For centuries, capitalists ruled the world. They crafted a dystopian healthscape and commodified everything.  Facing extinction, a rebel group emerged to challenge the capitalists. The online left, a group of deviants, zoomers, and millennial misfits devoted to shitposting their way to a better world, one tweet at a time. Will they put aside their hatred of one another to defeat their capitalist common enemy? Find out now on dystopian times. Hello, folks. Welcome to episode 7 of dystopian times. My name is Mike Ferreto, and I just want to let you know what I sacrificed to be here today. I was very much enjoying the live stream from ContraPoints. She was playing Stardew Valley, and it was a whole vibe. So I stopped just so I can do this show. That's how much I love you. But folks, I'm happy to be here because we have a phenomenal panel today. So first and foremost, I'm going to bring on somebody who I just discovered, but I'm so happy that I did. This is a Twitch streamer who is amazing folks. It's Rayvana. Rayvana, welcome. Hi. Thank you for having me. Also, your intro is so awesome. I was like sitting here with my mouth open like, this is amazing. These graphics are so well done. The song is super cute. I love it. Thank you so much. That means so much. I worked really hard on it. I worked with a bunch of people. And yeah, I think it's kind of a bop. Like I feel like it's good. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you for noticing. I'm so happy to have you here. Hopefully people will find your channel who watch me and find your Twitch streams because you're just incredible. You're incredible. Thank you. I love your show, by the way. I've been a big fan. And when you followed me on Twitter, I was like fangirling a little bit. So thank you. Thank you so much. That means so much. I really appreciate it. All right, folks. Well, the next individual who is here is someone who you might know who is blowing up as of late. Folks, it's one of the youngest leftist YouTubers in the game. It's Next Step Productions, Anthony Park. Anthony, welcome. Hey, great to be here. And I know I sound like I'm repeating everybody, but the intro is really great. You know, it really has the feeling of dystopian times. Yeah. Well, thank you. That means a lot.  We will extend the length of the show if that means there's more compliments. I really am adamant about that. So thank you so much. So, yeah, big things happening with Anthony. You just passed 1,000 subs on YouTube, correct? Yeah, I did. Like, it's amazing. Like, I like expect this for... I didn't expect it to go this fast, but apparently, when there's solidarity, sometimes it happens fast. Also, if you did good work, you get rewarded sometimes. So, yeah, good to have you here. Well, folks, this next individual is someone who is incredibly talented. I'm a huge fan of his work and his Twitch streams. I was on his program not too long ago, and now he's on mine. Folks, it's Dan Simpson. Dan, welcome. Thank you, Mike. Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for having me. This is actually incredible. Just to be clear, you're able to see me. I see like a blank box, but that's fine. Yeah, I can see you. I also want to say how much I love the intro. Oh, my God. Thank you so much. It honestly captures the brand and the whole feel of the show. And it's great. And I just got to say, I really like the show. You may know and viewers may know that I produced Kenzo Shibata's small leftist debate channel, debate show. It's called Meet the Left. And it's similar to this. It's a small discussion show, I should call it. Not a debate show. And for that, I applaud you for ripping off the idea from us. So thank you. It's such a good idea, right? It's a phenomenal idea, right? I'm really enjoying this. Well, after the season finale of dystopian times, I think that's like September 8th. We'll send everyone your way. Awesome. Yeah, and I know you're not ripping off the show. I really gave myself a backhanded compliment. I really just love the idea of seeing small leftist discussion panels. I'm not really into the debate circuit, but I really value this. And I was so happy to see you doing this. Mike, congrats to you already. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. Glad to have you here. Well, folks, the next individual is someone who I've been a fan of. We've known each other for a very long time and I just realized that she's also a Twitch streamer. So of course, when I found that out, I had to bring her on the program, folks. It's Christina. Christina, welcome to the program. Thank you. I'm so glad to be here. I'm so glad to have you here as well. It's so nice that your aesthetic matches everyone else's. And yeah, Christina, did you want to complement the intro as well so that we were not? Of course. I mean, obviously, you've got to keep that rolling. No, honestly, shout out to Tony Tigg, who's incredibly talented. He is the one who wraps over the intro and he is an amazing, amazing person. He does really good. He has a couple of albums out, actually. He did one about Bernie Sanders' campaign in 2020, which was great. So yeah, check out Tony Tigg, everyone. Well, folks, I want to jump right into the very first story. It is a somewhat new story. So for those of you who aren't aware, there is a strike going on. And I always want to make sure to broadcast any information I have about these strikes because I want to stand in solidarity with the workers. So if you're a fan of Oreo Nabisco products, chips ahoy, premium crackers, be sure to avoid purchasing those products for the coming weeks. So this is from Willamette Week. It's a Oregon-based publication. They write Oregon maker, Oreo makers in Northeast Portland launch a national strike. The labor dispute follows years of Mondelez cutting employee pensions and having its unionized workforce by closing bakeries in New Jersey and Atlanta. Now, Mondelez is actually the parent company of Nabisco, I believe. And so what's happening is they are being asked to work longer hours. They're trying to stiff them when it comes to wages. And there's a really incredible video from in these times that kind of talks about this. Now, the strike is taking place in multiple states, Oregon, Colorado and Virginia. So what I want to do is I want to play a little bit of the in these times video because it gives us some insight and some personality counts from the workers here. So let's go ahead and take a look. Can be forced to working up to 60, 70 days. I personally worked 45 days in a row without a day off. We want to be treated like we're people instead of like slaves. The company has never given us anything. The corporate greed is taking everything away and we'll be out here until we can stop corporate greed. Now, I'm going to jump ahead a little bit because they play some music that might get me copyright claims. But I want to go to the stories from the workers because what they share, it's shocking but it's not necessarily surprising. I'm not sure if anyone on the panel remembers the Frida lay strikes that just took place. Yeah, yeah. So that situation was resolved and I say resolved in quotes because I mean, they're still overworked and underpaid but to a lesser extent, they get one day off per week. So I mean, it's a small victory but hopefully, you know, we'll have a better outcome here in this situation. So let's see what they're talking about here because what we're seeing is basically complete dehumanization, common stories in a late-stage capitalist society. They must have demands in the last negotiation that we're all takeaways. They wanted to take our overtime away. They wanted to put us on a seven-day work schedule, 12-hour days. They currently want to change our overtime pay so that if you work all that time, you will end up eventually getting paid less for working that amount of time. Your impact going to be about a $40,000 a year loss for all the workers across the board. They've actually closed two factories recently and they don't disclose where their production's gone but we know it's going to Mexico. I just started 55 years old. Got 37 years. With the COVID-19, I don't know who's going to hire me right now. Is everything going to Mexico? Olive. I grew up with Nabisco products. Oreo, premium crackers, chippahoyes. I knew they were made here. I knew they were made around the corner for where I live. To see those things go to another country where people are making less pay and the company is still making billions, it's disheartening. I've been here since 1987, so I guess it'd be 34, 35 years. This company has actually squeezed everything out of it that they could. They don't even want us to step onto the grass of the property so they're putting a fence up right on the property land. They're basically kicking the employees to the curb. We want the community to support us. We want America to support us. We don't want you to buy Nabisco products, not during our strike. When we come back to work, we want you to support Nabisco products, but only Nabisco products made in America. If you read the back of the label, it will say made in America, or made in Mexico, or made in Canada. And we want to keep our jobs in America. We want to keep middle class.  Well, that's basically the story. So I usually am very skeptical of boycotts because they tend to not work. Like, I mean, I've kind of long maintained that there's no ethical consumption under capitalism, but in instances like this, I think that this is our opportunity to truly show solidarity with the workers and not cross the picket line. So did anyone want to weigh in on this situation? Because I think this is really encouraging to see more and more strikes take place across the country. Yeah, I think I agree with you that very often these sorts of boycotts don't work, but when it's coming from the workers on strike themselves, that's when you should be honoring those and not when it's some sort of like a poke for a political game. But it is sort of disappointing to not see, like this is, I mean, of course, I want the workers to get what they want, but this is an opportunity for like politicians to get involved is a win for them too. So and they could absolutely be supported these workers, supporting American jobs could be a bipartisan effort. As long as these workers have their demands met, everybody wins. It's sad to see that no one's sort of like even jumping on that wagon, even if it's selfish, if they're doing it selfishly or out of their own self-interest, it'll still benefit the workers. It'll still bring attention to their movement. So it really is a win-win and just seeing sort of a lack of acknowledgement of it from politicians is kind of disappointing. But it's also nice, like you mentioned, the Frito-Lay protest and the Pepsi protest earlier, these protests, these strikes are getting more media attention than they have in the past, especially under Trump. It was sort of the news cycle was dominated by all of that. So it's nice, but it is nice to see these movements and these workers movements getting the attention that they deserve. I mean, they deserve more, but at least getting acknowledgement. Yeah, it's a good start. It's like a little bit of hope. I like what you said about politicians. Dan, why don't we see more Democrats, the president even like going there, standing in solidarity with these workers?  There's these centrist Democrats or I should say right wing Democrats who pose as centrists or LARP as centrists. I mean, this is a PR nightmare for people like Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. If the president of the United States shows up with these workers and says, listen, this is why we need to pass the pro act. Why aren't my Democratic Party members in the Senate standing in solidarity with these workers? Like, don't you think that this is a really unique moment and a political opportunity? Like, why aren't Democrats seizing on this? Yeah, obviously it's a political opportunity and I think Ray, you're right to tap into this. We need to, I don't like to advocate for what other people do, but like personally what I want to be doing is making sure I'm spending time on things like this on my stream, you know, educating myself and others on these things. But that's because I, you know, I'd like to think I'm on the side of the worker and Democrats aren't. They're just another wing I believe of the right party, of the party on the right of the capitalist. They're not pro proletariat. They want to support their capitalist overlords. So with that said, I don't know. I don't have like a huge take on this. It just seems like, okay, hello, profit motive.   I'm sorry, can I swear? Yeah, you have to say at least two curse words throughout the course of it. That's the requirement. All right, I'm going to save up the rest of them then. You got at least one more that you have to do. For sure. So I'm thinking to myself, yeah, I'm going to go ahead and echo what Ray said as well. You know, I'm thinking about, as I'm learning about Palestine and what they're, you know, the occupied are saying what they're asking for, which is BDS. And I think we should BDS mandalas. We should boycott, divest and sanction them and, you know, all the above. And yeah, don't buy it and just listen to them.  I defer to people who know more than me. Yeah, for sure. I'm curious with Anthony. So you're relatively new to politics. You're very young, but you're kind of seeing something that I didn't see when I first started to really pay attention to politics. And that's a lot of really like on the ground grassroots activism and usually unions, they kind of lead the way with this. So I don't think that these workers would have been able to even organize a strike. Had it not been for them being part of the union. So how much do you think unionization is going to come into play for the future of leftist politics? And how frequent do you think, you know, these types of strikes are going to be based on, you know, your experience so far with politics. Yeah. So, you know, I used to live in Korea where unions are demonized as just another rich capitalist pigs who refuse to actually work for the workers. So I'm still trying to get rid of that sentiment and the union sentiment. But with that in mind, I do think that unions are becoming a more, how should I say prominent in US politics and especially less politics. But again, I'm a new YouTuber and I'm relatively new to politics. So I can't give much house ship knowledge, knowledgeable insight into these stuff. But what I do think is that unions, they will become, I think, to play more prominent roles in politics and more, and I just hope that with unions and more involved in politics, they'll be actual worker concessions rather than lift service and just status quo, nothing changing. So that's what I think. Sorry. