Diogenes Club | E15 - How Did We Get Here?

Diogenes Club | E19 - Smart Choices In Tough Situations

“Listen louder, and hear more” ~ Nick Paro Diogenes In Review This episode adds a new layer to the Diogenes Club - and brings us back to our core - to connect the show’s masculinity work to its civics work. Earlier episodes tracked spectacle, the food-supply squeeze, the machinery of technofascism; this one argues that a step forward for all of this is a single transferable skill, practiced at every scale. LISTEN LOUDER. Stop before you react. Ask whether you’re wanted. Listen for the root, then act on it. Actions You Can Take * Check out the new: Sick of this Shop! [https://shop.sickofthisshitpublications.com/] * Check out the new network and affiliate calendar: BroadBanner [https://www.broadbanner.com/] Submit questions, feedback, and artwork for Notes of the Week with Nick and Walter: * Sick of this Shit Community Comment Form [https://forms.gle/4WSu8qGkSA7Wxbh98] Call your public servants on important issues: * 5calls.org [https://5calls.org/] Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement and de-flock the States: * deflock.me [https://deflock.me/] Service members can get un-biased information on legal vs illegal orders: * Orders Project [https://www.ordersproject.com/] * Reach out on Signal: @TheOrdersProject.76 Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals: * B. Cognition Labs [https://www.bcognitionlabs.com/] Nick’s Notes I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community! Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective [https://1acollective.com/] Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you * Forever at 50% off [https://sickofthis.substack.com/50forever] * Forever at 60% off [https://sickofthis.substack.com/60saver] For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com Thank you Beth Cruz [https://substack.com/profile/178744313-beth-cruz], Ashleigh Alauren [https://substack.com/profile/337755654-ashleigh-alauren], Soso's World [https://substack.com/profile/309303179-sosos-world], Courtney M 🇨🇦🏳️‍🌈 [https://substack.com/profile/136249074-courtney-m], Donna Dupont [https://substack.com/profile/61210574-donna-dupont], and many others for tuning into my live video with Dr. Eric Lullove [https://substack.com/profile/66521654-dr-eric-lullove]! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sickofthis.substack.com/subscribe [https://sickofthis.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Diogenes Club | E18 - Wait, It's The World Cup?

Actions You Can Take * Check out the new: Sick of this Shop! [https://shop.sickofthisshitpublications.com/] * Check out the new network and affiliate calendar: BroadBanner [https://www.broadbanner.com/] Submit questions, feedback, and artwork for Notes of the Week with Nick and Walter: * Sick of this Shit Community Comment Form [https://forms.gle/4WSu8qGkSA7Wxbh98] Call your public servants on important issues: * 5calls.org [https://5calls.org/] Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement and de-flock the States: * deflock.me [https://deflock.me/] Service members can get un-biased information on legal vs illegal orders: * Orders Project [https://www.ordersproject.com/] * Reach out on Signal: @TheOrdersProject.76 Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals: * B. Cognition Labs [https://www.bcognitionlabs.com/] Nick’s Notes I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community! Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective [https://1acollective.com/] Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you * Forever at 50% off [https://sickofthis.substack.com/50forever] * Forever at 60% off [https://sickofthis.substack.com/60saver] For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com Thank you Cat RN [https://substack.com/profile/129439162-cat-rn], Donna Everett [https://substack.com/profile/356789493-donna-everett], KRZ [https://substack.com/profile/31400751-krz], Shirley Figueroa [https://substack.com/profile/280974297-shirley-figueroa], Adriana Hernandez [https://substack.com/profile/255033898-adriana-hernandez], and many others for tuning into my live video with Evan Fields [https://substack.com/profile/12442489-evan-fields] and Dr. Eric Lullove [https://substack.com/profile/66521654-dr-eric-lullove]! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sickofthis.substack.com/subscribe [https://sickofthis.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Diogenes Club | E17 - Confronting Burnout

Diogenes In Review With Walter resting, Nick Paro, Dr. Eric Lullove, and a returning Evan Fields spend an hour and fifteen minutes arguing that burnout is the operating system of this political moment, not an unfortunate side effect. The conversation moves across three registers — Evan’s recent divorce, Eric’s medical and economic forecasting, and Nick’s call to build personal infrastructure for resistance — and at each level the diagnosis is the same. Exhaustion is being manufactured upstream. The defense has to be built before the wave hits, not after. Actions You Can Take * Check out the new: Sick of this Shop! [https://shop.sickofthisshitpublications.com/] * Check out the new network and affiliate calendar: BroadBanner [https://www.broadbanner.com/] Submit questions, feedback, and artwork for Notes of the Week with Nick and Walter: * Sick of this Shit Community Comment Form [https://forms.gle/4WSu8qGkSA7Wxbh98] Call your public servants on important issues: * 5calls.org [https://5calls.org/] Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement and de-flock the States: * deflock.me [https://deflock.me/] Service members can get un-biased information on legal vs illegal orders: * Orders Project [https://www.ordersproject.com/] * Reach out on Signal: @TheOrdersProject.76 Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals: * B. Cognition Labs [https://www.bcognitionlabs.com/] Nick’s Notes I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!. Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you * Forever at 50% off [https://sickofthis.substack.com/50forever] * Forever at 60% off [https://sickofthis.substack.com/60saver] For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com [info@sickofthisshitpublications.com] Thank you Ashleigh Alauren [https://substack.com/profile/337755654-ashleigh-alauren], Courtney M 🇨🇦 [https://substack.com/profile/136249074-courtney-m], Jack (he/him) [https://substack.com/profile/394852192-jack-hehim], Jessica Rage [https://substack.com/profile/62454091-jessica-rage], Christiane mccafferty [https://substack.com/profile/313993079-christiane-mccafferty], and many others for tuning into my live video with Evan Fields [https://substack.com/profile/12442489-evan-fields] and Dr. Eric Lullove [https://substack.com/profile/66521654-dr-eric-lullove]! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sickofthis.substack.com/subscribe [https://sickofthis.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Diogenes Club | E16 - Replace, Reclaim, Rebuild

Diogenes In Review This was supposed to be the episode where the panel — Nick Paro, Walter Rhein, Dr. Eric Lullove, and (briefly) Evan Fields — sat down to plan how the resistance replaces, reclaims, and rebuilds. Instead the conversation walked through the doors marked “personal,” “procedural,” and “religious” in that order, and by the end Eric was naming the drift on-air: “we literally got away from the whole point of the title of our show… and somehow we got caught up in this — in our own little religious war over syntax.” It would be easy to read that as the episode losing the thread. The more useful reading is that the drift was the thesis. You cannot rebuild a country whose civic infrastructure is gerrymandered, whose information layer is algorithmic, and whose moral vocabulary was written in 1548, by talking only about candidate slates and finance laws. The show’s quiet argument this week is that the rebuild project has an interior surface — grief, shame, the inherited language we use about God — and that ignoring it is how the last several rebuilds failed. Thank you Lev Parnas [https://substack.com/profile/35788031-lev-parnas], A. Eevie Bateman [https://substack.com/profile/443649430-a-eevie-bateman], Ashleigh Alauren [https://substack.com/profile/337755654-ashleigh-alauren], Carole [https://substack.com/profile/380457057-carole], Ms.Yuse [https://substack.com/profile/322112054-msyuse], and many others for tuning into my live video with Walter Rhein [https://substack.com/profile/15113701-walter-rhein] and Eric Lullove [https://substack.com/profile/66521654-eric-lullove]! Join me for my next live video in the app. Actions You Can Take * Check out the new: Sick of this Shop! [https://shop.sickofthisshitpublications.com/] * Check out the new network and affiliate calendar: BroadBanner [https://www.broadbanner.com/] Submit questions, feedback, and artwork for Notes of the Week with Nick and Walter: * Sick of this Shit Community Comment Form [https://forms.gle/4WSu8qGkSA7Wxbh98] Call your public servants on important issues: * 5calls.org [https://5calls.org/] Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement and de-flock the States: * deflock.me [https://deflock.me/] Service members can get un-biased information on legal vs illegal orders: * Orders Project [https://www.ordersproject.com/] * Reach out on Signal: @TheOrdersProject.76 Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals: * B. Cognition Labs [https://www.bcognitionlabs.com/] Nick’s Notes I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community! Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective [https://1acollective.com/] Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you * Forever at 50% off [https://sickofthis.substack.com/50forever] * Forever at 60% off [https://sickofthis.substack.com/60saver] A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All ~ Soso [https://substack.com/profile/309303179-soso] | Millicent [https://substack.com/profile/5428714-millicent] | Courtney 🇨🇦 [https://substack.com/profile/136249074-courtney] | Eric Lullove [https://substack.com/profile/66521654-eric-lullove] | Terry mitchell [https://substack.com/profile/32751953-terry-mitchell] | Carollynn [https://substack.com/profile/301213629-carollynn] | Julie Robuck [https://substack.com/profile/208030486-julie-robuck] | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 [https://substack.com/profile/356845797-masonsheher] | Kimmy Win [https://substack.com/profile/180488664-kimmy-win] ~ For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sickofthis.substack.com/subscribe [https://sickofthis.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Diogenes Club | E15 - How Did We Get Here?

