We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's

happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this

world, there's room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's

souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left

us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too

much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we

need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will

be lost. Welcome to Rabble Rants. I'm Santiago Gelo Quintero, and alongside Jess McLean, We're

going to unpack the stories that have us most riled up and challenge the narratives around

them. Welcome to Rabble Rants, we have two guests with us today. I'm going to take a back seat

in this discussion, maybe, who knows if I can keep quiet or not. Either way, we've got two

guests that you may have heard before if you are an avid listener. Kim Crawley joins us

again as does Bothered Boy and they are taking on mask bands or potential mask bands anyway.

Kim, why'd you call us into the studio? You wanted to talk about this. Yeah, I mean, I

really like the recent episodes that you've done covering the various, you know, acts of

Palestinian resistance, which is obviously extremely important because we've got kind of a Holocaust

going on now, which is really, really disturbing. And then coinciding with that, what's also

really disturbing is the COVID pandemic is still raging on. And yet like, 98, 99% of the population

has chosen to be completely oblivious to it. And it's really sad how many people who call

themselves anti-capitalist and leftist are also acting oblivious to it and spreading it around.

And really that's really disturbing as well. And then what's also disturbing is although

we don't... Okay, there's the mask ban in North Carolina. and a mask ban apparently in Ohio.

That's really, really disturbing to me, really disturbing. And then what's also disturbing

is that apparently, I haven't been to any of the Pro-Palestinian protests in Toronto, I'll

admit, but I hear things, thanks to your show and thanks to other people who go to these

actions, which is really important. And I hear things like, even though masks aren't spend

per se here in Ontario and here in Canada, if you're protesting wearing a mask, you could

get, you know, if the cops are really targeting you, you could get, you know, extra charges

for that, apparently. You would know more about that than I would, but it's very disturbing.

It is. So we've interviewed two people and not everybody char- talks about their charges all

the time. So we know at least two activists in the last like three weeks in Toronto alone

were charged with unlawfully, were charged with unlawful assembly while masked. And this was

an additional charge put on top of, you know, trespassing charges, mischief charges, whatever

the cops decided to charge them with after the direct action. And it's really been weaponized.

The one guest we had on Anna Lippmann, like we're talking about an N95 because it was a

sit-in inside an office building where one should still be expected to wear masks. I know that's

not the norm, but yeah, it's certainly been weaponized against the movement. Well, it's

been weaponized and vilified in all sorts of ways. So, you know, hi folks, Bothered Boy

here. I'm here, you know, at the invitation of Kim and Jess to just rant and I do that

very well. So for me, a big part of like COVID consciousness as well is how it was attacked

from so many angles. You had people saying, you know, that face masking, like to try and

target the insecure men, it's a face diaper, it's emasculating, it's babyfying. You had

people saying, like, as we're seeing now with the cops, it's all about criminality. Well,

you know, only criminals. hide their faces and I'm like, and people saying like, you know,

how can you possibly breathe in the mask? And a coworker said this to me recently and I said,

because I knew it would get under his skin from what I was going to say. I said, well, I mean,

if you're not a weak ass little baby about it, it's pretty easy actually. And he did not like

being called a weak ass baby. And that just kind of sort of reinforces my point, right?

And you know, people thinking, well, you know, oh, it's so difficult to breathe as if we don't

wear scarves to cover our faces. in winter, this is Canada for God's sake, right? And then

you also have people like, I remember it's like seared into my mind the first time I saw one

of those, you know, part of the plandemic, so you know, they're gonna get you wearing masks,

and then next thing you know, you're wearing a niqab and then a burqa and the full Islamization

of the West is complete. I'm like, where are you connecting these threads? Cause I just

do not see it. You're trying to attack people's fragile sense of ego and self and masculinity.

You're trying to attack, also people try to attack the validity of masking, saying, oh,

it doesn't really work. It's not important. You know, the vaccine, it's fine. And that's

why, you know, it's just a cold wind. Really it's not. It's a cardiovascular disease. And

you know, and only criminals really need to hide their faces. It was so much of a multi-pronged

attack for you should not wear masks. And at the same time as whether it was politicians,

corporations, the goddamn WHO itself that were pushing this idea of like, oh no, that's okay.

