United States of PTSD

S:4 E: 1 WTF

Matthew Boucher LICSW LCDP and Co-host Dr. Erika Lin-Hendel Season 4 Episode 1

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Erika and I wanted to start off season 4 by acknowledging that many of us are having WTF moments.  In the 4 weeks that took off there have been multiple assassinations by ICE/Gestapo/IDF, while multiple genocides continue and they are funded by the US.  We have seen the release of the Epstein Files and we are currently reading through them.  

We hope each and every person will continue to listen, engage in self-care, and work on creating safe places for the people who are impacted, which is almost everyone, at this point.    Erika and I hope that communities will continue to come together to fight against the oppressors, AKA the Elite.  


Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/hartzmann/no-time-to-die
License code: S4CEQWLNQXVZUMU4

Artwork and logo design by Misty Rae.


Special thanks to Joanna Roux for editing help.
Special thanks to the listeners and all the wonderful people who helped listen to and provide feedback on the episode's prerelease.


Please feel free to email Matt topics or suggestions, questions or feedback.
Matt@unitedstatesofPTSD.com


SPEAKER_00:

This podcast is not intended to serve as therapeutic advice or to replace any professional treatment. These opinions belong to us and do not reflect any company or agency.

SPEAKER_05:

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of United States of PTSD. Erica and I are back for season four. I can't believe I can't believe that I've been doing this for like three years now. It's a little wild. So Erica and I were just chatting a little bit, because we haven't talked since the break, right? So do you want to give an update on just what's going on in your life and how the holidays were?

SPEAKER_03:

And well, dear listeners, I this is almost comical, actually, the about things that have changed in in my life. Over the time towards the holidays, I had actually decided to end a relationship, change my living situation, and completely reprioritize my life in very drastic ways.

SPEAKER_05:

Which, Erica, I think we can say you never half-ass anything, right?

SPEAKER_01:

It is like I mean that would be let's not be internal story that I tell myself. I'll just say.

SPEAKER_03:

A lot of people, a lot of our bandwidth, our sense of safety, all of these things. And one thing that has been consistently something that has um served me well, even though I'm it might be very uncomfortable, very painful, and a lot of work and a lot of sore muscles and a lot of stress, um, you'll you have to have a sanctuary space. And if if a personal relationship and or a work relationship or a home relationship, anything becomes disruptive to that or having access to that, then you can't achieve, like in my experience for myself, I cannot achieve the things or serve the communities that I want to serve if those conditions are not right.

SPEAKER_05:

I can tell you, you just from the brief conversation we have that you're smiling more and you sound happier, but that that could also be because we've hit a little level of madness, right? Like it could be just because we're insane at this point, but but I mean you do look happier. You do sound happier.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you. Yeah, it's um well, I think also sometimes, and this is you know, because each of us, every every person is I think there are a lot of people right now all over the country, all over the world, right, that are in incomprehensible situations. And being a human being alive on this planet, understanding and knowing about these things and being empathetic, caring human beings, like you and I were talking about how for the last two years, obviously, and before then, right, every person who has been in an environmental, anti-war movement, human rights, social justice-oriented way probably is experience has been experiencing chronic heartbreak.

SPEAKER_05:

That's a great point. That is a great point.

SPEAKER_03:

And so how do you like how do you endure, right? I think that um, oh gosh, I'm gonna be, I horrifically apologize if I get this wrong. It's the uh the Palestinian um word and saying and wish for each other is always this perseverance, right? Perseverance amongst, you know, obviously like we know, like 75 years, right? And then here where I am, um, on Turtle Island, like, you know, it's been 350 years of impact of genocide here, like on the lands that we are living, right? So yeah, how in the midst, in the midst of all of that, right, I'm like, I'm gonna move. I'm gonna break up with my my partner who I thought I was gonna like start a farm with. I mean, still, maybe still possibility.

SPEAKER_05:

I'm not opposed because I'm just starting a farm with growth with the X or starting a farm just in general.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, in general, I'm gonna do that. But it's like, you know, I'll make friends with anyone who grows food. It's achievable things.

