 Greg Proups is the smartest man in the world. His podcast is called the smartest man in the world, Proopcast. Go download it on iTunes right now. Go listen to Monday's episode entitled The Last Clinic in Mississippi. Go listen to it right now and then come back to my podcast because today this is gonna be the Proopcast after show. So go away, come back in 90 minutes when you listen to the smartest man in the world's episode entitled The Last Clinic in Mississippi. Hi, welcome back. Let me put my pants back on and take the belt off around my neck. Greg, are you still there? David, I am. Oh, good, thank you. That was 90 minutes well spent for me. I don't know where you were. And by the way, this won't be on KPFK. This part won't be on KPFK. Okay. I promise you, this is the podcast version. Greg Proups is, I forgive you and Jake Johansson. I had Jake Johansson on about a month ago. I hadn't had him on the podcast. And I said, I forgive you for your 900 lettermins. I know you did that to hurt me. And I forgive you, Greg Proups, for, I don't know. I just listened to that Last Clinic in Mississippi podcast. It is breathtaking. Thank you. It is journalism. You are restrained. You are generous. You let these people, if you wanna call them that, talk. You begin to like these people who are standing outside abortion clinics, lecturing women who are trying to get their abortion. You're sympathetic to the people you're talking to. A little a feat. But, you know, not too much. Not too much. It is a breathtaking piece of journalism. Congratulations. It really is. Lady Parts Justice League, Vaginal Mystery Tour is hosted by Liz Winstead. And you went down to Mississippi with Liz Winstead to perform as well as console comfort women who are trying to get abortions. There's one abortion clinic in all of Mississippi. You performed for liberals in Mississippi and then helped out, escorted a lot of women as they had to get through the phalanx of right wing white male Christians who are telling them they're gonna burn in hell. Why did you do this? Oh, well, gee whiz, David. We did it because times are scandalous now and the full frontal attack on women's rights is reproductive rights is insane. As you know, there's a zillion anti-choice governors out there in the state legislatures and they enact these crappy, what they call trap laws, which mean like waiting periods, stuff like that. And Mississippi's really the front lines of it because it's the last working clinic in the entire state. I don't know how many people Mississippi has, a couple million I assume, and almost three million people. And they can only count it. They can only count it two. Right, and they have to take up their shoes if they count it. People are so beautiful, sorry. Like I always say, people are so polite and collegial, deferential, and old school if you're white. And I'm white, so they're really nice to me. We went down for that reason. One, two, Jennifer and I decided after Orange 45 got elected, that the time for being privileged white people that don't do anything with our lives is over. And so we have to figure out for other people. And three, Liz Winstead asked me to do this. And she asked a bunch of different comics and we were down there with Joyle Johnson, Ian Harvey, Helen Hong and Liz. And her crew from Lady Parts Justice. And Liz is the real deal, as you know. She goes around the country on this tour, which is still going by the way, it goes into July. And they go to all the front lines, all the states where there's really no women's health. And they go to the clinics, help out. They do clinic escort. They also do things like, for instance, at the pink house in Jackson, they garden and redid the whole garden for them, which is kind of the stuff that they need done. And as Liz says, really they just want contact. They want people to know, the clinics need to know that people are out there and care about them. You know, Liz said to me, we were there for like two days and she was like, see what, after two days, how much it means to them, just that we showed up. These are independent clinics, by the way, David. I support Planned Parenthood. I'm sure all right thinking people do, except for Mike Pence, but Mike Pence is busy going to Hamilton and calling his wife, Mother. So you make a call on that one. We're from San Francisco, you know the deal. And that haircut, wow. But the Planned Parenthood is well funded. And as much as I support them and I have them in every podcast I do, I try to have a Planned Parenthood table. Liz has made me quite aware that there's all these independent clinics and places like Arkansas and Louisville and- The mom and pop clinics. Well, they are, this one's owned by a woman. She bought it, she's a six year old woman and she's kind of a hero. And she bought this clinic and keeps it operating. And it's so that women in Jackson, Mississippi, and when I say women, I mean poor black women. That's who goes there. So the A.K. Christian guys are yelling at them. And by the way, you didn't hear it on the show because they stopped. But the first guy I talked to, the guy who tells me that I'm going to hell because I'm on Who's Line and I'm a sinner and I need to repent. Which is right, by the way, David. If anyone who had sold their soul to be on Who's Line is gonna smoke a turd in purgatory, there's no question about it. He is on a bullhorn screaming at them. And so Shannon Brewer, the head of the clinic said, it was really nice one day that they put the bullhorn down because you can hear them all day long. It's like a sci-fi movie. The guys out there screaming in a bullhorn because they're publicity hogs and there's a really excellent documentary called Jackson, which is on Showtime about this very clinic. And you can tell with a lot of the same characters. And they're in it. The guy says to me, you listen to the interview, did you see the movie, did you see me in it? It's like really, that's your big anti-choice stance is did I see you in a movie? They hector these women. And because Mississippi's laws are so awful and Governor Bryant of Mississippi is such an awful anti-choice misogynist, he wants to eliminate abortion in their state. And so there's no rules. Like these protesters, they don't have to stand across the street. They don't have to do anything. They can get right in the women's faces and scream at them, which they did. And Jennifer fronted a couple of dudes down pretty hard and they ran away from her because they could tell one, she was intimidating and two, she wasn't from Mississippi, you know, and really there was not much to take for her to put them down. And so it was a pretty wild weekend. I think what Liz is doing in the Lady Parts Justice League is astounding because they're really going to every single state that's in trouble. And Michigan evidently is as bad as any red state with the anti-choice laws and the restrictions that they want to lay on women. And as you know, being the Talmudic scholar that you are, abortion is mentioned in the Jewish Bible. And- I didn't know that, I didn't know that. It is, and you know how I knew this? We went to a rally at the Jewish Women's Center earlier in the year here, a Save Roe v. Wade rally. And a rabbi got up, a lady rabbi got up and said, by the way, if you want to know how Jews feel about this, it's already mentioned in the Torah. So we're covered. By the way, there's an article in the New York Times that the largest percentage of clergy who are Democrats are reform rabbi, something like 80%. Really? 