you propose? Which is a fair question. Exactly.

A totally fair question. A totally fair question. right a totally fair question so i guess what i'm saying is that like when i say liberalism and when i indict it i guess what i'm saying is the notion that you can work with the institutions as they currently exist work within them to change or significantly alter the trajectory of the trajectory of the crisis as it currently exists yeah and off also if we wanted to get heady about a bigger definition of liberalism it's kind of the tree that all the branches of socialism communism everything else kind of fascism whatever whatever as laid out by matt chrisman on that episode that's actually you know i'd actually didn't think about that but that's true um you know it contains the sort of seeds of a lot of

different yeah ideologies and whatever isms isms ologies and isms yeah yeah yeah so it's like and and so i guess what you know when we say you know it's insufficient to uh you know there's a quote by bill clinton that perfectly sums this up what does he say he says the problems with this country the things that are wrong with this country that can be can't be solved by what's right exactly that to me is liberalism distilled you know and i'm not and i'm not including like the enlightenment definition of it or this sort of ideology that grew out of um the sort of emergent bourgeoisie in the 18th 19th centuries i'm just including right now the problems in front of us that's sort of liberalism distilled right yeah yeah and so it's like and so it's like you know what what do we do to actually change it you know

what are our options we can't rely on the two-party system we can't even rely really on any kind of form of electoralism mostly because we don't have a parliamentary government in this country right you know we don't have a representative government in this country yeah um we have one that what it kind of resembles one it's sort of instituted to resemble one only actually one of the houses was the representatives the senate is a completely undemocratic legislature it's a complete with no purpose no purpose and an un and really and really i don't know why i'm doing the trump thing and listen folks tremendously useless tremendously useless gross abuse of power and really though really it

has an inordinate amount of power for just like why does it exist right it's a hang around from the roman empire right or right yeah well yeah no it's because the founders were obsessed with the roman yeah it would literally be like if a bunch of nerds got around that's what the founding fathers were they were nerds with money. That's what the Founding Fathers were. They were nerds with money and basically had the capacity to send other people to fight this Revolutionary War for them. Which is like anything anybody does, right? Like, I mean, as bad as we hit the mat when we started this up, we were inspired by Choppo or, you know, other stuff that was out there. You take influences.

Right. Take influences. Right. I heard the rapper, I heard the rapper, The Game, say this one time that what he did to learn how to rap

was he started rapping other people's verses and then he would change the names to like be, you know, his sets and him and all that kind of stuff.

And then before long, yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically what I'm saying is everybody starts out as a phony. Yeah. And like adopting a pose. And then eventually the pose takes hold and you become like a a phony yeah and then and like adopting a pose and then eventually the pose

takes hold and you become like a real phony and that's true that's what the united states is yeah hunter s thompson when he first started writing would literally rewrite her m hemingway and f scott fitzgerald for hours yeah just trying to get their style down yeah and then he became a phony of his own phony of his own so unless you're jesus christ the first person that ever lived yeah you're just copying everybody you're just referential you're right sampling you're right so it's like you know liberal liberal politics are insufficient to to tackling and addressing and changing this absolutely abhorrent, grotesque display of power

we saw this past week. Right. Because, I mean, you know, again, I said I wasn't going to get into the hearing, and I'm really not, but the overall takeaway from that hearing is that the Democrats totally folded, whether out of cynicism

because they want to use it for an election or because they are totally unprepared. Or just were unprepared unprepared for whatever the give a shit yeah it doesn't matter right because they all they're all part of the same state and and when i also let me just say just to clarify when i threw up the said inflammatory tweet that that you know got the reaction i was more or less talking about democrats like they're faced with a choice right well democrats and anybody who upholds the idea of liberalism upholds them like that that that kind of thing upholds them as an institution it's two things it's upholds them as an institution but anybody who thinks that liberalism is a path to liberation. Yeah, right.

It's, you know, it's, there are a lot of limitations to that, and there's no way we're going to be able to actually get into all of them in this episode. Right. But our argument is that, you know, because they're insufficient, look, you know. It should also be mentioned too that we come out of that yeah this is not like we just like weren't ever liberals and oh i was thinking about this last night dude i totally don't understand that experience i totally erase this from my memory i don't know if you remember this in 2014 i applied for and was offered a job as an organizer on Wendy Davis' campaign.

I almost took that job. I remember you almost took that job. Yeah. I almost went and organized for one of the most, you know, liberal, sort of bourgeois, tepid politicians you can think of. We totally come out of this world. I worked for the Clinton Foundation. I was a Clintonite.

Exactly. Like I saw out of this world. I worked for the Clinton Foundation. I was a Clintonite. Exactly. Like I saw the sausage being made. So yeah, no, this is part of our process. We speak on it from good authority. It's part of our process of prostrating ourselves. We're being humble. We're saying, look, you know,

we once totally bought into this. Well, I mean, it's not that we totally bought into this. It's just that like looking at the system, it's like, how do you change it? What do you do? Especially in a state like Texas. You know, it's like, oh, a politician like Wendy Davis or Beto is like, that's, you know, that's a step in the right direction. As you would say, it's moving the needle. Okay.

Because you don't, there's without any other alternatives or options like what do you do what else are you gonna do no so like the the only other alternative and it's the correct moral position but not only that not only is it the correct moral position it's the correct scientific position the only alternative is socialist politics yeah the reason why the reason why it is a you know and this is why earlier in the dm we're talking about it you know a guide to socialism and capitalism for the working class or whatever yeah it's like i think the the biggest point you have to point out when you're talking about socialist politics is that it is not utopian. It is actually anti-utopian by its very nature. Right. What I mean by that is like,

first of all, as a theoretical framework, it's not utopian. It's scientific. Utopian would be, you can actually control capitalism. You can make a nicer, softer capitalism. That's utopian. That's utopian because it's not scientific.

There's no evidence to back that up there is to botch an idiom in terence wright fashion that's trying to fit a triangle peg through a square hole yes exactly an oh a cylindrical peg the rod is you know a round peg into a square hole or something like that. I always get it backwards. But you're exactly right. Because they're incompatible. The scientific theory of socialism says this. It says that the history of mankind has been the struggle of classes. Right.

