Left Coast Media
Left Coast Media
North Bae 023 - With the Federal Government Shut Down Who Will Aggregate Our Dicks?
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Tiberius apologizes for missing the "end" of the shutdown, but comrades Mack and Sauce had a great discussion about the shutdown, TSA peeping our junk, and how much NPR sucks with Matt and Anna from the Breadline Podcast (https://twitter.com/thebreadlinepod)
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Speaker 2And this is not marketplace. This is North Bay.
Speaker 3And thank you for coming back to North Bay part of the Left Coast Media Collective.
Speaker 4I am your host Mac and I am here with my co-host and good buddy communal sauce as well as a few special guests today. Anna and Matthew from the bread line podcast. How about everyone just to say hello.
Speaker 5Hey yo. Thanks for having us with you.
Speaker 6Yeah. This is so awesome.
SauceAlso Hello. Laughs Hi. Yeah. So judging just purely from the name of your podcast I'm guessing it is food and leftism. How close I.
Speaker 5That is exactly right. You nailed it in one.
SauceGreat good cause. Part of what we can or probably most of what we're going to be talking about today is the federal government shutdown and that's effect on all of those means tested safety net programs including SNAP which is.
Speaker 8That's good.
SauceYeah. Snap used to be called food stamps but was not I think Clinton's renamed it all sounds great.
Speaker 5That sounds like something they would do.
Speaker 2Yeah yeah yeah that sounds thoroughly technocratic. In business school enough to be part of the Clinton administration.
Speaker 5Yeah it's been kind of depressing. A lot of the coverage I think about the government shutdown has to do with the poor TSA agents and all of our airports including some some really fiery tweets today about everybody joining in unison and chanting No. But the Democrats are all in Puerto Rico as if that's not part of our country also. And you've got all of these assistance programs that are also falling by the wayside but the people who benefit from these programs aren't completely in the spotlight all the time. Their lives aren't affecting the lives of anybody else especially not say like Beltway reporters who have to travel through airports all the time.
SauceYeah it's. If you're listening and you are affected by the government shutdown whether that be that you are a worker on furlough or that you are somebody who depends on one of these programs. First off I am sorry. Second off what can we do to help. Like reply and let us know if there's something that you need and we'll see about publicizing it. And I would say if you are part of it actually this group or if you have like what. Captain Awkward refers to as a team you like people that you feel like you can rely on you can get help from. I would reach out to them but then I'm saying that but people who are in marginalized communities especially people who are low income tend to have fewer social supports feel a social network that they can rely on like fewer people that they say they could turn to an emergency.
Speaker 9So yeah it's gonna be really really important for activist groups and any group that's usually getting together to do political work to get out there and try. Direct action is not it's like it's just a few people are affected now but it's been a ripple out there.
SauceYeah. This is food not bombs time. Real. I mean it's always been Food Not Bombs time but if there's an inactive Food Not Bombs chapter now you maybe say about restarting you know we'll study something with a completely different name. That's kind of like Food Not Bombs. Just do it your way.
Speaker 8Yeah it's not. I mean it's gonna be It's no longer gonna be a radical action to feed people. That's one thing that's going to be happening. Like my my mom works at a walk in clinic Ms. They already have set up a table that's essentially pantry with fresh produce for the people who come to the clinic if they need it. So people are starting to pick up on this as it just being common sense one. One thing I guess the gig and go fund me. Economy has taught us is that we can help each other materially. It's not hard. So I think. Yeah I think that's that's what we've been preparing for.
Speaker 5Well we can do it for a while right. But after a while you stretch everybody's budgets so much that I mean it's not necessarily sustainable but it is it's another stopgap. Yeah because the I mean the shutdown has knock on economic effects to mean people who are out there you know buying groceries right now there are going to be affected because people who with government workers and stuff would normally be coming to this place for lunch every day.
Speaker 8Now they're just not. And that is like no profit. Right. You know you're going to see these businesses and economy.
SauceSo one of the things that really rubs me the wrong way was when the seat we had that we had a thread that was I guess our first time was talking about the food stamps we we had a thread talking about food stamp budget running out of money. And I shared what I knew from the USDA and the USDA press release about how they were going to handle snap and food stamps actually included all of those Trump talking points about how the government shutdown is because we need to secure the nation's border et cetera et cetera. And I should be past the point of cynicism where that no longer surprises me that those talking points are in something as important as a press release about how people are going to get money for food. But it was there and it surprised me.
