Our Relationship with Socialism Ft Red

00:00

What's up, weirdos. Hey, yo, me. Shit. I got me a little song rode the lights alone. We're about to chop it up with Abigail on the Manic Pixie weirdo podcast, a safe space for weirdos of all shapes, sizes, colors and creeds to relax and speak their piece. So grab a glass of wine and grass, the chief as I get off the mic, so the main weirdo can speak. Peace, peace.

00:23

What does that where does you're listening to the Manic Pixie weirdo I'm Abigail, your host. And this is the podcast where we talk about all the different kinds of relationships that we can have in our lives. And this week, we are joined by red, my friend from Twitter. I'm very excited to talk to her read go ahead and say Hi. Greetings and salutations. Hello, hello.

00:43

And red is here to talk to us.

00:47

Ready to talk to us about our relationship with socialism.

00:52

But first tell everybody a little bit about yourself and where they could find you. Sure. Well, I am. I am read forever on Twitter, which I think is our EDD underscore for. For what to RCN because somebody took my name. But anyway, yeah, I'm on Twitter, find me. I'm red iron heart is when I go by there.

01:13

So yeah, we just hang out. We talked about Marxist stuff. I hold a space, usually in the mornings and afternoons call that I call the communist coffeehouse. It's just on Twitter spaces. Feel free to drop in. We talk about Marxism, we talk about how we were gonna relate that to the world, we talk about how to survive this crazy thing we call capitalism etc.

01:35

Yeah, it's really fun space. Thank you.

01:39

Um, so yeah, we're gonna. Yeah, it's good. You do a really good job of like, moderating and everything.

01:47

So, yeah, so we're talking about our relationship of socialism. So I guess, what is socialism? Like? Could you explain what it is? Well, sure. And I realize you asked me about my background, and I didn't directly answer it. So I'll do so now I have a master's degree in evolutionary biology, organism biology.

02:09

And I have a bachelor's degree in chemistry and geology, education. So other words, shorthand, I'm a nerd.

02:16

Like to be science, teacher and save. Obviously, that's not happening in this timeline.

02:21

So when I realized that it kind of like started looking around for other ideologies to make sense of this world, other things that people were thinking, and that led me to well ponder what is causing all this friction that I'm feeling in this world. And I realized, obviously, it's the Profit System, the profit over life system that capitalism enforces on us. And so in looking at that, it's natural to say, Hey, this is the problem. What's the cure? Well, what is what is the problem? Hate socialism? Okay, well, I'm gonna go find out what that's about. So that was more or less my calculus. So to answer your question about what is socialism, a lot of people say, like, socialism is when government does stuff, or socialism, it's just whatever it's it's things I don't like it's, it's helping immigrants, it's, it's whatever it is that people latch on to, to decide that, you know, they don't like that this or that program. When oddly enough, we have several socialist programs here in the States, we know them as Social Security, the fire department, or national park system, etc, the list goes on. But socialism essentially is a contract where well, it's in its truest form, it has the means of all production, meaning the factories, the workplaces,

03:36

all the all of the places where labor is performed,

03:40

previously for profit will be put in the hands of the people who work there, the utilities we placed will be nationalized, and the companies will be handled by the employees is the idea. Now this is understood by economists who are very much more smarter than me to be a transition period between what we know now is the Belly of the Beast hellscape capitalism, to you know, this socialist period where we're transitioning, we're taking things out of the profit mode, moving them into a little bit of a more ethical mode. And we're kind of pulling the people and hopefully not pulling so much as being with Lee.

04:22

But giving them an example to follow the feed into a better way of thinking about each other socialism is is really, I mean, when you take it out of the sheer, purely theoretical context, yes, it's, it's when the means of production are in the hands of the people. Socialism is really about how you connect to other people. It's, it's really a mindset. And I can I mean, we can talk about the particulars we can talk about

04:46

all the details about the nitty gritty, but I think at its heart, socialism is is undertaken and pursued by people who stand that human life is more valuable than profit and all

05:00

case all life is more valuable than profit in all cases, and those of us who try to pursue socialism as a as an ideology kind of are trying to see the world in that way as,

05:13

as a mode of living beyond the profit mode, that makes any sense approach to an answer to your question. Yeah, no, it does. Um, so we had pail on to talk about what communism was. And he did mention that like, socialism is that transitionary period, like to get sort of like to get you into like, the more communist like state, like, that's sort of like the end goal of it. Would you agree with it? And like, how do you? How do you see that? Or do you see that happening in something like a unit, and something in like the United States? Yeah, that is the million dollar question. If we could figure that out, we would lead the revolution right now. So let's figure that out. So we can get to that part.

06:02

What does that look like here? I can tell you what it looks like abroad in other countries where they're doing it. We hope that it looks similar to that here when we try it. Socialism is not like a strict like we have, we have what we call theory, we have a Marxist ideology. And that that goes in line with exactly what Powell said that socialism is a transitionary. State communism. And that is Marx's theory. But

06:28

but we have this some

06:32

we have this transition period as well to help people learn a new way to relate to each other. Like I said, capitalism has done a really, really, really hardcore

06:42

job on brainwashing us all, to think of every moment of our lives and every interaction on a monetary scale in a monetary transactional basis. Like when when you encounter a new person, it crosses your mind, what is this person wants out of me? Not like, Oh, let me enjoy this interaction with a new human. But we're trained to think like that, because we're trained to think that we live in scarcity. I hope I'm not rambling too far afield of what you're

07:08

talking about. But yeah, we are trying to think about our lives in terms of scarcity, when that's a lie. Scarcity, the concept of scarcity, energy scarcity, resource scarcity, is that is gone. That is not a thing that we need to worry about anymore. Period, end of sentence. And the idea that we should be kind of like held hostage to this sort of scarcity model, this austerity model is is, in my mind, a direct attack from the bourgeoisie on on the working class. But that's a side by side quest.

07:45

We can take a side glass, let's take a side quest to talk about, like the bourgeoisie. And like, what, what is considered the bourgeois? What does that mean? And what does it look like?