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That's interesting. Hopefully you'll be able to share some more experiences of your time in Korea because I always like to kind of compare contrast like what the situation is there for workers and labor and whatnot. Christine, I'm not sure if you've had similar situations but like when I worked at Walmart, kind of moving into the union talk, I remember seeing like an anti-union propaganda video and I was shocked by it. And I was the only one of my coworkers who was so flabbergasted. Like I asked them about it and I'm like, hey, what do you think about that anti-union propaganda video? Isn't that kind of crazy? And the response was just kind of, yeah, I don't really know much about unions. So it doesn't really bother me. What is your like in terms of like where your neck of the woods is like, what is the overall sentiment towards unions? Because I think that if people knew what unions were and how useful they were, they would be accepted. But I think a lot of people just don't know like, can you give your general thoughts on this? Yes. Well, I'm originally from New Jersey, which is actually one of the where they're striking and one the, where the Nabisco. So my sister is a teacher. So she's in a teacher's union.  But in South Carolina, we hate unions like I clean for teachers who can't get tenure because there's, you know, no protection for that down here. So one thing for sure is with all the anti-union propaganda being fed, it's a lot harder for places like Amazon workers in Alabama to unionize because they're federal and propaganda. Yeah. And that's the thing. You know, this is why unionization, I think it's going to be an increasingly more prominent part of leftism. And there's been a lot of podcasts who have been doing a great job at teaching people how to form unions. I remember a really long and comprehensive Chapel Trapp House episode on this very subject. I think people don't know and once you kind of educate people about what they're missing, it really does make a difference. Now that's not to say that if you have a union, everything is going to be peachy keen because of course the people who we just watched, they don't have a union, unfortunately. But again, it does open the door.  So I think that unions are really important. But the strike absolutely. I just want to encourage people do not buy Nabisco products. So I live in Oregon and whenever I drive by the Nabisco facility, it smells incredible. And so I always, you know, want to purchase Chips Ahoy or Oreos. So I promise I will not cross that pick a line until this is over. I will not do that if I drive by it. So I want to get to a story that I don't think a lot of people know about. This is a relatively breaking story. So this is from Jeff Stein of the Washington Post. So Ron Wyden announces legislation that he says would end homelessness in the United States. Now I just want to pause for a minute. He says this would end homelessness in the United States. So that is something that we've never even, I think, attempted in a meaningful way before. Dan, did you want to jump in? I'm just going to start right here. Our president, his name is Joe Budden and he's great. Everyone loves him. No one hates him. And the thing I love him so much points at a place like Cuba. I don't know if you could see my shirt. I got a I got a Castro shirt.  And it says 638 to zero. I think that's how many times they tried to coup.  And it didn't work now. Our president points at a place like Cuba and they say like he says like, oh, that's a failed state.  Because I've just been looking into housing for about like a month. And he called it a failed state and I'm like, wait, hold on. Cuba has zero homeless people. Like none in children. No homeless children in the United States. We have like 500,000 homeless people. One fifth of them are kids. So that means a hundred thousand American Americans are homeless children. Like what? What is this Spider-Man pointing at itself?  I think what we're doing. I think what Biden's doing is just pointing at Cuba. And we're just like rubbing in a rubbing it in their face that they're just one failed state and we're 50 plus failed states. Take that, Cuba. Now, with that said, I took a look at the things and it seems like a lot of it that Ron Wyden is talking about is just tax credits. Tax credits to end homelessness. Okay, now these things aren't bad. Okay, they're I think objectively good. But homeless people don't do their taxes. Okay, tax credits aren't going to end their homelessness. So I think there's a fatal flaw on this plan. Yeah. Okay, I want to bring up the plan here. So this is the Dash Act. So the goal is housing everyone experiencing homelessness within five years and prioritizing children and families for placement by issuing them a housing choice voucher because young children are heavily impacted by housing instability and because housing is a chief determinant of health. Now, I'm glad that you pointed that out, Dan, because that really is the keyword. So when we say housing choice voucher, this word choice is a little bit sus to me. I don't know if anybody wants to jump in and explain why that's an issue, but if it's not already apparent. But this says a lot about this plan. Housing for all who want it. I read that. That was like, it immediately made me think of the, oh my God, the Kennedy tweet where he was like, people are going to be losing their houses and evicted because of this COVID crisis. Every single person deserves an attorney to represent them. Yeah, I forgot about that. Oh my God. I mean, and I, of course, I don't need to be too tumor-pilled about this. I mean, but I think we can all agree that this still never passed. But I mean, it's really good just to bring this into the conversation. You know, how often? Yeah. I mean, I'm sorry, he's not necessarily when I think of progressive senators, he's not the first person that comes to my mind. So having him talking about, you know, we can end homelessness is helpful. And it shifts the Overton window from like talking about the homelessness crisis in such an abstract term that doesn't, you know, give a face to these people who are really struggling and some of those vulnerable people in society. And this is not just like discussing them as a problem, but, you know, as human beings that need assistance. So I think it even just like if the plan itself is not perfect and won't pass, just having it in the conversation is important in my opinion. Also, I'm sorry, I keep adjusting in my chair. I'm bisexual, so I can't sit normal. Same here. Can't do it. I love it. I love it. No, I think that I, you know, I totally agree with that. I think that him trying to end homelessness, that really is ambitious. It's nice to see. And I want to give him credit where it's due. Having said that, though, part of the problem is that housing in the United States is a commodity when it really shouldn't be kind of like healthcare. I mean, there are some things that shouldn't have this profit incentive in my opinion. Housing is one of them.  And really what we need is we need public housing where people don't have to go through the private sector. They just get housing when they're homeless. That is the more affordable plan. And most importantly, it's the most moral plan. Did you want to weigh in on this, Christina? Am I being too doomer here? I mean, no, you just, we just know what to expect here.  I feel so bad for him and the dog. They lay by the mall. That's abandoned. They actually, he used to lay behind this like garbage dump behind a pizza hut that's been closed down and they completely blocked it off because that's where he would spend most of his time. So it's just, Utah does a better job at their homeless situation. They actually have like a program where they house them and help them get them back on their feet. I remember the Daily Show covered this story when John Stewart was still hosting and they realized that it was actually a lot cheaper to do that than actually keep these people on the streets. Yeah, and I wish that like mainstream media would do that kind of a thing. You know, you made me think of anti-homeless architecture that we're seeing. And I don't know, I think it was this picture. Somebody photoshopped it as like the rainbow to make it kind of like explain the hallmark of neoliberalism where it's like, you know, we're more equitable in our cruelty. I wanted to ask Anthony about your experience in Korea as it relates to homelessness. Do you know if there is an issue or a policy response to homelessness? Is it as rampant there? What are your overall like, what's your experience here? So in Korea, there is a general policy against homelessness. People see housing as a right mostly.  But it's mostly like, yeah, when I ask my teachers or whoever about homelessness, they usually respond with, yeah, that's not really a problem here. It's mostly an American thing. Like when people think of America, especially in Korea, they first of all think that America is some God, which I see as very problematic. But other than that, they also think of homelessness, like people on the streets, those pictures of cities where people are lining up to, I don't know, get housing or something, I'm not sure. But yeah, my experience with homelessness is I was not familiar with it until I came to the US and I really was surprised when I went to the cities and saw so much homeless people on the streets and I was like, appalled because it's really cruel in the richest country in the world that people have housing. Like you can, but people, the government won't. So I think it's appalling. That's just my general view on it. Yeah, no, that's really interesting. I wanted to ask you, Anthony, did your perception change when you came to America? Because culturally in Korea, it seems like America is kind of like propped up as this wonderful place. I think a lot of people kind of visualized the American dream. Like, did your perception change at all? I'm not sure how old you were when you came here, but like what was the, was it like a shock to you when you saw kind of how cruel we are here? Like, I'm curious. Yeah, so actually in Korea, we call America Bigo and since Korea uses Chinese symbols to ask back from their language, the first letter, me, stands for beautiful, like beautiful country, literally means beautiful country. That just tells you how much we idealize America as this perfect savior. Like they saved us from communism. Oh, yay, that kind of thing. And I did believe in that. I saw America, that's great when we can't come here. Everything will be so fantastic, liberty, freedom, whatever.  But again, I was 12, please excuse me. You are forgiven. Yeah, but yeah, it was so certainly a cultural shock. Like when I first came here, like, I mean, it's already cost a lot of money to come to the U.S. As an immigrant, it really costs a lot of money. So I mean, I didn't experience homelessness or anything near it. So I guess I'm fortunate in that regard. But I did have a really cultural shock when I see people sitting at subway stations without homes in streets begging for money. Like, I have never like, not never, but like I like seemed like that twice in my lifetime in Korea. So it was really a shock and it did change my perception of America to this from this wonderful, yay, lovely utopia to shithole. So yeah, I'm curious what Christina, Rayvana and Dan have to say because anyone who I know from either the UK or Canada, their perception is actually entirely different. It's always like, wow, Americans are crazy. And I tend to side with like that one where it's like, okay, we really are like that stereotype. Like we really are like the people who you see like all these, you know, viral videos of anti-vaxxers freaking like we really are. I think that that is my experience. Like, I don't know, do you have it? Does anyone here have international friends that have given them their perspective of how they perceive America? Because I always find this fascinating. My grandmother is from Germany.  So for like most of her life. So, and she always, she just doesn't understand why times, you know, why things have gone downhill. And she's just like, I don't understand Christina. Why is this happening? And, but she's getting a little older. So sometimes she gets fooled into believing silly things. So we're like, no, Oma, that's not true. But it seems like the European have like this belief that America is great and stuff like that. While those who are like minority groups are Asian, Latino, they have vastly different experience for sure. Cause there's still that white privilege for a lot of those who are European and Canadian. That's true. That's a great point. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting to me. I always like to think about how we're perceived because oftentimes like, if I'm talking to someone online who is from the UK or something like that, it's like, yeah, I'm an American. Please don't think I'm crazy or very loud and obnoxious. I mean, I am, right? But I'm like the good kind of obnoxious, I guess. No, that's, no, that's, that's probably not true. Okay. So I have a story. So I just found this before I went live and I had to talk about this. So I just want to play a quick video for you all. There's not going to be any audio, but I just want you to make some observations. And if you don't already know, then I'll tell you why this might be an issue.  