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Jan. 20, 2020 - Minion Death Cult

01:45:20

All I know is my dad owns 10 houses in the neighboorhood and 2 are empty

In honor of our 311th patron, here's a bonus episode, unlocked for more content, support the show at http://patreon.com/miniondeathcult This week Alex shares the ballad of the Jeff Dunham guy, and we cover Moms 4 Housing getting evicted by militarized police in Oakland California, the fight to decommodify housing, and the right-wing and liberal response to these efforts.

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	The liberals are destroying California, and conservative humor gone awry... Conservative humor gone awry is going to fascistphonia today, so stay tuned.
	We're going to take a few pictures of the desert and how their policies are actually messing it up.
	It's not beautiful when you go across that border.
	Stay tuned guys, we'll show you exactly what it looks like when people are going to get yourself all there in Boston.
	Stay tuned.
	I'm Alexander Edward.
	And I'm Tony Boswell.
	And we're Minion Death Cult.
	The world is ending.
	Homeless moms are responsible.
	We're documenting it.
	What's up, everybody?
	It's your Patreon episode for this week.
	Hey, we got it done within the week.
	It's technically still the same week.
	Congratulations to us, I think.
	I think we deserve a pat on the back.
	Every week that you guys are waiting is another week that capitalism has won.
	I'm going to keep reminding you of that.
	The reason this is happening is because poor Alex is insanely overworked.
	Yesterday, we were getting back and forth with each other, and then at one point I was like, hey, how's it going?
	And I just assumed he was like, his eyes were rolled in the back of his head.
	And you were just like driving your UPS truck blindly like a drone and you were not a human anymore.
	And I just knew that it wasn't going to happen and I just felt so sad for you.
	Yeah, I did the that thing where the eyes rolled back to the head and I like pointed my arm out and screeched.
	I did that at every single one of my 272 stops yesterday.
	Um... That's why you never got nominated as the hot UPS guy, because you're too fucking weird.
	Yeah, um... Dude, this connection fucking sucks, bro.
	This connection sucks shit.
	Yeah, let's end the call and call back, because it's been awful.
	Cool.
	Yeah, okay, so yeah, work has been bad.
	Listeners probably know.
	They hear me complain about it.
	Thank you for your patience.
	Today is the first day I got off from work before eight in the last two months.
	It is my first hot toddy in one month, at least.
	Nice.
	Good night, I think.
	Nice.
	Yeah, I'm drinking a whiskey sour over here, a.k.a.
	I didn't have anything to mix, but I do have a child, so I had a pouch of lemonade and some whiskey, and a little bit of Aperol to keep it classy.
	Nice, okay.
	Yeah, I bought lemon juice because I ran out of lemon juice a month ago, so I have two little containers of lemon juice that I just opened tonight.
	Also, my upstairs neighbor, I think, is practicing kick drum.
	Not the drums, just the kick.
	So, yeah, things are going well.
	Things are going good.
	Cool, cool.
	I kind of have to address a work thing.
	You know, people say they like hearing work anecdotes, and I got kind of a doozy for everybody.
	So like, I'm a UPS driver, in case you, this is your very first episode, you've decided to subscribe to the Patreon, sight unheard, and this is your first episode.
	I am a UPS driver, and when Work gets heavy, we have what are called helpers and these are people who ride in the truck with us and they take the packages to the door while I am digging for the next package we need for the next stop.
	That's what happens.
	And it's kind of, like, existentially terrifying for somebody as... I don't know how I would describe myself.
	I guess, like, uh... idiosyncratic?
	Or, like...
	I don't know, um, slightly anxious to just know that you're going to be working with a complete stranger for 12 hours of the day at the very least.
	I think, I think the internet would call you a lone wolf.
	Okay, yeah, definitely.
	You're a real lone, a lone brown lone wolf.
	Well, if you're a lone wolf, then you're always the alpha.
	That's true.
	That's true.
	You never get, like, lower in the packing order, to mix them up.
	You would think so, but the alpha in my pack is typically my depression.
	Okay.
	I think what you have to do is you have to, like, find who your depression is dating and seduce them, take them out, whine them and dine them, and humiliate your depression.
	I don't know if I could jerk off more than I already do.
	Like, your depression's probably white, right?
	Probably got a white girlfriend.
	I'm gonna assume so.
	This is gonna be a cakewalk for me, is what you're saying.
	So you just cuck that motherfucker.
	Cool.
	Easy.
	Easy peasy.
	Um...
	Yeah, so it's usually okay.
	Usually the helper is, you know, a little weird, but like weird in an endearing way.
	Or weird in like, it's fine, something you can ignore.
	I always like it when you have like a nice story about a helper that, um, I don't know, maybe you guys found some common ground in music, or like they have something interesting, like, oh I didn't see it coming, it was pleasant, you had something to chat about.
	I love those stories, that's what you're gonna That's what happened, right?
	Like, for example, one of my helpers years ago was this, like, 50-year-old dude who had, like, an anarchy jail tattoo on the webbing of his thumb and forefinger.
	And then he didn't have a forefinger on his other hand.
	The dream.
	I want to lose a finger so bad.
	I think he said it got knocked off by a train.
	Knocked off?
	Something like that.
	I'm trying to remember.
	That's like way more brutal than cut off.
	The headline of this story, the reason why how the finger was severed is less important is because one of his friends took the finger home with him and like tried to pickle it and keep it.
	Um, but then I think there was like a curse attached to the finger so the friend like threw it out the front door or threw it out the back door some door, you know, get it out of the get it out of the house Listen, man.
	My life has been shit since I took your finger.
	If that thing's got to be cursed you've been living with that finger It's like a wonder got knocked off.
	It's like a reverse monkey's paw.
	It's a tweaker finger like It, like, doesn't even give you, like, a weird, uh, you know, half-good, half-bad wish.
	It's just all bad.
	See, the problem with the lone fingers is it's always pointing.
	No this guy so yeah so this guy comes into the truck he's like dressed kind of nicely and like fancy and I'm like okay this is interesting um and uh yeah he's just like very energetic he's very like polite and like personable and very like sensitive and I'm just like okay you need to Settle down.
	We're just going to be like, you know, working and moving for fucking 12 hours.
	Like you don't need to thank me three times for calling you to help me, etc.
	Like his text, I called him to, you know, said, hey, you know, you want to work today?
	He was like, yep.
	And I said, cool, you know, meet me here at this time.
	And then we agreed to it.
	And he's like, thank you.
	Thank you.
	And hey, hey, blessed new year.
	Have a blessed new year.
	And I'm like, all right, cool, man, whatever.
	Absolutely.
	And then he texted me right after and said, Alex, thank you and we'll see you soon.
	I just didn't respond because there was no no need for me to do that and So yeah, I go to pick him up he gets into the car He's wearing like this weird like nice leather red leather jacket, and I'm like okay interesting Did you say a nice red leather jacket like a like not quite red, but like really brown Leather type jacket fitted everyone's thinking you know Eddie Murphy Michael Jackson.
	That's the only red leather jacket that exists so Looking good though.
	He starts talking and I'm just like, okay, man, you know, fine, whatever, giving one word answers.
	And then he starts singing and he's just singing to himself in a falsetto.
	I'm just like, all right, this fucking sucks, dude.
	This absolutely sucks.
	He's singing in front of customers.
	We are talking to customers and he is singing in front of them.
	He is like making eye contact with customers and saying, thank you, thank you, how's your new year going?
	And I'm just like, shut the fuck up, dude.
	Like, this isn't, this isn't like, you're not gonna make connections with the apartment manager at 915 Spruce.
	Like, what are you doing, dude?
	And, uh, so it's about at this point that I put both earbuds in, put my beanie down over my ears, and pull my hood up.
	And just ignore this dude.
	And this dude starts like, he'll say something to me, and I just don't look at him.
	And so he just keeps talking.
	He just keeps talking and laughing and talking and laughing.
	And I am cranking the volume on the Majority Report with Sam Seder.
	And...
	Like, I walk back to the truck because I had to get a signature so he couldn't take the package, and I hear cackling coming from inside the cab of my truck.
	Just like this guy is a nightmare.
	This guy is an absolute psycho.
	Absolute nightmare.
	Yeah, you're about to get murdered.
	I've been ignoring him.
	It's, you know, like I said, but he gets my attention while I'm driving.
	He gets my attention.
	And so it seems important.
	So I make a big deal of taking both of my earbuds out, removing my hood, pulling my beanie up.
	So he like gets the hint that I do not like to do this.
	And I say, yeah?
	Connect with humans.
	And he tells me, he asks me, have you ever heard of Jeff Dunham?
	And it's at this point I'm like, seriously contemplating swerving into oncoming traffic.
	And I say, yes?
	And he said, man, he's so funny, like I've been watching him the last couple days and I've just been, I've just been laughing at it, laughing about him today.
	Is there like a new Jeff Dunham special?
	He's got a residency in Vegas.
	Oh, but I don't know if there's any like media out there.
	So he says, Oh, he's so funny.
	He's just like the coolest guy.
	And I say nothing.
	I don't make eye contact with him.
	I don't look at him and I put my earbuds back in and I pull my beanie back down and I put my hood back up.
	He's telling the same story to people, but you're the biggest asshole in the story.
	I just wanted to talk about Jeff Dunham.
	I just, you guys know I do a killer jalapeno.
	You guys know I do the best jalapeno.
	Jeff Dunham, then me, and best jalapeno status.
