Left Coast Media
Left Coast Media
Wherein The Media Matters
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Siberia's can edit this part out, but I want to apologize for just vanishing from the hangout. Um, I had two cats fighting and had to move them into another room because I don't necessarily want my cats to be featured on the podcast.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3All right. Comrades. Welcome to another episode of the Left Coast podcast. A, it's going to be another two hander today, although I am back, you know, which is nice. Um, so
Speaker 1you're back but maybe not entirely present.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah. This is a, this is a threeway remote call, which I'm hoping nothing explodes on this. It's just like our, this is like the more technology we add to this podcast, like the less, uh, sure we are what's going to get it right. So, uh, anyway, so, uh, before we get too far in, let's introduce ourselves. I am Tiberius Caracas. Uh, I also tweet at left-pad. You can find my shit poets there if you want to, you know, check it out. I've got my cohost here.
Speaker 1Yeah, I am communal source. I tweet at commune all sauce. And also with us tonight we have John who is a writer, director and a member of Dsa Los Angeles
Speaker 3and Groucho Marxist, which I love that by the way.
Speaker 4Yeah. Yeah. So my, my Twitter handle is at Gretchen Marxist and I like just thought that was a funny pun when I signed up for Twitter and like 2008 and now I want actual communism. So you were telling pretty well.
Speaker 3Yeah. Uh, so, so you're a, you're a comrade down a DSA La, right? Yeah. Uh, so tell us what's going on in a little bit down there before we get into like the real meat of what we're getting into this episode.
Speaker 4For sure. You guys are North Day, is that
Speaker 3yeah, yeah, North Bay, Marin, Sonoma county and Napa County, that area. Gotcha, Gotcha.
Speaker 1So basically you find San Francisco and just go north a little bit.
Speaker 4Gotcha. Okay, cool. Cool, cool. I've never been to North Bay, but I hear it's lovely.
Speaker 3It's beautiful. You should come up here. Don't move here. Cause it's super expensive.
Speaker 4Yeah, well it's super expensive here. So, yeah, I mean, yeah, so d c d s a l a is focused on a couple of different fronts. Right now we're the second largest chapter in the country. And so because of that, we have a lot of ability to have a lot of different fronts. Um, a lot of chapters are a single issue chapters. I don't say that to, uh, uh, is like, uh, in a pejorative sense. I just mean that like their resources are really dedicated towards like one goal and we have the ability to kind of go broader than that. So the, I say our biggest campaign right now is the no limbics campaign. How are you guys familiar with that?
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah. You guys are trying to block the 20, 30 something
Speaker 420, 20, 24, 2028. Has It really been decided yet? I believe it's between us in Paris. We're going to get one of them. Um, our mayor Eric, our city who is like very much of that kind of like Cory booker mold of like, like neo liberal, like good looking charismatic Democrat.
Speaker 5Ooh. Uh,
Speaker 4you know, maybe says some of the right things, but then his actions don't really, uh, like, uh, follow through on that. Um,
Speaker 3he's going to go out there like in and do individual works, but he's not willing to do any work on the actual systemic issues kind of thing.
Speaker 4Right. Yeah. So like he won't declare La a sanctuary city. And one of the reasons that people think that he won't do that is because he needs fundings and like, uh, funding from the federal government. And right now the federal government is run by Trump. Obviously he won't be running in 20, 24 and 20, 28, but obviously her city needs to maintain a good relationship with the federal government. Um, just to get the Olympics here because getting the Olympics here, part of that is working with the federal government. And so, uh, in order to do that, he obviously doesn't want to antagonize the federal government. And one of the ways you would be antagonistic it is by having a sanctuary city. And so, well he's advised the cops to not the LAPD. So the, the city police to not work with
Speaker 5MMM.
Speaker 4Ice, you know, there's still more he could do and stuff. And so that's actually our second big thing that we're working on a lot is immigration.
Speaker 5MMM.
Speaker 4We just had a sit in at the La Sheriff's office last week or two weeks ago rather. Um, and the issue there is it the La Sheriff, which is not part of the LAPD, they still uh, miss her kitty. Um, they still, they still collaborate with ice. Um, they're very, very right wing. Um, they're not under the alley PD. Yeah. The, a la city's mandate, the part of the county and they collaborate with ice and they let ice into the jails and stuff like that. And so they deport Angelenos. And we've even had things where like the, the border patrol like four hours, four hours away from the border has come up to La and arrested people off the streets. And boy, like Boyle heights, we just fucking crazy. Um, just cause like what mandate does the border patrol have in Boyle heights? Like that doesn't mean it doesn't make any sense. Um,
Speaker 3well if I'm not mistaken, they've got a, I think a hundred miles inland of any border, something like that. Like that that's technically their jurisdiction. And that is where a lot of your civil rights are basically waived.
Speaker 4Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 2Um, I thought we were a little more than a hundred miles from the border, but yeah, that makes sense. Um,
Speaker 4it's, it's, uh, so immigration is obviously a big one. Healthcare SB five, six two, which I'm sure with you guys as well is a big one. I know like up north is like, like it's kind of all every, all hands on deck to that guy. Um, and then, um, one of the cool things that we just did yesterday that I'm actually involved in is we had hosted something called the Hollywood labor group, which you brought together working peoples from all aspects of Hollywood. So like grips to writers to make a people, Writers' assistants, whoever it's coming to come together and just like talk about the different issues facing, uh, their, you know, their industry. Uh, in one of our goals was to kind of build pan solidarity because we've got a lot of people in unions, but the unions don't really talk together. They don't really work together. You know, one union may be on strike and you may be asked by your union a to cross that picket line, you know, so there isn't always this a worker solidarity. And so we want to really be that bridge. I'm, and also we want to provide people with safe space to talk about, um, the workplace, uh, in a way, in an environment that they will get prosecuted or are there isn't that fear of prosecution from their employer. Um, so it was super awesome. We had like 40 people calm about half of whom weren't even in DSA. And we had people sign up to the part of DSA and we have people get everyone on our mailing list. Um, we had a union member for my atsy come and talk about a campaign they're running. Um, and it's just very exciting stuff. We had people who've worked in labor organizing for decades who were like, this is amazing. Like, I've never seen this in my entire life. And so just like that kind of raise that consciousness around labor and labor unions and organizing was like just music.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 3Cool. Yeah, I mean it sounds, uh, sounds like kind of similar to a lot of this stuff that we're trying to do up here just with more people. Uh, we have, uh, we, we recently had our, or I know, which wouldn't say recently, last month we had our first public meeting, I had about what, 40 peaks, right? Something like that.
