#1588 The Shutdown That Wasn't And The Chaos That Is (Transcript)
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.
#1587 What Conservatives Think of When They Think of the Children (Transcript)
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.
#1586 Cop City is the Backlash to the Backlash Against Police Brutality and Murder, the Atlanta Community is Fighting Back (Transcript)
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.
#1585 Workers Rights Ascendent Amid Writers and Actors Strikes in Hollywood and the UAW Strikes Against the Big 3 US Automakers (Transcript)
Air Date 9/26/2023
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 some of the rays of hope for the workers struggle against unfettered, exploitative capitalism, which are coming from multiple angles, as creatives in Hollywood and autoworkers in Detroit are striking to demand better wages, benefits, and protections, while executives make arguments for why workers should be made to feel the threat of poverty to keep them in line.
Sources today include The Rational National, The New Abnormal, Novara Media, Citations Needed, The Bradcast, The Majority Report, and Revolutionary Left Radio, with additional members only clips from Factually, with Adam Conover, and More Perfect Union.
GM CEO Flails In Response To CNN Question Over Her Pay vs. Workers - The Rational National - Air Date 9-15-23
DAVID DOEL - HOST, THE RATIONAL NATIONAL: For the first time in history the United Auto Workers are on strike against all three big automakers at the same time. So, that is General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis. And in the midst of all [00:01:00] this, the CEO of GM, Mary Barra, was on CNN and, uh, was questioned on why she has seen so much of an increase in her pay compared to her workers. And did not give a good answer. And I'm going to really break down just how ridiculous her answer is.
First here, a little more on, uh, the strike. So, as CNN writes, "the targeted strike against three plants includes fewer than 13,000 of the UAW's 145,000 workers, but Union president Shawn Fain has threatened to grow the strike if the automakers refuse to meet workers' demands. Automakers have scoffed at the Union's call for large raises, a four day workweek, an expanded pension program, among others."
So I've discussed a lot of the demands in previous videos, I'm not going to go through all that again here, but I will mention that one of the asks from the union is, initially was, a 40% pay bump, which is in [00:02:00] line with the pay bump that these major CEOs are seeing. They have now since brought that down to, I believe, around 30%, but are still looking for a major pay raise because they see these executives of these companies making record amounts of money while the workers are struggling.
So, CEO of GM, Mary Barr was asked about this, and uh, check out her response, and then I'm gonna really break down how ridiculous her answer is.
VANESSA YURKEVICH: The union is demanding, asking for a 40% wage increase over four years. They're asking for that in part because they say cEOs like yourself, uh, leading the big three are making those kind of pay increases over the course of the last four years. You've seen a 34% pay increase in your salary. You make almost $30 million. Why should your workers not get the same type of pay increases that you're getting leading the company?
MARY BARRA: Well, if you look at compensation, my compensation, 92% of it is [00:03:00] based on performance of the company. I think one of the strong aspects of the way our compensation for represented employees is designed is not only are we putting a 20% increase on the table, we have profit sharing. So, when the company does well, everyone does well. And for the last several years, that's resulted in record profit sharing for our represented employees. And I think you have to look at the whole compensation package not only 20% increase in gross wage, but also the profit sharing aspect of it, world class healthcare, and there's several other features. So, we think we have a very competitive offer on the table, and that's why we want to get back there and get this done.
VANESSA YURKEVICH: But if you're getting a 34% pay increase over four years, and you're offering 20% to employees right now, do you think that's fair?
MARY BARRA: Well, I think when you look at the overall structure and the fact that 92% is based on performance, and you look at what we've been doing of sharing in the profitability when the company does well, I think we've got a very compelling offer on the table.
DAVID DOEL - HOST, THE RATIONAL NATIONAL: 92% of her [00:04:00] pay is tied to performance. I'm gonna get to what that means in a second here, and how it exposes one of the many things that are rotting at the heart of all these massive corporations. But first, just on its face, Mary Barra has seen a 34% increase in her compensation. Her workers have not seen that.
At no point did she explain why that's okay, why it's okay for the CEO to see a 34% increase in her pay, while the workers that are making the value in the company, the reason the company exists, why it's okay for them to not see that increase. No explanation there at all. Just, you know, trying to explain why she's paid what she's paid.
Which gets to performance-based pay. 92% of her compensation is tied to performance. Now, most people, you know, maybe not knowing much about how this all works, would think, well, I guess GM's doing very well. They're not laying off any employees, right? All the workers are doing very well. They're all making a lot of money. The whole company's doing so great, so because the whole company's doing fantastic, the CEO gets an [00:05:00] increase in her pay. That's fair, right? Except that's not what's going on. GM, as I'll get to, has been laying off a lot of employees. Yet, performance based pay, the performance, is the performance of the stock.
So, if you, as GM, are buying up your own stock through stock buybacks, which is now legal, was not legal before 1980, but is now legal, then you're going to see increases in your stock, because you are artificially inflating your own stock, and the reason why she wants to tie 92% of her compensation to performance, to the stock, is because that is not taxed the same as salary is. That's why all these CEOs... never look at what their salary is, look at what their total compensation is. That gives you the real idea of what they are actually making. Because a lot of their money is made through it being tied to the stock of the company.
Far-Right Anti-Science Conspiracies Are Literally Killing Us - The New Abnormal - Air Date 9-18-23
DANIELLLE MOODIE - HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: These billionaire, White CEOs were born in the wrong era in time. That [00:06:00] they really wanted to be kings. They want fiefdoms. They want, you know, bent knee and necks at their will. And that people should be grateful. As Tim Garner had said, people should be grateful to even have a job. So who cares if they're abused? Who cares if they don't have a living wage? Who cares if you need multiple jobs in order to be able to put a roof over your head? Who cares? Like, you should be grateful and thankful because you are, what?: replaceable.
And so for you, Kim, when you hear these things and we recognize, and there are so many stories that are being, you know, run about the younger generations, the Gen Z's who are basically saying, Yeah, I saw how my parents had to work. I saw extreme loss. I'm a child of recession. I'm a child of the bubble bursting. I'm a child of our home went into foreclosure and all of these things. And [00:07:00] I don't want to work like this for people who don't care about me, who steal from my pension, if you still have one.
What do you make of how this shift that was ushered in really, greatly, through COVID In terms of what power workers have with this younger generation that has also seen and lived through a lot, and is saying, No, we're not the ones?
KIM KELLY: You love to see it, right? I think it's an incredibly encouraging and necessary development. And it's gonna pay off, you know, you can't put lightning back in a bottle, you can't turn around and try and convince these younger folks like, Oh no, it's cool, we'll fix everything, it'll be cool now, just please go back to work, please don't talk to your co workers, don't give your boss any lip. That's not gonna happen.
And honestly, throughout history, it's always been the young people, even in different eras, even in different industries, under different circumstances. I mean, the first factory strike in U.S. [00:08:00] history came in 1824. It was led by young women and girls in Rhode Island who were protesting having their 12 hour workdays extended to 14, and they walked out, and they threw rocks at their boss's house, and they got that order rescinded.
Some of them were young as 15. I mean, even some of the most famous labor leaders and worker organizers we think of in American history, whether it's, you know, the Farm Workers Union, like with Cesar Chavez and Maria Marino [sic, Moreno], and Dolores Huerta, they're in their 20s. Like, the young generation has always been at the forefront of pushing for change, of pushing for something better, of looking at what their parents All of us had and were forced to endure thinking, No, we're not the ones.
Generation upon generation is built on that. And now we're just have so much more access to information and so much more connectivity and are able to learn from all of the struggles and lessons that we can pull from those younger generations now turned [00:09:00] older that put that work in before we got here. It just seems like such a culmination of, honestly, centuries of struggle is what we're seeing right now.
DANIELLLE MOODIE - HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: And do you think, like, you're part of the Writers Union, and it's been four months, and you alluded to, and I just want to make listeners aware of, that Drew Barrymore had decided that she was going to bring her show, her daytime talk show, back on air amid the writers strike. And after being railed against, I mean, like, railed on social media, she came out recently and said she's gonna honor the strike and she's not going to bring her show back. Some hail it as a victory, others are like, this is cancel culture, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But after four months and, you know, reports coming out of like a Warner Brothers losing, I don't know, I think it was like 200 million or something like that since this strike has [00:10:00] gone on, and what people are asking for is literally a quarter of what it is that they have already lost, do you think that there is going to be a deal that is struck, or do these studios and CEOs, because they are so wealthy, because their power is so vast, can they wait it out and do what it is that they said when they said the quiet part out loud? They want people to lose their homes. They want people to become homeless.
KIM KELLY: Yeah, they, they sure said that out in public where everyone could see it. Things like that, unforced errors like that, have really led to just the sense of militancy and stubbornness and dedication among the workers who are on strike.
Not only is your boss mistreating you, underpaying you, trying to devalue you, when they spit in your face like that, you're gonna show up in the picket line the next day even more determined to fight. And as much capital and money and power as the studio bosses do have, they know as well as everyone [00:11:00] else does, or is realizing, that they don't really have anything without the workers creating their products.
This is the thing, like, you can have as much money in the world as you want, but none of those people have ever done an honest day's work. They can't write a movie, they can't do any of the work that below the line workers who are also struggling are dealing with. Hollywood and all of its glitz and glamour and money doesn't exist without the people putting in the actual labor.
And, we're gonna win. It's gonna take a good while. Hopefully not much longer, but who's to say? It's gonna take a while, but we have to win. This is the thing. It's not only about wages. It's not only about working conditions, though it is, of course, about those things. So much of this fight is about this threat of AI, about people's likenesses being used without their consent or knowledge, about the way that technology has shaped the industry and how it's going to continue to shape the way workers are treated.
Like, whatever happens with this strike is going to impact [00:12:00] so many other industries because it's going to set a precedent. It's going to set a precedent of either, do the humans win or do the robots win? It sounds like a very sci fi, almost silly premise, but we've all seen the movies, and nobody wants to live through the movies where the robots win.
DANIELLLE MOODIE - HOST, THE NEW ABNORMAL: No! No, we don't.
KIM KELLY: Yeah, like we've all seen, like, that is not a prece..., that's a slippery slope. And as, you know, maybe you, facetious as that specific example might be, like, it's the thing, the way that automation hollowed out industries across the American Midwest earlier on, the way that the gig economy is hollowing out so many other professions, this threat of AI is threatening to hollow out screenwriting, and journalism, and art, and so many other types of labor and art and creation. Like, this is a line in the sand. And when the writers and our siblings in [00:13:00] SAG-AFTRA win the strike, that's gonna set out a blueprint for the way that Hollywood and the rest of the industries we're a part of just kind of act going forward. Like, we have to set this is gonna be a precedent-setting strike. We have to make sure the precedent is on our side.
Sociopath Businessman Tells The Truth About Capitalism - Novara Media - Air Date 9-14-23
MICHAEL WALKER - HOST, NOVARA MEDIA: The last few years haven't been easy on anyone. First, we had a once in a century pandemic, then a war in Europe fuelled inflation everywhere. But according to one wealthy businessman, the workers of the world have got it too easy.
TIM GURNER: I think the problem that we've had is that we've, you know, we have... People decided they didn't really want to work so much anymore through COVID and that has had a massive issue on productivity. You know, tradies have definitely pulled back on productivity, you know, they have been paid a lot to do not too much in the last few years. And we need to see that change. We need to see unemployment rise. Unemployment has to jump 40-50% in my view. We need to see pain in the economy, we need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way [00:14:00] around.
I mean there is a, there's been a systematic change where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them, as opposed to the other way around. So it's a dynamic that has to change. We've got to kill that attitude and that has to come through hurting the economy, which is what the whole global, you know, the, the world is trying to do, the governments around the world are trying to increase unemployment to get that to some sort of normality and we're seeing it. I think every employer now is seeing it. I mean there is definitely massive layoffs going off. People might not be talking about it, but people are definitely laying people off and we're starting to see less arrogance in the employment market. And that has to continue 'cause that will cascade across the cost balance.
MICHAEL WALKER - HOST, NOVARA MEDIA: That was Australian millionaire property developer Tim Gurner speaking to a conference for investors. Now, it was pretty shocking, and it's gone viral. Lots of people saying he comes across as a complete sociopath, which I think he does. I'm actually quite appreciative though, that he said that, because I do think he is essentially articulating what is the dominant consensus among [00:15:00] policymakers in the capitalist world. And it's especially interesting because he was basically repeating verbatim a theory put forward by one of the 20th century's most influential leftist economists.
So Michał Kalecki, he was a Polish economist and a contemporary of John Maynard Keynes, but he was more skeptical of the promise of capitalism than John Maynard Keynes. So Keynes, he believed that smart governments could manage capitalism so that full employment would be maintained, and inflation would be kept low, and so you could have harmony between capitalists and workers, essentially. You could make capitalism work for everyone. Keynes was a big supporter of things such as the New Deal under FDR. So, you sort of pump money into the economy to maintain full employment. Businesses still make profits, workers are getting decent wages, unemployment is low, everyone's happy. That was Keynes' idea. I mean, I'm probably, you know, to somewhat, to some degree simplifying it, but that's the long and short of it.
Kalecki, though, disagreed. He doubted that capitalists would ever accept this [00:16:00] deal. Now, in his classic 1943 essay, Political Aspects of Full Employment, Kalecki wrote this: "Full employment would cause social and political changes which would give a new impetus to the opposition of the business leaders. The SAC would cease to play its role as a disciplinary measure, the social position of the boss would be undermined, and the self assurance and class consciousness of the working class would grow. Discipline in the factories and political stability are more appreciated than profits by business leaders. Their class instinct tells them that lasting full employment is unsound from their point of view, and that unemployment is an integral part of the normal capitalist system."
So, Kalecki there is saying that while full employment might be technically possible within capitalism, so that's the sort of Keynes line, the politics of it won't work, and that's because bosses need to be able to control their workers, and they can only control them with the threat of unemployment, and ultimately, the threat of poverty.
Now, if you threaten your worker with unemployment, but you've got quite generous [00:17:00] unemployment payments, then, yeah, that's not going to be a particularly effective disciplining mechanism. But if you threaten your workers with unemployment, and also you have low unemployment benefits, then, yeah, they are going to find it a little bit scary to stand up to you, right?
So, basically, you want to put workers in a vulnerable, in a precarious situation, precisely so they don't get ideas above their station, precisely so they have to listen to the boss and not speak back. And it's for that reason, not necessarily because of technocratic reasons such as inflation, so often you'll hear, sort of, there's this trade off between inflation and unemployment and that's why we can't have full employment or we can't have employment to a very high level all the time. What Kalecki is saying is it hasn't really got anything to do with a technocratic issue about inflation, what it's got to do with is politics, it's got to do with power. It's about the power of the employer vis-a-vis the worker and that's why under capitalism you'll always have precarity: because they need it.
Now, Rivkah, I've always loved Kalecki's theories and that property investor to [00:18:00] me, you know, lots of people criticizing him, but to me he's demonstrated the logic of Kalecki better than any leftist academic might be able to. And for that, I'm somewhat grateful to him.
