The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING!
This week we explore the death cult's response to the Texas freeze, what this foreshadows for climate catastrophes, and how capitalists will clumsily attempt to normalize these crises Support Texas mutual aid organizations: https://www.gofundme.com/f/mutualaidhou https://venmo.com/austinmutualaidhotels https://venmo.com/feedthepeopledallas Support Minion Death Cult for $3/month at http://patreon.com/miniondeathcult and get a bonus episode every week, including BUTTFEST 2000
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.
Hungry, cold people are responsible.
We're documenting it.
Yeah.
What's up everybody?
We are a day late on this episode because Tony spent Sunday night watching 9-1-1 instead of recording the podcast.
He told me he had more important things to do and then I looked at his feed and it was just all 9-1-1.
You're not watching, you finished Lone Star, right?
You're on the original series now, is that correct?
Yeah, I'm on the original series.
Hold on, I'm sorry.
Pei's mom's here.
She just knocked real quick.
Okay.
Yeah.
Sometimes we just gotta be like water, you know?
That's lovely.
Like Anders Lee says, be like water.
Or like Jamie Lee Curtis says, be like water.
Is that what inspired the dance?
Is that why she was able to do that dance in True Lies?
Was she being like water?
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah, she was.
Yeah.
Yeah, she was.
I mean, she's definitely wet.
For sure.
Like water.
Yeah, be like water.
Oh, that'd be such a good pickup line.
Tell a girl, hey, you know what my favorite Bruce Lee quote is?
And she's like, what?
And you go, be like water.
And she's like, wow, that's like so profound.
And he's all, yeah, like, like wet.
Yeah.
Get it?
Like, like be wet.
Yeah.
And she's like, I'm talking about like, all right, I have to go now.
She's like, oh, cool.
Tight.
Okay.
That's, that's pretty, it's pretty gross to my guy.
Yeah.
She's like, lucky for you, I am on my period.
Yeah.
So, and then he, and then he's like, oh, now it's my turn to be grossed out.
Eww, eww!
Not that kind of wet.
No.
I meant, like, wet like the fluid around your brain, because that's what I'm interested in.
Oh.
Brain juice.
Forget all that pussy juice.
I'm in it for the brain juice.
I mean, I'm sure it makes great lube.
Hey, you know what that sound is?
It's thoughts.
It's thoughts?
That's good conversation right there.
That's what good conversation sounds like.
Stimulating.
Which really, if that's how it would work, that just means you're getting concussions because your brain's moving around a lot?
Yeah, that's how you add new wrinkles to your brain, dude.
Duh!
Wrinkles are just scars.
It's all good.
Hold on, give me one second just to make sure before I go on.
Okay.
Alright, so do you want to tell the listener what was so important that you couldn't record on Sunday or the podcast day?
Well, what happened was my kid broke an arm and I was so enamored by the By the way that the ER operated, that I had to go to my favorite hobby lately, which is watching My People 9-1-1.
The original of Austin's Lone Star 9-1-1, the original version of what I'm on now, In LA, and it's the best TV I've ever seen.
It has everything to be desired.
Just to catch people up, maybe people didn't hear our 9-1-1 Lone Star episode.
9-1-1 Lone Star was the show about the fire department that was headed by... What's his name?
What's that guy's name?
By Rob Lowe.
Rob Lowe, who is recruited out of New York after being the most 9-11 firefighter possible, he's recruited to Austin to head their fire department to keep it weird, by which they mean hiring trans people.
That's how you keep it weird, by hiring trans people and like a Muslim.
Yeah.
And so Tony, I guess, blasted through the rest of that new spinoff, which only has a season and a half?
Not even a season and a half.
I just watched the newest one last night.
It was called Difficult Conversations and it was brutal.
Were they difficult?
Were the conversations difficult?
Yeah, one of them got a tattoo that was a misspell on his back and no one wanted to tell him.
And the other one was like, hey we're old, should we have this baby or not?
So it was like, those are the same.
Yeah, but you've been watching just regular 911.
Is it still about fire department or is it cops?
You know, as much as it's about fire department, and it is about fire department, it's really about dispatch.
This one's really about dispatch.
The thin purple line.
Yeah, the thin purple line.
Is that why your hair is purple?
That's why I do it now.
Yeah, I just want people to know who I stand with and that's the people that are on the other side of that phone.
It really takes place around the The Dispatch.
And so there's all these, like, the thing about the show is every single episode is better than the last.
Like, in Lone Star, there's an episode where it climaxes with a phone call from space.
Okay?
And you're like, how the fuck are they gonna top a phone call from space?
They talk about long distance.
Yeah.
Right?
The answer, the answer's lava.
It turns out all of Austin is a volcano.
And this type of thing happens every single episode, the most absurd Like, outcome.
Every single episode.
That's pretty weird, to be fair.
I think volcano erupting would keep Austin weird.
That would be pretty weird.
They would at least have a whole new national park like Hawaii.
You said you wanted to run down one scene for us before we get into this episode.
There was a scene that I think is important because it kind of got rid of some false pretenses I had about the world.
Dispatch gets a call from a person in a domestic dispute.
And they're trying to make a secret call.
And the person on the call is like, hey, I need pizza, extra pepperoni.
And she's like, oh word, you're in danger.
Keeps him on the phone, does a long distance, does the whole order.
That's so smart.
Sorry to interrupt.
If I heard that call, I would be like, wrong number, asshole.
Learn to use a phone.
And then I would hang up on them and then I would laugh at how dumb they were while they were, you know, in a, in a very troubling situation.
And that's what's scary, is when this whole thing resolves, her supervisor is like, whoa, I can't believe you stayed on the line with that clearly distraught person who's giving you the address, telling you to hurry up with the pizza.
Hero.
I can't believe you stayed on that line.
Anybody else would have hung up.
Yeah.
But this scene ends with her on speakerphone, and the dispatcher's like, because the guy who has a gun, who's going to attack this woman and probably kill her, is on the phone now.
And the dispatcher's like, hey listen, if I were you, I would just take a leap of faith.
I would just go to the window and take a leap of faith.
And the woman who's in distress goes to the window and jumps off the balcony where there's an airbag waiting for her.
She couldn't, like, tell her that the airbag was there?
No, cause she's on speakerphone with the guy!
So she'll try to pretend like it's pizza?
No, he knows his dispatcher now.
Yeah.
He knows his dispatcher now, but I love this show.
I would just take a leap of faith.
And so they had time to set up an airbag down there instead of just come to the door.
But that's the level of excitement in the show.
It's the level of television you're working with here.
It's the best shit ever.
It has a lot of Cronenbergian body horror stuff.
Someone gets inflated.
You said somebody gets inflated.
You told me that before we started recording.
I still don't kind of know what that means.
Are we talking like Dudley Dursley inflated where he rises up into the stratosphere?
Not quite.
Someone falls on an air chuck and his whole body kind of swells up like a balloon.
But like not in a way that's just like Just slightly unrealistic.
It's realistic.
Yeah, not quite like Willy Wonka, you know, but just like a large swollen face and like swollen and like inflated looking like the Michelin Man.
Does he, does he fart it out?
Is that how he recovers?
I don't want, no spoilers, no spoilers.
Now you got me wanting to watch 9-1-1.
It's the best show.
And for everybody looking for it, it's 9-1-1.
Yeah, don't watch the one called Loose Change.
That's the bad spinoff.
Or the good spinoff.
But do play the game Police 9-1-1.
If you can find it at your local GameStop.
Because that's a cool game.
Okay, on to the show.
We got a lot of stuff to talk about.
I mean... This is... I know we say it a lot.
This is like...
Such a Minion Death Cult episode.
There's like several different things going on right now that are just like depressingly relevant to this podcast.
We're of course talking about the record-breaking temperatures and snowstorm in Texas, which is Just devastating entire communities.
And because their electrical system, their electrical grid, is not just privatized, but also has opted out of federal regulations opted opted out of the federal grid uh not only are they not subject to federal regulations uh they also are unable to receive backup power from neighboring states who are on the federal grid
you know one of those perks of of being part of a larger community a larger having membership in a larger stake than just your own personal interests Yeah.