SPEAKER_05:

Of course it is. You know, right now you well, you can't see it because of the camera, but I have a greenhouse because I'm growing, I've been growing actually for the last year, lemons, blood orange, avocado, cumquats.

SPEAKER_02:

It's amazing.

SPEAKER_05:

Yes, and you know, because of the winter, I got I just got a humidifier and I, you know, I have the the greenhouse going. So I'm still trying to figure it out because I I'm not exactly a botanist, but I'm still trying to figure out like how to navigate that without keeping it too humid and all of that stuff. But I mean, I have probably on my lemon tree, I have about nine lemons right now, and on my comquat, I have probably about six or seven.

SPEAKER_03:

So you know, but and so that actually when we talk because we were talking about like how so much, and and I would like to I'm just gonna say this and then I wanna hear about you, right? Um food is resistance. Yes, right, that is something that really grounds me.

SPEAKER_02:

Um food, plants, feeding people, livestock, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Like the whole flipping reason that I'm a veterinarian, right? Those things are resistance, persevering as you are under these conditions is a part of resistance, and then also there's more that we need to do, but so I those are how many lemons did you say?

SPEAKER_05:

I let me say I'll count. Nine.

SPEAKER_03:

Nine. Nine nine. Those are resistance lemons.

SPEAKER_05:

They are resistance lemons, and they taste really good, by the way. It's self-pollinating. So it's really cool. I really I like it.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, so clearly those things have been helping you during this this how much snow?

SPEAKER_05:

Well, let's see, cumulatively or like today? Because today we got about three inches, but about a week and a half ago, we had two feet, and it has been below 32 since. So none of the snow has melted in, you know, except from like the sun. You know, obviously the sun has melted some of it. But my God, it was bad. It was really bad.

SPEAKER_03:

I think the last time there was this like layers and layers of ice crust snow, ice crust snow that I remember on the East Coast was like when I was 10 or 11.

SPEAKER_05:

It certainly is abnormal. It's not, I mean, it hasn't been like this very often. I remember there was one year where every single Saturday and Sunday we had this big snowstorm. So Monday, school was always canceled. And it it started in January. So I didn't even meet my class until I think the fourth week. No, it was like the third week of February before I met my class because every Monday had been canceled. And I thought we were gonna go that way this semester because Monday was canceled the first week of classes, and then it looked like we were getting another storm, and I was like, oh God, here we go again. Um, but it didn't.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

So I didn't get really much of a I didn't get much of a break because I taught a winter class as well. So I mean, I was pretty much working the whole time. What I did for self-care. Have you watched Heated Rivalry? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03:

No, but apparently I should.

SPEAKER_05:

You totally should watch Heated Rivalry. I I'm gonna plug it for a second, okay? Do you know anything about it?

SPEAKER_02:

No, no.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay. So it's on it's on HBO, and it is about two, so it was based on a book series, I guess, and it's about gay hockey players. And at first I didn't watch it because I just, you know, I growing up, obviously I've seen like tons of gay movies, and they have a lot of the same tropes. And you know, I remember when Broke Back Mountain came out, how much of a big deal it was. And certainly it was for its time, it was great. Both actors are good actors, but you could tell they're like they didn't have the chemistry in my mind.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

These two actors who were no-name actors have the most intense chemistry I have ever seen in my entire life. And at first, when you're I'm not gonna lie, first when I started watching it, it was pure like smud. I was just like, oh my god, this is awesome, right? But by the end of the six-part series, I was like sobbing, not sad, happy, because it was really a good story. So it is so popular right now. It's actually I think it beat Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones in terms of views. It is in the top two of 250 shows of all time. The two main characters were torchbearers for the Olympics. I mean, you have to look, it is so good.

SPEAKER_03:

That was Do you know like how was it like I feel like hockey fanfic was like a thing for a very long time. And so this maybe makes sense.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, it's also it's also Canadian, and the I have to say the Canadian shows are freaking awesome. So absolutely awesome.

SPEAKER_03:

So many good Canadian shows.