RIVKAH BROWN: It's interesting that there's been so much outrage at his comments. You know, it's a mask off moment. They expose the way in which capitalism normally operates. But it kind of, in a way, shows how much faith people put in the system day to day. That it's only at these moments, when some random Australian dude with like a massive forehead, kind of just lays out how the system works, that people are so aghast. But I think what's interesting is this came up actually a couple of weeks ago, I think when I was on the show, when we talked about the statistic that half of renters, or more than half of renters in the UK at the moment are one paycheck away from homelessness. And I argued, and I would argue all the more so in relation to this clip, that that's by design. The Tories want a housing crisis where we are all on the verge of [00:19:00] homelessness because that disciplines the workforce and that disciplines private renters incredibly effectively, because if we're constantly, you know, lying awake at night worried that we might be made homeless or redundant or be fired then we're not going to ask for a pay rise. We're not going to ask for a rent reduction. It works fantastically well.
I mean, Kalecki has theorized this tremendously well, and I think it's really interesting, some of the stuff you've quoted there, but it's also like Marx, you know? Marx laid out the fact that integral to capitalism was this idea of surplus, or what he called "reserve humanity", people that capitalism didn't need within the workforce itself, but did need in order to discipline the working class. I mean, he argued that they were part of the working class, but also kind of like almost a shadow working class there in the background to remind you that this is what you could be if you don't get on with your work and if you try and ask for more.
I was actually reminded of a conversation that I had with a family member recently. We were [00:20:00] in central London and we walked past a homeless man. We kind of had a discussion about whether there should be homelessness in the UK and whether we should try and alleviate it by giving people money. And she was arguing, you know, what would be the point of wanting to have if there weren't any have nots? And I think that's exactly, she had internalized the logic of capitalism. She was effectively saying, it works on me, there being people in society who are marginalized, who are unemployed, who are homeless, makes me afraid enough to work harder.
And so in a way, what Tim Gurner is saying is exactly correct. This is integral to the function of capitalism, that there's a surplus section of humanity that's there in the shadows, waiting as a kind of grim reminder of what happens if you try and unionize, if you try and do a rent strike, if you try and organize in any for any kind of people power.
GOP, Corporate Media Attempt to Manufacture Conflict Between Autoworkers and Climate - Citations Needed - Air Date 9-20-23
ADAM JOHNSON - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: The narrative circulating, which we discussed, that the UAW strikes threaten the electric vehicle sector, because UAW were to [00:21:00] unionize that industry and or raise labor standards and pay they would become unprofitable and die. And of course, the strikes don’t involve EV plants, but they certainly are on the minds of workers. So I want to sort of start by talking about this narrative, the narrative we talked about at the intro, this idea that workers think that big bad government is forcing them to be a bunch of green hippies.
SYDNEY GHAZARIAN: Oh, my goodness, yes. I personally, I find that this narrative, this spin job, fascinating, primarily because of how I think it’s boldly dishonest, and it’s a glaring omission of the actual history and the dynamics at play. I don’t know how anyone can even talk about the slowdown of EV production without mentioning the fact that auto executives have been actively deliberately and unrelentingly squashing the EV rollout and any pro climate auto industry regulation for decades, all while suppressing global warming research since the 1960s. You know, the fact is that it wasn’t auto workers who made the decision to [00:22:00] produce polluting vehicles or to build toxic plants in working class communities of color. You know, those decisions were made by auto industry bosses like Mary Barra, Jim Farley and Carlos Tavares, you know, the Big Three auto CEOs whose primary motive was ensuring that they could pocket millions and millions of dollars a year at any moral societal or planetary cost. And that’s exactly what they’re doing. And that’s what they’ve done for a long time. And what this industry narrative about UAW’s demands costing too much alongside the EV transition seems to neglect is the fact that auto companies are getting billions of dollars from taxpayer funded EV subsidies to make it work. It’s their responsibility to use public funding in ways that serve the public and planetary good, you know, and central to that is not leaving workers and communities behind in the transition to a green economy. And if they can’t figure out how to manage taxpayer money in ways that don’t further and misery taxpayers themselves, if their [00:23:00] CEOs can’t bear to part ways with some of their 20 plus million dollar salaries. Why should we be trusting them with their money in the first place? Why is that money not going directly to workers and communities to figure it out for themselves?
I think earlier you had mentioned the sort of implicit pushback in the media, maybe it’s an explicit pushback in the media, probably explicit pushback in the media about unionized EV jobs costing too much. You know, to me, that’s honestly funny, for a lot of reasons, because this narrative seems to neglect the fact that the auto industry has been incredibly profitable with a unionized workforce for a very long time. The fact is that the auto industry was when it was in trouble in 2008, 2009. It was UAW it was their organized workforce that made tremendous and painful sacrifices to keep the companies afloat. Their unionized workers suffered, you know, like so many of us suffered during the financial crash, while the banks and [00:24:00] billionaires were bailed out. And the Big Three are repaying this unbelievable and undeserved generosity by seemingly shocked Dr. Dang, under the cover of a clean energy transition to crush their unionized workforce, and they’re underpaid. non union workers build EVs and battery engines in unsafe conditions, you know, well, they pocket fat wads of government funding. I think the audacity of this dynamic and the idea that union jobs and clean energy transition are opposed. Being used to pit climate activists and auto workers against each other is so maddening and ignorant of what the climate movement is actually fighting for. Does no one remember the last several years because I remember, you know, I remember marching, I remember rallying, I remember fighting arm and arm with hundreds and thousands of climate activists for the Green New Deal’s promise of a rapid society-wide mobilization and just transition to decarbonize the economy while creating millions of high paying green union jobs. And we fought and are fighting for a Green New Deal, [00:25:00] not a green gig economy and not the auto executives dystopian vision of the energy transition. And right now the climate movement is standing up to corporate greed. And you know, I think the climate movement is standing with UAW auto workers on strike.
NIMA SHIRAZI - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: Well, yeah, I mean, I think there’s something really fascinating going on, which is something you you actually just kind of mentioned, Sydney, which is this idea that there isn’t really In a war between hardhat workers and environmental activists, that that’s not actually a thing, but we’re supposed to believe it’s a thing, based on the talking points of, you know, whether it is the automakers themselves or the media covering the story, that somehow the narrative is supposed to be that if you support the transition to more electric vehicles, then clearly, you stand against the auto workers or vice versa, right? That if you stand with auto workers, well, then clearly [00:26:00] you are not interested in the you know, Biden agenda of, you know, every two out of three cars that go to market need to be EV. And so what is always left out of this on purpose is not merely that the tension that is being reported on is not actually the real tension. It’s really just, you know, which is really about owners and workers. But what is so often left out and united to this already, is the idea that the Big Three automakers are themselves actually like the major climate villains here, right that like the all the hand wringing about oh, but you know, if the if the workers are on strike that we can’t make as many electric vehicles as we wish we could make because we care so deeply about the Earth, like they had been fighting this for years, if not decades, deliberately. Can you talk about like the environmental and climate track records of these automakers, whether it’s the Big Three or just the auto industry [00:27:00] in general, and how they have deliberately pushed to like, slow the transition to EV but now we’re supposed to think that, you know, if only they had the workers to do it, they would do this, you know, wholeheartedly because they care so much.
SYDNEY GHAZARIAN: The fact is that the climate environmental track record of the Big Three is atrocious. The climate movement generally, you know, we generally target oil corporations, but the reality is that historically, the auto industry has been in lockstep and waging war against any and all forms of climate regulation or environmental standards. It was in 2020 that E&E news published a report revealing that scientists at General Motors and Ford knew as early as the 1960s, that car emissions caused climate change. And when their scientists took these findings to top executives, they were ignored, buried suppressed, rather than these companies doing anything to protect the environment and humanity from life threatening pollution that their products were creating. They [00:28:00] spent the subsequent decades working to crush any proposed environmental standards, as well as electric vehicles themselves. In a testimony in Congress. In 1967, a Ford executive argued against federal investments in electric vehicle research, arguing that the industry was actively developing EV technology, and would be ready to bring electric cars to market within a decade. Yeah, exactly. [Laughs]
NIMA SHIRAZI - HOST, CITATIONS NEEDED: To be fair, that was only 56 years ago.
Labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein on the UAW strike and the U.S. labor movement rising - The BradCast w/ Brad Friedman - Air Date 9-18-23
BRAD FREIDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: I am, uh, struck in covering all of this, not just with the, the strength of the arguments from the auto workers, but the fact that the union is striking at all three major automakers at once. Uh, and, and that that has never been done in history. Is that right? And if so, what does it mean that this is happening?
Uh, now, uh, Nelson.
NELSON LICHTENSTEIN: Yes, that's, it's the first time that's happened ever. And that arises out of both weakness and strength of the union. The weakness is that pattern bargaining that is used to strike, say, Ford, and [00:29:00] then you'd move that pattern that you achieved at Ford to the other companies, and that may not work so well, partly because part of the, a lot of the industry's non union, Tesla, for example, or Toyota.
And also, it seems as if some of the companies, they just might not do it. So, uh, and the union, therefore, you know, just has unionized a smaller proportion of the industry than it used to. On the other hand, striking all three does appeal to the real increase in militancy and participation of union members.
They all want to get in. I mean, if you just strike one of them at a time, then the other people are just sitting on the sidelines. And this strike is designed to grow in size, you know, week by week as the negotiations proceed, and Uh, so there probably will be some more factories shut down toward the end of this week, uh, to sort of encourage the negotiators on the company side to get going.
BRAD FREIDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: So, uh, as I understand it, this is called a [00:30:00] selective strike. Uh, The American Prospect's Robert Kuttner, uh, describes, uh, this today. He says it was a tactic pioneered 30 years ago by the flight attendants at the time. He says the tactic offers significant... Tactical benefits like conserving strike funds for workers, which would otherwise run out faster, allowing for more targeted strikes against parts of the supply chain, etc.,
and keeps the management off balance. Would you agree with that assessment? Yeah, that's
NELSON LICHTENSTEIN: been done. It's been had down in the auto industry actually at, at various times. Mm-hmm. in the early seventies, uh, when the auto companies were thinking of, um, uh, building non-union plants in the south. Uh, the, uh, uh, uh, the, the U aaw began to have selective strikes at General Motors.
This happened other times, but the flight attendants did, PI did, uh, do it in 30 years ago, but it's ha yes, it has happened. However, this one is, is, is, is a little different. It, it, um, it's not designed to be a rolling strike, which means you strike a company and then they. The, a [00:31:00] factory, then they go back to work the next week, and then now it's gonna be the, the, the, the workers are not gonna go back to work.
Mm-hmm. They're gonna stay out and then more workers will join them and you'll begin to get a kind of momentum
BRAD FREIDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: there. As, as noted, this strike, uh, comes at the, at the same time as both the writers, uh, Guild strike, the actors unions have walked out here in Hollywood. Have we ever seen anything comparable to this moment in history?
It seems between that and the. You know, the things that you and I have been talking about over the last couple of years, Professor, with the strikes at Amazon and Starbucks and so forth, is it comparable to anything in history where, you know, so many sort of major unions are either forming and or walking out at once?
And
NELSON LICHTENSTEIN: Yes, uh, in fact, unfortunately, what we have today is a pale reflection of what used to happen on a routine basis, uh, uh, up through about the end of the 1970s, uh, there were 10 times more strikes each year, 20 times, uh, in, [00:32:00] in the, in the period from the, Well, from the late 30s on into the late 70s, uh, the early 1970s were just full of strikes, uh, auto strikes, uh, post office strikes, uh, uh, uh, strikes of airline, uh, employees, the, uh, uh, in the, in the, in the 70s, even as late as the, uh, mid 70s, there were big auto strikes and steel strikes, uh, Uh, yes, they had them.
Now, now there's a certain excitement about it here because the unions have been in the doldrums, uh, management's in the driver's seat, and there is clearly a, a sense of militancy and, and, and excitement, and, and it's, and also new workers like graduate students and, uh, museum employees and, uh, some retail workers would, you know, have to have gone on, either formed unions or gone on strike.
But, uh, back in the, you know, for 30, 40 years, uh, you know, between late 30s and the 70s, you know, uh, there'll be, just, just looking at the strike statistics, they were 10 times as high, uh, as this, and of course, in the great post war strike wave of 45, 46, there were probably a [00:33:00] thousand times more workers on strike, and many more unions, um, uh, so, so, but on the other hand, I mean, there's a lot of spirit, and there's a lot of excitement, and And there's public support for unions.
It's very widespread. Uh, and there are some new unions are trying to form, uh, against management hostility. But so, so it's not like nothing is happening, but I just want to make, just, just give you the dimensions here. Uh, you know, in 1970, when the UAW struck just General Motors alone, there were 400, 000 workers on strike.
For two months in the fall of 1970.
BRAD FREIDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: Do you expect that we might see something like that where the, uh, where all the plants are at, at all three of the automakers are, uh, shut down at once?
NELSON LICHTENSTEIN: Yeah. Well, it could be, yes, it could be yes. If, if the, the union, uh, uh, wants to, uh, handcuff and I, lemme just say one thing.
I think that, that you, you mentioned obviously these, the, uh, union wants. you know 30 or 40 percent wage increase the management's gotten that they're making lots of profits that's all true uh and i think the union is making progress on on just simply [00:34:00] getting a wage increase to make up for really concessions they offered in the past but what's really a The other sticking point here is, and it's not exactly a kind of, how should I put it, a legitimate part of the negotiations, because the companies say, we aren't going to negotiate about this.
It has to do with the new plants that will be open, mainly in the South, to build batteries. And all the, all the companies, and then also the Toyotas and Nissans and Teslas, for that matter, are building these battery plants. And often, many of them are joint ventures, meaning, you know. Partly Korean or, or, or Taiwanese or something.
And the companies say, Oh, you know, this is not part of the agreement. We aren't bargaining over that. In fact, many of the workers haven't even been employed. They haven't, they haven't built the plants and they haven't been employed. But if we're going to have a green transition, if we're going to have Electric vehicles, the wave of the future.
Uh, and you're going have a, a, a workforce, which is, you know, paid at the, at the level of that, you know, manu Auto, unionized auto workers have traditionally [00:35:00] gotten mm-hmm. , you know, you need to reach some settlement here on the, uh, some agreement on the, on the, these battery plants. And, and the, and one thing that makes it possible is the federal government is providing really, uh, I think tens of billions of dollars.
Yeah. Incentives to do that. So there's a leverage there. And one reason that Fain, uh, properly is saying, you know, we want Biden to earn our endorsement, we aren't going to get it, is they expect the Biden administration, which is providing all of these billions of dollars, our tax dollars passed in the Inflation Reduction Act, uh, they want Biden to say, to tell these, uh, um, auto companies, look, you want this money?
You want these subsidies? You want these loans? Well, We're We expect you to have unionized, you know, good wage, uh, plants that you're building all over the South. Now that's a, that's tough because some of these plants, some of these companies that are building these plants are, um, uh, non union right now, like Toyota or Tesla.
So, uh, this is, this is, this is where the crunch is gonna [00:36:00] come. And, uh, and the, and if the union decides, and makes it clear the it wants some agreement on that then we're going to have a long strike.
Labor Decision Could Lead To A Union Revolution In America - The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder - Air Date 9-23-23
HAROLD MEYERSON: Democrats are aware that, uh, the National Labor Relations Act has been steadily weakened by court decisions and, uh, uh, some of the NLRB rulings when they were controlled by Republicans, uh, and they've been trying to strengthen, uh, labor law. Basically, all the way back to Lyndon Johnson's presidency, and every time they've tried under Johnson, under Carter, under Clinton, under Obama, they have never gotten to 60 votes in the Senate, uh, so, uh, As a result, when, in the private sector, when workers try to unionize, it's a very, very common practice for employers to do things that are illegal, according to the National Labor Relations Act, [00:37:00] like firing the workers who are leading the campaign to unionize, for which the penalties are virtually non existent.