Speaker 1I, we had, um, based on science, we had about 40 people. Um, so I'm hoping that our next meeting, which is actually tomorrow we'll get hopefully more than 10.
Speaker 3Yeah. Which, you know, I was very sad eyed. I'm currently working up in the mountains up in Tahoe right now, so I can't be there. So, but I'll be there in spirit, which is, which counts. I think maybe a little bit counts. Right? Canaan.
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. So John, one thing I, I wanted to touch back on, you mentioned SB five, six, two. Um, and it was speaker Anthony Rendon who shelved that. And, um, isn't his district somewhere somewhere covered by DSA, la or long beach or somewhere up there? Down there?
Speaker 4Yeah, I mean, uh, I believe he's technically long beach. Um, and so he's represents a district in Long Beach. We, so the thing about La in long beach is that for the longest time, DSA, la covered long beach. Um, and we recently, uh, I believe, and of course, like just, uh, just a, a is the idols in any official capacity for DSA la. Um, I'm not a member of the steering committee, Nothing. So this is just all my stuff. If I'm wrong, it's on me.
Speaker 5But, uh, um,
Speaker 4yeah, so he's, he's definitely part of Long Beach and,
Speaker 5and um,
Speaker 4feel like they, yeah, they've been doing actions down there.
Speaker 5MMM.
Speaker 4Uh, in his office is, yeah, I think they did one, like the day after he, he, he, uh, uh, block the bill, so yeah, they're a great group. We had a, so cow, uh, picnic today with Long Beach. I didn't go, unfortunately, but the pictures of fun, it was like everyone had a really good time.
Speaker 1All right, great. So now I'd like us to kind of move into, I suppose the meat of our interview, which, um, so you have a background as a writer, director and kind of, I suppose you're embedded in what I shouldn't call the zeitgeists that will, um, so as, as a leftist who is basically face to face with, with how the sausage is made and how the sausage is consumed. Does, does your, um, do your politics really affect how you are looking at how, um, how texts meaning both, you know, films and books and all things, how they are produced and consumed these days. Yeah.
Speaker 3And you know, um, how, how the, uh, uh, the media itself sort of like fits into, um, the, the kind of culture that we have right now that has been so sort of like overwhelmingly, um, taken over by these kind of, uh, you know, posts a Cold War Neo liberal principles.
Speaker 4Yeah, sure. So just real quick, the question is kind of like how do my politics, uh, what do, what do I, yeah. What's the question? It's like, what do I see in terms of like the landscape or like what,
Speaker 3well, how does your, how does your politics like, uh, affect the way that you actually approach a, you like film and media criticism,
Speaker 4right? Um, yeah, so, so, um, my degree is in film criticism. My undergrad degree, I went to USC. Um, I for a while thought I might want to be like a film critic or something, but that is like the toughest life you can ever lead in. Um, and I like have so much like a respect for anyone that did goes into, um, I'm a huge fan of like film critics, so I, they get shit on a lot, especially in this town. Um, but I, I, you know, I think they do awesome work that said like, um, in terms of like, I mean there's a couple of different ways to approach it. There's one in the way that like, I want the job so I need to work. So I've definitely made stuff or worked on campaigns, you know, and I mean I'm working on something now that he's,
Speaker 6yeah.
Speaker 4Not a film thing, but it is, it is. I, I work on something, I do other stuff then working on something now that I find a little problematic to square with my values, but like, you know, it's capitalism, right? That's kind of the name of the game. You gotta eat. They gotta eat. Yeah. And I've been unemployed since March, so like, you know, it's, it's tough, but in terms of like how the sausage is made, the sausage is made like any other industry, it's regardless of like, like,
Speaker 6uh,
Speaker 4what someone says in public about whether they want diversity or, or more women or you know, uh, the types of stories they want to tell. It comes down to money, right? If film is an industry like anything else and if no one's going to back, no, no major studio let's say is going to back anything that doesn't have the, it doesn't have like a return of investment and like they, and like, and not just that, but like when people have to understand is that they do they run algorithms on this shit. They fucking calculate this stuff. They know I have a really good sense of how much something should bring in. A lot of the times they fuck it up cause this is like at the end of the day still an art and not a science, but like, but it's, everything they do is calculated, right? So wonder woman is calculated. Like it is like, I guess this is kind of what we're talking about, but I went to see wonder woman and it was very, very special to see a lot of women there and a lot of younger girls there at a superhero movie. I love superhero stuff. I see the marvel stuff behind your, uh, the comp, the comic books behind sauce. Um, so, uh, that's very much like my shelf too. Um, you know, so it is, it is heartening to see wonder woman and to see these female characters come in like, absolutely. But at the end of the day, like that only happened because we moved to a place in our society where women would actually spent, or many too would spend money on that. Right? So the studio is know that we're at a place right now, okay, well we can make this and expect a return of investment. It's not, it's, it's not a like,
Speaker 6uh,
Speaker 4a risk really, you know, it's not, you know, even though they say it is in some ways, but it's not, you know, and like maybe one day we'll get there with race too. I mean, Black Panther could, black panther will make a shitload of money, but in terms of like, you know, actual like risks, like, uh, like doing really interesting stuff with race. Like, uh, maybe we'll get there one day too, but like right now it's just what people need to understand is that this a business and that's the guiding principle of all media across the board. Even Fox News is guided by that. So.
Speaker 7Okay.
