Zombie Book Club

Resist, Survive, and Stand Up for Your Rights | Zombie Book Club Ep 82

• Zombie Book Club • Season 3 • Episode 82

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The socio-political landscape today is a turbulent sea, and we're navigating through it with a critical lens, dissecting the power wielded by influential figures like Elon Musk and Donald Trump. What parallels can we draw between our dystopian fears and the historical realities of Western imperialism? This episode challenges listeners to reflect on their privilege as we spotlight the enduring impact of Black revolutionaries, especially during Black History Month, and underscore the crucial role of allyship in the fight for justice.

Mental health challenges are hitting hard, and societal divisions seem insurmountable. We tackle these issues head-on, questioning the unsettling existence of government watchlists targeting DEI professionals and reflecting on the political and public health turmoil. Sharing personal anecdotes from protests and the impact of governmental dysfunction, we emphasize the necessity of speaking out and acting in the face of chaos. Our conversation spans the historical significance of the Black Panther Party, exploring their community programs and the significant contributions of women within the movement.

With chapters that explore the power of collective action, we find inspiration in historical figures like Frantz Fanon and discuss the roles each of us can play in resisting systemic oppression. From grassroots empowerment to practical tips for personal and community safety, we stress the importance of mutual aid and cybersecurity in our modern world. Concluding with a thoughtful reflection on resilience and the metaphor of a zombie apocalypse, we encourage listeners to harness their resources and fight against hate, maintaining a sense of levity amidst adversity.


Resources:

  1. Elaine Brown (Author of A Taste of Power)
  2. Frantz Fanon (Author of The Wretched of the Earth)
  3. Black Panther Party
  4. Forbidden Words List
  5. Community Organizing Tools




Speaker 1:

Teenage Mutant Nazi Incels. Teenage Mutant Nazi Incels.

Speaker 2:

Teenage.

Speaker 1:

Mutant Nazi Incels Elon is a five alarm fire constitutional nightmare that threatens to cripple every system of government and leave us all in the dark until they ship us off to Guantanamo Bay or some lithium mine slash work camp in the newly annexed Greenland. I'm Dan, and when I'm not watching our constitutional rights get trampled on by bumbling moron tech bros and their teenage mutant Nazi incel unpaid interns, I'm writing a book about how a zombie outbreak happens during a collapse of the US political system, crushed under the weight of executive overreach from a dementia-addled sociopath billionaire president who would rather be golfing and I'm Leah and I read your introduction before I was going to write mine, and the truth is is that your introduction is disturbingly close to an actual textbook explanation of what Western countries, led by the United States, have done to formerly colonized countries all across the world.

Speaker 2:

And this is not me joking around here, I am deadly serious. I spent my undergraduate and graduate degrees explicitly focused on this how wealth has been made and hoarded by the few at the exploitation of the many, specifically through colonization and imperialism and capitalism, and my adult career has been dedicated to fighting back against it, because I was radicalized pretty early when I realized just how utterly fucked this world is, and so the only difference really now is, for a while, you know, like white people, white middle class people, specifically in the United States, are doing OK. You know they could. They could say everything's fine, but the truth is we are all a target at this point, everyone.

Speaker 2:

Yes everyone, everyone can work in the mines yeah, uh, and it's really wild to me to like watch people like musk and trump and all of their cronies treat the world like they're playing a fucking game of risk great intro, leah it was.

Speaker 1:

It was almost as long as mine. Oh well, I have more oh.

Speaker 2:

Today. What is this episode? We were going to talk about Dead City.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, we were.

Speaker 2:

But that's not going to happen because we are losing our minds.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And it is also in a bright spot in this moment. It is Black History Month, regardless of what anybody has to say about that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know what I have to say. What Happy Black History Month history month, regardless of what anybody has to say about that. Yeah, you know what I have to say. What happy black history month, truly yeah, to everyone, including people who don't want me to say happy black history month.

Speaker 2:

Yeah because the leadership of black revolutionaries and their legacy is what the fuck is hopefully going to help us get the hell out of this mess, because I've been reading more about the black panthers and about the underground railroad and malcolm x and martin luther king jr and the civil rights movement and everything in between, and the reality is is like, as a white person, this is relatively new to me.

Speaker 2:

You know, aside from being queer in the south, that was my first real experience with oppression. Um, it's been more like witnessing. It's been like a moral injury of witnessing the harm that is happening to other people purely because of the color of their skin, and some people making up this concept of race and then enforcing it on people and enslaving people. Um, but now it's very clear that that poem from I think I don't even know how long ago it was, that you know that poem where it's like first they came for the yeah, yeah. It's abundantly clear that that's where we're at, and so I feel like, as a white person, I need to catch up. I need to catch up fast and learn from the folks who have unfortunately had to do this shit in the past and figure out how to survive and push back and thrive.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and some people who have been doing it up until the point where it got a whole lot worse Yep, which is now Yep. So, uh, respect.

Speaker 2:

Very much. Yeah, I'm going to say it, but I'm going to acknowledge how weird it says it is to say we release episodes every Sunday. So subscribe Um on a day like today, subscribe, hit um on a day like today, subscribe, hit like and subscribe. Yeah, visit our patreon. We don't have one of those, in case you're new, not yet, uh, today's one day today is february 7th, so it's been um, oh no, math is hard.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's been not quite three weeks, it's been a since the inauguration bad mental health month yes, if I had had to go to the doctor and fill out one of those questionnaires with my mood over the last two weeks, they would have definitely diagnosed me with a depression. But good news, I already am diagnosed with depression. It's just worse now.

Speaker 1:

I had an appointment at the VA and, you know, lately they haven't been asking me, but they used to ask me, like, what my mental health is Like. Have I had any suicidal thoughts? Have I had any homicidal thoughts? And, um, you know, usually I'm just like, yeah, you know, sometimes I'm depressed, um, but the last three or four years it feels like um weeks I meant to say weeks, not years, but that's what it feels like um, yeah, I've, I've seen a steep decline in those areas. I think In your own mind and well-being yeah.

Speaker 1:

I would have answered those questions a little bit differently, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and that proves my case in point, because if you were someone in Gaza and were being asked those kinds of questions pre-inauguration, your answers would probably not be good. Those kinds of questions pre-inauguration, your answers would probably not be good, yeah. And for a lot of folks who have historically and are continuously oppressed, might be able to say you know what's different? What's different about now? I think there are some different things about now, but at the end of the day, it's the same cloth that this country was made from and it's just that we happen to be in a particularly shitty moment.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, from, uh, and it's just that we happen to be in a particularly shitty moment. Yeah, you know, something that runs through my mind. A lot is like you know when, when, when all of this collapses, is any or any any of the other countries going to feel bad for us, the people when we're, you know, knee deep in our own filth? Uh, trying not to get avian flu while fighting off nazis, zombie nazis, probably, um, isn't?

Speaker 2:

there a movie about that?

Speaker 1:

yeah, that uh dead snow or dead winter I haven't seen it I never watched it.

Speaker 1:

Literally yeah, um, yeah, and I and I wonder will will there be any, any remorse for us? And I don't think so, but I think it's important to remember that maybe not the majority, but very close to 50% of us don't want this to be happening. We don't want anyone to be persecuted. We want to live in a free and fair society where everyone has opportunities to live the happiest life that they can live. That's what we want, and what is going on now stands in stark contrast to all of that, where they want everyone to suffer except billionaires. Well, they want everyone to suffer except billionaires.

