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The Bluegrass Blues Podcast - Episode 8 · The Bluegrass Blues Podcast

0:00
Hi, this is the Bluegrass Blues Podcast. I'm
0:03
Amy. And this is Episode 8, and I'm Jesse. Well,
0:15
there's a lot to get through this week. Some
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of it's entertainment, some of it's serious,
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but let's start with where you were the past
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week. You weren't here in Louisville, you were
0:27
in another state. I was. I was in southwestern
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New York State at the Chautauqua Institution,
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which is a place... that was started as like
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a Sunday school for Protestant ministers on Lake
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Chautauqua. And it's this beautiful community,
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and they have nine themed weeks every summer
0:48
on topical issues like energy and global warming
0:55
and capital. This week was... Innovation in Capitalism,
1:02
How to Meet 21st Century Challenges. I saw Ken
1:05
Burns there one year. I saw Krista Tippett there
1:09
with On Being one year. I saw Sandra Day O 'Connor
1:13
there one year. Eugene Robinson, the gay Episcopal
1:16
priest, who's amazing. I think Louis Black was
1:19
there this year. So really talented, smart people
1:26
come. uh people come and stay in this like place
1:32
that just looks like paradise uh there's there
1:36
is it like a map of well actually there's like
1:39
grounds that were shaped in uh the shape of Palestine
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so you can even like walk around the perimeter
1:46
of Palestine of we'll talk about that later but
1:50
um So I was there during Innovation and Capitalism
1:54
Week, and honestly, this was not my favorite
1:56
week. I've been there, you know, close to 20
1:59
years, I think. I took my kids when they were
2:01
little and keep coming back. But, you know, they
2:06
had, you know, leading economic thinkers, exploring
2:10
the future of the global economy with a focus
2:12
on, you know, the American capitalist system.
2:16
And, you know, I don't know that I learned much
2:19
new. Like, I learned that, you know, our system
2:22
is broken. There is great income inequality,
2:26
duh. You know, businesses should be stepping
2:30
up and looking out for their employees and for
2:33
their customers, as well as for the bottom line
2:37
every quarter for their shareholders. And companies
2:41
are stupid if they just take the profits and
2:44
give it to their shareholders rather than reinvesting
2:46
it in their companies. So I don't know. It wasn't
2:50
my favorite. So were there business executives
2:53
there talking about this? There was. Or did they
2:55
discuss the idea of the oligarchy? Or did they
2:59
get into that at all? Or was it pretty much just
3:00
a look at business and how it should be doing
3:03
better for employees? Pretty much that. It wasn't
3:07
as... political as, you know, the oligarchs are
3:12
ruining this country and fascism is taking over
3:15
and any of that stuff. But I will say, I'll tell
3:20
you a highlight of the week. Everybody should
3:22
know about this young woman. Her name is Ikep
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Nkwelle, N -K -W -E -L -L -E. She's a rising
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jazz vocalist and she is incredibly incredibly
3:38
talented she writes her own music and she was
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there with a band of other 20 -something year
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old persons of color the pianist was amazing
3:49
upright bass player was a young Latinx woman
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and the drummer also a man of color and they
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just They completely blew me away. So definitely
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look up Ikep Nkwelle. She's been at Lincoln Center,
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jazz at Lincoln Center, and she will be coming
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to your town, and you definitely want to go see
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her. The other thing I want to mention about
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Chautauqua is over the years, I've noticed how
4:17
white it is. It's a gated community. The Protestant
4:24
people who bought houses on the lake, you know,
4:29
150, 140 years ago, 100 years ago, there's very
4:33
little turnover of real estate. So it's very
4:36
white. And I found out some things about blacks
4:42
and Jews. What I found out was there was a woman
4:47
who was advertising a rental at Chautauqua over
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the summer in the mid -50s. And she put an advertisement
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in the Chautauqua paper, and she basically said
4:59
only Gentiles could rent from her. And apparently
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there was a big hullabaloo. But the bottom line
5:07
is that Jews still don't own a lot of real estate
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at Chautauqua. I went to the archive center and
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talked to the director of archives about it.
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explicit racism and antisemitism and nothing
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has been codified indeed you know and the deeds
5:25
are laws but people just are not comfortable
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with blacks jews you don't see a lot of asians
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there and what i was told by the director of
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archives is just you know people just are uncomfortable.
5:41
He was not condoning their behavior, but he was
5:45
just telling it as it is. And the reason I mentioned
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this, Jesse, is that this is a place that, you
5:53
know, aspires to be this liberal haven, right?
