Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 70: On Giving...and Receiving (w/ special guest Tom Hansell)

Episode Date: September 20, 2018

We talk to Tom Hansell about his new book and film, "After Coal," which explores other coal mining regions around the world and what our region can learn from them. After that we take a quick dive int...o Hilary Clinton's latest missive about how democracy is dying or some shit. Pre-order Tom's book here: https://wvupressonline.com/node/748 And if you'd like more Trillbillies content, don't forget to sign up for our Patreon: patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 alright I love you too listen I'll holler at you alright alright bye bye perpetually dodging your mother
Starting point is 00:00:08 um well now she's retired and bored so I have to she's got a lot of demands she's just can you do this for me has she picked up
Starting point is 00:00:20 any hobbies and shit in retirement she redid her whole house like in a week which is weird what retirement? She redid her whole house in a week, which is weird. What do you mean redid? I don't know. She just gets manic and just fucking... Redecorated?
Starting point is 00:00:34 Changed the flooring. Oh, fuck. That's like a big... That's like... She paid somebody to come in and do it? Yeah. Well, no. She did it, I think.
Starting point is 00:00:42 She changed her... She did her flooring? Her and my uncle, yeah. Well, I'm sure she didn't do that part, but she, she's probably the, you know, the director. I can relate to the, to the like manic. I need a change of scenery immediately. And since I can't up and move my whole life right now, I'm about to redo this whole house. Can relate yeah i love how you have your house done though i love my place it is very it's a sanctuary and it's baby proof my
Starting point is 00:01:12 nephews were there and they didn't i saw that i saw the spa you didn't have a spa day yeah i lit candles for them in the tub they loved it i'd love to have a damn bathtub somebody like candles for me yeah those little shits are living the dream just like all they have to do is just be wimper just whimper and then like whoever's that whatever adult around does whatever they want yeah it's like really they just have no idea how good they have it yeah and they just whine over the dumbest shit i just got so like even when they're like when they're mean one of them pissed themselves it It's like, they were mostly good. And we had one major meltdown that was pretty rough.
Starting point is 00:01:51 But what pisses me off the most is the whining. I'm like, you two little shits are living the dream life here. What are you whining about? It's like, Bubby touched me. I'm like, are you fucking with me right now? Are you trolling me? I would literally just stare at them. I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? Bubby, touch me.
Starting point is 00:02:09 Are you fucking kidding me? I just want you on loop saying, Bubby, touch me. Touch me. Literally, with his foot. He just like brushed him on the couch. What is wrong with you? That's too good. Well, when you're that old, it's everything.
Starting point is 00:02:26 Everything. And the only toy they want, the only toy they ever want, is whatever toy the other one has. It's all they fucking care about. It's just like me. Oh, Lord. Okay, how we... All right, so I'm going to...
Starting point is 00:02:41 Should we put it right here? Yeah, put... Testing. Testing. All right, cool. alright so I'm gonna should we put it right here yeah put testing alright cool great you can hear it Tom can you hear it yeah can you hear it in both
Starting point is 00:02:55 I can only hear it in one yeah I can hear it in both and I don't want the world to see me without my pants on. Cause I got a baby dick. You're staring at my balls from behind as you eat my ass and that's cool. Oh, God. Patreon visuals.
Starting point is 00:03:29 Oh, shit. That's why people pay us the big bucks. Perverted versions of popular songs. What's that popular song? I've been jacking off for three years and I haven't come even once. My
Starting point is 00:03:44 balls are as big as coconuts. The doctor won't let me go. Coconut. Would you imagine somebody who was just cranking it for three years and they never came? Let me tell y'all about a little something called prostateitis you are perpetually it's no picnic you spend your life in webmd no i have i have confirmed that is one of my confirmed illnesses one of many confirmed no the only basically the only confirmed illness.
Starting point is 00:04:25 Wait, what does this have to do with not jerking off for three years? Is it because you... Prostatitis makes everything that goes on down there a little harder. You would think that it would be kind of pleasurable if your prostate is swollen, but you cum. You would think that. Because your asshole, like your sphincter, tightens up when you cum.
Starting point is 00:04:45 It goes like a sucker. It's at that first initial. Is that what happens? Everything down there tightens up. But yeah, your asshole definitely. If you ever ever looked at your asshole while you cum. That can't be easy.
Starting point is 00:05:02 I don't know how you pull that off. It's all smoking mirrors. Mirrors, yeah. The goddamn hell set up you got in your bedroom. You basically need a mirror to really examine your vagina. Yeah, I think you were telling us about this one. I've told you about this one before. I don't get this raunchy when we record at my house.
Starting point is 00:05:20 I don't know what it is about this room. It just sounds funny. For some reason, I just thought you said my balls look like coconuts. It's hilarious. It's really dumb. I just thought it was so fun. Yeah, it's... You should definitely get...
Starting point is 00:05:39 You got to have that sweet release. Well, let me just do a little PSA real quick. All right, I'm going to pull up the phone number. We're going to call. Okay, do that. Carry on. But if you think you're too young for prostate issues, think again, guys. I'm here for a tributary health tip.
Starting point is 00:05:54 Why can't we just have a health hour? I've been struck down in my early 30s, and I don't want it to happen to anybody else. Damn, dude. I'm sorry, Tom. So go get your doctor to finger your butthole And tell you what's going on I mean surely You kind of How did you know
Starting point is 00:06:08 Did you go to the doctor Like doc I need a finger I'll tell you how I found out My P-stream got weak About two years ago And I was like I've had a weak
Starting point is 00:06:17 Shit I've had a weak P-stream For like Fifteen years So you think it's I briefly had kidney failure That's Yeah that's probably
Starting point is 00:06:24 Par for the course. That's probably what happens with that. That's true. So I freaked out thinking, oh God, do I have something on my kidneys? Turns out, just a prostate pinching my urethra off a little bit more than it should. Damn, dude. Nothing you can do about it.
Starting point is 00:06:40 They give you antibiotics. They don't work. Nothing you can do about it. Drink cranberry juice. No, I mean like... It's not going to shrink you. Oh, yeah. You can't shrink that prostate you can do about it. Drink cranberry juice. No, I mean like it's not going to shrink you. Oh, yeah. You can't shrink that prostate. I can pee fine. I mean like my pee stream is more normal than it has to be. They don't have like medicine, like some kind of cream you can shoot up there that shrinks the prostate?
Starting point is 00:06:55 Listen, all they can do. This is a great example of people with chronic illness getting friends being like, can't you do this? Didn't you do this? Did you get them? I heard. Like, constant. Right.
Starting point is 00:07:09 I'm not looking for anybody to feel sorry for. No, I'm just saying. I mean, mostly because I do this. Like, my friend has a chronic illness, and I'm always like, well, have you looked up non-Western? What's a home remedy? And then it's like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, CBD oil. Yeah, it's like, well, my intestines are perpetually inflamed.