And because this has been completely the norm, uh, increasingly for the last 40 years, uh, most unions have ceased doing major organizing campaigns. Uh, I remember when John Sweeney was running for the presidency of the AFL CIO in 1995, one of his talking points was that the, uh, if you added up all the unions and looked at their budgets, they were spending about 3 percent of their budgets on organizing, because...
They knew they would lose. All right, uh, the new, not new, but... Biden's appointee, confirmed by the Senate as General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, and she is basically the boss of all 500 lawyers working for the board across the country, Jennifer Abruzzo, has been determined to, uh, as much as it is [00:38:00] possible, Restore that original National Labor Relations Act, which was written to give workers the right to collectively bargain.
Restore it to, you know, the point at which it was effective. Um, she put that out in a memo shortly after she took office, in a memo to her lawyers. And she got a case that she brought before the board, which the board, uh, issued this CEMEX decision on Friday. What the decision says is, if enough workers to constitute a majority, uh, have made clear they wish to affiliate with the union by signing cards or some other measure, the employer then has a choice.
The employer can voluntarily recognize the union. which 99. 9 percent of the time the employer will not do, or the employer is legally obligated to file for a board, a board run election, then here's the teeth in the [00:39:00] decision. Then if the employer commits an unfair labor practice, the very sorts of things they routinely commit by forcing workers to go to propaganda meetings that are anti union by firing Pro union workers and so on.
Those are unfair labor practices, but there's been no penalty. In this case, if the employer during the run up to the election or during the election itself commits an unfair labor practice, wham, the union is immediately recognized, and, uh, the company is ordered immediately to commence bargaining with the union.
That is a huge change.
SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Okay, so prior to this... Let's just go, like, I, cause one of the examples I used yesterday was Bessemer. When, uh, Amazon workers at Bessemer, Alabama, I think it was, it was a warehouse. Um, they, they signed, uh, [00:40:00] cards. They want to get a union. So they, uh, they apply, essentially, to National Labor Relations Board.
The National Labor Relations Board looks at those cards, determines that they're valid. And says, okay, we're going to issue, uh, an election, right? Because Amazon obviously does not want to have a union. Right, right. And then the, and the election, uh, is always, like, was, like, how long out? Was there, are there, are there constraints on how long out that election has to take place within?
HAROLD MEYERSON: Absolutely not, and delay is a common tactic of employers who do not, uh, you know, want to have a union. Uh, it can be delayed, and, you know, the more you delay it... Uh, you know, the, the, the less workers generally, uh, are determined still to push through. And in the case of Amazon... Where the average Amazon warehouse worker lasts about eight months on the job before the demands of the job, which are ridiculous, just wears that [00:41:00] worker out and he or she quits.
Uh, you know, a delay is fatal,
SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: but it's Plus, plus they also, I mean, what Amazon does is they bring in managers from all around the country. They, all of a sudden it's like three managers for every worker there for a, you know, a brief period of time. I'm exaggerating, but only slightly. Um, and they bring in young union buster lawyers, and they bring in union busting teams, and they do, and they start to intimidate people, and they do all this, and they, and, and, so the, in Bessemer, the election happens, but afterwards, the union, uh, or the would be union files becomepeople And the National Labor Relations Board says, we recognize these grievances, and they call for another election, and they end up losing that election, but now, once they got to that point where they recognize the, uh, unfair labor practices, boom, the union exists.
HAROLD MEYERSON: Boom, and second boom, uh, the company is ordered to, uh, [00:42:00] go to the bargaining table with the union.
Workers Fighting Back: The UAW Goes on Strike! - Revolutionary Left Radio - Air Date 9-19-23
MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ: If you want to know what you can do to help, be part of that groundwork. Talk to your coworkers. Even if you can't unionize just break that barrier that normally keeps you and your fellow worker from talking openly about how much your situation sucks and how much screwed you actually are being, and how much you are being screwed over by your bosses, by your landlords, by your politicians.
What a solution to that would look like, a solution that actually harnesses the pain and the power of working people brought together. You know, what could that look like? Well, we don't know, right, necessarily what it would look like here in the United States in the 21st century, but we can all be doing that tilling work to build those relationships across racial, political, uh, Gender, you know, locational difference.
We can do what we can to start building a more cohesive sense of class, of class itself and class consciousness among our fellow workers. We can do our best to sort of, to [00:43:00] deprogram ourselves and our neighbors and our coworkers from all the ruling class propaganda that that is beaten into our heads from birth.
Now, as I said, Is this an explicitly socialist movement? Is this going to lead to an explicitly socialist politics? Um, no? Maybe? Kind of? Sometimes? Sometimes not? You know, but what I want to emphasize is that this right here, this is the historical froth from which a socialist movement can be born. Yes. By which I mean a movement of working people that fights for working people and believes the people who make You know, society run should run society, and that's us.
It's not the parasitic oligarchs and corporations and their bought off politicians vampirically sucking out all of the wealth that we create for them and then using that fucking money and the power that comes with it to pillage the rest of the globe through [00:44:00] military conflict or financial occupation and domination and that movement.
begins and lives, I think, everywhere. Regular people start fighting back and fighting for a better life, and we start fighting together and building power in our numbers, in our organizational capacities to sustain a working people's movement That needs to attack on all fronts like that. This is what we can do to help be part of building that movement and be part of that full frontal attack where we need to go on the offensive in our workplaces, telling our bosses, Hey, you can't treat me like that.
You can't talk to me like that. I deserve better than this, but we also need it even in our own unions. As the UAW has shown us, if your local sucks, you need to reform that. You need to get the assholes who are in there and not serving the members. Out and you need to take control of it and make it a weapon for the rank and file, but you need to also run for school boards, get like you need to go at these moms for Liberty [00:45:00] weirdos and all these nutjobs.
We're trying to take power wherever they can in our city governments, in our state legislatures, and in Washington and dc. The point is that we need to start building power and winning. And when we start doing that, Where it goes from there, you know, is really up to us. That's what I want to leave people with.
What hap what happens next depends on what we do now. But everywhere you look, there is a front to be fought upon. So pick your battles, and let's go win this fucking thing. Mmm. Amen.
TEDDY OSTROW: I just want to add one last thing. You just killed it, ending out, Max. I love everything you said. You're absolutely right, but I just want to say on the other side...
You know, you're listening to this great podcast right now, there's mainstream media right now, hard at work, scare monitoring, trying to, you know, putting, putting out corporate talking points, they emphasize how much damage might be done to the economy and what, what they really mean is the company's profits, and I, and you know, [00:46:00] this is unfortunately really, really convincing to a lot of people, um, you know, they, the mainstream media have shown they don't particularly care about the needs of workable people, but we're at a really unprecedented moment, Where those corporate talking points are kind of cracking in people's minds.
They're starting to understand, people kind of understand, that they're wrong, you know? That the damage that will be done to working America will be much higher if the auto workers don't fight for a better contract and set the standards that will raise the livelihoods of all of us, you know? And then, we're 75 percent public support of the strikers.
People know which side they're on, um, but it's always important to help them out a little bit, push back on the mainstream media narratives. They're endlessly fed, um, and so within, in the workplace, uh, with your family, wherever, whenever. Um, start talking about it, because this is, this really is a seize the moment moment
How These Strippers UNIONIZED Their Strip Club with Equity Strippers Noho - Factually! with Adam Conover - Air Date 9-13-23
ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: I think a lot of [00:47:00] it, again, is the, Cultural perception of strippers and of the job that you do. People think it's not a job that any, you know, any decent person or intelligent person or powerful person. This is just, uh, this is a degraded job for people who aren't worth anything. And so they don't expect those folks to stand up and have power and be smart and committed and strategic.
CHARLIE: I think what they don't realize is that.
I would say a good majority of all strippers have other jobs, but they're in fields that just don't pay well, like when you're an assistant, or you're doing anything creative, like music, fashion, art, whatever, all of those things are not, like, high paying jobs when you're starting off, so it's always, for a lot of people, it's just supplemental income, which means a lot of people have a lot of work experience coming into clubs that they just wouldn't spend That club owners don't expect you to have.
Right. So they think that you don't understand what it means to have like a labor to have employee rights. Right, right. But like most people have had at least a few experiences [00:48:00] where they've been told like what their rights are. Mm-hmm. . So that's a big part of their perception.
ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Tell me a little bit about the early days.
'cause this thing we skipped, uh, that, that I wanna make sure we talked about. Uh, you know, one of the most important early steps in unionizing is talking to your co workers, getting everybody on board, finding out what everybody needs, doing that basic organizing, and just tell me about that step when you were first getting started.
Like, how did that, how did that go and how did you approach it?
LILITH: I think the first time we discussed organizing was when, with the first firing of, um, this dancer, Regan, um, because she was just such a, like, emblematic part of Stargarden, she had so many Like, big customers who brought in a lot of money, so it really felt like, oh, if she is not safe and her job is not safe, then we are not either.
And so that's when discussions about, like, our protections and what we could do and how the law could, um, help us, um, started. And [00:49:00] that's, we very fortunately had a little Instagram group chat that was just to discuss, you know, random work things that very quickly became a union organizing group chat.
ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: Got it.
So this seems like this is pretty easy. You didn't have to, like, go and really bend people's ears and go, Think about it. You were all in a group chat and you were going like, Let's fucking get them.
CHARLIE: There was only, I think, 24 dancers total. And also... The, the whole, our entire movement, I think the word that could be used is urgency, like, we had maybe a week from when Reagan had gotten fired to when Selena got fired, and we were like, no one is safe, and then we were like, alright, petition, let's go go go go go, and then strike, and it was just so quick that there wasn't like, Hey, like have you ever heard of unionization?
Like, do you know if you could be protected for it? And like, it just didn't happen like that. Cause we didn't have a grace period.
LILITH: Yeah. I will say that like one of the, in our earliest discussions, um, one, the documentary, Live Girls, Live Girls Unite live, nude girls [00:50:00] unite about the Lusty Lady Unionization in the nineties.
That was mentioned as just like a touchpoint to be like, if you're afraid of the prospect of us as strippers unionizing, like, look at this and just maybe get inspired. And I watched that documentary and was absolutely like, oh, I get it now. Like, I see how this could be something like a feasible path for us.
Yeah.
CHARLIE: And we were really lucky to have had other, other strikes across America within strip clubs and also. Um, the Lesley ladies to kind of guide us in everything that we were doing. So we're definitely not the first. Um, and yeah, it feels powerful to know that like the quote unquote sisterhood of like strippers across the world exercising their rights exists.
And yeah, we got to follow footsteps.
ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: That is so cool. And do you see, um, you guys, you guys have gotten so much press. You've had so much support from the labor movement. Are you starting to see that expand? Are there folks considering this another area? Is equity going to try to. And more strip clubs, and cover more workers.
CHARLIE: Already has! [00:51:00]
LILITH: Yeah! Really? There's a club in Portland called Magic Tavern.
ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: I knew Portland would be next.
CHARLIE: I know, right? Naturally. Yes, yes.
LILITH: Yeah, they just, um, like, had their vote count, and it was, um, mail in ballots, so I think that we should have the results of that soon. That's amazing. Um, we all, a few of us, like, went up to Portland and supported them on their first picket, like, it's been very beautiful to see, because I think, like, our dream was, Unionizing our club, but also hoping that there would be other workers who And finally, I'd like to thank our sponsors for
CHARLIE: being here today.
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Magic Tavern. We'll see you next time. [00:52:00] Huge, because it took us, how many months? Like, uh, eight?
LILITH: Like, nine. Like, we put out a baby.
CHARLIE: Yeah. Yeah, literally. That's a baby. Yeah.
ADAM CONOVER - HOST, FACTUALLY!: And by the way, I believe Portland is a big strip club town, so if one place flips, a whole bunch are gonna go next.
Absolutely. That is the hope. I bet. And what you said about having the model is... So important to see that other people have done it. You know, I, I'm a stand up comic. There's no stand up comedy union, uh, anywhere in America. Um, but I just last year read a wonderful book called I'm Dying Up Here, which is about the attempt to stand up comics in the 70s try to unionize the comedy store.
Which is a famous club still there. It, at the time, did not pay. And I, I knew that comics, oh, they went on strike. I thought they just like... Uh, you know, held up picket signs and whatever. They actually did form a real union. They like filed with the N L R B and all that. They went on strike. Um, you know, Jay Leno was on the picket line.
Gary Shandin crossed the picket line. There's all these big Hollywood stories about it. But, um, they were [00:53:00] eventually found, uh, in the seventies that they could not be a union because they were con they were found to be contractors. Yeah. Mm-hmm. . But just seeing that, oh, hold on a second. Stand up comics, at one point, did do this at a particular club, made me go, I mean, they could again, like, I don't know if I'm the one to make it happen or anything, like, I don't work at a club like that regularly, but, just like, seeing the example can really inspire people to, and I don't know, just seeing you guys do this made you's back in the marathon.
Dr. description. There's a lot of similarities between standup comedy and stripping For sure. To be quite honest. Yeah. Maybe we should think about it, you know?
LILITH: Yeah. And I think that, um, a lot of people in other parts of the country do not believe that they as strippers can unionize because we live in California where there is this law that.
There are like standards in the from the NLRB that will mean that you should be classified as an employee. And I think that in, I don't think Magic Tavern is an employee status [00:54:00] club, but they are managed like employees and they are scheduled like employees and there are all these different thresholds that they do need to be able to unionize.
CHARLIE: Yeah. If you're an independent contractor as a comedian, but you're on a strict schedule or. And if the club takes fees from you in any way or quotas, house fees, whatever, then you are being treated like an employee, therefore you're able to unionize.
Marvel workers just won the first union in visual effects history - More Perfect Union - Air Date 9-13-23
MARK PATCH: So today, we saw these workers at Marvel, um, win their election. So what does that mean? Um, I mean, ultimately, this isn't a campaign that's about a single studio or a project. This is about visual effects workers, you know, throughout the industry, demanding respect for the work that they do. But, you know, especially for Marvel workers, where we couldn't have superheroes flying
or battling or fighting or morphing or anything, without visual effects. So, when you have, uh, a whole brand, that really does rely on upon the work that we do, um, I think that really speaks to the reasonableness of what we're talking about, right? What we're really asking for, is to be paid fairly for the hours that we [00:55:00] work, um, to be given, you know, the basic...
I think that when you have workers who are so vital to providing, uh, the work that makes these projects possible, asking for these very reasonable demands that will make their lives more sustainable and allow them to continue to exercise, uh, their skills and experience at a top level. Um, this should be a win win for both sides.
If you are at a studio of your own, you can do exactly what these workers did. It starts with talking to your co workers, the people sitting right next to you, and ultimately reach out to us at vfxunion. org, and we can connect you, and ultimately build a supermajority, as we've seen at Disney and Marvel, in a matter of months.
And it's the same if you're working at the vendor side. You know, we would seek to include... 80% of you [00:56:00] to make a unanimous demand for representation. This is a grassroots campaign that puts the voices of the workers first and the union is, is you the workers. Um, this is not about ie coming in and, you know, rescuing us.
This is about. VFX workers uplifting themselves, um, and, you know, with the support, um, of IATSE, ultimately being able to negotiate a collective, uh, bargaining agreement that would improve all of our conditions. We have many more, uh, you know, campaigns, uh, in the future, and, um, ultimately every person in visual effects should be able to find their home in this new national local union.
