Latest / Hold Your Ground / Praxis or a hillbilly flag burner
Transcript
- joe: What's up everybody? Welcome to the first episode of Hold Your Ground. The collective offensive is dead. I know there's questions as to what happened and we'll address it here and now. For Luis and I, anti fascism and anti-racism aren't aesthetics, social media identities or slogans you throw around when it's convenient. They're principles that are supposed to shape how you move through the world and how you treat the people around you. That also means being willing to confront racism and prejudice in yourself and and your own circles when it shows up. At a certain point we realized that not everybody involved was willing to do that work. So rather than compromise on our own politics or pretend everything was fine, we decided to walk away and build something new. That's why this show is called Hold Your Ground. As skinheads, that phrase means something very real to us. It means staying rooted in working class solidarity, anti-racist values, And anti-fascist politics, even when it costs you friendships, platforms, or comfort. It means refusing to bend just to keep the peace or protect people from accountability. We're not here to turn this into endless drama or spend episodes of our show taking shots at people. That's not productive, and honestly, it's not what this podcast is about. We're saying what needs to be said and then we're moving forward. Hold your ground is about the culture, the politics, the music. And the people still putting in the work in their communities, in the streets and in themselves. That being said, welcome to Hold Your Ground. What's going on, Luis? Luis: Hey, welcome y'all. How you doing, Joe? ⁓ you know, you your your your monologue there made me think I I was gonna take some pot shots. I was gonna I was gonna go out with a classic Louine suck my dick. ⁓ but I'm not now. What I will say is ⁓ to those of you tuning in, thanks for listening. ⁓ it's sad, endings are sad. ⁓ but new beginnings are better, right? And what I will say is that when things go bad, what hurts the most is the looseness that people that you thought were your friends, the way they throw words around. ⁓ it's crazy, it's ridiculous, but you know what, Dave and Bridget suck it! Let's move on. ⁓ joe: Ha ha ha. Luis: You know, fucking let's move on. We've got a fucking guest today. He was the first guest ever on the Collective Offensive Podcast. Now he is the first guest ever on the Hold Your Ground podcast. You know him as a veteran. You know him as a flag burner. And you know him as someone who fucking hates Trump as much as we do. Jay, how you doing, friend? ⁓ Wearing the social D t shirt and carrying a dog. What's the dog's name? Jay: Yep, yep. This is Lola. Hello. She's like ten weeks old. ⁓ Jack Russell and something. We don't know. ⁓ Doesn't matter. She's at rescue, aren't ya? But ⁓ yeah, so how y'all doing? joe: Yeah. Luis: ⁓ what kind of dog is she? She's gonna be smart. Yeah. I'm doing bro, like just chilling. ⁓ I'm getting ready for the new book. Get ready to go to s ⁓ Seattle next week. Just chillin'. You know? ⁓ jumping ship, ⁓ from my my old football club to my new football club. Jay: What what who Luis: I'd like to make that announcement right now. For many years, for many years, I've had the sheer joy and pleasure of being a fan of one of the greatest football clubs the world has ever known. The first working class club in the Premier League, none other than the Irons, West Ham. joe: Yeah. Luis: But my connection to English football at best has been tentative. I'm not a white guy and I'm not from that land. So it's been tentative, right? But now I have a new uncle, okay? My uncle Linval. Okay? And he's from Coventry City. And Coventry City has just gone up to the top tier. So I'm happy to announce that Coventry City is honored to have me. joe: ⁓ really? Luis: As a fan, and that we look forward to our domination of the Premier League, and fucking Arsenal can suck it, and fucking everybody else can suck it, especially the Tottenham Hot Spurs who fucking sent West Ham down. But then again, West Ham, y'all just needed three more points, you know. Jay: Yeah. Luis: Fuck it, we're going with the winners. Let's go up Coventry City. joe: Yeah. Jay: They ⁓ did you ask him that did you ask him if that was okay that you became a fan? Consent. Yeah, they need a consent. People n consent is important, Louise. joe: All right. Luis: I don't they let me read you let me read you a text. joe: Not being a fucking fan of a football club. Luis: Let me read you the text that I got. Dear Honorable Luis Marquez, this is in fact the Coventry City Football Club. We would love for you to become our number one fan. Please circle yes or no and send the note back. So I circled yes. Jay: Really fucked up. joe: So I see we're starting this first episode with a bunch of bullshit. right on. Jay: Ha ha. Luis: Big up Coventry. joe: Word. So Jay, like, for for real though, I I know that we've already been through this with the collective offensive shit, but all the collective offensive ⁓ material has been pulled down. And so if you don't mind, I'd like to go through some of the same shit that we were going through before, right? ⁓ where we can talk about, you know, your your story. Jay: Yeah, so I heard. Luis: Okay. joe: ⁓ especially when it comes to you know burning the flag in front of the White House and the the legal battle that ensued afterwards. ⁓ because we are opening this this podcast up to a whole new demographic of people. ⁓ so if you don't mind repeating yourself once again, that'd be pretty fucking cool. Jay: Right on. Well, I'm ⁓ you know, I'm a retired disabled combat vet, served a little over twenty years. Had like twenty years active, two years ⁓ natty girl time in between. I deployed ⁓ Desert Storm, Iraq and F Afghanistan. So I'm bit of a a unicorn in the military, having all three of those. ⁓ you know, I ⁓ did fifteen months in Iraq. It was a Iraq was rough. As Joe will attest, Iraq was rough. And ⁓ joe: Yeah, for those for those who don't know, J and I were deployed at the same time in the same place and probably crossed paths at some point during that deployment. Jay: Absolutely. It's like me and Rig are on the same fob at the same time. But ⁓ so, you know, they they got a bronze star for that one. ⁓ you know, I'm not a big proud person of all these awards and shit, but I thought that was pretty ⁓ it meant a lot to me. ⁓ but since that time I've run for Congress. ⁓ I made national news getting thrown out of ⁓ joe: Yeah. Jay: ⁓ Chuck Edwards Town Hall last year in March. And then I made news again when I burned the American flag in front of the White House in August 25th. That was in direct response to Trump's exec illegal executive order trying to make trying to find a way to punish people who burn the flag. I was ⁓ cited, I was detained, I was taken to a holding cell, processed, released ⁓ then I had