So because of these temperatures, The electrical companies, which are completely privatized, market-based, decided to just shut off.
They decided to shut off to avoid failing completely, I suppose, because none of them had been weatherized.
Which is a process that being part of the federal grid requires.
So you don't want to be on that federal grid.
One of the perks of not being on the federal grid is you never have to weatherize your equipment.
So you don't have to prevent it from freezing due to, you know, sub-zero or sub-freezing temperatures.
Which is something you don't have to worry about in Texas.
So why would you join that grid?
That's for suckers that freeze.
Yeah, and it's pretty ironic because that is the argument for this market-based system is that, oh, you save money because you don't have to be subject to these onerous regulations that actually cost the company's money.
And anything that costs energy companies money is inherently bad because they're just gonna Pass the costs on to you.
And if they don't have to incur those costs, then why?
They're not going to want to make money off of you at all.
They're not going to charge you more at all.
That's silly.
Except for the fact that it turns out that people that are on companies that do participate in the federal regulations program save on average like $300 a year to have electricity from weatherized sources.
Yeah.
So these power companies, uh, they, they, their equipment, their generators, uh, either failed or their grids either failed or they were shut off, uh, to avoid failing because they, they weren't capable of producing power in what are, you know, record Temperatures for Texas, but not unheard of temperatures anywhere else in the world.
No.
It was like, what, 30 degree temperatures?
Maybe zero degree temperatures?
Something like that?
Something that happens in surrounding states.
Yeah.
That's basically the bottom line.
Where people can still get electricity.
And so because people didn't have electricity, they weren't able to warm their houses, obviously, and then because of that, pipes in their houses burst, causing thousands of dollars of damage to their homes, exposing them even further to the cold, when you have a huge Shroud of ice in the center of your kitchen because your pipes burst.
Yeah, that's that's not gonna help the situation So just a devastating situation for the people for the the people of Texas and one Texas mayor named Tim Boyd Had something to say about this On Facebook, by the way.
So this is the first very Minion Death Cult thing, is that a sitting mayor of a city went on Facebook to share his thoughts with the world.
And can you go ahead and look up what city Tim Boyd used to be?
I think it was Colorado City, Texas?
I think that's right.
And when I say used to, I mean because Tim Boyd resigned right after making this post.
Yeah, Colorado City.
Tim Boyd posted, let me hurt some feelings while I have a minute.
No one owes you or your family anything.
Nor is it the local government's responsibility to support you during trying times like this.
Sink or swim, it's your choice.
It's an odd metaphor to use when all of the water is frozen.
Yes.
Sinking or swimming, neither really an option in that scenario.
No.
I've seen people comically swim across an ice rink, but it was just a joke.
The city and county, along with power providers or any other service, owes you nothing!
I'm sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout.
If you don't have electricity, you step up and come up with a game plan to keep your family warm and safe.
Oh my god.
If you have no water, you deal without and think outside the box to survive and supply water to your family.
Think about it.
Ice is just water waiting to happen.
We should say that, yeah, people did bring snow into their houses, including a listener of this show who posted pictures in the Facebook group.
Bring snow into your bathtub to make some water.
And wait, wait for water to happen, like you said.
So he's all fine.
He's totally fine because he did that.
What else does he fucking want?
Yeah.
You could drink it?
Bathe in it?
You got eventual water.
Alright?
If you have no water, you deal without.
And think outside the box.
What we need is some entrepreneurs.
We need people to tap into that entrepreneurial spirit to overcome this sort of thing.
Jaden Smith put water in boxes.
You know?
Think about that.
You need to disrupt the rolling blackout industry.
Yeah.
It's a guy with a flashlight and a solar panel.
If you are sitting at home in the cold because you have no power and are sitting there waiting for someone to come rescue you because you're lazy is direct result of your RAISING!
Only the strong will survive and the weak will perish.
Folks, God has given us the tools to support ourselves in times like this.
This is sadly a product of a socialist government where they feed people to believe that the few will work and others will become dependent for handouts.
Imagine becoming governor.
No, sorry, imagine becoming mayor of a place.
Which is still the executive.
They're the executive branch of that city.
And still believing that it's the socialist government that runs the whole thing.
Like, your piece of shit conservative ass became a mayor, and you're still like, it's the socialist government's fault.
Well, bad things are happening, Tony.
How do you explain that?
That is true.
That is true.
When bad things are happening, I'm like, what how could this happen?
And then I'm like, oh, yeah, we're socialist.
I mean look at all that ice.
I felt like I was in Venezuela.
This is astounding to me.
Like, how is this guy not, you know... How does this guy not have skid marks all over his body?
Yeah, I think tarred and feathered is a reasonable thing to expect from this type of action.
How is this guy not bouncing off the road like a lanyard behind a boat?
You know?
Yeah, yeah.
Like a water-skiing handhold.
How is he not doing that right now?
I love how he did this too with a profile picture that's his whole family.
The post still goes, but I mean, it's just like, it's just breathtaking to see somebody say, hey, those services you pay for, you're not entitled to them.
It's a socialist mentality to think that the utility that you pay every month for is somehow yours.
Honestly, it's an entitlement.
You're feeling pretty entitled right now to that thing you paid for, and it's kind of gross.
And I know that Tim Boyd's the kind of person who, when he pulls up to Starbucks and orders his extra caramel caramel frappuccino with extra whipped cream on the top and bottom, And they say, sorry sir, we're out of whipped cream.
He's like, what the fuck do you mean you're out of whipped cream?
You're a Starbucks.
All I want is whipped cream.
You have one job.
Let me get my whipped cream.
And he can't, of course he can't translate that to like, you're my energy company.
All I want is electricity.
And to call it like a socialist thing that this that these various companies cut costs and didn't weatherize their grids even though apparently something very similar happened in About 10 years ago or so, and they were instructed to start weatherizing their grids.
Well, in order to, you know, I don't know, actually make that happen, you have to have some sort of oversight and that's a big no-no.
Yeah.
Small government, bro.
To call this, to call this like, not only were these companies taking more money from people, despite supposedly having less regulatory oversight, then they just fail.
They just turn off the supply anyway.
And for the people who didn't get their supply turned off, well, they had to pay market rates under Texas, which, oh, oh, wow.
Well, I mean, electricity is really important right now.
That means it's, it's cost more money.
So people literally had $16,000 energy bills.
It was astounding.
The people who were lucky enough to keep their power on were charged $16,000 for like a week's worth of energy.
Yeah.
It's something that you look at and you're like that shouldn't have even been possible.
Like there shouldn't be a program that could produce that outcome.
You know like it should just top out.
They've never even thought about this happening So, like, the program just goes up.
You know?
It's nuts.
Like, that shouldn't even... That should be... I don't know.
It's nuts.
I can't even talk.
It's mind-blowing.
I mean, honestly, thank you, Tim Boyd, for seeing just, like, this tragedy.
Seeing this natural disaster.
And citing your strong conservative values in order to condemn the people who are suffering under it.
Please continue to talk about makers versus takers.
Please continue to talk about how great capitalism is.
Please continue to represent your ideology in the face of just, you know, misery for your people.
I feel like the only thing that could have made him do this wild thing was was he like caught getting generators out of the back door of Lowe's or something?
Because why would you take this route?
Like, he ends it, you know, talking about like, you know, get off your ass, take care of your own family, don't be part of the problem, be part of the solution.
But it's like, you're the mayor, why are you so defensive?
Why aren't you just like faking the funk and saying, hey guys, we're all in this together.
This sucks.
I'm so sorry this is happening.
A failed infrastructure let us down.
Like, like, why don't you just fake it?
Like I'm saying, he must have been caught or called out or something.
No, I think because like admitting... admitting a failure of the market or admitting a failure of the system is like... You know, it's unacceptable.
You, you, you can't.
This is like, this is a Trumpian response.
And I'm saying Trumpian as in kind of like a lazy way.
But it's like, you know, the Trumpian era of conservatism.