Final comments on Biden's visit to the picket line and the importance of how moral questions are framed
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips today, starting with The Rational National, breaking down the nonsense arguments for why executives should get raises at higher rates than workers who create real value. The New Abnormal discussed the dynamics of the writer's strike. Novara Media highlighted the CEO who actually said exactly how [00:57:00] capitalism is supposed to work. Citations Needed critiqued the media going along with the idea that the autoworker strike is hurting the transition to electric vehicles. The Bradcast looked back into the history of unionization. The Majority Report discussed Biden's National Labor Relations Board, which has made unionization easier. And Revolutionary Left Radio discussed the future of the labor movement with cautious optimism.
That's what everybody heard, but members also heard two additional bonus clips, the first from Factually! with Adam Conover, which hosted a conversation about strip club workers struggling to unionize and More Perfect Union, doing a quick report on the visual effects workers at Marvel, also pushing to unionize.
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 [00:58:00] the way of hearing more information.
Now, additional episodes of Best of the Left you may want to check out for more context include #1463 "People Are Waking Back Up to the Need for Labor Unions", that's from December 2021, and that one's interesting because it goes back into deep labor history to give better context for the struggles happening today. And 1557, "Tactics and Counter-tactics of the Struggle for Labor Rights", that's from May of this year, 2023, and it's a bit similar in that it looks at history for context, but this time with a focus on labor tactics and, of course, management counter-tactics that have been around for ages. All worth your time. Again, those were episodes 1463 and 1557.
Now to wrap up, I have a few thoughts. The first is that, news today, breaking basically as I'm putting the show together, Biden is the first president to ever go to [00:59:00] a picket line, which is exciting and new, it's never happened before, and it's obviously also about politics, and it's also obviously about economics and labor. It's just impossible for a president to separate the two, but in addition to the politics, it's also progress, so I'll take it. And maybe it'll help him carry Michigan in 2024, maybe it'll help the workers in their negotiations. What I recall for sure is how annoyed I was when Obama said that he'd put on his walking shoes and join the striking workers, but never showed up.
So, progress. Uh, next thing, this is just an amusing note. I was reading about Biden's visit to Michigan on pbs.org and I came across this, just, little section of an article toward the bottom. It says, "Dave Ellis, who stocks parts at the distribution center, said he's happy Biden wants to show people he's behind the middle class, but he said the visit is just [01:00:00] about getting more votes. 'I don't necessarily believe that it's really about us', said Ellis, who argued that Trump would be a better president for the middle class than Biden, because Trump is a businessman." And I know I don't really need to tell this audience why running a business isn't necessarily a good indicator of how good of an elected leader a person would be, but really, in this context, it's pretty stunning to hear that old talking point being regurgitated like that.
This guy, Dave Ellis, is striking to be treated better by his employers, who are, not so shockingly, businessmen and women. In fact, every time working people who constitute the middle class try to improve their lot in life economically, it's always the business people who are standing in the way. So, it really is a marvel of propaganda that anyone in the [01:01:00] whole wide world could be convinced that electing business people to office would sort of magically be good for the working class, when any rational analysis of that relationship should be of natural enemies.
Last note, on how issues like labor and economics and fairness get framed, I've been waiting to tell this story for a little while, and I think it fits here. I had a thought recently about that old question of whether it's moral to steal a loaf of bread to feed a starving family, and I have no idea what made me think of this, but suddenly I had a thought about how that moral question is framed in a very narrow and uncomfortable way. 'Cause, I mean, my whole life I've heard that question and I've sort of struggled, like, I don't know, like, I mean probably yes, right? But I mean, and I sort of go back and forth. So I told Amanda about my thoughts and sort of argued that [01:02:00] it's asking the wrong question. We need to ask a totally different question.
She said, 'Oh yeah, I think I saw something like that on social media recently. Let me see if I can find it'. And it turned out that it was basically, it was like a socialist meme or some such that reframed the question as to whether it was moral for a baker to hoard bread when people are starving. And I thought: Closer, but no, that's still not it. That's still the same BS, overly-narrow framing of the question. It's just seen from the opposite perspective. The real moral quandary is whether it's moral for a society with abundance to allow individuals to starve so that they're forced to decide whether or not to steal to feed their family, or for a baker to have to decide whether they, individually, can afford to give away free bread.
The whole question focuses so much on the individuals involved [01:03:00] that it completely ignores the larger structural forces at play and the potential for larger forces like government to do good in individual people's lives, and instead it puts that moral onus on the individual themselves. And this is why framing is such a powerful rhetorical tool. It's so much easier to simply go along with the question as it's framed than to question it on a fundamental level. But this is what we have to do to make fundamental change, like in the worker and management conflict, to remove exploitation altogether rather than just get slightly better treatment in a fundamentally exploitative system.
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 [01:04:00] to jay@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 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 appreciated. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with a link to join 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.
#1584 Israel's Political Upheaval, Supreme Court Power Struggle, US Support, and the Normalization of Apartheid (Transcript)
Air Date 9/24/2023
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Welcome to this episode of the award winning Best of the Left podcast, in which we shall take a look at Israel's politics, which have been upended by the return of Netanyahu as prime minister. He was put in office with the help of extremely far right factions who have now pushed through reforms to the Israeli Supreme Court that fundamentally undermine their democracy.
All this while they were already a farce of a democracy due to the maintenance of an apartheid like system of differing rules applying to different residents based on ethnicity. You know, classic. Sources today include Ali Velshi from MSNBC, Democracy Now, Intercepted, and Deconstructed with additional members only clips from Democracy Now and Intercepted.
The U.S. should not reward Israel’s bad behavior - Velshi - Air Date 9-3-23
ALI VELSHI - HOST, VELSHI: With all that's going on in the world and here in the United States, it's easy to forget that Israel is coming apart at the seams. Since the end of last year, Israel's internal politics has been upended. An indicted Prime Minister was returned to [00:01:00] office and, in a situation echoing American politics, is trying to use his power and influence to remain in power to avoid prosecution for fraud, breach of trust, and accepting bribes.
He's even changing Israeli laws for reasons that appear to be entirely self-serving. Now central to what it's looking like, the collapse of Israel's ostensibly democratic system, and I say ostensible because millions of people -- Palestinians who live under illegal occupation -- are subject to Israeli persecution and prosecution without either its protections, or the right to vote, is that the once-fringe anti-democratic ideological and religious movement secured a stunning victory in parliamentary elections.
The former so-called Government of National Unity had included political parties from the right and the left and had the support of the tiny majority of Israeli Arabs in the Knesset. But it lost in the last elections. It wasn't a big loss, but in Israel's incredibly fragmented political system, it was enough to replace the fragile coalition government [00:02:00] with a far-right populist government, which now holds some of the country's most influential positions.
And with that, the thrice-indicted Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power. In a repeat of a sentence that I have uttered several times over the years, Netanyahu's cabinet is the most right wing and extreme in Israeli history. It's so far right wing that it makes the Netanyahu of years gone by look moderate by comparison.
One minister in his government has boasted that he could take active measures against the LGBTQ community without any repercussions from his base. But don't worry, even he has a limit. He said, quote, "I won't stone the gays." Another minister has advocated for expelling disloyal citizens of Israel. So this is the kind of leadership that Israel is dealing with right now, and Benjamin Netanyahu is, once again, at the helm of it.
His return has brought with it an outright assault on what many Israelis believe to be their democracy, even though Israel is, as I've stated before, [00:03:00] An apartheid state, not a real democracy, because only some people who live under its control enjoy its protections, and the delineation is whether you're Palestinian or not.
However, many Israeli citizens either live under the illusion of, or legitimately hope for, democracy. And Netanyahu has undermined that with a judicial overhaul, which essentially gives politicians -- those extreme far-right politicians in his government -- full control over Supreme Court appointments. It also allows Parliament to override judicial decisions, subverting one of the sole checks on the government's authority.
The question is what Netanyahu and his ultra-national government plan to do with their newly unfettered power. It's safe to assume they'll use it to target the already vulnerable Palestinian population. Some Middle East experts say the government could use new laws to expand illegal Israeli settlements or even go as far as annexing the West Bank, which is totally controlling it, without offering its residents a vote. And at least that would [00:04:00] prove the argument that Israel is actually an apartheid state.
This summer, though, Netanyahu already approved plans to expedite construction of thousands of new settlements in the occupied territories. Israeli settlements in the West Bank are deemed illegal under international law, a finding that is notably ignored by both Israel and its greatest military and financial supporter, The United States. Brutal settler attacks on Palestinian villagers have increased, and the additional Israeli military forces that have been sent into the West Bank by Netanyahu are known to turn a blind eye and sometimes even join in on the deadly wave of violence that has now lasted for more than a year, and that has reached levels not seen in two decades.
So Israel has two problems: an allegedly corrupt prime minister pursuing political means to avoid prosecution and hang on to power, and a rapidly deteriorating situation with the Palestinians.
So when the White House confirmed last month that Biden will meet with Netanyahu this year, [00:05:00] it raised eyebrows. At the time, the White House did not specify when or where the meeting would take place. Former Israeli security officials, politicians, advisors, ambassadors, entrepreneurs, activists, and thinkers have all urged Biden not to meet with Netanyahu until he stops. Ami Dror, an Israeli tech entrepreneur and the leader of the protest movement, said this to President Biden, quote: "I urge you not to meet him at this moment, not before he stops the attacks on Israeli democracy. The democratic world is fighting three frontiers, the war that Mr. Trump declared on American democracy, the war that President Putin and his partners declared on Ukraine, and the war that Prime Minister Netanyahu and his racist partners declared on Israeli democracy. We, the democracies of the world, must stay united. President Putin, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and Mr. Trump should be persona non grata until they stop their attacks," end quote. Says a lot, when Israelis [00:06:00] are begging Joe Biden not to use the office of the U. S. presidency to elevate their own Prime Minister because they fear that doing so would only further encourage Netanyahu's dangerous behavior.
This is a very delicate situation for the United States to be in. The U. S. and Israel are allies. America often calls itself Israel's best friend, and U. S. taxpayer funding of Israel makes that claim largely true. But the United States should not be rewarding bad behavior, and a photo op is just that.
Haggai Matar & Gideon Levy - Israel's Fight over Judicial Changes Ignores Occupation & Apartheid Part 1 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 7-25-23
JUAN GONZALEZ: And, Haggai Matar, how exactly has the legislation that was just passed weakened the court? Because we’ve heard the gutting or weakening, but we haven’t heard much about the concrete legislation that was passed.
HAGGAI MATAR: So, I think, for context, Israel does not have a constitution, and it is very weak in terms of legislation generally. And a lot of what we see in the fabric of Israeli law and [00:07:00] society is based on precedent. And judicial precedent in Israel sometimes relies on this issue of reasonableness.
So, a good recent example was that Netanyahu wanted to appoint for minister of finance someone who was just recently convicted for the third time for tax evasion, fraud and theft, and the Supreme Court basically said this is extremely unreasonable to put someone like that in charge of the Ministry of Finance. So this is a good example and, again, one of the motivations for this initiative. There are other reasons for the government to push forward with this legislation, but I think these examples kind of show what the court has been doing and what the government does not want it to do, in terms of gutting it and suppressing its abilities to act and restrain the government’s power.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And there has been talk of further so-called reforms that [00:08:00] the allies of Netanyahu want to pass. What are those reforms?
HAGGAI MATAR: So, it’s important to remember that in January, said minister of justice, Yariv Levin, announced a whole package of a judicial overhaul. It was a set of quite a few bills that the government committed to pass within two or three months in the winter. The massive protest movement is what forced the government to kind of narrow down to just one bill at a time. It’s something that we here call the “salami method,” just slicing it to thin little pieces of legislation. And this is the first one to pass, but there are many more on the way.
Some of them are meant to allow Netanyahu to escape his current trial for political corruption. Other measures are meant to allow the government to annex territories and do basically whatever it wants with any kind of supervision from the side of the court. There are many other pieces of legislation. [00:09:00] They, all together, basically are meant to ensure that the government both can do whatever it wants in this current term, and can persecute political rivals and ensure its reelection in the future by disqualifying other political rivals, especially Palestinian citizens, whose parties might be disqualified if the judicial overhaul comes through.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I want to bring Gideon Levy into this conversation, also in Tel Aviv. Talk about this piece that you wrote about the militaristic nature of these protests. Explain what you mean.
GIDEON LEVY: I have all the sympathy toward this protest movement, the biggest ever in Israel. And I can just appreciate all those hundreds of thousands of Israelis who are going to the streets regularly, week after week, day after day, spending a lot of time, energy, sweat, and many [00:10:00] times even blood, in order to express their protest.
But I have also some criticize — some critics about this movement. One, you just mentioned, Amy, the fact that they really totally ignore deliberately the occupation and the apartheid, but not less than this, the structure and the combination of people who lead this protest and who are really running it. Finally, it is about the old boys from the army. I don’t say they are the only one, by all means not, but they are giving the tone, generals who head the state. And now, as we say in Hebrew, and now all of a sudden the state is being taken from them by the right-wingers, and they go to protest. It is very problematic if figures like heads of the Shabak, of [00:11:00] the secret services of Israel, who are quite well known, at least to your viewers, Amy, in its brutal methods of blackmailing people and doing all kind of anti-democratic actions in the West Bank, including kidnapping people without any supervision, legal supervision. So, those are the people who speak about democracy. Those are part of the leadership of this protest movement. Those are the heroes of this movement. I have a problem with this. You know, generals and head of secret services cannot teach anyone anything about democracy. They should learn it by themselves before they teach others.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And could you comment also, as you have in some of your writings, about the irony of talking about preserving democracy, while both [00:12:00] sides in this battle continue to assume and expect that the oppression of the Palestinians will continue?
GIDEON LEVY: You can compare it to South Africa, apartheid South Africa. Imagine yourself a struggle among the white community in South Africa about democracy for the white ones. It is a struggle over democracy. And by the way, they had democracy. They had elections. They had quite free press, in a way. They had democracy. But it was a democracy only to a very small part of the population of South Africa.
The democracy that we are now struggling over is a democracy only for the Jewish citizens of Israel, and partially for the Palestinian citizens of Israel. What about 5 million people who live under the control of the same [00:13:00] institutions, who have no civil rights whatsoever, who don’t even possess a citizenship of any country in the world? How can you speak about democracy and ignore this? What kind of democracy can exist in an apartheid state? I mean, those things, I understand the desire, the ambition to try to recruit as many people as possible to this protest, which is a just protest. But the way they ignore the real dark side of Israel is for me unacceptable and unbearable.
Protests in Israel: The Right's Further Consolidation of Power - Intercepted - Air Date 7-26-23
MURTAZA HUSSAIN - CO-HOST, INTERCEPTED: Benjamin Netanyahu came to power, returned to power on the back of a very extreme coalition in the past few years.
Can you tell us a bit about the nature of this coalition and how its motivations for helping push through these revisions to Israel's judiciary?
MAIRAV ZONSZEIN: Netanyahu has basically been in power for over a decade, I believe like 12, 13 years now, and then there was a lull in which he wasn't [00:14:00] for about a year. And when he returned to power, he basically had already been charged and on trial for corruption in several cases, and that basically caused a split in the right in Israel between various members of his own party who split off and other members who decided they're not going to work with him anymore as a result of him being on trial, they believed he shouldn't be serving as prime minister even though it's technically legal for him to do so. So that split on the right created fissures in which Netanyahu basically couldn't come back to power and form a majority coalition without turning to far-right parties.
