Unlearn16: Class is in Session - The One Where I Tell Them To Shove Their 'Thoughts and Prayers'

00:00:00.000 Classes in session.

00:00:04.440 How you doing and welcome to Unlearn 16 Classes in Session.

00:00:08.580 Guys, it's just going to be me today.

00:00:10.600 It's just going to be me today and it's not the best of days.

00:00:17.600 I'm filming this on Monday night.

00:00:20.400 I'm going to drop the podcast tomorrow morning.

00:00:24.280 So just so everybody has a little bit of context.

00:00:26.640 just recently we obviously have seen Florida and all the book banning and the curriculum changing

00:00:33.980 and the banning of education and critical theories and African studies courses and all of that going

00:00:40.140 on there we then shift to that small school in Florida that actually forced the resignation of

00:00:46.740 a principal because they had the audacity to teach the David, the statue David in art class,

00:00:58.640 and they deemed it to be parents. It was obscene and we should have had a note coming home and

00:01:04.780 how dare you take this out of our hands. And you have that fight. And on the tales or in the realm

00:01:12.820 of all of this, you have the argument and the hatred and the vilification of the trans

00:01:21.300 community as the Don't Say Gay Bill and all of this anti-trans legislation is sweeping

00:01:27.480 over.

00:01:28.740 And then today, you have another.

00:01:36.060 And I don't even know the total of how many, but you have another.

00:01:42.820 Mass shooting, looking it up right today, mass shooting today, six people were killed,

00:01:52.060 three nine-year-olds and three faculty.

00:01:55.600 Now, I can't get into who and the why and the whatever, but my question isn't who and

00:02:06.900 the why because let's be honest i don't i don't know if it of course it matters the per the person

00:02:16.360 matters but there there is something broken here guys there is something fundamentally broken

00:02:26.120 i was looking up gun related fatalities and and the amount the numbers the sheer numbers in the

00:02:35.140 United States put them third, third highest gun related fatalities in the world. Just numbers,

00:02:47.740 not per capita, just numbers per capita. They're still in this top, I don't know, 15.

00:02:54.940 And this one, a 28 year old, I do know that she was 28, walked into a school and purposefully, 0.57

00:03:02.440 seemingly aimed for

00:03:05.960 9 year olds

00:03:07.560 I was all set to come in here and talk about the David

00:03:14.520 and why we're not teaching it and the vilification of these communities

00:03:18.140 and taking this out and this censorship and that control and that control

00:03:21.800 and then this

00:03:23.180 and when I hear something like this happen again

00:03:29.580 i don't know what way to turn anymore i don't know what way to turn anymore when we seem to

00:03:40.680 be occupied with the most asinine mundane embarrassing uses of control and censorship

00:03:51.080 and vilification in order to give the pretense of safety and yet

00:03:57.480 mass shootings in 2023, 2023 in the U.S. Let's see what this number is.

00:04:13.280 Only in only three months, the United States has surpassed 100 mass shootings in 2023.

00:04:18.620 a hundred what are we doing what are we distracting ourselves from and and to be honest i'm not even

00:04:28.740 going to sit here and say ban all the guns or i would love to i get it we but for the love of god

00:04:35.320 how is this particular subject not pervading every senate committee every town hall meeting 0.97

00:04:46.500 every conversation going on with education defund education are you insane

00:04:55.140 how are we not funding education to the hilt how are we not putting every single extra dollar

00:05:05.060 that the united states has how are we not filing it into studies psychiatric report

00:05:14.260 mental health facilities educational facilities teachers how how guys

00:05:23.940 i start to look at these things in connection and unfortunately

00:05:29.620 i start to come to some pretty horrific conclusions

00:05:34.820 all of the arguments and the the discussions and the debates and the committees and the government

00:05:41.620 refunded, blah, blah, blah, blah. Seems like. It's all just fancy dancing. It's all distraction.

00:05:51.080 It's all, look at the shiny object over here. I'm going to handle this. I'm going to control

00:05:57.480 this. I'm going to limit this to make you safe. And then three nine-year-olds are shot.

00:06:07.000 And none of that, none of that has anything to do with protecting and actually creating safety and security. None of it.