07:57

You know, that's interesting. You asked that. Because just today on Twitter, I saw someone who was disabled like myself, and they were asking, so if I'm disabled, and I don't work, what's my relationship to the working class? Fantastic question, especially the way that the way that talk terms are sort of bandied around and transferred around and flipped around. And you know, how it goes, Twitter is, is at once both a beacon of enlightenment and a pit of spirit.

08:22

But, um, so to answer that person's question, and yours by extension,

08:29

socialism, well, the working class is

08:34

something that you are in not as a cord as a cause of your relationship to labor, or your ability to perform work, but as a cause of your relationship to the means of production. So it's basically say what I'm saying

08:48

in a longer way more awkwardly, is that if you own the means of production, you own your own factory, you own your own brick making company where you make bricks, and that's yours, and you own all the materials and everything because you own capital. That's, that's capital. Property is a lot of what has to do with capital. Because if you don't, if you don't have property, you can't build anything else else on it. So like a factory or brick making thing. So ownership of property is, I think, a big part of being in the bourgeoisie. Although it's not in the days of you know, financial world global is capital, blah, blah, blah, that's not necessary to own property, per se. It's necessary to own the means of production means

09:32

something for which other people earn a wage from you. You know, he's you employ you employ people in an exploitative manner.

09:43

Making way much more than they do. It's not a it's not a co op, sort of sort of environment. So

09:49

I fear that I'm wondering you feel so I shall go back.

09:54

Am I on the right side quest? Yeah.

09:58

No, you're right. You're right. We do that all

10:00

A time here, it's totally fine. Um, but yeah, so the, but I would say that like the bourgeoisie.

10:08

And for those of you that don't know what I'm talking about, that would just be like the ultra wealthy.

10:13

So like, the Jeff Bezos is of the world, it's kind of a thing.

10:19

Right? Right.

10:23

So that's what they look like. But that's what the book was, it looks like to, at least to most people, I would say, and that's, that's what we're talking about when we talk about the book, Rosie?

10:34

Is that,

10:37

like, they own a lot. They own.

10:43

They own everything.

10:45

And so in order, but like what we're talking about, like with socialism is that like, instead of that exploitative relationship between,

10:57

like the bourgeoisie and the working class, which would be like everyone else, basically, if you're working like everyone else was working class, there's, there is something called the petit bourgeois. But we'll actually let's just get into it. Now.

11:10

What's the difference between is that like, a little Bourgeois? I mean, well, it's sort of it is, it's a little bourgeois, in the sense of, they are a little rich, they're just a little bit rich, they're rich enough. These are your

11:25

Think of them like the gatekeepers? Are they the guardsmen at the gate, they, they're the private security. They're the statisticians. They're the wallpaper there. What is it for you guys, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about our sponsor for this episode newsleave. It's an audio app for iOS and Android, where they basically take articles from all over the world, and all the trending topics that are on the web at any given moment. And it reads them to you. And like a natural voice, like a human being would, it's basically the first time of in the history of the internet, where the entire web becomes listenable. It's really cool, you guys, they have all different kinds of articles from all different kinds of topics, so that you can like stop scrolling, and start listening, which I really love. You can follow all that you know, any topic, all the topics, whatever topic you want to talk about, or listen about, from sports science, Bitcoin, you know, even the Kardashians, like everybody, they have all the latest articles, and it reads them to you. So it's super easy. They also have podcasts, which is why I'm talking to you guys about it, because our podcast, along with podcasts from over 50 Other countries are on the app. So that's really, really cool, you can start listening there as well, it can download and use newsleave for free right now at www dot newsleave dot N E or you can do you can use this link in the description. And when you use the promo code P 1x. One E P zero, d c a s t that will give you a free month of premium subscription to newsletters. So go check it out, you guys. And thank you so much to newsleave for sponsoring this episode. So the people who are set apart from the working class in a sense, because they don't sell their their late or a day to day on an everyday basis for the next you know, check that they can feed that with their family, like they have other medium multiple streams of income, they will often own little pieces of property or like their

13:26

inheritance properties. Like think of like,

13:31

think of like a small, you know, restaurant owner that started you know, back back in the day, and they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and all of this, when it was easier to start a business and didn't everything didn't cost everything that you have as a person to pay for. And they make this make this restaurant and they broaden it to a few chain or a few short stores around the area. Now all of a sudden, you know, your family, our employers, and they are capitalists, they have multiple buildings, they have a franchise going nothing wrong with making a profit. There's nothing wrong with that. But the way that the way that this society is structured, that business has to be built in such a way that it exploits the people that work for them and and basically uses their labor to to gain profit from from what they put in. So you buy cheap food, you have cheap labor, you put the two together, you make a thing that you can sell for a lot more than you put in. Hey, that's great business. Right. But the problem is the exploitation that happens in the middle. Yeah, yeah.

14:37

And but yeah, so the petit bourgeois are like the doctors, the lawyers, businessman, Wall Street bankers, those are the kinds of like, that's what that's just just that's what we mean, when we're talking about T Bourgeois. Not they're not quite Bourgeois. They're not quite that special. But they're they're sort of special.

14:59

Yeah,

15:00

Yeah, this assignment works well for them. But But if like, if the helicopters taking off, they won't be on the helicopter.

15:08

They're not gonna be, right. We know this. But a lot of the time, no, but a lot of time. And they want to be in the club a lot, you see that a lot is like the desperation of wanting to be in the club.

15:23

But I think that that's true throughout, like, not just the petit bourgeois, but the working class as well. I mean, you see it everywhere, like, you know, especially in the United States, like, we don't have royalty, we have celebrities. And we have, and that's sort of what we idolized what we aspire to want to be. And, you know, and the problem is, is that

15:46

that's just not possible for everybody.

15:49

But also, like,

15:54

it's not possible for everybody to, like, reach that level.