So the two parties that are on the far right: the Settler Nationalist religious far right that came into power as a result of Netanyahu deciding to work with them, the Religious Zionist Party is one of them, is headed by Bezalel Smotrich, who is now the finance minister and a minister in the defense ministry, which has a lot of ramifications that we can get into later; and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who runs the Jewish Power Party, which is [00:15:00] essentially a racist Meir Kahane party. So these two parties have a lot of power. They're both senior ministers in government.
And ironically the person who's been leading the judicial overhaul is actually somebody in Netanyahu's Likud party, and his name is Yariv Levine. He's the Minister of Justice. He is also a pro-settlement annexationist type. He's talked about wanting to annex the West Bank for quite a long time and how the Supreme Court gets in the way of doing that. So they all kind of share the same agenda on that level. But the person who's actually been leading this and came out right after they were elected at the end of December of 2022, he came out and said, okay, we're going through with this judicial reform. It's going to start. It's going to look like this. And the minute that happened, protests started to erupt. So that's kind of how it started.
JEREMY SCAHILL - CO-HOST, INTERCEPTED: What is the actual agenda here? There's a lot of analysis suggesting, oh, this has to do with some of the examples that you're mentioning, that there are corruption cases and other cases against Netanyahu. There was the blocking [00:16:00] of an appointment of someone because of the past convictions. But from your analysis, Mairav, what's the actual agenda? What do they really want to do by passing this?
MAIRAV ZONSZEIN: They want to annex the West Bank to Israel. I mean, there's other elements involved. The religious parties want to, for example, formalize into law that they will be exempt from military conscription because their communities study Torah and Jewish law instead of going into the army. So there's different interests for different groups. But what ties them all together, and what has become a status quo consensus in Israel, for better and worse, is that Israel holds control of the West Bank and that it needs to legalize that and formalize that control. Because the settlers specifically and the settler movement have had certain blows to their own aspirations over the years. So there was the Oslo Accords, which was one of the major first ones, there was the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, and there have been Supreme Court decisions, not many, but [00:17:00] some, that have obstructed and made it more difficult for Israel to continue to settle in the West Bank. For example, in 1979, the Supreme Court ruled that Israel cannot take over private Palestinian land when it can be proven that it's private property of Palestinians, simply for the purpose of replacing it with Jewish inhabitants. It can be for security reasons, it can be for other reasons. So that, for example, was a Supreme Court decision that the settlers find to be a big wrench in their plans. And if you look at the people who are leading the judicial overhaul plan, the hardliners in the government, most of them, except for Yariv Levine, live in settlements and are settlers and some of them are hardcore settlers.
So I would say that that is definitely the common denominator here. They don't want the court getting in the way of their plans to continue to create this greater Israel.
MURTAZA HUSSAIN - CO-HOST, INTERCEPTED: So there have been these protests against this judiciary reform for a very, very long time now, several months consecutively, and this week we saw protests around the passage of the bill, which were even quite [00:18:00] violent or escalating, it seems like, in the face of this very determined effort by the Netanyahu government. Can you tell us a bit about the motivations and the underlying drive of the protesters? Because clearly there's a divide in Israel society between secular and more religious Israelis. How does that manifest, and particularly over this issue mentioned of annexing the West Bank?
MAIRAV ZONSZEIN: So to understand the protest movement looks like, it's hundreds of thousands of people, but it's a fairly homogenous group, not politically, but socioeconomically, and also ethnically, as far as them being from the Ashkenazi elite, which is Jews of European descent versus Mizrachi Jews who are from North Africa and the Arab world. So if you look at the people who are going out to protest, these are people from the center of Israel, mostly, even though there are protests across the country, I don't want to undermine that. But they have served in elite combat units, they are the leading high-tech company leaders, doctors, these are from the very, very high levels of Israeli society. [00:19:00] And they feel like their contract that they have with the state to have a liberal democracy as they see it is being broken and that settlers and religious nationalists are taking over what is otherwise a great country that does wonderful things so they feel very betrayed and they've also risked their lives in several wars. Their kids risk lives in wars, and all of a sudden they're supposed to be listening to people who didn't serve in the army because they're either too dangerous or too religious or whatever. And so they're extremely resentful. So they've come out in very, very high numbers. I think this is unprecedented in Israel.
And also the consistency. You've had, pretty much every week for six months, 100,000 people coming out. And they've done it not just in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, but also in north and south as well.
It's also important to point out who's not coming out to the protests, which is what I alluded to before, which are the Palestinian citizens of Israel are not there. Jews of other ethnicity, whether it's Ethiopian Jews or Jews of [00:20:00] Arab descent are mostly not there. So it's a very specific kind of movement and you could see it as a secular religious divide on some level. But there are religious people who come out. And there are also right wing people who are coming out. One of the leaders, or the faces of the protest movement is a former defense minister and chief of staff, Bogi Ya'alon, who oversaw many operations in Gaza and is very much on the right. It's definitely not a right-left divide as far as the protest movement. It's much more like a liberal-urban, I think, more cosmopolitan divide, versus the more conservative right wing in Israel.
Congress Melts Down Over Israel Again - Deconstructed - Air Date 7-21-23
RYAN GRIM - HOST, DECONSTRUCTED: I interviewed Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman this week about this question. He’s a kind of very strong ally of AIPAC, and a relentless defender of the Israeli government, though he is critical of this current rightward shift of the Israeli government. And he made a point that a lot of others made, and it goes to what you were just saying, that he didn’t really want to talk about necessarily the reality of the current situation, [00:21:00] but rather the future potential of a better situation in the future. And, as long as there was some hope for a better future, he seemed to be arguing then, therefore, you can’t call it, say, an apartheid state now. Because an apartheid state to him is a static situation where you have a recognized government within a certain geographical boundary that treats people within its borders differently based on their race or ethnicity.
And what he and others will argue is, Well, OK, yes, that is practically de facto what’s been happening for 75 years, but one day it might not be happening. And so, therefore, as long as one day it might not be happening, all we’re talking about is a temporary situation.
[To Rep. Brad Sherman] Well, the resolution goes beyond just condemning the racist part, and it adds apartheid. How do you sort out, in your mind, whether or not it’s an apartheid state, given the fact that people who live under the laws —
BRAD SHERMAN: [00:22:00] Well, this is a temporary, albeit long-lived, situation. We need a two-state solution. You know, there’s the Czech Republic, there’s Slovakia. If you’re a Slovak, you’re not a citizen of the Czech Republic. If you’re Czech, you’re not a citizen of Slovakia. They decided to create two separate states. It doesn’t mean that Czechs hate Slovaks, it doesn’t mean Slovaks hate Czechs. It just means that they want two separate countries. Israel wants two separate countries.
RYAN GRIM - HOST, DECONSTRUCTED: So, is the possibility that a two-state solution could emerge the only thing that prevents you calling the current situation apartheid?
BRAD SHERMAN: No. I would say that if Israel were to say that we intend to permanently rule millions of Palestinians, we don’t want them to have a state, and we’re going to deny them citizenship rights, and I would say that’s two levels of citizenship for people who [00:23:00] are, because of Israel, trying to live, uh, you know. Israel is on the way, hopefully, to a two-state solution.
RYAN GRIM - HOST, DECONSTRUCTED: What do you respond to that way of framing this?
BETH MILLER: I guess it’s not shocking that Congressman Sherman takes that approach. I think that’s a pretty absurd thing for a sitting member of Congress to say. To say that, Well, one day maybe it would be different, so we shouldn’t talk about what it is now. It’s honestly a hard argument to even begin to wrap your head around.
The situation now is what we have to deal with. We’re not dealing in what could possibly be one day in someone’s dreams of what Israel might [00:24:00] one day become. We’re dealing with the reality on the ground right now, which is decades of occupation, decades of apartheid — which again, I cannot stress enough, the broad international human rights consensus is that this is an apartheid state, and even Israeli human rights groups have said it’s an apartheid state. That’s the reality, and what that means is that, right now, today, there are millions of Palestinians who are subject to brutal violence that’s being funded by Congress.
And I think that’s the key point here, is that this isn’t just someone like Congressman Sherman, for example, just opining on a situation that he has no role in. He is a duly elected member of Congress, and Congress has a unique role to play here. They control the purse strings of our government, and our government is sending $3.8 billion every single year to fund this apartheid.
And so, whatever someone hopes the situation might be in the future, the reality is that we have to name [00:25:00] what’s happening right now accurately because our government is the one paying for it. And it will never change, it will never get better if we don’t do something about that, and it’s particularly rich to hear that from someone like an AIPAC-funded and -affiliated congressman like Brad Sherman, because the policies he pushes for only serve to entrench the current situation. And actually, [if] he wants to make it better and change it, what he should be doing is working right now to hold the Israeli government accountable to create a different situation.
RYAN GRIM - HOST, DECONSTRUCTED: He also made the argument — and you hear this a lot from people in his camp — that says, well, there are Arab citizens of Israel who do share in some citizenship rights. And so, therefore, it’s inaccurate to say that this is “racist.”
And he also made the point that — I said, well, if you’re a Palestinian living in Israel, and you’re married to somebody who lives in the Occupied Territories, [00:26:00] your spouse can’t even live with you. So, you have thousands of marriages that are separated by this wall, which feels like apartheid, and feels like unequal rights. And he said, Well, that actually would apply to a Jewish Israeli citizen.
[To Rep. Brad Sherman] Even citizens of Israel who are Palestinian aren’t allowed, for instance to marry a Palestinian who lives in the West Bank, and have them move and live with them. They literally have different rights based on their ethnicity.
BRAD SHERMAN: Well, it’s not based — I think that would apply to a Jewish citizen who married a Palestinian from the West Bank as well. I might have to examine that, and I think every country has a flaw. Of all the countries who have been under violent attack from another country, area, or ethnicity, [00:27:00] Israel has had the most benign reaction. We cannot point to anywhere else in the world where a country is under violent attack and is embracing its enemy while being attacked. I mean, try to find a Ukrainian saying something nice about Russia today.
RYAN GRIM - HOST, DECONSTRUCTED: So, I’m sure you hear this, the former version of this argument a lot. I’m curious to get your read on it. I’m not sure if you’ve heard this latter one, though.
BETH MILLER: Yeah. I think this is a very common argument, right? We saw this [also] from people like Congressman Ritchie Torres on Twitter the other day. We saw it on the House floor when they were debating this absurd, wink-wink, “we swear Israel isn't an apartheid state” wink-wink resolution the other night. People constantly say this. “Well, how could Israel be a racist state when, how could it be an apartheid state when there are non-Jewish citizens of Israel who have some rights? And look, there are even people in the [00:28:00] Knesset who aren’t Jewish Israelis.”
I mean, I think any progressive worth their salt could listen to that argument and say, that’s absurd, and that does not mean that there is not systematic racism going on. The truth of the matter is, the Israeli government has over 65 different discriminatory laws against Palestinians who are citizens of Israel.
At the end of the day, when you zoom out, the reason this is a system of apartheid is because there is one government, Israel, that rules over all people that live between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. And that includes Palestinian citizens of Israel, and it includes Palestinians living under illegal military occupation by the Israeli government.
The Israeli government controls all of their lives, and those Palestinians are subject to different levels of rights based on where they live, and Jewish Israeli citizens are the people with the most rights. That is pure, systematic [00:29:00] discrimination based on ethnicity and religion and identity. And that’s, simply put, apartheid.
Protests in Israel: The Right's Further Consolidation of Power Part 2 - Intercepted - Air Date 7-26-23
JEREMY SCAHILL - CO-HOST, INTERCEPTED: And right now, as we speak, there's also once again attacks happening, settlers attacking Palestinians. You also had the incursion once again into Jenin in early July. And I've been hearing from a lot of Palestinians with different perspectives on this. There are some people who take a very hard line and say, let it all burn, let Netanyahu do this, and it'll finally expose that state for what it actually is. And then you have other people who are pointing out what they perceive as the hypocrisy of the intensity of the protests.
Mariam Barghouti, for instance, the senior correspondent in Palestine for Mondoweiss, tweeted on Tuesday, "Israelis are upset that they're being arrested, sprayed with skunk water, beaten for protesting against dictatorship laws. The Israeli protesters, soldiers, and armed forces beat us, shot us, sprayed our homes, bodies, killed us for protesting ethnic cleansing."[00:30:00]
What's your sense of the voices coming from Palestine and Palestinians criticizing these protests along the lines that I just mentioned?
MAIRAV ZONSZEIN: Yeah, even if you don't go as far as the West Bank, if you just look at Palestinian citizens of Israel and why they aren't showing up in big numbers, some of their leaders are calling them to come out. It's not that they're boycotting it per se. But for very similar reasons, which is that where were all these Jewish Israelis when Palestinians were shot in 2000, just before the second Intifada started, Palestinian citizens were shot. Where were they when there were decisions made by the Supreme Court to prioritize Jewish land rights over Palestinian land rights? Again, I'm talking about within Israel, where everybody is a citizen. So in that sense, it's similar. It's the Palestinians who live in the West Bank. They've been living under occupation. They can't vote for the people who control their lives. And for them, the situation is so bad, and actually, even before this government came into power, the situation was getting already very bad, and the former defense minister outlawed six Palestinian civil society [00:31:00] organizations as terrorist organizations. All these things were happening even before this government came in. And then when this government started it got even worse. And the trigger has been extremely hot. There's been more Palestinians killed in the last six months and last year than I think since the second Intifada. It's basically a consensus that if a Palestinian throws a stone at a soldier, he should be shot at and they are being shot at in great numbers. And this is something that the protest movement isn't addressing almost at all, except for the tiny minority which is the anti-apartheid, anti-occupation bloc, which is really a tiny minority. It's very important that they're there.
But for Palestinians in the West Bank, some of this judicial overhaul stuff, as extreme as it could be as far as the annexationist agenda, it doesn't change the reality on the ground day to day. That continues apace regardless, and Israel has found many ways to legalize what is illegal and to de facto create realities on the ground that are extremely detrimental anyway. For them, the situation day to day is so bad [00:32:00] already.
And again, some of the Israelis that are protesting now and are getting skunk water or are getting police brutality, they're getting the tiniest taste of what Palestinians get on a daily basis.
It's also important to remember that Israelis have the freedom and the right to protest, whereas Palestinians in the West Bank don't. They literally don't have a right to protest. So these are things that are not coming through clearly enough inside Israel. And as impressive and important as the protest movement is, somehow they compartmentalize these issues.
Even if you stop an Israeli protesting and ask him what he thinks about the occupation, the settlements. He'll say, yeah, it's horrible, but I'm fighting this fight right now and this is the fight that I need to fight. That's the unfortunate reality of it.
MURTAZA HUSSAIN - CO-HOST, INTERCEPTED: You mentioned that the judiciary has been, at least to some degree, an impediment to this annexationist idea held by the right in Israel over the West Bank. With the judiciary out of the way, and with the annexation theoretically going forward in the future, what is the vision that they have for how the West Bank will be governed and controlled? [00:33:00] And would it include permanent legal control of the Palestinians, or is the long-term vision to get Palestinians out of there by some means slowly or quickly? How do they actually see the idea of Israel controlling the West Bank in the long term?
MAIRAV ZONSZEIN: It depends who you mean by "they." And it depends who you ask.