to come back and forth to DC because they decided to try two misdemeanor, class C misdemeanors in federal court. And I had the ranking judge, Judge Bosberg, that some of you might know who he is, because he's constantly in the news about going after Trump and his cronies doing all their illegal shit. ⁓ and finally, right before a couple days before all the ⁓ all the discovery was to be released. the ⁓ feds drop the case. So yeah. And ⁓ I mean since then it's been, you know, like I said, a lot of a lot of attention. ⁓ the biggest thing I want people to take away from this though is that you can push back against this this ⁓ regime. You can you can defy Trump's executive orders because they're illegal and they have no s no ground to stand on. joe: Fucking air. Luis: Well, you know, that's an interesting point. you and I have talked a little bit about ⁓ the fuck is happening. Right? It it it seemed like when you burned the flag that there was this desire to stand up right across the country. And ⁓ that seems to have gone away. Jay: People got comfortable, right? You know, I mean, all those white people, ice for the most part, ice doesn't affect them. What do they care? You know, what the only people the only white people it affects are those that choose to put themselves in the way. And I think they do so knowing what the repercussions can be. The rest of ⁓ they're still ordering on, you know, getting their Amazon, going to their grocery stores, living their life, paying a little bit more for gas. But other than that, man, they're just not affected. And and you know, not a whole lot of not a whole lot of apathy for the situation of of immigrants in this country ⁓ by the the one group of people that can actually make a difference. Luis: Well, let me ask you this. You you you were proud of your bronze star. Rightfully so. ⁓ when you were burning the flag, what were you thinking? What were you w what what what's like walk us through what's that whole thought process? ⁓ are you were you filled with pride at the action? Did you think you were gonna get arrested? yeah, tell us about tell us about that. How'd you feel? What was that like? Jay: Well, you know, it it's I saw as soon as I I I was sitting at lunch and I saw a TikTok video about it that had been signed that morning, and the first thing I said is I gotta go burn a flag. Right? I knew I knew it was the right thing to do. Somebody had to do it. And I was and I was in DC. I had a flag, just so happened to have a flag, and you know, I was only what a couple miles from not even a couple of miles from the from the White House. And I just knew it had to be done. And Honestly, I'm a middle aged white male veteran, combat veteran. I'm a safe person to do an action like that without fearing that they're gonna take me behind some building and beat the absolute shit out of me. You know, or shoot me because I think they'll think my lighter's a gun, you know, and then get away with it. So, you know, it was but it that that wasn't really like I mean, I knew that I would be arrested. But I knew that it was something that that I was a relatively safe person to do it. You know, and it needed to be done. You know, fuck that shit. You don't let him don't we give him that power. People give him the power to fucking write those things and let it affect them and control their behavior. He don't get to do shit with the with the Constitution. You know, if and now my feelings on the Constitution really are that it was written by a bunch of ⁓ rich white slave owners and it needs to be burned and rewritten. But if it's going to be in existence, that fucking president don't get to do shit with it. He don't get to violate it. Right? It's not he doesn't do he doesn't get to do what he wants to do as he, you know, whatever mood strikes him. That's what it that's how this fucking guy is. And joe: So sorry, go ahead, Jay. Jay: No, no, that's all right. I I'll I'll ramble, so you gonna have to cut me off. joe: That's all good, man. So what I was gonna say is fucking like I agree with you in theory, right? Like he's not allowed to do that. But one of the things that I continually tell people, the argument that I bring up to that, is that if somebody does something that they're not allowed to do, and nobody fucking stops them, can they or can they not do it? Right. And I I get what you're saying. We're like, no, you know, we can stand up and and do shit against it. And you're you're lucky that you got out, you know, that you got out of jail, that this all fucking kinda got swept under the rug. you know, but the thing and I'm not telling people not to stand up by any means, because you know where I stand on that. But what I am gonna say is that we need to be careful in how we move, especially going forward, because things are escalating continually. from the fucking regime. And while he may not be able to do that legally, what's legal and what's not doesn't really matter if you're fucking plucked in the ground. Right? So that's that's one thing that I always argue like I'll I'll use you know, my past as a fucking vessel captain, forever, right? I'd have sailboats that would come and like cut me off as I'm bringing this huge fucking boat that's weighs, you know an a an insane amount of money. It doesn't stop on a fucking dime. Right? And like I'd be coming into San Diego and you'd get all these people out in their little sailboats and like they cut right in front of me and be like, I have the right away. It's like that'll look great on your fucking tombstone that you have the fucking right of way. You know, I mean yeah, you legally have the right away. In practice, I can't fucking stop. You know, and I'm like I c so yeah, cool, you got you have the legal right. That's not gonna save you from fucking not being alive anymore though. You know? Jay: No, I agree with you on that. 'Cause my brother, when we were younger, would always say, like, ⁓ it dare a car to hit him. He's I'll sue you. I'm like, You'll be dead. What good is it? Right? Or but I also tell, you know, along with that, you gotta you look you need to understand what you're getting into when you're doing this, doing what we do. Right? You can't be blind to it. But you still gotta be willing to do it. joe: Yeah. Yeah. Luis: I mean here's the thing, I don't even think we're ready. Right? When we look like nationally, we're not even ready. We don't we there are no groups like the Black Panther Party. There are no groups even like the ridiculous Weathermen, right? That are around. And and here's the thing. Were there groups like the Weathermen around? I wouldn't wanna follow ⁓ Those dudes were fucking ridiculous. So how do we win, guys? Like when we're not like like can you imagine if the left had true power right now? joe: It'd be ridiculous, right? And you're saying how do we win? I think so something that you and I have talked about a lot, Luis, is that we've lost, right? And we need to admit that