Erin Hughes and Al Ghostcat are back! This episode we try to get underneath a topic that has been floating around the mainstream new a lot lately, democracy. There has been a lot of discussion about the undermining of democracy in the US and other places in the last few years especially, so we took this episode to get far down below all the hoopla and see what exactly we democracy see is to us today.

Joey callously talks a ton of shit about this beloved philosophy / institution and Erin and Al have the objectionable task of sifting through all that shit to get to some productive perspectives. But they do a healthy amount of shit talking too.

There are some real thoughtful parts to this episode, and some truly offensive parts for the looking for that as well. Whatever you hold dear in the realm of American institutions prob gets a good dusting up on this one. As this as one of the topics Joey has been wanting to dig deep into for some time, and needed to get to before we wrapped up this podcast. This week we dump on democracy.

Plus we listen to some brand new tunes from Escape from the Zoo, C.A.M.P.S., and Askeados.

GET DOWN.

Erin Hughes and Al Ghostcat get down this week to talk with Joey about misogyny in punk. It’s great that people are paying attention to the gross man shit that has been happening in society at large as well as our corner of it in the punk community. Calling this gross-man-behavior out is the first step to changing these offenders, changing ourselves, and changing our world. 

Talking about misogynistic behavior in the abstract can be confusing and diffuse. So today we confront a recent incident involving the punk band Stolen Wheelchairs and their troubling, misogynistic behavior. There are endless other examples we could have discussed, this one was the most recent we were aware of, so we used that as a vehicle to get under this overwhelming issue. 

One of the most wonderful and challenging realities of the culture we have today is that the misdeeds of culture creators surface. We are able to judge the art and the artist together. We are able to use this information to shape and protect our communities, however we often don’t have any personal connection to the situation we are judging. Far from the people involved we struggle to understand every facet of the complicated situation and come down with a clear verdict in our hearts. So instead of talking to the people involved in the situation we try to get under the issues from a distance, like so many of us need to in these situations where none of us have personal ties to the story. We talk about the admitted behaviors they participated in, the complexity of our distance from the situation, and their entirely inept response to a deeply wrong and misogynistic act. 

We also talk a ton of shit. 

AND we listen to tunes from Starving Wolves, Kārtël, Cop/Out, and Sick Pay.