January 1 - New Year, New You; Horrific Violence In New Orleans Rings In 2025
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Welcome to The Politocrat. I'm Omar Moore. It is Wednesday, January the 1st, 2025. On this edition of The Politocrat, a new year and a new you. Plus, news in the first day of this brand new year. All of that, coming up next.

Happy New Year, dear listener. Welcome to this brand new edition of the Politocrat Daily Podcast for 2025, the first day of this brand new year. How are you feeling on this Wednesday, the first day of January 2025? My name is Omar Moore and welcome to another year of

And welcome to the Politocrat Daily Podcast. How are you? How did you bring in the new year, if at all? Did you decide to stay indoors like a lot of people do and play it safe? Or did you go out and have a night out on the town? Or what did you do last night?

What did you do in the early hours of this morning? I was out reveling and having fun and definitely living things up. It was a terrific night and a good time was had by all and a lot of fun involved in that. And yeah, back to the grind. I mean, it's a day off, but really it's a day on, isn't it? You know, it doesn't feel like a day off to me, although it is a day off in terms of work and the like, but it

Yeah, it kind of feels like it's just an ordinary day. Although today is not as strange as last week was. And I do recognize that today is indeed Wednesday. I can tell you I can make enough sense of that. But whatever you did between last night and tonight or today...

Whatever you did, whether it was stay home, whether it was go out, whatever it was, be in a quiet zone, which I think is always good to do. Were you reflective? Whatever you did, I do hope that you enjoyed doing what you did and you found peace and comfort and enjoyment and fulfillment in what you did over the last 24 hours as we went into 2020.

around the world it's been a whirlwind and this day has started off here in the united states unfortunately with some very horrific news that you i think may have been aware of by now in new orleans in the french quarter at least 10 people were killed by someone who drove his car into a crowd of people celebrating new year's festivities bringing in the new year and absolutely um

causing a scene of absolute carnage and horror.

in the streets of New Orleans in the French Quarter. And if you've been to New Orleans, like I have done, and many people have experienced it, you know that the streets are always bustling with people at night, particularly around this time of year, particularly, obviously, around Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, and all the rest of it. And particularly, you know, at a lot of different times, the French Quarter is very busy. It's a big tourist hub. It's a big attraction, attraction.

And of course, when you celebrate New Year's Eve there, as I did, it is a big party. Many years ago, I celebrated New Year's Eve there and brought in the new year there. And New Orleans is one of those places where you really have to be. I think if you want to bring in a new year somewhere, that's the place to go in the entire country. I know New York from Times Square and I've done that many times. I

I know from a number of different cities across this country. I know from other cities too, London, numerous other places bringing in the new year is a pretty darn good shout there too. But if you're talking about bringing in the new year right, feel free to do that.

Few places in the world do it better than New Orleans, as they call it. New Orleans, New Orleans. That's New Orleans to the rest of us. New Orleans to those of us who are familiar with New Orleans and know about the city or who are from there. And in New Orleans, it's unreal. The energy, the people, the excitement, the camaraderie, it's terrific. And

It's really a community down there and you feel it. And people, even if they don't know each other, have a real sense of bonding and fun and enjoyment

and a lot of a great time had. And so you can imagine what the horrible scene would have been like there at 3.15 in the morning, because a party in New Orleans doesn't really stop. It never does. It's kind of like a year-round party in the French Quarter from night to night to night across 365 days. So it's so interesting because one of the bands playing in San Francisco played

on New Year's Eve was a band called and is a band called the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. And they're from New Orleans. And so it's just really something. And I was talking about New Orleans to someone just yesterday. And just amazingly enough, a few hours later, you wake up to this horrifying news of 10 people killed by someone in New Orleans who did this deliberately.

And we have since learned through the Associated Press and other news outlets that the suspect who committed all this carnage is dead. So there won't be any charges pressed. You know, that's the really sad thing is that he's dead because now there's no accountability that can be had against the person who did this. Or although there may well be lawsuits coming one way or another.

But this was a really horrific crime and from the Associated Press at least 30 people were injured. It was actually a truck that had driven through. There were people who along Bourbon Street just could not get out of the way of this high-speed vehicle.