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Like they get all these progressive thinkers
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and everybody's got like an LGBTQIA flag out
6:04
front and all the things. And yet... They're
6:08
still rampant. Racism, anti -Semitism, and just
6:12
anti -immigrant. It's very white. What can I
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say? But I would imagine that in the past there
6:20
were covenants in any real estate agreements
6:23
that said no blacks, no Jews, because that was
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pretty common back in the, before the 60s, into
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the 60s, where, you know, it just was a part
6:32
of the... contract when you bought or sold a
6:36
house, that was one of the things that existed
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there. And the way you describe it, it honestly
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reminds me a lot of San Francisco, because these
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are supposed to be hugely liberal communities,
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but if you look at the racial makeup of these
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places, it's very white, very upper middle class,
6:56
and there were... efforts that they did in the
7:00
past that led to the segregation. And now that
7:03
they've got it ready, well, now that it's an
7:08
issue, people are saying it's not about race,
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it's about preserving the community standards
7:15
or whatever. So there are these buzzwords that
7:19
go around when these... allegedly liberal areas
7:24
are talking about you know being progressive
7:27
and doing all these things and you know it's
7:30
like I would imagine this in San Francisco would
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be the kinds of places that the Trump administration
7:34
would be saying are you know anti -American or
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whatever you know the the crap that they talk
7:41
about but in reality, they're more segregated
7:45
than a lot of the places that you think are segregated
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are. Well, yeah, I mean, you can't afford to
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live in San Francisco if you're not a rich, white
7:56
tech bro, right? And you can't afford to live
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in Chautauqua if you haven't been handed down
8:03
a house from your ancestors. It's impossible
8:08
to break in. So there's no ethnic diversity there.
8:13
I wonder, does Chautauqua designate itself as
8:16
a sanctuary city? It's actually a non -profit.
8:22
It's an educational institution. They do bring
8:25
in lots of young musicians and dancers and creatives.
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And they are very multi -ethnic. The young people
8:34
that go to train there in the summertime are
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very multi -ethnic. But just don't try to buy
8:40
a house there. Right, yeah, okay, well that's
8:42
all really interesting and it just is kind of
8:46
typical of what we are dealing with today in
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terms of discrimination and, you know, it's almost
8:55
like what's happening here in Louisville where
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It used to be a sanctuary city, and if you go
9:00
downtown, you see all these flags that are representing
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the sister cities of Louisville, Kentucky, and
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they're from all over the world. They're Latin
9:08
America, they're from Africa, they're European
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cities. But, you know, not too long ago, a couple
9:15
weeks ago, the mayor announced that the city
9:17
would not be a sanctuary city anymore because
9:19
of what the Trump administration is threatening
9:22
to do in terms of pulling funding from various
9:26
programs here. And it's kind of a failure of...
9:31
I compare this to when someone succumbs to the
9:38
whims of evil, they become collaborators. And,
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you know, it's like Vichy France during World
9:47
War II and the Nazis had taken over France and
9:50
the Vichy government essentially was having...
9:55
letting the Nazis run the place, even though
9:57
they were saying they really represented the
9:59
French government, which they didn't represent.
10:01
But maybe that's being a little extreme, but
10:05
there's this idea that there are too many appeasers
10:08
in this country right now. Like, you know, CBS
10:13
did it by giving up all the information for paying
10:19
the bribe off to Trump. It's not only that, it's
10:24
just the idea is where are people of color or
10:30
people of different ethnicities supposed to go
10:32
to feel comfortable these days? Because there's
10:35
this trend to just make everything, well, make
10:40
America great again is make America white again.
10:43
And like you were describing today, that the...
10:48
there are people working who are doing jobs that
10:51
other people don't want to do. Like you said
10:54
that you were walking along the street today
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and you saw a bunch of workers up on a roof.
10:59
Yeah. Just in 90 -degree heat. And they weren't
11:04
white. They were of a different ethnicity. But
11:08
the sad thing is that if ICE drove around and
11:12
decided to stop, they would take these guys from
11:15
their jobs. and just send them off to some horrible
11:19
place. But, you know, it's not only an American
11:23
problem. It's also an international problem because
11:26
there are things going on overseas in the Middle
11:29
East that are really horrendous. And I think
11:33
you are involved in a group that is talking about
11:37
just not accepting this evil that's going on.
11:42
And do you want to talk about that? Sure. October
11:46
7th, two years ago, happened. And, of course,
11:50
the murders of 1 ,200 Israelis was absolutely
11:56
horrific. And Hamas is responsible. And Hamas,
12:00
frankly, is partly responsible for the devastation
12:06
and starvation and problems that ordinary Palestinian
12:12
civilians are facing today. No doubt about it
12:17
in my mind. However, Israel has, this is what
12:23
I was concerned about. I knew that they would
12:25
have an outsized response, and they have. And
12:28
I helped form a group here called Jewish Louisvillians
12:31
for Peace. And over the last couple of years,
12:35
we've been having forums and panel discussions
12:38
and sending money to... Palestinian and Jewish
12:43
-Israeli groups that are trying to get the war
12:48
to stop and to create a two -state solution and
12:52
to ensure that Palestinians have sovereignty
12:55
and, you know, dignity and good lives, as well
13:01
as, you know, the Israelis, primarily Jews. So
13:05
we just... released a letter basically from Jews
13:11
to our national Jewish leaders to basically say,
13:15
you've got to start speaking up. It's way too
13:19
late now, even. But the time is now to speak
13:24
up. And, you know, of course we have a shared
13:29
history of oppression, expulsion. pogroms ghettos
13:33
and and genocide and and you know these leaders
13:37
taught us to stand for never again and now we're
13:41
asking them to stand for exactly that never again
13:45
um you know and It's time. It's past time. And
13:50
we have a really well -written, I think, letter
13:53
that's going out. I hope it becomes viral. We'll
13:56
put it into our blog post. If you're Jewish and
14:00
you want this war to end immediately and you
14:02
want your clergy people and you want your heads
14:06
of your Jewish federations and your Jewish institutions
14:09
to put pressure on Netanyahu and his war machine.