80% of all reform rabbis, maybe 85, are Democrats. Even conservatives, and then it's Unitarians and, what is aim? Unitarians. Yeah, what is aim? What religion is aim? I don't know. They're very Democrat. I'm very excited to hear about Unitarians, so. Let's get back to Mississippi. They're the other white meat. Let's get back to Mississippi. All right. The women have one abortion clinic in all of Mississippi. You're saying not Planned Parenthood. It is an independently owned clinic. Have there been any shootings in Mississippi? Have they tried to shoot? I know you interviewed Dr. Crawford, but he has MS. Any vandalism? Anybody trying to- Oh yeah, they vandalized the clinic. If you watch the movie Jackson on Showtime, they get real freaky and they vandalize the clinic. They haven't shot anyone, which is nice, and they haven't threatened anyone. Yeah, who are they taking to court? Remember, she sprayed them with water. Oh, right. They act very snowflakey. Can you tell Jennifer, I listened to the podcast, and I just want to give her a message. Tell her I'm talking to Greg, not you. I don't like, she's getting too excited. You're looking right now. And then. He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he. Oh, my God. There's a moment in your episode, The Last Clinic in Mississippi. I guess it's Jennifer trying to talk. The guy is reasonable with you. And then Jennifer pipes in, she isn't raising her voice. She just says something to him. He hears it as though it's 50,000 watts of, can't you get it up for me? It, you know, he just, he, he heard something else and was very condescending and told her, something to the effect you're being hysterical, something like that, very condescending. Yeah, he said you're being rude and you're angry or some nonsense, you know. I'm not trying to be cute here because you know my past. You know, you know all about me. And I can't, and there's no greater misogynist than I. I lived, I, I, I, I proposed to my wife and I had her for 30 years. I dropped to one knee and I said, I hate you slightly less than I hate every other woman on the planet. Will you marry me? You, you old romantic, you. And I had her for 30 years and I was in a bubble. I'm in a bubble, you know. I had a pretty bourgeois, ASEAN Harriet kind of lifestyle. I'd sneak out at two in the morning, you know, hand out Bibles to runaways and do horrible things to them and crawl back into bed with my wife. You know, I'm all about income inequality and one of my daughters who should be traveling with Liz Winstead explained to me, you don't get it. I said, you got it. I don't get it. And she said, you cannot address income inequality until you address a woman's right to choose because if a woman can't get an abortion, she can't make money. She can't manage her life. Yeah. David. Yeah. It's really that simple. It's, yeah, so that's the ground level. I think, I think you're right. And I'm glad that you've listened to your daughter. Your daughter, of course, is a fan of my show. Two times ago in New York, she came with your ex-wife to my show. So I know that she's a bigger fan of me than she is of you. And everybody's a bigger fan. I'm a bigger fan of you than I am of me. But she's right about that. You know, this is where I draw the line with so-called progressives who say things like, a woman's right to choose on the table as a bargaining point. No, if you're gonna be a progressive, you better be for women and people of color immediately. That's at the front of the ticket. This whole, you know, income inequality is all, is extraordinarily important. But people's bodily autonomy is certainly more important. And by bodily autonomy, I mean, the right of black people to live without the police shooting them, and the right of women to be able to control whether they give birth or not. People who are anti-choice are also anti-birth control, which seems insane. But then you realize that logic isn't something they're really using as a lever to open this world up to them. You listened to the show, and I gave a couple of the Christian guys, the Andes, a good long time to explain their position. And they don't, they can't, because it's all over the yard. And you know, the women who were escorts there are all volunteers, and they didn't have any escorts before about six or seven years ago. Shannon, the director, told us that, you know, the Andes were just out there screaming at people, and these women had to park and basically run through a gauntlet of crazy people yelling at them. Oh, by the way, all white. Yeah, I wanted to mention that. Can you tell her to lower her voice? David, you said lower your voice. My wife, David, my wife's hysterical now, because she's giving her opinion while men are talking. And I just won't have it. There are high-pipping voices go right through you. Don't you feel emasculated when women talk when you're trying to make a point? I find this might help with your girl. Say, I got this, and then wink at her. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got this. Okay. Right? Yeah, yeah, wow. What do people need? I want to go through the characters in your podcast and ask what they need and start with the woman who needs an abortion in Mississippi. You're saying they're primarily African American in Mississippi? I am. Why is that? They're good at this clinic. Why is that? They don't have access to good healthcare. They don't have their own private doctors. Their insurance is not what it might be. My guess is they're, for lack of a better term, low-end wage people who probably aren't making anything more than the minimum wage. They also live in a pressure-packed world where people around them are also laying pressure on them because many of them are Christians that they're doing the wrong thing and that they're being terrible people by managing their lives this way. Almost all the women who come in there are already mothers. Right. You really are the smartest man in the world. You really are. And so if you're white and you're middle-class, your daughter gets knocked up or your wife gets, I hate to say knocked up, but if you are a working white woman or African American woman, what do you do when you want to get rid of the fetus? Well, if you're a working African American woman in Mississippi, you go in for a checkup. I mean, you go in for consultation at this clinic and then they make you wait 24 hours. I would assume that abortions are being performed elsewhere in Mississippi. They are, but illegally. Really? Well, yeah. I mean, the thing that I don't have any truck with is this whole criminalizing of women thing where like, because if you go on these guys' Facebook pages and you can go on the guys that I interviewed Facebook pages, they say things like black women are evil because they're the biggest genocidal force of all time and stuff like that. They really feel like these black women are killing babies and that's what's wrong with the world. I automatically assumed listening to your episode that if you can afford it, you can get an abortion elsewhere in Mississippi, but you're saying that's the only legally sanctioned abortion clinic in all of Mississippi. It is. The very last clinic in Mississippi, it is not run by Planned Parenthood, it is owned by a woman and independently owned and operated and that's the situation there, man. And you know what, David? I've had a lot of reaction from this show, very positive, you included. Wow. And what's funny is all the women who react or whoever reacted and have written me or mentioned it, almost always tell me their story about how they had to have an abortion or how they were hassled sexually or something awful that happened to them. And all of the men who've commented on this really hadn't the slightest idea that any of this was going on. Yeah. If you know what I mean. For men, it's news. For women, they're all like, mm. Yep. This happened to me and I had to deal with it. Yeah, there's the men's room and the women's room. And that door is shut and we don't look inside there and we don't talk about it. So all women in Mississippi who are pregnant and want to get an abortion have two choices. They can either go to another state or they can go to this one clinic in Mississippi and they need their privacy. Roe versus Wade, they said it was the right to privacy. That's how the Supreme Court justified giving a woman a right to choose. They're losing their privacy. When they walk to that clinic, it's a walk of shame. Oh, absolutely. That walk of shame. Is that truly humiliating for them? How damaging is that? It's terrible and that's the part that's really, really heartbreaking. They've already made the decision when they go in the first time to consult, obviously. Then they're forced to wait 24 hours so they have to run the gauntlet of these yelling, screaming. What do you mean they're forced to wait 24 hours? There is a 24-hour waiting period. You're not allowed to go in and just get one on the day because the state of Mississippi requires that you suffer another day with your decision and with your trauma. Are these women thrilled about getting an abortion? Do they go, hey. Not at all. Part of the reason I didn't interview any of the women that were getting abortions is the mood inside the clinic is not exactly one of levity and light. Everyone is in a very grim and determined mood and I didn't really feel like busting in on anyone and going, hey, tell me why you're doing this. Because they've had to answer to their family, their church, these guys outside. They really have gone through enough without another man intervening and sticking their metaphorical wand in their world. And so, yeah, that's the heartbreaking part, David. To see poor African-American women who are making a very important decision, which by the way is fully their decision, as Liz said, there are no good abortions or bad abortions. They're simply the one you need. And then to have these white guys screaming at them and having pictures of bloody dead babies and all the things that don't happen, as you know, it's an extraordinarily safe procedure. Safer than, for instance, getting your gallbladder out or there's lots of other things. Childbirth is more dangerous. And so the whole idea that abortion is some sort of horrible, dangerous thing, when it becomes dangerous is when it's illegal and women abort themselves, then they're more into trouble. You were asking me a question before about what a middle-aged, I mean, what a middle class and rich people do. I'm assuming that in Mississippi, because it's the South, and it's like being in your family, everything's a lie, that rich people in Mississippi are able to get avail of themselves, their own doctors. You know what I mean? Concierge service. Rich people have always had access to abortions. It's everyone else that doesn't. And which is part of the racism of the antitrust argument. So tell me about the clinic. How many doctors are in there? How many nurses? You say they need somebody to come down there and garden for them, which I find interesting. What does the clinic need? What are the people, they need a laugh, I would assume. That's why Liz and the Lady Parts Justice League, magical mystery tour travels around. Do the people from the clinic come to the show? Do they need a laugh? They did. Everyone from the clinic came to the show. There's two doctors on the days that they're performing the procedures. There's seven full-time employees. And all of the escorts are volunteers. Explain to me what an escort is. An escort is a person who's trained to, the parking lot there is smallish. So people are forced to park several blocks away on the street in Jackson, Mississippi. And it's a very cute neighborhood called Fondren, which means it's emerging, meaning it has boutique artisanal restaurants and things like that. You would recognize that it's like Brooklyn or San Francisco. And that happens to be where the clinic is. So the women have to park several blocks away. The escorts go to their cars and walk them through the gauntlet of screaming guys and try to keep the guys away from them a little bit. And people are screaming at you, there's all our alternatives, you don't have to do this, you're being