Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 76: Coming Unglued

Episode Date: November 1, 2018

T & T dissect all the latest developments in global fascism, while at the same time attempt to stay sane, calm, and collected. It's not good, folks. Both the state of the world and this episode.

and we're rolling and we're off happy Halloween motherfuckers um I was tweeted the other day surely I can't be

the only one who um takes screenshots of all their enemies wearing problematic Halloween costumes just just

just kind of follows them along keeps a folder. Just in the event that they ever want to run for political office. Did your head face, did you? Yeah. We're just going to head and

stow that away for a rainy day. You wore a headdress. You wore a war bonnet to Bonnaroo 2013. We're just going to make a little note of that. That's really the only use of Halloween. It's accruing content on your enemies. This is the holiday when you stockpile content.

Exactly. You see what I'm getting at. What's the most egregious, egregiously racist, or just problematic in any way, Halloween costume you've ever seen? I remember like last year, something they tried to make an Anne Frank costume.

Who did that? I don't know. Some, I don't know. I just, I just have a, I just saw him. It's just one from the files. It's just one from the files. When I was in high school, my math teacher, Pam Craft, her son came to school dressed like a KKK member. Holy shit, dude.

And I remember her getting mad that like, you know, she was like big into the church. And she was like, well, people come as like witches and demons and goblins and vampires and whatever. And that offends my religion. demons and goblins and vampires and whatever, and that offends my religion. That was her defense for helping her son make a KKK hood and sheet and the whole costume. Oh, shit. So I think what happened is they made him go change,

and I think he came back as like, I don't know, like a, I don't know, maybe like a vampire. A more acceptable white supremacist. Ronald Reagan. Yeah, he just came back as Ronald Reagan. Yeah. Oh, shit. Yeah, I had a history teacher at my high school

who like, you you know like the history like the teachers were so bad that like they could only explain topics through like really sensationalist sort of methods or something. I had a teacher who came as Bin Laden. He

came to school dressed up like Bin Laden one day. The whole day he stayed in costume and character the whole day. Yeah. And he walked into class and he was like, Christians versus Muslims. Holy war. Who's going to win?

Right out of the gate. Totally. Just imagine a bunch of kids dressed up as fucking whatever just like yeah well he thought he was teaching us about the way the world works he was preparing you he was like a bircher he was like preparing you for the coming race war totally totally i wonder how many of those fuckers in light of like all this fucking horrible shit that's went down the last week are like, hey, Ron Paul tried to tell you back in 72 or whatever

it was. Well, in the mid 2000s, it was like, you know, and obviously this is the weird thing about our current moment is the cultural amnesia we have at the mid-2000s. But everything currently going on right now is like derivative of that moment, I feel like. Because obviously the Christian right was ascendant for a really long time. Yeah. But 9-11 gave them that. Gave them the cachet, the juice.

Well, it totally verified in their minds everything all the paranoia and hatred and um nationalism and jingoism and everything that they had been building towards 9-11 was that for them right because yeah and you know it's like um it was the first time that an actual terror attack was successful. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's almost like they were pining for that moment. Absolutely. They're willing to mortgage the 2,000 or 3,000 people, whatever it was, that were killed.

Oh, totally, man. To launch this whole new era that we're in. Well, the thing is about these people, my friend Dave lives in Pakistan. He is a reporter, and he, you know, I was talking to him over Christmas break, and he was telling me about Pakistan and Pakistani life and religion and culture and everything.

And I was like, this just sounds like America. The only difference is our GDP is like 100 times larger. And swap out the religions. Yeah, swap out the religions and it's the exact same thing. These people are fundamentalists. I'm talking about Mike Pence. It's just like they are blood and soil fundamentalists.

They want to see violence on a mass scale because that's what the Bible is. You know what I mean? Because that's what the Bible is. You know what I mean? Except for a brief interlude where Jesus steps in, the Bible is mostly a violent, you know, just total, you know. Was Jesus the first both sides guy? There's been. I feel like he wasn't really a both sides guy he was more like uh you know it's more like uh you know terrence has got to love terrence

you know that kind of guy you're like the like self-help guy that your mom's dating after a divorce from your dad yeah he totally was i mean um i mean he had some pretty harsh words to say about the rich i mean you know let's judge uh let's judge uh jc on balance here but yeah you see what i'm saying though like if the world becomes more violent and more blood is spilled and you know it totally verifies the way they see the world and it totally verifies that like there are there's evil out there and it wasn't i mean like i don't know to me like the craziest i mean there was a lot of sort of anger and and and um fervor and everything on twitter about this but to me but to me like one of the craziest things that happened in the aftermath of the of the pittsburgh massacre was

pence getting this messianic jew who actually had been defrocked in the messianic church i mean he was 100 a grifter and not even like like even even the jews for jesus thing even the jews even those people didn't think he was above board totally i mean and that to me is the perfect example of how you know this is the world that they actually want and um you know it's like it's really it's really my it's a really a mind fuck because that's the world i came from and you and you know what i mean oh yeah i'm i'm you know in jews for jesus you know it was it was yeah yeah we came out of the jews for jesus uh well no it's fine well i mean really there's a lot of overlap because if you grew up as an evangelical Christian,

you obviously heard of Jews for Jesus. And I remember as a kid thinking that, man, if I could get in on that racket, I could get twice as many days off from work and school. You're right. That's the ultimate. You're right. You're absolutely right. That's the ultimate.

That's what you want. Combine as many religions as possible into one, and then're fucking set baby but now it's uh yeah it's um i'm always there the weird anti-semitic undertones of that world and we talked about this a little bit with sarah with like the john hagie yeah stuff how like hagie was like it shouldn't be christian's responsibility to try to convert the jews and all this stuff and it's just completely just this weird netanyahu-esque yeah you know well it's millenarian and apocalyptic in its own way. Well, these are the people that are trying to breed a perfectly red calf to bring about the return of Christ. Science deployed for religious purposes is very fascinating to me.

Well, you know, it's funny because I started trying to get the last little bit of the spooky season I could and soaked up. I started watching that Castlevania. Yeah. Have you watched that? No, I haven't watched it. It's pretty good. It kind of deals with some of those. Really?