14:15
I really encourage you to sign the letter and
14:18
hopefully we'll get good press and we'll get
14:21
influencers out there and maybe we'll even affect
14:24
public policy. Well, what you're describing,
14:28
you know, the situation in Israel and in Gaza
14:30
is horrendous right now. And it's this idea of
14:36
taking an ethnic group, putting it, concentrating
14:39
it to one area and then letting horrible things
14:44
happen to them. which, you know, there is a parallel
14:47
here in the United States with the ICE roundups
14:51
of various immigrants, you know, taking people
14:54
from their jobs, taking children from schools,
14:56
taking people from their meetings to, like, actually
15:01
get their citizenship and just carting them off.
15:04
And they put them down in this horrific, it's
15:08
a concentration camp in South Florida. They call
15:12
it Alligator Alcatraz. i have a problem with
15:15
that terminology because it's like they're selling
15:19
merch with that on it which is really horrendous
15:22
and they should be calling it alligator auschwitz
15:26
and i know that's going to offend a lot of people
15:28
but let's look at the reality alcatraz was a
15:32
prison in san francisco it's now a tourist attraction
15:35
but in the past there was a prison where you
15:38
would put the most dangerous people in the world
15:40
and You know, it's out on an island in the middle
15:44
of San Francisco Bay because it made it harder
15:46
for them to escape. So, you know, that's Alcatraz,
15:50
a place for, a prison for evil, dangerous people.
15:54
The people that are being put in this place in
15:58
Florida aren't... Concentration camp? Yeah, it's
16:01
a concentration camp in Florida. It's, you know,
16:04
it's children and it's mothers and fathers and
16:07
people who are working hard, who've been in this
16:10
country for decades in some cases. And we're
16:14
accepting that here in sort of the same way that
16:18
some Israelis are accepting the treatment of
16:21
Gaza. So it's not, it's like there's a trend
16:26
worldwide toward evil these days. It's really
16:31
troubling because no one's standing up against
16:35
it. Very few people are actually saying anything
16:39
that's going to stop this atrocity. And I'm seeing
16:45
certain things happen now, which there are glimmers
16:49
of hope. There was a story last week where a
16:52
Japanese company is going to bring 200 tech -related
16:54
jobs to Frankfurt. My thought was, well, yeah,
16:59
that's good. They're going to be high -paying
17:00
jobs or in Frankfurt, but it's a Japanese company,
17:04
which means that you would think that some people
17:08
from Japan would be coming with them to, like,
17:10
establish this place. And given that ICE is,
17:14
like, pulling people off the streets and they're
17:16
not looking for any, like, indication of criminal
17:19
activity, they're just racially profiling people
17:22
and they're... carting them away without due
17:26
process. So why would any company want to come
17:32
here from another country if the result will
17:35
be that their executives will be carted off and
17:39
just thrown into this horrible concentration
17:42
camp? So it's really hard to like... be encouraged.
17:49
How do you attract jobs here when, you know,
17:52
this is a state that needs jobs, it needs good
17:56
paying jobs, but it just doesn't register that
18:02
there is, the country in general is not an appealing
18:06
place for foreigners to come to. You look at
18:09
the tourism industry, tourism is way off. Places
18:13
like Las Vegas, which are just magnets for international
18:17
tourism. It's having a hard time getting people
18:21
there. And I don't know if people know, but Kentucky
18:25
has been very high in refugee resettlements.
18:30
These are people that come legally to this country,
18:34
many of whom have lived in refugee camps for
18:36
a generation or two, terrible conditions, and
18:41
legally have come here. And Louisville, Bowling
18:45
Green, for example, are cities with a lot of
18:47
refugees, and they have become the... Part of
18:51
the fabric of these cities, you know, of course,
18:53
we've mentioned the equestrian industry, really
18:57
relies on Latinx immigrants. And so Kentucky
19:02
has a lot to lose, and we should really be fighting
19:06
this treatment of our neighbors. Well, and this
19:11
goes to the mayor as well, because the mayor
19:14
should be, like, saying, we will not accept this.
19:17
This is not... This is not humanity. This is
19:20
not the kind of people we want to be. But he's
19:24
just decided that, no, this isn't going to be
19:27
a sanctuary city anymore. So, you know, in my
19:30
opinion, if it's not going to be a sanctuary
19:31
city, take down those flags from sister cities,
19:34
because you're being hypocritical if you're saying
19:36
that we connect with these other places around
19:39
the world, but instead we're not going to defend
19:43
people from other places in the world, from...
19:47
essentially Gestapo tactics, you know? These
19:50
guys walk around in masks. They don't identify
19:53
themselves. They're essentially kidnapping people.