	Like, why does he not want to hear this?
	To be fair, there's probably like a million dudes out there saying this about like, oh, have you heard of Dave Chappelle?
	Or, oh, have you heard of Louis CK?
	Like, there's dudes doing other people's bits to their package car driver.
	Also, but the Jeff Dunham thing is like... I don't know, man.
	That's like somebody saying, you know, hey, have you ever heard of Smash Mouth?
	Yeah, yeah.
	There's this cool song, All Star, I've been listening to for the last two days.
	The only thing that makes you saying that better is that the fact that there is that Smash Mouth poster in frame that I can see right now.
	That's neither here nor there and that's not a poster, that's a record my friend.
	That is why can't we be friends on vinyl.
	Which, by the way, is a fucking banger.
	That is, if you're gonna pick a Smash Mouth cover of a song, that is, that's that one.
	That is a gift to me slash That Awful Sound from Nick Gunzler, I believe.
	So, shout out Nick.
	Check out his work at Terminal Radness.
	You can also see it on Mark Hoppus' bass guitar from their last tour.
	Anyway, So, uh, yeah, I hear him cackling, laughing, loving, laughing, just loving life, you know, just enjoying this whole experience of running packages door to door.
	And I, uh, I, I stop and I, and I have my headphones out and I hear him like saying, I don't even- I wouldn't even call it a bit.
	This is what he's doing.
	And excuse me, because it's a very embarrassing thing for me to do, but I'm gonna do it how he did it.
	He's looking at his phone, and he's just going to himself, You're so silly.
	No, I'm not.
	You're so silly.
	No, I'm not.
	You're so silly.
	No, I'm not.
	Yeah.
	This is a grown-up, random, cheese humor Jeff Dunham fan who you happen to like.
	Oh, fuck.
	And like I said, I mean I tweeted this out, I don't know if I said it, but he was otherwise like present.
	He was otherwise not hallucinating or... I don't know.
	I'm not a, I'm not a clinical psychologist, but he didn't look schizophrenic.
	This isn't like, this didn't seem to be like a manifestation of his schizophrenia.
	He's just a fucking obnoxious person.
	That's incredible.
	And so he's on the phone with somebody right and I'm like okay I'll wait to start up the truck because he made this phone call and he's talking extremely professionally to this woman on the phone and I'm like okay it sounds like this is another job he wants to get because you know driver helper is like a temporary job or whatever and he's like
	You know I guess I guess I'll be working with you I guess I'll be I I wanted to speak with you you know and he was like yes he just um I I'm recently back in Seattle because I had to go to uh North Carolina because uh my mother died yes thank you well she's doing much better now she's doing much what hi hi mom love you mom uh love you mom yeah and I'm just like
	Okay, and then he goes yeah, so I was trying to get that cell phone, but it wasn't available so I I was wondering which other ones you had so he was like talking about his dead mother talking to his dead mother while on the phone with like T-Mobile or You know Sprint or somebody So I thought that was interesting.
	And it's about it this time where I was like, Oh, I need to like record this.
	I need to, I need to record this for posterity.
	I needed to document this because no one's going to believe this.
	No, nobody's going to believe that this person is real.
	It's unreal.
	Yeah.
	Um, and so I decided to record it and I'm going to play a little bit of it.
	And, I mean, it's like incredible.
	It's like the best possible example of what I was dealing with when I happened to take my headphones out.
	So Jeff, so you are a dead terrorist I hear.
	That's right.
	I blow things up.
	No, I commit, not Jeff.
	That's right.
	You better watch out.
	Okay, the last thing you heard in that was the last thing you heard in that was my completely soulless, dead delivery of, "Okay, let's go."
	So when you first tweeted about this, and I responded that I'm like thinking about you and thoughts and prayers and all that, I had not heard the audio yet.
	And then when I heard the audio, I realized that thoughts and prayers would not suffice.
	So I actually donated $5 to the Bernie Sanders campaign.
	I appreciate that.
	That's the correct response.
	I hope Bernie has a plan to deal with people like this.
	Get them the help they need.
	Yeah.
	The best part about this whole situation to me is that I totally believe in, you know, the multiverse theory and in some other universe there's you being helped by this exact person except you take your headphones out and he's like, hey uh you ever heard of Helmsley?
	And then you guys become like really good friends And then I had to kill him because he tried to replace me.
	He's doing like polyrhythmic drums while harmonizing with himself on the dashboard.
	Yeah.
	I'm like, wow, that's pretty cool.
	Just getting it.
	He's like, oh, Helmsley, you're so talented.
	I saw Ben Varela and I love your amplifiers.
	Oh, thank you So what you heard in that I just want to talk about that video for a second of Uh, what you heard in the audio was A, him singing a song about crossing the street to return to the truck.
	Um, I think it was singing a song about looking both ways to be specific.
	Um, and then you hear him doing a Jeff Dunham bit, uh, with one, one caveat.
	Uh, he accidentally calls the dead terrorist, Jeff.
	Yeah.
	Which is kind of a huge slip up there.
	Yeah, it would be like saying, you know, my name's Sasha Baron Cohen.
	You better...
	When the news comes out next week that Jeff Dunham has been murdered, you have to call somebody.
	I'm not a big fan of ratting on people, but by call somebody I mean us, and tell us, and we won't turn him in.
	But anyways, he's for sure going to murder Jeff Dunham.
	My Isla Fisher!
	And then he gets it right and he says, oh, not Jeff, Ahmed.
	Yeah, that's right.
	I blow people up.
	I'm a terrorist.
	I mean, it's as funny as Jeff Dunham, I think.
	Yeah.
	And it was great because while I was recording this, I was finally able to laugh at it.
	Yeah.
	Because I realized that other people would be able to hear this.
	Yeah.
	And it finally, like, I don't know, de-shrouded me from the doom and gloom.
	I was like, no, other people exist in the world.
	It's not just me and this person in my truck.
	There are other people who are going to bear witness to my suffering.
	You know, not to be that guy, but, um...
	You sound like a real manager, Alex.
	Just saying.
	Yeah, so... This guy's gonna call in a street fight and be all like, yeah, I was doing my best Jeff Dunham bits and my fucking... My supervisor was not having it.
	He was just like, had his headphones in the whole time and was being a real cold asshole.
	Can I show you what this guy looks like?
	Please.
	Alright, I'm gonna text you an image of him.
	Please.
	I have an image in my mind.
	What?!
	No!
	No!
	Shut!
	No!
	No, there's so many things!
	There's so many things here!
	Oh my god!
	What?!
	What?!
	No!
	We can't!
	I can't!
	We can't even touch it!
	It's insane!
	No!
	- Shut up. - You gotta tell.
	Well, for starters, he's beautiful.
	He has this beautiful, long, curly hair.
	He looks... I'm not...
	He has like this...
	beautiful, like, long curly hair.
	He's like a young, hip, vintage-wearing black man with like... gorgeous, big hair.
	It's like, it's like permed hair.
	If you saw this guy, you probably wouldn't approach him because you thought he might be extra cool.
	Like, he looks extremely, like, hip.
	I did not see this coming at all.
	Like, at fucking all.
	Oh man.
	Yeah.
	This, uh, This is how we fight racism.
	This is proof that not all black people are actually very cool.
	I thought that we were all just born really cool and like he might look it but then he's doing these Jeff Dunham bits and his yeah yeah fuck so Amazing.
	Amazing.
	It gets worse.
	This story is going on long, but I don't care.
	It gets worse, like I'm going uphill on cobblestones and he's going...
	With the cobblestones.
	No!
	And when I honk to back up, he is mimicking the horn.
	Beep beep!
	Beep beep!
	Beep beep beep!
	And I'm driving through narrow residential streets while it's snowing, trying not to slide and hit cars, and he is just laughing and cackling at the snow, I think.
	I am gonna hope that this person is actually hilarious, is actually really, really, really funny, and is like, hey, I'm gonna jokingly try to relate to this white guy by doing Jeff Dunham bits.
	Well, I think we can... I wish that was the truth, but I want that to be the truth.
	He was trolling you really hard the whole time.
	I think we can put that conspiracy theory to bed, uh, because I confronted him and said... You need to stop, dude.
	You need to stop, man.
	I'm sorry.
	You're killing me.
	You need to stop.
	And he was like, Oh, I'm sorry.
	It's just like, it's like being a kid when your parents are driving, you know?
	And I was like, all right, man.
	Like, that's fine.
	But you know, we're working.
	I need you to just not do that anymore.
	And he's like, okay.
	And then he started singing immediately after that.
	And I said, no, even the singing, I'm sorry.
	Even the singing's no more.
	And so that's when he gets defensive and says, this is just who I am.
	I sing jazz for the church.
	And this is, this is who I am.
	And this is how I, this is how I inject joy and positivity in my life.
	And, uh, and he was like, you're doing the opposite for me.
	You're doing the opposite for me right now.
	He was like, and you know, you guys, it's such a stressful job, like I'm trying to alleviate some of that stress.
	And I was like, nope, it's not working.
	I don't need you to do that.
	I do this job every day.
	It's fine.
	I don't need you to do that for me.
	And then he's all, well, it seems like you're stressed out because like, Like, first thing when I got into the truck, you were, like, complaining that you cut your finger.
	And I was like, well, I mean, I got some glass in my finger, and I, like, told you that there was glass in my finger.
	And he was like, yeah, but then you said, like, ugh, fuck this, or something.