we've lost. And I truly believe that. We have fucking lost. The red pilling of the youth, the fucking fascist takeover of the United States, it's it's it's happened. It's happening. It's happened. We need to be able to admit to ourselves that we fucking have lost to be able to find a way to move forward into this new fight. And so many people they're we haven't lost, right? They don't believe that we've lost and they're they're refuse to look at that. ⁓ and they think that voting in the midterms is gonna fucking bring us out of this crazy shit. I'm still not convinced that we're getting elections in November. you know what I mean? I guess where I'm going at with that is that the first step to solving a problem is admitting that there's a fucking problem. Right? So the problem is is that we've lost and we need to fucking acknowledge that. Luis: Well, I mean, what's more important, and I'm asking to both you guys, is it more important that we remain free? And freedom with all that it means that people can be cunts and people can be boneheads and it's a long fight because it's an education fight? Or do we wanna live in a world where we have Leftist authoritarianism. Where you have healthcare but it's enforced, you have housing, but it's enforced. You have all these things, you have environmental protections, but it's ruthlessly enforced and backed by jails and guns. What do we want more? joe: So here's the here's the thing where it makes it a fucking impossibility on both sides. On both on both sides of that, right? Is that yeah, I don't want fucking ⁓ gulags and guns and all that kind of shit to be enforcing ⁓ healthcare and things of that nature, but with absolute freedom, you come into the tolerance paradox. Right? Where if you tolerate intolerance, you tolerate yourself right out of fucking existence. So to let that fucking fire spread like we currently do, we end up right back where we're at. You know what I mean? It's a it's a weird thing. It's a it's a tough one. Luis: What do you think there, Jay? Jay: think that the the situation as it is currently ⁓ has a has a limited lifespan. All right. This the they have progressed in fascism much faster than anybody thought was possible. You know, we're coming from a pseudo-democratic society, capitalist unfortunately, but still pseudo-cap democratic, into a fascist society very quickly. And I think it's gonna it's gonna burn itself out. Now what's left on the other side ⁓ I think that's where the fight's gonna be. Is once this fascism, this regime is is is destroys itself, it's it's eating its own already. ⁓ that what is gonna be left? And that that's that's where that's where the struggle is, because we can't go back to what we were, which was not very wasn't worth a shit to begin with. ⁓ I I agree with Joe, and I've been saying this for a long time that we are in a fascist state. We have lost. You know, there was no there was no win. There was no win. And there's no win, even if the elections go off in November, there's no no fucking win. Because we're dealing with the same shit, just a different side. They're capitalists. As long as we have capitalism as the main driver in our society, it's never gonna change. So how do I mean I don't I mean I smarter people than me may have solutions. I don't have a solution other than You know, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, my solution is to just punch them all in the fucking throat. But Luis: And and I mean that's that's the thing, but you know, the left doesn't have we're not training, we're not unified, we hold no ground, right? And and here's the thing ultimately at the end of the day, gentlemen, you two are unicorns. Okay? And I'm lucky enough to know a lot of other white people that are unicorns. And how often do white people get called unicorns, right? But the point is, is that you two old white guys are unicorns. Bam. Okay? ⁓ because you guys see the situation for what it truly is, and when you guys are pushed, okay, and made and and made to see some truths uncomfortably, you're willing to look at them. The problem that the left has is that the problem what my last podcast had. And I really hate to fucking go there. Right? Cause I'm not trying to. But that's why ultimately we cannot win. Because white people at the end of the day will allude to calling the police, will fucking resort to racist tropes. Will fucking blame everything under the sun other than themselves and then blame you for it. And the left is full of that. Not here in Portland. In Portland, I'm talking to you. Portland, I am speaking to us. Okay? We have to stop this shit if we want to win. You guys want like the left says, ⁓ no hierarchy, no hierarchy. Gentlemen, you two right here, you tell me, how do we win a war without fucking hierarchy? joe: You don't. You fucking don't. Luis: Right. You you guys studied war. Was it not Gaius Marius who took fifty thousand Roman troops and fought like what? A million fucking barbarians that were fucking had no hierarchy and that million lost to like fifty thousand Roman troops? Right? That were all you know failing square with their fucking So so okay, so you just said you don't win. So alright, we don't win because we don't want a hierarchy. We don't everybody and then when we do, like you say, Joe, everybody wants to be a quarterback. Everybody wants to be a coach. Nobody wants to be a lineman doing the hard work. Jay: W when I ran for office, what I learned about the left is that everybody thinks they're right. So they won't unite. They won't come together for a good cause, swallow their pride, you know, and and fucking get in line and get it done. And that's why the right wins. joe: Yeah. It's fucking purity politics. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I wasn't fucking good enough because I was a white male or I was this or I was that and and I was like I was straight, you know, whatever. And it was fucking there was no win. There's no win on the on ⁓ with them. I hate huh? joe: Yeah. Luis: Portland, Oregon. In Portland, Oregon, we were facing a neo-fascist fucking as an incumbent mayor, Ted Wheeler. Okay? Comes from billionaire fucking forestry money. We had an anti-fascist woman and avowed praxis was solid. Anti-fascist running for mayor. Let me tell you what happened. A black nationalist. decided to run for office. I'm not gonna mention this person's name because I don't feel like getting fucking shit on this week. ⁓ from Portland, right? Fucking you guys gonna suck it. But this this black nationalist who ran for twelve different offices, who had never won, decided she wanted to be mayor. Jay: Mm. Luis: So go ahead, Jay, ask me Who did Portland vote for? Did they vote for the solid anti fascist, the solid white leftists? Or did they fucking split the vote and vote for the black nationalist? Jay: Luis, who did they vote for? Luis: The black nationalists. Jay: So identity politics, always. joe: Well that's that's it, right? This