In their own back rooms, and you see like internal memos that have since been released, or in

this case really leaked to the public, they knew from the onset that this was airborne

and that they had to mitigate it. So they either had people doing like, basically what we saw

at Davos that one year where it kind of became like more talked about. That's what some of

these people in corporations were doing from the beginning. It was contact tracing up the

wazoo. And if you, you know, we're sick, well, sorry, you're staying home and then masking

inside. And then also HEPA filters all the time, mandatory vaccination for pretty much everyone

in there, which is again, as well, like, Oh, they're, they're not taking the vaccine. Actually,

I guarantee you many of them have. And then if they have the few that haven't, if they

have bad symptoms, then they, you know, throw the whole kitchen sink like what they did for

Tim pool and Joe Rogan and all these other guys who got it. And also crucially, something else

that has not been talked about as much, but you do see that at least a few airports now

is Far Ultraviolet that has been used to also help kill the airborne pathogens, whether it's

COVID or just anything. That was at Davos. That was at several portable versions, at least

were at several government conferences that were happening. So it would not be surprising

to me if at like more conference rooms, you would see that in these like larger, more open

areas where it's kind of impractical to have, say, 10 or more HEPA filters around. But this

is what they were doing from the start. And meanwhile, they're telling all of us for a

variety of reasons, whatever reason they hope will stick, that we should not be masking and

that it's actually bad or unhealthy or criminal to mask. So that then begs the question of

why are they pushing that so hard? And there are multiple correct answers to that. But it's

just so... deeply infuriating. Absolutely. And yeah, I mean, the news about the World Health

Organization knowing it was airborne from the beginning and how they covered it up. Did you

see the February 2020 press conference? There's all kinds of YouTube videos about it out there.

Where Tedros, I can't pronounce his last name, but you know who I'm talking about. Tawadros.

Yeah. I can't pronounce his name, I'm sorry. It's all good. And then his boss, Mike Ryan,

or he's Mike Ryan's boss either way. OK, if you look it up on, I think I've already given

just so linked to us, like the last episode that we did. We did where they let it slip.

Yeah. So Tedros said, it's very contagious, is airborne. And then Mike Ryan walks up to

him and whispers in his ear something that you can't hear on microphone. And then a few moments

later, he says, sorry, I didn't mean that. That was the military word. Droplets. Droplets is

the term we're supposed to be using. Yeah. And then in late March 2020, the official who Twitter

account tweets. This is a myth that COVID is airborne. Meanwhile, they were upgrading their

facilities in Geneva and elsewhere with like, yeah, all sorts of HEPA and whatnot. And. And

I even knew it was airborne from SARS-1. Let's get back to the news that kind of brought us

into the studio, that in North Carolina, the Republicans are pushing through legislation,

and it's actually passed through the Senate now with a 30 to 15 vote. So it's a popular

bill that they are going to ban the use of masks in public. And like... There's almost no exceptions

here. Like they wouldn't allow cancer patients. Except for the KKK. Do you mean the police

or specifically the KKK? Oh, yeah. Yeah. But you see, when they wear, when they wear the

white clothes and all that, they're KKK. And then when they take that off and they put the

police uniform on, then they're cops. So whether they're a cop or a Klansman depends on which

costume they're wearing that day. I mean, I would be willing to bet good money. that if

there was a, you know, what are the like weird fascists in the states that go around like

marching? They all wear the same uniform, like Patriot front or something like that. I've

got names for them, but I'm not sure they're official. OK. Well, in any case, there's like

that group that I know like parades around and they wear masks to understandably hide their

identity. I'd be willing to bet money that if and when they do a rally in North Carolina.

They will not be charged for, you know, like, oh, they're wearing masks and it's like, oh,

it's going to be fine. I would also like listeners to keep in mind that North Carolina also has

a significant black population. And that is the population that is going to be most directly

affected by this legislation, both in terms of criminalizing black people, especially black

youth. And also, we know for a fact that given all the data sets that we have, black, indigenous,

just people of color across the board have poor health outcomes in part due to poverty and

like medical racism. So this is also going to further hurt those communities from not just

like criminalization point of view and feeding them to like the prison industrial complex,

but also from like very real and problematic and entirely preventable health outcomes for

these communities. And I just want listeners to be aware of that and cognizant of that.

Yeah, and then I would presume also like a white person wearing a respirator is a lot more likely

to be left alone. If you are visibly marginalized, then you're a lot more likely to be targeted.

Yeah. Especially because it's couched in this safety language, right? They're trying to say,

this isn't about health. We're not... trying to punish sick people. I know we know that

that's what's going to happen. We're going to make people sick and die, but that's really

not the purpose. You know, it's because people are trying to hide their identity while protesting.