And it was almost an impossible expectation to get out of the way of a vehicle traveling at that speed when you've got literally hundreds of people in the streets. That's going to be a mass casualty event. So my deepest condolences to the families of those 10 people who lost their loved ones to start the year, brand new year. And they start 2025 with our

one of the people that they care about most dearly. This is a very, very rough way to start what I think will be a very difficult and very challenging year. Many places across the world, including here in the United States. And so this is a horrific start to the year in New Orleans with that particular piece of sad news. There was a press conference, by the way,

the mayor of New Orleans, Latoya Cantrell, had characterized these killings of these 10 people as a terrorist attack.

And according to the Associated Press, the police chief in New Orleans also added that the act was clearly intentional, which I would not have any problems believing. Since when you are driving at a high rate of speed, as the reports say that this man was in the vehicle through a packed street in New Orleans.

in the middle of the night. Some of the people obviously are going to be drunk, who are in the street, who have had a lot to drink and a lot of fun and all the rest of it. And you know, you're going to get casualties. It doesn't matter whether they've had drinks or not. You're going to get casualties from that event and you know that what you're doing is going to result in somebody's death. So,

The other information that's coming as well is that there was some conflict between law enforcement agencies as to whether this was a terrorist attack. As I just mentioned to you, the mayor of New Orleans, Latoya Cantrell, called the killings a terrorist attack. An assistant FBI agent, however, who's in charge of the investigation, made it very clear that it was not a terrorist event. Now,

So you've got this difference with these two law enforcement agencies. I'm sure at some point we'll get to the bottom of what, of how they characterize it. But however you characterize it, 10 people are dead. 10 people are never going to be coming back home. And so I think that, look, we want to get all of this information right. And I am not by any means trying to trivialize anything. But I do think that

Whether we label it one thing or another, the bottom line is 10 families have one less person in their families on this particular day to start the brand new year. So that's the bitter, sad, horrific reality and the truth of it all.

And we'll find out eventually how these law enforcement agencies characterize this. But obviously, it was a murder of 10 people. I mean, you know, clearly 10 people killed. And there will be no accountability for the person who killed because, you know, he's no longer here. That's just annoying, isn't it? When people just get away with it by either being shot dead or by ending their lives. You know, I don't know how...

I am not privy, I should say, to the reports exactly on how it came to be that he is no longer alive. But, you know, it's a really horrible, horrible thing. And one of the things that you read about the police commissioner in New Orleans saying,

said two things. One of the things he mentioned is that the police will work to make sure that the Sugar Bowl game, which is going to be happening today in New Orleans, if it hasn't already started in New Orleans and taken place, is going to go on as scheduled. And, you know, I have mixed feelings about that. I know the Sugar Bowl is significant in New Orleans when it gets played there. Any bowl game is significant in New Orleans when it gets played there. But after something like this that happened just recently,

hours into the brand new year, hours into 2025, I would be very wary about wanting to put on a ball game, really. I mean...

You know, the French Quarter is a significant part of New Orleans. And I don't know. The Superdome, where I would expect they'd be playing this bowl game, the Sugar Bowl, is what, less than five miles away. It's not very far away at all, as far as I remember. And so, you know, seems a bit insensitive to me. But on the other hand, I can understand the argument for having the game go ahead in the sense that you want to

try to lift the spirits of a community, lift the spirits of the city of New Orleans and you want to make sure that people can at least have something like a ball game to help, you know, offset some, not offset, but to help have a little bit of something that sparks some enjoyment. But

You know, the other underlying part of this, that's the sinister, obvious part that's not been mentioned yet by yours truly, but is about to be mentioned yet by yours truly, is the economics of it all. And so the sugar bowl is going to go ahead because, you know, there's lots of money to be made. And so money in American society and in any other capitalist society comes before people do. And so...

You know, to heck with the 10 people who were killed. Who cares about them when you can make money off of a sugar bowl game? And it does bring, you know, I'm being sarcastic, but I'm being very cynical and flippant and very blunt because that is the thinking, quite frankly, among some people, I would imagine. Because if they did care about those 10 people who were killed, they would have called this game off.

and rescheduled it for another day or two away. But again, you know, lots of revenue to be brought into the city. And so that's the calculus that gets made. You don't want people to be rescheduling flights, rescheduling hotels, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and all the rest of it. So, I mean, that's really what this is about. So that game goes ahead.