is something that I fucking I try to attack on the regular on on online spaces. You see this shit all the time, right? Where people are like, you know, your job as a white person is to shut the fuck up and follow the lead of a person of color. And I disagree with that, ⁓ as somebody who grew up in the fucking streets. You know what I mean? Like, no, dude. No, it's fucking not. Because why would anybody follow somebody who has no experience, right? So that that's essentially how I take that. If there's a person of color who has zero fucking experience in fighting, in actions, in anything, I'm supposed to just follow this person because they're a person of color? That's ridiculous. Luis: Well Well here's the thing, dude. That's all this. Because with with our with our last fucking set of co-hosts, bro, a person of color, an indigenous person of color, told them they were wrong. A white dude told them they were wrong. And we were wrong, bro. joe: That is, right? That's all fucking white people fucking Yeah. No, a hundred percent, right. Luis: So so even that argument that the left throws about is bullshit. Because what it is, it's listen to people that don't hurt your feelings or your self-esteem or your self worldview about yourself. joe: Word, right? I guess where I was going at with that whole entire rant, I'll just finish that out real quick, is that the way that things work in the real world is not the fucking ideals that are put out by leftists and whatnot, self-proclaimed online, right? So when you're in the fucking real world, don't fucking pay attention to internet bullshit. Fucking follow what's actually happening in the fucking on a fucking street level. Because if you do shit that the fucking left always wants to preach about on the internet, you're gonna either gonna end up in fucking prison or dead or fucking whatever. Luis: I mean a and and you're right, Joe. I mean I mean you're right, Jay. That this identity politics that you as a white male, good luck running on a leftist fucking platform, and that's ridiculous. Because your ideas might be fucking better if people actually looked at ⁓ right? Because here's the thing, everybody. The betrayer of the movement? The movement. The movement that. Anyway. The betrayer, he's not gonna be having white skin. You wanna know who the betrayer is gonna look like? He's gonna be a per they're gonna be a person of color. They're probably gonna come from one or more marginalized communities. They might be a trans person. They might be a gay person. They might be a black and an indigenous person. Okay? But the betrayer is going to come from us. So that that's it. And if you don't believe me, look at every fucking person that was betrayed in the revolutionary movement. All of it comes from the people that were fucking being fucking marginalized. Do you quite honestly think that there were enough Nazis to round up every Jewish person in Europe? You don't think that Jews were helping the Nazis do that? For whatever reasons they may have or didn't have? I don't know. I'm not here. I'm just like, yo, that shit happens. Who killed Fred Hampton? Yeah, it was a white dude that put two bullets in his head. But who really killed Fred Hampton? Who fucking gave him the barbiturates that fucking allowed him to not wake up? Who gave the fucking the floor plan to the apartment building? Who gave his schedule? It was a black dude. It was his right hand man. I'm just saying we don't have to be so hard on fucking white dudes in the movement unless white dudes in the movement fucking want to show that they are refusing to change. The ones that are willing to confront their fucking racism. The ones that are willing to confront everything about themselves and be like, yo, I was wrong, or you know, and change. Those are the ones that we should keep because they're fucking unicorns, and unicorns are goddamn precious. Thank you for coming to my fucking wetback talk. Jay: No, yeah. It's it's it's it's hard. Yeah, it's really hard negotiating that ⁓ word I'm looking for sphere that it it's hard it it's hard to to be legitimati legitimatize j j I can't what's the fucking word how do you say legitimatize legitimize it's hard to be legitimized ⁓ without someone you know like rig vouches for me all the time. joe: Delegitimize? Delegitimize. Jay: You know, Rig is straight up like, you know, you you can trust this guy. And it's a it's it's I mean it's necessary. I I can understand why. Why would they trust some fucking middle aged white guy? So I got some fucking awesome tattoos and shit. No. You know? ⁓ it's it's a it's hard to maneuver that space. Luis: But see it's all the it's all the the wording around an underground, but there is no underground that exists. Right? So The underground in the sixties, for example, there is a quote from this book that I was just reading of this gentleman who was on armed robbery. He's like, This underground is awesome. I can show up in any city. There's someone there to take care of me. There's someone there to give me a place to sleep. There's someone to give me food. And when I gotta move on, I gotta move on. That doesn't exist in this world because if it existed, we don't we it it wouldn't, we wouldn't hear about it. So I hope it exists. But We have these people that like, ⁓ vouch, ⁓ trust. We're not doing most 99% of the people that are use language like that aren't doing anything. Right? Like, because 99 people percent of the people that use language like that, like I mean look dude fucking the Texas the kids that went to Texas to jail prison in in Texas They had five people amongst them that flipped right and when you when you look into that those five people that flipped were the most adamant in their fucking beliefs We don't have solidarity. We have I'm right, you're wrong. We have a bunch of people that want to be communist and don't understand communism. joe: Ha ha ha. Luis: Right. We have people that are like, let's barter for shit. Okay, so let's pretend we we live in a system of bartering. How much is my kidney surgery worth to you as a surgeon, Jay? What can I give you that you don't already have? Jay: Chickens and a bowl of spaghetti. Look, you know, yeah, I understand what you're saying. Luis: ⁓ How do we pay for electricity? Jay: Exactly. They live in a dream world. Half these people couldn't survive in a in a ⁓ true rural situation because they've never hunted in their life and they've never skinned an animal and and had to eat it. They've never done any of these things. And it's not just something yet you just don't you don't just do it. You know, it's not just something you just wake up and go, ⁓ I can do that. You know? ⁓ but like getting really quick getting back to what I was saying, like Joe, Joe has you have a history. You belong to a group. That is recognized for what they stand for. Right? And you have a history in that group. I work solo. I don't have that history. I have people on the left who call me out. joe: Something just happened to your audio, Jay. Jay: I I keep getting calls and they knocked it out. I'm sorry. I'm on my phone. But ⁓ they, you know, I have people on the left that call me out and say, ⁓ you're just doing this for for attention or for likes or ⁓ cli and I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? Clicks and likes and shit. I don't do fucking social media. I I don't have a social media presence. I don't I don't fucking want one. 