Starting point is 00:07:29 That's true. I have Crohn's disease. Yeah, it's like. Yeah. I have no less than like 12 chronic illnesses, and it's like, every time someone says that, it's like, no, trust me, I've tried all. I've tried everything. I've tried everything.
Starting point is 00:07:43 I've tried everything. I've tried everything.'ve tried everything i don't enjoy feeling like a philips head screwdriver's going through my gooch every time i nut or pee but you know it's my cross to bear oh god yeah it always reminds me this is ridiculous of tom hanks and the green mile. Do you remember that? Like the whole movie. It's just like, it's this awful fucking, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah. I thought, I was like, do you know it's not a comedy?
Starting point is 00:08:12 Yeah, it's not a comedy. It's ridiculous. And they. It's like the Green Mile was all ironing. It's like they. They like, like you're supposed to be equally um concerned for tom hanks character right because he he is in pain when he pisses you know it's just like like compared to the what's going right the man on death row his problems are very trivial yeah this is it's like oh they're both struggling and getting to know each other better
Starting point is 00:08:45 you know yeah yeah i know what you're saying they're so compassionate for one another yeah like his dick and just so stupid anyway i'm glad we could stroll down that pop culture yeah that's a fucked up that's a fucked up movie. Yeah. Mostly because, I remember Spike Lee said that it was, it was fucked up
Starting point is 00:09:11 because it, it does the classic, invokes the trope of the, what he calls the magical negro. Like, a black person who is imbued with, they're othered in the film you know what I mean like they're
Starting point is 00:09:27 not human they're like sort of like magical and it's the only way to like release them of being black it's kind of the same thing with black girl magic it's in a weird fetish and it helps the white people come to a point of like larger sort of
Starting point is 00:09:44 transcendence or enlightenment. It's also a very white savior. Yeah. I will say, Barry Pepper's in that movie, though. And I fuck with Barry Pepper. Every movie Barry Pepper's in, he's pretty good. I don't know. I don't know Barry Pepper.
Starting point is 00:09:56 Who is he in Green Mile? He was one of the guards, I think. He's the sniper in Saving Private Ryan. Oh, hold on a second. He plays only reactionary roles. He plays only reactionary roles. Ironically. Is he a communist that only plays reactionaries?
Starting point is 00:10:16 He's got that look. He's got that buzz cut look. He looks like he would be probably a Nazi. Yeah. I still fuck with him though. It's art. know art can be reactionary how do you politely tell a friend they're starting to look like a nazi asking for a friend um did they do the um comb over with the skin fade on the side. It's like they start using gel.
Starting point is 00:10:47 Like really sleeping dog. Gel. When's the last time somebody used gel? I used to have a big bottle of it when you know
Starting point is 00:10:56 when I was like in seventh grade or something. Tell me you had frosted tips at one point. Oh I had frosted tips at one point. Absolutely.
Starting point is 00:11:03 Did you not have frosted tips Tom? I didn't have frosted tips because for some reason Absolutely. Did you not have frosted tips, Tom? I didn't have frosted tips because for some reason I knew it was a fad. Like, I wanted to, but couldn't pull the trigger. Damn, I had frosted tips. No, I had a big bottle. It was like... Your hair's already blonde.
Starting point is 00:11:16 Yeah, I know. It was even dumber because I was a swimmer at the time. And chlorine will turn bleached hair like green or orange. And so it looked really, really bad. No, I had like a big bottle of gel. It was like L.A. L.A. Looks. L.A. Looks, yeah.
Starting point is 00:11:32 And it was like this big and you just squeeze out a massive palm full of it. Wow. The worst look I think in hair period is when a guy with thinning hair uses gel. Oh, yeah. Because it kind of mats together what he has left, and you can see his whole scalp. That's why I stick with the pomade. Another tip out there, guys. If you're thinning or balding, stay away from the gel.
Starting point is 00:11:56 Right. I think in general, just stay away from the gel. You're right. It's not good for any hairstyle. It hasn't been hot since NSYNC. They were gelled the fuck up. You know, like Lance Bass. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:12:09 He had... He was gelled the fuck up. Yeah, Lance looked good. Speaking of getting gelled the fuck up, let's queue up this call we're about to make here. All right. So, Tom Hansel, thanks so much for joining us.
Starting point is 00:12:26 Tom, as we've joked, spent many years as an Apple shop filmmaker and a part of the radio team and has several documentary films. The Electricity Fairy and his newest After Coal. City Ferry and his newest After Coal. He just had a companion book come out, or maybe it's not out yet? It'll be released November the 1st. Oh, great. At the University Press. All right. Head of the curve here. About to drop your companion book with the 2016 film After Coal, and you teach down at App State, right?
Starting point is 00:13:07 Yep, yeah, I work with my mom's faculty at the Center for Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University. A man of many talents. Cool. It's never boring, that's for sure. You're going to have to plug us into that scene, Tom.
Starting point is 00:13:23 We're trying to infiltrate the App Studies world, but they're giving us the Heisman, keeping us at arm's for sure. You're going to have to plug us into that scene, Tom. We're trying to infiltrate the app studies world, but they're giving us the Heisman, keeping us at arm's length here. Yeah, they don't want us in. We're either too communist or too vulgar. Or both. Or too irreverent. For example, I'm just going to go ahead and say,
Starting point is 00:13:43 on this podcast, the official stance is we don't care how you pronounce Appalachia say it however you want say Appalachia that's mine and Tom's stance alright well I stand corrected I work for the Center for Appalachian there you go
Starting point is 00:13:58 you're already learning you're already getting the hang of it it's just for subversive purposes there was a I'm sure getting the hang of it. It's just for subversive purposes. There was a, did you see, I'm sure you saw this, Tom. There was an App State football game recently, and the App State fan crowd or whatever booed the ref when he said Appalachian State. Yeah, well, I saw the clip on, it was an away game in Charlotte, and I saw the clip. it got played pretty well here.
Starting point is 00:14:30 That's hilarious. Yeah, the football team called a timeout, and the ref said, timeout, Appalachian State, and the whole crowd went, That's pretty good. So After Call is the name of the book Stories of Survival in Appalachian Wales And After Cole of course Is at this point
Starting point is 00:14:51 A multimedia project That's taking you About all over the world now You want to give us A little bit of the synopsis Yeah well the The actual project began Just as a conference that was combining academics and activists that were working on coal-related issues and were continually confronted
Starting point is 00:15:14 with this idea of, if we don't mine coal in eastern Kentucky or we don't mine coal in southern West Virginia, if we don't mine coal, what are we going to do? How are these communities going to survive? And so we thought the whales might have some answers. And after the symposium, it was interesting enough that I thought it was worth making a film on. So we went and took about a year to raise money and get a crew together and got over there and started doing interviews. And I thought, of course, I would just find if all I had to do was get the magic formula of whatever it was that allowed those communities to survive after the mines shut down in the 80s and bring it back to Appalachia and all the problems would be solved.