And if you didn't notice, this individual is the governor of Texas. This is Greg Abbott. Now, one day after this took place, Greg Abbott tested positive for COVID-19. So I just want to go back. We'll kind of scan through it again. I counted zero masks. Zero masks is not wearing a mask. And every single person in this room is now exposed to COVID-19. Now, the reason why this is so interesting is because I'm going to read a little bit. This is from the Texas Tribune. Governor Greg Abbott of Texas tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday and is receiving an antibody treatment though he has no symptoms the governor's office announced. Now, here's where it gets interesting. An ardent opponent of mask and vaccine mandates, Mr. Abbott, a Republican, has taken his opposition to such requirements all the way to the state's Supreme Court. Mr. Abbott, who is fully vaccinated will now be isolated in the governor's mansion while receiving monoclonal, I probably put you that word, antibody treatment, which can help patients who are at risk of getting very sick. Folks, is this not like the perfect illustration as to why masks are really important? So when in chat so that this is Obama's birthday party and I can't stop laughing. That's actually really perfect.  I'm sorry. If they get COVID, that's game over. If they're not vaccinated, rolled by Governor Abbott.  I love the nicknames. Ron DeSantis is be calling like Ron DeSantis now. Right. I mean, Republican governors are not taking it seriously. And honestly, it's like, if they get COVID, I'm not going to be sad about that. Why should I be? It's just like, I had two thoughts initially when I saw that video after I learned that he tested positive. It's like, one, how many of these people who are really old, probably vulnerable, are going to die and two, how many of them are donors? Like how many of them help him get elected and to see all of them like living it up? I don't know if like, I don't know. Dan, do you have anything to say? I'm trying to bite my tongue. No worries. Was that video where they in Texas? I don't know where that video was taken. So this is the Heritage Ranch. It's a Republican club in Texas, I believe. Okay. So Texas is behind the nationwide average. I mean, 51% of people in the nation are fully vaccinated. I think in Texas, that's at least 5% behind that. So less than half the people in that audience were, you know, I'm just maybe more because there's old people. Maybe they wanted to get it, but there's likely a lot of people in that room that are fucking. Oh, we lost them. He'll be right back. I'll bring them in. Are they playing the village people? Also, I'm sorry. Is it Heritage Ranch? Is that what it's called? Yes. Sounds about white. Okay. Sounds fitting. Heritage. Yeah. Definitely fitting. Let me get back to Dan.  So let you finish with nothing. I was just trying to say that many times. You had to. I had to kick you.  It was the deep state. All I was getting at was it just seems to me that a lot of people in that room made a bad decision. But that's what you get when you have people that don't understand science when they think that they do. Yeah. Yeah. It's just this is this to me is I mean, this keeps happening and I don't think that Greg Abbott is going to feel bad at all that he infected possibly more than 100 people. I mean, how cruel was it when Donald Trump? He had that rally. I can't remember where it was, but Herman Cain ended up dying who attended that rally. There were no masks and did Trump even like shed a single tear for his friend and political ally? I don't think so.  Are they ever going to get the picture? Like I'm trying turning point also got got at that rally, right? Yes. Oh my God. I'm trying so hard to not say anything bad.  Anthony, I don't want to corrupt your young mind because you're young and you're probably more optimistic. So give us a little bit of hope him if you can.   But like, I just recently visited my parents in Korea. Not sorry, not my parents, my grandparents in Korea and like everyone was wearing masks like people who are conservative and are angry about, you know, the minimum wage or whatever or they're all wearing masks. They're even wearing outside all the time during a hotter weather than in California if you can believe it. So I want to believe I really want to believe that we can have a better world, you know, and all that, but I can't help but be skeptical when half the country in this lovely place don't wear masks. I'm confused. How can I be optimistic? Yeah, you know, this is interesting. I'm glad that you brought that up because in Korea, the masks aren't a political thing. Like they're not even if you're conservative politically in Korea. This isn't controversial. Is it do you ever see anti mask viral videos out of Korea or or anywhere else in the world? I mean, in Korea, I never saw see one. I mean, I'm sure that if that came out the government flag it has misinformation and then people will troll that person forever. And as for other countries, I haven't really seen.   This mask opposition movement that makes so much scientific sense, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I just posted a video today on my channel of an individual who I am calling the final boss of anti vaxxers who went in front of, I think it was the San Diego board of supervisors and he was screaming at the top of his lungs saying that the United States government violated the Nuremberg code. It's to the point where I look five years ago or six years ago, I started off as this really like bright eyed optimist and this pandemic has made me the most misanthropic person who has no faith in humanity. Please tell me that you all are more hopeful than I am because I feel like I am going crazy. Ravenna, give me some hope if you have it, please. I was actually about to give you the opposite of that. No. Today, there was a report out about Facebook misinformation that, you know, pointed to the fact that three presenters, Boogaloo boys and proud boys are tapping into this misinformation market on Facebook to recruit, which is why we're seeing more and more violent anti mass protests, which is, you know, what led to the person being stabbed at the anti mask anti-vaccine protest in LA, which is insane. Holy Hock, like someone went there to literally just to do crime to do violence. Like, but and Facebook hasn't really taken any action against, you know, not in any serious way. I mean, in fact, they were giving those people certified expert badges in those groups.  It's only accomplishment in life is, I don't know, screaming outside of a government building. Now you're a certified expert and qualified to speak on vaccinations. So I'm sorry, I'm a super new repeal today. But it's as far as hopeium goes, like cats and dogs still exist and they're better than us. Yes. And we have a segment later on in the show honoring their, their wonderfulness. No, I'm glad that you brought up Facebook. So I, I don't use Facebook super frequently, but I logged on last week and all of my friends and former coworkers, nothing but anti-vax, anti-mask memes. And I was like genuinely crushed. Like my spirit died. So I made this really long post and I don't know how many friends I lost. I lost quite a bit who deleted me. But Facebook, like after seeing all of that, I'm convinced and this is anecdotal, but it's more widespread than my anecdote. Facebook is a misinformation machine and humanity as a whole would be better off if we just like deleted it from existence and erased all of our minds of it ever being a thing. Christina, do you see a lot of Facebook misinformation yourself because I'm shocked that like, like I don't expect to see it. Like I hear about it, but when I log on and I see it, it's like, oh, no, they've reached my normie friends now. Like, yeah, I need to add you but also like yes, I've done my best to like delete anybody that is like conspiracy like like all going through like the new ages because a lot of people are like, how are those people getting involved like trust me if they're into like bougie, like natural medicine, they're going to they're going to believe that crap about vaccines I'm asked but my mother has experienced more than because she doesn't really do politics but and she does like getting involved but she's like, oh my God, Christina, there's someone who says that we need to get in a bunker because Biden is like doing so many weird things and he's preparing us for more and Trump's going to be re-elected on September 31st and I'm just like what coming back he keeps playing with us it was supposed to be last Friday he's not there he's teasing us man like come on March 4th September it's like okay I'm starting to think that he might not show up I don't know I'm losing a little bit of faith in our trust the plan Mike trust the plan I'm I'm holding out faith a little bit longer but you know our orange God has to return I want to ask at one point say that again Trump and I had Twitter beef at one point Oh Oh that's to get into a beef with Trump Wow or near a tendon I think that gives you cloud I got into a beef with near a tendon one time on Twitter and she blocked me Ben should be both too so Oh that that is that's like in the top 10 of like people who you want to fight on Twitter that's your beef fun with Nira she blocked me because I liked a comment or a reply to her that was like kind of mean that was enough I don't remember what the back and forth was in particular it might have been about Medicare for all or something like that but she she went back and forth with me for a little bit and then she quickly blocked me and then I'm like Oh my God I got blocked by near a tendon like I actually feel really cool like I accomplish something like it's kind of like a badge of honor and like I shared it and everyone was cheering me on it's like I feel like I like just got a diploma or something like that's that's that's incredible um but I want to you because I I think that I'm seeing two camps emerge as it relates to anti-vaxxers one camp is we need to really try to educate them meet them at their level and try to you know be soft and gentle another approaches bully and shame the fuck out of them which camp do you fall into I'm honestly not sure whatever the fuck works I I think um honestly things and I'm surprised to hear myself say this at this point but we just had Lala Palooza in our in our city a couple weeks back here in Chicago um and I don't know they they seem to be trying to tell us that it didn't lead to a big spike and that makes me a little skeptical but um what am I trying to get at here um wait what was the question dear God are we bully or the bully approach or the love approach sticker carrot so I don't know my answer at the top is I don't know but I do think that doing things like you know just making sure like demanding that when people go places they have either I think get the vaccine just get the vaccine right uh and and maybe I don't know enough about it to to make a a big brush a broad stroke like that but what I'm trying to get at is that like by by making all the kids show up who were showing up to Lala Palooza I either show proof that they've been vaccinated or they've had a negative test a lot of those kids are not going to risk a five hundred dollar ticket going to the fucking gates and getting turned away so I think some of those kids are getting those vaccines I think we need to do similar things like that just all over the fucking place uh just you know what if you want to do the thing just get the vaccine um but I I don't know exactly how to do that uh so I'm thinking every point of leverage we should try and and I think I I I think bullying works to an extent I don't know how much uh we've seen bullying work on the on the old Twitter dot com I don't know if it's working to get people to get the vaccine yeah but um also I've heard uh states are paying people to go and get the vaccine and even paying people to drive their friends to get the vaccine or I've heard uh uh things like that or or those kinds of talks and I I think whatever the fuck works you know what we need to save this goddamn world and and I think people are dumb for not having gotten the vaccine yet especially if they've you know if they have the they've been able to you know there's no reason for them to not to like yeah they're fucking dumb and I fucking hate it but just let's let's move on with our fucking lives I need to I want to go to to the bar I want to sit at the bar and and have the and and ask the bartender for uh a cocktail and then for the for them to look at me disdainfully and then if after a couple minutes give me the cocktail I just I cannot wait to do that in in a comfortable way to take my lord shots with your servers yeah I I've had I've had friends who got who got COVID and I'm like so and I'd never go out but I've kind of missing the idea of going out and you guys are aware of this but some of the like like those who got their shots in like December are starting to get COVID now because the vaccines are wearing off so it's like yeah short time yeah yeah I'm gonna I have a a virologist and an epidemiologist coming on my show tomorrow I mean it won't be aired tomorrow but this is something that's really interesting to me and concerning that I'm definitely gonna ask about it's like the decreased efficacy over time to an extent but this is my thing like we should be do I agree with you Dan about like everything that we can my goal and I hope that everyone will rally around this the goal is to eradicate this virus before Anthony turns 21 so he can have a normal 21st birthday like I feel like that's the most humane thing wait Anthony how old are you? oh all time 16 oh my goodness what's how are you so cool what the fuck but I was right I sucked say like I wow I was so dumb when I was Anthony's age so Anthony like I you are like a role model for people your age like I'm so impressed thank you I don't know what else to say that's right you are the moment I love it yes yes the voice of the of the youth okay I know God I don't want to think about that so we we were kind of touching on the worst of society so I think that since we're kind of going further and further into this black hole before we pull ourselves out of it I want to dive deeper and get to this week's weekly dose of stupidity which is very very bizarre in a world of politics dominated by the strange the deranged and outright insane will now take a moment to shine a light on the craziest of what politics has to offer this is your weekly dose of stupidity so the entire time I'm pretty sure that was already talking so you heard it over the outro or the intro excuse me so this dude ruined the intro so now we get to go extra hard because he ruined it so this is a newsmax host I think that the title says a lot the godless left people you don't want