Speaker 2:

and well, they want some people to feel like I don't even know how. I can't even get into the psychology of somebody who thinks that these things are good. I did read one post, uh, of a friend on facebook who was just asking like who in their, who in their circle, voted for trump, which was a really interesting choice, and I think it was basically to purge their list. And one person answered and gave all the lists of, like, all the great things that Trump has done so far, and they were literally the same list that I would give of how bad it is. And that is when I just realized, like that divide I don't think is going to be bridged very easily and I'm somebody who, for a long time, really believed that it was possible to do that and I still want to believe that it's possible, but it might be possible with enough of them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know, this is a little bit off off off script, now that we have like a this entire thing is off script so far. I was going to say now that we have a script, but right before, right before recording, I was, I was messing around in the Ethernet Ethernet, yeah and I discovered a government website called DEIwatchlistcom. Don't go there, because they'll probably track you and they'll want cookies.

Speaker 2:

It's com and it's a government website. That doesn't make sense.

Speaker 1:

It's yeah it's something website that doesn't make sense. It's yeah, it's, it's something. It's complicated. Is what it is? Okay, um, it is. It is funded by the government. Let's just say that. Anyways, what it is is basically a hit list for people in high ranking positions who are working in the field of diversity, equity and and inclusion, and they are adding to that list, and so I had to go check it out and see what their complaints are about these very qualified people of color who work in the field of diversity, equity and inclusion, and as I read it, I'm like this is a good resume. This sounds like this person actually like cares about diversity and inclusion and possibly equity.

Speaker 2:

Because what is DEI actually? It means about caring for the fundamental well-being of all people and realizing that the systems we have, that exist today, set some people up for more success than others.

Speaker 1:

But my point is is that everything that they were listing as the things that they're critical of, like all of the positions that they worked for, all of the things that they have said and the things that they have tried to do politically, it's like, yeah, this is, this is good, that's, this is the direction of progress, and you, you think this is bad. Yeah, you think you think this is a slam dunk, where they're like, yeah, they're trying to get housing for people it is really baffling.

Speaker 2:

It's really especially because of the connection to christianity. It is extra baffling, but that's a whole other rant, dan. Um, what's your life update? What's you know other than, uh, everything's fucked.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, um, you know I'll start off with a writing update, which is that it's not been going well. Um, my, the it's hard to write about a dystopian nightmare as one is unfolding. Um, it's hard when you're like I'm going to speculate how the world might end if certain conditions are met, like if there is a president who just willfully destroys the government just because he stands against it and has no care as to what they're doing and purposefully weakens the national security and the health responsibility of the country and plunges it into chaos. What would happen if zombies just started happening at that point? You know, that's my book. And here we are. The person who's in charge of our health has a fucking brain worm and sounds like Kermit the Frog. We have literal Nazis that are going around being like hey, you know, what would be great Is if we just stole everyone's personal information, and you know who's going to do it A bunch of incels that haven't even graduated college yet. Also, they also are revamping the aeronautical safety system.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm not getting on a plane for a while. You know what actually solidified my I'm not getting on a plane for a while? It was Googling is it safe to fly right now? And getting an article from forbes forbes of all forbes magazine, which, uh, if you don't know, is a pretty. It's like center right but definitely like pro-capitalism and really about business with a capital b is forbes pro-capitalism. They love it. And literally the headline was airlines say it's still safe to fly and I was like, nope, I'm not flying. That is the exact reason why I am now not getting on a plane. Our opinion they say it's okay. All I got to say is a friend of ours, who I will not name because eventually, hopefully, they'll come on and we'll talk about their experience, but they were a flight attendant, briefly and, um, they don't have good things to say about airlines. So not only that, but I don't know a history of like whole doors blowing off and cutting corners to make more money, treating workers shittily.

Speaker 1:

I'm just, I don't think I need to assassinate, let's not even let's add in there.

Speaker 2:

I don't know climate change and like reducing our carbon improvement, carbon footprint. Now, mind you, I know the billionaires are responsible for way more of it, including taylor swift, but honestly, I'm not worried about taylor swift right now.

Speaker 1:

I'm worried about the other ones uh, you say that when we have president taylor swift in office I don't want to offend any swifties.

Speaker 2:

I know we have some listeners who love taylor swift, yeah, but she does have a really high carbon footprint, y'all it's problematic I want to go on record and admit that a long time ago I said something that was is not aging well.

Speaker 1:

I thought in in reference to how stupid trump is. In the first term, I thought that it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to have somebody smart like Elon Musk be president. You said that, I said that, I said that to you, but you blocked it out. I think.

Speaker 2:

I clearly did not hear you.

Speaker 1:

I've never felt so wrong in my whole life.

Speaker 2:

Did you say that on record or are you just admitting to it now? No, I just said it to you, but I'm just admitting it out loud or are you just admitting to it now?

Speaker 1:

No, I just said it to you, but I'm just admitting it out loud because I think that a lot of people just think that we just don't like Elon Musk. I don't think anybody listening would say that, but there are people out there that are just like you hate Elon Musk.

Speaker 1:

And it's like I thought he was smart once, yeah, and then I saw the things that he does and the things that he says and realized he's just a rich guy that thinks he's tony stark do you know that elon musk has had a lot of gender affirming surgeries?

Speaker 2:

I did not know that. Yes, do you know what gender affirming surgery is?

Speaker 1:

um.

Speaker 2:

It is a surgery that affirms your gender yeah, which typically when people think of them they think about trans, but actually cis. People engage in tons of gender affirming surgeries like breast implants. Right, yeah, he has hair plugs. He basically built himself a new jawline and a bunch of other stuff. I read recently and the headline was about him having gender affirming care, and that made me really happy, because he certainly wouldn't be very comfortable with us calling it that, because he's obviously a transphobe, yeah, to say the least and also he probably doesn't even want anybody to know that he did that.

Speaker 2:

He's just like no, this is my natural hair the before and after pictures were pretty, pretty stunning and I don't want to judge people on like whether what, like who's attractive and who's not, but I will say that he was definitely. He definitely made choices to fit into a stereotypical idea of what a man should look like, instead of a goblin. I guess you can say that yeah.

Speaker 1:

So I haven't been able to write much. I have written a little bit, but it's kind of just like angry manifestos from the characters in my book and that's really all I can manage. I wrote a scene where they're just doom scrolling in their bedroom, and then another one where they're just angry at everybody who doesn't know that everything's fucked.

Speaker 2:

I mean, those are very real things.

Speaker 1:

I think there's probably a place for that in your book, but maybe not all for sure um, but uh, this this this week, wednesday, there was the uh 50 51 protests, which were protests in 50 states, at all of the state capitals. Um, and I went to montpelier and uh, and protested. It's my first protest. How was it? Um, you know, I thought I have a lot of anxiety, like social anxiety and large group anxiety. Yeah, well, that's my social anxiety is just people large amounts of them I don't like I was feeling so much anger.