Starting point is 00:16:00 And obviously, it was a little more complicated than that. Those communities, I think, are still struggling and certainly doing better than some Appalachian communities, but they've lost population and are still kind of looking for that kind of high-end employment, employment with good wages, union wages, good benefits, full health care, all those kinds of things are kind of a continuing struggle for, I think, worldwide. But it was interesting to see what kind of solutions that people found where local people
Starting point is 00:16:41 were coming up with their own solutions to local problems and figuring out how they could access local resources to address those values. So that part was actually pretty inspiring. And that's what it became is this kind of a, the film is kind of a series of vignettes that people swap in stories of what they ended up trying to do to survive and how they actually have survived and kept their culture. And I think the book kind of takes it a little bit further because you can get a little deeper into the history and kind of address some of the nuances and things like that that are really hard to do in a film because you kind of have to keep things moving and let the
Starting point is 00:17:20 picture tell the story in a film. Yeah. and let the picture start the story in the film. Yeah. And just, I mean, to dig into that a little bit, I think what is in the book that may be, well, that is also in the film, is that a lot of the solutions,
Starting point is 00:17:36 as we talk about a lot on this podcast, are unfortunately not local but structural. And I remember actually here at Apple Shop you brought um some folks from wales actually members of parliament and were um had a panel here in the theater with a couple of local people um and um talked about that basically the movie and and all of these themes and i remember in the q a one of our friends stood up. She had just helped open a local bakery. This was years ago. And she asked, like, what did you all in Wales see?
Starting point is 00:18:11 You know, how were local businesses a part of incubating, like, you know, economic renewal and all this? Like, how did local, what kind of role did small local businesses play? Because as a person who's opened a small local business, and I remember, God, I've met this woman, I can't think of her name, it's so embarrassing. Was it Meyer? Yeah, Meyer. Meyer Francis. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:18:36 She said, well, really, they didn't play a role because they can't. It's like, they, you know, really, these are governmental problems caused by systemic, like these are systemic problems that need systemic solutions. And while local businesses are wonderful, like they need support. And we were all in the audience just like, oh, God. Okay. And then you recently did a interview with Elizabeth Kattabeth katt who is um or i don't know if it was recently but um uh around the book coming out um and we love elizabeth here on the podcast she's been on a couple times but in one of the questions she asked you was about the big like
Starting point is 00:19:22 in your experience being in multiple coalfield communities in two different continents what were some of the like biggest similarities and biggest differences in communities and I kind of wanted to bring that up with you too and ask you to talk a little bit about this like labor organizing history as you have, being some of the biggest differences. I think this comes up a lot on the podcast about what it looks like to really win a union battle. Like, you know, as we, you know, it's always difficult in any, you know, as organizers ourselves, it's very difficult to measure wins continually. And, you know, I'm sure it's very complicated what went down in the UK, but can you talk
Starting point is 00:20:07 a little bit about that? First, I think I want to say just a little bit of similarities is that in both coal mining communities, and actually in coal mining communities I've been at and in other places, there really is this sense of community. I think partly brought about by struggle, by common struggle. But people have each other's back and value that. The idea of looking out for your neighbor is an important thing. It's something that is shared internationally.
Starting point is 00:20:37 And so it's also expressed through music. And so you can trace some common threads of music and song in both places. But a key difference, particularly between the U.S. and the U.K., and particularly between Appalachia as well, is the legacy of the union and the strength of the union. I mean, in the U.K., unions, the miners' union, but all unions, the trade union movement, was so strong that they formed their own political party. It was called the Labor Party.
Starting point is 00:21:10 It actually still exists. It's not in power right now, but it's still a functioning political party. And after World War II, it created a national health care system. And, in fact, it was the brainchild of a Welsh miner named Annylyn Bevan. And in fact, it was the brainchild of a Welsh miner named Annylyn Bevan. He'd been a miner and got elected to Parliament as a member of the Labour Party. And when the Labour Party came to power in 1946, he said, what we need is health care for all, universal health care.
Starting point is 00:21:45 And he drafted the resolution and got it passed, and to this day, the National Health Service is one of the models for putting national health care. It's not perfect, but it's certainly functioning, and in terms of entrepreneurship, it means that people who are trying to start up businesses in the U.K. don't have to figure out how they're going to pay for health insurance for their employees because that's covered through the National Health Service. So I feel like that's really a key difference and huge in terms of what options are available after mines shut down, what options are available in a post-poll economy. Yeah, your ability to run a small business even.
Starting point is 00:22:21 You have health care. Yeah, exactly. to run a small business even. You have health care. Exactly. Yeah. And I think the other key part of that is that also during that same time when the labor government was in power after World War II, all of the essential industries were nationalized. Part of that is because they had been so decimated, bombed out by the Nazis during World War II, that private industry wasn't able to rebuild essential industries like coal or steel or the auto industry, and so the government took them over. But as a result, it means that, particularly in South Wales, a lot of that land that was owned by coal companies ended up in the hands of the National Coal Board.
Starting point is 00:23:07 When all the mines were privatized in 1994 and the National Coal Board was dissolved, a lot of that land still stayed in public ownership. And so as a result, you all went to the Dove Workshop when you were traveling with me over in Wales. The Dove Workshop is an old coal mine office, an old strip mine office. But when the mine shut down, it was owned by the local council, by the local government. And they were able to do a very cheap long-term lease to the Dove Workshop because they had a vested interest in keeping something happening in that community and not just abandoning the community because that would reduce the tax base to the local government.
Starting point is 00:23:48 And so that kind of level of public ownership really makes a huge difference, as opposed to in Appalachia where somewhere between 50% and 75% of the land is owned, in central Appalachia, is owned by outside corporations. And you just don't see those corporations making their facilities available, their world coal mining facilities, making them available for local community groups to do work for the purpose of good. I think that's a huge difference and really has kind of trickled down in many different ways, but particularly in just what opportunities are available in a close-quarter family.
Starting point is 00:24:31 Yeah. And I feel like this is definitely not, I mean, it's incredible. It immediately gets my wheels turning about what our communities would look like, you know, if any of these things were different. And so I wonder, you know, you have been witness to all of these exchanges over the last several years that, you know, you talked about how there's been a history, a really beautiful history of exchange between people here and people in Wales, kind of birthed out of the out of Helen Lewis's work and John Govinta, the grandmother of Appalachian studies. Oh, hell.
Starting point is 00:25:07 But what kind of reactions do you get? How have you seen this play out when people hear these stories about what happened at the culmination of the same type of horrible union battles that they dealt with. Because I know you've done a lot of these miners exchanges. And I just wonder how that has looked and what kind of some of the reactions have been. Well, it's been interesting. And from an Appalachian perspective, I've actually seen that reaction change in the last, you know, I started this project in 2011, about seven years, and I've literally seen when I've been in public meetings, people's reactions
Starting point is 00:25:53 changing to, from that question that I actually started the project with, if we're not going to mine coal, what else can we do? I know a lot of people could just kind of approach that from, we need some kind of, if it's not a mine, we need a factory, we need some kind of outside corporation to come in and save us. And I've seen that conversation change to people talking about, well, okay, what resources do we have locally? How can we incorporate businesses with a community center? How can we combine health care with local farming and local food? All these kind of things that just literally
Starting point is 00:26:37 didn't exist seven years ago have started. So I get some hope from that. I mean, they're small. None of them are paying union wages or employing the hundreds of people, potentially thousands of people that the mines once employed. But I do think that they're providing hope that communities can survive post-cold. So I went off on a little bit of a tangent there. Why don't you restate the question, and maybe I can come back and answer it a little bit better. No, you kind of got to it. I guess what I was just trying to get at is like, you know, I don't know when universal health care.
