Transcripts

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] During today's episode, I'm going to be telling you about a show I think you should check out. It's the Future Hindsight podcast. So, take a moment to hear what I have to say about them in the middle of the show and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

And now welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast in which we shall take a look at how the Supreme Court turned the tables on average working people back in the seventies, when they empowered wealthy individuals and corporations to have an outsized role in our politics. And now we are trapped in the reality that shift in power created, but are dreaming of a better way to manage our economic and political systems for the benefit of all people. Sources today include the Thom Hartmann Program, Jim Hightower's Radio Lowdown, the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Economic Update with Professor Richard Wolff, OFF-KILTER with Rebecca Vallis, and the Zero Hour with RJ Eskow, with additional members-only clips from Citations Needed and OFF-KILTER.

How Things Work Congress's Revolving Door - Jim Hightower's Lowdown - Air Date 11-9-23

JIM HIGHTOWER - HOST, JIM HIGHTOWER'S LOWDOWN: Hear it? What's that [00:01:00] sound? Ooh, it's Washington's revolving door, allowing corporate interests to come directly inside Congress to pervert public policy. That door is now spinning fast because there's a new boss operator in Congress. He's Mike Johnson, who was recently unanimously chosen by Republicans to be their Speaker of the House.

He's a corporate wet dream, an affable ultra conservative from Shreveport who consistently backs the plutocratic agenda of big business over workers, the poor, consumers, and most other Americans. Moreover, Johnson maintains it was God who elevated him to his new position of authority, and that the Bible will guide his policy views. Well, selected parts of the Bible. Don't expect much mercy, justice, and peacemaking from this hardcore laissez faire ideologue.

For example, guess who he's chosen to be his director of policy? Big Pharma's top Washington lobbyist. Dan [00:02:00] Ziegler has been the chief influence peddler for a dozen multi-billion-dollar drug giants, including Eli Lilly, Merck, and Pfizer. Ziegler has furiously opposed every legislative effort to stop the rampant price gouging, even though 90 percent of Americans are clamoring for Congress to clamp down on pharmaceutical rip offs. But we 90%ers don't control the revolving door. Mike does.

Johnson piously cloaks himself in both the Christian gospel and libertarian myth of free markets. Yet he has consistently pushed government action to restrict competition and protect drug monopolies. Now, in his first substantive action as Speaker, he is literally bringing Big Pharma inside to sit with him in the seat of legislative power.

This is Jim Hightower, saying drug pricing reform will soon come up for a vote in Congress. Before Mike's lobbyist buddy tells him what to do, let's demand that he re-read the Sermon on the Mount.

Citizens United Has Destroyed America Why Is Nobody Talking About It - Thom Harmann Program - Air Date 10-27-23

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: This all started in 1976 [00:03:00] when James Buckley, William F. Buckley's older brother, he was the, I believe he's older, he was the senator from New York, the Republican senator from New York, and he wanted to be able to use, he was a multi-millionaire, he wanted to be able to use his own money and his campaign to basically wipe out his opponent. And federal election law at the time, in 1978, er, 1976, said, No, you can't do that. There are limits on how much money anybody can spend, including the candidate himself. So he took this to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court said, Hey, it's your money, you can do whatever the hell you want with it. And the rationale that they used was that without billionaires being able to put money into politics - and get this, this is amazing - without billionaires putting money into politics, or let me rephrase that. The rationale was that restrictions on rich people behind political office, this is a quote from the Buckley case in 1976, "necessarily reduce the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues [00:04:00] discussed, the depth of the exploration, and the size of the audience reached. This is because virtually every means of communicating ideas in today's mass society requires the expenditure of money". In other words, the Supreme Court said, if you're a billionaire or a multi-millionaire and you want to pour money into politics, that's going to help politics, because, you know, you'll have, uh, we'll have a discussion, a more in depth discussion, more topics, because the money is going to expand political discussion.

Which raises the immediate question, okay? That's fine for the top 1, 2, 3 percent of Americans who can afford to, you know, throw thousands of dollars a year or millions of dollars a year into politics. But what about the 97%? What about the rest of us? Our free speech is pretty much limited to how loud we can stand out in front of our house and yell. It's limited to our ability, you know, our ability to vote, I [00:05:00] guess, is a form of speech. Our ability to say something on social media, but what about our right to have our political views aired? Well, the Supreme Court had no interest in discussing that in 1976. So, James Buckley won that case, and the Supreme Court, for the first time in the history of the United States, legalized rich people basically owning politics.

Two years later, in 1978, in First National Bank [of Boston] v. Bellotti, they did it again. They said this is true of corporations as well. If corporations want to put money into politics, no problem. And then in 2010, they tripled down on this and overturned hundreds of American laws nationwide, state and federal laws, and just gutted any protection that Americans have against rich people, against billionaires, basically owning our political systems. So now we have a [00:06:00] situation where every single Republican in the House of Representatives, and most of them in the Senate, frankly, are terrified of the billionaires in the industries that can harm them. And every Republican in the House of Representatives is there. I mean, they're just, like, you know, Please don't ask us to restrict guns. The gun manufacturers will pay for advertising for our primary opponents. Please don't ask us to do something about Medicare Advantage ripping people off. The health insurance companies will devastate us in the next primary. I mean, it doesn't take, you know, in a primary election for the House of Representatives, half a million dollars is enough to take a person down in most parts of the country. It doesn't take a lot of money. When you've got an industry, you know, the health insurance industry, for example, is making literally a billion dollars a week in profits, probably. I don't know the exact number, but I'd be amazed if it wasn't at least a billion dollars a week. They can easily peel off a half a [00:07:00] million bucks. Chump change. That's like pennies in the couch, right? They can easily peel off a half a million or a million dollars to take down some politician who decides he wants to do something about Medicare Advantage. Or guns. The gun industry is making billions. They can do the same thing. I mean, it just goes on and on, right? The fossil fuel industry, making billions. They own every Republican. In fact, Sheldon Whitehouse, this is, I found this on his website last night. Sheldon Whitehouse points out that prior to 2010 - keep in mind, 2010 was Citizens United - prior to the Citizens United decision, Republicans were actually in favor of doing something about climate change. Seriously. John McCain ran for president on doing something about climate change. He said, "While we cannot say with 100 percent confidence what will happen in the future, we do know the emission of greenhouse gases is not healthy for the climate. As many of the top scientists throughout the world have stated, the sooner [00:08:00] we start to reduce these emissions, the better off we'll be in the future". He was the lead co sponsor for the Climate Stewardship Act, which had other Republican co-sponsors. The Clean Air Planning Act was supported by Republican Senators Lamar Alexander, Lindsey Graham, and Susan Collins. Republican Senator Olympia Snowe was the lead co sponsor of the Global Warming Reduction Act of 2007. Multiple Republicans supported the Low Carbon Economy Act and the Clean Air Climate Change Act. In 2009, Republicans supported the Raise Wages, Cut Carbon Act and the Waxman Markey Carbon Cut Cap and Trade Proposal. Maine Republican Susan Collins was the lead sponsor of the Carbon Limits and Energy for America's Renewal Act.

Republican susan Collins said, "In the United States alone, emissions of the primary greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, have gone up more than 20 percent since 1990. Clearly, climate change is a daunting environmental challenge". And then came 2010, and everything [00:09:00] changed. Clarence Thomas, who'd been groomed for over a decade by right wing billionaires and fossil fuel billionaires, the Koch brothers, had been groomed for this, became the deciding vote on Citizens United, legalizing bribery of, not only politicians, but also federal judges like Clarence Thomas himself. And once the fossil fuel industry could pour unlimited amounts of money into either supporting Republicans who deny climate change, or destroying Republicans who assert climate change, once that happened, the entire Republican Party went silent on climate change. Sheldon Whitehouse, on the floor of the Senate, "I believe we lost the ability to address climate change in a bipartisan way because of the evils of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision". Amen.

RAPH NADER - HOST, RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR: So, if we want to do anything, if we want to do anything about student debt, if we want to do anything about the quality of our schools, if we want to do anything about health care, if we want to do anything [00:10:00] about climate change, if we want to do anything about, you know, banks and airlines ripping us off with fees and things, if we want to do anything that takes on any major industry, we have to overturn Citizens United. That has to be done first.

Corporate Bullsh*t Legal Bullsh*t - Ralph Nader Radio Hour - Air Date 11-11-23

RAPH NADER - HOST, RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR: Most individuals, throughout life, if they're accurately described as serial liars, people stop believing them. They just say that's another bit of magical thinking from Joe or something. Why is it that corporations and corporate executives never seem to lose credibility with the public, even after this is all publicized, they're proven wrong, the public benefits from these health and safety issues and other protections of consumers, environment, worker, children, patients, and the like. Why don't they lose credibility?

DONALD COHEN: It's the key $64 million question, but I'd say a couple things. One of which is, in some cases, the things they say when they said them have the patina of plausibility. [00:11:00] Maybe jobs will get cut if we make auto and companies spend more money on something, things like that. So they sometimes have a patina of plausibility. But the second is we don't go back and say, you said that before and it didn't happen, you said that before and it didn't happen, said that before and it didn't happen. They just go forth. They've learned that you come up with your talking points, you say them, you hammer them, and they've been effective.

What we need to do is ridicule them. Say, listen, it's just a game. What you're playing here is a game, and you're playing a game with lives, and the planet, and all of that, which is, again, it's the purpose of the book. Every time they say something, our natural instinct is to debunk it, which means we're playing on their playing field.

We want to pre-bunk it. We say, that's bull. You're just playing a game, and listen to how you've done it in the past, because there's, many of the quotes in this book are hilarious, actually. We want to make fun of them, and we're hoping that this becomes a little bit of a vaccine going forward.

RAPH NADER - HOST, RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR: You talk about the sanction of shame, that you want to have people read this book and [00:12:00] then say, basically, shame to these corporations, and to shame them, ridicule them, expose them. Is that enough?

DONALD COHEN: I don't think it's enough, but first of all, the other word I would add is dismiss them, right? You remember Reagan used to say to his opponents, "Oh, there they go again." It was just the best dismissive line, right? So we want that. But no, it's not enough. You've got to have the power to take it all the way home in America. You've got to pass laws that expose their self-int-- not expose their lie, you could do that, but it's really expose their self-interest.

And, you talked about lead. The interesting thing about lead is, they say that, lead's healthy for you all the way from that period of time when it was in paint and when it was in gasoline, early part of the last century. And then finally more than halfway through the century, standards were established, where lead was taken out of paint and gasoline. They knew -- just as the fossil fuel companies, just as the opioid makers, just as the tobacco companies -- they knew the scientific truth.

So these were lies, and they were in [00:13:00] their self-interest, and lives were lost because of it. So I think that's part of the shame, is to say, it's not just a game, but it's a game that you're playing with people's lives, and you know it.

RAPH NADER - HOST, RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR: Millions of lives, we're talking, we're talking the denial of coal dust creates coal miner pneumoconiosis, that's a half a million lives in the last century of coal miners lost, horrible asphyxiation deaths. Then there's the 450,000 people who die from smoking-related, tobacco related diseases. Just add that up year after year. And then there's at least 300,000 people, workers mostly, who died from asbestos exposure. All of this was denied. "There's no proof asbestos creates cancer. Or mesothelioma. There's no proof that tobacco smoke creates cancer, heart disease" -- until the Surgeon General's report started coming out in the mid-1960s.

This is more than just lies, falsehoods, [00:14:00] off-the-wall predictive phoniness. It's more than that. It's deadly. In other words, it's not just rhetoric. It's not just craziness. It leads to the suppression of the society's response to foresee and forestall hazards, rip offs, and the like, and to engage in preventive activity, regulations, opening up for lawsuits under tort law, and deterrence.

So we're dealing here with not only malicious pattern of rhetoric, we're dealing here with deadly delays. A lot of these phony denials delayed the reaction, as you point out in the book, delayed the reaction of the public to correction.

By the way, readers should know that in this book, called Corporate Bullshit: Exposing the Lies and Half Truths That Protect Profit, Power, and Wealth in America, it's not just corporations, it's not just their trade associations like the US Chamber of Commerce. It's academics, [00:15:00] it's publications like the National Review. It's reporters who should know better in terms of their reporting, it's headline writers that have inaccurate headlines because of their predisposition against the content of the story, like broadening healthcare protection in the country.

Here's an interesting transition, Donald, that you probably have thought of. People listening to Trump, starting out in 2015, his campaign, look at this guy. He just lies every day. Just in four years as president, he made 35,000 lies or false statements, according to the Washington Post, which tracked his rhetoric day by day, led by Glenn Kessler, the reporter. And people would ask me, how does he get away with this? Why do people believe this? I said one simple answer is that millions of people have been believing phony advertising for years. This product is good for your nutritional needs when it's [00:16:00] phony. This color product is pretty and it will attract your kiddies when it's bad for them, all kinds of phony assurances in the credit industry, in the auto industry, these pharmaceutical products, over-the-counter pills, they're safe and effective, and so people were predisposed in their consumer activity to believe these advertising lies.

So what Trump did was, he just took that kind of pattern and moved it big time into politics. And he had a constituency that was already programmed, so to speak, to be gullible enough or trustworthy enough to believe these corporate advertisers. And they took in his lies and his falsehoods. Any comments on that?

DONALD COHEN: A couple of things. I think we all know repetition is key to propaganda and advertising, right? We know that if somebody says something as many times long enough, it penetrates into a belief. It goes past the [00:17:00] intellect, and it just becomes a fact that we believe is true. I think that's part of what Trump is doing. He just says it over and over again. And then they decide they believe him. And once they decide they believe him, then everything he says is the truth as well. So I think that's really what's going on. Corporations have said it over and over again, and we go it must be true.

And then one other thing: part of the assault on the specific things that we've been talking about in terms of the laws and regulations and health and safety and all that, is in parallel, there's been an assault on government, on the idea that governments need to do things, the idea of government, the institution of government. There's this drumbeat for 50 years.

And so that's the sea you're swimming in. And when that's the sea we're swimming in politically, in public opinion. So if the next thing you say is, and another regulation is going to be bad for all of us, it's not operating from scratch. It's operating on top of what have become negative attitudes towards government action.

How Media's Use of 'The Economy' Flattens Class Conflict - Citations Needed - Air Date 11-1-23

KIM KELLY: I'm really glad that the UAW president, Shawn Fain, [00:18:00] brought that up and really laid out that kind of contrast, the tension that I think a lot of normal people, you know, working class people, poor people feel when it comes to "the economy". For us, the economy is something that happens to us, and for the folks at the top, meaning, you know, politicians and corporations and the wealthy, the elite, whatever, that's something that they control. It's something that they feel very personally, because it's their money, it's their profit. Like, all of those billions, all that economic impact, all of these, you know, numbers and things that are bandied about in studies by well-funded think tanks, like, that is not my business. That is not something that normal people... it doesn't impact us really in the way that it impacts people that benefit from it do. We're just trying to survive "the economy". Now, that's a crucial difference. And I think that's something that just is not recognized by the people that do have that [00:19:00] economic privilege and are in those more rarified circles and have power over us.

Well, I'm glad that Shawn Fain brought it up, like, wrecking their economy. Like, the strike, the UAW strike, has cost the economy 4 billion dollars, allegedly. That's, I think, one of the latest headlines I saw. Who felt that pinch? It wasn't me. It wasn't my neighbor. It wasn't normal people throughout the country. It's the shareholders. It's the C suite. It's the people that are expecting to make that money. They are feeling it. They are upset about it. And we're supposed to care that this is a problem they now have. Meanwhile, you know, I live in Philadelphia, man. We're the poorest major city. Thousands of my neighbors are unhoused or are struggling with addiction or just struggling in general. The fact that the big three "lost" four billion dollars, that is not part of our reality. And I think it is very helpful and useful that Shawn [00:20:00] Fain just kind of brought it up as the idea that we're not all living in the same economy. We're not all trying to survive the same economy. For most of us, the economy is a bludgeon. It's not a tool. It's not something in which we engage. It's something that we try to survive.

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: So Kim, I love this idea that there are different economies or even that "The Economy" writ large - capital T, capital E - is something to be survived by the working class. But there's this corollary issue here, right, that the hardship and brutality of strikes themselves don't mostly fall on, as we've been saying, the economy, but actually is felt.... now, as you've been talking about your neighbors and you wrote a whole book on this, I'd love to talk about what you've seen being the hardship experienced first hand and how this " economic impact" is routinely ignored by the media, right? That workers lives, rather than The Economy writ large, are not [00:21:00] often discussed. So, can we talk about who is actually harmed by strikes that drag on and on when employers, when corporations don't allow for more worker rights, for more worker power, and how would maybe acknowledging this difference in what we understand as the economy versus what workers are actually experiencing, help reporters and those consuming media actually delineate the harm of, you know, corporate bosses refusing to negotiate in good faith, thereby demanding, really, through that refusal, that strikes go on and on, until the demands are met?

KIM KELLY: So, here's the thing, right? When workers go out on strike, they're not drawing a paycheck. Some of them, in some instances, they lose their health insurance. They're out in the cold, they're on strike, they're not at work. But the people in charge, the people who are refusing to negotiate In good faith, or refusing to meet their demands, or refusing to provide them with a safe working [00:22:00] environment, they're still getting paid. They're still at work. They're not feeling anything, but perhaps varying levels of annoyance or anger at the sheer audacity of the workers for daring to stand up for themselves.

To strike is to disrupt. It's supposed to cause problems. It's supposed to shut down production. It's not supposed to be easy for anybody. But the burden falls on the workers themselves. They're the ones taking the risk. They're the ones feeling the bite. They're the ones worrying about paying their bills. They're the ones who are taking on all of the risk for the hope of a reward. That is the thing.

And now, during this UAW strike, and during so many of the other high profile strikes we've seen over the past couple years especially, you will invariably hear from "the other side". Because the media, we love hearing both sides, and the other side is invariably some very angry old White guy [00:23:00] with more yachts and more money than God going on Fox News or going on CNN and talking about how the workers are hurting the company, about how they're greedy, they're unreasonable, like they told us during the writer's strike.

Meanwhile, this man's making millions of dollars. Or perhaps this woman is making millions of dollars, girl bossing her way into the corporate elite. There's a disconnect there when we see headlines about how this strike is hurting companies or hurting the economy. Because you know who's feeling the pain? The workers who aren't getting a paycheck. The workers who are walking a picket line for eight hours a day and hoping that their health insurance doesn't get ripped away from them and, if it is, hoping that their union is able to cover them while they're out.

There is an example that I always return to because it's something that became a very big part of my life for several years, and I was just a bit player. You know? Imagine how it was for the people actually living through this. But for two years, twenty three months, [00:24:00] in Brookwood, Alabama, starting in April 2021, a thousand coal miners who are members of the UMWA, United Mine Workers of America, were on strike. And for almost two years, they held the line. They were able to continue existing and living a life because their auxiliary, which was led predominantly by spouses and retirees, were able to solicit donations and launch a mutual aid effort and keep the strike in the news and do everything they could to support their people who were on the picket line.

They were lucky, actually, to be part of a union that does furnish its members with strike checks. So, they got, you know, a few hundred bucks every couple weeks, which, sure, Alabama's not Park Avenue, but it didn't go nearly as far as it needed to for so many people, so a lot of people had to find side jobs, some of their spouses who had never worked before had to go to work.

It really just shattered the whole fabric of that community, and nobody really [00:25:00] cared about that. The people in charge of that company, Warrior Met Coal, they were very clear and explicit about their desire and their plan to starve them out. Local politicians abandoned them. The GOP, for which many of those folks voted, abandoned them. They were just left to starve. And eventually they had to go back to work, they're still trying to get the contract they deserve. There wasn't an easy, tidy end to that strike. And sometimes that happens. Sometimes strikes don't work. And who's left holding the bag? Who's left having to go back to work under a bad contract? The workers. The people at the top , they're going to keep getting their bonuses, they're going to keep making their money, they're going to keep being able to hold on to this reserve of sort of entitlement and opposite world class resentment at these workers that dared to challenge them and ask for more.

What Socialism Needs to Succeed - Economic Update - Air Date 10-31-23

PROF RICHARD WOLFF - HOST, ECONOMIC UPDATE: For thousands of [00:26:00] years, working people, whether they were villagers, or slaves, or serfs, or proletarian workers, have had dreams of a way of working radically different from what they were subjected to, a way of working that was a community of equals who got together to produce something the larger society needed. They wanted to do that as a community of equals. We have seen efforts to do that in every society, in every religion, as a noble effort to break out of the dichotomy master-slave, or the dichotomy lord-servant, or the dichotomy employer-employee.

What socialists could've and should've integrated into the core of what they're about is not just to bring the state and [00:27:00] society in to the economic decisions, to not let a small minority of capitalist owners, profit-driven, be the intermediary who decides everything. That's not enough.

And that's what the 21st century is teaching socialists. It's not enough. It was a big step. It was an important step. You made huge gains. You established an important law of society being directly involved. But society has to be directly involved inside every factory, office, and store, too.

It turns out that socialism faced a question it did not come to terms with. Here's that question. Maybe it's the case, and let's put it as a question: Can you sustain a socialist revolution that puts the state in a powerful position in society as a whole without putting workers in a powerful [00:28:00] position inside the workplace?

I think history's answer to that question is, you cannot. You cannot even sustain the socialism you were successful in establishing, starting with the Russian Revolution and spreading ever since. You weren't able to save it, to preserve it, to sustain it. And maybe, question, maybe was that because you didn't change the reality inside, where people work: the factory, the office, the store, and that other place where people work, the household, the family.

Maybe the revolutions that changed families when slavery gave way to feudalism, that changed families again from feudalism to capitalism -- maybe the whole concept of family has to be rethought, re-understood, questioned. Socialists have to have the [00:29:00] daring to recognize the omission of that level of society when the revolution was discussed.

Fix it. Bring the revolution into those areas from which it was excluded. If democracy is the central principle we want to uphold, then we have to democratize the workplace, too. Democracy in the workplace is the opposite of the autocratic dictatorship of the CEO in a business, of the owner, of the operator.

Either you live in a community and understand the community as necessarily democratic, or you don't. Socialism can reimagine itself, redefine itself, and become even more powerful in the 21st century, in my judge, if and to the [00:30:00] extent that it offers a vision of a new workday life. That's where most adults spend most of their lives: at work. And work can be a democratic community that you enjoy, that you want to go to, where you learn, where you are nurtured in your relationships with other people. Not a place of being a drudge, being a drone, and listening to the orders of employers whose only interest is making money versus building a society.

A socialism with that kind of vision, that will be a socialism that builds successfully on what it did in the 19th and 20th century, but also recognizes what it didn't do, what wasn't enough, and what will be necessary to win the support of the mass of working people in the years ahead.

Prof. Richard Wolff Why Not Democratize Big Auto Companies - The Zero Hour - Air Date 10-28-23

PROF RICHARD WOLFF: I mean, either you believe in democracy, in which everybody, you know, the [00:31:00] basic idea is if you're affected by a decision, then you have a de facto right to participate in it. Are there limits to that? Sure. But the basic principle is why we have elections. So that we have some input over the people whose decisions affect our life. If the mayor determines the tax rate, or if the city council determines the tax rate I have to pay, well then I have some input onto that process, and we don't allow that in the corporation. And we act as if that's a dictate that has to be.

I want to remind folks of a little historical lesson here. Under slavery, in various parts of the world where we've had slavery, sometimes for centuries, even if we took the example of the United States as a colony and then in, you know, up until the Civil War, we said that a slave, and [it] was enshrined in the law, [00:32:00] is a property of the master, of the owner of the slave. That's a relationship. And I can show you endless literature that said that this was the way God meant it to be, because otherwise, how could it be otherwise? You know, God made the earth. Seven days. Works fast. And he got this all done. And it would last forever. It was a great system. It recognized that some people are masters, and other people aren't.

And in feudalism, we did the same game, only we changed the names, and we changed the relationship. It became lord and serf, and the serf wasn't owned by the lord, but entered into a mutual obligation. And then we come to capitalism, where we don't have masters and slaves, and we don't have lords and serfs, we have employers and employees.

But the point of the history is, nothing is forever. There's nothing written in the stars [00:33:00] that says it has to be this way or that way. And the irony of ironies, if you go back far enough... and as a key point here, to village economies and many examples in Asia and Africa, sizable groups of people lived without a hierarchy. They divided the labor, they divided the decision making, but to give a small number of people the outsized dominance that masters have over slaves, lords over serfs, and employers over employees was deemed inappropriate. And we acted on that basis.

Last little point. I know when people get into this conversation, they sometimes avoid it by saying, Oh these other arrangements, these democracies, can only work for little enterprises, they couldn't work for a big one like Ford or something else. This is wrong two ways. Number [00:34:00] one, when capitalism emerges from feudalism, it always starts with a little capitalist and a half a dozen workers. It took a long time for capitalism to figure out how to manage large corporations, and it invented the corporation along the way.

Right now, in the world, there is a worker co-op called the Mondragon Corporation in northern Spain. It's large, it's about, 130,000 people are part of that corporation. They've demonstrated, in the 75 years they've been going, that you can go from small - they began as a parish priest in northern Spain, with six parishioners as the workers - to the 130,000 that they are today. Tremendously successful economic growth. They're the seventh largest corporation in all of Spain. They're a family of worker co-ops.

So, we've done the [00:35:00] work. The marvelous thing is not to have an idea about it. That's easy. That's what I do. But I'm in a position of saying the realities are all around us. The examples are there. The history is documented. There's no possible excuse for tabooing it out of the conversation so that even workers who know they can run the enterprise, who know how badly they've been treated by their employer, do not think through with their leadership to put that issue on the table alongside the other issues that ought to be democratically decided.

RJ ESKROW - HOST, THE ZERO HOUR: A comment and a question. First of all, when it comes to autoworkers, I have a, you know, a pretty, I have a middle class car. I have a Subaru Forester. My Subaru Forester tells me when I'm drifting out of the lane. It tells, it shows me where I'm backing up into. It beeps if I'm [00:36:00] getting too close to something in the front and back. Seems to me if the auto industry is capable of finding these, developing these systems to navigate a car, then we as a society can develop systems for navigating a democratically run company. Because people say, Oh, it's too complicated. How would you do that? Well, no, we can, I'm pretty sure we're smart enough to figure that out.

I wanted to switch to another labor dispute. We have the strikes in Hollywood and the Writers Guild has come to an agreement, the actors have not yet, but in a piece I did, I worked on a lot and didn't publish, maybe I'll publish it anyway at some point, I looked at Netflix because I think this is an example of another problem with the way we govern companies. You read the business press, especially when the strike began, it was filled with all the trouble that Netflix was in, and Wall Street was down on it, and there were these problems. It goes up and down. It may have changed since then. And that's [00:37:00] why they couldn't give their creative workers what they needed, so I looked at it. Netflix's total revenue in 2022 was $36.6 billion, 10 times more than it had been a decade earlier. Its net income was 4.492 billion, which to me is a lot of money, but its stock price took a dive that year. And why? Because the trend lines didn't look good enough for Wall Street. Now, there were reasons for that. People were going back to work and they weren't, you know, watching media as much, but, so it was down, 22, it's down a little bit from 2021, but its 2021 income was nearly double that of the year before.

So, over a two year basis, it was doing great. But the fact is, Wall Street, it seems to me, thinks in terms of trends, because that's where they make their money, right? It seems to me, but correct me if I'm wrong, [00:38:00] when stocks go up, and then the incentive packages for the small groups of people who run these companies are based on Wall Street's valuation, so they have no incentive under this system, the CEOs or their investors, to just let the company make a healthy profit and pay all its workers what they deserve.

If the workers took it over, I would think they don't have to worry about it all this crap. They can just say, you know, when it's up one year, down another year, but we're doing great. We're solid. We put out a good product. For the time being, we're good. Let's pay our workers what we need. And by the way, a democratically run Netflix would probably have better product.

AISHA NYANDORO: S

Redefining Wealth–with Aisha Nyandoro - OFF-KILTER - Air Date 11-2-2

o, the Magnolia Mother's Trust is a guaranteed income program that we really started dreaming about in 2017. And we started dreaming about it because as an organization, Springboard To Opportunities works directly with families that live in federally subsidized, affordable housing, and we pride ourselves on being a radical, [00:39:00] community driven, meaning that every program, every service, every activity that we provide is one that the residents within those communities have indicated they need in order to be successful in life, school, and work.

AISHA NYANDORO: In 2017, we became concerned that we weren't moving the needle on poverty. And what that meant for us was that we were not seeing a successful transition out of the affordable housing communities that these families live in. And it's not as if that was our goal, but for so many of the families that we work with, that is their goal. They either want to live in market rate housing because they want the privacy, or they want to move into home ownership. And so we realized that we weren't accomplishing that. So we went to families and we simply asked, what is it that we're missing? And everything that families indicated we needed was more money.

And so it really was, how do you go about giving individuals that live in affordable housing, mainly Black mothers, cash without restrictions? And that's where the Magnolia Mother's Trust came from. So, it's a guaranteed income program that provides [00:40:00] $1,000 a month for 12 months, $12,000 total. We are, in essence, doubling the income of the women that we work with. We've been doing this work now since 2018. We are on our fifth cohort of women. Not only do we provide a guaranteed income for the moms, we also provide 529 accounts for their kids, because we believe not only in investing in the moms now, but investing in the future of their kids.

And I tell people all the time that cash is important, and it's significant with the work that we do. But it is the least sexy part of what it is that we do within the Magnolia Mother's Trust. It's just one small piece of it. It's the changing the narrative on poverty, it's allowing these women to actually be able to show up in their full selves, their full abundance, the ability to show up and have their dreams actually be listened to and actualized.

And the fact that we have really had a small part on the play in how we talk about cash and the need for better cash-based benefits within this country, and the fact that all of this started [00:41:00] right here in Jackson, Mississippi from an organization that is led by Black women working with other Black women has been an amazing testament to the power of community and the power of movement work.

REBECCA VALLAS - HOST, OFF-KILTER: And for anyone who's not familiar with the Magnolia Mother's Trust, and I feel like guaranteed minimum income, universal basic income, there's a lot of those buzzwords that have gotten a lot more visibility and a lot more play in recent years. The child tax credit expansion, for example, that was just a sadly one-year experiment. It was allowed to end in the earlier part of the pandemic because of pandemic legislation, and that was a piece of legislation that actually cut child poverty in half. These are things that have really raised the visibility of this idea, guaranteed minimum income. It's taken it from being a talking point, something we heard Martin Luther King and even President Nixon arguing for decades ago, but really took that idea and said, hey, actually, this is something that we really can do and this really is something that we should do.

[00:42:00] Your project, I feel like a lot of folks increasingly have heard about it. For anyone who hasn't and who is interested in the subject and wants to know more, we've had you on the podcast now several times talking in greater depth, so I'm going to put a few of those links in show notes so folks can go and check out the other episodes with you. Because what I'm really excited to get to do with you today is to actually really zoom out, and to ask that bigger picture question that you were asking in your TED Talk, which is, what does wealth mean to you? And as I mentioned, you're -- spoiler -- a big part of that talk and a big part of what we're going to be talking about today and the message that you're really getting out to the world is, it's time for us to redefine wealth as a country. And that's really important for us to do if we're in the business of talking about economic justice, economic liberation, and we want to do more than just tinker around the edges of the status quo. So I feel like the right place to kick off that conversation, and I'm excited to spend really the entire episode getting into this in depth [00:43:00] with you; this is going to be fun! But I want to ask, what was the story behind how you chose this as the theme and the lead for your talk: What does wealth mean to you?

AISHA NYANDORO: So, actually, the thing for my talk, really, I was thinking about, can we be brave enough to reimagine wealth? So that was really where I was coming at it from. But even with the reimagining wealth and having those conversations, it really is something that I've been thinking about for the last year and a half, last two years, and it's directly connected to the work that I do each day with the Magnolia Mother's Trust and the work that I get to do with the women of Springboard as a whole.

And so as we have been doing this work and as we see more women moving towards a place of income stability where they're not under the backdrop of financial scarcity, they were starting to talk about wealth, and I say that in my talk. And the way that they were talking about wealth was not the way that my colleagues and friends in the space of the economy, foreign economic justice talk about wealth.

[00:44:00] And it made me realize that we were missing, our language wasn't connecting, and so since our language wasn't connecting, that we were excluding from the conversation the very population that we need to be including if we are talking about how do we go about resolving for wealth in this country, and how do we go about making wealth accessible to everyone?

And so it really was, okay, we're thinking about the women that we work with, how do you define wealth? What is wealth to you? And how do we use that as the entry point to the conversation, recognizing that that definition of that of wealth is valid, recognizing that that definition of wealth has merit? And instead of saying that, okay, oh, how you define wealth isn't actually wealth, we meet you where you are. And we say, okay, you know what, that is wealth. And that's a reorientation for us rather than a reorientation for them.

But so many times we don't do that. We are coming into the conversation with this capitalistic frame that, okay, wealth has to be six months worth of savings. Wealth [00:45:00] has to be equity in your home. Wealth has to be XYZ. Well, for a population that's just moving from income instability and now saying that you have to have XYZ in order to have wealth, it continues to exclude them, and they continue to not feel as if they can actually be a part of the larger conversation that we actually should be centering in.

And so that's really where it came from, just thinking through how do we actually use the wisdom of community, and use the wisdom of these women to actually reorient our conversation into a conversation that actually, it's a conversation of equity, and it's a conversation that actually does get us to liberation, more so than this narrow frame that we have been using.

Inside West Virginias New Economic Bill of Rights–with Troy N. Miller - OFF-KILTER - Air Date 11-9-23

TROY N. MILLER: And so I see this, and I'll just read off the ten of them here: "The West Virginia Democratic Executive Committee affirms support for a 21st Century economic bill of rights, affirming the right to a job that pays a living wage; the right to a voice in the workplace through a union and [00:46:00] collective bargaining; the right to comprehensive quality health care; the right to a complete cost free public education and access to broadband internet; the right to decent, safe, affordable housing; the right to a clean environment and a healthy planet; the right to meaningful resources at birth and a secure retirement; the right to sound banking and financial services; the right to an equitable and economically fair justice system; and the right to vote and otherwise participate in public life.

I think that these are all very sort of middle of the road thing... I think these are American values. I don't think that this should be at all a partisan thing. And I've seen some interesting responses where, you know, one sort of progressive Twitterer weighed in and said, Well, no wonder that the West Virginia Democrats support this. This is very moderate, right? This is just saying that they won't get in the way of you having a job that pays a living wage, right? And you and I can understand that there's two ways to understand rights. There's negative rights that say the government isn't going [00:47:00] to prevent you from having these things. The right to free speech, for instance, is really a negative right that says the state is not going to interfere with, it's not necessarily guaranteeing that the state is going to provide a platform for everyone, but, you know, it's not going to interfere there.

I think these are affirmative rights. I believe that these are absolutely not saying that the state won't interfere with your access to broadband, but will actually Facilitate your access to broadband. These are, I think, as I was reading through these points, I could think of different episodes of this program where each of these things has been highlighted as an economic justice issue, a disability justice issue. You know, if you can't participate in public life, if right now, if you don't have broadband: Whew! Lord knows, through the pandemic, I don't know how you were going to school, and I know that there were people sitting in McDonald's parking lots and Starbucks parking lots using the free Wi Fi in order to get their education, which is also not necessarily fully guaranteed right now.

Now, [00:48:00] the other criticism I've seen from it is, Well, this is nice, this is a lot of nice words, is there any enforcement? And one has to go, Well, no, not at the moment. First of all, we're a state party, we can't actually create laws like that. Well, can you throw somebody out if they don't believe that? Maybe we can get there. We're not there yet. But what it is saying, and I haven't talked to a single person within the party who hasn't said, This is great. Thank you. Now we know what we're organizing around. Now we know how to make the conversation happen without having to respond to the "other size" categorization of us. And I think part of this, part of the problem is that since the 1990s, Newt Gingrich and others within the Republican Party were very, very, very good about taking control of rhetoric nationally with the Contract for America and various other... um, the whole choose your topic. It's been colored by the Republican narrative. It's Obamacare. Okay, well that's been [00:49:00] turned around and he decided to make that an affirmative thing, but that was not how that was intended and we ended up with that as our rhetoric anyway, right? Same thing with death panels, right? And now, Joe Biden has started talking about any commission to discuss cutting Social Security benefits as a death panel and that's, I think, really brilliant rhetorically, but it's nonetheless, we had to take their rhetoric and turn it around.

The Democrats have been playing reactively for how they're defined, and I see this at every level of government, where the news cycle is, This side does this, and Democrats say this about it. And it's never the Democrats out ahead of an issue defining it on their own and forcing the other side to react to it. And so I really am looking forward to when Republicans start trying to attack these things and say - or anyone, I mean, whether it's a Republican, a Democrat, or anywhere in between - no, Americans don't have a right to a complete [00:50:00] cost free public education. You know, you don't have the right to medical care. You don't have these very basic rights that, to paraphrase Senator Sanders, the richest country at the richest time in our history, should be able to offer these things.

And, again, I go back to what I was saying earlier about this perverse sense of government services exist to make a profit or exist to make certain numbers go up, and if those numbers, if those measures, aren't going up, then we might as well cut the program. And it makes me think of Robert Kennedy Sr., before he was assassinated in 1968, who gave a great speech that I think about a lot, where he talks about what the gross national product can measure and it can measure the bombs that we drop, it can measure the ambulances on our roads, it can measure the quality of our roads, how much we're spending on textbooks, all of these types of things. But what it can't measure is the quality of our play. It can't measure the quality of our leisure. It can't measure the actual quality of [00:51:00] education and the civic leaders and civic participants that we are fostering through our expenditures on education. GDP and gross national product are both incredibly limiting measures. And if we use those alone to dictate our policies rather than, you know, asking the hard questions of, Well, what does it mean to have the right to a clean environment? Is it just what the parts per million concentration is of a given poison, whether it's PFAS or another one, or are we actually working not to just limit the poisons but to create a proactive, you know, so that we're not necessarily having to just measure things constantly to say, Oh, now that's too dangerous. But it was just under too dangerous before, right? How do we proactively stop another Flint, Michigan from happening? How do we proactively say that, Hey, maybe our municipal water services shouldn't exist to make shareholder profits at all.

Bonus How Media's Use of 'The Economy' Flattens Class Conflict Part 2 - Citations Needed - Air Date 11-1-23

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: This idea that it's just going to all be doom and gloom. Now, of course, [00:52:00] people don't strike for the left. They strike for a, it's a calculated risk towards another end. And one headline one never sees is "UPS strike could lead to 30 billion dollars in gains for workers", or "Threat of UAW strike could lead to billions more in the hands of the working class", or "Potential railroad strike could give workers much needed paid vacation to go to their kids plays and go to funerals and hospital visits". There's never a sense that the economic impact of a successful or semi-successful strike... and in many ways, I think it's born from a general misconception people have that workers' rights were handed down to them by like, do-good Protestant bureaucrats in the 1930s, right? There's no sense, like we completely erase labor history in this country. We've talked about this in the show before. Nobody has any idea about the radicalism of the '10s, '20s, '30s, like no idea. There was just like a bunch of nice Protestant members of the Roosevelt administration who one day woke up and decided to bestow workers' rights. And so there's no sense that like the struggle has "economic impact" for working people. So, if you could kind of talk [00:53:00] about the asymmetry of this idea that it's all doom and gloom and there's no sense that like this is a temporary form of medication for a larger cure or partial cure down the line.

KIM KELLY: Yeah, I think there's three little pieces here. The labor history piece, of course, like that's not something that you learn about in school. We don't learn, unless you are maybe in grad school or in a very specific program or have a really cool school, the lack of understanding of what it took for us to even get here in our current flawed state of affairs... I mean, kids don't necessarily learn about the Battle of Blair Mountain. They don't learn about the thousands upon thousands, ultimately millions, of workers that went on strike going back to 1824, when young women and girls in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, launched the first factory strike in American history, because they were being forced to work 14 hours a day and take a pay cut, instead of their usual 12. Like, the amount of work it's gone into to get us to even this [00:54:00] point, it's wild.

I mean, I wrote a whole book about it. Lots of other people that are much smarter, more educated than me have written very good books about it, too. It's really unfortunate that our own history is kind of either kept from us or just not made accessible to us. Because I think if we knew what it has taken, what it took, what people did to get us here, we might feel a little bit more agency over our own economic destinies, right? Like, Okay, knowing that someone just like me, 400 years ago, told their boss to take this job and shove it, might give me a little bit of the boost I need to tell my terrible supervisor to go F himself.

And people are surprised when they learn about labor history, about the history of these strikes, and these workers, and these leaders, about the fact that, you know, an anarchist couple led the first May Day parade in Chicago in 1886, shout out to Lucy and Albert Parsons, you know, like there's so much throughout our history that [00:55:00] is kept from us and I mean, that's kind of why I wrote a book about it, right? To make it more accessible, to bring it out into the sunlight.

But in terms of this issue where we're talking about the framing in the media specifically, there's two things that play there too, right? Like most of the media, especially the corporate media, it is not in their best interest to support workers and support unions, like, they're making money. They are part of the elite. They do not necessarily care about what poor and working people are dealing with, especially at places where they have a union. I mean, we've seen how the New York Times has treated its various unions. And we see the kind of headlines that run at the New York Times or the Washington Post, we know who owns that. I think it's a little complicated when you're in that corporate media space, which also makes it so important to support independent and progressive media, whether it's Labor Notes who have been killing it with the UAW strike, or In These Times, or The Real News, like all of these other options who understand and who do embrace that framing and [00:56:00] do get it. They just have less money and less visibility because they are more dangerous. And some of it, I do think, comes down to the class composition in some of these newsrooms, too. Especially when you're talking about these elite, legacy places that tend to dominate the headlines, like whether it's in TV news or in corporate media.

I think a lot of the folks who are making the decisions about those headlines are not necessarily gonna be sympathetic to workers because it wouldn't occur to them. Fancy, wealthy, well educated, like, upper class people don't necessarily care about what people like me or people in the picket line, or people like my neighbors in Kensington are dealing with. It's alien to them. It's not in their interest to support what we want, what we need, because it's diametrically opposed to what they need. There's just a lack of understanding of unions and their import and class politics and class delineations in those newsrooms, you know. At the risk of sounding self [00:57:00] aggrandizing, like, I think perhaps a few more people with my perspective in those spaces might shift the balance in ways that would be helpful for the rest of the normal people out there trying to get some goddamn attention.

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Well, that was one of the things about the whole, there was this whole 'Trump is going to go talk to autoworkers' media narrative that was completely fabricated. And people, to give some context for those listening, Trump announced he was going to like, in a very vague way, go to Detroit to talk to striking autoworkers. That was not true. It was never going to be true. Turned out, of course, not to be true. But for about 10 days, the media carried this narrative of, some even said he was going to join the picket line, which was never something that they even said through osmosis. And everyone said, Well, why, you know, why are they softballing Trump here? And then you realize that it's actually very much, it's about that, yes, but it's also very much about cultural, institutional elitism in newsrooms about the average autoworker as being a mindless sort of... because again, they perceive them as White, which is not true at all, by the way. The UAW is very much not just White, but there's, again, there's cultural [00:58:00] stereotypes about UAW workers that they're all just a bunch of like racist clapping seals who just will give in to any demagogue who pumps his fist, rather than a kind of well oiled union machine that is not going to be fooled by it, and they weren't fooled by it.

Bonus Redefining Wealth–with Aisha Nyandoro Part 2 - OFF-KILTER - Air Date 11-2-23

REBECCA VALLAS - HOST, OFF-KILTER: Wealth, you say, is about a sense of agency, a sense of freedom, the collective well being of the whole. It is not an individual pathological pursuit. Talk a little bit about that incredibly powerful line and unpack that for us.

AISHA NYANDORO: Yeah, no, I think it goes to what you were saying earlier about so many times we look at wealth as the consumer aspect of it. It is just capitalism. What can I buy for the betterment of myself? I, I, I, I, I, I. But in the conversations that I have with the women and the research that I've done, the way that they define wealth, it's about the collective whole. It is what does this allow, what is this sense of freedom allow for me to do for others? How does this allow my agency be able to show up differently? How does it [00:59:00] allow me the breathing room to be more imaginative? It is never a Well, if I have more money, what will I do for myself? Or what can I buy myself? It's okay if I have more financial security, this will look like XYZ for my family. That will look like XYZ for my kids. It is a reframing that is beautiful and significant, and it's one that, if we're willing to take the lesson from, can get society as a whole to a place where we actually are operating as a society and not just a collection of individuals taking up space in the same physical location with each other.

REBECCA VALLAS - HOST, OFF-KILTER: I love all of that. And also, just to step back and acknowledge, this is a radical redefinition that you're arguing for. It is actually a massive paradigm shift and it's beautiful. But also this is a stepping onto a very different playing field when it comes to the imagination space that it takes us to.

I feel like part of where I want to take us next [01:00:00] is to give you the chance to talk a little bit about some of what you've heard from the mothers in the Mother's Magnolia Trust when you ask them the question, What wealth means to them? And that was some of what you did in prep for your talk, because you say some of how we do this, right? People might be like, oh yeah, redefining wealth, that sounds great, but like, where do we start? How do we do something that sounds that big? You say, well, how we do this is by listening to others and listening to ourselves. You started by listening to the mothers who are the co-designers of this project with you, what did you hear from mothers in the Mother's Magnolia Trust when you asked what wealth means to them?

AISHA NYANDORO: I've heard so many different things, and that's really where this reframing came from. Like I said, I've been thinking about this about a year and a half, two years. And it really was, as it relates to what are the next steps as it relates to our work? So we had done the hard work of getting people to income stability, and we had more and more colleagues and myself as well were thinking about, [01:01:00] okay, if you're now at income stability, let's begin to think about how you can go about building that wealth and that traditional definition of wealth. And as we were having conversations with our moms about, okay, well, what would that look like if we really helped you to deal wealth? Will that be --? And we were coming at it initially with the traditional set up, would that be helping you start a business? Would that be helping you learn more about the stock market and opening investment accounts and all of those pieces. And all of that was projected, quite frankly, blatantly by the women that we work with.

And it wasn't that it was rejected with the lack of understanding. They knew very well what those pieces were. It was rejected in a sense of, no, that's not what I need. That's not how I define wealth.

And I remember the conversation that like, I can see where I was and everything. I remember it that vividly, the conversation where I was having with one of our moms, where I first asked the question, well, how would you define wealth if what you're telling me is not making sense? And she said, okay, if something were to [01:02:00] happen to me, my family wouldn't have to set up a GoFundMe account. They would have the money to bury me. It punched me in my gut. And it took my breath away. And I was like, Oh!

And when I sat down and thought about it, I was like, that actually does make a lot of sense. Because when you look at the data, we know that people of color, typically when they pass, they leave debt, and so being able to think about what that does to that family and having that responsibility to shift to your family, again, it was not about her, it was, okay, making sure that my family wouldn't have that responsibility.

And so it was a reframe that I needed, and I was like, okay, let me come at this conversation in a way that I always come at this conversation, which is centering the wisdom of community, and not coming in with my research, economy, economist mindset, and so that's really where we started asking the question, and it was everything from the funerals, it was, I remember one mom saying, [01:03:00] I want to have a two-car garage, because I want to be able to come into my house and put my car in my garage, and nobody knows that I'm at home.

And so it was those very specific things that they talked about. They talked about the joy of being able to go on vacation annually with their kids -- and not some lavish vacation, talking about going down the road to the beach and those kinds of pieces.

And so it really was "We hear you. We're affirming what it is that you're saying." And not only I think it's important that it's, we hear you, but then also how do we reframe the conversation for ourselves as well? Because it's one thing to hear someone because then it's like, okay, oh, yes, poor you. That's how you're defining that. It's another thing when we then turn it inward and say, okay, actually, let me be brave enough to interrogate what I believe about wealth. Do I actually believe wealth to be all of these things that I'm working towards, [01:04:00] or have I just been caught up in a cycle of the status quo, doing what it is I feel like I have to do for respectability politics, or am I actually doing the thing that gives me joy and feeds my soul and actually aligns to my beliefs and my principles?

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT:

Final comments on how a shifting baseline obscures the inequity of our economic system

We've just heard clips today, starting with Thom Hartmann, describing the shift in power, granted to the wealthy by the Supreme court. Jim Hightower on his radio Lowdown looked at the impacts of Washington's revolving door. The Ralph Nader Radio Hour discussed corporate bullshit. Richard Wolff on Economic Update described a forward-looking vision of socialism. OFF-KILTER discussed ideas of how and why to redefine wealth. The Zero Hour interviewed Richard Wolf about democratizing workforces. And OFF-KILTER looked at the new economic bill of rights from the democratic party of West Virginia. That's what everybody heard. But members also heard bonus clips from Citations Needed looking at media framing and rhetoric around recent worker strikes. [01:05:00] And OFF-KILTER continued their discussion about redefining wealth.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: To hear that and have all of our bonus content delivered seamlessly to the new members only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at bestoftheleft.com/support, or shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

For more on creating a positive vision for our economic future, I think it's really worth going back to the old classic that I just republished this year, "The Fight for the Four Freedoms", looking back at the four freedoms and economic bill of rights proposed, but ultimately unfulfilled, by FDR. The episode is originally from 2019, but you'll find it in the podcast feed around June 23rd of this year.

Now to wrap up, I just want to talk for a minute about shifting baseline syndrome. And I will get to the economics, but I first came across this term related to the environment and reductions in wildlife abundance. So, the "shifting" [01:06:00] refers to the change in the situation over time. Before there were such and such number of birds, and now there are this many fewer, or bears or insects or whatever. But the "baseline" of shifting baseline syndrome refers to us and our perception. Each generation of people comes along and is introduced to the world as it is at the time of their childhood and their formative years. And that becomes our baseline. So someone in their twenties may go out into the world and find it to be a wonder of plenty and natural beauty, while someone in their eighties may see the current world as a diminished version of its past self and feel sorrow over that. So the shifting baseline syndrome is the difficulty of each succeeding generation in accurately placing themselves within the larger context that extends far back before their birth and their own personal experiences.

Now, [01:07:00] you know, as an example, like maybe you've been really, really lucky to have gone snorkeling near a tropical beach somewhere and you've been overjoyed to have seen a giant sea turtle swimming in the ocean. And that's great. It's an ancient creature that's still part of the natural world and our real thing of beauty. What a world of abundance we live in. But what is also true is that Christopher Columbus wrote in his journals that his sailors were kept awake at night by the thousands of turtles in the ocean bumping noisily into the hull of their ship. That kind of a shift is a lot harder to keep in our minds compared to what we experienced personally.

So, this brings us to economics. There's an endless debate about how much money is a good and moral amount of money for a person to be paid for their labor. Not to mention all the non-monetary resources we all have to ration out, like access to healthcare. [01:08:00] And as a side note, I do say that on purpose in that way, because it is a myth that we don't ration healthcare in the United States. We say that that's something that only happens in countries with socialized healthcare systems, but no, we ration care as well, but instead of rationing it by need, we ration it based on ability to pay. But back to the debate over how much people should actually be paid for their work. My point today is not just to argue that a higher percentage of corporate profits should be distributed to the workers rather than the management and the investors. Or that worker ownership is a better way to achieve that basic goal, of course, but to put that current debate into a larger context and expose how shifting baseline syndrome is playing a role.

There are plenty of people alive today who were born into a world in which a middle-class family with only one person earning a paycheck could build a more prosperous life for themselves than is possible today, by a long shot. And there are a [01:09:00] lot of reasons for that. But because that was the emerging norm at the time, there was no sense like these people were greedy or decadent or anything like that. But now we live in a time after decades of neo-liberalism has been relentlessly making incremental shifts in economic norms and corporate power in which people, both individually in their minds and collectively through how we interact with each other, have been taught to do more work and expect less compensation for it. And if you stand up and say that people should make more money or that we should get more time off, the response that we often get is an accusation of decadence or laziness. But rather than simply debate that point or argue back and forth about the right level of work versus pay versus free time, et cetera, I would suggest that you within yourself sort of interrogate why you think what [01:10:00] you do and encourage others to do the same.

Have your opinions been shaped by short-term perspectives, hampered by shifting baseline syndrome? Or Do you have a larger historical perspective? There's a lot of evidence that the expectations of our current economic system is causing widespread burnout. Millennials have been called the burnout generation. All of this coincides with the rise of the gig economy and the grind set. The idea that to get ahead, one must simply work harder, claw and scrape at every opportunity to earn money. And it has gone so far that people who suffer from clinical burnout who needed desperately to take time away from work to rest and recuperate, feel like to do so would be selfish and decadent.

The culture of neo-liberalism, not just the economic policies, but the culture, the collective mindset, the judgment [01:11:00] from other people, has created this toxic stew where doing something that is healthy for ourselves is often looked down on. Hm, must be nice, someone might say, you know, dripping with judgment when a coworker suffering from crippling stress and anxiety finally decides to take an extended vacation. Meanwhile, the culture of neo-liberalism congratulates those who have amassed hundreds of unused vacation days. Good for you, never miss a day, grind it out, build that wealth, right? It is a cultural ratchet, but only turns one direction. And it's not just the rich and powerful who have somehow brainwashed everyone thinking that overwork and underpay are laudable. We now do it to ourselves and each other with every little judgemental comment, every suggestion that not taking that vacation is the path to promotion. And it all drives people to work ever harder and expect [01:12:00] ever less.

The only way to truly shift the economic system is to also shift the culture around it, to call bullshit on the premise that this is the best we can do, that corporate profits and the carrots of possible raises and promotions hung in front of us are things worth sacrificing our health for. It's a sort of mass delusion, but it's an understandable one because most people working today grew up in this environment and never knew anything different. They didn't live through the time of enormous union power that helped keep corporate profits and labor wages on track with one another. They've mostly lived through this period of corporate power, record profits, and flat wages.

It really is understandable that people would simply adjust to the new baseline, the same way we adjust our expectations about how many turtles we should see in the ocean. This is how the world is. This is how the world works. This is what I need to do to survive. Let's [01:13:00] get on with it. But history shows that it's always worth trying to find ways to improve the situation for the vast majority of people on a structural level, not just by encouraging everyone to work harder and meditate more if they're stressed out. But we also need to use our imagination to strive for something better, even if the past is better than the present, why would we imagine that that's the best we could do? The past should be inspiration, not a blueprint. And we need to be guided by human needs more than any economic metric. Widespread burnout, stress, and anxiety: these are symptoms of the disease. Our economic system and the associated culture aren't the only problem, but they are a real big part of it. So, we have to work collectively on breaking the delusion that we've been doing things right for the past few decades and that any problems that may arise, you know, people being stressed out, people going bankrupt from healthcare costs, anything in between, that, [01:14:00] you know, these are just problems to be dealt with on an individual level that maybe you should have just worked harder and clocked a bit more time on that meditation app.

That is going to be it for today. As always keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about this or anything else you can leave us a voicemail or send us a text 202-999-3991, or simply email me to [email protected]. Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our Transcriptionist Trio, Ken Brian, and LaWendy, for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work on our social media outlets, activism segments, graphic designing, web mastering, and bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships at bestoftheleft.com/support. You can join them today by signing up. It would be greatly appreciated. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with a [01:15:00] link to our Discord community, where you can also continue the discussion.

So, coming to you from far outside, the conventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my name is Jay, and this has been the Best of the Left podcast coming to you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from bestoftheleft.com.