The, uh...
the unironic Team America generation of conservatism that has nothing to apologize for, that is going to openly own all of the wartiest parts of their own ideology and make it epic bacon or whatever.
What would Ron Swanson do in this situation?
Would Ron Swanson apologize to the people of Texas?
Ron Swanson wouldn't be in this situation.
No, Ron Swanson would be firing his gun with a porterhouse wrapped around the muzzle to cook for his family.
And if you're not doing that, then what the fuck are you doing in Texas?
You know that's so that's just that's where the concern because you don't have like any actual you know explanations for this if you're if you're this if you're a capitalist or if you're a conservative like you don't you can't explain this you're only I mean it is social darwinism capitalism is social darwinism and he's just saying it And I think he's kind of dumb.
You know, I think he's probably too... I mean, there's a lot of, like, misspelled homonyms and all of this, and that doesn't make you dumb necessarily, but I think he just probably doesn't care that much either.
I mean, he resigned, which is not the Trumpian thing to do.
I think he was just sick of actually having to do a job because being mayor is like a PR position.
It's an important position if you actually want to do stuff, but cities kind of run themselves between the real estate in the city, the corporate bodies in the city, the chamber of commerce.
It's all just a machine.
So I'm just like a well-oiled machine, and you're just like the figurehead who's trying to do damage control the whole time, and he got sick of doing the damage control, I think.
So, so, so wild.
What a piece of shit.
Fuck you, Tim Boyd.
You know, nothing but the worst for you and yours.
Dude should be skipping across the surface of a lake like a flat rock.
Yeah, yeah, a frozen lake.
Um...
Incredible.
This is what will happen in the face of climate catastrophe.
Is that, I mean, it's what happens with conservatism in general.
It's what happens with capitalism in general.
The services that you pay for are handouts.
Because we, as the power company, are gracious enough to honor the contract that you signed.
We, the power company, we have the power.
It's ours.
Yeah.
If you want some, I don't care if you gave us money for it, we still have it.
We don't have to give it to you at all.
And that's why everyone should just like stop being a fucking cuck and like go buy yourself a couple Tesla battery cells.
Start your own power company.
Start your own power company.
I'm building a hydro dam right now.
That's sick, dude.
Yeah, yeah.
With my own hands.
That's Southern California privilege, because that water's not going to freeze.
Yeah, that's why I'm not going to do it on the grid either.
But that's where we're headed.
That's where we're headed in terms of capitalism.
It's been the arc of this system.
I mean, you wanting a minimum wage that actually guarantees a standard of living or whatever?
That's a handout.
You expecting McDonald's not to make two billion dollars in profit off of your labor?
That's you wanting a handout.
Never mind the fact that you gave them 40 hours of your life every fucking week for a year or two years or even just one week.
You wanting a wage that reflects the time that you invested in that?
That's a handout.
Yeah.
How is that?
This is just the natural, like, Trajectory of this ideology and it's going to keep getting worse as Conditions worsen what becomes quote a handout is going to keep getting more absurd.
Oh You wanted the electricity that you thought you would get every month just because you pay for it Sorry snowflake Now you're not entitled to my power.
Oh You want clean air to breathe?
Oh, you want drinkable water to come through your plumbing?
Oh, why don't we give you a unicorn?
Oh, you want a pony?
You want a pony to ride with your clean air?
Like, I hate to say it, but as an American, a life straw is a good investment.
The straws that will filter the water for you in emergencies?
Like, that's a good $60 investment for households to have because we can't depend on this fucking system to give us clean water.
If they decide they don't want to put the effort in, it's gonna stop happening.
Like that, I mean, you're talking about it getting that bad, but it already is that bad.
Because we're over here saying like, hey, I just want to live healthcare, and they're like, well, you know, maybe you should get a better job.
Um, and that's, I mean, it's just the only route that capitalism has to go.
Because as people continue to get more poor, as Resources continue to become more scarce, not because of overpopulation, but because of hoarding, because of strip mining, that sort of thing.
The profit margin is going to keep getting thinner.
And do you think companies are going, I mean, if historical precedent is any indicator, do you think companies are willingly going to take less profit just because they owe the consumer something?
Just because they owe you something.
They don't owe you anything.
Yeah, they don't owe anybody anything.
You just think they do because, you know, oh, it's like... How much of liberalism is actually reliant on the libertarian non-aggression principle?
Like the Libertarian Non-Aggression Principle which says we don't need any regulations as long as every company and citizen or person signs on to a non-aggression principle where I will never take anything, you know, with force from you.
And of course, that principle applies to us.
We can't just go take something from Target.
We can't just go take something from the energy grid.
But the energy grid can take something from us, no problem.
Especially in Texas.
I think it's a pretty big naivete.
It's pretty naive of liberals to think that companies are held to these standards of the contract.
They have to obey the fine print.
And it's like, do you really think, as these climate catastrophes keep happening, that corporations, which are not humans, they're not people, they're a money-making entity, are going to adhere to whatever system of morals you think they should?
What the non-aggression pact doesn't consider, it talks about, like you said, you can't take anything with force, right?
But they didn't consider what's happening now with these corporations where they have found a way to like give violently, right?
To give with dire circumstances if you don't give what's in collateral, right?
Like that's what's happening now.
It's Because they're never going to owe us anything.
The gas company, electric company, they're never going to owe me anything.
But we will always owe them something.
And that power dynamic is violence.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
They failed to acknowledge that aspect of it in the non-aggression pact.
Oh, well, yeah, the Non-Aggression Pact is trash.
Like, I'm not even interrogating that.
It's pretty obvious to anybody who's not a libertarian or an ANCAP to think that a company is going to, you know, in good faith, Or just like an individual with enough power or resources is going to engage in the non-aggression principle.
And even if they never took anything from me, does that entitle them to the resources of the land or whatever?
Absolutely not.
I'm just saying that...
That absurd notion of the non-aggression pact, of the non-aggression principle, I think is genuinely adopted by liberalism.
It is this genuine, like, misconception that companies, like, have to honor certain contracts.
They have to honor certain, you know, social norms or whatever, and it's like...
You know and I'm not going to fault people for maybe believing that because the propaganda is strong, the brainwashing is strong, and I mean if there's anything positive to come out of this situation it's that we're seeing just how little like that matters.
You know?
Yeah.
I mean we have these energy companies openly gloating about how much they are making during this disaster because not only are they Making money off of these citizens for not having to do the necessary things to maintain their own services, to maintain their own grids.
They're also making money hand over fist, gouging the people who are suffering as a result of their previous lack of maintenance.
Like they're double dipping on their own sociopathy.
I'm waiting for someone to draw a comparison between what the electric companies and power companies are doing to the GameStop thing.
It's the same thing.
They're doing the same thing.
They're just taking advantage of the situation.
They're taking advantage of loopholes.
That's why I can up their bill by 600%.
And you know, we were talking earlier about these honors, right?
At some point, Tim Boyd put his hand on a Bible and said something along the lines of, I will do whatever is in the best interest of Colorado Springs or whatever, Texas.
So, fuck a contract, fuck all, you can't, people, you can't trust these people.
That's the bottom line.
These people are all awful.
I mean, and it's like for everybody saying, holy shit, like a disabled veteran, retired veteran had to pay 16 grand, had to like cash out his retirement fund in order to pay his energy bill, which was 16 grand.
Uh, for everybody saying like, that's awful, which it is awful.
That's the profit motive.
That's what happens when these utilities, things that are necessary to survive are privatized.
When water is privatized, when housing is privatized, when fucking clean air is privatized, when drinking water is privatized.
This is the logical extent of what happens.
So I would ask everybody who recognizes this as just a moral failing of this nation to examine what the profit motive is in and of itself.
Yeah.
I had to have another conversation with the kid yesterday because we're at the pharmacy waiting to get her Tylenol decoding prescribed that they wouldn't fucking give me because she's under 12.
And I was like, God damn it.
Men posting their own L's on podcasts.
And she was like, hey, why is that stuff behind like a lock?
Why is that stuff locked up?
And I was like, well, baby, it's called profit and criminality of the poor.