'Cause that's not that's bullshit. You know, that's all fucking, you know. joe: That's all good. Jay: Y'all know you you gotta if you got like Joe always says, if you have millions of followers and you claim to be part of the movement, you're not because you shouldn't have a fucking account that long if you're really doing the fucking work. Right? You your ass should be banned every fucking day. You know? You should never build up a fucking account. I've had this same account for a couple years and I got like 2,900 people that follow me, and I don't give a fuck if it was 10. Right? I don't give a fuck because it doesn't I don't I'm not doing it for that. I do this shit for for you and me and everybody around us, you know, and I do it, I do it I do it, do things so people can see that you can do these things. There's risk, like we talked about before, a lot of risk. But fucking stop fucking get off the goddamn fucking internet and shit and go out and fucking I don't know. How about you go to the store and go buy some food for some fucking some homeless kids, some poor people. How don't you help you get you know, do something like that. Stand up you know, you wanna make a video, make a video for someone who who just lost their fucking job and their house and their fucking car. You know? Not fucking, ⁓ look at me, I'm so fucking awesome. I'm throwing dildos at fucking ice cops and ice cars and shit. joe: Yeah, word. So real quick, I just wanna touch on something, right? With what you were just saying there. I've heard so much fucking pushback from people like I can't afford to go get people food. I can't do this. There's always an excuse as to why people can't do something, right? I've heard it time and time again. Luis: You know, ⁓ I mean joe: One of the easiest things for those of you listening, if you want to be anti fascist as fuck and make a fucking difference in your community, if you can't afford to go fucking feed a homeless person, go sit down and have a conversation with them. Straight up. Make them feel like a fucking human being. Right? Show them that they're not fucking less than and that you're not better. That's something straight up that I mean I fucking I've sat with people in my community and fucking talked with them and shit. And that was obviously they they they need to eat, you know what I mean? But like sitting and talking with somebody was right up on that level because it made them feel fucking recognized as a fucking person. Luis: And you know what, people wanna be leaders when it's good. Okay? When you you wanna be a leader when you're walking through a crowd and people are shaking your hands, taking selfies with you, and saying, ⁓ my god, thank you for the work that you do. Okay? I'm not even gonna lie. That part is awesome. Okay? It feels good. Strokes your ego. Of course it feels good, okay? Do you still want to be a leader when your house is getting firebombed? You still wanna be a leader when your children are at risk? Alright? Because here's the thing. If you're the type of person that's like, yeah, I still want that. No. You shouldn't want this. You you shouldn't want do do you want the cops al like always n d no. Right? No, we were talking about it earlier. That Joe and I that like look part of the problem that the left has is that a lot of you guys come from fucking maybe not money, but more money than I come from. Alright? So that's money to me. Right? If you like look one person out of all my primos and primas, those those are cousins. One of us went to college. Right? So if you come from a family where like you and all your siblings went to college, awesome. You're you're you're rich to me, but don't pretend you don't have to be poor. You don't have to pretend like yo, you're trying to get back to the hood. Because you know what? The hood is rough. That's why everyone's trying to leave the hood. That's why you sell drugs, that's why you rob people, that's why you fucking beat people up because you're trying to get the fuck out. joe: Yeah. Right. Luis: Okay. And there's fucking what is this shaming people for shit that we have? Nah bro, you as a human being, what you don't deserve nice things? People don't deserve nice things. I dated a girl once that was all like, huh, houseless people with phones. What the fuck? What? They can't make a phone call? Jay: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fucking Luis: And and and I'm not gonna say much about the Democrats, nice things, but you know what? They were giving away at least communications, cause I live in a town where you can see it all the time. Get you don't have a phone? Come stop by this little tent right here, get a phone and get a tablet hooked up for free. Because we all need to be able to communicate. Jay: You can't get services if you don't have a phone number. Luis: And the left, the left just thinks just on the social medias, we they they they just want to go after look, I'm not gonna lie, Joe and I want to have a voice, and we already do have a voice, okay? But here's the thing: what are we doing with it? Cause I tell you what, I don't want a dollar from any of you guys that I haven't earned. Okay? Which means like when I ask for money from the public, I ask you guys to buy my book because that's that's me working and you find value in it. We're not up here asking you, hey, we have a podcast, give us money. No. The reason we want our voice, because maybe we can inspire you guys. Right? Maybe someone's out there that's that's like Jay. That was like, yo dude, I used to be a veteran, or I'm a veteran and I used to think this way. And I see where that J guy is coming from. And I want to make a difference. Maybe someone's gonna be listening to Russell Payne when Russell Payne comes on. Some oi boy. And he's like, that dude, that that podcast, that interview with you, dude, changed my life. That's why we do this. We have access to some of our people that you guys all like. But you guys don't. So we give it to you. Inspire the next generation. God damn it I sound like a hippie. Maybe I fucking hippie. Fuck me. Jay: Yeah, you do. Grow your fucking hair out, tie dye shirts and shit. ⁓ one thing I say is is i if you're not working local the first w that should be your first priority. Then what the fuck are you doing? You know, if you're not trying to to first off, you I mean you're seeking national attention, fuck you. You know, just just fuck you. Luis: Can you hear? Jay: I don't give a fuck