Like they're saying the quiet part out loud as well. That part that they don't like the

fact that they're not able to identify us at a glance with their the software and all of

the stuff that they have at their use, because. The great thing about the one of the great

things about the Palestinian solidarity movement is the high use of masks, the understanding

of like solidarity being a verb and not being a part of it. Like that has been clear from

the get go. And they don't like that, right? That's can't keep fighting for Palestinian

liberation. If you all knock yourselves out, you know, kill yourselves with a virus and,

and then like, kill yourself, you know, incapacitate yourselves with long COVID and whatnot. And

then what I hear also is that in Gaza, like I'm sure Gaza is a constant horrific hellhole

and we've seen enough photos and video footage and whatnot. It's incredibly disturbing and

nothing sure of a Holocaust really, what's going on there. But the ones that don't get killed

by bombs or, you know, collapsed buildings or like an IDF guy actually sniping at them or

whatever. The ones that don't are dying from COVID and other viral illnesses a lot of the

time. And right now, famine as well. And famine, yes. But Jess, what you were just saying reminded

me of something else about, you know, mask bands and sort of the... double edged sword of dastardliness

that it is because it's a really easy thing for Republicans to do that satisfies their

base, right? It's just like mask ban. Haha, that'll show them woke liberals. On two fronts,

right? On the anti-vaxxer, anti-mask front and the, you know, what the fuck are these protesters

doing? Well, yeah. So like there's that element of like it's a really simple, easy win with

a very red base. Um, but the real win is as we're saying about like software and everything

like that, there was like a story, I forget where it was, but it was somewhere in the States

where people re there was like a, um, a mishap with a vending machine and like the employee

break room or whatever. And it turns out there was a camera in the like vending machine that

was just like, and it's like, why does the vending machine need a camera? And there was like no

reason for it to. be there or like at the level that it was other than to, you know, observe

and listen in on, you know, conversations in the break room or to, you know, train on facial

recognition. And then that reminded me that like, you know, we know that this is part of

it as well as like, you can't recognize faces with masks. And that's why more and more places

are trying to criminalize it. But then I also remembered about how there was that. trend

a while ago where people realized that facial recognition software couldn't recognize jugalo

makeup. So a bunch of people were saying, oh, you know, this is how the revolution begins.

Everyone's going to, you know, be whooping, drinking Fanta and, you know, like with the

jugalo makeup. And then handily, there was an app that came out that went semi viral, whereas,

hey, what would you look like with jugalo makeup? Like with this filter. And suddenly facial

recognition can tell. in spite of jugular makeup with a mask that is still much harder to do

because you're functionally changing the shape of your face and you're hiding like anywhere

from half to you know two-thirds of your facial data. Yeah but you know what I've seen something

online recently like data that shows that wearing sunglasses is harder for facial recognition

software than not wearing sunglasses

Oh good, I'll cover it on all fronts. So they're not banning sunglasses. Wait for it. I'm sure

they will. They will find a reason. That will be the next thing to be criminalized. It's

like only criminals wear sunglasses when they don't need to. It's, you know, like, we need

to train our eyes for sunlight. You know, our beautiful eyes that God gave us and the sun,

which is also his creation. You don't need sunglasses or glasses at all, folks. Like I'm... I hate

putting that energy out there, but I'm gonna live to see that. Oh God. I want to ask him

though, cause she didn't develop on that. Why then? Right? If, if their motivator isn't all

about being able to identify us, right? Cause like they could easily focus on other things.

I think it might get even darker than that. I think maybe facial recognition is definitely

a factor, right? Not just the software, but maybe a respirator makes it harder for a cop

firsthand to track us. But also, I think that some of these people really want us to be infected.

They really want us to be infected. So that would be another factor. And then another factor

is... A lot of these people, and even liberals, even liberals, and even some leftists, disturbingly

enough, hate seeing us wear respirators because that reminds them of the pandemic. And so whereas,

you know, you and I, we see a respirator and that's comforting. That's comforting that someone's

wearing a respirator to see them wearing a respirator because we know that we're a lot less likely

to get sick in their presence. Whereas if you're one of the masses, you see a respirator and

you think, oh no, I was trying to get this pandemic that I've been trying to push out of my head.

Now it's reminding me again. And then one thing that really, really bothered me starting last

year was the assumption that if you're wearing a respirator, that means you're sick. Yeah.

I mean, it could be. Yeah, it could be. And if you do feel under the weather and you do

have to go, I mean. please fucking wear a mask. Yeah, definitely if you have an infected disease.

That's self-centered people. Well, I guess you're protecting someone in the end. But the thing

is, on average, the people, the 1% of us or less who consistently wear respirators in public

are a lot less likely to be infected. And these people in the masses all the time, they go

out and they're infected, they may or may not know it, nothing there. Like the people spreading

the disease are the people with naked faces.