00:06:20.040 Thomas Hobbes, unfortunately, is a political philosopher who came up with one of the, in my opinion, most significant and valid quotes, or main ideas of any political philosophy, which is,

00:06:37.520 people will give up all of their freedoms in the anticipation, in the promise of safety

00:06:47.380 and security. Let me say that again. People will give up all of their inherent freedoms,

00:06:54.300 a lot of their civil rights, in order for the promise of safety, security, and here's a real

00:07:02.680 kicker stability and what it seems as though politicians are promising is they're promising

00:07:12.100 all of this censorship all of this control all of this you know book burning mentality if you will

00:07:24.120 pinning the david are we insane they're doing it they're getting away from it away with it because

00:07:32.460 they're promising safety and security. And the funny part is we're getting more and more insecure

00:07:41.320 and unsafe every single day. The funny thing is we're allowing politicians to override doctors

00:07:51.780 and science. We're allowing politicians to take away the rights of educators and classroom

00:07:58.740 curriculums in order to say this is what i want this is what i need and and we're we're giving

00:08:04.980 way to all of that we're censoring we're firing we're every step we go in promise of

00:08:16.340 more safety and security and they keep pointing out the enemy they keep pointing out the minority

00:08:22.580 who is easily distinguishable, easily marginalized, easily called out,

00:08:31.700 and they're pointing at them and saying it's their fault.

00:08:34.720 And right now, we all know who they're pointing at.

00:08:39.880 We all know who they're pointing at.

00:08:42.780 And they're doing it because they're easy to point at.

00:08:46.120 they're they're easy because it's a small group of people that the majority of americans may not

00:08:56.140 understand or have a connection with they're pointing at this community of of lgbtq two plus

00:09:04.180 individuals they're pointing at the trans community they're pointing at these

00:09:07.920 at these individuals as the issue as the security breach that needs to be fixed 0.65

00:09:13.840 as the thing that's damaging our society.

00:09:21.220 And the more that they do this, the bigger this gets,

00:09:27.180 the more, seemingly, we're seeing mass shootings and school shootings accelerate.

00:09:37.080 and the more that we feel we're in a violent state

00:09:43.180 the promises of protection just become exacerbated right it's like listen we're gonna burn all these

00:09:53.260 books we're gonna get rid of all these books because this is the underbelly this is the flaw

00:09:56.940 in our society that's making you unsafe this is the thing that's attacking your kids so we're

00:10:00.860 gonna burn these books and then when the attacks and the violence happen anyway instead of saying

00:10:06.820 Oh, no, that wasn't it. We went the wrong way. That's not fixing anything. They double down. Watch them double down. They're going to double down on, well, we didn't burn enough books. We didn't limit enough people.

00:10:25.820 people. We didn't close these doors soon enough. And they're just going to escalate their demands

00:10:36.080 for more power to control, for more power to oppress, for more power to point bigger fingers

00:10:45.640 at minorities and blame them and wait for everything to get better. And when it doesn't,

00:10:52.280 whole cycle starts over again. I'm baffled because the story of violence and guns and this

00:11:06.060 level seeming, level of desperation. Nobody's having the honest, open conversations that start

00:11:18.440 with a very calm a very clear this all needs to stop what are we doing wrong what are we not doing

00:11:31.800 and i want to hear that from every single politician

00:11:38.280 how many what psychologists do we have to engage what what ideologies do we have to bring in

00:11:45.460 What other countries do we have to look at?

00:11:48.260 What are we doing?

00:11:49.700 What is the United States doing that has put us third on that list?

00:11:55.720 What?

00:12:00.260 You know, and I mean, and again, do I want to ban them all?

00:12:05.220 Sure.

00:12:06.680 I would love to erase a lot of things that have already been invented.

00:12:10.340 But let's consider.

00:12:12.600 Let's just consider that's not the only thing we need to do.

00:12:18.100 Right?

00:12:19.080 Let's consider there has to be a lineup of things.

00:12:23.340 There has to be an onslaught of money spent in order to meet the needs of this crisis.

00:12:34.020 You want to talk about a crisis?

00:12:36.700 This is it.

