Apathy: The Biggest Lobbyist

In this episode, the panel discusses the pervasive issue of apathy in American society and its implications for civic engagement and political participation. They explore how apathy serves as a powerful lobbyist, benefiting the wealthy and powerful while disenfranchising the working class. The conversation delves into historical contexts, modern distractions, and the role of social media in exacerbating disengagement. The panel emphasizes the importance of community action, anger as a catalyst for change, and the need for reforms to break the cycle of apathy and foster active participation in democracy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:07

We hold these truths to be self evident. Corporations are not people. Money is not people. It is not a Christian nation. And the government of the people, by the people, for the people, and not perish from this parish. Welcome to Disorderly Conduct.

SPEAKER_04 0:35

Good morning and happy Sunday to all of our listeners out there. And welcome to Disorderly Conduct. I'm your host today, Joey. I'm retired Green Beret, founder and co-founder of the Money Out of Politics movement with my esteemed colleague Bobby. And I'd let the rest of the panel introduce themselves.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Hey guys, I'm Bobby. I am a civil litigation attorney in Georgia and activist every other time. Then I'm on court.

SPEAKER_05 1:05

So hey guys, uh my name is Jesse. As you know, IT guy by day, and I guess political activist and armchair historian any way that I can to fight back against this authoritarian regime. Happy to be here with my team as usual. So and I'm excited for today's topic.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

And I'm Fingers. Um, 30-year working musician, accountant by day, amateur economist, and amateur historian by night.

SPEAKER_04 1:30

Well, thanks for joining us, guys. Hey, uh, we do have a bit of an exciting topic today. Um, everybody, I think, uh, if you're listening to this podcast, you have some of the same concerns that we do uh about what's transpiring in this country. Uh today's topic is why apathy is the most powerful lobbyist in the United States. The most powerful lobbyist in America isn't Exxon, it isn't Lockheed, it is, in fact, apathy. And, you know, this is not a discussion today uh debating whether or not the system has flawed flaws. We're asking a harder question, and that is who benefits when citizens disengage? Who benefits? Okay. So the core question uh for this first segment is apathy accidental or is it profitable? And I know I'm I'm looking at Finger's shirt right now. I see you've got a money out of politics shirt on your chest right now, so let's start with you. Uh does low voter turnout benefit concentrated wealth?

SPEAKER_03 2:31

I mean, yeah, of course it is. Of course it's profitable. Like the the fact that we have full legislative um and executive cap, and I mean, we have full governmental capture at this point, right, by the wealthy. Um, you know, my current bugaboo, and I think it is the perfect symptom to point at this, is AI and all of the resources that are being poured into AI and how all of these resources are going to impact so many Americans from the way that it consumes clean water, from the way it consumes power, from the way it consumes real estate. Um and nobody asked us. At no point has anybody even bothered trying to secure public opinion about this. It's just, and it kind of exploded on this scene, and I mean legislatively, like last summer around the One Big Beautiful Bill, when we suddenly see that, oh, and by the way, states you're not allowed to regulate AI for 10 years. They just, you know, we don't need public buy-in anymore. We're just gonna do this.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:34

Man, man, that is, you know, that is a really, I think, strong point in the frame about whether or not uh apathy is the well, I guess the ways that apathy is costing us. And so so let me ask you guys this, and this is for everybody as well. How do policy how do you see policy outcomes shifting when there is a significant drop in in voter participation like we're witnessing now? Go ahead, Bobby. I see you chomping at the bit.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Well, I mean we're seeing obviously I think we all know that it's been happening, but we're seeing just an outlandish uh alignment of corporate power and government power right now, which you saw with Mussolini and and I was about to say I was about to say uh I forgot we could say Hitler on here. Um and so that's that's who's benefiting. I mean we're watching the most corrupt administration in American history. Just all the cards are on the table. They don't even they don't even care if you see it anymore. And that's by design, I mean for decades the the American people have been essentially drained of any wealth that would give them time to care about civic engagement. Take time to go about or learn the issues and um systematically undereducated. And now we're here where they're just like have a seat while they literally have uh Dubai purchasing forty nine percent of uh Trump's Bitcoin.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

It's unbelievable watching.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

So that's who benefits corporate interests, really deregulation and corruption.

SPEAKER_03 5:27

You make a point that I hadn't considered. You know, um I've seen a paper that talks about how wealth inequality leads to democratic backsliding. And in my mind, of course, I've always thought of that as like, well, yeah, because like they can buy the legislative processes. But you make an excellent point. I hadn't considered that like the working class gets pushed closer and closer to survival, where they just have to focus on making a living and feeding their kids and keeping a house and don't have time for civic engagement. And, you know, I I'm I react a little bit to apathy because I think sometimes the word apathy carries overtones of laziness and uh um and I think maybe disaffection is a better term. I think that people are I think a lot of people are like, well, what does it matter? My vote doesn't do anything, nothing's gonna change, both parties are the same. We've heard all of these things, right? But I think also it's like I said, you gave me something to think about. It's like we should look at this as a symptom of malay, as a symptom of illness, a symptom of the deterioration of the middle class and the pushing of everybody into the working class and pushing the working class into the streets as homeless people.

SPEAKER_05 6:38

Yeah, Jesse. Uh, I mean, I have so many thoughts. I don't really know where to begin. Um then just to kind of just blurt it out with the topic that we're having. Um fingers, you said something that I think is spot on that I was gonna kind of touch on, which is I think I think we have to redefine when we say apathy, because you're right, it has undertones of being lazy. And I think that's not necessarily true in this case when we're talking about modern America. Um, I think apathy also looks like anger. I think apathy looks like people getting really, really angry to the point where they don't even know what to do. So forget about it. It doesn't matter. And I think um, do I you you had uh I think uh Joey, you had asked the question, is it intentional? Is it by design? And I think the answer is D, all of the above. It is all of the above because being apathetic is also a sign of great wealth sometimes. Being apathetic is like we are on top of the world and we have been handed everything by the previous generation that has structured a global order where America is on top in every single way, where all resources, all roads lead to Rome, right? And we have been so babied, so coddled, so privileged, so spoiled that we don't know what it is to not be apathetic. And then on top of that, it is weaponized in every single level of society. Um, and I we're obviously gonna divide, you know, we're gonna dive this episode into what that means as it's weaponized, but I think it's not just weaponized, I think it is a byproduct of an overgrown, belly full uh Murca cheeseburger society of people that are so inundated in their cell phones, in their food, and their entertainment, and their clothes that why, why, why, why would I care? In poverty, right? Why would I care about politics? And that is apathy.

SPEAKER_04 8:35

Yeah, and and and and this is why I love you guys so much because you guys have all brought such important things. I fully agree, fingers. And I and I sensed that when, you know, I chose the word apathy. And I think, and I think you guys have done a just a phenomenal job of framing how we should be thinking about it because those overtones exist, those undertones of of laziness, right? The the way that they talk about black America. And so I think it's important to uh make sure that we're operating with a common definition. And that definition really comes back to precisely what you said, Fingers, which is uh this is this is a byproduct of the fact that uh people are now, like you said, the working class is being forced out onto the street, the middle class is being forced into the working class. People don't have time. Some people don't have time to raise their children because they have to work three jobs. Because these companies are doing things like, you know, giving you 39 hours so they don't have to pay you benefits.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

This is something I bring up a lot on panels and I think also in our conversations. If you have a one-hour commute, especially if you're taking a train or a bus, your kids have homework, you got a grocery shop, you're working two jobs just to try to pay your bills, and then politicians are coming and shaking hands and kissing babies, but the issues facing your community are never getting resolved because politicians are using weaponized incompetence to keep that, you know, trigger issue hot for elections. And so you you're like, What who are you? Why are you? I mean, get out of my way. I gotta you know, my kids are at home on blackkey kids. And then especially with corporate interests and money in politics, sometimes it's gonna take a little bit of research or education to link some of the issues facing the community to corporate interests. But who has time to do that when you're exhausted? And especially in reference to the black community, uh well, black and brown communities, you know, there's a a positive correlation with poverty and a positive correlation with poverty and crime. And um that's by design too. Well, I don't get into that, it's too a little bit far off about the narrative. And oftentimes when I have these conversations, even at the bar, why my vote don't count. I said if your vote didn't count, they would not be trying to take it so hard. You know, and as people unlock unloud die for these vo for these rights. Um and we're we're you know beckoned by history and uh sacrifice to do our part. But but it's not to say that that's blame, um, but that's sort of why we're here to have the conversations about why these things matter and how these things are linked up and how you resolve it, which mutual aid, you know, they've talked quite a bit about that.