Starting point is 00:27:18 I don't know. What did you say? What year this universal health care bill passed in Wales or in the U.K.? That was 1947. Was that one of the earliest that you know of? Yeah, yes, but I really haven't looked at what's happened in other European countries or other developed countries that have universal health care. It's bound to be pretty early.
Starting point is 00:27:43 But I bet it's, I mean, World War II is kind of the whole turning point throughout Europe. Yeah. Just like winning universal health care in 1947. Imagine how that changed the trajectory of all kinds of organizing and... Yeah. But that coming from minors, it just,'s it seems it makes so much sense given the
Starting point is 00:28:08 black lung issues we're dealing with here now that we've talked about on the podcast quite a bit um that you know wales is one of the countries where they've they they all but figured out black lung, right? Like minors were not getting black lung, like in Germany and, right, Terrence? Exactly, yeah. And in fact, the union themselves were the ones that were doing the inspections. I mean, they had the coal board was there, but there was a union representative with a coal board representative doing inspections on doing the best things. So the
Starting point is 00:28:50 whole issue of falsified dust was rampant in the Appalachian Coal Field. It's been documented since the 1990s, but I would argue probably rampant since before then, just didn't exist in the West, partly because of
Starting point is 00:29:04 the strength of the labor movement. Yeah, me and Tom did an episode this weekend where we was about Harlan County, USA, and it's pretty interesting. I didn't know this until very recently, but one of the reasons why Black Lung sort of, it wasn't scientifically recognized in the United States until the 1960s, but one of the reasons it became so widespread on a sort of industrial widespread scale throughout the middle of the 20th century was because of mechanization. mechanization. Like before the continuous mining machine, they would, you know, you'd go into a coal seam, you drill holes into it and stick it dynamite in it and blow it up. Coal would fall down, you know, you get what they call the breaker boys or whoever would sort it out and put it on
Starting point is 00:29:56 the lines and they'd send it out of the mine. But once they mechanized the mines with mining machines, it started kicking up so much dust. And I didn't realize that that was one reason, but another reason why that became widespread was actually because of the UMWA, John Lewis specifically. John Lewis specifically bargained away several sort of key provisions for miner safety for mechanization. He made several deals in the middle of the 20th century with the coal industry to mechanize the industry.
Starting point is 00:30:32 And I thought, you know, the story of the UMWA, if you put it up next to the sort of unions in the United Kingdom, is probably pretty interesting because I don't know anything about the unions over there. in the United Kingdom is probably pretty interesting because I don't know anything about the unions over there, but over here, the story of the UMWA is a constant, decades-long tragedy of the leadership always pretty much selling the rank and file down the river for their own sort of enrichment. And you could argue that that's one of the reasons why we are where we
Starting point is 00:31:06 are today uh well i don't know we aren't really anywhere today because there's hardly any industry left but you know it's one of the reasons why you had this sort of um absurd uh sort of coalition between the industry and labor against like environmentalists and other sort of interests um but yeah i don't know. I don't have a whole lot of love for the UMWA. They were so explicitly anti-class warfare, anti-socialist, anti-class consciousness of any kind that they were only searching for short-term gains. And in the end, they wound up, I don't know,
Starting point is 00:31:46 screwing over quite a bit of people. I mean, I do, you know, obviously their union, they've done some incredible things, obviously. I'm just saying that. Yeah, I would say that part of this, yeah, that was definitely kind of part of my education. One of the big lessons that I learned and kind of a big surprise for this project was that I kind of, as actually one of the reasons I ended up moving to eastern Kentucky
Starting point is 00:32:15 and being involved in Appalachia is I had been peripherally kind of a witness to the minor strike of the Pittsburgh strike, 1989-1990. Right, which is... And was just impressed by, you know, at that point I was a little punk rock kid, you know, and I was listening to groups like DOA and NBC, you know, and I was hearing some of those themes kind of echoed in the union member speeches, and I was like, yeah, you know, stick it to those stick it to wall street we gotta fight for the people and um and yet you know when you get when you dig deeper into that history is it's really true and you
Starting point is 00:32:59 know the 1948 by tunis co-operators association the Association Agreement that John L. Lewis was an architect of. I would say it was really a turning point for the union, that it really was an alliance between the union and the largest coal company in the United States. And although the miners that remained had relatively high wages and a good health care system, I mean, in the absence of a national health care system, John L. Lewis did actually create a miners' health care system that worked for about a decade for every miner, where they had a miner's car at their own hospital. But it quickly crumbled because it was built on, I would'd be saying, a still and busty economy.
Starting point is 00:33:49 Whereas in Wales, they took that idea of health care and moved it beyond a single industry into the national government. And they also took the idea of capitalism and turned it on its head. You know, the labor government said, no, the coal is a resource for the people, and it should be mined for the good of the people, and that good involves electricity, that good involves employment, and that good involves community amenities. So there are actually, you know, minors welfare halls that are still places where people gather for music and anniversaries and family gatherings. You know,
Starting point is 00:34:32 there's still kind of community centers there that were created by the union and have stayed kind of in the public sphere, even after the industry is gone. So that kind of legacy is really different than the hyper-capitalist legacy in the United States, where a handful of big corporations control things and resources are quickly privatized, and if they're not returning profit to the shareholders, they're simply abandoned and are not able to be used or accessed by the local community for any kind of public good. You know, I don't know if you had anything else to add, Tonya. I was just wondering, you know,
Starting point is 00:35:17 if the things that you've seen in the last certified, you began the project in 2011, you said? Yeah, I started shooting, well shooting well started filming in 2012 but i started writing about it in 2011 um i was just wondering if they sort of i don't know collapse of the industry was uh anything that you was i don't know if it was surprising at all to you, the speed with which it happened, you know what I mean? And if it, you know, and what they had to say about that in Wells.
Starting point is 00:35:53 Because I don't know, for us, it seems like it was pretty rapid. I mean, I moved here in 2012, and it seems like in just in those six years, I've never seen anything quite like this. Yeah, I mean, I think in some ways it's actually less dramatic in Appalachia than in Wales.
Starting point is 00:36:10 Because what happened in Wales was when Thatcher took control of the government in 1979, she was conservative to the Tory party. She started on the platform of privatizing all of the nationalized industry.