Speaker 1:

Rage is more accurate rage. I was raging against the machine. You could say um, and it was a little. It was kind of cathartic to be around a bunch of people who were also as angry as I was and who were all speaking out about things and uh, you know it's, it's Vermont, so it wasn't like the the biggest turnout of all the States. It's probably bigger than Montana, but I don't know.

Speaker 2:

We have some friends in Montana that I know are.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, let us know we're listeners of the podcast.

Speaker 2:

So hi, how Montana did.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we'll compare crowd sizes, but it was still a really impressive turnout, considering you know, vermont is the second least populated state in the United States, so you know there's not going to be a lot of people there, but it was still the full front lawn of the Capitol building, the Gold Dome as they call it in Vermont.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because it's got a gold dome.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's kind of impressive actually. Is it literally gold? I don't think so. Maybe it's foil. I don't think. It's all that'd be a gold. I'm going up there and scraping it off, maybe electroplated, but anyhow, spray paint. We spray painted the dome, um, anyways. Uh, it was. Yeah, it was it I. It made me feel good. For the first time in weeks, I felt like I could focus on things that weren't the the orange asshole.

Speaker 2:

So it was helpful for you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it felt. It felt right to have the response that I was having Kind of. My realization lately is just that our society, and specifically our government, really only allows you to respond to stress in two ways, which is fawning or freezing.

Speaker 2:

They allow freezing and fawning you can do nothing or you can get in line, you definitely can't run yeah. You get in trouble for running.

Speaker 1:

That's a Well running is flight is a privilege. So if you are wealthy, you can leave. If you have support structures outside of the area where problems are happening, you can leave. But the rest of us, we're kind of stuck here.

Speaker 2:

Or you happen to be a dual citizen, like me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you can leave. Yeah, you have a support structure outside of the area of concern I see what you mean, yeah um which we'll see if canada becomes the 51st state don't say that, canadians.

Speaker 2:

I apologize that. He even implied this is possible yeah, they're booing me right now it might be possible now I'm apologizing to you too, anyways you know, a lot of things are possible Anything is possible, yeah, but anyways, back on track, let's not give them any ideas. Yeah, it made you feel a sense of hope and not being alone.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it led you to vent, because you're basically getting to the point that you could fight right Like a protest is a way of expressing your fuck you-ness to the system and the people who are I showed up angry, yes, you know I I was like I hope there's nazis there because I'm fully, I'm fully gonna punch a nazi.

Speaker 1:

I'm so glad there were no nazis me too, actually. So I I didn't really want to go to jail, but you know, I mean, if it's a, if it's a nazi, it's hard not to punch them, you know just picture me waggling my finger at you, saying I need you to come home and make me dinner.

Speaker 2:

It's your, it's your winter.

Speaker 1:

If I punched Nazis, I would not be able to come home and make Leah soup.

Speaker 2:

That'd be very sad.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you'd be soupless.

Speaker 2:

I would just eat cereal. That would be my new diet is I just eat cereal every day and then I go back to like microwaving my one sweet potato a day and crying while I eat it yeah, um, and then, uh, then I did a very out of character thing.

Speaker 1:

I got up in front of everybody and gave a speech. This I wish I could have seen. Yeah, um, I don't. I really don't know how good it was, because I was just angry, um, but it was. It was fully my, my forest gump moment when he gets up on stage. Of course, the the microphone didn't cut out on me, but like I, I very much felt like forest gump, oh, but I, uh, I, I, I told them that I was a combat veteran and I told them which, which wars I served in, and I told them which wars I served in and I told them about how we were told that we're fighting for freedom and while and you know, obviously that was not true there was no freedom found in that desert.

Speaker 1:

We only found oil, and that oil belongs to the rich. We didn't get that oil. The people of the United States did not pay lower prices for oil after we found it in the rich. We didn't get that oil. The people of the United States did not pay lower prices for oil after we found it in the desert and stole it. Rich people made more money from that war. That's what we were there for. And to be told that it's about freedom and it's about protecting people and it's about protecting the United States citizens from tyranny. To then have our freedoms threatened here domestically by our president and an unelected Elon Musk yeah, and a bunch of fucking incels. A bunch of fucking incels. And for people not to be calling it what it is, which is a coup, and to not be resisting it, I turned to the Capitol, where I saw whoever works inside the Capitol staring out the window at me because I was yelling louder than the microphone would allow me to.

Speaker 1:

I was using a voice that I haven't used since the army, the voice that they teach you to use so that you can stand in front of a battalion of soldiers that spans a quarter mile, using only your voice to communicate and have every single one of them hear you. It's called. It's called sounding off. If, if, uh, if, if any, if anybody listening as a veteran, um, let me know if you know how to sound off calling cadence, sounding off speaking in front of a large group of people with absolutely no amplified voice system. It doesn't come out of me often because I haven't used it, but when it comes out. It's always been impressive when I could hear somebody really sound off like the magnitude of somebody's voice when they use it to its full possible volume, which is louder than the megaphone I was handed.

Speaker 2:

And you have a booming voice already.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I told them, as they were staring at me through the glass, that they were all fucking cowards and that any veteran who's not standing up to this is either a Nazi or a coward themselves.

Speaker 2:

How does that feel? To say or a coward themselves.

Speaker 1:

How does that feel? To say it feels? I hate to say good because I don't like the context in which I have to say it, but I released so much anger when I was calling them a coward, but it's the truest thing I can feel Like when I am, when I was expected to lay down my life for honor and duty, and they can't even speak up about the atrocities that are happening under their noses, while they are a Republican, I don't care if they're a Democrat, I don't care if they're independent, I don't care if they're a staffer or the governor himself. If they are not speaking up about what's going on, they're a coward. They don't deserve to be in the position that they're in.

Speaker 2:

It sounds like what you're really saying is that everybody needs to stand up and say something.

Speaker 1:

They need to stand up and say something or get the fuck out of the way. What about people who can't? There are people who can't. I'm not saying that everybody needs to do this, because obviously there are people that if they showed up to a rally, ice might have just shown up and shipped them off to Guantanamo Bay.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, shipped them off to Guantanamo Bay. It's a time like this where, as a straight white cis man, I have to use my privilege to speak for the people who can't. And, honestly, a lot of the people that I served with in the army were not white, and there was no way for me to know, but they probably weren't all hetero either.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, because at the time it was don't ask, don't tell, so you'd have no idea.

Speaker 1:

They were not allowed to breathe a word of it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I don't know. I just feel like don't ask, don't tell is one of those things that's known People, everybody knows what that is.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I don't know. These are things that were new to me as a Canadian moving here.

Speaker 1:

So they might not understand fully what the policy is.

Speaker 2:

What. We should explain it for those who are not Americans actually.

Speaker 1:

What they. What they taught me when I joined the army is that you can join the army and be gay. You can be gay inside. You can know that for yourself. What you can't do is say anything about it. You can't let anybody know. You can't show anybody that that is who you are, and as long as you don't do that, they will never ask.

Speaker 2:

Was it okay for you to show how straight you were? Yeah, in what ways did cis men display their straightness?

Speaker 1:

I wouldn't say that it was endorsed by the army, because there was a lot in equal opportunities, which is probably what turned into DEI at some point. But equal opportunities is what kept people from misconduct, basically People who might say something offensive to another person, like something sexist or racist. Those things are not allowed, even though they happen, but typically among the soldiers it would be acceptable to display your heteronormativeness in various ways, like commenting on people and their appearance, or things that you have done sexually in order to impress other people, which I've never understood myself.