Let me tell you a little story.
Yeah, why is the baby formula behind a glass case?
No, it was baby formula on the bottom and like a certain type of Tylenol up top.
Yeah.
And I was like, well, boo, let me tell you something about profit.
Um, for anybody interested, side tangent, for anybody interested in preparing, you know, and sensible preparing, not sensationalized, uh, you know, uh, Nat Geo reality TV prepping, but like actual community-based prepping and self-defense-based prepping, I highly recommend the, uh, Live Like the World is Dying Podcast which was recommended to me by Ani.
Ani sent me an episode and it was the episode on security culture.
I was looking for the actual name of the episode but it was the dude who is like a professional lockpicker He gets hired to examine security flaws in companies, either warehouses, facilities, or in their IT departments.
He has like a set of keys that he recommends uh for any anybody who wants to be sufficiently prepared for you know some some sort of disaster I you know man-made or natural or whatever these are various keys that will open a lot of doors for people that you can just like buy on Amazon um a very interesting conversation of course the number one resource in a disaster is community
That is the number one thing that you should be developing is a network of people that you can rely on and, you know, that you yourself can be relied on for people.
But it was a very good conversation.
It was a very interesting conversation and I think there's a lot of good episodes.
So yeah, live like the world is dying.
Hey, send me a link, because I don't listen to many death cults, so I won't be hearing this.
So send me a link when you get a second.
Yeah, will do.
Let's move on.
Not from this topic, but various reactions.
So yeah, like I said, people were being charged the quote market rate.
And we all know the market knows best, right?
The invisible hand of the market will guide us, will tell us the way.
And the way was like, you know, thousands of dollars per hour, per kilowatt of energy.
And one company in Texas, one company in San Antonio, Texas, which is CPS Energy, They tweeted out, Q, so like question, is CPSE, so CPS Energy, is CPS Energy going to provide payment relief to customers?
Then A, the answer is, we understand that it would be unacceptable to have customers bear the costs on their monthly bill.
So we are working diligently to find ways to spread those costs to 10 years or longer to make it more affordable.
Ugh, fuck you.
Fuck you all the way off.
There's going to be a president in a few years who is going to make a promise of forgiving Texas electric bills.
Well, if they're a Democrat, they're going to refuse to make a promise to forgive energy debt.
This is true.
This is very true.
Because otherwise a fascist might get in control.
You don't want that, right?
That sounds like the worst thing ever.
Um, yeah, hey, uh, we understand that it would be unacceptable to have customers pay $16,000 a month, mostly because we would never be able to actually recoup that money.
Yes.
Mostly because our customers don't have those kinds of assets.
So we are going to graciously allow you to pay your $16,000, $20,000 bill over the course of 10 years with interest.
Imagine like owing more on a week of electricity than you do on your car.
It's cool.
It's cool stuff.
And I mean, climate catastrophe is coming.
Like this, this shit's going to happen.
So, I mean, Texas is like, Awful right now?
This is going to just keep happening.
And I think Rick Perry said it best, and thank you to Noah for posting this in the Facebook group.
Rick Perry said, this is from the Houston Chronicle, Rick Perry says, Texans are willing to suffer blackouts to keep feds out of power market.
And then the quote here is, Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business.
Perry is quoted as saying, try not to let whatever the crisis of the day is take your eye off having a resilient grid that keeps America safe personally, economically, and strategically.
What?
Redacted, redacted, redacted.
Two broken lenses.
Each one of these lenses of his glasses should have a small hole in the center of it.
Do not grow accustomed to heating, Texans, for it will only make you weak.
It will only drive you to madness.
Yeah, it just makes you soft.
Back in my day, which is my grandpappy's day, which is actually his grandpappy's day, all we had was twigs and we had to figure that shit out.
But you know what though?
We were men the whole time.
It's me and you looking out of our bulletproof windows of our limousine with heating, blasting, looking at the average person, the average
Electricity user, you know, like yeah, I mean that like a like a dope fiend, you know the the average like electricity fiend going without power and they're they're rubbing their arms and they're twitching and they're shaking violently back and forth and it's just like oh, he's got he's got the sickness.
He's got he's addicted to electricity.
You know, I'm not a big fan of helping people out, but I do hope that Rick Perry knows about the trick, that if he does come to a situation, yeah, use your car.
Start your car, turn that heater on, let it run, and if you keep the garage closed, if you just keep it closed, it keeps all the heat in there.
Keeps all the heat in there.
Give it a shot, Rick.
Um, so this is great.
Uh, Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days, right Texans?
Am I right?
Like, in an 80s movie, a character would be saying this at a town hall meeting at, like, right before being carried off.
Yeah!
Right before being dro- Am I right?
We would- We quote, you know, he's like- Send him out on a rail!
Yeah, he's wearing like a, like a bearskin cloak while he's saying this, you know?
It's like, we would rather suffer without electricity, uh, for five days, right?
Am I right?
And everybody's just like, they got the, the Jack Nicholson Kubrick stare with like icicles forming off their eyelids and they're just like, yeah.
Try not to let whatever the crisis of the day is keep your eye off having a resilient grid.
How can you say this?
Is he accidentally doing PR for the national grid?
Because that sounds great!
Don't look at your options that would have saved you.
Don't look at that shit.
He's accidentally doing PR for IEDs.
He's doing PR for balaclavas, dude.
Yeah, yeah.
Try not to let whatever the crisis of the day is.
This is the 21st century of calling a woman hysterical.
Yeah because he he is he's he is the other crisis of the days are in his mind people being canceled right like that's really what he's talking about.
Well I would say that he's like conditioning trying to condition people To accepting daily climate catastrophes.
Yes, you're totally right.
Daily crises of government.
Hey, oh yeah, yeah, oh, we should get that vaccine out.
Let's not let the daily crisis cloud your judgment.
The daily crisis of how many 9-11's happened today.
Let's try not to let that cloud your judgment here.
I mean, that's the same argument they're making over the pandemic, right?
Yeah, like... Listen, ignore those numbers.
How many people do you personally know?
Yeah, a few.
Don't get caught up in that.
Just take care of your own home.
It is just, they are not going to do anything.
They're not going to do anything, and they are trying to condition people to accept that fact.
They're not going to do anything, and maybe, you know, maybe you die of cold, maybe you die of exposure, maybe you die of virus or whatever, but at least you get to, like, laugh at libtards who want a national grid or something.
The only thing that sucks though is you can't even live stream it because you don't have power.
Well you should have brought a battery pack.
It's called self-reliance.
And again, try not to let whatever the crisis of the day is take your eye off having a resilient grid.
What was that crisis of the day?
The grid failing for a week?
Yeah, it was a crisis of a week, you fucking idiot!
The fallout's definitely still happening.
I don't think that counts as a resilient grid.
No, no.
I think maybe you're just wrong about literally everything.
Well no, he says the resilient grid that keeps America safe, personally.
And America is just a series of... He is talking about the other grid that they're not on.
He's like, don't even think about that other grid over there that's great.
Well also, it keeps America safe because America is just essentially a series of companies raking profit and unpaid labor from their constituents.
So in a way, it does keep America safe.
It keeps America running.
You dying keeps America running.
Yeah.
I gotta take a piss real quick.
Go for it.
I'll do the same.
Okay, so we've already established that in these crises, in these moments where any semblance of the customer- the customer-company relationship won't break down at the drop of a hat whenever it benefits whatever privatized, you know, company is involved.
Also, we've demonstrated, we've seen that the people in charge will tell you, uh, what were you expecting from us?
Yeah.
Were you expecting us to actually, like, guarantee the things that you pay us for?
Yeah.
In their defense, they never explicitly said they were going to provide electricity during record-breaking lows.
And me, as mayor, I never said that I cared about any one of you.
Except for, I think he did though.
I think he actually has to.
Listen, if I've learned anything from PragerU, it's that nobody is entitled to my public service.
Amen.
Amen.
On that note, let's end the episode here.
Another thing we can expect to see during these breakdowns in that sort of private relationship, this capitalistic liberal relationship, are these public servants and elites completely fleeing whatever area is under assault, whatever area is going through a crisis.