Those themes. They try to breed a perfectly red calf. No, no, no, no. Just, you know, the interplay of science and religion. I won't ruin it for anybody. Yeah, I took a road trip across. Well, it wasn't a road trip. I was moving here.

I was moving to Kentucky. But when I moved, when I drove. Took a road trip I never came back from. When I drove here from Texas, I listened to a lot of AM radio. came back from when i drove here from texas i listened to a lot of am radio and um there is so much propaganda out there um from the christian church uh mostly the southern baptist convention where they have like literally paid for archaeologists and paleontologists and well i mean even the sort of arc thing in northern kentucky is another example of this yeah they they go up there and they find like the three scientists out of 100

that will like you know validate their bullshit totally and then they push them out there you know and usually they're like some well-credentialed person that just you know yeah it's weird it's like one i'm gonna fuck this, but if I remember correctly, one of their main sort of scientific assertions or whatever is that if you go to Australia and you look at the fossils of the megafauna, it's very obvious that there was a massive flood event that happened like 10,000 years ago or something like that. No, it's usually like something even dumber.

These people think the world's 2,000 years old. I always heard 10,000. It's 10,000 years old. 2,000 was hours, which is just completely implausible. If it was 2,000 years old, that would mean the world literally started with Jesus. Yeah, I think

that's the point. So what was the old testament then it's just a very elaborate fantasy i don't know that's i don't even know what to make of the 2000 years was always the the young earth people i don't know if they're still like i wonder because i'm so detached from this i wonder wonder how much purchase these people still have. Are they still out there pushing this stuff? I'd say so. And I think that if the left cannot intervene, if we cannot build up a movement that is strong enough and powerful enough to intervene in history,

then we're going to be extinguished by the dumbest people that ever lived. That is exactly the point I'm trying to make. Man, it's crazy. Did you ever notice this trend this week? Like, just like, on the tail end of all this horrible news, there was this weird, and I don't say this like conspiratorially,

there's been this weird, like, antiist anti-communist line that's appeared like there's i've seen a lot of tweets about this seen a lot of like almost like think pieces about this about how like um uh basically saying that like fighting fascism is a liberal tradition. I have seen that. But there's been thing pieces where it's just like, I don't know, it just feels like there's just been this push to sort of invalidate the socialism or barbarism. Totally. I've seen that in multiple places this past week yeah yeah you're right and i think the reason is is because we live right now and you know you read you go back and you read um linen or trotsky and a lot of these other people who um you know

lived through and ushered in revolutions or whatever and they describe this moment you know you you'll invariably see it in any revolutionaries writings they describe a moment that they can only describe as like a sort of reactionary feeling in the air there's an electric sort of reactionary vibe that is entirely anti-communist entirely anti-socialist um and that's what i think that's what's happening right now well i i noticed it with like the obvious people like the chuck schumer's right these sort of democratic party leaders he's like there's been he pulled the old both sides line this week it was like extremist on the right on all sides of the political spectrum. That's a very good point. And it's just

no comparison. No. It's just no comparison. The craziest thing you could point to the left having pulled off was non-fatally shooting Steve Scalise. And by all indications, this was just like a rogue Bernie volunteer. Not even somebody entrenched in theory

and Marxism-Leninism or anything. No, left-wing violence has not been a thing. In some time. In some time. I think probably the last moment of left-wing violence was probably the 90s, and that was just environmental liberation front people bombing oil wells and like oil wells and shit yeah you know what i mean it's just not like you're absolutely right it doesn't even nobody's rolling up and shooting ceos in the head or like anything like you know what i mean or i don't know it's just

nothing nothing comparable to the right-wing violence we're seeing well it's i think it's because i mean obviously there's a lot of different reasons for it but i think a main comparable to the right-wing violence we're seeing. Well, I think it's because... I mean, obviously, there's a lot of different reasons for it, but I think a main reason of it is because they feel threatened by... Well, we've laid their ineptitude bare, I think is one thing, and they're embarrassed because they don't have a response to this.

Totally. Except vote them out. I'm serious. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I think part of it is just that. It's like we're actually coming with something like we need to organize our workplaces, we need to do this, we need to agitate.

I don't think our program's as cohesive as it needs to be, but I think it's actually pointing toward things that could start to unravel the system, whereas they're still at vote the bastards out in November. Yeah. Well, it's easy for them. I mean, it's easy to say that. You know, I mean, it's an interesting thing to me about that.

And, you know, again, we kind of have a reputation for just harping on electoralism these days. But an interesting thing I think about the Democrats is this. Is for people that are true believers in this, why don't they ever run on trying to just repeal Citizens United and stop gerrymandering and stuff like that? Stuff that would actually take this system they believe in and make it a little more yeah yeah it's all it's a to me it reads like they just don't want to win they don't even run on reforms anymore no no no kind of reforms and and it's and that's the thing that's the thing that's really frustrating about like when we criticize liberalism and stuff and reformism and incrementalism and all this it's like look

i think you know as a socialist as somebody who wants to see a totally different society i think in the past um movements for reforms have been crucial to building socialist movements i mean that's just a truism. You just look at the German Social Democratic Party or any of these socialist movement around the turn of the last century, they were simultaneously pushing for reforms and engaging in militant class warfare

in the workplace and all this other stuff. But no one is even doing that. I mean, the most you get is like bernie saying he wants to take down jeff bezos or something like that but like you don't even you're not even getting even a modicum of you're exactly right of dwight eisenhower was to the left of barney sanders i know that tells you where we're at i mean i just don't and i don't think that's up for debate i mean well i think basic fact, Tom, is like what makes people so disheartened right now. Everybody I've talked to in the last week generally says something to the effect of,

I just don't have an outlet for any of this. Like, I don't even know what I'm supposed to be doing. I don't know what to do. There's no outlet for it. And I totally agree. like what what do you do yeah i mean like obviously you you protest you you keep doing the things you do you keep organizing in your workplace and all this stuff but like there is just no apparatus or infrastructural vehicle into in which to put energy at this moment. It is, it's scattered.