Starting point is 00:36:25 Not just the coal mines, but the gas industry, the British steel, British Leyland, which was the big auto manufacturer, truck industry. All of those had been nationalized for, at that point, 30, 40 years. And she made it her point to privatize it. And she realized that if she was going to win that battle, she had to defeat the miners' union because that was the most powerful union. And so they put out a plan where they were going to close somewhere between 80 and 90 mines in the course of two years.
Starting point is 00:37:00 And the majority of those mines were in South Wales. They were throughout the UK, but a good 30 or 40 of those mines were in South Wales. They were throughout the U.K., but a good 30 or 40 of those mines were in South Wales. And so what you actually saw was in the course of three or four years, 20,000 jobs left South Wales. Over those about five years, there was a good 50,000 or 60,000 jobs that left the United Kingdom as a whole. So that was really dramatic. And all of those, eventually all those assets were privatized and sold off to private corporations. The ones that weren't deemed to be profitable
Starting point is 00:37:37 were turned over to forestry or to local government. Whereas in the U.S., which you saw, yes, starting around 2011 or 2000, where you saw competition for natural gas, particularly in the utility market to provide electricity. And you saw really cheap gas from tracking, combined with concerns over climate change and stricter environmental regulations. And so you ended up seeing over the course of, you know, eight or ten years, those same kind of job losses. And so I feel like it's interesting.
Starting point is 00:38:19 I mean, both areas suffered intense job losses. It suffered them approximately 30 years apart. You know, if you're going to be hyper-political about this, I would say they both suffered them as a result of capitalism or neoliberalism. But on one hand, in the U.K., the job loss was literally around that 84-85 strike, and it was a big loss for the unions, and it was kind of the end of the domination of the National Miners Union in the U.K. as being one of the most powerful political entities in that country. have been declining for years and years and years as a result of this Activeness Co-Operators Association agreement and Lewis agreeing to the mechanization that we talked about earlier.
Starting point is 00:39:13 And so what you kind of saw was a move to mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia, which was much less employment, much more destruction, problems with water quality, Much less employment, much more destruction, problems with water quality. And you saw kind of jobs trickling away probably over 20 years and a more steep decline just in the last decade that we've seen. But those jobs have really been trickling away since 1980. I guess it was pretty ballsy in 2012 to start a project called After Coal at peak forensic coal time.
Starting point is 00:39:51 You know, because I had seen, you know, being there since 1990, coal was actually on the decline in 1990, and then it hit a little bit of a boom. It was a mini-boom, but a little bit of a boom around 2000. And particularly 2001, you 2001, after the September
Starting point is 00:40:07 11th terrorist attack, there was concerns about importing foreign oil, and coal had moved to that point from $30 a ton up to, in some cases, $70, $80 a ton just for steam coal. We're not even talking about the metallurgical coal. dollars a ton for just for steam coal we're not even talking about the metallurgical coal um and so so you really saw a different situation right around 2001 2002 2003. um but i think it was also pretty clear that the easy scenes were gone and you know most i think one of the great things about living in whitesburg is you know you most, I think one of the great things about living in Whitesburg is, you know, you can have lunch with a manager for months in the coal mine and kind of hear
Starting point is 00:40:51 his opinion on what's happening with reserves, what's happening with regulations. And so I think from my time there, I was able to kind of get a real sense of what was going on and the fact that that decline was really going to continue. And the communities really had to figure out ways to get together and find resources to survive once that natural resource is pulled. So in all this time you poking around asking all these questions, you didn't pack any ass whoopings? Nobody took you to task?
Starting point is 00:41:28 Well, there's a few times I think I was able to run fast enough. That's my preferred strategy. I could miss most of it. Well, Tom, tell us. I couldn't run fast enough. Often I could make a joke. Well, Tom, tell us. I couldn't run fast enough.
Starting point is 00:41:44 Often I could make a joke. Can you tell people where they can get After Cold the Film and how they can maybe preorder the book or get that when it comes out? Sure. You know, probably the easiest way to get After Cold the Film is actually through the Apple Shop website. I produced it through Appalachian State University here, but Apple Shop's been a distributor and a partner on that. That's probably the easiest way is if you just do
Starting point is 00:42:11 Appleshop.org, AfterCole. You could also just do AfterCole.com. There's a website that's got links to all of this. And then if you actually have a public library or a college, community college, Aftercoil is also available for streaming through Panoply. It's an educational distributor. So I tend to deal with them where they're selling it to colleges, universities, and public libraries. So if you've got a public library, you can often use their account and password to access
Starting point is 00:42:47 that document. The book is available through West Virginia University Press. So if you can just Google West Virginia University Press, After Coal, you can go through and order that book. And here's a secret. Don't tell anybody. If you do use AFTRICOLE in all caps as a discount code, you can actually get 20% off of the sticker price on there. Damn. Tribally pro tip.
Starting point is 00:43:17 Yep. Tribally pro tip. AFTRICOLE is a back promo code to get 20% off only through the publisher's website, the West Virginia University Press. Well, if the boys don't have any more questions, unless you're going to tell us some Rowdy Wattsburg hot tub tales, we'll cut you loose. Yeah, well, I'd tell you, but I'd have to kill you.
Starting point is 00:43:44 We've probably heard them all or lived them all ourselves. Yeah, I was going to say, you all may have been there. Yeah, we were probably there. Well, thanks so much for being on with us, Tom. Tom, it was great to talk to you again. And next time you're in town, please let us know, and we'll hook up, as they say. Exactly. Well, thanks so much for having me, and we'll hook up, as they say. Exactly. Well, thanks so much for having me, and I'll definitely give you all a shout the next time I'm heading your way.
Starting point is 00:44:10 I can drop this advance copy in the mail if you need it. I'll send it to you. Sounds good. No. I'm actually waiting literally any day I'm supposed to get a package of 50 of the final version that don't have the advanced copy stamped on them. Ooh, fancy. But since I'm not sure when they're going to get it, I've got to send Abby another email saying, where are my books? Yeah, well, a watch pot never boils, so try to forget about it.
Starting point is 00:44:36 Then it'll show up. Exactly. Yep, but I'm glad that you got one, and I'm just tickled to be on the True Boys. So thank you all. Glad to have you. Thanks, Tom. Thanks tickled to be on the Troubles. So thank you all. Glad to have you. Thanks, Tom. Thanks, Tom. Bye.
Starting point is 00:44:48 Y'all take care. Bye. I'm the ISIS I'm the 50MA But I could not hold on To her very long So I cut off my hair And I rode straight away To the wild and numb country Where I could not go wrong
Starting point is 00:45:17 Well, I just think it's topical because I worked for them and I can do that. But then also she did the op-ed, one of those fucking dumbass things in the Atlantic this week. And then she did the GoFundMe. That really was unconscionable. How could she possibly have thought that was a good move? How could she possibly have thought that was a good move? Like, oh, I'm going to use my great power to boost this person's ability to beg for money to pay for their health care. It's funny.
Starting point is 00:45:57 I mean, it's like, I mean, maybe we should have, unless we want to just start recording this, if y'all got enough. It's recording. We're live. Well, let's just kind of. I'm trying to find the op-ed. You said it was in the Atlantic? I haven't seen the op-ed. I haven't seen it yet. Maybe we should...