The corporations and the government and all that, they've all kind of colluded to demonize

masking and all of this pretend the pandemic is over shit did not occur overnight. It took

like a gradual process of propaganda and acclimatizing people. to all of this. That almost started

right at the beginning. Yeah, yeah. Before, right? Trump was like, there's no pandemic,

there's no pandemic, okay, there's a little pandemic, okay. You know, like, oh. I'm doing

amazing at dealing with the pandemic. No one's dealt with the pandemic better than me or America,

God bless America. Very good. Thank you. I've had years of practice. The. The other thing,

sort of expand on that point about, you know, why they want to sick and infected is the same

with why they got us working longer and longer, because if you have free time, you have time

to think, stop and enjoy. And then you want those things more often. And then you're not

putting more money into the pockets of capitalists. And they don't want that. That's part of why

we were rushing to get back to normal. And why that was the term used is because We need to

get back to you giving me all your days and your labor and risking your life to make me

and about 800,000 other people in the world, fantastically, supremely wealthy. And that's

where a lot of this starts, right? Like there's, there is this assumption with like, within

certain circles, whether it's leftist circles or far right wing circles, that there's a grand

conspiracy. And I'm just kind of very banal and a bit of a basic bitch about this. Um,

98% of all problems in the world and conspiracies can be boiled down to the simple fact of existence

that we are on a planet that is governed by sociopaths, well, rich sociopaths, that are

having to interact and deal with other rich, greedy sociopaths. And that just kind of explains

the bulk of everything and whatever can't be explained by that is explained by things like

misogyny and racism. That's pretty much my view of how the world works. Bo Burnham ain't got

nothing on me. That being said though, it is interesting how the push towards avoiding any

kind of responsibility, like for us, as we said, it's sort of more comforting or reassuring

that seeing someone else is masking their taking it seriously, both for their health, the health

of their family members, their community, their friends, everyone, right? And someone somewhere

summed it up so beautifully in a comment that... The reason why people like us get a lot of

pushback for that is because a lot of other people like to think that they are good people,

but under the current Western system are on some level fundamentally selfish. And so they

think of themselves as a good person and seeing a reminder that they're not being as good as

they could be makes them feel bad and they don't want to feel bad or guilty. And rather than

sit and like, you know, unpack that and sit with that, it's rather, you know, some other

reason for like, Oh, why are you still wearing that? It's over. So it says the who or my family

or me. And you know, like, I just really need to get back to life because I was getting too

depressed and like, no one wants to unpack all of that. It's just, I think I'm a good person

and you know, probably lots of other people said you are a good person and I think most

humans are on some level neutral to good, most humans that being said, when it comes to a

time like this, that's really kind of like Okay, time to put your morals and values to the test.

A lot of people will fail because we are in this capitalist system that promotes, you know,

greed, individualism, the immediate reward, convenience. And when that is called into question

and is removed and we've been accustomed to it from day one, that makes it really challenging.

And unfortunately, that's also why places predominantly in Asia, and especially the communist parts

of Asia. had the best response to the pandemic. The communist parts of India were the first

to get their act together, to get contact tracing underway, to get supplies and a real sense

of community to the rest of their people in places like Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. You

had the Vietnamese and the Chinese and the Lao constantly just like, oh, hey, you know what?

If this really gets through to us, it's going to absolutely ravage us, and we don't want

that. And in general in Asia, particularly, East and Southeast Asia, there is more of a

sense of community. And so like when people heard, oh, masking will help. That's why I

still to this day in so many videos. And I see this from like white tourists who go like,

you know, oh, we're traveling post pandemic now. And here I am in, you know, Malaysia,

Vietnam, China, Japan, wherever they're going. And still the vast majority of the locals there

are masked. I see it in videos from India. I see it in videos from Japan, Korea, China,

Vietnam, wherever. And It's like, buddy, are you not picking up the vibe? Everyone else

is messing. That doesn't mean most of these people are sick or that they're scared. It's

that they care about their communities, which includes their friends, their family, their

loved ones. Like it is so deeply infuriating. I even found that with umbrellas. You will

find often I lived in Scarborough and people. from Hong Kong would often carry umbrellas

in sunshine. And most Canadians would look and mock, you know, maybe not openly, but be like,

oh, don't you know it's not raining? And it took us a while. I think we're slowly coming

around to the idea that we get damaged by the sun and there's just like some small steps

you can take to not constantly be exposed to the sun. But it feels like we still have taken

it as seriously as other folks, right? And it becomes something to almost, yeah, not admire

them for, but rather think that they're being silly or overzealous. Right. And it's that

whole mentality that, oh, you're going to die anyway. Little small things can't make big

changes. Right. So. That seems to be a cultural expanse that I don't know what it stems from,

but both community and personal responsibility for your own health and doing kind of things