15:59

Not only because there's just too many of us, but also because there's just literally like, not space for that, like, it just won't, like it just won't and can't happen. And so what we're thinking about is, reach is like, basically just like, taking all of the money and reallocating it in a more equal way. So that like, not everybody is getting royally screwed. And so like instead of, and so what we want to select, what we're talking about is like, within socialism, like within the concept of socialism, it, you know, when we say seize the means of production, and like, that means like unionize, that means, like, come together and work together. And,

16:46

you know, create something together that we can all collectively like, agree upon. And then we will come and work for you, on our terms, basically, is what it is, these are, these are our terms, and if we're going to work for you this, like, you know how so when you go into a job interview, and they give you like a job contract. And that's basically like their version of telling you what they expect of you while you work for them. This is kind of that except it's the reverse. Except this is good. This is empowering the people to go into a job interview and say, no, no, that's all fine and good. We understand that. That's what you want us to do. But this is our terms and agreements that you must now agree to as well. Right? If that sounds right, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Totally.

17:40

And yeah, and pale horse is absolutely on point. I've learned a lot from him as well. So just to back up when he says in his interview, but um, but yeah, socialism in that regard that you're speaking? No, it is simply and I the way I think of it is democracy in the workplace, is my we believe in democracy, right.

18:01

Makes me want to shake people sometimes because we're so used to just being exploited as workers, that we don't have that, that fire to fight. Well, okay. Let me let me back this up. Because I'm not going to go on that numerous track, you know, I believe hope is a revolutionary discipline. But we need what I'm saying is we need to be fired up to demand more, we need to be thinking of ourselves as as beings with limitless potential. Not this, trapped in this, like, you know, in dollars is all we can expect. That's ridiculous. This is all ridiculous. So, so yeah, democracy in the workplace is a good shorthand for that. And sometimes when I'm talking to people about socialism, when when resource allocation comes up, I tried to think of like food instead of like money, because and here's here's another thing to be clear. When we talk about eating the rich, we're talking about the 1% We don't even care so much about the petit bourgeois we really don't keep your keep your little mentions. We're talking about the World Bank. We're talking about Jeff Bezos, we're talking about the people with the fucking money. I always want to clarify that because like, everybody who talks about this, they always the first thing is, don't take my money out of my taxes. Don't pay for this. Blah, blah, blah, my dude. Oh, my God. No, we're not talking about taking your little pile of beans. We're talking about taking the bean factory. Okay, little pile you've amassed for yourself is all fine. Keep that we don't even care about that. But people don't they lack that perspective. Because these, these these things are all just figures on the spreadsheet someplace in a lot of ways. So I think about like when I'm trying to talk to people about socialism and use a metaphor that my sense, think about like food. Okay, so we've got it, we got it. This little group of people got 100 people, let's say one person has taken all of the food, like ate like a fancy 85% 85

20:00

shares of that food and is leaving 15 shares for the other 99% Share. Does that seem fair? Well, no. Does it really matter? Is that one person worked that much harder? Is it even possible without the use of force? No, both those questions, it doesn't matter. Because you, it doesn't matter if you quote unquote, deserve to sit on your huge as pile of beans, there are people starving in this world. And so that's I mean to sort of tangent A little bit. That's one of the things I'm trying to drive that when I say, our relationship to each other needs to change, because inherently, you talk to people face to face, they're not going to tell you that they want people to start typically, once they're a sociopath, or just trying to troll you. But like most people, I think would agree that starving other humans is bad policy.

20:54

And on that note, we do we do have people who do Shrug, shrug that off, but it's it's sort of impossible when it's like right here in your face. And that's what's happening. We are starving right here in this country. They are starving us. They're putting us under austerity. And we're starting to see the consequences of that. Fencing? Actually.

21:16

Yeah, I think we I think we have I think we're going to see more of it. I'm, I think I don't think that until something happens, I don't think that that is necessarily going to end anytime soon.

21:33

And so the follow up question to that is, how do we fix that?

21:40

That's a good question.

21:42

I would say off the off the top of my head socialism is the answer. We know that this is a

21:49

no, this is a social structure that works. We see it in place in countries like Laos, and Vietnam.

21:57

Nicaragua, and China is the other one. And to speak on China for a moment China has gone on and offensive against poverty. In their country, they've they've gone on like a war on poverty, they've built infrastructure to like their stood the Belt and Road Initiative is not just being involved in other countries, it really want us to unify China, with high speed rail. And so because there's there's a lot of migration that happens from rural areas to big cities, for work, and so on. And folks go home to see their families and so on. So the thinking is, if we can connect more of rural China to the bigger cities, people, more people will have more more employment opportunities. And that is, in fact, what they're saying.

22:46

So they've gone into their countryside, and they've given them 5g and high speed rail, you know, at every, every one stoplight town. We can't say that at all. And I would say that, even if even, you know, in cases where it didn't monetarily pay off immediately, for the Chinese, like, when that town still built that whatever that was, and they have the power to do that. Because they're a one party state. They don't have to worry about saying, Okay, well, this in that district is under this that state,

23:19

we have to worry about this, and that regulation, and this and that politician is like, No, we have a vision, as a country, of having this unified China, this, you know, for the betterment of all of all of our people, there's no reason not to, other than maybe somebody throwing a fit about profit or, you know, personal, you know, getting in the way, personal construction projects, you know, getting in the way of you know, blah, blah, blah, I'm extrapolating, but the point I'm getting at is we wouldn't do that here. Because it wouldn't immediately pay off. There's not an immediate profit margin. And because political cycles are so fast, one person saying, Okay, well, you know, I'm going to invest in this, this Belt and Road thing for America. And they put all their chips in that, well, four years later, it's not paying off yet they're voted out of office, the next guy comes in and says, See government doesn't work and then shuts the whole project down.