Certain political parties, like the religious Zionist party headed by Smotrich, he is a radical Hilltop Youth type, and he does have a clear platform of either taking over all of the West Bank, areas A, B, and C, annexing it, and then either those Palestinians have to give in and be second-hand citizens, not citizens, be subjects of Israeli rule, or leave or be killed. That's basically what his platform says. And that's I think the most extreme version of it. And if you speak to certain radical settlers, they'll say I realize Palestinians are here and they don't want to leave, and that's why I'm fighting with them to the bitter end, because they want the same thing that I want; they want to stay here.
So you [00:34:00] have that. And then you have more moderate settlers who, they'll tell you different things. They'll say that based on the Oslo Accords, Area C, which is 60 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli control, that should remain under part of an Israeli state. But A and B, which is where most of the urban centers are, Ramallah and Nablus, those places can become part of a Palestinian autonomous entity of some sort. So they'll tell you that, or they'll come up with different ways, or they'll say areas A and B can be maybe a state. I don't know how that would work. And then if you ask them about Gaza, that's a whole other story. I don't know how they think that would work. I think most of them keep Gaza out as if it's just like this separate entity that will somehow disappear if we ignore it.
So it really depends on who you ask. And there are a lot of nuances between the different elements of the right.
The Likud party, headed by Netanyahu, he basically threatened annexation in 2020 and then went back on it because of the Abraham Accords. But if you look on the ground today and also if you look at his promises when he formed this government, he basically said, [00:35:00] We have the right to self-determination across the entire land, and we're going to settle it as much as we want.
And I think basically the difference on the right today is between, it's not, if we say that most of the West Bank will be under Israeli control, the question is whether Palestinians will be able to be citizens or not. And some think that they could be. Settlers will tell you yeah, they could become citizens as long as they respect that it's a Jewish country. There's a Jewish anthem. They're a minority here. Some of them will say that. But I think in reality, obviously if you look at what happens inside 1948 Israel today, that's not really gonna be the case.
Palestinian Attorney Noura Erakat_ The U.S. Is Normalizing Apartheid by Hosting Israel's President - Democracy Now! - Air Date 7-18-23
NOURA ERAKAT: So, let’s just begin by setting up the context, that this is 2023, in the aftermath of the legacy human rights organizations, Israeli human rights organizations, U.N. committees, U.N. agencies, as well as multiple scholars and independent investigations have all concluded that Israel oversees an apartheid regime. This is also in a context where, since the collapse of the peace process in 2000, [00:36:00] Israel has made clear that there will be no Palestinian state, there will be no such thing as binationalism, that they will catalyze and enhance their takeover of Palestinian lands and their removal. They have shifted from occupation to warfare.
This is a completely different universe than the one [that] existed in 2000, and yet the rhetoric and the feedback surrounding Isaac Herzog’s invitation and speech is one that completely ignores all of that. So, it’s important to emphasize that this effort within Congress, specifically among a mainstream Democratic element, is meant to normalize apartheid. It’s not just saying that they want to defend Israel. They are saying that if this is in fact apartheid, as all of these luminaries and experts have concluded, then in this case it’s OK, it should be an exception, and it should be exemplary for others to follow.
And so, [00:37:00] I applaud the progressive members of Congress who are skipping this address. I encourage other members of Congress to do the same and continue — continue to build the momentum amongst a progressive base that sees Palestine squarely within a social justice agenda. This is already manifest in social justice movements, such as Black-Palestinian transnational solidarity, that has centered that this is a joint struggle, that has endorsed BDS, and that, in fact, catapulted many of these progressive Democrats into office. This is also evident amongst the Democrats themselves. Not only has Israel become a bipartisan issue, but for the first time ever, more Palestinian — more Democrats sympathize with Palestinians than they do with Israelis, according to a 2023 Gallup poll. Continue to build that momentum. Resist this movement to normalize apartheid.
What the members of Congress are doing with the invitation, what they did in response to [00:38:00] Representative Jayapal’s very accurate statement that Israel is a racist state, is akin to gaslighting, for lack of a better word, but really is normalization, that is responding to the fact that they have lost the battle on the grassroots level and are trying to stem, from the top down, what they couldn’t defeat from the bottom up. And we see this not only in this normalization, but we also see it in the passage of anti-BDS resolutions, as well as the adoption of the Israel Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition that wants to equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Noura, I wanted to play the clip you were just referring to, to the Progressive Caucus chair, Congressmember Pramila Jayapal, who made headlines this weekend after she called Israel a “racist state” while speaking at the Netroots Nation conference in Chicago, Saturday.
CONGRESSMEMBER JAYAPAL: I want you to know that we have been fighting to make it clear that Israel is a racist state, that the Palestinian people [00:39:00] deserve self-determination and autonomy, that the dream — that the dream of a two-state solution is slipping away from us.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: After facing criticism, Congressmember Jayapal later clarified her comments, writing, “I do not believe the idea of Israel as a nation is racist. I do, however, believe that Netanyahu’s extreme right-wing government has engaged in discriminatory and outright racist policies and that there are extreme racists driving that policy within the leadership of the current government. … We know that the status quo is unacceptable, untenable, and unjust,” Pramila Jayapal said. Your response to that, Noura Erakat?
NOURA ERAKAT: One, I want to point out that nothing that she said was controversial. If Representative Jayapal is wrong, then so are all the experts and the advocates that study this issue and that apply it across the globe. So, the attack on her is actually a bullying and harassment attack that is meant to scare everyone else from even having a [00:40:00] conversation and acknowledging this reality on the ground, and, most importantly, taking responsibility for it.
The United States is not just a bystander here. The United States is complicit and a pillar of Israeli apartheid in its provision on unequivocal financial, diplomatic, and military support, that, but for that support, Israel could not sustain this regime, which is not surprising, which is not surprising at all, because the U.S. was the last pillar to fall, the last domino to fall, in sustaining apartheid in South Africa, where it had to fall in line with everyone else. But during apartheid South Africa and the international campaign against it, during that regime’s tenure, the United States issued the most vetoes within the Security Council to protect apartheid there, just — to protect apartheid in Namibia and South Africa, and here we’re seeing a similar pattern.
As to the way that Representative Jayapal amended her statement, note that she didn’t walk it back. She didn’t say that [00:41:00] Israel is a racist state. She wanted to make a distinction between Israeli people and the Israeli government. But what we need to understand here — and this is important for the audience to know — that she used the term “Israeli nation,” and there is no such thing as an Israeli national within Israel’s law.
And this is the crux of the matter. Israel bifurcates Jewish nationality from Israeli citizens so that it can flow all of the possessory rights to land, to employment, to housing, to the right to life through Jewish nationality in a way that it’s extraterritorialized, so that a pubescent Jewish teen, who doesn’t even know where Israel is on the map, ostensibly has more claim than a Palestinian grandma who is 80 years old, who was born before the state of Israel was established in 1948, has to those rights. Under any situation, we would decry this system as being discriminatory, contravening liberal norms of democracy. [00:42:00] But in this situation, the international community, specifically the United States and Western governments, want to insist that this exception is acceptable and exemplary.
And what I want to emphasize is that it actually is not just harmful to Palestinians, as evidenced by the systematic killing of Palestinians, the removal and the harm inflicted upon them, but that these ideas are not contained just to Israel-Palestine, but in fact are exported. These ideas of what sovereignty should look like are exported across the world. We see it embodied by the Hindutva movement in India and its reigning government. We also see it embodied even in the United States by European supremacists such as Richard Spencer, who says that he envisions that the future of European sovereignty should be modeled upon Israel’s model of sovereignty. These ideas are dangerous. And it’s not that we want to make an exception here. We want to actually make it clear that there should be no situation where states are not states that belong to everybody who is [00:43:00] there, rather than to a nationality that exists extraterritorially.
The Palestine Laboratory Antony Loewenstein on How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation - Democracy Now! - Air Date 6-23-23
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Your book has just come out. What do you mean by the term “the Palestine laboratory”?
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: Thanks so much for having me on, Amy. What I mean by that is that the occupation of Palestine by Israel is now the longest occupation in modern times, 56 years and counting. There’s obviously been an occupation of sorts since 1948, but particularly since 1967. And during those years, what Israel has done, very successfully, from its perspective, is find various tools and technologies to maintain and control Palestinians. And what they’ve done during that time, what Israel has done, is increasingly export those tools and technologies, but also those methods, those so-called counterinsurgency methods.
So, what I look at in the book, both being on the ground in Palestine for many years and also through declassified documents and various interviews across the world, is that you find in over [00:44:00] 130 countries across the globe in the last decades, Israel has sold forms of anything from spyware, so-called smart walls, facial recognition tools — a range of tools of occupation and repression, that have initially been tested in Palestine on Palestinians. So, in other words, what I’m saying is that the occupation of Palestine is not staying there. It’s not a conflict that remains geographically based just in Palestine. It’s become so-called "global Palestine".
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: How would you describe "politicide", a term you use?
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: Politicide, I think, was a term that was coined by Baruch Kimmerling, who is now the late, amazing academic. And he was talking really about the concept of a desire within many in the Israeli elite to find ways to destroy Palestinians, not necessarily just through killing them, but also through extinguishing their political identity, their political self-determination.
And when looking from the [00:45:00] outside, one could argue that in some ways Palestinian resistance lives on. Your last segment talked about that very strongly. Palestinians mostly have not left Palestine. They remain there.
But certainly, from the current Israeli government, and, I would argue, for decades, there has been a sense that there’s a way to crush Palestinian aspirations, their views, their political reality, their future, their horizon. And by doing so, Israel has increasingly marketed that to a global audience, including in its whole identity as an ethnonationalist state. It’s arguably the most successful ethnonationalist state in the world, a Jewish supremacist state. And growing numbers of nations around the world, from India and others, look to Israel with admiration and inspiration.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: We just covered Modi and the lavish reception he got by the president of the United States, Biden, with a state dinner last night, the joint session of Congress. Talk about — a little more — [00:46:00] about how India looks to Israel.
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: Look, what India is doing under Modi, of course, is not solely because of Israel. But traditionally, Israel and India were not particularly good friends. But in the last 10 years or so, since Modi took power in 2014, there’s been a real ideological alignment.
But the relationship is really twofold. One, it’s a defense relationship. So India buys huge amounts of technology, defense equipment, spyware. I interview a number of people in my book, individuals in India, lawyers, others, who are spied on by Israeli spyware, particularly Pegasus by NSO Group. But also, there’s an ideological alignment, a belief that many Indian officials in the Hindu fundamentalist government there are openly talking about admiration for what Israel is doing in the West Bank, and wanting to do something similar in Kashmir.
And what I mean by that is, they say that — two reasons. One, because Israel gets away with it. No one’s stopping it. There’s a complete state of impunity that Israel has [00:47:00] globally, really. But secondly, this idea of bringing in, according India’s view, huge numbers of Hindus to Muslim-majority Kashmir to settle that territory, to build so-called settlements akin to what Israel is doing in the West Bank. And I think there’s a really disturbing ideological alignment. I would actually make the comparison between Israel and India today to Israel and apartheid South Africa back in the day — nations that were very, very close ideologically and got inspiration from each other, in the belief, in Israel’s case, of course, being a Jewish supremacist state, in India’s case, being increasingly a Hindu fundamentalist state. And that, to me, is something that should concern people, including the U.S. president.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, Antony, you talk about a Jewish supremacist state. I’m wondering if you could talk about your own background, something that you take on in this last piece you wrote, “Being Jewish and critical of Israel can make you an outcast. I should [00:48:00] know.” And talk about your family, your grandparents, your great-grandparents, those who died in Auschwitz, those who didn’t survive the Holocaust.
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: Most of my family, sadly, Amy, like most Jews who lived in Europe, perished in the Holocaust, including Auschwitz. And the ones who got out and escaped Europe, particularly in 1939, just before the war started, escaped to wherever they were given a visa: Australia, Canada, the U.S., elsewhere. And the ones who came to Australia, when I was growing up — I was born in the mid-'70s in Melbourne — Israel was not the center of their lives, but Israel was seen as a safe haven. For those who don't know, as a Jew, I can go to Israel tomorrow, and within a few months, I can almost certainly be a Jewish citizen, if I can prove that I’m Jewish.
And I think, for many Jews, including my family, there was a real reluctance, and, in fact, a hostility, to any kind of Palestinian reality, Palestinian story, even to meet Palestinians. I mean, as a young Jew, I [00:49:00] never met Palestinians. And I think there is a change going on, but, certainly, when I started writing about this issue around 20 years ago — I wrote a book in 2006 called My Israel Question, where there were attempts by the Israel lobby in Australia to censor the book. There was attempts to pulp the book. There was condemnations of me in Parliament. I mean, it was ridiculous. The book became a best-seller, thanks to all that ridiculous controversy. But over that time, my parents, both of whom lost most of their Jewish friends, because it was the sins of the son — I was being critical of Israel. I was trying to humanize Palestinians.
Now, I’m not the only Jew, of course, who was saying this. And I’m really encouraged in the last years, in Australia, the U.S. and other Western countries, a growing, almost like a Jewish insurgency against particularly an older generation of Jews who doesn’t want to humanize Palestinians and somehow believes that Jewish identity should be tied to Jewish supremacy. And so, for me, personally, I don’t claim to [00:50:00] be a victim. That story that you referenced at the beginning sort of gives a bit of a pallid history of my life, but also explains that one does pay a price for it. One does pay a price as a Jewish person. I’m a secular anti-Zionist Jew today. But I feel often that there is a real moral collapse in much of the Jewish diaspora in the last decade. It is changing, but not nearly fast enough.
The Palestine Laboratory Antony Loewenstein on How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Part 2 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 6-23-23
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Antony, we were talking about the horrific shipwreck last week of migrants, maybe up to 700 dead. Can you talk about Israeli technology used by the European Union to surveil and target asylum seekers?
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: This really shocked me, you know, years ago, when I started doing some work on this issue. The short version is that the European Union in the last years after 2015, when they were, in their view, overwhelmed by particularly Muslim refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere, didn’t want to ever repeat that. And they [00:51:00] put in place almost a fortress-type Europe, which has occurred in the last years, which is a range of tools and technologies to keep people out — mostly Muslim and Brown and Black bodies, of course.
And part of that arsenal is using Israeli drones. They’re unarmed, but they are flying over the Mediterranean 24/7, and they’re used mostly by Frontex, which is the EU’s sort of border security arm. And they’re the eyes in the sky, essentially. So, they are sending back all these images 24/7 to Warsaw, which is where Frontex is based. And the EU has made a decision — of course, they don’t admit this, but this is the reality — of letting people drown. This is the new policy. There are very, very few rescue boats. The EU barely rescues anyone. There are some NGOs that are trying to do so, and I deeply admire what they’re doing. So, the Israeli drone becomes a key arsenal in part of this infrastructure of essentially allowing people to drown. And to me, it [00:52:00] really goes to the heart of why Israeli drones are used by the EU, because they were battle-tested in Palestine over Gaza in a number of years in the last 15 years.
And you see this almost Israeli border-industrial complex exported across the U.S.-Mexico border, for example. There are massive amounts of Israeli surveillance towers, made by Elbit, which is Israel’s leading defense company, dotted across the border. It’s a key part of the U.S. arsenal across its border with Mexico. And why was that company chosen by the U.S.? Because, of course, it was tested first in Palestine.
