Hey, what's going on? Welcome to the Crime Pays a botany a dozen
podcasts today, I got a conversation with Jay Lesley. If you've ever heard
of them, there behind the fucking Canceled podcast with Clementine Morrigan. They've also
got a website with a bunch of really great writing on it. I first
became aware of them, I think, from the Cursed Cancelations Instagram page,
which you should follow if you've known. It's a it's a really wonderfully eloquent
and articulate critique of what's happened with modern leftism. I should say, of
course, this isn't a political podcast. I don't intend to make it one,
aside from my own weird social commentary and ramblings that I get into sometimes.
I don't really care what someone's politics are. I just my goal is
getting people aware of plant ecology, plant evolution, and most importantly, having
respect for native plant landscapes and trying to create habitat in yards, trying to
kill thelong get rid of this weird you know, car slum slash retailed death
cult that's been created in so many places in North America. It's a dead
end road that's killing us, you know, spiritually, mentally, and especially
physically in terms of obesity and diabetes, etc. So I want to show
people there's another way, and I want to get people looking at plants in
a way that can help them and you know, basically become a form of
therapy for them, because that's what it did to me. So I don't
care what someone's politics are. I would I would prefer, you know,
people that I don't agree with get into native plan landscapes, get into a
calgy, you start understanding evolution, become fascinated with the quote natural world,
which again isn't really the natural world, It's just the real world. I
don't even really like that word natural world. It kind of inherently puts a
separation between human beings and the rest of the biosphere, you know. So,
uh, that said, I am obviously left leanting anyone who's listening to
the podcast for any extented period of time. I'm a leftist, but I'm
not religious. I'm not dogmatic about it. I'm not rather, I'm not
religiously dogmatic about it. I don't give a shit, you know, at
the end of the day, as long as someone isn't trying to preach to
me or change my mind or whatever. So but that said, I think
most people listen to this podcast are leftist anyway, left leaning, progressive,
whatever you want to call it. And there's been a real, to me,
at least the way I've seen it, there's been a really alarming and
bizarre divisiveness and dogmatic view of the world lately among leftism in the United States,
or as Jay calls it, the anglosphere basically like the first world fucking
honkey left not necessarily honky, but you know what I mean. You know,
United States, UK, Canada or whatever doesn't seem that bad. In
Australia, it's kind of shit. It just seems mellow like it's it's you
know, leftism there doesn't seem as as turned up and divisive and rabid.
But you know, obviously here in the United States, UH we take things
to such a weird, fucking extreme no matter what it is. So that's
what today's UH podcast is about. And we you know, we basically pick
apart identitarianism. We look at all these different we look at the role of
social media and hyping this shit and basically spreading ideas. You know, something
I always hear people say, too, is well you know, what about
the right? It's well, what about the right? I don't. I'm
not right wing. I don't associate with right wing people, so I don't
really care what they're doing. My concern is not with that. That's not
my world, that's not my social circle. Um, you know, I'm
concerned with what's going on around me. I'm concerned with the somewhat anti intellectual,
rabid, and really just weird, conformist aspects of and especially formative aspects
in the way of in regards to social media that I've been seeing happen in
my own circles and around people I associate with and different fucking social media accounts
I follow. So that's what we talk about. I will say, though,
too, that you know, working on a rail for fifteen years taught
me to be able to get along with people who are different from me.
That I don't need strict adherence to my own ideology from people that I converse
with or choose to interact with whatever I like, I said, I don't
care, you know, unless they're trying to preach to me, in which
case I say, just hey, you know, don't fucking please just take
it easy, I don't want to hear it. Whatever, let's not talk
about that whatever. You know, you spend twelve hours in a locomotive cab
with someone going, you know, twenty miles per hour through winding mountain canyons,
you learn to tell them, hey, you don't talk about politics or
religion on the railroad, and just I don't want to hear it. Just
you know, you learn to fucking agree to disagree. So that said,
that's today's episode is about. It was a really thought provoking conversation. I
had just woken up and it was not to lit up on coffee yet.
So I'm a little in articulate all over the place, which I heard,
which I realized listening to it later, I was like, God, damn
it, I just got to read more something or what I need more mental
exercise. I'm having trouble getting my thoughts out. But Jay luckily picked up
the slack. You know, they're they're so eloquent, so articulate. I've
read so much they're writing online on their website, and I've listened to the
fucking canceled podcast A Bunch, which is which has been super helpful in terms
of just you know, trying to understand why certain aspects of what's going on
with the left today didn't didn't feel that good to me. So anyway,
um, yeah, so that's what the podcast is about today. That said,
Uh, you know, I've been trying to funk around with different types
of cameras and recording devices. The production company for Killier Long got me this
nice mic which they're going to try and make me return. I'm gonna see
if I can get out of it for recording voiceovers. That's what I'm using
to record now, so I'm hoping to get a little bit better audio quality,
not make it sound too polished. I also have been fucking around with
different cameras for recording video. We were at Star Cactus habitat two days ago.
Astrophyte Asterias one of the rarest plants in the United States and probably one
of the coolest. You know, this little sand dollar looking cactus that sinks
into the ground and grows in a really peculiar geology. Basically, these silty
silty sandy loam, often a lot of gypsum in the soil and pretty saline
as well. Often grows with plants like Varilla Texana, which is a succulent
member of the sunflower family. Astray said, it's got little fingerlike leaves and
discoid flowers, So no leguals, no daisy rays. And you know,
the soil is like I said, this sandy loam. It's kind of saline.
But then there's these just massive gravel beds everywhere, like you know,
up to sometimes ten pound. You know, rocks, most are small on
that most like the size of a baseball if that a lot of shirt in
there. All of them are rounded and polished, indicating they've been transported in
some sort of high energy river or maybe even along a coastline thirty million years
ago. I don't know. But there's a really good book that just came
out on the geology of South Texas by who is it, Doctor Gonzalez again
named doctor Juan Gonzalez, who taught it you UTRGV for a while, and
it gets into all the different geologic settings down here. There's I mean,
it's so fucking cool. This is such a cool and bizarre and mysterious landscape.
You know, this this border region right between the United States and Mexico
along the last few remaining dozens of miles of the Rio and you know,
before it hits Brownsville and and Boca Chica and empties out into the Gulf.
So in the region it's just so cool too. It's where the Gulf Coast
transitions into desert. So anyway, we were there. We were there a
couple days ago. This cactus is about the bloom. You know if in
cultivation they'll bloom whenever they get moisture. But uh, but in habitat,
you know, being as partially as as they tend to bloom in march um
and it has it rained in a while. But remember their cacti, so
they've got all that water stored up. They've got reserves. They don't need
a rain to flower. So anyway, I was out there fucking with an
iPhone fourteen, which is opinion the it's a horrible phone for recording. I'll
never use it again. Um. My friend Matt Berger, a sheriff of
what he's been having the same problem with photos because he just uses a phone
for all his his botany and I naturalist, uh shit, And so he
said, it's you know, the macro level, it's just horrible. It's
just for grainy. It's basically a phone that's the camera's been reduced to taking
selfies and landscape shots, you know, lowest common denominator shit, as you
would expect with the you know, company that's trying to mass market something for
primarily for social media ship, which is what most people use it for now,
you know, taking selfies and landscapes. So the iPhone sucked. Then
I was using a Sony camp Quarter, which was a real fucking pan.
The asked it became great, great video, great image quality, but the
mic sucked on it. So I've got to get some external mic, and
then it's just, you know, I don't like doing that shit because then
at what point is it just you're suddenly you're going down and you're opening a
can of worms. You know, now you have to get this thing and
this thing, and he goes fucking money invested in and then the ship gets
jacked when you're you know, botanizing in Lowland wallhacka anyway, So you know,
before that, I just recorded with a Samsung I think was S twenty
one, S twenty two. All this ship, which is the video on
them is pretty good, not perfect, but it's good enough. So I
might just end up going back to those. We'll see, um but yeah,
man, I don't know. It's you know, all these cacti are
flowering. I was, I wish I could get to uh Na, Sierra
Madre. I just don't have time get down to uh you know, northeastern
Mexico and uh photograph some of the cacti flowering down there now, because this
is when they're going off a lot of them. It seems they flower in
the spring, despite winters in that region generally being dry, especially compared to
summers. But I just I won't have time. And then I got this
New Zealand mycology trip planned with Alan, who still needs to buy his fucking
ticket, and if he doesn't, I'm gonna really get start getting on his
ass here soon. He's really punching around, you know, he's dilly daddling.
I think he's an ecuador Now they're doing mycology stuff and in Ecuador,
which sounds fucking amazing. So I guess there was just a new species.
It's allows to be named after Paul Stammits. Then they too slows to be
Stamens the i, which is like, yeah, I like Paul Stammits.
I'm not you know, fan, a fanboy or anything. I think a
little heavy. He's a little heavy on the marketing sometimes, you know,
and I don't really get down with the whole mushrooms they're gonna save the world
ideology, but uh, it seems like a cool guy, so it's nice
to h they named the mushroom after him, even though you know, I'm
kind of against naming any biological entity after a person. So anyway, without
continuing on too much further, I guess I could save all this shit for
another separate podcast, you know, just my normal solo ranting style. Without
continuing any further, we'll get right into it, and uh, you know,
I hope you get something out of it, because it seems like a
lot of people, a lot of people feel this way. These are not
you know, unusual sentiments, the things that we talk about in this podcast,
and a lot of people are just kind of afraid to come out,
you know, put it out there. So you know, yeah, maybe
you'll maybe to live enlighten you, or you know you'll be like me,
like you hear someone articulate this shit and you're like, WHOA, Okay,
I get it now. That said, if you ordered stickers from me and
haven't gotten them, email me with a screenshot of the venmo I've still got.