24:15

And that what I mean is not to say that we should have longer election cycles, but what do you mean is the socialist model for for having governance be in the hands of the people is a more sustainable and sensible one simple rule than that, having a working class member,

24:32

being that be a be in those positions of leadership, first of all, keeps that that person close to the needs of their community, that that person comes from that community, nobody out of state is running, you know, that communities business, and they're subject to recall, anytime that person stops doing a good job, they don't have to wait the six years at the end of the cycle or whatever. And conversely, you don't have to be limited to just two terms if you really liked them and the

25:00

Doing a great effing job, like, keep them there. So it's a more direct democracy. It's a more immediate democracy. But they have the most the highest participation in government. And I think the world that China does, don't quote me on that.

25:16

I know they have a very high, I know, they have a very high voter participation rate. And ours is like crap, because we know that we're, we know that we're participating in this group system. So yeah, the other thing I want to say about China is that it's also a very different way of thinking. So the Chinese have a very, like long term strategy. It's much more long term over the course of many, many, many, many non years. We're talking decades, decades, generations here, like, whereas. Yes, really dynasties, if you will.

25:51

But, like here in America, I have noticed that we were very good at the short term thinking, and specifically short term thinking in terms of four quarters. So

26:05

right,

26:07

short term thinking right to the end of the bottom line, and that's no farther if we don't go any farther than that.

26:13

It is, it is pretty sad. And it's, you know, one of my first lessons in this was actually from my my father, who was ironically, very, very conservative.

26:26

Very conservative, Christian, and I don't, I wouldn't call him.

26:30

Well, I guess he was, yeah, I guess I'd say the capitalists, okay. All right, it, but I would say that it is in his heart as a person and a being, you know, he really did mean the, the, the virtues and ethics of Christianity, and he really tried to live that. So for him, he was a very egalitarian, very socialist person.

26:54

He was a very fair minded person, he was a very compassionate person. And, and to Him, there was, you know, time that anyone needed assistance or help, there's no question of the price tag it was you help the person this? That's, and that's a whole different way of thinking than what most of the other rest of America, I mean, and we did our

27:17

is basically this getting to a little point of frustration, because I'm like, Is it our fault? You've been lied to? And brainwashed, some of us have seen your way through it. But why can't the rest of us hurry up and get there?

27:30

But it's our it's our curse as visionaries, I guess, to be back.

27:36

I think I don't know if it's that or if because it does feel like there are more people sort of coming to this realization, it does really seem like that there are more people than ever really coming to like more gravitating at least towards a more socialistic ideology. Or even dare I say, a communist ideology, it does seem like that. We are seeing a bigger wave of people come toward, like, just sort of gravitate towards these. And I find that very interesting. From like, a sociological perspective, especially with the younger generations. So like, my generation, the millennials, and then like the even the younger ones, I find that very, very interesting. Ray, is so great. It's so refreshing. It is it's very, it's but it's so interesting, because it's like, I don't know, it's, it's very much like, I get the sentiment of like, well, if we can all see this, like, through if we can see the forest through the, through the leaves, then like, or the forest through the trees, excuse me, then like, why can't everybody else.

28:46

But I there is a part of me that can that like, strives to have empathy for the people that like still can't, because for a number, you know, numerous different reasons. But like one of them being I don't know how, how indoctrinated they were, I don't like because I'm a weirdo, like a self proclaimed weirdo. So, like, I get that, like, this isn't, you know, this is sort of off the beaten track. But like, I don't know how many other people are really, and it can be scary. And I try to give people sometimes the benefit of that doubt, of like that fear, you know, but that's why if we band together the thing, then it's a lot less scary because you're not just one person and I think that capitalism, that individualism, that rugged individualism is not

29:38

at this juncture at this crossroads in life, I don't see it being an asset. I see that being as baggage that we need to sort of let go of Absolutely. It's not it's more than that. It's it's actually toxic. And it's it's killing the whole planet pretty much

30:00

just trying to like finagle my my camera's settings here to see you, but okay. It doesn't matter. Technical difficulties. Fine. Um, yeah. Ah, so dealing with them. I'm sorry, we please repeat the question. Yeah, no, I just wanted you to like, kind of go back into like, what, like the countries that you were talking about that have like successful like socialist movements, right.

30:26

Yeah, sorry. Well, you mentioned earlier that China has just a very different way of being and thinking as a longevity and things of that nature, the so I'm very different way of thinking about each other. And I actually read a very, was a couple of books I'll throw out there, you're very right, that we have to think about the folks who've been brainwashed, and

30:50

be kind to them, be compassionate to them. So the first book I'll recommend is a book called I'm glad I did not write this. So bear with me. It's called strangers in their own land, fear and mourning on the American right, these by Arlie. Russell Hochschild, and it is incredible. She embeds herself, basically, in Louisiana, and like the back country, with some of the you know, the Fox News, serious right wing culture. And they're very, you know, they're very working class. They're very, you know, simple, just, they've lived on that land, or, you know, generations, they've hunted and trapped on it, and all this and then, you know, they

31:33

say, work for the oil companies, when the oil companies start coming in, they're like, Oh, we've got oil under this year swamp. So we're going to give you guys some great jobs, and we're gonna pay you a whole bunch of money. And but don't put any regulations on us. And don't let anybody in your politics put any regulations on because that's job killing. We won't have you know, we'll just go somewhere else, you can put regulations on us. But I mean, the oils right here, don't say anything. Don't let don't we'll just we'll go somewhere else. Yeah, it's, it's a big scam. It's like, as if they would go anywhere else they use the oil is there, they can't go anywhere else. But they pull this lie over on people saying that

32:08

these plastic companies, these oil companies, etc. Mining companies use a fuel and get these people thinking that, yeah, we can't regulate them, because that would be bad. Yes. And we're getting paid like, what, 60 bucks an hour, 70 bucks an hour, or whatever it was, to work for the oil company. This is great. Until the oil company leaves town until that play, or that shale play or whatever it was they were after is done. And when that happens, they're left with a valid infrastructure. Because there's, there's like a bunch of cheap housing that got built for oil rig workers, then they're left with, like a lot of crime, because Suddenly money's gone. And suddenly desperation goes up. And this happens, like all over the place all over the south, and basically all of these red areas, really, because as she talks about in the book, this is not my idea. She, she just goes over how these companies, companies move through these areas, and kind of influence the what's on the local news. They influence what obviously what Fox talks about the influence politicians and cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's, it's that lobbying culture of just going after profit, people's lives be damned.