Starting point is 00:46:09 You want to reconvene tomorrow? The Atlantic. And do it. I'm not sure if I'm going to... Just read it, Snacks. It's easy. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to. It's an easy read.
Starting point is 00:46:19 Is it American Democracy is in Crisis? Yeah. It's got like an eagle with a sparkler in its mouth. No, it doesn't. No, it's a matchstick matchstick. I thought it was something. Oh, my God. A sparkler.
Starting point is 00:46:30 Our democratic institutions and traditions are under siege. We need to do everything we can to fight back. Jesus Christ, this is so absurd. So, wait. Is she trying to do some sort of comeback PR thing? Is that why in the same week she did this op-ed and she's elevating some GoFundMe
Starting point is 00:46:52 for... Oh, wait, wait, wait. That reminds me. So Obama came out for Medicare for All, and I don't give a fuck him, but did she? No. No. Her positions have not went further left in the league. She's going GoFundMe.
Starting point is 00:47:09 She's of the opinion, obviously, that this country's future of health care is GoFundMe cancer treatment. Literally. Literally. I mean, that's what she has this platform. All these people are drooling over her, and she shares a link to GoFundMe. This is the future of health care in this country. That's what she thinks. And that would be easy to explain away as just, oh, well, you know, he started this GoFundMe,
Starting point is 00:47:33 and, like, I'm just, you know, using my platform to boost or whatever. If not— Why not just pay it? Well, I mean, that's the obvious answer. Give the man the goddamn money. But also what's interesting is, and I don't know if I've told this on this show or not, but when I worked for the Clinton Foundation, they gave us a book called On Giving. It's like Mal's little red book, but it's Bill Clinton.
Starting point is 00:47:57 It really is. I mean, it is a red book. He wrote it? Heavy Air Quotes wrote it. You know how, like I say, it written by bill clinton and then in tiny prince got with some david that's a macarthur fellow or something but in that book he tells this when i was a liberal as i think i told it on this thing you know he tells this heartwarming story to warm up with about this lady that was a housekeeper of this hotel in New Jersey.
Starting point is 00:48:30 And I think she was originally from Haiti and she had saved up, you know, like $300,000 over her like 40, 50 year career to retire on. And when she reached the end of her career, she gave all that money to fund antiretroviral treatments for AIDS patients in Haiti. And, you know, he tells this sort of heartwarming story about this little girl that was dying of full-blown AIDS, and she was so weak that they had to, like, carry her into the school and sit her in her desk and all this kind of stuff. And then how that, like, through this woman's generosity, that little girl went to, ended up, you know, getting healthy again and going to prom and all this kind of stuff which is good except for the fact that he's endorsing poor and working people giving
Starting point is 00:49:11 their life savings away to do this and not you know they literally purely are living on like heartwarming stories to put people in like a like a a... A feel-good fuzzy... Yeah, they only... It's like her only tactic is to somehow convince suffering people to feel warm and fuzzy for a minute just in the moment they're going to hit vote. You know, it's like,
Starting point is 00:49:36 how can I get them so that when they hear my voice they feel a little warm and then they'll be like... And then it's like... They're going to start handing out fint patches. That's her policy platform. You're going to start handing out Fent patches. That's their policy platform. You're going to walk into a voting booth, and the Clintons are going to be standing there
Starting point is 00:49:50 clapping people on the back, and they're going to have fentanyl patches in their hand, and they're just going to hit you on the back, and you're going to feel warm and fuzzy. You're going to be like, oh, fuck. I'm a ho well I'm with anybody
Starting point is 00:50:09 I don't give a fuck and what's interesting is in this same tome Bill Clinton goes on to big up like the Warren Buffets in the world and all that stuff not because they've used their wealth to do immeasurable good but because they've pledged a certain portion
Starting point is 00:50:24 of it to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Oh, man. So when Warren Buffett finally dies, which is going to be, like, probably next Thursday, because he's 97 and a half, his wealth is not going to go to doing anything
Starting point is 00:50:40 immeasurably good. It's going to go to Bill and Melinda Gates, who will probably use that money to, like, give computers to kids in Betsy Lane. Yeah, no, I was going to say literally up the hall. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, there was an episode we did, Tanya, recently where me and Tom were looking. It was about philanthropy
Starting point is 00:51:01 and it was about nonprofits and foundation spending. But it was like, do you remember the number, Tom? It was like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is projected to invest like $3 billion in philanthropy in the next like 10 years or something like that. Yeah. 20 years. I can't remember what it was. It was funny though. Today there was a...
Starting point is 00:51:25 Apparently, I didn't know this until I posted it, but apparently the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation owns the website The Guardian. Yeah. It's a British website, but they own, I guess, the global development section of that website. That's so weird.
Starting point is 00:51:43 Yeah, and they use it sort of exclusively as like... A propaganda arm for their foundation. Exactly. And I didn't know this until somebody told me this on Twitter today. And they talked about it on the Citations Needed podcast. Interesting. But it was...
Starting point is 00:51:59 The reason I found that out was because I saw this thing on The Guardian and I posted it. It was Bill Gates saying... That Trump was a nice person. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He's funny. He's...
Starting point is 00:52:11 What did they call him? A human being. Free thinking. Nice human being. Open minded. Open minded and a human being who cares about other human beings. Yeah. No, I love it.
Starting point is 00:52:18 You can only be so open minded when you have holes in your brain. I guess he is open minded. I love it. It's the Bush line. You could probably have a beer with him. He could be funny. I could have a beer with that guy. I could have a beer with him.
Starting point is 00:52:35 If I'm like a racist rapist, I could probably get a kick out of it. Open-minded, like he's been trepan, you know, like trepanation. They drill a hole in your brain so that you're eternally high. Did you see Speaking of Trump before we get off that topic too quick did you see how the revelation came to light that after he had his tryst with stormy daniels he got ben roethlisberger the rapist quarterback of the p Steelers, to walk her. Is this in her book?
Starting point is 00:53:07 To get, like... Like, the walk of shame or whatever? I guess, to, like, basically come get her from Trump's, and then, like... What? Yeah. Transport her. Did she drop this in her book? Yeah, she just wrote a memoir.
Starting point is 00:53:17 I don't know if that was from that or not. I think it was. I saw a checker back there. I'm sure it was. Tweeted with, Chef's kiss. No, it was. She just wrote a memoir.
Starting point is 00:53:26 It was a tell-all. A lot of people, I kind of missed a lot of the news today because I had a lot of work to do. But it was like, it was that. It was the Stormy Daniels thing. And then there was the Kavanaugh stuff, which is all just a black pit of just absurdity and yeah yeah
Starting point is 00:53:52 just absolutely crazy but yeah no I guess I didn't really think about this before but Mitch McConnell actually you know sort of supported the White House into the Kavanaugh thing. Or I guess the, he's like a district court judge or something like that here in Kentucky.
