Rabble Rants: Mask Bans
Two special guests, Kim Crawley and Bothered Boy, join host Jessa McLean to talk about the mask bans being introduced in the United States, the attitudes here in Canada and the recent uptick in activists being charged for wearing COVID protective masks during direct actions.
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Transcript
We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's
Speaker:happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this
Speaker:world, there's room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.
Speaker:The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's
Speaker:souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.
Speaker:We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left
Speaker:us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too
Speaker:much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we
Speaker:need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will
Speaker:be lost. Welcome to Rabble Rants. I'm Santiago Gelo Quintero, and alongside Jess McLean, We're
Speaker:going to unpack the stories that have us most riled up and challenge the narratives around
Speaker:them. Welcome to Rabble Rants, we have two guests with us today. I'm going to take a back seat
Speaker:in this discussion, maybe, who knows if I can keep quiet or not. Either way, we've got two
Speaker:guests that you may have heard before if you are an avid listener. Kim Crawley joins us
Speaker:again as does Bothered Boy and they are taking on mask bands or potential mask bands anyway.
Speaker:Kim, why'd you call us into the studio? You wanted to talk about this. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker:really like the recent episodes that you've done covering the various, you know, acts of
Speaker:Palestinian resistance, which is obviously extremely important because we've got kind of a Holocaust
Speaker:going on now, which is really, really disturbing. And then coinciding with that, what's also
Speaker:really disturbing is the COVID pandemic is still raging on. And yet like, 98, 99% of the population
Speaker:has chosen to be completely oblivious to it. And it's really sad how many people who call
Speaker:themselves anti-capitalist and leftist are also acting oblivious to it and spreading it around.
Speaker:And really that's really disturbing as well. And then what's also disturbing is although
Speaker:we don't... Okay, there's the mask ban in North Carolina. and a mask ban apparently in Ohio.
Speaker:That's really, really disturbing to me, really disturbing. And then what's also disturbing
Speaker:is that apparently, I haven't been to any of the Pro-Palestinian protests in Toronto, I'll
Speaker:admit, but I hear things, thanks to your show and thanks to other people who go to these
Speaker:actions, which is really important. And I hear things like, even though masks aren't spend
Speaker:per se here in Ontario and here in Canada, if you're protesting wearing a mask, you could
Speaker:get, you know, if the cops are really targeting you, you could get, you know, extra charges
Speaker:for that, apparently. You would know more about that than I would, but it's very disturbing.
Speaker:It is. So we've interviewed two people and not everybody char- talks about their charges all
Speaker:the time. So we know at least two activists in the last like three weeks in Toronto alone
Speaker:were charged with unlawfully, were charged with unlawful assembly while masked. And this was
Speaker:an additional charge put on top of, you know, trespassing charges, mischief charges, whatever
Speaker:the cops decided to charge them with after the direct action. And it's really been weaponized.
Speaker:The one guest we had on Anna Lippmann, like we're talking about an N95 because it was a
Speaker:sit-in inside an office building where one should still be expected to wear masks. I know that's
Speaker:not the norm, but yeah, it's certainly been weaponized against the movement. Well, it's
Speaker:been weaponized and vilified in all sorts of ways. So, you know, hi folks, Bothered Boy
Speaker:here. I'm here, you know, at the invitation of Kim and Jess to just rant and I do that
Speaker:very well. So for me, a big part of like COVID consciousness as well is how it was attacked
Speaker:from so many angles. You had people saying, you know, that face masking, like to try and
Speaker:target the insecure men, it's a face diaper, it's emasculating, it's babyfying. You had
Speaker:people saying, like, as we're seeing now with the cops, it's all about criminality. Well,
Speaker:you know, only criminals. hide their faces and I'm like, and people saying like, you know,
Speaker:how can you possibly breathe in the mask? And a coworker said this to me recently and I said,
Speaker:because I knew it would get under his skin from what I was going to say. I said, well, I mean,
Speaker:if you're not a weak ass little baby about it, it's pretty easy actually. And he did not like
Speaker:being called a weak ass baby. And that just kind of sort of reinforces my point, right?
Speaker:And you know, people thinking, well, you know, oh, it's so difficult to breathe as if we don't
Speaker:wear scarves to cover our faces. in winter, this is Canada for God's sake, right? And then
Speaker:you also have people like, I remember it's like seared into my mind the first time I saw one
Speaker:of those, you know, part of the plandemic, so you know, they're gonna get you wearing masks,
Speaker:and then next thing you know, you're wearing a niqab and then a burqa and the full Islamization
Speaker:of the West is complete. I'm like, where are you connecting these threads? Cause I just
Speaker:do not see it. You're trying to attack people's fragile sense of ego and self and masculinity.
Speaker:You're trying to attack, also people try to attack the validity of masking, saying, oh,
Speaker:it doesn't really work. It's not important. You know, the vaccine, it's fine. And that's
Speaker:why, you know, it's just a cold wind. Really it's not. It's a cardiovascular disease. And
Speaker:you know, and only criminals really need to hide their faces. It was so much of a multi-pronged
Speaker:attack for you should not wear masks. And at the same time as whether it was politicians,
Speaker:corporations, the goddamn WHO itself that were pushing this idea of like, oh no, that's okay.