that might be deemed convenient because I just carried an umbrella all day today. It ain't

fun. My glasses, they do, they fog up when I wear the mask. I pinch my nose more, but there's

some sunglasses I wear. They're just awful. And... It's an inconvenience. I don't like

it, but I do it. So you need to have people that are willing to do that. Yeah, like you

said, like the whole convenience culture is just, we want it as easy as possible, as fast

as possible. And don't tell me I can't do something, you know, that becomes... I'm perplexed why

even completely selfish, self-centered people have bought into the propaganda and aren't

masking because... There's so much research now like COVID eats the mitochondria in your

cells. COVID fuses brain cells together and shit like that. And apparently, but now there

are a few diseases that have so much research about them than like SARS-CoV-2. And so you

would think that people, even out of pure self-preservation, would be wearing a respirator. But the only,

the only, I think your average person is deliberately avoiding the information. When, when, you know,

when our politicians and media outlets and whatnot said, Oh, you can take off your mask now. That's

what they wanted to hear. That was the comforting lie. Right. It makes me so sad. I don't leave

home very often, but when I do, I think like a month ago, I walked from home to U of T campus.

This was before maybe it was six weeks ago. This is before the Palestinian the Palestinian

solidarity movement was gathered in Milan before that. But I walked over there and on my way

and that's a long walk. It's like a 90 minute walk from here. And on my way walking to U

of T St. George campus, I probably passed hundreds of people, and maybe I probably passed, you

know, five, six, seven people in masks on my way, walking down the sidewalk. And every single

one of those, I think, was a surgical mask. And that just... blows my mind because you

would think the one, two percent of the population who realize that the pandemic is still ongoing

and they should be protecting themselves would spend five minutes researching on the internet

about how, you know, surgical masks don't really do very much. And even like if you can't afford

to, you know, I can understand, like I've been really poor. I can understand. that buying

a bunch of 3M auras when you can only get economy scale if you buy 20 of them at a time, that

could really be difficult for someone who's on OW, like near impossible. But you can contact

a mask block, and there's a mask block in Toronto, and they will give you respirators. So there's

those. Also, again, reminder from possibly pre-recording, I have masks. So if anyone needs some, contact

your friendly, local, neighborhood, bothered boy. And they're N95s? Or they're KN94s or

N99? I think they're a form of N95. I'm pretty sure. I will double check. But there's also,

I get to shill a charity here in Canada. The donate a mask project slash Epsa can charity

if you do not have funds It is their like mission and goal to still get masks to you In fact,

they have a great little sampler pack So you can try like a whole bunch of different kinds

of masks and respirators to see which one works for you And so some people find oh, you know

what the flow is great and others say flows not really for me But then like they really

like another one. So it's great. Love them Support your local people who are still taking this

seriously so once again, that is the donate mask project and Epsa can either one of these

search terms should turn you up stuff on like I know they're on Twitter I don't know if they're

on like blue sky or Instagram or Facebook But like, you know, just go online your web browser

type those up you have a website there. Yeah, and Yeah So so, you know, there are thankfully

people in organizations and organizations still doing this work. These are things that our

government should be doing, but they're not. And apparently the Ontario government or the

Ontario health care system is sitting on a massive stockpile of N95s. Well, because we can't go

back. We can't go back to that. No, people won't have it. So we're done with masking forever

and always. No, could you imagine Doug Ford's base if he started handing out masks at this

point? So let's talk about that, the possibility of Canadian governments following suit, conservative

governments, right? Because North Carolina is about to do it, it's going to go through. I

can only imagine Florida was like, well, that sounds like a great idea. And then a few other

southern states are likely working on this, I am sure. And law enforcement. they're salivating.

But can we see Canadian governments doing this, especially if it doesn't get a lot of blowback?

It seems popular to their base. I would put money on the Blaine Higgs government of New

Brunswick doing it. That'd be my bet for like who's going to be the first, either them or,

you know, the stock standard usual favorite of the UCP in Alberta. It's one of those two.

And like It's really unfortunate because it sort of goes back to that earlier point about,

um, you know, it's an easy win with the base to distract from problems. Right? So, you know,

there's Daniel Smith and Albert and Blaine Higgs just being like, all right, you know what?

I've absolutely botched healthcare and I've completely botched the economy and it's proper

recovery. And, oh, look at that. Um, the things that I said that I was going to do, you know,

take care of the economy, that's not doing so hot. So. I need distractions. What can I do

that's going to be a hit with my base that's not going to impact my major donors? So, I

know, let's target the minorities. So hit them with some indigenous racism, hit them with

some anti-LGBTQ legislation, hit them with something unnecessarily divisive trying to drive a wedge

between you and another province or you and the federal government. That is the standard

playbook for Higgs and Smith in this country. And we all have to, unfortunately, deal with

it because they have majority government. So we're stuck with them for a few more years.