	And I was like... I mean, yeah, like, I said... Yeah, I got glass in my finger.
	I said, you know, something, fuck, and he's like, well, you didn't have to use that word.
	And I was like, alright, man.
	Like, okay.
	Don't you find the way he looks, at least his voice was beautiful.
	Was his singing voice good?
	Yeah, it was good.
	Did he have a nice falsetto?
	It was decent, bordering on extra.
	It was decent, but he was pushing it way too hard.
	Anyway, I was just like, dude, it's not helping.
	He was like, we just need to find some camaraderie in this.
	And I was like, All right, man, like because he wasn't listening to me.
	I was like, don't do this shit in my truck, please.
	And he just wasn't listening.
	And he was insisting that he had to do singing and Jeff Dunham bits to himself because UPS drivers were too negative and he didn't want to take that energy home with him at the end of the day.
	And I was like, all right, all right, shut the fuck up.
	OK, this is how we find camaraderie.
	This is how we compromise.
	You sing more quietly and I keep my headphones in.
	That's how we do it.
	How?
	Yes.
	And he was like, okay, okay.
	And he had to stop to use the bathroom like three times throughout the day, which was a little extra.
	That was the most manager thing you said the whole time, but I get it.
	Yeah, it's just, I have to piss a lot, and I don't have to piss three times in six hours.
	So... Must be nice.
	And so when we stopped, he was just like, I don't know, have you ever tried taking a deep breath?
	And I was like, shut the fuck up, dude.
	Get the fuck in the bathroom.
	Get in the bathroom.
	Just take a deep breath.
	You can only have that type of optimism if you're delusional.
	He's like, no really, it helps.
	And I'm like, dude, have you never talked to another person?
	Have you only talked to church freaks your whole life?
	You should have told him to check out James Baldwin, some of his famous quotes.
	Oh shit.
	I made a guess.
	To be in a constant state of rage.
	Maybe you should just put a little bit of that in you because it's not time for us to be like that.
	We should be pumped, but not that pumped.
	To be a UPS driver with a helper is to be in a constant state of rage.
	I agree with you, Tony.
	I agree with both you and James Baldwin.
	I think that's it.
	Yeah, and the night ended with, you know, me filling out his time card and him being like, you know, we need to talk about this because, like, you know, you said this and I'm just trying to speak my truth and I was like, man, I don't care.
	I don't care.
	Please get out of my package car.
	Please, like, go.
	Go home.
	It's fine.
	Like, whatever.
	And he was chastising me for saying one curse word throughout the day.
	That's all you did was the one?
	Yeah, because after he brought it up, I just didn't cuss anymore because that's a pretty easy thing to stop.
	I wish he would have also not jabbered and sang to himself after I brought that up, but... And this is going on so long.
	It's almost over, I swear.
	He said, well, I hope things get better for you.
	And I was like, all right, dude.
	And I grabbed his backpack out of the back of the truck and I shoved it into his chest.
	I didn't shove it.
	I put it into his chest, into his arms, and said, leave.
	Get out.
	Because it took him 10 minutes.
	It took him 10 minutes to get out of my package car.
	Go home.
	I was like, we are done with work.
	I want to go home.
	It's fucking 10.
	It's fucking 10 p.m.
	Get out of my package car.
	For context, for the people, what time do you start again?
	9am.
	Jesus Christ.
	And he was, he walked home and I passed him and he tried to make eye contact with me as I drove by.
	Absolute nightmare.
	We've been talking about this for 30 minutes.
	It's fine.
	I'm happy that you got to get that off your chest.
	I'm happy that I got to see the picture of the person.
	I wish that we could show people what this guy looks like because it's unbelievable.
	But, fuck man.
	I'm happy you made it out the other end.
	I'm happy you didn't have an aneurysm.
	Thanks, man.
	Yeah, it was... I mean... I'm non-confrontational.
	I don't like confrontation.
	I don't like having to tell my helper to shut the fuck up.
	but when you don't take context clues like that and you literally go like to yourself all day i gotta i gotta tell you to stop any um any long time listeners of the show uh no anybody who listens to the early episodes knows exactly how patient you are um so
	So for it to come to that, that says a lot.
	That says an awful lot.
	Yeah, alright, let's get into a listener request here.
	We have a listener request from Benjamin here, who really wanted us to read this comment.
	So this is from a person who joined a group called Brutal Kittens Group.
	And this is like, you know, black cats and coffee type shit, right?
	Like black metal, black cats, black coffee, edgy, like...
	It's funny, it's all that, but like, it's surprisingly not black people so much.
	I mean, they're there, but that's definitely not on the list, but yes.
	Yeah, these kittens are, they're brutal kittens, but still very segregated, I think.
	Um, so, this person just noticed the upside-down cross on the kitten's forehead in the cover photo of the group.
	Great pic, by the way.
	Great pic.
	It's a good pic, and, uh, was upset about it.
	And they, you know, they posted, oh my, I just, this is all caps, OH MY I JUST NOTICED THE UPSIDE-DOWN CROSS ON THE MAIN COVER PIC WHAT'S WITH THIS CRAP PLEASE RESPOND Okay, and everybody laughed at this person.
	I think it was a hundred and fourteen laugh reacts in this group, judging by the script.
	No likes, no loves, nothing, just pure laugh.
	And then this is the comment specifically.
	I'm kind of reading this dry.
	Jacqueline says, I don't think that I am any better than nobody dot dot am definitely not perfect by any means dot dot dot in fact I deserve to burn in hell for all I've done for all the messed up stuff that I said and done dot dot dot just to let all know that Jesus is real three exclamation points one thousand percent and he is the only way to escape eternal flame Dot dot dot.
	I have been held over the lake of fire.
	Dot dot dot.
	Could smell the stench of burning flesh, parentheses, including my own.
	I could feel, comma, hear, see, and smell that hell is real.
	I woke up face down on the floor, drenching wet from the heat of where I had just been.
	Gritting teeth.
	Smiling emoji.
	Crying emoji.
	Terrified and extremely overheated, I was instantly being fanned and cooled down by a wonderful holy angel.
	Uh, holy?
	Smiley emoji?
	Who proceeded to pick me up and comfort my sorrowful spirit.
	Uh, blue heart emoji.
	God is real!
	Dot dot dot.
	Heaven is real!
	Space.
	Dot dot dot.
	And you best believe that hell is real, too!
	And trust me, you D-O-N-T want to go there!
	Space.
	Dot dot dot.
	This is not dress rehearsal!
	Three exclamation points.
	Sad emoji.
	Aw, they just want to save your soul.
	Mm-hmm.
	Like, Sweet Jackalyn just wants to save your soul from the kittens.
	Um, I like that she could smell the stench of burning flesh, including her own.
	Yeah.
	Which is weird because don't, don't we all kind of like our own smell?
	Yeah, totally.
	Yeah.
	You know, that's true.
	It's other people's burning flesh.
	It's kind of gross.
	It's like, ew, you know, do that in private, like do that in your car before you, before you get out.
	But, uh, our own, it's kind of not that big of a deal.
	You know, actually, I think that, is it Jacqueline?
	Yeah, Jacqueline was that person in that, I don't know if you ever saw the picture of the person actually being like roasted over a spit, like on a spit, like slowly, like as a kink.
	That was Jacqueline.
	So Jacqueline got pretty dark for a minute.
	So I don't blame her for feeling that way.
	And the Holy Spirit, those like holy angels, Fanny Roth, those are just supporters.
	Those are just like, those are just like, you know, her spotters that took her off the spit and put water on her and fanned her down.
	But she did, she did go, she did black out, she did hallucinate in that process. - Yes.
	So, she's just experienced some pretty gnarly, like, flesh-burning trauma.
	I think the moral of the story is, like, don't get too fucked up with your kittens.
	Like, kittens don't have to be brutal.
	Like, kittens are fine on their own.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	It's not worth it.
	I respect that.
	It's not worth it to go to hell just because you want some, like, edgy kittens, you know?
	But, like, aren't kittens already, like, a sign of the devil?
	Isn't that a thing?
	I feel like they're probably pretty... If there's an evil animal, like, it's a kitten.
	No, kittens go to purgatory.
	It's the cats who are the signs of the devil.
	Oh.
	Okay, yeah, you're right.
	You're right.
	This is a strictly kitten page.
	Okay, let's get into the main topic.
	You got anything else to add?
	Thank you so much, Benjamin, for sending that in.
	Always feel free to make requests in the Minion Death Commandos Facebook group.
	We are more than happy to oblige.
	You know, if it's a funny comment, we will definitely read it.
	So yeah, what Alex is saying is if you guys want him to perform any Jeff Dunham bits, Just send the YouTube and he'll do it verbatim on the Patreon feed.
	That's what I just heard right now.
	You'll get your homie to come do it.
	You'll get your helper to come do it with you.
	I mean, I have his number.
	I'm really shocked he didn't text me to try and speak more of his truth to me over text.
	He's just giving you time.
	He's just giving you time.
	That's good.
	That's polite.
	If you find a comment in the comment section of a Jeff Dunham video that is doing a Jeff Dunham bit in the comment section, I will read that.
	That's the compromise.
	That's the meeting halfway point.
	So many people were all challenge accepted.
	That's fine.
	Okay, so...