19:57
And there's no consequence for them, which, you
20:01
know, it just leads into this other idea of what
20:06
are we going to, how are we going to deal with
20:10
this? Like, who's going to stand up to this?
20:14
It's horrible to say, but the only people standing
20:16
up to anything anymore are comedians. Like Stephen
20:20
Colbert was standing up to the Trump administration
20:24
and calling it out for the evil things it does.
20:27
And what's the result of that? He's going to
20:30
be off the air next week because CBS has decided
20:33
to just... to what the Trump administration wants.
20:39
CBS News is going to have a bias monitor in its
20:43
newsroom, which is a sensor. It's like a government
20:46
sensor is going to be there. And we should be
20:50
appalled by this, but we don't seem to be. I
20:54
don't think people really understand what a dangerous
20:57
situation we're facing right now is. There's
21:01
this vicious... move to remove rights from people
21:07
to, you know, kidnap people. I worry about myself
21:11
because it's like that poem, you know, they went
21:16
for the communists, then they went for the socialists,
21:19
then they went for the labor unions, and then
21:22
eventually they went for me, but there was no
21:24
one to save me. So that's where we're going,
21:28
or that's the direction we're going in. And,
21:31
you know, when you think about comedians actually
21:35
making a difference in the world these days.
21:37
You look at Zelensky in Ukraine. He was a comedian.
21:43
He had a comedy show on about being president
21:46
of Ukraine because he was sticking it to the
21:50
oligarchs and the evil leaders of the time. And
21:55
the people responded by putting him in office.
21:58
But now he's a world leader and he's fighting.
22:03
the Russians, which, you know, they invaded his
22:05
country. But our president has decided that he's
22:10
siding with the Russians, which, you know, makes
22:12
you think, well, what do the Russians have on
22:15
him with all the bad things that are going on?
22:20
Back to the comedians. Yeah, let's go back to
22:22
the comedians. Well, one thing, the great comedic
22:28
move of last week was the South Park episode.
22:31
which was just, it was, it not only went after
22:35
the Trump administration, it went after CBS and
22:38
Paramount for being, you know, like lapdogs.
22:42
Just after they inked a $1 .5 billion deal with
22:46
Paramount. Yeah, and they just went totally nuclear
22:50
on not only the Trump administration, they went
22:52
nuclear on Paramount and CBS. They went nuclear
22:56
on this move to get more Christianity in the
23:00
schools. It's going to offend people, but one
23:03
of the characters in this episode is Jesus. And
23:06
Jesus is being sued if he doesn't go into the
23:09
schools in South Park. Right. It's just crazy
23:11
stuff. But the really impressive thing about
23:15
it, I don't know if it's impressive, but they're...
23:20
It shows also what the show did show was the
23:23
dangers of AI and how you can create things that
23:27
look real and no one would know the difference.
23:30
Because if you remember a couple of weeks ago,
23:33
the Trump administration posted this video of
23:37
Obama being arrested while in the White House
23:40
with Trump because Trump's now on this. One of
23:45
the things he's doing is going for his greatest
23:47
hits. He can't get out of the Epstein file issue.
23:52
We all know he's been in the Epstein files. We
23:56
all know that he did bad things. We all know
23:57
he's a rapist. He's been convicted of it. He's
24:00
been convicted of other crimes. He's a fraud.
24:06
He's the kind of guy who pretends to be this
24:09
savvy billionaire, but he couldn't keep a casino
24:12
afloat, which is like, this is a money machine.
24:15
How can you lose money at a casino? The house
24:18
always wins. Yeah, but he just goes and he creates
24:23
this video of Obama getting arrested, and he
24:27
thinks it's funny. But when South Park creates
24:29
a video of him doing the Jesus's walk through
24:33
the desert naked, It's like, oh, this is out
24:38
of line. This is out of control. So I'm enjoying
24:42
what comedians are doing. I think that's the
24:46
only thing that's going to save us these days.
24:49
then it seems to be the only thing that's going
24:51
to save the world when comedians are being elected
24:56
to public office. So, who knows, maybe Stephen
24:59
Colbert will run for office. If we have free
25:01
and fair elections in 26. Yeah, but the other
25:04
thing, too, was we did have a comedian in office,
25:07
Al Franken. I met him. He was a great guy. Yeah,
25:11
but he got ousted because of, well, it was the
25:17
political... politically correct thing to do.
25:20
However, Republicans don't do anything that's
25:23
politically correct. So if a Republican had done
25:26
the same thing that Al Franken had done, that
25:30
Republican would still be in office today. Well,
25:32
they are. Yeah, that's right. Look at one of
25:37
the members of the House was a coach at Ohio
25:40
State when there was a scandal where the wrestling
25:44
team was being sexually assaulted. and he's in
25:47
the house so there's there's this idea that republicans
25:52
can get away with anything and they can get away
25:55
with stuff that approaches the level of nazi
25:59
and no one will no one Well, the major media
26:04
doesn't really respond to it. They just present
26:07
the both sides issues. Whereas when Democrats
26:10
do something, it's the end of the world. And
26:13
we have such a vacuum in leadership right now.
