Squirrel!! Is this a Great Awakening? - Episode 152

Can a viral squirrel from New York serve as a wake-up call to reevaluate our civic engagement, or is it just another distraction?

On the eve of the 2024 General Election, it's critical we consider how we can engage in our civic duties to be agents of change. 

Register for the Conservative Ladies of America Legislative Action Team info meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEkfuusrj4pH9eARzZu48inlawsN01tezYb

Chapters

• 0:00 Squirrel Trending Sparks Wake-Up Moment
• 8:27 Wake-Up Calls
• 13:52 Rallying Conservatives in Blue States
• 23:29 Podcasting Resumes After College Break

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

A little squirrel in New York is trending on social media just days before the election. Is this a wake-up moment for people who still aren't engaged in what's going on in our government right now? Hi, I'm Julie Barrett and you're listening to the Woman's Planing Podcast. I'm also the founder of Conservative Ladies of America, which started in Washington State as Conservative Ladies of Washington. We are an organization of like-minded ladies and gentlemen who are working hard to encourage, empower and equip citizens to stand up, speak up and take real action to create change in their local government, state government and even on a national level. You can learn more about our organization and the work we do and how you can get involved by heading over to our website at conservativeladiesofamericacom, and I would also like to invite you to consider joining us a week from today, that's Monday, november 11th, at 6 pm Pacific time, 9 pm Eastern. We are going to invite people to come and learn about our legislative action team and what we do throughout the legislative session and how you can get involved in your state If you're in Washington. We have a great team in Washington, but we also have people popping up all around the country and we're all trying to work together to learn about the legislation that's going on in different states and engage in making our voices heard either in support of or in opposition to that legislation. So come join us. There'll be a link in the description of this episode. You can go there and click to come join us next week. You'll be able to meet our team members and ask questions. It's going to be a good time to learn about the work that we're doing and how you might be able to engage, if that's something that you are interested in.

Speaker 1: 2:00

While this little squirrel in New York is making headlines, is trending on Twitter and is creating outrage among American citizens, like it is a literal squirrel and, for those of you don't know, the term squirrel is used to describe a distraction, and so it's interesting that we literally have a squirrel. That is the distraction before the election, and I made a post on X slash Twitter yesterday about the irony of this and some people seem to be a little bit confused by it, which led me to the conclusion that we have grossly overused. The term literal is quite commonplace in our English language, especially as I watch, like social media influencers and constantly overusing the word literally, as in, I am literally obsessed with this outfit literally obsessed. I just it's one of my little pet peeves. So it was interesting, though, to me how I worded my post and that people missed that I was actually using the word in the correct context, but it is. It's ironic. It's ironic that we have a squirrel that is drawing outrage from citizens and really getting people to have discussions about government overreach and what is going on in government at large. And so what happened?

Speaker 1: 3:30

If you don't know this story, what happened was there's a guy in New York who has a squirrel and a raccoon, and they were social media sensations. He has millions of followers on TikTok and Instagram, which, by the way, people make money off of that. So he's getting paid based on the engagement of people interacting with him and his content with this squirrel on TikTok and Instagram. So this is his shtick with the little squirrel and it sounds like the raccoon as well. Somebody reported that he had these animals, and apparently the investigators, the government people, came into the home and took the squirrel and took the raccoon. There are stories that it was under force. I don't know exactly what is true, so I'm not going to speculate on that. Apparently, they've taken the raccoon and the squirrel and they have both been euthanized. I read one report that said that the squirrel had bitten one of the animal control workers and that was why it was euthanized. I'm really not sure on the facts of this, so I'm just there's a lot of conflicting stories. What I do know, because the facts of this, so I'm just, you know there's a lot of conflicting stories. What I do know, because the owner of the squirrel did post on social media yesterday that they have raised $70,000 so far for uh in peanuts peanut is the squirrel and peanuts memory Uh. And it sounds like he runs a nonprofit for um injured pets in New York. But I'm not sure. I'm like I don't know if this is all legit or if it's just a social media deal. I'm not positive, but he's raised $70,000 on this squirrel which, whatever, if that squirrel, you know I I don't think that the government coming in and you know, strong arming, using force with people is the right thing to do.

