The John Mason Talk-Walk, January 5, 2024

I talk about the anniversary of the January 6 riot that threatened our democracy, the right's "Red Caesar" idea, and another moralizing "parental rights" activist getting caught. 

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Hello, hello, hello. John Mason, how is everybody? I'll start off with I bid everyone a happy and prosperous new year. We can all do with it. Unless remember that tomorrow, January 6th, is the anniversary of that terrible event where our democracy was in great danger. Where Trump and his minions, after staging a rally to rile up his base, his supporters, they went they went to a march. They marched to the Capitol building and proceeded to ransack the place, riot, break windows, attack police officers, damage property, get ready to kill anybody in their way, particularly certain progressive Congress members. And the story goes that Trump was enjoying the show on his TV in the White House dining room. Oh, he just loved watching the show, the show of his uh disciples, his followers, his patsies rioting and kill getting ready to kill. And there were some deaths. He did nothing to stop him. He didn't call in the army to uh to to go at the rioters. But after a few hours, Trump tells his people to go home. He's saying, We love you, and they s staggered on home. I always thought that was kind of unusual. When he was trying to stage a coup, he's supposed to go all the way and eliminate uh the the dominant the governing regime. But instead they all went home. Can you imagine a military coup uh in a foreign country where the uh where the army uh uh gets ready to raid the uh the presidential palace and then all of a sudden they're told to go back to their barracks and he and the original regime is still there? I find it very odd. Anyway, it just shows that Donald Trump doesn't give shit about about democracy, about America. He's all about keeping his sorry ass in power for for as long as he can. It also shows how fragile our democracy is. It's only our participation in it that is keeping it on life support. Well, I want I want us to get together and take it off life support and make it thriving, make it healthy. And our civic participation and voting is going to bring it back to health. Now, interestingly enough, there was going to be uh some sort of party or or event uh commemorating or celebrating uh the riot at this resort hotel in Kissimmee, Kissimmee in Florida. And one of the guest speakers is one of the cheerleaders of the uh of the riot, the stampede, Marjorie Taylor Green. Went when the hotel management learned about uh the nature of the event, they canceled it. The hotel cancelled it. Good call. Of course, go whine up the the people celebrating the riot, or go whine about uh we're oppressed by the deep state, yada yada yada. Well you try to oppress us. You try to you bastards try to take a take away our freedoms, impose a dictatorship. And we're supposed to sit back and take it. Well it ain't happening. As a matter of fact, this there's this report in The Guardian from from October 2023, where the actually talk within the Republican circles by alleged academics affiliated with this uh with a uh so-called think tank and Hillsdale College in Michigan. Actually, it's a it's a little more than an academic level uh propaganda mill for uh for the right wing. Think of it as the Fox News of academia. And this genius, Kevin Slack, this great scholar, says that there are these conspiracies and now common in the anti democratic right, I'm quoting from the guardian, that here's the quote transgenderism, anti-white racism, censorship, proneism, quote, yada yada yada, are now the policies of an entire cosmopolitan class and includes much of the infringed bureaucracy, the military, the media, and government-sponsored corporations. That's from Slack's report. It's all full of conspiracy theories, too. That is circulating, the Red Caesar is circulating among Republican circles. An authoritarian. Yeah, an authoritarian leader. Actual Caesar is a that's a yep, uh a Caesarism. Which is supposedly somewhere between tyranny and democracy. Uh oh you know, you know better than that. Their idea of a Caesar is a is this way to the right dictator. Yes, dictator. Dictatorship, that's what it's about. A repress that will repress who will repress minorities and turn the turn and and repress all the civil rights and human rights advances we've gained. For workers, for African Americans, LGBT people, all women, all that. And we're let's just say we're not gonna take it. Are we gonna take it? We can do better, Americans. I have confidence in us. That's what Trump is about. If Trump dies, uh we can we can rest assured they'll find some other person to be the Caesar. As a matter of fact, and violence always comes with it. There's all there's Trump's Trump's disciples are not above violence. I mean, they thrive on that's all they know is violence. Terrorizing, murder, threats. That's what they're about. They're about public officials like election board workers who dare stand up to Trump, such as members of the Colorado Supreme Court, who, in their wisdom, yay, uh, voted to keep Trump off the ballot in Colorado. And the main Secretary of State followed suit a little later on, and they and they have been facing death threats from Trump Trump's. So that's what we're we're up against. What we call a cold civil war. There's these re these little localized uh violent f attempts, but but it's part of a bigger picture, a very terrible picture. A derane of deranged people who well who feel terrified all of a sudden by people who are not so-called Christians, who aren't white enough for them. And it and it has been talked that if Trump loses, there's going to be some sort of mass casualty event. Could you define it more narrowly, please? Is it gonna be a war? Is it gonna be domestic terrorism? Rest assured, the Trump gang is not above any of that. They're willing to do it, and we gotta stand up to them. But on a more humorous note, I say humorous