You know, and that takes different forms, obviously. But, you know, you can pretty much pull out some, you know, some recurring patterns. You know, there is an oppressor class and there is an oppressed class. And the engine that drives history forward is the struggle of those classes. So that's a scientific cornerstone of it. Another is that capitalism is riven with contradictions. So much so that it will eventually ensure its own destruction. Suicidal. Yes, exactly. I love saying that suicidal capitalism is suicidal it's suicidal and it's

insane it makes no sense even from a you know even from a rational standpoint it's it i mean or a scientific standpoint or whatever it makes no sense um and the thing that the features of it that um make it look like it's an adaptable system, like it's good at adapting and whatever are actually features of the system that are necessary. For example, crises. Yeah. A financial crisis is actually not, not proof that capitalism is good at adapting.

Financial crisis is part of it. You need it. Part of it. It's built in. It's built in. Yeah. It's not an aberration or something that just

sort of like, oh, this is what goes wrong when it runs amok. No. It's built in. It's not. If we stopped having crises, then we would stop

having capitalism. It's a necessary part. And why is that? It reminds me of, I don't mean to, because you're on a good roll, but it reminds me of that good tweet you had.

Hey, I saw the movies, The Big Short, Moneyball. I know how they all work, baby. I know how this all goes down. It's funny that we have had a slew of books that have come out in the last five or six years or so that actually demonstrate this with empirical evidence. The first is that over a long enough period of time, the rate of profit falls. This is what Piketty was writing about in that Capital book or whatever. Thomas Piketty. Right. Because in Capital, the rate of profit is going to fall.

Is going to implode on long enough time length. Exactly. Because of the productive capacity of the labor force is constantly going to be expanding. Therefore, the capitalists have to figure out a way to make more profit. The way they do that is endless speculation, endless credit, which results in bubbles, which results in crises, which results in destruction of capitalism. This is part of the game. Yes. The only reason me and you are sitting here right now and talking about this is because in our lifetimes, we witnessed the single-handedly one-day worst demolishing of capital that we've ever seen since the 1930s.

The most, you know what I mean, the most destruction of capital that's been observed in this country in over 70 years, in 2008. It destroyed my mom's retirement. It destroyed a lot of people's retirements, a lot of people's lives. This is part of the system, though. Yeah. How does this relate to the Kavanaugh stuff? How does it relate to everything going on right now? It's that the bourgeois state,

as it is currently constituted, it needs, I don't know, I guess for me, that hearing was the perfect sort of look into what this system values, the people that it facilitates, the people that it pushes upwards into positions of power. And like without any kind of framework for understanding that, without any kind of framework for challenging it, what you're left with is nihilism. kind of framework for challenging it what you're left with is nihilism you throw your hands up you say there's no alternatives you know fuck it i'll just sit out until the 2020 election i'll just send it out until the next midterm election or whatever it provides you no way to whatever and so um you know and i guess what i meant earlier when i said that like the socialist you know

position on this the reason it's not utopian, is that exactly as I said, as a theoretical framework, it's not utopian, it's scientific, but also as a society, it's not utopian. When we say we want a socialist society and egalitarian society, we're not saying that we can fix human impulses,

jealousy, rage. Racism. Racism. Any of the big isms. Sexism, whatever. Any of that stuff. I mean, i think we on a on an institutional scale of course we i think we can do that absolutely but we are not

going to fit fix you know individual human impulses yeah like i know common liberal refrain is like the hillary clinton thing well bernie sanders policies aren't going to end racism yeah it's like well it's like that uh didn't fred hampton say it like you know if a white man wants to lynch me that's his problem if he has the power to do it that's my problem right you know what i mean like that's that's and that's the point like that's you know individuals under this i mean in any way it doesn't even matter that we're arguing this point um we're not even i don't even believe that um to actually reach people you have to uh appeal to them on some strictly class-based

whatever that's not what i'm saying either i'm saying that like all of the things that are sort of um that facilitate those kinds of behaviors and things in our society they're upheld by the class system right by the fact that you have an oppressor class and a press in an oppressed class and then that's it that's like that's really all it comes down to yeah it's that simple fuck i didn't stick the landing on this one it's like democrats and republicans man i'm not joking i didn't see landing on this anyways i guess the point though is that like um you know when we say that like voting isn't going to get you out of this it's that um you know we've said this on the past couple of episodes, and I'll just state it again in this context.

Voting is an act of individualism in an age of mass consumption and mass marketing. Its entire purpose is to make you a better consumer. This was probably not the case 100 years ago when Rosa Luxemburg was writing. They were writing about women's suffrage. They were writing about suffrage for black people. You know what I mean? Fighting for those things. Those things were meaningful things to fight for, obviously.

But now in the state that we live in, the day and age that we live in. Not for nothing, but communist fighting for those things. Right, right, right. Whatever. Well, it's interesting to read um i spent most of my day yesterday reading social reformer revolution by rosa lexemburg and it's uh look at you got a smart boy over here and it's um you know a point that she makes in it isn't that you abandon um isn't that you abandon the struggle for political rights

or political representation or any of those things? The point that she makes is that those are a means to an end. If we're trying to create a revolutionary moment, we have to engage in that struggle together. You know what I'm saying? Like, we can't abandon it. We can't cede that territory to the right or whatever right um and so you know i fully agree with that i do not think i fully believe this i do not think that that looks like collaborating with

the democratic party yeah that is not the same thing yeah they'll sell you down the river every time yeah and there's uh there's a strong body of evidence to prove that yeah yeah yeah oh yeah exactly that we've noticed just in our lifetimes we don't even need a history book to go back and read that you know yeah well i mean it's just like you know it's even if you know let's flip it over to like the dsa sort of and again not to wade into the murky waters electoralism is one of our three banned topics again. But it's something you've said. It's like they'll run these people, and then once they lose, they just sort of banish them to the dustbin.