33:26

And so her, her book kind of lands on this point of like, if we want to try to move forwards, as a people, as a nation, as a species, we need to do something called Bridge the empathy gap. That's her words. And I

33:43

was really just telling you, when I read this book, I wanted to throw it. It's really mad at these people who live in the swamp and took these great paying jobs. And, you know, didn't see that what it was what it was, you know, where they were quicklinks they were they were tricked. But they were tricked. They didn't see. So I mean, it's unfair to totally be mad at them if they honestly didn't see. So I really had to work that into my brain as a communist, because like, actually, one of my mentors really hit me on that one, like, don't be read live. It's not their fault.

34:15

They're boys, they're brainwashed, like, bear with them. And he got me to see that really, in a lot of cases, like the working class of the quote unquote, Fox News, right actually has more more to do with us than we think a lot more than radical liberals who are just bone grindingly difficult to discuss things with sometimes.

34:34

But she going back to Mrs. Hochschild book, she is very clear that these you know, the working class needs to come together and get over that, that division, because there really is no red versus versus blue, right? There's no right versus left. It's really just the rich versus all the rest of us. And socialism, I think, ultimately is the way we fight back against that. Yeah, yeah. And I was going to ask um,

35:00

So I have heard it said that there's no natural enemy of capitalism.

35:05

But I would, I would say, that's not necessarily true. What do you think?

35:14

Well, I mean, it depends on how you look at it.

35:19

In a sense, capitalism is its own predator. Capitalism is its own, you know, its own demise. So we're seeing that now. Yeah, right. As a system, as a system, it's just a complete disaster from one start from start to finish. It's, it's a system that relies upon one entity gobbling up all the other entities and being a big entity, but then what happens when there's nobody else to gobble up? And you know, this whole AI? Yeah. So natural. Is there a natural enemy of that system? Communism? Yes. Communism. And that's one of the reasons why, you know, I had mentioned,

36:02

once I had started to see this capitalist craziness that we're living in, I looked for its enemy. I was like, alright, this this systems function. So sorry, I shouldn't be swearing. I'm pretty bad. Okay.

36:16

This, this system is crap. It's freaking ridiculous. And it's killing people. And because it's got to be a better way. So, um, you know, I started looking at these different countries who would who had socialists models, and I started realizing, one of the key triggers for me was Vietnam, when I realized that Vietnam, democratically voted in a communist government, and then basically won the war by war of attrition. And

36:46

then when we left, they went right back to a communist government.

36:51

I was like, Ah, I think I need to understand that a little bit better. Because that seems like things don't make sense from what I was taught, you know, I mean, it just doesn't things don't add up here.

37:03

That's fine. Things are just in the atmosphere. They don't add up. I don't know why they're.

37:08

So So yeah, I started kind of looking into the history of these different socialist countries and like Cuba, for example, okay, was this poor country? Oh, it's this poor country, you want to go live in Cuba and socialist Cuba? Why are they poor? I wonder, could it be the 6070 years of embargo, illegal embargo that the United States has placed upon the country, because they're socialist, that maybe why they're a little bit less, quote unquote, rich than the United States like country about 7000 times its size, but you need to understand behind that embargo, they feed their kids, they send their kids to school, they create new vaccines for COVID, they create vaccines for lung cancer, you know, they're exporting doctors all over the world, et cetera, et cetera, don't fall in line because their system is sustainable for them where they are. And and it also allows them to give back because they're not what I mentioned earlier about the the tangent about explaining things about food is you don't have somebody sitting on one pile of a hill of beans, and it's just getting rotten, and nobody's eating anything and everybody's starving. Now, the Socialist model is to distribute that hill of beans more or less equally to the point of being prosperous, surviving.

38:19

Anyway, well, you know, not having to, to suffer through your life, you know, the, the upper middle class, you know, in Envisionment of, of the world, it's more or less how most of the socialists and communists that I know think of things, it's a matter of shared prosperity, it's not a matter of what we're going to take everybody's money and distributed. I mean, it is but it's not, you know, it's an extent it's like it's yeah, it's it's a bringing everyone up to a shared prosperity so that we can do like Cuba did, and even behind embargo, continue to build something that's bigger and better and makes the world a better place. Because it's not functioning on this death crap of this, this thing that has no natural predators other than its own self destruct disease.

39:04

Right. Right. Um, and I would say that like, so, to put it sort of, like, plainly, I guess,

39:14

think if like, so think about a society like this, where everybody has health care, everybody has child care, everybody can go to school, for whatever they want, whenever they want, and it's not gonna bankrupt you. Or you're not going to be in debt for the rest of your life.

39:32

There are you know,

39:36

private prisons don't exist. You know, everybody has food, everybody can eat. Nobody is wondering where their next meal is gonna come from. Everybody has a place to live. Nobody's worried about that. There's, you know, there's very, I mean, there are places like you know, I know for a fact in like Norway, like they don't have homeless people. It's not a thing.

40:00

Yang

40:02

you know, so but that's just that's just sort of like a very general idea of like what I mean by like, that's that's the vision of like, what socialism is. That's what Yeah, that's a vision of socialists, you know. And so it's it's really just like raising the standard of living for everybody in an equal way, all the way, like so that everybody everybody has access to like premium quality stuff. It's not just it's not, it's not this. And oh, by the way, we do have socialism here in the United States. It's called socialism for the rich and capitalism for everybody else. And it's not that hard to find, like, all those government handouts and bailouts that like corporations get that's socialism. Yeah, it's just socialism for the rich. And capitalism for everybody else kind of thing.