	So, uh, recently in Oakland, uh, a group, an informal group, a group called Moms for Housing, uh, occupied an empty house in Oakland as part of a demonstration, as part of an action to both, I don't know, have a place to fucking stay, and also to make a point about the homelessness crisis in Oakland.
	and not only the homelessness crisis but also the like gentrification crisis which are kind of one in the same you know they're pretty similar at least they overlap um and also just the the cost of living in the bay area that has been just fucking driven into the stratosphere by the you know silicon valley
	Um, and, uh, I, I didn't hear about this story until the night where they evicted these moms with police, with tanks, with, with, you know, uh, basically SWAT gear, you know?
	Yeah.
	Cops in, in full vests and, uh, you know, automatic rifles.
	What was so fucked about that too is that they knew the cops were supposed to come and evict them at like that evening.
	So people showed up.
	There were like over 200 people there in solidarity with the moms.
	What's fucked up, what's even more fucked up, is they showed up with the tanks and the SWAT gear at 5 o'clock the next morning.
	Because they knew.
	Yeah.
	They knew.
	And it's like... It's disgusting.
	It's fucking disgusting.
	Because at 5 o'clock the next morning, they could have snuck up on him, but they could have knocked on the fucking door.
	Yeah, this is an empty house.
	This is a house that was purchased as a speculation purchase.
	This is just a developer, a real estate company who wants to make money, you know.
	Yeah.
	like all landlords do, wants to make money.
	And you could say, so from what I've read, in Oakland, there are four empty houses for every homeless person.
	And that's including men, women, children.
	Every person in a homeless family.
	There are four empty houses.
	To make it clear, it's not a housing crisis.
	It's not what this is.
	Yeah, that's a good point.
	It's an artificially capitalism-created crisis.
	The structures are there.
	It's a crisis created by the for-profit housing industry.
	People buy these houses and they keep them off the market so that the home prices rise even further.
	The whole agenda of the company that purchased the house that evicted them Is house flipping.
	That's their whole agenda.
	What are they called?
	Westwood?
	What is the name?
	Yeah, Westwood.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	It's like Westwood Development, something like that.
	But that's all they do.
	They go into neighborhoods, they buy the houses, they clean the houses up, they raise the property value, and then they flip it.
	And like, it's the most disgusting thing ever because it's literally putting profit over people.
	Yeah.
	It's literally saying, hey, Fuck you.
	I know we could just, I know that we could rent this out to you for a reasonable, for a reasonable price.
	And like, everybody could be fine.
	But they're like, no, there's money to be made here.
	Let's, let's, you know, get you the fuck out of here.
	And in my mind, that's like the logical conclusion to a profit motive in any arena, but especially with housing, like especially with a basic need such as shelter and housing, you're going to see the like glaring problems with capitalism.
	You're going to see the most extreme examples of the problem of capitalism because Why would a company care about homeless people?
	There's no incentive to.
	And the idea that liberal reforms are going to somehow cut these guys a tax break if they work with a non-profit in the area to maybe provide one home for every 12 they flip or something like that.
	It's insane.
	It's absurd.
	We are, I don't know, prostrating ourselves before these markets that just don't need to exist.
	They don't need to exist at all.
	I live in Southern California right now.
	I'm looking for a place to move because my current home is being sold by a friend who lives here.
	She's moving back to the East Coast.
	It's not that dicey.
	But I'm looking for a place.
	And I, every single application says, you know, says no section 8.
	I've been turned away because I have a child.
	Like, everything about this is fucked.
	And, um, it's only because, like, you know, there's a profit to be made.
	And they're like, oh, that's cool.
	I know that you, like, make this much money.
	But I also know that your kid takes up this much money.
	And I also know that your kid's a liability.
	And I'd much rather, like, you know, rent it out to some, you know, some tech bro.
	Because where I happen to live, there is one of the largest, like, tech companies.
	happens to be stationed right here that they don't want to deal with me you know they don't want to deal with like well they don't have to their livelihood doesn't depend on it they have their fingers in so many pots that they can afford to just not make money on a house uh by by renting to you they can afford to just wait for something and it's better for them you know And then on top of that, I'm like, cool, I need help here.
	Let me go to my local social security office.
	Not social security office, but the housing assistance office.
	Let me go there, let me find out what I can do.
	Let me find out what my options are.
	I go there, and they're like, what do you want?
	And I was like, well, um, I don't actually know.
	I want to know what my options are.
	And they're like, I, I can't help you with that.
	Like what, what are you here for?
	And I was like, I just, I don't know.
	I don't know what you guys offer.
	I don't know what the options are.
	Um, they're like, well, how much are you paying right now?
	I told him, I said, I said, but I'm trying to move, like, what are my options?
	And they said, well, like, if you don't know what you want, we can't help you.
	You're like, I want a place to live for this much money.
	Yeah.
	And all I was saying was I said, I don't, I came in there trying to be like, Hey, I have no clue.
	I have no clue what to do.
	Yeah.
	I don't know.
	Hey, you're a bureaucratic organization with a purported mission statement.
	Can you, like, tell me what that is?
	Can you tell me what you guys do for people?
	Exactly, and they would not, and they could not, and I eventually, like, I literally walked out of that place, like, crying and upset because I had... I was upset because I was like, fuck, I...
	My situation is not nearly as dire as other people who I know, who I encounter on a daily basis, and it's pretty fucking dire.
	But it's not nearly as bad as other people who I interact with on a regular basis.
	And I was like so fucking broken for them.
	Like, I mean, my thing sucks, my thing absolutely sucks, but I was also like, fuck, like, you know, at least my kid's mom is awesome and like, you know, pulls the majority of the weight and my kid will always have a roof over her head.
	But it was so fucked the way that they just, they didn't want to help.
	They had no desire to help.
	Putting me in a safe situation was not a priority.
	And I'm running into this every single day with these places I'm trying to find.
	What's going on right now in America and California especially, and especially the Bay Area, is disgusting and inhumane and it makes me want to vomit.
	I'm sorry you had to go through that, man.
	That fucking sucks.
	I'm sure a lot of it has to do with The fact that a lot of people are in your situation and the people that you talk to are already dealing with a bunch of people some of a lot of whom probably have mental illness or a lot of whom are like uh at at their at their wits end you know and so the less those people in that organization have to deal with the better so they're not going to help you get into the organization or whatever
	Which is not right at all, but I can just see that being an outgrowth of this system.
	So here's a statement from Dominique Walker, one of the moms for housing.
	We've heard from people all over the world who are inspired by our nonviolent civil disobedience.
	People who say that our action has shifted their perspective and helped them understand that housing is a human right.
	100%.
	We've built a movement of thousands of Oaklanders who showed up at a moment's notice to reject police violence and advocate for homes for families.
	This isn't over and it won't be over until everyone in the Oakland community has a safe and dignified place to live and this is like It's heartening to me.
	It fucking absolutely sucks that these women were You know essentially dragged out of this house at gunpoint that the police descended on this group of non-violent people but I think that this is the right thing to do.
	I think what they're doing is the right thing to do and I think it's the right way to do it.
	We just need more people.
	We just need enough people to where the police can't, won't, or are just unable to do this to the next batch of people.
	These women are, I mean this gets put out as a joke all the time, but these women are So much braver than every single troop.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	And mind you, they're called moms for Oakland because they were moms.
	Their children were there.
	These police, this, like, these police, this, like, fucking army, Well, I don't think the kids were there.
	I read and heard statements that they got the kids out of the home before the actual eviction, but the cops don't know that.
	They didn't know that.
	The kids were living there for the rest of the time.
	It's funny because people talk about restoring old time standards and stuff like that, but I remember a big plot point of the Titanic being, you know, get the women and children on the boat.
	Or communities coming together to like, I don't know, stand together against an oppressive landlord or somebody who owns the fucking city.
	You know, you remember honest, I don't know, normal people standing up against the billionaire tycoon who owns the town?
	Does that sound familiar at all as like a movie trope?
	Yeah, well, I mean, the funny thing about this is, like, the awful people that we're gonna see in this comment section, a large majority of these people love the play Rent.
	That's the best part about this.
	It's like, there's some fucking, like, you know, music theater nerds in here who, like, love Rent, who are also like, well, that's not the point.
	And it's like, no, that is the point of Rent.
	I've never seen Rent.
	Is it like Cats, but every character's a building?
	No, it's literally, it's a bunch of people who live in this building that are gonna get kicked out.
	Okay.
	Because they're gentrifying the neighborhood, and that's exactly what it is.
	Rent, this is the real, real raw version of the movie Rent, of the play Rent.
	You know these people love that fucking movie.
	Yeah, probably.
	And it's disgusting.
	And, you know, we always ask, like, why do cops need military-grade equipment?
	Why do they need these tanks?
	Why do they need these armored personnel vehicles, etc.? ?
	This is why.
	This is exactly why.
	They have foreseen a future when people actually stand together and resist them in enough numbers that it actually presents like a realistic challenge to police.
	And I think it sounds pretty Dire it sounds pretty extreme or dramatic But I think our only option is we stand together.
	We continue to do actions like this and we basically Challenge them to actually use this stuff against us.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, we have we have to force them to use this stuff against you know Peaceful or direct actions, you know, I'm not saying every action has to be peaceful but We see what they're willing to do to their fellow man who just want a place to live, who want a decent job, who want control over their own lives.
	We see how far they're willing to go.
	So, Emily Hubbard, these comment sections, I got these from the Moms for Housing Facebook, which, you know, this story went a little viral in the very late stages of the action.
	So there were a lot of, like, people, you know, chiming in, chiming in their thoughts, and there were a lot of people supportive and a lot of people not so much.