I think I like thirty or forty to send out. Still books are
all done, all the books that have been ordered so far with drawings in
them. And it's good too because I am like, I'm so burnt out
on drawing now and I'm about to be on the road for a week too,
so you know, so much I can do at this point. And
then yeah, email me if you want. Crime pays a body doesn't at
gmail dot com. And I think upcoming podcasts I should there should be a
podcast conversation about Texas native plants coming up hopefully in the next week or two.
If the person that I'm trying to get ahold of we're trying to schedule
this with, we'll get back to me. And then hopefully I'll be stopping
by Native American Seed based out a Junction, Texas in New Braunfels, Texas
about their operations there. They're really cool Native Native Seed Dispensary and Native I
think they grow a few native plants. But they got a nice catalog.
You know you want, you want a nice catalog with the nice pictures and
stuff to look at. The catalog In some cases is basically like a field
guide. I've got some really interesting stuff and they sell Sylfium albiflorum seed,
which is fucking got such a cool, such a cool h Texas endemic to
those thin soils on top of the limestone prairie, you know, you get
around Austin for word, etc. Just a really rough plant to a really
super tough plant basically looks like a white flowered, tougher, hardier Selfium lessiniatum,
the big white you know, with that big white flower. It's the
fuck and banger of a plant. There's so much good shit on on those
limestone prairies and on the limestone soils. As you know, the more music
lands of the East are slowly transitioning to the more arid lands of the west.
So anyway, that's all I got for you today, uh in terms
of intro, and I hope you get some out of this. Enjoy the
next I think it's like an hour and twenty minutes of this podcast. Go
fuck stup me. Well, I'm gonna showing you what it's like where.
I'm not gonna show you the bart In section, you know, I mean,
I think they're sharp, like they got a nice shop liberal berries.
So they started tagging each outer and quash come out. You know, I've
seen a couple of night things in their room before, get a bunch of
hippies to have on each others, to come with starting to get down for
the night for eight of you. They're about to go bad, but they're
not baggy. Okay, Jay, how do you prompt your last name so
I don't fuck this up. Let's let's so late. Okay, thanks being
willing to do this. I'm very excited to talk to you. I guess
yeah, I guess I found you. I found you in Clementine Morrigan.
Um, I think through the curse cancelations. Uh, I g account,
which is fucking great. But um, I started listening to You Guys podcast
and uh, you know, I don't really care what someone's political affiliation is
if they're into plants. My my main interest is just getting people stoked on
native plants and ecology and looking at the world in a different way because the
human world that we've created in so many parts of the world is so fucking
bleak. Um. But you know, I guess if when it comes down
to it, identify as a as a leftist and I want you know,
I want many of the same things a lot of people on the left want,
which is, you know, affordable healthcare. Uh uh, you know,
education, I want money being directed to education. I want more income
equality, I want a quality opportunity, all that kind of shit. And
so, you know, I've always I've always felt that way since I was
a kid, and just watching what's kind of happened to the left with the
advent of social media and I guess, for lack of a better word,
identitarianism, the last ten or twelve years, it's really, uh, it's
been kind of shocking. And when I found you guys in your podcast,
uh, you know, I'm I'm eloquent and articulate about plants, but when
it comes to like ideologies and shit, I'm just a fucking, you know,
regular working class moove. I can't really, I can't really articulate that
well. And when I found you know, you guys basically putting, you
know, basically putting to words things I've been feeling for so long, I
was blown away. So I guess let's just start right off. I mean,
I guess give me a little bit of your background and then you know,
give me your your take on what's what's happened to the left and in
the United States, in Canada and you know, probably the UK a couple
other places over the last I don't know, ten or fifteen years, all
right, Yeah, well, uh yeah, so I mean, I um,
I'm I'm I'm Canadian, I'm qua um and uh I live in Montreal.
I've lived here since I was about seventeen when I moved out, and
uh yeah, I mean I was. I was a punk kid, you
know, like I I was a teenager into punk m I was also like
I was into politics, like largely because of punk, you know. So
when I was a teenager, I was I was interested in all this shit,
and I was reading you know, Noam Chomsky and and and Marx and
all this kind of stuff, um and trying to sort of figure out how
the world worked, you know. And I I remember like feeling when I
was like a young I was I was. I was an anarchist. I
was really really really into anarchist. And I remember as as a young guy
like kind of being like, um, excited about the possibility of changing the
way that the world worth, you know, and I was like, I
gotta learn as much as I can about how humans operate, how systems work,
you know, and then maybe I can help people to try to like
understand why the world we live in got so fucked up and how we can
how we can change it. Right. So you you came in at a
young age, you could tell someone was fucked up, Like you could tell
something was wrong. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean it's honestly
like if you if you take five seconds to think about it, it's pretty
clear, you know. And uh and yeah, I just I as I
sort of integrated into this like leftist mill year in um in Montreal, it
it became clear that it was kind of like uncool. Eventually it became kind
of uncool to actually have any sort of um, hope for the future and
any sort of like uh path to move forward on, you know. And
it became all about just sort of like critique of everything and everyone and a
lot of like you know, um purity spirals and virtue signaling, and it
just got really really depressing. And it got to the point where I was
honestly like I felt like I was kind of in a cult um and I
I was like thinking all these things, and I was like actively training myself
to not to not think them and to definitely not express them. You know.
Even so I was always, um, I was always critical to a
degree of this stuff, and it kept getting me to trouble over and over
again. You know. Um, I was always like I was always like
okay, like yeah, like I get it, you know, sure,
Like you know, we shouldn't be oppressing anyone, like understood, and that's
important, you know, but also like how are we going to change the
material conditions that we live under? Like if we're if we don't have a
plan for that, then we don't have anything. Like there's no point in
any of this. We're just talking, you know. Um. And yeah,
So I was always sort of like trying to push people towards a bit
of a material analysis, and I was like, it doesn't have to be
exactly what I think. You know, there's there's many different ways about of
of thinking about this stuff, but we do need some kind of a plan
for like changing particularly like the economic base of society because that is kind of
where all power flows from. Like ultimately, you know, um, I
might be off on a bit of a tangent now, but long story short,
I think that something that happened to the left in North America and broadly,
as you were mentioning in like what I call the anglosphere, which is
like the kind of like the English speaking countries you know, Um, is
that we like the left got like fucking just stomped in like the fifties,
you know, and and basically never recovered. You know, like the communist
parties in the UK and the US UM used to have you know, like
hundreds of thousands of members and like organized like huge events and had like daycares
for their members and like, you know, all kinds of shit. Um.
And you can think whatever you want about the Communist Party, there's lots
of lust of critique, you know, but like there was a left there,
There was like a real left that existed, and they were they were
they had their eyes on power, and they were moving towards it. And
it doesn't exist anymore. McCarthyism fucking killed it, um. And then it
was sort of like weak but still existed, still existed. And then when
the Solid Union collapsed, Um, the left, like the socialist left is
kind of like imploded completely because there was no there was no path forward anymore.
They didn't know what they wanted. They didn't know what to due and
it. I think that basically there's a lot of people in North America who
are and in the anglosphere broadly, who are um, they're immersed in leftist
ideas because, like I said earlier, to look around is to notice that
there's something wrong, and there's a there's a large body of leftist ideas that
they can that they can access, but there there's kind of floating unmoored in
this sea of ideas with no structure, like nothing to put into practice,
you know. And I think that that is the recipe for the mess that
we found ourselves in today, where you know, everyone's got like lots of
ideas, but there is no left to speak of, like, because the
left ultimately is some kind of a movement that can, through mass power,
influence policy. It can influence the policy of the state, you know.
And if we can't influence the policy of the state, we don't have shit,
right Yeah, yeah, I think you know, looking around, anyone
can see the planet's dying. They can see, you know, the poor
are getting trampled. People are left out with no fucking safety net, people
are left out in the cold basically to get fucked especially in the US.
I mean, you guys have free healthcare there. We don't have shit here.
It's just kind of this, you know. And then then then we
live in this world that for me, the big bummer is this, you
know, this kind of sprawl, retail consumerism. I see just spreading out
like a campcer, like destroying habitat and then cultivating this way of life that's
fucking terrible, that's killing us. I mean, it's this car dependent,
fucking I call it like car slash retail slum. It doesn't feel good to
be in. And and for me, what's there is a fundamental disconnect action
from the quote unquote natural world, which I don't even like that word.
It's not the natural world, it's the real world. Everything we made is
kind of just this fake bullshit that we you know, is taken over the
world. But I guess I think what just the last ten twelve years,
you know, And I don't even I used to call it woke. I
don't even like using that word anymore because the right wing has totally co opted
it. You know, if to them, woke means racial diversity, it
means like having to see queer people on TV. It means just crazy shit,
and they of course exist in this totally deranged, often heavily religious cult
like state themselves. You know. It's it's more like this performative aspect.