But those would definitely be my bets for who would try and do this first to really try and,

like, distract from the other awfulness that is happening and plaguing their respective

provinces. Yeah, I could see Doug Ford also trying this because he is relished in the criminalization

and demonization of pro-Palestinian movements. And since they're able to frame this as a law

and order kind of safety, because they're not saying it's a health thing at all. Like we're

talking about it from a health perspective, but they're talking about it from a protect

you from these scary protesters. And if, yeah, that can score them some political points at

this time, as well as serve as a blow to the movement. Because Anna Lippman was on and she

made a great point. And reading one of the quotes here from the article on the North Carolina

case, where one of their Democratic senators says, you're making careful people into criminals.

And by targeting organizers with extra charges relating to masks, you're sending a message

to everyone they work with, right? And so that's gonna... start to weigh on people when they

go into spaces, especially folks who like, well, we all should be wearing a mask, but some people

absolutely have to, you know, like it's just not a choice. They are not going to participate

if the folks around them aren't masked, if they can't wear a mask without worrying about getting

charged by police. And so it'll have the effect of isolating people again. Right? Like so much

work has been done, I think, by especially the disabled community, to remind organizers to

be conscious, COVID conscious in their planning and just seeing the movement the way that it

is and the focus on masking now. It's just, I'd hate to see that work go backwards and

for folks to have to then go back to home. Although there's ways you can participate in the movement

from home, but you know, it's just... It could be incredibly isolating and you don't want

anyone having second thoughts going out into these actions right now. Like we need to encourage

as many people to participate as possible. So that's really chilling when folks hear that

news. Like we're trying to even decide, do we talk about this? Like will this scare people

out of doing actions or wearing a mask now? You know, should a law be passed? Like what

do those folks do?

It just opens up the amount of times two people will call the cops on other people. Like, you

know, it's one thing to snicker at someone wearing a mask or say something rude behind them in

line, like, oh, I thought COVID was over or whatever. You know, the harassing people guy.

I'm sure we've all experienced it, right? That would just explode, right? And not only that,

they feel these, these Karens that we love to call them, would feel no ways about calling

the cops, about seeing anybody with a mask. You know, and we know what happens when the

police respond to masked individuals. So they're going to roll up on a like a disabled person

in a wheelchair or in crutches and just like wearing a mask, like you're looking very criminal

and I'm going to lose my shit when that inevitably happens. On that note, like another thing that

I wish more people internalized is. Listen to. disability advocates and disabled people because

how they are impacted is the ultimate end goal, the forced poverty, the lack of health and

support and services and the disdain for their existence. That's where this is all headed.

And that's why it's all interconnected. And that's why a lot of our leftists, like, you

know, homework, I'm not saying us three like need to do, but... Like the groups and circles

that we run in still need to do a lot of work of actually listening to and accommodating

and respecting disabled people in our circles. Cause I've seen way too much awfulness over

the past few years. Like even, you know, when like we should still be taking it seriously

now, but I remember even in like 2022, just two years into it, not even there were people

where, you know, disabled people would say, so like, what are you doing to make the space

safe? and accessible and it's like, well, you know, just can't really do that for reasons.

Or like some discourse that happened recently of like, you know, you owe it to train and

there I am thinking like, OK, buddy, if you want to train, that's fine and that's good.

You can't force it on everybody because not everybody has that capability that time. Like,

it's such a point of privilege to say that not everyone's role in the revolution is going

to be a fighter. You know, like it's yeah. You mean when you say train, you mean like workout?

Like, yeah, I saw that go around that discussion. That's so ableist. How people can't realize

that. Ableist, fatphobic. It's just like, oh, my God. People who say that haven't organized

with this is the disabled community. And I cannot believe this day and age that there are movements

and organizations out there like the NDP. that don't realize the resource that they have pissed

off. Like forget that they're fucking people, right? Like you shouldn't treat people like

that. But it's an incredible resource of talent and drive and commitment, honestly. Like that,

and any politician or any movement that leaves them out of the equation is doing themselves

a huge disservice, huge. because all these things are interconnected. It was a really hard lesson

to learn and much harder for a lesson for you to learn because you were so much more involved

for so much longer. But it doesn't seem like the NDP's reason for existing is to fight for

the marginalized. Their reason for existing is to take any sort of leftist needs and sentiment

and activism and... contain it in a way that it's not going anywhere and it's not going

to have any sort of practical change. It's like kind of how I feel now that electoral politics

in general and voting is to pacify the masses into thinking that they're doing something.