	Yeah, I mean, because a lot of it is the pictures The visuals of these armored vehicles, these armored men, going up to a house with... It was like three women, right?
	I think it was four women.
	Four women?
	Yeah.
	Going up to this house to, you know, detain four women.
	Um, I think a lot of people were like, oh this is fucked up, this is weird.
	I remember when I talked to them about it, they were like, wait.
	They got tanks into the streets of Oakland?
	Yeah.
	And I was like, yeah, I mean, like large armored vehicles, um, yeah, not like, not like the, not like the, the, the, the track tank, you know, like those, those tanks, the tanks from like, not the Desert Storm tank, but yeah, large armored vehicles with gunner, like with, with the gunner seats up top, you know?
	Fucked up shit.
	For four women, and specifically for black women, which, by the way, the concept of a black woman, of a strong black woman taking a stand, terrifies the patriarchy.
	Absolutely.
	Terrifies who's in control of America right now.
	Well, it has always controlled America.
	So they needed this show of force.
	And I think the visual was stunning to a lot of people, but apparently not that stunning as we will see in the comments section.
	Yeah, Emily Hubbard says, uh, this is just the beginning.
	Moms have invigorated the movement.
	Power to the people.
	Uh, which is a comment I loved and a lot of people laughed at.
	Um, yeah.
	Ramos El Nancy replies, it's not bad enough that people steal stuff, clothing, cars, but now you're trying to steal houses?
	What the hell?
	The word steal here is being so abused because the concept of steal, right, is taking something that's not yours, right?
	So we're talking about Oakland, California.
	Um, Oakland has a really unique history, uh, that is very rich and vibrant, um, in black culture.
	That is where the Panthers started.
	Um, that is the home and heart of a lot of revolution.
	And yes, these real estate companies have come on in and they've stolen Plenty of property.
	Yeah.
	These people were not stealing.
	Legally stolen.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Because the system caters to people who can just do whatever they want if they have enough money.
	Yeah, but like you said, it's taking something that's not yours.
	These real estate companies have stolen this property, this housing, this land, from the community that it rightfully belongs to.
	Who's been there forever.
	Who are now getting pushed out.
	This is another instance of stolen land on top of stolen land.
	So this word is a terrible word to use, but it's going to get used a lot.
	I love the idea of stealing a house.
	Like you're throwing it into a bindle and running off.
	You're cutting it in half and putting it on two big rigs and hauling it with cellophane on the sides.
	Or you're like, you're like chopping it up and then mixing other like bricks in there to cut it with and stretch it out farther.
	You're going into the house and taking tiny bits at once, just small little parts at once.
	That's the way to do it.
	Building it elsewhere over the course of a couple years.
	But then also the owner's like, where did my house go?
	But the quote, yeah, stealing houses, like, it reminds me of that episode of The Simpsons where Bart gets caught stealing a video game.
	And Marge is like, he's just a little boy, like, you know, and he didn't steal.
	And that security guard's like, well, sure, he's a little boy now, but soon he'll be a man stealing stadiums and quarries and houses in Oakland.
	That's what we need to do.
	We need to steal a fucking quarry.
	That's what we need.
	That's going to change the game.
	I mean, it's a good point.
	We need to steal some fresh water.
	That's going to stir some shit up.
	I think the idea, steal a house, kind of indicates how absurd it is for an outside company to claim they own a house.
	You know what I mean?
	Nobody was living in this house.
	They were keeping it off the market to inflate the price of it.
	People needed a place to live, so they fucking went inside and lived in it.
	And that seems totally fine to me.
	That seems completely moral, logical, sensible.
	It seems like something that people should do.
	And to break it down a little bit more, it's not even they needed a place to live, they needed shelter.
	They need refuge from the elements.
	And this was available.
	There should be rules against this.
	There should be rules against hoarding shelter for profit.
	Anyways.
	Should be against shelter for profit.
	Fuck you, Ramos.
	Period.
	I'll tell you what the hell.
	The hell is that they wanted to take their area back and they wanted to keep their kids safe from literally the elements.
	Thomas James says...
	Right is right, and this isn't, dot, dot, dot, dot.
	Sorry you feel it okay that these women resort to this in front of children, and you think it okay, dot, dot, dot.
	Sad, really sad.
	Yeah, why would you teach your kids to stand up for yourself?
	Not only that, like, this dude is concern-trolling so hard.
	He's like, why are you giving your children a place to live?
	You're teaching them bad values.
	You should teach them that being homeless is good because you still have your morals.
	That reminds me, I'm actually sending Penny out tomorrow to find her own place to live.
	I'm not going to make her move there.
	I'm just going to make her think she has to move there so she can learn a lesson about autonomy and responsibility.
	Yeah, that seems right.
	That seems like the way to develop principles.
	It's so funny, he's worried about the kids who currently have shelter.
	Yes!
	We're worried about their morals.
	It's just so sad.
	Not worried about their safety, or their health, or their living conditions, or their future trauma that's going to be completely embedded in them from being, you know, from their mothers being ripped away from them by military personnel.
	Just worried about like, yeah, but like you shouldn't teach them that stuff.
	Yeah, sure, their bodies are sheltered and taken care of, but what are their principles?
	Their principles are out in the cold.
	Their principles are just shivering under a cheap blanket on a street corner.
	God, it makes me so sad.
	You wanna know a real life hack?
	Um, you know, self-checkout's tight.
	Self-checkout's even tighter with a kid, because kids can mess up.
	If you let your kid scan, you can be like, oh, uh, what?
	My little hand.
	Little hand.
	Don't know how she scanned that TV for, uh, for a pack of gum.
	That's wild.
	What about, uh, self-landlording?
	That would be tight.
	That'd be super tight.
	Self-rent check.
	Just like, oh yeah, I only lived here one month this year.
	You just swipe the house one time.
	It says your house is a pack of gum again.
	I don't understand.
	Yeah, the rent is super cheap.
	It's great.
	I love living in a pack of gum.
	I'm sorry.
	I paid it, right?
	Can we move on?
	I paid it.
	Listen, it says 25 cents on this pack of Wrigley's.
	You should be lucky that I'm paying a dollar.
	You're welcome.
	Yeah.
	That was basically a tip.
	That's the tip.
	Jack Prynne says, So what shall we do?
	Just give houses to people?
	I wouldn't mind owning a home either.
	Suppose I try and talk my landlord into giving me the apartment I'm living in.
	How well should I expect that to go?
	And I replied to Jack, I said, It'd go really well if we all did it.
	Yeah?
	If we... He fucking meant it!
	If we all did it, it might go pretty well.
	And then he said, what do you mean?
	He said, what do you mean if we all did it?
	How would we do that?
	And I said, well, you can Organize together, do a general strike, or do a rent strike, and demand it into for-profit housing.
	And if enough people do it, if the organization is widespread enough... This is like a moonshot, by the way.
	This is like something that takes, you know, years to develop.
	We can demand it.
	We can just simply demand it.
	Use our labor as leverage.
	Use our rent as leverage.
	And we can do it.
	But in the meantime, you can form a tenants' union, which plenty of states and cities have.
	And in the meantime, you can fight for things like rent stabilization, for fixing the shit in your apartment that's broken, Preventing a wrongful eviction, that sort of thing.
	And people in this comment section wowed my comment.
	Like, nobody laughed at that comment.
	No.
	They either liked it or wowed it because they hadn't heard of something called a tenants union.
	They hadn't heard of anything called a rent strike.
	They hadn't heard of these things.
	And these are like real things that we can do.
	And I think that like the Moms for Housing doing this is like a good thing.
	I mean, it fucking sucks that two of them got arrested.
	One of their comrades was also arrested.
	But I think this action demonstrated to a lot of people that, like, you're not alone.
	If you're in a fucked up situation, if you have these problems, you're not alone.
	And if enough people of us get together and do this, like, they can't stop us.
	Housing is one of the many things where the people with power take advantage of the fact that we don't have means and they abuse it.
	Because the thing is, renters have rights, you know?
	But the thing is, you can't enforce those rights without the resources of a lawyer, per se.
	Um, you can't enforce those rights without, uh, the advantage.
	A functioning, a functioning, uh, housing board or housing community.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Or, or even, or even, or, or even like, you know, something like a fallback plan.
	You know, uh, just a little, a little overshare.
	Like for instance, a lot of people can move back home with their parents.
	I, I can't.
	It's not an option for me.
	I can't do that.
	I don't have that option B.
	Um, so in order for me to like have a, have rights with like, you know, exercise my rights as a tenant, I have to like be ready to pay for a lawyer and I can't do that part either.
	Yeah.
	Um, and so the thing is these things are already built into the system, but landlords know that we don't know these things.
	They also know that we can't afford to fight them on it.
	So what they do is they just take advantage of it, and they all risk it.
	They all risk it all.
	They all say, okay, this guy's giving me a hard time, this person's giving me a hard time, let me just evict them, and if they want to take me to court, cool, that's working to the budget.
	It's worked into the budget and paying the fines is cheaper for them in the long run than like actually fighting with you or whatever.
	And the only way we can do that, the only way we can really fight this is if we stand together, is if we help each other out, is if we, like you said, Form a tenants union.
	That's something they've been trying to do in this area for a little bit, and we've been working on it.
	It's very difficult.
	My city is extremely unique in that sense.
	But I'm sure there's California tenants unions.
	I'm sure that already exists at a larger scale.