It's scattered. It's, there's not one body that I feel like, like, I mean, it felt like DSA had the ball there for a second, but they, you know, it feels like now that they're just, this whole commitment to Big Ten-ism. Well, the thing is. I just like saying words and putting ism on them. I don't even know if Big Ten-ism. Well, the thing is... I just like saying words and putting ism on them.

I don't even know if Big Ten-ism is a thing. No, they were billing themselves as a Big Tent organization, which, what does that even mean? You know what I mean? If you're not a political party, I guess you're a sort of uh listserv i guess an hour real listserv i don't know i mean a lot of good dsa chapters doing good stuff i'm not knocking i know i know

what you're saying though like well the thing is is that you know what obviously this stuff takes time. And the problem with it is that, like, building up a movement takes time. And at the same time, you have just horrendous things happening. Like this massacre and, you know, President Trump deploying literally, like, 5,000 troops to go ostensibly slaughter some caravan i mean you have crises and it's like it's it's hard to deal with them in a movement that is not quite built up yet right yeah we're still at the stage man where you know i was thinking about this yesterday and I was thinking about this over the weekend. We're still at the stage where like we are still literally having to sort of. Well, you know, we mentioned this on the show a few weeks ago, but like I feel like our project here is kind of trying to show people how liberalism is an illusion.

Right. How it obscures your read on things also how it devalues you as an individual while simultaneously telling you that you as the individual is the ultimate or the ultimate yeah it's it's it's really bizarre but like we're still in this process where we're having and i'm doing it myself like having to sort of depoliticize myself from the liberal sort of ideology i was fed for so many years it's like dirty bath water that's what it is have you ever done that have you ever taken a bath you like you know draw a bath and then you forget about it for a second it goes cold and you go sit in it oh yeah that's what it is man dirty bath water that's

totally up but like the thing is is that i guess man you know i don't know how to articulate this i was thinking about it earlier is that like if you're feeling sort of disillusioned and disheartened right now um um, that's like, you would be crazy not to like, you know, you would, something would be probably seriously wrong with you, but just pause for a second and think about how like actually significant it

is that you as a person in this totally flat, just, you know, horizonless dystopia amid mass, you know, individualism, mass consumerism, mass media, that you actually stand for something. That you actually want to see the end of, you know, domination, militarism, chauvinism. Like, that's a pretty powerful and significant thing and like we are not at a point right now as a movement where that has a sort of collective

thrust where that's actually able to put you know pressure on the sort of pressure points of the system but just at this very, that's a pretty powerful thing. And I don't know. I guess what I'm saying is that, you know, don't give up. Because the collective force of a movement that wants to destroy those things is more exciting to me than anything I can even explain.

I cannot even put into words the prospect. I can't even put into words how exciting it is to think of a mass movement that actually has these motherfuckers on the ropes. And we can do that.

It's taking time. It's gonna take some but we i i think we can do it a lot of people would probably disagree depending on what day of the week it is i would probably disagree depending on what day of the week it is i'll check with you next thursday but yeah no i think it is exciting. And yeah, there's nothing that's getting me through these times and thinking about, you know, our numbers scaring the shit out of a Trump, out of a Bolsonaro, out of, you know, the people that, you know, killed these people in the synagogue, these people that killed the couple in Louisville. Yeah, that was another thing. It really just lets them know that they've chosen to fatten themselves for the day at the slot. I'm telling you, I love that.

No, I agree. I've got to switch seats real quick because I can't see you. There's a reason for that, baby. John Cena. That glare was fucking me up. Okay. Yeah, no, I mean... So, yeah, like like what the sort of like

I don't know what else is there to say about Tom no I mean it's just I think what we're trying to say here is the world's in tatters but there's reasons to be hopeful yeah it's just gonna take time

it's gonna take some time you know another thing though is like in in these times every time uh some sort of tragedy happens or we're sort of feeling really shitty i invariably every single time go back to reading Rosa Luxemburg. And not just like the things that she wrote and believed in. But, you know, we've said it before. But standing up for these things, standing up for wanting to make the world a better place, it puts you in danger. wanting to make the world a better place it puts you in danger you well i i think that's too that's when we were talking about why we we haven't formed like a political party of sorts why like a dsa like the and this is not a knock on them i know just by design they're not a political party

but why we've not you know pushed that sort of momentum and the various left movements that are picking up or seem to be picking up steam you know obviously at a much slower clip than fascism seems to be but still with some momentum why those haven't coalesced into a mass movement political party type situation that we could all rally around is it's dangerous it's more dangerous that way yeah that's when motherfuckers start getting killed you know what i mean like who's gonna who's going to you know be the figurehead that's going to put themselves out there and you know what i mean yeah and for an ideology that that um has the masses i would would argue, I mean, whether they know it or not, I mean, the things that leftists fight for

are the things everybody wants, they just don't. I mean, you know what I'm trying to say? I know what you're trying to say. People, nobody wants to be oppressed. Oppressed or dominated or anything yeah yeah and um and it's in everybody and this is and this is precisely why i spend so much time trying to shatter liberalism because liberalism tells you that you do have to you do have to put up with some degree of uh of repression that you do have to that you can bargain with the oppressive forces of the

world liberalism tells you that like it's like i was saying earlier it devalues you as an individual while at the same time telling you that you as the individual is the only thing that can save the world. You know, the only thing that can change the world. It intentionally tries to pull your mind away from collectivism, from collective mass movement action. And that is something we have to do away with to build a movement. We have to do away with it. And a lot of it's still internalized,

that sort of liberal thinking. And I do too, all the time. And they're not even realizing it. Yeah, we have to get away from the individual, for sure. Yeah, and it's difficult because, like, you know, I do think that, like, individuals, there is this interplay between, like, individuals and history where, like, you do need leaders. But at the same time, that seems, that's a totally different thing from what we're saying, which is that, like, I don't, to me, like, as we pointed it out on the show before, but to me, like, voting is the ultimate, like, sort of individualistic, liberal idea. Right.