And then it's like you just don't ever hear from them anymore. Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah. you know it's like you just don't ever hear from her from them anymore right right right yeah yeah no it's it's been a really weird and disorienting week because um i mean shit man it's like if you care about wanting to see the world be a better kinder nicer place it's like obviously you know you're probably in a pretty bad headspace right now. Yeah. Because a lot of bad shit is happening. But I guess that's why I said we need to be more patient, you know? It's just like, what,

what, I don't know, what is actually needed to actually change this is long-term, you know, dedication, long-term sacrifice. And so with that is going to have to come patients, you know what I mean? And, uh,

I don't know, like browbeating people or saying like, you know, I was right. I told you blah, blah, blah is probably not going to help the prudent strategy, but also more to the point where we live,

it's definitely not a prudent strategy because we don't have the luxury really of castigating and leaving people out because their numbers are so few. You know what I'm saying? I'm talking about like organizing locally and all that kind of stuff. And the other part to that is, is like as bad as I hate to say to see this point is a lot of reactionary elements in the working class right right so it's not like you're going to have like even sometimes even halfway principled and what i mean by principled is not like an indictment on their character but like yeah you know what i'm saying no this is a this is a huge challenge for the left yeah because the working class is the only vehicle that we have

that can actually institute change yeah you know yeah it's in and so we have to find a way to um you know and i think unionism or whatever is probably is the best way to do this but like we have to find a way to spread liberation politics to spread socialist politics through the working class and you know i i i think personally just from the things i've seen in my lifetime and the things that i've wanted to see happen that's your only hope yeah you're not... Okay, let's say, for example, Kavanaugh does get elected or nominated or whatever. They vote him in.

And it's looking like that's going to happen. Probably will. I mean, who the fuck knows? I think it probably will wind up happening. Regardless, RBG's probably going to fucking die in a day now. God damn. And then they're're gonna have to do the exact same thing over again and we're going to be in this constant state of you know just darkness because like there's a thing like liberals run the media and they run the discourse and so

well okay the i'm sorry i'm saying the like general um polarity of the media is liberal center center left right and so when they're freaking out about something we as radicals are going to be freaking out about it because they're our friends and like your cousins right right and they control the discourse and so when someone's freaking out about someone if something it makes you freak out yeah and so it's like we have to engage that though yeah but that's not our biggest target you know what i mean our our target is the working masses yeah you know because like a the liberal sort of managerial class they can't offer us anything anyways i mean ultimately doesn't matter i mean like it does because socialism is in their interest you know as human beings uh but it doesn't, you know, it doesn't, it's actually against their interest as, you know, members of the bourgeois.

You have a managerial class. Right, right, right. You can't have a managerial class and have socialism. Right, right, right. But it's hard, man. It's tricky because, like, I also do think as a socialist, because socialism for me is a moral position it's not just an intellectual one or scientific whenever it is a moral position and this is why people say like i can't believe you're not smarter than that or whatever it's like intelligence has nothing to

do with there's nothing to do with politics yeah and because it's a moral position it's like for that reason you have to side with Ford, with Christine Blasey Ford. And every other person, regardless of what their background is, they are oppressed. Right. You know, and I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Ted Cruz is a smart guy.

Ted Cruz is a smart guy. Tom Cotton's a smart guy. Right, right. But it doesn't mean top of their class, Harvard Law school but where's their moral clarity where is their moral courage that's right yes exactly without any kind of like moral compass what are you you can be smart as fuck hey uh james woods is a bona fide piece of shit but he's i hear he's got like a 400 iq or some shit yeah that's true oh dude he is one of the worst people ever. Yeah.

No, it's rough, man. I mean, like, you watch that here, and you're like, this is our enemy. This is who we're up against. Yeah. And I don't know, me personally, like, watching that, it's just like I would relish, take immense pleasure in seeing a person like that

not only get discredited and, you know, tossed aside, but physically harmed in some way. I would genuinely feel happy to see them physically inconvenienced, whether it's they're getting their heads cut off, getting shot, getting bricks thrown at them. Whoa now, pal. Whoa now, pal. Well now, pal.

But anyways, you know, yeah, that's what's at stake. Yeah. You know. Yeah. That's what's at stake. But also another point about socialism that I don't feel liberalism really addresses at all is just the tearing down of that elite class, too, in general. Like the whole prep school thing that births these people yeah that has birthed every president we've produced every almost every senator almost every representative we've produced well that's because like yes like that's part of it's not only just the state it's also just sort of the bourgeois

society anyway that produces the king makers and all this kind of thing that's because liberals want to preserve that they just want it to be diverse they want it to be um nicer look you can't they want it to be it's i mean it's the same reason they tried out you know oprah and george clooney and all these kind of people like these absurdly wealthy people right now to like it's it's like they want a nicer version of that well it's like yes you know what i'm saying yes and it's like i said um you it's like i've said before you can't bargain it's like you know we even have one of those guys on that seem to kind of you know even agree with that sentiment in in some ways right right right well the problem is, though, man,

is that in the end, in the long run, capital will eat us all. You know what I'm saying? It's not, it is an unsustainable system. It is a suicidal system. It is, it's, I don't know. It's a totally amoral, just death machine. And you can't bargain with that yeah you can't compromise with it in any way and so you know i'm just i you know i just want people to to think about that yeah you

know what i mean like there's nothing you can do to tame that no nothing in our power we can do to tame that and the thing is it's like uh for me that that episode of pod damn america that matt crispin was on spelled out a lot of this for me and it's like socialism is the only one of those that's like it's going somewhere you know i mean the rest of them end in death destruction despair you know all this kind of thing but there's a heart with egalitarianism you know what i'm saying there's yeah no you're right you're right i mean well the thing is is that um yeah i don't know it's like uh you it's going somewhere because trying to preserve the system as it currently is, is like,

look, here's what we could do. I mean, like, let's say for example, this is of utmost urgent importance because last night I, you know, got this fucking notification.

Elizabeth Warren hints that she might run for president in 2020, which means that she's running, right? She's putting out the, whatever. If you're hintinging you're doing it right right right and um and what was going to wind up happening is we're going to have a rehashing of 2016 in the sense that she's going to offer you a version of socialism or progressivism or whatever that posits that incremental reforms can be used to control the system. Yeah.

There is some truth to that. You know, and FDR sort of proved it. What happened, though, is that he wound up saving capitalism by doing so. Right. And prolonged this problem. Kicked the can down the road. Yeah, kicked the can down the road and prolonged this problem the can down the road yeah kick the can down the road and prolonged this problem of the central question which is that we all have to work to stay alive

right that is the one thing every american has in common yeah i mean even if you're a capitalist well actually you don't you're a non-producer you don't actually work for shit you just collect money and you're same as your landlord but in the oppressed class all of us have to work to survive that's our central sort of main concern and every other sort of concern um grows outward from that um if we don't solve that very fundamental fact what are we looking at i mean we're looking at a a climate that is going to increase by seven degrees by the trump administration's own mission by their conservative which is like terrifying and their position is essentially well we're fucked anyway so let's just keep we're gonna have that we're gonna have a supreme court that is still going to be run

by a conservative majority i mean like i'm not i'm not trying again i'm not trying to like browbeat people or push them into a corner and be like this is the only option you have but it's kind of the only option you have yeah i mean well i mean it's it's a matter of if you want to put a band-aid on problems. I mean, this is such a cliche and kind of dumb and really I shouldn't even say it. But or do you want to try to like nip it in the bud and rectify the situation? Yeah. Things can get, I mean, incrementalism.