Speaker 1: 5:27

There's a process for that. But I also believe that we have laws. I haven't gone and researched them, but I do believe that there are laws about people having certain types of animals as pets. Like I don't think I can go out and bring a raccoon into my home and legally keep it as my pet, and there are safety reasons for that. So if we don't like the laws, there are ways to change the laws. I don't think that this is a law that would really be effectively changed, but certainly they could go about it that way. So, rather than just breaking the law, there are other things that you could do, but I don't really want to spend my time digging into the whole peanut thing, because what I want to do is talk about a wake up moment, right? So somebody said to me on Twitter last night well, this is, this is great because a lot of people are waking up over this squirrel and, honestly, I can't for the life of me believe it would take a squirrel at this point in 2024. You're not awake yet, but now that there's a squirrel, you're waking up.

Speaker 1: 6:31

For me, my wake up moment was 2016, when, when target announced that they were going to allow people to use the bathroom or the dressing room of their choice based on their gender identity. My children uh, my, my youngest were 10 years old 10 year old twins, and I would take them. We would frequent Target all the time and sometimes I would send them into the bathroom. I'd wait out in the hallway and they'd go in the bathroom by themselves, do their business and come back out. Well, this was really alarming to me that potentially there could be a man in the restroom and my daughter goes in and there's a man in there and I'm out in the hall not able to protect her.

Speaker 1: 7:08

So for me, that was when I started paying attention and it was spring of 2016,. Donald Trump was running for president, so I started watching the rallies. I started listening to Donald Trump talking about draining the swamp and the fake news, and it really started to go research things and find out for myself what was really going on, because it sounded like there was this you know, government corruption going on and we had this swamp in DC, and so that started me down my rabbit holes and I started speaking out in public forums, mostly on Facebook groups that I got kicked out of just for speaking up about, you know, trying to raise awareness, trying to have respectful discussions and debates with people. That was not really welcome in my neck of the woods in Western Washington. I got kicked out of most of the neighborhood Facebook groups and if you've been listening to my podcast on a regular basis. You know that that is what birthed the Conservative Ladies of Washington Facebook group, which eventually turned into what it is today, which is an organization that helps to encourage, empower and equip citizens to speak up about policies that are being made locally and on a state level, and we've even branched out into a federal level as well. So that was my wake-up moment.

Speaker 1: 8:27

Masses of people woke up in 2020 with COVID and in March, when they shut down schools and shut down businesses, a lot of people woke up. Then you had the George Floyd death in late May of 2020, and then the riots that ensued. That woke up a lot of people as they watched government um allowing and almost I would say, encouraging the riots that were going on around the country. I was still living in Washington at the time and had friends on uh Seattle police department who were dealing with the Chaz Chop situation, where the Seattle mayor at the time, jenny Durkin, gave over a section of the city to the Antifa rioters and there were a couple of deaths, I know, as a result of that, but it was complete chaos and it was being allowed to happen. You might remember, in Minnesota there's been a lot of talk about how Kamala Harris, during that summer, was helping to fund people who had gone to jail to bail out rioters in Minnesota. So that was another wake up moment.

Speaker 1: 9:40

Following that was when the vaccines came out and they were being forced on people. It wasn't just an optional thing, they were being forced on people and in some areas you actually had to have a so-called vaccine passport to be able to like in King County, washington. You had to have a proof that you were vaccinated to be able to go to certain restaurants, to be able to go to sports venues or concerts events in the county. And that was another wake up moment for people when they realized that this was being pushed on people in order to keep their jobs or to attend college, to attend school. Those were huge wake up moments and a lot of people started realizing what was going on and started to pay attention. So if the squirrel, if you weren't awake until a couple days ago when you heard the story about peanut the squirrel, that's okay. What I want to talk about is when you wake up, what did you do with your awakening?

Speaker 1: 10:42

Because we are in a time in our country where I strongly believe that time is running out. I believe if we get Trump elected tomorrow, that will extend things a little bit, that will hold things off a little bit longer, but we can't sit back. If Trump gets elected, we can't sit back and go okay, great, trump's going to fix everything, because that didn't happen in 2016. And one person can't fix everything for a nation at the level of decline that America is in right now. It is going to take a lot of regular people like you and like me that are willing to start speaking up and to engage in the battle to keep America free.

Speaker 1: 11:27

Now, if Trump is not elected and Harris is, I'm going to say, installed, because I don't think there's any way that she can legitimately get the number of votes needed to win the presidency. After all, she was airdropped as the Democrat nominee when they decided that they had to pull Biden out. She didn't even get a single vote to become the Democratic nominee, which floors me that nobody on the left seems to be bothered by this. Nobody seems bothered by the fact that they didn't have a say in it. You know they're the ones that are constantly crying about, you know, saving our democracy. Well, the way that Kamala was airdropped into the race was anything but democratic, and yet they don't. They're just cheap and they just go along with it and they just do what they're told.