in power over you he is going to discuss climate change now he is very confident and on top of that he is going to basically say that all of us who believe in climate change because it's objectively real we're in a cult he doesn't say this explicitly but he kind of alludes to it so let's uh let's take a listen here like commonest China YouTube is preventing its users from even hearing from people who believe in the power of prayer because YouTube is run by commonest sympathizers who reject the higher power belief system now I just want to pause it there so I don't know about everyone else role content creators here how many of you got one of your prayer videos deleted from YouTube I actually got one of mine deleted Ray did you ever I got a stream zucked not by YouTube but by uh twitch honestly though it was I was wearing it's more misogynistic than anything is wearing a tube top and for one tiny part of the stream I had slouched in my chair low enough so that you couldn't see where my shirt started you just saw my shoulders and upwards and I got that stream taken down for nudity which was like not my ideologies I've never had that but I know a lot of leftist content creators who have had their videos taken down uh for seemingly no reason but yeah like it's the idea that it's some sort of communist overlord deciding what it's taken down on like these types of platforms is hilarious oh if only yeah I mean the the religious videos um like some of these pastures they are massive on YouTube like bigger than all of us combined um so I don't know what he's talking about really but nonetheless he's gonna he's gonna explain a little bit further keep in mind YouTube allows the religion of man-made global warming a theory that has not been proven through science there's no mathematical proof out there that states that X amount of man-made CO2 yields Y amount of temperature change but YouTube takes man-made global warming that theory on faith how ironic and we all know how worshippers of man-made global warming show their devotion to the climate change deity they push to deny individual rights to human beings as a sacrifice to their God YouTube fully on board with that okay now before we discuss I just want to go back because when he dropped that line about we take our climate change on faith in his mind he thought oh my god I just nailed it mic drop right here let me let me find that again I don't know where it was how ironic faith how ironic on faith hmm how ironic how ironic how ironic he says without a shred of irony I mean look if we can turn climate change into a cult and if that somehow galvanizes people to actually take action let's do that at this point I'm so desperate that I am willing to try anything but I mean a newsmax host who is an evangelical assume I'm assuming is going to call people who believe in climate change basically a cult who are basing their belief in climate change not necessarily on science but on faith it's just this makes me feel like we truly are living in the most bizarre timeline and imaginable Christina please talk me off the ledge because I'm about to jump in roblox after watching that so like when they believe in something that's like faith it's fine but if we believe it with its faith it's bad it's not true what yeah yeah I mean if I were somebody who was religious I wouldn't necessarily want to push this idea that faith is bad but he is religious and he's saying our faith in the science I guess of climate change is bad so it just the irony like as Ray was pointing out like it's he what he's saying is ironic yeah it's ironic but not for the reasons why he thinks it is a dandy jump in here absolutely I agreed with literally everything he said only because I don't know what words mean you know I just listen to the words and I completely tune out it's really great how some people have the special way of taking words that we all you know words are just ideas you know sounds that point towards ideas you know what I mean and I love how the guy took all all these sounds and and that that are pointing towards sort of ideas that were all used to them pointing towards and then he points towards an idea that's a little bit off to the side of that one and then he just kept doing it over and over and over again and at the end I was like wow this guy's great I love his stuff alright so yeah how do I dig into this so the word religion okay no the word faith oh my god no and and I used to do this thing where I would actually interview people about faith and I would ask them you know what it means and and I would have to ask them their definition I can't I don't I don't think I use faith you know it's not a thing I I would do if I realized I was doing it but you know I love it so that's why I asked their definition of faith so it's just so hard to even pick this apart because you can't have that conversation with that said there's so much to say about what's actually happening in terms of climate change that that is actually real and measurable you know if I were to if you if I had to define faith I would call it unjustified confidence you know what I mean and do we have unjustified confidence in global warming no no it the it are you have it does anyone have eyes like we've had heat waves more intense than in any in any time of our lives led to wildfires there's smoke everywhere around these places you can't go outside salmon's dying off because the water is too hot the North Pole is hotter than it's ever been at 2020 being the hottest year on record it's fucking with the jet streams there's a there's a wildfire in Siberia bigger than all of the other wildfires in the world combined and I'm I'm just not really especially I'm not feeling optimistic about things I'm sorry I'm not able to help you on that front folks but you know we got the permafrost melting that's gonna that's gonna release a bunch of methane and carbon and perhaps more bacteria who knows how many more maybe we might see COVID-20 hanging out in there yeah we're gonna go through the German alphabet next and yeah so it's just not looking good the western seashell of antarctica has enough enough water to raise sea levels by three meters itself so I'm just like I'm thinking we need we need to stop arguing with dumb fucking people not that we're doing this right now you know like every moment that we spend you know dealing with these these absolute schmucks you know we're it's it's a moment that we can't spend working towards fixing the problem but yeah talk about them because they're there they're part of it I'm not saying what we're doing wrong yeah no I mean to this point anyone who denies the reality of anthropogenic climate change I think that they're just delusional which is why a lot of people you know unlike this Newsmax person they've gotten a little bit more savvy like a lot of Republicans if you listen now they won't just say oh climate change isn't real they'll say oh well climate is you know it's always changing it's just man didn't do it and they have to move that goalpost because now we are literally in a situation where we can see the effects of climate change in real time I mean if you live in the Pacific Northwest as I do we had a record-breaking heatwave not too long ago that ended up being a mass death casualty more than a hundred people died and this was not even more than a year after we experienced wildfires that made the air quality in Portland literally hazardous past the record I think like the max on the air quality index is 400 our air quality was so bad it was like almost 600 which is the worst like actually toxic to everyone to go outside so I mean we're all seeing it it's just a matter of like what are we gonna do about it now so the people like this this Newsmax house to be so confident and proclaim that climate change doesn't exist I mean this is a proof or maybe it's just faith in the belief that done in crew done in Kruger is a real thing because I mean to be that stupid and that confident simultaneously is almost like commendable because wow yeah as Tyler Hackner says dystopian capitalist hellscape we live in absolutely absolutely and as brand points out over 1,000 total from the heatwave died so I think that's across the country overall so denying it is not going to do any of us any good but having said that though I do want to move on to let me see what I had on the agenda next so going to back into do more mode I'm sorry I don't have a lot of like nice stories today but we do have the pet segment towards the end so I promise you it's gonna end on a positive note but so I was one of the individuals who was praising Biden in the beginning specifically because I think that he was competent in addressing COVID-19 and the juxtaposition between him and Donald Trump I mean it's a world of difference right so it's hard to not like what he's doing at least at first but times are changing Delta variant is here and Walker Braggman eloquently explains that Joe Biden is now failing at fighting the pandemic because now this is on him and he's not doing enough so we're gonna scroll down and he's gonna speak specifically about why Joe Biden is not doing enough so federal inaction earlier this month New York City became the first government in the nation to require proof of vaccination for indoor activities and shows but so far no other local or state governments have followed its lead even though a recent Hill Harris Expo found that three-quarters of Americans support the instating mask mandates in their area to stem infections the White House and Congress meanwhile have declined to implement major pandemic control measures the Biden administration has largely favored private sector incentives individual choices and state action to slow the pandemic over federal mandates even as Republican legislators and governors prematurely ended federal pandemic unemployment benefits the administration's response has been tacit acceptance in April White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that there would be no federal vaccinations database or a federal mandate requiring everyone to obtain a single vaccination credential even though a Kaiser Family Foundation survey in June found that requiring vaccines to fly or attend large social gatherings would encourage roughly 40% of the unvaccinated to reconsider now legally speaking the president of the United States doesn't have unlimited power but he can do things to incentivize vaccinations and accelerate this process and if he were to mandate vaccinations to travel that would have a really substantial difference make a difference potentially he's also shied away from structural reforms that could potentially help with vaccine rollout one such reform would be federally guaranteed pay time off and Axios Ipsos poll from last month found that 25% of unvaccinated Americans would be more likely to get the shot if they had paid leave to do so this is also key because I oftentimes talk about anti-vaxxers on the program but a lot of people just they can't take time off and if you are going to take a shot and you're expecting side effects for a couple of days I mean I think is you're going to want to take time off it's only natural the American Rescue Plan offered a tax credit to qualifying employers who provided their workers paid leave to get vaccinated some states like New York now require employers to provide workers time off to get vaccinated but 18 states have laws on the books barring local governments from implementing paid leave policies while Congress has made covid vaccines free our for-profit healthcare system has made the crisis much worse now this is interesting right here one recent study by the nonpartisan consumer health advocacy group families USA found that roughly one of every three covid deaths and 40% of infections were attributable to health insurance gaps that would not exist under a single payer system according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll from June the demographic with the lowest percentage of vaccination is the uninsured another Kaiser Family Foundation poll in May found that a third of unvaccinated Americans were concerned about the out of pocket costs of getting vaccinated so there's this issue of people who just don't want to get the vaccine because they're brainwashed you know they are they fallen victims of misinformation through Facebook there's also a substantial amount of people not an insignificant amount of people who think that if they go get the vaccine they're going to be charged because our rapacious healthcare system I mean there's usually hidden costs everywhere so in terms of grading Joe Biden at this point I think that he's failing miserably I think he was off to a great start and little by little as he refuses to take action and adapt as the situation in the United States changes he gets you know a worse grade from me Dan any thoughts on this in terms of like what we can do because I feel like if we don't get this under control by 2024 when a Republican president takes over then it's I mean it's gonna be just permanent and and bad I mean not that it won't already be endemic but what are your thoughts on this in terms of like Biden's performance in terms of Biden performance his performance I'm not in love with it it seems to me and again we just had a lot of loser but it seems to me that we reopened too quickly and it's easy to sort of point at the Delta variant than the line going up across the United States I think I had some figures important that I wanted to pull up here our seven-day average right now in the United States is 137 139,000 cases in the seven-day average last seven days last time we saw that was beginning of February this is some frightening shit dude and I actually I guess I realized I didn't read this article until now and I'm my mind is sort of blown that you just told me that roughly one out of every three COVID deaths were attributable to the for-profit health care system that we have and if we had a single-payer system they would have saved 200 that did they just put 200,000 deaths on the for-profit for-profit health care system is that right did I read that correctly let me go back let's see here because on average you know there studies that show 45 to 65,000 people in the United States die every year because they can't afford health care I think they just put two I think they just put 20 200,000 deaths because