26:16
I mean, there are so many opportunities for the
26:18
Democrats to just crush. the Republicans on all
26:24
of these things that are harming ordinary Americans.
26:27
And I think ordinary Americans are looking at
26:31
it now. And, you know, I do see a lot of videos
26:34
on YouTube where these former Trump supporters
26:38
are now saying, well, it looks like I made a
26:40
mistake and I'm sorry I voted for him. But the
26:43
thing that I think they're sorry for isn't that
26:47
he's doing bad things. It's that he's doing bad
26:50
things to them. And, you know, they were totally
26:53
happy with the, you know, taking people off the
26:56
streets, taking innocent people off the streets,
26:59
putting them in concentration camps in a swamp
27:03
in Florida, concentration camps that are owned
27:05
by businesses and whose investors include a lot
27:10
of Republican legislators. But it just keeps
27:15
happening where there's this lack of character.
27:21
Another thing about money that I want to mention
27:24
as a Jewish woman is... increasingly there are
27:28
these crackdowns against protesters of what Israel
27:33
is doing in Gaza. And apparently, you know, some
27:37
of the right -wing Jewish people that are in
27:40
charge of all this that's happening to silence
27:43
this dissent on college campuses, they all have
27:48
GoFundMes and they're all raising a ton of money
27:51
on this. So follow the money, people. It's so
27:54
corrupt. Well, the money is coming from a lot
27:59
of, well, it's coming from South Africans. You
28:04
know, the immigrants who have done the most damage
28:06
to this country are South African billionaires.
28:09
There's Peter Thiel, there's Elon Musk, there
28:11
are others out there. They were raised in a country
28:14
that's official policy was that people of color
28:19
were inferior and didn't deserve protections
28:21
and deserved to be treated badly. And so they
28:25
come to America, to the United States, and they
28:29
make a billion dollars and they decide they want
28:30
to impose apartheid on America, just like it
28:35
was in the good old days for them. This is, you
28:37
know, it's like living right now for a lot of
28:40
people, it's like living in before the civil
28:43
rights era, in the 40s, in the 30s, where, you
28:47
know, the laws were specifically designed to
28:49
benefit white people. This goes back to Chautauqua
28:54
and to San Francisco, where there are all these
28:57
covenants that moved out minorities. And, you
28:59
know, in San Francisco, since I lived there for
29:02
three years, they put Japanese people in concentration
29:07
camps. They called them, I don't know what they
29:10
called them, relocation facilities or whatever.
29:13
But they were concentration camps. They took
29:16
away their property. They moved families like
29:21
just... instantly in a minute. And as a result,
29:27
the minority population of San Francisco is minuscule.
29:32
It used to be like in the 70s, it was like 15%.
29:36
Today, it's less than 5%. But they don't see
29:40
anything wrong with that. And they're still doing
29:42
more in that area where the tech bros are building
29:47
up neighborhoods where I talked about this before
29:52
on this podcast, but they have these designs
29:55
for these new neighborhoods. They're like enclaves
29:57
within the city. And, you know, it's supposed
30:00
to be like, oh, we're going to be all together.
30:02
We're going to be happy. We're going to be working.
30:04
We're going to be shared interest. And you look
30:06
at the brochures and their illustrations of what
30:09
the place looks like includes no minorities.
30:12
Yeah. Well, and I think to your point, I think
30:15
Trump may not even be around. by the 26th election,
30:21
if there is a 26th election. I think the time
30:25
that we're spending on Trump and even J .D. Vance,
30:27
we've got to keep our eyes on the three people
30:30
that are basically executing Project 2025, right?
30:35
Which is Peter Thiel, Vote, and Stephen Miller.
30:39
Isn't that right? Yep. So how do we get to them?
30:42
Well, you have to get rid of the Trump administration.
30:44
And the way to do that is to... elect Democrats
30:48
in the next election. People keep talking about
30:52
the need for a third party. The reality of the
30:55
United States is that third parties will not
30:57
succeed here. So it ends up that if you're going
31:00
to vote a third party, that means you're voting
31:02
for a Republican. What about Musk's third party?
31:07
It's a joke. Well, he has an advantage in that
31:11
he's got... more money than God. And he thinks
31:15
he's God, so what the hell? But he can put a
31:18
lot of money in. He can throw things off. The
31:21
important thing is to not send money to the Republicans.
31:26
If you want to change the legislature, if you
31:30
want to change the presidency, you have to focus
31:34
on... It's a two -party system. It's been this
31:37
way for... since the beginning of the 20th century,
31:41
essentially. Back in the pre -Civil War days
31:46
and after the Revolution, there were multiple
31:48
political parties. There were the Whigs, there
31:51
were the Democratic Republicans. There was the
31:56
Know -Nothing Party, which was a bunch of racists
32:00
anyway, because they did horrible things in Louisville.