Speaker 10Well I mean this is this is a bit of a tangent on your point but you know one of these talking points that you hear about while funding is you know look at these like sexual predators who are coming up from Central America. Meanwhile there was an article that came out about how violence against women shelters are looking at the money that they get from the federal government isn't coming through and they're wondering if they have to close their doors so where are your priorities really fucking.
Speaker 11Yeah. The USDA and some other health and human services agencies basically are using creative accounting. They are allowed to do stuff for 30 days after the resolution expires and that resolution that expired needed to be replaced by the one that is being held hostage for the wall. So they have 30 days that they can continue to do stuff. So what they're doing is January 20th ish.
SauceThey will release all of the funds that they have for the February food stamps for the February benefits like the food that's shipped to reservations and the farmers market Kip's Tanith stuff so they'll release all that early near the end of January and people are being told no budget this carefully is when this is your February money and when that's done we don't know whether as well anymore is coming from.
Speaker 4Yes I mean after. Wonder what that option is here. As far as like parliamentary procedure you know do you fund each department one by one through Congress which is like an option. Or do you sort of like hold out and play the game of chicken with.
Speaker 10With our sort of incredibly racist and mentally unwell president I think it's I think it's really risky to try to go the route of funding things individually because one thing that a government shutdown does is it puts a spotlight on each of these individual programs that your average citizen may not necessarily be aware of. When you put the front and center like that I think the risk you run is a bunch of people are going to go like Well that seems extreme ideas you know maybe maybe that's the thing that the private sector can do can work out as well at the level of package together as a functioning government.
SauceThe problem with that is that that's pretty much what some of the more reactionary slash right wing people are already saying during this shutdown.
Speaker 12It's like well mass privatization will suck so much.
Speaker 4Yeah. The language of the shutdown plays directly into the right wing narrative because like breaking government is something they don't care about. Yeah I agree. The idea of government that serves beyond like sort of punitive capacity is something that they'd you know that's their preferred form. So like this whittling down like this this game of chicken just sort of like plays directly into like what they want. You could just smash and grab anything now and privatize it right.
Speaker 10I mean the government is closer right now than it usually is to the size that you could drown it in a bathtub as somebody so eloquently put it.
SauceSo yeah one of the the last time we had a government shutdown there was this straw man or straw anarchist argument going around if like well you know now the government's shut down so people will build their own systems and we will finally have an opportunity to build it all back up and on the one hand. Yeah this is an opportunity for some real like build some dual palace stuff because people are going to need it but on the other hand that's really looking past the huge amount of people that have actually been hurt by this shutdown.
Speaker 10Like people who I'm not going to be getting heating assistance money people whose turn off money whose food stamp money whose rent assistance all those programs been the ECB the rent control the housing urban development program is on standby right now where people in HD are asking purchase bidding wars and just like dip into their rainy day funds with the beacon that they'll be paid in the future.
Speaker 12I also have to put your faith in the landlord since that's Grant right.
Speaker 10So that and I'm sure we'll circle back around to talk about the USDA more. But one thing that I was not aware of until just today was the USDA guarantees home construction loans for rural areas all over the country. They in partnership with nonprofits the nonprofit following up the money and the USDA supplies the money. And so you've got a bunch of people who are trying to build in rural areas. You know the places where our food actually comes from who we're in the middle of building houses and all of a sudden the money is not there anymore. So they're racking up extra expenses because of contractors who've been delayed and materials that have been supplied but not paid for. Yeah it's it's a nightmare.
SauceI did not know that I knew that food inspections and things like that that I've done on the federal level are being put on hold. But I didn't know that the USDA did take home loan construction loans or stuff. Yeah I guess it makes sense if my farm or assistance.
Speaker 10Yeah exactly.
Speaker 13I think it's probably an offshoot of or farming assistance loans but yet specifically for helping provide housing in the rural areas and NBC ran an article about this one couple who the the money that they've been guaranteed something on the order of like three hundred thousand dollars and all of that money is not there. So either way they've got a half built house that they can't do anything with.
Speaker 9Jesus it's just there's somebody sorely disappointed essential assistance that is going doing right. It's like a death by a thousand cuts right. A little bit here a little bit there.
SauceYeah.
Speaker 11A lot of programs are funded quarterly so what you might see the areas that and agencies and grants that are funded quarterly you might see that they get all of the money that they get and a half through March that they get that now.