00:12:39.380 This is it.

00:12:41.600 little kids going to school and somebody walking in and deciding with with whatever

00:12:48.880 rage and desperation they have that this is the day nothing else matter

00:12:53.060 where's our outrage where's our money

00:12:58.100 poor how many trillions of dollars into the military everybody's so freaking worried about

00:13:06.360 how much money we spend on the military, why in this era are we not spending it on the mental

00:13:16.180 health of the United States? Why are we not spending it on the healthcare? Why are we not

00:13:21.100 spending it on education? How about we just try something we never tried before?

00:13:26.900 How about the United States' poors? And I mean poors. Its resources, its talent, its educated brilliance, its progress, all of the things they claim to have in abundance. 1.00

00:13:49.500 health care and by health care i mean all health care and canon i'm talking to you here because

00:13:57.940 mental if we don't start considering mental health as being necessary and the need for

00:14:08.000 it to be universal this is going to escalate and education poor money

00:14:17.620 pour money into it so that the teachers who are in these schools are getting paid well

00:14:25.940 if they are they feel that they're in safe environments in the sense that

00:14:30.540 they have a strong connection to community and they have a strong safe space to be

00:14:36.540 but instead of this we're going to get more watch we all know how this works

00:14:46.080 thoughts and prayers really sad apologies we bring out the story of the shooter we we simply

00:14:54.480 demonize the shooter the lone deranged broken please insert name here

00:15:02.640 and then we forget and then we we expunge the reality that those people aren't born

00:15:13.800 they're made they're not just made by by parents they're not just made by a school they're made

00:15:20.120 by a society that that they something's broken and we're so quick to rally up and we're so

00:15:33.480 um easily led to say well we just gotta have bigger guns taller fences better cameras better

00:15:41.160 security. Everything is getting fully, more fully and fully and fully armed. And we wonder why

00:15:49.980 people then turn to violence. You know, a long time ago, oh God, I don't even know how many

00:15:58.000 years ago, Michael Moore did a movie called Bowling for Columbine. Every year I showed

00:16:02.960 to my students. Bowling for Columbine focused on Columbine shootings. I don't even know what

00:16:11.580 year it was. And he tried to figure out in this documentary what happened. What happened? Why did

00:16:21.820 it happen? And it's called Bowling for Columbine because right before the kids did what they did,

00:16:28.900 they walked in and they killed however many how many people was it at that particular point

00:16:34.140 it's amazing they all start to blend in 12 students murdered and one teacher

00:16:39.400 right before they did that they went bowling with their gym class

00:16:45.100 and michael moore really goes into it you know and and it's funny because he goes into gun control

00:16:53.600 even though he believes in gun ownership he goes into places like like walmart where you have you

00:17:02.400 know such easy access and a bank where you open a new account and get a gun for the love of god

00:17:08.640 but he tries to get out what the culture is saying what it has bred you know and in 1999

00:17:19.520 which is when it took place it was this one it not this one off but it was just

00:17:26.080 so insane and so outrageous and now it's become monthly now it's become common

00:17:40.480 you know is that is that what we're expecting

00:17:44.080 and from 1999 did we pour money into health care mental health do we pour money into education

00:17:51.860 no we we we did none of those things

00:17:57.780 under under different presidents and different political parties

00:18:03.560 you know we fought about things like well if every american just had a gun and then the other

00:18:11.580 side would say no let's burn all the gum the ridiculousness of the extremes and the lack of

00:18:19.340 consideration for doing something else something that hasn't been done

00:18:26.240 we keep making mistakes and and it gets worse and worse and worse and rather than changing

00:18:35.960 the course of action, we just do it more. So I look at this, what I initially was going to come

00:18:47.140 on here and talk about, and censorship and control and the talk of tradition and the talk of how we

00:18:55.540 get people back on track. And right now, who seems to be the targeted minority we can point to and

00:19:01.120 say it's all their fault if we just control them. And then this happens. And I want it to say,

00:19:12.700 sure, this is going to make a difference. Instead, what I fear is that everybody gets more scared.