evil, you're going to hell, that kind of, you can hear them in the background. In that one segment what I'm talking to, the activist Dr. Crawford, who's got MS and is also a disabled person's activist as well as a feminist, you can hear them screaming and that's the jazz they're screaming the whole time. So it's quite horrible. So that's what the escorts do, they get the women into the clinic and then they get the women out of the clinic by physically accompanying them, sometimes two and three around one woman because there's so much screaming and yelling and intimidation. Is it safe to assume and tell Jennifer, I can tell she wants to say something and to knock it up? I know, just I got it. Men are talking now darling. Is it safe to assume that there's not a single woman who skips to an abortion clinic? Yeah, I would think, yeah, I don't think that it's the most traumatic decision of every, I mean, we're not women so it's impossible for me to say with any accuracy but no, it's not a fun thing you do lightly but it is something that is necessary and it's also, by the way, something that is as natural as anything else. Women abort on their own, as you know. That's what staircases were invented for. Exactly, the idea that it's some sort of a natural act that women are performing to destroy babies is the most fallacious and horrible thing of all time. Men can't give birth and so they avail themselves of their opportunity to use firearms to kill everyone. And no one really curtailed that. It's very patriotic to have a firearm. The second amendment is the most important amendment as you know, no one ever talks about any of the other amendments. The first amendment gets discarded constantly like today with the reporters at the White House. But somehow, somehow David abortion is women committing murder whereas a school shooting is the inevitable result of freedom. You did comedy there. Did any of the women who had abortions did they come to the comedy shows? That I can't say for sure, but I will say this. Jennifer told me, I let her speak, I lifted Sharia law and I let her talk. And she told me that all the women there traded their stories about abortions. So I can't say with any accuracy whether women who had had one that week were at the comedy show but I can say that a lot of women who were at the show have had abortions and we're discussing them with one another. So if that's a way to answer your question, women who have had abortions were at the show. Whether women who had had one that day or not, I couldn't answer you. You know, a lot of my listeners are from Alabama and from Mississippi. Sure. Because they're so stupid they think they're listening to Jeff Dunham. That's how stupid these people are. No, but there are these... You know what, to them you're Ira Glass. They really can't tell the difference. One Jew, another Jew, they've got glasses on. Yeah, by the way, listening to your episode, I don't know if you're friendly with Ira Glass but I got angry at Ira Glass for some reason. I thought this, not that it's a competition but I'm filled with rage, bile and jealousy and everything has to be channeled through who's better than whom and Jake Johansson did 3,500 lettermans A day doesn't go by that, I don't think about that. Sure. You know, Bernstein and Citizen Kane remembers that woman getting off the... Right, you'd be surprised what you could remember. Yeah. I don't think she saw me at all. I must not have seen her for more than 15 seconds. I don't think a day has gone by that I haven't thought about her. He also says, awesomely, any fool can make money if that's all he sets his mind to, you know? Wow. Hang on, let me just pause. Okay. And salute you, sir. That is amazing. Bernstein. Oh, my favorite character in the movie. Yeah. Charlie Kane never cared about anybody but Charlie Kane. Wow. Okay. So I lost, you just really just blew me away. So one of the things I like to do on this show is throw dirt in genius' face and see if they can come back, if they can remember their train of thought. I think I remember my train of thought but you really did throw me. There are liberals in red states. Very much so. Particularly in the cities, you know. A blue state liberal escorting a woman to her abortion. How safe is that? It's not as dangerous as everybody thinks it is. I mean, obviously there's, they're a little wild, the protesters. And there are firearms. No one was wearing them. That was protesting. The clinic guard, Mario wears a sidearm and keeps it very low key. Like he doesn't get in people's face. He's a really low key African-American gentleman. And we had a good long chat with him. He wouldn't really talk to me on the day on Mike but after the show when we drank together he told me a lot. And let me put it this way. When we did the comedy show at Dooling Hall and Dooling Hall was a very cute little play in a very sharing-caring white people boutique restaurant mall, right? Like Dooling Hall was a school. They've turned it into a bunch of really cute restaurants that you would love, even though they serve shellfish, which is how you know it's an anti-Semitic state. And it would, you know, would like bacon on it. At this hall on the night, the cat who was working the door was wearing a giant sidearm. And I mean like a 45. And I was outside smoking pot with one of the other comedians, as I do David. And a cop rolled up in a squad car and came running up and said to the guy who was running the place, someone smoking dope and the guy, and it wasn't us hilariously. They weren't after us. The cop went, I don't smell any out here. And it was like we were a shitty cop because we were just smoking one. But they were freaking out. And I mean running around like chickens because someone had smoked pot on the other side of the building. And they were wearing sidearms. And so that's the kind of state of play. You know what I mean? Whereas marijuana is a huge issue. And all of a sudden, guns are gonna be drawn and people are gonna be arrested. Whereas here in California, of course, or New York, you're like, whatever. So their priorities are way different. The liberals need pot. I think they do. And the wearing of sidearms everywhere. I don't know about you, but I never feel comfortable when I see a gun. No. The guns make me uneasy. And I don't care if a white guy's wearing a gun with a beard. That doesn't make me feel like, oh, good justice will be served tonight. It makes me feel like the potential for violence is there. All you need to do is get on the highway, look around and say, how would you feel with these