SauceAnd if the shutdown continues past the end of March then they're going to be in trouble with snap it's coming out month by month and some programs even on just funded on an annual basis. So as long as the shutdown ends if all of the grant renewal or before the end of that their fiscal year they'll be unaffected but some agencies it kind of ends up being the luck of the draw like if you have a grant that you applied for and the renewal is this month next month you're fucked but if it's why you just renewed in December then you've got you've got only you've got 20 19 money and you're find to continue.
Speaker 10Right yeah. So for instance like Social Security is paid up through September. So.
Speaker 14Oh the Social Security and Medicare and stuff.
Speaker 10Right. So I hear all of your Fox News watching grandparents who actually do make a big stink about politics. They're gonna be fine. Like the shutdown isn't going to affect them much. Whereas SNAP benefits expire like salsa. January 20th and the TARP program the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Women Infants and Children program. I think those are funded only through March. So those are important. Right. So assuming the shutdown doesn't lessen from a March those programs will be OK. So. So what you have basically is this regressive impact on the usual targets. I mean it's the needy. It's disproportionately women disproportionately people of color whereas your I don't know like elderly people that tend to vote Republican anyway. They're fine. Okay.
SauceNo I would hesitate to make such a blanket statement without knowing for sure. But yet the things like Social Security the things that are quarterly or annual tend to have larger proportions of people using them that are not marginalized and on the brink like SNAP is a hyper portion of people that are on the brink of the food assistance to native people or to reservations like that is communities that are on the brink. And that's the stuff that's funded monthly and is first impacted by this. It's the people that we should be protecting.
Speaker 10Yes that's about right. Sounds good. Sounds like business as usual for the Trump administration.
Speaker 9Yes. I mean every everything's uncharted waters. Nobody like for all we know this could go on for a long time. And it's just been a snowball and get worse. Nobody knows and it's it's like we'll call down those trophies just like you do anything to hurt people. And it sucks if the federal government is shut down.
SauceDoes that mean that all crime is legal now or is it just federal crimes like high crime.
Speaker 15Well that's always been legal. That's true.
Speaker 2Yeah. And I'm going to lean on federal. That's my vote. Is there still Casey. PD is still rolling around looking as fucking stupid as possible so I'm going to assume that they will enforce something but I haven't seen any FBI recently.
Speaker 16So I broke you probably wouldn't see them. Yeah. Except. Yeah.
Speaker 10Well the federal crimes are the fun ones anyway.
Speaker 17Lets the ones where you where you cross state lines to illegally distribute your ill gotten carrots to people who are hungry.
Speaker 15Exactly. I know I've told you that over me. Yeah. Well I am a free carrot on the land.
Speaker 13I'm a sovereign citizen cabbage my tractor actually has gold fringe on it so its maritime law and well it's a.
SauceI thought that in some in some places like farming equipment was actually under completely different laws as well and that's why you would see like 8 year olds and 9 year olds driving tractors.
Speaker 10Oh maybe I know in one small town where I live. Riding lawn mowers were categorized differently than other automobiles. So Friday night you would see the one big dive bar just a line of riding lawn mowers.
Speaker 15I love that ingenuity. Yeah. Retirement Villages in Florida where everybody's on golf carts Algeria. Yeah.
SauceAll right. So I I know I've told this story before and unfortunately I don't have a citation. This is just a story that someone told me. But one of Ace the seasonal actions that a group of anarchists did some years ago was they dressed up like Santa Claus and they shopped lifted a bunch of toys and distributed them to poor children. And the reason that they were dressed up as Santa Claus was when it was Christmas time and to because then if the cops came after them it would be the cops beating up Santa Claus and snatching toys out of the out of the hands of the fighting and screaming children. Of course now we are in a world where that story climax where the secret plan is revealed to the world and everybody gasps and immediately fights back against it. And that's why you have your turning point that no longer happens ever. So you would probably just see a lot of Santas getting beaten up but some want to whip Santa is laying around. But the reason I brought that up is I am definitely not suggesting that anybody listening. Gather together a group of that of their whitest and most professional looking friends to shoplift food and distribute it to people they know that need food.
Speaker 9I would make sure they know that the next Food Not Bombs meeting is going to be business casual.
Speaker 10No we wouldn't we wouldn't want to suggest people do illegal activities.