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#1592 Israel and Palestine are less complicated than you think (Transcript)

Posted by · November 10, 2023 9:57 PM

Air Date 11/10/2023

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] During today's episode, I'm going to be telling you about a show I think you should check out. It's The Black Guy Who Tips podcast. So take a moment to hear what I have to say about them in the middle of the show, and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

And now, welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast in which we'll take a look at how violence and oppression are corrosive to both the victim and perpetrator, and why this goes a long way toward explaining many of the dynamics at play in the Holy Land between Israelis and Palestinians.

Sources today include AJ+, The Mehdi Hasan Show, The Bitchuation Room, Owen Jones, This Is Hell!, Inside the Hive, Factually! with Adam Conover, and Democracy Now!, with an additional members-only clip from Against the Grain.

Why Hamas Attacked Israel - And What's Next For Gaza - AJ+ - Air Date 10-13-23

DENA TAKRURI - HOST, AJ+: Just after dawn on October 7th, 2023, Palestinian fighters belonging to the group Hamas broke out of the besieged Gaza Strip. After blowing through Israel's high tech fence, [00:01:00] they attacked several of the surrounding military bases and overran them, before moving on to Israeli communities near the border.

At least 1, 300 Israelis were killed, and dozens were captured and taken into Gaza to be used in a future prisoner swap. Many of the dead were deemed civilians under international law, and children were also among those killed. Many governments have rallied behind Israel, which has already bombarded Gaza with airstrikes, flattening neighborhoods, and killing at least 1, 900 Palestinians at the time of this recording.

Israel has also cut off water, electricity, fuel, and food to the people there, and declared a total siege. So why did Hamas attack Israel?

A lot of the condemnation of the Hamas attack has called it unprovoked. But is that accurate? Now, the purpose here isn't to condone or justify it. It's to understand why it happened, because if we don't, then it's more likely that we'll see this happening over and over again.

While things may have been calm and normal for [00:02:00] Israelis until then, for Palestinians, daily life was intolerable pain. In fact, for 16 years, Gaza has been under an Israeli siege so severe that it's often called the world's largest open-air prison. The Secretary General of the United Nations has described Gaza as hell on earth. And way back in 2012, the UN warned that if Israel's policies in Gaza didn't change, this tiny strip of land that's one of the most densely populated places on earth would become unfit for human living by 2020. It's now 2023. And in fact, analysts who had been paying attention were trying to sound the alarm, that things were getting worse, that the status quo was getting more and more untenable, that an explosion was inevitable.

The siege began when Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, a year after winning the Palestinian Authority elections.

You see, Hamas was founded in Gaza in the late 1980s, 20 years into Israel's occupation of the territory. The group [00:03:00] has a military link, but it's also a political party. Its stated goal is to liberate all of Palestine and the return of Palestinian refugees exiled during Israel's founding in 1948. And it has always said that the only way to achieve that goal is to fight.

For the 2. 3 million Palestinians who live in Gaza, the 16-year siege means that Israel controls basically everything about their lives, and it has created a humanitarian catastrophe for them. The economy is devastated because Israel limits Gaza's trade with the outside world, leaving most of the population unemployed.

The health sector has also been in crisis, with medicines frequently running out, and patients denied Israeli permits to leave for life-saving health care. And electricity only lasts a few hours a day because Israel limits the amount of fuel let into Gaza. At one point, official documents showed that Israel calculated the number of calories allowed into Gaza, just enough to keep people from starving.

Nearly half of Gaza's population is under 18. That [00:04:00] means most of the people living there have never been able to leave Gaza. They've never stepped foot in Jerusalem or met a fellow Palestinian from the occupied West Bank. And they've survived several major attacks, leaving them with unimaginable trauma.

Tens of thousands of homes and buildings were targeted and destroyed by Israel during these assaults, which left thousands of Palestinians dead. For example, in the summer of 2014 alone, at least 2,100 Palestinians, including at least 500 children, were killed by Israeli bombardment. In that conflict, 72 Israelis were killed, 66 of them soldiers.

Despite some international criticism, Israel has never faced serious calls to end its siege on Gaza. In 2018, tens of thousands of Gazans tried to break the siege by marching nonviolently onto the boundary fence with Israel every Friday for almost two years. They were met with gunfire. For weeks, Israeli soldiers shot at those attempting to get close, resulting in hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries, [00:05:00] including medics and journalists.

Even before Hamas took control of Gaza, Israel had subjected the territory to a closure since the 1990s. This meant that Palestinians could rarely enter or exit Gaza unless they had a rare Israeli permit. This policy is part of a larger Israeli military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank that's now lasted more than half a century. Multiple human rights groups around the world have found that Israel actually runs a system of apartheid, with separate laws for Israelis and Palestinians. Ultimately, this means that Israel is a state that, based on ethnicity, denies citizenship and rights to the millions of people over which it rules, i.e., the Palestinians.

Under international law, Israel's occupation, which is now in its 56th year, is illegal. And apartheid is a crime against humanity.

Meanwhile, the occupied West Bank is ruled by Hamas' political rival, the Palestinian Authority, which rejects confrontation with Israel, hoping to end the occupation through US-led peace talks. But since those peace talks began 30 [00:06:00] years ago, Israel has only expanded its illegal settlements on Palestinian land, and the occupation has become more entrenched. Time and time again, Palestinians have seen that negotiations, peaceful marches, and other nonviolent means of protest have not gotten them any closer to achieving freedom and rights.

In the overall situation for Palestinians living under Israel's occupation has steadily gotten worse. The current Netanyahu government, the most right wing and anti-Arab in Israel's history, includes leaders who have openly called for the renewed ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and the destruction of entire Palestinian towns.

In 2023 alone, they've incited several attacks on Palestinian villages in the West Bank -- attacks that even Israeli observers refer to as "pogroms", referring to the antisemitic rampages suffered by Jews in Eastern Europe. Armed Israeli settlers smashed homes, burned cars, and set fire to fields. When Palestinians try to defend their property, Israeli forces shot at them, both with live [00:07:00] fire and rubber-coated bullets, as well as tear gas.

Israeli politicians and settlers have also repeatedly entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third-holiest site in Islam, where Israeli forces have attacked Palestinian worshipers. By the way, they've been open about their attempts to destroy the mosque and build a new Jewish temple atop it. And the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank hit a 20-year high in 2023.

The scale of the Hamas attack was unprecedented in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While dis- and misinformation has spread widely in the aftermath about precisely what happened, there's no doubt that Israeli civilians were targeted.

OMAR BARTOV: It's important to remember that Israel has one of the best equipped militaries in the world, and the backing of many Western governments. That's why it's always been able to inflict far more death on Palestinians than vice versa.

'The possibility of genocide is staring us in the face' in Gaza: Holocaust studies professor - The Mehdi Hasan Show - Air Date 11-3-23

OMAR BARTOV: I think that the situation we're facing now, as the statement that you read earlier that I co-signed indicates, is one [00:08:00] where the possibility of genocide is staring us in the face. You have cited many statements made by Israeli politicians, by Israeli generals, which indicate an intent, one of the most difficult aspects to prove in genocide, and in fact these leaders have used statements that appear to show an intent to genocide, to commit genocide. My own view is, as far as I can tell, uh, being here and not on the ground there, and depending on reports like most of us, is that what is happening right now in Gaza can quite clearly be seen as war crimes, potentially also crimes against humanity, possibly may become genocide. I don't think that what is happening there right now is genocide, and there are conflicting statements also from [00:09:00] commanders on the ground who are claiming that they are using a great deal of military force, but what they're trying to do is to kill Hamas operatives, and they are trying not to kill civilians, although, as you've said, they have not done so very successfully. But I think it's very important to stress that the danger of genocide is right there, and that, if things progress, as they're going right now, what we are seeing now may become much worse.

There are also very threatening statements that you haven't cited, which have to do with an intent to ethnic cleansing. One statement that became public is from the Ministry of Intelligence, which is not a particularly important ministry right now, but that is talking about removing all the Palestinian population from Gaza to the Sinai Peninsula, to the Egyptian side of the border. That would clearly be an indication of ethnic cleansing. [00:10:00] And one thing we know about genocide is that it often begins with ethnic cleansing. In fact, that's what happened in the Holocaust. So what we are seeing is a very, very dangerous moment. And if no stop is brought right now, things may very quickly deteriorate.

MEHDI HASAN - HOST, THE MEHDI HASAN SHOW: So, Professor, some defenders of Israel point not just to steps taken by the Israeli military to ostensibly reduce civilian casualties, like dropping leaflets, telling Gaza to evacuate, but also to the fact that the Palestinian population in both the West Bank and Gaza has increased over the decades. So how can Israel be behaving in a genocidal way, they say? The British writer Simon Sebag Montefiore, in a very viral essay for The Atlantic last week said, "Demographic shrinkage is one obvious marker of genocide, and yet the Palestinian population has grown", he says, and continues to grow. Is that a fair defense?

OMAR BARTOV: No, I don't think so. No. Um, look, one issue with genocide, and when you referred [00:11:00] to Russia and Ukraine was quite relevant, is in the case of Russia and Ukraine, Russia refuses to accept the possibility of there being an independent Ukrainian state. It doesn't want to kill all Ukrainians, it wants to actually destroy the idea of a Ukrainian nation. And Israel has had some agreements with the PLO, with Palestinian political leadership, but by and large, there is a very strong push in Israel with the Netanyahu, the multiple Netanyahu administrations, to make the Palestinians somehow go away. This is actually not happening only in Gaza, but also on the West Bank, where violence by settlers, protected by the military and often with the help of the military, increasingly exercising violence against the Palestinians there, and there are dangers, and many Palestinians would say so, of a second Nakba, of another expulsion of [00:12:00] Palestinians.

So, in that sense, numbers, you know, people in Gaza, and I actually served in Gaza many years ago as a soldier, in the 1970s, the population was 350,000, and now it's between 2 and 2.5 million people. So the population has grown, conditions have greatly deteriorated, and Gaza has been besieged for 16 years now by the Israeli authorities, and if the intention is to move people out of their territory, then what you can say is that there's an indication of ethnic cleansing.

MEHDI HASAN - HOST, THE MEHDI HASAN SHOW: Let me ask you this, Professor. What would you say to Israelis, to fellow Jews, who say it's outrageous to accuse us of genocide, given what we've endured in our history, and especially when we're fighting against Hamas, which has expressed genocidal intent towards us? What would you say?

OMAR BARTOV: So the first thing I would say is that indeed Hamas has expressed genocidal intent, and the massacre that is [00:13:00] carried out was clearly a war crime and a crime against humanity. So I don't think there's any question about that. To me, as someone who has studied and written on the Holocaust for decades now, what is most outrageous is that an Israeli government, the government of the only Jewish state in the world, is pursuing policies that can easily be identified as policies of war crimes, of crimes against humanity, and is making genocidal statements. That is the most outrageous aspect about this government, a government of a state that was created in the wake of the Holocaust, that has said repeatedly, never again. And 'never again' is not only never again against Jews, but never again, never again genocide.

Shock Doctrine Israel with Naomi Klein - The Bitchuation Room - Air Date 10-31-23

NAOMI KLEIN: I think there's lots of different ways of understanding this extremely reckless, treacherous blanket support that the Israeli state is getting right now, some of [00:14:00] which has to do with this kind of Second World War do-over loop that we're in, where it's like, Okay, well we let it happen last time, we waited way too long, even when we intervened to stop Hitler, you know, we didn't do things like bomb the train tracks on the way to the camps. I mean, so there's this way in which this narrative, and this is a separate question, but I just want to be clear that there's a lot going on right now. And some of it is this idea that Israel cultivates a positioning, like freezing itself in the Holocaust moment and equating blanket support for Israel with this is your chance to stop another Holocaust, never mind that we are the ones committing massive war crimes and pre-announce we plan to commit genocide and then target civilians, collective punishment. This is a [00:15:00] genocide in progress, but while doing it, we are the ones saying, no, we're the ones facing genocide and now here's your chance to get it right this time. That's a lot of it, but that is not all of it. That doesn't explain all of it. It explains some of it, that's a piece of it.

Another is this idea of the lab. That they are the lab for every country that has a similar model of security without justice or peace in this incredibly unequal world, and it is connected with climate, it is connected with our other wars that our governments are waging and funding, and the mass displacement connected to that, and the fact that Israel is not the only country that is just trying to have a bubble of "normalcy" in the midst of mass incarceration of another people. It's just a hyper exaggerated example of that, right?

FRANCESCA FIORENTINI - HOST, THE BITCHUATION ROOM: It's a modern day, I mean, what I love about what you're saying is that [00:16:00] I think a lot of us, like, look at Israel as kind of this vestige of a colonial past, like, that's happening in real time, a modern day colonialism, but you're saying that actually it is mirroring the other ways that Western countries are trying to build higher borders, I mean, taller walls to keep out refugees from countries that we helped, you know, destroy. So it is kind of got one foot in both of these... it's a 75 year old, you know, wound, but then it also is continuing on...

NAOMI KLEIN: Our own settler-colonial states are trying to protect themselves in these ways. And oftentimes with Israeli-supplied technology. Because this is the pitch of security without peace, security without justice, that the Israeli government has been selling in its so-called start up nation, is like, you too can have the wall, you too can have the, you know, the biometric sensors and the rest of it and this is part of what allows Israel to have security without peace, because this is a booming economy. This is part of what fuels Israel's [00:17:00] economy, is the sale of these technologies and weaponry.

So, when Hamas penetrates that wall on the scale that it did on October the 7th, that is a security failure not only for Israel. It calls the whole project of security without peace or justice for the entire globe into question. And so I think part of what we're seeing in the ferocity of Israel's response and the seeming insanity of the support for it from Biden et al., is we cannot let this model fail because what does that mean for our own borders? What does that mean, you know, for the saws and the buoys in the Rio Grande? What does it mean for the barges the UK government is now using to deport migrants? You know, what does it mean for Australia's detention camps on islands like Manus? Like it's, this is a global project and Israel's a kind of [00:18:00] an intensified avatar for it.

And so that's partly how I understand what doesn't seem to make any sense of this blanket support. But yeah, it's also about the fact that it is a settler-colonial.... and this comes to the material in Doppelganger that looks at Israel as, you know, I quote a scholar, um, in the UK, Caroline Rooney, who calls Israel's formation an example of doppelganger politics in that it becomes a doppelganger of the European nationalism that so many Jews were fleeing. And you know, she's not saying it's a doppelganger of the Nazis, but she is saying it's a doppelganger of that sort of hyper-nationalism that fermented the pogroms, for instance. And of course, Israeli society has this, like, doppelganger at the center of it, which is this idea of the new Jew, right? It's a doppelganger of the old Jew, which is like hyper-masculinist, militarist, that holding the gun instead of the book, basically. And it's like, we will [00:19:00] defeat the other through brute force.

Antisemitism: An Evil, An Enemy Of Peace - Owen Jones - Air Date 10-31-23

OWEN JONES - HOST, OWEN JONES: Our opposition to what the Israeli state is doing is driven not by hatred; it is driven by a universal humanity, and from that same universal humanity must spring an absolute, visceral opposition to antisemitism.

The reasons for opposing the mass suffering of the Palestinian people, then, and the atrocities committed against the Palestinian people, must come from the same place as our opposition to antisemitism.

Now, this is important on its own terms. Antisemitism is a great evil, an evil which is responsible for hideous crimes, but it will also be impossible to achieve a lasting peace in Israel, Palestine and beyond, unless antisemitism is truly eradicated, which we'll talk about.

Now, the reason I decided to do this video now primarily is because of the events in Dagestan, Russia, in which an antisemitism mob went on a rampage searching for Israelis and also set fire to a Jewish center [00:20:00] under construction in a neighboring Russian republic. Here's a clip of what happened. [Video of angry mob]

Now these scenes we'll find in many Jews in whichever country they live, and that's more than understandable. What I want to talk about, as one often agrees, some history is so important to discuss. This isn't a lecture, those of you who are already familiar with all of it or most of it, but it's impossible to frame this argument without going over it.

Now, in Europe, antisemtism has a pedigree going back for around two millenia. And that's crucial to understand because it's ingrained in our culture. That means it's possible to absorb and replicate antisemitic ideas, imagery, tropes, without even realizing it. And the history of antisemitism in Europe cannot be, obviously, divorced from the defamatory myths of Jewish collective guilt for the killing of Jesus Christ. Now, whether or not Christ existed and, for nonbelievers like myself, there's a respectful disagreement with devout Christians about whether he was the son of God -- but nonetheless, he was, according to scripture, [00:21:00] killed by the Roman Empire. He was himself Jewish, and clearly, in any case, the Jewish people, either at the time or since, were not collectively responsible for his crucifixion.

In any case, it was a hatred which led to blood libel. For example, the idea that Jewish people were ritually murdering Christian children. Jews were blamed for the bubonic plague, not least in the 14th century, when a third of the European population perished. The claim was they were poisoning wells, that kind of thing, and that led to the massacre of Jews.

There were repeated expulsions of Jews in the 13th century in England. So the 12th century in England -- or 13th century -- sorry, the 14th century in France, 15th century in Spain and Portugal, and the rise of Protestantism also drove new forms of antisemitism.

Now it should be noted that in these periods It was far safer to be Jewish in the Middle East, where they were given the status of dhimmi, a term meaning essentially protected people, granting them legal protection alongside Christians. That didn't mean they couldn't suffer persecution, they could and did, they didn't enjoy full rights, but their [00:22:00] plight was generally considerably less severe than in Europe, and many Jews actually fled Europe to the Middle East in the Middle Ages.

Now Jews and Muslims actually allied together against the Crusaders, for example, in Haifa in 1099, and were massacred by the Crusaders together, in Jerusalem, where Frankish Crusaders burned Jewish worshippers to death in a synagogue.

Now, what's important to know is, in the 19th century, the nature of European antisemitism changed. Before then, it was based on religion. If a Jewish person converted to Christianity, they were treated as a Christian and therefore spared persecution. But with the advent of colonialism, we saw the rise of biological racism. The justification for colonialism came on the grounds that, for example, African people were an inferior race. That's how you could justify stealing their land and treating them in the most abominable way possible. And this biological racism, with its rise, then came to apply to Jewish people who are now racialized. And for this new wave of antisemitism, Jewish [00:23:00] people were always considered Jewish. It didn't matter if they converted to Christianity. Or, they weren't believers at all, or whatever, they were still considered Jewish, and therefore could never be spared persecution. And we saw an increase in this period of pogroms, not least in Eastern Europe, under Russian Tsarist rule, where the Tsarist authorities intentionally stirred up antisemitism. It's the context where the fabricated Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion were distributed, which claimed a Jewish plot for world domination, which circulated in the early 20th century onwards. And you can see, of course, the pogroms in eastern Europe of that period, the echoes of that today in Dagestan.

Now many Jews fled to western Europe in this period. In the 19th century saw the rise of the Jewish population of the UK, for example in the East End, who were then targeted by antisemitism, with the Conservatives' Alien Act of 1905 tapping into rising hostility to Jewish refugees at the time.

Now, obviously, antisemitism existed in the Middle East, but it is a historical fact that was [00:24:00] fueled to a significant degree by the export of forms of antisemitism originated in Europe, which then got assimilated locally.

And that's why it does remain true that the Palestinians are today, in large part, being forced to pay for the crimes of Europeans.

Far Right Exploiting Gaza War to Spread Antisemitism and Islamophobia / Shane Burley - This Is Hell! - Air Date 11-7-23

CHUCK MERTZ - HOST, THIS IS HELL!: What do we miss in our understanding of the reaction to the war in Gaza so far when we only see the binary of supporters on either side saying what can be defined as hate speech toward the other? What do we miss in our understanding when we only see that as the two sides?

SHANE BURLEY: I think part of it is the way that we frame discussions about Zionism and anti-Zionism, where anti-Zionism is seen as potentially antisemitic by its very nature. And that kind of dispels the reality, which is that there are people who argue in favor of Israel and maintain antisemitic views, and there's people who maintain against Israel and maintain antisemitic views, but the vast majority of [00:25:00] people in the Palestine Solidarity Movement are there because they support freedom and justice in Palestine.

There are other people who come in, not because... they really own those goals, but because they see it as a way of diverting anger towards Jews as a supposedly collective entity. So, when they're talking about Zionist occupied government, they're talking specifically about a Jewish occupied government. When they're talking about Israel, they're seeing it only as a Jewish collectivity. And because they know there's a lot of anger right now, and they know that people are flooding into the streets and they want to take action, they think that this is an opportunity for them to divert people away from the mainline Palestine Solidarity Movement and into their weird corner of it.

CHUCK MERTZ - HOST, THIS IS HELL!: So, uh, being, or seeing Jewish people as a collective entity, do you see that also taking place within, not just on the fringes of the far right, or even those on the far left, but do you see that also taking place in the establishment corporate media?

SHANE BURLEY: I think that it happens in a weird way on the sort of pro-Israel right a little bit more, where you [00:26:00] find right wing commentators speaking to what they hope is a Jewish audience to create sort of an allegiance between them by showing this kind of explosive support for Israel, while at the same time having other kind of far right politics that typically harm Jews. So it's a way of sort of buying a certain amount of loyalty by saying, Hey, well, look, I support Israel. And isn't that your collective entity? Isn't that the thing you care about the most? And that is something that, for example, Donald Trump said very explicitly when trying to garner Jewish votes, very explicitly in his treatment of, for example, moving the embassy to Jerusalem. All those sorts of things are built on this idea that they want to communicate with a Jewish audience by making this connection between Israel and Jews firm.

CHUCK MERTZ - HOST, THIS IS HELL!: There have been polls recently that show President Biden's support among Arab-Americans is dropping due to the policy, his policy, his administration's policy on Gaza and Israel. Meanwhile, Fox [00:27:00] News is supposedly benefiting from the war as those supporting Israel have found what has been described as a refuge for pro-Israel as well as anti-Palestinian perspectives. That would suggest White nationalists and Fox News would be at odds over Israel. Is there a divide right now taking place between Fox and White nationalists over the Gaza War?

SHANE BURLEY: Absolutely. And this is actually a split that's not new. It's one that happens between White nationalists and the more establishment side of the far right, the one that's associated more with the GOP and the electoral system. Because that dividing line is about whether or not they "name the Jew". If they think that Jews are at the center of this kind of global cabal, this global problem that they're locating, if they explicitly say it, that's usually the breaking point that they have with the mainstream right. The mainstream right uses Israel as its absolute key to the Middle East, right? They see it as an ethno-nationalist state, in a good way. They want to emulate that. They want to [00:28:00] have a sort of brutal military occupation against largely Muslim folks in the Middle East. And so this is something that they actually push for as a real centerpiece of how they view foreign policy. That is not the same as a lot of White nationalists who instead see Israel as simply another machination of Jews controlling global policy. They believe that Israel is what controls the U.S. and that, you know, funnels money and gets the U.S. into foreign wars, things like that. So that dividing line has been maintained for decades. And in fact, it's one of the ways in which they want to pull from disaffected areas of the far right electoral base. So, they're going to say, Hey, if you're dissatisfied with what's happening, you know, if you have an isolationist idea, or you have a more libertarian perspective, come over here, because we actually support criticizing Israel. We're actually going to break with the establishment. And this has always been the recruiting strategy, because what they want is disaffected people from the far right electoral sphere. They want to pull people who no longer feel represented by Fox [00:29:00] News or Tucker Carlson.

CHUCK MERTZ - HOST, THIS IS HELL!: So, you've been citing White nationalists now for a couple of decades. Do White nationalists, do they spend a lot of time arguing over who they should hate most?

SHANE BURLEY: Absolutely. I mean, this is a centerpiece of how they define themselves. And just like you see in any online culture, you have people trying to one up each other, name Jews more explicitly, but what really defines explicit White nationalism, particularly in the U.S., is how central the Jews are. Because you have to remember, White nationalists believe in a global plot against White people. And there's only one way that that really makes sense: if there's a little cabal at the top that's manipulating people. And so the Jews make a perfect totem for this, because the way that they sort of racialize them is excessively smart, conniving, that they have their hands in world affairs, that they manipulate the modern world, and so that is how they piece it together. Without that, their whole idea would fall apart.

Naomi Klein on 'Selective Information' About Israel and Gaza - Inside the Hive - Air Date 11-2-23

NAOMI KLEIN: I think it is one of those moments [00:30:00] where the most powerful forces on Earth, you know, backed by nuclear arsenals, whether we're talking about the U.S. or Israel, seem to be acting on pure emotion, which is not what one wants from leaders with that level of power. And this idea of just sending a message through brute violence, you know, I remember from post-9/11 of just, you know, we are going to teach them a lesson. That's not the way lessons work.

I mean, I think we are still in the world created by the brute violence after 9/11. This idea that you teach the world a lesson by destroying residential areas, hospitals... that breeds more terrorism from what I saw in my reporting in Iraq. And... I guess what I find shocking is that there seemed to be a sense that we learned a lot, like we told ourselves we learned some of the lessons from 9/11 about what violence can and cannot do, and now it just seems like [00:31:00] we are really doubling down.

BRIAN SELTER - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: When you say "we", who is the we?

NAOMI KLEIN: We is the Western world. I mean, you know, I'm speaking to you from Canada. I have dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship. I've lived in the States. I'm Jewish. So here I am a person that could have three citizenships if I wanted to. I am part of the intensely privileged world, as I think you are as well, but we live in an unbelievably unequal world and increasingly, I think, the privileged parts of the world believe that we can maintain really untenable levels of injustice and inequality through walls, prisons, force, you know, this is some of what I get into in the book, including, you know, the book does end in Gaza, strangely enough. So, when I say "we", I'm talking about all these governments and all the Western governments that have said to Israel, "We stand with you". I mean, I don't stand with Israel, I stand with international law. I stand with an international humanitarian legal architecture that grew out of the [00:32:00] Second World War and the atrocities of the Holocaust that says, You can't target civilians. So I condemned the targeting of civilians when it was Hamas doing it. But what I see in Gaza, with the leveling of apartment blocks, the collective punishment, and the discourse of, It's our turn to do Dresden, it's our turn to do Hiroshima, is actively unlearning everything that was learned from the atrocities of the Second World War.

I think this is a moment where we stand with what we already decided after the Second World War, which is you do not target civilians. You do not collectively punish and you do not attempt to eliminate a people in whole or in part. And when you have documents emerging from Israeli intelligence about moving large parts of the population of Gaza into Egypt, that is decimating a people in part. So, you know, I'm just trying to stay true to these agreements that our predecessors came up with in the aftermath of the Second World [00:33:00] War. I don't know what else to do.

BRIAN SELTER - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: One of the things that's really horrified me and baffled me are these massacre deniers. You know, these folks who are claiming that there wasn't actually a massacre in Israel, that it's made up by the media or by the Israelis. There has been a critique, there's been a claim, at least, that some on the left have been unwilling to condemn the Hamas massacre in Israel. Have you wrestled with that? Have you noticed this?

NAOMI KLEIN: I have wrestled with it. I wrote a piece in The Guardian that was explicitly about this, not that there was a denial, that's a separate thing, around the denials.

BRIAN SELTER - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: Yeah. The denial is a separate thing.

NAOMI KLEIN: I think that's quite marginal.

BRIAN SELTER - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: Okay.

NAOMI KLEIN: And I think it's important to say that there are people on the left who are in denial about the brutality of the targeting of civilians, the massacres on Israeli kibbutz, like B'Eri, the music festival, and very selective editing of information. It is massacre denialism, [00:34:00] and it serves no one to engage in that. There was, separate from what you're describing as denialism, there were comments that were made, you know, October 9th, 10th, 11th, that were just, somewhat celebratory, right? Or at least not reckoning with like, it's kind of an excitement about the image of the paraglider, right, of this image of freedom. And let me tell you, I mean, I've been to Gaza, I've reported from Gaza, it is absolutely an open air prison. And so I can understand 16 years into a siege when you just see a paraglider and you don't know where that paraglider is going, that that is an image of liberation. Right?

So, those initial responses of this is a jailbreak, I absolutely get. Once you know where they were going, it has a completely different meaning. And I think we need to acknowledge that. And I think there have been, there's been, there has been acknowledgment. I mean, there have been groups that, tweeted those images and, since taking them down.

Like I said, I think we need to [00:35:00] stay true to international humanitarian law. I think you can say Palestinians have the right to armed resistance. Up to the point of targeting civilians. That is not a complicated thing to say. That's not a complicated thing to acknowledge. People under occupation do have the right to resist. They don't have the right to target civilians. And if you want to have an ethical left, you can't celebrate violations of international humanitarian law in the morning and invoke them in the afternoon when it's the Israeli military that is violating international law. That's not how international law works. You have to believe in it all the time because really all it has is its moral force. So, it does matter and I think there have been many, many ethical Palestinian voices and voices on the left and this is why I am proud to be on the board of JVP, that have been very consistent in their application of international humanitarian law.

When I condemn what Hamas did, I condemn it as a war crime. [00:36:00] I am calling that a war crime, because that is what it is. But the way a lot of this has been discussed, and I think quite deliberately, has been as a hate crime against Jews. As a pogrom. As if they were just out hunting for Jews, right? And I understand why it feels that way, because it feels that, like, when I hear an Israeli official or a U. S. official say - what's the line? - that this is the most number of Jews were killed in any day since the Holocaust.

BRIAN SELTER - HOST, INSIDE THE HIVE: Since the Holocaust, yeah.

NAOMI KLEIN: Right. So, that makes it sound like they were killed because they're Jews. But I'm not sure they were killed because they were Jews. I think they were killed because they were Israelis. But that universalizes it. It takes it out of its geopolitics. It takes it out of a conflict over land and borders, and it says that this is just a hate crime, an antisemitic hate crime. And I think we should interrogate that a little bit. I'm not saying Hamas isn't, you know, I'm not saying that there wasn't hate there, of course, you know, I don't think you can kill people if you don't hate them, but I think it's a very [00:37:00] political choice and it is part of the information war to call it a pogrom, to put it in the context of the Holocaust, as opposed to in the context of a geopolitical, grinding battle over land and borders, and then call it a war crime.

What’s Happening in Israel and Why with Nathan Thrall - Factually! with Adam Conover - Air Date 11-1-23

NATHAN THRALL: The center-left president of Israel, the former head of the center-left Labor Party, in prepared remarks -- it's not even off the cuff -- he says, "There are no innocents in Gaza." There is no such thing as an innocent civilian in Gaza. It's shocking. The people of Gaza are as surprised by that attack as the Israelis were.

So 2. 3 million people for a center-left politician to prepare the ground for mass slaughter of innocents? The level of rage, the level of shock, you cannot overstate it. On a per capita basis, this is [00:38:00] much bigger than 9/11 for Israelis. The US invaded two countries, changed its domestic laws, it had a profound effect on American society, and that was when it was by a bunch of attackers from Saudi Arabia, more than an ocean and a continent away. And this is right next door.

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: This is New York attacking New Jersey, this is right next door.

NATHAN THRALL: And the most frightening thing is that, for the first time in my life, I can imagine this descending into a kind of Balkan civil-on-civil conflict, because people are not just blaming innocent Gazans, they're blaming the Palestinian people as a whole. And there are Palestinians who are citizens of Israel, there are Palestinians who are residents of East Jerusalem. There are Palestinians in the West Bank. And we already got a little taste of what that civil-on-civil conflict [00:39:00] can look like in May, 2021 when there was an escalation in Gaza. But I think we're at the beginning of something much worse.

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: The people who run Hamas must have known, as you said earlier, that they would provoke this kind of response. What would their justification be, or what would cause them to take after decades of "Hey, we fire a few rockets, we go back and forth, we're in this sort of stasis, yada, yada." What would the reason be to suddenly go in this huge, again, unconscionable attack?

NATHAN THRALL: Yeah. Precisely that. It's precisely that. This pattern of, we throw rockets at Israel. Israel bombs us, and then Egypt and Israel come and with the United States and propose a ceasefire where Israel promises to slightly ease the choking of Gaza. Gaza's kept at all times with its nose a millimeter above water.[00:40:00] These people are under siege.

And so this pattern of rockets and bombs and a leveling of Gaza with a ceasefire with promises that are broken within weeks or months to ease the restrictions on Gaza, that wasn't working. Another round wasn't going to change that situation. And this is clearly an attempt to turn the whole table over, with enormous risk to themselves, to the civilian population of Gaza, who are really --

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: This is not just risk, almost guaranteed devastation.

NATHAN THRALL: Guaranteed, yeah. Risk is understating it. Yeah. Guaranteed.

But the thing about it is that as horrible as that attack was, and as horrible as it is now in its consequences for the civilians in Gaza, if you look at it strategically, from Hamas's perspective, right now they are in a position of -- [00:41:00] even after launching the greatest attack against Israel, and Israel's making comparisons to the 1940s, and they have to do everything to eliminate Hamas, and all the society is behind the collective punishment of 2.3 million people and depriving them of food, water, and electricity -- even with all of that, Hamas has Israel in a corner. Israel does not have any decent option for what to do now. Israel doesn't know how to get those hostages out. It doesn't know how to answer the demand of its public: How is this never gonna happen again? It's not never gonna happen again if it's just another bombing, no matter how severe, of Gaza. There'll still be tunnels there, there'll still be Hamas there, even if you kill a bunch of guys, there'll be new ones, and with every quote unquote round in Gaza, Hamas got stronger and stronger. So that cannot be an answer to the Israeli public, which wants to know, how is this never gonna happen [00:42:00] again?

So then Israel is forced to actually try and execute on its stated aim, which is to quote unquote, eliminate Hamas -- which again, that's impossible, but they can do something short of it, but that is extremely costly. They've got 360,000 reservists called up right now. It's costing their economy a billion and a half shekels a day. They cannot continue for this for months, and it would take months to do what they claim that they want to do in Gaza, and even after doing that, who are they going to get to come in and administer Gaza, help rebuild it? They can't find an international force that would want to take on this task, and would that international force really have a mandate to shoot at Palestinians who are creating new rockets, for example, or doing new attacks against Israel or preparing for them? Hard to believe.

So Israel really has no decent options. [00:43:00] And so Hamas is in a position of great strength right now, even after doing this attack. They've got 200-plus hostages. As time passes, right now the attitude of Israeli government is "we lost 1400, we can lose another 200 to achieve this higher goal," which shows you how shocked they are. Because that's a total reversal of the entire Israeli ethos. Before this, it was, we are trading 1027 Palestinian prisoners for one Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, in 2011. Now it's "we can lose 200 by bombing Gaza and then going in with ground forces.

But again, the strategic goal that Israel has, which is to have some other force in place in Gaza, doesn't look very achievable. So at the end of the day, they're looking at having Hamas in place, battered, beaten, whatever, but still having Hamas in place in Gaza. So that's a total failure if you compare it to [00:44:00] their rhetoric, and potentially doing a massive prisoner exchange, potentially releasing every Palestinian prisoner. And if Hamas does that, it'll be the greatest achievement of any Palestinian organization in history.

ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: But at the expense of thousands of Palestinians being killed, untold misery, thousands, obviously, of Israelis being killed -- it seems you've painted a picture where that's a moral victory in some narrow strategic sense, it's a horrible loss for almost everybody in the region in every way.

NATHAN THRALL: And especially for Hamas's own constituency that they're supposed to be taking care of, the people of Gaza. They are paying the highest price. And it's clear that Hamas is willing to have them pay that price.

Ta-Nehisi Coates Speaks Out Against Israel's "Segregationist Apartheid Regime" After West Bank Visit - Democracy Now! - Air Date 11-2-23

TA-NEHISI COATES: When we went to Hebron, and the reality of the occupation became clear. We were driving out of [00:45:00] East Jerusalem, I was with PalFest, and we were driving out of East Jerusalem into the West Bank. And, you know, you could see the settlements, and they would point out the settlements. And it suddenly dawned on me that I was in a region of the world where some people could vote and some people could not. And that was obviously very, very familiar to me. I got to Hebron, and we got out as a group of writers, and we were given a tour by our Palestinian guide. And we got to a certain street, and he said to us, “I can’t walk down this street. If you want to continue, you have to continue without me.” And that was shocking to me.

And we walked down the street, and we came back, and there was a market area. Hebron is very, very poor. It wasn’t always very poor, but it’s very, very poor. Its market area has been shut down. But there are a few vendors there that [00:46:00] I wanted to support. And I was walking to try to get to the vendor, and I was stopped at a checkpoint. Checkpoints all through the city, checkpoints obviously all through the West Bank. Your mobility is completely inhibited, and the mobility of the Palestinians is totally inhibited.

And I was walking to the checkpoint, and an Israeli guard stepped out, probably about the age of my son. And he said to me, “What’s your religion, bro?” And I said, “Well, you know, I’m not really religious.” And he said, “Come on. Stop messing around. What is your religion?” I said, “I’m not playing. I’m not really religious.” And it became clear to me that unless I professed my religion, and the right religion, I wasn’t going to be allowed to walk forward. So, he said, “Well, OK, so what was your parents’ religion?” I said, “Well, they weren’t that religious, either.” He says, “What were your grandparents’ religion?” And I said, “My grandmother was a Christian.” [00:47:00] And then he allowed me to pass.

And it became very, very clear to me what was going on there. And I have to say it was quite familiar. Again, I was in a territory where your mobility is inhibited, where your voting rights are inhibited, where your right to the water is inhibited, where your right to housing is inhibited. And it’s all inhibited based on ethnicity. And that sounded extremely, extremely familiar to me.

And so, the most shocking thing about my time over there was how uncomplicated it actually is. Now, I’m not saying the details of it are not complicated. History is always complicated. Present events are always complicated. But the way this is reported in the Western media is as though one needs a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern studies to understand the basic morality of holding a people in a situation in which they don’t have basic rights, including the right that we treasure most, the franchise, the right [00:48:00] to vote, and then declaring that state a democracy. It’s actually not that hard to understand. It’s actually quite familiar to those of us with a familiarity to African American history.

NERMEEN SHAIKH - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Well, Ta-Nehisi Coates, last night you were asked about the significance of Martin Luther King’s words on Vietnam. You said it’s taken you years to, quote, “understand nonviolence as an ethic” and that you understood that ethic in Israel. Could you explain?

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah, sure, I mean, and I think the thing to do is just to proceed off of what I said. Martin Luther King dedicated his life to the fight against segregation. His was a segregated society. The Occupied Territories are segregated, de jure segregated. It’s not, you know, hard to understand. There are different signs for where different people can go. There are different license plates forbidding different people from going different places. Now, what the [00:49:00] authorities will tell you is that this is a security measure. But if you go back to the history of Jim Crow in this country, they would tell you the exact same thing. People always have good reasons, besides, you know, “I hate you, and I don’t like you,” to justify their right for imposing an oppressive regime on other people. It’s never quite that simple. And so, that was the first thing.

But the second thing I think that you’re referring to is, you know, I — you know, this is like really personal for me, because I came up in a time and in a place where I did not really understand the ethic of nonviolence. And by “ethic,” I mean the notion that violence itself is corrupting, that it corrupts the soul. And I didn’t quite understand that. If I’m truly honest with you, as much as I saw my relationship with the Palestinian people and as much as it was clear what the relationship was, it was at the same time clear that there was some sort of relationship with the [00:50:00] Israeli people, too. And it wasn’t one that I particularly enjoyed, because I understood the rage that comes when you have a history of oppression. I understood the anger. I understood the sense of humiliation that comes when people subject you to just manifold oppression, to genocide, and people look away from that. I come from the descendants of 250 years of enslavement. I come from a people who sexual violence and rape is marked in our very bones and in our DNA. And I understand how when you feel that the world has turned its back on you, how you can then turn your back on the ethics of the world. But I also understood how corrupting that can be.

I was listening, actually, to my congressman last night, or I guess it was two nights ago, talk on the news. And a journalist asked him, “How many [00:51:00] children, how many people must be killed to justify this operation? Is there an upper limit for the number of people that could be killed, when you would say, 'This is just too much. This just doesn't — this just doesn’t, you know, compute. This does not add up’?” And I will tell you, that congressman couldn’t give a number. And I thought, “That man has been corrupted. That man has lost himself. He’s lost himself in humiliation. He’s lost himself in vengeance. He has lost himself in violence.”

I keep hearing this term repeated over and over again: “the right to self-defense.” What about the right to dignity? What about the right to morality? What about the right to be able to sleep at night? Because what I know is, if I was complicit — and I am complicit — in dropping bombs on children, in dropping bombs on refugee camps, no matter who’s there, it would give me trouble sleeping at night.

Beyond Settler-Colonialism - Against the Grain - Air Date 10-31-23

MAHMOOD MAMDANI: Are Jewish people in Israel settlers or immigrants? [00:52:00] The Jewish population of Mandate Palestine belonged to three groups. Those who had never left, these were the natives. Those who had returned on a pilgrimage, seeking a religious homeland. They were content to be part of the existing polity. This was the First Aliyah, of immigrants. Those who wanted their own exclusive polity, a Jewish nation state in place of the existing polity. They came in the Second and the Third Aliyah. These were the settlers.

The Zionists striving for a nation state cannot be understood, unless we also grasp the lesson they drew from Germany. Victims of the nation state project in Germany and in Europe, Zionists decided to set up a nation state in Eretz Israel. The Zionist state project has unfolded in two phases. The first reduced the Palestinians from a majority to a minority. This was the Nakba in 1948. The Zionist project has continued to demonize the [00:53:00] minority that remained within the territorial boundaries as a demographic threat, demanding that their numbers be further cut down.

Gaza is testimony that the Nakba continues today. Palestinians inside Israel do not participate in sovereignty. They have rights, even political rights, including the right to vote, but they do not participate in power. This vision has become clearer as the state project has been redefined, from Israel as a Jewish and democratic state to Israel as a Jewish state.

I have already spelt out the significance of the debate on one state versus two state solution. One state would be akin to direct racial domination, whereas a two state solution would create a protectorate and lead to indirect colonialism under Zionist rule. The history of the African slave in America shows that a one state solution is a better framework for building alliances and broadening the frame and depth of the [00:54:00] resistance. But to have a future that resistance needs to look for a third alternative. I propose that we look at the South African transition from apartheid to glimpse the vision of a third alternative. So let's take a second look at South Africa.

I argue that the anti-apartheid resistance took a creative turn in the 1970s, leading to an epistemological and political breakthrough for the anti-apartheid movement. Before the 1970s, anti-apartheid politics was largely derivative. It reproduced the architecture of apartheid. Each racial group organized separately, as defined by apartheid power. Africans as African National Congress, Indians as Indian Congress of Natal, coloreds as Colored People's Congress, and Whites as Congress of Democrats. By reproducing the architecture of apartheid inside the resistance [ it] gave apartheid a natural flavor.

[00:55:00] The apartheid mindset was broken only in the 1970s. The key initiative came from the student movement, starting when Black students, led by Biko, left the liberal, White student organization, formed their own separate body, and went on to organize township dwellers, starting with Soweto. Left in the wilderness, radical White students turned to organizing hostile workers on the fringes of townships. Out of this experience was born an epistemological awakening that White and Black are political identities, and that political identity is historical, not natural. "Black", said Bico, "is not a color. If you're oppressed, you are Black". There was nothing inevitable about the impact of Black consciousness on the anti-apartheid struggle. Black consciousness, or BC, could have led to a nation state consciousness, claiming that South Africa is a Black nation, of the Black majority, thus essentializing Black as a trans-historical identity. [00:56:00] This summed up the call of the PSE in later years. Instead, it led to an epistemological awakening, the consciousness of "Black" as a historical political identity.

Afrikaners made a journey from being junior partners of British colonialism to being part of the anti-apartheid notion. But there was no consensus. The rift inside the Afrikaner community was demonstrated by the publication of a book by Rian Malan, the great-grandson of a Boer state president. The book was called My Traitor's Heart. Malan was a crime reporter for the Joburg Star. His beat covered Black townships. Each chapter of his book focused on a specific type of what was then called "black on black violence". One chapter was devoted to the Hammer Man, a big Black man who wielded a heavy hammer to smash the skull of his equally Black victims, most of whom were poor and would yield small booty. Malan's subtext was not difficult to [00:57:00] decipher. If they can do this to their own, what will they do to us, given half a chance?

The South African moment was born in the 70s and 80s. There was a three fold shift in vision from opposition to apartheid. It looked for an alternative to apartheid. Rather than just turning the world upside down, it dared to think of a different world from a state of the majority, the national majority, the Black majority. It looked to create a state of all the people. From opposition to Whites, it went on to oppose White power.

Nineteen ninety-four was the birth of a new political community, instead of a rupture into two separate communities - one of victims of apartheid and another of perpetrators - Blacks and Whites, which would have required a partition of South Africa. Let us not forget that in 1994, Afrikaners divided, with a minority asking for a homeland where Afrikaners would have their own state. The political community that did emerge [00:58:00] in 1994 was that of survivors of apartheid, not just victims who had survived, but all survivors, whether victims, perpetrators, beneficiaries, or bystanders.

The anti-apartheid struggle was not directed from a single center, but from multitude centers. Not only did the struggle include multiple initiatives, they were sometimes contradictory. Take the example of the anti-apartheid boycott, which was directed from outside the country, and the internal political struggle which demanded reform of the political process to allow the excluded majority, non-Whites, the right to participate in the political process. Whereas the anti-apartheid boycott made no distinction between South African state and society, calling for a boycott of both, the internal political struggle proceeded by building alliances with all sectors of White society, so long as they did not openly and actively support the apartheid state.

Apartheid [00:59:00] power was not defeated. Neither did Apartheid win. The situation in the mid-1980s could only be described as a stalemate. Why then did Apartheid power agree to negotiate in 1990? Two considerations made captains of Apartheid rethink their primary reliance on a military strategy. One, the possibility that anti-apartheid mobilization may spread from the townships to Bantustans. But more important was the second possibility that signaled the likelihood of an even more scary outcome. Boers realized that the hitherto pro-Apartheid Boer intelligentsia was gradually beginning to abandon Apartheid as a state project.

The principal critique of 1994 is that there was no social justice. This critique both states a truism and misses or undervalues the political birth that did happen in 1994. I argue that we [01:00:00] should see the rebirth as the beginning of political decolonization. The turning point was when anti-apartheid forces reformulated their demand from Black majority rule to non-racial rule.

Rather than deny the existence of race as phenotypical difference, they refused to endow racial difference with a political significance. The first step to decolonizing the political was de-racialization. The next step would be de-tribalization. Rather than deny the cultural significance of tribe as an ethnic group, de-tribalization would decouple the link between culture and territory, ethnicity and homeland, citizenship and identity forged under colonialism. To do so would be to reverse the politicization of culture under Apartheid, which had led to the creation of homelands, homeland authority, and customary law. The result would be to create a single citizenship, not multiple citizenships based on separate [01:01:00] identifications, race in the central state and tribe in the homeland.

Nineteen ninety-four created formal political equality in South Africa regardless of race. It has yet to create formal political equality in the former homelands regardless of ethnic identity. My claim is that a successful struggle for social justice will need to cut across the political divide imposed by race and tribe without political equality. The mobilization for social justice will be fragmented into so many races and tribes.

Final comments on an extraordinary case of looking the find the humanity in the inhumane attacks on Israel of October 7th

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips today, starting with AJ+ with an analysis of the October 7th attack on Israel. The Mehdi Hasan Show look at the dangers of imminent genocide. The Bitchuation Room spoke with Naomi Klein describing the unjust, unstable idea of security without peace or justice. Owen Jones explained why, to advocate for Palestine, it is important to fight anti-Semitism. [01:02:00] This Is Hell! looked at the strategies of Nazis to use the opposition to Israel's actions as a recruiting tools. Inside the Hive spoke with Naomi Klein about the simplicity of applying international law against war crimes and crimes against humanity consistently. Factually! With Adam Conover dove into some of the unavoidable difficulties Israel faces in achieving their stated goals. And Democracy Now! spoke with Ta-Nehisi Coates about the clarifying simplicity of understanding the mechanisms of injustice that exists for Palestinian people under the control of Israel. That's what everybody heard but members also heard bonus clips from Against the Grain featuring a very interesting analysis of South Africa, comparing it to Israel, but not just as a condemnation of Israel's version of Apartheid, but looking at how the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa could help show the way in the Israel and Palestine conflict.[01:03:00]

To hear that and have all of our bonus contents delivered seamlessly to the new members only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at bestoftheleft.com/support, or shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

Now, this is our fourth episode on Israel recently, each one approaching from a slightly different angle. So, I do think they're all worth your while. As a refresher, in case you missed any, #1584 is from September and it described the political turmoil in Israel before the attacks by Hamas. #1589 gave much needed context to the attack when it happened. And 1591, the most recent, looked at the role of traditional and social media in how people come to understand this conflict. So check all those out again. It's 1584, 1589, and 1591.

Now, to wrap up, I just wanted to [01:04:00] read an excerpt of an article that I found fascinating. I'm actually frustrated because I think I saw an article dedicated entirely to this topic that will be discussed, but I didn't read it when I saw it and now I can't find it. So this is a very small excerpt from a very long article that will just have to do. So this article is "In the Cities of Killing" by David Remnick from The New Yorker. And he in this section is speaking with an Israeli named Brodutch whose family had been kidnapped during the October 7th attack. So here's the article.

"Brodutch made it clear that he wanted to deliver a message that was out of keeping with the dominant emotions of the day. The hunger for vengeance, the outrage at the failure of the Israeli government to protect its citizens. Brodutch allowed that the state had failed. 'This is a colossal disaster that will be investigated in years to come'. But he was painstakingly deliberate in [01:05:00] his comments about his family's kidnappers. His wife and his children were in the hands of Hamas. And Hamas was keenly aware of what was being written and said about the organization abroad, including in Israel. Every time Israel dropped a bomb, he worried that it might kill his family. Quoting him again, 'I have to hope that there is someone watching over them. It was overkill by Hamas. I don't think they thought things would go that far. At least, I want to believe that. Their religion is peaceful. No religion can be successful for long if it is not peaceful'. He was terrified by the prospect of a ground war. 'We are going the wrong way. We've had a sign from God and if we read it as a sign to go to war, that is one thing. We should be sending humanitarian aid to women, children, and the elderly. Hamas believes that women, children and the elderly should not be attacked, but something on their side went very wrong. I don't think they thought this attack would be so easy and they just lost it'".[01:06:00]

So that was that excerpt and I wanted to highlight it because number one, I find the perspective expressed here to be very plausible. Basically, it's an attempt to find the humanity within the people who committed a brutal war crime, not just in general, but against the person who is speaking. And in my experience, anytime there's an attempt to find the humanity within a person or group of people, you will find it. The existence of truly irredeemable examples of pure evil in human form are vanishingly rare. Otherwise, you just need to scratch beneath the surface to find the story a person is telling themselves that paints them as the good guy. That explains the moral universe in which they are on the side of righteousness.

And the second reason that I find this interesting [01:07:00] is because of who is expressing it. You know, it sounds like something an academic would say based on their years of research of historical cases, in which groups of people get out of control and given to mob mentality, and maybe a plan to attack becomes an out of control rampage. But for a family member of a kidnap victim to make that point shortly after the attack, even if they are doing it knowing Hamas may be listening to my words, I'm being quoted in the media, they may read this, and I want to do everything I can to curry their favor so that they will protect my family's lives, even if that is what he is doing and that is the reason he is saying those things, still I find it quite extraordinary.

Now I do wish that I could find a more in-depth piece on this idea. The headline I believe I saw was something along the lines of, like, "How the Attack Went Wrong", or "How it Went Out of Control", [01:08:00] or "How it Did Not Go To Plan", something along those lines. If you know what article I'm thinking of, please send that my way.

That is going to be it for today. As always keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about this or anything else. You can leave us a voicemail or send us a text to 202-999-3991. Or simply email me to [email protected]. Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their tireless research that went into all of these Israel episodes. I know it took a toll and it's really appreciated. Thanks to our Transcriptionist Trio, Ken, Brian, and LaWendy, for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work on our social media outlets, activism segments, graphic designing, web mastering, and bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships at bestoftheleft.com/support. You can join them by signing up today, and it would be greatly [01:09:00] appreciated. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with a link to our Discord community, where you can also continue the discussion.

So coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my name is Jay, and this has been the Best of the Left podcast coming to you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show, from bestoftheleft.com.

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#1591 Broken News: Understanding traditional media and social media reporting on the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza (Transcript)

Posted by · November 06, 2023 3:38 PM

Air Date 11/6/2023

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] During today's episode, I'm going to be telling you about a show I think you should check out it's the Left Reckoning podcast. So take a moment to hear what I have to say about them in the middle of the show and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

And now welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast in which we should take a look at why media literacy is a basic requirement for understanding the war in Gaza as propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation is being distributed for both ideological and financial reasons. Sources of today include On the Media, Today Explained, Citations Needed, Deconstructed, Now This News, Democracy Now!, and CounterSpin, with additional members only clips from Citations Needed and Democracy Now!

Breaking News Consumer's Handbook Israel-Gaza Edition - On the Media - Air Date 10-27-23

Brooke Gladstone: Now our Breaking News Consumers Handbook: Israel and Gaza Edition. We begin with number one, the hardy perennial of breaking news advice. When perusing headlines about a war, don't swallow without [00:01:00] chewing.

Joe Kahn: The early versions of our coverage, the headline, and the news alert ended up attributing our description of what happened at the hospital to a Hamas government official. And the information that that government official passed along turned out to be inaccurate.

Brooke Gladstone: That's New York Times Executive Editor Joe Kahn, representing one of many major news outlets who failed to contextualize an unreliable source offering comment within minutes of an explosion at Gaza's Al-Ahli Hospital.

Joe Kahn: That early version with the benefit of hindsight was not as good or as accurate or verified as it could have been.

Brooke Gladstone: Conflicting video evidence is still being parsed. The prime evidence, fragments of the munitions responsible, cannot be examined because says, a senior Hamas official, "The missile has dissolved like salt in the water", something that bomb and shell fragments definitely are not known to do.

On to point number two, be aware of the biggest spreaders [00:02:00] of bad information about this conflict. That's not so hard. We know who they are.

Mike Caulfield: Seven accounts. And for those top seven accounts, we saw over that three-day period, they accumulated 1.6 billion views across a total of 1,834 tweets.

Brooke Gladstone: Mike Caulfield is a research scientist leading the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public. His team analyzed the accounts on X that were getting the most views in the first three days after October 7th. Then they looked at popular news sources like BBC World, CNN Breaking News, and found that--

Mike Caulfield: Over the first three days of this crisis, we found that the seven accounts had 1.6 billion views. The highly-subscribed traditional news accounts had 112 million views.

Brooke Gladstone: Note that these non-traditional accounts usually don't link to the source of their information. If they do have a citation--

Mike Caulfield: Very often it's just typed out with no link, no article name. Just below it, it might say, BBC World, or something like that, but not a link to the [00:03:00] source.

Brooke Gladstone: Another common characteristic, most of these sites post a lot.

Mike Caulfield: Hundreds of times a day. Very quick granular posts. So, text posts very often with a image or with a video is decontextualized media, decontextualized rumor, and just coming to people in the stream.

Brooke Gladstone: Most of these sites are very emotionally charged.

Mike Caulfield: It's high intensity, one way or another, either the newness or the nature of what you're watching, which might be about violence. It might have a culture war angle. The thing that we found was the experience of going through it is very disorienting because you're just seeing intense video and hearing intense rumor one after another, and you're never getting to any deeper treatment of that.

Brooke Gladstone: They use the language of journalists posting breaking news.

Mike Caulfield: You might get a police siren or all-caps BREAKING, that sort of thing.

Brooke Gladstone: These accounts are not affiliated with any news outlets, which is partly what endears them to X's owner Elon [00:04:00] Musk, who has actively promoted some of them.

Mike Caulfield: One of the top accounts has been repeatedly promoted by Musk as an example of what he calls citizen journalism he wants to see.