And then there was with the advent of social media, it put this really
deranged twist where now it what you didn't even have to really think this stuff
or self evaluate or think too critically about anything. You could just put,
you know, just perform, just perform online, you know, basically sculpts
your own self image, how you want people to see you. You know,
whether that's like you know, posting a black square when George Floyd was
murdered to show that you're an ally, which was such a like meaningless and
trite. It just seems so fake to me, you know or whatever.
I mean, it's just and of course the right wink does you know virtue
signaling too, of course, but I'm just saying it just this whole it
became more about appearances to me, and it just became so yeah, so
transparent, and then watching people be scared like it felt weird. It's felt
weird and left the circles for a while, like it's felt uncomfortable and not
very good. It doesn't feel good, and then watching people kind of squirm
but just go along with it anyway, mainly because of fear was what really
struck me and I because I've never I've never been into conformity. I've never
been able to that kind of herd mentality, you know, to go along
with it, because it's just at the end of the day, it's it's
fear that's keeping you there. It's not genuine dialogue. So but uh,
I don't know what effect do you think social media has had on the left
and how it's I guess helped nudge it along into this fucked up state that
it's in today where you've got all this in fighting. Yeah, it's it's
insane, man. And what you were saying about not knowing what to call
this ship is a huge issue actually, you know, and I'm just gonna
talk about that for a second. Like on the podcast Fucking Cancel, we
coined this term the nexus just because we basically needed like a placeholder word to
talk about this phenomenon because the interesting thing about this phenomenon is that it doesn't
have a name for itself, you know, like every other like ideology has
a name for itself. Because it wants to be known, you know.
But the thing about what we call the nexus is is that it sort of
pretends like it it is just the right way, it is the good thing,
you know what I mean. It doesn't have like a name for itself.
And so yeah, like conservatives call it woke, I call it woke
sometimes, you know, but it's like it's like toxic. Social justice culture
is another thing that some people call it. But anyways, what we ended
up calling it was just the next because we needed to call it something.
But the nexus, like what a nexus is is an intersection of different things,
right, And I think that what is happening on the left is that
there's an intersection between cancel culture, identitarianism, and social media. And social
media is the thing that is really like driving all of this along in a
huge way in the sense that like, first of all, yes, it
has this extremely performative element to it, right, Like everything on social media
is performative, and the algorithms and the structure, like the architecture of these
social media platforms like really ensures that the stuff that gets seen, you know,
the stuff that gets big, that gets reshared, whatever, it's like
very performative it's very visual. You know. Also, something about social media
is that it strongly encourages like short, like little sound bite type ideas,
not complicated and nuanced ideas. So like the people who perform really well on
social media are people who are able to take complicated ideas and sort of like
essential character hot day, yeah yeah, and distill them. And you know,
that's actually like a useful skill. And actually I think that Clementine is
really really good at that. That's kind of a one of her skills,
you know. Um, But it also means that like there's like so much
fucking like gibberish out there. It's just like it's just fluff, Like there's
there's no depth through it whatsoever, because there literally can't be like you can't
put an essay on Instagram. You know, it doesn't it doesn't fit,
it doesn't right, And then then you know, just what's important is that
it's getting likes, it's getting backpats, and then yeah, yeah, for
sure, it's more of it. And then you know, and then there's
the element of cancel culture and like again, like that's that's a word that's
been completely co opted by the right. You can call it whatever the fuck
you want, but you know what I'm talking about, um where you know,
people are just sort of like marked for destruction by like online mobs and
then have their lives destroyed and um often for like really insane reasons, you
know. And the thing about the social media and relationship to that is they're
like, Okay, so back in the day, among like you know,
lefty groups or among like even like you know, anarchist squat scenes or whatever.
You know, people would get into fights and and sometimes people would get
kind of like scapegoated or pushed out of the scene or blacklisted or whatever.
But it didn't follow them around for the rest of their lives. And it
wasn't crowdsourced to like one hundred thousand people, right because it was just local,
you know. And the thing about social media is that like some random
fucking person, like really like a random person who like no one would ever
care about it. It's like some like some like Vegan Baker in like Chicago
or whatever, for some fucking reason has their life blown up by a number
of people that is like exponentially larger than it ever would have been before.
Because people in California and people in England and like whatever are like piling on
and being like, yeah, like the fact that you said that veganism is
good actually shows that you're like a colonialist or whatever it is, you know
what I mean. And it's just like people who have no connection to what
the fuck is going on are are just like finding themselves well participating in these
like insane canceling Absolutely. I think ninety nine percent of the people piling on
and a lot of cancelations have never met the person they're piling on. They're
just not going online and tell them they're a piece of shit. And it's
some of the guys that this weird almost evangelical esque moralizing, you know,
it's so fucking weird, man, And then they get pass on the back
for doing it, and it just feels good. There's a rush of dopamine
and fucking serotonin and you know, we're one with the group and we're attacking
this villain. It is. It's shit that human beings have seemingly been doing
for fucking millennia, and it is so creepy to see it come out among
you know, a group that you'd normally think would be more enlightened, more
aware, you know, or you would like to think so. But yeah,
like, as you mentioned, man, this is like a it's like
a long standing part of human behavior. You know, like all major religions
like warn against it while also often doing it. You know, It's it's
something that like we it's it's kind of like baked into a certain degree.
But that doesn't mean that it's completely inevitable, man, Like there's you know,
obviously the choices that we can make. Absolutely, but I do think
that like social media has just made it possible for this to happen on like
unprecedented skills. Totally. No, And I'm not saying, oh, it's
going to happen anyway, it's just a fat I'm just saying it's like this
is part of our genome, which is good to be aware of it.
It's good to be aware that this ship comes up so you can nip it
in the bud and not be like that. You know, there's a tendency
for this bad behavior to come up. You know, I feel the same
way about human greed. And once you acknowledge there's that tendency, then you
can change it with culture, nip it in the bud and be like,
listen, this is what we tend to do, and this is not a
healthy way to go about This is intremental to the collective. So yeah,
it's funny that the cancelation thing, I was a friend of mine. Actually
this happened probably seven years ago. A friend of mine canceled another friend.
They were in a relationship for like a year and a half. You know,
they they broke up. You know, it was a fucking nasty breakup,
like people that were breaking each other shit. Whatever. This is the
punk scene in Oakland, like seven years ago, and basically she ended up
after a while, she ended up kind of alleging kind of like assaultish tones
without really saying it. And I don't know what the fuck happened whatever,
But I mean, I would hope that's not what happened. If that was,
I would hope there was a way to, you know, actually get
the other person to listen and have it be like a constructive thing. But
at the end of the day, I don't know, it doesn't sound like
you just sound like it was a fucking unhealthy, deranged relationship as all that
happens. And anyway, he ended up dropping out a punk scene, moving
to La becoming a comedian, you know, she like destroyed a bunch of
his ship on the way out. Whatever, and then it was whatever,
and I was just something I did was like I don't want to touch that
with you. I'd like, both of you, I don't want to And
then she ended up getting canceled a year later because she was helping her fucking
Chinese landlord who didn't speak English. She had moved out of her house.
It's like subleased it the place she was renting this someone else, and they
ended up trashing the place like a bunch of like fucking punk theralics, you
know. And I say that, like we were all punk theralics. Yea.
So she ended up being like, Okay, you guys have to leave.
The landlord wants to fucking you know, and the least and they were
like, you can't kick us out. This person's a person of color.
You're a fucking racist, Like one of them was a person, and it
just went down. I was like, oh my fucking god, you know.
And of course the person's like fucking twenty four, you know, not
knocking it, not being ages here, but like life experience of a fart
maybe compared to whatever, you know. And at the time I was working
for the railroad. I'm working with like all fucking people from different backgrounds,
any of this shit. If they could listen to the conversations that these people
were having and the allegations, they'd be like, what the fuck is this?
Like this is you know, this is the most goofy shit, And
I think, how that's this? That's how a lot of this ship comes
off to people who aren't in it right, They're like what the fuck?
And so anyway, it ended up they ended up ruining her life, telling
her she should kill herself all this shit, and you know she's like half
Arab if that even matters. It's it's just it's just identitarianism, you know.
That's the other wack thing I want to talk about later. But it
was just kind of funny. It came full circle. It's like this is
a whole culture. It's like you were doing this and not like it justifies
this happening to you. But do you see that this is kind of a
circular thing here in this weird culture. Maybe it's time to leave it,
you know, walk away from it for sure. Man. I mean that's
that's the thing. Man. If you if you like nurture this culture,
where punishment is like crowdsourced and you know, and the other thing about cancelations,
well, the other thing one thing about translations is that no one's in
charge of them. Man, Like maybe somebody starts it, you know,
but like nobody's in charge of it. There's no structure to it, so
you can't stop it. Like once you feel like you've gotten what you wanted
or whatever, you can like tell everyone to stop. Like no one's in
charge, man, you know. And so it's like there's this culture where
it's just like yeah, these crowdsource punishments with no one in charge that can
go on indefinitely and can morph into fucking anything. You know, Like if
you if you nurture our culture, it'll happen to you. Like there's like
there's like that's going to happen to you. You know. That's what always
blows my mind, is like it's, you know, these people who associate
with this ship and partake. It's like, at what point are they going
to turn on you? Because it's a really fucking thin line to piss some
of them off, and to you know, especially with all this heavy dog
mine that was the other thing that never felt good. It's like all the
dogma got so weird. It wasn't just about you know, and it never
felt, towards the end like it was done from a place of love and
genuine betterment, you know, like you would see in like a twelve step
program, which I want to talk about too, because I know you're,
you know, coming up on ten years so right now. But it felt
like this just this really juvenile, divisive, angry, nasty form of shaming
and shit, which you know, I think like one out of one out
of every ten thousand cases. Maybe that's valid, you know, but um,
you know, it's just it was just fucking weird. It was weird
and disgusting. And that's when I started to get this is I started,
you know, breaking away from this ship probably about ten years ago, slowly
and then getting more into botany and plants and being like, yet it's just
kind of whack. I don't want to do with this, you know,
But anyway, moving on, I know you're When I learned that you and
Clementine are sober, it kind of clicked. I was like, oh,
because being I'm I got seven years and I still fund wasschedelic and shit,
but that's not you know, but booze was my main thing. That was
what I was like using to numb myself from how shitty the world could be.