SPEAKER_04 11:24

And and and I love your comments, Jesse. I got a I got a I got a banger of a question for you. I'm I'm dying to hear how you answer this. But uh, you know, historically when democracies have weakened, did would you say that elites rely on civic withdrawal? And is citizen disengagement typically a warning sign ahead of institutional capture?

SPEAKER_05 11:45

Right? Oftentimes civic disengagement is uh uh a mechanism. It's intentional, it's done on purpose. I'm thinking of I don't know why, but the first thing that comes to mind is the uh Jim Crow regime. Um, I don't know if a lot of people know this, but a lot of rich southern plantation owners would intentionally produce a lot of press and propaganda that would that would galvanize the anger and sometimes apathy of poor whites against black slaves. They did it all the time. And the it it it's interesting, uh uh W.E.B. Du Bois in his own book even admits that the generation post-Reconstruction was arguably more racist than the generation that owned slaves in the 1860s. Because it's this propaganda, it's this rise of hate. Because before the the 1860s generation that owns, I'm not saying they're not racist, they're absolutely racist, but their their mindset was more this is just the natural order of things, and the government doesn't want it. Whereas their sons, their the later generation would be like, no, we just absolutely hate them because they are degenerate non-human people, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:54

What you're seeing happen right now.

SPEAKER_05 12:55

Right. And I again I'm not saying that didn't exist in the 1860s. I'm just saying that that morphed over time because, as you say, civil disengagement, uh uh causing people to be against each other, to disenfranchise people, is absolute, almost, I would argue, primarily in that particular case, uh a product by design, right? It is it is intentional that this happens.

SPEAKER_04 13:18

It's so funny that you say that and it and it leads to a perfect pivot to go where we're headed next. If apathy produces predictable power outcomes, then it's not just a flaw. It may, in fact, be part of the structure. And that is how we start this next segment.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

And so actually what I was about to say is this the the culture of the bootstrap narrative, the rugged individualism that we have in the United States, number one, is not the way that the rest of the world lives by and large. And it is systematically preventing the organization of people, you know, sort of naturally, organically. And so right now, you know, we're like neighbor, uh, what's your name? You know, how how do we get together and fix this? Uh whereas, you know, in other cultures you have multiple generations sleeping in the same room. Um, but we are that is taught as like our culture that you don't you shouldn't lean on anybody, you know, you do it yourself and it tears us apart before we ever get started.

SPEAKER_04 14:22

And I know I know fingers is coming for this one because I remember I remember in one of our early episodes you touched on this exact thing about rugged individualism.

SPEAKER_03 14:30

Yeah, I mean, you triggered me when you say bootstraps, right? It's the very the very way the term pull yourself up by your bootstraps has morphed over the decades is evidence of this, right? That phrase was originally coined ironically as a demonstration that it was not possible. Like, put on a fucking pair of boots, stand on your kitchen floor, reach down, and pull yourself one foot into the air. It's not gonna fucking happen. It's against the laws of physics. But somehow we've absorbed this like pull yourself up by your bootstraps and take it, you know, as a straightforward thing. Same thing. The the game Monopoly, there was another game that was invented by the same guy who the rules of that game were about collaboration and community. And he created both of those games to demonstrate capitalism does not produce as good of an outcome because how do you win Monopoly when one guy owns fucking everything, right? And showing that a collaborative society was better. All of these ways along that we that the system chooses to tell you that wealth is merit, that if you don't have money, that means you're not worth as much, you haven't achieved as much, you haven't worked as hard, even though all the data demonstrates that that's a complete line of bullshit. Um, you know, it frustrates me. And of course, the narrative of the rugged individual is artificially with okay, two things. Jesse mentioned ago about the generation after the slave owners being more racist, which we see in Red Summer in 1919. We see pictures of lynchings throughout the 19s and 1910s and 1915s. This is where the lost cause narrative is invented. That same energy, the same general ideology, um, you know, it came out of the South. Like we just want to be able to continue our life without the interference of the government, which comes out of Reconstruction, was carried west as the country moved west. And so, you know, in the 1950s, John Birch Society is funding the number one type of TV show that was on in the 50s, like the genre that there are more TV shows than anything else were Westerns. These are consciously funded by the John Birch Society and other right-wing, you know, um organizations to push this narrative of the self-reliant, independent, rugged individual, even though that never fucking happened. You know, and of course, now we're hearing, you know, people are trying to pivot away from no, no, America wasn't built by immigrants. It was built by settlers. No, it was built by a fucking army with settlers following in their path as the army exterminated the people that were already on the land. Homestead Act is the biggest transfer of wealth and bequeath of wealth to white settlers in the nation's history. Oh, just go give you real estate out there in the West. And yet these people want to pretend that of this myth that again comes from those Westerns of the solitary rancher standing out there with his Winchester repeater protecting his family and his ranch from outlaws, from Native Americans, from whatever the issue may be. So, yes, I'm ranting. I'll get off the soapbox.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Number one, um if you're not successful in this narrative, it you know, affects your mental health and your your confidence and everything like that. Um but the other thing I was gonna say is the bootstrap thing, it's funny how nobody really points that out, but also it's it's expensive to be poor. You know what I mean? And so this idea that it's wealth is merit or poor people are lazy or irresponsible me quite literally working like twice as hard. You know, if I can't afford a p a good pair of boots, I buy a cheap pair of boots and I buy them more often and then you're spending double the money and and I it just it bewilders me that um because even on the panels lately I've I've heard this this a lot. I'm like Are you serious? And I was like I I was telling this guy the other day, I was like, this is the perfect example of implicit bias and you literally being racist on this panel and and acting like you you know, or maybe you don't see the lens through which you're literally attacking a panel full of black people, but um the problem is coffee and avocado toast, Bobby.

SPEAKER_03 18:59

Don't you understand?

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Clearly.

SPEAKER_04 19:01

Yeah, no, I mean it couldn't possibly be the fact that uh rents require 50% of your income in many major cities in the United States. Couldn't be that, right? And and you know, uh I love I love that this already happened. You know, when when when we write these episodes, just for the listener, when we write these episodes, something that I can tell you, one, uh we don't typically share the topic with each other ahead of these episodes. Okay, so there's there's no preparation on behalf of the panel. And yet, and still, uh, you know, for me personally, when I write these episodes, right, and I write the structure for them, uh, I have these natural transition points. And I want to I'm gonna just go ahead and and like peel back the curtain for the listener here. Uh for segment two, it's manufactured disengagement. And the core question, which you guys, and the reason I'm bringing this up is because you guys so adequately approached it already. Are citizens apathetic or are they exhausted? Or are they exhausted? And you're talking about somebody having to work twice as hard. You're talking about people having to spend, you know, I mean, what if you listen to Dave Ramsay, right? Well, shout out there, right? But if you listen to Dave Ramsey, right? And one of the things, like one of his very early principles, you shouldn't be spending, if you can help it, more than 25% of your income on housing. That is absolutely not fucking feasible for most people in this country, right? And you know, right and we've talked about it, we talked about it in the episode Broken Windows. Uh, so if you guys are just joining us, that was the first episode that we pushed out there and we talked about uh how we treat the least among us, as they say, right? Um, and so it so that's the core question we'll lead into this segment with are they apathetic or are they exhausted? We've already touched on it. So have ruling classes historically used distraction, crisis, or division to reduce civic engagement? And what ways do you see them employing those strategies and techniques in the modern age?