Brooke Gladstone: One of those seven accounts is @WarMonitors known for misinformation and antisemitism, including using the word Jew as a slur as in, "Mind your own business, Jew." The other, @ sentdefender, is notorious for fake news and has been called by a researcher at the Atlantic Defense Digital Forensics Research Lab, a "absolutely poisonous account." That's two of the big seven massively trafficking in BS. You can find them all at U. Washington's Center for an Informed Public.

Meanwhile, many of the worst sites love to pass themselves off as real open-source researchers, when in fact they're merely grabbing stuff from platforms like Telegram. More on that later. Real open-source intelligence or OSINT researchers stay up nights tracking images back to the source, scrutinizing landmarks and the angle of the light. [00:05:00] Aric Toler is one of those, a reporter at the Visual Investigations team at The New York Times. He says that in this conflict, he's seeing a lot of the bad stuff he's seen before.

ARIC TOLER: The classic things you see in every conflict. You find old misattributed videos, something from Syria or Afghanistan, or Yemen, they repackage. Or from Palestine that is just old that they repackage and reshare. That's par for the course. This happens in every conflict.

Brooke Gladstone: But he's noticed one change. In recent conflicts like the Russia-Ukraine war, Twitter is no longer a driver of new information. It's just another aggregator.

ARIC TOLER: Similar to what Facebook and Reddit and some other platforms became from other conflicts.

Hearts, minds, and likes - Today, Explained - Air Date 10-23-23

CHEYENNE SARDARZADEH: The technical definition that most people who do this job seem to stick to is that misinformation is mostly content that is shared online which is false, but there's no malicious intent behind it. But disinformation, it takes it a notch above that. That's when somebody is putting content out that is misleading and false, because they think there'll be something, there'll be some gain for them [00:06:00] from it.

NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: Okay, so misinformation is mistakenly put out; disinformation is deliberate. During this war, for the past two weeks, what sorts of things, what sorts of misinformation and disinformation are you seeing being spread?

CHEYENNE SARDARZADEH: I have seen -- I think it reminds me of the first few days, first few weeks, actually, of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Very similar. We have had in the first two weeks of this war, a torrent of misinformation online: videos being shared and posted, viewed by tens of millions of people that have had nothing to do with the war. I have seen videos from past Israeli mass conflicts.

NEWS ANCHOR: This video of an attack by Israeli forces on Gaza is in fact that what it purports to be, but it's from May, not from this current set of attacks.

CHEYENNE SARDARZADEH: From the war in Syria, from the Ukraine war, from some of the uprisings in the Middle East, I've seen content from football celebrations, I've seen video game footage.

NEWS ANCHOR: Take this video, saying Hamas militants started a new airstrike on [00:07:00] Israel. You see that? That video, that is actually from a video game. That's not even real. You see the exact same video posted to YouTube here.

CHEYENNE SARDARZADEH: I've seen military exercise videos on YouTube that have been shared on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, X, and have been viewed millions and millions of times.

NEWS ANCHOR: This video allegedly shows dozens of Hamas fighters paragliding into Israel. Through a reverse image search, we were able to geolocate the area. The white building in the background is the Military Academy in Cairo.

CHEYENNE SARDARZADEH: And it's not just videos, by the way. Same thing with images, and in some cases, same thing with posts that do not contain any video or image, but make a very incendiary claim during the fog of war that shocks people, and then it turns out it's completely unsourced. There's no evidence for it, somebody's just made it up.

And then we get into people who, for whatever reason, create fake accounts, say, fake IDF account or fake Hamas account or fake account from an Israeli politician and try to get engagement off of it.

So I've seen all of those and some more.

NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: I want to understand how your job works [00:08:00] in real time. Can you walk me through the process of checking one of these claims that you've discovered is misinformation?

CHEYENNE SARDARZADEH: Yeah, sure. I'll give you two. One misinformation, one disinformation.

So obviously we know the way this particular conflict started was that on the Saturday, 7th of October, Hamas militants infiltrated Israel and killed something between 1,200 to 1,300 Israeli citizens. And we know that some Israeli citizens were taken hostage during that attack that was unleashed on Israel.

So a rumor began on the Sunday morning that some senior Israeli generals had been taken hostage by Hamas militants, and then a video came out in the afternoon, our time in the UK that got millions and millions of views online. It was on X, it was on Facebook, I saw it on Instagram, I saw it on TikTok. It's a 30-second video, and in it you see a big black van, and then you see several men wearing military uniforms who look like security agents and balaclavas, with three men being escorted by security agents and the caption on the video said [00:09:00] "several high profile Israeli generals captured by Hamas fighters," quote unquote. That's what it said.

When I saw that, I was like, okay, we have reporters on the ground, they're not telling us anything like it. They've contacted the IDF. They're not saying any of the generals have been taken hostage. So let's properly check this. And if you check the video, there's a moment in the video that one of the security agents wearing a military uniform has the logo DTX on there. And I just searched for DTX and, lo and behold, DTX is the state security service of Azerbaijan. So then I thought, okay, this video must have been shared at some point, somewhere of the Azerbaijani security service arresting some people. So then I went on YouTube, went on Instagram, went on TikTok and started putting search terms, using Google Translate in the local language, in Azerbaijani language, looking for that video. And I found a video uploaded on the 5th of October on YouTube, by the official account of the Azerbaijani State Security Service, with, a verified YouTube channel, [00:10:00] that was the longer version of that video and of higher resolution. So somebody had basically taken a 30-second clip of that video, and all the captions were in there. And it made it perfectly clear that it was the state security of Azerbaijan arresting Karabakh separatist leaders. Then I searched online to see whether any Azerbaijani news sources had reported this happening on the 5th of October and I found several. So that was it. To me then, at that point, it was clear this video is false. It has got nothing to do with the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Those are not Israeli generals. This video was taken in Azerbaijan and is related to the dispute there between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

The first instance of that video being shared was on the platform Telegram, which is a messaging app, which is really, really popular in some parts of the world, maybe not necessarily in America.

So it was initially shared there, wasn't very viral. Then some people who have big followings on platforms like Twitter or Instagram or TikTok had basically seen that video and they posted it to their accounts and that's how it took off and became really big.

NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: That sounds like disinformation to me. That sounds deliberate to me. You [00:11:00] said it's misinformation. What do you think?

MARC OWENS JONES: I would categorize that as misinformation because I think most of the people who shared it had no idea what it was.

If I wanted to give you an example of disinformation that I've seen in the last two weeks, we saw a video shared online that it looked like, it was like a minute and a half, and it looked like a BBC News video. So somebody had gone through the effort to copy our branding and style and logo in a very convincing way. And the content of the video said that BBC News was reporting that the Hamas militants who infiltrated Israel and killed Israeli citizens had got their weapons from Ukraine. Now, this wasn't something that we had reported at all. This wasn't a video we'd created. It was 100 percent fake. Ukraine has got nothing to do with this conflict. And then, lo and behold, the day after that, Dmitry Medvedev, the former president of Russia, posted online, putting out exactly that same narrative that Hamas militants were using the weapons given to Ukraine by Western powers.

So you have to wonder why anybody would go through [00:12:00] the effort of producing a fake BBC video to say the government of Ukraine is actually in cahoots with Hamas.

NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: What tends to be the motive of people who spread myths and disinformation?

MARC OWENS JONES: Misinformation, most of the time comes from people who are doing what is known as engagement farming. And on platforms like, say, TikTok or YouTube or Twitter, they can make significant sums of money off of it if they get massive engagement. One of the examples I saw was on TikTok, somebody was claiming that they were running live streams of the conflict from the ground in Israel, and they had something like two, three million people who were watching their live stream, the footage was actually from a military exercise from five years ago, but people were watching it, and he was making money off of it.

Social media platforms, their algorithms are designed to make content that is shocking. The algorithms want that type of content, want us to see that type of content. That type of content goes viral, regardless of whether it's true or not. So that's one incentive.

But then when, with the example I just gave you -- and I can give you several more -- either somebody is trying to shape the opinion [00:13:00] of a group of people, or a group of nations, some politicians, some influential people about what is going on, which is politically in their favor, or somebody has an actual economic interest mixed with politics in what's going on and they're doing this because they will have something to gain from it.

US Media, Washington Rush Head First into 9-11 2.0 - Citations Needed - Air Date 10-11-23

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: And you see all these "This is 9/11, this is 9/11" -- and not to say that 9/11 didn't also have antecedents -- although I don't think the comparison is good at all, because, again, I think the engineers and rich kids who actually did 9/11 with the help of Saudi intelligence, they weren't living in a cage, right? And their grievances were somewhat incoherent, to say the least. So I don't think the analogy is good other than it's " Hey, remember when Muslims did a violence?" It's a racist generalization. But that's why it's so important to 9/11; it aids through all these racist analogies. But also to say this is new, or this is something that is unprovoked or out of the blue, right? That sort of clear blue sky in New York on a Tuesday, out of nowhere. And of course, again, everybody knows that's not true. Haaretz knows that's not true. We all know that's not true. It's now taboo to say that, because then it's seen as excuse making or whatever. Or seen as insensitive. And why not to be careful about how we [00:14:00] talk about these things? Because I know that, it's sensitive for a lot of people watching this.

But we have to be realistic about what the antecedents to these things are. And the fact that there is a total double standard. There's been a double standard since before I was born, and the double standard has been very acute this week. And the double standard is not just morally wrong, it's intellectually incoherent. And if you can't properly analyze a problem, you can't work towards any kind of meaningful solution. And all this jingoistic gung ho, Israel's 9/11, we stand with Israel, we stand with Israel, while they turned Gaza into rubble, which already was, and turning it into rubble even more, in the most gratuitous and cruel, inhumane, haphazard, and vindictive way. Cause as far as I know, the U S government doesn't fund and arm Hamas. I know Fox news wants you to think Joe Biden does. But as far as I know, my tax dollars don't pay for Hamas. My tax dollars pay for the F-22s, and the bombs, and the tanks, and the surface-to-surface missiles, which is why I think those within the US left have a unique obligation to speak out on that, because it's our country, in our name, doing these things, [00:15:00] and have been doing them for, again, before we were born. And it's gotten more acute, it's gotten more violent, it's gotten more desperate.

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, COUNTERSPIN: But see, that idea is always completely suppressed in the media in favor of Hamas as an Iranian proxy, right? You always hear where Hamas gets their funding, Hamas gets their weapons. And then Israel defends itself against that, right? Defends itself against Hamas, defends itself against Iran, and against Hezbollah in Lebanon. But obviously the " who funds and arms Israel" is never explained in the same way, right? It's not like a kind of common Homeric epithet that is put along with Hamas. It's not US armed Israel as mirroring this Iran-backed militants, right? And so you get this asymmetry of language because we're supposed to see the evil and the villain in the one side, and then the noble, innocent defending itself from the savagery on the other side.

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Yeah, and that basic lack of humanity, lack of [00:16:00] anyone giving a shit, relatively speaking, is so ingrained in our media culture I don't know how you undo it, I know people try, again, there's been a lot of viral clips on social media of older, more grizzled Palestinian politicians, activists, academics, politely explaining the situation.

One guy began by talking about how six members of his family, including nephews and cousins, had died. And the first thing they said was, do you condemn Hamas? The guy just said his children died. And again, this is not a question that's asked of anyone who does the Rah, right? Marco Rubio was doing incitement to violence, Nikki Haley. They don't say, do you condemn killing civilians by Israel? That's never, do you condemn the occupation? Do you condemn apartheid? They're never asked to condemn that. Because that's just not something you're obligated to do, even though you actually fund it and support it, right?

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, COUNTERSPIN: And literally politicians are, even more so than just paying your taxes and knowing where it's going, billions of dollars every year. But then you actually have politicians or former politicians who are actually responsible for casting votes or approving funding, and they are never asked. They are never asked to condemn [00:17:00] any violence when it is Israel doing the violence, right? And I think, as you said, Adam, this kind of 9/11ing is now one of the standard talking points.

There were immediate analogies made with Al Qaeda and ISIS because of the Hamas attacks actually inside Israeli territory, something that has really never happened like this before. And then, almost immediately, you started really seeing this turn into one of the main narratives.

Representative Adam Schiff stated on Sunday, October 8th, this, quote, "Right now, Israel is being brutally attacked. It is a victim of terrorist attacks. And the only sentiment I want to express right now, when Israel is going through its own 9/11, is unequivocal support for the security and the rights of Israel," end quote.

You also had Eurasia Group's Ian Bremmer say this" quote, "Massive attacks by Hamas leadership into Israel. This is no less than Israel's 9/11," end quote. CNBC over the weekend had this headline: "Israel's [00:18:00] 9/11: Political analysts react to deadly Hamas attack." And PoliticoEU, Politico, had an article on Monday, October 9th, with this headline: "Israel's 9/11 put spotlight on Netanyahu," end quote. This is now becoming one of the main analogies for this, and very few of these articles use the 9/11 analogy as anything other than shorthand, Adam, for a wake up call, like a wake up call via violence that then needs to be reacted to, and, that there's going to be mass violence but it's righteous, as opposed to, I would argue, maybe more accurate historical analysis of what 9/11 did, which is the analysis that violent revenge visited on millions of people who had nothing to do with the actual instances of violence that you are really reacting to, that were so shocking and horrifying and motivating, that actually you then destroy entire countries, you displace millions upon millions, you kill men, women, children, et cetera with no regard to any [00:19:00] kind of humanity, any kind of restraint. That is the lesson of 9/11, possibly, but that is not how the media or politicians using this are assessing the situation. It is really just the shorthand for "this is a wake up call that needs to be avenged."

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Yeah. And I know we spent the last episode last week dumping on Ken Roth. To his credit, a lot of -- hey, I know he's not associated with Human Rights Watch anymore, but other organizations are calling for deescalation. They're calling the Israelis not to take their vengeance out on Gaza. This is not a fringe position outside the US political realm. It really is coming from a lot of, it's big, it's bipartisan, it's Democrats, it's the president. It's we stand with Israel no matter what they do, let them do their thing.

The New York Times had an extremely curious phrasing in their editorial, supporting Israel to this whatever shutdown platitude about defending yourself. They said, quote, "Already the Israeli government is cutting off power and water to Gaza, and it ordered a siege to starve Hamas of resources. This tactic, if it continues, will be an act of collective punishment."

So it's not one now. It's a great liberal phrasing, because it's [00:20:00] like, if they do it for too long, they can have a little bit of war crimes as a treat, but if it goes on for too long, it makes liberals too squeamish, then we'll --

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Then we're gonna start tsk-tsking, tut-tutting, hand wringing.

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: It's very specifically phrased to say, yeah, you guys can do it now, but if it goes on, if it drags on for too long and makes us squeamish, then we'll intervene.

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, COUNTERSPIN: But don't worry, we haven't intervened for the past 17 years, let alone 75, so it'll probably be fine.

Fog of War The Media and the Israel–Palestine Conflict - Deconstructed - Air Date 10-13-23

RYAN GRIM - HOST, DECONSTRUCTED: As people have been trying to follow this, there’s been a confluence of — as Yousef was talking about earlier — basically no Western press in Gaza. Gazans running low on battery power, internet, finding it increasingly difficult to communicate, coupled with the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk, which … Twitter was never necessarily the most reliable place for news but, in previous crises, you could at least distinguish between more authoritative and less authoritative sources, and it just seems that there’s been a proliferation of hoaxes and fraud, coupled with outright propaganda, getting pushed to the point [00:21:00] where it’s very difficult for people to have any idea what to believe and what not to believe.

You’ve got a piece on The Intercept on this phenomenon. What are you finding that’s different this time? And do you have any advice for people to navigate this?

Alice Speri: Yeah. I think this has been a huge issue, and not just with this weekend’s violence, we’ve seen this also last year with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The amount of just unverified uncorroborated information that was going viral within minutes, and very little effort to verify. [It’s been] very challenging for journalists to verify, although I’ll say a lot of journalists have contributed to spreading some of the information.

There’s a lot we’ve seen in the last few days. We’ve seen horrific reports coming out of both Israel and Gaza, and then we’ve seen some really incendiary ones spreading, aided by U.S. political figures, by Israeli political figures …

RYAN GRIM - HOST, DECONSTRUCTED: Including the president, even.

Alice Speri: Right, yes. Some of, basically, what we’ve been trying to do at The [00:22:00] Intercept is just tracing the origin of some of these claims which we have not independently verified, but the IDF has not independently verified. And I actually just spoke with the IDF about some of the most egregious claims about beheaded babies, for instance, which is something that multiple U.S. politicians have repeated, that it’s all over the networks. And the Israeli military itself would not confirm something that is being attributed to soldiers.

So, this kind of shows you some of the challenges. And I think, certainly, that the transformation of Twitter under Musk is contributing to that. It’s not the only problem, but it just kind of shows the enormous responsibility we have, particularly at a time when information is just so lopsided.

I mean, we know of people in Gaza losing electricity, not being able to report. Citizen journalists who usually document life in the strip that are unable to do so. We know that at least six journalists have been killed in Gaza since this started. And this is not unique to this latest violence, [00:23:00] of course; Palestinian journalists have been targeted, as we know very well. We, at The Intercept, have covered Shireen Abu Akleh's killing for the last year.

And so, we see, really, an attack on those that are kind of seeking to provide the information, at the same time when you have all of this unverified information that’s spreading online.

RYAN GRIM - HOST, DECONSTRUCTED: Yousef, how have you been navigating this kind of information and media space?

YOUSSEF MOUNAYER: You know, there’s a tremendous amount of misinformation right now. Any time you have these massive events, there are people that look to take advantage of this. There are people who look to spread misinformation. You have to look at the role, also, of state actors trying to deliberately manipulate the scene, because of what their interests are on the battlefield or elsewhere in terms of diplomacy.

We saw that in 2021, when the Israelis flat out lied to the media, and then had to admit that they did. And, of course, they targeted a building belonging to the Associated Press — and Al Jazeera, as well — at that time.

RYAN GRIM - HOST, DECONSTRUCTED: What was the lie they told at the time? You [00:24:00] mean about Hamas being in that building?

YOUSSEF MOUNAYER: No, no. I think it was involving troop movements or something like that. They essentially used the media for operational purposes at the time, and outraged many, many people.

RYAN GRIM - HOST, DECONSTRUCTED: Oh, that’s right.

YOUSSEF MOUNAYER: And it’s certainly not the first time that there [was] disinformation sent out by the Israeli military. But, you know, at the same time, Twitter has become something of a wasteland, it is extremely unfortunate to see. But the first time I remember finding Twitter useful was around world events, because it is so hard to reach certain voices around the world and hear from them in the mainstream media here in the United States.

Many people remember the Green Revolution In Iran being one of these major moments where they started following world events on Twitter but, for me, it was Israel’s war in 2008/2009 on Gaza. The only Western reporters on the ground were working for Al Jazeera English, and the only way that they were getting information out was on Twitter.

And so, for people who are used to following events like [00:25:00] this in places like Gaza and other war zones, and other places where voices of people from the region are underrepresented, it remains an essential space to navigate despite all of the misinformation and attempts by others to manipulate the discourse.

Hate Crimes, American Media & the 'Free Palestine' Movement - NowThisNews - Air Date 11-1-23

ALIYA KARIM: There has been an uptick in violence and suspected hate crimes against Muslim Americans and supporters of Palestine. Since October 7th, the ugliness has only been increasing. A six-year-old Muslim boy was stabbed 26 times in Illinois. Across the nation, peaceful pro-Palestine marches have reportedly been met with hostility and violence.

In Cleveland, a Palestinian-American man was hit by a car. The driver allegedly yelled, "Kill all Palestinians" and "Long live Israel." Harvard students were doxxed for condemning Israel in a letter, with their personal information having been splashed across multiple websites. And social media platforms have been under fire for shadowbanning users from posting about Palestine, suppressing Palestinian voices, and even labeling some users as terrorists.

So why is this happening? We spoke with William Youmans, a professor at George Washington [00:26:00] University for some insight.

WILLIAM YOUMANS: Even in this country, we see a constant attack on Palestinian-American free speech. Not just Palestinian-Americans, but anyone who's supportive of the Palestinian position. We see college students losing job offers. We see state laws being passed to make it impossible for people to support boycott, divestment and sanctions, despite this being a nonviolent source of resistance.

ALIYA KARIM: Youmans, who is Palestinian-American, researches international communication with a focus on US-Arab relations. He's been attending demonstrations in support of Palestine since he was a kid.

WILLIAM YOUMANS: So to be Palestinian means to be displaced, it means to be in exile, it means to basically witness the homeland from far away. Every Palestinian-American is a student of history, not by choice, but by family folklore, by self-identity, by coming to realize who they are.

ALIYA KARIM: The Council on American-Islamic Relations noted at least 15 hateful incidents and threats that have happened across the country since October 7th. And those are just the tip of the iceberg.

The Department of Homeland Security warns [00:27:00] there could be more that have gone unreported. Muslim congressmembers are seeing a spike in death threats as well. Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar told NBC News that one of the many voicemails she's received threatened, "I hope the Israelis kill every f*cking one of you." The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee has been flooded with reports of FBI visits to mosques and individuals, echoing the post-9/11 era when thousands of Arab and Muslim men faced interrogations.

WILLIAM YOUMANS: Who really makes me worried are the partisans, the people who are ideologically committed to Israel. These are the people behind most of these physical attacks, so I'm not sure that they're going to go away. In many ways what they reveal to me is a degree of desperation, where you see your narrative being challenged in ways that you cannot counter.

ALIYA KARIM: This skewed narrative has deep roots.

WILLIAM YOUMANS: Historically, Israel has not been a credible source of information for conflicts that it's involved in. We've seen this time and time again. In 1996, when Israel shelled a refugee camp that was run by the UN, killing over 160 people in Qana, [00:28:00] Lebanon, Israel denied it was responsible. We saw with the murder of the Al Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, which caused an international outrage, she was killed by a sniper. Israel denied that it was responsible.

ALIYA KARIM: Despite the questionable credibility, Western media continues to rely on Israeli sources. In fact, a 2019 study that examined 50 years worth of headlines from major US newspapers found they were two and a half times more likely to cite Israeli sources than Palestinian ones.

And it's not just about narratives, it's also about harmful rhetoric. An October 16th tweet from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's official account stated, "This is the struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle." That tweet was later deleted.

On October 9th, Israel's defense minister ordered a complete siege on Gaza by saying this: [Hebrew language]. This sort of rhetoric has found its way into interviews with Palestinians and Palestine supporters on major news networks.

BASSEM YOUSSEF: I'm gonna be even ahead of you because I see the question coming. Do you condemn Hamas for the atrocities? Yes, I condemn Hamas.

DIANA BUTTU: If [00:29:00] you want me to renounce Hamas because they're anti-woman, anti-everything, then I'm also going to sit and renounce Israel, which is also anti-woman, anti-free speech, anti-gay, anti-everything.

WILLIAM YOUMANS: The interview host would often ask them about condemning terrorism and then interrupting them constantly to make sure that they condemned Hamas, which is a vicious rhetorical move that forecloses the possibility of a conversation.

Unfortunately, in the United States, we don't have a robust debate on Israel policy, in part because politicians are completely aligned on this issue, and the clear explanation for that has to do with the power of the Israeli lobby, which is a well-organized, well-established set of organizations that have been around for more than 50 years.

ALIYA KARIM: The reality in Israel and Gaza is being reported on based off a mess of inconsistent accounts. Even President Joe Biden had to walk back claims about alleged Hamas atrocities.

WILLIAM YOUMANS: Newspapers throughout the world picked it up uncritically. It was a perfect example of how misinformation can come from the top [00:30:00] in a way that can powerfully shape public opinion.

ALIYA KARIM: Yet there is some hope as activists challenge the status quo, and fight back against dangerously persistent rhetoric.

WILLIAM YOUMANS: I find Gen Z far more informed about the world than my generation was and certainly the generation before me.

We've seen a dynamic protest movement emerge, led by groups like the Palestinian Youth Movement, by Jewish Voices for Peace, by If Not Now, by a whole range of organizations. And I would encourage anyone who cares about this, about bringing peace, about bringing justice for the Palestinians, bringing a resolution to this conflict now, should be joining these kinds of organizations.

Being active means being part of a community, of having places to go, of having people who you're working closely with, together towards a common cause. So it's not just enough to speak on social media. You have to get out and do things, and that will break the feeling of isolation or demoralization.

It's important to remember that we can be empowered and that we can speak back and we can force those in power to hear [00:31:00] us, and eventually they will have to answer to these voices.

ALIYA KARIM: Youmans is also shedding light on the past by producing a documentary about the unsolved 1985 assassination of Alex Odeh, a Palestinian American activist in Orange County, California.

WILLIAM YOUMANS: People should care about the murder of Alex Odeh, even though it was 40 years ago, because it's connected to the spread of a hateful ideology that's poisoned the Israeli political scene.

This is an ideology of hatred that calls for the mass transfer of Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza. And unfortunately, I think we're seeing this ideology at work in the massive bombardment of Gaza today.

12 Journalists, Mostly Palestinians in Gaza, Killed in Deadliest Time for Journalists - Democracy Now! - Air Date 10-16-23

AMY GOODMAN: In the first week of fighting in Gaza, the Committee to Protect Journalists reports at least 12 journalists have been killed. More are missing and injured.

We’re joined now by CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, Sherif Mansour.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Sherif. In these last few minutes we have — we’ve heard the story of Issam — tell us what you understand about what’s happened to journalists. He was on the [00:32:00] Israel-Lebanon border. Israel says they’re looking into it. What’s happening in Gaza?

SHERIF MANSOUR: Well, this is the deadliest time for journalists in Gaza. That is, according to our count, one of the highest tolls for journalists covering the conflict since 1992. Since 2001, we’ve recently published stories of 20 Palestinian journalists who have been killed over the years covering IDF operations. Many of them, 13, were in Gaza before the start of this war. But right now we’re looking at at least 10 Palestinian journalists, mostly freelance photojournalists, for taking outsized challenge and risk in order to tell the story of what’s happening. But there are, in addition to Issam, from Lebanon, at least one or two journalists from Israel who have been killed and went missing since the beginning of the raid on October 7. We are also still investigating a lot of damages to media [00:33:00] facilities in Gaza that were bombed over the course of the week, reportedly at least 48 or so. Many were injured. Many lost their homes. And many cannot access the outside world because of lack of internet.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let me ask you: What are the international laws and conventions in place to safeguard journalists and hold those responsible for their killings?

SHERIF MANSOUR: Well, we call on Israel to immediately investigate what happened to Issam and his six colleagues who were injured. We support the Lebanon complaint in the U.N. to make an investigation. And we also call on Brazil, who is presiding right now, on this week, on the U.N. Security Council, to make sure that journalists’ safety is included in any talks that’s happening diplomatically.

AMY GOODMAN: And let me ask you — last week, BBC Arabic journalists Muhannad Tutunji and Haitham Abudiab were reportedly stopped, [00:34:00] assaulted and held at gunpoint by Israeli police in Tel Aviv. What do you know about this situation?

SHERIF MANSOUR: Unfortunately, censorship is widespread, not just on covering Gaza in Israel, and we’ve seen and reported a lot of journalists being threatened live, including from Al Araby TV just couple of days ago. And journalists have told us they have received threats, in addition to all the misinformation that has been spread to justify those attacks against those journalists. And we saw the Israeli government right now making decrees to censor and close Palestinian media outlets and inciting against even Israeli journalists who “harm national morale” during the war.

AMY GOODMAN: And I wanted to ask — on Friday, the U.S. news organization Semafor reported, ”MSNBC has quietly taken three of its Muslim broadcasters out of the anchor’s chair since Hamas’ attack on Israel last Saturday amidst America’s wave of sympathy for Israeli terror victims.” The article detailed how Mehdi [00:35:00] Hasan, Ayman Mohyeldin and Ali Velshi have all seen their roles reduced over the past week, even though the three have some of the deepest knowledge of the region at the network, Semafor reported. Your final comments on this?

Brooke Gladstone: Well, journalists must provide accurate and independent account of what’s happening, including in time of crisis. We rely on them so that the misinformation that we see does not fuel the conflict. We rely on them so that we know the motivation and the implication of all the warring parties. And we rely on them to expose the potential of human rights violation or war crimes. So, we call for the absolute resilience of journalists and the support of their editors so that they can do their job fairly, without censorship. .

Breaking News Consumer's Handbook Israel-Gaza Edition Part 2 - On the Media - Air Date 10-27-23

Brooke Gladstone: You've been posting social media threads with tips and tricks for verifying information about the conflict. You created a fake BBC tweet. You showed how it was done. You showed how [00:36:00] you could identify a fake tweet.

Shayan Sardarizadeh: One of the textbook ways people mislead on the internet is they claim to have taken a screenshot of a genuine post and then they share it on another platform without linking to the actual post.

Brooke Gladstone: So you can't go to the actual thing, you're only looking at a picture.

Shayan Sardarizadeh: Yes.

Brooke Gladstone: One rule for a listener might be very suspicious if you can't link to the original tweet

Shayan Sardarizadeh: 100%.

Brooke Gladstone: That's point five. Check the attribution and be careful of the source you're pulling from and learn about some of the basic verification tools at your disposal. Apparently, it's easier than you may think. I ask Sardarizadeh, can you give me an example that people can go to of how you used readily available tools to verify a picture?

Shayan Sardarizadeh: Yes, of course. It was a picture of two children and a convoy of tanks with Ukrainian flags on them, and this was shared two days after the outset of the war in Ukraine, February 2022. This image [00:37:00] went really viral. I remember European politicians, US politicians, influencers shared it because it was a touching moment. The way I checked that one was I use a tool which is called Google Lens, and it allows you to crop a social media post in this case the image that I want in that post, and then go through the archive of pages that Google has and see the first use of that particular image on Google.

After searching for a while, I was able to find one example from Flickr from 2016 with that image shared by the official account of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry in 2016. Although that was a picture of two children seeing off a convoy of tanks of Ukrainian troops, it had nothing to do with that particular moment in time.

Brooke Gladstone: Now is Google Lens easily accessible?

Shayan Sardarizadeh: Anybody can go to it. Just type in images.google.com in your web browser, whatever browser you're using, and you will see in the search box what appears to be a camera logo. You click on that camera logo and all you have to [00:38:00] do, if it's a link with a social media post with an image, you just copy-paste that link into the search box and then it will do the job for you.

All you have to do is just go through the results that it brings up for you. The most important thing is try to find examples from authoritative sources, news organizations, people who you can trust at least to some extent, and then you want to find the earliest example of its use. Say with the image that we just spoke about, if you find the image shared on the internet in 2020, you already know something is wrong there. That image cannot have appeared on 2020 and also 2022 at the same time.

Brooke Gladstone: Right.

Shayan Sardarizadeh: If like me, you want to find a full context about it, you have to spend a bit more time go through the results, and I found the actual original use from 2016.

Brooke Gladstone: He's very keen on a plugin called InVID because it enables you to make simultaneous use of a bunch of different verification tools like Yandex or TinEye, each of which has particular strengths, but that's for the next class. I'm sticking to Verification 101 today. Still, it's all there [00:39:00] ready for you. All you have to do is be on the Chrome browser and install the InVID Chrome extension.

Shayan Sardarizadeh: You will find how much easier verifying images on the internet will become.

Brooke Gladstone: It's not just for experts anymore. [chuckles]

Shayan Sardarizadeh: Hopefully not, and it shouldn't be. This is something that in this day and age, in the 21st century, this is necessary knowledge for everybody.

Brooke Gladstone: Shayan Sardarizadeh is a journalist at BBC Verify. You can find his X feed @Shayan, S-H-A-Y-A-N, 86 for tips and tricks on how to interpret what you see online. You need some level of media literacy to navigate these muddy waters, but it also takes time. It takes commitment, and that's point six. Aric Toler of The New York Times described what it took his team to put out an investigation earlier this week that showed that a piece of video evidence US and Israeli officials were using related to the hospital explosion was [00:40:00] not what they believed it to be.

ARIC TOLER: These videos don't have timestamps on them. You have to watch hours and hours to find the right sequence of a flash here, a flash there, a missile goes up here, and like, "Oh, wait, those are the same," or, "Oh, the clouds match up." It's very labor-intensive work.

Brooke Gladstone: Of course, they're doing granular OSINT work, not just basic image verification.

ARIC TOLER: We looked at this data, we looked at these videos, you can look at them here, and this is how things line up on the satellite map, which you can look at the same as us, and if you don't trust us and you don't believe us, then that's fine. We've given you what we got. We've shown our work.

Brooke Gladstone: Even so, sometimes the experts get it wrong.

ARIC TOLER: Even if you go through all the same tools and you kind of do the labor and you get on the satellite maps and match up imagery and all that stuff, even then sometimes you don't get to the answer. It's not easy, I mean, you see the seasoned accounts, who've been doing this stuff for years and years and years who get fooled by some photos and videos that come out.

Brooke Gladstone: Point seven, is less a directive than a suggestion, that goes back to our very first handbook, think before you repost. Some of this is on you. What you do [00:41:00] matters. It's so easy to further pollute the toxic stew that is our media ecosystem with a casual retweet of bad but affirming information. Take a moment, look for the source, check and see if it's an easy-to-fake screenshot. Any of the stuff we talked about or if that's too time-consuming and it may well be, maybe just don't click

Peter Maybarduk on Paxlovid, Maya Schenwar on Grassroots Journalism - CounterSpin - Air Date 11-27-23

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: And, you know, I think we as media consumers, as people, are recognizing that you give us 18 minutes, we give you the world, is not really the proper relationship to information. You know, the idea that it just kind of washes over you, and if you watch 28 Minutes at 6 o'clock, you're going to learn everything and know everything that you need to know about what's happening around the world or even in your neighborhood.

MAYA SCHENWAR: Yeah, exactly. Well, and I think the expansion of all of these different types of online media has both [00:42:00] introduced kind of this increasingly vicious phenomenon of disinformation, but also has exposed people to more of this. And I think that's a reality that has always been true, that depending on your source, you can be getting a completely different version of the news.

You can be absorbing those 18 minutes as the truth, but not only is it too short, not only is it too brief, but depending on which channel you're watching, those 18 minutes will look completely different and I think this is the exact right moment to be discussing this because right now we're witnessing Israel perpetrating this rapid genocide in Gaza with U.S. complicity. And meanwhile, much of the dominant media is still completely misrepresenting the situation, removing the context of 75 years of colonization and occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and representing the [00:43:00] current situation as a both sides situation. And so, I think increasingly, even people who haven't realized this before, but are tuned in to that issue, are recognizing, Oh, media is such a political force.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Right. And that would point out, you just have a piece up on Truthout right now with Sara Lazar about the siege in Gaza, which I found hopeful ultimately in the awareness that safety can only come through collective liberation. I found it a useful exploration of ideas and folks should check that out.

But listeners will know Truthout.org as a publication, as a news source, uh, on a range of movement issues. But you see yourselves as part of an ecosystem. And it's that understanding that led to this new project, to the Truthout Center for Grassroots Journalism. Tell us about that. What is the need that you're looking to address? What kinds of work are you hoping to lift up with that project?

MAYA SCHENWAR: So, we're in this moment that's pretty tough for [00:44:00] truly independent journalism, and particularly movement journalism. We have seen outlets shut down. We've seen some shrink, we've seen a lot kind of hovering on the edge of precarity and part of it has been because of the process changes in social media, some of it has been economic disruptions and so on. But also in some ways we've been seeing less collaboration among those media organizations nationally. There's certainly been some great collaborative regional projects, but on a national scale, we're seeing a little bit less of the collaboration than we did years ago when there used to be organizations, particularly in these media consortium, which brought together movement media around the country.

And that type of collaboration can help fields grow stronger, can help movements grow stronger. And at Truthout, we've been thinking a lot about, Okay, [00:45:00] like, we want to exist as a publication, but we can't do it alone. We don't want to be anyone's sole news source. We want to have this vibrant ecosystem of different publications that are helping enrich people's understandings of the world and propel them toward action on all these different fronts.

So the Truthout Center for Justice Journalism is a little corner of Truthout, which is focused on supporting and assisting smaller movement media organizations, using the lessons that we've learned at Truthout over the last 22 years of sustaining ourselves primarily based on small reader donations, of figuring out how to broaden our reach and bring in new audiences, and figuring out how to build a news organization that is able to approach even issues in which there's [00:46:00] a lot of controversy, and uplift particularly what social movements are doing.

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: So in addition to kind of that support and assistance and mentoring, we're also focused on bringing together movement media and social justice news organizations of all sizes around the country. This is aspirational, but working on it now. You know, we recognize that what's going to allow us to survive, and when I say us, it's not just Truthout, it's all politicians that have social justice at their heart, you know, who reject this idea of objectivity and are looking to make media that are going to ultimately help the human race survive, and support each other in ways that are going to uplift the movement that got us there.

Gaza Siege and the Liberal Handwringing Industrial Complex - Citations Needed - Air Date 10-18-23

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: After October 7th, when it was retribution time, Israel and a lot of pro-Israel commentators thought was going to happen, that they were going to get the kind of Ukraine treatment, where, like, once this horrific attack unfolded, [00:47:00] that everyone was going to kind of rally around them to do this, you know, go get 'em. And I think that's what they were banking on. A lot of their messaging seemed to be banking on that. And then, but the problem is, is like, the Russian military is 10 times bigger than Ukraine military. So even while the CIA is helping and the U. S. Defense Department is helping one side, people intuitively can understand that Ukraine is a smaller country than Russia. They can understand that they are, in many key ways, the underdog in that conflict, very obviously, right? And they're the ones who were invaded versus the ones being invaded.

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, COUNTERSPIN: And that is completely inverted. And that's not the case here.

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Right. Because people aren't stupid. They can look at a map. They can see what Gaza is.

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, COUNTERSPIN: The analogy simply doesn't work.

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: They can look at the rubbled, you know, so that, again, even if you're pro-Israel, one can still understand that, like, Gaza doesn't have an airforce....

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Maybe the nuclear armed occupying state that is one of the most powerful militaries in the history of the world might not be the underdog here.

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Right. And so they didn't really get that treatment because the apartheid has made it so cartoonishly one-sided, again, even with this "unprecedented" attack - which, you know, it is in terms of against Israel - that it was sort of a hard sell especially as the body count began, to mention it, as the genocidal rhetoric from senior leaders including the [00:48:00] president of Israel came out, where it was like, Oh wait, there's a very clear possibility here that the goal is to basically make Gaza unlivable so they all move to the Sinai and they're going to use IMF loans that Egypt has to try to parlay that into creating what has been a very popular plan on the right for some time now in Israel, which is what they call the "new state solution", which is to effectively make the Sinai and parts of Gaza and southern Gaza into a Palestinian state and hands it basically over to Egypt. Yeah, and completely militarize the border and then annex the West Bank. And, uh, that's been a plan that's been floated for many years. This seems like, you know, again, Netanyahu wouldn't be the first leader to ever use a crisis to advance ulterior agendas. So it's not like totally out of the question.

This is where a lot of the fears from ethnic cleansing are coming, which is like, Oh, they're trying to get like, at the very least, half of the population or three quarters of the population to basically go to Egypt. Because in Zionist lore, right, sort of extreme right wing Israeli lore, Palestinians are just frustrated Egyptians and frustrated Jordanians. They're not a real people and so they may as well just go. They're just Arabs, right? This is why people [00:49:00] frame it as sort of Israeli-Arab conflict because it sort of flattens the existence of Palestinians.

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Also, why Israel and a lot of Israel supporters call Palestinians who currently reside within the pseudo-borders of Israel "Arab citizens of Israel", as opposed to "Palestinians".

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Because that necessarily implies existence.

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, COUNTERSPIN: It de-nationalizes.

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: And so this is why the fear, people started beginning to use the word genocide, which is a word I use very carefully. I sort of traditionally don't use it in the context of Israel-Palestine in a micro level, macro level. Like, yeah, what the Nakba was was a genocide. I think that's pretty clear. But if you're doing forcible population transfers from Gaza into Egypt, which is to say from taking Palestinians out of Palestine and putting them somewhere else, that is a textbook definition, right?

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, COUNTERSPIN: We're also talking about a, population in Gaza ,many of whom are refugees from Palestinian villages in what is now southern Israel, or at least the descendants of those refugees. So they understand what it means to be told to leave and then not be allowed back. [00:50:00] Terrorized into leaving your home, and then you will never be allowed to return. So there is really, I mean, I think the kind of strong thought, and this is beyond the fact that, like, there are a lot of elderly people, sick people, wounded people, wounded and dying people, people who are hospitalized, who literally cannot just pack up and leave. There's also no clear routes for them to take, ambulances are being bombed, roads are being bombed by Israel, as they say, " evacuate south". So, you know, our tagline includes, you know, the term "PR", along with "media, power in the history of bullshit", and there's so much PR going on in the evacuation call, in the reports that Israel spread all over that, you know, they've, returned water service. Well, you know, water pumps don't also work if the electricity's still off. Or if you bomb them. So, I mean, there's also this aspect of that evacuation order, Egypt needs to open the Rafah crossing, which now has been bombed multiple times by Israel, because also of the very real history of [00:51:00] ethnic cleansing. You know, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine to create the state of Israel, whereas Palestinians were threatened, terrorized, massacred, often, uh, out of their homes, never to be allowed back.

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: So, yeah, let's talk about the forcible transfer to Gaza and why even, like, normie mainline organizations are saying this looks proto-genocidal, right?, even, to sort of be reserved here, why people like Ken Roth, who, again, we criticized two weeks ago, but is actually pretty decent on this.

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, COUNTERSPIN: It's a low bar.

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Well, the legal technical lawyer stuff I think only gets you so far, but Israel is this weird artifact from like the 19th century. They do like a 19th Century-style colonialism. And whenever you criticize that, they're like, Well, what about the United States? What about this? It's like, No, no, they're evil. They're just evil in like more sophisticated ways. Like you're doing, old school, and the issue with expelling people into the Sinai, and why it kind of reeks of that is because what they'll say is, they'll say, Oh, well, Hamas lives within the population. Therefore we have to move them out of the way to kind of, I don't know how that works exactly, I guess they can't go with the population, I don't know, they want to see the tunnels? I don't know. But like...

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, COUNTERSPIN: If you're a member of [00:52:00] Hamas, your feet are cemented into the floor, and so when everyone else leaves, you're left there.

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Yeah, it's like when you pull the tablecloth, all the stuff stays there. Hamas just goes, what? Little cartoon eyeballs. They say, Oh, well, Hamas just sort of lives with the population, therefore we have to remove the population. That is literally what every ethnic cleansing in the history of ethnic cleansings has said. They've always said, This is not an ethnic cleansing, this is a military operation. They live amongst the people. Therefore... I mean, literally, I mean name one, that's the pretext they've used.

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, COUNTERSPIN: We are doing our best to save civilian lives. By moving them out of harm's way...

ADAM JOHNSON - CO-HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: This is why, when the first idea of like a humanitarian corridor came up, a lot of Palestinian academics and writers were like, Well, wait a second, you're spinning a humanitarian corridor as some humanitarian gesture, when really, again, without any kind of assurance or enforcement mechanism, which there's none, how do we know we're going to come back?

The easiest way to prevent the human suffering is to just stop the bombing, not sort of have a more humane way of doing a trail of tears into the Sinai. And yeah, this is what makes the humanitarian... because it became very trendy as well, for people like Elizabeth [00:53:00] Warren, and even some people who called for a ceasefire to call for a humanitarian corridor. And in and of itself, it's not necessarily bad because they have to go somewhere, but the obvious question that sort of no one was addressing, which is like how are they going to come back? Because the last time they were told they were going to come back...

NIMA SHIRAZI - CO-HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Yeah. Israel denies the right of return, which is guaranteed under international law.

Not in Our Name 400 Arrested at Jewish-Led Sit-in at NYC's Grand Central Demanding Gaza Ceasefire - Democracy Now! - Air Date 10-30-23

AMY GOODMAN: Israel is intensifying its aerial bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza. Palestinian officials say the death toll has topped 8,300, including over 3,400 children. On Friday, Israeli ground troops, backed by tanks and armored bulldozers, entered Gaza amidst a communication blackout that cut off contact, electricity and cellular service between Gaza and the rest of the world. Communications have now been partially restored.

On Friday, the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly voted in support of a humanitarian truce, but Israel and the United States voted against the resolution.

Massive demonstrations calling for a ceasefire in Gaza continued this weekend, including here [00:54:00] in New York City. On Friday night, thousands of members of Jewish Voice for Peace-New York City and their allies shut down the main terminal of Grand Central Station during rush hour. It’s the largest sit-in protest the city has seen in over two decades. Many wore shirts that said “Not in Our Name” Banners were unfurled, reading, “Palestinians should be free” and “Israelis demand ceasefire now.” One sign read, “Never again for anyone.” The multiracial, intergenerational movement says about 400 people were arrested, including rabbis, famous actors, and elected officials.

Democracy Now! was there. Today we bring you some of the voices at Grand Central, including Rosalind Petchesky, professor of political science at Hunter College.

PROTESTERS: Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!

ROSALIND PETCHESKY: My name is Rosalind Petchesky. I’m here with maybe a [00:55:00] thousand others, a lot of us Jews. But we are here to protest the genocide that is happening in our name. It has to stop. We are crying every minute. When we listen to your show, we are crying. I have a dear friend, Mohamed, with his little family in Gaza. He almost got blown up today. We can’t let this go on. We believe in justice and the right to live for everyone. But Palestinians have been the victims of oppression for 75 years, and it has to stop. That’s why we’re here, to say 'Not in our name.' I am older than the state of Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: [00:56:00] There’s Jewish prayers in the background. The sun is going down, and it’s the Jewish Sabbath.

ROSALIND PETCHESKY: It is. And on Shabbat, we have to pray. We have to recommit ourselves to justice. I believe that Judaism and Jewish ethics — this is how I grew up thinking — are about justice and about Rabbi Hillel’s statement: If I am not for myself, who am I? And if I am only for me, what am I doing here? I glossed over it a little bit. And if not now, when? Now! Peace now. Ceasefire now. President Biden and Blinken, listen to what people are telling you, especially the young people and lots of Jews.

PROTESTERS: Not in our name! Not in our name! Let Gaza live! Let Gaza live! Let Gaza live! Let Gaza live!

INDYA MOORE: My name is Indya Moore. I am standing here, I’m resisting and protesting in solidarity with Jews, trans people, queer people, Black and Brown victims of colonization, and [00:57:00] Americans, just like you and I, to stand against our tax dollars being used to decimate Palestinians. And we’re standing for peace. We’re standing for compassion. And we’re standing for self-determinating justice and liberated Palestine.

PROTESTERS: Stop the genocide! Free, free Palestine! Stop the genocide! Free, free Palestine!

SUMAYA AWAD: My name is Sumaya Awad.

AMY GOODMAN: And why Grand Central?

SUMAYA AWAD: Because this is a symbol of New York. This is a symbol of the United States in many ways. And so, we’re here. We’re saying this is ours. This is where we go to work. This is how we get to our children. This is how we go to school. And we want the same thing for Palestinians in Gaza. We want them to be able to live their lives in dignity and freedom.

DR. STEVE AUERBACH: My name’s Dr. Steve Auerbach. I am a pediatrician, licensed physician in the state of New York. I’m here to say that many Jewish pediatricians are [00:58:00] calling for stopping the killing of children and their families, calling for a ceasefire now, and not in our name.

I’ve never been prouder to be a pediatrician than when, back on Friday, October 13th, thoroughly mainstream organization, the New York state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics said that “We stand with the children of Israel and the children of Gaza. We love all children, all families equally,” and calling for an immediate ceasefire. So, that was back on October 13th. Unfortunately, children and their families continue to be killed. These sorts of collective actions, collective responsibility is illegal. These sorts of mass killings of civilian areas, mass bombings of civilian areas are illegal and immoral.

The United States should be leading to call for a ceasefire now. I’ve never been prouder of the 18 congresspersons who have called for a [00:59:00] ceasefire now. And I’m calling on President Biden and Senator Schumer and my assemblyperson, Nadler: Please, please, these are not Jewish values. It is not a Jewish value to be dropping bombs on children, killing children and their families.

SEN. JABARI BRISPORT: I am state Senator Jabari Brisport, the 25th State Senate District in Brooklyn. And I’m here calling for a ceasefire in order to allow for the release of hostages and humanitarian aid. I carry the Not on Our Dime legislation with Assemblymember Mamdani, which will stop New York from allowing for fake charities that claim to be charities to help Israeli citizens but actually fund displacement and destruction and settler violence in Palestinian territory.

Summary 11-6-23

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips today, starting with On the Media, giving tips on the need to check sources. Today Explained looked into the differences between mis- and disinformation and the motivations for spreading them. Citations Needed discussed the use of 9/11 rhetoric to rally support to [01:00:00] Israel. Deconstructed looked at the changing role of Twitter now acts in following world events from traditional and citizen journalists. Now This News looked at the structures of narrative in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Democracy Now! discussed the dangers faced by journalists covering the war. On The Media gave more advice on being skeptical of images without links to their sources. And CounterSpin had a conversation with a guest from Truthout discussing the importance of understanding the differences between the sources of news. That's what everybody heard, but members also heard bonus clips from Citations Needed diving into some of the deeper details behind the rhetoric of the war, and Democracy Now! highlighting the voices of mostly Jewish protesters in Grand Central Station opposing a war in Gaza in their name.

To hear that and have all of our bonus contents delivered seamlessly to the new members only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at bestoftheleft.com/support or [01:01:00] shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

And now we'll hear from you.

The influence of calling congress - Craig from Ohio sequence

VOICEMAILER: CRAIG FROM OHIO: Hello, Best of the Left. It's Craig from Ohio, and I just wanted to call in to respond to Andrew's question about whether it makes sense to contact your representatives. Because I appreciated your response, Jay, which was basically any action that you can take is helpful, and I totally agree with that.

But I really wanted to emphasize and answer specifically his question about calling because it's something that has frustrated me for a long time that progressives, the left, however you think of yourself, are not as active in contacting our representatives as the right wing is, and it's part of why we do not have the kind of influence that the right does on their party.

So I try to make it a habit to once a week [01:02:00] call both my senators and my representative, even though my representative is a Republican toady, who's really, I mean, as far as I can tell, not very bright and just does whatever the party wants him to do. He's a rubber stamp for their agenda. But I still call, because know a lot of people on the left like to rationally point out that is kind of futile because nothing seems to change and we're a minority. Which is true, even the Democratic coalition, the larger faction of the liberals they don't, as far as I can tell, call their reps a lot, either, but they also have a further right wing perspective so that's why we see Joe Biden and the Democratic majority take actions like in the one currently in Israel that we, I disagree with.

So basically, I called my reps this week, I told them, Please do [01:03:00] not send any more weapons into that conflict. I don't think weapons are the answer. Now, do I expect that's going to have any, you know, change or result in any perspective that I would like? No, but if we really could start to realize our power, and on any issue, whatever it is, every week, make phone calls, that does impact power. So, please, I implore you, if you listen to Best of the Left, you're obviously engaged, start calling your representatives on a regular basis.

Thank you very much. Bye bye.

Final comments on a case study in war media manipulation

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Thanks to those who call into the voicemail line or write in their messages to be played as a VoicedMails. If you'd like to leave a comment or question of your own to be played on the show, you can record or text us a message at 202-999-3991, or send an email to [email protected].

Also thanks for your patience as we come back from vacation a little later than expected due to a badly timed cold that actually knocked me out for [01:04:00] several days. You may even be able to still hear it in my voice. I certainly can.

Today, just real quick, I want to give a bit of a case study. And we're talking about media, bad media, understanding media.

And I came across a debunking of a -- very small -- this is not like the New York Times putting the wrong headline on the hospital bombing kind of story. This is like a small inconsequential person on Twitter who calls themselves a journalist, but I have no idea really how much experience they have.

But I came across this little debunking because this person posted something that went a little bit viral and it was worth it to Snopes to check into the claims. So the person is James J. Marlow, never heard of him before. His Twitter bio describes him as a foreign and defense [01:05:00] analyst and broadcast journalist with focus on Israel, middle east, and USA, and has contributed to a variety of sources, GB News, LBC Radio, Talk TV, I 24 and others. That's what the bio says. So this person on November 1st, posted a picture of Gal Gadot. She is an actress who played Wonder Woman. And with the caption: " Israeli actress Gal Gadot, who played Wonder Woman in the Hollywood movie, turns up for army service." And the picture is of her wearing a backpack and giving a little salute. And to post that on November 1st of this year certainly makes it sound like she's signing up for Israeli military service now, because, if that's not the case, why in the world would you post that? And this person's tweet was written in the [01:06:00] present tense. However it doesn't explicitly say that the photo is recent. But really, I mean, if it isn't, then what's the news value? So they posted a followup tweet after it, after the original started to go a little viral, and it says, "To clarify, this is not a new picture. And when it was sent to me today, I automatically posted it without checking. But many have liked it. And the words do not say it is from today. So I hope this clarifies the post." End quote.

And that leaves me with so many more questions than answers. First of all, who sent it to him? He automatically re-posted it without checking. Who sent it? Was it someone who wanted to use a journalist, maybe a particularly dopey journalist, to spread propaganda like implying that Gal Gadot had just signed up to support Israel in this current war. Did the person who sent [01:07:00] it already know that this person would share it without checking, either because they're kind of dopey or because they're a little bit of a propagandist? I'd be interested to know.

And a quick look at his Twitter feed shows that he is clearly a pro-Israel person. So that begs the question, did he share it because he thought it was newsworthy, because he was tricked into thinking it was recent, that he thought, " Oh, great! She signed up for the army! I'll post that." Or did he share it because he knew others would be tricked, but he could claim that he didn't write anything untrue, because technically he didn't. Snopes pointed out Hey, technically, he didn't write anything that wasn't accurate. It's just incredibly misleading. Or did he really just think that it was a neat picture of Gal Gadot serving in the Israeli military from 15 years ago?

So Snopes got in touch with this person James [01:08:00] and his clarifications to Snopes are not much better. He says, " I was going to take it down because it misled some into thinking Gadot joined this week. But I couldn't believe how many were re-tweeting and liking it. And so I added a tweet to clarify and left it up because I thought it did no harm. It was not my intention to add to the false news all over X, Twitter, and I never wrote it was this week. It was just a nice pic and I clarified it with a second tweet." [ laughs]

So again, so many questions. But ultimately, how bad of a journalist -- not to mention how dumb of a person -- must one be to have had no idea how a post like that would be misinterpreted by people on the internet.

And of course the bottom line is there is no good answer to any of these questions for this person, James Marlow. And we are left with the eternal question of cause and effect [01:09:00] between stupidity and ill intent.

But I liked this story because it is such a great example of how media manipulation is everywhere. It is going to be everywhere. It can be in the stupidity of a journalist, as this person seems to claim. Actually he seems to try to have it both ways. He tries to say, well, I didn't check, so I didn't know. But he also said, Hey, I never said it was from this week, so that's your fault for misinterpreting, right? So he's having it both ways. But is he dumb? Is he a bad journalist? Did he do something without thinking? Did he actually think a 15-year-old photo was newsworthy? There are so many reasons why people might put misinformation -- or potentially disinformation -- onto the internet to serve their needs to get more clicks to whatever their personal motivations are. Or [01:10:00] maybe he just has a weird thing for Gal Gadot and really enjoyed posting that photo of her.

There's no telling.

But this is why media literacy is -- no, I don't know if it was ever a luxury, but you got to be on your toes for every single thing you see. And, I admit, it's exhausting. Which is why the propagandists are kind of winning. That's why they get a lot more views, a lot more clicks and people are being misled, left, right and center.