because I just love seeing these uh self-righteous, uh moralizing busybodies who who try to dictate uh about who goes in which bathroom, who what books are read in the school library, are terrified of drag queens reading to the kitties. And I'm thinking, of course, about uh Christian and and Bridges Ziegler in Florida. You're about their story. Now we got a localized one in the Philadelphia region, in in Bucks County, a woman named Clarice Schillinger. She ran for lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania in 2022, and she is part of this movement of uh parental rights, with two organizations devoted to, which originated from protesting against mask mandates and schools closing over COVID. Her organizations were back to school PA PAC and Keeping the Keeping Kids in School PAC. And guess what? And here's a fun thing. According to the report by Mother Jones, Schellinger was hosting a 17th birthday party for her daughter. And 20 teenage kids were there, and it was in the basement, had a lot of pretty well stuck with liquor, and the story is Schellinger poured shots of liquor for these underage teenage kids, and and she ordered them to take a shot with her and she played beer pond with them. And in Pennsylvania, it's a terrible crime to serve alcohol to a minor. And Ann Schellinger was quote, allegedly grabbed a 16-year-old by the neck for intervening in a fight between the couple and his 15 hit and hit a 15-year-old in the face over an argument against basketball. According to the organ, there were Mother Jones was quoting the the publication, Philly Burps. And Schellinger, Schlinger also chased this one kid, chased him around the kitchen island. I mean, think of it. This woman trying to protect the morals, allegedly, of our teenage of teenage kids who can't wait to perform these certain acts. She they're trying to and she was trying to police their behavior and she serves them alcohol. I mean, no words for that. Shot of hypocrisy. And as she worked to follow found one of her packs, she worked with Paul Martino, a venture capitalist, and who a guy who funneled, who according to this according to Mother Jones, a Schellinger, I mean not Schellinger, Martino, was a big venture capitalist who was a big venture capitalist who funneled money into several other smaller packs across the state who opposed school closures. And I mean, why would he why would he funnel money to to such organizations? Maybe he's a he's one of them like uh Schellinger. Or as I figure more out, I think I figure it out more, Martino is one of these rich guys who wants rich pe who wants uh working class and low-income people to be arguing against each other and arguing about silly business like drag queen story hours or race racial intelligent discussion of race and LBGTQ issues in school books. Well, they maintain their use their billions to also maintain their power. They feel threatened by the by the people standing up against their uh plutocracy or oligarchy. Yep. That's the word spread around. America has an oligarchy, and they want to distract us with this silly business. Hence, they're subsidizing these uh so-called morality packs and uh parental rights packs and all that. But the good news is last year, in the off-year elections, the all through pen pretty much uh throughout Pennsylvania, many of the school boards who have been dominated by these by Republicans influenced by these this parental rights uh garbage were voted out. And and now Democrats have a majority in the Central Buck School District, which which means they are facing defeat. They're defeatable. You can beat them. We can beat their big money through our big power, our big organization, our big consciousness, and our big voting in huge numbers. That's what's gonna stop them. Let nothing stop us. Okay. And so that's my message for the day as we go into Shabbat. Be re be ready to stand up for our democracy. And don't be the let the the terrorists uh terrorize you. Because that's their victory. Okay. Now advertisements. I do it's a lot of work to put out these podcasts and these videos and the blog and all my other media work. And I deserve to be paid for it. And so to help me and to advance my my media outreach as far as possible. So I ask you out there in uh in podcast land, please get onto my website, johnomason.com, and click either the buy me a coffee button or the PayPal button. And please send me something so I could keep this work going and move it further along. I would greatly appreciate it. And now advertisements. My novel Soldier of the Cross is available on Amazon.com. It's the story of David Lucas, who is a young man in the early 60s, is a drunken whore chaser and school bully. He gets in trouble in the army. He's he comes out of it a born-again Christian, a fanatical manly man for Jesus. And he's just a fanatic who just wants to serve Jesus, but the way he goes about it leads him to disaster. So please purchase a copy of my novel, Soldier of the Cross on Amazon.com. And now Paper Rivic is a lovely little CBD product store located on Snyder Avenue, near 15th Street in South Philadelphia. There you will find some of the finest cannabis infused products. Flour and gummies and candies and drinks and teas and lip balm and hand sanitizer and dog treats. Dog treats. Look them up please. Himperific com. And also my beloved career and business coach Michelle Snow. Michelle is excellent in helping you develop your professional career or a small business. Let you know what you're doing right, where you need work, and it help you network with other up and coming entrepreneurs and professionals. Do please look her up. Growwithsnow.com. Okay. Alrighty then. That's something to think about as we go into Shabbat and the new year. We can do it, Americans. We've done it before in our history. We can certainly do it again and our grandkids will have to ask us, Grandpa, where were you when fascism took over America? Because fascism will not take over America. We'll see to it. Okay, thanks. Have a good weekend, Shabbat Shalom. Bye.