I mean, like for four months, for four years, for 12 years can, you know. Make things better. Make things better, absolutely. You're not wrong in that assessment, but if what we're talking about is really ending the problems that capital produces for good, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What we're talking about is a worker state. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Like, that solves the fundamental question here. Yeah. And again, it's not utopian or anything. All it does is it removes the profit motive from all of our relations, all of our relationships, all of our, you know, it removes the profit motive from society's productive capacity yeah and um and that is central yeah to liberation yeah and also you know when the criticisms of like gender and race come into this and all this kind of thing it's like well well you mean to tell me that you'd tell rosa Luxembourg who said that she would get shot

down in the street for the socialism that that feminism's not compatible with that oh yeah but yeah Rosa Luxembourg was a was obviously a socialist feminist I mean she wrote a lot about um the suffrage movement I mean dude you're gonna go uh to burkina faso tell thomas sankara that died for this that yeah i mean like that's just an example of like having a conversation on their terms it's like of course those things are are yeah inherent to socialism it's building and if anybody says that they aren't then they're probably a cop you know yeah you should probably get away from them as quickly as you can. And it's not,

I don't know, to me, it's like we live in this really weird dystopia where people think that if you talk about class, it is this separate thing from race and everything else. But to me, it's like, it's all sort of the same. I mean,

you know, obviously, I don't mean that like, I don't know how i mean that i guess what i'm saying is that like well let me help let me just throw this bone out here when we're talking about the working class how do you skate over the fact that we're talking about disproportionately black and brown people yeah yeah yeah yeah we're talking about disproportionately women single women right right right raised sons like me right you. Right. You know what I'm saying? Right.

Yeah, no, class is just the way that we structure the society. Yeah. The things that like- But in the liberal imagination, too often times, and we're guilty of this because early on in the show, I feel like we didn't make these distinctions clearly, probably because me, myself, I'm still learning even right now. But too often times when you say class class that little thing goes off in the back of that even for me that says oh you're talking about white coal miners you know what

i'm saying you're talking about you're talking about white people in appalachia no we're not we're talking about it all right right you know what i'm saying and not just that we're not even talking about individuals we're talking about a structuring of society, a way of allocating resources. Yeah. And the very basic fact that still it doesn't matter whether you're black, white or whatever, you have to work to stay alive. Right. This is an entirely new supposition.

This did not exist before capitalism right capitalism introduced an economic relation to to other people a natural response to just exactly feudalism was not that you know you had certain um rights under your feudal lord or whatever and your relationship to him was this like complex web of patronage and all this other stuff. We now live in a hell world where your only relationship to others is on an economic basis. And so that's the sort of DNA. You know what I mean? That's the thing you have to alter.

That's the thing you have to change. Yeah. And you should absolutely be harnessing the revolutionary potential of all the things that are embedded in that. Race, gender, all those other stuff. That's the only way we smash that class-based system. I don't know. It's like people try to do that. People try to be like, well, what about gender?

They try to derail. But also, let me just point this out, too. When you're talking about the ruling class, on the other hand hand you're talking about disproportionately white men exactly so like if you're going to come at me for my economic analysis you better know what the fuck you're talking about well yeah it's like yeah like there's there's i don't know man it's this is not to – I mean, like, we live in a very – you know, like, the moment we are currently in at this – you know, right now is, like I said earlier, the sort of full – all the contradictions of the system are on full display. And I'm talking about not just the economic system but the political system and everything. No. That's – do it.

So a lot of people are asking a lot of questions and it's just like i don't know as radicals it's like i was telling van newkirk or whatever last week and it will dust up it's like as radicals our position and our role should not be pushing people back into this system um that is you know i obviously think people know, I obviously think people should vote. I obviously think people should exercise political agency in the system. I do not think that... We should overrate its efficacy. Yes, we should overrate its efficacy.

We shouldn't overrate its efficacy. And that we should, yes, and that we should try, and I don't think that we should try to harness that as any sort of vehicle for change. Yeah. Because it's... I would just...

The thing with the electoral people that I would love to hear is the acknowledgement of the limitations of that. Because so often, to me anyway, and maybe not necessarily from those people, but definitely from the people that are running for office and the people around them present this as there's so much at stake you have no fucking idea if you don't put me in there and let me put my fucking uh pin station subs on a federal account and you know groom my dog and buy my fucking party supplies on the taxpayer dime. Just so you don't get somebody in here that, I don't know, maybe that's a little gross. The thing is, this is a lesson I learned early on in life.

If you're a WASP-y person in this country, you probably learned this lesson at some point. A WASP-y person in this country, you probably learned this lesson at some point. There's nothing in this life that if you don't fight for it is... Wait, I'm not wording this correctly. If you want anything... If it's an idiom, you can set your watch by it. I'm going to fuck it up. Carry on, though. Anything valuable to you in life is worth fighting for you have to fight for it

voting is easy it's easy to sit receive political messaging from a candidate in your own private little world in your house on your computer or whatever go to a voting your average tower right and punch a button yeah it's not easy to entrench yourself in a decades-long struggle of trying to upend things, of trying to change the basic facts that the entire productive capacity of this human civilization, full of all of its potential, is put towards profit. That's it? That's the best we can fucking do like creative intelligent you know what i mean like that all all of that potential is just put towards making money for

the already established yes ruined class exactly like that is a much harder thing to do but it's the only thing worth fighting for yeah it's the only thing worth fighting for but also more to the point only thing worth fighting for. But also more to the point is like, if we're going to talk about privilege discussions and all that stuff, who gets in on the ground floor to benefit from that so much? The already established working class. And the only thing that all your stories

about the people from the middle class or the hardscrabble people that pulled their bootstraps and started the startup, whatever, and got wealthy, what about them? Well, you're just creating the new... the new ruling class for the future right well and again this is something that marks pointed out those people are necessary to the preservation of the system yeah um all technological progress and that's a hallmark of capitalism right technological