And then the other thing that Kirkpatrick, the police commissioner in New Orleans said was this, quote, he was hell bent, the man who killed 10 people on creating the carnage and the damage that he did. It was very intentional behavior. This man was trying to run over as many people as he could. So very, very sad.

horrific scene in New Orleans this morning. Two police officers, according to Associated Press, who were shot after the driver emerged from the truck are in stable condition. Then there's a news report, I think from the AP as well, that says that there were explosives or improvised explosives found at the scene. So, you know, this is something that, yeah, this is something that will be investigated, obviously. Whether or not it's a terrorist attack, quite frankly, to me personally,

Really doesn't make much of a difference because terrorism is terrorism. You know, I don't think it's any less horrific that it is a terrorist attack. And I don't think it is any less horrific that it's not a terrorist attack, depending on what the ultimate investigation finds. You know, the fact that it may not be a terrorist attack in the long run doesn't make it any less heinous, doesn't let it make it any less violent, doesn't make it any less frightening.

I think that we live in a world now where if you slap the word terrorist on something, somehow you have this image, of course, in your mind of someone from the so-called or quote-unquote Middle East doing damage, and that scares the bejesus out of you somehow. Whereas if some white person does this and runs a whole load of people over, somehow...

when it's called quote unquote domestic terrorism or when it's not called any form of terrorism. And then when you find out that the person who did so was a white person, then all of a sudden, some of you think that that's not as bad. It's not as, you're not as frightened by that. Now there was a black man that ran over a number of people, I think in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, or somewhere in Wisconsin a few years ago of a truck. And, uh, everybody screamed blue murder about that. Uh,

Because, you know, the person who did it was black. And so in the anti-black society we are living in, you're going to get that reaction from a lot of people who are white and who are or anyone who is anti-black in general. And the landing is a lot less harsh for someone who is white, who does the very same thing. And so.

We don't know yet in this case in New Orleans, in New Orleans how, what happened, we know what happened, we just don't know what the motives were. Obviously that would be investigated, of course the suspect was killed or is no longer here, so we don't know, we can't talk to him.

There was a report out that said that he had some Islamic State scarves or paraphernalia. That stuff, I don't know if that's even confirmed as true. It may be, it may not be. But even if the car or the scene revealed that there was some Islamic State scarves, so what? So freaking what? What does that do for the families of those 10 people? Because that's not going... I mean, I guess...

Again, what we do with information is so important and the way that police or other people or people in the media release information piecemeal is that they're doing it to paint a picture for you to start making conclusions about something before an investigation has even been formed or completed. Before it's even gone two thirds of the way or half the way or quarter of the way. And so you piecemeal here, drip, drip, drip, drip.

drip and that seeps into your brain and so you and your brain are constructing a jigsaw puzzle of things based on the drip drip drip that you're hearing in the media about this piece of clothing that's found and that's islamic state allegedly and then this and then that and then you come to a conclusion well then it must be terrorism because someone from the middle east did it but then when a white person does it oh well it's not the terror it's just one lone person who's crazy

mentally ill because that's how mental illness gets exploited in this country without really talking honestly and openly about mental illness. So, you know, we just slap that label on things without really having the kinds of conversations and really the initiatives and the directives to really address mental health in this country and mental illness. We use it in a very cynical way in this country. But

Look, the bottom line is, is that however you slice this, it was a horrific event, a horrific event. And the White House and Merrick Garland, the most useless attorney general that we've had in a long time.

We're also briefed about the horror of what occurred this morning in the French Quarter in New Orleans. And so I want to again send my deepest and most profoundly heartfelt condolences to those 10 families who will not have a loved one coming back to them at any point this year. It's such a sad, sad way to begin 2025.

rest in power to those 10 individuals who were killed this morning in New Orleans. Some additional development since the recording of the previous segment you heard. In the French Quarter, the death toll has risen in the attack earlier today from 10 people dead to 15 people dead. The FBI is investigating this attack as a terrorist attack. And in Las Vegas today,

Just outside Trump International Hotel, a Tesla Cybertruck exploded, killing one person. There is an investigation currently occurring in that incident and to see if there are any possible links between that incident and the attack in New Orleans. And so this is New Year's and what have you done? Another year over.

A new one just begun. And so this is New Year's, of course, dear listener. Welcome back to this first episode of the Politocrat Daily Podcast in 2025. On this January 1st as well. January 1. That's right, the first day of the new year. And so, as I was just trying to sing in a really awful way,

This is indeed New Year's. And what have you done so far with the first day of 2025? Did you make any New Year's resolutions? Well, I have. I wrote them down, which I don't often do, but I did on this occasion. And I like the fact that I did because I think that that way,

I don't know. It gives you a bit more of a focus. I don't know. But anyway, we'll see if I keep any of the New Year's resolutions that I made. And I hope that you do too, if you are the sort who, like me, makes New Year's resolutions every year. I think I kept, at the end of it all, I think I kept three of the seven resolutions that I made for 2024. So...