Speaker:In their own back rooms, and you see like internal memos that have since been released, or in
Speaker:this case really leaked to the public, they knew from the onset that this was airborne
Speaker:and that they had to mitigate it. So they either had people doing like, basically what we saw
Speaker:at Davos that one year where it kind of became like more talked about. That's what some of
Speaker:these people in corporations were doing from the beginning. It was contact tracing up the
Speaker:wazoo. And if you, you know, we're sick, well, sorry, you're staying home and then masking
Speaker:inside. And then also HEPA filters all the time, mandatory vaccination for pretty much everyone
Speaker:in there, which is again, as well, like, Oh, they're, they're not taking the vaccine. Actually,
Speaker:I guarantee you many of them have. And then if they have the few that haven't, if they
Speaker:have bad symptoms, then they, you know, throw the whole kitchen sink like what they did for
Speaker:Tim pool and Joe Rogan and all these other guys who got it. And also crucially, something else
Speaker:that has not been talked about as much, but you do see that at least a few airports now
Speaker:is Far Ultraviolet that has been used to also help kill the airborne pathogens, whether it's
Speaker:COVID or just anything. That was at Davos. That was at several portable versions, at least
Speaker:were at several government conferences that were happening. So it would not be surprising
Speaker:to me if at like more conference rooms, you would see that in these like larger, more open
Speaker:areas where it's kind of impractical to have, say, 10 or more HEPA filters around. But this
Speaker:is what they were doing from the start. And meanwhile, they're telling all of us for a
Speaker:variety of reasons, whatever reason they hope will stick, that we should not be masking and
Speaker:that it's actually bad or unhealthy or criminal to mask. So that then begs the question of
Speaker:why are they pushing that so hard? And there are multiple correct answers to that. But it's
Speaker:just so... deeply infuriating. Absolutely. And yeah, I mean, the news about the World Health
Speaker:Organization knowing it was airborne from the beginning and how they covered it up. Did you
Speaker:see the February 2020 press conference? There's all kinds of YouTube videos about it out there.
Speaker:Where Tedros, I can't pronounce his last name, but you know who I'm talking about. Tawadros.
Speaker:Yeah. I can't pronounce his name, I'm sorry. It's all good. And then his boss, Mike Ryan,
Speaker:or he's Mike Ryan's boss either way. OK, if you look it up on, I think I've already given
Speaker:just so linked to us, like the last episode that we did. We did where they let it slip.
Speaker:Yeah. So Tedros said, it's very contagious, is airborne. And then Mike Ryan walks up to
Speaker:him and whispers in his ear something that you can't hear on microphone. And then a few moments
Speaker:later, he says, sorry, I didn't mean that. That was the military word. Droplets. Droplets is
Speaker:the term we're supposed to be using. Yeah. And then in late March 2020, the official who Twitter
Speaker:account tweets. This is a myth that COVID is airborne. Meanwhile, they were upgrading their
Speaker:facilities in Geneva and elsewhere with like, yeah, all sorts of HEPA and whatnot. And. And
Speaker:I even knew it was airborne from SARS-1. Let's get back to the news that kind of brought us
Speaker:into the studio, that in North Carolina, the Republicans are pushing through legislation,
Speaker:and it's actually passed through the Senate now with a 30 to 15 vote. So it's a popular
Speaker:bill that they are going to ban the use of masks in public. And like... There's almost no exceptions
Speaker:here. Like they wouldn't allow cancer patients. Except for the KKK. Do you mean the police
Speaker:or specifically the KKK? Oh, yeah. Yeah. But you see, when they wear, when they wear the
Speaker:white clothes and all that, they're KKK. And then when they take that off and they put the
Speaker:police uniform on, then they're cops. So whether they're a cop or a Klansman depends on which
Speaker:costume they're wearing that day. I mean, I would be willing to bet good money. that if
Speaker:there was a, you know, what are the like weird fascists in the states that go around like
Speaker:marching? They all wear the same uniform, like Patriot front or something like that. I've
Speaker:got names for them, but I'm not sure they're official. OK. Well, in any case, there's like
Speaker:that group that I know like parades around and they wear masks to understandably hide their
Speaker:identity. I'd be willing to bet money that if and when they do a rally in North Carolina.
Speaker:They will not be charged for, you know, like, oh, they're wearing masks and it's like, oh,
Speaker:it's going to be fine. I would also like listeners to keep in mind that North Carolina also has
Speaker:a significant black population. And that is the population that is going to be most directly
Speaker:affected by this legislation, both in terms of criminalizing black people, especially black
Speaker:youth. And also, we know for a fact that given all the data sets that we have, black, indigenous,
Speaker:just people of color across the board have poor health outcomes in part due to poverty and
Speaker:like medical racism. So this is also going to further hurt those communities from not just
Speaker:like criminalization point of view and feeding them to like the prison industrial complex,
Speaker:but also from like very real and problematic and entirely preventable health outcomes for
Speaker:these communities. And I just want listeners to be aware of that and cognizant of that.
Speaker:Yeah, and then I would presume also like a white person wearing a respirator is a lot more likely
Speaker:to be left alone. If you are visibly marginalized, then you're a lot more likely to be targeted.
Speaker:Yeah. Especially because it's couched in this safety language, right? They're trying to say,
Speaker:this isn't about health. We're not... trying to punish sick people. I know we know that
Speaker:that's what's going to happen. We're going to make people sick and die, but that's really
Speaker:not the purpose. You know, it's because people are trying to hide their identity while protesting.