Speaker 1: 12:21

If Harris gets installed as president, we have a big problem. I don't know what it will look like and I'm not going to speculate right now, but I would say it's important to be prepared and don't panic. Uh, but it is important to be prepared. Have your family prepared, have your home prepared. Um, and what I mean by that isn't like preparing. I'm not saying prepare for war. I'm saying start thinking about homeschooling. Start, you know, finding ways to tighten up your family. Keep your children out of the government schools.

Speaker 1: 12:55

Now, if Trump gets elected, it's not going to save the government schools. They are. I almost think education system just needs to be burnt down to the ground. But that's a whole other episode. But I do want you to know that if Donald Trump gets elected, it's not going to save the education system. The problems are so deeply entrenched in the system that it is a long process to get things straight. So I would encourage you to homeschool your kids. Do a co-op, figure out how to make that work. That is the best way to keep your kids from being entrenched in the government system and keep things close to home. Try to do as much stuff as you can without relying on the government. Be independent of the government. I think that will help in a lot of ways. Have a food supply, have a water supply Again, I'm not saying this to scare people, but just if you are prepared, if you know that you already have these things, then it doesn't really matter what happens next.

Speaker 1: 13:52

But we do need people to get engaged, and one of the things I talk about with Washington a lot because it's it's a deep blue state, and so if you are a conservative in a place like Washington, california, new York, and you're trying to speak up and be an activist in these places, you have to have realistic expectations. You have to understand that your speaking up is likely not going to change the outcome. But I personally am not willing to let them pass new laws that are unconstitutional, that go against everything we believe in as Americans, without speaking up, without kicking and screaming, without putting up a fight. I refuse to let them do it in silence, and that's one of the reasons why it's been so important to me to keep speaking up in a place like Washington, where you know what's going to happen, and so I want people to be very aware and very realistic about the outcomes that are going to happen. And if you are in a blue state, you just need to know the outcomes can happen. And so the purpose for your activism is to not go down without a fight, to not let them do evil things in the dark, to shine a light and to tell people and to speak up. And what will happen as we do that is, we will, you know, we will build, there will be momentum based on our activism and we will hopefully encourage people to get in the fight and to fight with us and to speak up with us. And and that looks different for for everybody speaking up looks different for you than it does for me, and that's okay.

Speaker 1: 15:35

And one of the things that I try, and our whole conservative ladies team tries, to teach people is that you don't have to be publicly testifying or speaking out to be engaging in the fight. There are a lot of things that people can do and it doesn't have to take a lot of time, but you do have to get off of the social medias. It has to be beyond social media tweeting things, posting things on Facebook, whatever. That's all well and good. And engaging in discussions and posting information for people, that's all well and good. And, and you know, engaging in discussions and posting information for people, that's all well and good. But we have to be willing to step away from the keyboard and take our activism from the keyboard to the place where it matters, which is the public square, which is the city council meeting, county council meeting, the state legislature, the school board meeting. We have to be able to go in those places and do the things that are going to make a difference and that are going to be noticed by other people. So other people are understanding of the times that we're living and the importance of getting involved.

Speaker 1: 16:38

And so I want you to be thinking over these next few days of what is your wake up moment. And if your wake up moment was this weekend about you know and it took peanut the squirrel to wake you up that's great, and you're outraged about a squirrel. I'd like you to know that there are people in North Carolina and the South Southern region of America who are suffering greatly from being devastated by hurricanes Helene and Milton. Fema has not done hardly anything for these people. These people have lost their homes, their livelihoods. Some of these people have lost their lives and FEMA is completely MIA. That's a rabbit hole you may want to go down. So if you're not outraged about those people but you're outraged about a squirrel, you might want to check yourself.

Speaker 1: 17:28

The other thing that outrages me all the time is what's happening to our children. Are you aware that there are government authorities that will go into homes, private homes, and take people's children away from them if they are not affirming of a child's choice to be a different gender and allowing that child to have access to so-called gender affirming care? This is happening. You don't hear about it because if people speak up then it makes things even more dangerous for their family and for the child and they're working really hard to get their child back. But this is happening in America to American families in the name of gender affirming care. This is happening and people should be outraged about this.