That's not bad. It could be better, but it could be a lot worse. There's all kinds of pieces of information out there, dear listener, that say that people, the average person, I don't know if that means the average person in the United States or if that means the average person anywhere across the globe, but I had heard this in passing on a radio broadcast, I think earlier last week or maybe earlier this week, that the average person breaks their New Year's resolution within the first week

I think six days of making it something like that. So, you know, that is, um, the way it goes. And that's probably why a lot of people don't make their resolutions and make resolutions at all. Um, but anyway, that is that on news resolutions, but besides the news resolutions, what is your focus this year? And you don't have to make a resolution to have a goal that you have in mind, you know? Um,

There's all kinds of ways to look at 2025 and look at what plan you have. What is your game plan for this year? Well, this episode is called A New Year, A New You. And one of the things I said that I would talk about when I threw some of this out late last year, as I can say now, is...

The focus, I think, if there is a focus for you, and maybe this is not something that you would do, but if there is a focus for you, dear listener, and me, dear listener, it is to tune into who we are, tune into ourselves, listen to ourselves, explore who we are. And I mean, you know, explore and focus on who you are, your relationship to the world,

And your very much key view on what kinds of things you want to do in the world to make it a better place in which to live. How do you do that during the course of one year, in any particular year, or in any particular way? I think one of the things that you do is start by challenging yourself. Do things, for example, that you've never done before.

You know, pick a few tasks, pick a few things that you've never done before. Might be one, might be two, might be five things that you've never done before in your life. And it might not even be things that you've said, well, that, you know, that's on my bucket list and I want to do that. But so far I've not done it. It doesn't even have to be something like that.

It could be just something that you've never even thought or dreamed of wanting to do before. And I'm not talking about anything illicit. I'm talking about just because some people have got the dirty mind. I always don't know why I feel I have to always clarify and make that clear because someone will have some of the responses I get from my podcast would indicate that.

So that's why I think I feel the way I need to clarify myself somehow. But I do not think I am being misunderstood in the main. But what I'm trying to say, dear listener, is that you can pick something that you've never done before in your life, whether it's climbing, whether if you are able to move, if you are in the position where you are able bodied, for example, and you have never hiked before, try sometime during the course of the

364 days that follow this day to actually go out and hike somewhere, whether it's with friends, whether it's with your spouse, whether it's with family at large, or whether it's by yourself.

There's no law that says you have to do this with people if you don't want to. What if no one you know is interested in hiking, but you have this desire to somehow hike? Are you not going to do it because no one else is doing it? Or are you going to say, you know what, to heck with it, I'll go and do the hike? Well, some people will say, well, I've got no one with me, so I'm not going to do this by myself. And then there are people who say, well, to heck with that. I'm going to get this done, whether someone does this with me or not. And so there's

Two different, well, more than two different types of people, but those in that kind of scenario, they're at least two different types of people. And if you're the type of person that is saying, well, to heck with it, I'm not going to wait for people to do this hike with me. Although, again, it's good to have people hiking with you, especially depending on, you know, on how long the trek is. It's good. But a lot of people don't hike with people. They hike by themselves. It's a form of meditation, actually. I know, don't laugh.

Hiking a form of meditation? Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, meditation isn't always you're sitting still and closing your eyes. Meditation can also involve movement.

You know, it can. Hiking is a meditation. There's varying different forms of meditation. And that movement, that constant invigoration, that does things chemically to your brain, to your body. It really does. And so the endorphins get, you know, there's a rush of it. And you do this. Movement's so important, as I said many times.

So hiking might be something you want to challenge yourself with. Do something this year that's going to challenge you. Might even something that might even make you uncomfortable. You know, now I wouldn't do something like bungee jump because the thought of that makes me very uncomfortable. And just the notion and the fear, I guess, is what the issue would be for me. Because goodness gracious me, if that thing snaps, there you go and off you go.