Speaker 2:

Did you compare dick sizes?

Speaker 1:

No, but we all showered together, so we didn't have to.

Speaker 2:

Were there competitions or discussions about the biggest dick wins?

Speaker 1:

Not really. I think that's one spot where I feel like, um, everybody that I knew at least had, uh, a certain amount of respect towards each other, which is they're not going to talk about each other's dicks.

Speaker 2:

You know what? That's something? Yeah, uh, I think, cause we're going a little ways off track, but it was. That was interesting just to hear how it was in the past. Yeah, uh, do we want to talk more about the coup? Do we want to talk more about it? What is a coup?

Speaker 1:

we. We could talk more about the coup, but I feel like anybody who's listening probably either knows nothing about it or they know everything about it. It's kind of hard to avoid and I feel like maybe we should just gloss over it because it's not, we're not, that's not what we're not a news.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we're not news team zombie for anybody who is has never heard of this thing called the coup or specifically what's happening right now, I'm going to add a link to a news article about it in the show notes, and that's where we're going to leave it there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think the short version is that. The short version of what to understand about what's happening right now is that a sitting president does not have the power to do anything about the budget. They don't have a say in what the government spends money on and they don't have a say in making laws. Congress makes laws. Congress decides the budget, and what is currently happening is that Elon Musk, who's a non-elected official, has been tasked with completely dismantling the government and controlling the budget through nefarious means.

Speaker 2:

A literal takeover of the location where it's done.

Speaker 1:

He's installing his own servers inside of classified buildings that have sensitive information and duplicating that information into his own systems who knows what purpose and Trump is using executive orders to claim that there are new laws that have not been passed through Congress. He's trying to pass laws with executive orders, which he can't do, but anyways, that's all I have to say about my life updates. What have you been up to? What's your life updates, leah?

Speaker 2:

I'm self-regulating more healthily than last time. Last time, after the election and we had a conversation, you encouraged me to get high and then I was absolutely non-functional and you had to delete like 70% of the episode that we recorded. That is true.

Speaker 2:

This time I'm drinking a chamomile and lemongrass tea to help soothe my soul and support my inner wellness, and so that is good. I feel a combination of extreme despair and a deep call to action. I've always been somebody who cares a lot about justice. Just, I think something that's sort of innate in me, probably because my brain is weird. It's a non-Alo what is it? Aloeistic brains versus autistic brains or something like that? I forget the name of a regular person's brain.

Speaker 1:

I don't have one, so Leah does not have a regular brain.

Speaker 2:

No, I mean I do actually. Leah does not have a regular brain. No, I mean I do. Actually I have a brain that was made for a world that no longer exists. So there's that, yeah, um, but anyways, I've, I've already, you know, I've already been in this fight. Like I acknowledged in the beginning of this episode, I a lot of what's happening has already happened or is happening to other people, and the difference is just that we're in this place right now where I feel like, oh my God, this is like what it must have felt like for my grandparents before World War II was started. And just for context, I remember I was Canadian, so we were in World War II from the very beginning, not like you Americans who just decided to get into it because of Pearl Harbor.

Speaker 2:

Right when the war was pretty much over yeah, and then claimed all the fucking victory points anyways in your movies.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I won't even get into that. Um, I feel like that. I feel like I think a lot about my grandmother, um, who lived through the great I mean, all of my elders lived through the great depression, as, I'm sure, many people who are listening right now, and we're in pretty extreme poverty and I think about how, how they survived that. And then I think about all of the examples of different groups of people that I've learned about because of my educational background and because of the work that I do. That are beacons, honestly, for why I think that in the big picture, we're going to be okay, but I think it's going to take a really long time. And the truth is, like my therapist pointed out, we still have running water, electricity, a house over our head, ability to get food. At this point. It's not great, but our particular positionality is pretty good and that also, like you said, puts us in a, I think, conscientious people who are against what's happening and have the means to dissent in some way or help in some way. I think, conscientious people who are against what's happening and have the means to dissent in some way or help in some way. I think that call is really strong, and I hope that everybody is hearing it and taking action in the ways that you can. You know, just pick one way that you can. You don't have to do all the things. You don't have to fix all of the things.

Speaker 2:

So this asking me how I am is turning into my diatribe about how I'm coping, I guess. So this asking me how I am is turning into my diatribe about how I'm coping, I guess Work has been bad. Work has been really bad. I'm watching the unraveling of things, that people in communities who have been decimated by racial capitalism lose the little bit that they'd finally gained capitalism, um, lose the little bit that they'd finally gained, and um, and I'm watching the reality of like hopes that I had for at least stemming the bleeding around climate change just sort of like wash out the window. I don't. I don't have a lot of hope in that area, but I do have hope in our ability to survive and to adapt. Not all of us, unfortunately. It's gonna be one of those things that a lot of us already are and will suffer and die.

Speaker 2:

So that's, that's how I'm doing, and it's also made me really just like even more keenly aware that I am not any different than an undocumented migrant and came here because I wanted to, because it was the best choice for me, and the only difference is that I didn't have to flee somewhere at the time, whereas now we're thinking about leaving the United States and being very seriously contemplating that, because some members of our family are directly targeted in a very dangerous way here in the US. But anyways, at the time when I moved here, I wasn't being targeted and I had a middle class income, background and education, thanks to socialized education, and good health because of Canadian healthcare system, and I spoke English as a first language and I was white. So those are the only things things that I really didn't have a lot of control over that have made my immigration journey easier. And so I think a lot about the people who came here because they needed to or wanted to, who are now going to go to Guantanamo Bay, and that is really heartbreaking because they're not any different than me, except for a couple of circumstances that neither of us really have control over. And I had the ability and capacity to do this legally only after DOMA fell, so I had a small Defense of Marriage Act. I had a very small taste for a few years of what it's like to not have the same choices as other people.

Speaker 2:

But I just I feel like everybody everybody is listening probably feels the same way. But in case someone out there is not sure about immigrants and thinks they're all criminals, that's listening to this. I just want to say to you, like that's not true. They're putting away people just like me, and if you like me enough to be listening to this podcast, then I like think about 30 000 of people like me like that's a lot of people. It doesn't count all the people that are just gonna get kicked out.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, it's dark. Also, there's a forbidden words list, and the only things that aren't on it that I think are worth reporting is actually, like it's okay to talk about men and it's okay to talk about white people, but you can't mention women, disability, black or latinx, lgbt, trans, diversity, social justice the list goes on. We'll include that also in the show notes and I feel like that should tell you everything about what this administration stands for that a man and white men are the default human and everything else is literally being erased. Yeah, can't talk about. Talk about it.

Speaker 1:

I mean I understand, based on like all of their points like why they don't want to have the other words, but women it's I like. Do I laugh? I don't know what the response to that is. Like you can't mention women because you just can't they don't exist.

Speaker 2:

You can't use female either. You can't use any word that indicates.