40:54

Exactly. You want to? Yeah, did you want Oh, no, I was just gonna say, I feel like when, when Marxism and socialism and communism were having their strong did their strong moment, I feel almost as though someone in the Davos crew, you know, decided, oh, that sounds like a really good system, we should use that against them. You know, we should have our own. But I don't know if it was like, I don't think it was exactly like that. But it turns out that if you if you kind of delve into some of these people, like let's say, the royal family, for example, is there anything that one of them could do to be exiled from the royal family other than be black, because apparently being little black is good enough to get you out of that family. But you can be like a total pedophile, and you can be a complete, like, just hell of a person. And that's okay. And what, what I'm driving at by saying that is that they band together, families, everything, family is everything. They don't, they don't leave their people behind. It's like a Marine Corps, like they just they brigade, they circle the wagons, and that's how they protect their wealth. That's how they protect each other. And that's how we should be as a socialist, as a as a working class, we need militant solidarity, like militant solidarity, they do not fuck with my brothers and sisters and family of the working class type solidarity. And that's something capitalism is really, really good at trying to break apart, they didn't like it and we stand together. So, in a way, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about this topic.

42:27

If so, like, obviously, in a capitalistic society, we don't really give a fuck about like the poor or the disabled. What happens to those people in a socialist society,

42:44

in a socialist society, because we recognize the value of human life and we're not.

42:51

Psychopaths, we take care of them was vulnerable. We believe in taking care of the elderly, taking care of the orphan, taking care of the disabled, we don't believe in leaving people on the street to die or leaving them to die in their kitchens because they could couldn't get insulin.

43:11

Socialists don't believe in letting mentally ill go homeless and and

43:23

we don't believe in letting people starve. We don't believe in having children who can't read. This is all suffering and austerity imposed by

43:32

rampant unchecked, completely predatory capitalism, that's been allowed to run our schools for profit, or healthcare for profit, or prisons for profit. And everything that should not be run for profit for profit is

43:47

captured. It's paralyzing. If you really think about the thickness of it all. Until you realize that we are bigger than they will ever be just way more of us. And they need us way more than we need them. We stop working. We just sit on our hands and say no more. We put our hands up and say no more. They come crying to us within a week. Remember, remember the lock downs? Remember the billionaires on the news crying about losing all their damn money? I do. I do. Because that was a beautiful minute. I really that was good television. I'm just saying. If you didn't see that clip, go check it out.

44:28

Billionaire tears are great. Just so yeah, it turns out that if we are sick or too sick to work, or we're not able to reproduce ourselves to a certain extent to keep up the workforce that we are they're there. They get their value from us. We are there. Well. It's us our labor. They don't have wealth without us. They have nothing without us.

44:55

And they know it. It's a very big game of

45:00

I have a it's a very big shell game of shadow play a

45:07

they're they're no different than we are, except that their ancestors took things by force that didn't belong to them. Yeah, I mean, and that's really the,

45:18

like, the truth of the matter is that's really what it comes down to is that, you know, I'm I'm big mean and scary. Yeah. And it's basically that idea of like, I'm bigger and meaner and scarier than you are. So therefore it's mine now and it's the No take backs rule. Yeah. You know, it's finders keepers and no take backs is that's basically what the rules are for. Forgot. It's great. Yeah, that's great. That's still primitive accumulation. Yes, that's that's the the nobles via of, you know, whatever, England or Germany or wherever, marching across fields and taking the land from the peasants and saying, Okay, I know, you guys all had your nice little village here, but now you're gonna be shepherds forever. Or you're gonna grow potatoes on this entire plantation? That sort of thing. Like it's capitalism is. Yeah.

46:11

Yeah, the saying is kind of funny.

46:17

I was gonna say something, I completely lost my train of thought, because that made me laugh.

46:25

Yeah, no, it is true. And to your Oh, just was gonna say to further,

46:30

your further your point. It's, it's not only No, take vaccines, and I'm bigger than me. It's scary. Now, they have worked it into that they actually have us believing of some of us anyway, because I've heard this argument at me that they somehow deserve it more, or that they're, well, if their ancestors made better decisions, than they're a better fit for the environment. I literally had that argued at me like, Ah, nice. makes my head hurt. Like right here. Yeah. Yeah. Like, did they deserve somehow to be that wealthy? Because their ancestors, better business choices? Ah, we're gonna have to have a discussion about business and capitalism. And we'll see how that all works. But whatever. Yeah, I couldn't believe I had that argued at me. But I really, really did like they are better people somehow, or their genetics are better somehow, because they made better choices, blah, blah, blah.

47:25

Oh, boy.

47:27

That's like that line of this is, and I don't, you know, I don't I don't want to like attack anybody's like system of belief or anything like that. But it's kind of like that system of belief that believes that, like, the more money you have, like, the greater chance you have to get into heaven, kind of thing. And I'm like, I don't think that's how it works. I'm pretty sure if there is a heaven, that's not how it works, right. And the founder of that whole concept or idea, really, the one who put that whole thing into popular vernacular, especially in this country is their favorite, John D. Asshole Rockefeller. Pretty sure asshole was the second middle name.

48:09

I guess he had this whole. Yeah, he had this whole big. Well, we know he was he was

48:15

just a born and tried and true capitalist. And he had this whole religion fixation. So somewhere in his little mind, he decided that in order to shake, like in order to square the circle, right, of being a rich, faithful person, it must be that his businesses are flourishing, because God favored him. And I wish I was kidding. When I tell you that do not it's in his biography, there's there's plenty of research that people other people have done about him. But he had this whole like religious fascination. And you might almost say it was a little pathological. I wonder why that could be seeing as he had children working in factories, and you know, people dropping dead from an unsafe working conditions, and so on, so on and so forth. You might almost think get the impression that maybe somebody was doing a little bit of mental gymnastics, to make to make it okay to be that fucking filthy rich. Ah,

49:16

he had this Yeah. This whole narrative that he further that's like, God wants us to be prosperous, you see. And it's, yeah, God does. If there's a God, who should be prosperous, but not at the expense and exploitation of like almost everyone else. Like that's not a workable system. Sir. That doesn't, doesn't work. Right. And that's something he didn't ever want to, to, to confront, obviously. Yeah. Well, I mean, I wouldn't want to confront that either, especially if I'd done the mental gymnastics to justify my own filthy richness, you know, I mean, and then and then, and then done the hard work of convincing other people that I wasn't crazy, you know, right. Right. Right, and that you are in fact better

50:00

than they are because you are richer than them. It is. That's what I mean. It's like really twisted. It's not like it's more than just, I'm taking this because I have a gun and you don't. It's also, I am also better than you, which is why I can take this with you from you. But with a gun and you shouldn't resist and you know, you should actually aspire to be like me one day, when a maybe you'll have a gun and you can take things from other people. Yeah.