To the blue yonder or to nowhere, depending on what your beliefs are about the afterworld. If you're Shirley MacLaine, who remains with us, you'd think that there would be an afterlife for you and you may have a multiple personality to tap into. But if you're not Shirley MacLaine and if you're not someone who believes in an afterlife,

then you're kaput, you're gone. If that bungee cord snaps, you are through, you are finished. But you know what? As Al Pacino most famously said when he played a character in the film Heat, you can get killed walking your doggy and he would be right. So fear is a thing that holds us back. Fear is a thing, and look, we all struggle with fear, varying fears, some rational, some not so rational.

you know, some understandable, some completely unfounded, some racist, right? Some sexist, some homophobic, transphobic, right? We all struggle with varying degrees of fear, right? And obviously,

There is a fear that I would have, for example, with doing bungee cord jumping, bungee jumping. You would no doubt have a fear of your own. It might be the same one as mine or it might be, you know, we have myriad fears. It might be something else. What I'm saying is, when I say challenge yourself and do something that makes you feel uncomfortable, well...

Think of what might make you uncomfortable. Not unduly uncomfortable, but something that might take you a little bit out of your comfort zone. I think that's really what I'm getting at, dear listener. So this year, you have a challenge on your hands. Do something that takes you out of your comfort zone and really gives you an idea about who you are. You can actually learn about yourself.

By doing something that takes you out of your comfort zone and you can get an idea of how you fare, how you come through that experience. How do you come through an experience where you have been taken out of your comfort zone? What does that say about you? That's a challenge. And that's something that you might find to be profoundly interesting.

It beats doing the safe routine. Now, we are creatures of habit as human beings, of course, and we are most apt to do the things that make us more comfortable in life. And why not? Comfort's a good thing, right? We want to have comfort in our life.

We want to have pleasure in our lives. We want to have contentment in our lives and peace in our lives and happiness, quote unquote, in our lives. And contentment's probably for me a better word, although happiness is good too. I think those two words overlap at some point, I think, in our human existence. But what I am really essentially saying here is take yourself out of your comfort zone this year at some point.

You know, find a place that you are not necessarily most comfortable in and push yourself, push yourself into that place a little bit. Learn a bit more about yourself under certain conditions and situations. That's a challenge. So that's really one of the things I would say about a new you. Challenging yourself, putting yourself in different environments where you probably wouldn't really want to be.

but testing yourself to see if you can cope with what that environment is or you can not just cope, but prevail and do well and gain more confidence in that environment. I think that those kinds of things can be very healthy for you because again, it can test your character and test who you are and you can get to learn about yourself a bit more in situations that you probably wouldn't have put yourself in. So challenging yourself,

And, you know, improving yourself is important as well. You know, improving who you are, you know. I've already spoken to a couple of people who've talked about this year what they want to do. And, you know, one person made it clear they wanted to be a better person. And I think that's something that I've, you know, tried to focus on every year. Trying to be a better person, you know. And that's really important, you know.

breaking out of the conventions and the rhythms of things and I know first day of the year we get all giddy and excited many of us because we have this goal and this mission and this purpose in life to effectuate a goal because it's the first day of the year and right we're we're ready and up and at them and then by day number six as I said earlier you know that that kind of thing is gone but it takes commitment it takes a lot of focus and I do think that

Those things are very, very important. So, you know, those are the kinds of ingredients to make yourself a better person. I think is a good one. A new year, a new you. And I say a new year, a better you. And I think that that's something that people try to do. Try to improve on who they are. Try to learn more about yourself. Try to...

be a different person than you were, say, in 2024. In other words, a different person than you were last night when the clock was still pointing toward 2024. You know, there is a lot to be said about that. Self-improvement.

I know that seems like a cliche of sorts, but it's not. It's really about your ability to be comfortable in your own skin and also trying to learn more about you, as I said before, but even more so than that, trying to adapt and be better. Be better at being a human being. Be better at

as a newer version of you, a better version of you. You know, there are people who have addictions and one of the things that might be considered a better you or a new you certainly would be someone who desires to go

into, say, Alcoholics Anonymous or goes to drug therapy treatment or goes to therapy and really tries to uncover more about who they are and go through rehab and the 12-step programs and all the rest of it that really do test them and test their mettle, test themselves and really learn more about themselves and challenge them deeply. Because if you're going into therapy, if you're going into a 12-step program,

Whether it's, you know, dealing with alcohol and all the rest of it, that's a real challenge and you have to be very disciplined to do that. It's not easy. You know, I also had a conversation with someone who talked about this journey that they had taken through 12-step programs, through training.

trying to stay on the straight and narrow when it came to alcohol and all the rest of it and the struggles that were there and then the ultimate overcoming of the addiction. And it doesn't end the overcoming with being sober for X amount of days, weeks, months or years. It continues for the rest of your life.