It's like it just intentionally tries to diffuse collective action. It intentionally tries to locate all political action into the individual. And that's why for the last 20 years you've been hearing them say, vote or die, vote or die, get out the vote, blah, blah, blah. Nothing changes and everything just keeps getting worse. And they've won plenty of elections the democrats and then exactly and the people that beat that drum exactly well and it's also why you see like you know what's the what's the sense in voting if like i live in georgia in predominantly black neighborhood and i've been scrubbed from the rolls for no reason dude there was like the democrats just have no like they just put up with bullshit yeah i don't understand it it's like what

well that's the weird frustrating thing about it is that on one hand they are telling you that you absolutely have to vote on the other hand they're not even doing shit they're not even making conciliatory gestures to make it look like they're trying to doing shit. They're not even making conciliatory gestures to make it look like they're trying to make it easier for you to vote. And meanwhile, a guy like Chuck Schumer is just rubber stamping all of Trump's judiciary picks. So if you think that the courts are going to save you. Yeah.

You got a long road to hoe in the decades ahead. It's difficult, man, because it's like I said on Twitter. I feel like I've been told multiple times, you got to stop browbeating liberals you've got to stop being so arrogant and you know insulting because they just dig in and they're not listening to what you're saying and at a certain point i agree like sure i mean anytime anybody tries to browbeat you you're not going to respond in kind yeah but at the same time you know what are you supposed to do just like not shine a light on things you've noticed and things you

even noticed coming out of liberalism and things that you were complicit in yeah the thing is is that like you gotta at some point realize that you are complicit in a lot of these things. Yeah, oh yeah. And, I don't know, man. Oh, listen, if you're in Kentucky, go vote for Amy McGrath all you want to, but just know you're cosigning somebody that killed innocent people. Nobody wants to hear that shit because we're so conditioned into that liberal idea of, like, that we don't think of as a liberal idea, but like the whole God and country thing too.

Dude, it's, yeah. It's really bizarre to me that, yeah, the same people who spend so much time telling you to check your privilege, analyze, you know, self-crit, all this other shit, at the same time will never in a million fucking years Self-crit themselves. Self-crit themselves. this other shit. At the same time, we'll never in a million fucking years... Self-crit themselves. Self-crit themselves. Or understand how they're complicit in empire.

Yeah. And I'm not saying that you then turn that into guilt because I think guilt is totally functionless and doesn't mean anything. In fact, it actually... If you know, reading Assad Hater's mistaken identity, the whole notion of white guilt is intentionally well not intentionally

but it fortifies the idea of white supremacy because it builds this notion of a sort of like cosmological biological origin race that we all know doesn't exist racist social relations

anyways yeah i don't know i guess i don't know where i'm going with that but you know another thing that you know you were mentioning amy mcgrath another thing that's interesting about that is that uh you know they'll try out these candidates and when you look at the if you look at them on paper amy mcgrath is like in some sense in some ways she's not even better than andy barr like you can't bar's not war crime he's probably complicit in war crimes but he didn't like shrave afghani villages i'm not saying go vote for andy barr andy barr is a total fucking yeah i'm just saying you know and you point this out and and people say well then what are your alternatives you know what do you what are your alternatives

the alternatives is organize your fucking workplace organize your co-workers yeah stop stop the gears stop the gears that run capital and that's all you can do i mean like at this moment we have to find a way to raise class we have to build class consciousness and it's not going to be you know in the sort of like i said earlier like i was saying on twitter yesterday like mass media's fascination with fascism and like the sort of social acceleration the acceleration of reality that comes from that. A strange thing, man, a strange thing that I can't wrap my head around is how,

like in the run up to Trump getting elected. Well, first of all, I don't think anybody really believed Trump had a chance. And after he won, you had all these papers, all the big papers in this country overseas whatever saying you know the rising tide of fascism talking about all this stuff all this stuff and something interesting happened after the bolsonaro election

is now i see a lot of those same papers trying to say well he's just kind of this eccentric old military guy. You know what I mean? Like, he's just like, we don't know if he's really that bad. And actually, like the Canadian paper was like, there's going to be a lot of good business opportunities for Canada with Bolsonaro at the wheel. It's like, this is a guy that it's not outside the realm of possibility that he imprisons or worst anybody on the left in Brazil. Totally. Probably a lot of the LGBTQ community down there.

I mean, like, this guy's going to wreak a whole lot of misery. Well, you know. But it's going to be good for Canada's. Got him. It's going to be good for Canada's. Got him. It's going to be good for business. It is because there's a lot of natural resources in Brazil. Did you see the military guy on Bloomberg write about Bolsonaro? No.

He was like, it was so weird because he pointed, to his credit a little bit, he pointed out that you know bolsonaro was this like strong man type and then he you know he had all these sort of fascist tendencies but then also he opens up his like little piece with i've been to brazil several times and i've always been fascinated by the warmth of the people and the great natural resources. Have you ever visited a place and just it just breathed the air and thought, oh my god. The natural resources. The timber and

corn and coal and cobalt that must be under this ground. It's like these people just have like a colonial mindset. Oh, they do. Totally. Yeah, it was totally bizarre well it's like you know this is not an original observation but like the hallmark of fascism is repressing the left brutally and liberals will participate in that um because it's in their self-interest, too. And that's why you hear Chuck Schumer saying, both sides do it.

And it's why you hear all these liberals, you know. Well, that's why it's dangerous, man. That's why it's like, I can't in good conscience support a guy like Chuck Schumer. I can't in good conscience support liberals because when it hits the fan, they're going to side with conservatives. Even though we're supposed to be ideologically on the same end of the spectrum you know dude well the thing it's dangerous I'm yeah they're going to get

us fucking killed or thrown in jail or something you know what I mean to me it's you know I thought a lot about that on I had a really hard time this weekend thinking about that on i had a really hard time this weekend thinking about that because like i like where i live i like having two cats i like being able to listen to music whenever i want

i like being on a podcast yeah like being able to smoke weed there's all kinds of shit that i like to do but at a certain point if you believe in something if you are convicted in it and you want to dedicate your life to seeing it to fruition you might have to give up those things maybe maybe you do it voluntarily or maybe you do it because you're thrown in prison and you have no choice you don't have choice in the matter or maybe you're just gunned down by some lunatic. Or maybe you're gunned down by a cop because that's also another part of the fascist state. Regardless, oh yeah, didn't,

not to kill your thing, but that was another Bolsonaro thing, wasn't it? What? What he was talking about. He's gonna give cops carte blanche to kill your thing, but that was another Bolsonaro thing, wasn't it? What? What he was talking about. He's going to give cops carte blanche to like kill criminals because they're subhuman or whatever. Probably.

Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it's the, people talk about like the sort of rise of global fascism. It's like, there's a good chance. Well, I don't want to say a good chance, but there is a possibility that we might get killed for this shit. I know how fucking dramatic and absurd that sounds,

and it may not even be literally us, but at a certain point, but shit, it's already happening. You're talking about people on the left worldwide, like it could be anybody. Yeah. And that's a tough pill to swallow um because it's all about what you are willing to give up to see

you know i'm not asking i'm not asking anybody to like build bombs that's a bad idea i don't know i guess what i'm saying is that like a difference between liberalism and what we call this leftism shit is you've got to make some sacrifices you have to understand that like being a liberal will not get you killed it will not get you persecuted in fact you will very likely collaborate with the forces of fascism and probably in capitalism yeah and the people you're collaborating with will just make fun of you behind your back and probably to your face a little bit but but you'll just want to have a beer with them because they're so down home right right i'm not making a very good point i don't i

no yeah you're making a good that's a fine point it's like there's you know there's sometimes history brings us to a point where sometimes there's you know there's a price to pay or could be you know it's just it's it's it's a scary thing to think about well and it's because i think i think about it because the left is at a crossroads. You know? Like, we keep coming to these sort of crossroad moments as the left where people, we get despaired and we get hopeless and we say, there is no organization or party for us to put our shit into or anything like and i just want to you know tell people like we have to learn we have to do two things at once and it is going to be very difficult to do the first thing is we have to

internalize a sort of revolutionary urgency we have to realize that like the stakes have never been higher. We are facing literal extermination not only as a movement but as a planet. And we have only a very short amount of time to do it. I'm not trying to freak people out or anything and you should not be freaked out by that. I mean, well, actually

you should, but you know what I mean. I think you were coming with the message of hope, but it's hard to find. But as I was coming with the message of hope, but it's hard to find. But as I was coming with the message of hope... The more you talk, the more you're like, yeah. Oh, fuck. No, look.

Things are not... Look, we are not down and out yet. We're not fucking done until we're dead. That's literally all there is to it. We've still got time as long as we're on this earth, and we're still going to keep doing what we're doing there's nothing that happened in the last week that should that should disabuse you of the notion that what you're fighting for is not worthy and and is not of the utmost importance to humanity yeah and you know, you have to keep that sort of revolutionary urgency in mind.

Yeah. But at the same time, you've got to have patience. Yeah. And that's a very, very difficult thing to do, especially when we're getting killed and when we're getting targeted and, you know, everything else. And I'm not sure how you do it. I have my own ways. Jesus Christ.

Oh, my God, man. Why does anybody listen to this shit? We're not in any position to be giving people advice. That's not our role anyway um yeah recording in the morning is not not something i'm very good at well one thing you know if we're talking about things that give us hope and one thing that i think gives me hope and it's something that me and and lee baines were talking about a couple weeks ago was that one advantage that our country has is the sheer numbers you know i'm saying like 300 million people like uh like that's a good thing or bad that's a good thing because it's not very

many people it's well it's harder to manage than say nazi germany was or you know like we have some demographic advantages in the fight against fascism that i think a lot of places that have fallen victim to it right didn't have that said we still have two some very real enemies here in front of us. People that, you know, want us dead. Yeah, but I'm trying not to go back to these real hopeless refrains. But that's reason to be hopeful for mass movement sometimes i wonder if the hopelessness is is a form of virtue signaling i'm probably

going to regret saying that at a certain point but um I guess, you know, if I was the coach of the left, if I was the, you know, I don't want to be... Phil Jackson of Western leftism. Yeah, I don't want to be the leader. I just want to be your cheerleader. I would say...

You want to be the comms guy. That's me, baby. I'm to be the comms guy. That's me, baby. I'm all about the comms. You know, I would say that, like, you should feel hopeless. Again, I'm doing it. I'm making the sort of virtue signal. But at the same time, hopelessness can only take you so far. I guess in a sort of hopeless state, you are a little more attuned to how bad things are.

And that's good for you. That's probably good for your analysis. But when it comes to praxis, that hopelessness is not going to get you very far. And in fact, could get you killed. So what I'm saying is that you have to... Look, nothing is guaranteed, obviously. It's very dangerous

to think that we can bring communism into reality through sheer iron will. That's a mistake that the 60s and 70s new left made that we should not remake. But at the same time, you should have a good understanding of the force of what you're fighting for,

the sheer moral force of what you are fighting for. And that should give you hope. I mean, that should help you not feel like what you're fighting for isn't just you know something that the democrats want to expropriate for some campaign or they or something that they want to use to get you to vote or anything like that what you are fighting for cannot be it can't be expropriated by this bullshit our revolution uh you know movement or whatever you know what i mean like

this progressive movement or whatever it is outside of the bounds of any institution organization campaign or anything like that it is a i don't know it's a moral duty. It is... I'm not doing a very good job. Well, I think that it's a matter of getting serious. I think it's moving from sort of the frivolousness of copying our beats from the Democratic playbook with a slightly more progressive bend and moving into the substantial where we mobilize organize agitate form a bigger mass movement of leftists that um yeah they just can't compete with our shit with our numbers you know well and it's not even i think about this too like numbers important, but it's not everything.

Like, we... I don't know. Like, obviously, would I like to see the left with, like, 30 million people in it? Sure. I'm also not sure how we would organize that or keep it under... That's true.

Keep it under any sort of institutional control or anything like that but it's um it's yeah i don't know it's it's not just a numbers game it's it's what you have control over in the economy it's being able to you know i think about this a lot like could you imagine the power the left would have if we had control of all the unions that controlled the logistical services in this country? If we had control over the UPS, USPS, you know what I mean? FedEx. Yeah, if we had control, like, we could shut shit down in a minute just by flicking a fucking switch.