Speaker 1: 18:11

Millions and millions of illegal immigrants are crossing our Southern border. They are sex trafficking, they are drug trafficking, they're committing all kinds of crimes and guess what? They're getting money from the government your money, your taxpayer dollars to be here, to have food, to have housing. They're getting all sorts of perks from the government and they are hurting the American people. They're hurting the American society and most people. While they're not happy about it, they're not outraged like they are about the squirrel.

Speaker 1: 18:45

So I'm not saying that being outraged about a squirrel is bad, but if you're not happy about it, they're not outraged like they are about the squirrel. So I'm not saying that being outraged about a squirrel is bad, but if you're outraged about a squirrel, you need to also be equally, if not much more, outraged about what's happening to children in this country, what's happening with the illegal immigration in this country, what's happening to American people who have been devastated by national disasters, and the money that we, as taxpayers, have put into FEMA is not even available for them to use because it's been used for illegal immigration. There are so many things that we could be outraged, and I could go on and on and on, but you get the idea. And so, when you wake up, when you have your wake up moment whether you woke up in 2016, like me, with target, and I believe that's around the same time that Obama came out with some, you know, equal rights thing, uh, on a federal level, uh, I think it was an executive order I don't have all the details in front of me right now but requiring that people, based on gender identity, would be able to use whichever bathroom they wanted. That's when a lot of people started waking up. But if we wake up and we don't do anything with it, we don't take any kind of action, we don't engage we are going to lose this country and I think that for my generation and I'm a Gen Xer I think we have really been apathetic and, to be quite frank, I think we've been lazy and it's time for us to get in the game and to step up and speak up. So many generations before us actually went to physical battle. They went to war. They gave they may be ultimate sacrifice for our country so that we could have the freedoms that we have today, so that we could sit on our phones and order from Amazon and DoorDash and have the life that we have here. That is only possible because of the sacrifice of other people and we have a duty to pay that back by making our own sacrifices, which are far less than what they had to do, you know, going to a school board meeting or zooming in on a city council meeting to make a public comment or just to listen so that you can report out to other people. That's a small price to pay for what we have in America today. And so I don't say this to shame anybody, because we all wake up at different times. But if you wake up and then you don't do anything with it, then you are allowing evil to to thrive and to exist, and we have a responsibility to stand up for future generations so that we preserve everything that we have been so blessed to have.

Speaker 1: 21:23

It is Monday, november 4th, and election day is tomorrow. If you haven't already voted, please vote. Get your ballot in, I think by eight o'clock is across the country. Everybody has to be in by eight o'clock. Some states, like my former state of Washington, is mail-in only. Get those ballots in ASAP and get those to the auditor's office If you can. If not, get them to the safest drop box that you can find to pick up the ballots for your family, friends and neighbors and get all of those into a drop box ASAP, but before tomorrow at 8 PM. If you have in-person voting and you can get there today, do that. If not, I know a lot of places are only doing day, have today off and can do day of tomorrow, so I've already voted. I did early voting in person here in Florida, where they do check my ID and they check my signature, which I thought that was really cool. Coming from Washington, where I've only ever been able to vote mail in, it was really a cool experience to get to vote in person, to get to show my ID and practice my constitutional right to vote. So I hope you all will do that and encourage your friends and your family. If they haven't, please implore them to vote.

Speaker 1: 22:39

It is imperative that we get as many people out to vote as possible, and I just want to remind you again about the zoom meeting for conservative ladies of America. On Monday, november 11th, at 6 PM PST and 9 PM EST, we will be talking about our legislative action team. This is a great opportunity to find out about the work that we do. You don't have to have any experience to be on the team. You just have to be passionate about change and speaking up and fighting for America, and we're all just a bunch of regular people trying to make our voices heard and we're all learning together and it's a it's a really great group of people, so I hope that you'll consider joining us. There's a zoom registration link below. Be sure to register before next week because you will have to be approved to get into the meeting.

Speaker 1: 23:29

It is nice to be back recording again. I had to take some time off. I went back to school full-time in mid-August and that was really cool. I am now a full-time student at Liberty University. Most of my fall classes have ended mid middle of last month, so now I have a little extra time where I can pick up the hobby of podcasting once again, and I hope to bring you some more episodes over the next few months. As we go along here, if there's any topic or issue that you would like me to chat about, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. All my contact info is listed in the description of this episode and I look forward to chatting with you again next time.