Speaker:Like they're saying the quiet part out loud as well. That part that they don't like the
Speaker:fact that they're not able to identify us at a glance with their the software and all of
Speaker:the stuff that they have at their use, because. The great thing about the one of the great
Speaker:things about the Palestinian solidarity movement is the high use of masks, the understanding
Speaker:of like solidarity being a verb and not being a part of it. Like that has been clear from
Speaker:the get go. And they don't like that, right? That's can't keep fighting for Palestinian
Speaker:liberation. If you all knock yourselves out, you know, kill yourselves with a virus and,
Speaker:and then like, kill yourself, you know, incapacitate yourselves with long COVID and whatnot. And
Speaker:then what I hear also is that in Gaza, like I'm sure Gaza is a constant horrific hellhole
Speaker:and we've seen enough photos and video footage and whatnot. It's incredibly disturbing and
Speaker:nothing sure of a Holocaust really, what's going on there. But the ones that don't get killed
Speaker:by bombs or, you know, collapsed buildings or like an IDF guy actually sniping at them or
Speaker:whatever. The ones that don't are dying from COVID and other viral illnesses a lot of the
Speaker:time. And right now, famine as well. And famine, yes. But Jess, what you were just saying reminded
Speaker:me of something else about, you know, mask bands and sort of the... double edged sword of dastardliness
Speaker:that it is because it's a really easy thing for Republicans to do that satisfies their
Speaker:base, right? It's just like mask ban. Haha, that'll show them woke liberals. On two fronts,
Speaker:right? On the anti-vaxxer, anti-mask front and the, you know, what the fuck are these protesters
Speaker:doing? Well, yeah. So like there's that element of like it's a really simple, easy win with
Speaker:a very red base. Um, but the real win is as we're saying about like software and everything
Speaker:like that, there was like a story, I forget where it was, but it was somewhere in the States
Speaker:where people re there was like a, um, a mishap with a vending machine and like the employee
Speaker:break room or whatever. And it turns out there was a camera in the like vending machine that
Speaker:was just like, and it's like, why does the vending machine need a camera? And there was like no
Speaker:reason for it to. be there or like at the level that it was other than to, you know, observe
Speaker:and listen in on, you know, conversations in the break room or to, you know, train on facial
Speaker:recognition. And then that reminded me that like, you know, we know that this is part of
Speaker:it as well as like, you can't recognize faces with masks. And that's why more and more places
Speaker:are trying to criminalize it. But then I also remembered about how there was that. trend
Speaker:a while ago where people realized that facial recognition software couldn't recognize jugalo
Speaker:makeup. So a bunch of people were saying, oh, you know, this is how the revolution begins.
Speaker:Everyone's going to, you know, be whooping, drinking Fanta and, you know, like with the
Speaker:jugalo makeup. And then handily, there was an app that came out that went semi viral, whereas,
Speaker:hey, what would you look like with jugalo makeup? Like with this filter. And suddenly facial
Speaker:recognition can tell. in spite of jugular makeup with a mask that is still much harder to do
Speaker:because you're functionally changing the shape of your face and you're hiding like anywhere
Speaker:from half to you know two-thirds of your facial data. Yeah but you know what I've seen something
Speaker:online recently like data that shows that wearing sunglasses is harder for facial recognition
Speaker:software than not wearing sunglasses
Speaker:Oh good, I'll cover it on all fronts. So they're not banning sunglasses. Wait for it. I'm sure
Speaker:they will. They will find a reason. That will be the next thing to be criminalized. It's
Speaker:like only criminals wear sunglasses when they don't need to. It's, you know, like, we need
Speaker:to train our eyes for sunlight. You know, our beautiful eyes that God gave us and the sun,
Speaker:which is also his creation. You don't need sunglasses or glasses at all, folks. Like I'm... I hate
Speaker:putting that energy out there, but I'm gonna live to see that. Oh God. I want to ask him
Speaker:though, cause she didn't develop on that. Why then? Right? If, if their motivator isn't all
Speaker:about being able to identify us, right? Cause like they could easily focus on other things.
Speaker:I think it might get even darker than that. I think maybe facial recognition is definitely
Speaker:a factor, right? Not just the software, but maybe a respirator makes it harder for a cop
Speaker:firsthand to track us. But also, I think that some of these people really want us to be infected.
Speaker:They really want us to be infected. So that would be another factor. And then another factor
Speaker:is... A lot of these people, and even liberals, even liberals, and even some leftists, disturbingly
Speaker:enough, hate seeing us wear respirators because that reminds them of the pandemic. And so whereas,
Speaker:you know, you and I, we see a respirator and that's comforting. That's comforting that someone's
Speaker:wearing a respirator to see them wearing a respirator because we know that we're a lot less likely
Speaker:to get sick in their presence. Whereas if you're one of the masses, you see a respirator and
Speaker:you think, oh no, I was trying to get this pandemic that I've been trying to push out of my head.
Speaker:Now it's reminding me again. And then one thing that really, really bothered me starting last
Speaker:year was the assumption that if you're wearing a respirator, that means you're sick. Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, it could be. Yeah, it could be. And if you do feel under the weather and you do
Speaker:have to go, I mean. please fucking wear a mask. Yeah, definitely if you have an infected disease.
Speaker:That's self-centered people. Well, I guess you're protecting someone in the end. But the thing
Speaker:is, on average, the people, the 1% of us or less who consistently wear respirators in public
Speaker:are a lot less likely to be infected. And these people in the masses all the time, they go
Speaker:out and they're infected, they may or may not know it, nothing there. Like the people spreading
Speaker:the disease are the people with naked faces.