people all holding guns? Right? I mean, don't you sometimes want to, you know, when you're driving or traveling somewhere and someone doesn't be idiotic. You're like, if I had a gun right now. Well, I'm saying you can barely trust a person with a car. Why would you trust a person? Oh, yeah. Well, to go back to your point, because you wanted to stay focused. One thing I've said, oh, for a million years. First of all, my family's from the South on my mother's side. They're all from Mississippi. Really? And as I've said, I didn't grow up in Mississippi. I didn't go to school in Mississippi. Well, no one goes to school in Mississippi. The education standards in Mississippi are gruelingly awful. I did nothing but make fun of them for the first 20 years. Because my family's from there, and I know all about it, and I don't care, you know, that people at Deep Fried Lard Puffs, and y'all weigh 450 pounds, and you know, I said, you eat catfish. Any other state would feed a catfish to death as a compission or a rat. It's a terrible marauding, you know, carrion eater, and you people cook them here and serve them with Deep Fried Lard Puffs that's not supposed to be food. But you have better restraint than I do. Or did you restrain yourself? Oh, when I was at the clinic. Yeah. Well, I tried to have a sense of humor and a jaw to the beat, but I didn't exactly quip the whole time. Tried to keep to the matter at hand. And also when you're there, you know, people take it, you know how it isn't a trench. There's always humor. And because of the, I mean, I think at one point when I'm interviewing Liz, this one woman who murmurs to herself and walks up and down as a protester, and then every once in a while screams bloody murder in one of these women's faces. But most of the time she's a very staid white woman who just walks up and down and like, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. And then she walked by Liz at one point and murmured something to Liz. And Liz went, yeah, you're being real helpful. Interesting thing about your episode was you gave these people rope, the right wing Christians. You let them talk and that was just the art of the podcast. That is what podcasts are all about. You cannot hear this on radio. You can't even hear it on NPR with ira glass. You let this thing breathe, and in their case it was through their mouths. You let them just, you let them speak and reveal themselves. What do they need? Attention? Is it wrestling for them? Is this their thing? Kind of like the Phelps, the Westboro Baptist Church. With them it's more about the exhibitionism than it is about Christ. What do these people on the front lines trying to stop these women from getting abortions? What do they need? What do they want? I think you're right, David. I think it's attention and validation. They're funded by groups. There's one called AHA, and I don't know, Jennifer, if we can remember the, there's another one in Mississippi as well, who are very well funded. And they're kind of the, it's in cities, David. The people that were out there screaming and yelling, and I talked to a couple of them and those who are here on the show, are obviously not particularly highly educated, sort of blue-collar white dudes, with a real penchant for metaphor and fairy tales. The people who run these anti-choice clinics, which are there are many in Mississippi, and the anti-choice agencies that fund these guys who are out there protesting, are well-read white people. Like, it's easy to blame dopey Duck Dynasty rednecks for everything, but as you know, the reason why we have the president we have is rich white people. It wasn't poor white people that arranged this, and they run everything. And I think, get back to your question, they want attention and validation. When I was talking to them, you notice they really, really wanted to get their point across to me, and I let them. And then, of course, if you hit them with any sort of logic or anything like that, they kind of stumble a little bit because there's really not a lot of ground they're standing on. I really thought it was important to ask them how they had the money to stay out there all day. Many of them own businesses, and the clinic escorts know them all by name and know what they do for a living. One was an elementary school teacher in Carthage, and I said, does his school know that he comes out here and yells at women? And the response from Deandra was, yes, they probably do, and they probably would support him in doing that. And the one cat, I can't remember his name, Kevin, I think it is, who said he had a landscaping business, and that I believe he said to me, God had blessed his business, I'm not certain how one determines that. God has certainly never come by the podcast if he has. He never leaves a donation. That's the thing about God, he's a stiff. Well, he's Jewish. Well, he's right, he's Jewish. Like, hey, do it yourself, right? You know. But the guy also lived in his car. You think you're special? That's my God, you know. You think I should give you something? The guy lived in his car at one time. The guy said that he himself had experienced poverty, but God... Yes, I mean, he needed help. He received help. He received help, and God provides opportunities, and if you're not willing to seize those opportunities, then you kind of deserve what happens to you. Yes, he did say that. I think it's very interesting that you would take welfare and then deny other people their own forms of welfare. I don't understand that other than it's a control issue for men to control women. You said, are you willing to adopt these children who aren't getting aborted? And he said, well, a friend of ours was a single mom, she got pregnant, she couldn't afford the baby, and my wife and I signed all the papers and we were willing to adopt her child, but she decided to give the baby to somebody else because she knew us. She knew who we were. Right? Right? I started like... She didn't want to do, let's give it to those people. Yeah, he goes, you know, she knew who we were, so she didn't want to give us her kid. I'm going, how did you not... But you were very restrained with these people. Did you find them sympathetic? They are sympathetic. If you were to ask Barack Obama or Ralph Nader, they would say you need to love them and understand them and give the people who are abusing these women at the abortion clinic, these abusers need jobs, education, teeth, a nutrition, which they're lacking. Dress, someone to teach them how to dress so they don't look scary all the time. And marijuana, right? Oh, God, they