50:26

Yeah. And then I mean, but then that's how you get the system that we're in now where it's eating itself, where it's called, it's called late stage capitalism. And that's, that's where we are now. That's what we're living through. That's why everything's awful.

50:40

Yes, exactly, exactly. And we talked about these kinds of things, and our wonderful communist coffeehouse. We go to theory for understanding of how to kind of like dissect what we're seeing, but just from a dialectical materialist standpoint.

50:56

And just from understanding the system of capitalism, which used Marx, could you explain what that is dialectical materialism? Oh, oh, yeah, that's easy. context. So, to put it, to put it shortly, bluntly, to the point, it's context, materialism is a very simple understanding that nothing in history makes sense except in context, meaning, your material conditions dictate how your life is, I mean, that makes me sound makes sense. If you are, if you are working in a mine from nine o'clock in the morning, until nine o'clock at night, you are going to be covered and called us and probably die of lung cancer, like way too young, that you read, that is your material existence that is affecting your life. And, and it's inescapable to you. And in much the same way, you know, your counterpart up in the big house, you know, with their, their wealth, and their money and all their titles, can live out a full long and healthy life, pushing their pencils around and doing whatever they do attending their balls because they don't get lung cancer, because you did. And that that's the whole that's a whole, like usury side that capitalists don't want to face and don't want to look at. And it's gross.

52:14

Yeah, yeah, it is. Um,

52:19

so okay, I have like a couple more questions, and then I'll let you go. I won't keep you in like, Oh, you're fine. Okay. Okay. So, within the socialist model, like what do you think would be the best way for people to like, like, the best

52:39

resources that people could get, like, if they want to go and look into like socialism, more like materials? What What would you recommend?

52:48

Wow, wow, it's such a big topic.

52:52

It's such a big topic that you could really come at from any number of angles, you could come at it from a historical angle, you come at it from the economic angle, from the philosophical angle, from the basic dialectical materials tangled,

53:05

the basically all of those things will lead you to the same conclusion. So we'll go from my sources, there's a lot of places,

53:15

cases is just marxists.org. There's, that's just a basic library of PDFs and essays. And it's not a very flashy website. It's just a simple, you know, text based website, but it will give you access to the writings and the letters and the essays of people like Stalin, like Lenin, like Marx angles, and all of them.

53:40

And so a lot of that is archived there.

53:44

Myself, and a very good comrade of mine. Well, he mostly runs this Discord server that we try to use for educational purposes, which you know, if you're interested in that we try to host

53:57

we have channels for like video articles and resources on different questions. We're still developing it to work in progress. But we kind of, we kind of build that off of our community that we create in what we've been creating and Twitter spaces. And that's where the whole you know, communist coffeehouse idea came in. And just a couple lines of that my some very good comrades of mine Aleem and moth, do a book club for learning. If folks wanted to drop in and start to learn

54:30

just from folks talking, you could ask questions, whatever and ask them for resources as well. You can hop into a Twitter space and learn from them we could we run Wednesdays and Thursdays from meet Eastern until whenever basically. So that's, that's available as a resource.

54:49

So if you want to get this chord, you know we have that

54:54

there are plenty of other discourse too. Oh my God, there's so many. There's so so many that are way more developed than ours. Um,

55:01

trying to think what else? There's plenty of videos on YouTube. Michael Parenti, as amazing series of videos you could watch. David Wolfe is a very good very sharp economist on subject, he leans a bit more towards the unions will save us all and a little bit less toward the communism part of things. But that's okay. I think he's, I think he's absolutely a comrade we love we loved him. But yeah, there are plenty of folks out there in this in this world who are trying to communicate this message, podcasts, March Madness podcast, go there, learn from those people, they're insane, they're hilarious to listen to. That is one of the easiest ways I got my first huge dose of theory, because I, I work in my car right now. And I get a lot of time to listen to this. And they go through the big texts, they go through the big guys, you know, they don't read the whole thing to you. But it's like a, like a CliffsNotes. They've put things in context, they tell you like, Okay, we're gonna sit down, and we're gonna read capitol, woof. Like, we're not gonna read that whole damn book, because just wow.

56:06

That's for people like them, not in me, because we're normal people.

56:11

But they have done it. And they give us a nice synopsis of it. And they explain it in terms of like, what was going on in the country at that time, what each person's going through at that time. I mean, these are important things to know, I think, to really wrap your brain around, if you're going to be a person who wants to really dig into socialism, I feel like you need to understand the players and the conflict of the playing field, where you're at. So history is very important to the development of that ideology as well. Um, what else? I did the red thread left is a good one, and I'll share it with the other one. Red Menace is another good podcast on it. That's it. I think I have all of them out there. Midwestern marks, Midwestern marks is a great resource. They're very simple spoken, they're on YouTube, I think they have a podcast as well. They are for as my mentor would would say he works with them. They are for regular ass people. So

57:09

that could be a good place to start as well. Oh, yeah, that would be great. Um, so yeah, I guess I just have one more question for you. And then I'll let you go.

57:19

What inspires you and what do you hope to inspire in others?

57:24

I even knew you're gonna ask me this question.

57:28

What, what inspires me? Well, there's a lot of places from which I draw inspiration.