all technological process comes from innovators in the sort of bottom rung of the small capitalists sort of uh straight or whatever yeah they eventually get bought out or totally cannibalized by the by the ones at the top yeah i don't know um anyways right on man anyways you gotta fight for it voting is easy you should vote you should try to you should be thinking about what it means

to exercise our rights in the political arena, obviously, whether that's through electoral struggles or whatever. Go ahead. No, I was just gonna

point out one thing that I was while I was, the wheels were turning up here. If I let it go for too long, I'll lose it. But what I would say to the our electoral buddies that believe in this is go out there and vote in november whenever it is okay go vote go flip the fucking house i hope you do okay they probably will there probably will be a blue wave here's what i here's what i want you to keep in mind though okay if those people that you vote in there are not making moves to either

abolish the supreme court i would say pack it out but really that's again that's just sort of a fdr kick the can down the road strategy i mean look I'd be fine with it. I mean, yeah, that's what I'm saying. But what I'm saying is I want a revolution, something that passes for a revolutionary gesture anyway, from these fuckers that you insist and browbeat us about the importance of going and voting for. If I don't see

a revolutionary gesture from them, then I don't say that for me or to gloat or like, ha ha, see, I told you so. But what I'm saying is that should be to use DNC term the litmus test they do like that I love the phrase

means testing and litmus testing I've used the phrase litmus test before for sure probably in the wrong way if you're like me probably in the wrong I do that so often. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, but, you know. First off, let me say, I don't mean revolutionary in, like,

this is, like, the end-all, be-all of our strategy and what we need to do here. What I'm saying is that, like, my hunch is they're not going to give that to you. No. Because I saw, like, the one fellow, Matt, that responded to our thing the other day. He was like, well, if the Democrats win,

they can, you know, add seats to the Supreme Court or whatever and all this kind of stuff. Yeah, that's true. And the question is, will they do that? If they don't move to immediately impeach Kavanaugh and they don't do something to fuck the court up, either abolish it, pack it, whatever they want to do,

that tells you all you need to know about these people. Yeah, they're worthless. Yeah. Well, the thing is, the reason why I think me and you sort of get into this pattern of behavior where we are kind of, I't know it can be sort of snarky or dismissive or whatever is only because we spend too much time on twitter well that but

also also though because these people are so cynical they are openly brazen about exploiting you for just your vote it's like you said the other day it's like they ask you to vote for things they make you think that everything is on the line, at stake. Every time. Every campaign is the same. Yeah. They don't even value your own humanity. No.

And that's why it pisses us off so much. It's just like you're worth more than that. Yeah. Not only are you worth more than that, you are much more effective. Yeah. Especially when you combine your labor power with others yeah whatever i don't know whatever form that's going to take you know what i mean like that's not for me to decide i've run a podcast yeah that's what that's what we do uh maybe a little startup

yeah but um but yeah no these people will disappoint you. And not only that, not only will they disappoint you, they'll probably throw you under the bus. You're just grist for the milk for them. I mean, it's like it kind of got buried a little bit, but I mean, it's making the rounds on left Twitter. It's like Tom Perez, they're standard bears, not even dismissing the fact that they will not, what he wouldn't like.

What was the thing about Democrats that support kavanaugh like a mansion or somebody like that he said they would support democrats they wanted to support kavanaugh yeah if they wanted to if they wanted to yeah just pure individualism these people want you dead i can't i can't spell it out any other way. They want to kill you a little bit slower and a little bit nicer. They need that tax revenue coming in. Exactly, exactly. You are surplus to them.

You are not a human. You don't factor into their sort of android reading, their Terminator-like reading of society in any way other than surplus what you can produce for the people at the top right and some of them will try to pretend like they care a little bit more about you than the other ones like elizabeth warren and bernie they'll be like oh for the middle class uh we should you shouldn't have to work the millionaires and the billionaires the bad folks right but they don't fucking care either i mean maybe they do maybe they say okay maybe they do with them i think it's more of a case of they're trying to square capitalism with yeah a socialist type worldview i mean elizabeth

warren doesn't even go that far like elizabeth warren is like an avowed capitalist like she doesn't even i know she's popular in the progressive circles but she's never that's true said she's i mean at least bernie says he's a social that's true you know whether he is or not we can debate about that all day long but but at least he doesn't deny us you know in front of you know before man right no i mean this is a classic example of why there is a world after trump it is a hell world it is a world in which we kick the can further on down the road. The only conflict in front of us right now is what we do about this problem of capitalism. What we do about this problem of, you know, and capitalism isn't strictly an economic system.

For that reason, you can't say that, like, you organize for strictly economic reasons or for strictly class or whatever capitalism contains everything wrong with our society yeah yeah it's the underlying structure of it all yeah i feel like um right now we're in the first couple of years of the tribulation. Tim Lace. Follow me here. Follow me here. And I feel like I feel like here's what's going to happen.

We'll get an Elizabeth Warren presidency in 2020 or somebody. Somebody similar. Bernie somebody. Uh huh. Okay. We'll flip the house

like it will feel really good. You know what I'm saying? Just like it's supposed to the Bible says. Before it really gets bad. You know what I'm saying? like it's supposed to the bible says before before it really gets bad you know what i'm saying right uh we'll fatten ourselves we're basically fatten ourselves we'll fatten ourselves after trump will fatten ourselves for the day of the slaughter right right and then the earth will warm up and like the fire will open and a dragon will come out this is very spot on actually well i'm

just saying like i mean i'm being ridiculous obviously but i feel like there's going to be a period right after trump where everything's gonna i could be wrong about this i mean everybody botched the whole trump hillary clinton thing but i feel like there's going to be and we'll probably feel it i mean we'll probably feel like at least a little relief that okay you know there's not nazis in you know the homeland security you know throwing out like oh yeah it does not let stuff 1488 yeah but in some ways the other alternative is almost a little insidious like right now we can clearly identify the enemies you know know what I'm saying? Right.

You know, when the people that are supposed to be in the pocket for us take the reins and then don't do anything to stomp this problem out once and for all, it's just going to fester and rear its head again. I mean, look at just electoral politics. I mean, it happened with Ronald Reagan. It happened with George W. Bush. I mean, it's not out of the question Trump wins a second term. He probably will.