I do want to clarify, this is not something that I think like, well, because he supports Israel, he'll put out propaganda or do stupid things. It's not like this is one side or the other. People may follow their biases or want to push their perspective using misleading information on either side. This one just happened to be from the Israeli side and it was a perfect, right down the middle example of total buffoon [01:11:00] or cynical propagandist. It is almost impossible to tell.

As always, keep the comments coming in. You can leave us a voicemail or send a text to 202-999-3991, or send an email to [email protected].

That is going to be it for today. Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to the Monosyllabic Transcriptionist Trio, Ken, Brian and LaWendy for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work on all of our social media outlets, activism segments, graphic designing, web mastering, and bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships at BestOfTheLeft.com/support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app. Membership is how you get instant access to our incredibly good and funny bonus episodes, in addition to there being extra content and no ads in all of our regular episodes, all through your [01:12:00] regular podcast player.

So coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my name is Jay!, and this has been the Best of the Left podcast coming to twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from BestOfTheLeft.com.

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#1590 Red Caesar and Project 2025: A fascist fever dream being given a vaguely respectable coat of paint by the Claremont Institute and the Heritage Foundation (Transcript)

Posted by · October 23, 2023 8:38 PM

Air Date 10/23/2023

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast in which we shall take a look at the people who want to pull the country in directions that are only supported by a small minority of the population, and therefore have to develop a very intricate plans to have any hope of succeeding. This is the story of the latest plan to establish unchecked rule, to implement unpopular policies supported only by the far right.

Sources today include The ReidOut, Keeping Democracy Alive, The Majority Report, Wisecrack, Leeja Miller, and The Thom Hartmann Program, with an additional members-only clip from Tom Nicholas.

‘The endgame of election denial is that we shouldn't have elections’: Authoritarianism expert - The ReidOut - Air Date 10-6-23

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: On Thursday, Fox's Greg Gutfeld went on the air and said this:

GREG GUTFELD: We had a war over slavery. We knew slavery was inhumane and immoral, but somehow we couldn't solve slavery peacefully. It was an evil, but one side refused to acknowledge that it was evil because it was too big of an admission for [00:01:00] them to make.

Doesn't that feel that way now, that this defiant refusal to reverse this decline argues against the survival of a country? What does that leave you with? It leaves you with, you need to make war to bring peace, because you have a side that cannot change, because then that means an admission that their beliefs have been corrupt all the time.

So in a way, you have to force them to surrender. Or we could make love, not war. Ah, I tried that once. Or we have an election. I had to go to a doctor. Right, election. Yeah. No, elections don't work, we know that. We know they don't work.

JOY REID - HOST, THE REIDOUT: Just stop for a second and think about what he just told millions of Americans, that this country needs war to bring peace because you have a side that cannot change. You have to force them to surrender. And he couched his little rant in the Civil War, a war in which the people who could not change and whose beliefs were corrupt the whole time, shot and killed US troops and declared war on the United [00:02:00] States as well as secession for the purposes of keeping millions of people in bondage.

So what exactly are you suggesting, Greg? Because in addition to civil war, it sure sounds like you're calling for an end to elections. So, then what? Are you calling for violence against Democrats until they bend the knee? And what happens next? Do you militarize democratic states and cities and force the 84 million people who voted for President Biden and the majority of Americans who want women to own their own bodies and gun reform and police reform and to save the climate and let LGBTQ people live their lives? Will that majority have to live under armed occupation?

This is the madness that is being broadcast to millions of Americans on one of Fox's most popular shows, apparently with the full support of Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch.

To be clear, no normal news network would allow that to be said on air, but you can say it on Fox.[00:03:00]

I should note we reached out to Fox, but we did not receive a response in regard to whether or not this is acceptable.

The same day that Greg Gutfeld was calling for a new civil war, we learned that a man was arrested in Madison, Wisconsin, because he illegally brought a loaded handgun into the Wisconsin Capitol, demanding to see Democratic Governor Tony Evers. Then, after posting bail, he returned to the Capitol with an assault rifle. Fortunately, the governor was not there.

Less fortunate is the indigenous justice activist who was shot in the chest last week by a man wearing a Make America Great Again hat during a protest against the reinstallation of a statue honoring a Spanish conquistador in New Mexico. According to the arrest affidavit, the perpetrator was smiling and laughing during an interview with investigators.

These are just two recent examples, but in the age of Trump, we have seen a long list [00:04:00] of violent attacks. From the antisemitic terrorist attack that took place at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh; the deadly stabbing of O'Shea Sibley, a black gay man who was murdered for dancing with friends at a New York City gas station; to the deadly massacre at an El Paso Walmart, where the gunman said, quote, which the gunman said was, quote, "a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas," mirroring rhetoric that continues to be used by major conservative political figures and media organizations. And, of course, there is the assault on our Capitol back on January 6, 2021, when thousands of Trump supporters stormed Congress, assaulted police, and looked to lynch elected officials, including the Speaker of the House and the Vice President of the United States, for the apparent crime of certifying an election that was over, according to the US Constitution. The list just goes on and on and on.

And yet, despite all of these events, Republican [00:05:00] rhetoric remains authoritarian and violent because that is what their leader does.

Violent Authoritarianism: How Did This Become the GOP? - Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen - Air Date 11-23-21

JOSEPH LOWNDES: There's no way to think about the violence in the Republican Party or the violence on the right without seeing the ways in which there's a glorification of masculinity, and new kind of expressions of masculinity, which are really at work here, whether you're talking about the Proud Boys or the militias, or obviously Trump himself had a particularly potent and brutal form of masculinity.

And if you look at a lot of the mass killings on the right that have happened in the last decade or so, over half of those have been incel killings. Half of those have been this kind of rageful, anti-woman violence. So I just wanted to say, I think you're absolutely right there.

That the Kyle Rittenhouse thing is also the return, in some ways, to earlier forms of masculinity, masculine violence. He depicts himself as a helper, as kind of a community protector, as someone who is there not just to harm people, but to protect the community. And so he's almost like a Norman Rockwell figure of civic nationalism. There's pictures of him scrubbing graffiti off the walls and [00:06:00] that kind of thing.

But you know, what was particularly dangerous about Kyle Rittenhouse is that he can essentially enact far-right political violence and have it not seen as anything particularly nefarious because he's not identified with a white supremacist organization.

So if you go back just a couple years earlier, James Fields, the white neo-Nazi who killed Heather Heyer at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, the neo-Nazis at Unite the Right were roundly condemned by everyone, except for Trump himself. But even Steve Bannon, every Republican wanted to keep their distance from Unite the Right and say these were not our people, we have nothing to do with them, and James Field was tried and given life imprisonment.

Fast forward a couple years, you have Kyle Rittenhouse, who takes an AR-15 and shoots to death two people and wounds a third,[00:07:00] and he can be treated in a very different way, partly because, I think, two reasons.

One, now political violence in the right has become so commonplace that there's more room for it. There's more room for Republicans to embrace this kind of thing. But the other part of it is that the far right has begun not using the language of white supremacy, but of American nationalism, of law and order, of protecting people and property, and in doing so, they're able to reframe far right violence and reframe far right politics. And even to go further, actually to package it as anti-racist. My colleague Dan HoSang and I wrote a book, came out two years ago called Producers, Parasites, Patriots. And partly it's about the strange racial politics on the far right, that even though it's white supremacist, it incorporates themes of anti-racism. The Proud Boys, they always trumpet their multicultural membership.[00:08:00] And it's true, they're not wrong about that. And there are other elements of the militia movements now which were not tied openly to white supremacy, but to an idea of American nationalism.

So, if you were to go before January 6th to the websites of, say, the 3 Percent Militia, which is one of the most prominent paramilitary organizations involved in many of the attacks in the summer of 2020 on Black Lives Matter activists, but also during the January 6th riots, if you go to their website, if you go to their About page, the first thing you see is, in all caps, WE ARE NOT WHITE NATIONALISTS, WE ARE NOT WHITE SUPREMACISTS. They want to make it clear that race was not their agenda. If you went to the Oath Keepers website, the other major paramilitary organization involved in January 6th, on the front page is a YouTube video of a black member of the Oath Keepers, and the caption under it is, Oath Keepers come in all colors. So there's a way in which the far right has come to understand that if you want to advance right wing politics in this country, [00:09:00] you can't do it under the banner of white supremacy, you have to do it under the banner of American nationalism and ideas of law and order. There's other things you can throw in there: evangelical politics, anti communism, among a number of other things. But open racism, it's kind of a non-starter, I think.

And so you have Kyle Rittenhouse comes out in an interview with Tucker Carlson and he says, I support the Black Lives Matter movement, and I believe in institutional racism, and there's really nothing surprising about that. There's nothing surprising because Kyle Rittenhouse never framed himself as a racist to begin with. He said he was just protecting against disruptive forces. And that's what makes the current movement of the far right that much more dangerous, is that it now can enter the mainstream, because it doesn't have any kind of open identification with neo-Nazi organizations.

And so we're in a very dangerous place now, where someone like Rittenhouse can be seen as a heroic, lionized figure of American civic nationalism, of somebody who's just a caretaker, a protector, and his whiteness is clearly at [00:10:00] the heart of this, and so is his masculinity, but it's not done, it's not expressed in a way that it can be easily attacked as white supremacist.

BURT COHEN - HOST, KEEPING DEMOCRACY ALIVE: Interesting. And I'm reminded, I read a book a while ago called 1848 about the revolutions in Central Europe largely, which were pre-Marxist, but I found it fascinating that some of the aristocracy's most ardent defenders were the peasants. And now, I do find it interesting that masculinity, a lot of women support Trumpism and the far right. I guess it's comfortable and familiar to have this protective masculinity myth out there. And who would have thunk it? Rather than risking, I suppose, feminism and homosexuality and, that kind of social and cultural freedom, it's there, and it's often mystified me why some of the poorest people support the really, really wealthy [00:11:00] people. But that's what happens.

And clearly America's founders set us up in direct opposition to an all-powerful monarchy. Trumpists put this aside as they enthusiastically and openly embrace executive authoritarianism, the very thing we rebelled against, and they claim to hold the true patriotic banner, which they showed on January 6th.

And they still call themselves conservative, which kind of baffles me. This is the antithesis of conservatism. And the Republican Party seems to have gone from genuine conservatism to radical, anti-traditional Americanism.

Analyzing The Dark Roots Of Modern Conservatism - The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder - Air Date 10-15-23

JOHN S. HUNTINGTON: The early 20th century is very, very important for the rise of conservatism, especially the 1920s, I think, were a really important moment because you have this renewed fundamentalist vigor, you know, fighting against evolution being taught in public schools, you've got the rise of the second [00:12:00] Klan, and the nativism and racism that that brought to the forefront, and that version of the Klan had some one to three million members, including men of society, politicians, it was not, you know, just a bunch of ex-Confederates in the backwoods. I mean, this was a real legitimate movement. And then, when you build into the 1930s, when Franklin Roosevelt becomes president and starts instituting the New Deal, empowering labor, creating larger government programs, it kind of consolidates a large amount of the conservative, I guess opposition to the New Deal.

You have businessmen who don't want empowered unions. You have southern segregationists who don't like the fact that, you know, Black and Brown people are getting government benefits or are getting government jobs, and that might, you know, prevent them from being exploited in other ways that they had historically.

You have, you know, conspiracy theorists who believe that Franklin Roosevelt is going to bring, you know, communism to America, and there was also legitimate fascist [00:13:00] movements happening in the 1930s, the German-American Bund, the Silver Shirts. And so all of this together is this broader kind of conservative ecosystem that was trying to fight against New Deal liberalism and the advent of or the implementation of social democracy in America.

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Were they, uh, as coordinated as they became later in history, or was this really kind of different factions, you know, which, again, you could totally extrapolate onto modern day anti-communism, the racists, and the anti-labor part of conservative, or I guess you can put the anti-communist, anti-labor together. But based on FDR's success and popularity, and again, that had to do, obviously, with factors, you know, the Depression as well, but outside of the conservatives' control, but were they not as organized, as you would say, as they became decades later?

JOHN S. HUNTINGTON: That's a really interesting question, and in terms of kind of the themes of conservatism, I will say the song very much remains the same, but I would definitely argue that [00:14:00] they do become more consolidated later for a number of different reasons. In the 1930s, the conservative movement that I write about is a little bit more disconnected, right?

You had guys like, for example, there was a group called the Jeffersonian Democrats, and their whole goal was, what they would view it as redeeming their Democratic party, they didn't like Roosevelt, they felt like he had perverted their party. And so their main goal was just to get him off the ticket and get a real conservative on there, but Roosevelt was so popular that they struggled to do this, so instead they pivoted to actually supporting the Republican, who himself was kind of like a moderate to even liberal sometimes guy named Alfred Landon. And so as a result, their politics was very much centered on getting rid of Roosevelt. Later on, the conservative movement will coalesce in a way that they will eventually take over the Republican party, right? And that's where figures like Barry Goldwater and even William Buckley become important because they are spearheading a broader [00:15:00] conservative coalition than the oNes in the '30s and '40s..

EMMA VIGELAND - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: So, can we talk a bit more about the second coming of the Ku Klux Klan, and how that fit into, particularly, what was it, 1915, when they were founded once again, into that time Birth of a Nation comes out... We were chatting about this before the show and Matt, our producer, was saying that some people call the Klan the first real U. S. fascist organization in the United States. Is that a fair assessment? And, perhaps, you can draw comparisons to the present as well.

JOHN S. HUNTINGTON: So, I am not necessarily a scholar of fascism, but I do think that there are notes of fascism, certainly, within the Ku Klux Klan, the authoritarian inclinations, the calls to replenish America somehow, you know, not to put too fine a point on it, but make "America Great Again" is very much a, you know, we need to renew, we need a renaissance in this country, and that's what the Klan was offering, and they very much, you know, clung [00:16:00] both to the flag and to the cross at the same time, using Christianity and patriotism as a way to otherize certain people, whether it was immigrants, or Black Americans, or whomever, to create a Whiter nation, or at least a nation in which White people had all the power.

And, you know, so I do think that there is an element of fascism in that. A lot of those notes are very similar. And part of the problem with the fascism conversation, which I'm sure, if you guys on Twitter, you know very well, it's been debated very much by academics. Part of the problem is that, you know, many people will only say, well, if it wasn't... Nazi Germany or Mussolini's Italy, then it can't be fascism. But I think that misses the point of political culture, right? A culture of violence, a culture that says that, you know, we need to bring America back to when it was great, usually which means a Whiter, more restrictive, less democratic America, you know, these very much are the same sort of appeals that previous fascists have made. And I do think that that connection is warranted.

How Often Do YOU Think About the Roman Empire? - Wisecrack - Air Date 10-16-23

MICHAEL BURNS - HOST, WISECRACK: How often do you think about the Roman Empire? Now, this is a question [00:17:00] that recently took over TikTok and lots of mainstream media. Now, Mehdi reacted with disbelief upon discovering that the people closest to them are just secretly daydreaming about the ancient civilization. Like, all the time.

TIKTOKER: Babe?

TIKTOKER'S BOYFRIEND: Yeah?

TIKTOKER: How often do you think about the Roman Empire?

TIKTOKER'S BOYFRIEND: Three times a day.

MICHAEL BURNS - HOST, WISECRACK: Now, while it might feel a little cliche today, this phenomenon is actually nothing new. In fact, the West's obsession with Rome has shaped history for centuries, ever since the last great empire's toga orgy had its last call at the Coliseum Bar. As writer Johann Chapoutot notes, just about every ambitious ruler since Rome's fall has sought to assume the faded robes of the defunct imperium romanum.

Now Rome's loomed especially large since the dawn of Italian humanism in the 14th century, which flowered into the Renaissance as scholars rediscovered classical works of history, poetry, and science, a canon that fueled Western thought, art, politics, and so on for centuries. And of course, this makes sense because the whole point of history [00:18:00] is to learn from it, right?

Well, the problem is, whether it's an 18th century monarch or a catpoop666 on X, people typically don't talk about Rome with a clear historical understanding, at least according to scholar Peter Bondanella. Rather, they invoke the powerful Roman mythos, a narrative that has modified, changed, or even distorted historical fact over the centuries. It's a mythology so powerful, Bondanella argues, that it's no less than changed the course of history. Because Roman history contains multitudes on multitudes, you can use it to symbolize practically anything.

Now, many trace the beginning of Western modernity to the French Revolution and its twin American showdown. Ironically, that means modernity owes a lot to images of antiquity. Philosopher Hannah Arendt argues that Roman republicanism gave French and American revolutionaries both the blueprint and the courage for their unprecedented uprisings.

Now, most of America's founding fathers were classically educated, [00:19:00] and especially after the Revolution they sought to model after Roman republicanism. George Washington used the Roman play Cato to inspire downtrodden troops. And historian Nicholas Cole notes, that Thomas Jefferson replicated Rome's architecture in Virginia's state capitol to evoke the notion of legitimate authority. And to this day, just about every government building in America has followed his lead.

In the late 19th century, a rising American empire deemed itself a new and improved heir to Rome, holding what Malamud calls the view that America was exceptional, that it could embrace wealth and empire whilst indefinitely or permanently avoiding Rome's imperial decline. That's because, unlike Rome, America was Christian and therefore impervious to imperial corruption and power lust. 'Cause as you all know, if you're a Christian, you can never have, you know, a lust for corruption or imperial power because no one who is Christian has ever done imperialism.

Roman [00:20:00] imperialism was celebrated in American culture through a wave of Roman inspired urban architecture, which created a deeply satisfying illusion of imperial grandeur, civic order, prosperity, and authority. Now, fast forward to the more-is-more 1980s, when images of Roman imperialism would permeate culture and spectacles like Vegas Casino Resort, Caesar's Palace, and later its Roman themed shopping mall.

RON CAREY, AS SWIFTUS, IN HISTORY OF THE WORLD, PART I: Just the best gig in all of Rome, a date that every stand up philosopher, including Socrates, would die for. Believe it or not, you are going to play Caesar's Palace.

MICHAEL BURNS - HOST, WISECRACK: Now, according to Malamud, these nostalgic sights of splendor collapse the historical specificity and diversity of ancient and modern empires. At the same time, she adds, they also sanction and even glamorize the contemporary exploitative behaviors of America's corporate elites. Cloaked in decadent Roman imagery, she notes, rampant consumerism takes on a historical bent and justification.

Now, back in the 1930s, Roman imperialists were depicted as the enemy of the working man. [00:21:00] But by the 1980s, they become aspirational symbols of America's excessive wealth and consumerism. Rome's sheer malleability, as well as its sprawling history has made its mythos easy to fit just about any agenda. As such, Malamud argues, representations of the Roman past tell us little about the real Rome, but a lot about the prevailing attitudes and perspectives of the times when the representations were made. Given all this context, it no longer seems particularly remarkable that we've all still kind of got the hots for ancient Rome. But given the checkered legacy of the mythos, what agenda is today's vision of the Roman Empire serving? A complicated one.

Now, obviously, plenty of women love a good biography of Brutus, and in fact, tons of top classical scholars are women. But as became clear on TikTok, the fascination with Rome doesn't really seem to be a gender neutral matter. And it makes sense, because Rome was not a fun place for women, who, depending on your class status, were reduced to either daughter/wife who never leaves [00:22:00] the house, or slave. So, you know, not really a ton to feel nostalgic for. But for men, Rome offers a safe space to explore its masochistic patriarchy. It's far enough in the distance that the violence and oppression associated feel less vivid and, uh, less icky. Similarly, super violent video games set in antiquity offer an escapist sight for projecting our voyeuristic fascination while watching heads fly off, when they get cut off with swords and stuff. However, presenting ancient violence as normal serves another purpose. Scholar Irene Berti writes, "the modern interest in ancient violence appears to be at least partially driven by a desire to legitimize contemporary violence".

In both these ways, fantasizing about ancient Rome lets us safely indulge in images of patriarchal power. And that's potent in an era of widespread male anxiety about shifting gender roles, the post industrial decline of male dominated blue collar labor, and so on.

The Conservative Plan to Take Over the Country Part 1 - Leeja Miller - Air Date 9-26-23

RICHARD NIXON: Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal. [00:23:00]

DONALD TRUMP: It's a thing called Article 2. Nobody ever mentions Article 2. More importantly, Article 2 allows me to do whatever I want.

PAUL DANS: Our common theme is to take down the administrative state, the bureaucracy. Preparing to march into office and bring a new army of aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state

LEEJA MILLER - HOST, LEEJA MILLER: For the last 18 months, conservatives from every corner of the far right establishment, from extremist think tanks to former members of the Trump administration to tenured academics, have been working both publicly and privately on a new project.

The project's goal: to rescue the country from the grip of the radical left, uniting the conservative movement in the American people against elite rule and woke culture warriors. And the stakes are high. According to this group, if we fail, the fight for the very idea of America may be lost. Last month, this group of far right leaders, known as Project 2025, released a 920-page manifesto titled [00:24:00] Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.

In it, the document's 35 different named authors, united and copyrighted by the far right Heritage Foundation, lay out an explicit, comprehensive plan to completely overhaul the US government from the inside out, with the ultimate goal of furthering far right wedge issues and concentrating as much power as possible in the hands of the President. Project 2025 is touted as the ultimate solution to paving the way for the next conservative dministration, which they believe will take power in January 2025. While the entire project mimics the same talking points that Trump has harped on throughout his presidency and current campaign, the leaders of this project make clear that the plan is not dependent on a specific person winning the Republican nomination and ultimately the White House. Instead, it's a blueprint for the next conservative executive, whoever they may be, to push the limits of presidential power so far that they will answer to no one, wreaking havoc on the delicate balance of our three branches of government that have allowed us to function as a democracy for nearly two and a half centuries.

This is the conservative plan to take over the country.

Launched in April 2022, Project 2025 is the brainchild of the far right think tank, the Heritage Foundation. Project 2025 is systematically building the future of the conservative movement and promoting policy objectives that would have [00:25:00] devastating consequences not only in our government, but for every person living in this country.

That might sound hyperbolic, but I'm telling you, I cover a lot of batshit stories about conservatives, and this one has me spooked as hell, y'all.

Their plan to further these goals has four pillars. Pillar number one is the policy, embodied in that 920-page manifesto they dropped last month. Pillar number two is the personnel database, described as the conservative LinkedIn. The objective of the database is to collect resumes and information for thousands and thousands of conservatives from all walks of life and industries, in order to source the best candidates to pack every branch and administrative body in Washington and throughout the states. To ensure that this database of personnel and the chosen warriors who will infiltrate the government at every level are properly prepared to represent the conservative goals set forth in the policy, Project 2025 relies on pillar number three: training. Through an online institute, Project 2025 will prepare the foot soldiers of the conservative agenda to push their policies from day one. And because they've been preparing for years, they will be ready [00:26:00] on day one of the new conservative presidency thanks to pillar number four. Pillar number four is the 180 day playbook, the step by step guide for the next conservative president to implement the policies laid out in the manifesto as quickly and systematically as possible in the first 180 days of their term.

Through these four pillars - policy, personnel, training, and the playbook - Project 2025 aims to overhaul the entire U. S. government from the inside out, putting in place draconian policies and gutting important government agencies, all in the name of the Constitution and good, White, Christian family values.

The note at the beginning of the paper, authored by Project 2025 director Paul Dans, a former Trump official, lays out what's at stake. "The long march of cultural Marxism through our institutions has come to pass. The federal government is a behemoth, weaponized against American citizens and conservative values. With freedom and liberty under siege as never before, the task at hand to reverse this tide and restore our republic to its original moorings is too great for any [00:27:00] one conservative policy shop to spearhead. It requires the collective action of our movement. With the quickening approach of January 2025, we have two years and one chance to get it right".

The language throughout the policy manifesto and the Project 2025 website is militant. Clearly meant to play into the fears and the patriotic duty that far right constituents feel so strongly. The same militant language that led to the righteous anger of the January 6th insurrection.

The report starts with, "We want you. The 2025 Presidential Transition Project is the conservative movement's unified effort to be ready for the next conservative administration to govern at 12 noon, January 20th, 2025. Welcome to the mission. By opening this book, you are now a part of it. Indeed, one set of eyes reading these pages will be those of the 47th president of the United States, and we hope every other reader will join in making the incoming administration a success".

This is positioned as a mandate, making readers, ostensibly the conservative foot soldiers who'll do their bidding, feel like they're in on a top secret mission, like this is [00:28:00] some G. I. Joe mission shit, because the authors know that that is the absolute conservative wet dream and they're playing into it.

The foreword includes a tidy summation of all the conservative wedge issues and talking points that have been flying around over the last few decades, all of which are addressed at length in the document.

"Look at America under the ruling and cultural elite today. Inflation is ravaging family budgets, drug overdose deaths continue to escalate, and children suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism, with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries. Overseas, a totalitarian communist dictatorship in Beijing is engaged in a strategic, cultural, and economic cold war against America's interests, values, and people. All while globalist elites in Washington awaken only slowly to that growing threat. Moreover, low income communities are drowning in addiction and government dependence. Contemporary elites have even repurposed the worst ingredients of 1970s radical chic to build the totalitarian cult known today as the Great [00:29:00] Awokening. Most alarming of all, the very moral foundations of our society are in peril". The foreword goes on to list the four broad fronts that the policy mandate will cover. Those are, "1) restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children; 2) dismantle the administrative state and return self governance to the American people; 3) defend our nation's sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats; 4) secure our God given individual rights to live freely, what our constitution calls the blessings of liberty". And the manifesto goes on to lay out over 920 pages and 5 sections how they plan on furthering those four fronts.

Chief among the policies promoted in the manifesto are a gutting of the administrative state and furtherance of the unitary executive theory.

The GOP’s "Red Caesar" New Political Order Plan Marches Forward - The Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 10-3-23

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THE THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: An awful lot of this is a handful, maybe 20, 25 Republicans in the GOP caucus, in the Republican caucus, who are dancing to the tune of Vladimir Putin via Donald Trump. And that's [00:30:00] really what's going on here.

Which brings me to the GOP's Red Caesar's new political order plan. Seriously. Damon Linker is a senior lecturer at Penn State University's Department of Political Science, and he said, "30 years ago, if you'd told me that a bunch of billionaires and intellectuals on the far right are waiting in the wings to impose a dictatorship on the United States, I would have said that you were insane." He says, "But it's no longer insane. It's now real. There are those people out there. And the question is, will they get their chance?"

This is what's really going on. The simple reality is that Republicans are rejecting democracy right across the board. Whether it's a Supreme Court Justice in Wisconsin who is elected with a substantial majority of the voters that Republicans are trying to impeach. Whether it's purging some 40 million people from the voting rolls in the last decade. 17 million people purged from the voting rolls just in two years, the first two years that Donald Trump held power. [00:31:00] Massive gerrymandering, making it harder for particularly people who live in blue cities that are located in red states, like Houston, where the Republicans just took over the entire voting system for the the city. It's one in six Texas voters. Dark money TV carpet bombing campaigns filled with lies and half truths, like the one going after Sherrod Brown right now. And now, North Carolina, the legislature in North Carolina just created its own gestapo force answerable to the Republicans who are running the House and Senate.

Now, North Carolina, actually, the majority of North Carolinians vote for Democrats, which is why they have Ray Cooper -- or is it Roy -- is their governor. He's a Democrat. Because the majority of people in North Carolina vote for Democrats, but the Republicans control their House, their Senate, and their Congressional delegation. Why? Because of gerrymandering. So these guys in North Carolina created their own police force, answerable not to the governor, but to [00:32:00] them, to the Republicans. They created this thing called the Joint Legislative Committee on Government Operations, or GovOps. And Judd Legum is writing about this over at Popular.info, he said basically now anybody who is a contractor, subcontractor, works for any non-state entity, receiving directly or indirectly public funds, including charities and state universities, the Government Ops staff can now bust into your home without a warrant, go through your papers, go through your apartment, take your computer with them, go through your computer, go through your phone. He writes, "This includes the private residences of subcontractors and contractors. Alarmingly, public employees under investigation will be required to keep all communication and requests confidential." In other words, if this Republican-controlled gestapo comes after you in North Carolina, you can't tell anybody about it. They cannot alert their supervisor to the investigation, nor [00:33:00] consult with legal counsel. You can't even have a lawyer. Violating this rule shall be grounds for disciplinary action, including dismissal. Those who refuse to cooperate face jail time. In the event the Government Ops searches a person's home, these rules mean that the person, number one, must keep the entry secret; number two, cannot seek outside help; number three, could face criminal charges if GovOps deems them uncooperative.

Meanwhile, down in Florida, Ron DeSantis has created two armed forces: his Election Integrity Police -- election integrity is the Republican phrase that means stop black people from voting -- and his new State Guard. As Charlie Crist, the former Republican governor, said, No governor should have his own hand-picked secret police.

You got armed fascist movements, basically the reincarnation of the Klan all across the country. Donald Trump saying if he gains the White House again, it'll be the last election ever, he's gonna put his political opponents in prison, and he's gonna shut down [00:34:00] NBC. This is pretty clear fascist stuff.

Trump said that, in January of last year, he said that he wanted to terminate the Constitution. And now some of the Republican thinkers are talking about a post-Constitutional new political order. In fact, they're trying to get together to rewrite the Constitution itself. As Robert Reich says, these are not the elements of authoritarianism, they are the essential elements of fascism.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are calling people like you and me fascists. They're calling Democrats fascists. Honest to God. This has been going on all, I've been doing this radio show for 20 years, and during that entire period of time I, from time to time listen to my colleagues on the right, and they are constantly talking about how Nazis are actually leftists. Don't you know? Nazi is short for National Socialist. Socialist is left. Not so much, actually. Nazis are on the right. But in a survey, 76% of Republicans said that fascists are on the left side of the [00:35:00] spectrum. 68% of Republicans think Nazis are left of center, and 43% say Nazis are the pinnacle of leftism.

Democrats and everybody else understands that Nazis are on the right. They wanna bomb Mexico. They want to defund the FBI. They're promoting homophobia, misogyny, racial hatred. They stole $50 trillion from America's working class families and put it in the money bins of the morbidly rich.

What we're looking at here is the road to fascism right here in the United States.

The Conservative Plan to Take Over the Country Part 2 - Leeja Miller - Air Date 9-26-23

LEEJA MILLER - HOST, LEEJA MILLER: The unitary executive theory says, actually, inherent in Article Two of the Constitution, the president has complete control of the executive branch, so Congress can't create all of these agencies and put power in the hands of agency heads to make decisions. That power is supposed to be concentrated in the hands of the one singular executive.

Reagan's lawyers came up with the idea in order to push deregulatory efforts. Bush Jr. used it to lend validity to [00:36:00] his exercises of power after 9/11. While Obama expressed a more modest view of presidential power initially, he too exercised authority that circumvented Congress in several policy areas, especially in the deployment of US military forces overseas.

And then Trump, of course, came in and was like, hold my Big Mac. Let me try this. And he frequently tested the bounds of acceptable exercise of executive power, from Muslim bans, to the border, to threatening sanctuary cities, he declared over and over that his authority extended to overriding congressional laws and funding authority.

As one judge stated in response to Trump's threats against sanctuary cities, "The separation of powers acts as a check on tyranny and the concentration of power. If the executive branch can determine policy and then use the power of the purse to mandate compliance with that policy by the state and local governments, all without authorization or even acquiescence of elected legislators, that check against tyranny is forsaken".

Trump considered himself and his presidential powers not only beyond the bounds of Congress, but even beyond the bounds of judicial review, [00:37:00] arguing that his travel ban was unreviewable by the federal courts. The judge in that case declared, "There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy".

Even scholars who are in favor of wide reaching executive power are appalled at Trump's behavior. John Yoo advocates in favor of the unitary executive theory and famously wrote a memo defending the legality of waterboarding under Bush. But he also wrote a New York Times editorial entitled, "Executive Power Run Amok", saying, "Even I have grave concerns about Mr. Trump's uses of presidential power". Yikes.

But it appears that Project 2025 is supporting the idea that the president should constitutionally be entitled to vast levels of control over all administrative agencies, what they do, and who runs and staffs them from the top down, and Congress should have no ability to check that executive authority.

Many, many constitutional law scholars argue that this is beyond the bounds of the constitution, no matter [00:38:00] how you look at it. But the first administration of Donald Trump, whether or not there's a second, has already done the damage. As Jeffrey Crouch writes in his 2020 book, On the Unitary Executive Theory - yes, there are entire books about this - "Once precedents have been established for presidents to exercise expansive presidential powers with little pushback, future chief executives will be less likely to feel responsible for dialing them back.

And Project 2025 is betting on just that, with its expansive overhaul of every administrative agency in the country. If he does get back in the White House, Trump has made clear that he'll finish what he started, declaring he will find and remove the radicals who have infiltrated the Federal Department of Education and promising to demolish the deep state.

DONALD TRUMP: We will expel the war mongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists, and fascists, and we will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.

LEEJA MILLER - HOST, LEEJA MILLER: He plans to do this in part through what's been called Schedule F, a plan that Project 2025 appears to adopt as well. In the [00:39:00] waning days of Trump's presidency, he passed an executive order called "Creating Schedule F in the Accepted Service". This order removed employment protections from career officials, those who work in government agencies in a non-political, non-appointed position, deeming them Schedule F employees who may be fired at will by the president, presumably if they don't show sufficient loyalty or execute the duties of the agency in the way the president deems necessary, effectively stripping any sort of checks or balances on the president's ability to control federal agencies from the top down.

In fact, two former Trump White House aides, Johnny McEntee and Russell Vought, who were instrumental to Schedule F, are also involved in Project 2025, indicating a continuation of the policy by whatever conservative president next takes the White House. McEntee is quoted as saying, "Our current executive branch was conceived of by liberals for the purpose of promulgating liberal policies. There is no way to make the existing structure function in a conservative manner. It's not enough to get the personnel right. What's necessary is a complete system [00:40:00] overhaul".

And that is at the heart of Project 2025's plan. None of their policies and wedge issues work without gutting the administrative states and concentrating more power in the hands of the president. Of course, their goal is also to pack Congress and the courts with as many conservatives as possible, but that's less of a problem when you establish an executive with unchecked power and through that unchecked power, the new conservative executive will be able to gut agencies and put people in place to further conservative agendas. Those include a push away from environmental protections in favor of becoming a fossil fuels industry leader, a move away from what they call globalism, including encouraging corporations to bring jobs back from overseas, and the forward to the manifesto declares, "Those who run our so-called American corporations have bent to the will of the woke agenda and care more for their foreign investors and organizations than their American workers and customers. Today, nearly every top tier U. S. university president or Wall Street hedge fund manager has more in common with a socialist European head of state than with the parents at a high [00:41:00] school football game in Waco, Texas. Many elite's entire identity, it seems, is wrapped up in their sense of superiority over those people. But under our Constitution, they are the mere equals of the workers who shower after work instead of before."

And while that passage is absolutely unhinged for many reasons, there are a few things we can agree on here. American corporations absolutely do care more for their foreign investors and organizations than their American workers and customers. And yeah, they hide behind woke language, like DEI, while also being awful for workers, the environment, and equality writ large. But I think conservatives genuinely think that corporations actually believe the DEI bullshit they spew, and that it's not just a way to avoid lawsuits. Like, come on guys, I thought you were a little smarter than that. Also, I would wager a bet that the framers of our constitution, largely products of the academy, did not consider themselves equal to laborers who showered after work.

Okay, so I hope that I have sufficiently communicated the gravity of this plan. If a Republican wins the presidency in 2024, they will [00:42:00] be handed this plan. They, of course, aren't required to do anything with it, in theory, but given that Trump and DeSantis, the two frontrunners for the nomination, are both batshit fuckin' off their damn rockers, it seems likely that whoever wins the nomination would wholeheartedly back most, if not all, of the policy items put forth by Project 2025. Lord knows Trump isn't going to read any of this, so he'll likely just hand it off as-is to be implemented by people who can read good and stuff.

So what do we do? We make extra damn fuckin' sure that the Republican doesn't win the election in 2024. This is an all hands on deck situation, my friends. Do I want Biden? No! But he is, once again, the best choice that we have. You also need to vote in Democratic senators and representatives as well. You need to bring your roommates and your partners and your family members and make sure that they vote. You need to call them ahead of time and be like, Hi, what's your plan for voting? You need to be thinking about this early and often. You need to be just a little bit scared. Not to be fear mongery, but this is genuinely a terrifying prospect for our [00:43:00] government that feels really, really imminent.

Of course, any of these unilateral actions that a Republican president could theoretically take could then also be challenged in courts, but he's packed the courts, including the Supreme Court, and the result of attempting to implement all of these new policies in the first 180 days would be sheer chaos.

John F. Kelly, Trump's literal chief of staff, has said, "It would be chaotic. It just simply would be chaotic because he'd continually be trying to exceed his authority, but the sycophants would go along with it. It would be a nonstop gunfight with the Congress and the courts". Even if the theoretical Republican president couldn't get through all of these policy proposals, it would still create a level of chaos that could further undermine trust in the government as a whole.

The good news, if you could call it that, is that Project 2025 is radical. It does not comport with how the majority of Americans feel. 71 percent of Americans support same sex marriage. 85 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal under at least certain circumstances. And only 13 percent say it should be illegal under all circumstances. [00:44:00] 69 percent of Americans believe that the U. S. should take steps to become carbon neutral by 2050. The number of adults in the U. S. who identify as Christian has fallen by 25 percent since the 1990s.

For most people - Democrats, centrists, and even some Republicans - Project 2025 goes way too far. And represents an upheaval and existential threat that is beyond what most people want to see in the US government. So my hope is that the more people who know the actual contents of the Project 2025 plan, the more people will get out and vote to make sure the hellscape it presents never comes to fruition.

Think Tanks: How Fake Experts Shape the News - Tom Nicholas - Air Date 5-13-23

TOM NICHOLAS - HOST, TOM NICHOLAS: The story of the modern day think tank begins in America in 1916 with this brilliantly bearded fellow Robert S. Brookings.

Brookings was very much a Bill Gates or Michael Bloomberg of his day. He'd made his fortune manufacturing, transporting and selling wooden furniture. And he must have had a pretty good eye for dining room tables, because by the age of 47, he'd become [00:45:00] so unbelievably wealthy that he was able to pack in his day job entirely and focus on the larger questions in life. Which, I mean, it's not like a businessman getting into politics has ever been a bad idea, is it? See, if you were a wealthy industrialist in turn of the century America, then you were all about the two Ps: philanthropy and progressivism. By philanthropy, I, of course, mean sharing a portion of your wealth with honourable causes. This was the era of Carnegie and Rockefeller, both of whom loved to dish out cash in return for the modest gesture of having their names chiselled in massive letters on the side of a library or lecture theatre. By progressivism, I mean a new political philosophy that was taking the American elite by storm.

Now, while related, it's important to say that the progressivism that gained traction at the beginning of the 20th century wasn't quite [00:46:00] the same as what's sometimes referred to as progressivism in American political commentary today. These titans of industry weren't about to call for a Bernie Sanders style political revolution. Instead, for rich folks, turn of the century progressivism was all about taking a more evidence-based approach to politics. In an era of continuous labour disputes, strikes and lockouts, figures such as Robert S. Brookings felt that politics had grown too ideological and that society would benefit, instead, from a more reasoned approach, which found solutions to society's ills in the then blossoming field of economics and other social sciences. It was to this end that, in 1916, Brookings founded the Institute for Government Research. His goal was for this organisation to hire a ragtag bunch of economists and other social scientists to conduct studies [00:47:00] and undertake research which could then be shared with politicians, and those who vote for them, to help them make more informed, rational decisions.

Again, allergic to what he thought of as ideological thinking, the Institute was to be, in Brookings own words, "free from any political or pecuniary interests, and would simply lay before the country in a coherent form the fundamental economic facts, as objectively as possible". And, in case anyone's worried that Brookings was being a little modest in his founding of the Institute for Government Research, fear not. He renamed it the Brookings Institution a few years later.

Of course, it's important to acknowledge that this notion of being able to transcend ideology and enact a perfectly logical politics is a load of rubbish. As Abigail Thorn of Philosophy Tube highlights in her video on Jordan Peterson, what one considers to be [00:48:00] ideological and what one views as just logical is itself informed by one's ideological view of the world. This is, in turn, often shaped by one's material interests. It speaks volumes, for instance, that the Brookings Institution was a committed opponent of the New Deal, arguing instead that FDR should have responded to the Great Depression with the implementation of austerity measures.

Nevertheless, there was clearly some degree of intellectual freedom at the Brookings Institution. In 1933, for example, one Brookings researcher wrote a paper which called for the nationalization of the American coal industry, which is unlikely to have been the natural political position of the institution's capitalist benefactor. Brookings' reputation for high quality, independent research led to a small coterie of similar organizations popping up over the following decades. The National Bureau for Economic [00:49:00] Research and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, for example, both similarly hired researchers to produce reports on economic trends and defense policy. In all honesty, these early think tanks were pretty boring. They largely consisted of a bunch of policy nerds sitting in offices, writing books, and compiling studies that very few people actually read.

Yet soon, all of that was to change. See, as the 20th century wore on, this brief trend among the super rich for having a social conscience began to wane. The economic elite in both America and Europe increasingly began to embrace a politics of libertarianism or what's now often called neoliberalism. These political philosophies viewed most state intervention in the economy, whether that be progressive taxation, the provision of unemployment benefits, or the requirement of workplaces to comply with health and safety regulations, [00:50:00] as denying rich people their fundamental human right to get even richer. What they needed, however, was a way of making this clearly self-interested worldview palatable to the general public.

A key figure in this campaign was a British businessman called Antony Fisher. Fisher first became interested in neoliberal economics when he read an abridged version of Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, which is essentially the sacred text of people who like to shake their fists at big government. Fisher sought out Hayek at a public lecture at the London School of Economics and explained that the book had inspired him to embark upon a career as a politician. Hayek, however, convinced Fisher that he could have far more influence over politics by using his time and wealth to found a research institute devoted to producing evidence to [00:51:00] support the implementation of right wing policies.

There were a handful of pre-existing organizations which Fisher was able to draw inspiration from when he founded the Institute of Economic Affairs in 1955. Since the mid 1940s, concerned groups of businessmen in the United States had begun to similarly fund so called research organizations which, on the surface, seemed similar enough to the bureaucratic offerings of the Brookings Institution. With names such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Foundation for Economic Education, they certainly sounded boring enough. Yet, these organisations were driven by a far clearer political agenda. Their role was no longer to undertake research which could inform recommendations for political policy, but to pick a conservative, libertarian or otherwise right wing policy their funders would want to see implemented and then [00:52:00] work backwards to piece together some research which showed that policy to be beneficial.

Antony Fisher's creation, the Institute of Economic Affairs, was an overwhelming success. Over the course of 20 years, it waged a quiet yet dedicated campaign to popularize free market economic ideas among both British politicians and those who voted for them. These efforts would pay off in 1979, when Margaret Thatcher was elected as Prime Minister, and began to implement many of the IEA's favorite policies.

Fischer was not content with influencing British politics, however. Spurred on by the victories of the IEA, he soon set about internationalizing this model of propaganda with an academic facade, founding the Manhattan Institute in America, the Fraser Institute in Canada and the Centre for Independent Studies in Australia. [00:53:00] In fact, all in all, Fisher has been credited with contributing to the founding of 150 of these institutes across the globe, all with the goal of providing advocates of unregulated capitalism with academic sounding evidence to support their arguments.

The most influential of what was slowly becoming known as "think tanks" in the United States, however, was not one of Fisher's. The Heritage Foundation was founded in 1973, with a donation of $250,000 from Joseph Coors, then president of the Coors Brewing Company, a position we can only assume that he obtained through merit. If Antony Fisher established the model for the modern day think tank, Then the Heritage Foundation perfected it. The Foundation did away with book length studies and boring original research almost entirely, instead focusing on the publication and circulation of policy briefs. These consisted of [00:54:00] super short pamphlets containing, uh, evidence to prove why a certain bill being considered by the US Congress was good or bad, and which would be distributed to politicians and journalists to try and shape the political and media conversation around that bill. Much like the Institute of Economic Affairs in the UK, the Heritage Foundation, and other right wing think tanks like it, played a key role in popularizing libertarian and neoliberal ideas among the American public. In doing so, they helped lay the groundwork for the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

As more and more businesses and rich folks began to donate greater and greater amounts of money to support their work, the Heritage Foundation also began to put pressure on politicians themselves. When Reagan first took office in 1981, Heritage presented his administration with a 3, 000 page, 20 [00:55:00] volume report called Mandate for Leadership, which detailed all the policies that they thought he should implement. And It worked! By the end of Reagan's first term, he had enacted around half of the reforms that the Heritage Foundation had pushed for.

While the first think tanks were founded with the intention of having at least a modicum of intellectual independence, then, during the second half of the Twentieth Century, they became increasingly partisan. Later organisations such as the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Heritage Foundation were able to draw upon the relatively good reputation of firms such as the Brookings Institution to dress up their propaganda as legitimate, serious research.

Final comments discussing the Red Caesar movement and our strange allies opposing it

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips today, starting with The ReidOut, looking at the now explicit calls to simply do away with elections and have a civil war. Keeping Democracy Alive, looked at how the GOP has embraced toxic and outdated modes of [00:56:00] masculinity. The Majority Report looked at the historical conservative movement of the past 100 years. Wisecrack discussed the fascination lots of people seem to have with ancient Rome. Leeja Miller, in two parts, explained project 2025 from the Heritage Foundation. And Thom Hartmann gave a laundry list of examples of the GOP using authoritarian tactics here and now.

That's what everybody heard, but members also heard a bonus clip from Tom Nicholas who looked into the history of think tanks, like the Heritage Foundation, that help shape so much of our politics. To hear that and have all of our bonus contents delivered seamlessly to the new members-only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at bestoftheleft.com/support, or shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

Now to wrap up, I actually thought we should dive just a bit deeper into the Red Caesar idea because it turns out we might actually be a little bit early to [00:57:00] this party, at least on the left. So I had a chat with producer Deon who helps produce this show about the horrifying research he did, including listening to lots of right-wing takes both for and against an emperor taking over the country. Weird times, right?

All right, Deon, welcome to the show. This is a special occasion because this is a special topic, I think. We're a curation show. We try to pull interesting thoughts and information from outside sources and pull them together. Red Caesar, though, and its slightly more respectable cousin, Project 2025, is... I think we're a little on the cutting edge of this discussion, would you say?

DEON: I think so.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And the left has not fully caught on yet, and so you sort of submitted as tribute to be thrown into[00:58:00] the darker areas of the internet and have learned not just about Project 2025 that we heard plenty about on the show today, but the Red Caesar-fascist-fever-dream-4chan- troll version of this. And so we thought, well, I guess we just have to hear from you what you heard. So, um, who are the people putting forward the Red Caesar theory?

DEON: The Red Caesar movement is definitely supported by what you would call, like, the 4chan troll type people. It's the people that have bronze busts in their, uh, Twitter, or X avis. It's the people that think that all the wrongs that are going on in society can be righted by one strong male figure in the mold of a Caesar. And the Claremont Institute [00:59:00] is pushing in that direction. I'm not sure if they specifically have ever said they want a Red Caesar, but that's the type of organization that wants it. The Heritage Foundation is the foundation that's behind the Project 2025 that is buttoned up. It seems semi-respectable until you really read it and it's scary and terrifying. But it seems more respectable. The Red Caesar movement is just, We want an authoritarian daddy to rule us.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Does anyone ever explain why they think that the authoritarian daddy will agree with them personally on everything they want to have happen? Or do they not dive that deep?

DEON: The people that are against it, like, especially the people on the right that are against it, say almost explicitly that. It just tracks naturally that if you have a strong man, one person in charge, the chances that he's [01:00:00] going to agree with you, specifically, are pretty slim. And that is like a big pushback. And I found this borderline hopeful, in the sense that, when researching this, that the biggest pushback was on the right. What we would call conservative Christians or whatever you wanna label 'em. They're not in favor of it. Maybe we don't agree on the reasons why we should be against it. Maybe they think there should be a different version of this. I don't know. But they definitely disagree with this movement specifically because they see it as hedonistic. There's an odd kind of unaddressed but maybe slightly addressed homoeroticism that goes along with it because it is a worship of a strong, bronzed, shirtless man. That's the idea. So those are some of the objections from the right specifically.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Yeah. And we were sort of theorizing that, I mean, as I said at the top that we, for a left wing [01:01:00] show, might be a little cutting edge on this. And it may just be that we're hearing more pushback from the right because they're actually catching wind of it first

DEON: Yeah, that's real.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Because like they're the people who are trying to be recruited into this movement and much to our, maybe, surprise but, joyful surprise, like, there's plenty of pushback on the right. You also wanted to dive a little bit into the sort of philosophical underpinnings of it, like what draws people towards these things, romanticizing the past, and so forth?

DEON: I think this really taps into something that the people that I agreed with that disagreed with it on the right seem to disagree with it for the wrong reasons. But a lot of their beliefs are also based in this Western-centric, Western civilization history teaching that we all get here in America and in Europe, that the [01:02:00] past, no matter how fully it's discussed, is if it's so central to all of history, then it must be the most important history. So, clearly, they had the right ideas. Clearly, we need to go back. And that's the conservative mantra like, Make America Great Again, what they're talking about is going back to a better time. Well, maybe go back even further to when it was even more greater, the greatest of great times. Like, let's go back to when they actually had the columns and the coliseums. And I think that's a huge draw of it. And you can see that I instantly thought of 300. I looked up some people trying to talk about 300 to connect it to it. And I couldn't really make it fit. But, like, right after 9/11, that movie 300 with the painted-on abs, hero men pushing back the hordes of the unwashed masses of vaguely brown and black people, that's the draw. And I think that there are [01:03:00] people who spend more time online that are more drawn to it, and the people that, like, in Heritage Foundation or like, the Christian conservatives that are on the Bulwark podcast talking about how terrible this is, they don't feel the same draw. They're more intellectual in their version of a conservative ruling class, and these are more visceral, more emotional connections to a past that probably never existed.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Right. I mean, the thread, from our perspective, sort of like completely outside of this movement, seems really clear, that you've got like, absolute, misogynistic trolls who want an unauthoritarian daddy, who are being represented sort of officially by the Claremont Institute, which is maybe like the ugly stepchild that the Heritage Foundation would probably disown, even though they have a lot more in common than they would maybe [01:04:00] want to admit,

DEON: Yeah.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: But I think that the divide that you were describing before we started recording was like, almost like a pure masculinity versus a Christian ideology. Like that's kind of the divide, whereas on the left, we see those as blended so seamlessly, but we're diving so deep into this right wing rabbit hole that we're finding the divergence between those almost.

DEON: Yeah. And that's like the hopeful aspect of it to me is that maybe some of the people that are opposing this movement will do some introspection and see that it's just an outgrowth of the things that they have believed and pushed. The only thing missing from that is instead of God being the center of it, it's just man. Man is the most important, and men specifically need to rule. And not with the backing of some divine creator's rules, but just the rules of the jungle. [01:05:00] Like, I think that's, that was brought up like a lot. It's just that violence brought about peace and we need to have righteous violence. And it's hard to say that and disconnect it from "because God told me to", as opposed to, "because that's just what men do", right?

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Yeah. The fractal of diverging thought on this is endlessly fascinating to dive into. I think you and I both separately found the same potential video from a literal Oath Keeper, absolute boogeyman to the left, who, you know, they're militiamen, they're crazy, they're racist, to me they would stand out as, like, one of the first groups who would stand up in favor of some sort of a Red Caesar figure, and this guy getting 200 views on his video, was railing against the MAGA cult, who were dedicated [01:06:00] to tearing down the system and the constitution that he swore an oath to protect, and was like, ready to take up arms against his fellow far right maniacs because of that divergence in thought.

So, yeah, I mean, that is definitely the happiest conclusion we're gonna come to, is we've got the strangest bedfellows have ever come across in this fight. But, man, that Heritage Foundation has the ear of Republican presidents like no other think tank and, as was described in the show today, they will hand that manifesto to the next Republican president, and they will rubber stamp it so fast there will be no discussion about it, and it will be chaos.

DEON: It's called Project 2025. If it doesn't work out in 2024, it'll be called Project 2029, be called Project 2033, that's what they're going to do.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Yeah, there's a comedian, Lee [01:07:00] Camp, who I used to play on the show a lot, and we had, as happened with a lot of people on the left, we ended up on opposite sides of the major divergence that happened on the left, sort of around the Bernie Sanders campaign, and continued splitting from there, but there is a segment, a bit, that he did 12 years ago, that I still quote on a monthly basis, at least, and with no other subject ever has it been more fitting than right now.

LEE CAMP: You know the difference between the good and the evil in this world, the caring and the selfish, the Mel Gibson circa Lethal Weapon and the Mel Gibson circa Apocalypto? The difference is that bad people have plans. They always have a f*cking plan. Good people don't have plans, or missions, or agendas. They just stumble through life, thinking we'll all treat [01:08:00] each other right if given the chance. Evil people have dry erase boards, and PowerPoint presentations, and iPad apps, to keep track of just how the evil's coming along, whether it needs a course correction, because this quarter's evil is 3.5% lower than last quarter's. Good people don't have PowerPoints. Good people have donuts and word jumbles. Bad people have plans. We don't have plans. I don't have a plan. You don't have a plan. Your plan was, I'm gonna watch internet videos. Meanwhile, Halliburton's plan was to cause a military coup in the sovereign country of Eritrea, a place neither you nor I ever knew existed. But they know, because they also have maps. They have dry erase boards and f*cking maps. I'm just saying the good people on this planet are never gonna get the upper hand until we get some f*cking office supplies up in here.

DEON: Perfect.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Back in my day, when I started [01:09:00] this show, it was the Project for a New American Century, that was the big conservative boogeyman. This is the new game in town, and the pattern continues. Any final thoughts?

DEON: Go watch, uh, John Oliver's bit on McKinsey that he just did right before this show went out, talking about people with plans.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Members can hear more from Deon in our bonus episodes, so do check those out or sign up as a member to get access.

That is going to be it for today as always keep the comments coming in. I'd love to hear your thoughts or questions about this or anything else. You can leave us a voicemail or send a text to 202-999-3991 or simply email me to [email protected]. Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our Transcriptionist Trio, Ken, Brian and LaWendy, for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work on our social media outlets, [01:10:00] activism segments, graphic designing, web mastering, and bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships at bestoftheleft.com/support. You can join them by signing up today, it would be greatly appreciated. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with the link to join our Discord community, where you can continue the discussion.

So coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my name is Jay and this has been the Best of the Left podcast coming to twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from bestoftheleft.com.

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#1589 War in the Holy Land: Context Behind the Atrocities, Crimes Against Humanity, and the Possible Escalation (Transcript)

Posted by · October 17, 2023 7:31 PM

Air Date 10/17/2023

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award winning Best of the Left podcast in which we shall take a look at the conflict in the holy land between Israel and Hamas to understand the deep context, history, and human psychology at play. Those who attempt to find a moral clarity through simplification of the situation, as many on both the right and left currently are, will only find themselves eventually supporting atrocities by one side or the other and demonstrate themselves to be fools in the process. We are trying to avoid that pitfall. Sources today include Gaslit Nation, Democracy Now!, CounterSpin, Ebro in the Morning, and the Marc Steiner Show, with an additional members only clip from The Majority Report.

Israel and Palestine A Difficult Discussion - Gaslit Nation - Air Date 10-10-23

ANDREA CHALUPA - CO-HOST, GASLIT NATION: So I want to just preface this, just a summary of today's discussion, and Terrell and I are going to go into all the nuance of it.