SauceNow that we've established that crimes are illegal yet federal crimes are legal so you have to take your stolen food across a state line and then it's no longer it's no longer our credit.
Speaker 18Yeah. If you if you hijack a semi.
Speaker 19First it's not shoplifting now.
SauceSo one of the things that I like to ask guests is you know what's up with you what do you what are you doing What are you excited about. And I know that right now our excitement is mostly just kind of a dull horror. But is there anything that that you all are doing that you're excited about that you want to share with people that you maybe want people to sign up for and help with.
Speaker 10Well I have a couple of cool red episodes that were kind of storyboarding outbreak now. There was a case in Tennessee where soybean district breeder was. Well it's kind of hard to tell because it is the case ended in a settlement. So of course nobody admitted to any wrongdoing. But basically what it looked like was this soybean distributor was selectively selling shitty soybeans to only the black farmers or the white farmers in the area got the nice no 15 bushels per acre whatever it is and all the black farmers somehow growing exactly 10 percent or less of the yield they. Right. So we're we're digging in to race issues in food and land access and that's a long long story obviously.
Speaker 14This is serious. I mean it's it's one of those issues that's just completely intertwined into the existence of the country.
Speaker 9And I know that the laws and endless legal battles ever since have just been kind of trickling down. We now have a nation built on slavery and then when we quote unquote freed the people we had enslaved we made it hard for the people who knew how to work the land to obey the law because they are ruling those those rights holders.
Speaker 10Yeah so we're going to we're going to look at that case and use it as kind of the cornerstone of the discussion around race and land and food. We've been lining up some cool guests including Professor Monica White from Madison who's just published a book all about that. So we've got our got our expert in our corner already.
Speaker 6Yeah. It's really cool.
Speaker 10And we're also going to be hopefully doing a multipart episode on food and hunger issues in the queer community. We've got an in with former collective up in Montana. That's what our our other co-host Mark is working on right now. And yeah we want to listen to the way queer people integrated into farming communities. We also want to look at how hunger and homelessness disproportionately affect queer people especially here. So we're going to continue to watch our feed for for updates on that. We're going to have those episodes out before too long.
SauceCool cool. Mac I know you had a lot of things you wanted to say about the federal shutdown and about just this whole fucking mess. So I'm I'm gonna hand over the reins to you now because you know better than me where the rest of this episode is gonna go.
Speaker 2Oh well we'll see how much better prone I am to that. But I mean I guess I'll wind back up right.
Speaker 20So we were talking about coverage of the shutdown and who it's affecting in a week.
Speaker 2I think Matthew touched on it earlier on in their recording the the TSA agents are the sort of primary focus and I and I see some sort of odd sort of splitting of the rhetoric around it like people saying they're there they're walking off the job they're done there they're so brave. We should rally around them. But I find it odd because it is this department this activity that was great in the early 2000s is part of the war on terror like it's built specifically to just sort of harass brown people and make you take off your shoes in public which is disgusting.
Speaker 17So I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you a question here and I don't know if that is a right answer to it or if that even is a right answer to it. TSA person who walks off the job because of this shutdown. How is that or is that different from a plus.
Speaker 6If the TSA person walked off the job because they realized that they were positive some really horrible shit I mean I think that's you know it's way too I don't remember what it was like before the TSA is like actually going to the gate to see somebody off. Yeah yeah. We don't need them. It's not essential like the non-essential service isn't the right word.
Speaker 12But let's say it doesn't need to be have been like that is so nice and soft.
Speaker 10You know in a roundabout way of answering your question I wanted to address something back said that ACB is that that's a leftist slogan right. I think it's it's easier from the left to get the TSA and recognize them as part of the same institutional problem as the rest of the militarized police force. But liberals do not see it that way. And for them it's it's always easier to support the power structure in place at the expense of the people with that power structure actually walked in and I just finished a red light episode which will be out this week about the just horrific reporting on the prison holiday meals during the government shutdown and how how you had these liberal outlets basically throwing all of the inmates completely out in the cold on their own in order to make a point about how the shutdown is bad because now prison guards are getting a good look at these extravagant meals that the prisoners are eating.
Speaker 6The focus is on cops really but they're not the ones most affected.