At all. He probably will. Particularly if there's a war that's started in the next 24 months, which is also not out of the question. Yeah. No, he probably will. You know, it's really rough because you have the immediate pressing issue and the immediate pressing need to serve, I don't know,

to meet the needs of the people that need them. And after watching that hearing on Thursday, it's just like... It is such a perfect display of how... I don't know how to say this without coming off as like sort of overly sincere or like overly earnest or whatever. So your eyes glaze enough that's weird am i crying you look like you're crying

it's all an act i've been trying to perfect this where i'm like i'll give speeches in front of the mirror like brothers and sisters working. You know what I mean? Look, seriously though, these people hate women. They, obviously, this was a perfect example of it. They, not only, you know, we were talking about this last night.

I think the vast majority of them believe that that what happened to dr ford actually happened and they just do not care are indifferent they they hate women they hate pretty much everybody that stands in their way of domination and you know and this is not i'm not this is not original i think literally they said this on chopper or whatever earlier this week but the point is is that you should sit down with that for a little bit you know what i mean like i think that the success of the obama years was to make us think that people in power were looking out for us or that they weren't as bloodthirsty as they actually are but they are yeah they don't care about you you are surplus to them they will gladly throw millions of you under the bus for their own self-preservation

and for the preservation of the system and for that reason you can't trust the system you can't i don't know you i don't know how to put for that reason, you can't trust the system. I don't know. I don't know how to put it any other way. You can't trust the Supreme Court, no matter if there's nine progressive judges on it. They will, every single time... Add 15 seats to that motherfucker and put Bernie, Elizabeth, all of them in.

It doesn't matter. Because we live in a capitalist system, you are surplus to them. You are grist for the mill. It doesn't matter. I love when you you are grist for the mill it doesn't matter i love when you try to grist for the mail it does not yeah it doesn't they you are not a person to them and um interesting because the way that gets you there is through this like hyper individual just like pimping this hyper individualism. That is so true.

Yeah. That is spot on. That is so bizarre. And in a weird way, it really robs you of your individualism. You know why? Because you have to buy something to be an individual. Exactly.

You know. Exactly. No, I mean, that was, I don't want to live in a society where we have to, where we have to trot out the obviously very true allegations of someone being just traumatized and, you know, and then just being pretty much laughed off. You know, totally disregarded. Yeah. Much laughed off. You know, totally disregarded.

Yeah. And, I mean, you think about that, especially when you're talking about, like, what happened to Monica Lewinsky? Yeah. Look what happened to... I mean, like a lot of the more high-profile women that have come and challenged men in power or getting ready to ascend to power or whatever.

And look what happens to them. Right. They need a hill. This isn't unprecedented. It's like we were saying last night. The sort of contours of this aren't unprecedented. What's unprecedented, and I think the reason why everybody's in such a dark state of mind

well, I'm not going to speak for everybody. The reason why I think a lot of liberals are in a dark state of mind about this is because it's so norm shattering yeah because like if you you know the sort of i guess the biggest norm that was shattered was cavanaugh getting up there and basically going on a hyper partisan rant about the clinton conspiracy and all this beer and being not challenged in any way right and um and and and yeah i mean um and i think that freaks a lot of people out for the same reason it freaked a lot of people out um when you you know you had trump at his inauguration saying all this crazy just blood and soil shit bloods yeah god that damn i forgot

about that was so weird um it's it's so funny the kavanaugh thing because because like his behavior is textbook like do you remember like when the steroids and baseball thing popped off yeah really heavily yeah it reminded me of rafael palmero before the i think it was the house or the senator whoever like was investigating all that stuff yeah which was so fucking dumb the whole steroids and baseball thing but like as a general rule when the guys come out and hellfire and brimstone start pointing and get super defensive i mean like we all know that's pretty they're that's their tail they're yes exactly that's their tail that's their tail so and i just remember rafael palmero's speech was like i did not cheat i did you know just was

and then like a couple weeks later it's like okay i did yeah but so did everybody else exactly and that's exactly what cavanaugh did yeah um well you never you never got drunk and blacked out that's literally what he said do you yeah i don't dude um yeah again there's really not a whole lot you can say about it um because it is horrific and um and that's terrible um but we have to start figuring out how we're gonna change it yeah before 2020 we need to put in some kind i mean like we need to put in some serious work in the next few years yeah because like i was saying in the DM today, if we don't come up with some kind of messaging or platform or something to challenge this idea that the system can be bargained with, can be worked with.

Well, that's also the thing too. That's the common rebuke of the left. It's like, well, come up with something. Come up with something. And it's like nobody's saying that we have anything. What we're doing is pointing out what is proven to not work. Right, right, right.

One is the same, Marx did the exact same thing. Marx didn't actually sit down and try to map out what a socialist society looked at. Looked like he took capitalism and dissected it. Yeah.

And so all this- That's why there's so many questions. That's why people are like, oh, is it okay to have small business? Is it okay? Is this okay? Is this okay? Is this okay? It's like, there's no blueprint. there's no blueprint right it's like this is why it's

alive and still growing and why we need working people exactly exactly yeah no no that's that's uh spot on um but um anyways i had i had a a, uh, person to DM me on Instagram today and he said, uh, you know, I'm a younger guy getting ready to, you know, I guess getting to, I sound like a fucking dad, the workforce. Um, but you know, he's like, how, what would you recommend to do something that's not like absolutely soul crushing and all this kind of stuff and the only advice i could offer him was like kind of what we've been talking about lately go somewhere where there's unions once you build a rapport run for union leadership try to make

things better that's like just it's kind of the baseline tangible thing that I could offer somebody. It's a perfectly crafted silo for discussing liberation politics and for hashing out... I mean, there's a very specific reason why people want to stomp out unions. Yes, exactly. That's exactly right. And they're not perfect. There's some bad ones. There's a lot of bad.

BMW, we pointed out. Right, there are some really bad ones, and it all comes down to leadership, and it all comes down to what you're willing to fight for and how hard you're willing to fight for it. But, yeah, no, I'd say that's pretty accurate. I'm just saying that's all I got. That's all I got. That's all I got.