By virtue of them having capital, by virtue of them being of the privileged few, they can leave that bad situation.
Bounce.
They can just bounce.
Forge a new life for themselves and their families, perhaps across a border.
Perhaps.
And a great example of this is U.S.
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas reportedly has flown to Cancun, Mexico while his state suffers from widespread power outages and shortages amid a brutal winter cold outbreak.
You know, I was mad about this until I found out more.
And you know, as a father of a daughter, I fucking get it, man.
Daddy's a girl, gotta take care of him.
So what you're referring to is Cruz's explanation of this.
We haven't gotten to that part.
We haven't gotten to what Cruz said.
And let me let me play this video of Cruz explaining why he decided to flee the state that he represents in the midst of a historic crisis.
This had been a tough week and this had been a tough year.
By the second day, we were clustered around the fireplace as the only source of heat.
And so huddled up in jackets and by the fireplace.
And our girls, when they got the news that school was canceled this week, they said, look, why don't we take a trip?
Let's go somewhere where it's not so cold.
Heidi and I, this had been a tough week and it's been a tough year for kids.
Kids all across the state of Texas and so we were trying to be good parents and said okay we'll do it and so we booked the flight and I have to admit I started having second thoughts almost the moment I sat down on the plane because... Almost the moment I sat down?
On the one hand, all of us who are parents have a responsibility to take care of our kids, take care of our family.
That's something Texans have been doing across the state.
Um, so we know Ted Cruz, uh, likes doing Simpsons impressions.
We remember his famous, uh, Simpsons impression, I think BuzzFeed video.
Uh, I think this is him just continuing that, that, uh, that hobby.
Uh, and this is just his, uh, Gill impression.
Uh, well, see, uh, the thing was, uh, you know, you don't want to go with this, uh, federal government.
It'll break down right on you.
Oh, no, stop, Ted.
Seal the deal.
I don't expect you to understand because you don't have a daughter.
Being a daughter father, you just don't understand what that's like.
Hashtag girl dad.
My poor kid, broken arm.
Every 10 minutes, she's like, my arm hurts, my arm hurts.
And I'm like, you know, hey, I'm sorry, but this medication is like not, it's what you're on.
God deal with it.
And she was like, dad, but like, why don't, why don't we just, why don't we just hot box it?
What if we just hot box like the whole house?
I'll probably be pretty chill.
What if we go to Jamaica, mon?
Yeah, warmer climates, bruh.
Uh, I think a bit, I think a... Sorry, were you gonna finish?
Yeah, no, so, so we did.
And she's cool.
Oh, okay, good.
I'm glad.
She's cool.
She's cool.
Um, I think a more appropriate analogy would be like, your daughter's arm is, is broken.
It's, it's hanging there by a thread.
And like, what are you gonna do?
Are you not gonna take her to the ER just because some liberals on Twitter are having a freakout about you leaving your house during a pandemic?
Yeah.
Are you not going to take her to get the help she needs?
And we, I think we heard Ted Cruz demonstrate that his daughter needed to go to Cancun.
Okay, real quick though.
She was sad.
She was sad from school getting canceled.
And what is he, he's not supposed to, oh, it's not, it's not a real sickness.
It's not a broken arm.
It's a sickness of the heart.
And he took her where she needed to heal.
Heartbreak is worse than arm break.
Let's be real.
That's the biggest muscle in the body.
Well, it's the tongue, but... You feel me?
You feel me?
No, that was really weird though.
I called the ER first and I was like, hey, so my kid broke her arm.
What do I need to do before I come in?
I know we're in a pandemic.
He said, whatever you do, don't post it on Twitter or you're going to get roasted by Chris Hardwick.
What's his name?
Chris from MSNBC.
I don't know.
Would he do that?
He would totally, he would fucking, he would drag your ass.
If he knew that you were thinking of your daughter.
But the people in the yard were like, what are you talking about?
Bring your kid in.
And I'm like, I know.
I'm sorry.
I just had to make sure I wasn't going to kill people when I brought her in.
But it was actually very chill.
I think it's tight that Ted Cruz blamed his daughter.
I think that's sick that he did that.
That's like so fucking funny.
Like, and then somebody leaked the group message where he was like, yeah, we're going to go to Cancun.
I want to go to Cancun.
It fucking sucks here.
It's all cold.
Like, somebody leaked that group message, and then he blamed it on his daughter.
That's so tight, because listen, Ted Cruz already knows that his daughter's a lost cause.
We've seen that video of her being like, you sickened me, to him, on his campaign tour.
Like, him trying to touch her, and she's just like, are you serious right now?
She recoils, yeah, she hates it.
Please refer back to paragraph 3B, subsection E. You are not allowed to touch me.
Yeah.
Do you think her and what's-her-name's-daughter are in the group chat?
Yeah, what's her name's daughter is definitely in the group chat.
You know who I'm talking about, right?
No, I don't.
That awful, yeah, awful woman?
Who's like really awful to her daughter?
The former spokesperson who like fucking leaked her own daughter's nudes.
Her own underage daughter's nudes as punishment.
I hope those kids are all in a support group together.
Yeah, so this is what we have to look forward to during climate catastrophe is not only like all the privatized services that we've been slowly moving toward failing completely at, you know, a higher cost.
At a higher cost to the consumer.
But then being both ashamed for suffering under these failures, and then also for these people who were in charge to suffer no ramifications whatsoever because they're the capitalists.
Because they are the ones who own this stuff.
We're all just renting it from them.
We don't own this stuff.
We don't have a right to this.
What is it?
Possession is nine-tenths of the law?
You don't possess the electrical grid.
Is that even a thing?
Or have you just been saying that since we were kids?
I've just been seeing it in movies and TV.
Okay, cool, cool, cool.
Which is to say that it's good.
It's correct.
Well, seeing is nine-tenths of the law, so... Seeing the law is nine-tenths of the law.
And it's I think maybe Ted Cruz fled, Texas, you know, maybe I'll give a charitable Explanation here.
I think the Ted Cruz fleeing Texas is perhaps just actually sticking to his convictions actually like putting his money where his mouth is because we all know he had a he had a A lot to say about California.
When California's grid was suffering every summer, rolling blackouts every summer, Ted Cruz tweeted out, California is now unable to perform even basic functions of civilization like having reliable electricity.
Biden slash Harris slash AOC, who's I guess California because she's brown, right?
I mean, I can't pronounce your name and it sounds like streets I've seen in California.
So maybe?
Want to make California's failed energy policy the standard nationwide.
Hope you don't like air conditioning.
And yeah, we know how much Ted Cruz likes air conditioning, how much Texas was enjoying their air conditioning.
Yeah, air conditioning was not the problem here, bud.
So I think maybe he was like, oh shit, Texas is no better than California.
They're both kind of like neoliberal privatized hellholes.
I should leave.
I should go to Mexico where there's a real socialist in charge.
Amlo.
Maybe that's what he was doing.
Why have I not seen that?
That meme has to exist, right?
Like, oh, you want socialism?
Go to Mexico.
The meme was like he's crossing a border to provide for his family, you know, whatever.
But I don't think we gain anything by comparing Ted Cruz to a Mexican immigrant.
I don't think that's maybe a flattering comparison.
Just so many good responses to this.
On the Fox News comments section, Money is a Tool says... Somebody was like mad it says Ted Cruz for doing this.
Money is a Tool replied, let me guess, you would send your teenage daughter to Cancun alone, right?
Just wondering, have I seen your daughter in a Girls Gone Wild video?
Dude... So like, this person is like a lib, right?
No, no, this person's like conservative.
Just mad.
Why would you think they were a lib?
Well, you know, because they're dunking.
They're reverse slam, double pump dunking from the free throw line on him.
No, they're saying that whoever was criticizing Ted Cruz I read that totally wrong.
I thought they were saying that about Ted Cruz.
Oh, like the kid was gonna go to Cancun anyways?
Like that was just happening and he was like, oh I have to go with you.
Yeah he has to be.