about you. Like to see a fucking joe: Straight up, dude. That's some shit that I say all the time, right? Like everybody wants to be that leader. Everybody wants to be recognized on a national and world level when you can make the most difference right in your fucking community. And so many people overlook that. Luis: Sick. Jay: But my favorite thing, like, you know, it it's not it's not the recognition and ⁓ you're great or whatever. It's that you inspired me to to to do this or to do that or whatever. Local people that I that hear that are like thank I mean there was a you know there was a World War II vet in a fucking wheelchair at a at a rally and he had a picture of me and shit and was like, Thank you, thank you for you know. You know, reminding everyone, you know, that we're supposed to be anti fascist. ⁓ you okay, Joe? Luis: He's choked up at that beautiful story. joe: Very much so. My wife just came home, that's why I went on mute and whatnot. The dogs started barking, all that kind of stuff. She's home for her lunch. Jay: Yeah, my my dog's barking like fucking girl. She just started barking. I'm sorry. Luis: That's why I said that's why I said one o'clock and you were like, Wow, all or nothing, huh? And I was like, All right then and I fucking called Joe. I was like, He all or nothing and he's like, Well it's gonna get a little loud and I was like, ⁓ all right. Jay: I'm I'm always gonna be loud because my dogs are always here. So I don't know what to tell you, man. I mean the fucking shit we put up with. Luis: You know, we just we we we need to get I don't know. We need to get right. Right? and we we need to do the thing locally. And you know God damn it dude, I really My last podcast co-host said something to me and and and now that some of his TikTok people told him that he did more work than both Joe and I did combined. Jay: Ever? Wow. How quickly they forget, huh? Luis: And I and I was thinking a and that has rubbed me fucking wrong ever since then, okay? And as we go on with this conversation, I'm trying to remember the opening monologue, but fucking other memories keep coming up, right? And just let me say this, dude. People don't see what I do because when I'm on camera, this is what you see. Okay? But what I will say is that I am very active in the migrant camps. And I don't see anybody there with a camera, without a camera. And I don't have to justify myself than anybody. But Dave, okay, this is to you personally. I have literally been doing what I've been doing since the day you were born. Okay? If you do work for the rest of your life. You're never gonna fucking catch up. And if people wanna think that you do all of this, that's awesome. Because we've told you point blank that there are great activists that you will never hear of. And you will never hear of them because they're great. joe: So that's something where like it's a fucking it's an issue where everybody equates success or the fucking ⁓ you know what needs to happen based off of fucking social media presence and popularity. You know what I mean? And it's fucking wild to me. It's f Okay. Jay: My d my dog got crawled under the gate. I'll be right back. I'm sorry. joe: Hotcha J. It's fucking wild to me, man. Like, like you just said, there are people who will never be recognized and they don't want the recognition. I don't want recognition for fucking shit that I've done in the past. I don't really care to have it. Right? but when we start putting what needs to happen into a popularity contest, or what's deemed Jay: Yeah. joe: you know, making a good difference in a popularity contest, it's fucking crazy. Cause what we see happen in various communities, we've seen it happen in Portland, we've seen it happen in Minneapolis, we've seen it happen in Seattle, we've seen it happen all over the country. Is that you get somebody with a giant fucking TikTok account, per se, and they show up and they get their fucking clips that they want, where they're doing whatever, you know, generally aggravating a situation. Jay: Yeah. joe: They get their clips and they're gone. And they just made the lives of everybody in that community who's there day in and day out more difficult. But what does that matter? They got the clips that they want, right? And then you see somebody, ⁓ you get people from all over the country who look at that and they think, that's fucking awesome. That's what we need to be doing. Right? So then you have. More people that have zero fucking clue of what ad community actually needs or what the people on the fucking street level actually need, and they show up and do stupid shit. And it causes the situation to get worse. And we've seen this fucking play out time and time again. We watched it happen in Minneapolis all over this last fucking or the beginning of this year. Not even last year, it was the beginning of this year. Right? Where you had fucking social media influencers who felt the need to go get on the fucking quote unquote front line and they got their fucking clips, right? But you talked to people that were fucking there, the actual organizers in the community, and they fucking hated the fact that those motherfuckers showed up because they made the situation worse. Jay: made it dangerous for them, then those fucked artis left. Left them to it. You know, you walk in if you're if you're conducting if you're doing activism with a fucking phone in your hand, you're fuck you, you're a joke. You're not doing activism. You're not there to you're there to get fucking clicks and views or whatever the fuck it is. And you're not doing any I mean you're not fucking doing anything. Right? I mean Luis: You're you're putting people. Jay: Let ⁓ I mean if if people want to film you, let ⁓ fucking film you, but don't you be fucking concerned about that. Do your fucking work. And you're there to you walk into a city what first off, if you're not from fucking Minneapolis, why the fuck are you there in the first place? Right? They know what the fuck to do. And they knew what the fuck to do. They fucking they fucking took care of shit. LA, they know what the fuck they're doing. Chicago, ⁓ they know what the fuck they're doing. You know, if if you're if you're able to give them some sort of financial support, help raise money for them, fucking do it. For those non profits. But you don't need to be there to do that shit. joe: And if you are if you are there, if you do show up, pay attention to the people who are there fucking every goddamn day. Luis: Right. Jay: Get permission to fucking be there. Talk to the fucking people that are organizing. Make sure it's okay. What do you what do you need me to do? ⁓ you need me to fucking feed, you know, you know, fucking feed people? Got it. ⁓ you mean I can't throw dicks at fucking ice agents? ⁓ man. No, fuck you, dude. Fuck you. ⁓ I can't I can't go into a fucking okay. First off, I all right. I don't believe that doing what the right does. Luis: Yeah. Jay: When