use marijuana. The main thing is it's very difficult to move people off their dogma, David. I mean, you know, we got into that philosophical theological discussion and the guy asked, and he asked me if I believed in God, and I said I thought there was an overarching force in the universe, and then he said, do I believe people come from monkeys? Now, if we're starting at that level at the scopes trial level and we're playing in here at the wind here, no, obviously people didn't come from monkeys. Monkeys are a separate strain of primate. If you can't grasp that fact, then we're really at square one here. And then when I said no, I thought that life started in Africa with Pichanthropus and Australopithecus. He said, well, what were their names? And it's like, well, okay, three million years ago, it's very difficult to see where people were named Arthur. You know, they didn't speak English. How do I get, you know, what do you do? What, I mean, when he said what were their names, it was. I know. So how do you educate them, David? Like you said, they need education, they really do. But they're trapped in a church cycle of ignorance and reinforcing weird things that they want to feel. And so how do you, sometimes people can, obviously people change, you know, we change. You know, I've come to understand that I'm wrong about almost everything, you know. It doesn't. Well, that- But how do you teach someone who asks you what the first people's names were? When you- Where do you go from there? That moment, because I'm very forgiving of religious people. I think it comforts them. I like the Bible, but that moment I understood Bill Maher and Dawkins and all the people who are just insane about religion. When you said Austria, I can't even pronounce it, Austro-Polygian. Yeah, Austro-Polygian. I can't even pronounce it. He's, I don't know that. You know, all I know is what's in the Bible. And you say, okay, now I understand why people hate organized religion and why the Bible, this guy, this is why you gotta listen to this episode of The Proopcast because that moment in and of itself is such a great argument against religion because you don't have to be smart. You don't have to study evolution. You just have to read one book. And make that giant leap of faith and everything and it's true. You were there for two days, they're inveterate racists. The way you described white men yelling at black women, they are racists, aren't they? Well, Joy L. Johnson was there, who's an African-American comic from New York. And she's tall and she wore a Wonder Woman outfit to the clinic. She had a Wonder Woman t-shirt and a little cape. And she got into it with them. She was really forward with them and really fantastic. And her outspokenness, her sexuality, one of the guys actually got too messent yelling at her the day before and that was documented on camera. One of them took a picture of it. On the day, they were really intimidated by her because they're used to yelling at black women who are scared and they weren't ready for a five foot 11 black woman to yell back at them. And I believe she said to one of them, what was it? You need to work on your projection, what was it? You need to work on your public speaking. You need to work on your public speaking. Because he was like, the Lord will tell you, you know. So, by the way, the protesters by and large don't live in the city of Jackson, Mississippi. Jackson, Mississippi is over 70% black, probably 75% black. They live in Rankin County, which is next door, which is quite white, which is like Pearl, Brandon, Mississippi, Carthage, whatnot. And they drive in for this to harass black women. Having said that, I wanted to go back to some of you said earlier. Every city and every state in the South is full of highly intellectual and engaged people. They're not the majority and the way that the Confederacy has broken down and tried to hold on to the past for so long has really prevented some of the states from moving forward. You've been to Georgia and you've been to Atlanta and you know that Atlanta is a great big hip city. And it has problems and Georgia has problems, but Georgia has a giant economy. Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama are hurting. Their economy's hurt. They hurt themselves by staying so backwards. Their legislatures and their governors are crappy and white. The new mayor of Mississippi, of Jackson, Chocolate LaMumba, was elected while we were there. His father was also mayor. And he said he was gonna make Mississippi the most radical progressive. Jackson the most radical progressive city that he could, which is really nice to hear. Whether that translates into women's rights, I don't know. One thing I wanted to say was I play Florida, North Carolina, Mississippi, Texas, whatnot. There's so many smart engaged people in all these places. I really detest the red state, blue state thing because it's only true in a political electoral sense, but the electoral college as you know, and not to go into another show here, is a hangover of the slave state phenomenon. The reason why the electoral college was invented was to protect the owners of other individual people's rights as slave owners. Because in those days, you could count a slave as what was it, two fifths or three fifths of a person. So there's all that. And of course, as you know, the Declaration of Independence, they wouldn't, South Carolina and Georgia really wouldn't sign off on it until their rights as slave owners were protected, which is why they left out the giant claws that Jefferson wrote about slavery. And all of the founding fathers had slaves. Well, excuse me for a second. Jefferson wrote a clause attacking slavery? Yeah, the real left out of the, I happen to have it right here, David. The rejected clause reads, the piratical warfare, the appropriate with infidel powers, determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold. He's prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this exquerable commerce. According to Jefferson, the clause was rejected in complacence to South Carolina and Georgia who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves. You're saying Jefferson knew slavery was wrong. Very much so. So did Washington. And Washington always said, oh, I'm gonna free them all when I die. And of course it was Martha who did after George died. And Jefferson? I don't know that. I don't think he did. Well, upon passing, maybe some of them were given what that phrase that they call a menu mission. It's hard to let your children leave the mess. No, they're