00:19:21.640 they'll be more willing to give up more more willing to crack down harder more fixated as

00:19:32.300 the majority to blame the minority to get a targeted group that is easily identifiable to

00:19:40.740 make sure to point the finger at and say it's all them we know what this sounds like

00:19:46.560 and it's nothing new it's nothing original it's nothing that hasn't been done for thousands of

00:19:54.100 years it's giving people an easy solution that is no solution it is giving people the pretense

00:20:07.120 of doing something in order to make them safer even though the two have no connection to each

00:20:16.140 other whatsoever. But it's in doing that, it seems as though it can feel as though

00:20:22.440 they're actually getting something done and things are going to change. 0.82

00:20:29.160 The delusion of security is our ridiculous downfall. The delusion of

00:20:40.140 that any one governor

00:20:43.800 that any one governor can somehow single-handedly change the the the flow of culture and the flow

00:20:57.680 of violence that has been going on with the with the stroke of a pen that any one congressman that

00:21:04.140 any one senator none of them not a single one can do it alone but they're so busy guys

00:21:17.420 jockeying for position jockeying for popularity

00:21:23.740 jockeying for more power and more privilege and they're doing it with the promise of safety

00:21:31.180 security, and stability, none of which have been met. These asinine promises 0.93

00:21:39.940 that the public keeps buying as though it has ever happened. 0.95

00:21:49.820 And we all talk circles around each other, and we fight with one another, and we talk

00:22:00.140 about their the hate the hatred of one another consistently rather than focusing on the issue

00:22:12.140 what do we do how do we fix this problem how do we let's not how do we fix it

00:22:18.860 how do we do something we've never done before let's just start there

00:22:22.860 how about you go into congress tomorrow and say something new needs to be done

00:22:34.060 we have as a collective been wrong

00:22:39.100 we haven't done anything right and here we are

00:22:45.980 here we are

00:22:46.700 start looking seriously looking and listening stop being we have a we have a problem of

00:22:57.660 this sort of ethnocentric superiority complex in both canada the united states sometimes

00:23:04.840 of thinking well what are the best of the best we got it on lock my kid has an apple computer

00:23:12.900 I'm driving a nice car to work. We have nice areas, right? We have all this money. We have

00:23:19.200 billionaires over here. We got it. We're doing it right. But our kids can't go to school without

00:23:24.860 practicing active shooter drills. We need to adjust what the hell a victorious, a healthy,

00:23:38.320 an amazing society looks at and looks like because i'll be damned if we're going to keep using the

00:23:44.720 same indicator of money and acquisition and mass consumption people can't go to the hospitals

00:23:54.880 because they don't have any money and they have no insurance they're dying people can't get any

00:24:01.680 any serious significant consistent mental health treatment and we're wondering

00:24:09.360 why why this is erupting in chaos and violence we're not competing you know on an educational

00:24:17.920 level throughout the world and we think we think it's because well we need to bring back the

00:24:21.760 standardized tests and stop mucking keep those kids in line get back to reading writing and

00:24:26.560 arithmetic are you joking we're not spending nearly enough money on being innovative creative dynamic

00:24:36.160 thinkers and adjusting our education system to the new information we know about the human psyche

00:24:42.880 and the human mind why because we're smarter than we were 50 years ago but we don't want to spend

00:24:47.600 the money to change it we are on the precipice of an education system right now that requires

00:24:54.240 serious innovation it requires a huge influx of money just like the invention of new technology

00:25:02.800 why the hell do we just think that an mri machine requires this huge investment that new cancer

00:25:09.120 treatments that all of these techno technological things getting rockets to go to the moon

00:25:15.120 getting to go to mars and we can't figure out how to better create an educational system to

00:25:21.520 benefit our whole population and the kids within it, our priorities are broken. Broken.

00:25:31.420 And as the adults are sitting around fighting like this, students are wearing bulletproof

00:25:37.900 backpacks to school. How are we supposed to get anything done? How are we supposed to

00:25:45.220 trust anybody? How are we supposed to feel safe when we're not putting enough money and

00:25:49.880 enough energy into those three fundamental, foundational realities of the United States.

00:26:00.840 How?

00:26:05.080 Can't begin to fix a problem if we're not going to accept that we have one.