Speaker 3Well, I mean, uh, I think it's been, I think it's been shown pretty well, like kind of over and over that, that when you actually start including, uh, not just like the faces, but the, the sort of sensibilities and perspectives of, um, you know, typically underrepresented people in media. I'm talking about like, you know, uh, gay and lesbian, Trans Women, um, people of color, that kind of thing. Like for instance, get out, get out is a get out is absolutely a film written from the point of view of blackness with a black voice. And, and I think it did really, really well. It's, it's a really technically well-produced movie, but like the, the actual vision behind it is, is also, um, very distinctly not white. Uh, and I think that that was a big part of its appeal on a big reason why it did as well as it did. Um, and I think we see this over and over again, like, um, uh, even though, even though it's so hard to like issue, um, uh, elements of, you know, standard sort of Disney, princess, prince tropes, um, like tangled and frozen. We're very much like from a female perspective, you know, rather than a male perspective and, and people love to those, but in the end they still existed to push the Disney princess. Yeah. I mean it's still obviously a product of capitalism and still like in service to it, but it's, it's really more expanding the market. Yeah. In my mind that I just have to push back against you on that one. That I told you that this is what I'm, what I'm talking about is like sort of like within well contained within like the, the issues of capitalism. But like even within that, and there's, there's room to expand representation in a way that isn't just tokenism. And, and I think that even if it is, um, you know, capitalistic in nature, it, it does serve at least something of a purpose and a benefit.
Speaker 4Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think the big question is something that, uh, yeah, and the big question is, is as socialists, what do we think about representational politics? Right. Um, especially when we'll, while living in a capitalist society, because I think the kind of the knee jerk reaction for a lot of people, especially for people who look like me, white men, um, is to be like, it doesn't matter. Like, like, you know, like wonder woman may inspire women, but at the end of the day, like she is just pushing, uh, you know, not only, not only the profit but also bourgeoisie popper propagated, right? Like, like she's the one who over movie is crazy to me because it kind of takes this line that the old, the Germans were like, the Germans were evil. Like we should have really, like it was good that we like fuck them up, which is like, not even like not even mainstream like right wing historians. Like take that line about world war one these days. So it's like very, very strange. But um, but I guess the question and sauce, and you kind of like spoke to this too, is that like what do we, how do we feel about that? I think it is good that there is a wonder woman. But I think if that's all people think about, then we're kind of thoughts, you know.
Speaker 3Well, I, I'm sorry to stomp on you a little bit here. Uh, Saas, but, um, I think I just wanted to say that part, probably one of the, the better takes on the movie that I saw on Twitter this morning was we're all neo-cons now. Cause that was, that was really the, the core message of the movie was very like, uh, heavily projecting of American imperial power in, in this sort of like neoconservative way.
Speaker 4Yeah. I mean it's, yeah, it's in a lot of ways what, right. Like Obama's more policies where we pretty much as extensions of bushes, you know, it was a little more elegance, but like pretty much the same.
Speaker 1So how much of this, um, this, I suppose messaging that you, that, that we get from this, how much is explicit like in wonder woman and how much is something that we then project upon it? Um, I mean, using the obvious example of something like Harry Potter or the Hunger Games.
Speaker 4Yeah. So I would, in terms of like messaging, I think, I think the text, right? So like the actual film isn't a lot of ways the least important part in uh, in, in this society we live in, of what, um, we should consider in terms of messaging, what we really should be considering is marketing. And a lot of ways, because I, I'm sure you guys know this, but I'll just say it anyway. Marketing budgets are about $30 million and that's like, I believe that's on the low end for these like blockbuster things. They tend to, they can go up to like 60, I believe. Um, and so what marketing is doing is, is it's not selling us the actual film. And I know I've, I work worked in movie marketing for a long time. So what you're doing in movie marketing, cause you're not selling the film, you're selling the idea of the film. And that's true with all marketing, right? So the, the marketing for wonder woman is very much like, you know, based around the idea of this is the first female superhero movies. Finally, there's a female superhero movie, female director, like it is it, you know, it's commodified woke. He's let's say, you know, so it's very, very much in line with that. Like now of course there are the, the messages inherited and the text obviously it's like very pro America. Like the one thing that was interesting and wonder in that they did for a second then backed away from it immediately was I think one character says to her and like, it seems like you like want to go and find war. Like you shouldn't want war. And, and like I thought, oh that's actually really great because like the idea of wanting war, if you want a war, you'll find a war. You know, just kind of like the story of our, our, our military I think. And like post World War Two.
Speaker 5MMM.
Speaker 4But the marketing of, of, of wonder woman and certainly the, the, the way it's talked about on like blogs and think pieces and all this stuff is very much in line with this idea of like, you know, like let's take the women's march and like distill that down into a movie. And then like sell toys on that and like, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's that same, it's commodified. Wokeness I think.
Speaker 3Yeah. So, uh, you know, I, I was, um, Eh, I think it's Kinda funny that, uh, you had had tweeted out that, uh, your, your, where we're looking for, for a podcast to go on to, cause, especially because you're talking about justice because just this morning, last night, whenever I, some sometime not too long ago, um, I was getting into this, uh, like ridiculous Twitter argument with, with some smug ass liberal who was, was basically like saying, uh, that I am a sexist and misogynist because I can't let women, uh, like be successful. Uh, and the specific thing that we were talking about was, um, uh, denaris together, Ian from game of Thrones, uh, sort of as the symbol of a female empowerment. And, uh, you know, I was, I was basically saying like, I mean she's, she's this, uh, you know, sort of, kind of, she, she has stands in very well for, for liberal interventionism because, because what she's trying to do is, is she's trying to go and save the world and air. This is what she thinks she's doing. She's starting to go and save the world and you know, she's goes and, um, you know, quote unquote throws off the slaves chains and freeze the unsullied or whatever. Um, but she, what she really is doing is basically killing the old leaders and doing absolutely nothing about the structures of power and oppression that exists in those societies. So that the incident, she tries to like sit down and rule or w w as soon as she leaves those, those structures are either reified under her rule because she doesn't know what she's doing or they just reassert themselves because they're still there. The, those, those ways of ruling or are still there, even if you cut the head off. And, and, and so it was, it was this, uh, you know, it's, it's kind of this thing where, where, um, people sort of project these, uh, the, the current context that we live in onto these, these figures and characters. Uh, and then, uh, from that say like, Oh, Hillary Clinton is Dineros Targ Arion. It's, it's this, it's this like, uh, paralyzed way of trying to understand the world that we live in through these fictional works. Like, like looking to these fictional works essentially for, uh, parables for the way that we should live our lives or,