the right is wrong for doing it and you're doing it because they do it, it's wrong. Like going into a church with that fucking like they did in was that DC or whatever, and and fucking disrupting a fucking church. I don't give a shit about religion, okay? But disrupting a church service, ⁓ well, the right does it. So fucking what? Don't do that shit. All that does is make you look like a fucking moron, and it doesn't help anybody. It didn't Do anything. Or what is what you're doing moving the needle? Or are you setting shit back? Are you asking for money so you can go fucking protest? Well, guess what? You're doing exactly what the fucking right says that we're doing. We're fucking paid protesters. Fuck that. You don't pay, people don't pay for you to fucking protest. You go out and do that shit. If you can't, if you don't have the money to go fucking across the country to do that shit, then maybe you shouldn't fucking do it. Right? ⁓ I need a truck. So I can load my motorcycle and go around to Walmart's and fucking talk shit about and start fucking shit with people. Fuck you. Fuck you. You know, dude, this shit, man, it's gone fucking it's a joke now. These people have made it a fucking joke. And that's part of the fucking problem, Luis. Why white people aren't as involved. Because there's other white people that are involved that have turned this into a fucking joke. Luis: I I mean you're you're you're not wrong. ⁓ and it it it really is, right? ⁓ we forget that the the American left is rooted in one thing and one thing alone, and this is racial equality in the United States. And thankfully, as people have gained their voices, that has branched out. But it still doesn't take away from the root cause. Okay? And w there there's there there's some organizing going on in the and and the real organizing is is away from these platforms. And again, I think it's Joe and I's wish that we have a platform, not that we gain money, but that we can encourage people to delve deeper into the praxis of the left. Right? Terry Hall has a great saying, the great Terry Hall. Okay, rest his soul. And you'll see it you see it in his memes. He says, is not enough to be not racist. We have to be anti-racist. Right? And and that's a call to action. That is a verb. That is a battle call. Okay? That we have to be this every day. Right? That revolution starts within me first before it goes anywhere else. And if my shit's not solid, then it's not solid. But we this young generation has grown up being 235 characters away from being canceled into oblivion. Right? That in 2020. joe: Yeah. Luis: I was out in the streets, and I'm not even gonna lie. At least 60% of the people that were out in the streets weren't out there for the same reason that I was. They were out there taking selfies. They were out there drinking. Right? I'll never forget one kid came up to me and he's like, Hey, do you got anything that goes boom? Get the fuck out of here, kid. Right? ⁓ and and and so And and we haven't seen that those numbers since. And that was only because of goddamn COVID and everybody was scared that they were gonna die because you were gonna get some fucked up disease from your family and fucking grandma, right? That's the only reason they were in the streets. And even then, that fucking raised so much money that fucking people grifted off that, because I know. Jay: That kills the movement. Look at look at BLM. joe: Word. Luis: Okay, and look at what a coward I still am, because I know. But I'm scared of the retribution that would come back to me. And I don't just mean fucking on the tickety talks or fucking public media. I'm talking real life shit because this is people's real lives. Okay? joe: Yeah. Luis: And when you a and this is the problem, dude, that like are we abolitionists or are we for jail? Are we pro-cop or are we anti-cop? Are are we really wanting civil rights and at what cost or not? Right? I again every time I opened my mouth, I did not mean for this to be something at at at somebody that I know. But this is this like the left is just about making money. Paying for your and I get it, dude. But if you can't pay like like whether it's fucking buying a new truck for Gunny so he can take his shit show on the road. But here's the thing. Jay: Capitalism. Luis: At least I'm starting to think, at least maybe I have this much respect for Gunny. Because at least he's he's got actors in his show. Right? Most of these people want us to think that they're doing something because they're doing this on the screen stuff. Give me money, give me money, give me money. Ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching. When are we just gonna want change? Like, when do you just want peace? When do you want things that are just good? We're not gonna get utopia. Okay, so what's the next best thing? Right? We as leftists are out here fighting for ridiculous shit. No borders! Dude, as long as there's a country, there's gonna be fucking borders. Let's be real. Right? As long as there's a country, there's borders. So shouldn't the fucking process be? Well, let's make it as fucking as as accessible as possible. Because there are always gonna be those borders. So let's stop saying no more borders, okay? Fucking, I'm one of the only indigenous people. I say no land back. Do you know why? Because it's racist that you fuckers think that I can take care of the land like I'm a gardener because I'm a fucking indigenous person. I don't know shit about gardening unless it's weed. joe: Ha ha Luis: Or tomatoes. Because if you can grow weed, you can grow tomatoes. Okay. Jay: Apparently can grow wheat 'cause I can grow tomatoes, motherfucker. Luis: I don't want to be in charge of the land. Plus, what do we do with our friends like Joe and Jay? Right? They're born here. He's not born in fucking Scotland. And I don't know where a giant land is that Joe would go to anyway. So where is he gonna go back to? This is the only place he knows. So let's figure out how to like work with each other. No more fucking land based on race, religion, creed, because that's not anti-fascist. Maybe 300 years ago, down south in my little flot of fucking Central America, fucking my people had claim to this land. But not in 2026. We gotta make it work for everybody. So I've been listening to Monterey live in seventy two and it turns out that fucking that's Jerry's best fucking word, bro. What the fuck is coming out of my mouth? Like seriously, dude. joe: Man, shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up. The brown acid is poison. Fuckin I'm gonna quit this podcast already, dude. We're fucking gotta ⁓ The fucking We gotta f fuckin You're Skippy now, dude. What the fuck Skippy? The skinhead hippie. Jay: Don't don't w don't don't take the window panes. Don't take the window panes. Yeah, it is bad. Happy holy joe: Skippy the skinhead hippie, dude. Luis: I don't even know. But fuck like yo joe: You are gonna get those fucking croc