57:35

Because the world is so beautiful and complicated and interesting.

57:42

I survived a near death accident that, you know, I should tell me, so in that regard, for me, life is

57:51

a second gift that is unique in a way now that I never saw before. So, for me, everything is is, is a source of inspiration. I, if I look at it hard enough, you know,

58:05

that has been in a place where there wasn't really very much inspiration to be had. And what kept me going, and together was was the hope that

58:16

it can be better that

58:19

you have to have that hope. That's that revolutionary discipline. Because if you don't, you die. And it's, it's a matter of staying alive. But if you're in prison, your first obligation is to escape. If you're dying, your first obligation is to live. And it's only when you've been beaten, and brainwashed and broken by systems like capitalism that are predatory to the human spirit. They are. Capitalism is by no means nature, natural to the human spirit. Don't let anyone ever tell you that it is not human nature. It's abysmal. I can talk about that from an evolutionary standpoint as well. Primates get along a lot better than people would tell them.

59:06

But that too, is a source of inspiration, you know, and

59:10

my comrades inspire me every day, I learned something new from these people. I've got comrades who come through the Communist Party outs that are from all over the world. And they inspire me, they Enlighten me. They just put me in awe, truly of their resiliency.

59:30

I know someone right now who's behind the blockades in Yemen, and

59:36

you want to talk about inspiration, you want to talk about hope.

59:41

What inspires me is that there's about a billion people in this world and more countless people who are suffering needlessly. And we know that if we can make this a better world, we know how to do it and we can do it. We have the resources. We have the technology, the wealth, all of it. And there are too many people

1:00:00

All who are being exploited by this system capitalism runs on murder, exploitation. Capitalism killed my family, on one side it brainwashed then it pretty much them against each other tore up the family. And then the other side.

1:00:19

You know, I had family that actually had a preexisting, you know, my father preexisting condition, he had a birth defect in his heart. You know, I've told the story in the coffeehouse many times, but

1:00:33

my father was born with a birth defect. And he was denied health care because of that preexisting condition. until it was too late. At the time that the ACA made it illegal to discriminate on that basis. He went into surgery for what should have been a very simple condition to correct and he's died on that table at the age of 49 years old.

1:00:55

And that's, that inspires me when I feel like giving up that inspires me, these bastards took the best person I've ever met.

1:01:07

And I know that they're taking the best person that tons of people have ever met right now. Like, I think 30 or 40,000, Americans still die every year from a lack of sufficient health care in place, this last figures I read, it's appalling.

1:01:26

That in spite that inspires me, What inspires me is I'm fucking furious. I'm serious. And, and I hurt for people that I can't help. Because I'm what one person, but I can be allowed as person and I can talk to people about what I think is, is maybe the best way out of this crap. I mean, I'm nobody brilliant. I'm just somebody from Michigan, us, you know, chilling, breeding people who are way smarter than me, they've got this figured out, they laid off the planet. Now we all get all we have to do is follow it.

1:01:57

So that's why I'm a communist. That's what inspires me. And what I hope to inspire, and others is a desire to learn.

1:02:03

Most of all, I hope to inspire a sense of compassion. Because I feel more than anything. If I came back to this life for any reason whatsoever, it would be to

1:02:15

remind people that

1:02:19

that your connection to other people is really what you are, you are defined by your connection to other people, you can't define yourself without talking about other people, you just can't.

1:02:30

You're you are your connection to others. And the sooner we all realize that, the sooner that concepts like hoarding wealth will make no sense. Because by doing that, you're only hurting yourself.

1:02:44

You know, that, that evolution of spirit is what I hope that we can all have as, as we move forward as a human species. I hope

1:02:56

this has helped, because I feel that I feel that if people can have a sense of compassion, that they will not allow such things, such things as this awful system to keep going.

1:03:08

That's, that's a painful boy, it's a painful way to bear that sense of compassion, especially in a system that is exploitative. So it's a hard truth. And I know that and I don't mean to ramble, but when I talk to others, and and I find them resisting, I know why instinctually because the knowledge that I'm trying to share with them, it's very painful knowledge to hack. And

1:03:33

I understand that I don't want to have either I wouldn't be teaching science. I won't be talking about dialectical materialism on a Tuesday night, you know, I wouldn't be you know, smoking weed my friends and chilling out but

1:03:45

what we're here in this position, because capitalism has forced our planet to the edge to where it will soon no longer be habitable. These people think that they have machined it or gamed it such that they're gonna survive what's coming and they won't. But you know,

1:04:02

anyway, when I hope to inspire others is a will to survive a fire to fight back. And compassion for others who are less well after themselves.

1:04:15

You definitely inspire me. Inspire me all the time.

1:04:21

Crying.

1:04:23

Yeah. It's just you.

1:04:26

Thank you so much for coming. Oh, my gosh, I won't keep you any longer on this Tuesday night. Oh, but

1:04:35

oh my god.

1:04:36

Thank you.

1:04:40

Thank you. Yeah, tell everybody where they can find you again. Just one more time. Yeah. So I am I m r e, d d underscore, f o r e v e r r. Read forever with two consonants at the end.

1:04:57

You can also just search for read Ironheart

1:05:00

should find me. And

1:05:02

that's that's really it. That's, that's all I have to share at the moment. Maybe in the future. We'll do more. Maybe there'll be some artwork later on down the line to see. But we're not there quite yet. We'll get there. Yay.

1:05:15

You as always, you can find me on Twitter at MP where to podcasts. You can find me in reds room. You can find me in all podcast spaces. I'm all over the place on Twitter. But you can also follow me on Tiktok and Instagram. Don't judge me the underscore main underscore weirdo one. You can also email me if you liked what I said. If you didn't like what we said. Email me Manic Pixie weirdo@protonmail.com Let me know what you think. And I will get back to you. But thank you guys so much for listening. Thank you so much red for coming on. I really appreciate and I love having you.

1:05:48

As always guys, be kind and Stay weird. Have a good one. Good night. Thank you