Starting point is 00:54:31 Thapar is a very sort of, one of these sort of like enlightened law people who just, he's very boring. He's just a very vanilla, just boring. Like he loves the law. He loves to read the law, et cetera, et cetera. vanilla, it's boring, like he loves the law, he loves to read the law, etc., etc. Whereas like Kavanaugh is like a totally Trump, Trumpian guy. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:54:55 Like he worked in the Bush administration, like it makes no- Rapist. Rapist, exactly. Yeah, he is totally in the Trump mold. You know what I mean? And I guess I hadn't really thought about it before. You know what I mean? And I guess I hadn't really thought about it before. It totally it. Yeah, it totally just wrinkles the libs feathers that a guy like Kavanaugh is going to be on the Supreme Court. Whereas like if the par actually gets if they actually do withdraw Kavanaugh's nomination, which I'm sure they won't.
Starting point is 00:55:26 It sounds like the White House is doubling down. In fact, yesterday they literally said that. They said, we will not be withdrawing his nomination. In fact, if anything, we are doubling down because they think that going into the midterms that this is what they want. They are going to use this to say, look, the libs are trying to take away. They're trying to stop us from filling the Supreme Court with our nominees and everything. So get out there and vote, et cetera, et cetera. Good luck with that. Not that any of it fucking matters any goddamn way. Look, none of it matters.
Starting point is 00:55:51 None of it fucking matters. I mean, it's all bad from top to bottom. The whole goddamn system is rotten. Tell us how you really feel. I'm fucking mad. Do not vote. No, I'm fucking over this shit. I'm fucking mad no I'm I'm fucking over this shit
Starting point is 00:56:08 I'm fucking over it I'm like this far I'm like um 400 Patreon subscribers away from quitting this whole shit and building bombs in my basement like that's how close we are our
Starting point is 00:56:24 best publicity is gonna be when you end up on wymt because they've raided your fucking bunker and you've got your it's like this picture of me my hair's all like this and i'm just like they'll interview me and paul will be like he seemed fine in the back of my head i I would be thinking, he didn't seem fine. We never suspected a thing. Oh, yeah. Anyways. Anyways, what else is going on? How's y'all's week been?
Starting point is 00:56:56 It's only Tuesday. It feels like fucking Thursday, dude. It's been a long fucking week and it is Tuesday. It absolutely does. Jeez Louise. But yeah, no, I'm trying to think of anything else that happened over the weekend. I feel like I didn't really have a weekend. No, the Emmys happened.
Starting point is 00:57:16 Oh, yeah? Yeah. How's that? I don't know. I have no idea. All I saw was that somebody proposed to his girlfriend in his speech. Really? Yeah, how romantic.
Starting point is 00:57:28 You know, a sucker for a love story. I have no idea what else happened. Look, Hillary Clinton would like you to know that the legitimacy of our elections is in doubt. There's Russia's ongoing interference. She's not wrong. It's in doubt. She's not wrong. This is a doubt. She's not wrong in the sense, in the greater sense. There's voter suppression, blah, blah, blah.
Starting point is 00:57:50 Third, the president is waging war on truth and reason. Earlier, look at this, look at this, look at this. Earlier this month, Trump made 125 false or misleading statements in 120 minutes. She said that? Yeah. Hillary Clinton said that. Who is she paying to... She's got some fucking... She's relying on the Washington Post.
Starting point is 00:58:14 To date, according to the Washington Post fact checkers, Trump has made 5,000 false or misleading claims while in office and recently has averaged 32 a day. Only 7 fewer a day than i do what do you think what do you think it would cost to have somebody track tom sexton that's really y'all want to do this y'all want to do this again
Starting point is 00:58:37 step to me step to me it Step to me. It might for great radio. Yeah. I got people all over it. Trump's going to be doing that at every campaign stop next in 2020. You don't believe my story? He gets his buddy mad on the phone. Folks. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:59:00 Just ask Jeff in Kentucky. Jeff. Yeah, he phones him and he holds his cell phone up to the mic. Listen, folks, you heard him. He said he's got a pet bear. You said he. You heard him. No collusion. Isn't it funny that, like, the week we did that episode, there was, like, more than two,
Starting point is 00:59:21 I saw videos of people in Russia petting bears and hanging out with them. It was weird throwing snow on them. And they're not even bears like we have here. We have black bears. They're like fucking massive. A black bear that you might like, it would get you, but you could maybe
Starting point is 00:59:37 put up some kind of a fight. These Russian bears, like 800 pounds, fucking fast as a running bag. These Russian bears. That's what. Fucking fast as a running back. These Russian bears. That's what your friend said about the bear. He's like, oh, it wasn't big. It's about 250 pounds.
Starting point is 00:59:51 Yeah. It wasn't one of those Russian bears. It wasn't a big old boy. It goes up a mountain, does whatever it does. And when it's hungry, it comes down to our necks. When we can't trust what we hear from our leaders, experts, and news sources, we lose our ability to hold people to account, solve problems, comprehend threats, judge progress, and communicate effectively. She is woefully. Doesn't she have anybody she's paying to tell her that nobody gives a fuck about any of this?
Starting point is 01:00:20 Like, everybody already fucking knows this? I think if you took a hillary clinton uh tissue sample you would find well for one you'd find uh you'd find like some sort of heavy metal that has that's why she was like beryllium yeah she's yeah yeah she's fucking brilliant she's got beryllium poisoning i i just think it's hilarious institution i just think it's hilarious that the person who ran the state department and probably covered up just some heinous heinous acts that this country committed is like when we can't trust her we hear from our leaders leaders, experts in news. It's just, you know, again, it just shows you this is the perfect distillation of the sort of liberal Trump dream reality versus the, or I'm sorry, the liberal dream reality versus the sort of Trump nightmare dystopia.
Starting point is 01:01:20 And, like, combined, they create this totally disorienting nightmare. You know what I'm saying? I'm not saying that most people are self-aware because most people are not self-aware. Most people cannot really see their own shit, you know. It's a defense mechanism, Dawn. But this is next level withdrawn from yourself. You know, like this is like, I mean. You're absolutely right i mean like you'd have
Starting point is 01:01:48 to be a psychopath to not be able to well you know actually you don't you just have to be someone who's craving and wants power in any way that they can get it and to be fair and and and it's like i don't think the left really gives them enough credit in terms of their influence like you know in our like little twitter echo chamber like we all think that like you know these people's influences on the way and all this stuff but there's a lot of shit lives still out there that are true believers in the clintons oh this is what i'm saying like the the world beyond trump is this the world beyond Trump is this. The world beyond Trump is Kristen Gillibrand basically dressing up Hillary Clinton's campaign in something a little... A little more palatable to the DSS. Yes, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 01:02:35 And not paired with one of the most insufferable fucking personalities this country has ever... That's ever existed in the world. Yes, exactly. It is so entitled. Wait, who are you saying is the most insufferable? Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton, yeah. yes exactly it is so entitled the most insufferable kill hillary clinton yeah it's just it's i mean you know i don't know if this will be end up looped in with the tom episode but to think that minors were on the parliament floor advocating for health care universal health care in 1947
Starting point is 01:02:59 and hillary with all her fucking like steel is sharing crowdsource. Could not even give the most banal fucking sock dim concessions like the fight for 15, which is. Well, see what's happened is this country has moved so far right in the past 20, 30 years that like I think somewhere along the way we thought, if we're really going to stop that tide if we're really going to stop that trend we have to not work with the Hillary Clintons of the world but at least like give them the benefit of
Starting point is 01:03:34 the doubt and the truth of the matter is is that this person is just as bloodthirsty and genocidal and you know repressive as Trump. She just has a fucking different last name. That's all there is to it. That's all there is to it.