Yeah, I mean, look, as a podcast, as media makers, our role is not even necessarily to... Again, this is not politics. Right, this is not politics. It's analysis, it's critique, it's humor, it's whatever. It's like we're trying to show you the contradictions... As we see it. As we it and to and to point out how the liberal theory of change is is flawed and not only that it's going to lead you into the

woodchipper because we've we've seen it in our own lives exactly right yeah very very much and the thing to me it's just so patently obvious it's like I love so many people that I worked with at the Clinton Foundation still do to this day but I don't know how I square like these people

that would do anything for me and I would do anything for them that you go to work and bank of america is on the walls everywhere and like knowing what bank of america does to people like my mother you know what i mean like me they got me for about 10k in private student loans yeah so yeah you know and then like knowing that these people that cause so much destruction to working people, to poor people, and these people that we're supposed to be looking for and voting to, to change that, butter their bread.

It's just like... It's grotesque. It's like, grow up. Right. Grow up. Yeah. No, you're right. This is real shit, you know?

Yeah. And this is real shit, you know? Yeah. And this is why people think that it is some sort of game to be like, to advocate for a sort of revolutionary method for social change. Yeah. It's not a game. It actually requires quite a great deal of sacrifice

and organizing. And thinking, you know and mental capacity let me walk that grow up part back has a little infantilizing and i mean i was on that train to about 2015 so i know how it goes i mean well no but i guess what kills me about it is that for a certain you know because i obviously i think that privilege exists um you know and i think as a marxist you need to really grapple with that you need to really think about it and what it means uh both from a theoretical framework but also in your day-to-day life but um but you know the way that liberals talk about privilege for a group of people society

people that talk about privilege so much they're so resistant to the idea of systemic change yeah and it's and i mean like they really do think that's interesting they really yeah exactly and they really do think that like um that privilege the whole concept of it is this exercise of contrition recognizing it within yourself presenting yourself as an ally and trying to um and then just hollering about it yes yes performatively showing up exactly exactly kind of the that's not politics that i mean again the context it's a good thing to do it's a good thing to do in the context of a union or something like that it's probably pretty necessary because it it informs how leadership is going to play out and informs how power struggles are going to happen in the in the course and trajectory you take yeah but as

a person sitting in your living room with a fucking microphone it changes jack shit yeah doesn't do anything yeah again you should think about it a lot. You should meditate on it. You should think about it from a Marxist perspective and everything. But as politics, it's not going to change anything if you, Tom Sexton, sitting on my couch, suddenly walk out of this and be like,

why privilege? Blah, blah, blah. It doesn't change. Maybe you're a little bit nicer in the real world, but it has zero effect on a systemic scale. On a systemic scale. Even if you got like a fucking millions of people to do it in this country, it still wouldn't have zero effect. Because the system, as I said earlier, is based on economic relations, property relations. So you got to change that.

You have to change that fundamental fact before you can. Yeah. You have to change that fundamental fact before you can, yeah. Katie Slinger said something interesting in the DM that I want to point out that is talking about the McDonald's workers striking not for more money but to end sexual harassment. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember how she put it, this is entirely a Katie's observation, but it's an incredibly astute observation, which is that the McDonald's workers aren't striking for... Economic reasons. They're not striking for benefits.

They're not striking for material benefits. They're striking for... Humanity. They're challenging a power relation. Right. They're challenging the very existence and notion of that power relation yeah and that goes a lot way that goes a lot further and getting you towards some sort of liberatory state than striking for i mean you know you should be striking for material benefits

obviously i mean because we all need more money yeah um but that should not be your only horizon. Your main sort of goal should be challenging the power relations, the property relations. The people that pull the strings in this economic-based system. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Anyways. There's a bunch of loose thoughts. Yeah, I feel really...

I feel a lot better than I did when I walked in, though. Do you? See, I feel like I didn't quite stick to landing like I thought I would. I think this is all right. I mean, it's not... You don't have to have a perfect oratory and like a seamless rapport all the time, I feel like.

You're right, you're right. Well, I'm a perfectionist, you know. I want everything to be perfect. Yeah. But... You're right. You're right. Well, I'm a perfectionist, you know. I want everything to be perfect. Yeah. But. What a mantle you've chosen to take up by hosting this podcast then as a perfectionist. Boy, oh boy. Oh, fuck.

Dude, I have to tell you something that happened to me last night at the fair at the Mountain Heritage. Last night at the fair. Dude, I don't know if Alex told you about it. The funniest goddamn thing happened. I don't know why I didn't tell you this when we got back to the apartment. You know how Sally, your dog, sometimes if there's a lot of people around, she'll get really excited.

She'll get really excited and try to lead you, try to pull you on the leash. And as a result, she kind of chokes herself. And then she'll start breathing really loud, like. Yeah, she's wheezing, yeah. Well, we were walking up the street, me and Alex, and we had Sally with us. And this lady, I think it was this lady, she was with her family. She was like, she got really freaked out for a second.

She was like, oh, man. She was like, out of the corner of my eye, I thought you, she was talking to me, she was like, I thought the guy was on the leash and the girl was walking him and we're not king shaming or anything i lost it dude i was laughing so hard i was like wait you thought i was you thought that was me making that noise she was like, wait, you thought I was, you thought that was me making that noise? She was like, yeah. Dude, fairs are so goddamn funny because at every fair you will always see like a, like two 14 year olds like huddled up against the bridge, like holding each other's belt loops, you know, really close to each other and just like putting their noses together. Just like, I love you, baby. Yeah. I love yeah i love you baby i love you you know what i mean it's like the angsty shit

because they have like nowhere else to like hide or what is it about the fair that makes you like horny i'm not just like you know sort of wax poetic like that yeah yeah that's a good question maybe it's for me it was always like that i I was always like, oh, am I going to go ride that Ferris wheel with this girl? You know what I mean? I was always like. Well, I think what it is is that it helps you get lost in the crowd. It's like your only escape for, because I remember this too. Like when I was like in eighth grade, I remember going to the fair.

I loved it, man. Yes. And it was always trying to jockey for like a girl's attention or something. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. I think that's it though. It allows you to be in a sort of isolated space like if you're on the Ferris wheel. Yeah.

Your dream, your fantasy is that the Ferris wheel gets stuck and you're stuck at the top. And then you have this really like movie like moment. And then you get a handjob. Could you imagine being in a Ferris wheel and you're sitting there and um you know you're sitting there with like your buddy or maybe even your girlfriend or wife whatever and then you're just ruining everybody else's moment right it hits your leg you're like what the fuck you look up and some kid's getting jacked up. God damn.