SPEAKER_03 21:02

I mean, corporate America finance bros running everything are just, and of course, I'm experiencing this now, so I'm I'm feeling it. It's just, you know, the the gears of corporate capitalism in this country are just grinding workers into paste. You know, it's like longer hours, just more being put on your plates, like headcount not being added, like this thing I found out called quiet firing. You know, we've heard of quiet quitting, but now there's quiet firing where they just crank up the requirements expecting that people will quit. You know, like I guess that's behind some of these return to office mandates. They know people won't come back. They know people have spent five years arranging their life in such a way that if they can't just suddenly start going into an office that's a two hour, three hour commute because they don't have childcare. They don't have, you know, they don't have the infrastructure to support that. And so they just crank down and expect people to suck it up, you know. Ghost jobs, which are created as a false thing, they go up on job boards just to pacify staff that already exist to say, oh, look, help is coming, even though they have no intention of actually hiring anybody. And just this continuous need for capitalism to squeeze and squeeze more out of the orange and just keep crushing people.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

So simultaneously the government strips all social safety nets.

SPEAKER_03 22:26

Gets rid of OSHA, like gets rid of the National Labor Relations Board. All of the things that are supposed to look out for the working class and protect them in these situations are being gutted, or at work at best, there's apathy on the part of the administration for these things, you know?

SPEAKER_04 22:42

The Consumer Protection Bureau is another one. And here's one specifically for you, Bobby. And I think you're gonna uh you're gonna like this. Let's discuss for a second, right? And you as a as a practicing attorney discuss for the for the audience how does the legal complexities surrounding participation act as a barrier to participation.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

I mean, what we see right now with the Save Act is absolutely meant to be a barrier to parti to participation. In particular, uh for women who by and large usually vote Democrats. Um for people who are adopted for people who grew up in poverty whose parents might have passed away without having documents or what have you. Um but then even even more than that, like closing polling stations uh so that the lines are long. Outlawing passing out water for food. You don't and then uh the fact that we don't have a holiday for voting. And if you're a a a wage worker, if you're working shift work, that's significant. You know. Um, especially with this economy. If you have three kids and I can't even tell you how much I'm spending on groceries right now. Um and then even that, like the social safety nets, at least in red states, I know in Georgia, like I was talking to some people at the courthouse the other day. That was a man and a woman, um, their husband and wife, she got pregnant with twins, couldn't work, and their car was repossessed and they couldn't afford the payment. And he was like, I already don't have any money. And um I was like, Can you do like $25 a month? And I'm just looking at him and she was like, We we can't afford childcare. He had three kids, uh twins that are one and I think like three year olds. And I was like, Have you tried caps? He was like, I make too much money. They're literally living in poverty. Caps is childcare assistance in Georgia. So they make these um income requirements to where you pretty much would have to be like homeless to to s to get assistance in a lot of cases. And they had three children under five. And I'm just looking at them and I'm like, I feel terrible that because I was on the plaintiff's side in that case, then uh I was like, good luck, you know, but she can't she couldn't go back to work because they that's like I mean, hell that age, you're you're talking about thousands of dollars a month in child care.

SPEAKER_04 25:12

And and if I can just take a pause right for a second and and let us all have a human moment because Bobby's describing something that she experienced in court where she is last week. This is so many people in this country's truth. And I'll and I'll tell you something else that happened this morning, right? I was I was at the grocery store and I was that, you know, inevitably when you're you're coming out of this particular parking lot, uh, Bobby, you've been here, the the hairs teeter up the road, and uh there it's a light, and there's inevitably there's somebody that's panhandling there. And I was behind uh, you know, this white lady in a Dodge Charger, and we were at the light for probably a good 30 to 45 seconds, and then her window rolls down and she calls out to this gentleman that's standing out here, and she reached through the window and gave him a bag of food. And, you know, I've never I've never wanted to be stuck at a light so bad in my life. All right, I'm trying to catch up to this lady because I just want to tell her like that was fucking beautiful what you just did, and I'm gonna pay it forward to someone else.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

And but in cities like Atlanta, they literally have criminalized panhandling in certain parts that keep the homeless away from the rich white folks downtown. And you know, I think we touched on that during the broken windows episode, but um and then you know they try to move them out of sight, dehumanize them, and then the thing that gets me is the words you use, Joey.

SPEAKER_03 26:41

And inevitably at the stock bar at the stoplight, somebody's panhandling. It's become just accepted and expected that there are gonna be people who've been spat out by society trying to scrabble whatever sustenance in existence they can. And spreading out pan handling it a freeway exit here in Rochester and there was three inches of snow on the ground.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

I've seen people with their kids crowd through a mediation the other day. Um because defendant after defendant, I got sick and couldn't pay no health care. I mean, I was like I literally this is funny. When I was actually still sick, this is just laryngitis now, post viral laryngitis, but I had like 15 cases in this court and this is a county where the judge, the magistrate does not have to be an attorney. So I a lot agree. She has a high school diploma and she is deciding people's fate, you know. She goes, they were doing they do criminal uh bonds and stuff like that too, warrants. And a lot of these were in default and she wanted me I wasn't feeling well, number one. And she wanted me to sit there and talk to all of them to try to work out a consent. And I said, You can continue this entire docket because I'm not gonna sit in a you know a ten by ten room sick with a bunch of people who do not have health care, who are living in poverty, and you just listen to testimony after testimony telling you that they can't pay their bills because they got sick. I got reprimanded after after court. She told me my outburst was uncalled for, and I was like, What was it then? I think it was I think it was pretty fucking called for as you sit up there. I mean, she didn't come out of the back or her chambers for two hours. I'm like, what curling your fucking hair? Like you sit up there 15 feet away from me. I wanna just just ruin people's lives, and you want me to sit over here. One lady was like 79. I'm not doing this.

SPEAKER_03 28:50

Yeah. I want to just jump very quickly. We've been talking about the way the system is designed to grind on poor people and to push the working class out and just listen to what Bobby said. There's somebody with a high school diploma in a position as a magistrate deciding people's fates. And the people whose fates she are deciding are the people on the edge, are the people most marginalized. She's not up there hearing courts' cases for wealthy people. She's not hearing cases against corporations. But no, no, no, like the working class, the people who are poor, they can get fucking Kmart justice. They can get Walmart justice. Because we know she doesn't have a working knowledge of the law the same way that an attorney actually would. She doesn't know when these people's rights are being violated or what rights that she needs to understand, except within a very narrowly prescribed framework. So anyway, that jumped out at me when you said that as a evidence of the system.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

They issue warrants. I mean, it's just, I'm like, I was like, I'm never going back to this county. Um, because that's insane. And there's something else I was gonna say, but oh, this one lady was like, she was older and she's like living in a trailer. She was like telling me about her daughter, but she's moved out of the state, and she was talking about how she has like a frozen pizza and something else in her freezer, and I was like, I can I have to leave. Like I'm literally crying through a mediation. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_04 30:17

Yeah, right. Um I wanna I'm dying to hear your thoughts over there just grinding mentally.