Starting point is 01:03:51 It makes me feel warm and fuzzy. I do feel warm and fuzzy because I've... Go ahead, Tom. I'm sorry. I was just going to talk about the Clintons' kind of weird elitism that exists. When I worked for the Clintons, they had a vision of themselves, and this is explicitly stated.
Starting point is 01:04:07 Like, this is not, like, conjecture, that they wanted to re-envision Camelot, like the Kennedy family, but, like, insert their family into that mold. Like, that was their inspiration for creating this sort of, like, dynasty that would live on through Chelsea's kids and all this kind of stuff.
Starting point is 01:04:23 And I can recall one night I was driving a Dodge Astro van around. The details that you claim to are really big volumes for your ability to tell stories. And this vehicle was a guy named Rick Veal that was the head of some kind of union. I forget. Longtime friend of the Clintons. And one of Hillary's brothers, I think it was, I don't know, I forget which one. It was either Hugh or Tony, I don't know, I forget which one. And these friends of Hugh's that were kind of like the rough around the edges friends
Starting point is 01:04:58 that you don't really bring around polite society, all this kind of stuff, like a little, I don't want to say trashy, but I feel like I can say that. Yeah, you can say it. I can say that. And they were berating me, like, not Hugh or this Rick Veal guy or, like, you know, anybody that was, like, tied, like, nude to Clintons or whatever, but, like, the friends. Like, the entourage was berating me like treating me like the help and like the woman was just making fun of me and stuff like that and i just got so razzed that i
Starting point is 01:05:30 ran a stop sign and uh and the woman the trashy woman question was like you fucking idiot don't you know who you've gotten this like just like totally bootlicking their fucking, like her dumb ass brother and all this stuff. And like her brother was like, hey, don't worry about leaving him alone. He'll stop twice at the next one. And it said, and then he's like, and I was like, okay, that was kind of cool. But then he was like, also like my sister's the secretary of state. If a cop pulls us over, what the fuck are they going to say to us? And it's like, driving these people around, they're constantly aware that, like, they're, like, hanging on the coattails of the power.
Starting point is 01:06:15 You know what I mean? Yeah. And it's so kind of obnoxious. But, like, anybody out there that thinks the Clintons are just, like, this rags-to-riches, like, relatable people, couldn't be more fucking wrong. They fucking suck. They've always sucked. And they're bad tasting friends. This is funny.
Starting point is 01:06:32 I'm going to have to cut out of here. My car's in the shop and my ride's here. Okay. So I feel like I'm begging. I can't be choosy. All right. Well, one more thing right before you go. I was going to say, you know, you said this is a total projection, a classic example.
Starting point is 01:06:45 What did you say? It's like she has no ability to self-analyze herself. Yeah, she just can't say herself at all. No. This is really funny because she says, when he says, when Trump says that Haitian and African immigrants are from shithole countries, that's impossible to misunderstand. Did she blink up the eye in her like writing? No, she put it in.
Starting point is 01:07:03 If Trump says they're from shoot hole countries. They're from crap hole countries. I don't talk like that. Well, it's really funny, though. It's like, again, this totally gets at the sort of liberal mind. This is the liberal psychology perfectly sort of explained for you. If you really want to stick up for Haiti, she's really got to answer for the fact that, like,
Starting point is 01:07:28 the United States literally invaded Haiti in the early 90s under Bill Clinton, right? And, you know, and she's involved, been involved in toppling governments in Honduras. Feminist-led governments, female-led governments, I might add. Yeah. All y'all that are, you know. You're right, Tanya.
Starting point is 01:07:49 It's fine to kill brown women if you're Hillary Clinton. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She can't even, like, it's so fascinating. Like, she can't even see. It's like, you know, everything she does, it's like a very calculated move. It's like, you know, when someone asks her an off-the-cuff question,
Starting point is 01:08:04 she can't even answer it because she hasn't pulled the fucking thing or she just passes out yeah like what can i ask her it's the floor brilliant brilliant levels too high in the blood what's truly concerning here is is what highly paid consultant wrote this and oh yeah and like how this polled but what's truly concerning here they don't put out anything that means this polled well whatever she wrote here shit was it was fucking workshopped to god because it should have come out the day after
Starting point is 01:08:42 he was elected or something you know what i mean like are you insane like what is this you're right it was totally crafted by a pr company yeah yeah and so the fact that this is this is polling well with people and people are responding well to this that's what's truly concerning fuck hillary and it's like who what the fuck yeah no it's people are getting people are lining up they're getting ready for the 2020 election um you know and it's going to be hell it's going to be it's going to be it's going to be the human version of the kentucky derby look there's gonna be like 20 horses in a fucking muddy ass rainy race all trying to get to the finish line yeah seriously i mean you know if there's anything you can take from this you know it is hell it's uh totally dystopic and it makes me feel not warm and fuzzy.
Starting point is 01:09:27 But honestly, if you're like me and you hear all that, you read all that, and it's just like, yeah, this is the worst possible timeline, give up electoral politics. I'm saying just give it up. Just realize that this is a bourgeois state created for bourgeois interests, and we have to smash it. We have to put it down. We have to fucking put it down. We have to take it out back and shoot it.
Starting point is 01:09:52 Show up at your local courthouse, kick everyone's ass. Say and say and say. Demand the budget. And say in the least defensive Somali accent you can muster, I'm the captain now. I am the captain now. I am the captain now. That's what I'm going to call this episode. Pirate or bust, bitches.
Starting point is 01:10:15 Pirate or bust. All right. Anyways, we'll let you go. I'm going to scoot out of here. All right. Well, thanks for the interview. And check us out on Patreon, everybody. Patreon.
Starting point is 01:10:25 P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com. Patreon. Slash Trill Billy Workers Party. Beep, beep,
Starting point is 01:10:30 beep, beep, beep, Listen, if we don't get like sponsorship soon, some kind of advertisement that we're into,
Starting point is 01:10:36 I think we should really go the route of Willie where we start talking shit about companies. Well, we already do that.
Starting point is 01:10:44 Just like really dragging brands and they have to pay us to stop. I really think he was onto something. That's a good idea. I got sciatica from my top tape. Yeah, yeah. I got beryllium poisoning from Gatorade.
Starting point is 01:11:00 All right, we'll see you all later. Bye-bye.

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