Diogenes In Review This episode was supposed to be a “half show” — Nick Paro and Dr. Eric Lullove catching up after a quiet week — and instead turned into one of the more clarifying conversations the Diogenes Club has hosted on how American democracy actually unwinds. When Nieta Greene of Disability Community for Democracy joined from the chat, the episode reorganized itself around a question the title only half-asks. The “how” of “how did we get here” turns out to have a long answer rooted in 1960s commissions LBJ slid into a drawer, an 1982 Voting Rights Act update that’s been quietly clawed back, and a Supreme Court that — by the panel’s accounting — looks more like the AKK in robes than a body of jurists. The takeaway is that the path to authoritarianism is paved with procedural sleight-of-hand: settlement agreements, redistricting maps, website-accessibility deadlines pushed two years out. Each one is boring on its own, which is exactly why it works. Eric opens the diagnostic with the IRS settlement story, and it deserves the cold light it gets here. Trump is suing the IRS; the AG who would sign off on any settlement north of $4 million is his own personal attorney; the leaked terms reportedly include a clause that the Trump organization can never be audited again. The largest IRS settlement in history was $138 million, and the asking number is roughly seventy times that. Eric’s point isn’t just that this is theft — it’s that it’s a generational wealth transfer dressed as a lawsuit, and that the same plutocratic class that built the AI infrastructure for surveillance is about to discover the technology cuts both ways. The Epstein document dump and tools like Test.AI, he argues, will outpace what the FBI could have done in decades with people-agent. The implication is uncomfortable for both sides of the political class: the institutions that were supposed to constrain wealth no longer do, and the ones that might — citizen-built, distributed, AI-accelerated — answer to no one yet. Tennessee is where the abstraction collapses into a face you can name. The state legislature stripped every African-American state congressman of committee and subcommittee positions and quietly stopped notifying voters when polling places change after redistricting. Nieta connects this to the Section 2 cases born out of her own hometown of New Rochelle and the village of Port Chester — decisions that, if reinterpreted by a hostile court, would license a return to at-large elections, the workhorse mechanism of mid-century Black voter suppression. The Voting Rights Act, in her phrasing, no longer exists: take out Sections 2 and 5 and the house falls down. What’s left is the architecture of plausible deniability — change the polling place, bury the new address on a county website that hasn’t been made accessible, and call it a personal-responsibility problem when disabled voters or paratransit-dependent voters or dyslexic voters can’t find their precinct. This is where the analytical case lands: voter suppression in 2026 doesn’t need a poll tax, it needs a 404 page. Nieta’s strongest contribution is structural, and it deserves to be heard outside the disability-policy world it usually lives in. The disability community is, as she points out, the largest marginalized group in the United States, and it crosses every line — race, gender, geography, party. It is also, she says with the authority of someone who volunteered for the Kamala Harris campaign caucus, the community both presidential campaigns ignored. Her diagnosis of why is sharp: outreach content was greenlit in principle but routed through legal review until it was too cautious to win, and the Democratic theory-of-the-case never internalized that excluding the largest cross-cutting coalition in the country is a math problem before it’s a moral one. The episode’s quiet thesis is that no anti-authoritarian movement built without disability-community organizing scales — and that the June 4 Disability Community for Democracy livestream on the disability dimension of the Voting Rights Act is the kind of cross-pollination event the broader movement needs to actually attend, not just signal-boost. The closing shifts from diagnosis to architecture, and this is where the panel earns the show’s name. The fixes Eric and