Speaker 17And the reason that these federal cops and whatever are walking off is just purely Well I'm thinking like ninety nine percent because they are not getting paid. It's not it's not because they realize what they are part of. I mean I'm fingers crossed that maybe while people off the job some enterprising leftist gets in there and agitates and helps TSA agents who aren't working realized that's what that job is awful. If the government were shut down such that the TSA kept going nobody would be walking off. It feels like if you are in a sufficient position of power or privilege you can just ignore all of this shit like like my feel like he was saying this liberal viewpoints that you can somehow work within this system that the system is fine.
Speaker 2Yeah. The prisoner Christmas dinners thing was I. I can't really remember the last time I was just as horrified at a bunch of headlines that were just despicable. Yeah like I throwing literally millions of people under the bus to like score points in your like ad debate forum is I think one of the most. I think that's that's what the most despicable things you can do at least rhetorically speaking.
Speaker 10Yeah. Well won't somebody think of all the poor prison guards and militarized state sanctioned terrorists.
Speaker 19We don't have enough money to pay the fingernail pullers. Yes what's stationed in Georgia like North Africa.
Speaker 21More moreover walking out on top. My head. I need that. I need that article about how waterboarding is too short for what.
Speaker 22That's how I was you know that it makes me think of in the movie. GROSS point blank where he refuses to join the professional killers a union that is talking about that earlier today and now it's in my head. But this is this is it. To me it feels like the same thing like solidarity with some of the most horrific people on this continent.
Speaker 10MARTIN Blank's problem wasn't what they did. He just wanted to be a libertarian one Wolf and bargain collectively.
Speaker 23I see a lot of parallels actually.
SauceYeah we were talking about a lot of Cusack films and they don't really hold up if you look at them with a leftist eye. But I guess that's true for a lot of things. Films and rebel released like before 2000 or so no guarantees at all. Do you think that the TSA could be formed into a people's revolutionary army.
Speaker 18I think you know I think mostly you're talking about tired functionaries who on their their day to day job as being like I'm gonna run somebody through this scanner that had shows me their dick and that's fine. It's like I'm using 3D models someone's junk and then tell them to take off their shoes three times like I said it's terrible.
SauceIt's it's not a picture of their dick it's a silhouette of an average aggregate dick. It's not the individual dick. It's.
Speaker 19It's the summation of of a bunch of dicks put into a dick forging algorithm don't aggregate my dick TSA all that data to improve the graphics and video games with their robot.
SauceWell play some Red Dead Redemption and see if you see anything familiar on any of the horses. One of the things that I back in my back in my liberal was kind of fascinated by is the fact that the federal government at the lower levels is a major employer or was a major employer of black women and women of color. And that's like a job at the post office is one that I that I saw coming up but like getting a job at the post office and having a career. And when it comes to the TSA like it's that hire more women prison guards kind of kind of thing.
Speaker 17But then during the shutdown not only are people being furloughed with with no pay but people who are in these supposedly essential positions are being made to work for no pay. People in generally these lower level positions being made to work for no pay. And I really don't like where this thought is going for me so I'm going to stop here. But the federal government is no well the US like is no stranger to making people work without pay and finding legal ways to get around it.
Speaker 13Yeah. No it's particular really bad optics when you're talking about classes of employees to tend to be disproportionately people of color.
Speaker 17The optics don't fucking matter anymore.
Speaker 4And you know public sector work was like foundational to the formulation of the black middle class in urban areas and in and moving out to suburbs things like that. There is an entire class of people that exist in Mass because of these jobs and they're the ones doing the necessary functions. You know that are doing that are delivering the mail that are answering the phones at Social Services offices.
Speaker 2And so there is I mean it if anything the shutdown has shown me just how little anyone cares about like keeping the facade of racialized capital. It seems to be just sort of showing its face very brightly. Yeah.
Speaker 10God help me I was listening to NPR's Marketplace the other night and they were actually making that exact point that the government shut down. As with literally everything else that happened in this country the burdens are following disproportionately on people of color people who already have less institutional wealth to be able to fall back on. In the meantime those and that's that's a marketplace on NPR like the most neo lib show or know the incredibly Neal with network.
Speaker 9Well that's that's why I'm rad.
SauceKai Ryssdal Yeah I was I was just I was just about to ask Mac are you secretly Kai Ryssdal And if so could you supply me with a mnemonic to remember how to and how to spell your name because on the few occasions I've had to I've mangled it terribly I'm going to tell you right now if I had Kai Ryssdal his voice I would do the exact same thing he did on his show like if I was getting the NPR money just to sound that smooth man for the listeners a twitch a display my name suggestion bridge over the river. Kai Ryssdal One of the things that I realized I was becoming a leftist was when Gabby does bad with money was even too centrist for me. But the taste I had for Marketplace has been ever since I knew marketplace existed. I've disliked it as a badge of honor for me. Sorry I didn't mean to cut you off and that's fine.