32:03
And they were aiming their racism at... other
32:07
whites but they were like Italians and Irish
32:11
because you know there's this this ethnic purity
32:15
that that has pervaded this country forever and
32:20
eventually like certain ethnic groups begin to
32:24
become white adjacent and then they are white
32:28
which goes to this recent election where if you
32:32
look at the Cubans in Miami they were white adjacent
32:36
And they thought that they were white. But then
32:39
you go down, and now a lot of them are being
32:42
sent off to Alligator Auschwitz. And Louisville
32:45
has one of the largest Cuban communities in the
32:48
country after Miami. Yeah, and Louisville has
32:50
been very responsive to offering people sanctuary,
32:55
which goes back to the sanctuary city issue.
32:59
This is a move that actually... takes away from
33:03
the character of this city. And the mayor has
33:07
allowed it. It is his fault. So, you know, maybe
33:10
it's time to vote these guys out too as well.
33:13
You've talked about the weakness of the Democratic
33:17
leadership. Maybe it's time to vote them out
33:20
because the Republicans have shown what they
33:22
want. And they do want what Nazis want. There
33:27
was that, I forget the... the commentator's name,
33:31
but it was an Indian American commentator who
33:35
did this thing on Jubilee where he did this roundtable
33:39
with ultra -right white Republicans. And in the
33:45
course of this discussion, he got one guy to
33:49
admit that he was a fascist, that the guy was
33:51
a fascist. And he was proud of it, and the people
33:54
around him were applauding it. The consequence
33:57
of that, of course, was that the guy who admitted
34:00
being a fascist was fired from his job. But he
34:03
goes and forms a GoFundMe page, and he's got
34:06
just money coming in. There's this welfare for
34:11
Republicans. That's their system. They talk about
34:15
welfare and how minorities are taking advantage
34:19
of it. But there's Republican welfare, and it's
34:21
from the billionaires. and the oligarchs who
34:25
are funding this evil that's going on, not because
34:29
they care about humanity. It's because they don't
34:33
have enough money. They have more money than
34:35
anybody anywhere, but they don't have enough.
34:39
It's like if Elon Musk has $300 billion, if Mark
34:43
Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos have more than $200
34:48
billion, and there are tons of billionaires in
34:51
this country. i keep saying this if they gave
34:54
away 99 of their wealth they would still be richer
34:58
than everybody else in the country and all that
35:01
money that they're hoarding could do so much
35:04
to you know deal with health care deal with poverty
35:07
housing housing yeah it's just you know it doesn't
35:11
it it's the tax system in this country which
35:15
has just been reinforced by this bill um it's
35:21
designed to keep the rich even richer and to
35:25
take away money from the poor. And I think that's
35:28
where the realization for a lot of Trump voters
35:33
has come, where they thought that all the attacks
35:37
would be on people who weren't them. And they
35:41
failed to realize that the oligarchs have created
35:46
a whole new category of people to oppress and
35:49
it's people without money. That's their form
35:53
of racism. If you don't have the big bucks, you
35:56
don't deserve anything. And it just keeps happening
36:02
in this country, and we have to change our voting
36:07
patterns. We have to convince people that, like
36:11
in eastern Kentucky or western Kentucky, why
36:14
are you voting for congressmen who are millionaires?
36:19
and who are voting against your interest, the
36:22
votes that the Kentucky Republicans have made
36:25
this year, with the exception of Tom Massey,
36:28
who's problematic, but he's actually right in
36:31
these instances where they're just taking money
36:38
from these constituents, from people who... rely
36:41
on Medicare, rely on food stamps, which is SNAP
36:44
benefits, rely on Social Security. Medicaid.
36:48
Medicaid, yeah. They want to go after Medicare
36:51
and Medicaid. It's something that Republicans
36:54
have wanted to destroy ever since the days of
36:57
Franklin Roosevelt. All right. Well, it's my
37:01
birthday today. Oh, yes. Happy birthday. Thank
37:04
you. So, you know, one of the things that we
37:06
talked about before we started the podcast was
37:08
how it's so hard not to be mad all the time.
37:13
I'd like you to maybe talk a little bit about
37:15
how the algorithm works to keep us mad. But then
37:18
I want to get a little bit happier, a little
37:20
bit lighter. We will be lighter. But this is
37:23
just a quick reference. The algorithm is designed
37:27
to keep you clicking. And if you're an angry
37:31
person, it will design things for you to stay
37:35
angry. And one of the things I'm trying to get
37:38
off of social media, like Facebook, there are
37:42
just these things that I realized after a while
37:46
is that I'm not reading this because I'm interested.
37:49
I'm reading this because it's making me mad.
37:52
And that's how the Republicans, you know, they
37:55
have their own social media with Truth Social
37:59
and with X that Elon Musk owns. And it's just
38:10
this, what this is doing is tearing the country
38:14
apart. It's making rich people even richer because
38:18
those are the people who have invested in the
38:19
algorithm. So what, Google owns YouTube. Facebook
38:25
has all kinds of problems. And Facebook was used
38:29
to actually steal an election in the past. They
38:32
looked at what the algorithm was giving, and
38:35
they were feeding this hostile information to
38:38
their users. I just think it's time to look at
38:45
what your social media habits are. And from now
38:49
on, I think I'm just going to focus on things
38:51
that make me laugh. Which brings us to our next
38:54
discussion, and that's on what makes you laugh?