Speaker 1:

Wow, it's just so. Men and not men, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I mean, that's now people, government, people who work for like the CDC or the NIH or the NSF have to like do weird fucking mental and verbal gymnastics to talk about what they're talking about. I mean, and also like disability disability affects everybody, including including white men. Yeah, and I think this is a good disabled.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and so am I, and I think this is a good moment to like remind folks. I think there's, you know, sometimes I feel like I'm just trying to talk to people who don't agree with us and then I think are you even on? I don't know if you're listening, but I'm going to just briefly say that Kimberly Crenshaw coined a term called intersectionality Also add that to the show notes if you want to learn about it. Hear the term white privilege and they think like, but I was poor, or like I had these other hard things happen to me growing up.

Speaker 2:

I don't have privilege, and intersectionality blows that whole argument out of the water, because you can have white privilege but be disabled. You can have white privilege and grow up dirt poor and have challenges because of those other things. And intersectionality is about how different aspects of your identity can compound into new challenges. So like, if you're a black, queer, disabled woman, that's very different than just being black or white and disabled or queer and white, like those are different intersections of identities and the power that you have to act in the world and how people treat you, both as humans, one-to-one and also structurally, is different as a result, and I have no idea why I'm sharing this, because my heart is broken. Yeah, there was a point. I don't know what it was.

Speaker 1:

You know, not being able to mention disability sounds like a direct lineup for what they have planned next, which is something that will affect me and my intersectionality is that I am a disabled veteran. Yeah, and they are currently doing their best to dismantle the VA. They're taking small steps right now. They're making it difficult for the VA to be able to do anything, they're affecting the payroll systems, they are affecting the scheduling systems, they are changing the ways that the doctors who work at the VA are allowed to talk about certain things and soon they're just going to dismantle it and destroy it, because the VA is socialized healthcare and it works. It has the highest rate of efficacy over any other system in the United States.

Speaker 2:

Wait, you're telling me that a system that was built for the public good of veterans is better than a system that is built to make some people really rich.

Speaker 1:

Was built for the public good of veterans is better than a system that is built to make some people really rich. I know it's hard to believe, but but it is um and sure. There are people who have had bad experiences at the va, but at the end of the day, people go there and they get treated for the things that that are making them sick and they don't have to pay for it, because they already paid for it by serving in the United States military, like me, and have been injured because of that service. And now I've talked about it a little bit in the past but I really really have been working very hard to increase my disability rating because I have many compounding problems that make it hard for me to function in society.

Speaker 1:

There's jobs I can't do. I couldn't work at a retail store because I'll end up punching people. I'll just punch people who make me mad. I'll freak out and run into the back room. Every time there's a large group of people that I just can't be around Talking for long periods of time, I'll just lose it. It's called post-traumatic stress disorder and it's a problem. And then on top of that, like my back is bad, my knees are bad, my ankles are bad, I have liver disease. You know I have respiratory issues from breathing toxic chemicals. I have sleep apnea, which is probably the worst sleep apnea that they have ever seen the doctors that I went to. They were very concerned that I was going to have a stroke in the middle of the night. I didn't find out how bad it was until I got my machine, but it's's like I was basically not breathing all night, with brief periods of like a gasp of air it makes me shudder thinking about it yeah um, you're welcome for annoyingly complaining about your snoring being like.

Speaker 2:

You've got to deal with this.

Speaker 1:

You have health care available leah helped, helped me, uh, have a sense of urgency around that, and it's probably I. I don't know how long I would have lasted I mean, I've lasted for 20 years with it, but like I was like falling asleep at the wheel. Anyways, I'm going to.

Speaker 2:

this is a bit of a diatribe, but the point is is that you have a lot of disabilities that are directly attributed to your time in the army and you are in process and are in process technically to get 100% disability, which could allow you to actually take care of yourself for the first time in your adult life, Like literally the first time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I don't mean take care of, I mean, like, actually be okay, because the one job you can still do truck driving is harming other parts of your body that were already fucked up. Yeah, like, and also like, let alone inhaling the fumes. You have to do and have coming home with diesel all over your body like that's bad enough, but your actual injuries from the military now make that job extremely painful.

Speaker 1:

I basically can't walk in the summer. Yeah, in the winter I you know my my back heals a little bit, my knees aren't as swollen. My ankles seem to work a little bit better. Yesterday I like walked like two and a half miles, yeah, and I was fine. The day before that, when I was protesting, I was on my feet walking up and down Montpelier for like three hours. It's the good shoes I swear.

Speaker 1:

I wasn't wearing good shoes. What shoes were you wearing? I was wearing my snow boots. Oh, I'm sorry, Because it's snowy. Anyways, yeah, the only job that I can do, which is truck driving and I'm serious when I say it's the only job I can do- We've discussed in detail.

Speaker 2:

He's not making this up. Yeah, it's slowly killing me yeah, and that's really distressing because, uh, this process that you put so much time and effort into and money, that was going to take two years. The real question is like will there be anything? Yeah, in two years, and it's not going to affect you, it's just alone. It's going to affect 18 million veterans yeah, uh, not all of them have disability ratings, but I think a lot of them do. Because, let's be real, being in the military is damaging.

Speaker 1:

It's damaging yeah, if, uh, if, if they're, if they're not getting benefits, they need to be getting benefits.

Speaker 2:

I guarantee because, yeah, people, people rarely even get through basic training without an injury yeah, now that you've listened to us sound depressed and if you're still here, I hope you're here because we had to get that out the one thing I didn't share at my personal life update is just that the biggest thing that has been giving me hope and helping me focus or maybe I did say it, who knows is really focusing on learning from our elders and the people who have already been through shit and done amazing things. And it is black history month and certainly black folks in the united states have been through some shit, you know, and fought, fought, fucking tooth and nail for everything that they have yeah in this day and there are so many really powerful examples that we could learn from, all people could learn from.

Speaker 2:

So I'm really grateful, for example, for the Black Panther Party. I learned about them in university and I think the Black Panther Party is one of those groups that I'm again, none of these people or groups that I'm going to talk about are perfect. They're humans. Still, the Black Panther Party exemplifies what it means to organize your community. Like people keep saying and I'm sure so many of you listening have seen things like you got to organize, you got to organize, you got to organize.

Speaker 2:

And I think a lot of people who have had relative privilege are like what does that mean? And like how do I do that? And I'm confused. And the Black Panther Party is like a textbook example of a group of people who said this is bullshit, it's not okay, what's happening to our communities, and we are going to take care of ourselves and protect our people from all of you assholes meaning whiteled institutions and white cops and white government bodies, essentially and so they have done a lot of, or they did a lot of, cool things amidst the civil rights movement. Do you know what the Black Panther Party did?

Speaker 1:

Not really. I mean, I know who they were and I know some things, but I'm not well versed in the Black Panther Party.