Booze. If I never would have quit drinking, I never could have
done anything that I'm doing now. I never could have grown, you know.
And so when I learned that you guys were sober, I was like,
oh, okay, this makes sense because having been to a lot of
meetings and seeing the ship that comes out, you got people from all different
backgrounds. Non judgment, humility, self honesty, you know, bullshitting yourself.
People won't let each other bullshit themselves too, you know. I mean
that's a great thing working with people. It all made sense. And I
look at that. I mean, yeah, I've been in I've been in
fucking AA meetings where so I was in a meeting in East Oakland where that's
too, was like, and then I shot the motherfucker, you know,
And he was talking about it from a place of like self. He would
like he wasn't proud of himself, you know, Yeah, he had known
he'd honestly fucked up. Like look at where I was, like, this
is what happened to me, you know, when someone else in the room
was like damn. Like when he said that, they were like holy shit.
But it was like people come out and and people then embraced them,
and we're like, man, you've come so far, like you got fucking
However, many years now, it's genuine love and it feels good in those
rooms, and it has to because those people can't afford to bullshit themselves anymore,
you know, and they have to like live what they it's it's I
mean, I think A's got good instructions for people that don't even have drinking
problems. But when I learned that, I was like, holy shit.
And then I could, of course compare that with this weird whatever you want
to call a cancel culture, this deranged like divisive leftism, their their worlds
apart. Yeah, I don't know. I'd love to hear what you have
to say about that. Yeah, man, I got so much to say
about that. Honestly, I mean, where do I even start? Yeah,
I mean, okay, I've been in the program for ten years.
Um, I also work at a homeless shelter, and I'm just like,
yeah, like people people are okay new slash like people are fucking complicated,
you know, like really complicated, and we often do like really whack shit,
you know, So what are we gonna do about that? Or like
do we just like do we just like take everything away from people when they
when they do something wrong and then expect like things to get better, Like
what the fuck is the endgame here? You know? And and as you
were pointing out, like in in tost that programs, like people come in
and they've done like insane shit. They were like bikers, they fucking killed
people, they're you know whatever, like insane stuff they've been up to because
like you know, shocker, like when you're when you're fucking drinking and doing
drugs for ten years and you know, like you become a professional at it,
like you get up to some like really crazy shit. Man. You
know, it's like fucking happens, you know. Um, and so yeah,
and you know, we understand on the program, like if you fucking
if you fucking like killed somebody you know, or did some other shit that
that no one can be proud of, you know. Um. You it's
we understand that you know, the family and friends of that person that you
killed, you know, they don't want to see you probably, you know,
and they shouldn't have to and they shouldn't even have to forgive you.
You know, it's fine, you know, like they they're allowed to be
fucking mad at you, Like we understand that. But that doesn't mean that
everyone else in the fucking world has to isolate you. You know. It
doesn't mean that you can never have a job again. It doesn't mean that
you can never have a girlfriend again. It doesn't mean that you can never
have a life, you know, because you deserve a life. Even if
you did something really fucked up, you deserve a life. You know,
Like if you're if you're fucking working on your ship and trying to like not
be such a psycho, like, you know, you should have friends that
are that are helping you with that. You should have people offering you a
job at they're fucking mechanic place they work out or whatever it is. You
know, like that's that is a good thing. We want to reintegrate people
into the world of the living, you know. And it's the same shit
with like, you know, I work with homeless people all day, man,
and you know, these are people who like ninety nine percent of them
have had like an extremely traumatic upbringing, you know, and at think it's
like chronically homeless people. You know, it's different if you lose your job
and just get fucked, But people who are chronically homeless, man, it's
like, you know, severe mental health problems almost always stemming from childhood trauma.
And then like the experience of being homeless is itself extremely traumatizing as well.
And then you know, adding to that lots of like racial trauma,
like especially with Indigenous people in Canada, very fucked up recipe for disaster,
you know. But like, you know, a lot of people in situations
like that, like repeatedly act in ways that are like extremely antisocial, often
violent, you know, like they get themselves into a lot of trouble,
right, and like if you just are like, okay, well you did
a bad thing, like you you cat called the girl, You fucking you
pissed on the side of my building, you fucking took a swing at me,
like whatever it is, then like and therefore you never get to have
anything ever again. Like how how the fuck are you going to um like
tackle the issue of homelessness, you know, how how are you going to
help people in any material tangible way? And this is something that like drives
me fucking crazy about The nexus about like toxic social justice culture is that they're
always talking about marginalized people, you know, but they're they're and they're never
acknowledging the fact that, like the experience of marginalization is often very traumatizing and
can end up with people, you know, acting in ways that they're not
proud of, you know, Like, how how are you going to like
help marginalize people if you don't accept people who have done things that are wrong,
you know, like being that's the ultimate form of rejection, you know,
of being stepped on, being ignored, of being fucking told you're not
going to be anything, You're never going to be anything. It's how do
you create something good from that? I mean, it's just and it's just
common sense too. Like if I'm if if I'm like talking to my kid
and she does something that pisses me off and I'm like, don't do that,
How could you do that? Blah blah, and I'm mad at her,
She's gonna be like fuck you, and that creates an antagonistic relationship.
Whereas if I'm like, hey, listen, you did this thing. Here's
why I don't want you to do it. It's you know, it's upsetting
to me, it hurts me, blah blah. We can't you know,
and explain it to her and then she's like, oh okay, And I'm
like, I'm like like holding her and caressing her and being like, I
love you. It's okay, But just just try to do that. That's
going to change her behavior if I just you know, I just like you
to rate her, What does that do? You know? And it just
and it just making people out to be villains. Some people are fucked up.
Some people have really bad motives. Some people have but I think,
you know, it's a lot to go from that to saying that there's no
redemption, that there's no possibility for change, and it kind of goes off,
It goes against everything leftism is. It's it's more like conservative approach,
right, there's more punitive, disciplinarian approach. Yes, it's fucking weird,
man, It's some you know. I had an interview with Roger Pete,
who you know, a friend of mine, friend of ours, and he
said, you know, because I was we kind of touched on this too
for ten minutes, this topic like what the fuck happened to left? And
he was like, well, you know, I remember I saw it kind
of starting when someone was someone I knew was working. They were trying to
organize workers, you know, like this is the working class people. I
think it was in the South Side of Chicago, I figure where it was,
but uh, you know, working class whites. And they were and
they were like, I can't work with them because they're they're a little racist,
and you know, and he was like what the fuck, Like that's
not that's not you know, that's not the way that's bad, Like that's
and that I think that idea is shocking through a lot of people on left.
It's like, no, you you work with people who are ideologically different
than you. And the possibility there is that, you know, if you're
not tolerating nasty shit. They're saying, of course, but you know,
instead of just you know, you have a shared goal, right, you
want to better conditions, you want to organize a label or whatever. You
know, you just deal with this kind of whatever and then slowly that also
gives them the opportunity to change. It is by being around you, because
you're not tolerating, You're not just you know, keeping your mouth shut up.
They say, some racist shit, But you're not going to automatically be
like, no, I refuse to work with you. You're a fucking right
you know. Maybe it will come to that eventually, but I'm just saying
that's, you know, no, no for sure, man, I wrote.
I wrote a whole article about organizing conservative workers because it was it popped
up in the discourse for a while last year where where like a lot of
leftists were basically just like I refuse to ever like organize with conservative workers.
I'm like, yo, like, depending on how you like define conservatism,
you know, like, like most if you define it as like holding some
degree of like conservative and or like reactionary or like regressive views about like some
identity topic. You know, like fucking like almost everyone you fucking meet in
the world is like a conservative man, you know, and like one of
the things that I sort of touching on this earlier, but like people have
this idea that like only sort of like like white guys and like checked shirts
are conservatives or whatever. And I'm like, yo, if you won't organize
with conservative workers, you won't organize with like Muslims, you know, like
you won't organize with like you know, uh, you know, you know,
like Hispanic like immigrants who like come from traditional families, Like you know,
what the fuck you won't organize with anyone who isn't like a basically like
a white or off white like fucking urban professional, like you know what I
mean, because like those those are like the only people who are on board
with like every single one of your like identitarian um like pet projects, you
know, like most people aren't, you know, and like it doesn't that
doesn't mean that you're that like the goals of of I hate even saying this,
but like the goals of identity politics, which like you know, or
like the goals of progressive um politics, you know, is like you know,
to have to have identity based oppression and no longer or be a major
factor in anyone's life. Like that's a good goal, you know, like
we should all support that, right, But like when you look at the
real material world, like many people hold regressive ideas about identity, like it's
and if you refuse to fucking talk to them, you have nothing. You're
you're just like in a in a tiny little room by yourself. You know.