00:26:11.080 And the more deluded we stand here, Canadian and American alike, popping our collars, talking

00:26:17.120 about how we're the best on the block. It will crumble. It is crumbling. For what? For

00:26:28.380 what? A new car? A $50 million mansion? For a new iPhone each month? We're winning? Are

00:26:42.560 we winning we're winning what what are we winning

00:26:51.320 we don't have we have we have communities that have been divided we

00:26:56.920 have educational systems that are being shredded and gutted we have this this

00:27:03.280 ridiculous ridiculous regression of education regression of ideas claiming

00:27:15.360 that what if we all revert back to the way things were the way things were wet 0.96

00:27:22.680 everything needs

00:27:28.040 everybody needs

00:27:31.120 a new lens

00:27:33.440 a new way of looking at things

00:27:36.080 I don't know how many more times

00:27:41.020 this can happen

00:27:41.840 and we consistently get distracted 0.99

00:27:44.280 by this other bull crap 0.99

00:27:46.460 that's going on 0.98

00:27:47.420 we watch this whole 0.90

00:27:50.140 TikTok ridiculous hearing

00:27:53.100 what's it all about money money

00:27:59.180 who's got it who's making it who wants some of it that's it

00:28:06.460 we care about the voices of people do we care about their health their education

00:28:12.860 are we joking we need a complete innovative system we we need a we need a com every dollar

00:28:21.100 we can spare, that's where it needs to go.

00:28:26.800 All the people sitting around going, it's not the guns, not the guns, not the guns,

00:28:30.420 cool.

00:28:31.660 I'm going to go with you for a minute.

00:28:35.540 Fine.

00:28:39.140 Let's not ban a single thing.

00:28:43.760 But, how about this?

00:28:46.540 However much money is spent on guns per year,

00:28:49.680 how about we take that money and we pour it into education we double that money we pour

00:28:59.940 it into health care how about we take our military spending and redirect it

00:29:07.260 to the cracks and the the crumbling of our foundation 1.00

00:29:13.020 not going to fight your second amendment

00:29:17.800 really is a ridiculous fight at the moment anyways

00:29:22.280 but then how dare the other side not put their money where their mouth is and fund something

00:29:35.200 useful fund something powerful fund something for the love of god do something different

00:29:42.420 do something new invest in the health and the well-being of the next generation

00:29:52.060 you want to just do it you you want it just to the kids 18 up to 18

00:30:00.460 they get full health care 100 covered they get full mental health care anytime they want it

00:30:08.280 anywhere they want to get it covered period taxes are paying for it start

00:30:16.720 there start there because we don't recognize these broken foundations and

00:30:29.460 we keep arguing distraction and we keep jockeying for position

00:30:37.500 everything else is going to crumble and we're going to sit around and watch it happen 0.99

00:30:42.860 while we're screaming from the rooftops the same old crap that we've already been screaming 0.99

00:30:51.340 so stop pointing 0.99

00:30:56.940 stop looking anywhere other than you your community your your city your state and start demanding

00:31:07.180 They physically, mentally, emotionally use those tax dollars and take care of their population tomorrow.

00:31:17.600 They can vote for that. Who's going to stand against it?

00:31:21.500 I want to see somebody stand in the House or a state legislature and say that the mental health and the physical health of our next generation isn't worth tax dollars.

00:31:34.980 I want them to say it out loud so I know where they stand.

00:31:39.500 I know who they are.

00:31:43.240 We have the right to the U.S. Constitution.

00:31:45.760 It talks about life, liberty, and property.

00:31:48.240 Life?

00:31:50.300 The first one is life.

00:31:53.960 How health care and mental health care and even education

00:31:57.760 aren't aspects of that constitutional law.

00:32:04.020 underpinning, that the main driving force, life.

00:32:12.100 How dare you?

00:32:14.140 How dare you allow a society to obscure, to opaque the windows

00:32:22.080 so we can't look at the actual rot from underneath

00:32:26.040 and you keep painting over it with bills to ban to kill a mockingbird?