Speaker 2I was gonna say I go into fits of rage listening to Marketplace but it's like really instructive like keeps being grounded in Ted where that sort of like tote bag center is like it's not even a joke. I listened to it a lot and I like I specifically like through a can out my window like a Trump sitting in the back.
Speaker 20How do you know what they are talking about. But I was just like you've got to do this it's for research.
Speaker 17What's your opinion on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.
Speaker 10I feel like it is a guilty pleasure but I saw it.
Speaker 24I don't mumble what it about ya.
Speaker 10I think Wait Wait Don't Tell me is the only excuse anybody has at this point do that.
Speaker 5NPR is has an ideological slant simply because the Trump administration gives them so much material to work with.
Speaker 13That's all they ever joke about now.
Speaker 2Oh yeah. I do remember listening to NPR last week they were talking about the shutdown and their frame of reference for the shutdown was that it was two stories.
Speaker 4The first one was a woman who was going through a divorce with her husband who is a federal worker but they had to keep living with each other through the divorce. So that was their number one frame of reference. It was like they were just like trying to get the new divorce a market I guess. And then the second frame of reference was someone from the Pew Foundation which is a major funder of NPR. So they were there two frames of references was like possibly the smallest population they could care about the shut down like the most specific. And then their actual funding mechanism in the background being like we're not going to get our checks and then you won't get to hear Radiolab fuck around with eugenics.
Speaker 10Really. Well and that speaks to that scene. That kind of bubble that the liberal media put themselves in the same reason that there have been one million stories about TSA agents and hardly any about like the hardest hit people living in like rural Georgia or something like that it's because these journalists are flying from city to city. The only impacts they're actually seeing in their day to day lives are TSA agents. The only people that they know were federal employees.
Speaker 17Yeah I could I could see that. Yeah. So does that mean you think that journalists are embedded or in in DC would have more of a perspective because they're exposed to more of the federal government or just the fact that they're in DC basically mean that they they are lost already and abandoned hope.
Speaker 10I mean maybe I think I think pretty much anybody who is in political reporting is there usually spending most of their time either in D.C. or one of the other big coastal cities and that does constrict your view of what the actual impact of this guy is or anything.
Speaker 9So I also like the middle upper class of those areas too. Yeah. Yeah exactly. Well you're not it's thinking in New York they're not going to be exposed to the people who will go for housing or get food stamps. Yeah that's not going to be in their bubble within those places.
Speaker 10And that's not to say that that applies to every single journalist there because I said you that our own class.
Speaker 21Right.
Speaker 17It's it's interesting what journalism has gone now. You know a Teen Vogue is is so focused to be like talking about TFA and some of the most insightful coverage that I've seen of some items has come from like Bloomberg like I know we're in the universe where the Large Hadron Collider when they switched it on like we were pulled into them they're a universe recreated when it's it's Teen Vogue and Bloomberg being reliable sources for a leftist I mean sure.
Speaker 10I mean not to not to get too much but this episode that we just did on the holiday. Prison meals is a great example of this where the reporters spoke with only prison guards about this. The quotes that they were getting from inmates were ones that had been illegally pilfered from private e-mails because inmates literally aren't allowed to talk to the press in a lot of places. Meanwhile the same group of prison guards that they were talking to just said that it had to complete this massive settlement or widespread abuses inside the penal system. But this was still presented by I mean democracy dies in darkness. Washington Post use all the same quotes from the prison guards and nothing from inmates.
SauceIt's the journalistic equivalent of just reprinting the press release. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 9It's and it's a huge it's a huge just complete and total submission to me boy. That's not what journalism should do. I kind of feel like we need to maybe explore this for me but I don't.
Speaker 17Well yeah. The New York Times fired or laid off or eliminated the public editor position which was supposedly like an ombudsperson that would be the person to stand up and say hey this isn't journalism.
Speaker 10Well you need to. You need to pay your op ed writers you print things like you know takes two to tango.
Speaker 19Like going again.
Speaker 10But the Democrats keep refusing to give in to terrorist threats.
Speaker 18Yeah I mean I apologize personally for the public editor position I actually wrote an op ed in The New York Times about firing that person that was actually my phone.