you know there's roughly 600,000 deaths 40% of infections so I'm not necessarily sure about one out of one of every three COVID deaths it's COVID deaths and 40% of infections okay yeah I mean it's it's a gigantic number this yeah and what's weird to me is that it's you would think that if anything would have moved the goal or the needle for single payer it would be a global pandemic but Biden actually even backtracked on the public option so this is it's really we're living in bizarro times and Ray Von I wanted to ask you about your thoughts on the CDC's response so before Delta hit the United States you know that they announced okay no more mask mandates we're going back to normal I remember Rachelle Walensky the CDC director went on Rachel Maddow and there was just like you know they were both smiling ear to ear Rachel Maddow was like is this it is this over and you know Rachelle Walensky was like yeah we're confident in the disease she didn't say it was over to be clear but they were confident in you know the vaccines and they thought that that would kind of encourage people to get vaccinated here we are months later and now masks are required or needed again and what what are your thoughts on the CDC's handling because I know it's difficult to draft public help messaging but that that call in June was it was a nightmare in my opinion what are your thoughts oh I fully agree I actually I'm a content creator for rebel HQ on YouTube and one of my last videos was about Vidin's because Vidin's favorability or oh my god what's the word I'm looking for approval his approval rating for the pandemic specifically went down 16 points between May and now actually I think it might have just been in the last month if I'm not mistaken and my video had so many lives and they're screaming at me about how you know it was the Delta variant and blah and blah and I mean in my video I didn't necessarily take too much of a you know I didn't create too much of a narrative or didn't even give Biden too much flack about it but I do think it's his poor messaging in the CDC's poor messaging it was a political move like I I don't see it as anything else the Delta variant was first discovered in December the first case of it in North America was in April and they still decided to repeal mask mandates mandates and they say we couldn't have known that Republicans weren't gonna want to get the vaccine yeah I'll be fucking could have fucking I'm nobody sitting in fucking Chicago and I knew that they weren't gonna get the vaccine because they were screaming it on Twitter on Facebook at the streets they were screaming that they didn't want to get the vaccine we fucking knew they weren't gonna do it we knew it was gonna be a problem so they could have just waited but they wanted that immediate political victory and it ended up backfiring on them and it's just it's sad to seek as you know Biden ran on oh you're politicizing science you're politicizing a pandemic and we just have to listen to the science we have to you know have faith and Trump has done such a bad job and I'm gonna come in and I'm gonna do a great job and he did not it's not nearly as bad but he also politicized the side politicized the pandemic politicized the science for his own personal political victory so I think that there is sort of like a stigma like we're not supposed to say that it was a bad move but it was it was disastrous and now we're seeing you know people dying younger people dying I think like the average age of the of the people dying of the Delta variant is in the 40s like that's horrifying and they're almost all that unvaccinated just to be clear and if anyone out there watching I can't imagine isn't but if you're not go get vaccinated it's great it's dope and they'll probably give you money to do it now but right to do it you might so go do it but like it's just they're truly dystopian that's the perfect word to use and I'm glad that you brought up now that it's getting a little bit more there's gonna be a little bit more tensions between the left and liberals because liberals are okay with the left so long as we keep our mouths shut as it relates to Joe Biden but if he messes up we're gonna be the first to call him out Christina have you seen more tension over this issue like have you gotten into disputes with anyone who is really incapable of criticizing Joe Biden here because again like I gave him credit where I thought it was due in the beginning but as time goes on and as the situation continues to deteriorate I think that he needs to get called out because he's failing here there's a number of things that he could have did that he didn't do what are your thoughts on this do you think that liberals were will actually call him out because like the one hope that I have is that well I mean they're calling him out at least when it comes to Afghanistan but the the bad news in the doomer side is that oh well it's because they like want never-ending war and you know they watch MSNBC who brings on Bush era neocons who helped get us into this do you think there's gonna actually be accountability on Joe Biden from the media from liberals what are your thoughts on this over all Christine I know you don't have a crystal ball but just like what is your general like take on this I kind of do you literally have a crystal ball because that might actually be useful yes sort of okay okay I clean for a lot of people in different political spectrums and surprisingly a lot of the like Democrats die clean for not your standard liberals like they're not impressed with Biden really with what yeah they're like him sounding and and being presidential means shit it's nothing he needs to do something he hasn't done anything and so like hearing this from like people in their 60s I'm like you're supposed to be like Biden good Trump bad what what what what's not computing here but I'm happy that that's actually the case but I feel like the ones who were like terminally online liberals will defend Biden like no matter what that is a good distinction and you kind of just injected some hope into this conversation because I always like felt as if any criticism of Democrats was just taboo as it relates to liberals like so long as we are shooting on Republicans relentlessly they love us but the minute we open our mouths about Democrats we are terrible we're unreasonable so that actually does give me a little bit of hope and and I appreciate that I'm curious I'm not sure how much insight you have Anthony into the response to covid from the government of Korea I'm not sure if you've been following I know your family that live there is there any differences and any thing that you wish the US government would do that the Korean government did okay I have a lot of opinions on both US and Korean responses but I'll go with Korean then first so the Korean government I don't want to say they're doing great right now but they are like kind of so they they didn't even the Korean government did not lock down during the pandemic at all not as a proportion to the US did but they start low cases and the per capita and the reason was I mean there's no mass so that's actually helping but there's also what they listen to science I feel like I'm repeating talking points by both Democrats and other people but yeah they are listening to science kind of and and they are also shutting down schools and I keep saying lockdowns but that's what they're doing right now they are at like a thousand cases nationally and like Korea is like the size California so like thousand cases while there's like ten thousand here and they're going already locked down right now and they are and it's quick case they're going down so I do think that the Korean government's response has been better relatively but in the end both responses has been well how should I put this on total shit show mostly because everyone's going on a business everyone's losing everything so I can't say I praise the Korean government's response but they're also not that bad I guess that's how I put it but compared to the United States basically they they seem competent yeah you know I got Biden's part of yelling in my DMs about how oh my god you voted for it first of all I can't even vote so that makes no sense but that makes no sense you're supposed to be loyal I know I sound weird right now but that's literally how it sounded to me so like first of all I can't vote also I got a citizen so please stop saying that but isn't democracy supposed to be about free and open discourse or whatever apparently not and so when you're candidates in the government you know just like authoritarianism keep your mouth shut and be loyal to them I mean I'm not our overlords I mean our president you know perfect president well even though you're new to politics Anthony it seems like you've already been initiated into the left and into political discourse by getting that like scolding by liberals so that is actually really interesting it doesn't matter who you are you get it no matter you don't get like a grace period the minute that you're you know you deviate from what we want you to say then they come after you on this subject of like the government response to COVID-19 one government that I actually am impressed by even if this isn't like the most left-leaning government contrary to popular belief is New Zealand's government where they saw a single case and they chose to shut down the entire country and I've seen people criticize the prime minister there because this is some sort of an overreaction but in actuality like they've been able to live their lives functionally normal throughout the course of the pandemic I mean it helps that they live on an island you know they have a smaller population but I mean if you continue to eradicate the virus entirely I think that's going to make a huge difference and so taking it that seriously I mean imagine if we did that from the beginning if we paid people to stay home if we you know if we did anything more than what we did you know I can't imagine how much of a difference that would have made because I think it would have saved lives just paying people for a month to stay home would have been incredible but we just in the United States of America I mean we live in a late-stage capitalist society and businesses want people out spending money stimulating the economy and rather than like eradicating the virus as the way to you know getting back to normal and stimulating the economy we're just you know we're kind of numb to it and we're pretending as if it's not a thing and I've gotten a little bit dumber to the point where even if there's like a new variant that comes along that's even worse I feel like people still won't care and that's I don't know we have like two weeks two weeks last year to flatten the curve now it's eight weeks I think right I mean the the virus changed that much it doesn't seem like it right did it get in here for humans I don't know on do they have um sympathy I don't know maybe they do yeah I I mean you know to to put a little bit of a hopium spin on it human beings are incredibly capable of adapting the situation so that initial shock is going to wear off fast it's just there's a difference between you know becoming accustomed to a certain lifestyle that's inconvenient and just not caring disregarding any safety protocols and precautions but you know in America I kind of always expect the worst but hope for the best but ultimately expect the worst because that's usually what happens now in terms of government responses I wanted to move on to this story here because we are currently hoping that the 3.5 trillion dollar reconciliation package that Bernie Sanders put together which includes a medicare expansion of dental vision hearing lots of great things that progressives want now it's kind of in jeopardy because we have two idiots in kirsten cinema and Joe Manchin who don't like the price tag now I don't know what station it was on but Joe Manchin was talking to someone I think from West Virginia and he said look I understand that there's a lot of really great things in that reconciliation package it's popular but I mean it's sugar everybody likes sugar but the fact of the matter is that we just can't do that because if we pass this I mean we're going to explode our national debt now I love this because a poll completely destroyed Joe Manchin facts don't care about his feelings so I want to read this this is a data for progress poll so data for progress pollsters told the group of response before I even read it let me the poll essentially finds that Americans don't give a flying fuck about the debt or the deficit so data for progress pollsters told the first group of respondents that the bill would cost 3.5 trillion which is the amount that Biden and the democratic leaders support the pollsters told the second group of respondents that it would cost 2.5 trillion and told the third group it would cost 1.5 trillion so they're trying to determine whether or not support for this reconciliation package declines with a higher price tag but overall the response levels in the three groups were nearly identical this is just this is music to my ears voters support their proposal by roughly a two to one margin regardless of whether pollsters said it would require 3.5 trillion 2.5 trillion or 1.5 trillion in new spending that top line result comes with a very big very important caveat voters who identifies republicans oppose all three proposals of course according to the poll but here too the breakdown among the three options was interesting and maybe telling on one hand the 3.5 trillion proposal was the most unpopular among republican voters and it wasn't especially close with 61 percent opposing it and just 34 percent supporting it on the other hand feelings about the 2.5 trillion and 1.5 trillion options were virtually the same and closer to an even split with about half of republican voters opposed and more than 40 percent supportive the rest said they were undecided opinion among self-identified independent voters also varied although here the pattern uh was different still independent voters support the proposal at all three funding levels and do so by clear margins but the most expensive option at 3.5 trillion and the least expensive the 1.5 trillion proposal got more support than the middle alternative which is interesting of 2.5 trillion so basically