You know what I mean? Like, that's power. And you don't need a lot of numbers to do it. You've just got to have, you've got to have radical people in those unions pulling the union in a radical direction. Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's, you know, obviously finding the places where the ruptures can occur. Right. Yeah. I think that's you know obviously finding the places where the the ruptures can occur right yeah I think that's right Jesus man well I am totally unprepared for this episode well times are dire man it's uh it's easy to come on unraveled a little bit. But, you know, I'm with Trudge.

Do you want to do Speak Your Peace? Yeah. All right. Why don't you try to find some while I go take a picture. Where's that? Oh. Thank you. We got some good ones today. Man, this is good. You need to just set out a few plays. I'm benching you for it.

I'm going to put you under concussion protocol. I'm sorry, man. I felt like I was really losing it this week. I've been having a normal one for like two or three weeks and it's because of this fucking essay i've been trying to write about non-profits that's literally the reason so i apologize i've probably made your life really difficult over the last two or three weeks as well as everybody else in our audience i apologize that my normal one might be making

you all have an extremely normal one but um i care about you all i don't i don't i don't want us to get killed i want us to stay safe but also vigilant vigilant exactly you want us to stay safe, but also... Vigilant. Vigilant, exactly. You want us to be vigilant citizens. Vigilant, and also... Remember Vigilant Citizen? Yeah, it's a website, right? For, like, conspiracy theories and stuff. Pick all the Illuminati imagery out of the Lady Gaga videos.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that shit. Oh, totally. Yeah, no. I want it still around. Be vigilant, but another, you know know another value i was thinking the other day tom another value we need to reintroduce back into that movement is vengeance that that poster i have right up there of the woman and her child fleeing from the american

fighter jet in vietnamese that says tratu i don't know how you pronounce it but it you sound convinced of that pronunciation it means revenge and the point is is that the North Vietnamese will never forget they'll never forget what was done to them and we should never fucking forget what was done to us we should always keep that in the back of our minds

not just as a you know have your material analysis obviously I'm a Marxist so I think that in the back of our minds. Not just as a, you know, have your material analysis. Obviously, I'm a Marxist, so I think that is the most powerful thing that you have as a leftist. But vengeance is also an incredibly powerful thing. And you should harness it as much as possible. Never forget what these fucking assholes have done to us. Always keep it in the back of your mind. Agreed.

Anyways. Jesus Christ. us always keep it in the back of your mind agreed anyways jesus christ to the lady who lives in the making area that big fancy car didn't help your reputation or your looks at all did it everybody knows who you are and what you are one man during the week the other man on the weekend she sounds badass got it made don't you i'd say so yeah if you got a man on the week and the weekend you gotta be and there's gonna be a killing but you don't care oh god damn zero to 60 well my friend uh my friend alex dupree was in Weisberg a few weeks ago, and I showed him Speak Your Feast for the first time, and as he was reading them, he was like, man, I'm really shocked at how many murder threats are in this.

They're in here. Two men don't work, so keep on doing your drugs and your two men. Hang in there, Jezebel. Happy Halloween. Damn. That sounds awesome. Two men and your two men. Hang in there, Jezebel. Happy Halloween. Damn. What are these? That sounds awesome. Two men and drugs?

Hey. Introduce me. That's Jezebel. Okay, here we go. Here's another one I thought was good. The reason I'm not voting Jim Ward this time is because he's making $120,000 a year and the county workers get paid minimum wage

jim ward is all about himself wake up people you want him back in i'm i'm with you there buddy this one's a short one liberal democrats love their candidates to be criminals thank you here's a good one you gotta hand it to donald trump for the marketing genius he truly is who besides him would be smart enough to start a new pro football league to compete against the nfl and call his team the washington indictments he's already got 13 or 14 men under DOJ contracts. That speaker piece is either incredibly brilliant or the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Oh, God. Well, here's probably a bad take.

It's got all the contours of a bad take. Let's hear it. I am phoning this one day after the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. The guy will meet the press. He's talking about how this might hurt the Republican Party. But you know what scares me? It's the Democratic Party. The Republicans have done a great tribute to the American people.

There's nothing that can take that down. Just because a couple of idiots do some stupid stuff doesn't mean that our president can't run America. It happens all over the world. You all have to realize America is growing and it's not with illegal immigrants. And it's not with terrorists from foreign countries. We're not perfect, but we are America and we stand tall. i don't even know what the fuck they're trying to get at there that that let's make no mistake donald trump is wait i mean it's a belabored point but his rhetoric is the reason that there's 11 people

dead in pittsburgh that was a whipsaw man it was like at first i was like okay he you know thinks that a few bad eggs is the cause of this but he loves donald trump but the problem's not immigrants so that's good he's not blaming and he doesn't he's under no illusions that it's the terrorists then what is it what exactly is it i don't know but this is a good point because i do want to tell you know i mean this is not a original point you can listen to your average liberal progressive choppo whatever you know whatever happened you know i mean what happened this past weekend in pittsburgh was absolutely not just because of donald trump but because of the entire

gop program i mean you've got lindsey graham out here saying he wants to sponsor a bill to end birthright citizenship it's all fucking tied into the same revanchist chauvinist militaristic bloodthirsty agenda yeah there's not again not an original point there but if you're a conservative who is just happens to be listening to this fuck you seriously that'd be weird if we had some conservative listeners uh let's see here i always heard about robbing peter to pay paul well let me tell you a certain person's fixing to pay paul i told him i would be watching what the fuck i like that president trump treats democrats like they have always treated republicans in what reality have

democrats ever fucking done shit to curb the power of republicans uh that's amazing that's how entitled they are to privilege and power they're there's like even the notion that somebody would stand up to them and even the most conciliatory, gestural way is just beyond the pale to them. Oh, yeah. God bless you, Mr. President, for ordering our military down to the border to fight off these women and children, these so-called asylum seekers who want to come over to America. One thing about Speak Your Peace that puzzles me sometimes is i never know if it's irony or not wait but like i don't know is this guy really cheering fighting off these he literally said women and children but then he said these so-called asylum asylum right like it started out like he was being ironic like oh sitting in the military down there did

peck off women and children but then he was like these so-called aside maybe dude i'm telling you there is an inverse side to irony poisoning that is like it's like poisoned ivory irony or something i don't poison irony it's like a it's like a weird sort of inverse side. It's like irony without critique or something. Mr. President, I think our people would love it if you would show up at the border yourself and pick up a bazooka and aim it right between the eyes of those women, children, or whatever. This has to be irony. It's got to be irony. Okay.