That's the story that Ted Cruz gave was that my daughter she just aching to go to Cancun.
She just got it in her in her head that she needs to go to Cancun and what am I gonna do let her go alone?
No I have to go with her.
Anyway this this comment is like oh you think it's bad that Ted Cruz like fled his state?
As a politician, as a representative, you think it's bad that he fled his state during a crisis?
What is your daughter a slut or something?
I thought he was calling Ted Cruz's daughter a slut.
I'm so stupid.
No, he's calling anybody who has a problem with this, he's calling their daughter a slut.
Yeah, I get it.
Which is a good argument, I think.
That's insane.
Oh, let me guess.
You would let your daughter go alone to a Latin country?
Have I seen her on blacked.com?
Did I do that joke right?
I think just about, yeah.
Except I don't know if they would know that there's also black people in other countries.
Yeah, well, in their mind, like anybody who's not, you know, Scandinavian is black.
They all qualify to be on Black.
And just to be fully transparent, I am part Scandinavian, so I'm owning up to my whiteness here.
And just to be fully transparent, I am featured on Black.com in the premium section.
I wouldn't want it any other way, dude.
That's just why you haven't seen it on Pornhub.
And that's not because I want less people to see you, it's just because I think you deserve to be there.
One second.
Do you hear that?
Yeah.
Hold on.
Penny brought walkie-talkies over and I think someone jumped on the channel.
A lot of people were like, "Hey, Ted Cruz, aren't you like...
Aren't you a senator or something?" Am I right in thinking that?
And he was like, yeah, of course.
Actually, it's my daughters that were selfish.
They're stupid, right?
They're like young little little tramps and I had to go make sure they didn't be sluts in Cancun.
But I'm coming back.
I'm coming back the very next day.
This was one of those one day trips to Cancun.
A little turnaround trip.
So very funny.
And because of this incident, I got to see people that actually like Ted Cruz.
That was mind-blowing when I was reading these.
I was like, I've never seen this.
I didn't think that actually existed.
Like, I thought just, like, he's the Republican on the ballot and so he wins.
Like, dude, like, ate something from his own, like, nose on live television.
Like, remember that, remember that, like, little bit that came out of his mouth during the debate?
And then he, like, ate it up?
I can't believe he existed.
He's only been a joke to me.
He's only been the Zodiac Killer and that's it for me.
How is he popular at all?
How does he still have a job?
Because he's a Republican in Texas.
There's no better Republicans?
What do you mean by better?
There's like no one that could like, I don't know, at least look like they can beat him up?
Well, Dan Crenshaw would look like he could beat him up as long as he weren't standing next to anything that would be a height reference.
Yeah, anywhere around him.
Yeah, yeah.
He'd be good.
So, Ted Cruz was like, yeah, of course I care about Texas.
Of course I'm a politician.
And then posted on Facebook photos of him giving water to people, like cases of water to people.
With the caption, hashtag Texas Strong.
See, I'm here in Texas after all.
I don't hate all your guts.
I'm not indifferent to whether you live or die.
I'm giving somebody a case of water.
This is definitely like the hardest Ted Cruz has worked in his entire life.
Carrying a case of bottled water.
And you can tell it's like a one and done.
It's pretty obvious.
Uh, so this got, yeah, a lot of reaction, um, Fran Fairbairn.
What the fuck is that name?
Fran Fair, F-A-I-R, Bairn.
Bairn?
Bairn.
Bairn?
Fairbairn?
Bairn.
Fairbairn?
Say the N at the end of Bairn.
Fair bear.
There you go.
I needed to hear you do it.
That's the name.
Fran says, thanks Ted.
Hope you get to spend some time with your girls soon.
Thank you for your unwavering support of conservative government.
Like more time than he just did on the plane ride to and from Cancun?
Well, yeah, that's fair.
I mean, yeah, you know, they might be family, but you don't need to see him after that.
Also, I don't, again, once again, I don't think his daughters are missing him.
No!
No!
Especially after he blamed them for taking them on a plane trip to Mexico.
Do you think any, like, do you think any of, like, their friends are, like, You know, fellow students were like, yo, what the fuck?
Why'd you make your dad leave?
My mom's like saying that you made your dad leave Texas.
That's kind of fucked up.
We're in a hard time.
No, I think like all of her friends are extremely sympathetic to her.
All of her friends are like cuddling her right now.
Like, I'm so sorry.
Don't take this the wrong way, but I literally hate your dad.
I literally hate your father and she's like, I know.
Same.
Hashtag same.
Thank you for your unwavering support of conservative government.
How is this not a joke?
So, does she mean conservative government by privatizing your grid, charging the citizens more, and then denying them services during a disaster, and then the people you don't deny services to, charging them 16,000% surplus?
Or do you mean, by conservative government, fleeing the moment that your life might be in danger?
Which does Fran Fairbairn mean here?
How is this not a joke?
That's the thing about conservatism.
It's actually more than one thing.
It's actually like the whole swath.
It's all of it together is what makes it that.
I mean it's everything that benefits you at the expense of everybody else.
That's what conservatism is.
That's what an individualism is.
That's this whole ideology and I couldn't think of a better example of it, honestly.
And this is not to say, I mean we should, I don't want to spend too much time on this, it's not to say that the people of Texas deserve this to happen to them for quote voting Republican or whatever.
It's a pretty infuriating thing to see being posted online.
Extremely.
I mean, what's his name there, Stephen King, no stranger to posting cringe, but saying things like, hey maybe you'll vote Democrat next time or whatever, or any random person saying I don't feel sympathy for these people because they voted for Republicans, never mind like the Blue pockets of Texas.
Never mind the fact that Democrats were campaigning for six months on the idea that Texas was a purple state.
Never mind the fact that millions of people just don't vote.
I mean liberals would probably call them just as bad as Republican voters.
Are you a person if you don't vote?
Because how would I know?
Uh, listen.
If you don't vote, that's as good as a vote for Bernie Sanders.
Not the way.
Not the way, folks.
I don't know how you're gonna convince Republicans that you care about them by laughing at their misery.
By laughing at the failures of capitalism.
Hey, this was a failure of capitalism.
It could be...
a fucking radicalizing moment for people and instead you're going to take this opportunity to say oh they deserve it they deserve the thing that we supposedly hate they deserve the thing that we have have a ideological commitment against how is that helpful whatsoever let alone moral let alone like compassionate you know what's really upsetting about that is that people don't get that that the whole thing is that
We're supposed to just believe that humans deserve basic things.
Okay?
Humans deserve the right to survive.
And they don't believe that.
They're literally saying like, no, you voted for a conservative.
You live in that place that likes rodeos and trucks.
Right.
So therefore you actually don't deserve what I deserve as like, you know, someone who, who, you know, I don't know if you knew this, but I've gone to several marches.
If you don't believe me, you can go to my Instagram and look at all the selfies.
Have you seen my yard sign that says love is love?
That's why I deserve to live and you deserve to die.
No, honestly Texans should've just came to my house where I have a sign that says everyone is welcome here.
I don't know if voting blue is the, like, mea culpa that you think it is.
Like, if we want to get into whose votes are, like, moral or whose votes make them, like, more worthy of generosity or of services.
What about voting for the guy who's still caging children?
What about voting for the guy who's still making people go to work in a pandemic?
Yeah.
Like, if you want to play this game of your vote equals your morality, like, Democrats are definitely not getting off scot-free.
Yeah, if you voted for Biden, then you're fucked.
But because, like, I do believe in, you know, a universal standard of living, like, yeah, even the people who are Forgetting drone strikes overseas, even the people who are forgetting migrant children in cages, or people being deported, or people being gunned down by police.
Like, I don't think the answer to that is to punish them by austerity measures, or to punish them by climate catastrophe.
That is not a de-radicalizing thing.
That's not gonna, like, do good for anybody.
Yeah, helps nobody.
cheryl steve medeiros says to ted cruz everyone loves you sir comma exclamation points the rare few quote space laughing quote space quote well dot dot dot dot dot dot
take it from where it comes space dot dot dot dot even a hussein in the mix space dot dot dot space go figure winky emoji you Yeah, those people laughing at you?