the the takeaway here is that the Democratic Party's base doesn't care all of these things that Joe Biden and Chris Sinema is saying all of the deficit scolds you know the concern trolls nobody cares in actuality so to not pass that would be you'd think political suicide given that 2022 is just around the corner republicans are bound to have you know a advantage because of gerrymandering um i love this story so does anyone want to jump in because um i feel like this should be thrown in the face of every single deficit hawk that has anything to say about delivering policies for the people yeah um so like uh i um it's really stupid i can't say any more nice or worse it's really dumb that you of all things are talking about the deficit because they don't people don't care like was said um we've spent 2.2 trillion dollars on the lovely afghanistan war we spend i don't know 16 to 22 trillion in over 20 years to large financial institutions we have the money we always have the money we always will have the money but apparently 3.5 trillion for the working class and the middle class is too much for the elites um but like the poll just like as you said validates the point like nobody cares it's 3.5 trillion and it's worth working and middle class american people and it's really absurd that the democrats especially the moderate democrats and call them conservative but whatever whatever they want to be called them um so like the moderate democrats seem to think that uh people care about the national debt debt or whatever but um as i keep seeing from all kinds of comments and people talking to me um they care about like material um improvements like better healthcare better livelihoods in general they don't really care about the number the 20 something trillion dollars of debt that really isn't the concern for most americans as as much as they don't care about shenanigans in washington they don't care about the deficit what they care about are their lives and when these moderate moderate democrats seem to think that that's the most important thing the top line number 3.5 trillion already negotiated but from six trillion dollars i just find it absurd and i cannot believe they believe that but you know i also can because you know they're funded by exxon and all them so yeah that's true yeah uh christina go ahead i was talking to a customer today who's very uh conservative and i was telling her about the reconciliation for what it had unlike with medicare it's going to include dental and seeing and hearing you know and she's like that sounds wonderful because in my opinion with when it comes to medic medicare why is that not part i mean when you get older what happens to you and so she was like i like that i like that in lowering the you know medicare age or whatever but of course it's always about the funding i'm like you know we're all that as an anti point out where all that money went to wars in afghanistan and iraq all that money could have been used for something like that a lot earlier on but it never happened yeah and that's a great point i mean one thing that irritates me is that these deficit scolds they're never consistent so when it comes to tax breaks for the rich when it comes to wars not a peep from them we always have the money for that and we do to be fair because you know we we print our own we have our own fiat currency right i subscribe to modern monetary theory so i believe in deficit spending but the people who are against spending for you know the middle class the working class poor americans they only speak up when we're about to get something you know a policy concession and that to me it's like a mask off moment that they keep doing over and over again and i just want people to wake up and be more you know um privy to the fact that this is this is an absurd argument so the national debt this is something that isn't like our debt as as individuals like government debt is not of our concern um and so we keep hearing these fear mongering things like oh well you know your your future generations are going to have to pay that back i think that our future generations even if that were true which it wasn't i think that our future generations would prefer to pay that back then uh see the world go to shit due to climate change it's just you know there's any excuse and i'm so sick of them you know squirming out of this and ray von i'm not sure if you've heard so what they're trying to do currently is so they passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill in the senate and now the moderate democrats in the house are pressuring nancy polosi to put the infrastructure deal up to a vote so that way they can pass the infrastructure bill but then screw over progressives who wanted all of these policy wins in the reconciliation package so i think that it's impressive and shocking that nancy polosi is holding strong here it shows that you know having more progressives in congress is uh is it matters right but here's my fear i'm worried that the uh the corporate democrats like nancy polosi might cave after a while if the moderate democrats can get the media on their side what are your thoughts on this am i being too doomer i mean can you be enough doomer when it comes to american politics i don't think you could ever be do overpilled enough but i do think that nancy polosi and chuck schumer see the uh huge political victory that the um the not the bipartisan infrastructure bill but the reconciliation infrastructure bill is specifically because uh you know our infrastructure you know what's in the bipartisan bill is our traditional infrastructure as they're calling it rows and bridges and they are crumbling and we need to repair those but that's not an immediate political victory the same way that you know expanding medicare benefits is expanding um you know child care uh access to people is that bill wheel is absolutely necessary for them to uh you know at least hold their own in the uh midterm elections and i i do think that chuck schumer and nancy polosi recognize that and i think they will hold out as long as they can and as long as the progressives continue to put pressure on them um which is why it's great to see aoc you know sort of like shitting on jake tapper when he tried to like put her down and say that she's like blocking the bill but didn't love you the same sort of criticism against joe manchin which by the way really quick i'd like to i've said this before and i just would like to repeat this joe manchin you me we will a fist fight if i win you have to stop being a bitch if you win you can continue to be a bitch i'm just saying it's i like that i also just like love the idea that joe manchin is concerned about the deficit like the 90s called they want their deficit hawking back no one gives a five deficit in 2021 and i promise you the people in rural west virginia who have no access to internet who don't even some of them don't even have access to water and electricity they don't give a shit about the deficit they need with that infrastructure bill is going to provide them with and if like i if i went to west virginia right now and i asked them what matters more our our debt or your livelihood they're going to say their livelihood so it's just such a and the idea that like we can't afford to do it because of the taxes and joe manchin is the one saying that joe manchin you're the only person in west virginia whose taxes are going to go up to pay for this plan it's one of the poorest states in the country no one else in that state is going to see like one more penny taken out of their paychecks to do this so it's just he is a bitch and he should fight me just it's a consensual fight so you can't get banned from any platform for saying this but i'm i'm down for bringing back duels i would like to duel joe manchin joe biden i'll duel chris kirsten cinema fuck it i'll do all of that yeah dad i wanted to ask you so when it comes to joe biden and you know people like joe manchin i saw this meme that i feel like it's perfect that represents them so there is a bunch of people lying down strapped to train tracks and it's running over person after person after person and they're dying and democrats have an option they can pull the switch stop the train and stop it from running over anyone else but they'll win in 2022 and 2024 that's that's kind of the meme it's like they're averse to giving people good things and doing things that are objectively good that helped them win i mean deficit spending during the great depression is what got us out of the great depression why are they so stupid i mean part of this corruption but i think stupidity factors in too dan give us your thoughts on this oh i think we have you on mute still that that was my there we go i don't have like a giant big brain take on this it just really feels like they don't they they're just i mean we're literally talking about joe manchin and having to argue with joe manchin about deficit spending with democrats like these what's the point of having republicans and it just feels like yeah when i was a kid we didn't have to argue about those things but you know that that's not necessarily true but um you know what do you say the the it's it's it's about maintaining whatever fucking power they have and it's not about helping people out if they wanted to help people out they they'd have shown us a long time ago they wanted to help people out they'd they'd you know take afghan refugees by the the hundreds of thousands if they wanted to help people out they'd stop these you know these these wars that that have gone on for fucking ever and and to their credit literally they just pulled us out of afghanistan as ugly as it was um i don't know i again i don't have a big big brain take on this but uh i'm just looking forward to getting to my sleeve of orios in the next room i have all the things over here wow well no i'm glad that you brought up um afghanistan so this was from a couple of days ago um the 13th so rather than like bringing in afghan refugees after we ruin their country the united states is desperately trying to find other countries to take in refugees um it's just it really feels frustrating because um the democratic party they they have so many easy political victories joe biden can use his pen to eradicate student debt you know remove uh weed off of schedule one but he won't do any of that and it's it's so frustrating it just feels like um they part of me thinks that they just don't want to win many members of congress would prefer to see republicans in power because that's just an easy way to fundraise hey we've got to stop these evil republicans i mean they just passed a really crucial deadline that um is now going to set in motion the process of republican legislatures redrawing districts in most districts um so that's going to give them an advantage and democrats didn't do enough apparently after recess in uh september 13th chuck schumer says that'll be their first priority but it just feels like i mean they've been in power for eight months and you know that that one victory that we got legislatively with the uh stimulus bill the 1400 that was great not gonna last forever though i mean they they have done some good things but the crisis itself isn't going to go away if you kind of chip away around the edges so we need substantial reforms but i mean i'm preaching to the choir because all my viewers know that all of the panelists know that but folks we've been incredibly do more and i apologize for that but i've been promising viewers of dystopian times now for three weeks that we're going to do a pet segment and folks guess what so it is a fan favorite segment let's pretend like the world isn't ending for a moment by distracting ourselves which with pictures of cute pets i can never get that title right it's just a little bit too long but um folks we have a lot of submissions lots and lots of submissions so uh i always start with my own this is my uh my child this is uh this is zoe so now i've had all three of my animals she doesn't usually like to pose for the camera but she did now so i had to uh i had to include her um we have some additional set uh submissions christina frankie and zoe has her two children frankie and zoe yes they're beautiful frankie's actually right there uh i can't okay nothing okay oh how sweet i should grab him but we have chester with a goat how cool is that oh so good i haven't seen a goat since so cute i have not seen a goat in real life in like decades since i was a kid i think and i went to a petting zoo but apparently they're really sweet they're basically like dogs we have our yeah they they are smart mr anderson this is our mod he has his entire family here of cats we have a top left roland felix darby bottom left and we have mylo absolutely cat that's so smart oh i love that so this uh this well i forgot the name uh this looks a little bit like my cat um very sweet very uh snug also they're living a good life thank you for sharing mr anderson uh we have uh joe with her baby boo she's very happy and uh her moving the cat tree into her room but that's that's a luxury life this is uh this is bougie living here love it and then we have oh another picture oh that's a that's a good picture i can also get a better look at joe's tattoos now oh nice very cool very cool that's really sweet yeah see i already forgot that we're living in an apocalypse by seeing all of this um so we have lance with a picture of chico legs that is adorable legs hey and a tattoo nice okay i noticed tattoos as well that's also um therapeutic yeah chico is so sweet i'll tune in to lance's streams and chico just being the back chewing a bone being so behaved i'm like that's teach my dogs although my dogs i guess when i do my twitch streams they're pretty well behaved i will say the second the camera goes off it all goes to shit they start like snapping at each other but um chico's a very good boy so we have chris with uh two kitties maya and opiate i love the darth fader statue look at that's like this is a model yes just posing franky does that too he's like a roly poly he just loves posing for the camera and that's one of his he does that too oh see i my um my cat kind of poses for the camera my dog the one who i showed the picture of she doesn't like it's always like motion blur because she won't stop for like a second for me to take a picture um so