martins, aren't you, dude? Jay: Hey, crocs are awesome, man. I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Luis: Stop bro. When they made that movie, when they made that movie, they fucking homeboy looked for the dumbest shoe in existence and found Crocs and they've taken off. Like it is in ridiculous how idiocracy is fucking a prophetic movie, bro. joe: Shut up, Jay. Jay: Hey, I hated Crocs until I wore them as slippers and I'm like, these are the fucking bomb. The ones that are insulated and shit. They're fucking awesome. As slippers. Don't go out of the house with them. Don't don't do that. joe: ⁓ dude. Jay: What? Adidas sliders? Luis: I will walk around ⁓ in in my sliders, bro, dressed like this in sliders, this is ghetto as fuck. joe: I got these on dude. These are pretty fucking sweet. Luis: What are those? ⁓ Jay: I got these on. You can't fuck with my my fucking my Adidas. joe: Ha ha ha ha ha. Luis: You're the only one in slick shoes, although ⁓ I do hate to tell you d do you want me to burst your bubble about that t shirt you're wearing? Jay: Don't fuck with my social D. Don't don't fucking don't don't destroy what little bit of fucking unreality I live in. All right. Luis: So you don't wanna hear about, you know, any right wing tendencies or you know that part? Jay: Hey, hold on a second. Hold on a second then. Fucking you know what? Fuck you. Hold on. joe: So no hold on I'll I'll I'll jump in on this one and I don't even like social distortion really, but Mike Ness is fucking anti fucking racist and pretty anti-fucking fascist. And I think he's a cunt. ⁓ Jay ran away. Fucking he's like, I'm fucking done. Fuck you guys. Luis: You know of changing shirts, watch him come back with a screwdriver shirt. joe: ⁓ dude, I will go to North Carolina and put my foot in his butthole, dude. Luis: ⁓ that's hilarious. joe: Yeah. ⁓ but yeah, we should it's been an hour. We've been recording for an hour. We should probably look at wrapping this one up. Luis: Yeah. We we we should. I think it's a good first one. ⁓ it's good to have Jay back on. I don't know what he's doing, but since we're getting ready to wrap it up, I will say if you've been with us this long, again, what the fuck? ⁓ but thank you. ⁓ and please, you know, maybe hit a subscribe button. Not because I don't know, because you wanna hit the subscribe button, because you wanna hear from people like Lin Val Golding coming up in the future from the specials. You're gonna wanna hear from Russell Payne from the oppressed. You're gonna wanna hear from bands like Total Massacre, Los Fastidios, Lions Law, you're gonna wanna hear possibly Jay: Fuck you and your fucking shirt cake. Luis: From from Jay again. You know, Jay, ⁓ as as Joe was reminding me here, we gotta it's about an hour, we gotta get ready to go. ⁓ are you working on any projects? Are you ⁓ are you doing anything? joe: Ha ha Jay: I yes I am, Luis. I am working on a project. I'm writing a book. Well, my wife's ⁓ writing it, I'm talking it. ⁓ Banding, I've been banding around a ⁓ title and stuff for it, but basically it's gonna just talk about how I went from you know Reagan to Revolution is kind of like the idea behind it. You know, I I I was a that I was a Republican growing up. And Luis: That's your name. Yeah. Jay: And I I I learned you know, I I I I evolved, I guess you could say I'd slowly evolved. I mean it's always it's never ending, but you know, the deconstruction of of who I was and the reconst the rebuilding and ⁓ you know, culminating in burning the flag in front of the White House. You know, the Luis: That is your name right there. From Reagan to Revolution. That name is fucking fire, bro. ⁓ Jay: Yeah. So it's it's Joe. You know, I always seek Joe's approval. What do you mean? joe: I think that's fucking dope, dude. I I I Reagan to Revolution is fucking that is straight fire, to put it as Louise put it. That shit's fucking rad. Luis: For a hundred bucks, you 'cause the brown man had to do the labor again. Nobody found that funny but me. But anyway. Like, no, I think I I like I'm interested. Like I love your story. ⁓ I love every time you're here. it's not as silly as last time, but you know, we'll have silly times again in the future. ⁓ neither is Joe. Joe's not stoned either. You know. ⁓ he's he's not getting high in the morning. And I've joe: Okay. Cool. Jay: Well, I was stoned last time. This time I'm not. Kinda boring. You smoke, Yo? Hm. You drink? Luis: I don't smoke either, you that. Jay: ⁓ you're straight edge? Okay, good. joe: No. Luis: Do you wanna come on our drunk episode? Jay: Or what? Luis: Or drunk episode? Yeah. He's gotta be. So I don't know, but we're gonna take like five shots on air and just see where it goes. Jay: Are you gonna be drunk, Joe? joe: Okay, so I will say this, right? Like I don't drink very often. I do drink every once in a while. But if you think that I'm gonna fucking do a drunk episode where I take five shots, you're out of your fucking mind because five shots isn't even a fucking warm-up. Luis: Also, I would like to say In closing, in closing, if you didn't want to fucking have your taint hair ripped out, that's all you had to say. Okay. You didn't have to have a big whole blow up and blow our friendship apart. Okay. You just said you just you just had to be like, hey, I didn't want to rip my taint hair off. That's it. Yeah, we are. Jay: Right. Ten shots. joe: ⁓ fuck. Ha ha. Jay: Hey, are we doing closing remarks? All right. Save your glass bottles. joe: Yeah, do a closing remark. Word word fucking ⁓ mine will be mine will be, you know, I'm stoked if you guys are hanging out listening to us. This will be the only episode that we are addressing the situation with the collective offensive moving forward. ⁓ as I said in the intro, we are going to be talking to different musicians and activists and things of that nature and telling stories from our past as well. ⁓ So this is it. Luis: That's that joe: on the fucking on the on the talking about the last fucking project. ⁓ I appreciate you guys checking us out and moving forward we're gonna have some really cool shit. So tune in next week where we're gonna have a really cool fucking ⁓ we're gonna have a really cool thing going on. Yeah. Luis: Well wait. Do I get it? Okay. ⁓ yeah. Okay. So my closing episodes. ⁓ I would also like to say store your oils and gasoline in said glass bottles. Okay? And may and maybe cap them with cloth. Jay: And powdered laundry soap. Luis: Well, joe: Alright, so I feel like this I don't know if you guys ever seen this video is like don't don't take fucking whatever, mix it up with I dying like the guys like singing how to make crystal meth. That's pretty much what we're doing here. And I think I'm gonna fucking put an end to it because, you know, yeah. Cool. Luis: Yeah, I got that. Keep tenor right safe and legal. joe: Word. All right. Thank you everybody for listening to the first episode of Hold Your Ground. We'll see you next week.