The reality is, whatever you think of Israel, whatever you think of Israel, I want to remind people on all sides of this issue, I know we have people [00:01:00] listening who are waiting for Terrell to go into the Palestinian point of view because he's been in the West Bank, he has a lot of Palestinian friends.

I want to just say to everyone, you cannot understand Israel without understanding generations, going back centuries, of just normalized, normalized antisemitism. If you look at the Dreyfus affair, that was a lynching of a Jewish French officer in France. If you look at financial instability in the 1800s, 1900s, who were blamed for that? The Jews, right? If you look at the… Before there was Twitter, Elon Musk's Twitter, there was the Elders of Zion, the disinformation coming out of Russia back then that the Jews had some big Illuminati that they were controlling us with and they always became the scapegoat. Jewish communities, for their own survival, debated among each other how to protect themselves, how to organize self-defense, how to overcome this. They [00:02:00] tried to keep their heads down, they tried to stay in their ghettos. They would even have conversations, they would debate whether they needed to follow a policy of keeping their head down and not shining too brightly in society, or they would risk drawing attention to themselves and becoming a target and inciting another pogrom, more antisemitism rage. There were discussions over building a Jewish homeland, a Jewish state, somewhere in South America.

The whole idea that Israel was inevitable… the creation of Israel was actually a very controversial topic among Jewish groups themselves. It seemed completely farfetched, it seemed unrealistic. It seemed like something so out of reach and extreme. It was debated, it was argued. It wasn't ever inevitable. It was something that was finally made possible because the world allowed the Holocaust to happen, because the world turned away Jewish refugees and sent them back to slaughter. And it was really the shock of all those films [00:03:00] and eyewitness testimony and the allied soldiers investigating concentration camps that were being built and operated right out in the open, right? People knew about the Holocaust. Hitler, the Nazis killed significantly more jews during the entire Holocaust before the US even had a chance to enter the war. And so Israel was really born out of that. Israel was created as an act of self-defense and protection. So I want people to keep that in mind.

And that same antisemitism is prevalent today. So wherever Jews are in the world, there is a heightened sense of danger that they are living with, whether it's in the US or anywhere in Europe, because we have this blatant antisemitism being pushed by Donald Trump who lifts rhetoric straight out of Hitler. He uses the same “impure blood” language of Hitler. So I just wanted to make that clear.

And unfortunately what's happened in Israel, especially in recent years, is that it's succumbed [00:04:00] to the seduction, to the corruption of the religious extremists; the same band of idiots that we're up against here in the US like Tommy Tuberville, who's holding our Senate, our national security, hostage in the Senate, like the Matt Gaetzes in the GOP chaos, which is holding aid for Ukraine hostage, the Moms for Liberty dark money billionaire-funded groups that are trying to take over school boards across this country so they can indoctrinate children with their far-right Christian extremism. So the same forces that have taken over Israel's government—Netanyahu's government—where he has surrounded himself deliberately with the worst of the worst; just think the Michael Flynns of America. That is who makes up most of Netanyahu's cabinet.

Netanyahu—the Trump of Israel—has been so narcissistic in his hold of power and coming back to power, thanks to a divided opposition, he comes back to power even though he's been indicted [00:05:00] for corruption. And he then continues to surround himself with extremist loyalists like Steven Millers, like ben-Gvir, the Steven Miller of Israel, who is a known terrorist, who as a teenager was harassing former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, trashing his car, stealing the Cadillac emblem off the car, bragging about it and saying, “Next time we're going to get to Rabin.” That was all because Rabin had signed the Oslo Accords, which didn't even promise a two-state solution for Palestine, for Palestinians, okay? It didn't even go far enough, the Oslo Accords, and what happened? A terrorist like Ben-Gvir assassinated Rabin two weeks later. And Ben-Gvir goes on to continue his racism, to continue his terrorism, vowing to kill all the Arabs, vowing to kill all the Palestinians. And their whole mode of operation, what they want to do, is they want to terrorize and kill and push out and [00:06:00] take over the homes of as many Palestinians as they can to force them out and into Arab nations. It's a genocide what they're trying to carry out.

And Netanyahu elevated this person to his government at the same time where he's trying to desperately dismantle democracy and checks and balance in Israel by taking away the power of Israel’s Supreme Court. And Netanyahu, in doing this, in looking out for his own survival has also allowed this culture of impunity across Israel where the Ben-Gvir types can go in and storm mosques, mock Palestinians openly, and celebrate those who commit violence against Palestinians. You see these Israeli settlers who are going into land that they should not be going into who have these broad smiles on their faces in court because they know they're going to be protected by the political structure in Israel.

And all of this, we have to point out that Netanyahu clearly, I believe, wanted this war. If you look back in 2019, he [00:07:00] was saying to his Likud party that they had to elevate Hamas, they had to fund Hamas. They wanted Hamas to come up and do something dramatic like this. Why? Because then it gives them—Netanyahu's government—the excuse to go to war with Hamas and wipe out Gaza and continue their genocide. And by being a wartime prime minister, that creates a situation where everyone's forced to rally around the flag, rally around the leader. If they can't get rid of him, they will deal with the corruption later. They'll have to table that for later, but right now they have to unite. And the person they're uniting around is a corrupt criminal.

And so it's a fucked situation in Israel. And our sympathies, our loyalty are to the civilians on both sides of this issue who are caught in horrific literal crossfire in this. And I want to make that very clear.

What Hamas did was evil. Unfortunately, Israelis have a corrupt kleptocrat in power [00:08:00] who weakened the government, producing the worst intelligence disaster in Israel's history leading to the slaughter of countless innocents, all so he could stay in power and all so he could give his rabid extremist supporters the war they wanted so they can carry out their genocide. What you'll see next, they'll likely use their wartime powers to dismantle democracy in Israel and stay in power.

Israeli Human Rights Leader Orly Noy on Israel’s War on Palestinians After Hamas Attack - Democracy Now! - Air Date 10-9-23

AMY GOODMAN: Israel has ordered a complete siege of Gaza, two days after as many as a thousand Hamas fighters carried out an unprecedented attack Saturday morning, when Hamas fired thousands of rockets into Israel as militants broke through Israeli security barricades. Over the past three days, at least 1,300 people have died, including over 800 inside Israel, almost 500 in Gaza. One Israeli military spokesperson described Saturday as, quote, “by far the worst day in Israeli history,” unquote.[00:09:00]

The surprise attack came almost 50 years to the day of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The Hamas attacked killed at least 44 Israeli soldiers, including several commanders. Over 250 people were killed at an Israeli music festival attended by mostly young people. Hamas militants also took about 100 hostages. Entire Israeli communities were forced to evacuate.

Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes have killed over 500 Palestinians in Gaza since Saturday, but the death toll is expected to soar, as Israel threatens to launch a ground war. Israel has called up 300,000 reservists, is sending heavy armor toward the Gaza border. This comes as the United States is sending more ammunition to Israel and warships to the region. Earlier today, Israeli airstrikes killed dozens of residents in the Jabaliya refugee camp.

Israel’s Defense [00:10:00] Minister Yoav Gallant has announced a total blockade on Gaza, including a ban on food, water, electricity and fuel. Israel has imposed a siege on Gaza for the past 16 years, largely cutting off the area from the rest of the world. Gaza has been widely described as an open-air prison.

Hamas named its military operation “Al-Aqsa Storm” in response to the desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Hamas also cited the blockade of Gaza and increasing settler violence in the occupied West Bank. The attack also came as Israel was moving to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia

In a moment, we’ll go to Israel and Gaza for response, but we begin with the voices of two parents — one in Israel, one in Gaza — whose lives have been devastated by this weekend’s violence. This is Yoni Asher, a 37-year-old father whose wife and two children have been taken hostage by Hamas.

YONI ASHER: [00:11:00] Yesterday, while my wife, Doron, and two daughters, little girls, Raz and Aviv, 5-year-old and 2 years old, went visit my mother-in-law in Nir Oz — it’s a kibbutz near Gaza. And during the morning, I contacted my wife, and she told me on the phone that there are terrorists inside the house. Later on, I saw a video, the same video that was in the social media, in which I surely identified my wife, my two daughters and my mother-in-law on some kind of a cart, and terrorists of Hamas all around them. … I want to ask of Hamas: Don’t hurt them. Don’t hurt little children. Don’t hurt women. [00:12:00] If you want me instead, I’m willing to come.

AMY GOODMAN: And this is a mother in Gaza, Sabreen Abu Daqqa, who survived after being trapped in rubble after an Israeli rocket hit her home. The attack killed three of her children.

SABREEN ABU DAQQA: [translated] I was at home, and suddenly we heard a sound, and everything fell over our heads. My children were next to me. One of them was next to my legs, and the others were next to me. My brother, Saber, was a bit further. Nothing happened to him. I was hiding between the sofa and the door, so there was no pressure on me, only on my leg. But I didn’t hear any sound coming from my children. I called them, but I didn’t hear a sound coming from them. Suddenly, I heard my brother Saber calling. The first moment I heard his voice, I shouted, and I said, “I’m here!” And when they recognized me, they started calming me down, and then they started removing the [00:13:00] rubble from above me.

It took them three hours to remove the rubble above me, but my children died — Khaled died, Qais died, Mariam died. Assef went missing. When they pulled me out of the rubble, I saw everything damaged. The houses are damaged. That’s the only thing I saw. And then I went to the hospital. I found that everybody was injured, and we have many injured and dead people.

Phyllis Bennis on Gaza - CounterSpin - Air Date 10-13-23

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: As we record on October 11th, headlines tell of horror and misery across Gaza as Israel rains airstrikes on hospitals, mosques, and refugee camps, declares a complete siege, blocking access to electricity, food, and fuel, and musters for a possible ground offensive. An Israeli Defense Force spokesman is being quoted warning that scenes coming out of Gaza in coming days will be "difficult to understand and [00:14:00] cope with".

If the past is guide, scenes from Gaza will be especially difficult to understand if those presenting them avoid context, political, historical, human, in favor of storybook simplification and bloodthirsty cheerleading. Followed by pronouncement by elites of rhetorical banalities, endorsing injustice and indignity for millions.

With occasional exceptions, U. S. corporate media's distortions of Palestine-Israel make it harder to do what so many want, to see a way forward without violence, with justice. Phyllis Bennis is director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of a number of books, including Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer, now in its seventh updated edition.

She joins us by phone from Washington, DC. Welcome back to CounterSpin, [00:15:00] Phyllis Bennis.

PHYLLIS BENNIS: Great to be with you, Janine.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: I'm hearing it said that while the specific nature of Hamas's October 7th attacks was surprising to some, it's not entirely true or useful to call the attacks unexpected in the way that we understand that word. What do people mean by that?

PHYLLIS BENNIS: I think the reference is to the understanding that resistance, including resistance to violence, never just happens out of thin air. It happens in response to something, it happens in the context of something. And if we're serious about preventing acts of violence in the future, understanding the acts of violence that have already occurred, we have to be prepared to do the hard work of looking at context, looking at root causes, something that, at moments of crisis, which for [00:16:00] Israelis this is clearly a moment of unexpected crisis, uh, but for people in this country as well, it's crucial that we take those hard steps to figure out what gives rise to this? Because otherwise we're simply mouthing platitudes of condemnation. Condemnation of violent attacks on civilians is completely appropriate. Some of the acts of some of the Hamas militants were in complete violation of international law and should be condemned.

And it's also true that they didn't just happen. They happened in the context of 75 years of oppression of Palestinians, decades of an apartheid system, and crucially, in Gaza, where Hamas was born in 1987 with, we should note, significant Israeli assistance at the time, that the lives of people in Gaza, the 2.2 [00:17:00] million people who live in that enclosed, open air prison, if you will, one of the most crowded places on the face of the earth, have lived under a state of siege that was imposed by Israel in 2007.

Ironically, when we heard this horrific call from the Minister of Defense from Israel yesterday, who said, We are going to impose such an incredibly tight siege, there will be nothing that gets in. No food, no fuel, no water, no electricity. This was a call to essentially commit genocide, knowing that with the sealing off of the last remnants of the siege that has already been in place, they are predicting That the impact of their policy will be mass starvation, mass thirst, mass death from injuries that the [00:18:00] hospitals will be unable to treat because the hospitals won't have fuel for their generators, which they rely on because there's already insufficient electricity available in Gaza.

In an article I'm just writing, I quote a Gaza woman, 72 years old, who said, You know, years ago, we had electricity 24 hours a day and took that for granted. Now that seems like a dream. And this was last June, before this new siege. So, what they're talking about with this new siege is almost like a quantitative escalation of what is already in place.

I found out today, and I was, I've got to say, as familiar as I am with the human rights violations in Gaza, this one shocked me. As of May of this year, 20% of all children in Gaza are stunted by the age of two. I had no idea that was the case, and yet it is. And that's before this level of punishment.[00:19:00]

So all of those things have to be taken into account to understand, not to justify, not to ever justify the killings of civilians, the killings of children and old people. Unacceptable. Should be condemned. And we have to understand from where that comes, why these things happen. Otherwise, we have no basis to figure out a strategy to stop the violence on all sides.

Israeli Journalist Gideon Levy Israel Should Lift Siege & Call Off Plan for Ground Invasion of Gaza - Democracy Now - Air Date 10-11-23

JUAN GONZALEZ: According to press reports, as many as 1,500 Palestinian fighters of Hamas were killed inside of Israel, so the enormous number of militants who were able to get into Israel. Could you talk about the decision of the government to relocate large portions of Israel’s army from the Gaza border to protect far-right settlers on the West Bank?

GIDEON LEVY: Sure. That’s one of the big [00:20:00] failures on Saturday, not the only one, because the first failure is obviously the surprise, the strategic surprise. We are so proud about the most sophisticated intelligence in the world, with all kind of those elite units, with all the devices. They know everything. They understand everything. And then, an operation, which was prepared for one year by hundreds of militants, they didn’t hear about it. So that’s the first failure.

The second failure is obviously that the southern front with Gaza was totally abandoned, because we were busy with all the festivals of support of those crazy settlers, guarding them, but not only guarding them, collaborating with them with their pogroms among Palestinians. We have clear evidence that the army saw the pogroms and did nothing. And when the army is busy for years now, not only recently, only with [00:21:00] running and chasing after Palestinian children who throw a stone, and after all kind of suspected Palestinians, when the army is overoccupied in standing in illegal checkpoints and penetrating to Palestinian homes in the middle of the night to arrest somebody without any legal basis, then this is the result. You get instead of a professional, motivated, experienced army, you get a bunch of no ones who don’t know what to do in such a situation, because after the first shock, they were still — it took still hours and hours until the army showed up. And that’s unbelievable.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And this issue of Netanyahu preparing for an invasion of Gaza, could you talk about the immense [00:22:00] undertaking that this involves, having to go literally house by house or building by building in Gaza to find any of the hostages being held? The enormity of this project?

GIDEON LEVY: First of all, to go from building to building is impossible already, because there are many buildings still down. And I’m not sure how many buildings were left, for example, in the neighborhood of Rimal. To find the hostages alive, really, it’s nice for all kind of Hollywood films. I don’t see it happening, for sure not with this army with its capabilities, as we were witnessing it only on Saturday.

The invasion into Gaza has some other goals — namely, to put an end to the rule of Hamas. And this is another impossible mission, because you can [00:23:00] kill the current top people of Hamas, you cannot kill the ideology of Hamas, and they will always be replaced.

Ground operation now is supported almost by all Israelis, because Israelis understand that we have to do something after this embarrassment, after this catastrophe. But in the same time, I must tell you, I can assure you that if Israel will go now for a ground operation, it will take a few weeks or maybe a few months. It will take so much blood of both Palestinians and Israelis, mainly Palestinians obviously. And by the end of this operation, you will invite me again to Democracy Now!, and you will see that we are standing exactly in the place that we stood one week ago, because as long as Israel continues to believe that Gaza — the problem of Gaza will be [00:24:00] solved by the sword, solved by brutal force, by emotions of revenge — justified emotions — then we will get exactly to the same place. This vicious circle will not be solved by power, not be solved by tanks, and not will be — nor will it be solved by troops, only by political agreement and, above all and first of all, lifting this criminal siege, for God’s sake, after 17 years. This siege, what it was about, to guarantee the security of Israel. So, what happened out of the siege except of the suffer of — unbelievable inhuman suffer of 2 million people? What did it contribute to the security of Israel, this siege? You see the outcome.

AMY GOODMAN: We just have less than a minute, Gideon. I wanted to ask you the difference of the cry, the call of the [00:25:00] families of the hostages, of older people, of young people, of children, the family members, one after another, talking about being, for example, a peace activist, and saying, “Please use restraint,” and the contrast between that and President Biden as he addressed the nation yesterday, deciding consciously, and in the readout of his conversation with Netanyahu a few minutes before he spoke, saying they did not call for restraint. Your response? How important is the president of United States’ position here? We have less than a minute.

GIDEON LEVY: In less than a minute, I can tell you, Amy, that last night when I was watching President Biden, I really envied you Americans that you have such a leader. I never thought so before last night. But last night, Biden was a real leader, someone that you can trust, because he [00:26:00] was extremely sincere, and someone that you can rely on. If Netanyahu would have taken the same speech, he wouldn’t be Netanyahu. Netanyahu is busy with politics. And here comes this Biden and tells Israel what Israel wanted to hear. I would love him also to say some things about the Palestinian suffering, the Palestinian agony. He ignored it totally, and this is very regretful. But by the end of the day, this is what Israel needs now: some kind of leadership. And it totally lacks it. Nobody is around, really, to understand that we have to go for a new way. Nobody is there.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez On The Israel-Hamas Conflict & USA's Role - Ebro in the Morning - Air Date 10-12-23

PETER ROSENBERG - CO-HOST, EBRO IN THE MORNING: And AOC, I'm curious to ask you this, so one of the things that you've been dealing with since you got into office is people believing that the new progressive is anti-Israel, is antisemitic. And on social media -- I'm gonna be real with you, and I'm sure you've seen the same [00:27:00] thing, whether it's fake, whether it's bots, whether it's actual real thing -- you do see a lot of it, like it's almost a caricature of the progressives, that Saturday happened, and while Jewish people like myself are heartbroken, and my Israeli wife is scared for her family, it's like the so-called "progressives" online are immediately bashing Israel to a degree that was so... uncool, and just unempathetic, unkind. Do you feel the need to show people that that is not really the nature of a progressive, like at least an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?

REP ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: We can -- yes, I mean, we can do both, right? To me, what is central about progressivism, to me what is central, too, about democratic socialism, anti-capitalism, you name it, solidarity, is the central valuing of human dignity and human life on a universal and unconditional basis.

I [00:28:00] think two things can be true at the same time and. This is part of one of the traumas that are triggered, is that anybody, for decades -- you know this, I know this -- anybody who even would even say the word "Palestine," so often that the charge of antisemitism would be politically weaponized in cynical ways.

That history is real and true, while also the fact that antisemitism is real, and it is dangerous, and must be checked; authentic antisemitism must be checked wherever we see it, that is also true at the same time. And we can navigate those complexities.

There are absolutely things that are absolutely true about the occupation, about Netanyahu's policies, about the decisions of the Israeli government.

But at the end of the day, we are human beings and tragedy requires space for grief for everybody. [00:29:00] Grief for Palestinians, grief for Israelis. And it is dehumanization that is the stepping stone to ethnic cleansing, to genocide, which we have seen from the Holocaust to Gaza. And that, I think, is the thing that is so important for us to focus on.

PETER ROSENBERG - CO-HOST, EBRO IN THE MORNING: If you were to have a conversation with President Biden in the coming days and weeks, what would you be urging him to do? What should the role of the United States be right now?

REP ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: I would say this: I would say that the United States, our responsibility is to the stability and the security of the region. That means being able to support -- support, yes, Israel in its defensive capacities, in its ability, in that context -- but it also means that the United States has a responsibility to ensure [00:30:00] accountability to human rights, to prevent the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and to ensure that horrors do not happen in the names of victims who do not want their tragedy used to justify further violence and injustice.

Israel and Palestine A Difficult Discussion Part 2 - Gaslit Nation - Air Date 10-10-23

TERRELL STARR: And even before this weekend, I've had calls of someone's cousin being killed by the Israeli Defense Forces. 12-year-old children. And the tears and the anguish that I see people expressing now in the world collectively, coming together to say that, “Never again, the Israeli September 11th,” I've had these conversations throughout the year.

And what really hurts me is that, number one, it hurts me because I didn't see the world react with these people—and it is painful to even say it because you don't want to think, okay, [00:31:00] care about my issue versus mine and getting into these silos, and that's not what we're doing with this conversation. This collective pain that everyone is participating in, I just wish that the world would see the pain of the people that I talked to. I've had a number of conversations with people who call me and say, “Well, my family in Gaza, they're just getting ready to die.” And those are the people, like you said, the civilians. They're being lost, in particular the Palestinian civilians.

And what further frustrates me about the conversation or hurts me is that people don't understand the passion with which I talk about Palestine because I've never conflated Hamas with Palestine. And when people say Palestinians support Hamas and they try to point to these very misconstrued polling data, I can tell you that, number one, there hasn't [00:32:00] been an election in 17 years. And the PLO and the other political groups that are in Palestine have been willing to have a conversation that leads to a peaceful two-state coexistence or some variation of that. But Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected that. And over the years he's become more xenophobic for the sake of maintaining his power. And I think that what's missing in these conversations is that we really don't understand how Western hegemony has dominated how we view ourselves and which camps that we're in.

And at the end of the day, you have the one-percenters of political global leadership that are creating these conflicts through their screwed up policies, and they're getting the civilians—us, we're the ones that are suffering from this.

And what I really [00:33:00] challenge all of us to do is to understand, Why are these structures the way that they are? And that sometimes means that we have to challenge the various systems that we feel benefit us or benefit our side. When people talk about Palestinians, for example, I can think back to the days when Mike Brown was killed. Some of the first people in the world who reached out were the Palestinians who were giving Black activists advice on how to deal with tear gas from police. So when I speak about Palestine, people don't understand that these are relationships that have been built over time. And we didn't get that—and I'm going to be very careful when I articulate this—I will simply say that it was these people who came up and showed Black people love and support.

And none of those people were associated with Hamas, which is nothing more than an organized gang.[00:34:00] Let's be quite frank: The Israelis were more than okay with facilitating because it just caused chaos, right? And people just assume that Hamas represents all the people and that nothing could be further from the truth.

And when I was in Palestine, I was in Ramallah, I met the PLO leadership. I've met these groups who are not Palestine. And these are the groups of people that the Benjamin Netanyahu administration doesn’t want to work with. And we can have all of our criticisms about them because I do; a number of people who care about this region do. But I think that the frustration comes from the fact that the onus is being put on the Palestinians to be these perfect people, to speak out for every atrocity when they see that Israelis too often are not held to that same standard, and it just hurts.

I try to [00:35:00] use my platforms for us to have very difficult conversations. And I know that I'm human too and sometimes because I'm in pain, things are not articulated as smoothly as they can be. But the genesis and the spirit of what I feel is that I really hope moving forward that we take this time to understand when we say “never again,” it just can't be this simplistic anti-terror conversation that got us into September 11th; this knee-jerk reaction by George W. Bush to invade Iraq. And what happens is that you have Brown people who suffer from miscalculations, global security decisions. And the Palestinians feel that the civilians will be like cannon fodder for another bad choice to overreact as opposed to going after Hamas. My friends in Palestine feel like the [00:36:00] US administration, the European Union, is just going to give them the green light to massacre them.

I'm speaking on a human level because we can be cerebral about all of this. And there's a point -- and you've done a great job of really summarizing things in a way where we can have discussion and discourse. However, I think what really is going to help us make a shift is that we all need to challenge US foreign policy and Western hegemony that creates the value that it is okay to send billions of dollars in aid to Israel—not that they don't need to protect themselves, because they do—we're sending them this money while they're maintaining an apartheid state against the Palestinian people who are constantly stereotyped, who are constantly misunderstood. And we're not doing a good job of holding our own governments accountable.

Between Israel and Palestine, Things are going to get a lot worse - The Marc Steiner Show - Air Date 10-12-23

MARC STEINER - HOST, THE MARC STEINER SHOW: The occupation is now 55 years old. People in Gaza live in an [00:37:00] open prison, and the attacks that took place when Hamas crossed the border, tearing down the border fence, catching Israel off guard, and slaughtering Israelis at a concert and in Israeli towns has created a paradigm shift. 1, 200 people have been killed in Israel, 300 taken captive by Hamas.

Now, Israel's attacks, their air attacks on Gaza have killed at least 1, 100 people, wounding at least 326 children, and close to 6, 000 other people wounded. We know we now have not only the occupation, but an openly far right government in Israel. And our conversation today is with Yumna Patel, who is the Palestine News Director for Mondoweiss.

Here's our conversation today with Yumna Patel. I'm really curious what you, how you would describe, it's almost an absurd question, but how you would describe the tenor of the moment. I mean, you are in the West Bank, you're in the occupied territories in West Bank in Bethlehem and most of the [00:38:00] violence is taking place in the Gaza Strip, in the parts of Israel near Gaza, right?

So, the reverberations of fear, anxiety of the turmoil must be spilling over. I mean, talk a bit about what your sense of things are.

MONDOWEISS YUMNA PATEL: Yeah, absolutely. Things are extremely tense, you could say, on the ground here. Obviously, you know, the reality in the West Bank looks very different to how it looks in Gaza right now, but just to give a little bit of context of what's happening in the West Bank, the Israeli military announced a full closure of the West Bank, I believe it was on Sunday, a two week closure.

So right now, everyone in the West Bank is kind of locked into their locality, depending on what city or town or village they're in, because Israel has shut down all of the checkpoints, and closed off the entrances and exits to a lot of the villages. There is, you know, sort of mass panic. People didn't really know how long these closures were going to be for, so people are [00:39:00] rushing to buy food and get fuel in their cars.

At the same time, there have been increased confrontations and protests and demonstrations across the West Bank. I think the latest death toll that we have in the West Bank since Saturday is 26. So, 26 people have been killed at least, including at least four children, in the West Bank, mostly during confrontations and the Israeli suppression of protests.

So yeah, I mean, and at the same time, so there's a lot of soldier violence. I was talking to a friend yesterday. He lives in a village outside of Bethlehem that's been totally closed off. He managed to get to Bethlehem on a motorcycle that he drove through the mountains trying to navigate around these, you know, closures and checkpoints just so he could get to Bethlehem to get some things, you know, for his wife and his baby.

But he was saying that Someone had tried to leave the village through the front entrance that had been [00:40:00] closed off by Israeli forces and that person was shot by the Israeli military. And so things are definitely tense and also picking up. People obviously are outraged and frustrated by the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza and constantly being inundated with these images of entire neighborhoods and buildings just being leveled to the ground, so it's definitely not quiet in the West Bank or Jerusalem, not on the front of confronting Israeli soldiers or also Israeli settlers.

We just got a report in, I think around an hour ago, that a group of armed Israeli settlers attacked a village, the village of Qusra outside of Nablus, and three Palestinians were killed allegedly by Israeli settler gunfire. And so, there's this, not even anticipation, Palestinians also know that Israeli settler attacks and these revenge attacks are already happening, but they're definitely going to be increased.

So I mean, [00:41:00] people are wary, especially people in the villages and in rural areas that are in close proximity to settlements and on these front lines.

MARC STEINER - HOST, THE MARC STEINER SHOW: I imagine I can just feel the tension even though I'm not there, but I wanna, a couple of things you said, let me start with the settlers. So the settler attacks that are taking place, that took place, that you know about, they are, you're thinking, because the settlers are trying to settle the score about what happened at the music festival where all those people were killed and kidnapped? What do you think is behind that? Because it's nothing new. Settlers are doing this all the time.

MONDOWEISS YUMNA PATEL: Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, I think there's definitely an element of settling the score, not necessarily related to, like, one specific event over the past couple days, but, you know, what happened has had huge impacts on how Israel, Israeli society, Israeli government, et cetera. And of course, when stuff like this happens, that only sort of fuels the flames of ideological violence in [00:42:00] Israel, and like you said, we know that settler violence against Palestinians have been ongoing, but especially they've been increasing over the past two years. And you and I have discussed this on your show before, the increase in settler attacks, particularly in the West Bank, and these pogroms, basically, that settlers go on, these rampages in Palestinian towns, trying to set entire towns on fire. And so there's definitely an element of, you know, revenge and, you know, settling the score, you could say. But also, this is just a continuation or an extension of what we've already been seeing over the past two years with this severe increase in settler violence that is being egged on by the right wing fascists that are in the Israeli government. And just yesterday, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the National Security Minister and the head of the Jewish Power Party, who we know is himself a far right ideological settler, announced that he was purchasing 10, 000 rifles to distribute to Jewish citizens [00:43:00] in the occupied West Bank and in towns in Israel in "mixed Jewish Arab cities".

And so this is also part of Ben Gvir's, you know, long held plans to establish an Israeli National Guard, which rights groups have warned is essentially like the establishment of his own private militia, where basically you're, he's essentially deputizing Israeli settlers and armed Israeli civilians and deploying them in Palestinian towns, villages, and primarily Palestinian areas inside Israel as well.

And so that, coupled with the fact that we already have violent settlers, just means that things are going to get a lot, lot worse. And I don't think the attack on Qusra today is going to be the last attack that we see of its kind in the next few days and weeks.

Gaza Is Running Out of Life Human Rights Watch Sounds Alarm on Israel's Collective Punishment - Democracy Now! - Air Date 10-16-23

AMY GOODMAN: Omar Shakir, in a long Twitter thread you posted on Saturday, you warned Israeli authorities are signaling [00:44:00] their intent to commit mass atrocities. You cite a number of Israeli officials making statements suggesting precisely that. Can you document what you’re saying and what they’ve been saying?

OMAR SHAKIR: Absolutely. I mean, we have seen rhetoric from the Israeli government that signals that they hold the entire 2.2 million people of Gaza responsible for the heinous attacks that took place on October 7th. You have the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, who has said very clearly that the entire nation of Gaza is responsible. He notes that the people there could have risen up to topple the Hamas government. You have statements from Israel’s energy minister, who was responsible for cutting the water, the fuel, the electricity, who has similarly talked about, you know, cutting off the last drop of water and the last battery until they’re defeated. Again, he’s referring — it’s a statement that refers both to Hamas authorities but also to evacuating the [00:45:00] entire population. You have statements, of course, from Israel’s defense minister, that’s gotten much attention, about fighting “human animals,” declaring an entire siege on Gaza. You have Israel’s U.N. ambassador that was on CNN a couple of days ago and spoke about how, you know, “Let’s remember that Hamas — you know, that the population of Gaza elected Hamas.” Of course, he neglects to mention that nearly half of Gaza’s population are children who weren’t even alive to vote at the last time there were elections.

All these statements should worry the international community, because they’re not happening in a vacuum. They’re happening as the Israeli government reduces entire neighborhoods and blocks to rubble, as hundreds of children and civilians have been killed in relentless bombardments, 6,000 bombs dropped in a 25-by-7-mile area, I mean, an open-air prison. So these statements aren’t happening in a vacuum. They’re happening amid the most intense bombardment of Gaza we’ve maybe ever seen, in a situation where more than a [00:46:00] million people, according to reports, have been displaced from their homes. So, the international community must act to stop this. There is a moment that we can try and stop this, and we must do so before it’s too late.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to play for our audience Israeli President Isaac Herzog claiming no one is innocent in the Gaza Strip, including civilians.

PRESIDENT ISAAC HERZOG: We are working, operating militarily, according to rules of international law, period, unequivocally. It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true, this rhetoric about civilians were not aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’état. But we are at war. We are at war. We are at war with the other. We are defending our homes. We are protecting our homes. [00:47:00] That’s the truth. And then, when a nation protects its home, it fights. And we will fight until we break their backbone.

AMY GOODMAN: “We will fight until we break their backbone.” I want to turn to your post on Saturday, where you wrote, “History teaches us that, when there are clear calls to commit large-scale atrocities by a party capable of doing so & actions taken consistent with those words, they need to be taken seriously & stopped. That’s where we are today in Israel & Palestine. A descent into darkness.” Omar Shakir, if you can take it from there?

OMAR SHAKIR: Yeah, I mean, Present Herzog talked about breaking their back. They have broken the back of the people of Gaza in a way that’s simply unprecedented. The statement that the Israeli government is complying with international law is pure fiction. I mean, we know they’ve cut [00:48:00] vital necessities, as we’ve discussed, to the entire civilian population. They have sealed the crossings. We know that they have bombed in a way that, again, has reduced — as has been proudly boasted by the Israeli Air Force on Twitter, of reducing entire neighborhoods and blocks to rubble.

You know, we really need to take note of these statements, because the Israeli government — and again, what’s striking here is that it’s not meeting the sort of pushback that one would expect in a situation like this. I mean, it took days for Europe and the United States even to reiterate basic platitudes about the need to comply with international humanitarian law. You’re not seeing sufficient effort taken to warn of the risks to Gaza’s population. It is a situation that, as we speak, is deteriorating, and not enough is being done to stop it.

How Western Leaders & Media Are Justifying Israel’s “Genocidal Campaign” Against Palestinians - Democracy Now! - Air Date 10-13-23

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I want to ask you about the White House just saying that Gaza City’s evacuation is a “tall order.” The Israeli army’s call for more than a million people to evacuate North [00:49:00] Gaza, a “tall order,” the White House has said, adding the U.S. understands Israel is trying to give civilians “fair warning.” Your response, Noura Erakat?

NOURA ERAKAT: That is so cynical. That is so cynical and can only be corroborated by an irresponsible media that has failed to show decimation of Palestinian communities, the attack on shelters, the attack on refugee camps. What warnings? To what end? Palestinians have been under siege for 16 years. There are no humanitarian corridors. The one corridor with Egypt was bombed by Israel. The minister of Israeli defense literally said that there will be no — there will be no exit, that there will be a siege, that electricity will be cut off, that water will be cut off, that Palestinians are “human animals.”

There has been a priming that all of these mass atrocities will be accepted [00:50:00] by a population who will watch it with lament but think to themselves, “But what else was Israel supposed to do?” We are all being primed to accept mass atrocities. This historically is the playbook of how genocides happen. What we are seeing is a genocidal campaign.

You cannot forcibly transfer 1.1 million Palestinians in a 225-square-mile enclosed area. There is nowhere for them to go. The largest hospital, Palestinian hospital, that is literally on life support — no pun intended — to stay functioning, is in the north. Where will these Palestinians be treated?

What we are seeing is an ongoing shrinking of Palestinian land, is an ongoing campaign to take that land without the people. They want to shrink and concentrate the Palestinians now below Wadi Gaza in what is an untenable situation. As much as we think that this is about war [00:51:00] and conflict and perpetual animosities, this is about land and water.

And there is only one viable future. We either all live together, or we all die together. And despite all of our appeals for us to survive and live together, the international community, mainly the Western governments, led by the United States — the European capitals, who have already cut off aid to Israel; France, which has banned Palestinian protests; Germany, which has banned Palestinian protests — are intent on a military option where there is no outcome. Military solution will not produce an outcome of a viable future for anybody.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: You know, I already played this, but I’m going to play a much shorter clip of the former Israeli prime minister, because of how significant he is, Naftali Bennett, who’s now serving in the army in Gaza, exploding at the Sky News anchor Kamali Melbourne when asked about what’s happening with Palestinian civilians.

KAMALI MELBOURNE: What about [00:52:00] those Palestinians in hospital who are on life support and babies in incubators, whose life support and incubator will have to be turned off because the Israelis have cut the power to Gaza?

NAFTALI BENNETT: Are you seriously keep on asking me about Palestinian civilians? What’s — what’s wrong with you?

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: “Are you seriously asking me about what’s happening to Palestinian civilians?” the former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said. You’re a human rights attorney, Noura Erakat. Your response?

NOURA ERAKAT: My response doesn’t have to be based on any expertise in human rights. This is about morality. This is about decency. The fact that Naftali Bennett can get upset about Palestinian civilians and the death of babies in incubators should be indicative to us that Palestinians do not have the same right to survive, that we are not exacting an equality and a [00:53:00] respect and a decency for all civilian life.

We have set up this situation, Amy. We have set up this situation where Palestinians are expected to die. And what we are seeing in this moment is now an expectation that they can die in mass numbers, that they can die being in hospitals where they are cut off by [sic] electricity by the Middle East’s only nuclear power, the 11th most powerful military in the world. It’s the 12th largest military exporter, and the United States and the European community is sending them arms. They do not need arms. This is not a security situation. This is not a failure of security. This is a crisis of political will. This is a — rather than normalize apartheid by inviting Israeli President Isaac Herzog to the Congress, Congress should have mobilized for an immediate imposition of sanctions in order to create a future where all people live, where [00:54:00] all of us live, not just some of us.

US Media's Pro-Israel Propaganda Interrupted By Palestinian Mustafa Barghouti's CNN Interview - The Majority Report - Air Date 10-9-23

FAREED ZAKARIA: Political leader, Ismail Hania has blamed the violence squarely on Israel's occupation of Palestinian land. For another Palestinian viewpoint, I wanted to bring in Dr. Mustafa Barghouti. He's a former information minister for the Palestinian government, which is in control of parts of the West Bank, but does not control Gaza.

Welcome, Minister. I, again, want to just make sure that viewers understand that the Palestinian Authority has been an opponent of Hamas, so you are not in any way affiliated with Hamas. You represent the Palestinian Authority, which has control over parts of the West Bank. All that said, what is your reaction to what you have seen so far?

MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Well, first of all, I am not part of the Palestinian Authority. As a matter of fact, I represent a democratic Palestinian movement called Palestinian National Initiative, which is non-Fatah and non-Hamas. And we're, of course, I am not [00:55:00] affiliated with Hamas. But I think this situation that has evolved is a direct result of the continuation of the longest occupation in modern history.

Israeli occupation of Palestinian land since 1967. This is 56 years of occupation that has transformed into a system of apartheid, a much worse apartheid than what prevailed in South Africa. Yes, maybe Hamas did not recognize Israel, but the PLO did, and the Palestinian Authority did. What did they get? Nothing. Since 2014, the Israeli governments would not even meet with Palestinians. And what you see today is a reaction to several things. First of all, settlers' terrorist attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank that has evicted already 20 communities in an act of ethnic cleansing. 248 Palestinians who were killed by the Israeli army and settlers in the West Bank, including 40 children attacks on the holy [00:56:00] sites, the Muslim and Christian holy sites by Israeli extremists.

As well as the declaration of Netanyahu that he will liquidate the Palestinian rights and the Palestinian cause by normalization with Arab countries. And he dared even to go to the United Nations and carried in the United Nations a map of Israel, which included the whole of the West Bank, all of Gaza, all of Jerusalem, as well as the Golan Heights. He declared the annexation of the occupied territories.

So, of course, Palestinians turned to resistance, because they see that this is the only way for them to get their rights. The question here is not about dehumanizing Palestinians, as is happening, and calling them terrorists. It's about asking the question, why the United States supports Ukraine in fighting what they call occupation, while here they are supporting the occupier, who [00:57:00] continues to occupy us.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Yes, um, and there's like a moment of Fareed Zakaria not really fully comprehending it, and then they move on to another question. And I think he makes a claim at one point that the targets of Hamas at this point were military targets, which is not true. Like, we played on the show earlier that they ended up killing many young people in Israel at that music festival. So, like, you know, I'm not... I don't know enough about this particular man to make a claim on, I guess, everything he's ever said or done, right? But that point there is completely 100 percent true. It is impossible to square the circle of our stated reasons behind our support for the people of Ukraine, which I think is just, versus our reasoning for supporting [00:58:00] Israel, because in those instances, the parties that are the colonizing parties, the parties that are not respecting the borders, the sovereignty of nations that are oppressing a certain people that has less power, um, those parties are Russia, and that party is Israel in that instance.

What he says, too, about Netanyahu being deliberately provocative and going to the United Nations with that map that included the Palestinian territories as a part of Israel, that was a deliberately provocative move by Netanyahu a few weeks or months back. I'm forgetting the timeline. And as we discussed with Orly Noy, Netanyahu's boxing out of Palestinians in any talks and going to Arab partners and trying to normalize things like with Saudi Arabia, past allies of Palestinians who had at least kind of stood in solidarity with their plight, the fact that that had been happening meant that they were feeling completely cut [00:59:00] off from any hope of their suffering being alleviated, as well as Netanyahu's green lighting of the settlements and the pogroms that continue without any kind of pushback.

The Israeli Supreme Court, their entire judicial apparatus, says, No, don't worry. It doesn't matter if you have ancestral rights to this home. You don't have documentation. So Israel has a right to take it for "military exercises" or whatever excuse that they give.

There's been no hope. There's been no hope. And so, that is the context of this attack in Israel, and Hamas's tactics are, you know, the death is horrific. It's horrible. It's condemnable. It's not hard to condemn the killing of civilians in that way. What is the greater story here is that the violence is within the context of the occupation, and that there's one party here that has all the power, that has disproportionate money, technology, [01:00:00] influence on the international stage, that has the capacity right now to end the violence and begin to talk and reconciliation and efforts to really make Palestinian voices heard as opposed to being occupied in an open air prison where the average age is under 20 years old, or median, I should say, because there is only there's very limited electricity, 90 percent of the water, people in Gaza do not have access to clean water, there's very little food, let alone the barrage of attacks in these highly concentrated areas in Gaza where people have no place to hide.

Like, that is the context that we're talking about here, and one party has the ability to stop that, and that is Israel, and so that is where obviously the blame lies, and that is what the Haaretz editorial board says, that Netanyahu is to blame.

Calling congress about the latest war - Andrew

VOICEMAILER ANDREW: Hi, Jay! Thanks for all the work that you do. I've been listening to your show for a long time. My name is Andrew.

I'm calling you [01:01:00] today on day seven of the latest war between Israel and Hamas. On this day, Israel has ordered one million Gazans to move south for their own safety while they remain under siege, blockaded, with nowhere to go. And so, really bad times, and I know you're feeling it, but I'm just wondering, do you call your congressman? Because I got this email today from Justice Democrats, and it's urging me to call my congressmen to call upon them to advocate for a ceasefire, an immediate ceasefire in Israel and Gaza.

And my gut reaction to that was just, no, I'm not going to bother. I really don't think there is any will on my congressman's part to call for a ceasefire. [01:02:00] I mean, the only congresspeople that are calling for it right now are already being just pummeled in the media and from many sides.

So I'm just wondering, do you call your congressmen on stuff like this? That just seems so -- it's such a far shot, that the US Congress is going to tell Israel anything other than "do what you have to do and we have your back."

Anyway, I just wanted to see what you think about that, and, I'm going back and forth on it. So, thank you for all that you do, and I really appreciate your show. Have a good day.

Final comments with even more notes of nuance from the conflict

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips today, starting with Gaslit Nation, laying out some much needed context for the conflict in the holy land. Democracy Now! started off the reporting about the Hamas attack with personal stories from both sides. CounterSpin spoke with Phyllis Bennis about what important context the media needs to share. Democracy Now! [01:03:00] discussed the intelligence and military failure as well as the failure of the blockade of Gaza by Israel in preventing the Hamas attack. Ebro in the Morning spoke with AOC who gave her perspective on the progressive approach to valuing human dignity and opposing dehumanization everywhere on both sides of this conflict. Gaslit Nation spoke with Terrell Starr about the need to see the complexities in order to avoid taking terrible missteps the way the US did after 9/11. Marc Steiner Show looked at the recent phases of the cycles of violence in the occupied West Bank. Democracy Now! looked at the perspective that everyone living in the Gaza Strip is collectively responsible for the attack. And Democracy Now! also discussed how dehumanizing rhetoric primes people to accept atrocities.

That's what everybody heard, but members also heard a bonus clip from The Majority Report looking at a comparison between the war in the Holy Land and the war between Russia and Ukraine. To hear that and [01:04:00] have all of our bonus content delivered seamlessly to the new members-only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at bestoftheleft.com/support, or shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

Now to wrap up, a few additional notes on the conflict that we didn't have time to squeeze into the show itself. The news of the day basically is that the Gaza healthcare system is in a state of collapse due to the siege implemented by Israel, preventing electricity and fuel from entering the area. There's this headline from The Independent, says "Civilians Are Drinking Seawater As Supplies Run Out", and it mentions that the World Health Organization says there are less than 24 hours worth of supplies in many areas. So it's indicating that there are, you know, in some places there could be starvation, lack of water, and death happening imminently.

In response to [01:05:00] Andrew, who we heard call in with the question about whether it's worth calling Congress, I would just point towards the "shut-up strategy", as I call it. I think it's a completely morally bankrupt strategy, but it's been a long running one in this conflict and the argument goes that if you have anything you want to say speaking out against Israel, or you want to add nuance to the situation, you should shut up, or you're anti-Semitic. That is basically how the argument goes. And since that is a terrible argument, I would say that being vocal in any capacity is worth the effort. I think that the 9/11 parallel that Israel has invoked actually helps demonstrate this. What they're basically arguing is that as victims of a 9/11-type event, they should be allowed and, frankly, expected to act out of a desire [01:06:00] for extreme vengeance, fueled by grief, fear, and anger.

This is exactly what the US did after 9/11 and those wars we started are now roundly condemned as having been terrible ideas. Now, like, in a different context, not a conflict between countries or even political groups, but just bringing it down to individuals who commit violence against one another, you know, there's violence committed and then there's a trial, right? Someone is being accused and the victim of a crime is not allowed in our system to also help determine the punishment, nor should they. Being in a heightened state of grief and anger as a personal victim is no time to make a rational decision about an appropriate response to something like violence. But in war, such as after an attack like the one from Hamas, it is precisely the victims, [01:07:00] while in a heightened state of grief, anger, and fear, who then get to decide how their country, in this case Israel, responds. This is precisely why we need other voices to speak up right now, to help guide the response away from vengeance to something that has even the slightest chance of being more productive in the longterm.

As for the US and our support of Israel, we may be trying to have it both ways. That's how it seems to me. And keep in mind that diplomatic language is always going to be at play in a case like this. And you're always having to sort of read between the lines. But we started out, you know, right from the beginning by saying that we fully support Israel and its right to defend itself. That's totally standard, to be expected. But as plans for the invasion of Gaza began to emerge, the rhetoric from the US continued to maintain support while also discouraging them from doing anything profoundly stupid [01:08:00] that might get themselves into an even worse situation that they will be stuck in for years to come. This strategy sort of summed up by this reference to quotes from Biden in an article says "US President Joe Biden said Israel 'has to' go after Hamas - has to in quotes - but it would be 'a big mistake for Gaza to be occupied by its forces'".

So, you know, I think for our current situation, that is almost as good as we're gonna get. But speaking of it being a big mistake, I am happy to go into more detail. There's a pretty good piece from The Atlantic titled "Israel Is Walking Into a Trap". And in essence, it argues that Hamas, contrary to what rhetoric from Israeli leadership might have you believe... Hamas is made up of humans, not animals. And as humans, they have the capacity to predict reactions to this attack that they planned [01:09:00] for a very long time. Undoubtedly, they would have expected Israel to invade Gaza in an all out assault and wanted to drag them into a prolonged ground war that would be terrible, deadly and expensive for the country. This is exactly the strategy laid out by the planners of 9/11: use terrorism to draw the US into an unwinnable war that would drain its resources. This is because a small disempowered faction cannot hope to do as much damage to a larger power as that larger power can inflict on itself, given the right circumstances. It is the intended outcome of the use of terrorism to create those circumstances so that the greater power acts to their own detriment. And so the argument goes, Hey, Israel, don't fall for it. Obviously you're only going to do [01:10:00] what they hope you do.

Now, one last note on the complicated relationship between the Palestinian people and Hamas. This is one of the stickiest bits of nuance that creates great opportunities for propaganda based on real events, things people really say feelings, people really have. But it gets used as propaganda to sort of inflate the reality. Let me explain what I mean. The accusation goes that Hamas leads Gaza. And if people didn't like them, then they should be overthrown somehow. I mean, they don't hold elections so they can't be voted out, but you know, the people should rise up and overthrow Hamas. And also that when Hamas attacks Israelis, not just in the most recent attack, but you know, in other instances, civilians can be seen celebrating. And that's absolutely true. And all of this acts as so-called evidence that all or nearly all of the [01:11:00] civilians in Gaza are either responsible for, or are at least in favor of the actions of Hamas. Up to and including the murder of civilians.

Now to me, it's really not that hard to imagine a Palestinian person holding a complicated set of thoughts about Hamas and their actions. It doesn't seem contradictory to me for someone living in Gaza to potentially think that both Hamas, maybe for their violence or for other reasons, and Israel, for their blockade of Gaza and, you know, the general policies that create oppression for Palestinian people, are terrible. They might think both of these groups are terrible. But for this individual to sort of default to the old, Well, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' sort of position, or maybe they think, Well, you know, I don't like how they're conducting the fight, but at least Hamas is fighting for me. So it can be complicated. And I think that any honest person could admit to understanding [01:12:00] those very normal human emotions. You know, they're not absolutely basic human emotions. They're a little bit more complicated, a little bit more nuanced. But I think honest people can recognize, Yeah, I can see myself feeling that way. And demonstrating that point is a quote from a Palestinian man in a USA Today article. It says, "'Killing anybody is wrong', said a Palestinian man chatting with friends Saturday in downtown Ramallah. 'But imagine you live somewhere and I come and lock you in your house. I control everything that comes in and out of your house. Occasionally I come and beat you up. Eventually you're going to resist and start fighting back with whatever you have', he said. 'With the Hamas attacks, that's what's happening'".

So, as I've said from the beginning, Adding as much context and nuance to this discussion is the only way to hope [01:13:00] to understand it. And that goes for both sides. We included important context and understanding about the Israeli and broader Jewish diaspora perspective, right?, at the top of the show, just as AOC included the important point about the very real danger of antisemitism. That's all important to understand as well, though that is the context that is most readily presented by media and governments alike when there's a rush to defend Israel.

But as the positions and policies of Israel's far-right government become more and more indefensible, things are beginning to change. There is a growing understanding that Israel's actions are not purely in self-defense, but are actively creating innocent victims, not to mention creating a context ripe for blowback. I absolutely expected the response to the Hamas attack in the media and from individuals on social media and wherever else to be absolutely awful. And there certainly [01:14:00] has been plenty of that. But the voices that speak out for and, even, you know, because they have, to insist on the existence of innocence on both sides. Those voices are louder and have been given more space in mainstream publications and on television than we could have possibly expected even 5 or 10 years ago. The demands that critics of Israel's government simply shut up, lest they be labeled antisemitic, is beginning to fall flat. And I find that to be hopeful at least.

That is going to be it for today as always keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about this or anything else you can leave a voicemail or send us a text to 202-999-3991 or simply email me to [email protected]. Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our Transcriptionist Trio, Ken Brian, [01:15:00] LaWendy, their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work on our social media outlets, activism segments, graphic designing, web mastering, and bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships at bestoftheleft.com/support. You can join them by signing up today. It would be greatly appreciated. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with a link to join our Discord community. Where you can continue the discussion.

So, coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my name is Jay, and this has been the Best of the Left podcast coming to twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from bestoftheleft.com.

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#1588 The Shutdown That Wasn't And The Chaos That Is (Transcript)

Posted by · October 13, 2023 5:35 PM

Air Date 10/13/2023

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] During today's episode, I'm going to be telling you about a show I think you should check out. It's The Politics of Everything podcast from the New Republic. So, take a moment to hear what I have to say about them in the middle of the show and listen wherever you get your podcasts. And now welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast, in which we shall take a look at the historical context of the civil war within the GOP, as they have just fought their way out of being able to govern at all with an empty speakership in the House that is grinding Congress to a halt. Sources today include Today, Explained, Democracy Now!, a virtual town hall with AOC, Unf*cking the Republic, Straight White American Jesus, and FiveThirtyEight Politics, with additional members only clips from the Brian Lehrer Show and FiveThirtyEight Politics.

Shutshow - Today, Explained - Air Date 10-2-23

JORDAN WEISSMANN: There are a few different things that the Freedom Caucus wanted. And I should be specific. Yes, it's the Freedom Caucus, but because Republican politics are infinitely complicated, it's like a fractal; you keep [00:01:00] looking and there are just repeated patterns forever.

Some of the hardliners are in the Freedom Caucus, some are not, like Gaetz, but he's sort of temperamentally aligned with them.

SEAN RAMESWARAM- HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: He's freedom curious.

JORDAN WEISSMANN: He's freedom curious. Some, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, have been booted from the Freedom Caucus because she was too close to leadership at points, she was too close to McCarthy, but then she became a pain for him later on.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I mean, this dynamic is especially fascinating, because Marjorie Taylor Greene is one of the most pro-Trump, pro-MAGA members of the House, and the Freedom Caucus has long been considered one of Trump's top allies in the House.

JORDAN WEISSMANN: Anyway, let's just talk about what they actually were looking for. They wanted a lot.

It's hard to summarize everything because their demands were a little bit sprawling, but I think you can really focus on three things.

One, they wanted bigger spending cuts. And this sort of goes back to the debt ceiling deal essentially they had earlier this year. They didn't get the spending cuts they wanted during that in the final agreement. And so this was their second bite of the apple. So they wanted to cut deeper.[00:02:00]

SPEAKER KEVIN McCARTHY: We will prevent President Biden's executive overreach to spend money outside the normal process, which President Biden has abused....

JORDAN WEISSMANN: Number two, a lot of hard liners, especially the Freedom Caucus, wanted to deal with border security. As they put it, they wanted more spending on the border. They wanted changes on border policy because, as they see it, the flow of migrants coming across the US-Mexico border has just spiraled completely out of control.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: The real issue is not the shutdown. The real issue is the two crises we have in this country, economic security crisis and economic crisis. . .

JORDAN WEISSMANN: And number three, another huge issue here is Ukraine. There is a large contingent of the Republican Party, though not all of it, that is essentially done with the war in Ukraine.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: There is a growing rift within the Republican party over how and if to assist Ukraine, as its war against Russia enters its second year.

JORDAN WEISSMANN: [00:03:00] They will often connect it directly back to the border. They will say we should be spending that money at home, securing our own borders, not defending somebody else's. And that became a sticking point with the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene, for instance.

And so I think those three issues -- spending levels, the border, and Ukraine -- dominated the discussion. But there was all sorts of other stuff swirling around that made it hard to summarize what the conservative ask was here.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Were Democrats willing to negotiate on any of the key cornerstones of the Freedom Caucus asks: spending cuts, more spending at the border, and no more spending in Ukraine?

JORDAN WEISSMANN: Dramatic spending cuts? No, I mean, that's a nonstarter. I think that there were whispers about whether or not you could see a deal with some border funding for Ukraine, some kind of Ukraine aid, some kind of trade there. But no, in general, Democrats have not been in a mood to negotiate. That, I think is the gist here, [00:04:00] is that in the House, Democrats were just not even engaging because they saw the Republican Party disintegrating.

WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: It one of the basic items that Congress has to deal with, and it should be done without condition. So there is going to be no negotiation over it. This is something that must get done.

JORDAN WEISSMANN: And in the Senate, there was this interesting dynamic where Democrats and Republicans were actually working together in a bipartisan fashion to pass their own budget bills that stuck to the deal that Biden and McCarthy had struck during the debt ceiling showdown. They said we have a deal, we're going to write bills that fund the government at those levels, and we are going to include Ukraine funding, because this is the Senate where most people want Ukraine funding.

So there was two totally different dynamics where you had the House in chaos, mostly because the Republican Party was at war with itself over how to pass a completely partisan bill, and the Senate, where things were just rolling along pretty functionally. And there was a lot of speculation that the Senate might just "jam the House," as they as people on [00:05:00] Capitol Hill like to say -- that they would just send them a bill and make them eat it. And that was going to be the end of story. That's not quite how things played out. But if you went back a few days, that was what a lot of people were expecting.