this is donna's uh kitty i this is like a reverse beard i love this is a really pretty uh cat i like that very pretty we have ferrin cousins animal family oh very sweet very sweet a two for one that's that's great puppy face too like oh i love it i love it we have holly flax and michael scott oh wow that's great that's perfect i love that holly flax and michael scott okay i see you shon that's good uh zonestar how's it going zonestar with this kitty oh good kitty get that belly rubs with the feet we have socialists with no fucks my babies uh top is tortoise shell uh zucco the orange tabby apa and momma wow and they're all like these ones are posing oh momo momo avatar the last airbender oh okay oh my god yeah this is very pretty very pretty i look at just the post there tortoise shells are really pretty yeah we have santino uh with uh rachi all dressed up for the camera wow a tie for the i don't even put on the tie that's that's incredible absolutely precious we have a gd's luna absolutely zonked out very cute so we have a sarah with her entire family of doggies all smiling i mean come on folks yeah i'm not sure actually this one kind of looks like a husky i'm not sure though like a white because my brother has a yeah my brother has a white husky that looks similar but i'm not 100 sure but all beautiful thank you for sharing sarah so uh we have i know so look at that very sweet very sweet refusing to pose but adorable nonetheless thanks guys come stick it out so she looks down on us ah yes very very precious uh oh phaedra okay thank you for sharing that comrade Tyler we have uh stella very sweet picture look at that you have like this um closed off the ip section in front of the window on a bed that's that's great and some toys living her best life it appears great uh luke with uh this baby who looks a little bit scared of the camera i can i can sympathize with that mind you too sometimes we have dylan with his pet frog thank you dylan this is a very cute frog what is his name we have greg with a seemingly angry kitty i see the ears back and i see anger but i'm sure that this is a very sweet boy just wasn't maybe wanting to take a picture or sweet girl i'm not sure oh god oh no we'll keep going abby with oh a very sweet kitty this looks like a little mini tiger love it love it their tabby's are just the best aren't they yes archer has this goofball and fluffball absolutely perfection here i love the action shots where they're like mouths are open or their smile or they're like uh it's all motion blur um we have oh wow look this is this is like nice bougie living here this is i i thought that the window one yeah look at i mean just in a pool that's impressive i'm very impressed by this so judy judyth is sharing uh my dog failed to enter into the christmas spirit when i suggested uh she may like to welcome visitors with a kiss oh that's very sweet very sweet yeah what a sweet idea too awesome and i see a toy okay jojo i says lucy loves shipping boxes scarlett loves the rug in the dining room you know my cat loves boxes also but also the rug but it's very uh very sweet i like this it's funny that cats like um i bought my cat like one of those uh little rug things or carpet structure things and she liked the box more than the actual structure itself i'm like oh okay well i guess i'll i'll throw that away and and we'll just keep the box um we have the marvelous miss mazel uh her bunny snoopy wow very cool i like to see the diversity of pets yeah very sweet very very sweet uh so we have the marvelous miss mazel again other people's pets that she has painted wow so we have some art and pets that is incredible that's like realistic yeah the detail these are great oh wow that was a real picture yeah these look photo realistic folks this is uh marissa mazel give her a follow on twitter that's incredible thank you for sharing your artwork that's pets and artwork that's like double the uh the therapy i guess you can you can say my sister's corgi tater tot with lots and lots of toys love it so we have boulder and i having dinner and playing world of warcraft wow very sweet very sweet okay i'll try i always take a very long time to go through these because i look at each picture for too long i feel like i'm doing better today but i'll try to speed it up here's a better pic oh that's yeah that's just a little that's a little baby okay uh this is my favorite so far big yarn love it uh these are uh my kitties when they were babies and all together they look oh wow we have some kittens okay this i'm gonna have to click away from because it's gonna make me want a kitten if anyone makes sex jokes about his life jacket they we would never allow that very beautiful very beautiful uh audrey turned 15 over the weekend no kidding audrey happy birthday i mean this is a little bit so young yeah this doesn't show a lot my tabby like frankie he's 12 but he's got that baby face so it seems like tabby's are notorious for getting like having like a baby face yeah they just they don't age so lola is working is a working stiff fighting every day to bring down the bourgeoisie that's perfect we have a fellow comrade here good on you lola yeah answering question organizing love it sees in the memes sees in the memes beautiful see don't you all feel better already after we talked about all these very apocalyptic doom or topics like i already forgot about all of it like everything's great i always make sure to send anna casparian like pictures of my customers dogs because i know like certain dogs would like to hear her up that's good that's good you you can't not be cheered up when you say i mean look at their faces i love like this is a little bit creepy and he looks a little bit unsure but i do love a little dirty with this picture but you can you just see like the side i like um what the fuck is on me oh oh my god i don't know if this is a boston terrier or a french bulldog but either way i'm going to kidnap this doggy while we have i'm gonna keep posting more snakes despite the luke warm reaction your snake is beautiful hey definitely wrong with that yeah yeah oh very sweet very sweet a socialist nope rope no we i'm pro i've been afraid of snakes but i'm pro snake now as i have grown i'm pro snake so we have abby here oh just being a model oh credible gorgeous baby who knows love it and i like the pillows like the whole aesthetic some cats i feel like they just like their models like they just pose as soon as you bust out of the camera four out of five of the gang looking at a spider oh fun that's good that's a good picture what to do with it we have wow we have the mouse collection love it looking like a burp rental is posing for a playboy we have a cat on the leash this is the same okay hey that is awesome if i put my cat on a leash she wouldn't murder me sadly we had to put any down last year but have you ever seen a more adorable face oh that's so sweet we're sorry rest in peace annie very sweet this is cute oh this reminds me of like the when you post something on or when you see like your aunts post something on facebook and then you'll see some like older lady you post like an angel with the wings praying yes professor gnome chomskitty and rosa loves oh my god that's a win yes some of the names are so creative so we have a ball of fur oh and it is a dog it is a dog very sweet yeah that that is a very long nose very cute maybe we have i love that bit that uh oops wrong face there is great lowkey celebrating the final day of fleets earlier this week all right because they got rid of fleets on on twitter i never used them so 21 to 2021 it last for like when i heard that fleets were going away i'm like what the fuck is a fleet i don't think i ever used that once so we have oh that's really pretty yeah this is a great picture wow okay i'll try to scroll more see the scroll bars like we're halfway basically so of course we're not gonna get to all of it but i will try to speed it up oh well not that fast but i'll try to speed it up folks because i know a lot of people want their pictures to get a little bit of the spotlight lowkey celebrating oh nope saw that one uh here we go okay chrono and twist roger aka lil white kitten aka moustache man love the moustache in a tree behold my boy very handsome boy very sweet this is like the optimal situation for a cat in front of the window on your little um your cat things you can watch the birds very lucky kitty watching cat tv yeah a very good boy one ear floppy adds to the level of cuteness and another box kitty and this gigantic smile okay so i'm gonna cut myself off and i'll do one more if you're all cool with that and then we'll get to our shout outs at the end we have piccolo oh a dilute long hair tortie wow yeah very sweet oh and i uh okay so i'll i'll stop that and what i will do folks is i will try to resume where we left off here i won't do a new thread of pets but uh if there's time so there's what three episodes left of dystopian times three this is seven yeah so there's three episodes left i will try to get through all of that i promise folks um okay so before we close out the show and we get to all of our uh our um our shout outs and we tell everyone where to where to go find us that almost sounded bad like we'll tell you where to go um no so i want to do our featured content creator of the week so this week we have a new youtuber who just got started i believe this year i want to say um and here is a little bit about his channel folks this is alex kawa our featured creator of the week hello everybody my name is alex kawa and i'm a leftist content creator here on youtube uh the videos that i do on my channel uh fall into a couple different categories the most prominent one is video essays these are deep dives um research takes on politics of the day uh certain topics that i feel strongly about these can include areas in the issues of health care climate change foreign policy etc but also occasionally look at some personal social values social areas such as sexuality or in terms of my most recent video essay at the time of me recording this video the connection between politics and the arts i also make discussion videos i take a question that's been on my mind in the realm of politics for a while and try to feel a silitated discussion with it for example most recently with the passing of the late senator michael ravell um i tried to facilitate discussion as to what we can do to continue on his legacy and also occasionally i'll make a list video uh like list video i made a while back ago about songs that me and my friend love that have political messages in them you know these i'll do every now and then you know just that's a little fun project and also want to thank um mike from the humanist report for giving small content creators like me this chance at promoting our work to a wider audience because without somebody with a platform like mike we would not be as likely to succeed so i want to say thank you mike for this chance and if you like what you hear about um for me then please go check out my channel uh hopefully you hopefully you like what i do and if you do then you know like subscribe do all that good stuff if you want to hear some political takes from me that are a lot less a little more off the cuff as i could say uh and you can follow me on twitter too um but yeah that's it go check me on youtube follow me on twitter if you want to thank you again mike for the chance to share my platform with you and with your audience and yeah that's it solidarity forever peace all right folks so that was alex kawa so goal that uh i want to start i think we can easily get alex for 1000 subscribers on youtube within two weeks i think that's possible so go and subscribe if you're watching this on means to me uh you can search for alex kawa on youtube and i believe you can find him but if you're watching this on youtube uh there will be a link in this in the description box now i do want to say that the last day to submit your uh submission is august 31st um and i've selected next week next weeks i can't talk it's i'm too hot um after like two hours my brain shuts down but uh next week i've i've selected the featured content creator so there's two spots left before the season finale of the show so please make sure that you submit by august 31st i see that some of you have submitted but um you have to send in a video that is an unlisted link to youtube because if you try to send me a video that i have to download oftentimes that will expire and i won't be able to access it so just fyi if you would like to submit you can email me mike at humanistreport.com in the subject line uh in all caps you'll put dt underscore submissions and just send me a two to three minute video about uh yourself your channel and what you want to accomplish and i would be happy to give you a little bit of a boost like we're all content creators and it's hard to get started in this uh field so uh i like to highlight good uh good work folks so yeah check out alex seriously go do that everyone he did work for me so i really recommend that go submit on video seriously absolutely okay well folks that is the end of this show uh what an amazing panel so great to speak to every single one of you uh one by one we are going to go to each panelist and allow them to tell us where they're at what they're doing and where the people can find them uh christina we'll start with you well you can find me everywhere at um christina twitch twitter facebook instagram everywhere and you do twitch streams as well yes um what kind of streams do you do uh political cosplay i'm gonna start doing some gaming uh but yeah mostly political and cosplaying for the for the best part okay i saw the harley quinn cosplay and that was very cool very cool people i don't people are like i can't look at margot robby without seeing you and her and i'm like great see you're you're raising the standards christina because i have not cosplayed during my uh my twitch streams and now i feel like oh man this is like this is a great idea i brought in the dog cam and dr heamed out brought in the beard cam but now you're introducing cosplaying and we all keep raising the standards so i mean it's hard to keep up but uh yeah great great work everyone check out christina the next person is uh anthony hey so um i'm sure many of you watched my feature of the comic pre-order of the week moment which was great but um