SPEAKER_05 30:24

So I I wanna I want to split my I guess response in two sections. The first one being to agree with you guys that again, I've said it before on this podcast, I'll say it again, Poverty by America, written by Matthew Desmond. Everyone should read it. It's a short 185-page read. Um, that he just systematically lays out the fact that poverty is by design, it is intentional, it is made to disenfranchise people. And I I think we we really need to look at that perspective, like we've been talking about. You guys have you know so brilliantly have mentioned and explained upon. But I want to add something. I want to add another layer of what in when we talk about apathy by design. And we have to talk in the modern sense, a catalyst uh in a technology that has never existed in human history that changes the ball game. And that is the internet. The when we talk about civic disengagement, when we talk about apathy, when we talk about um distraction from civil engagement, the internet is arguably one of the most powerful tools the human mind has ever invented. And I want to move away just a smidge from the poverty aspect, even though I would argue the poorer classes are absolutely victims to this, that because of so much work, because of so much stress, they recede into their online social media feeds and don't worry about politics and get distracted. As as I under as you know, understandably, understandably so. But I want to move up to the the the a little bit of the like me, like the middle class and the you know the higher classes in society that equally struggle with apathy because of things like this, because of the internet, because of social media feeds, um, because the algorithms are made to hook you, to distract you, to engage you, to grab your attention, even to make you fucking angry, to infuriate you, and then pacify you. And it's it's like this is something I've been talking about with a friend of mine recently where I don't know how, and I'm still trying to figure out like psychologically how this happens. How is it is it that that we have created you know algorithms and feeds that anger us so much that it becomes overwhelming and therefore we throw up our hands in apathy? And I think I think when we talk about civic disengagement, part of it absolutely is the mechanisms of capitalism that keep people financially oppressed, while in the same way that those mechanisms of capitalism that are seeking to derive and extort wealth from the pop from the poor are equally creating mechanisms that distract those who are not poor. So it's almost like this technology has a double effect. So if you're poor, it distracts you because you're too busy anyway. And if you're not poor, it also distracts you by enraging you, hating the poor people, hating the black people, hating hating the the LGBT gate uh LGBTQA community, and so on and so forth to keep things infuriating and simultaneously. It's just so overwhelming. I'm just gonna be apathetic.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

That's the it's the blitz. It's it's literally a strategy. It's a bliss tree. And so maybe back in the day before this technology, they may control access to information and just you know the distribution of information. So now we have the internet, they're just gonna throw so much at you and count on the fact that they have systematically destroyed education. You can't discern fact from conclusion, and you retreat into bias. And that's I mean, yeah, that's exactly what's happening. I was gonna make another point about the economy, though. It's intentional. They're literally recreating the economic conditions present in Weimar Republic Germany. They intentionally have tanked the document.

SPEAKER_04 34:19

So now we're moving into institutional capture, which is where I believe that you're headed. And the core question here: what does apathy or civic disengagement, as it were, allow powerful powerful actors to do quietly?

SPEAKER_03 34:34

Um if I can just connect some dots briefly um with what we were talking about. Because what Josie's, what Jesse said about social media, what we've been talking about about the working class being overstimulated and exhausted. I've got a new word that I use all the time, which is exhaust or stimulate, exhaust or whelmulated. You know, you're exhausted, you're overwhelmed, you're overstimulated. I feel like I'm going through that all the time. And so when you you're scrabling out an existence and you're on the edges, and we're talking about the inability of people to meaningfully participate in politics and in civic engagement, along comes social media and says, I have a worldview for you. I've figured it all out. Here's everything. Just take this and run with it. And to call out my own side, we did this on the left leading up to the 2024 election. We did not take seriously the complaints about economic distress from the other side. We kept saying, look at the stats, it's fine. The statistics say everything's fine. And that was disconnected from people's reality. I was guilty of it. Why? Because my feed told me what the talking points were, had already like pre-deflected that. And so those things are separated. And, you know, one thing that we found about ourselves as human beings is nothing is as sticky as anger, right? These platforms were invented to make money. The way they make money is keeping them on, keeping us on them to serve us ads. And what we found about it's an unfortunate truth about ourselves as human beings, nothing gets us stuck on that platform as much as anger. But then it also leads to disengagement because we fire off an angry comment and uh yeah, I cooked. And we think that they're collecting your data the whole time. And actually, what we've done is just been diverted out of the process. Last thing, we talk about unfreedom all the time from Timothy Snyder, right? And one of the one of the aspects of freedom is unpredictability and our ability to be unpredictable. The algorithms and these platforms not only take that away, they make us hyper-predictable. They gather so much information about us that our our ability to move in ways that the state cannot anticipate, and they're giving us, therefore, giving us a measure of freedom is taken away from us because the state knows where we're going to go. And we're voluntarily giving that away. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

Did y'all look at the terms that should say?

SPEAKER_04 37:11

Uh I'm sorry. Can I just say, uh, do you think it's possible that if we if we send just individually, right, by email to Mr. Snyder, like every single one of our podcast episodes where we consistently bring up his writing, right? And he'll come on and talk about it.

SPEAKER_03 37:29

Yeah, yeah, we should. I can I'll try to edit something together, just at least a post on Tiger and be like on freedom. And on Freedom says, and on freedom says.

SPEAKER_04 37:38

Yeah, dude, I would actually really appreciate that because I think it would be a very interesting thing. I would love to pick his brain. Um, and it's funny because you you brought it up, and then and that I knew somebody would. I was hoping it was gonna be me. I had plans, you know, going forward because actually, Jesse, you said something earlier uh that reminded me of it. Um and and really you could almost reduce this entire topic to that book, right? Because it is an entirely uh uh brilliant investigation of how proactive freedom actually is. And when we discuss apathy in terms of of political participation, that is what that book is about, right? And so um here's here's what I want to pose to the panel as we wind this down.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

I want to make a comment about the social media. Y'all remember I sent the article about the new terms on TikTok? Jesse, did you look at it? They want to collect your sexual orientation, your political views, your geographic location. They are collecting an absolutely astounding amount of data that I mean, it's just literally made to target political opponents. And then you have the sale, you know, that they did, and we're watching literally state media basically collecting an obscene amount of data that can be used to target people while we watched uh Doge and all the other violations of law break down the silos that would normally contain a lot of information that uh when you know sort of aggregated, it can be used to just hunt you down. They know what you're allergic to, they know if you took time off to have a kid, they know. I mean, it's it's insane. If you're on birth control, if you're if you have diabetes, they literally like you know those holograms like Michael Jackson performing them, they they can just project your ass. Like they that's you. Um, and then you're watching them use that to target people, and everybody is just watching it happen. And they're still getting on TikTok.

SPEAKER_03 39:44

And Larry Allison has said out loud in front of the world, in front of cameras, oh, it will be better for society when we're watching everybody because everybody will be on their best behavior because they know we're watching. Anybody that has had a micromanaging boss knows how miserable that is to have somebody hovering over your shoulder every second, making sure you're doing everything that's the way that they want. You want your entire society to be that way. Also, there's a book. What was that book? I'm trying to remember what the book was that it's like, oh, 1984. Big brother.

SPEAKER_04 40:20

Yeah, well, no, it's so funny that you say that because, and and I know Bobby's about to go in on this thing. Uh, she recently, I would say, had that exact experience.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

And finally had enough of it. One Monday he was like, Where's this report? You sent me an email. Where's this report? No, good morning. Hey, what's up? All of our documents are stored in a cloud, so you could just go to the file and get it. I just quit right there. I was like, where you fucking find it? Never coming back to that office. And I normally don't quit jobs like that.