And dare them to step across that borderline. Mr. President, our wonderful God has given you the opportunity to erase that awful nickname of yours, Cadet Bonespurs. Just because you were too chicken to go and fight for your country back in the Vietnam days. Okay, now we're back into, that's not good. Does not mean that you won't

stand tall against these asylum seekers. Mr. President, you take that bazooka out and fire it up in the air a few times. I'll even load it for you and help you yeah this one this is not a good take it's not a good it's not it's not a good deployment of irony uh because basically what i said is like it's fine to like slaughter women and children as long as you're not a chicken shit and you're in the military. What there is is there is a liberal equivalent to

the Tea Party archetype. And people back around... The draft dodging shamer. Yes. And people around 2016 were like, the left needs an equivalent to the Tea Party. No, they don't. Those people already exist and they're lunatics like this person.

Like this person. They have no larger systemic critique or analysis of power. They just like filter politics through symbols and personalities and celebrity culture. I paid $158 for a pair

of boots that just absolutely fell apart after three months the place where i bought these boots won't back them up on the other hand i left a 10 package of coffee at one of our local dollar general stores and the little girl who works there handed it to me when i returned to that store three days later isn't that nice? What? Well, I can... I can vouch for the local... Oh, wait, that's a dollar store. I was thinking of vendor stores. Me and you went on a trip

of the vendor markets last week for a totally ill-advised costume search. Yeah, well, I mean, it came together, though. It came together, but nobody understood it. The Bathurst coal mine.

What you should have done was you needed a MAGA sticker on your coal mining helmet with the Bathurst. You're right. You're right. I didn't go as fully into the MAGA thing

as I went into the Bathurst thing. Yeah. Yeah. Next year. Every day you watch the news, Perry County, Harlan County,

Pike County, they all get stuff. Letcher County, what are we getting? Another Jim Ward. Whoopee. Our local election, you know,

how long are county judges, do they serve? Four years? years or six i think it's uh county judges six years i think it's six years so the last time when i first moved here six years ago that's when jim moore you know was running for reelection and uh you know i probably didn't care about it very much back then. But it's funny. If I was still plugged into county politics, it would be a very bleak thing. Because Jim Ward's only opponent is the trash man, Terry Adams. Have you seen the negative ads Jim's been running? Oh, I've seen them.

That was funny. I'm Terry Adams. I voted against the rec center every time I could. That was funny. I'm Terry Adams. I voted against the rec center every time I could. Hello, everybody. I'm Terry Adams. I voted against new jobs. He did the classic, well, Terry. He should have made every other letter a capital and a lowercase.

Well, Terry Adams. I'm Terry Adams. He should have had. He should have had he should have had on the back he should have had the oil and gas industry making a marionette god damn that's it that's all i's all let me see this episode's been a lot of dead air a lot of uncertainty oh gosh okay i think history will remember barack hussein obama as a weak president what if i just said thank you god bless that's uh i don't care what the news media says left right upside down or middle history will record it straight up as to who you are and what you are and say i'm with you pal there is another page i don't know if you saw that. There's a whole other page of Speaker Pisa.

Gosh. People had a lot of opinions this week. Oh, damn. Yeah. I love all the ads here. Wayne Fleming, mayor of Jenkins. Yeah. I'm a Vietnam War veteran.

I'm a member of the Disabled Veterans of America, Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, Masons, and Shriners. Basically, I'm a war criminal and a cultist the sad thing is that wayne flimmon is probably our most is the only halfway decent politician we have in this fucking which is like dude yeah well i say that. He actually has convictions, you know? He does. He's got something. I'm calling from South Dakota in the mid to late 80s.

I used to listen to Wiley Coyote on WMMT. He had a friend who was over in Paris, and those two would get on the phone and broadcast their conversations. They were like two brothers, both with a great sense of humor. At that time, it was pretty remarkable to be talking to somebody in Paris, France, while sitting in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Thank you, Wiley. Yeah, that is pretty badass,

actually. I thought you were talking about Paris. Isn't there a Paris, Kentucky? Yeah. I was like, well, that kind of makes sense. That's not that crazy. Hey, Polka fans, I'd like to sympathize with the people of Whitesburg, WMMT, and the Mountain Eagle. We all lost a special friend in Jim Webb.

I was a regular listener of Jim's on Mondays and Wednesdays. There's a way to recognize Jim for all he has accomplished. If, I say, no, I'm sorry. There's a way to recognize Jim for all he has accomplished in the Whitesburg area. His body of work would certainly qualify him for a Marconi Radio Award. Please help make it happen. I'll be listening.

Richie Vander, Centralia, Washington. So that's probably, that is I thought that perhaps maybe Speaker Pieces was filled because of the fucking horror show the last week. But a lot of them are just tributes to Jim and that's pretty awesome.. But a lot of them are just tributes to Jim, and that's pretty awesome. Yeah, but most of them are just about Jim Horton.

Tom, I'm trying to see the fucking silver lining. God damn it. I'm sorry. I totally ruined our segway to end this shit show. Why the heck does the GOP, Hal Rogers included, keep protecting the big corporations while they wreck our streams and our air and allow mercury in our drinking water

and cut back on our Medicare and benefits for people who are trying to make a living? They must be paid pretty handsomely, thank you. They are. I'm glad that it identified Hal Rogers there. That piece of shit is running unopposed. Well, no, I think he does have a Democratic opponent this year. I don't think he does.

It's not Kenneth Stamp, this damn guy? Well, Kenneth Stamp will run against him probably, but I mean a real opponent. Hey, dog shooter. Smile real big. We shot a video of you creeping around with your little gun. I told you that people know who you are. You're a sick sociopathic son of a bee sting.

Who needs to be exposed before you start hurting humans. Signed, The Neighborhood Watch Team. Happy to announce Buster of our last episode fame has not been shot and he's healthy. Right. Back with his rightful community. If you want to hear the Buster story, subscribe to our Patreon. Actually, I put it on SoundCloud,

so you can hear that for free. But if you want to hear the rest of the episode, please go to our Patreon. Patreon.com slash Trillbilly Workers Party. You look like you've got a speaker piece loaded up. In the August 22nd issue of the Mountain Eagles speaker piece. Oh, man.