Speaker 20So no one's really come back to bite me.
Speaker 10So there's this podcast is your your sort of your your air shirt.
Speaker 18I'm doing a tanning salon that's having me do restorative justice by being on the show.
Speaker 17Yeah. I think I'd rather think of it as a restart stable transformative opportunity rather than thinking that doing this podcast is a punishment. Every time. I know we kind of got a bit off topic but I feel like it's impossible to really stay on topic when when so much is happening and it all ends up kind of being tied together in inhale willed. But Anna I want to ask you specifically is there anything about this that you want to talk about that you want to touch on that we've kind of missed or that we veered off topic just before we got to the pop.
Speaker 6No I did not talk about the parts at all which is interesting.
Speaker 12I mean that's that also what a lot of press because that is not necessarily a human suffering story it's just.
Speaker 9Hey shitheads what the health story where everyone's heard that like the parks are getting trashed by people because they don't have all they're not paying the rangers and park employees and their people are going into that Joshua Tree Park and fucking up those trees which were like super super old super delegate.
SauceWho the fuck does that.
Speaker 12I don't know what I saw. This is just the normal level being followed. Apparently it's the park rangers job. Okay all call every five minutes later they were babysitters and park rangers are the only good cops in history.
Speaker 19And but those job believe that you would disagree.
Speaker 18Now this is a tough spot to be in rhetorically but those Joshua trees are quite possibly the last. Joshua trees as well they rely on a really complex ecosystem to make more.
Speaker 4I believe there's a very specific type of moth that carries the pollen in a specific type of bird that processes the seed. So it's like the Joshua trees that are being destroyed right now during the shutdown could possibly be the last ones in in that part of the world.
SauceWell we just had the first extinction of 20 19.
Speaker 12Yes.
Speaker 17So the Joshua trees could be the 18th or something.
Speaker 10Yeah I'm optimistic that I think Anna raises a really good point too that the coverage during the shutdown. It's sort of following the amount of coverage on any given group sort of follows that like old fashioned Western philosophical like who is more considerable. Right. You get a lot of coverage for people who cooperate with capital with they're not capitalists and so there's less coverage for disenfranchised or the needy and then almost zero coverage or like non humans who are you know ecosystems for instance that are impacted by this.
SauceAnd Mark you said that a lot of fire watch budgets affected by the shutdown. I don't know if I watched the video game I mean like the whole act of watching.
Speaker 4Oh yes yes. So some of the National Park Service is fire details specifically in California are possibly going to get defunded. One is a punitive action from Donald Trump and also because of the shutdown. So I mean I mean you're talking about you know had an ecological danger of incredible human proportions with you with wildfires in California. You know I mean and not just the forest itself but all of the people that live around those areas it's one of the most densely populated states in the US and people are straight up to the wilderness all over the place.
Speaker 17You see once once all of California burns and has burned there'll be nothing left.
Speaker 18So we'll be free of wildfires forever once everything is at source you're welcome to come to Missouri where it's cheap you can get a 30 pack of beer for nothing. It's amazing you can get American spirits for under seven dollars in this town. It's beautiful. Yeah. The fire service one is one that definitely caught me is a is a as an absolute fuck you to rural poor people. Yeah especially especially with how consolidated the ownership of California's water is it's it's mostly privately held by one family I believe. I think they talked about this on the dollar recently where a huge portion of California's water is like owned by a single family on paper. So I mean you're you're you're this is this is incredibly disastrous and if if it doesn't get dealt with I one of the things I was talking about is I work in food and we get a lot of things from a small farmers right. And I was thinking about how some of them are. And I realized there is going to be a lot of like new pines with fences around it all throughout the southern United States because without this sort of like park services or anyone to mitigate land ranchers are going to do what ranchers are gonna do. There's going to be like we're gonna find out like a year after they shut down two years after they shut down that there is a brand new grazing land that was unaccounted for during this time. Oh sure.
Speaker 12Oh definitely. Yeah just like a rash of Bundy type thing. Yeah.
Speaker 17Yeah. But without the armed standoff because there's gonna be nobody can really oppose that's for sure.
Speaker 6I mean they'll probably fight anyway just for fun.
Speaker 10And that reveals exactly how bankrupt that philosophy is to rape because looking at the other side of the equation of the shutdown they're talking about building a wall that would require seizing millions of acres of private property for under eminent domain and the funds are nowhere to be found.