Speaker 4yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Yes, this is like, yet, so, uh, Ricky roles, who I believe has a podcast, sir, uh, has a podcast and he's been on Chapo. And then also, uh, Natalie, sure. Who is a fellow Dsl la comrade and writer and journalist. Um, they talk a lot about this. Uh, and it's something that I'm super fascinated with it as well. And it's basically in liberal politics and probably politics at large in America. Uh, we graft, um, pop culture that becomes like media analysis is our frame for understanding, um, politics. And that's like a relatively recently recent phenomenon. And I think a lot of it has to do with like the rise of media analysis, right? So maybe 10 years ago we didn't really know how to talk about movies in a way that kind of prioritized or not prioritize, like let's say people of Color or women or, uh, uh, uh, gay people or Trans People or non binary folks or whoever. We didn't really have that language, but the last 10 years we've really seen a rise in that kind of a thinker and blogger and writer and all that stuff. But with that, uh, we've kind of also seen the rise of people saying things like, you know, which game of Thrones characters Trump. And like, uh, you know, Harry Potter and Harry Potter help explain, you know, um, help explain Hillary Clinton all this, all this stuff. And even beyond that, the way people talk about, um, the way that people talk about politicians is, is it's as if their characters in movies. And so, um, I'm going to read something from Natalie. I'm in a second. But what I mean by that when they talk about politicians is if their characters in their mood in movies is that they decontextualize them from the real, from the materials and the actual political and the, uh, recontextualize them in terms of the fictional and the literary, right? So a good example of something is like, I think a good way to illustrate this is to do the opposite. So you take a character like Amy from gone, girl, have you guys seen gone girl? Yeah. So Amy from gone girl is I first up fucking love that movie. It's like one of my favorite movies. I can talk about gone girl for the rest of my life. But Amy is kind of a hero in that movie, right? I think so because I took me a long time to like, it was like, why is this movie not misogynistic trash? Right? It's about a woman who sets up her husband, like to make it seem like he like raped and killed her. Like, how is this not just every man's like horrible of fear, just like re like you've made into a movie and obviously it's written by a woman, but it's what the implication is not even the implication. It's very clearly stated, Amy from gone girl is essentially feminism's avenging angel, right? She is out there doing to her husband what every woman who's dealt with like a piece of shit. Cool Guy who takes women for granted and like is casually sexist and misogynistic and like abuses the emotional labor of their partner. She's basically paying all those dudes back in kind, you know? And in a story she can be the hero like because it's not fucking real, you know, because we can sympathize with her and we can understand it. We can say, yeah, you go girl. And like she's fucking great. She's feminism's avenging angel. But if Amy existed in real life, she would be a monster and we would lock her up and we would not feel bad for her. I mean maybe we would in some like social kind of like academic way when we're talking about her and like the theoretical terms. But on an everyday basis, we would be like, wow, this person is horrible. And like, you know, clearly as like part, like we cannot have this dangerous sociopath running around our society. You know? And then of course I'm speaking in ideal terms, you know, clearly, clearly there are issues with who, who gets out of as dangerous and stuff like that. But so if you take, if you take that an apply it to someone like Hillary Clinton, what you get is you get people taking Hillary Clinton, decontextualizing her from her role as a politician and then recontextualizing her as a, uh, main character. So let me read this thing from that. Like, cause she does a really good job. Something, you know, um, and this is in response to that, uh, article, uh, where the author of Rebecca Traister wrote in New York magazine about Hillary Clinton. Um, so I'm not super familiar with that, our article, but it does reference it once or twice. Um, so here's Natalie having prioritize representation over redistribution. Writers like Rebecca Traister talk about Hillary Clinton. She's the tenacious, beleaguered heroin and a movie not a powerful plutocrat as such, this piece and others like it recast Clinton's actual record and politics as the inescapably gender traits of a complicated female characters. Facer interprets Clinton's lack of anger compared to so lack of anger in terms of like losing the election, right? Lack of anger compared to Sanders. And Trump, for example, is not as a defense of the status quo, even though quote America is already great, but as evidence of how society constraints, female angle cleans, the lack of like ability becomes a manifestation of our resentment of ambitious women, not a reaction to fail neo liberal policies that worsens people worsen people's lives. Even Clinton's war hawkishness is reimagined here. Something she had to do to prove her femininity didn't undermine her toughness and tracers. Narrative Clinton's being experienced is more important than what that experience into. This is a fine framework for analyzing pop culture, but it's a deeply fucked way to think about politics. Um, yeah. So I think that is such a good summary of the problem that we have, uh, in that, I mean, I hate to blame it on liberals because I think everyone does this, but especially in this country, we are severely lacking in political frameworks and political, uh, analysis with which we can discuss the world around us. Obviously as socialists, we can talk about things in terms of class, right? And, um, you know, in labor in our roles within that. But like, if you're a new, if you're a liberal, more likely than not some scribes, student, neo, liberal,
Speaker 6um, uh,
Speaker 4philosophies probably unknowingly, right? Like you were, you're probably not even talking about market based solutions, right? You're probably not even saying like, you probably don't even have, uh, an ability to formulate a defense of charter schools that goes beyond will. Public schools are failing. But there it, it, you know, which is an argument in the, the, the negatives, right? So it's, it's, it's, it's this, because there's this lack of,
Speaker 6of a, of
Speaker 4lexicon even, which is something written Ricky Rawls talks about. It's like they don't even literally have the words to do this analysis. They fall back on media, right? Which you know, you know, ever since the 1996 telecom act, which basically allowed media consolidation and on a level that had never been seen before in this country, we are living in the most mediated times of our life. And not only that, it is fucking constant. And like I am, I'm like, I'm addicted to media. I pretty much have a screen on in front of me all the fucking time, you know, and that that does something. If you forget that it's not real. If you forget that Harry Potter is just a story, if you forget that, you know that like that politics matter, right? The Hillary Clinton may be a strong female protagonists, but in the real world, she drops fucking bombs on. So like if you forget that, then it becomes very easy to see this narrative that, that makes sense for media analysis. One of the things that Natalie is very big about is that she's, she's very, she's like, look, a lot of these people who are very fucked politics can do very good media analysis, but, um, but like it's like she says it's a fucked way to think about politics.