So I think there is this notion that when you go through some kind of program like that, that the struggle and the fight ends when you now all of a sudden are sober. But the reality is, is that that fight, whether it's with alcohol, whether it's with some kind of other addiction, you know, whether it's, I don't know, name one, you know, um, food addiction, for example, you know, name one, you know, uh, you know, I don't know. Um,

Whatever, you know, sex addictions. There's a lot of addictions out there, you know. Those three are the most, I think, the most...

the ones that come up the most often for people, whether it's usually food addiction, drug addiction, in terms of alcohol addiction, or some other kind of alcoholic controlled substance, or some kind of other drug, or sex addiction. Those are like the three or four that usually come up for people who are in addictions. But there are other ones too. There are lots of other addictions out there. So challenging yourself in that way for 2025 is also something that

I think is really worthwhile and it will teach you a lot about who you are and it will test you immensely. You will have setbacks. You may have setbacks. You may find that it's a lot more challenging than you expect and you may, you know, second guess yourself and may give up on yourself, but you should never ever give up on yourself because as I've always said to this, the tough times do not last. Tough people like you do.

And I firmly believe that. And I have always believed that. So there are other ways, I think, for a new you in this calendar year. And that is to finish off something that you haven't completed yet. And you may have started some kind of project or some kind of mission or some kind of mission statement to do something. Or you may have promised to get X, Y, and Z done. But you started that.

but you haven't fulfilled it or completed it. And so one of the things I think will be really good for you, dear listener, and also by extension myself as well in 2025, would be to complete something that you have not yet finished. Well, obviously, complete something that you've started. Let me put it that way. Whether you're, I don't know, trying to write something, write a song or a book or a play or...

You know, a screenplay or whatever it is. And you've not completed that yet. And maybe you started it six or seven years ago, 10 years ago, three years ago, last year. But all kinds of events happened in your life. Life events. Life happens, right? When you're busy making other plans, said John Lennon once. So life intervened and you didn't ever go back to that thing you were writing that you had grand visions for.

And you never got back to it because some life event happened that was quite overwhelming, traumatic, sad, or just took you on a different path all the way altogether away from what your initial focus on initial initiative was, you know. And so now all of a sudden, you've not ever returned to the thing you started, say, a year or two or 10 ago.

But let this year of 2025, dear listener, be the year that you do turn your attention to what you started off a couple of years ago or 10 years ago or even 20 years ago or more. And spend some time building that engine again. Spend some time with your thoughts about what you started.

Maybe you have to figure out why you stopped doing what you did even after the life event happened. And maybe you thought, or maybe you're going to have to think about, how can I get into the realm of thought that brings me back to that place where I am now going to explore the ideas, the feelings, and the mission statement for life?

This thing that I left behind, say, 5, 10, 20 years ago, how am I going to get that headspace right? And so that involves a lot of self-examination, a lot of absorption, and it also involves a lot of commitment and concentration and focus as to what it is you choose to want to do with 2025 and some kind of unfinished goal that you still need to complete. So

You know, those are just some of the things that I think are essential. And also one of the things to do that when I talk about a new you or a better you is to practice something that you've not practiced before. Whether it is some kind of ritual, whether it is some kind of thing that you haven't incorporated as a routine into your daily pattern and practice.

What might that be? Well, for example, this is something I've talked about often on this podcast, dear listener. If you are a regular listener for this podcast, you would have known this. What about incorporating five minutes of silence into your day? Denzel Washington, of course, talked about this.

In a clip that I played a week or two ago on this podcast, when he said to an interviewer that first thing in the morning, get up, don't look at your phone, don't reach for your device, don't look at social media, just spend five minutes being silent. Allow nothing to come into your headspace in terms of engaging of anything visually. Just sit with your silence for five minutes.

And I've echoed this a number of times and I've said this on a number of different occasions that silence is something that we need more of. It is a meditation for sure. That is a meditation as well. And if you have never incorporated silence into your day to day, then this year I think would be a good year for you to start doing so.