So, to me, the real concern in the 21st century is, as the climate crisis worsens, as resource wars are worsening, as refugee numbers have never been higher since World War II, many Western nations are, sadly, making a choice to not welcome people in — as we saw with the recent awful shipwreck disaster in the [00:53:00] Mediterranean — but, in fact, to build higher walls and more surveillance. And Israeli surveillance and technology and repression is part of that arsenal that many nations are now buying, because it’s been used, in their view, successfully on Palestinians in Palestine.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: And do you have evidence of the United States in particularly controversial situations working with Israel to perhaps have, for example, in Guatemala, Israel work there so that the United States won’t get — won’t be held responsible?
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: Absolutely. One of the things I document in the book really clearly is that over the last 50 years a lot of nations that the U.S. was close to, Israel almost became an American wingman, often supporting, arming, training nations the U.S. even couldn’t do officially because of some issue maybe in Congress. And that did include nations like Guatemala, including at a point where they were committing genocide against their Indigenous populations. [00:54:00] And one of the reasons that many of those nations — Guatemala, Honduras, Chile under Pinochet, a range of other nations in Latin and South America, or, of course, it went far further, including in Africa and Asia — was that these nations were really attracted by the idea of learning the so-called skills that Israel was gaining through its occupation after 1967. How is it managing the Palestinian population? How is it repressing them, essentially?
And a huge amount of evidence, through declassified documents and interviews, much of which is in the book, virtually goes to the heart of showing that the U.S. and Israel became almost like invaluable partners during that period, to the point where today — look, America remains the world’s biggest arms dealer. Forty percent of the world’s arms is sold by the U.S. Israel is now 10th. And just last week, in fact, Israel released its 2022 arms figures: $12.5 billion U.S., the biggest amount ever. [00:55:00] And 25% of that was going to Arab autocracies, after the so-called Abraham Accords, the Trump deal from a few years ago. So we’re talking about Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and others. So, what are they selling? They’re selling repressive technology, spyware, intelligence gathering, a range of other tools, to prop up U.S.- and Israeli-backed dictatorships in the Middle East. So, this is what the Israeli arms industry is about. Like, this, to me, is not just a moral failing, but a really dark stain on the Jewish legacy 75 years after the Holocaust. Like, this is what we’ve become — “we” meaning the Jewish population of the world. The legacy seems to be backing and supporting and arming the worst regimes in the world.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Let me ask you about something you mentioned earlier, and that’s NSO’s Pegasus. Explain further how it’s used and how it is used to infect the phones, for example, of journalists, some, [00:56:00] for example, who are in jail, like in Morocco, as you talk about the Abraham Accords, Omar Radi, who we interviewed before he was imprisoned, and has been now for several years.
ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN: Pegasus got a lot of attention in the last years, as viewers will know, as probably the most known or infamous Israeli spyware. Essentially, it’s a tool that allows any government or military intelligence or police department to spy on someone’s phone, iPhone or Android, and get all the information from that phone. And it’s popped up in dozens and dozens of countries around the world. And I spend a lot of time in the book interviewing some of the victims of that surveillance, in Togo, for example, in Mexico, in India. And Mexico, interestingly enough, is the biggest user of Pegasus by far. There is an absolute addiction in Mexico, both under right-wing governments and the current nominally left-wing government. Governments don’t want to give this tool up. And it’s not just Pegasus. Of course, there are many other [00:57:00] Israeli companies doing the same thing.
But one of the things that I explore in the book is that so much of the media in the last years around Pegasus missed the key point. It was almost framed as a rogue Israeli company doing terrible things around the world, when, in fact, companies like Pegasus actually are only private in name. They are basically arms of the state. Netanyahu and the Mossad, who have been going to various countries in the last 10 years — I document this in the book, and this has also been shown by Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper — often go to nations, like Saudi Arabia, Rwanda and others, and they hold Pegasus and other tools as a diplomatic carrot: “If you support us in the U.N. or elsewhere, we will sell you the most powerful spyware in the world.” And it works, because it’s been sold in UAE, in Saudi, in Rwanda and many other repressive states. So, unless there is a complete ban or massive regulation, which currently does not exist at all, these technologies will continue. And even [00:58:00] if NSO Group disappears tomorrow — and it’s currently in financial crisis — many other companies do exactly the same thing, and which is why Israel is now one of the leading spyware exporters in the world.
Protests in Israel: The Rights Further Consolidation of Power Part 3 - Intercepted - Air Date 7-26-23
MURTAZA HUSSAIN - CO-HOST, INTERCEPTED: You mentioned that from the U. S. perspective, that it's very important that Israel appears to be a democracy, and the trajectory that's going on right now suggests it'll be less and less like that, and were there to be a collapse in the P. A. or annexation of the West Bank, certainly the chaos that projects from Israel will be greater.
From the perspective of the Israeli right, and given these discussions, even in the press in the U. S. increasingly cutting aid to Israel or conditioning aid to Israel, do they feel that the U. S. relationship is critical to their plans in the future, or do they feel that they can hold on to that military and political relationship regardless of how things may change in the West Bank? Do they see this as a relationship to outgrow, I would say, or is it something that they expect to be there regardless of what they pursue in the future?
MAIRAV ZONSZEIN: If you talk to the practical [00:59:00] right and the military right, which is a big chunk of the people who control the mechanisms of this country, they would say that, of course, the US- israel relationship is the most important thing. I think the foreign ministry, even today, under Netanyahu's foreign minister -- it could be that it was the previous one -- but their main goal is to maintain and strengthen the US-Israel relationship, and if you talk to former military intelligence heads and heads of the Sheen they all agree that the biggest threat right now is a) national unity as a result of what's happening, but b) the threat that the US will no longer support Israel in the same way. So the practical Right thinks that it's necessary, it's the most important kind of asset that Israel has. If you talk to the more nationalist, far-settler-right, they make comments about how, oh, we respect the US of course, but we're a sovereign country and we'll do what we want.
You even had Naftali Bennett who doesn't live in a settlement, but is a pro-settler politician, talking about how Israel has become an economic [01:00:00] power in the region and it doesn't really need US aid in the same way that it did. And he actually wants to wean Israel off of this aid in order to be able to do things with more currency.
You have different perspectives. But I think the security apparatus and establishment is very concerned that the politicians in power, again, some of which have no security background at all, and the opposite -- they have a background of attacking security forces in Israel -- that they are completely undermining the US-Israel relationship. And that will hurt in the future.
And I think we are going to see, even if it's not an announcement that the US is going to stop aid, because I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon, but we probably could see little movements the kinds that Obama even tried to do, which is to abstain from vetoing a UN resolution on settlements or things of this nature, and I think probably we can expect that to happen a bit more, but it won't be formal. It'll be very tacit and piecemeal.
JEREMY SCAHILL - CO-HOST, INTERCEPTED: This doesn't often get mentioned but part of what I think people need to understand about this four billion plus dollars in what is just universally [01:01:00] referred to as aid, a lot of money that the US is giving to Israel actually comes back to US defense contractors and the war industry. There's a way in which it's also, it's not just about the US-Israel special relationship, there's a capitalist dimension to this. There's a war profiteering dimension to this. And there's the military-industrial complex in the United States which benefits from it. And then those companies are financing the election campaigns of many politicians in the United States, both Democrat and Republican. I just think it's important to put that on the table, because it's surprising, but it just doesn't often get mentioned.
But related to that aspect of this, Mairav, I wanted to ask you is there anything about this current situation that can tell us anything about Israel's posture right now and the Netanyahu government toward Iran? Is there any connection between this judicial move, this law, and Israel's posture toward Iran at this moment?
MAIRAV ZONSZEIN: It's funny because the Iran issue is something that Netanyahu has built [01:02:00] his career on, he went to Congress about it, and we actually haven't heard him talking about Iran that much lately, even though we are in a moment in time where Iran could not be closer to a nuclear weapon as a result of Trump, at his behest, pulling out of the JCPOA.
I'm not sure I see a direct connection, but I do see that Netanyahu has, for a long time, and we reached the point that we reached because he has been attacking civil society, inciting against Palestinians, and creating facts on the ground to build this conservative kind of camp, and also making relationships with the evangelicals and the Republicans, which would not make it so that he doesn't really need Joe Biden because he can wait for the next election and he doesn't even need him.
But if you ask me specifically on the Iran issue, if Israel wants to build up a military power to strike Iran, or if it wants to build up a credible military threat with the US, then obviously what it's doing now is counterintuitive to that. So I'm not really sure what Netanyahu's strategy on that is. And again, the [01:03:00] security establishment is very much against Netanyahu and what he's doing because, specifically of this issue, that we need the US's support, whether they do it with us or without us, we need US support. But I guess, part of Netanyahu's foreign policy the last few years has been to build up what he would have hoped would have been an Arab NATO against Iran. That obviously isn't happening. And, his push for normalization with Saudi Arabia I think is part of this effort and part of also a way to detract from his domestic issues, because I don't think it's something that is going to happen anytime in the near future.
So I think he may be using the judicial overhaul -- and let's not forget he's on trial for corruption -- using those issues to detract, and then come back to the Iran issue when it's convenient for him. But if you look at the practical approach, he's not really doing what a responsible kind of an adult who wants to make sure that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon should be doing.
So I don't know if that's him being irrational or him just worrying [01:04:00] only about his own political survival, but it doesn't really seem to add up.
Final comments on the circular Supreme Court case sending Israel into a spiral of chaos
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips today, starting with Ali Velshi arguing that the U. S. shouldn't be inviting Netanyahu for photo ops while he's actively undermining democracy in Israel. Democracy Now! looked at the Israeli Supreme Court reforms and the protests supporting democracy in that country. Intercepted discussed how the right is consolidating power in Israel and the impacts of that shift.
Deconstructed tried to wrap their minds around the pretzel logic of refusing to call Israel an apartheid state because maybe at some point in the future they won't be. Intercepted looked at the division in the protest of the Supreme Court issue and the Palestine issue, as well as visions for the West Bank.
Democracy Now! discussed the arguments around labeling Israel an apartheid state, and Democracy Now! also discussed the technological side of Israeli occupation. That's what everybody heard, but members also heard two additional bonus clips. [01:05:00] The first from Democracy Now! continuing the discussion about Israeli technology being exported to the rest of the world.
And Intercepted looked at the importance of the continued support of the U. S. to the Israeli far right. 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 No. 1542, Despair and Violence in Israel's Illiberal and Exclusionary Democracy. C. That's from February of this year, and it's basically a prequel to today's news, discussing the election of the far right government and warning about the reforms that were planned at the time and are now being implemented.
But number 1447 [01:06:00] settler colonialist structures around the world. That's from October, 2021 is really interesting because it looks at the dynamics and structures of settler colonialism, including the us. Caribbean, Australia, Israel, and Mexico. So it's really useful as a perspective to recognize that what's happening in Israel isn't unique to them or anything intrinsic to the Jewish people, Palestinian people, or their individual or shared histories.
It's really just the dynamics of settler colonialism playing themselves out. Again, those were episodes 1542 and 1447. Now, to wrap up, I just wanted to make mention of the Israeli Supreme Court hearing for challenges to the new law that is meant to limit Supreme Court power by giving the legislature the ability to vote to ignore Supreme Court rulings.
[01:07:00] And if that sounds circular, you are right. And that is exactly why this is such a dangerous path for the Parliament to have sent them down. The whole idea is that the Supreme Court is supposed to be a check on legislative power, and this is totally normal. But the legislature passed a law to limit the power of the Supreme Court to limit the power of the legislature.
So now the Supreme Court will have to decide whether to reject the law as an overreach of legislative power. And then you might be able to guess where that could go. So there should be a ruling by January. It's going to be fascinating no matter what happens. The three basic options for how it could play out are number one, they allow the law to stand.
And give the legislature, currently led by a far right coalition, essentially unchecked power. Number two, they reject the law as unreasonable overreach of legislative power, and the previous status [01:08:00] quo sort of goes back into place. Or three, they reject the law, but then the legislature votes to ignore the Supreme Court, and the country spirals into an abyss of constitutional crisis like we haven't seen in a good long time.
Have I mentioned before that 2024 is going to be a hell of a year? That feels like something I've said and that you should be girding yourself now for the onslaught of completely wild news and politics coming our way. Anyway, if I hadn't said it before, I've said it now. 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 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 Lawendy [01:09:00] 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. It would be greatly appreciated. You'll find that link to sign up 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.
#1583 Alluring Conspiracy Culture vs Capitalism (Transcript)
Air Date 9/18/2022
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 my friends over at 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 world of conspiracy theories, because we are all wired to believe misinformation to some degree, but not all to the same degree. So with help from Naomi Klein and other experts, discover why people are drawn to conspiracies, the psychology behind belief, and ideas about the best ways to prevent conspiratorial thinking.
Sources today include The Guardian, Big Questions from Penguin Books UK, Leija Miller, Democracy Now!, The University of Chicago Institute of Politics, Speaking of Psychology, and a TED Talk, with additional members-only clips from The Daily Show and the [00:01:00] PBS NewsHour.
Why we are all attracted to conspiracy theories - The Guardian - Air Date 3-10-21
JOSEPH USCINSKI: If the question is why do people believe conspiracy theories, the question you're really asking is why do people believe anything? And the answer is, for a lot of reasons. There isn't just one factor. And it would be easy if we could pin it on one thing, like, oh, it was Twitter made everyone believe this. Or they were dropped on their head. Or they happen to fit a particular demographic. Or they have some psychological problem. But that's not going to explain most beliefs for most people.
JFK CLIP: My eyes have opened. And once they're open, believe me, what used to look normal seems insane and now keen. Don't you think, don't you think this has something to
do with that?
RICHARD SPRENGER - HOST, THE GUARDIAN: The reality is that we all share certain hardwired evolutionary traits that help us navigate the world. One such trait is how we verify information without direct personal experience.
DAVID BARRON: We only have a certain knowledge. Normally it's what's all around us. I know my Hyundai car, but I [00:02:00] do not know another car.
We've been in that situation where we'll step into a new car and then you can't release the hand brake because it's some strange setup. It's the same idea as in, how we navigate the world. There's gaps in our knowledge that we have to fill. That knowledge that we bring in... It can be flawed.
RICHARD SPRENGER - HOST, THE GUARDIAN: We readily assign truth to new information in part because so much of the information we receive is true, and also because it's easier to process.
But these useful shortcuts are vulnerable to being hijacked by misinformation. Studies have shown that when we are repeatedly exposed to a piece of false information, we become more likely to believe it.
ARCHIVE CLIP: One. One. The subject denies the evidence of his own eyes and yields to group influence.
NADIA BRASHIER: We fall for repetition even when we know better. We see it months after [00:03:00] exposure, among intelligent people, and even after we give strong warnings.
RICHARD SPRENGER - HOST, THE GUARDIAN: This illusion of truth can have a powerful effect.
NADIA BRASHIER: It's really difficult to correct misconceptions once we accept them.
The brain data suggests that myths are never erased. So we're concurrently storing both the original misinformation and its correction.
That correction might fade from memory faster, and that leaves us with that original myth.
ANCHORMAN CLIP: They've done studies: 60 percent of the time, it works every time.
That doesn't make sense.
RICHARD SPRENGER - HOST, THE GUARDIAN: Humans are storytellers, and our tendency to create narratives and find patterns has served us well throughout history, allowing us to predict, react to, and change the world around us.
DAVID BARRON: Human beings crave logic. Human beings crave understanding. They need to know why something has happened.