Speaker 1So you were talking about John, how, um, it's mostly a liberal thing and I was just going back in my mind and trying to think, well, what does the right really have that they do the same thing with? And all I could really think of is like Tom Clancy novels and John Ringo stuff and, and the, the hyper masculine, um, antiterrorism kind of kind of novels and movies based on them. But there really isn't that widespread ray effication of I guess a series the same way that the left the same way that, that Harry,
Speaker 3well, I, I think there is, um, and, and I think it comes out of the, the sort of merger of, uh, uh, corporate libertarianism and the religious right back in the new deal era. And that's the Bible. Uh, you see in a lot of these, in a lot of these places, things are like a deeply within the, the sort of like Christian fascist, right? The, the, the sort of like Christian core of the Republican Party. Uh, you really do have a biblical illusions and, and things talked about in terms of, uh, you know, the, these religious texts. And, and I think that, you know, one of the things that has come out, uh, is as you were saying off air is that a lot of, a lot of the, the, the way that the, the sort of like liberal centrist kind of take up these media properties is in a way, the same way that the religious right takes up the Bible.
Speaker 1So, John, could you, could you kind of talk a little bit about what, what we talked about off air, about, uh, this kind of sacred Harry Potter stuff?
Speaker 4Sure. I mean, yeah, I think I want to respond. Um, I wanna respond to that. What's high barrier you said real quick, I think. I think it'll dovetail nicely with, with, with your, with your prompts. Um, so I, I think, I think that the right dose, the right is a little different, right? Because they do have Bible imagery, they do have Christianity. Um, and then within Christianity there's obviously like a historical memory, right? Um, that said there are like if you look at the alt right, right, which is primarily like a not religious, uh, undertaking of, you know, that you look at the imagery they use now, like there is some white nationalist imagery, right? There is like the crusaders and stuff like that. We do see a lot of that, but it's fucking enemy for the most part. Right? It's fucking animate. I don't know. I like, look, I've seen some anime, I don't know enough about it to like really get the references and stuff like that, but they fucking use anime. It's a currency. It's a language. It's a lexicon, you know, so they're also hurting for, for this kind of like true, this real political analysis, which I think is why they fall back on the language of white supremacy. Right. Because you know, like they say, hey man, at least it's an ethos. I think we're all just looking for like an ethos and like, you know, not finding it and like, that's why people don't respond to fucking coastal neo Liberal Democrats because like there's no there, there, there's no fucking substance to it. There's nothing to latch on to.
Speaker 3They, they literally don't have a way of like understanding the world. The only, the only thing that they have are these like abstract notions of, of power. But they don't have, there isn't a, there isn't a platform. There's no ideology. And that's specifically because they themselves destroyed their ability to think about things. Because, you know, after the, the fall of the Cold War with, uh, the declaration of the end of history and the end of ideology, they said, all right, we're non id out ideological anymore. Now how do we talk about politics?
Speaker 4Right. Yeah, exactly. Um, um, so this one thing I wanted to, yeah, so one thing I wanted to bring up was that, uh, do you guys listen to the age of Napoleon? No, no, it's, it's, uh, do you know trill burn on Twitter?
Speaker 1Uh, I think possibly through retweets.
Speaker 4He, he does a podcast called the agent deployed, which is also amazing. And he actually just had Matt Christmas. Uh, it meant Christman on. Yeah. Yeah. Kirshbom on Twitter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You just had him on, on to talk about a paper or a analysis. Marx wrote about Napoleon. The third, one of the things he says is that he says that in America there's no historical memory, right? So the media becomes our historical memory, obviously in a very like, literal sense. When we, you know, we make a historical fiction film, those images become much more prevalent than the actual reality. Right. But also in a less, in a more sense of like, we just don't, we just don't have that ability to kind of generate, we don't have the historical memory, so there's no legacy. Right? So when we talk about things, we really only talk about the immediate, the evocative, right? And he uses that to, he's like, well, no wonder Trump won. Right? Trump is, you know, like the media is the media and body, the media personified, right.
Speaker 1To, to use, uh, a personal example. Um, you know, mediating everything through the, um, through Simpson's quotes as, as kind of a, a, you know, I'm, I might not know what such and such is, but I know that the Simpsons referred to it, so I can use that quote.
Speaker 4Sure, yeah, yeah. Right. There's always a wall, like are, you know, there's always a, uh, a gap and you know, and it's, it's always through some other property and typically, historically that other thing has been through something a little more material, right? Like religious or political or economic even, you know, but, but right now it's through media and media is not fucking real. Like,
Speaker 3well, yeah. And He, uh, not a fucking real, um, we're talking about the presidential race, the way that, the way that sort of like, I understood it while it was happening. It's literally just a reality TV show. That's all it is because that's, that is the same language that they use to talk about reality TV show. They said the same stuff about the presidential race and who else would be better suited to run a presidential campaign than a dude who is literally a reality show host who, who like based his entire personality about being the most popular or, or at least the guy who gets the most eyeballs and the best ratings. That's, that was his campaign. And that was because that is the way that the media treats its politics. Its, it's not just these politicians, it's if these, this is a systemic treatment of the way that our politics is actually run like at, at a structural level. So, uh, I realized you were in the middle of a thought when I kind of caught you off. So I do want to allow you to return back to that. Sorry.
Speaker 4I mean I, I'm, I'm was probably grateful that you cut me off and I didn't have to keep talking. Um, um, I will say that that, like one thing that cannot be overstated is in a lot of people don't really talk about, but it is super fucking important is the role of the 1996 telecom act. Right. That's what let basically what all that, let all these media companies merge. It was done under Bill Clinton. It was marketed as a way to let people have cheaper cable to basically have options. Right? In, like you can choose time Warner at and t and stuff like that. But we've seen that like in utility, I, I'm not, so I'm dangerously close to being too stupid to talk about this. But from my understanding and utilities choice does not actually a affects like price. All it does is just dried everything up and it worse in service and stuff like that. So rather than have one company that you deal with, you've got two and they're both fucking too, I mean, it's just, we see it with our cable companies now, right? 18 t time Warner spectrum, whatever the fucking awful.
Speaker 5MMM.
Speaker 4God, I hope I don't have to write copy for one of those companies anytime soon.
Speaker 3If you want, we can cut it out if you want.