	Exactly, yeah.
	So the whole thing is, solidarity is so important with this.
	You should never be going at these things alone.
	You should be going at things knowing that the idea should be that the landlord is wrong.
	The landlord is the asshole.
	Not us.
	But the way it's painted is that we're the scumbags.
	We're the ones who are taking advantage.
	We're the ones who just want fucking new carpet.
	Because this carpet's been here for 15 goddamn years and, you know, the last three tenants have had awful pets and children and now I have to like live in the dander and smell and mold and like... But, you know, like I said, the only way we can do this is together.
	It's the only way.
	Yeah, and friends of ours are affiliated with, like, Los Angeles Tenants Unions.
	And you can go to latenantsunion.org.
	That's L-A-T-E-N-A-N-T-S union dot org to learn more about that.
	And yeah, it's basically like the more people you get, the harder you can flex.
	Yeah.
	And so it absolutely helps, too.
	And it's just... This person was coming from a snarky point of view.
	Like, oh, what?
	You think we can just, I don't know, get housing for free?
	Or, I don't know, you think we can just... I could just go up to my landlord and say, hey, I'm sick of paying rent.
	And it's like, no, actually you can, but you just have to have enough people to do it.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And no one's saying, don't pay rent.
	Like, that would be great.
	That would be great.
	But in this situation, we're not saying don't pay rent.
	We're saying, hey, can we make rent accessible?
	Can we make it something that the people in the area and the community can actually afford?
	Well, you can do a rent strike.
	If everybody in the building agrees to not pay rent, then you can just not pay rent.
	But that's at the request to make it something reasonable.
	Because the thing about something like Oakland is that, yeah, the reason why Oakland has gone so sky high is because these motherfuckers are all taking the bar into the city for their tech jobs.
	You know, the people who are working within, you know, 20-25 square, you know, 20-25 mile radius of these homes, The people that are working there, they're the ones getting pushed out.
	Yeah.
	Well, it's so insane because shit like that completely skews the economy because those people in the Bay Area, they're making like, you know, $100,000, $200,000 a year, but they can barely afford, they can barely afford to live there because that's, that's the like, That's the economy there.
	That's how it works there, and it's just insane that other than those people, like, Oakland is not a wealthy area.
	Yeah.
	I mean, you know, so it's, yeah.
	And I mean, that's why California is like a particularly pernicious hellhole of liberalism.
	And, you know, there's rightful criticisms from the right about the homelessness problem, the income inequality problem.
	And they're a function of liberalism.
	They're a function of capitalism.
	It's not a function of progressivism.
	It's a function of unmitigated capitalism.
	Absolutely.
	So, Aaron Carter says, the police are doing their jobs, don't take it out on them, this isn't peaceful protest, your message is lost.
	This comment is so stupid.
	I hate this comment so much.
	Nobody did a violence to the police, even though, hey, what if they did?
	Um, nobody touched the cops.
	It was just a bunch of people around the home, like, I don't know, linking arms together?
	Standing there?
	Saying shame on you to the police?
	And just the idea of falling back on this, oh, the cops are doing their jobs.
	You don't have to, like, yell at them or you don't have to, like, tut-tut them.
	They're just doing their jobs.
	Well, fuck their jobs!
	Their job is to drag homeless women out of an empty house that is otherwise not being occupied.
	Fuck their job!
	Like, why is...
	Their job more important than people having a place to like, you know, live under a roof.
	And it's funny because, you know, like cops, they do this whole thing where they're like, we're just doing the work, you know, we're we're doing the work.
	We're putting the bad guys away.
	How was it that they were they managed to get it?
	It was something like it had to be more than 50 cops there.
	There was an insane amount of cops there.
	An insane amount of, like, armed personnel there.
	How is it that none of them were like, hey, these aren't the bad guys?
	How is it that none of them were like, yo, these are, we're going in there for, like, for these, like, four women who are just trying to find shelter for their, their... These are... It's, it's because, it's because cops are fucking awful people, that's why!
	I mean yeah and these are Oakland cops like they're they're they're dealing overwhelmingly with like poor and homeless black brown people like and you know working class people in general they have probably And this is me, like, doing an amount of psychology I don't need to do to explain why cops are bad.
	But they have probably already, like, dehumanized these people, like, in their minds.
	And this is just the riff-raff getting louder.
	This is just... Hugely.
	Hugely.
	And it's, you know, I don't know.
	I bet a lot of these people felt... I bet a lot of these cops felt...
	Great about doing this.
	Hey, finally I get to, like, strike back, you know?
	I mean, not that they don't anyway, but still.
	They probably text their friends saying, hey, this home on Sledgeside Street is going to be available soon.
	I mean, they probably text their friends, hey, look for me on Facebook.
	I was that dope-ass dude kitted out in the camo flak jacket.
	The great, like I said, the great irony of this whole thing is this is happening about the irony about the criticisms of things like peaceful protests, peaceful demonstrations, non-violent actions that have been a huge staple in the history of black activism in America is that it's happening all around the the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.
	whose story has been so Insanely whitewashed and rose-colored glass lens filtered.
	Whitewashed and greenwashed.
	That people forget the truth of it.
	People were like, well, you know, Martin was peaceful.
	Yes, Martin was peaceful, but Martin was met with dogs.
	Marlon was peaceful, Marlon was met with fire hoses.
	Marlon was peaceful but he was met with batons.
	Marlon was peaceful but at the end he was met with a bullet.
	And they forget this.
	they just spin this narrative of, well, how come these people, if this is happening in 2020 and they were met with military personnel, with like fully armed people, they must not have been peaceful.
	When all they were doing was existing in solidarity with, yeah, they had, I think they had a good 200 people the night before the morning they actually came in.
	And the thing, the thing that happens is that when, when 200 people, the majority of them are of color, the majority of them are black Americans.
	Um, That is not seen as peaceful.
	It has never been seen as peaceful.
	It is seen as a threat.
	This is happening in the city of Oakland, California.
	Where there was a point in time where black America, where black Oakland said, Hey, listen, police, we don't need you.
	We will take care of our own.
	And they fed themselves.
	They took care of each other, there was doctors, there were lawyers, there were teachers, they were educating.
	They were feeding and they were thriving.
	And that was met with Fred Hampton being assassinated.
	So this story is nothing new and it's a brutal reminder of how black America is perceived Through the lens of the American authoritarian mindset where anything that we do as black America will never be seen as peaceful.
	It is seen as a threat.
	It's the same way that black children are just considered adults.
	It's the same mindset.
	Which I'll say all day every day, with my mixed family, my existence has always been seen different than my blonde-haired, blue-eyed cousins.
	I've always been seen as mature, they'll say.
	I've always been seen as grown, they'll say.
	Anytime I've been denied assistance, it's been painted as a tough love.
	And it's because My darker skin makes me seem a man, an adult, capable.
	This has been going on in my entire life, and to see it happen on this grand scale that is America, that is California, liberal California, is sickening, but it's the truth, it's what's happening, and it's what we need to be aware of.
	Yeah.
	You said that there were a couple hundred people there the night that they were supposed to be evicted, but they didn't end up evicting them until the next morning.
	Do you know if people left overnight?
	Yeah, yeah, I mean they went home because what sucks is they went home and they thought they, not that they won, they thought that they got through a night.
	Yeah.
	And these fucking cowards, these goddamn cowards, keep this in mind, this happened at 5 o'clock in the morning.
	These motherfuckers Woke up at three o'clock on what this happened on a on a Friday morning.
	I think it's because it was Thursday, right?
	I think it was Thursday morning This was a couple days ago.
	Either way these motherfuckers woke up At least three o'clock in the morning Got ready got suited up to go detain these people at 5 a.m yeah man i hope they felt really cool i hope they felt really cool in their in their tactical gear uh evicting four homeless mothers yeah at gunpoint um but the point that i was getting at was
	i mean maybe it sounds almost promising to me that 200 people showed up yep and the cops cowardly absolutely waited until people left to do the investigation That seems to be the report.
	It seems that they were told by the police that they were going to show up at like 9pm that night.
	Um, and then they, so people showed up in Solidarity and then they didn't show up because, um, the police are all fucking cowards.
	They're all cowards.
	They can't face four individuals by themselves without being armed to the T, without protective gear, because they are fucking cowards.
	Because they know what they're doing is wrong.
	Every day.
	They know when they present themselves to this crowd of people that the crowd of people, like, have a beef with them for good reason.
	And it seems like, hey, you know, I don't fault the people for leaving that night.
	People have fucking jobs, people have families, they need to sleep, etc.
	What I take away from this is we just need more people.
	More people to go... We need shifts, yeah.
	Exactly!
	That's what I take away from this.
	And then let them try and break up a crowd of 200 people who are there constantly.
	Or a thousand people who are there constantly.
	You know?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so let's get into, like, a couple weird, awful comments.
	An account called Baked Loaded Plates who decided to comment on this from their, like, entrepreneurial Facebook page.
	Yeah!
	Um, this is, uh, a woman of color.
	She says, I work with GoFund- er, no, sorry.
	I wonder with GoFundMe at 30,000, are they able to get those tiny homes built or container homes?
	I hate this comment so goddamn much.
	It's awful.
	It's awful.
	There is a GoFundMe for these women, for Moms for Housing, which we will post in the show notes of this episode.
	I highly encourage you to give whatever you can, a dollar, two dollars, to this GoFundMe.
	It would be great.