I have a good analogy because recently people have talked about the ratcheting effect of

politics where it always ratchets to the right and then liberals never really do anything

to really fix it. For me, this was not new. I was told this by like my salty as fuck history

teacher. I forget her name was Miss Kershen or something, but like from high school, right?

It's like I knew this in the 2000s like oh, ratchet effect. Interesting. But that usually

only applies to a two-party system. So like I found a new way to talk about the NDP's purpose

here. So the conservatives are the ratchet that ratchet things to the right. The liberals prevent

it from being moved to the left in any meaningful capacity. The NDP's purpose is to serve as

the waterproofing. They are there to prevent actual meaningful leftist organization and

orgs that could whittle away at the ratchet or the like, you know, part that's holding

it in and thus like allow the system to eventually fail and crumble and thus need replacing. So

that is the purpose of the NDP in Canada. It is the waterproofing to the ratchet of politics.

That's that's beautiful. I love that. That makes perfect sense. Definitely. Thank you. Subscribe

for more silliness. I'm not even going to comment because my audience, my audience has heard

me rate rage on the NDP enough. I think they've heard all of my theories and yeah, they're

counter revolutionaries. Side note, in case I don't get to talk about this elsewhere, we're

Jamie. What? I probably might even edit. Jamie West shows his face at the emergency rally

today at the University of Toronto encampment. And I see him there in his bright orange windbreaker

and the sight of him there already, I am getting worked up. And Santiago is trying to pretend

to be like, okay, he's being like real media. He's got his press pass. He's in with the media

people. And I'm like kind of holding his umbrella over him. I'm the protester, he's the media,

right? We can't mix, but we are. Anyway, I said to him, I don't know what I'm gonna do if he

takes the stage, Santiago. I mean, I'll move away from you so I don't damage your press

creds, but I don't think I'm gonna be able to contain myself. And he just kind of gave me

this like nervous chuckle. You're so funny, honey. You're so funny. Sure enough, he took

the fucking mic. He thought it would be appropriate to take the fucking mic. I mean, they gave

it to him. He didn't take it and make a sound. But he got up there and he talked about how

he knew how solidarity was a verb. He knew how important it was to stand beside people, even

it was tough. And I fucking heckled the shit out of him. I could not help myself. I was

Barry Weiss all of a sudden. And, um, yeah, I. didn't handle it well, but then everyone

started chanting, reinstate Sarah Jama, reinstate Sarah Jama. I was gonna say, because. Because

I said, like, how, where were you when Sarah Jama needed you to stand beside her? How can

you stand at the mic? Why couldn't you do and stand beside her in the legislature? You know,

like, I was just so, he was there to like orange stamp this, as though like the NDP had been

with them from the beginning and it was such a load of shit. He couldn't even say that though

at the end of his speech, you know what he said? He didn't say, you know, the NDP is with you.

And of course he focused on the fact that they were trying to fire people and not the fact

that Palestine should be free. But anyway, he says that labor stands with you because he's

the labor critic. He couldn't even he couldn't even accurately say obviously that, oh, and

I'm here to say that the Ontario NDP stands with these students and their right to protest

or anything watered down like that shit. He didn't because he couldn't. But anyway. Don't

let people like that take the mic at your spaces, please. Well, yeah, because they're just running

over the details of like, hmm, how is this going to play in our favorability ratings? Cause

that's what this is all about now and about power and potential influence. And like, how

do we, how do we win an election? And meanwhile, it's like so many activists that I know who

are passionate either for the federal NDP candidates or for like provincial Ontario NDP candidates.

Like, yeah. Let's let's do this. I'm you. You wanted me. I'm here. I'm hyped. I'm ready to

go. And they're like, yes. So actually, no, we need you to tone it down to basically three

percent. Not this hundred and ten percent you're giving us. And we like that's nice. But like,

really, come on, get on the neoliberalism bus. Like just they just pretend you're better than

everyone else. You're basically just being an orange liberal, just being an orange liberal.

That's that's what we're looking for now. And and like, again, this goes back to like, hey,

stuff that's going to affect. the disabled and women of color. Look what happened to Sarah

Jama. We had a disabled woman of color be like incredibly attacked to the point of receiving

death threats, being kicked out of caucus and being censured by the legislature for her incredibly

offensive statement of pain, suffering, murder, bad, and there should be peace and like solidarity

to all those who have lost lives was the initial. Statement more or less right and people were

like how can you say that? Sarah Jama and I'm just here like nothing she said was wrong or

out of pocket, so Why are we doing this and it's like wait no right? black disabled Muslim

woman there it fucking is that's why I I want to reel it back in so that we can close it

out a little. Sorry, I get needed about stuff like this. No, no, I'm just as guilty. I think

I started it with my Jamie West story. But back to the mask ban and talking about the weakness

of the NDP and the fact that Jill Andrews has been the only MPP that's regularly masked.