They're Husseins.
There are a bunch of Husseins, which we've like, oh no, those aren't Husseins, those are Bin Ladens.
I was going to say, we all know we're hot, so I'll take it.
Hussein here is spelled H-U-S-A-I-N-E.
I just want to clarify though.
That's like the British way to spell Hussein.
I just want to clarify that that wasn't, like, a racism.
That was, like, actually a byproduct of the American system brainwashing me since 9-11.
Sorry about that.
I don't know what you're even referring to.
Uh, confusing the Husseins and the Bin Ladens?
Are they not the same?
I don't think they're the Hussein.
I'm thinking of... Barack Hussein Obama, who was a Bin Laden.
Oh, that's true.
If I remember correctly.
I wasn't even thinking.
Oh my god, that's what they're talking about.
They're not even talking about Saddam Hussein here.
The good thing is, it's a big umbrella.
The Democrats, it's a big tent party.
They got the Husseins, they got the Bin Ladens, and they got the Baracks.
I like that.
Everyone loves you, sir!
The people who don't?
Yeah, that's right.
They're 9-11 terrorists.
I love the everyone.
Like, I literally just looked up positive Ted Cruz comments and you can't find anything.
It's like a wild thing that just doesn't exist.
Like you said, I've never seen it until you found them.
No, I mean, it's like, same thing with the conservative ideology, the capitalist ideology being pushed to its breaking point where it just has to be like, yeah, you're a taker if you freeze to death.
Like you're asking for a handout if you want your pipes not to burst.
Whatever.
It's the same thing we're pushing like the citizenry to its limit where they have to just be like, actually, I love you Zodiac Killer!
You're the best!
It's great.
It's cool to see.
I like it.
What I've actually heard that all those people who were murdered, they were actually leeching off of their neighbors for their energy.
They were tied into their grids.
They were stealing power.
I heard those people, they didn't even own their own electrical grids.
I heard that they didn't own their own companies or electrical grids.
That's true.
That's true.
That's not a rumor.
That's a fact now.
And it's like, okay, why do you deserve to survive in that case?
Yeah.
You did it to yourself.
So just around, excuse me, just around this conversation off, we've seen, you know, what, what will happen with reactionary, conservative, capitalist, neoliberal governments in capitalist, neoliberal governments in the face of these disasters, which is that they will do nothing for you.
They will shame you for wanting them to do something for one for wanting them to actually serve the public in any way.
And they.
They will absolve themselves of any responsibility for what has happened.
They will call it socialism, or they will call it the greater good, like Rick Barry, who said, no, this is the greater good, that you were dying so that we can continue to profit as a nation.
That's good.
And you will willingly accept that.
Yeah.
Uh, what we haven't seen is what government actually will do in the face of these crises.
And you're thinking, oh, well, you know, I just saw like pretty good evidence that the government does not care about you.
What, what are they going to do for you in, in these circumstances?
Uh, and I'll tell you, uh, they will send police to guard dumpsters full of discarded food outside of Fred Meyer.
Mind-blowing.
Because Oregon also had weather troubles over this past week.
Their electrical grids were partially down, so stores like Fred Meyer, unable to keep things frozen, will put them outside in a dumpster in freezing temperatures, throw them away, right?
Now, the government won't, you know, depending on where you're at, the government won't provide you with services, they won't honor existing contracts, they won't even be in the same state as you, because they don't want to, like, they don't want to have to, like, deal with the same things you're dealing with, right?
That sounds awful.
I would not want that either.
They will send out armed guards to prevent you from even helping yourself.
It's so fucked.
What's wild is like this could have been what they wanted to do because the whole thing is right.
The reason why they don't want people going through their food is because one time somebody sued somebody for getting sick.
No, that's not why.
Sorry, that's not why.
I know that's not why.
That's what they tell people.
Yeah.
The reason why is because they can write off losses due to electrical failure in their taxes at a greater rate than they can write off donations to food banks.
Yes, but I'm saying the reason why they can't let people get it from the dumpster is for that reason.
Because they have to be able to write it off as a loss.
As trashing it.
As garbage or whatever.
This was the number one response to it.
this was the number one response to it.
Shauna Rhodes says, welcome to the litigious society.
If they have to cover their butts from being sued after people eat rotten food, dot, dot, dot, they're going to throw it out and make sure people don't eat it in the first place.
This is a very common misconception, which maybe you were saying it was a misconception.
I did.
I was literally saying the thing that you're told when you work in food and and you throw stuff away in mass in the dumpster, You have to destroy it because one time someone sued someone because they got food poisoning.
That's what I was saying and that's what that's what they're told.
That's what they're told their employees to do.
That's what that's what the whole thing about it because once it's a dumpster it's a write-off.
The reason why they're guarding it is because they're worried about a lawsuit.
That lawsuit can be circumvented literally by posting a sign on the dumpster that says, please do not take food from this dumpster.
It is not good.
That's what I was kind of getting at.
It's like, that's what that, that can be circumvented with a sign that says that.
Yeah, it seems like nonsense to me.
I don't know of any actual case that's ever been prosecuted.
I know they tell their employees this.
I know that's the excuse, but I don't know of any successful case of dumpster diving sickness has ever been prosecuted.
I don't think there is one.
Like, who dumpster diving is going to have the money to do a lawsuit against the company?
Freegans?
Yeah, freegans known for their wealth.
Upper middle class freegans who do it for a choice and a hobby and a cool thing?
Yeah.
That's a thing.
I know plenty of rich white kids who are freegans.
Okay, I don't know.
So what are you arguing?
That there has been a lawsuit levied against?
Oh, totally.
Yeah, absolutely.
Someone did it on purpose.
Someone went and got a piece of packaging from a dumpster while they were food sick and said, you know, I'm going to sue you, whatever.
Because from any company that does this stuff.
It's yeah, there's like one case that made this happen.
It's it's the it's the McDonald's hot coffee case It's that same thing.
But the McDonald's hot coffee case was because a woman burned her lap that disfigured her genitals because the coffee was heated at a temperature much higher.
This frivolous lawsuit bullshit is a lie.
It is 100% a brainwashed lie.
If you can show me a link of somebody dumpster diving and suing somebody then I will concede to that point.
Even if rich white people dumpster dive, I don't believe that they successfully did a lawsuit.
Me, I don't actually believe this.
I'm saying this is what's being told to people.
This is what I've been told my entire life and all my time in the food industry when we have to throw this stuff out and small businesses, big businesses, everything in between.
This is what I've been told my entire life.
This was the logic, I believe, behind this.
Because once it's in the dumpster it's a write-off.
I don't think it has to get to the dumpster.
I think you just have to like not have it be sold for it to be a write-off.
Right.
But I don't know.
But I don't actually know, so... No, you're right about that.
I don't think there's any basis for suing a company for digging through their dumpster.
I don't think there's any judge that's gonna grant anybody money for digging through somebody else's dumpster.
No, but there's a capitalist fear of it.
Yeah, sure.
Sure.
I'm saying that this is what they tell their employees, and this is what fucking people believe, but I don't think there's an actual precedent for it.
Like, actually dumpster diving is illegal!
I don't either!
I'm just saying that's what's being said.
I don't actually believe this is real either.
Okay, when we talked about, like, rich vegan freegans doing it and then suing, I thought you were being serious.
I believe that.
I wouldn't put that past people.
I don't think that's wild.
Which argument are you making?! !
Neither one, I don't, neither one.
This is, this was the the number one response to this.
Welcome to a litigious society.
This is what happens when everybody is lawsuit happy.
And it's, in my mind, we do live in a litigious society to a certain degree.
You know who has access to Litigiousness is the fucking wealthy.
It is the very wealthy who are in, I think broadly speaking, not dumpster diving for food during cold weather.
Who are not in a position to sue a grocery store for their discarded items or whatever.
And right here Janice Lucas says, There are legal liabilities if people consume food that needs to be destroyed due to law once power goes out.
Opportunists can consume it, claim sick from the food, then sue Fred Meyers.