38:58
What's entertaining to you? Well, we watched
39:03
a really fun movie. What is it called? K -pop
39:07
Demon Hunters? Yes. Talk about it, Jesse. Oh,
39:10
K -pop Demon Hunters is from Sony Studios. It's,
39:14
well, K -pop, of course, Korean pop idols. Essentially,
39:20
it's a girl band against a boy band. The girl
39:23
band are demon hunters. The boy band are demons.
39:27
Oh, wait, do we want to do any spoilers? Well,
39:31
there may be one. If it's a girl -boy situation,
39:38
there's always the love interest that sort of
39:40
develops in the course of any movie or any program,
39:45
but it's... It's really well done, and one of
39:50
the things about it is the animation style is
39:54
the same style as it was in the Spider -Man,
39:57
Miles Morales' Spider -Man movies, the Into the
40:00
Spider -Verse and Across the Spider -Verse. So
40:03
the artwork is really excellent. The music is
40:08
fun. The music is fun, but I've been watching
40:11
a lot of... Asian entertainment as well. There's
40:16
this other show called My Demon Girlfriend. It's
40:22
just this nerdy guy who can't get a girlfriend.
40:25
I think it's a Korean sitcom. And so he conjures
40:31
up this demon girlfriend who's doing all kinds
40:33
of horrible things, and he's trying to convince
40:35
her to not be a demon. But it's totally stupid,
40:38
but that's... Sort of what you're seeing in Asian
40:42
animation and Asian entertainment these days.
40:45
Well, I really loved that the three protagonists
40:48
are women and they're badass and you know their
40:52
friendship is definitely Important and it shows
40:57
you the power of friendship. The other thing
40:59
I really liked about it is that the demon really
41:03
is about shame is about an internal thing um
41:07
and shame and things that make you feel less
41:10
than um and i just thought the exploration of
41:13
that was so good and unusual the other thing
41:18
i thought was fun is that the the romance is
41:21
so much like those k dramas right like even though
41:26
it's animated the way that the characters just
41:28
kind of stand there looking up at afar or whatever.
41:34
And they just, they hold that moment for a long
41:37
time, just the way that they do in the K -dramas.
41:40
I thought it was really entertaining. Yeah, there
41:42
was another K -drama I was watching. It was about
41:44
a chef, and I forget the name of it. I'll find
41:47
it for the next episode or I'll put it in our
41:50
notes. But there's a woman, a young woman, who...
41:57
goes to tasting and she notices something in
42:00
the food and points it out and the chef in this
42:04
series is losing his sense of taste but he's
42:07
so amazed when this woman recognizes what he's
42:10
done just by tasting the food that he brings
42:12
her on as his apprentice and of course they fall
42:17
in love but you know it's there's this this male
42:22
female hostility that goes through these series
42:25
as well where you know the man is so stoic and
42:28
and the woman is just pissed off that the guy
42:31
is such a a hard ass but you know they fall in
42:35
love and it's just typical of um of uh asian
42:40
drama it seems i've been watching a lot of asian
42:42
drama so um because it's you know what's there
42:46
to watch in the united states which brings us
42:49
to another issue here and that's um things i've
42:53
been watching um i'm noticing there are a lot
42:56
of tv shows involving very um women with uh mental
43:04
difficulties like uh like well differences mental
43:08
differences neurodivergence we all are on some
43:13
sort of spectrum right right but he He's talking
43:16
about these female protagonists who can't just
43:19
be like a cleaning lady, right? They've got to
43:22
be a genius to be the protagonist, right? And
43:25
then, of course, they're also neurodivergent
43:28
in some way or on the spectrum in some way. Right,
43:30
and the cleaning lady example, it's a TV show
43:33
that's on ABC. It's called High Potential. And
43:37
I'm wondering if the woman who's the actor is
43:40
like the sister. Her last name is Olsen, so I'm
43:42
wondering if she's related to him. I went down
43:46
the rabbit hole. I don't know that she is, but
43:49
if anybody watched Hacks, she is the daughter
43:54
of Jean Smart's character on Hacks. She's very
43:57
beautiful. She's very thin, very sexy, and not
44:05
just your average cleaning lady. Right, and the
44:08
point of the show is that, okay, we have this...
44:12
genius who can solve crimes but is not just it
44:17
just takes everybody looks at her the wrong way
44:21
and like under appreciates especially the the
44:25
head cop who's always this gruffy guy you know
44:28
although the lieutenant is a black female yeah
44:31
yeah and she she trusts her right yeah but it
44:35
it's that's the women sticking together maybe
44:38
but it is they she offers perspectives and i
44:43
it's like you know in the old days when you were
44:46
watching things like um monk you know or colombo
44:51
where you have these very quirky detectives who
44:55
just see things that others don't see and there's
44:59
this string of television shows now that are
45:01
doing the same kind of thing because in addition
45:04
to High Potential which I should point out it
45:07
started in France it was a French series called
45:10
High Potential Intellect and in French that was
45:15
in French I did the English translation but it
45:18
turns out that the High Potential series that's
45:21
on in the US now is in different four other countries
45:27
with different, you know, one's in Greece, one's
45:30
in Hungary, one's in the Czech Republic, and
45:34
one's in Slovakia. So that's four. Yeah, well,
45:40
then it's six because it's now in the U .S. And
45:44
it started in France. But it's the same story.