Speaker 4Yeah, it's fine. No, no, no. We can leave it in there. I don't care. Um, but, uh, uh,
Speaker 5the,
Speaker 4so basically, so what happens is these media companies merge. Now when these media companies merged, there are new avenues for content, right? So around this time we started to see the explosion of cable TV. You know, it's not just a hundred channels, it's a thousand channels, right? That happens kind of flash forward a bit. Uh, we get the rise of Internet, TV, Internet content, all this stuff. Now if you're a person who wants to work in this industry, it's great. It's there. I, their jobs I've had that did not exist 10 years ago, you know, and that's good for me because I been able to work as a writer and stuff like that. Well, what it means is there's a beast and the beast gets fed content, right? So there's more and more content. We just need content. And like very obvious parallel is the 24 hour news channels, you know, a new cycles and stuff like that. And so like, I mean, this is not, this is, this argument is almost cliched at this point. But they, they really, they need ratings, excuse me. And they need, they need to satisfy the beast so they need content. And that's not just on 24 hour news cycles. Now it's everything. So we're living in this, I mean, I don't know who said this, but something someone said something about capitalism constantly needs novelty constantly needs to be refreshing itself to kind of stay, to stay your like maybe remind people that you know that how, how are or to distract people from how badly it's treating them. You know? And so that's kind of what the Trump campaign is. I mean, you're absolutely right that the, it was run as a fucking reality TV show campaign. Um, and, and that's very much how Trump understands it too, right? Like we know he watches TV, we know that he's checking in on his ratings and stuff like that. Like, like it's, I mean, it's insane. Like it just, it's, it's very like David Foster Wallace, like infinite jest, a book I have read 300 pages of, but enough to get to the part where he talked about that.
Speaker 1I remember starting infinite jest and, and getting to the, to the part where you get lost in the footnotes. And I think I'm still lost in the footnotes and I haven't opened that book in like six years. But, um, both John and I are proud members of the reading, one word of at one page of Cap Das capital and then taking a nap, uh, limited brainpower caucus of DSA.
Speaker 4Yeah, I mean it's, I mean it's something that comes up a lot I think in DSA is, and what are you with, I think this is a bullshit distinction, but I just want to put it out there. Are you like a theory person or just like a dewar and like, honestly, the biggest theory people I know are also doers. So it is a fucking false dichotomy. Yeah. And I'm trying very hard to be both. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, and it's, it's, it's historically been like that too. Like the, like there's always been the people who are super into theory and do stuff and there's been people who like, maybe aren't as much into theory but also do stuff, you know? Um, and I think it's a, it's a, it's a discussion that, that, uh, I think she keep going because I think, you know, to the thing we were talking about earlier, one of the points that Ricky Rawls makes is that liberals won't do the reading. Liberals won't do the, the DNR like read about like, you know, read the communist manifesto at the very least the ream, you know, trying to think of books I've read, um, read the bread book, Google Murray books at least. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Just they did won't do the assigned reading. They won't do the stuff that you need to do in order to understand the frame, you know. So that's kind of like what makes [inaudible] different from liberals is that we have a lexicon and, and theories and ideas to like draw upon. Yeah. Um, it's, it's a way to understand the world. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1Sorry, saucy, you were saying something. Uh, I wasn't actually, but I will, I will happily fill some space. Um, so John, am I correct in thinking that you are a delegate for Dsa Los Angeles?
Speaker 4I'm a delegate it, yes.
Speaker 1So you are going to be at convention in Chicago in, well, let's see. Um, I think when this is released it will be very few days. It should have happened by the time this is released. Oh Gosh. Well I hope. Yeah, I hope we had a good time. Um, so what do you, what do you particularly you're looking forward to at at convention?
Speaker 4Um, I don't know. I'm looking forward to, I don't know. Um, I guess I'm looking forward to like meeting people and solidarity and kind of, you know, being a part of the discussion of, of the, the shape of the next two years for DSA and, and cause you know, one of the big things that we have in the DSA la is like assume good faith in your con comrades. And so like, I'm just excited to have these conversations because everyone has the best in mind, you know, and there there are differences and I already know, you know, I don't really want to speak to it right now cause my chapter hasn't voted. But like, um, there are differences between something what I believe in some other people who leave. Um, but I'm excited to have those conversations because like this matters, you know, this, this huge organization is done more in my mind for left wing politics. Man. I don't want to say that. That's not, that's not fair. Um, but like we have the opportunity to do a lot and um, I'm excited to be a part of that and I'm excited to represent my chapter two cause it's, you know, it's, we all have, we all have our specific concerns, you know, and stuff and, and it's nice that people have been a thought that I was like capable enough to go and represent them. So that's really cool. Well, fourth largest social disorganization. The history of the United States, that's not nothing. That's pretty significant.
Speaker 1I think that as DSA, North Bay, I am Dsa North Bay and also Dsa San Francisco for whom I don't delegate and, and you don't our DSA in Los Angeles, so, so we are very much left coast. Um, and I think that we as delegates have been incredibly, um, well maybe not incredibly. We have been very privileged in that. Um, we've experienced less of the, of the issues that other chapters have in terms of being able to get our delegates there. Um, San Francisco, we had a, we had an anonymous donor who, who just, I believe through in enough, like during the fund raising just one person through an enough to cover everything. Um, did, what, what were you guys in a DSA, La doing for your, for your fundraisers?
Speaker 4Yeah, sure. So we had a comedy show. I mean, one of the, we're, we're very fortunate and that we have kind of links and access to people in the industry. And so we had a comedy show last weekend, actually last Sunday. Um, it's sold out even at 20 bucks a ticket. It's sold out on which for like kind of indie comedy shows in Las a lot of money. Um, and so we had people like Moshe Kasher and then we had other comrades in the chapter who are comedians do stand up. Um, and so we've done stuff like that. I mean, so it's very, it's, it's very cool to be able to work with him. But uh, yeah, I mean I believe that's the only fundraiser did, um,
Speaker 3don't know. I'm sure there's some other stuff planned as well. Can I, can I ask you guys some questions about your chapters? Sure. Go ahead. Yeah, absolutely. Go for it. How many people are in Dsa? Northbay
Speaker 1we have, um, between, we have about seven or eight active people on the organizing committee or organizing circle. And then as far as actual active members, we've really only had one general meeting, so we're not sure yet. So we don't really know exactly how many returning recurring members we're going to have. Probably it'll be a couple of months before that fully shakes out. Um, I think Tim Barris can, can speak more to kind of the way that we, the vision that the steer that the organizing committee kind of originally had full how campaigns and issues and, and kind of working circles. We'll, we'll work for the, um, for the chapter, but it's very much in the hands of all of our members of the people who, who show up and keep showing up.