right. It's an empty nest syndrome, it's tough. Yeah, I mean, let's see, what the first, how many presidents were slave owners? I'm reading a book called Black History at the White House by Clarence Lucene. And he writes, more than one in four U.S. presidents were involved in human trafficking and slavery. Of the 12 presidents who were slavers, half kept people in bondage at the White House. So when they talk about these truths to be held self-evident and all this, and that's the hangover in the South. And I think that's what is so destructive. Having said that, I've never had so much fun. Mississippi has great places to eat. The dire crushing third world poverty is a little shocking when you drive to the other side of town and see tin shacks and houses put up on bricks and garbage everywhere. And then you go to the other side of town and there's gleaming new medical centers and banks. So there's that disparity, as you were talking about, economic injustice being the race and, or was it Ken Burns, race and money or the story of America? I don't think I really grasped the problem of race and the problem women face historically in this country. I just turned a convenient blind eye to it. I think a lot of us did. And like the very first question you asked me, why did I do this? That's the reason I know that I'm a white privileged guy. I've paid lip service to being involved in different causes. I've always been pro-choice ever since we've known each other. I went to places in San Francisco, and I did pro-choice benefits. My act has always been pro-choice. Having said that, I've done enough misogynist material in my lifetime. Not as much as I have. No, well, honey, you're like John Carlos. You got your fist in the air. You're at the top of the stand on that one. And because of that, I'm always railing on it on my podcast that white guys need to get their shit together and use our privilege because we do have it. We're allowed to say anything we want. I think I said on my show a couple of weeks ago, if I was a wild misogynist and racist, I wouldn't lose my podcast and I wouldn't lose my position as a comedian. I might even have a sitcom or a movie star. There are plenty of our friends and colleagues who we know that are fellow white guy comedians who are wildly misogynist and racist and enjoy enormously successful and lucrative career. It doesn't stop you at all, and that's the difference. Let's review last week. Reza Aslan was fired, Kathy Griffin was fired both from CNN, Bill Maher, who I respect and was very good to me, not fired. Interesting how that works. White male says horrible things about Islam, drops the N bomb, not fired. He shouldn't be fired. Reza Aslan calls Donald Trump a piece of excrement, fired, and Kathy Griffin holds the severed head of Donald Trump, fired from CNN, around the world in civilized Europe, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, what is their experience with abortion? It's in England in the 90s when I lived there, I toured, and I used to do this giant bit about abortion and how much I disliked the Pope's opinion upon it and all this jazz. And my man, one of the tour producers I worked with used to say, it's really not an issue here, Greg. You really don't have to go on about it to us because we allow it. But in the last few years, the anti-choice crazies have really risen in England and started to make women feel really awful about it. It was always available in England. I assume in France and Holland, although I'm speaking with no authority here, that they are allowing it as well, the countries where it's real issues, Ireland. In Ireland, they have a gay prime minister, they have gay rights, they have gay marriage, and yet they treat women like chattel, like they always did. Did they just pass something? Didn't they just pass something? No, they imprisoned a woman the other day because they put her in the mental hospital because she thinks she wanted to have an abortion and they were like, oh, no, we have to pop you in the mental hospital. So they have a real issue with it there. Even Spain has it. And Spain is a hardcore Catholic country and the Catholic church is not, let's just put this, let's see how badly I can understate this. Women and children's rights are not paramount in the Catholic church. That hasn't been an emphasis. Much like Penn State's men's athletic program was not a cauldron for understanding young men's sexual needs. Jerry, what are you doing down there at the basement with all the noise? Can I plug one thing, you were asking me what people need? Yes. For your listeners that are concerned, they can go to Jacksonwomenshealth.com that's the actual clinic. They can go to ladypartsjusticeleague.com and help support Liz's tour. And they can go to a site that's just a general pro-choice site called pro-choice.org. And that site has information about what's going on in every state. So if you wanna go to any of those websites, you can either donate and or edumicate yourself. Right, and before you go, I'm gonna plug some of your money-making enterprises. One of which is the, the smartest man in the world podcast, the Proopcast. If you haven't already, go subscribe to the smat, smatist, I just got back from Boston. The smatist. Yeah, go subscribe to the smartest man in the world, Proopcast, Greg Proups. You really are the smartest man in the world. Your conversations with the people standing outside an abortion clinic in Mississippi so fascinating you were not condescending. I think you should seriously consider doing a show where the smartest man in the world talks to the stupidest people in the world. I think this would, I'm being serious, I think it's fascinating because you don't make them feel stupid. And this is what I wanted to end with. I was struck by how intelligent these right wing racist, misogynistic Christians were because they're curious and they want to know and they are searching. A lot of this is, you know, terror porn and they like discussing the mutilation of babe. It's like for them, it's saw eight another horror film but there is this intellectual curiosity. They are searching for something. Socrates talks about this in the Republic. You got to get the kids away from their parents. The state has to educate the children. These people you spoke with, you didn't hate them, these right wingers, right? You saw hatred in their eyes but given better circumstances, couldn't they be a dirty filthy Jew like me? No, there's always that aspirational hope that everyone can be like you. But I think I almost felt bad like I was hanging them