What happens is that if you, say, put five minutes of silence into your regimen and you don't have any TV on, you have your phone on silent, you don't have any music on, and you just sit by yourself and don't talk to anyone and don't allow anyone to talk to you if you're living with someone,

Don't allow them to come into your room or into your headspace or whatever it is for five minutes and just sit with silence. That is mindfulness. Essentially, that's one way to practice mindfulness. And there are different ways to practice mindfulness. And I really urge you to try it. It does give you a refreshing feel. And even in a stressful time,

to take five minutes or 10 minutes out to just focus on nothing to the extent that you can do that because you might be very stressed out. But the idea that you can incorporate five minutes of not answering a phone, of not answering a text, of not looking at a text or an email, of not looking at a social media post and not wanting to, not even thinking about wanting to and all the rest of it.

is a really powerful thing. And what this does, I was trying to say a few moments ago, it gives you control. And what it does is give you control over a space and over your headspace. And when you have control over your headspace and over the atmosphere or the environment that you're in, it's a really good thing. It's a great thing to have that kind of control and that kind of autonomy.

on a psychological level, on a mental level. And your mental health, I think, really gets a really good boost from that because you now have allowed nothing to come between you and your sacred place of silence. Silence is very important. And I think in the United States particularly, we do not value silence. Americans at large, I've said this before, do not value silence.

Americans at large, and I know I'm generalizing grossly here, but I would say the vast majority of people in the United States are very uncomfortable with silence. The culture definitely is, because just look at the culture. You cannot go more than a single second without some kind of silence, without some noise or someone talking in a movie, especially if it's a Hollywood movie. There is not generally silence.

silence in these movies, certainly not in an action movie. And unless there's a love scene, sex scene, whatever scene, and even that doesn't have a lot of silence in it because people are moaning and groaning, you know, making lots of noise, or they're not, but there's a soundtrack. So then there's no silence there because there's a movie soundtrack playing over the scene where they're having sex, you know. And so, yeah, this is what happens.

This is what happens. And so it's, you know, silence in our culture here in the United States is not valued. It is not valued. Now, in lots of other societies or in some societies, it's valued highly. But definitely, if you're in a culture of meditation or in, you know, in a practice of mindfulness, silence is indispensable.

And so that's something that you can do. So one of the other things I would say about having a better you, a new year and a new you, is to incorporate something into your routine, right, that you wouldn't ordinarily do, like

closing your eyes for five minutes and not thinking about anything, not putting on any music, not reaching for your phone. And whether it's first thing in the morning or at any point where you just said, okay, for the next five minutes, I'm not going to look at television. I'm not going to look at my phone. I'm not going to look at a text. I'm not going to look at an email. I'm going to turn my phone off or put it on silent. I am not going to have the phone anywhere near me for five minutes.

10 minutes, 20 minutes. You can stretch out the time. Maybe you start one week or two weeks of doing it for five minutes. Then maybe the next week or two weeks later, you do it for 10 minutes or you do it for 20 minutes. Or by the time you get to the end of that, to the final week of that month, you're doing it for half an hour where you're not checking your email and you're not checking your phone in general, not looking at texts or checking them. Now,

I recognize that, yes, you may be working in a job, you may be employed someplace or in an environment where you actually have to look at your phone because that's dependent on your, the work is dependent on that, et cetera, et cetera. But even with that, if you can get to 15 minutes a day without looking at your phone, 20 minutes a day without, that's really a good thing. It's really a good thing. And it clears your mind. Your mind will be less cluttered.

Why? Because if you're looking at emails and you're someone who gets a million gazillion emails and you're reading all these emails and maybe you don't have a minute to respond to every one of them because there's so many of them and you get, what, a thousand emails a day, a hundred emails a day, 200 emails a day, 50 a day, and you cannot possibly respond to every single one because you'll never read them and you'll never get time to respond. That is so much cluttering. You're seeing all these emails constantly.

It's difficult to stay focused and then you should delete them, you know There are people who don't delete their emails at all And so they keep emails and I can understand that because you want to create a paper trail So they will archive them or they will just keep them in their inbox So they're literally hundreds if not thousands of emails that they may have read that they choose to keep, you know for receipts You know that happens with a lot of us in the world. So

So uncluttering is very important. Why? It gives us a sense of focus, a sense of clarity, and it gives us a sense of a real, I think, defining or definition of what we want to do. And also, I think one last thing I would add, looking at what you do on a daily basis to give your day-to-day life some contouring. So

Every day, and I don't know if you'd be able to do this, write down two or three things that you want to accomplish for the day. Whatever those two or three things might be, make it as many as three, but don't go over three, at least for the time being. Every single day, write down, dear listener, three things that you wish to accomplish on that particular day, not that week, that particular day. So today is Wednesday, so write down three things.

Say you want to do laundry perhaps today on January 1st. Maybe you want to, I don't know, trying to think here, make something. You want to cook some particular meal.