SPEAKER_05:

Totally. Shits Creek, Working Moms. I mean, just like such great shows. So much. So that was that was how I spent some of the downtime. But then, you know, it's funny because there's just this in the short four weeks that we didn't do any episodes, it's like, what the fuck? Like everything and anything insane happened.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Like there's so much, there's so much that we could talk about, and I don't even know where to start, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, I I I do think I I would like to hear where you would like to start from me.

SPEAKER_03:

There's part of me that has been re like part of my experience throughout this process since a very long time. I don't know exactly when the moment was, but like, you know, like this is in my bones. Like I I felt things about what was going to happen a long time. And I think that a lot of people who have been doing anti-genocide work, um, there's some like I still enter encounter people who have a problem with hearing me use that language, which is incredible.

SPEAKER_02:

Um have understood that like there is not really any.

SPEAKER_03:

Like because what has happened to Gaza has happened to Gaza.

SPEAKER_02:

That was the testing ground. And so now it's like they understand or potentially have made assumptions about what people will tolerate seeing. Um so with the assassination of Alex Predy as an escalation, right?

SPEAKER_03:

And there have been they've they've shot and killed people of color and immigrants, like before they've been killing immigrants this entire time. Um and like have been subjugating and humiliating like the the level of of horrors that they have been inflicting on innocent people in the detention centers. And it's also not new, right? So the thing is that so for me as someone who cares about immigrant rights, this has been a process that's gone on from both Democratic and Republican candidates trading back and forth for a very long time.

SPEAKER_05:

I'm glad you said that, Eric. And I know we we are always on the same page, and I know we've talked about that before in terms of the the both sides. And what baffles me is that people still believe this is just a Trump issue.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_05:

And I and I it blows my mind. I mean, under Biden, under Obama, I mean, under under um um, why am I drawing the blank here? Under Trump the the first time, there was, I mean, the funding for ICE was on all of them. The amount of people that were being herded into concentration camps, because that's what they are, um, was more under the Democrats until you know this this time. And people just turned a blind eye to that. They continue to believe it's just a Trump issue.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and I don't know for me if it was like the Syrian civil war where that really started to like settle in for me, you know, the because there's been a couple of instances, other border border, because I paid pay attention to borders, like my like come from borderlands, like my family comes from borderlands for like generations, and island people, like there's this understanding that you have towards how like empires and states work in that way, and how they're used as methods to um justify the murdering of people, and also like where the most people die in armed conflict is are in border zones, right? And so, usually when people are talking about states and like how states can be the problem, usually that's people what they're talking about. So, like often people are coming to this concept, like uh of rejecting people's discussion about the problem of states and empires, right? Where people will critique them, like you know, all the things that they'll say about people who um like don't understand the concept of like have not explored history in the same way that people who have connections to things like beyond like the United States or people who have been genocided here, um, and people who like literally the US border goes through an indigenous tribe's ancestral lands, the honotum, divides it in half. I think, in some ways, like with these things that have happened, right? The ratcheting effect, I have seen that out there.

SPEAKER_02:

People are talking about how there's been a rationing effect with both politics, but I think that right now, like there's a a tremendous grief of people who are recognizing or realizing or coming to terms with the fact that that uh our government is one of the most violent institutions in existence.

SPEAKER_05:

All of the government, not not just like one side, right? Because I'm starting to believe more and more there actually is just one party. Like it's not like the only reason why one exists is so that the other can exist. And it's to to go back to when you were talking about Alex, and I'm curious what you think about this, right? So Alex got a lot of attention, and I think for for many people that was a turning point. But before that, we had Renee Good. And Renee Good also got a fair amount of attention. Granted, the reception was not the same. I mean, the the way people were talking about it was vile. But the all of the people before that who have been killed by ice did not get a fraction of that, right? So, I mean, again, and I'm not if something brings attention to what's happening, that's it, that's great. We want attention to what's happening. But it's just I I find it interesting that it's when a a white man gets killed, that there's a lot more attention given to that.

SPEAKER_02:

Of course.