Speaker:The corporations and the government and all that, they've all kind of colluded to demonize
Speaker:masking and all of this pretend the pandemic is over shit did not occur overnight. It took
Speaker:like a gradual process of propaganda and acclimatizing people. to all of this. That almost started
Speaker:right at the beginning. Yeah, yeah. Before, right? Trump was like, there's no pandemic,
Speaker:there's no pandemic, okay, there's a little pandemic, okay. You know, like, oh. I'm doing
Speaker:amazing at dealing with the pandemic. No one's dealt with the pandemic better than me or America,
Speaker:God bless America. Very good. Thank you. I've had years of practice. The. The other thing,
Speaker:sort of expand on that point about, you know, why they want to sick and infected is the same
Speaker:with why they got us working longer and longer, because if you have free time, you have time
Speaker:to think, stop and enjoy. And then you want those things more often. And then you're not
Speaker:putting more money into the pockets of capitalists. And they don't want that. That's part of why
Speaker:we were rushing to get back to normal. And why that was the term used is because We need to
Speaker:get back to you giving me all your days and your labor and risking your life to make me
Speaker:and about 800,000 other people in the world, fantastically, supremely wealthy. And that's
Speaker:where a lot of this starts, right? Like there's, there is this assumption with like, within
Speaker:certain circles, whether it's leftist circles or far right wing circles, that there's a grand
Speaker:conspiracy. And I'm just kind of very banal and a bit of a basic bitch about this. Um,
Speaker:98% of all problems in the world and conspiracies can be boiled down to the simple fact of existence
Speaker:that we are on a planet that is governed by sociopaths, well, rich sociopaths, that are
Speaker:having to interact and deal with other rich, greedy sociopaths. And that just kind of explains
Speaker:the bulk of everything and whatever can't be explained by that is explained by things like
Speaker:misogyny and racism. That's pretty much my view of how the world works. Bo Burnham ain't got
Speaker:nothing on me. That being said though, it is interesting how the push towards avoiding any
Speaker:kind of responsibility, like for us, as we said, it's sort of more comforting or reassuring
Speaker:that seeing someone else is masking their taking it seriously, both for their health, the health
Speaker:of their family members, their community, their friends, everyone, right? And someone somewhere
Speaker:summed it up so beautifully in a comment that... The reason why people like us get a lot of
Speaker:pushback for that is because a lot of other people like to think that they are good people,
Speaker:but under the current Western system are on some level fundamentally selfish. And so they
Speaker:think of themselves as a good person and seeing a reminder that they're not being as good as
Speaker:they could be makes them feel bad and they don't want to feel bad or guilty. And rather than
Speaker:sit and like, you know, unpack that and sit with that, it's rather, you know, some other
Speaker:reason for like, Oh, why are you still wearing that? It's over. So it says the who or my family
Speaker:or me. And you know, like, I just really need to get back to life because I was getting too
Speaker:depressed and like, no one wants to unpack all of that. It's just, I think I'm a good person
Speaker:and you know, probably lots of other people said you are a good person and I think most
Speaker:humans are on some level neutral to good, most humans that being said, when it comes to a
Speaker:time like this, that's really kind of like Okay, time to put your morals and values to the test.
Speaker:A lot of people will fail because we are in this capitalist system that promotes, you know,
Speaker:greed, individualism, the immediate reward, convenience. And when that is called into question
Speaker:and is removed and we've been accustomed to it from day one, that makes it really challenging.
Speaker:And unfortunately, that's also why places predominantly in Asia, and especially the communist parts
Speaker:of Asia. had the best response to the pandemic. The communist parts of India were the first
Speaker:to get their act together, to get contact tracing underway, to get supplies and a real sense
Speaker:of community to the rest of their people in places like Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. You
Speaker:had the Vietnamese and the Chinese and the Lao constantly just like, oh, hey, you know what?
Speaker:If this really gets through to us, it's going to absolutely ravage us, and we don't want
Speaker:that. And in general in Asia, particularly, East and Southeast Asia, there is more of a
Speaker:sense of community. And so like when people heard, oh, masking will help. That's why I
Speaker:still to this day in so many videos. And I see this from like white tourists who go like,
Speaker:you know, oh, we're traveling post pandemic now. And here I am in, you know, Malaysia,
Speaker:Vietnam, China, Japan, wherever they're going. And still the vast majority of the locals there
Speaker:are masked. I see it in videos from India. I see it in videos from Japan, Korea, China,
Speaker:Vietnam, wherever. And It's like, buddy, are you not picking up the vibe? Everyone else
Speaker:is messing. That doesn't mean most of these people are sick or that they're scared. It's
Speaker:that they care about their communities, which includes their friends, their family, their
Speaker:loved ones. Like it is so deeply infuriating. I even found that with umbrellas. You will
Speaker:find often I lived in Scarborough and people. from Hong Kong would often carry umbrellas
Speaker:in sunshine. And most Canadians would look and mock, you know, maybe not openly, but be like,
Speaker:oh, don't you know it's not raining? And it took us a while. I think we're slowly coming
Speaker:around to the idea that we get damaged by the sun and there's just like some small steps
Speaker:you can take to not constantly be exposed to the sun. But it feels like we still have taken
Speaker:it as seriously as other folks, right? And it becomes something to almost, yeah, not admire
Speaker:them for, but rather think that they're being silly or overzealous. Right. And it's that
Speaker:whole mentality that, oh, you're going to die anyway. Little small things can't make big
Speaker:changes. Right. So. That seems to be a cultural expanse that I don't know what it stems from,
Speaker:but both community and personal responsibility for your own health and doing kind of things
Speaker:that might be deemed convenient because I just carried an umbrella all day today. It ain't
Speaker:fun. My glasses, they do, they fog up when I wear the mask. I pinch my nose more, but there's
Speaker:some sunglasses I wear. They're just awful. And... It's an inconvenience. I don't like
Speaker:it, but I do it. So you need to have people that are willing to do that. Yeah, like you
Speaker:said, like the whole convenience culture is just, we want it as easy as possible, as fast
Speaker:as possible. And don't tell me I can't do something, you know, that becomes... I'm perplexed why
Speaker:even completely selfish, self-centered people have bought into the propaganda and aren't
Speaker:masking because... There's so much research now like COVID eats the mitochondria in your
Speaker:cells. COVID fuses brain cells together and shit like that. And apparently, but now there
Speaker:are a few diseases that have so much research about them than like SARS-CoV-2. And so you
Speaker:would think that people, even out of pure self-preservation, would be wearing a respirator. But the only,
Speaker:the only, I think your average person is deliberately avoiding the information. When, when, you know,
Speaker:when our politicians and media outlets and whatnot said, Oh, you can take off your mask now. That's
Speaker:what they wanted to hear. That was the comforting lie. Right. It makes me so sad. I don't leave
Speaker:home very often, but when I do, I think like a month ago, I walked from home to U of T campus.