Oh, shit. Love it, baby. Well, let's see. We got some shout outs this week. I'm sure we do. I'm sure we do. Oh, God, I hope they're still with us after this one. Give us a break.

All morning I was like, what are we going to say? How are we going to talk about this? In a way that makes sense and we're not like... I don't know, man. Because, yeah, that's the thing. A lot of the times I'm like, man, I sound insufferable. Or that I just have no business talking about this. Right, right.

Or that I'm just not smart enough or whatever. Right. So we got Video Game Idiot. Thank you, Video Game Idiot. You might like the movie Existence. Let's see people on the TLC. You're in the DMs recommending this movie to so many people to multiple people if terrence ray pops up in your dms you're gonna get this recommendation

just don't open it uh brian underwood thanks brian Thanks, Brian. Let's see. Thanks, Brian. My girlfriend's aunt emailed me. I'm just going down here. Emailed me to say go Cats because Kentucky had a big win last night. Oh, hell yeah. Are they 5-0 now?

5-0, baby. How do you feel about that? Pretty excited? Man, I'm feeling weird, dude. I'm feeling weird about football. I'm excited about that. But you see this headline this morning, this kid from Tennessee State is in critical condition

after taking a hit on a football field yesterday. Fuck, man. It's just like, I don't know, man. Just kind of. Well, I was thinking about that because we were watching the game last night and that guy got ejected for targeting or whatever, and it's like, I mean, okay, but can you really? It's sort of like capitalism. How the fuck do you take out the central point you know this is not gonna happen yeah yeah

yeah these are the hits we're trying to eliminate in football it's like okay that actually is a good metaphor for liberalism right right reform it well they're just trying to make it nicer. Thomas Brockway. Thank you, Thomas. You're the Brockway. Bill Grazier. Thank you, Bill. Thanks, Bill. Bill, maybe you're a Grazier.

If you're a Frazier in eastern Kentucky, that's how we'd say it. Yeah, Grazier. William. Thanks, William. Morgan Hobson. Shout out, Morgan. Hey, your last name sounds like where I was raised. You Morgan Hobson. Shout out, Morgan. Hey, your last name sounds like where I was raised. You're Hobson.

Thank you. I was like, okay, now they're getting sparse. Let's see. Shout out to Nairi. How about Darakaru? Thank you. Shout out. Shouts out to Darakaru i like patreon episodes i feel

like they're better than our they're getting better than our public one oh yeah you think yeah i think so beau bassett adwan thanks beau uh john blake thank Shout out John Blake. Let's see. Katie Rose. Thank you, Katie Rose. Damn. Thank you, Katie. Oh, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Thank you for your patronage.

I started to say Lindsay Terrace, but that is my colleague, but still shout out Lindsay. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Lindsay. Lindsay's cool. Let's see here. Oh, gosh. Oh, gosh. Oh, gosh.

Let's see. Let me read something for you. Go ahead. I think we are. This is actually very relevant to our discussion today. This is something that Mark said, and it's included at the beginning of this book I have of Rosa Luxemburg's selected political writings. Who said?

Marks. Oh, I thought you said Mark. Mark. The guy in the Bible. Marks. Oh, okay. He said, this is actually very relevant to this episode, actually. We do not face the world in doctrinaire fashion, declaring, here is the truth.

Kneel here. We do not tell the world, cease your struggles. They are stupid. We want to give you the true watchword of the struggle. We merely show the world how it actually struggles. And consciousness is something that the world must acquire even if it does not want to. So, that is, that's what we say to the libs.

That's what we say to everybody. You have to, you've got to get red-pilled with communism. The good kind of red-pilled. Not the bad kind. I mean, that's the thing, though. That's what it is.

That's what Marxism is is it is a scientific framework for understanding the world it's not these it's not like some ideological screen you put over your eyes that's what liberalism is it clouds your ability to see the world as it currently exists yeah marxism is the the uh the thing that gives you diamond-like clarity into its inner workings, the system's inner workings. And also, another distinction I want to make about liberalism, too, is nobody's talking about liberalism in the sense that we all believe in free inquiry and all those values of whatever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what you're saying. Yeah, no, we believe, obviously, we have a podcast. We want free inquiry. That proves it. Yep, yep, yep. Oh, man.

Man, you should read this essay, though, Tom. Let me take that with me. Social Reform. I think I have two copies of this book actually i'll give you my so i don't have to give it back um not even if you gave me your only copy you'd never give it back books one of those things if you lend somebody a book don't expect to get it back oh totally yeah you you as soon as i lend somebody a book i'm like man i'll never see that one again yes yes yes yes um man there's really just so many good quotes i wanted to read them but i'm not fast enough to i'm not fast enough on my

oh anyways should we call should we call this yeah we probably cut a little bit there this is the stuff you should know podcast every time i'm looking through the itunes thing or whatever it's like the top 10 podcasts is one of them is stuff you should know from npr this is invisibility this is stuff you should know there was a holocaust i don't remember who was involved but that doesn't matter there was a civil war you should know that there's an ocean there's a few there's an ocean there's they say there's several but it's really just one big ocean oh fuck do you think there's anybody in the world who knows the holocaust happened but like totally forgot about who

were this the uh the varying figures involved figures involved were they're like there's a holocaust but i don't remember who that is that is something i was thinking about the other day is like are there people in the world that like know about things historically but like this just so far removed from them like even these like huge world changing things where they're like Adolf Hitler hmmm where have I heard that? where have I heard that name before?

Osama Osama Ben Laden somebody did point out because i had that theoretical on that i had that hypothetical on that one episode that was like do you think there's anybody who tries to steal valor the opposite way with 9-11 oh that was a good bit who was there but is tries to pretend like they weren't and someone pointed out on twitter oh, I wish I could give him credit. Someone pointed out on Twitter, they were like, someone was having an affair. Oh, no, it was Matt.

It's my buddy, the vegan, Matt. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He said somebody was having an affair and they were at the office that morning and then they had to pretend that they weren't actually at the building has their coffin smoke up that was good was it they're like yeah they're like getting dust out of their mat gardener right sorry man i don't know how much you asked they're like yeah they're putting running their

hands through their hair and dust is just coming out of it no i know. Damn drywall coming out of the ceiling at the office. Good closing bit. All right, that's a wrap on that one. We'll see you all later this week. See ya.