45:48
It's the same show, just with different actresses
45:51
in a different language. And there's another
45:54
show like that, and it's called Patience. And
45:59
it's about a neurodivergent woman who struggles
46:03
in life, but she can spot things in a crime scene
46:07
that the detectives who have been working in
46:10
these jobs forever just don't seem to get. And
46:13
is that Great Britain? That's out of Great Britain,
46:16
yeah. And Patience is the name of the person
46:20
who... is neurodivergent um so i was watching
46:26
that i i thought it was really interesting it's
46:28
still on it's on pbs on sunday night and one
46:32
day i was like going through amazon prime and
46:37
there was this show called astrid which was about
46:40
a neurodivergent woman who works with the police
46:43
department and solves crimes helps them solve
46:47
crime but she's has difficulty in interacting
46:50
with people. Or she interacts with people differently.
46:54
Yes. But it's the same show. And the first episode
46:59
I saw of Astrid was exactly the same episode
47:03
of Patience, just in a different language with
47:06
different actors and different actresses. So,
47:10
you know, there's this... lack of originality
47:15
in coming up with things, where people are just
47:18
taking ideas from other countries and using them
47:22
to appeal to an American audience, which brings
47:26
us back to the idea of the importance of immigrants
47:29
in this country, where, you know, we're accepting
47:33
their entertainment, but we're taking their labor,
47:37
their entertainment, their ideas. and making
47:42
money from them, but we don't want to give them
47:46
the rights that they deserve. So I don't know.
47:50
It's just interesting to see how this is developing.
47:55
But anyway, these are some of the things I'm
47:58
watching, and there are things you're watching
48:02
too. I would be interested in... just another
48:08
change of pace, I would be kind of interested
48:10
in seeing the Superman movie because I'm a big
48:13
Superman fan. And Superman is an immigrant. He
48:19
came from another planet. He entered the country
48:23
illegally. He's an illegal alien. Right. He has
48:26
no birthright citizenship. But he's Superman.
48:30
But he's also improving the lives of everyone
48:33
around him. And if you go into the history of
48:35
Superman, it was started in the 1930s by a couple
48:41
of Jewish guys who were responding to the rise
48:44
of the Nazis. And Superman was anti -fascist.
48:47
And he was for unions. And he protected the little
48:52
guy. And he wanted people treated equally, which
48:56
in today's America is... attacked by the right.
49:02
It's kind of interesting. And so now, you know,
49:06
if you look at the media on the right, they're
49:09
saying, oh, Superman's woke. But Superman has
49:12
always been woke. It's just that they've been
49:16
trying to make him the symbol of white purity
49:19
when, in essence, he's just a foreigner. who's
49:23
come to America, has improved the lives of people
49:26
in America, has upheld our values and upheld
49:31
our systems, and now he's being persecuted. And
49:36
going back to woke, one of the funniest bits
49:39
of the Sermon on the Mount was that Cartman,
49:45
you know, Cartman's an asshole, right? Yeah.
49:49
He dons this t -shirt, Woke is Dead, and he's
49:52
lamenting the fact that he's not special anymore,
49:55
right? Right. And so he tries to commit suicide
49:58
with Butters, but we find out that Butters' parents
50:02
have an electric, an EV. Yeah. And so the hose,
50:06
you know, to asphyxiate them doesn't work, and
50:09
they're just sitting in the car not... Not dying,
50:12
but I'm telling you, almost every second, look
50:16
at the art hanging on the walls when you see
50:19
Trump. You know, Trump is Saddam Hussein, you
50:23
know, with Satan. It's just wild what they've
50:27
done. And I think it's close to time to ending,
50:31
too. It's my birthday today and what I did on
50:36
socials today was ask people to take one action
50:40
today. You don't have to report back, although
50:43
you can if you want to. Just one action to fight
50:46
fascism today or to speak up about the genocide
50:50
in Gaza or just speak your conscience. Use the
50:54
Five Calls app, make a call, email, write a letter,
50:58
show up at a protest. Donate to a Latinx organization
51:04
that's really fighting on behalf of our Latinx
51:09
neighbors. Whatever it is, take a good action
51:12
today. That'll be really great. And we will post
51:15
the letter that you have to our website. And
51:18
I'll post the picture of the hardworking Latinx
51:22
men on the roof in 100 degree weather with heat
51:25
index and almost 100 % humidity. I'm going to
51:29
post that photo of them. Yeah. And again, these
51:33
are people who are in this country doing important
51:35
work, making our lives better. And our response
51:39
to them has been go away. This is just I agree
51:45
with you all the way on this. So. Well, let's
51:50
wrap it up. I think this was a good conversation
51:53
today. Thanks, Jesse. Lots to talk about. See
51:56
you in a couple of weeks. Yeah. So long, everybody.
52:01
Our closing music is by John Chamberlain.