SPEAKER_05 40:49

But that was Um I I just want to mention a few things. I think we're, you know, I think we're spot on when it comes to the predictable nature of the systems that keep us civically uh, you know, disconnected. Um and I think it's I think it's it it warrants us um talking about the very fat the very the many many different facets of how this happens. Uh but the the number one thing I I do want to say is that I think information has always been used to divert the masses, to control them, to manipulate them. But I I think what's particularly pernicious these days is generally speaking, not always, but generally speaking throughout history, it's usually a charismatic leader that convinces people to hand over their freedom. And I think here the the insane perniciousness of the nature of the mechanisms of keeping people civically disenfranchised is that it has so successfully driven the masses to handing over their freedom without prompting. And I think that is people do it all the time. And it's like it it like it makes my hair stand up, like I got like little goose pimples or whatever, because it is mind-blowing to me how successful these algorithms have become. That it has literally programmed people not just to become predictable, but to predictably give up their freedoms. And it's like this is why two things, and this I don't want to go off topic, but I want to mention to someone who works in IT two things, data brokers in AI. Um, for those listeners who may not know, the government is not the worst uh uh um suspect at collecting your data. The worst suspect are companies that you've never heard about and you will never hear about in your entire life. They're third-party brokers. They're called data brokers. And their entire shtick, their whole job, the reason why their company exists, is to collect data on you and to create public profiles about everything Joey has done, where he has lived, where he worked, what religion he may be, actually maybe, how many kids he's had, and even life changes, right? All that is collected and then sold in bulk all the fucking time to big corporations. This is why the whole cloud analytics thing with Facebook was such a big deal. Because this shit happens all the time, even if it's in the terms of service, they are selling your data. And the United States lags behind, not surprisingly, throughout the most of the the first first world countries in data privacy laws.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:27

Privacy, this all comes back to privacy because privacy isn't just about, oh, respecting your boundaries. It is about it is about information that makes you more predictable. It's about information that makes it easier to track you. And and in that, right, create an algorithm and mechanism around you where it automatically just allows you to give up your freedoms to say, you know what, I'm not gonna go because I, you know, I got I got this like TikTok live I gotta go to, so I'm not even gonna go vote. I got this thing, I gotta, and it's just like that's it's very. For me, I think that's a very big part of it.

SPEAKER_04 44:03

And and and and this is this is a once again, thank you, uh amazing uh colleagues of mine for creating the perfect transition, as if you had already read uh what I'd written, because uh now we need to move into breaking this cycle as we wind down. How do you reduce the power of apathy? And if you are not just joining us for the first time, you've heard me say before it starts with getting in your community and doing things that require both hands.

SPEAKER_00 44:31

I knew you were gonna say that.

SPEAKER_04 44:34

I knew you would.

SPEAKER_00 44:36

I'm really, really a little impressed with the amount of conversation I'm witnessing surrounding building community and uh resilience and starting locally and mutual aid and stuff. I mean, it's it's just everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 44:52

Shout out Minneapolis.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

I mean, yep, it's definitely a shout out Minneapolis. Y'all held the line.

SPEAKER_03 44:58

It's still happening. It's like there's no held held the line. Like the drawdown. Sorry, I don't mean to stomp on it.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

I read that today.

SPEAKER_03 45:06

They weren't. I think the narrative about drawdown is just meant to push Minneapolis off the headlines. It's still happening. Nobody's noticing any cessation or relief from the activity.

SPEAKER_00 45:17

Yeah, I read that earlier today. Um, but I think that's one reason why. So social media obviously has the effects we're talking about, but it also has the effects of bringing people together, of um spreading sort of independent journalists uh footage, of allowing people to have conversations, um, to sort of bridge the divide.

SPEAKER_03 45:42

What I'm just saying, that's how we all met.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Oh, right, right. Yeah, um I've I've witnessed the miracles on it, but I think this is sort of a balancing act, but that's why I think for what they're doing in Minnesota, because we talked so much about the narrative, and if we're not careful, they will continue to capture the narrative and allow it to become normalized and on to the next headline, which is also part of the blitz, the Friday night news dump, you know, just overwhelming you with one horrific story after another until we're not even talking about the kids in Chicago that were put in the back of a U-Haul anymore. Um, so yeah, that was just my one, I guess, positive point. I was gonna say earlier about the economic points though, uh fingers. You're talking about the left. Um you're gonna say, oh no, it's fine. Like, look at these numbers, and people are like, I can't feed my kids. I'm sure you're probably familiar with a K-shaped economy, and it the fact that that lady ranted about the damn Dow Jones or whatever going up over 50 and then it went right back down the next day. Um it's becoming increasingly obvious that that shit don't matter to the average American.

SPEAKER_03 46:54

I mean, look, I talk a lot, but I'm gonna jump in here anyway. When people rave about the the stock market, they are raving about how much wealth inequality is increasing. Because that's where the wealthy hold their wealth is in assets. I mean, we don't see real estate there and whatever. But the most marginalized people are not able to participate in the stock market. Of course, people are like, well, if you got 401k, when was the last time you saw a fucking drive-thru worker at Jack in the Box that had a 401k? Shut the fuck up. You know, it's like, yes, you there's your blinders, there's your privilege, there's your refusal to look at the actual structural problems in society by refusing to look at the people for who it's not working. And people in rural areas are hit hardest by this because they used to have a factory or some kind of major economic activity that people were employed at. Those have been carved out, sent overseas. Thank you, Bill Clinton. And those jobs at fast food, those are the kinds of jobs that are left. Walmart, you know, Jack in the Box or whatever. And those people, the the people that are working on the bottom lines, are not gonna have a fucking 401k.

SPEAKER_00 48:04

That's a circular narrative. Well, you need to get an education. Those those jobs are for teens. Well, I mean, if you can't afford an education, you know, we're certainly not gonna help you out with one.

SPEAKER_03 48:16

And it's just And that that that narrative alone is also designed to push um to push people out of civic engagement. Because just think about that. Okay, let's take that at face value. Those jobs are supposed to be for teenagers. So teenagers are gonna stay working the drive-thru window up until midnight, and then they're supposed to go to school the next day and have meaningful participation and get an actual effective education that will allow them to participate in the political process. No, that's part of the pressure by which we're trying to make people not educated, make them not participate, not that make them fucking understand. Like we see it like it is tragic how many people can't name the three branches of government. Like the most basic seventh grade civics question, and people whiff on it all the fucking time. You know, George Carlin said it, it's like it's a big club and you ain't in it. And, you know, a well, like a well-educated populace is not in their interest.

SPEAKER_04 49:16

Yeah, I mean, and and I think, you know, and I'm so I'm interested to hear your guys' perspective. I think, I think there are some very specific questions that we can put that we can play around with, that we can discuss, right? And I I kind of want them floating in your head. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna read them out, and you guys can engage with them as you see fit. Uh, but what economic reforms would most increase civic participation? What legal reforms would reduce the profit profitability of disengagement? What examples exist of citizens reversing decline through engagement? And I think that's a very important one. Jesse, I know I'd see I saw that mic come down. Let's hear it.

SPEAKER_05 49:56

So I want to I wanna lay the foundation for us to kind of like ask about that. You had asked you had asked a question earlier that I don't think we got to answer, which was how do those in power who make such mechanisms benefit? And I think that kind of has to be answered quickly before we talk about how we respond to that. And I think the answer is how do they benefit? And the answer is everything. They benefit in every single way possible. Their pockets get bigger, their political influence gets bigger, they buy more senators, they put who they want in office, and that person then helps them to make more money. They help them get business, they help them get attention, they help them get every it is essentially the power to reshape societal order, is how these people benefit to their degree. So much to the point that hey, listen, you have so much power that people are so distracted and don't really care. Maybe we should just rape children and have like a huge cabal across the entire globe that nobody knows about. And then the DOJ won't fucking investigate it. Maybe that's what they can do.

SPEAKER_00 50:49

And it's like what's real, but it's not a pizza broad. That's great.