Yeah, yeah there was forget what it was, but there was a
figure where I saw, but someone had shared a meme that said it was
like a screenshot of a conversation. It was like the person on the left
was talking and then the person on the right, you know, typical like
text message screenshot. And the person the left was like, well, I
just can't imagine ever, you know, working with uh, you know,
I don't think trans people should ever organize with with homophobes. And the person
on the right was like, trans people should absolutely organize with homophobe Like you
know, if if it's a labor movement, it's called the picket line,
look it up. You know. It was like holy fuck, Like that
just flew so far over person on the left head, like the person that
was on the left side of the conversation, you know, the text message.
It was just like that. You know. It's like, yeah,
that's how you eventually come together to get you And that's not only that,
but that's that person you know, who might have these somewhat regressive ideas is
exposed to more just by not being immediately shut out as exposed to more progressive
ideas, maybe that gives them the opportunity to fucking change at some point.
That's how you change culture. Putting yourself in this bubble where you're only gonna,
you know, align with people who are ideologically the same as you is
such a fucking weird, twisted take Man and I. And that was something
I saw happening. You know, I'm I lived in the Bay Area for
twenty years. Man, that was like such a thing. It was really
weird. It was also weird that the more gentrified my neighborhood got, the
more like Black Lives Matter signs appeared in the windows of white people that live
there. Of course, you know, all the like all the fucking symbols
and the signs and the logos and shit, and you know, I thought,
like for a minute, like it should feel better that these you know,
I see these things and like they represent people who kind of feel the
same way I do. But it doesn't make me feel that way because what
they kind of stand to me now is like the symbol of like the rich
moving in, like my neighborhoods starting to suck. It's weird, you know,
it's like the how the fuck like the wealthier people moving in feel this
way, but they're still kind of clueless about things that you know, there's
still the people like getting into it with me, you know, calling cops
on me for fucking you know, planting trees whatever whatever, Like I was
really bizarre. I always joke about the you know, calling the cops on
somebody for tampering with their like Black Lives Matter side, you know. Yeah,
it's yeah, man, it's so but you know, and this is
something what's been especially maddening to me too, is to talk about this stuff,
this stuff as someone on the left and have so many friends, like
people I genuinely care about be like, well, I don't think it's really
an issue. Like I don't really think cancel culture, you know, which
I don't like. I said, I don't even like using those words.
I don't think cancel culture. I don't think all this shit's just online,
you know, you just ignore, it'll go away. It's like they it's
not going away, man, It's spreading out and becoming more you know.
And then of course the right wing sees it, and I mean Steve Bannon
has said, like keep doing this shit. You know. I love this.
I love that the left is doing this kind of shit because it's the
best recruiting tool for us. Yeah, dude, I did. I did
my master's research on fire right extremism. And when I was doing that,
I was just hanging out with um fucking nazi's for like a year, um
and doing like interviews with them and like going to their meetings and ship It
was like it was a very fucked out time. Um. But yeah,
And one of the things that they fucking repeated all the time was they were
like, yo, the current like left, like the current iteration of the
left is like the perfect enemy for us, Like they could not be more
ideal, Like, you know, we couldn't pick a better enemy because they
look fucking ridiculous and like everybody hates them, you know, it's like so
easy to mock them. It's so used to poke holes in their arguments,
like they're so fragile like whatever, you know what I mean. And I
was just like Jesus christ Man, like, you know, unfortunately, like
they're completely correct, you know, And I just I would really love to
see a left that is, you know, a bit more like muscular,
like you know, like I know, you know, has a thicker skin
and doesn't Yeah, yeah, that's the thing. I was, like,
you call a racist racist, they don't give a fuck like racist, it
doesn't matter to them. It doesn't you know. It's yeah, I don't
know, but that had to be weird to see, you know, especially
as a leftist being in those groups and being like, holy shit, this
is the reflection, this is the mirror back. And of course no one,
not among like the urban left would see that because they don't they don't
ever leave their bubble, you know. Yeah, no, they have no
idea. One of the reasons I did that of research was because I was
like looking around at my scenes and I was like, none, none of
you guys actually understand what fascists think about stuff like you you have no idea,
you know, and you you misunderstand it completely. And uh so I
was like, I don't know, I'm gonna I'm gonna try to like do
a deep dive into this ship and just make it a bit more understandable to
like anti fascists, you know. Um, but yeah, it's yeah,
it's it's the range. But again, I mean I think, you know,
I think to the the weird thing, well, there's identitarianism, which
I want to talk about too, because that's that's a it's such a foreign
idea to a lot of people. I mean, if you would have asked
me, like fifteen years ago, I would have been like, oh,
that's g I mean, it goes beyond having social context or you know,
race and oppression, and it's become this weird almost fetishization, especially among urban
white you know, generally well educated liberals, where it's like any anyone who
can be grouped into these kinds of into these demographics is like an accessory.
It's like a thing to parade. I mean, that's my super cynical take.
It's it's you know, it's and you're assigning qualities and your last the
last fucking canceled podcast hit this on the head. What was the name of
the professor you guys had on Adolph Reid? Yeah, man, holy shit,
that guy was like anyways, you could tell you like a working class
Brooklyn accent too. Just fucking appreciate. But but uh, you know,
assigning attributes to people based on race, like but like in a positive way.
You know, it's like it is this weird kind of reverse take on
and making people too dimensional. You know, like, oh, well,
this person's indigenous, so they're automatically they're a steward of the land. You
know, this person, this person, you know grew up black in Harlem,
so they're they're automatically, you know, a lot more street smart than
It's just it's fucking weird, and it's and it it is. It kind
of yeah, it kind of is. It's kind of it's not not kind
of. It literally is racist, man, like, you know, and
this is what it don't really talks about it all the time. It's like,
racism fundamentally is the belief in race. You know, if you fucking
like act like race is a real thing. You know that there's like attributes
that could be like handed like like that could be handed down genetically about people's
behavior and like the way that they like seeing the world and you know,
their essential relationships the truth or whatever. You know. That is fucking racism.
That's like literally what it is, you know. And like obviously there's
like a form of racism that says that white people are fucking better than everybody
else, you know, but like that that is not that is not fundamentally
what racism is. Racism fundamentally is the belief in race, you know.
And what I've seen is that um, the left has just embraced race completely,
you know, and has started to just act as though race as like
a real thing and assign these essential qualities to people based on the racial group,
and is super fucked up, really racist, really concerning, and there's
like a huge step backwards in terms of like racial progress. You know.
Well also it's I mean, it's fundamentally anti intellectual, which is my take
with that. I look, I look at racist like your traditional racist,
like you know, the fucking right wing sort of Nazis, and I'm like,
who the fuck thinks like that? Like that's just just such an anti
scientific take on things like when you understand like melan production is just tied that,
you know, evolution in a certain latitude and some exposures shit like that.
And then of course there's race, there's culture. The two don't always
go hand in hand. It depends on where someone it's it's just such a
ship for brain to take, you know, to be racist like that,
but then to look at like this weird fetishizing that the left is done over
the last fuck man, I don't know, like especially ten years, it's
really taken off. It's also extremely anti intellectual. Well, I hear a
lot of this ship too. This I've always mentioned this, and no one
really seems to know what I'm talking about. But this fetishizing of Indigenous people
where it's like, well, and I hear that a lot being you know,
associated with working with plants, doing you know, wanting native plant restoration.
You know, like things people say things like what did you have an
indigenous person consulted on this? Like what do you mean indigenous? Like what
if? Like my fucking you know, someone who's never worked with plants in
their life, but as you know, uh arapaho in their blood, Like
what the fuck? Really? Like that's what you know, man, Yeah,
it's really it's really fucking weird. And then of course, you know,
again the social media, you can put it in your bio like I'm
such and such, I put this in my bio, I'm this background,
like that, this, this, and I think a lot of it too.
I guess, you know, wanting, wanting, this identity comes from
this fucked up, deranged form of consumerism we have where we're kind of taught
to hate ourselves. We don't have any identity. Many of us grow up
in these shitty suburbs where you know, there's there's it's just the most bland,
you know, cultureless slum of the mind, you know, and so
you want something that kind of defines you, you're fucking lost. I totally
get it. But yeah, but you know, I don't know, man,
I guess I've read some of the stuff you've written about this, and
it's I've written like on your website, especially like the whole indigenous thing,
this weird fetishizing that white liberals have with indigenous, uh, anything indigenous,
and it's it's fucking man, hit the nail again. It hit the nail
on the head, like I'm a slab when it comes to articulating this ship.
What do you have to say about this? I guess because it's,
man, it's some of the stuf people written. It's great. Yeah,
okay, I have a couple of thoughts about this. I guess. First
off, I can I'll try to remember all three of the things I wanted
to say. But first off, I can just like run through the arguments
of that article a little bit, Like it's called landback will not protect us
from climate change. I believe it's what it's called. And basically because like
last year, there was like this thing that I was noticing where anytime anyone
would talk about climate change and like the fucking disaster that we're hurtling towards.