Speaker:This was before maybe it was six weeks ago. This is before the Palestinian the Palestinian
Speaker:solidarity movement was gathered in Milan before that. But I walked over there and on my way
Speaker:and that's a long walk. It's like a 90 minute walk from here. And on my way walking to U
Speaker:of T St. George campus, I probably passed hundreds of people, and maybe I probably passed, you
Speaker:know, five, six, seven people in masks on my way, walking down the sidewalk. And every single
Speaker:one of those, I think, was a surgical mask. And that just... blows my mind because you
Speaker:would think the one, two percent of the population who realize that the pandemic is still ongoing
Speaker:and they should be protecting themselves would spend five minutes researching on the internet
Speaker:about how, you know, surgical masks don't really do very much. And even like if you can't afford
Speaker:to, you know, I can understand, like I've been really poor. I can understand. that buying
Speaker:a bunch of 3M auras when you can only get economy scale if you buy 20 of them at a time, that
Speaker:could really be difficult for someone who's on OW, like near impossible. But you can contact
Speaker:a mask block, and there's a mask block in Toronto, and they will give you respirators. So there's
Speaker:those. Also, again, reminder from possibly pre-recording, I have masks. So if anyone needs some, contact
Speaker:your friendly, local, neighborhood, bothered boy. And they're N95s? Or they're KN94s or
Speaker:N99? I think they're a form of N95. I'm pretty sure. I will double check. But there's also,
Speaker:I get to shill a charity here in Canada. The donate a mask project slash Epsa can charity
Speaker:if you do not have funds It is their like mission and goal to still get masks to you In fact,
Speaker:they have a great little sampler pack So you can try like a whole bunch of different kinds
Speaker:of masks and respirators to see which one works for you And so some people find oh, you know
Speaker:what the flow is great and others say flows not really for me But then like they really
Speaker:like another one. So it's great. Love them Support your local people who are still taking this
Speaker:seriously so once again, that is the donate mask project and Epsa can either one of these
Speaker:search terms should turn you up stuff on like I know they're on Twitter I don't know if they're
Speaker:on like blue sky or Instagram or Facebook But like, you know, just go online your web browser
Speaker:type those up you have a website there. Yeah, and Yeah So so, you know, there are thankfully
Speaker:people in organizations and organizations still doing this work. These are things that our
Speaker:government should be doing, but they're not. And apparently the Ontario government or the
Speaker:Ontario health care system is sitting on a massive stockpile of N95s. Well, because we can't go
Speaker:back. We can't go back to that. No, people won't have it. So we're done with masking forever
Speaker:and always. No, could you imagine Doug Ford's base if he started handing out masks at this
Speaker:point? So let's talk about that, the possibility of Canadian governments following suit, conservative
Speaker:governments, right? Because North Carolina is about to do it, it's going to go through. I
Speaker:can only imagine Florida was like, well, that sounds like a great idea. And then a few other
Speaker:southern states are likely working on this, I am sure. And law enforcement. they're salivating.
Speaker:But can we see Canadian governments doing this, especially if it doesn't get a lot of blowback?
Speaker:It seems popular to their base. I would put money on the Blaine Higgs government of New
Speaker:Brunswick doing it. That'd be my bet for like who's going to be the first, either them or,
Speaker:you know, the stock standard usual favorite of the UCP in Alberta. It's one of those two.
Speaker:And like It's really unfortunate because it sort of goes back to that earlier point about,
Speaker:um, you know, it's an easy win with the base to distract from problems. Right? So, you know,
Speaker:there's Daniel Smith and Albert and Blaine Higgs just being like, all right, you know what?
Speaker:I've absolutely botched healthcare and I've completely botched the economy and it's proper
Speaker:recovery. And, oh, look at that. Um, the things that I said that I was going to do, you know,
Speaker:take care of the economy, that's not doing so hot. So. I need distractions. What can I do
Speaker:that's going to be a hit with my base that's not going to impact my major donors? So, I
Speaker:know, let's target the minorities. So hit them with some indigenous racism, hit them with
Speaker:some anti-LGBTQ legislation, hit them with something unnecessarily divisive trying to drive a wedge
Speaker:between you and another province or you and the federal government. That is the standard
Speaker:playbook for Higgs and Smith in this country. And we all have to, unfortunately, deal with
Speaker:it because they have majority government. So we're stuck with them for a few more years.