Speaker 2:

It was really active in the United States from like 1966 to 1982. So right in that civil rights era, and basically it rose up in Oakland, california, as a starting point, and then there were local chapters that grew all over the place, but basically a lot of them were often led by women which I think is impressive for the time and they focused their attention on really two things defending their people from cops and other folks who would harm them, because it was very clear police brutality was obviously going on then and is now and was before and also creating community survival programs. So they basically said you know what y'all are failing us? This thing that's supposed to help people is just directly oppressing black folks. So we're going to make these survival programs like a free breakfast program that fed 20 000 children each day. They had a free food program for families and the elderly. They sponsored schools, legal aid offices, clothing distribution, local transportation, health clinics and sickle cell testing centers in several cities, which is a really big one for me, because in a past job, past life, I did research on sickle cell, racial health disparities. Because again, like where our government has chosen to put in research and time, has not been sickle cell disease, which, in the United States anyways, is predominantly folks who are black, because of the connection to malaria. That's a long story. It's not just. I want to just briefly say the myth that only black people get sickle cell disease is a myth. Anybody can can inherit that gene if there's ancestry from areas where malaria was prevalent, basically. So that's the short version. So they were solving a problem that still exists today, with folks having good access to healthcare who have sickle cell disease. They opened free clinics in dozens of cities for thousands of people who couldn't afford healthcare.

Speaker 2:

Women made up half of the Panther membership and often held leadership roles. Elaine Brown was the national chairwoman in 1972. And that was a really, really big deal for the time, because there certainly were still issues in the Black Panther Party around gender inequality. But if there was one book that I would say this is a great book to read in this moment in time, while also honoring Black History Month, is A Taste of Power, a Black Woman's Story by Elaine Brown. She really talks about her experience and journey. You get to learn about how the Black Panthers work together to take care of themselves, and I think that that's something that we need to return to, and capitalism has deliberately made that muscle of community care atrophy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I want to read it. I want to. You know all of the things that I was taught about the Black Panthers were you know about them being militant, or being Islam or Violent? Yeah, violent Like they're. Like you know, dr King is Coke and Black Panthers is Pepsi Two different flavors. I don't know where I was going with this. I'll probably cut this out.

Speaker 2:

No, I think it's real. I don't think you should, because the United States education system has defanged Dr Martin Luther King Jr Very intentionally.

Speaker 1:

He was despised by the institutions and the established people, like the establishment, yeah, in his time on um, on dr king's birthday, I I realized that I'd um, not really heard any of martin luther king's speeches, except for the I have a dream speech. So I I decided you know I'm not, I'm not tuning in to the, to the fucking inauguration bullshit. I don't care what that asshole has to say. I'm going to listen to some speeches by martin luther king jr and I I loved it. I loved everything that he was saying.

Speaker 1:

Like he was he was talking about socialism and he was like he was speaking some hard truths that I'm like, wow, that is still going on today and uh, and like I forget which, which speech it was, but it was like I think it was like his last speech, um, and he was talking about, about socialism and um, and uh, how, like I I forget exactly what he said, but it's about how, basically how violence is is like the answer to inaction. Um, and I'm like no wonder the fbi killed him. They, they hated these things. They didn't want. They didn't want people saying that if you just work together, everyone can have a good life. They didn't want that. No, that was. That was so against everything the FBI stood for back then.

Speaker 2:

It's really disturbing to think about and it's still true. I probably told this on my immigration episode last year in May I think, or maybe June. But the very last question I was asked before I got my citizenship officially was have I attended any communist party events or joined the communist party between the time that I had conducted my interview and was about to get my citizenship, and that was like a three-month timeframe? Repeatedly I was asked if I was a communist. I'm not a communist, okay, mm-hmm.

Speaker 1:

It would be a bad time to ask does drum circle count?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I don't think that the immigration officer would have thought that was funny. You would not At all, at all at all. So, yeah, the Black Panther Party is definitely one. If you don't know a lot about it, they're worth reading about, and there's a lot of things that they did that I think we can learn from now protecting ourselves and our community, creating our own our own networks of support.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I think that's going to be really, really, really super important if things keep going the way that they're going, because soon no one's going to have any support. They're not going to have government support, they're not going to have military support, they're not going gonna have police support for sure. Well, they would. Yeah, we never did, but we had the illusion of it. Yeah, which for some people counted for a lot. You know, you see them with their fucking blue stripe stickers in the back of their trucks. They, they think the police are great. Um, but yeah, that's gonna be, that's gonna be important, that you might, you might need those networks to feed yourself. You know you might need those, those networks to, uh, to pay your rent or your mortgage, because you know you're, you're just, you just have no means to pay it anymore. Um, which is not an accident. They I mean, this is this is conspiracy theory land, but Okay, here we go.

Speaker 2:

I mean, this is conspiracy theory land?

Speaker 1:

Okay, here we go. But you know what the rich would really love.

Speaker 2:

What.

Speaker 1:

Is if people like us stopped owning property and instead they were able to buy all the property really cheap because we stopped paying for it. And then we have to rent the property from them for an exorbitant amount of money.

Speaker 2:

Sounds like a lot of systems we've had in this country.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I mean this isn't the beginning of it either. No, right after COVID, the Federal Reserve made a shift away from private mortgages to commercial loans, and while that doesn't mean that it's impossible to get a private mortgage, what it does mean is that they are not giving good interest rates to private mortgages. They don't want people to buy houses, they want people to rent houses from corporations who own the houses.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, let's talk about people who have had good answers to these problems, because I can't.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I can't do this.

Speaker 1:

Please, we need help. Who can tell us what to do?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, A zombesty of ours actually made a reel that was like hi, help, how do we do this? What are we supposed to do now? And I think my answer at this moment in time is like go read some of these books I'm about to reference, especially about the Black Panther Party, but then also do something like let's not get stuck in our 2020 era of being like, let's read and have book clubs and talk about it.

Speaker 1:

We have to take action? Yes, we have to.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and I would look at these books as guidelines to take action. So the next one I want to lift up is Frantz Fanon the Wretched of the Earth. Have you heard of that one, dan? No, oh, so good, I got to read both of these books actually that I'm talking about. I read in university and were very, very transformative for me. So the wretched of the earth was published in 1961 by france fanon. France fanon is a? Um french afro-caribbean psychiatrist, political philosopher and marxist, uh-oh uh-oh, oh, they like the Marx Brothers movies.

Speaker 2:

Yes, that's exactly what it means. He supported the Algerian War of Independence from France. You got to remember that the team are on. The same time as civil rights movement is happening, there's also the movement for independence for formerly or at the time colonized countries, all throughout the continent of Africa specifically. And he wrote this book, the Wretched of the Earth. I think it's probably one of my favorite books I've ever read. Basically, in it he defends the right of colonized people to use violence to gain independence. He argued that human beings who are not considered humans right which I guess is everybody on that list yeah that is forbidden word list.

Speaker 2:

Now, uh, are not bound by principles that apply humanity when they are responding, responding back to the colonizer, to the, to the force that is oppressing them and dehumanizing them. And, uh, his book was actually censored by the french government at the time. Surprising, yeah, the french government, oh my god, they oweprising. Yeah, the French government, oh my God. They owe Haiti so much money, but that's a whole other.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a whole other thing, that's a whole other podcast.

Speaker 2:

It is. We need to. We have an overdue like podcast around that, but anyhow. So I want to read this quote by Frantz Fanon from the Wretched of the Earth to what this book is about.

Speaker 2:

There's going to be a word in there that I had to google uh, called demi. Urge uses it twice. You heard of that word, dan, never. Okay, so important context. Um, also, this was translated from french, so who knows what the french word was, but basically it's like a, a person who's responsible for, like one person who's responsible for the creation of the universe, like a singular god that will fix everything for us.