Nick float — kill the omnibus bill habit and return to single-issue appropriations, make the Attorney General an electable nonpartisan office, build an independent inspector-general branch elected by the people — are not new ideas, but they’re being staked out here as the floor, not the ceiling. The case Nieta closes on is the only frame that holds the rest together: humanity is not up for debate. The episode is a 48-minute argument that the procedural gutting of the Voting Rights Act, the IRS settlement scheme, and the deliberate abandonment of disability access are the same project, and that the people most likely to recognize it from the inside are the ones who’ve been asked to wait their turn. Diogenes Club is at its best when it lets a guest reorganize the agenda; this one did, and the show is better for it. Sources & References * Nieta Greene — guest; founder of Disability Community for Democracy [https://disabilitycommunityfordemocracy.substack.com/] and editor of the Nothing About Us Without Us newsletter * All Roads Lead to the South — blackpowerwarroom.com [https://blackpowerwarroom.com/] * Roland Martin (YouTube) and Joy-Ann Reid (YouTube/Substack) live-streaming the South action * Win With Black Women emergency virtual town hall (with VP Kamala Harris) * Julie Roginski — referenced for her recent article on Democratic state-level gerrymandering response * Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Sections 2 and 5) and the 1982 reauthorization signed by Ronald Reagan * Telecommunications Act of 1996 — context for the panel’s broader media-consolidation argument * Apportionment Act of 1929 — referenced for the House-cap discussion Thank you LeftieProf [https://substack.com/profile/116079548-leftieprof], Jeff D [https://substack.com/profile/74447207-jeff-d], Nieta Greene [https://substack.com/profile/117743522-nieta-greene], Mary Lummis [https://substack.com/profile/85924874-mary-lummis], Cindy [https://substack.com/profile/357513838-cindy], and many others for tuning into my live video with Eric Lullove [https://substack.com/profile/66521654-eric-lullove]! Join me for my next live video in the app. Actions You Can Take * Check out the new: Sick of this Shop! [https://shop.sickofthisshitpublications.com/] * Check out the new network and affiliate calendar: BroadBanner [https://www.broadbanner.com/] Submit questions, feedback, and artwork for Notes of the Week with Nick and Walter: * Sick of this Shit Community Comment Form [https://forms.gle/4WSu8qGkSA7Wxbh98] Call your public servants on important issues: * 5calls.org [https://5calls.org/] Join the efforts to unmask law enforcement and de-flock the States: * deflock.me [https://deflock.me/] Service members can get un-biased information on legal vs illegal orders: * Orders Project [https://www.ordersproject.com/] * Reach out on Signal: @TheOrdersProject.76 Learn empathy forward, human centered, experiment based Leadership & Growth Courses for Higher Ed & Non-Profit Professionals: * B. Cognition Labs [https://www.bcognitionlabs.com/] Nick’s Notes I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community! Join the uncensored media at the 1A Collective [https://1acollective.com/] Support as a paid subscriber however you can — to help get you started, here are a few discounted options for you * Forever at 50% off [https://sickofthis.substack.com/50forever] * Forever at 60% off [https://sickofthis.substack.com/60saver] A special thank you to those who are a part of the Sickest of Them All ~ Soso [https://substack.com/profile/309303179-soso] | Millicent [https://substack.com/profile/5428714-millicent] | Courtney 🇨🇦 [https://substack.com/profile/136249074-courtney] | Eric Lullove [https://substack.com/profile/66521654-eric-lullove] | Terry mitchell [https://substack.com/profile/32751953-terry-mitchell] | Carollynn [https://substack.com/profile/301213629-carollynn] | Julie Robuck [https://substack.com/profile/208030486-julie-robuck] | Mason/She/Her🩷💜💙 [https://substack.com/profile/356845797-masonsheher] | Kimmy Win [https://substack.com/profile/180488664-kimmy-win] ~ For support, contact us at: info@sickofthisshitpublications.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sickofthis.substack.com/subscribe [https://sickofthis.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]