SEAN RAMESWARAM- HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: So, yeah, let's talk about how things actually played out. Heading into the weekend, shutdown was the word. And then what the heck happened?

JORDAN WEISSMANN: What happened in the end is that Kevin McCarthy swerved.

His strategy was to try to make whatever Herculean effort he could to pass a GOP-only bill, which is the most conservative bill he could, that would then give him some kind of negotiating position with Democrats in the Senate. That was basically his strategy. And in order to both give himself a good negotiating position, but also to keep his job and keep his conference happy. And he just couldn't do it. He could not pass even a temporary spending bill. He was having trouble passing the individual appropriations bills that his hard-line members had asked for.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: What [00:06:00] ultimately happened was that after trying again and again to get just Republican votes on a short-term spending bill, McCarthy couldn't get the votes, no matter how conservative he made that bill . . .

JORDAN WEISSMANN: There was a point where all looked lost, where he brought up a short-term spending bill with, I think it was a 30% spending cut baked into it for a short period of time, and also had the border security money. And the hard-liners still said no, because many of them just did not want any kind of short term funding. They are philosophically against the idea of short-term spending bills, so-called "continuing resolutions."

And so it seemed as if nothing could pass the House, until finally he said, okay, fine, it's I'm going to turn and work with the Democrats. And what you ended up getting was what they call a "clean continuing resolution." And what it was is basically it kept funding where it was, just continued the government's funding at previous levels. And it also included disaster aid. But the concession that [00:07:00] Democrats and some Republicans in the Senate had to make in order to get this thing through the House was dropping Ukraine aid from it temporarily.

Far-Right Republicans Look to Oust Speaker McCarthy After He Averts Government Shutdown - Democracy Now! - Air Date 10-2-23

AMY GOODMAN: So, can you talk about, first, the drama on Saturday night and what’s going to happen to House Speaker McCarthy?

SASHA ABRAMSKY: Yeah. Good morning, Amy. It’s good to be on.

What happened Saturday night was an entirely predictable consequence of what McCarthy did in order to become speaker last year. Basically, it took 15 votes to become speaker, and to get there, he had to make all kinds of promises to empower the far right of his caucus, people like Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and so on. It was entirely predictable that if you gave power to bomb throwers, that they would throw bombs. And sure enough, they did.

What they tried to do was shut down the basic functioning of government. You played a clip of McCarthy saying, “Well, I’ve got a part of my caucus who just won’t vote from omnibus spending bills.” Well, if you’re [00:08:00] running in government, you’re in Congress, and you refuse your basic obligation to pass omnibus spending bills to keep government open, you’re responsible if at the end of the day the TSA aren’t paid, the military aren’t paid, if Head Start programs start to shut down, if WIC can’t pay its recipients, if the SNAP program can’t pay its recipients, if people going on holidays to national parks find that the parks are shuttered. And McCarthy realized that. He realized that if he let the government shut down, the Republicans would be blamed fully and squarely for the consequences. McCarthy is nothing if not an opportunist. What McCarthy wants is political power. And so, at the end of the day, McCarthy cut a deal with Democrats to keep government open.

Now, again, it’s entirely predictable, given the fact that he ceded the right, the power to challenge him, if a single member of Congress wanted to challenge him — it’s entirely predictable that within minutes of that compromise, Matt Gaetz had thrown another bomb and said, [00:09:00] “Look, I’m going to be challenging you. I’m going to be making a motion to vacate the speakership.” And that’s the drama that’s going to be playing out this week in Washington, D.C. It’s a crisis entirely of Kevin McCarthy’s own making.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, you have the far-right Congressmember Matt Gaetz challenging him as speaker, but the Congressional Progressive Caucus will not back him, either.

SASHA ABRAMSKY: There’s absolutely no reason that the Democrats, of any stripe — progressive or mainstream or however you want to define them — there is no reason the Democrats should bail McCarthy out. Look, McCarthy launched an entirely spurious impeachment inquiry investigation into President Biden. It was a fishing expedition. There was no evidence there. There was no smoking gun. There was just this hunch that McCarthy had that things weren’t quite right, and therefore he launched an impeachment inquiry. Well, if that’s McCarthy’s strategy, why on Earth would the Democrats not sit back and watch him squirm? And I suspect that’s exactly what they’re going to do this week. If they want McCarthy, to bail him out, at the bare minimum they’re [00:10:00] going to be asking him to put a halt on the impeachment inquiry.

AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, that impeachment inquiry hearing that took place on Thursday, the Republicans’ own witnesses said there wasn’t enough information, like lawyer — like Attorney Turley.

SASHA ABRAMSKY: It was sort of joyous. It was sort of joyous to watch. It was Amateurville. I mean, this was not politics of a high caliber. This was the most ill-prepared, ill-thought-out, poorly advised Republican inquiry you could possibly imagine. You contrast it with the meticulousness of the investigations and the hearings into Donald Trump for what he did around Ukraine, for what he did after January 6th. You contrast it with the January 6th committee hearings, the bipartisan hearings, where Liz Cheney went out and said, “Look, here’s why this is so dangerous to democracy.” That was meticulously prepared. What the Republicans did the other day, it was a partisan show. It had no merit, and it was entirely amateur.

AMY GOODMAN: And then you have the [00:11:00] issue of the funding of Ukraine, which is not included in this bill, though the Senate had voted for $6 billion. Michael Bennet, the senator from Colorado, almost scuttled the deal. And then you have that one lone Democrat who voted against the deal in the House, Quigley from Chicago, also based on the stripping of funding for Ukraine, Sasha.

SASHA ABRAMSKY: That’s right. Quigley is the chair, I believe, of the Ukrainian Caucus in Congress, and he was absolutely furious that that funding had been stripped. What I find so fascinating about this is the absolute volte-face that the Republican Party has done on foreign policy and on national security since the beginning of the Trump years. If you had gone back 10, 15 years, the Republican Party were the party, self-proclaimed party, of, you know, everything military, everything national security. You fast-forward now, and they’re an isolationist party, or at least one wing is isolationist. More than isolationist, they’re a pro-Putin party. You know, it’s [00:12:00] one thing to say, “Look, we don’t want to be involved in wars.” It’s one thing to say, “We’ve got to have a debate about the size of the American military.” That’s fine. But it’s completely extraordinary that a significant wing of the Republican Party is throwing in their lot with Vladimir Putin. It’s also entirely predictable, because during his presidency, time and again, Trump threw his lot in with Vladimir Putin.

Well, if you’re going to throw your lot in with somebody who’s dictatorial, if you’re going to throw your lot in with somebody who has done everything he can to undermine democratic systems, not just in the United States, but across the Western world, if that is your bedfellow, you’re going to come to strange policy conclusions. And that’s what we saw in this debate, that the only way Congress could pass an omnibus spending bill and keep American government open was ceding to the far right on the issue of Ukraine — completely extraordinary to watch. And I can only think it’s going to result in all kinds of internal debates within the [00:13:00] Republican Party, because there are people out there, people like Nikki Haley, people like Mike Pence, who, in public, are perfectly willing to say, “That strategy is crazy. It doesn’t make sense to appease Vladimir Putin.” And they are saying it in public. And I think over the next few months, as we get closer and closer to the primary season, that debate is going to become ever more public and ever more acrimonious.

AOC Explains Why Democrats Voted To Remove Kevin McCarthy From Speaker Position - Forbes Breaking News - Air Date 10-6-23

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: ...uh, which was the removal of the Speaker of the House. Now, I want to be very clear that, um, this removal was not particularly because Democrats worked with Republicans. This was, I think, a long time coming because of a series of agreements that the former Speaker had essentially agreed to. In January of this year, the Speaker of the House and the Republican Majority Party agreed to change the underlying rules of the House of Representatives. And there's always been something known as a motion to vacate. And this has [00:14:00] almost been like an emergency, smash the glass in case something happens, uh, and something, an extreme emergency around the Speaker of the House occurs, and the Speaker must be removed. This is typically a very high threshold. In order to implement a motion to vacate historically, you must essentially have huge, huge droves of members of the House of Representatives to remove the speaker, and this is precisely because this is such a serious measure that removal is not something that should be politicized or weaponized.

However, in January - that was our take - and in January of this year, however, the Republican Party disagreed, and they changed the underlying House rules to allow just one member to file a motion to vacate. And if just one member initiates a [00:15:00] motion to vacate, then within 48 hours, the House of Representatives must cast a vote, and if that vote yields yes on the motion to vacate, then the speaker is consequently removed.

Now, in January, every single Democrat voted against changing that rule. We said, this is not only a large break from precedent, but it's probably not good for you all to set this precedent for yourselves. And every single Democrat voted against this rule change. However, every single Republican voted for it. And when Republicans have the House majority and when they have control of the House, when every single Republican votes for something, it will happen. That is the nature of a majority. And so the Speaker of the House and the Republican Party insisted [00:16:00] on a one person motion to vacate while they were in the majority. And that is what was implemented. And almost this entire year, the Speaker of the House has been quite beholden to this extremist wing of the party because this motion to vacate that he adopted and approved had been kind of looming over his head.

Now, on top of that, we've also seen a series of destabilizing moves within the institution of the Speaker of the House. The current Speaker, or the former Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, he voted to overturn the results of the U.S. presidential election. Additionally, he held the entire U.S. economy hostage earlier this year and he, by refusing to raise the U.S. debt limit to pay for spending that he himself had already approved of and also that the House had already voted on. In fact, having a debt [00:17:00] limit separate from our budgets is a very strange and bizarre, archaic mechanism that does not exist in most countries. And so, Kevin McCarthy, by holding the entire U.S. economy hostage in March, struck a deal with President Biden. And that's, in that deal, that's one of the reasons why we have student loan repayments that are restarting, in addition to cuts to certain critical services. And regardless of whether we agree with that or not, I was vehemently against it and voted against it, but whether we agree with that or not, at the end of the day, that is the deal that was struck to keep the U.S. government open. Now, President Biden has upheld his end of the deal. He has exacted and executed those concessions that were issued unfairly, but that were issued, uh, in order to keep the government open. And [00:18:00] one of the problems is that Kevin McCarthy has not. And so Biden gave his end of the deal. And in this most recent CR, Kevin McCarthy said, Nevermind. And this has created a situation that has largely become untenable.

And so on Tuesday - Monday or Tuesday - one of the members of the Republican caucus filed a motion to vacate. Now I want to be very clear that pretty much never in the history of the institution has one political party voted for the other party's speaker. Democrats do not elect Republican speakers and Republicans have never elected Democratic speakers. This is almost a foundational part of the institution. And, in fact, it's part of having a party majority. It is, if Republicans are elected in the majority, it is up to Republicans to elect a Republican [00:19:00] speaker. And when Democrats are in the majority, it is up to Democrats to elect a Democratic speaker. And what happened this week was that Republicans cast this vote, Kevin McCarthy exhibited extraordinary confidence that he would win this vote. He told everyone to bring it on. He said that he did not need to negotiate with Democrats. He did not ask Democrats for votes. He did not indicate in any single way, shape, or form that he would need Democratic votes.

And so the vote happened, and the votes that Kevin McCarthy had publicly suggested that he had, did not follow through within his Republican caucus, and when that happens, that means he lost the motion to vacate, and he was removed as Speaker of the House.

This is the first time that this has ever happened in U.S. history. The last time a [00:20:00] motion to vacate even occurred was over a hundred years ago, and that motion, I believe, failed. And so, this is the first time in U.S. history that a Speaker of the House has been removed and vacated. This also means that the line of succession to the presidency has a hole in it. Usually, the line of succession is the President. If the President cannot serve his duties, it's the Vice President. And after the Vice President, it's the Speaker of the House. Currently, there is no elected Speaker of the House. There's kind of a placeholder known as a Speaker Pro Tempore, but a Speaker Pro Tempore is not, does not qualify, to be able to serve in the line of succession. And so right now, we have the President, the Vice President, the gap, and then what goes after that gap is the current head of the Senate, the eldest serving member of the Senate in the [00:21:00] majority, which is Senator Patty Murray. And so that is the current situation that we are in.

The House that Newt Built: The Rise of Matt Gaetz Part 1 - UNFTR - Air Date 10-7-23

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: I'm going to play two clips for you, then we need to talk. The first is right wing rebel Matt Gaetz's closing argument during the vote to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

MATT GAETZ: And when it comes to how those raise money, I take no lecture on asking patriotic Americans to weigh in and contribute to this fight from those who would grovel and bend knee for the lobbyists and special interests who own our leadership, who have... Oh, boo all you want ...who have hollowed out this town and have borrowed against the future of our future generations. I'll be happy to fund my political operation through the work of hard working Americans 10 and 20 and 30 dollars at a time, and you all keep showing up at the lobbyist fundraisers and see how that goes for you.

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: And this one is Steve Bannon on the Bannon's War Room podcast talking about Gaetz.

STEVE BANNON: And this was really firing the [00:22:00] Republican wing of the uniparty today. They're coming back hard. In fact, in a few minutes the conference is gonna meet and there's already a big clamor for Matt Gaetz to be thrown outta the ... for the heroic, heroic walking in to the pit of the House and really taking 'em all on. He had bigs and he had good, and that was fine, but it was Matt Gaetz versus the establishment. It was Matt Gaetz versus the swamp. It was Matt Gaetz taking on all comers, and it was, there was no comparison.

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: The news channels, the pundit class, internet comment sections, pretty much everyone is trying to figure out the far right wing's endgame in the House of Representatives. But I think we're looking in the wrong place. This is just the most recent capstone in the chaos theory under which the modern GOP is operating. And Democrats are smugly standing by while Republicans stand in a circular firing squad. But they, too, are missing the [00:23:00] larger picture. This is just the latest escapade in a journey that began 30 years ago, at least as far as the House of Representatives is concerned.

But it's part of a larger story that begins with the hostile takeover of our democracy in the mid 1970s. And we've covered the names before. Names that precious few recognize, but unfuckers know all too well. Friedrich Hayek, Michael Horowitz, Gary Becker, Ronald Coase, Aaron Direktor, Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, Charles Koch, David Koch, Louis Powell, Richard Fink, Richard DeVos, Joseph Kors, and so many more. Masters of the universe hell bent on the destruction of democracy. Founders of organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, Mercatus Center, and the Mont Pelerin Society. The founding fathers of libertarian misery, who birthed a movement that gave us Leonard Leo, Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and yes, Matt Gaetz.[00:24:00]

This list is notable for the vast number of omissions, but it shows you how much work we've done trying to understand how the fuck we got here. And because of this work, I know that unfuckers are no longer perplexed. And I'm sure we share a similar experience, by the way. The number of times that you've been in a conversation with a liberal democrat who's still in disbelief over how craven Republicans are, Oh my god, how did we get here? I don't blame them, I just wish they'd come along for the ride because once you see the breadth of it, the impressive level of coordination and grit that they've demonstrated for 50 plus years, it's no longer really surprising, right? Especially after the Trump years.

Anyway, I want to talk about the historic ouster in the House that we just witnessed by looking at the middle section of the 50 year journey. And then I want to talk through something that honestly is making me really, really nervous.

MANNY FACES - HOST, UNFTR: Let me guess, before you get there, we gotta sit through a whole ass history lesson.

99 - HOST, UNFTR: And let me also guess that it's going to be brief.

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: As a matter of fact, yes and yes. [00:25:00] The middle section of the half century free market libertarian war on democracy is a time that we've covered rather extensively, so I do believe it will be brief, thank you very much. The reason it matters, though, and why we have to touch on it again is because we can draw a straight line from the 1990s to McCarthy's unceremonious departure.

MANNY FACES - HOST, UNFTR: Cue solemn history background music and...

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: When Newt Gingrich took over as Speaker of the House in 1995, it was a huge moment that we barely appreciate these days. The last time the GOP held the House gavel prior to Gingrich was 1953 to 1955. They held it briefly from 1947 to 1949 as well, which was the first time since 1931. The House was Democratic for most of the modern political era until Gingrich took over, and he set about changing the nature of, not just Congress, but But of the American people. He [00:26:00] did so by entering into what he called a "contract with America", a living, breathing GOP manifesto that aimed to shrink the size of government and restore conservative principles in the country.

There were 10 promises the GOP took...

MANNY FACES - HOST, UNFTR: Oh, shit, UNFTR list music is coming up.

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: There were 10 promises the GOP took as commandments.

99 - HOST, UNFTR: A balanced budget amendment.

MANNY FACES - HOST, UNFTR: Increasing instances of the death penalty and more funding for the prison industrial complex and police.

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: Prohibiting welfare to young mothers to discourage welfare. Broad based cuts to all welfare programs and implementation of work requirements.

99 - HOST, UNFTR: Enforcing child support. Incentivizing adoption, parental rights, and education.

MANNY FACES - HOST, UNFTR: $500 per child tax credits and individual savings accounts for home buying, education, and retirement.

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: Strengthening the military and creating a missile defense system.

99 - HOST, UNFTR: Capital gains tax cut. Unfunded mandate reforms.

MANNY FACES - HOST, UNFTR: Limits on punitive damages, and "loser pays" provisions to prevent [00:27:00] frivolous lawsuits.

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: Congressional term limits.

MANNY FACES - HOST, UNFTR: And we're back to the history lesson.

Center of domestic political power had moved from the White House to Newt's House. The ruthless romantic had reached his moment with the chance to change America. In a remarkable display of discipline and purpose, Gingrich's House passed all but one of the contract's 10 Commandments in its first 100 days. More importantly, the fundamental debate had shifted to Newt's agenda. Suddenly, the question was not whether to balance the budget and shrink the government, but when and how. The fulcrum of power had shifted, but so had the harsh glare of the spotlight, exposing the Speaker's flaws and his excesses.

In our series on the Clinton years, we detailed how most of what the Gingrich House put forward was ultimately put into effect. Clinton's cynical strategy, [00:28:00] something his advisors termed triangulation, was to get ahead of as much of it as possible and make it part of the Democratic agenda. And so that's what we got: a Clinton legacy, largely authored by Newt Gingrich.

That's a policy story that we've also covered. What I want to dig into is the culture shift that Gingrich introduced into the House, because that's what remains long after his manifesto. Gingrich was perhaps one of the greatest political operatives who ever held the gavel. Ultimately, his corrupt ways and tawdry personal life led to his unraveling in the role, but the effect that he had on the body far outlasted his tenure as speaker. Newt Gingrich is extremely intelligent and perniciously clever. His "contract with America" was a way of galvanizing the conservative base of the country and of painting the GOP into a corner from which they have yet to escape.

Through the Gaetz of Hell - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 10-6-23

BRAD ONISHI - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: So, Leo Strauss, professor, theorist, kind of famous social theorist of [00:29:00] the 20th century, defines nihilism this way: "The desire to destroy the present world and its potentialities, a desire not accompanied by any clear conception of what one wants to put in its place."

I think the easiest way to think about this, Dan, is the Joker when, in the Batman movie, he's described as "some men just want to see the world burn." They want to see the world burn. They don't have anything to offer in its place. They're not trying to build something else. They just want to watch what's there burn for... it's just destruction's sake.

So Dan, you're a social theorist, you're somebody who's probably more well versed in this stuff than me. Off to you. Help us understand political nihilism and then we'll link it to Matt Gaetz and Kevin McCarthy and Donald Trump and the big mess that Republican politics and American politics is today.

DANIEL MILLER - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Yeah, so we didn't plan it, but it's funny that you highlight that clip. I taught a class for a long time and nihilism was one of the things we were supposed to talk about in there. And we would watch The Dark Knight Rises, that's [00:30:00] the Batman movie with the Joker character, and looking at whether or not he's a nihilist, because of that. If you want to see people who aren't nihilists that are called nihilists, and it's just funny, just go with The Big Lebowski, but that's just like a side thing.

So I think, not surprisingly, I'm like, oh, Leo Strauss had a good definition. It is, and I think that's the key, is all of these debates people have, if we're gonna bring it down to earth, and be like, why are we talking about, we're talking about the contemporary GOP, that's what we're talking about. I think that'd be the first point, is that's like the sort of terrifying thing.

So when people think of something like political nihilism, it's supposed to be theoretical or it's supposed to be, I don't know, some sort of vindictive accompaniment of fascism or something. It's not supposed to be something of like mainstream political thought in a well-established democratic system like the US or modern Europe or something like that. And that's what we're looking at. And for me, when we look at the GOP, that's what we see. This is why people have heard me rail about it for years. I think I'm going to be railing about it for years more.

When people talk about the GOP and they still use the term conservatives or conservatism to [00:31:00] apply to it, it's not. I disagree with political conservatism of pretty much every stripe. Or classical liberalism or whatever title you want to give it. Fine. But it's a political philosophy. It has principles. It has reasons why policy decisions are made and so forth. The contemporary GOP doesn't, right? And that notion of destroying the present world and its potentialities or to use the method -- it was Alfred who said it, describing the joker in The Dark Knight Rises, who says some people just want to watch the world burn. That's what we see. We see a politics of retribution. We see a politics of payback. And that's what this McCarthy thing really was. We see a politics of targeting people.

So just to give some examples, a laundry list of things we've already talked about lots of times, but just to lead up, because this is just more of the same. When you have the Republican Party targeting queer kids, or targeting people of color, and that's what the book bans are about. They're not about protecting people, they are [00:32:00] about removing voices of color, removing queer voices, removing certain experiences from the public realm. Targeting women through abortion criminalization.

And again, for people who say, well it's about protection -- it's not, it's criminalized. All these things about making it a felony for a doctor to even advise a woman about -- that's vindictive, that is aimed at harming people, that's destroying a certain kind of social order.

Anti-immigration policies, anti-discrimination laws. We talked earlier about how the Military Academy is now under suit for affirmative action. This week, the Naval Academy is named in a suit. The same thing, targeting every time. Anti-vaxing on the offense, not just "don't force me to get a vaccine," but we have attorneys general urging people not to get the vaccine and the active promulgation of disinformation. Trump playing kingmaker in the House this week, of toying with the idea of being named Speaker of the House and throwing his support behind Jordan. We can talk about that.

[00:33:00] The point is, that's what this politics is. None of these are about principles. None of these are about, oh here's a good stalwart principle. [I] said a number of weeks ago that you can tell that there's no principle there because a Republican now, a mainstream Republican, wouldn't be able to tell you what they advance until you can tell them what position you hold, and then they'll tell you what position they have because it's the opposite.

I did see -- I'll throw this out and then close off, I think it was maybe a TikTok video or somewhere else on social media -- this guy had this hilarious thing, and he was right, where he's like, you know what the Democrats should do right now is put every bit of gun control they want and call it the Stop Hunter Biden Act, because then the Republicans will suddenly vote for all of the gun control measures that they don't want because Hunter Biden is up on gun charges.

That's what we mean practically when we talk about political nihilism, is a system that doesn't have political principle. And just to head it off, are there still conservatives? Yes. Are there still principled? Yes, there are. [00:34:00] I'd love to hear from people. You want to keep them coming? Keep them coming. But the emails that are like, this is still the heart of the -- it's not the heart of the Republican Party. It's like a remainder. It's like a math remainder that you cut off the end when you're rounding up. That's what conservatism is in the GOP now.

So, In concrete terms, political nihilism is what you and I, Brad, have been talking about for years now, what other people are seeing, and I think it's slowly dawning on broader segments of people that there really is, as they might say behind the GOP, there's no there, there. There's nothing below this. There's nothing behind it. This is just what it is in the effort to create a kind of Christian American whatever it is that they think they want.

The House that Newt Built: The Rise of Matt Gaetz Part 2 - UNFTR - Air Date 10-7-23

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: Well, this philosophy has delivered us into the Lesser Evil era. Now, what's ironic, or maybe just funny, is how each successive GOP leader is ultimately destroyed by their own. Gingrich was ousted by his own. His replacement, Dennis Hastert, a stern and reliable man who sought to restore some integrity to the Speaker [00:35:00] position, was later arrested on child pornography charges.

Next up was John Boehner, a new protegé who was undone by the next iteration of GOP fuckheads, namely Paul Ryan. Surely fiscal conservative and doe-eyed fitness freak Ryan would weather the storm. And alas, no. By then, norms had flown out the window, and Ryan was quickly humiliated and neutered by Donald J. Trump.

And now we have Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy, who was part of the trio of douche nozzles who called themselves the Young Guns, which included Ryan and Eric Cantor. And now McCarthy has been taken out by the next nozzle in line, the most revolting insurgent yet, Matt Gaetz. Except Gaetz seems to have little interest in taking the gavel for himself. And that's why so many pundits are tying themselves in knots trying to figure out his endgame.

MANNY FACES - HOST, UNFTR: I assume that brings us to the scary part?

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: It does indeed. [00:36:00]

You reap what you sow. Newt was ambitious. The House Speaker is third in line for the presidency. But Newt made no bones about it. Third is for losers, and he wanted to be president. So he lobbed a bomb into the House chamber and destroyed any pretense of compromise. The House had been overthrown by demagogues, and that's what we've gotten ever since.

Matt Gaetz is Frankenstein's monster. A convenient vessel of despair and cynicism, with a pompadour and a tie. But he doesn't want to be the president. He's angling for something else. The mistake is in thinking he's stupid. I'm so freaked out by this guy, I don't even want to do the Butthead imitation.

99 - HOST, UNFTR: I was wondering.

I've been watching him more closely in recent months. It's only when he's up against someone as skilled as Jamie Raskin that Gaetz finds himself on the defensive. But I've watched the way he channels populist talking points and rage into legal arguments to take [00:37:00] powerful figures to task. He's unapologetic, pugnacious, and sharp tongued. He doesn't stumble, doesn't mince words. And if you're merely a casual observer, you might even appreciate some of his takes. Here he is grilling General Mark Milley over the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

REP. MATT GAETZ: You spent more time with Bob Woodward on this book than you spent analyzing the very likely prospect that the Afghanistan government was going to fall immediately to the Taliban, didn't you?

GENERAL MARK MILLEY: Not even close, Congressman.

REP. MATT GAETZ: Oh, really? Because you said right after Kabul fell that no one could have anticipated the immediate fall of the Ghani government. When did you become aware that Joe Biden tried to get Ghani to lie about the conditions in Afghanistan? He did that in July. Did you know that right away?

GENERAL MARK MILLEY: I'm not aware of what President Biden --

REP. MATT GAETZ: You're not aware of the phone call that Biden had with Ghani where he said, whether it is true or not, we want you to go out there and paint a rosy picture of what's going on in Afghanistan. You're the chief military adviser to the president. You said [00:38:00] that the Taliban was not going to defeat the government of Afghanistan militarily, which, by the way, they cut through them like a hot knife through butter, and then the president tries to get Ghani to lie. When did you become aware of that attempt?

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: Confronting FBI Director Christopher Wray.

REP. MATT GAETZ: People need to understand what just happened. My Democrat colleague just asked the director of the FBI whether or not they are buying information about our fellow Americans. And the answer is, "Well, we'll just have to get back to you on that. Sounds really complicated. But I have other questions. I'm sitting here with my father. I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge, that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here, waiting for the call with my father." Sounds like a shakedown, doesn't it, Director?

FBI DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER WRAY: I'm not going to get into commenting on that.

REP. MATT GAETZ: You seem deeply uncurious about it, don't you? Almost suspiciously uncurious. Are you protecting the Bidens? [00:39:00]

FBI DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER WRAY: Absolutely not. The FBI does not and has no interest in protecting anyone politically.

REP. MATT GAETZ: Well, you won't answer the question about whether that's a shakedown. And everybody knows why you won't answer it. Because to the millions of people who will see this, they know it is.

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: Fighting over retiring Ukraine's debt.

MATT GAETZ: My amendment makes a $4. 5 billion cut. 3.5 billion of that stops us from retiring global debt for Ukraine. Now, I don't think it's an unrealistic position to say that the United States of America should not deficit spend to retire the debt of other countries.

Think about that. We are borrowing money from China to go settle the debts of Ukraine that they accrued far before this war with Russia.

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: In areas of the internet that you and I don't travel, on broadcasts that we don't watch, and in circles that we don't run in, Gaetz is going from buffoon to hero because there's literally no structure of [00:40:00] power he won't quarrel with.

Forget who he is and which side of the aisle he's on. He's calling out the military and the FBI. That's traditionally the purview of leftists, but ever since Donald Trump opened the door and questioned the authority of the very levers that he himself controlled, the lunatic fringe has come rushing in behind him.

What scares me is his lack of transparent ambition. He seems to be happy in the role of Lucifer's attack dog, so much so that I'm beginning to think that the chaos that he's sowing isn't a tactic. I think chaos is the endgame. My proof is to look no further than his cozy alignment with Steve Bannon.

Just like the cadre of evil libertarians have been years ahead of the left in building organizations, propaganda campaigns, and operations to steal power and promote disinformation, Steve Bannon is years ahead of the left and the right in finding ways to tear the whole system down. He almost did it once. [00:41:00] Do you really think he stopped trying? I mean, this guy was inside the White House. He fucking made it. He got to see the machine from the inside. It's like having the blueprint to the Death Star. No, I think there's something else going on here.

MANNY FACES - HOST, UNFTR: Election deniers in key government positions.

99 - HOST, UNFTR: Precinct captains and poll watchers enlisted by Bannon's war room.

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: RFK Junior is likely switching his affiliation to independent, leaving faith healer Marianne Williamson as the only opposition within the Democratic Party, and barely.

MANNY FACES - HOST, UNFTR: Cornel West virtually shut out of the conversation.

99 - HOST, UNFTR: Biden decaying before our very eyes.

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: No Labels is contemplating a spoiler role with Joe Manchin making a third party run.

MANNY FACES - HOST, UNFTR: And Republican infighting bringing this legislative session to a grinding halt, just weeks before another government funding confrontation.

MAX - HOST, UNFTR: And now Democrats and progressives are just blithely taking it all in, thinking somehow, Republican voters are going to blame Republicans for chaos on the House floor or even a government [00:42:00] shutdown. But that's just not how it works.

Why Our Politics Are Stuck In 2016 - FiveThirtyEight Politics - Air Date 9-25-23

LYNN VAVRECK: So I don't think that Trump leaving politics is necessarily going to end the focus on identity politics. So you, you've seen other people emerge to echo his style of campaigning and his positions and his sort of prioritizing identity inflected issues. But there are a couple pieces of evidence that I think are interesting to think about. So the first is, we saw in 2020 some extraordinary moments in global politics. A global pandemic that did not dislodge this new dimension of conflict in American politics. We saw the largest social justice movement since the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act in America in the 1960s. That did not dislodge this new dimension of conflict.

GALEN DRUKE - PRODUCER, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: [00:43:00] Those are... Well, that's in many ways a doubling down, right?, of this dimension of conflict in a way, right? Like it's the sort of... Maybe more Democrats approach to identity inflected issues.

LYNN VAVRECK: Well, you did see after the murder of George Floyd, everyone's ratings of police went down. Everyone's ratings of the Black Lives Matter movement, I mean, on average, went up. So there was a moment where entrepreneurial or strategic politicians might have capitalized on that. It doesn't happen. Same thing with COVID. In the beginning of COVID, everybody was staying home, washing their hands, canceling visits with family. Then Trump politicizes it. He says, ' March on your state capitol and tell your governors that you're taking back Michigan', et cetera, et cetera. He reintroduces this identity inflected dimension. This is a blue state problem, is how he framed it. So, if [00:44:00] there were a big global political moment or a national political moment, it doesn't even have to be as big as those where one of the two candidates did not try to make it about this existing dimension of conflict, then, maybe, the fight wouldn't be over that dimension.

But here's the problem: having demonstrated that there is political payoff by making politics about this dimension, it will be very difficult for a candidate who wants to win elections to come along and say, Oh, here's this dimension on which the previous two presidential elections, you know, we won one, and we've come within tens of thousands of votes of winning the other, boy, I'm going to forego that, and I'm going to start talking about something else. That's tough. And about foreign policy, I'll just say, historically, it's been very difficult for candidates to make [00:45:00] that the central feature of a national election fight. So I don't see that happening either.

GALEN DRUKE - PRODUCER, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: Yeah, I'll say, you know, listening to stump speeches and reporting on the primaries so far, it seems like Nikki Haley is trying quite hard, like she's really pitching, sort of focusing a lot on China in her speeches in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. And voters like it, but I don't know that it really changes the dimension very much.

LYNN VAVRECK: You know, that's very smart on her part because that's where her credential, her national stage credential, that's where it is. She is the candidate with a lot of foreign policy experience, who has communicated with other world leaders. So, she does want to talk about that. That's what sets her apart from the other people running. But as you just said, it doesn't mean she's going to be able to refocus the whole election onto that.

GALEN DRUKE - PRODUCER, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: Yeah. I mean, the way that you tell the story is a very Trump-centric story. And I, you know, understand in 2016, we all lived through that. I'll spare our [00:46:00] audience, you know, like too much rehashing of it. But to what extent is identity inflected politics a Republican driven realignment or pivot versus a Democratic one? Because I just said I wasn't going to rehash 2016, but like, we all listened to Hillary Clinton's stump speech in 2016. It was very much, like, going through every piece of the perceived democratic coalition to say, like, I am here representing LGBTQ Americans, Native Americans, Black Americans, et cetera, and so there's a lot of focus, and you know, the deal me in on the woman card, and I'm with her, and there's a lot of identity inflected politics in the way that Hillary Clinton campaigns, in a way that Barack Obama never would have done, and probably couldn't have done, given that he was the first Black American president.

So, I'm curious for your take on how Democrats play a role in this, or if you think that the way that Clinton campaigned was just a reaction to Trump.

LYNN VAVRECK: Yeah, so I think, I'll say three things. The first is that Barack Obama doesn't have to say it [00:47:00] out loud. He just has to show up on the scene. And he's, and he's already priming race in people's minds. So, he doesn't have to talk about it. Second... The 2008 and 2016 presidential elections are happening in incredibly different contexts for the Democratic candidate. Barack Obama can say, ' we are in the middle of a global financial crisis, that party got you into it. Don't change horses midstream. You've had a good run with our party. Why would you want to experiment with something else?'

But as you say then, this unexpected wrinkle enters the contest, i. e. Trump gets the Republican nomination. And he for reasons you can imagine, does not want to talk about the success of the Obama years and getting us out of the global financial crisis. And so he [00:48:00] introduces this other dimension of conflict. Now, at that moment, Clinton does have a choice to make: stick with my, you know, if you remember when she launched her campaign, I'm going around talking to Americans about the economy and about jobs and people are buying new homes and getting new jobs. And guess what? I want to get a new job and move into a new home too. That's how she announced her candidacy. She can stick with that or she can counter what Trump is saying. And as you mentioned, the Democratic coalition does have strong prefernces on these identity inflected issues. So, even if she wanted to stick with her economic message, it's very difficult in that moment because the activists in the coalition are saying, You have to respond, you have to respond. And she does. But then we're fighting about the thing Trump wants to be fighting [00:49:00] about.

Okay, so the third thing that I just wanted to say in response to that is your original question was, you know, how much are Democrats culpable for this rise in identity inflected issues, is that post-2016, we get into 2020 and 2022 and now 2024, and we've introduced even more identity inflected issues that we're fighting over. You know, how do we want to think about sports, men's and women's sports teams? How do we want to think about gender and gender identity and school locker rooms and bathrooms? And states are going to make policy, school districts are going to make policy about these kinds of things. And this is another set of identity inflected issues and policies that have come into this conversation. And we're a long way toward getting resolution on all of these things, but particularly these [00:50:00] new issues.

And so, yes, this is a good place to see how far apart, on average, the parties are, and how people within the parties are similar to one another. This is exactly sort of the drivers of calcification that we're talking about and, I mean, you need both sides to have distance and to have that stickiness.

Who Will Replace Kevin McCarthy - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 10-6-23

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: The Times article that you contributed to on this says, "For Mr. Jordan, an Ohioan and co-founder of the Ultra Conservative House Freedom Caucus, the task will be to convince more mainstream Republicans that he can govern and not simply tear things down. He met on Thursday with members of the mainstream caucus, a group of business minded Republicans for Mr. Scalise", the article says, "a Louisianan who has won conference elections before as majority leader. The challenge will be to stay one step ahead of Mr. Jordan and make better inroads with the right wing of the party". So can you talk about the Jordan side of that [00:51:00] first? What might he be doing to cultivate less radical Republicans?

LUKE BROADWATER: Well, you know, Jim Jordan, over the past couple of years has shed a little of his reputation as just a bomb thrower who tears things down. You know, when he was the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, he and his allies really antagonized speaker after speaker and ran a couple of them out, you know, Boehner and Paul Ryan were both sort of run out by the Freedom Caucus. Under McCarthy, Jordan's started to become. interested in being more of a leader in the party and he formed an alliance with McCarthy and became the judiciary chairman and although still seen very much as someone on the far right of the party, he pushed the party more to his way of thinking, to the right wing, and started acting more like a [00:52:00] traditional leadership candidate.

He's trying to make the case to these moderate groups. Yesterday he met with the mainstream caucus. These are sort of more centrist, business minded Republicans. He's trying to make the case that he's, that although you may think of him as this bomb thrower on the right, he can work in leadership, he can come up with a plan, he can unite the party, and he's not just somebody who wants to tear things down.

So that's the case he's trying to make right now. Um, you know, I think when this race first started, people saw him as an underdog against Scalise. I think the Trump endorsement probably helps him, and he's doing a lot of outreach to try to not be the underdog and to say that these, you know, these moderate groups can trust him.

He's not gonna screw them over, but he's the person who can bring the right along with him. They trust him, and there can be unity in the Republican conference.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: And the challenge for Scalise is the opposite, to cultivate those on the right who might be natural allies of [00:53:00] Jordan?

LUKE BROADWATER: Yeah, slightly. I mean, I think... now both of these guys are on the right. I don't want it to believed that Scalise is some sort of centralist or moderate. But because he's been in leadership before, he's won conference-wide elections, I think he's shown that he can vote for things that centrists like: keeping government open, passing the budget, sort of the normal operations of government. I think there's more trust towards Scalise from the centrists about just sort of the very basics of government: keeping it running, you know, keeping things functioning normally. So, his challenge will be, because Jordan has such a sway over the hard right and the Freedom Caucus types, that can he pick off any of them. And so he's making a lot of calls right now. He's picking up tons of support in the South and the Midwest on these calls.

Now, remember you can't really have a split Republican conference here. You pretty much need [00:54:00] everybody to vote for one person or to be elected speaker. I think you can only lose like four votes. So, somebody's got to emerge as the consensus candidate here, and Scalise is hoping that'll be him.

It's Now Or Never For The GOP Candidates - FiveThirtyEight Politics - Air Date 9-28-23

GALEN DRUKE - PRODUCER, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: One of the things that I do during the debate is just write down every topic as it comes up. So I'm gonna go through and name all of the topics, and if you think that there's anything worth saying on any of the topics, go 'ding ding ding ding ding' and I'll stop and we can talk about it. And if you never say 'ding ding ding ding ding', I'll just pick the one that was most interesting to me. Okay. So, we began with the ongoing strikes and unions, then Reagan's legacy, government shutdown, childcare, immigration, crime and drugs, inflation, healthcare, education, critical race theory and slavery, LGBTQ issues, then there was the... I just wrote this down all by itself, I feel stupider every time you speak comment, then Ukraine, TikTok, [00:55:00] China, America's Farmers, using force in Mexico, national security, energy, abortion. I didn't hear any 'ding ding ding ding dings.'

LEAH ASKARINAM - REPORTER, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: [ sigh]

GEOFFREY SKELLEY - ANALYST, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: I mean, I guess in terms of, like, the kind of strong comments made by Republican candidates about an issue, you know, immigration or border security, I think, if I recall correctly, DeSantis had a good moment there. Haley had a good moment there. But at the same time, I'm not sure how much, like, I don't know if there's actually anything you can take away on those particular issues in terms of like, it's sort of just very slight degrees of difference. Something like the TikTok moment and talking about China's influence. Like, Ramaswamy was critical of China, but he also was talking up, Well, we have to use TikTok while it's here, kind of thing, and Haley was like, I'm not having any of that, basically.

So that was interesting. I'm not really sure how much it revealed, though, about sort of like internal party disagreements.

LEAH ASKARINAM - REPORTER, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: Yeah, I think that's right, and... [00:56:00] Just thinking about, as you were reading through those, I was, you know, just trying to remember what every candidate said about those different topics, and I will say the candidate that came up the most for me was actually DeSantis, you know, him talking about sending troops to the border and, um, him really doubling down on his, um, history curriculum and the comments about slavery, which was, um, I was really surprised by. And, I also am kind of struck by how little I remember from what Tim Scott said. And I mean, there was, of course, the Nikki Haley moment, but that, in my mind, is curtains [laugh] more than anything else. I wonder, I mean, if we're gonna think about a candidate who needed to have a standout moment tonight, I think that's probably Tim Scott, and now that you're talking about all these topics at once, I'm kinda thinking, like, he didn't really have that, did he?

GEOFFREY SKELLEY - ANALYST, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: Well, I think to your point, Leah, it's [00:57:00] like Scott probably felt the pressure, like, I gotta, I gotta make something happen here. So, he goes after Haley, who he probably feels like there's maybe some overlap of potential support. But did it really land? Nah, not really. And maybe it exposes that Scott's not particularly good at attacking. And I, and that's maybe understandable given sort of, I think the tenor of how he campaigns, he's sort of positive, happy warrior in a lot of ways. And maybe attacking someone is just not like kind of a natural fit for him. And that's not a criticism. It's just sort of an observation of how he campaigns. It would add up that he might not excel at that particular thing.

GALEN DRUKE - PRODUCER, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: Jeff, I think you make a good point about the issues and the degree of difference between the candidates. So what was notable about the first debate is the degree to which they went in on issues that the candidates didn't agree on: climate change, abortion, you know, [00:58:00] quite toward the top of the debate.

GEOFFREY SKELLEY - ANALYST, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: Even, like, Ukraine.

GALEN DRUKE - PRODUCER, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: Ukraine.

GEOFFREY SKELLEY - ANALYST, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: Like, more about Ukraine and intervention.

GALEN DRUKE - PRODUCER, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: Absolutely. Absolutely. And, but, tonight started more on the unions, I mean, unions is interesting, right?, because it sort of puts into high relief the difference between the Republican Party of Reagan and the Republican Party today, where Reagan famously fires the air traffic controllers, but, you know, now, during this debate, Trump was going to support striking Trump was auto union workers during the debate. So, obviously things have changed.

But I think more what I wanna say is, yes, a lot of the prime issues that they talked about, they largely agree on. So it's gradations of difference. And these issues, like the economy, immigration, wokeness, beating Joe Biden, whatever, these are issues that according to our polling with Ipsos, which we once again did pre and post polling with Ipsos, are, according to voters, the issues that will play the biggest [00:59:00] role in deciding their vote.

Now, what I will say is, you know, this is of the unscientific part, but like, out talking to voters, largely Republican voters, over the past several days, one, they don't know very many of the candidates who are running other than Donald Trump. Some of them couldn't name a single one, or when I would name them, be like, yeah, I've heard of this person, but I don't know very much about them, and when you ask about the issues that are motivating them, it is, in fact, those issues, but what they talk about is, Oh, well, gas wasn't $7 under Donald Trump, right? It's almost, it's approaching $7 in this part of Southern California. Like, I could not actually even believe my eyes when I saw the gas prices coming from a place where everyone complains about $4 gas. But this is the way in which Donald Trump works as an incumbent. People have a record of what was life like when Donald Trump was president, that they point to as his argument. And so he doesn't even have to be on stage making his case for, this is what I will do on the economy, this [01:00:00] is what I will do on immigration, this is what I will do on China, or tariffs, or national security, or foreign interventions, or whatever. Everyone just already has in mind what were these things like when he was president, and that's his answer to these questions. And none of these candidates are going to be able to really compete with that

LEAH ASKARINAM - REPORTER, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: I mean, totally. I wonder if the candidates on stage were actually, like, uniformly critical of Trump, if that incumbent advantage would be as strong. And I actually don't know if I agree with the argument I'm about to make, um, so bear with me, it's...

GALEN DRUKE - PRODUCER, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: Oh, my favorite kind of argument, I make it all the time.

GEOFFREY SKELLEY - ANALYST, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: Devil's advocate.

LEAH ASKARINAM - REPORTER, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: 1:15 am with [unrecognized], after... Let's, let's do this. Um, no, I think about this a lot with campaigns, how just silence in general allows other candidates to come and fill a void. And that's something that I literally wrote about today for, you know, the Cook Report, literally today, about a House race where a candidate [01:01:00] was being really quiet, but had a famous last name, and what could Democrats do with that?

So, if the candidates on stage were all united in saying, Well, Donald Trump isn't actually pro life, or, you know, if they were all united against his position on Ukraine, something like that, I do wonder if he would have to speak up. But because voters' preexisting view of him is what he wants it to be anyway, he doesn't have to change anything and nobody's changing it for him. And this gets back to my central gripe: something's gotta change.

GEOFFREY SKELLEY - ANALYST, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: It's a reasonable thought. I mean, it's sort of like the chorus of Republican leaders, or something, if they were all united saying, like, We can't have Trump again, and here's why, x, y, z, that would probably get some more coverage, it would press Trump in some way. I mean, I don't, it's not a terrible theory. I mean, look, if there are Republicans who do not want Donald Trump to be the nominee, we are definitely at the throw-spaghetti-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks part of the campaign already. [01:02:00] So, it's as good a theory as you're gonna hear, so, I don't know, it's a thought.

Final comments on what divides the parties from each other and from within

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips today starting with Today, Explained breaking down the details of the threatened shutdown. Democracy Now! discussed the dynamics of the bomb throwers in the GOPs impact on the party. AOC spoke during a virtual town hall about why the Democrats in Congress didn't vote to save McCarthy from his far right flank. Unf*cking the Republic, in two parts, delved into the history of how Newt Gingrich helped turn the GOP onto its current path. Straight White American Jesus discussed Matt Gaetz and the politics of nihilism. And FiveThirtyEight Politics took a stab at explaining Trump's impact on the issues we fight over. That's what everybody heard. But members also heard two bonus clips about the two GOP elections we're currently in the middle of. The first from the Brian Lehrer Show, looking at the race to replace Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House. And the second from FiveThirtyEight Politics discussing the second debate between [01:03:00] candidates running to unseat Trump from the GOP nomination.

To hear that and have all of our bonus content delivered seamlessly to the new members only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at bestoftheleft.com/support or shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

Now to wrap up this fight over the speakership has given me some thoughts about the divides within the parties. And, uh, to be completely honest, I didn't fully understand the degree to which there is internal divide within the GOP. I knew there was one. I saw it when the Tea Party entered the scene in 2010. I understood that the more extreme elements of the party basically drove John Boehner out of politics, you know, back in the 2010s. But still, I didn't fully understand. And I think it's because, well, I would argue that the GOP hides it a little bit better, [01:04:00] but I think there's a little bit of cross-partisan blindness about how the other party works. Which is really interesting because as followers of politics, what people tend to do is pay more attention to the people they disagree with. They understand more about, you know, if you hate Republicans, you're likely to hear more news about the Republicans than Democrats and vice versa. I think. So let me explain.

Within the last year or so I heard or saw a quote from a GOP politician, I don't know which one, and they were talking about how the Democrats are always in such lock step and how they always agree on everything. In contrast to the Republicans, this person was arguing. And you know, they described the Republicans as being like wildly divided and always fighting with each other. And he was sort of arguing that, you know, this is why the Democrats are the real authoritarians and the Republicans are the real big [01:05:00] tent party because we have all kinds of different, you know, opinions and Democrats are like made to agree on everything. And I was like, what? Because the Democrats are always squabbling publicly. You got the Joe Manchins and other conservative Democrats holding the rest of the party hostage. You've got the progressive Squad out there saying a bunch of stuff that to me makes perfect sense, and they're getting condemned for it, not just by Republicans, but also plenty of Democrats, too.

Meanwhile, at least in the media, when Republicans our on TV or anywhere else, they are on their talking points. You can count on basically every one of them to actually use the talking points that are distributed by the party, or, you know, maybe some outside of the party, major influencer. And they're hitting the same notes like as George W. Bush said back in the day, this is a real quote, " See, in my line of work, you got to keep [01:06:00] repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda". One of the great moments of accidentally saying the quiet part out loud.

So, the GOP is good at that. They're good at saying the same thing from a lot of different people, in a lot of different outlets, all the same way at the same time, day after day, to catapult the propaganda. So, outwardly the GOP has always seemed like the party that's in lockstep because they're all literally saying the same thing. Meanwhile, rank and file Democrats have been complaining for my whole life and a long time before that about how the Democratic Party can not get on a single message to save its life. Many years ago, Paul Begala - he was an advisor to Bill Clinton back in the nineties, but I'm not, I'm talking about, you know, the 20 aughts or whatever - said on TV that Democrats need to take a page out [01:07:00] of the Republican playbook and send out talking points to everyone to repeat. And the host of the show that he was talking to asked him if he would be willing to regurgitate talking points on television that the party had sent out, and he was like, No, I wouldn't do that. So, even the person who's like, This is what we need to do, is like, Ehh, yeah, I mean, I wouldn't do it, but other people need to do it. Or maybe he'd be willing to do it if he was the one who got to send out the talking points, right? Like, this is the thinking of people on the left, which is fine. I think it's fine to insist on saying what you actually believe, because the reverse is cynical and gross. It's being willing to regurgitate talking points, whether you agree with them or not.

So, that's one of the lost causes for the left. It's never going to happen. They're never going to fall in line and adhere to talking points like that. The right for the most part is [01:08:00] willing to do that. And that's how you get so many stories from, I mean, usually people on the left will tell the story of, like, being in a green room with a conservative, after they've had a TV appearance together and oftentimes the Republican will sort of admit that they're full of shit when they were on air. Like, they don't really believe what they were just saying. And they think that the person on the left is doing the same thing, that they're all playing the same games. So, they're, you know, like, go to the green room and be like, Good one, right? I think I really got those bullshit points across. And the person on the left is like, Wait, what? You don't even believe that stuff? I believe everything I was saying, you know? So there's that just, like, total working at cross purposes. Like, we don't understand how the other side functions.

So, anyway, that's sort of the background, but that brings us to the question of, number one, how would a Republican ever get the idea that the Democrats are always in agreement when we're always publicly disagreeing with each other all the time? [01:09:00] And, number two, how is it that a party like the Republicans that's usually willing to adhere to these mass distributed talking points, how could they actually be so divided in reality, so much so that we've now come to this current state of completely melting down and, you know, bringing Congress to a screeching halt? My way of understanding this is that the biggest difference between the parties isn't about how much or little they disagree internally. Clearly there's plenty of that on both sides. So, that's not the divider between the two parties. The divider is how much they actually care if the government functions or not. Democrats fight internally a lot about what their priorities should be, what policies they should push for, but at the end of the day, the vast majority of them want for the government to do its job and try to help people. So when the fighting is done, a piece of legislation is proposed and because the negotiations have usually already happened at this point, all or [01:10:00] nearly all of the Democrats will usually get on board and support what has been put forward. They all want to be able to say to themselves and their constituents, I supported the thing that the government is doing to help people.

Now, progressives will often think that what they voted for didn't go far enough and they will, you know, argue to their constituents, like, Look, I voted for this, but I want more. And conservative Democrats may worry that whatever they just passed goes too far or costs too much or whatever. And so they'll vote for it, but they'll say, Look, I voted for it because we had to negotiate. But yeah, I'm trying to reign things in, right? That's what they'll say to their constituents. So it gives the impression of lockstep agreement. But that's not really the case.

The GOP also has plenty of examples of voting in lockstep, don't get me wrong, but the divides in the party show themselves off [01:11:00] much more spectacularly than with the Democrats, because the internal fights aren't about how much to try to use the government to help people, but about how severely to hamper the government's ability to function. So, for as much as there is in politics that is just cynical or self-serving, this is where the true divide between the parties is put on display. Democrats very imperfectly and, from a progressive perspective, far too slowly and timidly basically tried to use the government to help people and really try to avoid creating gaps in the government functioning. Republicans more or less just try to tear what pieces of government exists down. And if that means occasionally bringing the whole thing to a halt, that doesn't seem like such a bad thing to them. Or at least some of them.

Now just one last thing, I came across a pretty fun article that helped explain the current chaos and the GOP caucus [01:12:00] and their struggle to find a leader. This is titled "Kevin McCarthy is GOP Incompetence Made Flesh. No Republican equipped to be speaker would want the job in the first place". This is by Noah Berlatsky and it's from a newsletter called Public Notice. I just found them recently, but I enjoyed this one. There's just some quick highlights from it. He says, "The House GOP has been a pit of venomous constipated vipers for years now. Only a fool would try to govern a caucus of rabid fools. This really is a case where anyone who wants the job is obviously unqualified. A speaker who would willingly put himself in the hands of the current GOP is a speaker who has demonstrated his own utter inability to do the job. McCarthy is the guy whose ambition prompted him to stick his face in the grungy ceiling fan that is House GOP politics, and refuse to withdraw it [01:13:00] despite the filth and bludgeoning. A competent speaker is, by definition, someone who has a good sense of what can be accomplished and what can't. That means that any competent speaker, like, say John Boehner, is going to take one look at the current state of play in the House and cease to be a speaker candidate." Now, this was written before Jim Jordan and Steve Scalese put themselves forward for the speakership. And then Scalese, like, very quickly pulled himself out. I mean, he's like the slightly more reasonable of the two. And I think he basically did what this writer suggests, he took a look, is like, Yeah, like, if I can get the votes on the first try, I'll go for it. And if not, I'm out of here, 'cause who needs this absurdity?

Now, continuing just a little bit, and this writer's also talking about the broader politics in the GOP right now. He says, "Trumpified Republicans don't merely have to embrace conservative policies. They have to [01:14:00] believe that the 2020 election was stolen. They have to believe contrary to all evidence that Biden was engaged in corrupt business dealings in Ukraine. They have to think that shutting down the government will somehow end the numerous criminal proceedings against Trump. In short, to be a successful GOP politician right now, you need to be a fool or a liar, or preferably both and severing yourself from reality is not a great path to effective governance". So, there's that too. There's the make-the-government-work ethic of the Democrats and the stop-the-government-from-working ideology of the Republicans. That's been there for a long time now. But now we've added on top of that be you must be either a fool, a liar, or both element to GOP politics and the prospects of good governments at that point starts to trend towards zero.

That is going to be it for today. As always, keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about this [01:15:00] or anything else you can leave us a voicemail or send us a text to 202-999-3991 or simply email me to [email protected]. Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our Transcriptionist Trio, Ken, Brian, and LaWendy for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work on our social media outlets, activism segments, graphic designing, web mastering, and bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships at bestoftheleftcom/support. You can join them by signing up today, it would be greatly appreciated. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with a link to join our Discord community, where you can continue the discussion.

So, coming to you from far outside, the conventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my name is Jay, and this has been the Best of the Left podcast coming to twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show [01:16:00] from bestoftheleft.com.

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#1587 What Conservatives Think of When They Think of the Children (Transcript)

Posted by · October 06, 2023 8:09 PM

Air Date 10/7/2023

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast, in which we shall take a look at the perverse reality at odds with conservatives' claim to be standing up for family values and saving children from the abuse of, presumably, Democrats for the most part, including policies that encourage child labor, child brides, forced birth creating child mothers, childhood poverty, and education intentionally designed for child indoctrination.