	Helps with the court costs of the women who were arrested.
	it will help with this movement in general.
	general the gofundme is like at 30 or 40 000 which is incredible baked loaded plate says hey with that 30 000 you can uh you can afford to buy like um a junior home you can afford to buy like a little place to live right it's the whole joke about tiny homes i'll tell you this much tiny homes i only lived in with people that can afford way more than that Tiny homes are only, only people with privilege can live in tiny homes.
	Yeah.
	Uh, and like they're, they're, they are, the thing is they are cool.
	Like they have their place, whatever, whatever, but they are not an option.
	They're not an option unless it's the choice you're making.
	If that's, if you, if you, you looked at, you looked at a, you know, four bedroom townhome and you said, you know what?
	I'd much rather have two storage containers.
	Like, fuck a tiny home, and like, this is the delusion of people with money, and how money works.
	If I can tell you how many fucking people have told me in my situation, well, just buy the house.
	You know it's cheaper in the long run if you buy a house.
	Yeah.
	No, just buy the house I'm living in.
	Just buy the house that I'm living in that's for sale.
	Yeah.
	This house is for sale for, it's on the market right now for $409,000.
	Yeah, cool man.
	They told me just buy the house and I laughed and they said, no, it's just go get a mortgage.
	The payment for that house, I haven't looked at houses in about a year, but the payment for that $409,000 house, the mortgage for that per month is going to be about $2,000.
	And that's for the 60 year mortgage.
	for that $409,000 house, the mortgage for that per month is going to be about $2,000.
	Yeah.
	And that's for the 60-year mortgage.
	And that's with a huge down payment.
	Yeah.
	Absurd.
	Unless I can get a VA loan, which, by the way, has...
	Absolutely absurd.
	A VA loan has zero down, zero interest.
	And I only know that because someone with a VA loan just backed out of the home purchase.
	But it's just like, are you fucking kidding me?
	I wanted to fight this person because it's just like...
	Do you know how insulting?
	We had just talked about my whole situation.
	Yeah, I just lost my job in September, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	They're selling my house.
	Oh, why don't you just buy it?
	What the fuck world do you live in?
	Yeah, what are you talking about?
	Are you insane?
	Are you an insane person?
	This same person also told me like, what's that smell?
	And I was like, I think it's my lotion.
	And she was like, oh, I don't like that.
	And it was cocoa butter.
	That's one of the most normal, delicious smells in the world.
	Yeah.
	Also, it's like, oh cool, so we're not going to work out.
	I choose the cocoa butter.
	FYI.
	I also have no choice.
	I gotta choose the cocoa butter.
	Your boy's ashy as fuck.
	I gotta choose the cocoa butter.
	Yeah, this person doesn't sound tethered to reality.
	Okay, so baked loaded plates, yeah.
	Why don't they just buy a tiny home for tiny things?
	You know, they're tiny.
	They're financially tiny.
	Why don't they buy a tiny home?
	And then she replied later on down the thread.
	People were like, no, the moms are like working toward a movement.
	Like, they're not trying to just get housing for themselves.
	They are actually trying to, like, change policy.
	What a concept.
	Change the economy.
	They're not going to take this money and just buy themselves, like, living.
	They're, like, sacrificing their stability for a larger movement.
	Could you imagine doing something for something that's bigger than yourself?
	Could you imagine that?
	Um, I am looking at it and I am in awe of it, but other people don't even like it.
	It doesn't even register with them.
	Not even a little bit, yeah.
	So she said, baked loaded plates, responds later, all I know is my dad owns ten houses in the neighborhood and two are empty.
	I wish someone would move into one and call it theirs.
	Trust me, I understand both sides of the story, but where we're from, things would have ended differently if someone took over our property.
	End of story.
	Which part of me wants her to like, okay cool, can you list the addresses?
	The other part makes me think that her dad's gonna go murder you personally.
	Um, I asked Baked Loaded Plates, why does your dad own ten houses?
	And she never responded.
	And Tony can't even buy one?
	Hey, why does your dad do that?
	Why does your dad, why does your dad do that?
	And I don't think she'll ever respond to me.
	No, no.
	But it's insane.
	Why don't, why don't these people settle for a, a, um, one of those like shipping containers?
	Why don't these people go live in a shipping container?
	I mean, my dad owns 10 homes, um, and two of them are empty.
	I saw a documentary.
	I saw a documentary on the most charming tree house.
	This Baked Loaded Plates Facebook page is for a business that doesn't even exist yet.
	Oh, I respect that.
	There's a couple websites out there that exist that I own that, you know, because I pay $1.99 a year for them.
	Yeah.
	They will be something one day, but I'm not active on their Facebook page.
	I feel like if your dad was a fucking real estate magnate in your neighborhood that you might be able to do something with those websites.
	I got a hunch that they'd be pretty cool.
	Listen, listen, all I know is my dad owns 10 homes in this neighborhood and I just wish there were there's two that he just can't rent out and I wish that people would move into them and call them theirs.
	I'm looking at bake loaded, bake loaded plates and maybe her dad could be our dad.
	Uh, maybe, uh, maybe I could slide in those DMs and maybe we can, uh, be little entrepreneurs together.
	This is just like, Listen, I understand it from both sides because my dad owns 10 homes.
	What?
	That's one side.
	That sounds like one side to me.
	Listen, I know it's like not to have a home because my dad has 10 of them and let me tell you, the grass is always greener.
	He has gone a lot.
	Also the idea, trust me, I wish someone would move into one and call it theirs.
	Insane.
	You are saying, God, I wish someone would move into this house and pay my dad money to call it theirs.
	Yeah.
	I really, I wish people would do themselves a favor and make my dad a profit.
	I really want to know what bake loaded plates pays for living.
	I really want to know what their housing situation is.
	They live in house number 9.
	Yeah, exactly.
	That's what it is.
	The thing is, her dad actually owns 12 homes.
	She doesn't list the one he lives in and the one she lives in.
	She owns it now, I mean, she peed all over it.
	Okay, let's get to the last comment here.
	We had a second topic, obviously this episode went on too long.
	So, gonna get to the last comment, just the most awful fucking comment.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Brandon Davis says, how are they heroes?
	They're stealing property another has bought.
	You can't reclaim something you've never owned.
	Wedgwood should...
	So it's Wedgwood.
	It's not Westwood.
	Wedgwood is the name of the real estate company.
	Wedgwood should just send in private sector security with a shoot on site order.
	Fuck.
	So just to be clear, that is Wedgwood...
	Um, so if you want to send them any packages, it's Wedgwood.
	Yeah.
	Not Westwood.
	Wedgwood's where we send the packages.
	The support packages.
	So this is somebody who's like, no, property is worth more than human life.
	Property is more important than human life.
	I wish it wasn't true.
	They should just, Wedgwood, since they own this property, they should send a team of private security, private mercenary, I mean the cops, am I right?
	To go in there and kill anybody who's touching that property that's not being used for another purpose other than artificially inflating the price of said property.
	And then I was like, okay, this person is like a monster.
	This person is absolutely despicable.
	I wonder... Also, is that an option?
	Can private security sector have a shoot on site order?
	I don't think that's...
	I don't think that's legal.
	Like at all.
	I think that's still...
	Like, the only way that you can have like a private, uh, like a private security company shoot on sight is if you're Saudi Arabia and you're buying troops from America.
	I think, um, you could have anybody occupying this house legally, so like a private security company that you've paid to occupy this house, and if somebody quote trespasses on the house and they kill that person, Might be legal.
	As long as the sign is up there.
	As long as that the killer was authorized to be in the house?
	Yeah.
	Or you don't even need that.
	I think you just need like a stand and defend.
	What is that fucking stand and defend?
	Stand your ground.
	Stand your ground?
	As long as you have a stand your ground law, I think you're probably good.
	No, it's beyond stand your ground.
	Stand your ground law is like if somebody starts a fight with me in the open, I can just kill them.
	That's what stand your ground means.
	You have no reasonable responsibility to de-escalate.
	But that just means that you wear a body cam and say, don't start a fight with me, and then you shoot them.
	Even in California, I think you can shoot trespassers.
	I'm not 100%, but I think even in liberal California, you can shoot trespassers.
	I don't know if you could call your private security police force to descend on the home and kill an intruder.
	Maybe.
	Does Brinks Security do that?
	I would not be surprised.
	Anyway, so Brandon Davis loves just killing and I wonder how much this is like attributed to the fact that these are women of color.
	This is Oakland.
	This is like what Trump would call a shithole city or a rat infested city.
	I wonder how much of that is attributed to that.
	But then I go to Brandon Davis' profile, and his description on Facebook says, Ann Caper, which I think means Ann Capper.
	Ann Capper?
	Yeah.
	Ann Capitalist.
	Ann Arco Capitalist.
	Voluntarist.
	Non-aggression principle.
	Poet.
	Really?
	Really?
	Sure about that?
	Poet.
	Anything else you want to know, just ask.
	So, he operates on the non-aggression principle, which is an anarcho-capitalist principle, which says, you know, you don't engage in aggression or violence against somebody who hasn't engaged with you with violence.
	But, hey, if somebody is on your empty property, that counts as violence and they will be met with murder.
	And if you want to know what Brandon Davis looks like, just Google the words, Peckerwood Court Date.
	That's exactly what Brandon Davis looks like, is a Peckerwood going to court.
	He's a Peckerwood going to court and it looks like he got one of his eyes blacked the night before.