Speaker 2:

In these I've heard these moments of trial and tribulation, the savior, complex, right, like one person's gonna fix everything. Yeah, okay, so that's the context for demiurge. This is the quote. To educate the masses politically does not mean, cannot mean, making a political speech. What it means is to try relentlessly and passionately to teach the masses that everything depends on them, that if we stagnate it is their responsibility and that if we go forward it is due to them too. That there is no such thing as a demiurge, that there is no famous man who will take the responsibility for everything, but that the demiurge is the people themselves and the magic hands are finally only the hands of the people. It gives me chills.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's powerful. It made me think of two things. First, I remember I read 1984 like a few years ago. It was the first time I'd ever read it. Actually, I think I read it when Trump was first elected. Anyways, I read it a while ago, I guess, and something really stuck with me, which is how the proletariat, which is the common folk, the 80% of everybody who's not the inner circle people, they had the power to change everything. They could rise up and take over and they could reinstate something that was much better than what Big Brother had set up. But they just didn't. They were either uneducated or they were okay with the status quo. They were just fighting over saucepans in the street. They had saucepans to fight for Leah. They didn't want to rise up. They didn't either intellectually understand or didn't care because they'd been beaten down so much. And the second thing that this makes me think of is the last part of V for Vendetta, which I think of as 1984 with a superhero.

Speaker 1:

Basically, yeah, a demiurge going to put things in motion and it's up to the people to solve the problems. And while he does a lot of things that are really cool and there's a lot of knife throwing and explosions, in the end it was everybody coming into the street wearing the guy fox mask and and walking straight towards the military and then going in and taking over the government for themselves, and that was the only way that they could save themselves was to do it themselves. Yeah, v could not save them himself.

Speaker 2:

I think this is a message that it needs to be shared and reminded over and over and over again. I have one more quote. When we revolt, it's not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe. And this is again why some folks are very well practiced at resilience and survival and resistance because they've had to be. And then there's me with my soft hands, my soft white people hands who also had the benefit of being middle class and Canadian right. Like those things that I didn't, none of those things I chose for myself. They just are attributes I have, and so I have not been in a position very often where I can't breathe, and it really harkens back to the murder of George Floyd and him saying I can't breathe. I think about that whenever I think of this Frantz Fanon quote. But I think that's when we're going to see things shift, is when people realize they can't breathe Enough. People realize they can't breathe, but I hope that we don't wait for it to be us as individuals not breathing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we can't wait for it to be too late. No, there's things happening and when the time, the time is, when the time is right, we were going to have need to stand up. I don't know when that is, I'm not the guy.

Speaker 2:

I think, stand up in the ways you can right now, yeah, and I protested. Yeah, you protested and I think there's a question of like is protesting valuable? I actually had a discussion with a zombie on this, so I won't name because I didn't ask if we could talk about it, but I think protesting is performative. If that's all you do.

Speaker 1:

Right yeah.

Speaker 2:

But if you go home and you figure out how to contribute to your community, if you go home and you figure out how you're going to resist, if you go home and figure out how you're going to support people that you care about and people that you don't know, and what, what role that you want to play in this circumstance, then I think a protest can be a place where you feel bolstered, where you get reinvigorated, like you did, instead of just getting lost in despair. Because they want us to feel despair. They want us to lie down and just let them run over us and like hope that we are some of the people who don't get run over.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we're just as maybe they'll.

Speaker 1:

Maybe they'll ramp over the corpse next to me yeah, basically maybe they'll only bust a couple of my ribs yeah I was talking earlier about being a veteran, and many people know especially veterans know and service members know that when you join the military you take an oath and not to be confused with a certain militia group that used that in their name, but I think most veterans take that oath very seriously and that oath is to protect the United States and the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic, and I never thought in my lifetime that I would have to know what the domestic part of that was.

Speaker 1:

And now it's all too clear and I want to remind people, especially veterans but this also applies to citizens as well and service members is that you have a duty to disobey when the orders that you're given or the things that you're expected to put up with are unlawful, unconstitutional and unjust. If they're morally wrong, you need to stand up against them. It doesn't have to be anything big, but the only way to fight this is to slow everything down, and that includes protesting, it includes striking, it can include just being obstinate when you are asked questions by officials.

Speaker 2:

Legal challenges. Some of those legal challenges are basically what's between us and fucking utter chaos.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and the idea is, you can't make it easy for them, because that's when the steamroller speeds up. You want to slow down the steamroller and that's all of our responsibilities. But I want to really focus on how, veterans and service members, you took an oath to do this. You might not realize it, but you are only required to follow lawful orders, and if they are not lawful or support the constitution, then you have to resist. That's your duty.

Speaker 2:

So, dan, you mentioned various roles that we can all take on different roles, and whether you're a veteran, whatever, whoever you are, whoever you are out there, who are you? Are you, I don't know, but you could be one of these people to resist oligarchy. Oligarchy is a small group of people having control of a country, organization or institution. We actually have a plutocracy because it's about wealthy people having control. Um, the goal right now is for us to be overwhelmed, to ignore, avoid the growing information and feel helpless. And this, uh, carousel by fable, full art on instagram, was also shared by his own bestie. Y'all are the best out there. By the way, like you have been another one of the reasons that I feel like motivated to keep going, because so many of us are trying in our own little ways, and I see you and I appreciate you and you have. You have helped me keep going in ways that you don't even know.

Speaker 2:

So here's a couple of the roles you could be. You could be a quiet subversive. So if your calling is hiding people, driving women to clinics, mailing birth control or any illegally, morally good activity, do that and be paranoid. I'm not going to read all of this because we're going to show this in the show notes. But I think one great piece of advice is if you want to be a quiet subversive or that feels right to you, you have to assume your life. The lives of your family and friends and the lives of the ones you are helping are in mortal danger, and so you have to act accordingly, knowing that Another option is to be a distributor.

Speaker 2:

This can be done by printing info or providing online links, so it's about getting out information via organizations and groups that can take the heat, like Planned Parenthood, and sharing and boosting their posts can be helpful. You can print up cards and make pamphlets. You can put them everywhere in the city you can regularly drop them off again or your rural town, like us, because they'll probably get taken away. But basically, it's about sharing information. You can also be an educator. These come in many, many forms Building first aid, critical thinking, self-defense, fact-checking, science, map reading, psychology.

Speaker 2:

What is a skill that you have that you can contribute to your local community or your virtual community? Both, I think, is really a valuable thing. So just thinking like what is a skill I have and could I? I teach it to others or could I use it to contribute to the community. Anything that can help the quiet subversive is useful, as an educator, to think about what you might be able to do. You can be a volunteer, you can work at a soup kitchen, a shelter, anywhere and everywhere people or animals are in need. Any and all good works towards our neighbors is resistance. Even today, our neighbor helped the FedEx man by taking all the packages for our hoa and dropping them off to all of us.

Speaker 2:

That's like, yeah, a tiny thing, but a really big thing too and help the fedex guy who was probably going to get stuck if he tried to drive up here yeah, there's a big hill and it was.

Speaker 1:

It was glare, ice, like there was no making it up that hill yeah, uh, you can be a marcher.

Speaker 2:

That's what you were yesterday, dan. Yeah, show up at the protests, show your vocal dissent. Uh, there's a lot of things you should learn about before you go to a march you've never been before. To keep yourself safe look that up. Um, a churchgoer. Historically, churches and synagogues and mosques and temples have been a safe-ish place to gather in large groups and organize, so that is a place where there's a lot of community building happening.