SPEAKER_05:

Now, interestingly enough, I was having a conversation with about nine people in a particular setting when Renee Good was assassinated, and they were all talking about how angry they were and how frustrated they were and how they couldn't believe what happened and how unfair it was. And my first response to them was, so what are you doing about it? And all of them said nothing. So when I asked them, like, have you done anything? Have you contacted your congressman? Like, have you done anything? And they said no. And then when I when I asked them why, the the answers varied from, well, somebody else is gonna do it to I just can't deal with it, to it's just too overwhelming. And I said, Well, that's part of the problem, right? Because if you're you have this bystander effect where like everybody else is gonna take care of it, then this is where you're gonna be. And I do think after I confronted them on that, I know at least two of them did reach out to their congressperson and say, like, what are we doing about it? Um so that's step one. Like, it's it's something, but I was just like, You you have it, you you can't just complain. Like, you get to do something about it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I there's part of me that has is so we'll call it the last bad relationship of my life, right? Like, because I've been doing this kind of stuff for a long time, I've had to step away from organizing for my education uh periods of time. And you know, when you grow up where you're living under it, where it pervades like your your life and the way I think that this is very common in that when you survive trauma, if you're a survivor of trauma, taking action around the way that you are impacted is usually is like a very cathartic and healing process, right? You hear it very commonly, you know, people who who they experience tragedy um or violence where something happens to them or someone that they love, and then they start their lifelong journey of an organization, advocacy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. When that is not your life, right? And that's what people try and talk about, like when you're talking about like privilege versus not having privilege. It's a dimension of it. And I think that what some people don't understand yet is that their lack of action, like they them, like that is I have I to be very frank, I have mixed feelings about it. Right? It was complicated for me. I want to say, welcome in, please. Like, and I still do that, right? I still am constantly going to places, inviting people, and trying to help them in the way that I can take action. Because in addition to calling your senators, you can go to there's, you know, there are people who are taking action. So you don't have to like, you know, do it by yourself. You can use it as an opportunity to build commit, like, you know, and you can do. It in a place where there are a lot of people who are new. So, like Indivisible 5051, these are like new organizations, right? That are kind of organizing around this energy that are doing some good work. Now they are, you know, every new organization is like you have to recognize that there are organizations who've been doing work for a very, very, very long time. Um, and sometimes also these organizations, like the reason why I am I am able, like I work with people who are organizers in those movements. And I also do work with impacted community. And sometimes we work together and sometimes we don't, right? But there's still opportunities collaborate, and the big thing is I think that um there are things that that people, privileged people are going to need to take action. Absolutely because this state, this government, is not interested in listening to what I have to say. Right? They are fundamentally interested in putting someone like me behind bars and putting into a forced labor camp. That's what they're interested in doing. Or, you know, like until until I don't until I'm not useful. Right. But so so like that's that already I am not legitimate. I'm not a legitimate voice, I'm not human to some of these people. So there's no not really a purpose for me to be speaking and trying to convince people who actually want to kill me, right? Yeah, uh, I need to work on organizing my own community stuff with other people who yeah. So that's like you can find places where you can have a lot of leverage. And I think that people, when they're like, oh, someone else is gonna do it, who? Yeah, right? Because there have already been a lot of people who have been doing stuff and we haven't been able to crank the wheel yet. We need more people. That's the big thing because the only power that we have right now is there need there are more of us than there are of them. And they need to hear, they need to know that we know that. And if you don't take action, if you don't do something, they know that they have you scared and that they can control you.

SPEAKER_05:

I want to go back to something you said because I agree with you. I think when you had said you have mixed feelings, because there's part of you that wants to embrace them, and then uh I you didn't, I don't think you finished that part of it, but I know I know for me it's the same thing. There's part of me that wants to say, like, hey, great, great job. And then there's part of me that wants to be like, what the fuck have you been doing this whole time? Like, and you know, is kind of like angry about it.

SPEAKER_03:

I or I'm like, I need you now.

SPEAKER_05:

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03:

Right two months. Like, I need you to get ready now.