Um, someone would just drop like a hashtag landback in the comments and just
be like yeah, like you know, there can be no like action on
climate change about indigenous leadership and like blah blah blah blah blah, and I'm
like, okay, like listen, like I it is. It is personally
and politically important to me that decolonization would be like taken seriously. I was
like a political goal. You know, It's it's important to me because I
have like many Indigenous friends, m and community members, Okay, and also
I have Indigenous ancestry that I'm proud of, you know, and I think
that it's an important thing. But de colonization has to be taken on its
own compelling merits, not because we believe that the magic elf blood of Indigenous
people is going to save us from fucking climate change. The thing about Indigenous
understandings of of ecology, which by the way, there are hundreds, if
not thousands, of different Indigenous understandings of ecology, because indigenaty is like a
weird like racial category that we made up like exactly, you know what I
mean. It's not it's not like an ethnic or cultural identity anyways. Um
the idea that, like, the thing about indigenous understandings of ecology is that
often they're intensely local, right The whole fucking point of them is that they're
intensely local because they're like very land based, you know, So, like,
how the fuck would you know someone who, like like someone who's like
Inuit, you know who who grew up somewhere where there are literally no trees
and no plants most of the time because it's fucking ice, you know,
Like, how is that person going to go to southern California and um,
like educate you on how to grow a native plant in southern California. It
doesn't make any fucking sense, right Like, And apart from that, like
the the challenges that we're facing as a global like meta civilization require solutions that
are huge in scope, right like, and and really really complex, you
know. And that is not to say that an indigenous person could not come
up with solutions that are huge and complex. It is to say that,
like the traditional and like intensely local ways of understanding the natural world that people
are talking about when they talk about like indigenous leadership and shit are not huge
and complex um systems for like undoing global capitalism and finding like new ways of
like deriving energy so that we can use it to power a gigantic civilization that
like did not exist when colonization started to occur, you know, Like it's
it's like it's like saying that, like because people also put indigenous people like
uh in the past. Basically they're like permanently like like placed like five hundred
years ago. You know, Um, the indigenous people in twenty twenty three
like drive pickup trucks and fucking throw plastic bottles on the ground and whatever.
Because there's just people. Republican doesn't make much sense to me. But some
people, yeah, dude, Like many of them are like evangelical Christians,
Like you know, it's it's like a fucking group like anybody else. And
to say that they're not allowed to have internal disagreements, internal political discourses,
you know, vast differences between them on the basis of like every kind of
identity that you can pick up and political understandings, you know, is racist.
They actually do have all of those differences because they're normal, regular human
beings like everybody else. So that was one thought. The other things that
I just wanted to like briefly sort of like go over just because they're in
my head is I have thought a lot about why identitarianism has taken off so
much in the past a little while. I think that there's like there's two
major things that I can point to. One is that we're in like an
epithet make of alienation, Like people are completely completely fucking cut off. Man.
I think that the the what you call the slums of the mind is
something I could of all the fucking time. Man, Every fucking small town
looks exactly the same. They're completely soulless, man, and you know,
just completely interchangeable. There's like nothing to be proud of, there's nothing to
feel connected to. And in general, our entire culture is just moving more
and more towards this complete disconnection, total alienation. And in circumstances like that,
people who require connection in order to fucking not lose their minds try to
find ways to feel like they're part of something. Man. And identity is
like what we have, you know, And of course it's like this like
fetishized commodified identity like you were saying, it's something you put in your bio
is something that you can sort of just like put on and wear like a
it's social capital. It's social capital too, for sure. But I do
think like people sincerely are like I feel so fucking empty, you know,
and I want to something, so I'm going to like latch onto an identity.
I think that's one really important thing. And that's happening both on the
left and the right, by the way, you know, identitarianism, the
rise of like white nationalism on the right. You see that, you see
like you see like the white the white suburban dad putting like Second Amendment patriot
and his fucking his Instagram bio whatever. Man, it's the same shit people
are clutching for, like meaning, you know. And then the other thing
that I think is really contributing to the rise of identitarianism, particularly on the
left, I would say, is the complete collapse of an economic analysis.
And this goes back to what I was saying at the beginning of the podcast,
um, which is just that like the the economically informed left has collapsed
completely. Um. People do not believe that there is like a possibility to
uh even modify capitalism really, Like I don't think that most people really believe
that in the anglosphere, because we're still used to losing, you know that
we've just decided that, like that battlefront is a lot of cause it's it's
a fucking lost cause. So what what's the other it's identity, m you
know, and so so we have a laser focus on identity instead, you
know. Um, but you know, it ends up with this situation where
particularly Americans. Man, I've noticed this so often. It's like when they
when they mean rich people, they say white people. It's really weird,
right, God damn it, you're so fucking you know. That's been another
great thing about listening to you guys, is is your take from the other
side of this fucking arbitrary geopolitical boundary is so fucking you know, I don't
know. I mean, yeah, America is just so fucked up, as
you clearly see. I think, you know, much more so than Canada.
I can't as fucked up too, of course, but what we've got
going on here, I mean, look at our our whole, our culture,
the way things are done, even just our lack of affordable healthcare.
You know, watching you guys, you know, be that mirror back is
uh yeah, I don't know, but I hear that a lot. Yeah,
instead of saying risk and they say white. The thing, you know
what really got me with ident Terianism. That really once I left the fucking
bubble of the Bay Area, which I did after a fucking psychedelic therapy session,
I was like, holy shit. I was finally like I gotta fucking
get the fuck out of here or I'm not gonna grow. This is fucked
And I left, and I came to like the complete opposite, like the
Mexican border in South Texas. There's no white people down here unless they're visiting.
They would call them winter Texans whatever, and they're often very nice.
There's like a lot of nerdy you know birding. Minnesota's like Minnesota Birders,
like old, old white. I mean, it's a fucking Latina where you're
not gonna get like hardcore, you know, right wingers coming to an area
that's mostly brown, but coming down here. I mean, you know,
my daughters a third Apache. My daughter's a third Apache and her fucking grandparents.
I get along with them. They're nice. People are Trumpers. They're
fucking Trumpers. They don't you know. That's the thing. It's like this
identitarianism. Shit, it's so you know, it's just it's just such a
weird, anti intellectual take on the world. I mean, there's so money
well Latinos down here, and again it blows my fucking mind. But there's
probably more that are you know, left leaning, but there's a good amount
that are right leaning conservative. Oh that's just the way we've always done it.
Heavily religious Latinos, and so it kind of throws this whole weird you
know, California version of race that people have out the windows because you know,
like I was when I was living in California's used to like, you
know, Latinos that were you know, brightly colored houses, art Caesar Chavez,
generally left leaning progressive ideas. Not always of course, there's fucking total
of you know, but and then come in here and saying it's like,
oh okay, wow, this is yeah, this kind of throws Ever,
you can't really think this way. These classifications are useless, you know,
q dB I, POC, Like, what the fun does that even mean?
You know, it's just again something to put in the buyo. It's
a hashtag, man, for sure. I mean, like the fucking category
of Latino is itself like such a bizarre idea honestly, but you know,
it's it's what it's like maybe eight hundred million people or something like, how
could there not be like huge division population? You know? And if like
if a Latino is like someone in the Americas who speaks a lot in the
language, I mean, like I'm a Latino, let's be French, you
know, Like, I don't know, it's like anyways, Yeah, it's
it's a it's a weird tike. But um, yeah, man, I
guess, um, I don't know. I mean, I guess moving forward
too. Like this is what I want to ask you, Like, what
do you think? Do you think this shit is dying down? Do you
think? I mean, because so many people on the left have seen how
deranged, uh this culture has gotten, and they'll attack anything they there's you
know, there's just elements of the left that have gotten so fucking nutso and
I don't talk about the right because I don't hang out with the right.
I talk about the right, but it's so easy to be like, yeah,
they're fucking they're fucking crazy, like whatever. Yeah, yeah, I
don't care about whatever they're doing unless it affects me. I I mean,
I don't care about them. It's like, because I'm not in that you
know, cluster of social identity. I care about the left because that is
what I historically aligned with our world. Yeah, and I and you know,
again, I don't care. When I was when I was friends with
the fucking hardcore trumper when I worked on the railroad, he was just the
cool, cool guy. We both shod on the company. I think he
was totally confused, probably because I don't know what his upbringing was. I
don't know what ideas he was exposed to. He was certainly, you know,
a working class dude that knew he was getting fucked by the company he
worked for, but we just didn't talk about it. And if he if
he'd start with that, I'd be like, hey, come on, leave
that. She don't talk politics of religion on the rail I don't be like
that, and just brush it aside, and we would just continue shitting on
the company or joking on the radio or whatever. But I guess I'm just
yeah, I don't know. I guess at what point, at what point
do you see things changing? At what point do you see people getting just
fed up and more aware of this shit? Um, you know, without
of course going to the right. I mean that's because that's always a certain
too. This is the issue, man. Yeah, it's really hard to
say, man, And I honestly think it could go one of several ways,
you know, Like I don't know, I do, okay, So
I do. I do think that this stuff is sort of dying down a
bit in the sense that there's some people who are doubling down on it and
they're getting just crazier and louder. You know, there's a lot of people
who are really sick of it. You know. I think that the success
of our podcast is really demonstrating that. And in general of my life,
you know, I've had so many fucking conversations with people who are like,
yeah, I completely agree with you, but I'm afraid to say it,
you know. And in general, I think like, like, you know,
most people are not crazy, Like most people can see how fucking stupid
this is, but they're just you know, they don't want their lives blown
up by fucking crazy people, so they kind of keep their mouth shut.