I like when they reference the section they're actually writing into. Some chill-minded nut asked the question, how in the world can you so-called Christians support Donald Trump? The answer is that we don't. We support his political philosophy. Holy shit. Holy shit. the answer is that we don't we support his political philosophy holy shit holy shit that's even more that's not his personal character personality traits see here's the crazy thing is i could i can't get on board with it but i understand if you're just apolitical and you used to watch a lot of The Apprentice, how you might be like, yeah, we got a real one in there, you know? Totally.

We support the fact that the United States of America is a Christian nation founded upon the primary principles stated in the Holy Bible, brought to the North American continent by the pilgrims in the year of our Lord in 1620. Therefore, if you were born in the USA, you are born into the Christian heritage. But not if you're brown, because we're going to do away with that shit immediately. You have the birthright of being

called Christian, even though you may not have been baptized yet. Well, that's good to know. If you're born in America, you don't even have to subscribe to pascal's wager you're already born in that that is something new i've never heard if you're born on american soil you're christian wow that is interesting you should read matthew 7 2, and 7 for more on this. It says, judge not, lest ye be judged. What the fuck is that?

Dude, this is the thing, Tom. This is what we were getting at earlier. Look, racist fascism is deemed by society to be impolite, right? You know, you have people that are like, I don't support the guy that shot up a synagogue. He was a lone shooter, a random nut, whatever. But Christian theology, political Christian theology, will be the vehicle in which they are able to place their racist pathologies, their, you know, hierarchical desires desires their desires for domination and violence and everything at a certain point this notion of like the christian nation will merge with the notion

of who the nation is for yeah white people and that will be how that will be the sort of ideological apparatus for fascism. Well, let me tell you this, man. I'm working on a piece about TV preachers right now. And by working on it, I mean I've thought about it in my head and I've not committed one single word to paper about it. But I was thinking about how that we're governed and the world is probably going to end in probably a horrendous fashion at the hands of people that talked poor people into sending them their life savings so they could buy a private jet. Yeah.

We're governed and we're going to meet our end by people who told the sick and infirmed that they don't need to go to doctors. They just need to buy this special anointing oil that was hand pressed by Benny Hinn on a hillside somewhere in the Holy Land. And that, you know. Yeah. And that, you know. Yeah, and these people are running the world. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. This is the thing I think about. I think a lot of leftists, me especially, or me included,

you look at the situation and you're like, how are we going to change this? Like, you've got the largest empire the world has ever seen. You've got a global capitalist system that has created more wealth than has ever existed in the history of the world. The people at the top have more money than anybody has ever seen in human civilization. the people at the top have more money than anybody has ever seen in human civilization. The one thing that gives me some sort of hope is that these people are so profoundly stupid. The only way that they're able to continue existing is by the sheer brute force of the police state and capital and if we can somehow find a way to make inroads to shutting off that capital that valve of capital while at the same time beefing up some sort of you know defense network to fight

the police state i don't think it's unreasonable to think that we can actually seize power. That will take a lot of time. It's going to take quite a bit of time. And we've got to stay alive and out of jail in the interim. We've got to stay alive and out of jail to do it. But I think it's possible because these people are so fucking stupid. And, you know, I don't want to get into

a liberal arc of the moral universe thing here but we do have the we are fighting with the combined tools of our materialist analysis and our moral imperative and that's a powerful thing thank you god bless thank you god bless thank you for listening to me please check out our patreon if you haven't fully just abandoned us by this point jesus christ uh please check out our patreon at patreon.com p-a-t-r-e-o-n just in case you didn't know how to spell that, patreon.com slash trio billy workers party, no comma or apostrophe or anything in that, obviously. We have weekly episodes there.

You'll be able to hear this past weekend's episode where Antonia read our tarot cards and said that we're fucked at the podcast. Now I know where the phrase not in the cards comes from. Because apparently we're going to be on the business end of it. Impoverished and it's our cards. The future for us,

the card said was poverty and catastrophe. So maybe this bad episode is the beginning of the end for us. Well, we got a couple of shout-outs, and I'm going to abbreviate last names from here on out to avoid inadvertently doxing anybody. That makes sense. Catch on up with our Patreon shout-outs.

Starting off with Nathaniel F. Thanks, Nathaniel. David V. Anders. Charles S. Stephen K. Chuck S. Thank you.

Eunice L. Thank you, Eunice L. Borderless Media. Borderless M. Borderless M. William Y. Uncle Barbecue. media and it's not borderless m borderless m uh william y uncle barbecue uh preshtel thank you preshtel uh ravi p uh non-violent uh emma b uh morgan ht Violent. Emma B. Morgan H.T. Steven O.

Matt M. I gotta put some music behind this. I gotta put some music in the background of this. Not the hum of the fireplace ain't do it. Right. Calvin K., Amanda B., Miranda C., Jeff D., Andy L., Barbara K., Cedar., Jack N., Jade K., Witt, Caroline, Dylan C., Joseph C. I've got to play Auld Lang Syne. Jeff E. You are the Trillbillies graduating class of 2018. Landon Bershaw.

B. Gosh. NEM. Jonathan H. If you're walking across the stage, shake my hand and show your ass to the crowd. Diane B. Jason K.

Paul P. Evan Eany Eric W do not eat Meg Katja B Greg E YFS thank you all

Amanda Y Stein S I'm gonna keep reading because you're just gonna crack up shout out the homie brendan gallagher i think that catches us up thank you all please subscribe to our patreon i haven't lost my mind of you are you yeah you're unraveling at the seams, pal Tom, see, the thing is It's an acute It is a It is

An acute sense of alienation and loneliness Combined with Halloween Halloween With the spooky season Yeah, it's several things, but Look, man, we're gonna win We're gonna to win.

Yes. Listen, forget any mood you might have felt this. Here's your takeaway. We're going to win. Happy Halloween. This has been your Weekly Trail, babies. Thanks. We'll see you all next week.