This is the sick society we live in.
I was looking at this and I was thinking about this meme about us living in a litigious society, right?
Of like, oh, you can't do anything anymore, you can't offer your customers anything, you can't give out free food because they're gonna sue you.
Oh, oh, I had a person break into my house and they fell on a knife and they sued me successfully for it.
Never mind that that story's from a movie called Liar Liar.
Never actually fucking happened, but it's just in the public consciousness.
Yes, we live in a litigious society, but people with lawyers are the people who have access to that aspect of society.
The same way there's theoretically a Civil Rights Act, but corporations with access to legal teams have been able to successfully prosecute, like, 10 times the amount of successful civil rights lawsuits on behalf of corporations rather than on behalf of minority communities.
Insofar as there is like a litigious society or insofar as people are looking to slip on pee pee in the Walmart or whatever to like sue and get a windfall,
uh that might have something to do with the standard of living going down the source of reliable income reliable jobs going down like insofar as people suing companies they're going to get like what 30 grand out of it 15 grand out of it Like, that's not enough to live on.
Like, that's enough to sustain yourself on a few years or whatever.
Like, in so much as a litigious society is a problem among the class of people who would be dumpster diving, Uh, it's more likely a failure of the erosion of like, you know, the social safety net, the actual level of wages, and the jobs that are available to people.
But this is like...
It's an easy out.
Oh, we have to send cops to guard dumpsters because otherwise, like these poor people, they're going to fucking be opportunists.
These people who are dumpster diving for food are going to be opportunists and sue for, I don't know, what it costs to keep somebody alive for a few months.
Catherine Maydan says, Oh, come on, man.
So channeling Joe Biden here.
Biden supporter, yeah.
Come on, man.
You all know that this is what grocery stores do with their food every single day of the year, right?
You all know that if anyone got sick, there'd be a lawsuit, right?
Mm-hmm.
Clothing stores also have to get rid of their items by cutting them and throwing them in the trash, too.
Like, I love somebody seeing this and saying, come on, man, you know that this is capitalism and it's great.
Yeah.
Like, seeing right through it, calling out what's bad about it, and being like, this is a good thing.
Seeing, saying, this is the, this is the normal thing.
This is how it works, folks.
Hey, love it or leave it.
Almost like, that's just the way it is.
They're protecting you anyways.
Um, I like, I like Catherine bringing in clothing stores to the equation.
Yeah.
Like, hey, listen, this isn't just grocery stores, it's also clothing stores.
Like, a normal person is like, oh shit, I didn't know that.
Clothing stores actually cut up unused clothing instead of donating it?
Like, that's... That, that one blow, I mean, they all blow my mind.
They all blow my mind, but that one's like...
They don't even cut the shirts into rags and give them to people as shop towels.
They just destroy them.
Well, and that's your fault for not knowing how to sew five different seams onto a t-shirt.
That's true.
And then finally, Melissa Moss says, it's not the cops, it's the lawmakers.
So it's not the cops fault for enforcing the unjust laws.
It's the lawmakers.
Besides, one bit of spoiled food and the store will be sued.
We all know this.
We all know.
We've all seen all these lawsuits that happen all the time.
If you're willing to take that risk, set your own leftovers outside and see what happens.
In freezing temps, I'll take it.
I'll do it.
Yeah, no, we as citizens aren't allowed to throw out food.
Why would corporations be allowed to throw out food, you fucking idiot?
Food waste is like one of the most depressing topics in the world.
We all hire private security to guard our organic waste bins outside our homes because otherwise we will be sued for throwing out a chicken bone with some meat left on it.
I used to but then I just set up a cot by the dumpster and now I take care of it myself.
I mean, yeah, that's bootstrap shit, dude.
I mean, I'm unemployed.
I got nothing else to do.
I better protect my food.
Um, I love- Like, not a better example could be given of this, like, utter logical fallacy.
Hey, why don't you throw out expired food and see what happens to you?
Oh, nothing?
Like people do all the time?
Yeah, every day, multiple times a day, in mass quantities.
Why don't you see what happens and see if you still want to be a communist?
Yeah.
Yeah, try throwing out some spoiled milk and see if you still think food is a human right.
I mean, not to flex, but again, like, as a vegan, I will do that with most of my meals because food poisoning happens less with us.
That's good.
It is.
Alright, that's the episode.
Thank you so much for listening.
If you want to support the show, you're in for a treat because we are going to be uploading the mini-series I did with Street Fight on Butt Rock called ButtFest 2000.
To our Patreon feed.
So everybody who's already subscribed to our Patreon will get access to that mini-series which is, let's see here, Intro, 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s, and then a wrap-up, six episodes on Butt Rock.
Which was incredibly fun.
The third most fun thing I've ever done, including that awful sound in Minion Death Cult, that is going to be available to Patreon subscribers, Patreon supporters, for $3 a month.
Listen, $3 a month?
Super cheap.
That is like a fucking deal for an episode every week, not counting this miniseries that we're going to be uploading.
By the way, I mean, you should be just listening to the Street Fight bonus feed because it's amazing, highly recommended, but if for some reason you haven't done that already, you can listen to it on our Patreon feed at patreon.com slash MinionDeathCult.
Yeah, the stuff they're doing right now with motivational speakers is gonna be so great.
The Rich Dad Poor Dad series is amazing.
The D&D series is so fun.
Hearing these dudes do role-playing Dungeons and Dragons games.
Very fucking fun.
Very happy that they're doing that.
It makes me want to do a D&D campaign even more now.
I've never done one.
I've kind of been wanting to do one for a while and listening to them just even talk about like their characters that they're gonna do.
I'm like, fuck.
My brother's been playing with his homies like and I overhear it all the time and I'm like, oh that does sound pretty fun.
Yeah.
We are going to have links in the show notes of Texas organizations, Texas mutual organizations, that you can support to help people, you know, live through this essentially.
The infrastructure is totally fucked.
The state is not interested in helping except to do a photo op to cover their own You know, reputation or whatever.
We gotta help each other out.
So there will be links in the show notes for that.
There will be a link to our Patreon as well.
Real quick, real quick.
Fuck the police.
Fuck the judicial system.
Welcome home Bobby Shmurda.
I'm happy this saga is over.
Six years of the young man's life.
I've been taken away from him over gun charges.
Six years over gun charges and drug charges six years for a 20 year old person Fuck that welcome home Bobby.
We got it.
We got a lot of fighting to do still.
This shit's not over.
I know it's cold out and the summer's over, but this shit's not over.
We got to keep moving towards something better.
Right.
Jello Beats, get at me.
And Chewy and some hot nigga.
Like I talk to ShaC when I shot nigga.
Like you seen him twirl and he dropped nigga.
And we keep the Miami's on my block nigga.
And Mate keep it on him, he done dropped niggas.
And we keep it wild and he some hot nigga.
Tones known to get busy with them clocks nigga.
Try to run down and you can catch a shot nigga.
Runnin' through these checks till I pass out.
Your shorty give me neck till I pass out.
I swear to God, all I do is cash out.
And if you ain't a ho, get up out my trap house.
I've been sellin' cracks since like the fifth grade.
Really never made no difference what the shit made.
Jah Jah told me flip them packs and how to maintain.
Get that money back and spend it on the same thing.
Shorty like the way that I ball out.
I be getting money til I fall out.
You talking cash dawg, I go Zola.
Shorty love the way that I floss out.
Free greasy though, let all of my dogs out.
Momma said no pussy cats inside my dog pounds.
That's what got my daddy locked up in a dog pound.
Free phantom though, let all of my dogs out.
We gon' pull up in that hood deep like we We got on him With them 16s We gon' put some shots on him I sent a little dot I sent a drop on him She gon' call me up And I'ma sip the hot soda Grammy Savage That's who we are We are...
Grammy shooters dressed in G-Star.
GS9, I go so hard.
But GS for my gun squad.
Them bitches, if it's a problem, we gon' gumball.
Shots poppin' out the AR.
I'm with Trigger, I'm with Rasha, I'm with April.
Throw a daylight and we gon' let them thangs blow.