Sources today include Zoe Bee, the PBS NewsHour, Robert Reich, Head in the Office, Some More News, One in Ten, and All in with Chris Hayes, with additional members-only clips from Andrewism and More Perfect Union.

What "Parents' Rights" REALLY Means - Zoe Bee - Air Date 9-26-23

ZOE BEE - HOST, ZOE BEE: When a movement is focused on restoring parents' rights, you have to ask, parents' rights to what? When groups like Moms for Liberty or PragerU use the term, it is usually associated with transparency in schools. Parents, [00:01:00] they argue, just want to know what their kids are being taught. And in theory, this isn't a bad thing. I think transparency is good. I think parents getting engaged in their kids learning is a good thing.

But parents' rights doesn't just stop there, 'cause they don't just want transparency for transparency's sake. They don't want to know what's being taught so they can have a fuller understanding of what their kids are learning. They want transparency because they want control. They want to know what books are in the school's library so that they can make the library remove the books that have LGBTQ characters. They want to know what the history curriculum looks like so that they can refuse to let their child be taught about the US's history of racism.

And this is why they care so much about school board meetings. One of the best ways to have a hand in what happens at your kid's school is by making your voice heard by the people in charge. But this is old news, right? We all know about the calls for book banning and the limits on how history, sex ed, and other subjects are taught. That isn't the interesting part.

The interesting part is [00:02:00] how parents' rights advocates talk about kids. To show you what I'm talking about, look at the language that Moms for Liberty members use around mask mandates. As the Washington Post reported, when a Florida school board voted to keep a mask mandate in place in 2021, Jodi Hand, a 52-year-old mother of three, jumped to her feet. "I am going to be spending every minute making sure parents know they don't have control over their children anymore," she shouted. Jodi, who the article said was wearing Moms4Liberty merch during the meeting, just stated the thesis of the movement out loud. Parents' right, according to Moms4Liberty, isn't about transparency or wanting to be heard. It's about control. Parents' rights means the right to have full, uninhibited control over children. Not every parents' rights advocate is as transparent about this goal, but the language that they use certainly points in that direction. In [00:03:00] his recent book, Keeping the Kids All Right: How to Empower Your Children Against the Leftist Agenda Without Homeschooling, popular conservative radio personality Barack Lurie gives advice for how parents can successfully indoctrinate their children. And I'm not editorializing here, either. He literally says the goal of parenting is to indoctrinate your child. This is indoctrination! But it's also the right thing to do. You're the parent, it's your job. Everything you do is indoctrination one way or the other. So how do we successfully indoctrinate our kids? We drip feed them a steady diet of strawman arguments and actively make fun of people who disagree with us. He provides sample dialogues between himself and his children where he shows off these techniques for indoctrination.

But in all of the examples, the child always agrees with him. First of all, it is really easy to make up a conversation that makes you look good, especially when it's a fictional conversation between a middle-aged man and a ten year old.

And second [00:04:00] of all, he states that he begins each conversation by asking the child for their opinion on whatever topic they're discussing, because it shows them you have respect for their input and thought process. It engages them while giving them an opportunity to obtain your approval.

But there's a difference between acting like you care about someone's opinion and actually caring about it. Clearly, he doesn't actually care about their opinion, because if he did, he'd be open to hearing an opinion that isn't exactly the same as his own.

And to make things worse, there's also an implication that his approval is contingent on the child agreeing with him. Lurie cannot imagine a world where his child holds a different opinion, and he only respects and approves of his kids because they agree with him.

Contrary to what the book's title suggests, Barack Lurie doesn't want to empower his kids. He wants to control them, until they can flawlessly parrot all of his opinions back to him.

Maybe this is just one very silly Bond villain of a man who [00:05:00] should not be taken seriously by anyone for any reason, right? Unfortunately... things get worse. Things get a lot worse.

It might be easy to dismiss one awful guy writing about indoctrinating kids, but the rhetoric of control is all over the place.

Consider how parents' rights advocates talk about LGBTQ issues. Many school districts are passing rules requiring teachers and counselors to tell parents anytime a student changes their gender identity or starts using different pronouns, because, parents' rights folks argue, parents have a right to know the decisions that their children are making at school.

But when parents are so worried about what the school does or does not want to tell them, there's no consideration of what their child wants. What if your child simply wants to experiment with different pronouns to see what fits? What if your child is just waiting for the right time to talk to you about it? What if your child doesn't want you to know because they're worried you won't support them?

Because the truth is, they don't care what their child wants. [00:06:00] They would argue that their child is too young to make any decision about their gender or sexuality, or that their child is being unduly influenced by teachers trying to turn them gay, so the child's opinion can just be totally disregarded. What the child wants doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what the parents want.

Just like they only want to know what books are in the library so they can tell the school which books to get rid of, they only want to know if their child is questioning their gender identity so they can stop them from doing so.

And what makes it even worse is that this doesn't even just end at their own children. They want these rules in place for everyone. And when taken to its extreme, this rhetoric of parental control can lead to devastating consequences. I won't get into too much of it here, but the book To Train Up a Child by Michael and Debi Pearl uses the Bible to justify parents hitting their children, and depriving them of food to break their will and train them to be obedient. And let's not forget my video on PragerU's so-called [00:07:00] parenting expert, who used the same language of obedience to justify locking kids in their rooms for hours at a time.

Everywhere you look, it is about control.

But when you have full control over something else, not just a responsibility to keep it safe, but a right to use it however you want, shy of actively harming it, that's not how you treat human beings. It's how you treat property. They see children as property. And I'm not reading between the lines or putting words into people's mouths. A few years ago, Senator Rand Paul literally just said parents own their children. And just a few weeks ago, PragerU's Jill Simonian said parents should "act accordingly" when school board members say that parents don't own their children. Which they don't. Parents do not own their children. That is just a factual statement.

And again, I don't want to get into the minutiae around the legal relationships between children and their parents, I just want to focus on the language. The language of ownership [00:08:00] that Rand Paul and Jill Simonian are using. The language of indoctrination that Barack Lurie uses. The language of training and obedience that Michael and Debi Pearl use. And the language of control that Moms for Liberty uses. None of this is language you use to describe a good relationship between human beings who respect each other. It's language you use to describe monetary transactions and animals

Child poverty increases sharply following expiration of expanded tax credit - PBS NewsHour - Air Date 9-12-23

STEPHANIE SY: We are talking about the largest one-year jump on record for what's called the supplemental poverty rate. That includes the value of government benefits. Were you expecting this big of a spike? And what kind of hardships does this translate into for the five million more children now in this category?

CATHERINE RAMPELL: I think most people who follow this issue were expecting some increase in the number of children who had fallen into poverty or maybe were pushed into poverty, depending on how you look at it.

But these numbers are astounding, I think, more than double the child poverty rate in 2022 that we [00:09:00] saw in 2021, a result partly, of course, of the fact that cost of living has gone up. Some of the expenses that are taken into account in that measure, work expenses, medical expenses, et cetera, have gone up.

But, primarily, it is due to a policy choice that lawmakers made, which was to basically let a number of pandemic-era programs lapse, chiefly the child tax credit, as you mentioned, but some others as well.

STEPHANIE SY: What does this mean for families and children? I know that some food pantries are — reported last year that they did see a rise in the number of people, for example, seeking food assistance.

CATHERINE RAMPELL: Absolutely. So, if you look at a number of surveys collected by the Census Bureau, as well as other government institutions, the implementation of that expanded child tax credit or child allowance was associated with a significant decline in measures of food insecurity, [00:10:00] financial insecurity, whether people could pay sudden bills, for example.

And, as you might expect, when that support disappeared, you saw the reverse. You saw greater need for food assistance, whether it's from food pantries or otherwise. Other signs of financial hardship rose as a result of that program being taken away.

And if you look, in fact, at the surveys conducted over how people had been spending those funds, because the Census Bureau had been collecting data on that, it showed that parents primarily reported using the child tax credit dollars on things like basic household necessities: rent, childcare, school supplies, groceries.

So, again, when that support was taken away, you saw those kinds of hardships return to what they had been before the pandemic, in fact, higher than they had been before the pandemic.

STEPHANIE SY: Yes, and not to mention that we had 9 percent inflation in certain months last year for basic essentials.

[00:11:00] As you write in your Washington Post column today, Catherine, the reason the Biden policy packed such a — quote — "powerful poverty-fighting punch" is that it was not conditional on any minimal level of income or earnings.

Why does unconditional cash assistance have a different impact, in your view?

CATHERINE RAMPELL: So this was among the ways that this version of the child tax credit differed from prior iterations of it, which, to be clear, had been around for many years, had been expanded under Democratic and Republican administrations alike. But this was the first time that it became available to families with little or even no earnings. So, let's say you're a kid and you're being cared for by an elderly grandparent who cannot work. Your household got that funding too and was able to use it to pay for those necessities to be lifted out of poverty.

However, this aspect of the child tax credits design, the child allowances design has been [00:12:00] controversial, right? There have been fears that maybe giving money to households not conditional on work or any sort of earnings could discourage employment. Based on the research to date, it does not look as if this expansion of the child tax credit had that effect. There are certainly models out there that suggest that it could have some sort of depressing effect on labor supply, on employment. Those are endlessly debated, those kinds of models. But that's part of the reason why this version of the child tax credit has been controversial, why no Republicans support it.

However, there have been a number of Republicans who have gingerly put forward their own alternative versions of an expanded child tax credit, maybe with some kind of modest work requirements in there or a look-back, suggesting that the parents or guardians had prior years of earnings. So it does seem like there might be room for compromise [00:13:00] here potentially later this year, as lawmakers are hashing out some other negotiations over tax breaks and whether they should be extended, that there might be some room for a version that looks not quite like Biden's version, not quite like what Republicans are putting forth, but potentially somewhere in the middle.

Why Child Labor in America is Skyrocketing - Robert Reich - Air Date 5-16-23

ROBERT REICH - HOST, ROBERT REICH: Corporations are bringing back child labor in America, and some Republicans want to make it easier for them to get away with it.

Since 2015, child labor violations have risen nearly 300 percent, and those are just violations government investigators have managed to uncover and document. The Department of Labor says it's currently investigating over 600 cases of illegal child labor in America. Major American companies like General Mills, Walmart and Ford have all been implicated.

Why on earth is this happening? The answer is frighteningly simple. Greed. Employers have been having difficulty finding the workers they need at the [00:14:00] wages they're willing to pay, and rather than reduce their profits by paying adult workers more, employers are exploiting children.

The sad fact of the matter is that many of the children who are being exploited are considered to be "them" rather than "us," because they're disproportionately poor and immigrant. So the moral shame of subjecting "our children" to inhumane working conditions when they ought to be in school is quietly avoided.

And since some of these children, or their parents, are undocumented, they dare not speak out or risk detention and deportation. They need the money. This makes them easily exploitable. It's a perfect storm that's resulting in vulnerable children taking on some of the most brutal jobs in America.

Folks, we've seen this before.

Reformers fought to establish the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 for a reason: to curb the grotesque child labor seen during America's first Gilded Age. [00:15:00] The U. S. banned most child labor.

But now, pro business trade groups and their Republican lackeys are trying to reverse nearly a century of progress. And they're using the so-called labor shortage as their excuse. Arkansas will no longer require 14- and 15-year-olds to get a work permit before taking a job, a process that verified their age and required permission from a parent or guardian. A bill in Ohio would let children work later on school nights. Minnesota Republicans are pushing to let 16-year-olds work in construction. And in Iowa, 14-year-olds may soon be allowed to take certain jobs in meat packing plants and operate dangerous machinery. It's all a coordinated campaign to erode national standards, making it even easier for companies to profit off children.

Across America, we're witnessing a resurgence of cruel capitalism in which business lobbyists and lawmakers justify their actions by arguing that they're not exploiting the [00:16:00] weak and vulnerable, but rather providing jobs for those who need them and would otherwise go hungry or homeless. Conveniently, these same business lobbyists and lawmakers are often among the first to claim we can't afford stronger safety nets that would provide these children with safe housing and adequate nutrition.

So what can stop this madness?

First, fund the Department of Labor so it can crack down on child labor violations. When I was Secretary of Labor, the department was chronically underfunded and understaffed. It still is, because lawmakers and their corporate backers want it that way.

Second, increase fines on companies that break child labor laws. Current fines are too low and are treated as costs of doing business by hugely profitable companies that violate the law.

Third, hold major corporations accountable for their supply chains. Many big corporations contract with smaller companies that employ children, which allows the big [00:17:00] corporations to play dumb, and often avoid liability. It's time to demand that large corporations take responsibility for their contractors.

Fourth, reform immigration laws, so undocumented children aren't exploited.

And lastly, organize. Fight against state laws that are attempting to bring back child labor.

Are corporate profits really more important than the safety of children?

America First 2.0 & A Defense of Child Marriage - Head in the Office - Air Date 4-19-23

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Moving on from Florida though, we gotta talk about Missouri. And one of my favorite topics is to talk about child marriage.

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Oh, real?

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Great topic, um, I'm glad it's still a political issue. And in the Year of our Lord 2023, I'm really glad that we're still having conversations about it.

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: We're still having lively, um, debates about child marriage where we need to respect both sides of the argument because people always come through with good faith and have good faith reasons and positions well-thought-out ideologically, uh, that align with both sides and we need to come to some ground in the middle.

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Yeah, there's a middle ground for child marriage that we could find. You know what, just [00:18:00] because I'm feeling it, I feel like we could label this story "beyond parody".

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Absolutely. This one... I don't know if...

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: It's borderline fantasy. I don't know if I can, like, this is something that I would have made up for like a cold open bit, to like make fun of Republicans.

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: This is, this is a skit that I feel like I would have seen on SNL and thought, that's corny. Like that would never actually happen, like this is too on the nose. But it's... here we are.

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Life imitates art, I guess.

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Here we go. I guess we're rolling the clip.

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Uh, well, we can get into the clip. It requires a little bit of backstory before we get into the clip. So, in Missouri, the legislature in 2018 passed a bill to raise the minimum marriage age to 16, with parental consent, because previously they had one of the lowest minimum ages in the nation. I don't remember what the number was, but now it's 16. And as we're all well aware, child marriage obviously is a threat to children because it legally binds them to someone, usually an older person that they are controlled by.

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: And it also just allows pedophilia.

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: I mean it just is pedophilia.

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: It is pedophilia, yeah.

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Right. So now the minimum age is 16, with some people calling for it to be higher. [00:19:00] And that's not even like the main topic of what was going on recently because right now Missouri's considering a bill to ban gender affirming care in the state for minors. Right? Pretty run of the mill for conservative states at the moment, but the reason child marriage came up is because the committee's considering this bill, and they had a Republican state senator, maybe previous state senator, current, I can't remember, uh, a Republican state senator from Missouri, come testify, his name's Mike Moon, someone who's ardently against gender affirming care. I'm not gonna do any more setup, I'm just gonna roll this clip, and you guys are gonna get into the thick of it, uh, immediately.

PETER MERIDITH: I've heard you talk about parents rights to raise their kids how they want. In fact, I just double checked, you voted no on making it illegal for kids to be married to adults at the age of 12 if their parents consented to it. You said, actually, that should be the law because it's the parent's right and the kid's right to decide what's best for them, to be raped by an adult. Okay?

MIKE MOON: Do you know any kids who have been married at age 12? [00:20:00]

PETER MERIDITH: That was the law. You voted not to change it.

MIKE MOON: Do you know any kids who have been married at age 12?

PETER MERIDITH: I, I don't need to.

MIKE MOON: I do. Uh, and guess what? They're still married.

PETER MERIDITH: Gentlemen...

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: No, it's crazy. It's crazy, right? It's crazy because you can tell that the guy who's, like, speaking in the beginning, when he asks if he knows any kids who have been married at age 12, he's trying to, like, artfully get his way around the question because he thinks that he's trying to pin him saying that that's a non-issue because it doesn't happen, but instead of saying no, this is a non-issue because no kid is being married at 12, he's saying I personally know children who are married at 12 and it's actually good and righteous, in fact.

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Bro did not let that slide. Bro took that personally. Like, I wholly expected, and I'm sure anyone listening wholly expects him to be like, Oh yeah, no, people at 12 aren't getting married, it's not an issue. You're just making this up to avoid the problem of, you know, gender affirming care for kids, whatever. But no, he, he doubles down.

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: No, he didn't [00:21:00] even think it through, really.

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: He says it's actually good and they're happily married at 12 years old. Like, what are you talking about, brother? Like for, for anyone that's a little confused, the Democrats basically saying, this guy, when he was a senator, or still is a senator, voted no in 2018 to the bill to raise the child marriage minimum age to 16. And this is true. Like, people have dug up the documents, found the vote records. He did, this senator that was testifying, voted no on that bill. And now, he's voting in favor, or supporting a bill to ban gender affirming care on the basis that kids and parents should not be making decisions like that for the child.

So it's just kind of this conflict of beliefs. And he doubles down on his stance for child marriage and says, actually, I know 12 year olds that got married and they're really happy still.

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Insane.

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: What are you talking about, y'all?

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Insane.

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Like, a lot of people will, when they're thinking about politics, if they're more, like, your centrist, moderate types will think like, Oh, well, we just need to find our common values. How? Exactly how do we find common values with this demon?

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Everyone has principled positions that are result of their genuine beliefs and we have to respect those beliefs. I [00:22:00] wholeheartedly disrespect any belief that is that a child, a 12 year old can get married to an adult. That shit is fucking insane

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Especially because there have been, like I think, I don't have exact numbers on the show, but there have been obviously child marriages in Missouri, like it's happened, and it does happen, it may not be like the most frequent thing. Yeah, this guy's probably officiating, like, a 13 year old marrying, like, a 40 year old.

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: I don't understand how we got here. I don't understand how we got here, where grown adults who have positions of power within state governments can just be pedophiles.

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Uh huh. Openly.

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: And it's like dope and sick and cool.

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Like, this is the caliber of political opponent that the left has? What, what are we talking about? This is so unserious, like, what are we doing? And Republicans, they'll often argue that they want to "protect the nuclear family". That's where their resistance to a lot of LGBTQ issues comes from. It's where their resistance to gender affirming care comes from, et cetera. But what the fuck does that mean, especially if you're not in favor of banning child marriage outright?

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: It's really hard to protect the nuclear family when the nuclear [00:23:00] family starts off when a 40 year old dates a 12 year old and then by the time that 12 year old can actually, like, have kids, the 40 year old dies.

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Right. Well, and it's like, when they say they want to protect the nuclear family, what they mean is that they want to reinforce standard gender roles and disallow non-conforming people from having families, right?

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICEGage: We want women to not have credit cards, and for only men and women to get married, and for women to be the property of men again.

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: And it's like, what are Democrats doing to hurt the nuclear family? You know what I mean? Like, what specific policies are Democrats pushing forth or establishing into law that hurts the nuclear family that Republicans are arguing against?

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: There's not a single policy that Democrats or even progressives are pushing that disincentivizes a man and a woman from getting together and having two kids.

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Right. If anything, there's tax incentives for having kids in a family.

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: The only thing that Democrats have done is expand rights to do non-traditional families and to have a father and a father, two dads in one household. That's it. And because that [00:24:00] exists does not mean that the other things can't exist as well. The existence of two dads in one house does not directly contradict a dad and a mom. It doesn't work like that.

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Well, and it's like, a lot of the things that Republicans want to do, actually do hurt the nuclear family, right? Like getting rid of the child tax credit hurts the nuclear family, kicking people off of Medicare or trying to cut social security hurts the nuclear family, stopping student debt cancellation, doing nothing about guns in classrooms hurts the nuclear family, like what are we talking about here? You don't want to protect them.

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: Doing nothing about increasing wages and reducing wealth inequality hurts the nuclear family. All of the tax breaks they give to the wealthy hurt the nuclear family.

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: People can't form nuclear families if they can't afford it. Like, what are Republicans doing to help that?

GAGE KOSMANOPOULOS - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: If they can't afford to have more than one kid, how are they supposed to be a comfortable nuclear family?

JEREMY JOHNSON - HOST, HEAD IN THE OFFICE: So if you ever hear someone of the right wing persuasion try to tell you they want to protect the nuclear family, it's usually just, I don't like gay people and trans people.

Having A Baby In America – SOME MORE NEWS - Air Date 9-27-23

KATIE STOLL - HOST, SOME MORE NEWS: Millennials, who honestly were just too busy playing Minecraft or whatever to avert the two recessions and a pandemic, [00:25:00] have experienced a lot of instability when it comes to the housing market, job market, cost of living, and education. So adding a baby to the equation obviously brings more instability and stress. Despite the pressure we put on women to have children be the main caretaker for them, we sure don't make it easy to be a mother. When it comes to actually funding children, especially children born into low income families, our government seems to think that it's not their problem. The average cost of childbirth in the US is over $13,000, and with insurance, you still owe $1,000-$2,500. That's a lot of money. For many people, the high price tag might drive them to opt for a home birth, but home births come with higher risks of both infant and maternal mortality. Also, you need to own a home for that to happen. Millennials have, very rudely, collectively decided to [00:26:00] have less net worth than Baby Boomers or Generation X had at the same age, despite Millennials being more well educated.

Child care costs more than $10,000 a year, which represents a chunk of over 10% of the median couple's income, or over 35% for a single parent. And those are just for older children. It can be more than $16,000 a year in child care for infants. And it's about to get worse! During the pandemic, Congress made a record investment in childcare, setting aside $24 billion to help keep the industry afloat. This money went to assisting parents with costs, training workers, and boosting salaries to offset the loss of childcare workers during COVID. However, that money is expiring this month, and as a result, "an estimated 70,000 child care programs, or about one in three, could close as a result of lost funding, causing [00:27:00] 3.2 million children to lose care, forcing even more parents to make the impossible choice between staying home with their children or going to work so they can afford to pay for their children".

Normally, this is the point at which I go about debunking the argument that this is a reason not to have kids. But for a lot of people, this honestly seems like a very valid dilemma. It's just a grim financial reality, especially in America, and the lack of social safety nets, as well as universal healthcare, not only presents financial risks but health risks as well. The US ranks the worst in maternal mortality when compared with 10 other wealthy countries. Our maternal death rate averages over 17 deaths per 100,000 people, versus less than 3 out of 100,000 in countries like Norway, the Netherlands, or New Zealand. And this is likely to only get worse with anti-abortion laws in the US that make childbirth riskier, like forcing people to carry dead fetuses, which is both [00:28:00] psychologically horrifying and medically dangerous. In terms of postpartum care, the US philosophy seems to be that it's your problem, and you and your newborn need to bootstrap yourselves. Tiny, cute little newborn bootstraps. We make them out of the ribbons from the storks bundle. Adorable! Baby bootstraps for sale, never worn.

One in four women have to return to work just 10 days after giving birth, and a report by UNICEF ranks the US last in terms of family-friendly policies out of over 40 other OECD countries. OECD stands for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and represents relatively high-income economies that, Theoretically, have the resources to give people things like paid leave and healthcare, which the United States doesn't do.

How Inequality Fuels Child Abuse - One in Ten - Air Date 9-5-23

TERESA HUIZAR - HOST, ONE IN TEN: One of the things I was thinking about is that often we think of these things in very siloed ways. [00:29:00] You know, we think of substance abuse and domestic violence and other severe mental illness and all of these things as each sort of their own category of contribution to child maltreatment, really. But what you're describing, I think what is really interesting is that there's a thread of poverty as a contribution to all of these things. And this may be the thread that really runs through all of these other elements that contribute to child maltreatment.

PAUL BYWATERS: I think that's exactly right. Poverty is not a standalone thing. Poverty affects every aspect of people's daily lives. If you're severely poor, then almost every moment of your life is caught up. You know, you get up and you want to have breakfast. You've got to decide whether there's enough food to feed yourself as well as your child. So maybe you decide not to have breakfast. You've got to make decisions about, you know, how you [00:30:00] get to work or how you get to school. Do you walk or can you take the bus? Can you afford to pay for fuel? If you go to the shops, you know, can you afford this? Can you afford that? Every moment is taken up in these decisions, all of which have kind of financial consequences. And that eats away at people. It eats away at people's relationships. It eats away at people's self esteem. It eats away at their mental health. And so it is connected with all of those things. If you're poor, you're more likely to be in poor health. If you're in poor health, you're less likely to be able to stay in or keep high earning employment. So there's kind of cycles in all of this.

So poverty is exactly as you say, a thread that runs through all these other factors that may be part of the big picture. And maybe the thing that we see first. So when a referral comes into a social worker, what a social worker may first Think about or see is a domestic violence dispute or maybe a parent with severe mental health [00:31:00] affecting their ability to look after their children. But behind that and through that and affecting the ways in which those parents may be able to respond to that will be the poverty, will be the amount of resources that families have.

This is one of the reasons why I'm interested in not just in poverty, which I see as absolutely essential, but in inequality. Because when you look up at people who've got money, who've got wealth and resources behind them, you see how helpful that is when they run into problems. So, if they've got a child with, say, you know, anxiety or eating disorder or something, then you can afford therapy and treatment and care for that. If you need child care in order to do your job, you can buy childcare to do your job. If you need rewards and treats and holidays to make life a bit easier, to make your family go well, then you can afford those things. If you're in poverty, none of those problem-solving, family-enhancing possibilities is available to you in the same [00:32:00] way.

TERESA HUIZAR - HOST, ONE IN TEN: As you were describing the sort of day to day experience of someone in poverty, one of the things I was thinking about is just how exhausting, and I'm not saying that in any light way, but how truly just bone-tired one would be in that, and you know, how that's often accompanied by despair. If you feel, you know, it's so difficult to improve your situation and you can see what that means for your family, I think that that in and of itself can also serve as fuel, you know, for all of the things that we're talking about too, especially substance abuse and those kinds of things.

I'm just wondering, you know, you made an interesting connection in your paper, because we think we talk in the US a lot about, and are trying to explore and often not well, This relationship between poverty and child abuse and neglect, but one of the things that your paper also talked about was kind of the [00:33:00] converse of that, which is the impact of child abuse and neglect experienced as a child on adult poverty. Can you talk a little bit about that?

PAUL BYWATERS: Yeah, that's not something I've done research in about so much myself, but, you know, some awareness of the literature. So, we were talking about the cyclical relationship between poverty and other difficulties if you're a parent, but also, there's another cycle here, which is if, as a child, you've experienced abuse and neglect, then that affects your life chances. It may have affected your education, as well as your health, your physical and mental health. Both of those things will have knock on effects for your chance of getting into good employment or staying in good employment, which affects, you know, the housing that you can secure. It affects your adult relationships. There are lifelong consequences for this, and there can be a kind of cycle where if you've had those disadvantages as a child, it's harder [00:34:00] to make your way successfully in the world's eyes as an adult. Of course, that's not to say that everybody that's experienced this abuse and neglect as a child has a dreadful adult life. That's absolutely not the case. Many people show incredible survival skills and resilience and so on and manage well, but the evidence shows that there are consequences which affect many people in their adult life.

TERESA HUIZAR - HOST, ONE IN TEN: Well, and I think it also is a way of thinking about, you know, one of the sort of intractable, what feels intractable, issues that we often feel like we're not very good at all addressing are intergenerational neglect cases, in particular here in the US. I think that for us, that's often been very fraught with lots of things tried and not feeling that we're very successful at breaking that cycle. [00:35:00] But one of the things I'm thinking about as you're talking is one of the things that we're terrible about in the US is trying anti-poverty efforts. And so maybe the reason that we're not seeing better effects in our works on intergenerational neglect cases is because we're, you know, we're not applying the right medicine, essentially, to the problem. So it's very thought provoking in thinking about that.

I'm wondering, you were talking about sort of the paucity of research that exists around this dimension between poverty and child abuse and neglect. Why do you think there hasn't been more, and what do you think needs to be done to encourage more, both in England, where you are, and around the world?

PAUL BYWATERS: The point I was actually making was about the research about inequality and child abuse and neglect. There is more research about poverty and abuse and neglect than there is about inequality. I think you tend to talk about [00:36:00] disparities, disproportionality in the States. Inequalities maybe is more of a word we use in the UK. But, because one of the things that a focus on disparities does is that it opens up this whole field of looking at what it is that people that I was talking about just now, people who have money, do parents who have money, how do they look after their children? How do they solve their problems? What are the opportunities that that gives them? So there is something about the disparity, you know, looking at disparities rather than just looking at poverty. Poverty tends to make us focus on, you know, it tends to be inevitably kind of individualizing. It says, you know, what is this about being poor that makes this poor parent a bad parent? Or, you know, what it is about this person that has made them poor? It forces us back in, tends to focus back into, into this kind of individualized way of thinking, case by case, when actually what we need to [00:37:00] do is to say, Why do we have such an unequal society? What can we do to shift poverty for everybody? You know, the rising tide will lift all boats, so all families will be better off if they're not poor, all families in poverty will be better off if they have a bit more money, they'll probably manage a bit better, and so on, and that will reduce the numbers of children who are subject to abuse and neglect. There's lots of evidence of that.

I can think of, in the last literature review we did, there were about, I think, 17 or 18 studies which showed that having more money alone reduced the amount of child abuse and neglect. There's a single factor. So we know that that's the case. So there's something about the way in which this whole debate is framed, which tends to drive us back down the route of the individual case. You know, what is it that's different about this individual family? And that can obscure us from seeing the elephant [00:38:00] in the room, as I've sometimes described it. The elephant in the room is poverty. If you shifted the elephant, if you shifted the poverty, then, you know, of course some families would manage better than others. But you would have a substantially reduced amount of abuse and neglect.

Sen. Booker blasts GOP: ‘Morally obscenity’ of child poverty is a ‘policy choice’ - All In with Chris Hayes - Air Date 9-13-23

SENATOR COREY BOOKER: We have now proved something pretty phenomenal, and at the same time, uh, pretty obscene. And what we've proved is that poverty for children in America is not some accident, it's a policy choice.

This moral obscenity of the richest nation in the world having the highest poverty rates is not an accident. It's not destiny, it's not inevitability. It is people in this institution making a policy choice.

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: The people who made that choice to plunge millions of American children back into poverty are every single Senate Republican, plus [00:39:00] Democrat Joe Manchin, who refused to extend the child tax credit.

Today, Manchin is defending that decision. Speaking to Semaphore, Manchin, quote, seemed unfazed when asked if today's poverty data left him with any second thoughts. It's deeper than that. We all have to do our part, he told them. The federal government can't run everything. Senator Cory Booker is a Democrat of New Jersey and he joins me now.

Um, first let me just get your reaction. Everyone was bracing, the people in the world of policy on this were bracing for what this number was going to be. Um, and, and what was your reaction to seeing it?

SENATOR COREY BOOKER: Not surprised. We, we knew what we had done, and we're talking about child poverty tonight. Know that this was the biggest middle class tax cut, uh, in, in, in our lifetime, Chris.

So, this was giving, you know, 85 to 90 percent of families in New Jersey, uh, tax breaks, more of their federal tax dollars back. So, this was an extraordinary program. And by the way, it mirrors what our industrial [00:40:00] competitors have. They keep their child poverty rates a lot lower because what they often call a child allowance is higher.

America is the one that chooses to put such a financial strain on families holding a lot of their tax dollars. Now, this was a great program because it made it fully refundable, which basically means if you didn't earn enough money to pay that level of federal taxes, you still got that anyway. And so it lifted millions of Americans children out of poverty and helped so many struggling families who are still trying to figure out ways to make their kitchen table economics work.

So this is outrageous that in this country, we are favoring other kind of tax expenditures. Carried interest is something you've talked about a lot. For the wealthiest folks, we have a lot of little tax loopholes or tax breaks that we give them. But when it comes to something that is in the national interest, like raising children above poverty line, because it literally saves our economy.

For every dollar you invest in lifting a child above the poverty [00:41:00] line, you save over five dollars for our economy, because children, unfortunately, below the poverty line have higher healthcare costs, have lower lifetime productivity, and the like. There's just no justification whatsoever for allowing this policy to lapse.

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: Yeah, I just want to pull that graphic up again, because it's so stark, right? You don't, you don't get signals amidst the noise this often in any policy discussion, right? Where you have like, oh, there's a bunch of confounding variables, and what really caused this? This is just... There was a policy, it gave 80 percent of households with children money, it was near universal, child poverty plummeted, now it has gone back up.

Alright, here's my question about the political economy of this, and I want to ask you a question about the sort of moral insight that you had there. On the political economy, there was hope that this would be one of those things of how could you take it away, right? If you did it for a year, you know, Manchin didn't want to do it for more than that, let's see what happens, that there would just be the kind of, um...

Political energy behind it that would be impossible for anyone to vote to let it last. And, and yet that happened. What did you [00:42:00] learn from

SENATOR COREY BOOKER: that? Uh, you know, it was a hard lesson. A lot of folks said that once we get it out the door, we'll get it. We'll see this. Almost 50% cut in child poverty. All Americans at least, yeah, upwards of 80 to 90% will see a benefit from it.

Um, but at amidst a lot of the pandemic stimulus checks and a lot of the other things that were going on, I, I saw a lot of data that a lot of folks didn't know what it was or. who was responsible for it. So I'm not sure if it developed the kind of political constituency you obviously should have right now in a time of, uh, of inflation and tight family economics.

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: Yeah, I think also, I mean, my own theory on this is that because it was part, there was a lot of COVID programs that were happening that people understood as temporary as opposed to, to, to, you know, longstanding. So I think that probably. and obscure things a little bit. Joe Manchin is really, I mean, again, I don't want to take the pressure off the Republicans because they uniformly and unanimously voted against this.

Even Mitt Romney or whoever your favorite Republican senator is. [00:43:00] Um, Joe Manchin is, is the decider ultimately because he was with you guys in the first year and not the second year. West Virginia's got one of the worst child poverty rates in the country. Have you had conversations about this with him?

SENATOR COREY BOOKER: Um, you know, this has been, there's about six of us, three House members, three, uh, Senators Sherrod Brown, uh, Michael Bennett, that have been working on this for years and years and years. So, of course, um, I had a lot of conversations with Joe Manchin, uh, as well as with some Republicans about the urgency of this policy, the fiscal prudence of this policy, the moral urgency of this policy, uh, but was not able to get, uh, anywhere.

And now, by the way, we have data. From this one year, that's extraordinary, including just the brain development of children. You could see it affected because children in poverty have a lot of cortisol pumping, a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety, and it literally affects the way their brains develop. So we have a lot of compelling data.

I have not given up, nor has the sort of six of us that are fighting for [00:44:00] this, and we're gonna continue to. Try it. And one of the things we're going to say is, often at the end of years, they try to pass these big corporate tax extenders.

CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN: Oh, I know. Extender time in Washington. Yes. That's when K Street goes to town.

SENATOR COREY BOOKER: Yes. And a lot of us, therefore, have a lot of leverage in the Senate. And uh, you know, our team, we're going to prioritize children. And not just lifting children out of poverty, this is gonna help tens of millions of families with children have less financial stress. And the stories about what people were using it for, helping kids get athletic equipment, uh, paying rent, utility bills, food was the biggest thing people were using it for to feed their children.

This is what we should want.

Why It Sucks To Be Young - Andrewism - Air Date 2-3-21

ANDREW SAGE - HOST, ANDREWISM: We live in a fundamentally aged society. Both our elderly and our children are institutionalized in nursing homes and schools respectively. Children are disconnected from society to be brainwashed, upholding it, and the elderly are cast aside once they leave a potential weeds. Both age groups. Once reved and honored.

Now they're [00:45:00] evaluated based on their usefulness to capital. It's easy to dismiss ageism as not as great a concern as statism or capitalism, and I hear you. But the whole idea is that we challenge all structures of domination. That includes gerontocracy, the ongoing and systemic domination of kids by those older than them.

Emma Goldman rightfully pointed out that every institution of our day, the family, the state, our moral codes, sees in every strong, beautiful, uncompromising personality a deadly enemy. Therefore, every effort is being made to cramp human emotion and originality of thought and the individual into a straitjacket from its early infancy, or to shape every human being according to one pattern.

Not into a well rounded individuality, but into a patient work slave, professional automaton, tax paying citizen, or righteous moralist. Every hierarchy, every abuse, every system of control justifies itself through the analogy of adults over children. Think of how women are spoken of by misogynists, or how people of colour are [00:46:00] spoken of by racists, or how disabled people are spoken of by ableists.

We're indoctrinated to accept because I said so, to accept the suppression of our agency, and to accept the reduction of our personhood. It all starts with childhood, and continues, throughout our adult lives, in a different, but not dissimilar measure. The role of the child in our society is not of one to be assisted by sincere friends and allies to explore and spread their unique agency.

No. The child is subhuman. A commodity to be tamed and puppeted. Products to be assembled and molded. An object to be imbued with software and controlled. An animal. Mere property. It all starts at home. My critiques of the modern, atomized family structure is worthy of its own video. I have a lot to say about that subject, but it's plain to see, like I said, that the home is where it all begins.

Take a moment to examine the plight of children, those that die without vaccination or necessary blood transfusion, [00:47:00] those stuck in abusive and toxic homes, and even those in so called normal homes that nonetheless struggle, largely voiceless, with no real say over their own time, bodies, activities, behaviours, and choices.

The slightest signs of disrespect or disobedience certainly aren't tolerated in most homes. Of course, growing up, your parents probably found it miserable being so strictly regulated, and yet they grew up to replicate many of the same customs when they became the authority. But as they so argue, it's necessary if you're going to fit in and make it in this society.

Rebellion, or at least resistance, is a natural response to such authoritarian parenting, but your childlike dependence renders you weak. What would you argue for your rights? All you can do is conform. Fear becomes the cement of each lesson, and with every lesson, every threat, every punishment, every shouting session, or you learn that your choice isn't really yours, you're supposed to go along with the program, you come to realize that the things you truly want desire to do, think safe, feel you [00:48:00] have to be repressed, hidden, or done in secret.

You can't openly be you. Triply so of some marginalized identity. Slowly, reluctantly, but surely. You build up the psychological prisons. The Mask. It fuses itself to your being. As you age, the mask helps you to forget. To repress the memories of the traumatic moments that forged the mask, that told you that you were not you and could not really be you.

The mask effectively governs your every physical, emotional, and intellectual activity. Your spontaneity, your energy, your curiosity, all dampened and subsumed. The analogy of the mask is worthy of a separate conversation, because I believe it has tremendous implications. So, stay tuned. But this training, surely it has some benefit, right?

All this psychological suffocation definitely has a purpose. In fact, it's the reason our irrational society manages to go on, creating a person so unlike the natural, spontaneous, vibrant, honest, curious, fearless being. Present to the [00:49:00] two to five year old. The natural learner. The natural explorer. The natural observer.

The natural mover. Our society isn't interested in nurturing and maturing that potential. Society, which begins at home, is more considered with developing us in relation to authority, in relation to class, in relation to race, in relation to gender. You must obey, you cannot be. It creates a powerless, dependent, fearful, self enslaving, law abiding citizen.

So un molded to fit a predetermined role. It breaks people's ability to govern themselves without authority hovering over them. It infantilizes them and fosters apathy, hopelessness, and insignificance. The process starts anew in the next generation. Parents, especially, usually the legal guardians of the child, see the children as an extension of them.

Therefore, the child must reflect, them, must look good, for them, must be disciplined, for them. The so called overprotective parents excuse their stifling atmosphere with the claim that they care too much. As extensions of the parents, rather than their own [00:50:00] persons, children are molded to accept their parents perspectives and beliefs concerning gender, sexuality, religion, and politics.

Not that a child cannot be taught, huh? But think of what we're teaching them. Think of how those lessons are going to afffect them. Think of how powerless they are to speak up in the face of such a massive hegemony that accepts and encourages and enforces their condition. They have no voice. Remember when you spoke up for yourself? Perhaps it wasn't considered respectful enough.

One stare, one threat, one raised hand was all it took to shut you up. Doesn't matter if you had a legitimate concern or a good point. You don't get that right as a child to be angry. Truly angry. So you learn to control your attitude at all times. It slips out sometimes, though. In soundless gestures or facial expressions.

I've been told to fix your face, to not cry or you'd be given something to cry for, and one of the most harmful lessons we teach children is quite glaring and quite common still. Its consequences, the [00:51:00] unintended ripple effects, are frighteningly dire. The spank, the hit, the swat, the slipper, the switch, the ruler, the licks, the ass beat.

The justifications are many. Oh, the child too stubborn, she would like to listen, he rather harden, too damn disrespectful, or they pull the other side of the coin, oh well I do it because I love you, or I was beat growing up and I turned out fine, or if I don't do it, the police will. That narrative, in particular, several levels are messed up, but it actually harkens back to the days of slavery.

See, in many traditional West African societies, children were considered pure and revered. But due to enslavement, parents beat their children supposedly to train them to respect the authority of their master, so they wouldn't get into trouble and, like I said, many levels of messed up. First of all, if you're an advocate for hitting children, you do not turn out fine.

If you think violence is an appropriate response to, well, any of your child's actions, especially when you physically overwhelm them, you have lost [00:52:00] the plot. If you think kids need to be trained to respect authorities so they don't become a victim of police brutality, well set me free, cause no matter how respectful a person is, it doesn't protect them from police violence.

Lastly, especially if you're telling the child you hit them cause you love them, you are a threat to your child's future. You are communicating to that child that violence has a place in love, and you are opening them up to further abuse in their romantic and social lives.

We Uncovered the Shocking Plot to Eradicate Public Schools in America - More Perfect Union - Air Date 10-2-23

NARRATOR: The Alliance Defending Freedom, or ADF, was launched in 1994 by leaders in the Christian right community.

LARRY BURKETT: We've been duped into believing that somehow... You can separate your Christianity, your religion, from what's going on in the country politically. And you cannot. They're intertwined.

NARRATOR: Today, it's a nearly 100 million operation with a single goal.

We are here to keep the door open for the gospel.

KAYLA HANCOCK: Alliance Fending Freedom is sort of on this mission to strip Americans of their rights. And undermine democracy.

NARRATOR: Kayla Hancock is the director of the Power and Influence Project at Accountable Us, a government watchdog [00:53:00] aimed at holding special interests accountable for their influence in politics.

KAYLA HANCOCK: They were obviously the lawyers behind the recent 3 0 3 Creative versus Ellens case, which appended decades of civil rights protections for L G B T Q Americans.

KRISTEN WAGGONER: So to see the kind of ruling we got was just. An answer to prayer.

KAYLA HANCOCK: They also brought the Masterpiece Cake Shop first, Colorado case around the baker who wanted to deny service to same-sex couples who were getting married.

MICHAEL FARRIS: I'm Michael Ferris. I'm the president and General Counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom that defended Jack today.

KAYLA HANCOCK: They were behind the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. And they're obviously not stopping there.

MICHAEL FARRIS: We want Roe vs. Wade reversed, but that's just kind of a huge milestone along the path to becoming a pro life nation.

KAYLA HANCOCK: And now this, where they sued to remove one of the most popular abortion pills from the market nationwide.

ERIN MORROW HAWLEY: This case is very important because it concerns the FDA's approval and continual deregulation of the chemical abortion drug.

KAYLA HANCOCK: And, you know, I don't know when it stops, right?

NICK SURGEY: And they really have demonstrated that they should be taken seriously.

NARRATOR: [00:54:00] Nick Sergi is Executive Director at Documented, a watchdog group that has been tracking the Alliance Defending Freedom and other organizations working in this area.

NICK SURGEY: Documented has obtained internal videos, documents, and other materials from the Alliance Defending Freedom and Ziklag. And this shows that they want to do nothing less, really, than take down the public education system.

PETER BOHILINGER: And the final mental change is to force, via a Supreme Court decision, a constitutionally mandated school voucher system.

NICK SURGEY: Bill Barr, the former Attorney General under Trump, laid out the basis of this project.

BILL BARR: It may no longer be fair, practical, or even constitutional. To provide publicly funded education solely through the vehicle of state operated schools.

NICK SURGEY: This has been Mike Ferris's Life's work.

NARRATOR: Michael Ferris is the former c e o and general counsel at a D F. He has been a leader in the homeschool and school [00:55:00] voucher crusades.

MICHAEL FARRIS: The privatization of public education is very good for that system.

NICK SURGEY: Ever since the 1970s, he's been making similar arguments that he makes in these recordings.

MICHAEL FARRIS: The voucher system, one of the most necessary changes that our nation's education system needs.

NICK SURGEY: And you fast forward to today, now they're just being taken seriously.

MICHAEL FARRIS: I believe it's a winnable case now. Yeah. Whereas, two to fifteen years ago, it probably wasn't.

NICK SURGEY: Alliance Defending Freedom is a highly networked organization, and many of the organizations that they work in coalition with have really, since early 2021, been trying to fan the flames around LGBTQ rights in schools, and in particular, what they describe as critical race theory being taught, but is really just conversations taking place in the schools around racism, legacy of...

Um, slavery in this country.

LANCE WALLNAU: We are now dealing with a radicalized, indoctrinated, Marxist generation of youth that are actually the agents of the nation's destruction.

NICK SURGEY: [00:56:00] And they want to use the anger that groups that they work with help whip up really to try and push this legal strategy and do what the religious right has wanted for decades, really back to desegregation and that's to push school vouchers.

NARRATOR: The type of voucher for all program they are looking to secure would allow parents to remove their children from public schools, but would still force the government to subsidize their private education with public money, even at religious institutions.

MICHAEL FARRIS: I think that, you know, we could establish this as a constitutional right.

NICK SURGEY: Ziklag is an organization that channels money to projects on the right. Peter Bollinger is one of the leaders of Ziklag, and he chairs their education committee.

PETER BOHILINGER: For an investment of a few million dollars, we can literally and potentially shift the flow of approximately 750 billion dollars of education funds.

NICK SURGEY: But in these recordings... You're seeing the kind of ground floor for this legal [00:57:00] strategy.

MICHAEL FARRIS: We intend to bring, uh, a handful of cases to challenge the constitutionality of what's going on in the public schools.

NICK SURGEY: You hear them lay out their strategy as including, very clearly, judicial selection.

MICHAEL FARRIS: Judicial selection would be very, uh, much a part of our strategy.

NICK SURGEY: They probably have some... Specific judges in mind, they certainly have specific circuits in mind.

MICHAEL FARRIS: We're gonna file one of these cases in the eighth circuit. The eighth circuit is the best circuit in the country, uh, for, uh, principled originalist judges.

NICK SURGEY: Here we get a really unique insight into what they're hoping to achieve at this court in the next few years.

BILL BARR: In this environment, vouchers may be the only workable and the only constitutional solution.

CAROL BURRIS: The same people who oppose Medicare for All, they love vouchers for all, including for the children of the wealthy.

NARRATOR: Carol Burris is a former public school teacher and principal. She now serves as the executive director of the Network for Public [00:58:00] Education.

CAROL BURRIS: You know, we see the rhetoric and the attacks on public schools ramp up, accusing us to, um, of indoctrinating children.

MICHAEL FARRIS: There's a clear open. effort to indoctrinate kids in this warped ideology.

CAROL BURRIS: And it's really being used to turn the public, especially more conservative parents, against their public schools.

AMY CAWVEY: It has shifted from an education to an indoctrination. And I've seen that in the last few years. It's grown It's gotten even worse.

CAROL BURRIS: And they make it very clear what it is that they want to accomplish which is the destruction of public education in our country.

MICHAEL FARRIS: The public schools because of market forces would be really compelled to clean up the rat.

CAROL BURRIS: Problem is no one ever Follows the logic through what would happen if we had a marketplace system in the United States?[00:59:00]

And that was the only system we had which is the ultimate goal. There are going to be places where parents are not going to get the schools that they want, if they can get a school at all. Because that's how the marketplace works, right? It goes where there are customers. So what happens when we have areas where there just are not that many families to serve?

Where will there be a school? Where... Does your child go?

NARRATOR: And there are very real issues with moving towards a fully voucher based approach to our nation's education.

CAROL BURRIS: We have years of research on voucher programs and it's very clear. Students who leave public schools on average or private school do worse and sometimes a lot worse.

like 0.40, standard deviations worse, which is huge.

PETER BOHILINGER: Given the current makeup of the Supreme Court, I really believe that we could have success.

CAROL BURRIS: Will they be successful? You know what, I honestly don't know, given this [01:00:00] particular Supreme Court and some of the rulings that they've had in the past.

Final comments on the article that inspired today's episode and more examples of abusing children through policy

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips today, starting with Zoe B explaining the concept of child ownership that seems to drive much conservative thinking, the PBS NewsHour looked at the expiration of the extended child tax credit that had reduced child poverty by 46%, Robert Reich explained the push for child labor, Head in the office discussed Republican approval of child marriages.

Some more news. Looked at the economic difficulty of affording to have a baby. One in 10 made the connection between wealth inequality and child abuse.

And, all in with Chris Hayes, looked again at the very conscious policy choice that was made by all Republicans and Joe Manchin to throw people and their children back into poverty. That's what everybody heard, but members also heard two additional bonus clips, the first from Andrewism discussing childhood trauma, and More Perfect Union discussing the [01:01:00] right wing plan to destroy public schools.

To hear that, and have all of our bonus content delivered seamlessly to the new members only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at bestoftheleft. com slash support, or shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

Additional episodes of Best of the Left you may want to check out for more context include number 1479, Torturing Children and Families in the Name of Protecting Them, that's from March 2022, 2022, looking at conservatives approach to legislating trans kids lives, and 1563, Putting Our Kids to Work for Corporate Profits.

That's from June of this year, 2023, detailing the new push to allow for child labor to exploit the most vulnerable kids in the country. Again, those episodes were 1479 and 1563. Now, to wrap up, I [01:02:00] just wanted to read some quotes from the article from Slate that inspired today's episode. It was titled, A Big New Report on American Children is Out.

It's Horrific,

The subhead is, Protect the Children is a Popular Modern Rallying Cry, If Only, and as was mentioned in the show today, too many related issues, particularly surrounding kids and poverty and economics and all that, are often looked at in silos.

And, even though we've made episodes in the past that cover essentially every topic that was described in the show today and that was mentioned in the article, we couldn't help but think that it just lands a little bit differently when all of the issues are compiled together like this, And, hopefully, it also brings a little clarity to the thinking behind all of these seemingly separate policy choices that so uniformly harm children. So from the article, A new human rights report paints a damning portrait of [01:03:00] children's rights in the United States. That is, children here have remarkably few rights, and are particularly ill treated in the conservative states that claim the mantle of family values.

According to HRW, Children in the U. S. can be legally married in 41 states, physically punished by school administrators in 47 states, sentenced to life without parole in 22 states, and, work in hazardous agriculture conditions in all 50 states.

Over and over again, the worst states for children are clustered around the pro life bible belt, and the map of the states that are the worst for children looks a lot like a map of red state America. Liberal states, too, have a long way to go when it comes to protecting kids, but they generally do a bit better.

Now, I'm skipping the parts in this article that we've already addressed in the show, but one major topic we didn't get to today is Forced Births in the [01:04:00] Wake of the Overturn of Roe vs. Wade. From the article, The report doesn't look at forced births, but the U. S. states that ban abortion also routinely force children, including child rape victims, to carry pregnancies to term and become young, sometimes very young, mothers against their will.

Now just a quick look at a couple of headlines from the past couple of years. There was, she wasn't able to get an abortion, now she's a mom. Soon, she'll start 7th grade. That's from Time Magazine. And then this one, National Right to Life Official, colon, 10 year old should have had baby.

And just to clarify from the article, it says, the 10 year old Ohio girl who crossed state lines to receive an abortion in Indiana. should have carried her pregnancy to term and would be required to do so under a model law written for state legislatures [01:05:00] considering more restrictive abortion measures, according to the General Council for the National Right to Life.

So, in some places, that's where we already are and in others, that's where we're headed. Next up, physically assaulting kids at school. From the article, it says only three states fully ban corporal punishment at both public and private schools.

25 make it illegal in public schools but allow private school teachers to use physical force as punishment for students, 22 states don't ban corporal punishment in schools at all, and not a single state bans corporal punishment, adults committing acts of violence against children. To be clear, the article continues, corporal punishment is a euphemism for adult assaulting a child.

The same act would be a crime if it were an adult carrying it out on another adult.

And, I'm just going to keep going with this article [01:06:00] because this is such a good point being made. Continuing. It wasn't so long ago that there was a similar legal landscape for domestic abuse, and it remains true in several other countries that a man assaulting his wife or girlfriend isn't a serious crime unless he inflicts serious physical damage.

This is the landscape we've created for kids in the U. S. That unless parental abuse Does grave physical harm, parents can abuse their children with near impunity. We give adults tremendous leeway to hit and otherwise commit acts of violence against children who are smaller than them, dependent on them, and under their authority.

We don't give adults these same broad rights to commit violent acts against other adults. Children are put in a special category of people it's okay to assault and abuse. This is crazy. And there's no real effort to stop it.

And I've gotta say, I think that I probably [01:07:00] just went to a public school in one of the states where hitting kids was already banned, and just assumed that that must be the case across the country, and was like, Oh yeah, I've seen movies of like, the olden days when kids would get hit by teachers, but we're way past that now, in the 90s, I thought to myself.

Nope, turns out I was just lucky to live in the right state.

And then finally, the last... Issue to highlight, Human Rights Watch also details many ways in which the American criminal justice system is particularly cruel to children. But perhaps the most egregious is the fact that 22 states do not prohibit the sentencing of children to life in prison without parole.

End quote. If you can even imagine that, I, when I heard that, I mean, when I read the article and, and understood that was, like, I had heard of that. I knew, I knew that kids can sometimes be sentenced to life in [01:08:00] prison, and I just thought, like, Is there another law that more starkly demonstrates people's total lack of understanding about humans and human development and all of those sorts of things?

Like, like, what could a child possibly do? I mean, the answer is nothing. I'll cut to the chase. What could a child possibly do that would make anyone think, like, well, time to throw them away forever? They did something as a child, they're irredeemable, they will never be safe to rejoin society, or they need to be punished for literally their entire lives for something that they did years and years before their brains stopped developing.

I mean, it really stretches, uh, the imagination to, to think about the people who... Write a law like that, or fail to [01:09:00] write a law banning life in prison for children. So, finishing up, I'm just going to let this article close things out, quote. Protect the Children is a rallying cry in right wing circles at the moment, implying all sorts of boogeymen, liberal educators, books featuring gay penguins, drag queens in libraries, child sex traffickers using Wayfair armoires and pizza restaurant basements.

In reality, it's adults, and disproportionately conservative adults, Who are making life much more perilous for children by failing to protect them from guns, from violence at home and in schools, from early marriage, from early and forced motherhood, from back breaking labor, and from life behind bars.

End quote. That is going to be it for today. As always, keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about this or anything else. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text to [01:10:00] 202 999 3991 or simply email me to jay at bestoftheleft.

com. Thanks to everyone for listening, thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes, thanks to our transcriptionist trio, Ken, Brian, and Lewindy for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together, thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work on our social media outlets, Activism segments, graphic designing, webmastering, and bonus show co hosting.

And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships at bestoftheleft. com slash support. You can join them by signing up today and it would be greatly appreciated. You'll find that link in the show notes along with a link to our Discord community where you can continue the discussion. So coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my name is Jay, and this has been The Best of the Left Podcast coming to you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show, from bestoftheleft. com.

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#1586 Cop City is the Backlash to the Backlash Against Police Brutality and Murder, the Atlanta Community is Fighting Back (Transcript)

Posted by · October 03, 2023 8:38 PM

Air Date 10/3/2023

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast, in which we shall take a look at the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta, which is the current "tip of the spear" of the police accountability movement. But the instinct of elected officials to lean into building more and bigger policing facilities is likely to spread as part of the backlash to the backlash against police violence. So be on the lookout for similar plans in your neck of the woods.