SPEAKER_05 50:52

Right. And it's like that is how they benefit. That is at every level society. So the answer is how do we fight back? Yes. Everything, everywhere, any way we can. It is a lifestyle change. It is saying I will not only so this is why I think people really need to read Poverty by America, written by Matthew Desmond, because one of the things he says is that in the same way that Americans have successfully changed their mode of thinking, that they're now consciously uh uh uh aware of the environmental impact of their purchases and decisions, so too should we do this when it comes to poverty. So too should we do this when it comes to political power, when it comes to our attention in our social media, and how what decisions we make. Should we buy this from this corporation when we know that they are exploiting labor and workers? And I think I think I think the issue, just to wrap up my my my segment, is how do they benefit? Yes, in every way they benefit. How do we fight back on every single platform we could possibly fight back?

SPEAKER_03 51:55

You asked about policies, universal health care, universal childcare, the most practical things that can happen. If you allow make it so that people are not going to um go bankrupt from a medical procedure, if you make it so that people can go to work, if you make it people so that people can go to work and also get that education that people tell them that they should be getting to help them get into more productive positions and to advance themselves in society. Those things I think are the most specific policy recommendations that I would make that would have the most immediate impact.

SPEAKER_00 52:33

And you know what's funny about that? The right in this pro-life argument. I literally listened to this guy talk about how we have a declining birth rate. I was like, I don't care. Women aren't your fucking property, number one. And if you have a declining birth rate, then maybe you should put in policies in place that make women comfortable to have fucking kids. Stop being a little terrorist.

SPEAKER_04 52:56

I mean, it seems so simple when you say it. You know, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 53:00

Yeah, but that's not about the birth rate, it's about the subjugation of women again.

SPEAKER_04 53:04

Right, right. And and and I've done, as you guys know, uh I know, I know fingers, you all you are certainly familiar, uh, but I've done deep dives on on things like the Save Act. And, you know, I'm a father of three daughters, right? And I have four sisters. Uh women's rights are extremely important to me, and I just don't understand why we haven't made a lot more fucking noise about this.

SPEAKER_00 53:26

I saw a video the other day, and she was like, How are they getting these people to vote for these policies that are hurting their constituents and like do all the shit where you're like, that doesn't make any sense? And she was like, they're promising them women.

SPEAKER_03 53:39

They hear Yeah, and you know, you mentioned the Save Act earlier, and it's like, oh, well, just go get a passport. And then quietly, conveniently, they have taken away from libraries in a lot of small towns. Libraries were the places that would go and process your passport application, and you could send it from there, and they would help you apply for a passport. Quietly and conveniently, no more.

SPEAKER_00 54:04

I've literally just written that one. I was like, oh.

SPEAKER_03 54:06

You know, and it's just, and those are the kinds of things, right? It was the same thing when I talk about the system just twisting and just like scraping off the skin of the orange. It's the same thing what they did with Social Security. Like, oh, we're not gonna cut benefits. We are gonna cut all of these offices. We are gonna cut um all of these places and make it harder for people to get into the office. And most of these older people are not used to dealing with people on the phone. They're used to going into talking to somebody, and we're gonna take that away from them. And then we're gonna require that you call by phone to resort resolve certain things. And then, of course, we're gonna like reduce staff. Yeah, we're gonna underhire.

SPEAKER_00 54:47

And some of them are so far away, transportation and mobility are gonna be issues, and so people just fall off of the benefits because Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:54

And they know that it's intentional. It's intentional. It's it's just it's quiet firing again. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 55:01

Yeah, and and I and I loved and and that was such a that was such a I I didn't see that answer from you, uh, common fingers. I suppose if I thought about it, I could have uh, but universal health care, universal child care being those policy recommendations really for me uh is beautiful because I'm just just in the context of this very conversation that we've had, uh Bobby has shared the number of cases that she's seen just, you know, over the course of the past couple weeks of people just there on the edge of society because of medical. Um and and you know, that that's just one aspect of it. I have personally been party to uh uh the cost of childcare, right? You're talking seven, eight hundred bucks a week, man. And a lot of these cities aren't paying a living wage, right? So, you know, if I if I what's a living what's a living wage in most cities in the United States, would you say? More.

SPEAKER_01 56:01

Well, more.

SPEAKER_00 56:04

You know, these are your most prized, I won't say possessions because kids aren't possessions, but you want to put them somewhere where they're gonna get an education, there was somebody you trust who's been has a background check. And so those things are more expensive, and that is a barrier very specifically to women making progress in education or you know in their career. Um it's just it's an insidious cycle that just keeps you looped into poverty.

SPEAKER_04 56:34

That yeah, I I want to take a minute on that actually, because one, I've never considered that, that, that very idea. Uh, and it's brilliant. I think we need to highlight it, right? Daycare, the cost of childcare being a barrier for women, right? You have to choose, right? Either, you know, an extremely high-paying career that makes it feasible to pay for it, or you have to choose to leave the workforce to afford it.

SPEAKER_00 57:01

And that's if you're with the father or a partner. If you're single, I mean not optimal. You're making $10 an hour.

SPEAKER_04 57:08

That's not not especially not when, as you so aptly pointed out earlier, uh the social safety nets are being killed. Right. So there's absolutely no way to make that work.

SPEAKER_03 57:19

Also, just as one more thing to throw into the puzzle, like studies show that like societies that have strong social safety nets actually have increased entrepreneurship and innovation. Yes. Because when people know that their basic needs are gonna be covered, they're more willing to take a risk. They're more willing to open a business because, okay, I don't have to figure out how I'm gonna pay this $1,200 health insurance premium that is actually not gonna cover all my costs, and I'm still gonna have a $600 bill after I wind up in the emergency room because I accidentally dropped a, you know, a dresser on my foot, whatever, things that happen to people, you know? And it's like when that kind of stuff is taken off of your economic plate, then it's like, oh, okay, I can eat macaroni and cheese for a couple of months to try to launch my startup.

SPEAKER_00 58:07

Or you make more art. And then we all, you know, music and things that connect humanity, but and really that's the breakdown of the fabric of society. Like we're disconnected over here. And those are the things that connect us. And so when people have their needs met, they have more time to do those things or learn about their elected officials. Um and the other thing is we all know that uh there's a direct correlation between poverty and crime. I mean, it's literally in our best interest to take care of people so that we're not getting, you know, robbed and whatnot.

SPEAKER_03 58:40

But it's not in corporate America's interest.

SPEAKER_00 58:43

Right.

SPEAKER_03 58:43

We have private prison groups suing Arizona because they're not giving them enough inmates. Like you need to go find people to keep our prisons full because we have a contract that is given to a certain occupancy.

SPEAKER_04 58:56

You want to talk about being so ethically devoid? Did you did you get to finish things?

SPEAKER_00 59:03

I mean, did you get to finish fingers?

SPEAKER_03 59:06

I mean, we covered that actually. Like I mentioned that when we did our episode on private prisons, which is still back in the queue and hasn't been launched. I'll probably throw it up after this just so people can hear it. I called it out then, it was theoretical. And now I've seen a headline in the past week. It's no longer theoretical, it's happening. They're suing Arizona. Now, and let's not even get to the point that these are the fuckers that are running detention centers, aka concentration camps, and the conditions out of these, the conditions we're hearing out of these places. Like, don't miss me with that. They're not concentration camps, bullshit. Like, I don't know if you guys heard the phone call of the Irish guy that managed to call into Irish radio from inside a detention center talking about the abuse that's happening, talking about the fact he's seen people die in custody, talking about the fact that they don't have sufficient food, that the food that they do get is contaminated, that they don't have sufficient access to just fucking basic toilet facilities, that things are overcrowded, that people were crammed into a cell so much they had to take turns lying down. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:08

Well, I'm gonna tell you something. And uh, if you're listening, and and as I speak, uh my signal chat is is blown up from uh 5051, North Carolina, and we've got a uh a protest going on at the detention facility right here in Kerry uh today, 1 to 3 p.m. And I didn't think I was gonna be able to make it, but you know, just hearing you guys, I mean that that's that's horrific. You know, I fought for this country for two decades, and I didn't fucking fight for that. I'll tell you that now. I'm disgusted by the way our fucking government is behaving.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:47