Speaker 2:

If that calls to you, you can be a financial supporter. Mutual aid is key. So, just like if you see a GoFundMe to help somebody, if you've got $1, it's worth it. Even $5 to help. It doesn't have to be a large amount. A little bit goes a long way. And the rest of this post has some really great things about Hong Kong protest gear and how you should show up for protests, ways to make sure that you are not easily trackable if you go to a protest and some other really great tips. So we will share this in the show notes, and I just want to give a shout out to the artist, rose Darling, who made this really beautiful carousel that I found incredibly inspiring and activating right. It's like well, what can I do, or what ways am I already doing things? And that's what I would ask you is like what ways are you already actually resisting that you've not thought about as resistance? Probably doing something if you're listening to this podcast, so it's like keep doing that and see what else you could do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So we're not talking about Dead City.

Speaker 1:

We were going to talk about Dead City, but Briefly, it's pretty good. Yeah, it's good, watch it. Yeah, watch it, and then we'll discuss at a later time.

Speaker 2:

Also watch. What's the show we're watching right now? Dan called, oh, I don't remember. It was recommended by All. It Eats Brains In the flesh. In the flesh. It's a series. We canceled our Amazon Prime okay, but we still have a little bit of time left on it and it's on Prime and I'm very annoyed by that because we're trying to not use Amazon, but we are watching this and trying to binge it before the time of our Prime subscription ends Also.

Speaker 1:

Prime suggested five or six new zombie shows to me and I'm just like what the fuck, prime, where have you been?

Speaker 2:

You know what it is. It knows that you canceled.

Speaker 1:

I'm over here raging against the machine and now, all of a sudden, you want to tell me that you have all these fucking zombie shows.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, in the flesh is good. It's very apt for this time. It really is yeah. Prepare yourself to be emotionally devastated. Ollie gave us that warning, and it is true, oh, spoiler us that warning, and it is true, oh, spoiler. And then just a little bit of lightness for us out there in the world. A little good news jack callahan, let us know that 28 days later is finally available to stream on youtube.

Speaker 2:

You no longer have to go to your local library to get it although I think, speaking of resistance, going to your local library is a really cool thing to do yeah, go to your local library, yeah but then also watch it on YouTube. It's there, yeah, anything else. Is there anything positive we can leave off on Dan?

Speaker 1:

I would like to give some people some survival tips for our current state, some cybersecurity survival tips. This is something that I've been doing for about a month and a half at this point, because assume that you are under constant surveillance, because you kind of are, from the social media corporations that run the social media that you use to the stores that you go to in person, like Target. They are collecting data on you and they are reporting it to the stores that you go to in person, like Target. They are collecting data on you and they are reporting it to the government. They just are, and it's been like that for a long time. But now it's a lot more insidious because the government actually wants to track people down and harm them because of who they are.

Speaker 1:

So when you're on the internet, first I highly recommend that you get a VPN. We're not sponsored by a VPN, but I use NordVPN because it does not log data. Some VPNs do log data so they can see where you go after you connect to a VPN, and then they give that over to police and government if they request it. But NordVPN and many other VPNs like Nord do some research. They have no locks, they don't keep them, they don't store them. They don't exist. So when you connect to a VPN, your internet service provider who will tattle on you because they love it, they love tattling they can only see that you connected to a VPN. They cannot see anything that you've done after that. That's amazing.

Speaker 1:

A second line of security that I use is whenever I'm searching using a browser, I use Tor browser. Tor means the onion network. It's the browser that you use to access the dark web, but you can use it for normal internet as well, and what's great about that is that once you connect to your VPN, even if they are able to see what you've done after that, they can only see that you've connected to the Tor network and everything that happens within that Tor network is completely untraceable and invisible to them. Even if you're accessing a normal website, unless you log into an account that's tied to your name and ID, they have no idea what you're doing, and I say don't give them any data unless you have to.

Speaker 2:

I agree. My simple tech tip, as a person who is relatively simple when it comes to technology, compared to my lovely husband over there is to get signal. Compared to my lovely husband over there is to get Signal because, honestly, at this point I am really forcefully bullying all my friends and family to get on Signal. I'm just like, if you want to talk to me, you got to talk to me there. What's Signal, dan?

Speaker 1:

Signal is an encrypted instant messaging service that's like texting and, again, this is a company that does not store data on you. You can set it up so that your conversations disappear right after you talk to somebody and the only way that it can be leaked to anybody is at the end user. So meaning, if they have your phone physically in hand and they open up a conversation and they read it, but if it's set up to automatically delete, there is no record of it and they cannot see anything that you've done. And I know this sounds nefarious, but I strongly believe that it's important for all of us right now to completely delete our tracks from the internet. One, because we need to show them that we're not messing around, that we're not going to support them anymore.

Speaker 2:

We're going to affect their bottom line yeah, because they like tracking us, because it makes them money it makes them money.

Speaker 1:

Um, I could go and I could go on a a rant about target right now, but that's for another time. Um, and the other thing is that it doesn't matter if you've done anything wrong, if you've discussed anything that's sensitive. Law enforcement will use anything that they have to convict you of a crime if they want to. Yeah, and that could just be you having a conversation with your nana and nana is like, I sure, like that AOC character, and two months from now it's illegal to say AOC and you can be sent to Guantanamo Bay for saying that you like AOC. And then here comes the police knocking on your door and they look at your text messages and you're like, oh, that's illegal, see you later. That's a bit of an extreme scenario, but use your imagination where that could lead.

Speaker 2:

I think that's all really good advice and there'll be more of this. I think a lot of our Casual Dad episodes are going to be like this dissociative shift from despair and darkness and figuring out how we get through this and how we change things in this hard time to let's talk about fun things like zombie apocalypses so much more fun. And actually we do have a special treat for you next week naela king uh, you can find her at. Naela king writes on instagram and she has a discord called naela's ghost carnival, which is very fun is going to be on the show and we're going to be talking about zombies. Of course, we're going to talk about ghosts. We're talking about writing.

Speaker 2:

There's a lot of discussion that we had about writing writing episode and I think it's a pick-me-up because naela loves to have fun in the apocalypse, even if it means you might die fast, and I kind of appreciate that yeah I want to acknowledge that we know that this episode's a bummer, but also the world is a bummer right now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it felt bad to not acknowledge it, like if we just did our Dead City episode, we would be dead in our eyes as we talked about it. Because this needs to be acknowledged and as fellow zombie apocalypse enthusiasts listening to this, I'm sure that you understand that when we talk about the zombie apocalypse, we're actually talking about the current apocalypse that we're living in right now. Just zombies are more fun.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and right now we have a lot of things going for us Again. If you got heating, you got water that runs, you got a house over your head especially if you own it like, wow, use all the resources you have available to secure your family and yourself and the people around you, and we're going to get through this and the end is nigh, baby, bye, bye, bye, don't die, don't die.

Speaker 1:

Don't die, love you, stay safe. Punch a Nazi, that's good advice.

Speaker 2:

Leave it there. Bye everybody, bye, bye.

People on this episode

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Dan

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Leah

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