Sources today include Rattling the Bars, On the Nose, The Police Accountability Report, Democracy Now!, Revolutions Per Minute, and activist Keyanna Jones, with additional members-only clips from Keyanna Jones and Revolutions Per Minute.

Cop City, RICO, and corporate fascism w/ Taya Graham & Stephen Janis - Rattling the Bars - Air Date 9-18-23

MANSA MUSA - HOST, RATTLING THE BARS: Conrad George Jackson stated in one of his writings that the criminal injustice system itself is the enemy of any type of resistance to fascism. Throughout this country’s history, we see the use of the criminal injustice system to suppress any type of resistance [00:01:00] to fascism. J. Edgar Hoover stated that the goal of the counterintelligence program COINTELPRO was to prevent the rise of a Black Messiah, who would be capable of organizing Black people and defying fascism.

Given our history, it’s no surprise that in 2023, we’re talking about an attempt to build a military-style complex for training police in Atlanta, also known as Cop City. Cop City itself will be a monument to our criminal injustice system. The fastest response to people protesting Cop City shows what this project is all about. As we speak, the state of Georgia is pursuing RICO charges for over 60 Cop City protestors. Before the crackdown on Cop City protestors, the LA Police Department criminal conspiracy section used agent provocateurs to set up and kill members of the Black Panther Party. The most noted agent provocateur was Louis Tackwood.

[00:02:00] Criminalizing civil disobedience was a goal of the LA criminal conspiracy section and that’s only one of the countless examples of state fascist crackdown on dissent. The Chicago Seven, The Panther 21, anti-war protestors in the ’60s, civil rights protestors, and now the Stop Cop City Movement.

Before we go into unpacking Cop City, let’s give context to where we believe that this response is coming from. We had Rodney King. We had Freddie Gray. We had George Floyd. We had multiple examples of people being killed by the police. As a result of that, we had an outcry, a national outcry, a worldwide outcry against police brutality, and the tactics being used. And the cry came, on a lot of levels, with police reform. I’ve got issues with reforming the police but that’s what they came up [00:03:00] with. We need to do something with divesting the police.

And as a result of that, we see now the fascist response is to say okay, we hear you. So, we’re going to do something and we’re going to meet your demands by creating a training mechanism for the police. And the training mechanism we’re going to create, we’re going to create this state-of-the-art facility. We’re going to create this training facility that’s going to be so magnificent that when the police come out, they’re going to be like Robocop. They’re going to be programmed to see the kitten in the tree and take it down. They’ll be programmed to see a little kid going across the street with a bicycle and stop the car. They’d be programmed such that they'll be so sanitized that when people call for the police, they’re going to expect the police to come and do what they’re delegated to do. That’s a myth.

The Struggle to Stop Cop City - On the Nose - Air Date 6-22-23

CS: I’m wondering if you could back up a little bit and talk about what, exactly, was being [00:04:00] proposed in 2021, or the social context in which it was being developed.

KJ: So this project was conceived without one shred of input from the public that it affects. There were unprecedented numbers of people who showed up in the streets of Atlanta during 2020, when we had a lot of outrage about different social justice issues that were affecting us, many of those being the murder of black men by police. What we saw in 2020—not only in Atlanta, but all across this country—was something that had not been seen before, with people showing up and saying, “Hey, we are not going to allow this to happen. We are no longer going to just bow down to a police state where you continue to murder us with impunity.” As a response to that, there are some people in the city of Atlanta, and particularly in [00:05:00] the more affluent, majority-white neighborhood of Buckhead, who said, “Hey, y’all gotta get those Negroes under control down there. They can’t be out in the streets of Buckhead, talking about ‘No justice, no peace.’ We can’t have this, and if this continues, if you don’t get a handle on that, then we’re going to secede from the city of Atlanta and take this 40% of your tax base.”

The city of Atlanta did not see where they could possibly sustain a hit like that, so Councilwoman Joyce Sheperd, in collusion with the Atlanta Police Foundation and whomever else that she spoke to—but certainly not residents of the city of Atlanta—introduced the proposal for Cop City. The mayor at the time was Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and the current mayor, Andre Dickens, was a member of the council. And at that time, I was living in Decatur, probably about 15 minutes away from the proposed location of Cop City and in an area, by the [00:06:00] way, that has been neglected by the city of Atlanta since I was a little girl [and I’m 43 years old]. The city of Atlanta has never cared about that part of Atlanta because it is actually unincorporated, DeKalb County. So the city of Atlanta put $0 into any type of infrastructure in that area, any type of resources for the community, anything to beautify the community, they have never done in that area until they saw an opportunity to get in bed with the APF and all their corporate donors, to take their kickbacks, to take the status that it affords them with their associations: they decided to take that in exchange for further disenfranchising that Black community in that area.

Then, when you think about Cop City in the larger context of what it is and what it represents, it makes total sense that a facility that will be for militarized training of police to further repress Black people would be in a Black neighborhood where [00:07:00] there are schools, where Black children have to hear gunfire constantly. And at the time, I was like, “This is crazy. I don’t think that’s really going to happen.” I saw the way the community showed up, I thought “There’s no way that this is gonna go through because the public has spoken.” But that Atlanta city council at that time showed us, right then, who they were and who they were there to serve by voting to pass that legislation. And what I will say is that every council member who was a member of council at the time, who voted in favor, is no longer a council person. So I hope that this current council recognizes that: we saw what you did. But back to the more focused point of where this came from: What Cop City is, is really their answer to that unprecedented swell of public participation and peaceful protesting and marches and rallies. They saw the community speak [00:08:00] up and use their voices like they never had before, and they decided that Cop City was going to be the way to shut us down.

JDR: One thing I think that’s really important about what the Reverend just said, is that there’s this idea nationally—and I think also in Atlanta, particularly in areas of Atlanta, like Buckhead, you know, majority white areas of the city that also get the most benefit from the city social services—that after 2020, or even after 2014, let’s say, police are constrained, they’re being forced to be too accountable, and the tables have turned, right? People think we’ve gone too far in the direction of police accountability, and we need to scale back. That is a relatively common perspective among some parts of this city. But I think the Cop City story is really evidence that the opposite is actually true. There is less accountability now than ever. We used to live in a time where we had more accountable media, we [00:09:00] had better local news, we had more ability to do public comment. And we now live in an era where the city council is willing to say “Hey, we’re gonna put 10s and 10s of millions of dollars into this structure that we know very well, the people of the city are not comfortable with, because we saw them in the streets, we saw the march, we’re not going to ask your input,” and they thought they weren’t gonna pay a political price for it. So I just say that to say when people see the Cop City conversation, I think it’s important to remember that this is in the context of the entire population across the country being gaslit into being told, “Actually, we’ve gone too far in the direction of worrying about police harm and now we have to scale back,” because that’s so clearly not what’s happening.

Is America becoming Cop City - The Police Accountability Report - Air Date 4-10-23

Taya Graham: Now, before we delve into some of the more troubling details of how the plans for Cop City unfolded, it’s important to note that the relationship between residents and the police department were already tense. Let’s listen to Kamau Franklin from Community Movement Builders to explain the history a little bit.

KAMAU FRANKLIN: So the relationship is not a great [00:10:00] relationship because, I mean, for various reasons, Atlanta has a history, even though it has probably a majority black police force of also using stop and frisk and police violence and violence against the community. And so the relationship is fraught about now. Three years ago, Rashard Brooks, less than a mile from here, was killed at a Wendy’s, which was part of the 2020 uprisings in which people here in Atlanta, as well as all across the country, took to the streets. And over 90%, I think it’s approximately 90% of the arrest in Fulton County, which is the county that Atlanta is mostly situated in. Over 90% of those arrests are of black people in Atlanta, even though Atlanta no longer makes up the majority of black residents in the city itself.

Taya Graham: So also, Stephen, there was something we noticed, which was along with the fraught relations between police and the community, the mainstream media was advancing a narrative that was quite at odds with what we saw on the ground, but there was also a group that was trying to counter that narrative. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Stephen Janis: Yeah. Well, [00:11:00] the Atlanta Press Collective, which is really just, one, I think the most beautiful things in terms of how journalism, despite the fact that the mainstream media has all the funding, the corporate advertising, that there are citizens who just say, “No, we’re going to tell this story in a different way.” And let’s remember that narratives are important. Narratives are extremely important to policing because policing is, in some ways, a function of governmental narrative saying that there are failed communities and there are successful communities. And that’s why the people we spoke to, some of the on-the-ground journalists, were working, I mean, literally just working for the passion of telling the community’s stories so important because it shapes a narrative in a way that I think makes other things possible. It’s a narrative that’s posited against the idea of police narrative, which is, here’s a community that doesn’t deserve agency, here’s a community that doesn’t deserve amenities. The only people that deserve to have power are the people who already have it. So I think this was very, for me, inspiring.

Taya Graham: Yeah. Now there … Oh, should we run that clip from the Atlanta …

Stephen Janis: Yeah.

Taya Graham: … Community Press Collective?

Stephen Janis: Yeah.

Taya Graham: Let’s give them a moment to share their thoughts.

[00:12:00]

Speaker 4: How they’re interpreting these domestic terrorism charges.

Clark: So there are a few things about the mainstream media coverage. One, our paper of record, the AJC is owned by Cox Media. Cox Media is owned by Cox Enterprises, the chair of Cox Enterprises, Alan, or-

Taya Graham: Now, that was Clark from the Atlanta Community Press Collective. Stephen …

Stephen Janis: Yeah.

Taya Graham: … I know you were impressed with that independent reporter.

Stephen Janis: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well … But he makes a great point that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is owned by the Cox family, which the Cox family is also part of the funders of the Atlanta Police Foundation, which is funding Cop City. So there you have the most powerful media institution in Atlanta, which also happens to be involved in Cop City.

Taya Graham: Yeah.

Stephen Janis: So how can you expect objective coverage of this story from an institution that is intimately involved in its creation?

Taya Graham: Oh, absolutely.

Stephen Janis: It’s, I think, a little disturbing, to say the least, but it’s also a very normal fact of life in many US cities, [00:13:00] where the mainstream media is intertwined with the institutions that people are trying to hold accountable. So I was really impressed with his breadth and scope of knowledge and his reporting.

Taya Graham: And I also noted something, that particular newspaper, what was it? The Atlanta Constitutional Journal. Is that-

Stephen Janis: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, yes.

Taya Graham: Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I had noticed when I was doing a little research on it, that same day, they had announced their first ever black editor.

Stephen Janis: Yeah.

Taya Graham: This is isn Atlanta, which has been a majority black city.

Stephen Janis: True.

Taya Graham: Home of civil rights, and they literally just got their first black person as an editor. Okay.

Stephen Janis: Yeah.

Taya Graham: Not a great sign. Anyway, that is … Let me take my reporter hat off for that one.

Stephen Janis: Yeah.

Taya Graham: Now, there was a key private group funding Cop City with dark money called the Atlanta Police Foundation. It is a nonprofit organization which comprised of a board of economic elites that represent corporate America, to say the least. Executives from Fortune 500 companies like Delta Airlines, [00:14:00] Coca-Cola, Chick-fil-A, Waffle House, Cox Enterprises, Home Depot, Merrill Lynch, Equifax, Delta Airlines, I could go on and on. It’s literally a who’s who of corporate Atlanta, who are oddly committed to just funding police privately, but they also have a bit of an issue with transparency, I’ve noticed.

And Stephen, what I’ve also found interesting is that this private police foundation is not only funding Cop City, but it also sponsors a citywide surveillance system, which we learned is named after a developer. So let’s listen to one of the activists, Micah Herskind, describe what they are fighting against.

MICAH HERSKIND: They were founded in the early two thousands, so they’ve been around for a couple decades now. And really, yeah, they’re supported by a bunch of different corporations, many Atlanta-based corporations, and, really, they, in a lot of ways, act as a shadow government in Atlanta. They have an immense amount of power and authority. I think politicians and people who are [00:15:00] trying to see collected office know that, in many cases, if you want a career in politics in Atlanta, you’re going to have to go through the Atlanta Police Foundation because they just have a lot of money and wield a lot of influence. They give a lot of funding to the cops. They channel this private money that is, of course, tax deferred into policing. They operate the city’s Operation Shield network, which is this massive network of surveillance cameras that includes both city cameras and then also everyday people can hook up their security cameras into this feed. And so making Atlanta one of the most surveilled city in the country.

Speaker 7: [inaudible] .

MICAH HERSKIND: Yeah. So through Operation Shield, which is this surveillance network, all of the footage from the city security cameras, individuals, security cameras that people can link up to the system is run through what is called the Loudermilk Video Integration Center, of course, named after one of these rich Atlanta families developer companies, which even [00:16:00] just right there shows the connections of who is behind surveillance and policing in the city.

Taya Graham: So Stephen, I know you’ve done reporting on surveillance systems before and here and in Baltimore, but a private surveillance system named after a developer.

Stephen Janis: Yeah.

Taya Graham: How do you explain that?

Stephen Janis: Well, I found that very interesting because if you look at Atlanta, it’s like a concrete testament to extreme wealth. And so it makes sense, the developer would also have the power to surveil privately the citizens of the city. And I think you can see parallels in cities like Baltimore, where we have done primarily two things, giving tax breaks to developers and spent billions of dollars on policing. And those two things intersect in cities like Atlanta and cities like Baltimore because development is one of the main economic engines. So for him to have actual control over the surveillance system, it’s also almost Gotham-esque in a sense.

Taya Graham: Oh, no.

Stephen Janis: Like we’re in Gotham City now.

Taya Graham: Very much so.

Stephen Janis: Right, because, literally, he owns the real estate and he pays to surveil the real estate. [00:17:00] So it gives you … It’s a little weird and a little disturbing, to say the least.

Taya Graham: Yeah. I mean, when I was there and I learned about all the different CEOs and executives and corporate elites, it really sounded very dystopian.

Stephen Janis: Yeah.

Taya Graham: I mean, it’s like one of those futures you can imagine where we don’t have countries anymore, we’re owned by corporations, and the corporations control every aspect of the society.

Stephen Janis: Yeah.

Taya Graham: It’s really scary.

Stephen Janis: We’re going to take the metaphor a little … You have this beautiful gleaming city, but underneath it is this private dystopian surveillance system that affects not the people who live in the $700,000 condos, but the people who live on the edge of what will be Cop City. They’re the ones being surveilled, and the people controlling it are the people that own the building. So very illustrative of some of the problems with law enforcement.

The Struggle to Stop Cop City Part 2 - On the Nose - Air Date 6-22-23

CS: I’m also wondering if you could say a little more about the land itself and what we’re talking about when we talk about a struggle over this forest. What exactly is being contested? What does this land mean ecologically, socially? What has it meant [00:18:00] historically?

KJ: So this land, originally Muscogee Creek, indigenous peoples’ land, of course. Then, after they ran the Muskogee people out and sent them on the Trail of Tears, this land was a plantation. After it was a plantation, it became a prison farm. After that, it became a training facility for Atlanta police. All I hear, in all of that, is violence against black bodies. It’s 381 acres of forest land, one of the largest urban forests in the southeastern United States, the largest urban forest in the state of Georgia. It is known as one of the lungs of Atlanta; literally, we need it to breathe, because right now, when there is an air quality alert here in Georgia, and we’re at code orange, because we’re actually getting some of that residue from those wildfires up north: think about what it means [00:19:00] if we did not have 381 acres of forest land to absorb some of that. You have the South River that runs through there, so that is a part of the South River watershed, which is vitally important. The South River is the main headwater of the Altamaha river, goes all the way down to South Georgia, toward Darien and even farther down. The South River watershed is vital to this community, as is Intrenchment Creek, which is also encompassed there. And the South River, known by indigenous people as the Weelaunee, is the second most polluted river in the United States. So remember: Black area severely neglected by the city of Atlanta for decades, most of the pollution goes there. And this is where I was born and raised, this is where I grew up. This is where I moved back to when I moved back to Georgia. This is where I’m raising my children. So when you ask about this land, what it [00:20:00] means and how important it is: it is everything to us.

JDR: The only thing I want to point out here, is that this is yet another example of cities making decisions that are explicitly terrible in the long term, for short term benefit to whomever they’re trying to please at that moment. And so, that’s not new; I mean, every politician has been doing it since the beginning of time. But I think that being really explicit about this, right? I mean, when you see a line down the block of people saying “Please, don’t do this,” and minutes later, they vote overwhelmingly to do it.

CS: Yeah, it seems like there’s at least two watershed moments where the myth of representative democracy has been revealed as a myth: the first city council vote and then this most recent one, and I’m sure there are a number of others along the way. But I wanted to come back to the public-private partnerships that Micah you had mentioned several times.

MH: The way that I think about all of these [00:21:00] partnerships are: these are all a formation through which capital is organizing itself, to advocate in and take control of Atlanta. And so you have Central Atlanta Progress, which is sort of like the downtown boostery business group; you have the Atlanta Committee for Progress, whose corporate membership mirrors so much of the Atlanta Police Foundation; there’s Delta, UPS, Home Depot, Waffle House, Wells Fargo, you know, basically, so many of the different major Atlanta-based corporations are organizing themselves in their power and their money through all of these different vehicles. And what the result ends up being, in all of these cases, is that more money gets channeled into policing, fewer dollars go into the government. Atlanta has been home to so much gentrification and rapid development, and one of the ways that that’s happened is through all of these massive subsidies, whether on the front end or on the back end. Through the ways that these developments are financed, what you have is [00:22:00] less and less money going into the public coffers, and the money that does go in comes out to support policing—a third of our budget goes to policing. What isn’t being publicly spent on policing is being privately subsidized by the Atlanta Police Foundation. So, to take one example: The Atlanta Police Foundation run the network of surveillance cameras in Atlanta called Operation Shield. It’s a feed that allows any person with a Ring camera or any other personal security camera to incorporate their feed into that stream. And so all of this combined towards. You have a city that essentially works in total service to corporations by doling out a lot of public dollars in the form of subsidies, and then using the public money that they do collect as essentially a security force for capital.

KJ: Honestly, these public-private partnerships should be illegal. Because at the end of the day, what this allows for is for these [00:23:00] foundations to write a check that the city of Atlanta has to cash—it makes no sense. Basically, these corporations will take out a loan, and the people of Atlanta are going to have to pay it back because it will be our money that will go into what the council agrees to pay in that public-private partnership. What it allows for is, like Micah said, for Chick-fil-A, Waffle House, Delta, Home Depot, Norfolk Southern, Truist Bank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Cox Enterprises, to run the city of Atlanta and have police paid to protect their interests.

JDR: And it also allows state legislatures to continue to siphon money out of municipalities. It basically means government doesn’t have to fund government, right? And that is an illusion that is being perpetuated by a significant portion of our political class that is false. Actually, to have a strong, sustainable, healthy government, you have to be able to [00:24:00] pay for that. And so what is happening is that we are seeing this cycle of the gospel of low taxes and disinvestment being hidden by these private interests that come in and do what they do to make things look better than they really are. But this, in some ways, is what we saw in Ferguson, right? Like we are seeing revenue-making efforts being put on the backs of the people struggling the most. And we are seeing people on the state level and the federal level coast to reelection and coast to office by saying we’re gonna make it even harder for localities to function.

MH: I think that’s such an important point. Because the other thing with these public-private partnerships is that one of their rhetorical strategies is that things are often framed as the direction the money is flowing, it’s from the private to the public. So with Cop City, it’s “Okay, this is going to be $60 million of private donations and $30 million from the city.” With the Olympics in 1996 in Atlanta, it was going to be “You know, for some [00:25:00] cities, the Olympics have made them go bankrupt, because it’s publicly funded. But the way we’re going to do here is it’s going to be privately funded, and that’s going to allow it to actually be worth it for Atlanta.” And still, you ended up having a massive investment of both land and resources being transferred from public to private, of land and public dollars during the Olympics. Same thing that’s happening right now. Whereas, you know, in the beginning, this idea of public-private partnership of Cop City was $60 million private $30 million public. Now, the Atlanta Police Foundation has not been able to raise that full $60 million, and what they are demanding from the city, which the city just passed, is $67 million in funding. So the city’s contribution went from $30m to $67m, and it will surely go up. And the so-called “private donations”—which again, are just another form of stolen public wealth, because that is profit that corporations have that are not going into public hands—that hasn’t even been put up as promised.

A Political Prosecution 61 Cop City Opponents Hit with RICO Charges by Georgia's Republican AG - Democracy Now! - Air Date 9-6-23

AMY GOODMAN: We’re beginning today’s show in Atlanta, Georgia, where the state’s Republican attorney general has announced a sweeping new RICO [00:26:00] indictment against 61 activists and others he accuses of being part of a, quote, “criminal enterprise” to stop Cop City, a massive $90 million police training complex that’s facing widespread opposition and ongoing protests. The charges were brought in Fulton County and approved by the same grand jury that indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 of his associates on RICO, or racketeering, charges brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is a Democrat.

At a news conference Tuesday, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr and John Fowler, head of Georgia’s Prosecution Division, laid out their allegations and why they brought the case in Fulton County.

ATTORNEY GENERAL CHRISTOPHER CARR: As alleged in the indictment, the defendants are members of Defend the Atlanta Forest, an anarchist, anti-police and anti-business extremist organization. We contend these 61 [00:27:00] defendants together have conspired to prevent the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center by conducting, coordinating and organizing acts of violence, intimidation and property destruction.

JOHN FOWLER: Why Fulton County and not DeKalb County? Georgia racketeering law allows that, and we availed ourselves of the Georgia racketeering law to do that. Anywhere that a predicate act or an overt act in furtherance of a conspiracy occurred, in any county where that occurred, is where you can indict the case. And we chose Fulton County. …

When you allege a conspiracy to commit racketeering, there’s no requirement under Georgia law that they know each other. The whole purpose of the Georgia racketeering law is that they’re all working in some way, shape or form towards the same goal, and they formed a conspiracy to do that. That doesn’t necessarily mean that every person has to talk to every single person. All you have to do is commit one overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy with the others, and then you can be guilty of racketeering. So that’s why, is because [00:28:00] it’s a large case, and so if you want to tie everybody together and they’re all trying to do the same thing, racketeering is the appropriate charge.

AMY GOODMAN: In addition to the 61 racketeering indictments, five people were also indicted on domestic terrorism and first-degree arson charges. Three people with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund were each indicted on 15 counts of money laundering for their work to provide bail money and legal aid for protesters. The indictment was issued on September 5th and filed August 29th. The indictment alleges the protests included violent anti-police sentiment, that’s now one of the, quote, “core driving motives” of protest to stop Cop City.

For more, we go to Atlanta, where we’re joined by Keyanna Jones, a Stop Cop City organizer for Community Movement Builders, and Devin Franklin, movement policy counsel at the Southern Center for Human Rights. He worked over a decade as a public defender in Atlanta. His group has issued a call for [00:29:00] lawyers to represent the 61 people now facing RICO charges.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! These are late-breaking developments. Devin, let’s begin with you. Can you explain what happened? Can you explain these RICO charges against 61 activists from the same Fulton County grand jury that approved the RICO charges against President Trump? But this was all led by the Republican attorney general. It almost looks like a response to what Fani Willis did with the grand jury against President Trump and others.

DEVIN FRANKLIN: Good morning.

Yes, it certainly is a response, but I would argue that it is a response to the larger movement that has been [inaudible] as it pertains to several matters of police violence and government prejudice. It’s just a lot going on. And I think that the state has shown that they don’t have a [00:30:00] meaningful way to respond to what the people are showing that they want, and they are choosing to use the legal process in an essentially violent way to target protesters.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And could you talk about the indictment itself, some of the main aspects of it, Devin Franklin? And the number of people is extraordinary, that are charged.

DEVIN FRANKLIN: Yeah, it’s really rare for this number of people to be included on an indictment. In my 12 years as a public defender in Fulton County, I never had a case that was this large or witnessed a case that was this large. I think that when we look at the number of people that were accused and we look at the allegations that are included in the indictment, what we see are a wide variety of activities that are lawful that are being deemed to be criminal, and that includes things such as passing out flyers — right? — a really clear [00:31:00] example of First Amendment — the exercise of First Amendment rights. We see that organizations that were bailing people out for protests or conducting business in otherwise lawful manners have been deemed to be part of some ominous infrastructure. And it’s just not accurate. This is really clearly a political prosecution. And, yeah.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And how does it turn out that the same grand jury that indicted Trump and his associates was the grand jury on this particular case?

DEVIN FRANKLIN: It appears to be so, from the limited information that I’ve been given. And it could simply be a matter of timing. It could have been something that has — that was [inaudible] by DA Fani Willis and AG Chris Carr. There’s no way to know for certain.

But what we do know is [00:32:00] that for some point in time — for a period of time, rather, the attorney general of the state of Georgia, the governor of the state of Georgia, Brian Kemp, have both expressed discontent with the success that has been gained by the Stop Cop City movement and the momentum that has been created in the streets among the people, and that they have chosen to use those things which they have at their access, at their disposal, to assist the attempt to criminalize otherwise lawful activity.

AMY GOODMAN: Devin Franklin, what’s interesting is that the DeKalb County’s top prosecutor, the DA, announced she is stepping away from every case involving Atlanta’s Public Safety Training Center, Cop City. DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston announced she is out. She will not support these charges going forward. Your response to this?

DEVIN FRANKLIN: I think it’s telling. I think it’s really telling, because the DeKalb County [00:33:00] prosecutor has, you know, a pretty good reputation in the legal community. And for her to take a look at the actions that the attorney general was seeking to go forward with in her county and for her to say, you know, “I don’t want to be parts of it. I have concerns about the legitimacy of these charges. I have concerns about the intent of the charges that the prosecutor, Attorney General Chris Carr, is seeking,” I think that it is kind of a unique way of saying the quiet part out loud, which is, “Something is not right. Something doesn’t smell right with this entire situation, and I want no parts of it.” And I think that will bear out as we get deeper into the discovery that is to follow the indictment.

AMY GOODMAN: And very quickly, before we go to Keyanna Jones, your own center, the Southern Center for Human Rights, has it been named in any way in this? You have [00:34:00] called for lawyers around the country to come help represent the protesters, but you, yourself, are a lawyer, and you’re a former public defender.

DEVIN FRANKLIN: Correct, yeah, in no way that I am aware that we have been named in anything. We are, essentially, just trying to make sure that persons who are brought within the arms of the legal system have access to counsel. That’s a constitutional right, and there is nothing unlawful about ensuring that people have fair, accurate, zealous representation when they’re taking on a system such as what the state of Georgia is being at this point in time.

Stop Cop City with Atlanta DSA - Revolutions Per Minute - Air Date 8-23-23

LISA - HOST, REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE: Yeah, it's a hard thing to be fighting against. And terrorist charge, RICO charges, like that's really terrifying stuff to be faced with. So yeah, we really appreciate people continuing to fight. And can you talk a little bit about how you actually are fighting back against this facility, what kind of tactics, how are you organizing to stop [00:35:00] this?

GABRIEL SANCHEZ: Yeah, so there's definitely been a diversity of tactics throughout the coalition. And so initially in 2021, it was a lot of canvassing and bringing people together to voice their concerns. We had town halls and stuff and all that. And we had 17 hours of public comments in 2021, and the vast majority of those were against the facility.

And then we did that again earlier this summer when they had to approve the funding. We had over 15 hours of public comment, and out of those, only four spoke for it and the rest were all against, 10 minutes for it and the rest against, so it was insane. And they still voted for it.

So, earlier this year there was starting to have some conversations around a potential referendum. So, some people in DSA and a few others had looked at the law books and noticed that there was a very old law in Atlanta, City of Atlanta, it was made in the late 1800s about referendums. Now, the reason that we hadn't thought of a referendum before is because you can't do referendums in Georgia [00:36:00] through petitioning; you can only do it through the state legislature for the state of Georgia. So there's not a lot of an ability for organizing in Georgia to do ballot initiatives like there are in other states. However, what we didn't realize is that municipalities are still allowed to do ballot initiatives, which we weren't aware of until recently.

And so there's only been one other case that we're aware of in the state of Georgia where a local county did a referendum. And so, we use that blueprint -- it's a county called Camden County, it's in rural Georgia. And they succeeded in their referendum effort and they were challenged by the county and the courts and the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the referendum.

And so, based off of that legal precedent, we decided to move forward with the referendum in the city of Atlanta. But of course this is unprecedented. This has never been done before, which honestly surprises me. I'm surprised there hasn't been any effort, considering how old this law is. But I guess it's because Atlanta is such a huge city, [00:37:00] and we have to get 15 percent of registered voters to sign.

Now, there's a lot of stipulations that are added on to the law. So, it has to be people who are registered to vote in the last mayoral election. So, it can't be currently registered voters, it has to be people who voted, who are registered to vote in 2021, and since then have been registered to vote in the city of Atlanta, which definitely limits the pool.

We also originally had a stipulation that required that anyone collecting signatures had to sign the signatures as a witness and that witness had to be also a City of Atlanta resident which is also very, very stymieing because the City of Atlanta itself has a population of I believe, around 500,000, maybe less, but Metro Atlanta has a population of about 5 million. So, a lot of our organizing in Atlanta does include people in the Metro area who are in the city limits, and so it made it very difficult for [00:38:00] people to be able to get involved, including myself. I live two miles outside of the city limits, so I wasn't able to witness signatures. But, so we had to pair people up to canvass, and it made it very difficult.

But fortunately, we were able to succeed in the court to get overturn that specific stipulation. So now anyone can help collect signatures, which is amazing.

But yeah, the whole effort around the referendum has been insane because, to be frank, on the onset we were talking about this, we didn't really think this would actually happen, because it's just how much of an undertaking it would be and how much power we would need to actually get it done.

So we didn't initially start the referendum, but we had started messaging around it, like posting on social media and putting on our website, and other people picked that up and then we found that there was other people who were interested in also doing so. And so we came together as a coalition to make this happen. And honestly, I never expected this [00:39:00] to get anywhere near this successful, to be frank.

So the fact that we've gotten almost 100,000 signatures now, and we need 58,000 verified signatures in order to get on the ballot, is insane, and has really shown that this is a moment in Atlanta that is going to be a shift in the left movement in Atlanta, and I think that this is the start of giving a voice to the people in a way that hasn't really been seen in a while in Atlanta and in Georgia, really. So, it's been really exciting to be a part of.

Armed Police Raid on Bail Fund for Cop City Opponents Is Attack on “Infrastructure of the Movement” - Democracy Now! - Air Date 6-2-23

AMY GOODMAN: , as we go to Atlanta, Georgia, where a police SWAT team, guns drawn, raided the Atlanta Solidarity Fund on Wednesday and arrested three people who had been raising money to bail out protesters opposed to the construction of a massive police training facility known as Cop City.

Marlon Kautz, Adele Maclean and Savannah Patterson were charged with one count each of money laundering and charity fraud. Warrants allege the three were, quote, “misleading contributors … to [00:40:00] fund the actions in part of Defend the Atlanta Forest, a group classified by the United States Department of Homeland Security as Domestic Violent Extremists.” As proof of money laundering, the warrants cite reimbursements from April 2021 to March of this year that total less than $7,000 and were for “forest clean-up, totes, COVID rapid tests, media and yard signs.” The Atlanta Solidarity Fund issued a statement that it’s existed for seven years, quote, “with the sole purpose of providing resources to protestors experiencing repression.” To be clear, none of the arrested Cop City activists have been designated as domestic violent extremists, nor have they been convicted, just charged.

In March, prosecutors charged 23 forest defenders with domestic terrorism after clashes between police and protesters, lless than two months after Atlanta police shot dead Manuel [00:41:00] “Tortuguita” Terán, a 26-year-old environmental activist. An autopsy concluded they were sitting with their hands raised up in front of their body when police shot them 57 times.

In response to the arrests Wednesday, the National Lawyers Guild issued a statement, quote, “in firm solidarity with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund and all of the Stop Cop City activists unjustly targeted by law enforcement,” unquote. They noted, quote “Bail funds exist to protect people’s right to dissent. They are necessary, legally sound resources that help people more safely access their constitutionally protected rights to speech and assembly by lowering the risks of financial ruin or indefinite jail time,” unquote.

The arrests come just days before the Atlanta City Council is set to vote on the fate of Cop City. Officials recently admitted the public cost of the project will top $67 million — twice as [00:42:00] high as originally stated.

For an update, we go to Atlanta to speak with Kamau Franklin, founder of the organization Community Movement Builders.

Kamau, welcome back to Democracy Now! I mean, can you lay out what happened? As we look at this image of a SWAT team moving in, guns drawn, charging this group, ultimately — the authorities — with charity fraud, certainly someone like George Santos, who was just recently arrested, there wasn’t a SWAT team that moved in on him. Can you talk about what took place?

KAMAU FRANKLIN: Sure. Thanks for having me.

So, what took place was an escalation by the authorities, the state of Georgia, the city of Atlanta, on the infrastructure of the movement. So, approximately at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, along with SWAT teams — there’s [00:43:00] reports that there were personnel from Homeland Security there — decided to back a truck up in a residential neighborhood, an armored vehicle, with armored police personnel, SWAT teams, to basically go in, guns drawn, as you stated, to arrest people on what essentially is — would be considered a white-collar crime and/or a financial crime, in terms of what the charges would be.

But this use of violent force against the Atlanta Solidarity Fund really shows that the real intent has nothing to do with any criminality, which has never taken place with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, but this is really another way of destroying and attacking the infrastructure of organizing a movement, particularly against those who have been organizing against Cop City.

AMY GOODMAN: Wouldn’t this, to say the least, be a deterrent to people who might want to donate to the fund?

KAMAU FRANKLIN: Well, apparently, this is [00:44:00] the hope of the Atlanta police and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and, again, the governor, Kemp. But already the movement has stood strong. We found an alternative bail fund, a national bail fund, which is stepping in to support movement organizers and the folks who were arrested who were part of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund.

But, yes, the very attempt is to ruin the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, an organization, as stated, that’s been around for over seven years, way before the Stop Cop City organizing and activism, way before even the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. These folks have been around organizing and supporting movement activists and organizers, making sure that anyone who was arrested in Atlanta had an opportunity to receive bail, and instead of being locked up and waiting trial, that those folks could defend themselves on any specious charges. Once they were out, they could resume their lives. They could resume being active in [00:45:00] organizing. They are, you know, basically a needed infrastructure for organizing a movement, which the state and the city has gone after and attacked.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to Marlon Kautz, one of the three Atlanta Solidarity Fund organizers who were arrested on Wednesday. But they were speaking in February, after information surfaced that Georgia prosecutors were preparing RICO charges against activists who oppose the construction of Cop City in Atlanta. He’s currently in jail.

MARLON KAUTZ: We understand that this movement is as broad as society itself. It includes environmental activists, community groups, faith leaders, abolitionists, students, artists, and people from all over. But police, prosecutors and even Governor Kemp have been trying to suggest in the media and in court that the opposition to Cop City is actually the work of a criminal organization whose members conspire to commit acts of terrorism. In essence, they’re trying to [00:46:00] concoct a RICO-like story about the movement.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Kamau Franklin, Marlon Kautz and the two others arrested remain in jail from Wednesday?

KAMAU FRANKLIN: Yes, they still are in jail. They have a bail hearing coming up today at 1:00.

And I should say, based on what Marlon was talking about, we’ve heard rumors for months that the other parts of the infrastructure of the movement would be attacked. We’ve come out with different videos showing support and acknowledging that this information, although could not be verified at the time, was something that was sort of laid at our doorstep, that other parts of the movement to stop Cop City would be attacked, because the city and the state were scared that, through all of their tactics, the movement has not gone away. In fact, it has grown.

And so, we think that the attack, when it finally did happen, you know, it came at a time when, as you stated, the city of Atlanta, through the City Council, is about to [00:47:00] vote to give funding to this training center, to Cop City, after it was exposed that instead of $30 million, it would be $67 million — double the cost — which they have lied about for two years, telling the public that it would be — and I say in air quotes — “only $30 million.” In addition to that, the last City Council hearing, hundreds of people turned out to speak. Many were turned away. Over a hundred people were turned away from speaking. It was the largest gathering at City Hall to make comment and protest any ordinance and/or bill that the City Council has ever introduced. They knew that a repeat of that was going to happen this Monday, June 5th, when they’re actually going to be voting on the resources, giving the resources to the Atlanta Police Foundation, a private foundation itself, which probably is the real entity that’s a criminal nonprofit entity. That is what we think prompted the move by, again, the city and the state and the [00:48:00] police and the district attorney of DeKalb County to move now to again further criminalize this movement in the face of massive protest against Cop City.

Stop Cop City - Keyanna Jones - Air Date 9-17-23

KEYANNA JONES: The beauty of this movement is that it has brought together people from all walks of life, many people who otherwise honestly might not have known each other had it not been for this project. And what we've seen from the time that Cop City was introduced, because mind you, there was never any public appeal to say the City of Atlanta is considering building a police training facility at this location, we want to cut down this amount of the forest, you know, there was nothing that went out to the public to say, Hey, this is what's happening, what we're considering, come and give us your comments, let us hear from you. There were no town hall meetings where it was discussed among residents of the City of Atlanta or even DeKalb County about what Cop City would entail, [00:49:00] or the fact that they even wanted to build it and take our land in DeKalb County.

So when people found out about it literally at the last minute in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, and as a matter of fact, the City Council still was not meeting in public in 2021 when there was the 17 hours of public comment that were given, people found out about that meeting at the very last minute. And let me make sure that I clarify that. In 2020, we saw the uprisings after the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery here in Georgia, Rayshard Brooks, and also prior to 2020, numerous other individuals were murdered by police. So 2020 was a year of outcry against police terror and against them being able to get away with it. What happened in 2020 scared the local governmental infrastructure here in Atlanta and across the nation because what they saw was that the people realized that [00:50:00] they have the power and that they can use it, and if they use it, they can make things happen.

So all of these ideas about Cop City began to spring up. In 2021, without so much as an introduction, without a prior mention, all of a sudden, there is a council meeting where Councilwoman Joyce Sheperd from District 12, I believe, is introducing legislation to build Cop City. When people heard about that legislation, they immediately mobilized for the very next council meeting so that their voices could be heard. And that was in 2021 when people via Zoom gave 17 hours of public comment against Cop City, and despite what the people said, their so-called elected representatives in the City of Atlanta decided to vote for this project. What we [00:51:00] heard from then-Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, was that Atlanta would become a model for the nation.

So here we have the elected official who went into the agreement with the APF, and what happened after that is that people began to organize, because they saw that the city council did not care what they said after 17 hours of public comment, so people got together and organized. I'm talking about massive protests in the streets, I'm talking about demonstrations outside of city hall, showing up to more city council meetings. Between 2021 and January of 2023, we had people who actually mobilized themselves to move into the forest, to live there, so that they used their bodies to protect the trees. While we had people who were mobilizing and organizing as forest defenders sitting in the forest, making sure that there were actually people there [00:52:00] to protect trees from being cut down, we also had organizers. who are working on the outside who continued to go to city council meetings, to talk to city council representatives, to try to get some understanding as to why the people's voices were being ignored.

In January of 2023, the first ever climate justice activist was murdered on US soil. Our fallen comrade, Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, who we know as Tortuguita, was murdered as they sat in a meditative position with their hands up, murdered for simply sitting in a tent in the forest that they wanted to protect. This is what we've been met with from law enforcement, from our so called governing bodies. We've been met with violence at every turn.

We held a week of action back in March of 2023. We were mobilizing daily just to pass out flyers, to march around [00:53:00] downtown Atlanta, to alert people and make them aware that these companies that they were patronizing downtown were also donating to Cop City, which is an oppressive institution. As we did that, we saw police officers show up in force with riot gear. We saw over 200 police officers kettle a group of about 75 marchers as we marched through the streets of downtown. They surrounded us with their weapons drawn. They even impeded the sidewalk so that we could not pass safely, just in hopes that someone would step off of the sidewalk so that they could charge them with something, just in hopes that someone would bump into an officer so that they could charge them with assaulting a police officer. One of the officers tried to charge protestors with some offense one day, as we gave out flyers downtown, [00:54:00] they really tried to tell us that we could not walk on the sidewalk and give out flyers. And we see later on we actually did have comrades that were charged with domestic terrorism for handing out flyers, flyers that contained public information that could be obtained through open public records requests here in the state of Georgia, but simply because those flyers named the murderers of Tortuguita, that is seen as domestic terrorism.

So in this movement, we have seen people show up in a very democratic way at council meetings, talking to city council members, making sure that they get the understanding of how things are moving in this process. We've seen that. We have also seen peaceful protests. We've seen people marching through the streets. We've seen people sitting silently. We have seen people show up in the forest to simply occupy the forest, and we've also seen people murdered for doing so. We've also seen police officers [00:55:00] point a gun inside of a bouncy house at a music festival, a music festival that I had just left about half an hour prior. And had my children and my husband still been there, they would have been the ones in that bouncy house when the gun was pointed inside, because my two sons were not leaving that bouncy house. My husband literally had to stay there in that bouncy house, jumping with them because they were not leaving.

But when you think about the facts that we have had to endure, the inability to even attend a family event, a music concert, without the police showing up and exacting violence against us. Police showed up. They had mothers with their children held at gunpoint against a stage as mothers begged and pleaded for the safety of their children.

We had a person who was detained for running after his dog, and the officer told him that if he took another step, he was gonna put him down. That person is now sitting in an ICE detention facility [00:56:00] because he was charged with domestic terrorism for attending that music festival, for trying to run after his dog, but also for being Indigenous and not being from the state of Georgia, because what we saw at that music festival was that officers detained people, and they checked their identification, and if their identification was not from the state of Georgia, they arrested them in order to further the narrative that had been put out by Mayor Andre Dickens, that there were only outside agitators opposed to Cop City.

What we've seen in this movement has been some of the most insidious and the most insidious actions from Attorney General Chris Carr, Governor Brian Kemp, Mayor Andre Dickens, and all who fall in line behind them, what we have seen has been unprecedented. So we've had to show up in unprecedented ways. So we have embraced a diversity of tactics, meaning that we have decided to come at this from every angle. Because one thing that we know [00:57:00] is that if we don't do something, Cop City will not be the end of police terror in Atlanta or in this nation.

Stop Cop City Part 2 - Keyanna Jones - Air Date 9-17-23

KEYANNA JONES: I used to work for an organization that was founded by Stacey Abrams. They tout themselves as the premier voting rights organization in the state of Georgia. When I worked for that organization and we brought up the issue of Cop City and organizing around Cop City and we became a part of the coalition against Cop City, Stacey Abrams wanted no part. Stacey Abrams did not even want the organization to have their logo on a flyer because it could be linked to her. Stacey Abrams has been particularly careful that her name is not linked to anything. She does not want the organizations that she has founded to put their names on anything that they do. I was shocked when we got a statement from Fairfax. But then again, I wasn't because we got a statement as it related to exact match of signatures, because this had to do directly with votes. But [00:58:00] we know that Stacey Abrams is not affiliated with Fair Fight, she's not affiliated with New Georgia Project, or any of the organizations that she has founded. They don't represent her, but she knows that people associate the name with her, and she has been extremely careful to separate herself from this.

President Biden has not said a word. John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are the biggest disappointments known to man. They have yet to give condolences to Tortuguita's mother for their murder. And I happened to be in New York at Bard College for their commencement when Raphael Warnock gave the commencement address. And I had to interrupt him to ask him, What about Cop City? When are you going to talk to us in Atlanta? Because we've been trying to talk to you. And you won't respond. John Ossoff, we have been calling you, and you won't respond. There is a host of Democratic so-called leadership [00:59:00] in the state of Georgia, around Metro Atlanta particularly, and not one has spoken out against Cop City, save Representative Ruwa Romman, who has spoken out from the beginning and still holds the line.

SAM GOLDMAN - HOST, REFUSE FACISM: And I appreciate your perspective on that, And I want to just add that in addition to the silence, the main backers of Cop City have been Democratic Party elected officials. And that's part of the picture. The actions by the City of Atlanta under the cover of law smack to anyone who's looking with any clear eyes as suppression of speech and what are normally considered actions people use when they're trying to work inside the system. The latest legal attack on the movement is that the City of Atlanta has challenged and stood out for now the certifying and counting of signatures asking for a city referendum on Cop City. After these indictments, after the stopping of counting the signatures, what is the movement [01:00:00] doing now? I know you're not stopping, the indictments aren't stopping you, nothing's stopping you, but what are we doing now?

KEYANNA JONES: Well, the first thing that we did was, after the mayor decided to act a complete ass yesterday, we went ahead and we filed a motion in the 11th District Circuit Court to compel a judge to rule on what the mayor is alleging, that the petition is now invalidated, you know, because of the stay of the injunction that was granted, all of this legal jargon that the mayor has tried to bring up to say, No, you can't do this, it's invalid. We immediately made a motion for a judge to make a ruling on this and to compel the city to do what it is supposed to do and verify these signatures. Because what we see is that the mayor knows that those 116,000 signatures, more than what he got [01:01:00] as votes in the last election, he knows that that signals that we will be successful on a ballot. So he's trying to make sure that that doesn't happen.

The next thing that we are doing is we are continuing to fundraise for the Cop City Vote campaign. People can go to copcityvote.com and donate because we do still have legal fees. We are still tied up in court with these people who want to continually obstruct justice and obstruct the right of people to vote and have their voices heard through direct democracy.

We also need people, wherever they are, to follow solidarity actions with the Stop Cop City movement. You can follow the hashtag #StopCopCity on all social media platforms to see where we are, what is going on, what we're doing, and what we're also doing is we are continuing to organize a community to mobilize people, to continue to come out not only to city council meetings and speak, to contact their city council members for a redress of [01:02:00] these grievances, but also we're continuing to mobilize people for direct action so that not only Mayor Dickens, but Attorney General Chris Carr, the state of Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp, so that they know that we are not going away quietly, and we are still encouraging people to donate to the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, to donate because it is not illegal.

A lot of what we are doing now, honestly, is simply educating people as to what these RICO charges mean, helping people to be comfortable with doing the things that they've been doing, so that they are not intimidated by this latest move by Attorney General Chris Carr, Mayor Andre Dickens, and Governor Brian Kemp. So that is how we are continuing to mobilize people. And more than that, we also continue our philosophy of solidarity and mutual aid. We are still standing together in community as a community.

Stop Cop City with Atlanta DSA Part 2 - Revolutions Per Minute - Air Date 8-23-23

LISA - HOST, REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE: Yeah, I mean, it definitely seems like in so many different fights we need that direct confrontation and then also some [01:03:00] inside kind of changing of these other mechanisms of power and you know, when you were talking about that, about people taking back their power, what I was thinking, too, is, as we're doing that, it's so clear what side the police are actually on, right? When we're seeing these confrontations, whether, you know, it's Standing Rock or what's happening in Atlanta or, all the social justice protests that were happening, you know, it was very clear that police were there to protect capitol and property.

You know, I've heard of situations. I know people in Pennsylvania who are doing tree sits to stop pipelines and, the police did not care that, you know, they were cutting down trees and like endangering the lives of the people. Like they were there to protect the pipeline. Not the people at all. And yeah, so no matter, you know, what fight we're fighting, seeing these very militarized, very violent police, even like abortion rights, I'm thinking in, like, New York, when there are people who are... our comrade Amy covers this all the time... people doing, like, counter-protests, the police are literally [01:04:00] there, like, protecting only anti-abortion protesters, or they're protecting the Proud Boys, you know, so it's very, very clear where they are in all of this.

And, you know, we have seen some massive, massive protests calling for things like defunding the police, fighting for abolition, but I think realistically, like, there have been very few victories. Like, I'm definitely thinking about New York City where, you know, our streets were filled with people and we have not defunded NYPD at all. You know, so kind of facing this massive change we need and how difficult it has been to get it, you know, what kind of keeps you personally motivated, or, you know, what's kind of the ethos of the comrades in Atlanta around this?

GABRIEL SANCHEZ: You know, it's crazy with the whole Black Lives Matter thing, because it's like, I felt like we got all of the negative press for wanting to change things, as if they had changed when they actually hadn't changed. You know what I mean? Like, if you look at the top 50 populated [01:05:00] countries [?] in the US, the vast majority of them either increased funding for the police or the funding stayed the same. That includes the City of Atlanta. They increased the police funding every year since the Black Lives Matter protests, and they did it again this year.

That is not what is happening, and yet when I talk to people all over the place, they think, Oh, they're defunding the police everywhere. It's like, where? Please tell me. It's also sucks in Georgia specifically because we also have an even more hostile state government on top of the city government. So they actually passed a law last year, I believe, or two years ago, that bans any municipality from reducing the police funding by more than 5 percent in any given year. So they are also just preempting any progressive policies because they don't care about what the people actually want.

So, it is difficult, but I think as someone who's raised in the South, I'm used to not having a lot of victories. It's something that when you're in such a hostile [01:06:00] environment from your government that you learn to see the victories where you can because sometimes it can be smaller than what's happening in Minnesota, what happens in New York City, but like, it's still important victories.

For example we stopped, the progressive coalition stopped a bill that would have criminalized protesting a couple years ago. We've seen some of those bills pop up at other states, so like, for example, reducing liability for people who run over protesters with cars, for example, they tried to pass that here in Georgia. We stopped it. So, you know, it's one of those things where, like, there's a lot of play in defense in the South.

But also, I mean, I genuinely think that, again, the fact that this referendum effort has been so successful and has brought in so many people into the movement, I think that that is what gives me hope for the future. It started initially with Bernie, but I think what the next step after that is, is not going from the top down, [01:07:00] but coming from the bottom up and having these grassroots, like DIY, difficult, projects and movements that come together and bring the community together to start actually realizing that maybe we can actually make a difference in things.

And I think that's what this referendum effort has shown me. Is that there was a lot of people, especially after Torteguita was murdered, after all the domestic terrorism charges, after the raiding of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, a lot of people were terrified and dejected. Like, they have been doing so much work, so much organizing for the past two years to stop this and nothing was happening. And I think this referendum effort has given those people hope again that we can actually make a difference. And so I think we have to continue doing stuff like this. This has to do with, you know, criminal justice and police, and the policing, but also with other issues too. With things like Medicare for All, with things like the living wage, with things like affordable [01:08:00] housing, like, this is building the blueprint for campaigns and organizing efforts that can be applied to anything that we want. It just requires the work, and it is very, very hard work, but I think people are starting to see that we can actually do it. And I think that's what drives me forward, and driving a lot of other people as well.

Final comments on understanding the movement cycle

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips today, starting with Rattling the Bars introducing the Cop City project. On the Nose further explored the origins of Cop City. The Police Accountability Report delved into the corporate connections behind Cop City and how it's reported. On the Nose then looked at the story of the land upon which Cop City is slated to be built. Democracy Now!, back in June, looked at the legal action against the bail fund supporting the Cop City activists. Revolutions Per Minute discussed the referendum movement currently underway. Democracy Now!, from September, reported on the escalating legal [01:09:00] tactics resulting in RICO charges against cop city activists. And finally, Keyanna Jones spoke to the necessity of mobilizing in the streets and the violent response from police. That's what everybody heard, but members also heard two additional bonus clips. The first from Keyanna Jones calling out complicity for cop city in the Democratic Party. And, Revolutions Per Minute discussed staying motivated in the movement.

To hear that, and have all of our bonus content delivered seamlessly to the new members only podcast feed that you'll receive, sign up to support the show at bestoftheleft.com/support, or shoot me an email requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.

Now to wrap up, I just wanted to give some thoughts on the macro cycle of the police accountability movement, and I am having some of my own thoughts on this, but I'm also referencing an illustration and worksheet called "The Movement Cycle", so credit to that. [01:10:00] I just thought that some people listening might be thinking back to the uprising in the wake of George Floyd's murder, and thinking about how we've seemingly lost a lot of the energy we once had in this movement. So, you might be disappointed or frustrated, etc., but that is why it's important to understand the movement cycle. On the chart, I just have to describe it, obviously, from left to right, there is a series of phases, and running through the phases is a line that graphs the sort of emotional state of the movement.

The first phase is growing public anger. Now think back to the period of time between the Trayvon Martin killing and the George Floyd uprising. Anger was growing, the Black Lives Matter idea became a movement, there were demands for change and some half hearted reform. That was the growing public anger [01:11:00] phase.

The next phase is kicked off by a trigger event, leading to an uprising of some sort, also known as the heroic phase. Now, for Black Lives Matter and police accountability, in addition to the defund and abolition branches of the movement, George Floyd's death was obviously that trigger event.

The emotional state of the movement quickly rises to its highest point, called the honeymoon phase, before it begins to steeply decline. There are demands for change at this point, but of course they don't come fast enough, or at all. Political opponents start to muddy the water with disinformation, and they're painting the entire movement as violent radicals, and the emotional state of the movement, actually, eventually falls below the previous low point that it was at the trigger event.

And this is the disillusionment and contraction phase. The accompanying worksheet to this [01:12:00] graphic describes the contraction as being defined by the backlash of the state, media, and reactionary elements of the public, a decline in energy and numbers, and burnout among organizers.

So I would argue that Cop City is the most tangible example of the backlash by the state on the macro level to the Black Lives Matter movement and the police accountability movement more broadly, But it has also acted as a bit of a new trigger event, at least on the local level. So, you know, unsurprisingly, life is complicated and it won't always fit nicely into an infographic, but I still think that the broad strokes are there.

Now, continuing on to the right on the chart, the next phase after disillusionment is evolution, which is understood as a time of learning and reflection. This is followed by the establishment of a new normal and a regrowth of the movement as the [01:13:00] emotional state continues to rise. And all of this, hopefully, leads to the movement being more prepared than it was the last time when the next trigger event happens.

Another thing to understand about this cycle is that much of it happens beneath the surface. Arguably, only the heroic rise and honeymoon phase even breaks through to public awareness. So, if you're not deep in the movement, and you're wondering where the movement went and why it seems like it completely disappeared, hopefully now it's easy to understand why many at the heart of the movement are currently living through the disillusionment and evolution phases. But, understanding this as part of a natural cycle should, sort of ironically, lessen the feeling of disillusionment, because it shouldn't be seen as a failure of the movement that is causing the disillusionment. It's all just part of a very predictable cycle that leads to progress, [01:14:00] but through lots of ups and downs along the way.

And to this, to contextualize this particular movement in this particular moment in time, I would just add that in the middle of the honeymoon phase of the movement for police accountability, we also ended up right in the middle of a crisis of democracy in the wake of the 2020 election, through to January 6th, 2021, and beyond. So, it's not just that there was a natural ebb in the energy of this movement, there was also a very real reason why lots of people's energy would have been redirected toward defending democracy and away from police accountability.

Unfortunate, but true, and very understandable. So, what is there to be done with this information? I mean, basically, I just think it's good to have a broader perspective on the news so that we can understand it more fully with the help of that additional context. But also, if engaging in the police accountability movement is [01:15:00] something you're interested in, you shouldn't think of our current moment as a time of decreased energy that's not worth engaging in. Understand it as the time for learning and reflection. So anyone who engages now will be helping to build the movement back up so it's ready for the next phase.

That is going to be it for today. As always, keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about this or anything else. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text to 202-999-3991 or simply email me to [email protected]. Thanks to everyone for listening, thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our Transcriptionist Trio, Ken, Brian, and LaWendy, for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work on our social media outlets, activism segments, graphic designing, webmastering, and bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those [01:16:00] who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships at bestoftheleft.com. You can join them by signing up today. It would be greatly appreciated. You'll find that link in the show notes along with a link to join our Discord community where you can continue the discussion.

So, coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my name is Jay, and this has been the Best of the Left podcast, coming to you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show, from bestoftheleft. com.

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