00:32:34.020 talk about

00:32:38.740 teachers who have spent 30 years teaching and they're they're somehow indoctrinated by 0.99

00:32:46.020 ideology to to manipulate your kid are you crazy 0.97

00:32:52.380 it's all lies it's misdirection it's lies it's fanfare you know what it is guys 0.97

00:33:04.020 it's the it's the gladiator arena it's the circus that came to town that they

00:33:13.080 give to you for free to distract you from where the money and the power and

00:33:20.940 their resources are really going it's it's it's big brother it's reality TV

00:33:30.540 that's meant to give you the illusion of reality keeping you entertained and visibly distracted

00:33:38.500 while they don't do anything. And I'm not just sitting here blaming politicians. I'm not actually,

00:33:47.020 I'm not blaming politicians at all. Want to know why?

00:33:50.820 because politicians only do what people tell them to do and they tell them on mass

00:34:00.800 we tell them with our vote or we tell them with our lack thereof 50 of the population

00:34:09.680 doesn't vote why should they care about what you have to say

00:34:12.660 we tell them in between elections when we protest when we write letters we write emails

00:34:20.920 when we go to town hall meetings when we're a part of the political system from the roots up

00:34:26.840 115 million people are on tiktok they think they're going to shut it down

00:34:35.240 not if they all talk they don't not if not if every single one of them didn't write a letter

00:34:43.360 tomorrow this is no different politicians do what we empower them to do and once we've given them

00:34:55.060 the the mandate to govern and we don't consistently tell them when they're stepping

00:35:02.980 out of line and they're not following our what we want like who the hell doesn't want universal

00:35:11.460 health care is somebody sitting at home saying i don't want it somebody's sitting at home saying

00:35:18.500 that's not a good deal i understand why listen i understand why politicians don't want to jump into

00:35:24.260 it i get that it's freaking landmines of like cost and and and putting it into effect and

00:35:33.540 responsibility they don't want any of that too damn mad too damn bad the voter gets to say

00:35:43.940 and they've we've created this culture of apathy and and and disenfranchisement from a system

00:35:54.260 and then we wonder why they do exactly what they want to do when they dance and they jockey

00:36:00.280 and they ban a book and they they take away you know us us learning about the statue of David

00:36:07.540 and they point and they say it's that group over there don't worry I got it

00:36:11.940 and we buy it

00:36:17.980 and we buy it we buy it when they say no new taxes but don't worry social services are going

00:36:26.780 to get better we buy it when they say the previous government just did this this and this but i'm

00:36:32.140 we buy it when they tell us that it's not in in our best interest to have 0.97

00:36:39.800 fully funded covered medical and health system in this country are you insane

00:36:45.960 We buy it when we start to hear things like charter schools and taking away the Department of Education and taking away any consistent rules or consistent educational frameworks and models and accredited representatives and expert actually creating the system so it fits our agenda.

00:37:12.800 And we buy it.

00:37:15.960 and we believe or we trick ourselves into believing that this time when I trade this,

00:37:26.980 when I give this, when they promise this, it's going to change. It's going to get better.

00:37:34.360 There shouldn't be any other conversation on the books. Nothing. Every letter should be

00:37:40.940 laws and money and change needs to happen tomorrow i don't want to hear a single thought in prayer

00:37:51.740 i don't want to hear a single thought in prayer because it means nothing

00:37:56.120 unless there's a law on the books and change in the air it means nothing

00:38:03.180 oh and on that note guys i'm going to leave you with all of those deep thoughts and i'm sorry

00:38:13.080 for how serious this one was but i don't know what else to do with it anymore than be a hundred

00:38:23.440 percent honest with what we have to do as a citizenry not what they have to do

00:38:29.220 Not what the government has to do

00:38:32.940 Politicians have to do

00:38:34.060 What we, you

00:38:36.140 What you have to do

00:38:39.060 So as of tomorrow

00:38:42.680 Get doing it

00:38:45.660 I'll see you next week

00:38:47.720 Same bad time

00:38:48.780 Same bad station

00:38:51.000 Bye guys

00:38:52.220 Dismissed

Unlearn16: Class is in Session - March 28, 2023

The One Where I Tell Them To Shove Their 'Thoughts and Prayers'

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