SauceAnd destroying like historically significant churches and monuments and just under five preserved on the spot.
Speaker 8The border.
Speaker 17OK. We're approaching an hour now. I know we definitely cover everything but if you had one thing that you would urge people listening this to this to do either today or tomorrow. Just like one thing that you think is really important for the people to do. And this question is for you to make. What would that one thing.
Speaker 9I'm going to go with the obvious answer. I'm just saying we'll pay you a local food bank for options for phone calls for your cell phone and see what you can do to help. Yeah.
Speaker 10I'll tack on to that a little bit. I mean I think the traditional answers to this would be like you know write and call your Congress people but everyone knows that this is an intractable problem. Nobody is going to change their mind at this point. So I would say look for organizations in any organization that helps feed the needy and if you can't volunteer time volunteer money. One of the things that we were discussing at my meals on wheels committee meeting last week was our local chapter. Meals on Wheels gets quite a bit of funding through the Community Development Block Grant program. If the show continues right.
Speaker 13If the shutdown continues they might have to look at drawing down staff or renegotiating contracts with the food suppliers that I mean we feed it like a million meals per year just in this area. And without that funding they might have to drop that. That amount. That's that's elderly and disabled people who are going without food possibly for days at a time. So if you can't volunteer time volunteer money you have it.
Speaker 17I. I like CPG like the Community Development Block Grants because one of the few funding sources that reminds me of a nightclub. All right. I make one thing if people could do one thing today or tomorrow I will soon.
Speaker 2We've established that there's no crime right. We've established that all crime is legal. Yeah. Yeah. OK well I'm going to still tip on the safe side. I think I mean one you know for people who are affected by this. Hopefully they have.
Speaker 20Have sort of resources in their community. Most most churches in most towns or cities even most suburbs have some sort of food program that they run for people. And that's usually they go to for that service I find. But as far as what people can do. I mean if this I don't know this is a very I guess obvious thing but it's the the infrastructure that sort of countervailing politics has to deal with these sorts of situations is is really desperately lacking and I now it's a mutual aid programs in general are sort of underserved and looked down upon in a lot of left circles. It's pretty clear that if this is the game going forward which it looks like it's going to be it looks like everything is going to be. I mean there there's there's every chance that any that this is the response to any progressive led legislation in the future. You know that this is actually the start of something new where the government can just get completely derailed I guess really had the building of mutual aid that is useful to people in times of crisis is probably it. Which you know I guess that's that's a that's a statement to myself as well.
Speaker 10Yeah I think one of those unfortunate things where the kinds of 2014 right that we had something disasters like this was bound to happen under this administration. So you know I personally kind of kicking myself for not being more involved over the past few years when we knew that it was around the corner so forth.
Speaker 17So building on on what all three of you really have said like Go donate to a food bank donate money if you have money and get to know people that make links organize like providing food to people in my opinion doesn't just have to be charity like this would cut picture that I have that kind of really defines part of my politics. Is the government will not help us. We must help each other. And it fucking sucks that we're at the point where this is really happening. And it's the most marginalized people are being hurt but we need to help each other and whether that's by donating time or money or organizing or doing all three. Like if you have that capacity I know not everybody has that capacity but if you do have that capacity please get involved.
Speaker 4Oh also when. When. One more thing about the food stuff. There's also a lot of programs run locally and a lot of cities that help people do bill payments especially through churches in. In a lot of cities. And that's that could be incredibly helpful for a lot of people. So if you're listening to this and that's something that affects you look in to see if you could find Bill assistance programs usually once again through through local churches all right Mac you want to take us out.
Speaker 19Not like the Gross Point Blank kind of Metway. I mean and yes I was going to say I was going to say is that that time of night already. Yes.
Speaker 25And Matthew get the wall is rewarded well again.
Speaker 18Well thank you to Hannah and Matthew for joining us today. It's been a pleasure. And I look forward to listening back to this podcast again and editing out all the dumb things I said so I look smarter doesn't know.
Speaker 13Coming on a lot of it's a dream. Thank you so much.
Speaker 8Oh you all right.
Speaker 2Sorry source you have anything you want to you when I hit the road with for once.
SauceNo. All right. No I'm off. Well.
Speaker 18Thanks for joining us everybody. This has been North Bay a productive Left Coast media and thank you once again to the wonderful hosts of the breadline. Good night.