But I think, yeah, like some people are doubling down, others I
think are drifting away. And so like the question is like, what do
we do with these people that are drifting away? You know, I think
that as you know, somewhat public figures or you know, intellectual or whatever,
Like, our job is to offer them a place to stand, you
know, because where they can go is they can either become a political completely
right, which is the easiest path. It probably will hurt a little bit
because politics were a part of their identity is but whatever, you know,
like if everything is crazy, fuck it, you know, just you know,
love your family and do whatever, you know, And we should avoid
people becoming a political because then the left shrinks right. Another option is they
become right wing right because they they become so burned by what's been going on
with their communities and potentially them if they were like really like ruthlessly canceled or
something like that. And they look around and like the only fucking people talking
about this is the right wing, you know. And I was always told
that the right wing is a bunch of like psychotic monsters. And then like
I, you know, I listened to this like panel of you know,
the university guys talking about cancel culture or whatever, and and they don't seem
so bad, you know, so like maybe maybe I'll just kind of like
become one of these Yeah, these kind of they're always looking for recruits types.
Yeah, they're friendly, yeah for sure, well for the most part.
Yeah. Um, so that's like another option. We got to avoid
that too, you know, for obvious reasons. Or we offer people a
kind of leftism that is like what I like to call sort of like pragmatic
pan socialism, which is like, yes we're socialists, but like we're not
like completely dogmatic about it. We're like looking for any path forward that can
like transform our economy so that it is no longer capitalist and is whatever comes
next, you know, is in some way controlled by working people, so
that we're not continually getting like absolutely fucked by like five hundred people who only
entire fucking continent. You know. Um, like can we please you know.
And And I think that like that that kind of like that kind of
take that, like, you know, we don't have to completely abandon identity
politics. And I try to say this pretty often that identitarianism is not the
same as identity politics. Like identity politics as a place it's important, man,
you know. But by moving away from identitarianism and moving towards a like
class based um non insane socialism that like kind of anybody can look at and
be like that makes sense and applies to me. I think that we can
offer people like a path forward which is going to be far more threatening to
status quo than like whatever the fuck identitarian ship is going on in the left,
man, because thinking the people who actually run this ship, like they
look at this stuff and they're like, okay, great, fine, you
know we can have like a we don't have BLM nikes, we can put
it, we can put we can put the them on your little like vest
that you wear. They become that person that my neighborhood and put the sign
in the window. You know. Yeah, it doesn't threaten them at all
in any fucking way. They don't care. But the difference isn't you know,
Like in Tennessee they can put fucking like guns and fucking Confederate flags on
their bank, and then in Seattle they can put rainbow flags and fucking BLM
signs. Man, it's the same fucking shit. They don't care. It
makes no fucking difference whatsoever to them, you know, And so like what's
currently going on in the left does not threaten power in any way. At
all, and um, we would do really well to offer people an alternative
man so that when they get fucking sick of it, they don't just drift
away into the fucking ether right, and there's that, there's that, SAYNK
too. Of course, you know that the right looks for recruits, the
left looks for heretics. And that's where we're at right now. And that's
you can't with a culture like that, you can't fucking go anywhere. You've
got to take a shit that like, okay, bring people in, reach
out to them. Humilis Yeah, yeah, yo, Like I saw this.
I saw this video recently. I can't remember. It was on fucking
Instagram or something, but it was some something like reporter went to that town
in Ohio. They got like neoked by that train, you know, East
Palestine, I think, and they were the reporter was just talking to these
like these like working class like dudes who live in that town, and they're
all wearing fucking like Trump hats, you know, and they're like they're like
right wing guys, you know, but like they're all sitting there being like,
yo, like we're getting fucked by rich people. The rich people don't
care about US, these fucking companies they do where the fuck they want,
you know, and um, you know they're they're clearly like they're like five
seconds away from fucking like like like burning down the fucking mansions, you know.
Um. But it's like in the in the discourse, like there's been
all this discourse about how these fucking yokels in rural Ohio, you know,
keep voting against their own interests and like voting Republican And I'm like, who
do you want them going to vote for Democrats? They're voting against their fucking
interests either way, man, Like you what the fuck? You know what
I mean? Like, and these people need I mean, honestly, they
need like a labor party. Like if I'm gonna be like most realistic about
it, like you know, I think that like a communist revolution is unlikely
in the next like ten years or something, you know, and so like
electoralism, you know, as as fraught and problemazed problematic as it is,
like you know, perhaps offers some kind of the path forward. And there
are people trying to build a labor party in the US that isn't insane,
you know, And those fucking people need to be able to vote for a
labor party because they're they're the fucking close to noticing that the Republicans also are
a bunch of fucking vampires about them, you know what I mean. Yeah,
it just seemed like a little bit of push and telling them to vote
Democrat. It's not gonna do it, man, Why would theote for a
Democrat? Man, Like, you couldn't pay me enough to vote for a
Democrat. They don't give a fuck, no they did. You see that.
There was a take that was so nauseating. It was, and it
was like something I would have heard in California because when I moved to Texas,
you know, I had friends, one or two friends. Uh,
I actually don't like me anymore. We don't really talk giving me shit for
it. But it was a take it was like, well, that's what
you get for voting for Trump, for these fucking people whose town just got
blown up. It's like, that's the most fucked up, Like this spite
that it's certainly a conversation, right, but that's the most fucking elitist snot
nose like that makes me want to punch you in the face, Like that's
the most dude fucked up, you know, And when I was moving out
to moving out here, like, I don't travel for people or culture.
I travel for fucking plants in geology, that's sort of what you know.
And so my you know, my girl was out here or she, you
know, we moved out here, basically moved for our daughter. I realized
I had to get out of California, and I was like, Texas has
all this cool limestone geology, a bunch of cool plants I've never seen before,
really cool ecologies and plant communities. And one of my friends, she
lived in Berkeley, of course, and had like a six figure salary as
a social worker. But she was like, she's like, why are you
moving to Texas. That's like really fucked up. You can't even get an
abortion there. And I was like, well, yeah, but there's plenty
of people in Texas who aren't like that, Like there's like Trump only one
by five hundred thousand votes. And furthermore, have you looked outside your door?
Do you see how fucked up it is? You have people like dying
in the street, like with fucking needles in their arms, just like mass
homelessness. It's it's it's expensive as fuck. It's like the land is so
overvalued. Like that kind of attitude is exactly why I don't want to be
around this kind of shit me more. You know, like, have you
ever been to Texas? No? They they of course they've never been to
Texas. Maybe they drove through once. You know, it's and I got
that shit so much. It's like, well, I would never go to
Texas. It's like, there's a bunch of cool shit here. What you're
afraid of the people there? You don't need to be afraid of them,
I mean afraid of their ideology, sure, but like you know, it
was just I don't know that kind of gave it to me too. But
the thing that again, and I I know, you gotta go so we
can wrap up. So but the thing that's that's always kind of blown my
mind too, is that criticizing these ideas, um you know, like I
would see these hashtags and I would see these people putting this shit in their
bio and I would kind of cringe. And it wasn't because the root ideology
of this stuff in any way offended me. I was very much for it,
but it was just the kind of it was. It was the conformist
aspect, it was the performative aspect. It felt fucking gross and weird,
and I felt like I couldn't say that to people. They would think like,
oh my god, you're you're going you know not. They never,
no one ever excused me, but like they kind of seem to imply that
that like I wasn't leftist, that I was like, you know, going
right or something, and I'm like, no fucking way, man, I
couldn't. And if I wanted to, yeah, yeah for sure. Man.
It's I call it the Coke versus Pepsi, you know, and like
it's especially apparent in the US, but it's it's honestly, like all over
the Anglo sphere. It's like this, and like the political sphere has just
like split into these two teams, a Team Coke and Team Pepsi. They're
fucking the same, but they're different colors. Um and like neither of them
are addressing like the fucking fundamental issues that actually like affect everyone you know,
um and so and and people just get sucked into it because that is the
culture war, man, Like that is that is what people understand politics to
be. And so like if you're on Team Pepsi, which is like,
you know, the Democrats and whatever. You know, like a lot of
leftist understand themselves to be on Team Pepsi because they're not on Team Cookes,
so they must be on Team Pepsi, you know. But then they're then
they're on the same team as a bunch of fucking Democrats, a bunch of
fucking liberals in Canada, you know, and um, they're just you know,
they're they're like just squaring up against conservatives, you know. But I'm
like noe as socialists, as like the actual left. You know, we
are not part of Team Pepsi or Team Coke. You know, we are
outside of Team Pepsi, Team Coke. We're on team fucking socialism. And
we're trying to get people from Team Pepsi and from Team Coke to understand this
and join team Socialism. You know. Like we're like, conservatives are not
our enemy. Conservatives are not our enemy anymore than like, you know,
like conservatism, okay, but like we are not liberals. Conservatives of the
enemy of the liberals, and we are not liberals. We're not part of
that fucking war man, you know. Like we're like most conservatives are working
people. Working people is our team, right And a lot of people,
a lot of working people especially, have been ideologically duped, of course,
man, and a lot of liberals have been ideologically duped, like actually all
of them, you know, totally. Yeah, And that's the thing I
mean, you're saying that. I know so many people that would cringe if
you said conservatives are not the enemy that people They just be like what what,
like, you know, like, yeah, that's because they're on team
PEP. But I'm not. I'm sorry, man, right, And that's
just that's kind of the thing that I mean, And I wholeheartedly agree with
you. And that's the thing that I see among among a lot of people
in the left. It's like when you've got to get over this ship,
this fucking team sports, Like, what do you want? Like for me,
what do I want? I want a better quality of life for people.