She's probably been the only politician in Canada that I have seen regularly masked. So I fear

for any kind of challenge that would go up against a potential mask ban in Canada, who is going

to sit there and really fight for that when and how would they when they've not really

been wearing them or advocating for them from the beginning, right? That there's not a party,

a mask party in Canada. And I don't mean like their own party, but you couldn't point to

the liberals or the NDP as champions of COVID consciousness at all. So if. the conservatives

introduce something like that. I imagine it would just sail right through without much

of a whiff, because I think they don't think it's popular and they've got no ground to stand

on. So, you know, I echo Kim's concern that when we see things in these Southern states,

we like to dismiss them as crazy American trends and oh my God, look what they're doing down

there. But sure enough, it finds its way up here. You know, they find validity in that

and... And yeah, that's something the pushback will have to come from different sources, not

our politicians. I'm going to put in the public record that I am not going to allow myself

to be forcefully infected. So I'm not going to allow myself to go out in public and then

a Toronto cop rips my mask off my face. I'm not going to allow that situation to happen.

And you can like use your imagination and put two and two together as to how I would apply

that. But I am not going to let that happen either way. We might, best case scenario, if

there is a mask ban, the cops just can't enforce it or they're... they enforce it very infrequently

or just enforce it and people will go to... Selectively. It'll be selective. Yeah. You

bother them. You look at the cop wrong, you organize in a mask, you, you know, push up

against power in a mask and all of a sudden it'll be a problem. But yeah, yeah. Sorry,

I was laughing because... Every time someone talks about cops, I have the oink piggy piggy,

we're gonna make your lives shitty. And I need to work it into an episode and I just did.

So thank you for that. But you know, what's I know that this podcast is public, so I'm

going to be very careful about what I say. But the truth is that the cops are harming each

other by spreading COVID amongst themselves. just like other populations are. I predict

that they can buy all this military technology, the law enforcement in the United States especially,

a lot of law enforcement agencies in the States have a lot of military equipment, especially

like the NYPD and the LAPD, and the Toronto police and whatnot, to the best of my knowledge,

don't have a lot of military equipment yet. But chances are with, you know, very late stage

capitalism, disdain and fascism and all that, it's coming. Right. But they can have all that

technology, they can have like fucking tanks like some law enforcement agencies do in the

United States and whatnot. And like Boston Dynamics, robot dogs with like the guns on them and shit.

That's that shit is coming. Right. But if they have decimated most of their human workforce.

because they've all had COVID too frequently, it's gonna be much more difficult for them

to enforce these bans. And they can have billions and billions and billions of dollars given

to them from multiple levels of government, because all of our governments will just give

the Toronto police and the RCMP and whatever a blank check, really, right? But all the money

and all the military equipment. and all the Boston Dynamics dogs with firearms on them

and shit, and all the drones, if they decimate their own numbers by all of them getting COVID

too often, now we have H5N1 coming and all that, if they keep dwindling their numbers, and already

in Ontario and I think elsewhere in Canada and the United States, the public school workforce

has been deteriorating. You know, they can have all kinds of money to train and hire new teachers,

but if the population of people who can go to like teachers college and all that is dwindling.

You know, either dying or long COVID so bad that they're largely bedridden. They can't

do their teaching jobs or the brain damage from multiple COVID infections or whatever. So yeah,

cause the cops aren't protecting themselves from COVID. So. If they didn't have families,

I wouldn't give a shit, but you know, it's the collective damage will, I mean, maybe one day

we can possibly measure. the lost potential from massive amounts of COVID infections in

people, right? Like brain capacity, I mean, beyond the fact that we've lost people and

we'll lose people. But in the cost of the health care for treating long COVID down the road,

I mean, yeah, there's so many things that just don't make any of these mask bands make sense.

unless you look at it from that dark perspective that we started with from the beginning, you

know, both from a law perspective and a eugenics perspective. And that's a reason to rant. Thank

you both for coming on the show and unpacking that with us. I'm sure we'll have you back.

It's been great. Thank you so much. Looking forward to it. That is a wrap on another episode

of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank you for joining us. Also, a very big thank you to the producer

of our show, Santiago Jaluc Quintero. Blueprints of Disruption is an independent production

operated cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter at BPEofDisruption. If you'd like to

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