Speaker 3Yeah. Yeah. So, um, a sauce mentioned a working circles. So what are the things that we're trying to do? Um, a lot of us are a come at politics from, from uh, uh, a very libertarian anarchist kind of bent. Yeah. Left Libertarian, actual libertarian, not wrong libertarian. We're going to get in, we're going to get into this in a different episode, but um, yeah. So, uh, so we come at it from, from uh, you know, it's an anti authoritarian viewpoint. So one of the ways that you then have to organize yourself so that you are ineffective institution is that you have to have buy in and consent from basically everybody. Uh, and one of the ways that you can do this is, is there is a, um, you're familiar with like a consensus or uh, uh, yeah, consensus democracy, but the kind of thing that happened, Eh, uh, back in the mirror and, um, uh, occupy the, when we were going through that. So if you remember, like one of the biggest issues that we had was just, we couldn't get anything done. There was a real sort of like egalitarian, uh, libertarian spirit, but nobody could do anything because in order to get anything done, everybody had to say yes and had to be like an enthusiastic, uh, agreement with it. Right? So, so if you, if you want it to have anything, if you want it to have anything happen, everybody had to raise their hand and say, yes, I vote yes. There's, there's like no real grid nations. So there's the minority
Speaker 1kind of great for sex, but not so great for occupy Wall Street decision making.
Speaker 3Yeah, exactly. It's a enthusiastic consent. Works really great when you have two people or a very small number of people. Yeah. Um, yeah. So, so the, so the way that you sort of like getting beyond that is by, um, uh, like more sort of consent based rather than consensus instead of everybody having to say enthusiastically. Yes. You just have to have everybody saying I have no problem with that. Yeah. Because, because, um, the biggest problem when you're trying to do what like occupy was doing was they were trying to, uh, basically have everything be a vote. And so you have to have before you like really sit down and decide what you're doing, you have to have already a slate of options to choose from. And that's backwards because if you're trying to, if you're trying to sort of like organize it in a decentralized fashion, you have to have everybody involved from the start. You, you have to have knowledge and input from everybody. So the, so the way that we are our structuring our, our chapter of Dsa is that we have a, uh, once we get enough members, we're going to have a sort of a general assembly, uh, and that is going to be sort of like the final, uh, the final way that you actually vote stuff up and down. Decide what broad, um, a broad actions we're going to take. But before it even gets to that point a is what we're going to do and what we are starting right now is uh, sort of, um, organizing ourselves into circles or are working circles that have much more limited and narrow focus and are much more targeted at the people who know about the, the, the topic or the action and are more directly affected by it. We basically renamed committees into circles. Yeah. Renamed committees in the circles because really what we're trying to do is um, uh, have a sort of like general task. Like one of our circles is forming a, an emotional support group. This is something that we think is a valuable service just to the community, but also just for self care. Uh, so, so you know, the, the way that you do that is to say who is interested in this topic and who, uh, would be personally benefiting from it. And then those people sort of like go off into their own smaller circle of, you know, up to like a dozen people and you, you basically start with, um, uh, basically everybody, it's sort of like gives their impression of, of the, the general topic. Uh, then once all that happens, you, you'd go around again, you get sort of like preliminary proposals and then once all the preliminary proposals happen, you bring it together into sort of like this Frankenstein agglomerated mess. And then from there you basically work collaboratively to, to form a, a recommendation that you then take back to the organizing committee or the General Assembly to, for, um, if, if it's acceptable to everybody, then, um, you know, you vote on it. If there are, if your decision affects other circles, uh, then you would basically form, uh, uh, you know, a temporary committee that would talk about that and then go back and reform the idea. So, so it's, it's a little bit more, it's basically bringing everybody in so that by the time you actually get to the point where you're making a decision, everybody has already bought into it. Right. So, so that's, that's a, that's a sort of way that it's like, you know, bottom up policy decision making. And then once it's sort of like a Regis is way up to the top, you basically have a decision already. This is of course theoretical at this point. Um, and it is something that we will do if we have buy in from a ad consent from everybody in the chapter. Yeah. And it's, um, uh, we just talked about this on the previous episode about, um, uh, with, uh, Twitter's good girl, about sort of like, this is the, this is the way that we think this, um, scales enough that, that we think that, that they should be, um, at least in part the way that the DSA orients itself. So that in a, in a prefigurative politics kind of sense, that is a, a way that we can show, uh, to have a more socialist and egalitarian world actually function like on the ground in the real world. Doing actual actions. Yeah. Pie in the sky, possibly. Um, I mean obviously, but you know, you have to, you have to, you don't become a socialist because you think it's impossible.
Speaker 4Um, yeah, it's, I mean, what are the things that I heard a fellow Dsla comrade talk about? Um, they were talking about, you know, cause we've got, we're, we're, we've been around for like five years, so we've got a, uh, an internal system. It's pretty established. Um, right now our steering committee is writing new bylaws. She's me, new bylaws and stuff. So who knows if that'll change, um, in terms of what structures we have. But like, um, this Conrad was, they were, they were proposing the idea of, um, instead of calling our committees, right. So we've got our steering committee and then we've got our committees in our committees are kind of generally issue focused for the most part. So I'm on labor, we've got a socialist feminist, racial justice, healthcare. I'm trying to think. We had a hospitality committee, but I don't know what happened to them. I don't even know what they did. Um, but we had a membership, sorry. We have a membership committee. Um, and one of the things that these committees have is they have cochairs, uh, to people who are a s like a sensibly the leaders now this comrade, they were proposing that instead of calling them cochairs, we call them like a point of contact point person, you know, kind of just a person to step up and maybe like make sure the, the, you know, then we've got a venue space. Just make sure, you know, the, the, the, I mean for lack of a better term, the secretary, right? Like just the, the, the organizational stuff. But with the understanding manager, project manager, there we go. There we go. I was just thinking like old school, like 1930s communist organizations like the sector that, yeah. Um, um, so, uh, you know, this person would be the point of contact and it would be helpful, all that stuff and then someone else can like lead, like step up and lead, but there are no leaders and um, I liked that a lot. I think I liked that a lot. I think in some communities it's more appropriate than others. Like for instance in the Labor Committee are Cochair is a union member. I am not a union member. I do not have contacts with unions. I do not even know much about the union situation in la though. I'm learning quite quickly. So it just wouldn't be appropriate for me, um, necessarily to, to, to take the lead on some of these things. That said, I've done a lot of work in the labor community, so who knows, maybe just started giving myself the benefit of the doubt. But, um, um, I think, I think there is, I think the question is, is how much should experience play in, in these operations. And I think for the most part, uh, I don't know how much experience matters, but there does seem to be some situations where experience is extremely valuable, you know?