I don't want excess wealth anymore than I want poverty. Um. I
want fucking native plant habitat protect that. I want uh ecologies revered and and
respected and understood. I want, you know, people to stop seeing themselves
as disconnected from like the rest of the fucking biosphere. Um, that's what
I care about. I don't give a fuck what shit, what shitty sign
you have in your window. Whether like I agree with the sentiments behind it
or not, these are the things I want. And this is what,
you know. I fucking want more conservatives to get into fucking plant ecology and
totally native plant gardens. I don't give a fuck, you know. And
people are like, yeah, I won't organize unions who conservatives, And I'm
like, we please have more conservatives in our unions. Man like, maybe
they can learn a fucking thing or two, you know, right right,
Maybe they'll change what they too. Who knows, I don't, yeah,
dude, you know, like maybe they'll be like, hey, like,
why are these politicians that I'm voting for, like constantly saying the unions are
like basically like Satan you know, um, and yeah, I think like
a big, big part of it is the Democrat Republican thing in the States,
you know, or left and right you know. Yeah, yeah,
but like I mean, you know, in particular the Democrat Republican thing,
because you guys have two parties. You know, like most countries in the
world there are like many political parties league right right, right, there aren't
just like two options. You know. In Canada, there's like three basically
like sort of four if you count the Greens. Um. But I know,
I know so many people though too that that shit on the Democrats,
who, you know, and I say that as as a leftists, shit
on the Democrats who also kind of support all this, you know, quasi
cancel culture fucking weird deranged shit, and they they're like yeah, fuck banging
blah blah. And it's like, but you're still like you are that kind
of you know, like you're still yeah, yeah, absolutely, man,
Absolutely, I think that it's a huge thing. And I don't actually think
that the Democrats like are particularly like quote unquote woke, you know, like
they kind of like pay lip service to it every once in a while and
like they'll like they'll use it when it's convenient, but like in general,
they understand that this ship is pretty insane and they keep like some distance from
it, you know. But I do think that the whole like papsy versus
coke thing is a function of the Democrat versus Republican thing. And I think
that it's like just it's very difficult for people in a country where there's only
two political parties to conceptualize like a third camp basically, you know, and
I do think, like you know, in Canada, it's really not much
better, is what I was getting at. Like, the the NDP is
like the Social Democrat Party and they're basically liberals but like more woke, like
you know, it's like they've pretty much abandoned their socialist roots unfortunately at this
point. But in Quebec, where I'm from, there is a we did
It like an episode about this. I don't know if you've heard it,
but there's a there's a provincial political party called Quebec Stid to Die that is
UM a socialist party, right, and they have seats in the legislature UM,
and they have like a fucking dope program, you know that. Like
I don't agree with every single fucking part of it. But if I if
I was asked to sit down and come up with like a platform for a
socialist party that might win an election, this is the basically the platform I
would come up with, you know. And so like there's a place for
me to stand in Quebec. Quebec is weird though. Quebec is different because
Quebec is a French speaking place, you know, and and it is it
is very integrated into North American culture, but it's also different, you know,
and it's very much more attached to like Europe and particularly what's going on
in France because of the language thing, you know. So like our politics
are different. Man, Like the conservatives here, Conservatives in Quebec, like
their main thing that they really want to do is ban all religious symbols.
It's like from from public life, you know, because that that's kind of
like you know, their version of being like fuck immigrants. But like you
know, it's just very very different from what conservatives want to do in like
the US, for examp. I mean, is it like using cultural issues
as a wedge issue, like cultural shit that they don't like Basically yeah,
they're like we don't. They're like we don't want to see h jobs,
so we're gonna like ban like all religious symbols, you know. But like
it's it's interesting though, you know, it's like it's like way, way
way more secular. Like if you tried to come in with like some kind
of like a religious like lying about anything, like you would get like laughed
out of the fucking province. You know. It's like the fucking drag queen
thing here, Like that's there, that's their issue now. Like I remember
it was they were ranting of their conservatives here were ranting about antifa five years
ago like that. I worked with at work. I've heard him mentioned antifa.
I'm like, how the fuck do you know about the word in like
ten years? Like and then I was like, Oh, they're putting it
on They're putting it on Fox nos now, and like this is what the
thing. Everyone's antifa. Everyone who's on the left is antifa. Like Antifa
Antifa. It's like, man, if you have any idea what antifa would
like, you wouldn't feel threatened by like it, come on, man,
it's it's like twenty two year old in a lot of cases like young ass
kids or whatever. Dude. But um yeah, yeah, yeah, I
don't know. I was just saying that, Like there, I just want
people to understand that there actually is the possibility of like a real socialist platform
that they can fucking get behind that is like non insane and like actually has
like a cool vision for ecology, you know, a cool vision for the
economy. Um that that is like realistic, that is like run by people
who aren't crazy, and you know it existing Cobec, which means it could
exist in other places. Cobec is look a bit different, should existed here,
man, not not. You know. What gives me hope though,
it is like seeing you know, when when Bernie Sanders and of course he
got fucked I mean people, I mean I think that he galvanized a lot
of people. Man, that was that was cool to see. Democrats are
owned, of course by many of the same business interests that also own the
right, you know, and that's those are the real owners of this country.
But uh, but you know it's yeah, seeing people on the right
who like would have voted for Bernie heading it had the chance, you know,
people adamantly saying this, openly saying this, and then you know,
going for the right instead, like that kind of gives me hope. It's
like, well, people aren't totally my brain dead, like people still you
know, you know, and like fundamentally like people understand people understanding they're getting
fun they really do, you know, and so like where that energy goes
is the question, man, you know, and like on the right,
like they've very successfully uh push it into this like right wing populist direction where
people are like okay, so I guess. I guess there is an elite
that like owns everything and runs everything. But they are like Satanist pedophiles,
you know. Um the culture they're the right wing is so good at the
culture of wardship. Yeah, yeah, damn it. They don't even believe
half of it, I know. But yeah, I'm just like, yo,
you're so close mad, you know. Or like how like the right
wing like all of a sudden like really cares about like the World Economic Forum.
You know, these sort of like neoliberal like talk shops you know,
and uh, and they're sort of like, yeah, well, what do
you support the World Economic Forum because you're on the left that it's like no,
like no one on the left supports the World Economic Forum, you know
what I mean. It's like these are like psycho like business people in like
Geneva, Like what the fuck are you talking about? Like, but but
it's interesting because we should be also talking about the World Economic Forum and there's
like fucking international talking shops where they sort of decide policy undemocratically and like all
this kind of shit, you know. But anyways, point being like the
right wing has like really successfully channeled this energy and sort of like random weird
directions, because that's what riving populism does. It says, yes, there
is an elite. The fact that there is an elite is not actually a
bad thing. It's just that it's the wrong elite, you know, right,
Like we need the right elite who are patriotic and preferably the right color
and like whatever. You know. Um, And you know, I think
that we can we can quite easily get a lot of those people to be
like, well, like, I don't know, maybe do we actually need
an elite, Like do we need a bunch of like filthy rich vampires like
running all of our lives like it's like super duper necessary, or possibly do
it without them, you know? Um? And I think that, like
many people are not that or from making that fucking um discovery for themselves.
You know, I'm making that They're never they're never going to make that connection
if the left is what it is now exactly because it's caught up in all
this other shit that doesn't really matter and it's such a distraction. And you
know, again, it gets makes the social media, this kind of divisive
shit, gets that dopamine and you know, adrenaline flowing, And it's because
I think it becomes addictive for people. I wonder like what people like Eugene
Debs, if he were alive today, would have to say about things if
they could look, you know, just like what the fuck like, what
would that dudes take be? You know? Yeah, fuck it anyway,
Well, man, thanks so much for being down to do this. Really
appreciate you. I love what you're doing. I look forward to hearing more
of your podcasts and tell us tell us where people can you know, get
more your get more your stuff. Yeah for sure, man. Um,
so definitely check out the podcast. It's fucking canceled um with two ls because
we're Canadian. Um. And I got a website is Josla dot com.
Um. That's good writing on there by the way to Yeah, thank you,
Thank you very much. Man. I'm gonna I'm gonna try to write
more. Um. I've been kind of slacking on her recently, but yeah.
UM, and yeah, I'm on Instagram, you know. Um it's
just at jlisla. Um. But yeah, and definitely, you know,
check out qumentine. Ship to Qumentine. Morgan's got a lot of good writing.
Clementine more Regan too. For anyone listening that Morgan m R. I
G A N. Yeah let's say. Yeah. Oh, I also write
zines UM, which you can't find online. Well, there's some snippets online,
but my zines are actually the writing that I'm most proud of, honestly,
um. And I will mail them to your house. So if you
if you like having physical copies of shit um, you can get those from
my from my website or from the fucking canceled store which is fucking canceled big
Cartel dot com. And your background is an anthropology or what exactly? Yeah,
yeah, I have a have a a bachelors and a master is an
anthropology specifically like political anthropology, damn so good man, Yeah, super articular.
Thanks for doing what you do. I really appreciate it. Man.
Hey, thanks a lot, man, thanks for having me. All right,
all right, have a going by