Speaker:But those would definitely be my bets for who would try and do this first to really try and,
Speaker:like, distract from the other awfulness that is happening and plaguing their respective
Speaker:provinces. Yeah, I could see Doug Ford also trying this because he is relished in the criminalization
Speaker:and demonization of pro-Palestinian movements. And since they're able to frame this as a law
Speaker:and order kind of safety, because they're not saying it's a health thing at all. Like we're
Speaker:talking about it from a health perspective, but they're talking about it from a protect
Speaker:you from these scary protesters. And if, yeah, that can score them some political points at
Speaker:this time, as well as serve as a blow to the movement. Because Anna Lippman was on and she
Speaker:made a great point. And reading one of the quotes here from the article on the North Carolina
Speaker:case, where one of their Democratic senators says, you're making careful people into criminals.
Speaker:And by targeting organizers with extra charges relating to masks, you're sending a message
Speaker:to everyone they work with, right? And so that's gonna... start to weigh on people when they
Speaker:go into spaces, especially folks who like, well, we all should be wearing a mask, but some people
Speaker:absolutely have to, you know, like it's just not a choice. They are not going to participate
Speaker:if the folks around them aren't masked, if they can't wear a mask without worrying about getting
Speaker:charged by police. And so it'll have the effect of isolating people again. Right? Like so much
Speaker:work has been done, I think, by especially the disabled community, to remind organizers to
Speaker:be conscious, COVID conscious in their planning and just seeing the movement the way that it
Speaker:is and the focus on masking now. It's just, I'd hate to see that work go backwards and
Speaker:for folks to have to then go back to home. Although there's ways you can participate in the movement
Speaker:from home, but you know, it's just... It could be incredibly isolating and you don't want
Speaker:anyone having second thoughts going out into these actions right now. Like we need to encourage
Speaker:as many people to participate as possible. So that's really chilling when folks hear that
Speaker:news. Like we're trying to even decide, do we talk about this? Like will this scare people
Speaker:out of doing actions or wearing a mask now? You know, should a law be passed? Like what
Speaker:do those folks do?
Speaker:It just opens up the amount of times two people will call the cops on other people. Like, you
Speaker:know, it's one thing to snicker at someone wearing a mask or say something rude behind them in
Speaker:line, like, oh, I thought COVID was over or whatever. You know, the harassing people guy.
Speaker:I'm sure we've all experienced it, right? That would just explode, right? And not only that,
Speaker:they feel these, these Karens that we love to call them, would feel no ways about calling
Speaker:the cops, about seeing anybody with a mask. You know, and we know what happens when the
Speaker:police respond to masked individuals. So they're going to roll up on a like a disabled person
Speaker:in a wheelchair or in crutches and just like wearing a mask, like you're looking very criminal
Speaker:and I'm going to lose my shit when that inevitably happens. On that note, like another thing that
Speaker:I wish more people internalized is. Listen to. disability advocates and disabled people because
Speaker:how they are impacted is the ultimate end goal, the forced poverty, the lack of health and
Speaker:support and services and the disdain for their existence. That's where this is all headed.
Speaker:And that's why it's all interconnected. And that's why a lot of our leftists, like, you
Speaker:know, homework, I'm not saying us three like need to do, but... Like the groups and circles
Speaker:that we run in still need to do a lot of work of actually listening to and accommodating
Speaker:and respecting disabled people in our circles. Cause I've seen way too much awfulness over
Speaker:the past few years. Like even, you know, when like we should still be taking it seriously
Speaker:now, but I remember even in like 2022, just two years into it, not even there were people
Speaker:where, you know, disabled people would say, so like, what are you doing to make the space
Speaker:safe? and accessible and it's like, well, you know, just can't really do that for reasons.
Speaker:Or like some discourse that happened recently of like, you know, you owe it to train and
Speaker:there I am thinking like, OK, buddy, if you want to train, that's fine and that's good.
Speaker:You can't force it on everybody because not everybody has that capability that time. Like,
Speaker:it's such a point of privilege to say that not everyone's role in the revolution is going
Speaker:to be a fighter. You know, like it's yeah. You mean when you say train, you mean like workout?
Speaker:Like, yeah, I saw that go around that discussion. That's so ableist. How people can't realize
Speaker:that. Ableist, fatphobic. It's just like, oh, my God. People who say that haven't organized
Speaker:with this is the disabled community. And I cannot believe this day and age that there are movements
Speaker:and organizations out there like the NDP. that don't realize the resource that they have pissed
Speaker:off. Like forget that they're fucking people, right? Like you shouldn't treat people like
Speaker:that. But it's an incredible resource of talent and drive and commitment, honestly. Like that,
Speaker:and any politician or any movement that leaves them out of the equation is doing themselves
Speaker:a huge disservice, huge. because all these things are interconnected. It was a really hard lesson
Speaker:to learn and much harder for a lesson for you to learn because you were so much more involved
Speaker:for so much longer. But it doesn't seem like the NDP's reason for existing is to fight for
Speaker:the marginalized. Their reason for existing is to take any sort of leftist needs and sentiment
Speaker:and activism and... contain it in a way that it's not going anywhere and it's not going
Speaker:to have any sort of practical change. It's like kind of how I feel now that electoral politics
Speaker:in general and voting is to pacify the masses into thinking that they're doing something.