And sorry, again, I know I'm taking up too much airtime, but I was just trying to buy warehouses all across the country. So if you want to be able to intervene at the point where you can make a difference, find out if one's going in near you, get into whatever fucking town council meeting you need to get into to voice your opposition and try to throw some fucking sand in the gears and at least slow down the process of them acquiring that property.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:10

I I would like to point out for the group and uh disclaimer for disorderly conduct specifically, we do not advocate for violence. However, I was more than pleased to see uh the lady that set fire to that fucking facility in Arizona. I mean, and they straight up backed out of the sale, too, by the way.

unknown 1:01:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:37

Speaking of um injuries and stuff, I mean they reported credible reports of torture in Texas. Yeah. And then did you ever the one guy who came in with his skull fractured? And they're like, oh, he ran into a wall on purpose. And they were like, no, he didn't.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:55

There are more okay, I'm being exaggerating, but to make the point, you know, they tell us that they're, oh, they're taking, you know, rapists off the street and all of this. DHS's own numbers tell us that 70% of the people in custody have no criminal record. Meanwhile, the numbers of documented sexual assaults in these facilities by ICE agents, by ICE personnel, are all the time increasing. I heard a story about they kidnapped a 17-year-old girl from a car and they kept her in their hotel room overnight with four ICE agents, claiming that, like, oh, it's too late to get to the detention center. You like, what the fuck? Let's wild out of the case.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:44

In my personal view, I might condone violence.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:47

Hey, obviously, I mean, listen, I was just making the official statement.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:50

It's self-defense. Violence has a place in our legal system.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:53

Yes, thank you. Yeah, actually, yes, it does. And I'm gonna say historically, yes, it does it well. I I'm just gonna say, I'm gonna break the narrative that the reason why Martin Luther King Jr. is so celebrated is because the government likes the fact that he wasn't violent. But the I the fact is America definitionally has violence in its history.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:12

Like it is in our founding, it is in every decade that we have, and violence absolutely has a place in society when your government is tyrannical and no longer represents. I'm sorry, but that's just like that's literally the declaration.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:28

Even in self-defense, I mean, for in many states and for a long time, if a man walks in and his wife have an affair, excuse Donald Sadd. Like, uh, but you know, self-defense in particular, and I think that's sort of what you hear in Malcolm X's speeches about nonviolence. I'm nonviolent if you're non-violent.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:49

Also, the narrative about King being 100% violent ignores history. Because I promise you, when they were crossing the Pettus Bridge, they had to because they were being met with violence and they fought their way across the bridge.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:05

Yeah, I mean, look, uh uh I I'm super glad. I should be completely unsurprised given the current company that this is your guys' position. And I think you guys know my fucking position on violence at this point, right? Um and I'm with you. And and and here's a question, and this is a question for the listener, right? It's rhetorical. I don't have to listen to what you guys say how you guys answer, right? You listeners out there, but uh at what point does uh offense become part of defense? At what point does offense become self-defense? Because d they're waging economic and physical war and violence upon the American people. And they're doing it daily. They're doing it to immigrants, they're doing it to the poor, they're doing it to the unhoused.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:59

So at what point So not to bring up a sore spot, Joey.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:02

Defend those fucking people.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:04

Not to bring up a sore spot, but this was my point that I made to in a meeting, in a certain meeting, or happened to piss a bunch of people off, where I asked them, because they were like, we want you to make a statement of nonviolence. I said, Well, we're a legal organization. The base that should be your base assumption that we're not running a Rico, you know, criminal gang over here. But I said, you know what you're doing right now when you come to black and uh brown-led organizations with people who like come from everywhere, it with a regime who has made it very clear their intentions to target people. You are literally legitimizing the narrative that black and brown organizations are inherently violent. And at what point is it self defense? If I get in between an ice agent and an immigrant, am I violent? Or is that self defense? How are you gonna put And then they're like kick me out of the meeting?

unknown 1:05:59

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:00

Um I watched a Let's try to bat them with kid gloves first that they wouldn't listen.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:03

Yeah. I think Tad Stormer has excellent words to say on this. Like I actually watched a piece by him this morning that was ex specifically talking about political violence, and he made some of the same points that are being made here where he says, really? Like the things that people say, it's like violence never has a place in the political process. He's like, that's not what history says. At the same time, he talks about how specific, there's very specific circumstances where it becomes appropriate. And he talked about the, you know, which I did not know. He talked about the Boston Massacre. And this is uncomfortable, but the Boston Massacre is somewhat orchestrated by Samuel Adams because he had heard of a massacre that happened in England, like about two years before, where there were protesters trying to get a member of the opposition released from prison. The crown turned out soldiers, they fired on the crowd. And then because they had people in place and prepared to capitalize on the narrative, what was a relatively small event became the massacre of, I don't remember the name of the fields. Basically, they did the same thing with the Boston massacre. They provoked the British troops.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:33

And then it could not help continue.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:35

I could not help but think of Renee Good and Alex Pettis and Alex Pretti. That this is a moment that can be leveraged the same way.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:46

You can't jump in too soon. You gotta jump at the right time. Otherwise, you're tangled up in the fucking jump room. And that's, you know, I mean, the absolute full frontal assault on the black community on civil rights where they're just like goading, antagonizing, like do something, you know. It's just undeniable. And that's what they're hoping for, you know, so that they can continue to leverage emergency powers, to criminalize the narrative, to continue to tap into white resentment and racism. Um to and then Hitler did it with the brown shirts. They s well, I guess that's reverse to what you were saying, but similar is the exact same thing that Trump's doing now, but uh it's a playbook ass, not an audible read.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:32

Yeah, and and I just want to uh uh point out real quick, and I'm kind of reaching back here a little bit, uh Jesse, I want you to know that I did in fact order uh poverty by America. I'm gonna give it a read this week. You know, I I I I say this consistently, and if you guys, if you guys are just joining uh disorderly conduct for the first time, do understand uh that we consistently say on this podcast, this is our you know favorite, you know, hour or two out of every week, and we are all actually friends in real life. Um, and we're we're completely dislocated from each other, and none of us have me. Yeah, I'm sticking your shit, man. No, but no, this is and and and and this is part of the reason that it I think we've all made it a priority to come in here and do this every week. Uh, and and it really is for uh the listener out there, right? Because this is not all we do. This is this is one or two hours a week that we're on here, but we're all out here doing different things within our communities, right? I'm connected in with 5051 or connected in with uh, you know what, a hundred different organizations in uh this coalition, money out of politics, I mean uh even shots fired, ground game collective, right? There's so many things going on out here.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:48

Um DC lawyers against Trump, DC Alliance against Trump's agenda.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:52

I mean Yes, yes, and and all absolutely fantastic people. So look, I'm I'm I'm a perpetual optimist, right? If you've listened to any of our episodes, you've you've probably heard me loop up with uh maybe more of the the good news here. Uh but but what I want to say to everybody out there, um, don't be a non-participant. Don't stand by, right? This thing that that we've heard we've heard so many times when we talk about Germany in particular, right? What do we say? Well, why why didn't they do anything? How in the fuck did that happen? The answer to that question is apathy. Do not be apathetic.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:34

People are if you're waiting for a aha moment, that's not the way it goes. It's a slow slide and to absolute brutality and inhumanity. And eventually you either be complicit or you'll be like, oh shit, I'm late. It gets late early. And if we're doing our closing thoughts, sick semper tyrannis.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:53