SPEAKER_05:

But I also I try to remind myself, because you know, trauma doesn't the brain doesn't recognize trauma as as like differentiations and trauma, it just it repres you know, recognizes it as trauma. So that kind of bystand or impact is also trauma, right? Like, so I try to remind myself of that, but I'm gonna give you an example, the listeners, an example of where not to use your power, because Erica, you're talking about using privilege and you you do have to use it, but I'm gonna give you this example, which I think you'll appreciate. So my nephew is in my my parents have raised my nephew because my sister pretty much didn't want anything to do with him. Now, my nephew is black, and he lives with my parents who are white in an all-white community. It's a it's a middle upper class white community. Now, my nephew has been profiled by the police now that he's 18. Now, my my nephew's not helping the issue, I will say that, right? So he gets pulled over for tinted windows, and then he goes out and modifies his car again, and then he gets so it's that typical teenage like F you, right? So now they've they've really started targeting him. Like they pulled him over and they claimed that his license plate frame was obstructing the license plate. And now it was the frame that the it was the dealership frame was on the car. So my parents were very much like, they can't do this to you, right? And this is like racism, and you know they're they're going, and they're not wrong, but they're they're looking at it from a lens of of privilege. So they're like, you need to, you know, you know, my stepfather's like, you need to mouth off to the cops and you know, tell them to like F off, and because they don't they don't have the right to do that, they can't arrest you, they can't do this. And I'm trying to explain to them and him that, yes, in theory, they can't do that stuff to you, but they also can't shoot people in the face at a protest, and they're doing that too. So like you can't just tell him to go mouth off and do this stuff because he's gonna get the consequences that you wouldn't. So if you were mouthing off, you're not gonna get it. So don't use privilege in that way.

SPEAKER_03:

I I think that this is where like there is there are some statistics about police. And I think it's not up to us to just blindly trust, you know, it is up to the well, I don't know. I mean, like, I don't think that like so there are some hang on a second. This is complicated, right? Because we have local, we have local police, right? There's state things, and there's federal and the accountability process is all different. And the percentage of white supremacists in each of those are different and changing. Um, that's not fun. I don't like saying that, but I think, dear listeners, I think it's important that people be educated and understand that, right?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, and to not, and I and again, I what I want people to get out of that is when you have privilege, you have to, you cannot look at somebody else's experience through your lens because it's just not the same, right? So, like them telling him if they want to mouth off to the cops and go down to the police station and and and yell at them, they can do that. But if he does that, he's gonna have a very different consequence, and they don't seem to really get that part of it. And I don't think he's getting that part of it because they're they're telling him, like, you can keep doing this. And I that's not great, right? I'm I'm very worried that he's gonna push it too far because of what he's being told, and then he's gonna get the consequences of it.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, um, yeah, definitely that conversation needs to be had. And um, you know, there might be some organizations that would be a good idea to connect him to to have those conversations.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, I've I've been trying to have them with him because they're not getting it. But I'm hoping that me telling him he's gonna, I mean, I can't control what he hears, but I certainly have said it to him like you can't you can't listen to what they're saying, and you just can't.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Yeah. I um I hope that that I mean, and this is also like a part where, you know, conversations with families right now, like um uh I don't know how many p I don't know if you have uh people in these areas where there have been surges. It's important that people understand that now more than ever, getting involved with community is critical.

SPEAKER_04:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03:

And it's only going to get more intense. And um these like phrases that get put around that have like history to them, and um, sometimes people don't necessarily know like the history of these phrases, things like we keep us safe, and like those things like um you know, black and indigenous community have been keeping each other from starving, uh, from like so many things, like for generations, and even also like immigrants in their own processes of how like they get here or how they make it here or why they chose to come here. When you see, and also it's a thing about from from Minnesota and other areas, you know, from LA, Minnesota, like now, even like Ohio, if you see like how Springfield is trying to prepare in its own way, um, that people care about other human beings, right? And and I am hopeful, right? And even the type of, you know, podcasts and people that I listen to um to stay informed, that are a lot of like independent journalists and a lot of people who've been studying immigration and these kind of issues for a long time. So uh I am gonna plug one of them. It would be um, it could happen here. There's a series that is done by one of the reporter, the journalists around the Darien Gap. And I really suggest that if you are trying to like wrap your head around, you know, what has been happening and what this has become, I highly recommend listening to that because that is a journalist who has who has really dove into like what's going on. And this is why, like these techniques of basically disappearing people, you know, like moving them from location to location so they can't speak with their lawyer or um be in touch with their family.