Speaker 3Yeah. And it sounds like you guys have sort of, um, uh, I mean these, these principles that, that are referred to as like Sosi cratic methods. Uh, they're sort of in the Zeitgeists, but I it, so it sounds like you guys are sort of like coming into that. Um, if you're interested, there is like an actual, like a handbook on, uh, that, that sort of like details and pretty explicit detail, the, the steps of actually, um, forming and executing working circles and delegating tasks and these, these kinds of things. It's very, uh, it's very, uh, business and corporate oriented, but it works equally well. And, and basically any sphere. Um, so I at DSA, North Bay road trip. Yeah. Just like Tiberius, we'll send it, send you down there type areas and you can explain in person, I hate cars too much to enjoy la.
Speaker 4Depends on where you go. We've got some good public transportation. Um, yeah. Um, yeah that's cool. That's cool. I like that stuff. I, I had a big issue with occupy and that I thought that consensus method was like very peer pressure heavy. Like it was just like you have to use you, you would say like, what is it? It was like, you wouldn't like that if you didn't or what was it if you didn't, you weren't, you were, it wasn't a hard block, but it was like if you had,
Speaker 3it was a, it was, it was this like your, your hands, like I'm a whore or parallel to the ground and wiggling your fingers.
Speaker 4Right. So I remember, I remember, so this is a, a thing that I think a lot of that when I think about occupy, which I remember I was at occupy, I just happened to be, I don't even know what I wear. I like what group I was a part of what the, the idea of it was like, should we join this antiwar March? And like I was like, I, I put out if I put up like the halfhearted thing. And I was like, no, I don't know about that. And they were like, why? And I'm like, well, this is a movement about financial, this is a movement, not the bags, right about the, the, the way the banks treat us and the way the, the American economy and stuff like that led to this. It's very obvious to us, the connection between here and the war. Right. It's very obvious. But I was like, I don't know that we've done the work to connect those two. And so when people see us marching in, in that protest, we become just another, we become answer or we become, you know, just another faction of the left. Um, rather than something with our, we lose our identity. You know, and I know, I'm sure this is an incredibly controversial statement. I'm sure that the, well, like a lot of people listening to this might be disagreeing with me. And I totally get that. But like I said that and they were like, was that a hard block? And I was like, no. And you know, and that was it because it's like you, you, you, there was so much emphasis on the individual to be the one to be like, hey, let's slow down guys. You know, that it's very peer pressure focused. And on the opposite end there's so much of like, just like all you had to do was do a hard block for anything you didn't like, which in La there was a faction that just hard blots anything because one of the, you know, I know occupy doesn't have leaders, but one of the dudes who was stepping up and doing a lot of the work was this labor guy and he, the anarchist fucking hated him and they, they hard block everything he did. It was like really fucked up.
Speaker 3Yeah. And because it's, it's like you said it, it is the, the, the sort of like inversion of the individual. It's still always, always focused on the individual, but it's, it's this like sort of like backwards perversion of that, uh, of that kind of, um, every man is an island. There is no such thing as society. Like that kind of thing. It's like this is, this is like the exact opposite where um, yeah, everybody is an individual but the entire group acts as one there is, there is only a single mind for the whole collective. Yeah. Um, and, and I think that that was really the, that was, it was really one of the biggest things that in, in my opinion, sort of stopped occupy from being more than it was. The other thing is, I mean, sort of an outgrowth of that, this is like getting into something that we should probably have an entire episode on and in and of itself. Um, but you know, it, out of that growth sort of like came this inability to, to put forth something different. It was just a rejection of the system as it was. There was nothing beyond that. It was just this is a bad system. This is screwing up the world. And our lives. But beyond that, nobody had any idea of what to do next. So it's like, okay, yeah, we took the streets. What do we do now? And, and I think that, yeah, oh, go ahead. Yeah,
Speaker 4I just say think if you, you know, I was certainly much younger at this time, but my impressions when I was a teenager of like the anti globalization movement, we're certainly very much in that same vein where it's like, okay, I know what you're against, but it's, you know, when you a politics based on the negative is so much harder to articulate, you know? Then one where it's like, well, what do you for? You know, and like, like one of the big lines I like to tell liberals is, you can't just be against something. You have to be for something too. You know? And I think that's what's great about this moment, right? That we've named it. We've named what we're for. We know what we're four, there's a legacy, there's a history, there's all the blogging literature you can read and argue about it, you know, variations on variations on what we want. You know, it hasn't made, you know, which is I think where like the, the, I mean since,
Speaker 2okay.
Speaker 4I don't know. Since the new left, let's say like the new left was very, you know, SDS like they were great. My Dad was SDS. But their ability to articulate like the specific kinds of society they wanted was like very difficult, you know?
Speaker 3Okay. So, uh, you know, coming up on the hour, um, why don't, why don't we let you have, uh, uh, the last word? Anything else you want to say? Any projects you're working on, you want to sort of a signal boost.
Speaker 4I can't really signal boost any of the projects I'm working on because they're not close to being done and I don't know where they'll live. But a follow me on Twitter at Groucho Marx is all one word and that's it. Thank you guys. This has been a real treasure or a real treat, so thank you.
Speaker 3All right, well thanks for coming on. It's, it's been a real, real fun having you. All right. Thanks guys. Have a good night. Nice thought. Every camera
Speaker 2mustard shit. They think that to table. Who's your dad?
Speaker 8Okay.
Speaker 2To boy. Everybody walked away. [inaudible].