You know, there's um engagement that is beyond um angry comments on social media or beyond voting. Like I said, one example is find out if one of these warehouses is being set up near you. I am, of course, assuming that our listeners are more or less ideologically aligned with us. Um, like get into those town council meetings, see how if you can get them shut down. If you know that there's an AI data center going in nearby, try to get that shit shut down because not only is it going to be an economic burden upon your local community, it's also enabling the surveillance state. You know, get involved, become a poll worker so that you can pay attention up close and make sure that nobody's trying to put their thumb on the scale. Be prepared to walk past squads of ice to vote in November. Get your mind right, be prepared to do that because it's gonna fucking happen.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:45

I wanted to add something. It you should absolutely be ideologically aligned because this is not a writer's left issue. We just had a president say that you can't carry weapons if there's an ice officer in the city. If there's a protest, excuse the fuck out of me.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:01

I mean that's the purpose of the state. Don't tread on me.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:05

Where are y'all at?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:07

The NRA came out. The the little shit had the wasn't carried the rifle across state lines. Even he was like, hold on there. This is not a right or left issue. This is quite literally, I don't give a shit if you don't like your neighbor, if you don't like immigrants. You have to protect their rights to protect your own. So don't cut off your nose despite your fate. And um the other thing I was gonna say was something else about what Ron said, D-Flog DC, deflock Atlanta, we're gonna deflock the nation. Y'all get involved. Okay, there's yeah, outrageous shit happening, and you should be paying attention. There's something else we're gonna say about it, but I'll say that for later.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:47

We're gonna do an episode on the surveillance state very soon. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:52

I'm in deflog DC and D-Flock Atlanta, so I can have some guests come on if you want.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:55

And you know what we might do, and and and for you listeners out there, understand that we have a lot of these conversations in the background. We're all heavily involved in these spaces. Uh, might be worthwhile uh having Gabe on here to talk about. Yes. Uh yeah. So get it. Yeah, yeah. So um for the listeners out there, uh, I won't mention his last name. Gabe is a very, very close friend of mine. We've been friends for more than a decade. We both served together. Uh and um he, you know, I went down there to, you know, have a little stay at his lake house, and we got deep in the weeds on on the flock cameras and the flock company. Um, and you know, there's an entire database that we have access to, and we're gonna and and Bobby, of course, text me and we'll we'll I'll get I'll get this square away for you. Uh but there's an entire database out there with all the flock cameras in this country.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:51

There are the angle. Down to the clear route.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:55

Precisely where they can see, what their angle of view is. Okay. So uh we we have access to that, and it would be awesome to bring Gabe on on the podcast to talk about that. And I and I certainly will link him up with uh D Flock DC, D Flock Atlanta.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:08

Reach out to Ben Jordan. Ben Jordan on Instagram has done a bunch of work demonstrating how insecure these cameras are, how much how easily they're in to hack. Like, aside from the concerns of the surveillance state, just like the danger of like a fucking stalker being able to hack into a camera near some woman's house that he's tracking to track her patterns of movement, or to know that she just came home and she's alone, or that she just left her house and she's alone. Like, there's some scary shit, and he's done a lot of good and reaching out to Flock every bit of the way, going, Hey, this is a concern, and all they do is release a press release about how it's not a concern.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:42

There was just an arrest here where uh I think it was an officer was using it to track his a partner or something. Yeah. I don't know if they ultimately assaulted them or something, but then he was like watching kids on playgrounds. The if you do a FOIA for like the search logs, you see some of those outrageous search terms.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:02

It's insane. And once you know what they look like, you'll see them everywhere. You'll not be able to unsee them. It's like a red, you know, beetle or something. It's like once you see that car, or you know, once you, you know, you notice it everywhere. They're everywhere. And now they're tapped into your ring cameras and your door, you know, your doorbell shit. Like, I mean, at what point are they gonna watch you in the living room through your baby monitor?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:23

Um I I wanna take pause here um because I'm a I'm a super, super fucking nerd. Uh the the uh specific thing that you're referring to is the reticular activation system, right? When you learn about something and suddenly you see it. So everybody get out there and take a look at what these flock cameras look like.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:45

Observation bias. Yeah, I mean, obviously, like we're all just like chewing the meat like crazy. There's a lot to talk about. We should save it for that.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:53

Right. D flog. It's dflog.me or d flog.org, but you'll see all of the and you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:01

And now, and now I'm sure uh fingers will edit this out. If he doesn't, I'm super cool with it, be it in there. But you guys are now uh in the friend zone with us, right? Where we're just like we're bouncing off each other. We were actually talking before we started recording this about the importance of collaboration in this space. And you, I mean, you you guys are getting to listen to to friends talk, but at this point, right, you understand this collaboration, and this is really what I have to ask all of the listeners out there to do, right? Find your find your fucking village of people and bounce off each other and figure out how to make a difference.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:34

Because find your spine and take your party back, Republicans. Sorry.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:38

That's right. That's right. There's so many people out here doing so many amazing things, down to the lady that I was behind leaving the grocery store today. You know, that that's just a tiny little thing, but you fed someone today. You fed someone you didn't know, right? So maybe if I can post that challenge for the listener, right? You're a fucking neighbor.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:59

Jesse hasn't given us his closing thoughts.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:02

Yeah, I was just gonna say to the viewers and listeners, you're not no one here is angry enough. Uh listen.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:09

Well, apparently I'm unhinged.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:12

Uh a couple years ago, France rioted in the streets, destroyed buildings in cop cars and everything in between, because they raised the retirement age by two years, I believe. Um, we were not angry enough.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:26

And nobody went to jail because they have freedom of speech there.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:29

Right. And I think, listen, I I'm not one for conspiracy. I really tried to stay away from it. I really don't like it. But if your government is being implicated in some serious shit when it comes to the entire cabinet, yeah, when it comes to like the Epstein files and everything we've been talking about right now, in are clearly in bed with those people, protecting them. I think it merits. I mean, it's the how do I say this? Let me let me try to gather my words. In the moment in history that we're at right now, if you are not angry, then you need to get angry. Uh, because this is not just about now, it is about the future of your life, your kids, the generations to come, this country, and everything in between. And I just think we need to become more angry. We have to tap into community and we have to get involved.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:26

And all the sacrifices made in World War II. If you say you're a patriot, if you love this country, if you honor service, then you are absolutely obligated to be familiar with and combat or use the lessons learned in World War II about what's happening. Open your eyes, get involved. My favorite protest was Iceland putting their guy a trash can and the the topless one in front in France. But anyway, um and harking back to our episode on heroes. If you all get involved now, nobody has to be a hero.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:04

Let's go. Be angry at the right things. Be angry in the direction that matters, not just what your social media feed tells you you should be angry at.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:15

Yeah. It's it's so I think I've mentioned this before, and and and this will be my personal closing thought here. We've we've kissed the topic a few times today. But I would encourage anybody listening to this to read the book Stolen Focus. It is it is 100% about where we pay our attention and and how we manage where we pay our attention. And you know, if if you if if you've listened to this show enough times, you've heard me say a bunch of times, get in your community and do things that require both hands. And that that very much came from reading that book because it talks very deeply about the amount of information that we are exposed to uh and and and on a spectrum, right? From from like the beginning of time all the way to like now, where it was like and and the way that they in the book, and and I'll leave you with this, but the way that they define that in the book is how the the way they define the amount of information, the volume of information, is by number of newspapers, right? So like they make the point that you know at a certain time it was one newspaper, right? Uh, and then you get to the 24-hour news cycle and it becomes the equivalent of like I think it was something in the neighborhood of 76 newspapers a day coming at your face. Now we're over 200. Okay. This is why we've become predictable, and this is why we're fucking things up. Put your notifications on silent and choose what you do with your time with both hands in your community. Thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:51

Thank you for listening to the Sotally Conduct Podcast, a production of the public integrity network. We believe that the first step to taking back our democracy is getting money out of politics. Come find us at moneyoutofpolitics.org and open your work. In the meantime, get involved in your community. Volunteer to start writing your test, go to schoolboy, and it's coming out of their powers derived from the contact.