SPEAKER_02:

That started during Biden.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I'm not surprised.

SPEAKER_05:

I'm I'm texting myself that because I'm gonna listen to that podcast. Yeah, I'm not I'm not surprised at all that it happened during Biden.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And so now, like I'm I am feeling more encouraged that more and more people are showing up. Like in where I am, there are like more and more people showing up to trainings, everything. Like, are we ready? No, we still had I think over a week and a half period of time, we still had 200 community members take in.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh my god, Erica, that's awful.

SPEAKER_03:

And um we like every city is gonna need different strategies, and if this is something like you know this will continue unabated until enough people who hadn't been active stand up and say no.

SPEAKER_05:

Do you think it's beyond the point of that? Like, do you think it's gonna take more than just people saying no?

SPEAKER_03:

All I can say is that they are trying to buy more and more warehouses so they can detain more and more people or private companies that are being paid with our tax dollars.

SPEAKER_04:

Yep.

SPEAKER_02:

It's a business embodies.

SPEAKER_05:

If history truly does repeat itself, which we can see it it really is, part of what that would dictate, I'll choose my words very carefully, is that it's going to end in a different way than people just saying no.

SPEAKER_03:

It's possible. I don't know. Like, I think that we've seen some changes uh on the surface, right? That's like always incremental, right? This is a strategy they push very far, right? To see it's testing and probing. And that, oh gosh, it just takes a lot of endurance to withstand and to, you know, because um this is what people who have very extreme ideologies. Um, and I think that the sooner that people start to recognize, because in general, the critique of what people will call liberal, liberals, right, is that so much has been avoidance. And what does avoidance get you? If you think about it in medical, right? It gets you an infection, a really bad infection. And like I also for a period of time was maybe avoiding certain like there, there's been different areas of fighting that have been happening. I wasn't out on the streets in 2020 because I was in a like I was in a vulnerable position in some ways that I couldn't be out on the streets. I still can't necessarily be out on the streets, but I'm still figuring out how I can contribute as best as I can by also turning away from other other places where I was trying to push things forward where that was not productive.

SPEAKER_05:

So well, an avoidance is from a from a psychological perspective, avoidance is fear-based.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

So if people are fearful, in order for them to move forward, they either have to be empowered or they have to lose whatever that is that they're afraid of. And some of these people can't move past those things that they're fearful. So it's you know, there's definitely many won't.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, many won't ever, right? Like other places where people have studied this, um, you know, you can see comparisons of like how much how much of the um population was passive, right? That that resulted in both the parts of the population that were fighting to get like actively pushing back to get killed, or like um, what's it called? Like have to escape and people banish, shall we say? And then a lot of people who who were murdered. Yeah. And you know, it's not and I think that like violent, I mean, God, it's just think about how much permissive violence has been done. And even when we look at things with the um Epstein files.

SPEAKER_05:

I was just gonna mention that. That's so we're not gonna get into that today.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, that's a lot.

SPEAKER_05:

That's way too much, but I was go ahead. I was just gonna mention that. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, like how many it's it's like, you know, as someone who is impacted as a very young person, uh, who has never been under any illusions about the level of sexual predation and how pervasive it can be. And also to understand that, like, when we actually conceptualize like power and how the absence of challenge of power. And so, like, when people say, I want to go back to the good old days, in the good old days, right? There are like, like, no, there are no the sexual exploitation and enslavement.

SPEAKER_04:

Yep.

SPEAKER_03:

You know, in and and you know, that's like also like the world, right? Like the US is not not like an exception, but it's a particular style that is particularly repulsive.