out to dry by letting them give their opinions because their opinions are unsupportable and that's what everyone's really reacted to. As well as, of course, the honesty of Shannon Burrers, magnificent staunchness as the director of this clinic and Liz Winstead's backbone and the escorts that we spoke with and that young girl jazz, how intelligent and informed she was. And then I didn't feel bad because they're funded and they're out there every week yelling at these women. So they, like you and I, have put themselves out in the public forum. You and I are susceptible to criticism by giving our opinions the way we do. You and I are susceptible to all those flings and arrows and so are they, baby. You're gonna go out there and yell at women, then I have every right to report on you and every right to expose that. I tried not to give my judgment and I tried not to get angry or, as you say, it was a bit of journalism. I said to Jennifer last night, we, you know, the best way to report this is not to get screamy with them, but to let them talk. They want to be heard. Right. And then you're able to do what a lot of people aren't able to do, which is try some analytical thinking about subjects. Try to put yourself to use empathy to get Greek again, like Socrates. Empathy means pain, right? I didn't know that. Sympathy means pain and to sympathize with someone that's to feel their pain. And that's all you can hope for. Now, I don't hate a lot of people. I mean, I could tell you, if we want to get off the phone, I can tell you specifically. Obviously, I'm burning with bitterness and pain all the time. And if you, if you, for anybody who thinks that toxic white male privilege doesn't exist, all you have to do is look at the current administration and the GOP support of that current administration. That's toxic male white privilege. Incompetence, collusion, impropriety, lying. You and I started together in San Francisco as comedians. We had, what you describe as toxic white male privilege. My toxic white male privilege was, I didn't notice that there were no African-Americans getting into the clubs in San Francisco. I noticed that when I went to Oakland, there were more African-Americans. I didn't notice how hard it was for even gay comics in San Francisco to play the mainstream clubs. I didn't notice how hard it was for women to not just go out on the road, but to go 50 miles out of San Francisco. Just being in a car with you know who. And the dangers of just showing up to a club, hoping to get home safely into your own bed. I, my toxic male white privilege was, voting for Mondale, hating Reagan, being a feminist, gay rights, saying all the things, but conveniently turning a blind eye to blacks, gays, and women, and Hispanics, and Asians, because more pie for me. That's what I'm guilty of. I think we are. And the hooker that I murdered in Detroit. But that's, that's. Well you know you panic. Larry Brown. I agree. And how are we not guilty of it? Whether it's a sin of omission or not is really not the point. The point is to become aware at some point in your life that you are a privileged white person and that you might use your privilege to help other people as opposed to just enriching yourself all the time. You're in Mississippi talking to that guy who lived in his car. How do you explain to him to check his white privilege? That's my final question. Oh golly. I don't know that you can. I don't, it's such a cultural thing there. You know, they get to be heard and they also have that, if the Lord's on your side, kind of mentality going on. So, I mean I tried to, within the conversation, point out to them that they might find other ways to help women other than yelling at them and screaming that they're sinners and they're gonna die because of what they're doing, that there might be a more productive way to interact with women. And they didn't really want that. They didn't dig that as much as they might. So, I think all you can do is keep reminding guys of that, David. Okay. And no matter what level of society they're on, because as I say it's not just these scary hillbillies with the camo hats, the real danger in the world is of course the Rupert Murdoch's and the Koch brothers and the head of NBC allowing that maniac info wars guy to be on television and be interviewed as a legitimate human being when he's a raving lunatic. Oh, I thought you were talking about Megan Kelly. You're talking about the other guy, Alex. Those are them. Yeah. I wouldn't allow Megan Kelly on TV either. The woman said Santa Claus was white and they've given her nothing but millions of dollars and pushed her forward, so, you know, whatever. And she causes body dysmorphia for young girls. She causes body dysmorphia for me. I want to have ankles like that. And she looks fabulous in heels. Greg Proups is the smartest man in the world. Dana Gould has balls because he came to San Francisco with the name Dana, because Dana Carvey, Elvis Costello. Declan McManus, is that it? That's right. He changed his name to Elvis because he said yes. Look at me. I encourage the scrutiny. Greg Proups calls himself the smartest man in the world. That's like you moving to San Francisco and calling, my name is Robin. Really? And not only are you the smartest man in the world, you know how to train Jennifer. She really, she behaved. I don't know if she heard that one. You know all my dirty dark secrets. You know everything. And there, you know, if you were ever deposed, I just say, just let me write the check, your honor. Just whatever it is, I'll sign. So I'm at KPFK. I've been there for a couple of years. Very left wing radio station in Los Angeles. And you come in and the first thing you said to me was Nils College. And my heart, I went, oh my God. Anyway, Nils College was in all, at the time, it was in the Bay Area, it was all women's school. And I might have had a problem with Nils College. I was going through some things that were, it was bad. Greg Proups is the smartest man in the world. His podcast is called The Smartest Man in the World, Proupcast, go download it on iTunes right now. Listen to Monday's episode until the last clinic in Mississippi, then support his sponsors. Greg Proups donates his time and his money for important causes. So you need to support Greg Proups' comedy in every way imaginable. And the return is you'll be smarter, you'll laugh, and he's the best, you're the best. I love you, I do. I love you and it's an honor to have you on my show. Thank you brother, thank you for having me on man. Can you stay on the line for one second? Yep.