Speaker:I have a good analogy because recently people have talked about the ratcheting effect of
Speaker:politics where it always ratchets to the right and then liberals never really do anything
Speaker:to really fix it. For me, this was not new. I was told this by like my salty as fuck history
Speaker:teacher. I forget her name was Miss Kershen or something, but like from high school, right?
Speaker:It's like I knew this in the 2000s like oh, ratchet effect. Interesting. But that usually
Speaker:only applies to a two-party system. So like I found a new way to talk about the NDP's purpose
Speaker:here. So the conservatives are the ratchet that ratchet things to the right. The liberals prevent
Speaker:it from being moved to the left in any meaningful capacity. The NDP's purpose is to serve as
Speaker:the waterproofing. They are there to prevent actual meaningful leftist organization and
Speaker:orgs that could whittle away at the ratchet or the like, you know, part that's holding
Speaker:it in and thus like allow the system to eventually fail and crumble and thus need replacing. So
Speaker:that is the purpose of the NDP in Canada. It is the waterproofing to the ratchet of politics.
Speaker:That's that's beautiful. I love that. That makes perfect sense. Definitely. Thank you. Subscribe
Speaker:for more silliness. I'm not even going to comment because my audience, my audience has heard
Speaker:me rate rage on the NDP enough. I think they've heard all of my theories and yeah, they're
Speaker:counter revolutionaries. Side note, in case I don't get to talk about this elsewhere, we're
Speaker:Jamie. What? I probably might even edit. Jamie West shows his face at the emergency rally
Speaker:today at the University of Toronto encampment. And I see him there in his bright orange windbreaker
Speaker:and the sight of him there already, I am getting worked up. And Santiago is trying to pretend
Speaker:to be like, okay, he's being like real media. He's got his press pass. He's in with the media
Speaker:people. And I'm like kind of holding his umbrella over him. I'm the protester, he's the media,
Speaker:right? We can't mix, but we are. Anyway, I said to him, I don't know what I'm gonna do if he
Speaker:takes the stage, Santiago. I mean, I'll move away from you so I don't damage your press
Speaker:creds, but I don't think I'm gonna be able to contain myself. And he just kind of gave me
Speaker:this like nervous chuckle. You're so funny, honey. You're so funny. Sure enough, he took
Speaker:the fucking mic. He thought it would be appropriate to take the fucking mic. I mean, they gave
Speaker:it to him. He didn't take it and make a sound. But he got up there and he talked about how
Speaker:he knew how solidarity was a verb. He knew how important it was to stand beside people, even
Speaker:it was tough. And I fucking heckled the shit out of him. I could not help myself. I was
Speaker:Barry Weiss all of a sudden. And, um, yeah, I. didn't handle it well, but then everyone
Speaker:started chanting, reinstate Sarah Jama, reinstate Sarah Jama. I was gonna say, because. Because
Speaker:I said, like, how, where were you when Sarah Jama needed you to stand beside her? How can
Speaker:you stand at the mic? Why couldn't you do and stand beside her in the legislature? You know,
Speaker:like, I was just so, he was there to like orange stamp this, as though like the NDP had been
Speaker:with them from the beginning and it was such a load of shit. He couldn't even say that though
Speaker:at the end of his speech, you know what he said? He didn't say, you know, the NDP is with you.
Speaker:And of course he focused on the fact that they were trying to fire people and not the fact
Speaker:that Palestine should be free. But anyway, he says that labor stands with you because he's
Speaker:the labor critic. He couldn't even he couldn't even accurately say obviously that, oh, and
Speaker:I'm here to say that the Ontario NDP stands with these students and their right to protest
Speaker:or anything watered down like that shit. He didn't because he couldn't. But anyway. Don't
Speaker:let people like that take the mic at your spaces, please. Well, yeah, because they're just running
Speaker:over the details of like, hmm, how is this going to play in our favorability ratings? Cause
Speaker:that's what this is all about now and about power and potential influence. And like, how
Speaker:do we, how do we win an election? And meanwhile, it's like so many activists that I know who
Speaker:are passionate either for the federal NDP candidates or for like provincial Ontario NDP candidates.
Speaker:Like, yeah. Let's let's do this. I'm you. You wanted me. I'm here. I'm hyped. I'm ready to
Speaker:go. And they're like, yes. So actually, no, we need you to tone it down to basically three
Speaker:percent. Not this hundred and ten percent you're giving us. And we like that's nice. But like,
Speaker:really, come on, get on the neoliberalism bus. Like just they just pretend you're better than
Speaker:everyone else. You're basically just being an orange liberal, just being an orange liberal.
Speaker:That's that's what we're looking for now. And and like, again, this goes back to like, hey,
Speaker:stuff that's going to affect. the disabled and women of color. Look what happened to Sarah
Speaker:Jama. We had a disabled woman of color be like incredibly attacked to the point of receiving
Speaker:death threats, being kicked out of caucus and being censured by the legislature for her incredibly
Speaker:offensive statement of pain, suffering, murder, bad, and there should be peace and like solidarity
Speaker:to all those who have lost lives was the initial. Statement more or less right and people were
Speaker:like how can you say that? Sarah Jama and I'm just here like nothing she said was wrong or
Speaker:out of pocket, so Why are we doing this and it's like wait no right? black disabled Muslim
Speaker:woman there it fucking is that's why I I want to reel it back in so that we can close it
Speaker:out a little. Sorry, I get needed about stuff like this. No, no, I'm just as guilty. I think
Speaker:I started it with my Jamie West story. But back to the mask ban and talking about the weakness
Speaker:of the NDP and the fact that Jill Andrews has been the only MPP that's regularly masked.