SPEAKER_05:

What I was thinking, it's funny that you mentioned that because what I was what I was going to say is that, and we can talk about this the next episode with the Epstein Files, but of course, there's all this um these implications of cannibalism and like eating babies, and I don't know if you've seen any of that stuff.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, no, not yet.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, and uh I was driving home and I was thinking about it. Um, I was like, I don't know why people are surprised because again, look at history. This isn't the first time we've seen this. I was thinking about ancient Elizabeth Bathory. She used to kill young women and bathe in their blood because she thought it was going to keep her immortal, or like Caligula, or like all of these things from ancient history where they've engaged cannibalism, just the awful things they did. So it's not like this is new. Power always ends this way. People who have this much power seem to always end up in a depravity and doing these like terrible things over and over and over again.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I think that I don't I don't know if it's that like that type of power removes one's humanity. You know, and especially, you know, generations of opulence and wealth.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, there's that exp there's that uh quote, uh um absolute power corrupts absolutely.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

And I think that there's a lot of truth behind that.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I um and the and you know, this is a complicated case. Well, yeah, I think this is probably this this is this is kind of verging on on more of like um like historical, philosophical, you know, human behavior, which is like a place where my brain lit, like there's like part of my brain that's probably like doing that all the time. Um yeah, I think it's it's a I go in between these two spaces of having um such um hope, you know, with the the creative, beautiful, um the possibilities of the human mind that can of of what beautiful extraordinary things it can create when it's given the space to be creative and also the horrors, right?

SPEAKER_02:

And that these cycles um happen.

SPEAKER_03:

And actually, a very good friend of mine, um, we were talking about bonobos and how um bonobos are very like non-violent in general, but um they will kill the females will kill male bonobos that harm like infants or young ones. Supposedly, right? I have to meet like supposedly I mean like this is what I this is the conversation that we have, and I trust this person is like spends a lot of time in the intellectual rumination and reading and all this kind of thing. So um, and it's also like part of of what she studies, so um so you know, and and there's this thing about like when you have a place where none of that like we have as humans, like how long have we, you know, excused like violence against women and children and and old people?

SPEAKER_05:

Um, pretty much when the patriarchy started.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Because that didn't happen when we had matriarchies. That that's my two sense on that one. Yeah, I I'm I've been screaming for a matriarchy for like 20 years, but you know, like yeah, so well so we we do have to wrap up. So for the listeners out there, I just want all of you to know that Eric and I both share in the what the fuck right now. And that's that's okay to feel like that. But as we both talked about it, it's also really important to do something. And Erica, you talked about community, and I think it's a really great idea for the listeners or anybody. Go out and like talk to communities you wouldn't normally talk to. Like go go get engaged and like help people out.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, help people look for organizations you can look for ones. I mean, ideally, like if you're Red Key, like you should look at longstanding organizations that are immigrant-led, black-led, like BIPOC-led, um, those types of groups. If not, that's available. Look for organizations that are um, you know, engaged, or you know, you know, figure out what works best for you, but get get active, right? Or at your next friend gathering, talk about wanting to get active. Talk about some of these things and how you're feeling with the your friends, and then maybe you all can do something together, right?

SPEAKER_05:

That's great. And we're not, I agree with that. We're not telling anybody to go out and like move mountains because we know that that's unrealistic, but do something, even if it's Take one step. I know it's scary. You know, we b Eric and I both talked about avoidance and fear. Do something small that doesn't feel scary, but it's still doing something. And then maybe you can build up from there. And Erica's your you know comments about community is so important. I think we just need to keep stressing that.

SPEAKER_02:

Start with feeding people up.

SPEAKER_05:

That's a great idea, too.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

So thank you, everybody. And I I look forward to a great season four. And Erica, one other thing I want to tell you that I forgot about with Heated Rivalry is one of the characters is written as somebody who has autism. So I I think you'll really like it. I didn't realize it the first time I watched it, but then I I read it and then I went back and watched it the second time, and I'm like, oh my god, it's so obvious now. So you have to watch it. I want it up, I want to report.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, autistic characters for sure. It's really, and it's even more exciting when it's not like the central theme.

SPEAKER_05:

And I he's he's I I don't remember where he's from, but he is Asian too as well.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh, yes.

SPEAKER_05:

You've got to watch it. You have to watch it. I want an update. All right, everybody. Take care. We will see you soon. This is just a reminder that no part of this podcast can be duplicated or copied without written consent from either myself or Wendy. Thank you again.

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