	Yeah, or he has pink eye.
	It's one of the two.
	He either has pink eye or got punched in the eye the night before.
	Either way, one's definitely closed.
	There's like an open car door behind him, which is a weird thing for a picture.
	Yeah, this dude is like, he's definitely going... He's definitely going to court because like, I don't know, his girlfriend finally pressed charges against him.
	Yeah.
	He looks like an extra in American History X.
	Like, there's no surprises with Brandon.
	There was another comment.
	I don't see it in here, but it's another comment I got from Brandon.
	Oh, fuck.
	And let me find it here, because it's important.
	Do you want to talk about just like the general atmosphere of this?
	Because it's like, there were liberals in these comments who were like, you know, it's, I don't care if these women are homeless, they didn't do things the right way.
	Or like, I feel for these women, but they didn't do things the right way, and this is illegal.
	Yeah, we often don't feature certain comments because it's the general temperature of the comment section, and we just talk about it.
	And that's what happened.
	It was things like, oh, I think everyone should have a home, but you can't just steal it.
	The whole thing was, well, this wouldn't happen if they would've gone through the right channels.
	They wouldn't be there if they would've just got a better job.
	They wouldn't be there if they would've just made more money.
	They wouldn't be there if they would've just, you know, applied for the right housing assistance.
	And all of it was just wrong.
	It was just inaccurate.
	And they were totally missing the point of the fact that this was on purpose.
	This was a statement.
	This was a protest.
	This was an action.
	Because that concept is completely lost on these people.
	It goes back to like the first comment, one of the first comments we had from tonight of, um, this isn't right.
	Like these women resorted to this in front of their children or whatever and shame on them.
	And it's like, there are liberals who will acknowledge that there's a homelessness crisis that will acknowledge that for profit housing is, is wrong.
	That something needs to be done.
	However, this is not what needs to be done because these women broke the law.
	It was really reminiscent of the rhetoric we hear around immigration.
	Yeah.
	Where it's like, no, I want you to come here, but I want you to do it right.
	And they're totally missing the point.
	They don't understand what really goes on around or the finer points of these issues.
	They're just like, well, how come you didn't do it correctly?
	Well it gets to the idea of like direct action.
	It gets to the idea of not only like why didn't you do it correctly because I think like liberals would argue for amnesty.
	Liberals would argue for the people who quote didn't do it correctly to still be forgiven for not doing it correctly.
	Yeah.
	But they will not argue for something like Blocking the street in front of a detention facility.
	They will think, well that's not the way to do it.
	They will say, you need to change the law before you can actually prevent people from having harm come to them.
	Well what it is, at this point, the thing is that the action is so effective that it might actually affect them.
	I hope so.
	It's why they get mad when we shut down major roadways to make a point.
	Because like, oh well I might be late to work.
	They're mad because they're really thinking to themselves like, oh well what if I wanted that house?
	I can afford it.
	I've worked hard.
	I've done this.
	I would go a step further and say, what if I was trying to rent out my house?
	I have a second house.
	What if I was trying to rent out my first house?
	Why don't you come pay for this one?
	No yeah and yeah but I think there's also just something in the in the in the nature of the liberal or in the mind of the liberal that's like you have to follow the rules you have to change the rules if you want to change like the reality first you have to change the rules you have to change the abstract limitations on reality before you change the actual reality and people like moms for housing people like
	You know, activists are just changing reality.
	They're just working to actually change reality and liberals are mad because they're not following the rules or they look like, you know, raucous.
	They look rude or something.
	And that's just something that I can't understand.
	Like, maybe when I was a kid and a liberal and I was like, No, you have to do things a certain way.
	It's really hard for me to get in the mindset of somebody who looks at four homeless women with families, never mind the broader homelessness crisis, but looks at four homeless women with children and is like, Listen, I feel for you.
	Listen, everybody needs a place to live, but this wasn't the right thing to do.
	Yeah.
	I don't understand that.
	These are homeless women with children that they need to protect and care for, and there's an empty fucking house right there.
	And these women are like, I'm gonna go be in that house.
	Because nobody else is in that house.
	I'm not displacing anybody, I'm not kicking anybody out, I'm not stealing anybody's actual material situation.
	I'm, quote, stealing some numbers on a piece of paper for fucking Wedgewood whatever.
	Who gives a fuck?
	Fuck them.
	And not only that, there's four families in this house now.
	This house, this structure is now supporting four families.
	Like it's not, it's not like it's just somebody trying to live lavishly.
	How did people raised on a movie like Fight Club where the climax of that movie is they blow up the credit card towers that hold everybody's debt?
	How are people raised on that movie upset about homeless women occupying empty houses?
	It's even more simple than that.
	How are people that were raised in the movie Little Rascals, where they definitely were occupying a structure that was not theirs, but they found it and they occupied it and made it theirs?
	Or people who grew up on stories like, I don't know, boxcar children?
	These things that we all romanticize for so long, but then it becomes a reality?
	Well the problem with Little Rascals is they made Donald Trump look too cool when he was on that 90s cell phone with his son.
	I will say, one of the greatest moments in film ever is the moment when the kid goes, hey look, your mom's here, and they respond with, whoopee, and their mom is Whoopi Goldberg.
	Fucking genius.
	I love that moment.
	I love that moment so much Yeah, like all these things that we've grown up with where it's like
	That is the whole thing and that that that that really is um that really is carpe diem that really is seizing it that it really is like owning it and making it yours and and um taking control but for some reason because it is a poor person a black person a black woman it is not taken seriously it is seen as a crime and it is seen as something it needs to be like
	Taken very seriously and direct action with brutal force is necessary.
	One of the things that That comment that wasn't in here was the same dude that fucking ANCAP motherfucker Brandon Davis Responding to somebody who said like Yeah, European colonizers stole property and land from the entire indigenous population of North America.
	And Brandon's response was, natives didn't believe in ownership of land.
	Can't take what wasn't believed to be property.
	Try again.
	Fuck you!
	So just any backflip to justify the white European colonization.
	Sorry.
	Hey, I've been drinking a bit of hot toddies tonight.
	Any backflip, any sort of... Do you really think that what the Europeans did to Native Americans was non-aggression?
	No, you don't.
	You're just a fucking racist.
	You're just a fucking fascist, dude.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, fuck you.
	Once you start talking about it, I remember that comment and the visceral reaction I had when I read that.
	It's just so...
	Fuck off.
	You know what you did do?
	If you really believe that indigenous people did not believe in ownership of land, then what you did do is you did impose your beliefs on them.
	Which is as bad or worse than just taking property.
	You also like killed them point-blank.
	Killed them period.
	Like put hits out on their entire race of people.
	And you told them that what they think and believe doesn't matter.
	And we're gonna go ahead and run up on that.
	Violated plenty of treaties.
	Every single treaty.
	Every single contract.
	Like it's insane that we're even treating this in good faith.
	But yeah, this is what the sort of like an anarcho-capitalist or the libertarian mindset is, is like, no, all of you are not allowed to get together and rise up against us.
	That goes against the principle.
	However, we, the extreme minority, are allowed to use our inordinate wealth and our capital to kill you if you try.
	Mm-hmm.
	There's more of us than them.
	There's way more of us than them.
	To put this in perspective, too, is like, look at how, um, look at how this is being seen, and how this is being perceived by most of America, and look at how, uh, the Bundy Ranch?
	Yeah.
	Like, look at how that was seen.
	Those people were touted as heroes.
	Well, they had snipers.
	But exactly.
	Exactly.
	Exactly.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	And there's a reason why America snuffed out the Panthers, because they're fucking terrified of us.
	Mm-hmm.
	But yeah.
	On that note.
	On that note, hey, thanks for supporting the show.
	Hey, next week we might be able to record a main feed episode.
	If we are not able to do that, we might release a Patreon episode for free.
	We might, you know, unlock one of these Patreon episodes.
	Hey, don't, please don't hold it against us.
	We're doing it, we're doing the best we can here under these circumstances.
	Also, on the 25th, I will be doing a live stream with the Southpaw Podcast.
	It's a sports podcast.
	We will be watching the NHL All-Stars Skills Competition.
	Fuck yeah.
	We will probably be getting intoxicated and having a good time while watching and talking shit on hockey, which is my favorite sport.
	So you'll get to watch this space for that.
	I will post links and all that stuff.
	But that's on the 25th, Saturday.
	January 25th.
	Yeah, the NHL All-Stars Skills Competition, which is always a good time.
	And I think that our live commentary will be even more fun.
	Wow.
	So check that out.
	This is the first I'm hearing about this.
	This is on YouTube or what?
	Facebook?
	It's going to be on Twitch.
	Okay.
	And I think it's also going to be on Facebook.
	Twitch is tight.
	I recently listened to debate coverage on Twitch while I was still working, and it was just the amount of, like, anger that I needed to get me through the rest of that work night.
	Yeah, so be on the lookout for that.
	It's really cool.
	I'm stoked that you're doing that.
	Yeah, thanks for supporting the show.
	We recently got 311 patrons.
	311 patrons, which is just extremely fucking chill.
	I can't express how chill that is.
	We might have to come with some original content.
	Yeah, no, I think so.
	I really think so.
	Just, this show has been, sometimes it's been, you know, like a love song, sometimes it's been a beautiful disaster.
	I would just, we really appreciate the support from you, the listener.
	We do.
	We do.
	Thank you so much.
	Yeah.
	Alright, goodnight everybody.
	Peace.

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