Speaker:She's probably been the only politician in Canada that I have seen regularly masked. So I fear
Speaker:for any kind of challenge that would go up against a potential mask ban in Canada, who is going
Speaker:to sit there and really fight for that when and how would they when they've not really
Speaker:been wearing them or advocating for them from the beginning, right? That there's not a party,
Speaker:a mask party in Canada. And I don't mean like their own party, but you couldn't point to
Speaker:the liberals or the NDP as champions of COVID consciousness at all. So if. the conservatives
Speaker:introduce something like that. I imagine it would just sail right through without much
Speaker:of a whiff, because I think they don't think it's popular and they've got no ground to stand
Speaker:on. So, you know, I echo Kim's concern that when we see things in these Southern states,
Speaker:we like to dismiss them as crazy American trends and oh my God, look what they're doing down
Speaker:there. But sure enough, it finds its way up here. You know, they find validity in that
Speaker:and... And yeah, that's something the pushback will have to come from different sources, not
Speaker:our politicians. I'm going to put in the public record that I am not going to allow myself
Speaker:to be forcefully infected. So I'm not going to allow myself to go out in public and then
Speaker:a Toronto cop rips my mask off my face. I'm not going to allow that situation to happen.
Speaker:And you can like use your imagination and put two and two together as to how I would apply
Speaker:that. But I am not going to let that happen either way. We might, best case scenario, if
Speaker:there is a mask ban, the cops just can't enforce it or they're... they enforce it very infrequently
Speaker:or just enforce it and people will go to... Selectively. It'll be selective. Yeah. You
Speaker:bother them. You look at the cop wrong, you organize in a mask, you, you know, push up
Speaker:against power in a mask and all of a sudden it'll be a problem. But yeah, yeah. Sorry,
Speaker:I was laughing because... Every time someone talks about cops, I have the oink piggy piggy,
Speaker:we're gonna make your lives shitty. And I need to work it into an episode and I just did.
Speaker:So thank you for that. But you know, what's I know that this podcast is public, so I'm
Speaker:going to be very careful about what I say. But the truth is that the cops are harming each
Speaker:other by spreading COVID amongst themselves. just like other populations are. I predict
Speaker:that they can buy all this military technology, the law enforcement in the United States especially,
Speaker:a lot of law enforcement agencies in the States have a lot of military equipment, especially
Speaker:like the NYPD and the LAPD, and the Toronto police and whatnot, to the best of my knowledge,
Speaker:don't have a lot of military equipment yet. But chances are with, you know, very late stage
Speaker:capitalism, disdain and fascism and all that, it's coming. Right. But they can have all that
Speaker:technology, they can have like fucking tanks like some law enforcement agencies do in the
Speaker:United States and whatnot. And like Boston Dynamics, robot dogs with like the guns on them and shit.
Speaker:That's that shit is coming. Right. But if they have decimated most of their human workforce.
Speaker:because they've all had COVID too frequently, it's gonna be much more difficult for them
Speaker:to enforce these bans. And they can have billions and billions and billions of dollars given
Speaker:to them from multiple levels of government, because all of our governments will just give
Speaker:the Toronto police and the RCMP and whatever a blank check, really, right? But all the money
Speaker:and all the military equipment. and all the Boston Dynamics dogs with firearms on them
Speaker:and shit, and all the drones, if they decimate their own numbers by all of them getting COVID
Speaker:too often, now we have H5N1 coming and all that, if they keep dwindling their numbers, and already
Speaker:in Ontario and I think elsewhere in Canada and the United States, the public school workforce
Speaker:has been deteriorating. You know, they can have all kinds of money to train and hire new teachers,
Speaker:but if the population of people who can go to like teachers college and all that is dwindling.
Speaker:You know, either dying or long COVID so bad that they're largely bedridden. They can't
Speaker:do their teaching jobs or the brain damage from multiple COVID infections or whatever. So yeah,
Speaker:cause the cops aren't protecting themselves from COVID. So. If they didn't have families,
Speaker:I wouldn't give a shit, but you know, it's the collective damage will, I mean, maybe one day
Speaker:we can possibly measure. the lost potential from massive amounts of COVID infections in
Speaker:people, right? Like brain capacity, I mean, beyond the fact that we've lost people and
Speaker:we'll lose people. But in the cost of the health care for treating long COVID down the road,
Speaker:I mean, yeah, there's so many things that just don't make any of these mask bands make sense.
Speaker:unless you look at it from that dark perspective that we started with from the beginning, you
Speaker:know, both from a law perspective and a eugenics perspective. And that's a reason to rant. Thank
Speaker:you both for coming on the show and unpacking that with us. I'm sure we'll have you back.
Speaker:It's been great. Thank you so much. Looking forward to it. That is a wrap on another episode
Speaker:of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank you for joining us. Also, a very big thank you to the producer
Speaker:of our show, Santiago Jaluc Quintero. Blueprints of Disruption is an independent production
Speaker:operated cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter at BPEofDisruption. If you'd like to
Speaker:help us continue disrupting the status quo, please share our content. And if you have the
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Speaker:community, so does our content. So reach out to us and let us know what or who we should
Speaker:be amplifying. So until next time, keep disrupting.