i like to call my content leftist propaganda i don't know if that is really propaganda i don't know who knows but i do make leftist content about current events social issues and some international stuff i'm working on although it's slow going so you mainly seem um check me out at youtube um i'm sure somebody will link it in the chat but i'm also on the twitter but um i would recommend that you go to my youtube rather than my twitter if you don't have the time and always um thanks everyone for joining us joining us on this panel is really great having y'all here yeah thanks so much for coming anthony um it's so cool to see someone so young this educated about politics again like i am blown away because again when i was that young i knew nothing so i really appreciate you getting involved early by the time you're my age you're basically gonna be like a genius um so yeah thank you thank you you only you only get smarter as you as you get older although it does rot your brain to cover politics for a while so you just want to you want to keep out no not yet not yet no not yet that can't happen yet okay dan where can the people find you and what do you do all right mike well thank you uh for having me panel you're amazing really good to get to hang out with y'all next nice to meet you anthony um y'all could find me uh probably mostly on twitter uh twitch is where you'll find me i stream each day and i stream at idan simpson i'll do the leftist sort of edutainment thing for i don't know six to ten hours or so and and uh and we just sort of just rock it out every day um i'm sort of like a relatively new leftist i've been i was probably a shit live for a good handful of years and i'm also starting to pay a little bit more close attention to politics so it's it's not like um you know it's a stream where i'm learning a lot it's it's it's educational i'm not like speaking as an authority on anything i'm i'm trying to learn with with my audience and we do a lot of learning i'd like to think yeah and uh also on twitter but you'll find that at shy johnny cash chi as in chicago johnny cash i used to do a johnny cash tribute act and then they nuked my my my main twitter account what are you gonna do oh censorship dan that's censorship they can't not cool you got canceled again i was i was on dan show everyone uh go check it out it was it was a great time uh dan has the graphics the aesthetic just like nailed down uh absolutely a source of inspiration dan thank you that's nice you do great work over here i look up to you oh well i look up to you well i mean i guess we're all just each other's role models how look at that you can't beat it i love it no no you can't last but certainly not least uh the wonderful ray vana where can we find you and what do you do okay well first thank you so much for having me on this was super fun anthony it was very nice to meet you i know dan and christina so it was great to be on our panel with you too and like mike i love the show it's such a wonderful idea um and okay so you can see me every day every weekday 7 p.m central standard time which is the only true time zone twitch.tv slash ray vana um we talk shit there i'll be honest i do a lot of yelling i argue with chuds in my chat i am very fiery and very feisty so if you want to see that you can go there i also you can check me oh and please i know that there's like 200 of you out there i only need 20 more followers to get to a thousand on twitter so go fucking follow me please um ray vana t tv on twitter um you can see also my show reactions on tyt's twitch channel every thursday at three uh three p.m central standard time one p.m pacific for eastern um and you can see my daily videos at rebel hq on facebook and youtube um also if you're gonna watch them on youtube say nice stuff in the comments because there's fucking weirdos out there um yes but but yeah um so you can check me out on all this platform yeah and i just discovered uh ray vana recently and i i'm like i'm your biggest fan i'm i'm already your biggest fan so everyone else like step aside i'm i'm your biggest fan uh so folks thank you so much this has been so much fun uh please be sure to check out all of the panelists uh i will come back in a second after our outro plays and i will answer any remaining super chats uh and read any comments that i that i missed folks thank you so much this was such a great panel i had so much fun i hope that you did as well i will see you all next week this has been dystopian times well folks that was a fantastic show i had so much fun once again thank you so much to my guests uh let me pull up the uh super chats and uh i don't think i we had a lot so we should be out of here relatively soon let's see here so we don't have any we do have a new membership though i want to make sure i get to that i believe uh i highlighted it but we have adam prall who rejoined uh once again spending a total time of seven months as a member thank you so much adam it's so nice to have you so nice to have you it is really hot in this room um last week it was really bad but now after like being under these lights for a while it's it's pretty it's pretty hot again so my brain is definitely melting okay folks well hey we'll spend a few minutes reading the comments and then i will get back to work and try to get out the episode and work on more things i have a really interesting interview that i'm filming tomorrow with an epidemiologist i mentioned this so i've got a prep for that do a lot of research so i make sure i have some good questions because it's not very often that you get to talk to an expert so um yeah yeah first time time tuning in this was great thing hey i'm so glad glad that you tuned in and you enjoyed it that's awesome very cool thank you thank you and you're i know you know it's i i turned down the lights so it's not as hot in here but i think that just like being in this room with the computer and whatnot it's uh it's a lot so i always end up like getting cooked but um yeah i'm melting i am melting see when i'm doing all of this prerecorded i can like um take some breaks but when it's live you just you've got to roll with it the whole time for sure thank you jeff shout out to jeff everyone uh in the chat everyone go follow jeff if you don't already follow jeff definitely do that definitely definitely uh thank you so much dragon slayer you do great work it's noticed and appreciate thank you that means so much i really appreciate you really appreciate you um let's see here uh very good freelancer with the 499 super chat thank you so much i appreciate that um hit me up uh hit me up if you uh or your affiliates need any pro bono graphics or a video effects would love to help raise up all these causes hey thank you so much for the offer thank you so much um so that's a very good freelancer folks if anybody is um is interested and i'll be sure to hit you up if i ever need you thank you so much thank you for uh thank you for watching yeah so ask the new expert or ask the expert about the new variant from peru the lambda variant yes i i definitely want to ask about the uh the new variants i also want to ask about what she knows about the transmissibility of the delta variant among kids because there is an increased rate of infection among kids but the science is kind of out as of yet like there's a correlation but it's difficult to say for sure that it's because of the delta variant it might be that you know we saw uh differences in policies like relaxed mask mandates and whatnot and that could have attributed to it so i do want to ask her what she knows about that because i think it's really important and to see pediatric hospitals begin to fill up that's really concerning to me so i hope that um she'll be able to kind of like give me the uh breakdown there because she she's very she knows a lot about this so uh it's it's nice to um it's nice to uh be able to pick her brain uh ii louis says nice uh nice setup found the show via vash really like the panel you go hey that's awesome that's awesome shout out to vash thank you ii louis i'm so glad that you're here always nice to have new people here base panel no anthony you made the panel based it's always great to have you uh yeah thank you exactly anthony anthony is uh brilliant like again i'm so um it's really really inspirational and refreshing to see young people actually care about politics i try very very hard to get people involved in politics um and it's it's difficult it's difficult i try to get my nieces and nephews involved and i've been relatively successful at that so to see someone like anthony so involved and so knowledgeable uh again it's it's great because i was not i was nowhere near that level of knowledge um about politics so it's it's very nice to have that perspective of a young person who's going to be the future uh yeah really enjoy the women on your panel thank you mist yeah they were absolutely fantastic um it was so nice to have them on um again ray vana is great christina super awesome i love the harley quinn uh cosplay really really cool florida florida's dense variant is coming oh man i yeah yeah definitely um florida texas like the uh variants from uh these states are bound to pop up although i will say that california i believe had a pretty substantial or or concerning variant i want to say i'd like see r.m brown uh and the progressive voice on dystopian times yeah so i'm not familiar with r.m brown but um i have reached out to progressive voice and we're kind of in talks of trying to find a date that works for him um there's only a couple more episodes left and then that will be the end of dystopian times um i'll probably bring it back next year i don't want to say for sure like um it's i'm gonna have to shift gears and focus on candidates soon so that's what i'll do immediately after i finish dystopian times but you know for the remaining episodes i want to make sure that they are as uh pog as they possibly can be sarah lee says uh love your show thank you so much i really appreciate that have you ever heard of the leftist youtuber jackson hinkle yes i have heard of jackson he um he and i got into like a twitter spat a couple of weeks ago over the nina turner thing so um yeah i don't think that he likes me i have no issue with him i think that if he wants to criticize me he is more than welcome to if you're a public figure you're going to get criticized it comes with the territory so i have no problem with jackson hinkle unless he posts you know bad things misinformation but um yeah that's as far as i know that he is a youtuber and he doesn't like me talk shit about me but shout out to jackson hinkle regardless because i'm not a petty bitch well i am a petty bitch but i don't really care that much in this instance um okay love this show i hope you can bring it back some uh in some form or another yeah you know i've i've been thinking about this um so i was thinking like each summer i'll do something different um maybe it'll be dystopian times every summer maybe i'll bring it back in a couple of years but i was i already have a different set of ideas flowing through my head so it'll be like 10 episode shows that i do um and i was thinking i could do like a video essay series that i've been thinking about instead uh mini documentaries 10 episode series uh i'm not sure i'm i'm kind of like it depends right i want to be able i don't want to like be glued to um i don't want to be glued to the um the same formula over and over but i think at some point i would like to bring uh uh do dystopian times again uh dating show i don't think i'm good at matchmaking i don't think i am good at that uh jackson hinkley is disguised as a leftist he's this you know yeah um i i don't know enough about his politics to say but um if you're criticizing nina turner um and you're like shitting on her i i want nothing to do with you get fucked nina turner is the best of the best so i'm not like i don't hate jackson hinkle but i'm not a fan but to be fair i haven't like i don't know enough but um if you hate nina turner we're not cool we're not we're not comrades so i will say that but i don't want to like i don't want to talk shit about somebody that i don't know enough about um so yeah i'll leave that there let's see here video essays are always fun yeah i mean i would like to do deep dives and i do deep dive sometimes on the channel but like a really deep deep dive into something that interests me um perhaps like sexism in the gaming industry just like random things that i think about and i'm interested in but i haven't like talked about or don't have time to talk about on the show so we'll see i'm not sure i also thought about doing panels like irl panels with republicans in real life and after like 10 episodes try to see if i can move them on anything on anything and bring them to reality i'm not sure these are like there's a bunch of things you know swirling through my mind but i'd like to change it up a little bit you know this uh panel rocks thank you so much appreciate it love it love the reference there fellow millennial all my fellow millennials will get this reference beefs and butthead movie based uh late night embrace the sifting through data and research cross-reference sources and don't forget to take a little naps new content creators yes this is really really good advice take naps frequently and um always make sure one thing that i've learned is if you have an argument try to find counter arguments to your arguments um that will only strengthen your argument it's really important so um yeah so i think that's pretty much everything let's see here this is a good one to end with smoke weed every day yes yes absolutely yeah the collaborations are really great i will admit that it's very difficult for me to put together all of these panels um and i wasn't sure how many episodes of dystopian times that i wanted to do initially i want to do like 20 25 but i landed on 10 because it's very very tricky um so um yeah at some point i'll probably bring it back because there's so many people that i want to talk to that i didn't get the chance to talk to um so yeah yeah but i did talk to a lot of awesome people so yeah folks i will see you all next week um so far the panelists that i have confirmed are very very cool so i won't i won't spoil it for you but be sure to tune in all right folks i will see you all next week take you everyone