And then maybe the third thing is, I don't know, call people on New Year's Day and wish them Happy New Year. Right. And see how much of those things you can get done. Right. You don't have to specify how many people you call, but just write down, call some people on New Year's Eve or New Year's, excuse me, on New Year's Day and wish them Happy New Year.

How much of those three things can you get done? And if you can write down every day something that you want to accomplish for that day only, and then check that off when you've been able to accomplish it, it gives you a sense of focus and structure. So you're not having all these thoughts floating in your mind about things you need to be doing, and you have a certain discipline about planning your day by starting the day

or even the previous day with things you want to do for the next day and have that planned out so that you've got some focus and structure. And then it doesn't seem so daunting to have all these things floating in your head because you've got them on paper now. And if it's just three things that you're doing, you can have a good shot at completing at least two of them depending on what the two things are during a given day. And they have to be completed for that same day.

That's the key. And if you can do that, maybe successfully over the first few days, maybe you can add another one. And maybe you can try to do that. And that's how you begin to give yourself some structure, some focus, and some organization to the tasks. And then you feel better once you complete those tasks. So that's

Those are the kinds of things that I wanted to talk about, dear listener, for this year on this first episode of 2025, a new year, a new you. And there's lots of different things that we can do, whether it's organizing locally for politics, all kinds of things that are going to be very important in 2025 here in the United States and beyond. And so I hope that you found

the things that I had put forth here, to be of some kind of benefit to you. And if there is someone you know who might benefit from the kinds of things that I have outlined, please do not hesitate to share this episode with them and to turn them on to the Politocrat Daily Podcast. I really do advise you to do that. Remember, of course, politicians

Those persons that you might be thinking of can listen to this podcast on, of course, numerous podcasting platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts and Odyssey and Audible and numerous others. Pandora, for example, GoodPods. Pass this episode around to them because I think you will find that they will be benefited from some of the things that I've been mentioning on this episode.

Of course, you can still find me on social media. That has not changed in this brand new year that is 2025, although I do post less and less these days on social media in general. But I will be posting on social media. It's not that I won't post regularly.

in the future, I have posted on social media, but just reducing my intake and interaction with it, because I do find that mental health is a really important thing. And I do find that when I interact, when I'm not on social media, I get a whole lot more done. And I'm much more clear in my thinking, and calmer and more focused. And I do believe that that

Being in screens and looking at screens so much is a real problem in the culture that we have and that we live in, the society we live in. Everyone's got their head down in their phone. Reduce that this year. You know, that might be a new year's resolution for you. Look at screens less often and, you know, interact with social media much less often. Believe me, the people who get lots done are the people who do not spend lots of time on social media. The people who get things done and prevail

The people who are busy doing that outside of a screen. And look, I know that if you have a job that means you've got to look at the screen and social media, understood. But people generally...

are much more productive when they are spending less time on social media than those people who are spending a lot more time on social media for obvious reasons, right? We live in a culture that is distraction theater. That's what we do, dear listener. We live in a culture that is distraction theater. And so...

Bottom line is that we need to undistract ourselves and focus ourselves to the things in front of us, not some screen that we can always look at whenever. Text messages can wait. You know, so many people you see driving will drive and they'll look at their text messages while they're driving and try to answer them in some cases. Really, a text as the ad campaign goes here in this country, in the US, can wait. You know, you don't have to get into an accident

just so you can read a text. The text can wait. It can wait. There's no law that says you've got to answer this text right now as you're driving on a busy freeway.

So yes, I'm on social media. All that is to say, yes, I'm on social media at PopcornREEL on spoutable, S-P-O-U-T-I-B-L-E. Of course, on Fanbase, fanbase.app forward slash PopcornREEL. Remember to join the Fanbase revolution here in 2025. Isaac Hayes, the third social media platform, is going to be bigger and better than ever this year. And I'm so excited about it. Twitter functionality, for goodness sakes.

That is going to be very exciting on Fanbase. You can start engine your way to Fanbase by investing in it by going to startengine.com forward slash Fanbase. Please invest in Fanbase today. Join Fanbase, fanbase.app forward slash popcorn, R-E-E-L. Of course, there is Blue Sky, which is immensely popular these days. And you can find me there, popcorn, R-E-E-L.bsky.social.

And of course, there's threads.net forward slash popcorn, R-E-E-L, as well as says S-E-Z dot U-S forward slash popcorn, R-E-E-L. Thank you very much for listening to this edition of The Politocrat. I'm Omar Moore.