SHAUNA BOWES: It makes total sense that we [00:04:00] want to find patterns in our environment. The abnormal part is I see random patterns as meaningful in almost everything that I do. If I over-rely on this strategy in seeking out information in my environment, or if I'm over-confident in this process, then I'm not going to think to question it.
RICHARD SPRENGER - HOST, THE GUARDIAN: The propensity to seek patterns in unrelated information can result in finding ominous meaning where there is none. But because the world is so complex and the sheer amount of information within it is infinite, random coincidences are not just likely, but inevitable. Though both useful and natural, these cognitive processes we all experience present a huge challenge to those attempting to stem the tide of misinformation and conspiracy theories.
SHAUNA BOWES: How do we communicate this to people, that entropy and [00:05:00] randomness and disorder and chaos, in a way that isn't gonna push people away? And I don't think we have a good handle on that because we can be preachy, we can be overly complicated, or just inaccessible, and a lot of people don't trust scientists to begin with, so I think we've found ourselves in a very challenging place.
NADIA BRASHIER: We can't know everything, and so we have to trust that some people are sharing high quality information. And we definitely don't want people becoming so skeptical that they're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Conspiracies do sometimes occur, but it's important to remember that those are typically revealed by investigative journalists or whistleblowers, not anonymous Reddit and 4chins..
How did conspiracy theories become mainstream? | Naomi Klein | Big Questions - Penguin Books UK - Air Date 9-12-23
NAOMI KLEIN: I worry about the the way algorithms are changing us. It's just the currency of the attention economy, of likes, of retweets. They're value-free measurements, in the same way that money is.
And the question is not, was this insightful? [00:06:00] Was it correct? It's, how many? How much? So that's sometimes referred to as clout online. And what clout measures is not, is it good? Is it bad? Is it true? Is it false? It's, how much bulk "youness" there is in the world? I say in the book if influence sways, clout just squats.
And I think that what that does is, if that's the currency of the online economy, it selects for a certain type of personality that really needs a lot of attention, for whatever reason. The attention economy rewards the part of ourselves that wants the attention, that wants to see our name, that wants that validation. And it changes us. I think it does change us. I think we all know people who have been changed. I've been changed; I've watched it change my research habits.
The reason why I did this study of my doppelganger is I think she's emblematic of something that's happening much more broadly in the culture, which is [00:07:00] people are changing. My doppelganger is very different than she used to be. And I know lots of people who have changed a lot. And everybody I talk to about this is " Oh God, I can't talk to my uncle anymore. I can barely even talk to my sister. My grandmother won't get off Facebook." .
So we're all having this experience of not just the world changing, but people we know and love changing and seeming almost beyond the reach of love or reason.
And so I thought it would be interesting to try to figure out, what are the mechanisms that are leading to this huge change?
Conspiracies have been mainstream at various points in history. I don't think we are in entirely new uncharted territories. I think that conspiracy theories play particular roles in our mental architecture and in our social relations.
And the one thing that conspiracy theories do is distract us from unbearable reality.
So a lot of my work [00:08:00] has been about the climate crisis. And if I look at climate change denial, which is a conspiracy theory, the reason that conspiracy has gotten traction is a combination of the fact that there are very powerful vested interests in our society that don't want us to focus on the real causes of the warming because it would threaten their entire business model, that being the fossil fuel companies that have underwritten that conspiracy theory. But also just the reality that, like Al Gore said back in the day, it is an inconvenient truth, in that it does require change from us. It's always easier to take a flight into fantasy than it is to confront a difficult reality.
And so I think that COVID was also a difficult reality, and it asks difficult things of us. We also live in a society that tends to turn to individual responses as opposed to more difficult collective responses. So our neoliberal governments were more likely to tell us to wear a [00:09:00] mask and get vaccinated than they were to say, let's make sure that every worker has sick leave, has enough money to stay home if they need to, let's make sure that our kids go to schools with lots of great ventilations. These are all possible responses our governments could have had to COVID. And we still would have needed to wear masks and get vaccinated. But they put everything onto those individual responses and really neglected those collective responses that would have made it easier.
Many people weren't supported by the programs that were supposed to support people to stay home. And a lot of people chose fantasy, and just chose to believe that COVID was a conspiracy.
What's interesting about studying COVID conspiracy theories is that they're not really theories. They're just a range of plots, most of which contradict each other. One of them is COVID is a biological weapon developed in a lab by the Chinese in order to wipe out the West. Also, [00:10:00] don't wear a mask, which is weird, because if it's a biological weapon, you'd think you would take precautions. And then also the vaccines are a bioweapon. So is it COVID that's the bioweapon? Or is it--? It doesn't matter. It's just generally the moral of the story is you don't need to do anything. You don't need to stay home, you don't need to wear the mask, you don't need to get vaccinated.
Conspiracy theories get the facts wrong, but they often get the feelings right. And the feeling is: something's being hidden from us, something doesn't add up. There is impunity for the powerful. Rather than seeing a system -- and I'm somebody who's been studying the system of capitalism through all of my books that's really what they're all about -- conspiracy says no, it's this: it's Fauci, it's Schwab, it's this meeting in Davos.
And so this is the other reason why conspiracies are spreading now and becoming so mainstream. Even though conspiracy theorists always talk about "the elites, they're after you", the people who conspiracy theories benefit most are the elites, [00:11:00] because it deflects attention away from the system that has made them billionaires. And it says, "No, it's not the system. It's just those three guys. We just have to get those three guys." It's a system-protecting framework, conspiracy theories. That's why conspiracy theories often play on racial and ethnic stereotypes. They break apart potential coalitions from below.
Why Do Conservatives Fall For Fake News? - Leeja Miller - Air Date 6-28-23
LEEJA MILLER - HOST, LEEJA MILLER: While so many people purport to be concerned about the prevalence of fake news, relatively few indicate having ever seen or shared it. That math ain't mathin', friends. However, this is not an equal partisan split. Republicans who consider themselves further to the right tend to be much more likely to spread disinformation through social media sharing than Democrats who consider themselves farther to the left.
A recent Politico study identified these individuals as "low conscientiousness conservatives," or LCCs for short. These low conscientiousness conservatives are conservative and [00:12:00] fall on the low end of conscientiousness, defined by the study as the tendency to regulate one's own behavior by being less impulsive and more orderly, diligent, and prudent.
So there are low conscientiousness liberals, high conscientiousness liberals, high conscientiousness conservatives, and low conscientiousness conservatives. And of those four groups, Low Conscientiousness Conservatives, or LCCs, were far more likely to believe in and share fake news and disinformation.
The only factor that this study was able to determine as the reason for why LCCs were so much more likely to share fake news was their "specific proclivity for chaos," which the study defined as "a motivation to disregard, disrupt, and take down existing social and political institutions as a means of asserting the dominance and superiority of one's own group."
Indeed, multiple other studies have confirmed that conservatives have a lower ability [00:13:00] to distinguish truths and falsehoods. This is due in part to the fact that a vast majority of the disinformation out there tends to reinforce conservative ideologies, while the corresponding truths tend to favor liberal viewpoints. But this can also be explained by the fact that conservatives tend to generally be less trusting of established institutions, news media, and democracy itself.
And with the growth in partisan siloing, meaning the lives of Republicans and Democrats look vastly different, comes the growth in one very significant factor: liberals tend to go to school for longer than conservatives. Education level is another factor that strongly predicts whether an individual is able to distinguish between fact and fiction.
But this truth, that liberals tend to be better educated than conservatives, also reinforces another commonly held right-wing belief, that elites and academics are controlling the narrative and can't be trusted. And their distrust of academics and elites makes sense. Because partisanship has led to severe distrust in the other [00:14:00] side, because we've internalized our politics to the point of them becoming personal identifiers of morals and worldviews, and the vast majority of people in academic and research institutions are liberals, because liberals are the ones obtaining higher education at a larger rate. So their distrust is self reinforcing and also indicative of their ability to distinguish facts from fake news, leading to a self-perpetuating cycle that seems impossible to stop. How do you convince a group of people to believe facts when those facts were discovered by academics who tend, on average, to skew liberal and are therefore the enemy? And, according to conservatives, probably bought out by Big Pharma or George Soros or something.
On top of this, the past seven years have seen the accumulation of multiple different events that culminated in the perfect storm that led to January 6th and the stolen election conspiracy theory. Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, as if any of us could forget. And with his election came a president who was quick to share whatever information, whether true or false, [00:15:00] furthered his cause or increased his power.
We also had a president with an unprecedented connection to the news media, specifically, Fox News, and fringe, far right newspapers and fake news creators like Steve Bannon. A president who regularly called in to Fox & Friends and made wild statements that had no basis in fact or reality, knowing that Fox had a direct line to his base and would do very little to fact check him or really stop him from doing and saying whatever he wanted.
Add to that, a global pandemic which left people feeling isolated, afraid, confused, and looking for answers. And we have a perfect storm wherein disinformation can spread. And we saw this first with the pandemic itself, leading to what the CDC termed an infodemic, where so much information is available and being spread online that it crowds out the information that the experts in the field are trying to communicate to the public, leading to widespread distrust in the authorities and experts, and causing people to do drastic and risky things because of that fear and [00:16:00] distrust. So you have people injecting themselves with bleach and horse medicine because there's just so much disinformation floating around that the actual truth seems wrong to them, especially because the type of person willing to believe that ingesting bleach is medically a good idea is also probably somebody who's a conservative with a low conscientiousness and a proclivity for chaos, making them the perfect consumer and purveyor of fake news.
Along with this infodemic and the election of Donald Trump, arguably the most populist politician who's ever taken the White House, you have a general erosion of public trust in democracy itself. Plus, the very point of populism and a populist politician is to have followers of the populist politician -- in this case Donald Trump -- believe in the strength and truth of that central person, at the expense of belief in the system. Studies have shown that populism erodes democracy by requiring belief in the person or the nation, not based around specific issues or communities, but based around an organic, [00:17:00] undefined version of the nation state. Like, Make America Great Again. How? It's unclear. But if you don't believe in that statement, can you really call yourself a true American? A true patriot? Because another way that populism thrives is through the unquestioning adherence to belief in that nation and in that person, so that if you are not with us, then you're against us.
Populist leaders further erode trust in democracy by questioning the establishment, the media, and the elites, a theme we've already talked about, and that was the central touchstone of the Trump presidency. According to Stanford's Global Populisms Project, among most dangerous of populism's consequences is the erosion of formal democratic rules and liberal institutions. These destructive effects of populist rule include the takeover and taming of courts and oversight institutions, and new laws that limit the freedom of the media and civil society. These legal and formal maneuvers erode public criticism, transparency, and accountability.
Just as importantly, however, such governments have also made a [00:18:00] point of undermining informal democratic norms, such as conflict of interest laws, financial transparency, or respect for opposition. Here, the damage may go deeper, and be far less reversible. Such norms and informal rules are the product of decades of elite and popular interactions. Once such trust and consensus disappears, it is not easy to bring it back. And with all of this, the Trump presidency and the chaos of the pandemic, the election denial and eventual January 6th insurrection, becomes a very clear and obvious outcome.
Naomi Klein on Her New Book "Doppelganger" & How Conspiracy Culture Benefits Ruling Elite Part 1- Democracy Now! - Air Date 9-14-23
NAOMI KLEIN: I think we all know people who have changed dramatically in the past few years, who don’t really seem like themselves. I think it’s less interesting that Naomi Wolf is seemingly a doppelganger to a lot of people’s eyes than that she seems to be a doppelganger of her former self. That she was a prominent feminist, she was involved in progressive movements, and now here she is on Steve Bannon’s podcast, in some [00:19:00] cases every single day. Like there have been weeks where she has been a guest every single day that he has been broadcasting. I think probably Democracy Now! listeners would be surprised to learn that they published a book together, they put out t-shirts together. So, her role in Steve Bannon’s media sphere is almost like a cohost more than a guest. She is a really important figure in this world.
But part of the reason we don’t know this has to do with this what I call the "mirror world" and the fact that while they see us, we have chosen for the most part not to see them. And I think that that’s very dangerous because these are really important political movements. Steve Bannon is a very able political strategist. He got Donald Trump elected once and he fully intends to do it again. And part of Steve Bannon’s strategy is that he is very good at looking at issues and people who have been abandoned by the Democratic Party, or even by the left, people who have been [00:20:00] mistreated, ejected, and saying, “Come on over to this side. Come on over to this side of the glass. We’ll take a little bit of truth”—you used that quote, that there’s always a little bit of truth mixed in—”and we’ll mix it up with all of these dangerous lies.”
But to me, as a lifelong leftist, what concerns me about that is that many of the issues that they are co-opting and twisting are issues that I think the left should be more vocal about. I had one of my most—I’d say like a moment in the research where I was listening to hundreds of hours of Bannon’s podcast, where I would say I felt most destabilized was when I would hear Bannon cut together a montage, an audio montage and a video montage, of intros and outros of major cable news shows on CNN and MSNBC—”brought to you by Pfizer,” “brought to you by Moderna.” His point was to say, “You can’t trust these corporate media outlets because they are bought and paid for by the drug companies that are trying [00:21:00] to get you vaccinated.”
But for me what was chilling about that was that that was a doppelganger of the kind of media education that I grew up in. We all read Manufacturing Consent. We had these charts where we—and I mean, Amy, they sounded a little like you. They sounded like me. They sounded like Noam Chomsky. Except through a warped mirror. And what worried me about that is it really reminded me that I don’t think we’re doing that kind of systems-based media education anymore where we really are looking at these ownership structures. And if that doesn’t happen, then it is going to be co-opted in the "mirror world".
So, Nermeen, thank you for your kind words about the book. I’m so glad that it resonated with you. It was a sort of risk but I think maybe by being specific, we’re all thinking about the people in our lives and this phenomenon that has affected us all.
I think when I look at people who have made a similar political migration from liberalism or leftism over to [00:22:00] the Bannonesque right, I think we often see some economic forces at work. Naomi Wolf has quadrupled her following because of this decision, this political decision of hers. She is not the only one. I’m sure people are thinking of other people. It’s actually a really smart business move. And this is happening within an economic system that has monetized attention. People are trying to build their personal brands because they’ve been told that they’re not going to get a job, that this is the only way they can survive in these roiling capitalist seas. And there’s a lot of clicks over there. So I think that’s some of it.
What are the other forces that get magnified? Well, this is a little tricky to say, because I do write—I don’t think this gives people a pass, but Wolf is one of these people who has experienced a lot of [00:23:00] shaming and kind of pile-ons on left Twitter, or liberal Twitter, or X or whatever it is called. She has really been, I would say, internet-bullied. People can say, “Okay, well, for good reason. She has spread conspiracies. She has made major factual errors in her book.” But I don’t think that’s necessarily a justification for cruelty. So I think that’s something else that gets magnified. Because I think when people have an experience that is very, very negative in left or liberal circles, where they really get treated almost like they are not human—and that is partly because they’re performing themselves as a brand, which is saying, “Hey, I am out here, I’m a commodity, I’m a thing,” and then people start thinking, “Well, if you’re a thing, I can throw things at you, and you won’t bleed,”—I think that that’s part of what is magnified here, and that becomes a justification for I think an unjustifiable political alliance with extremely dangerous figures who are [00:24:00] building a network of far right political parties who take issues like rightful suspicion of Big Pharma, rightful anger at Big Tech, rightful anger at the elites, and flip it to transphobia, xenophobia, racism. Here I’m thinking about figures like Giorgia Meloni, who is a protégé of Steve Bannon’s.
How Conspiracy Theories Capture the Mind - UChicago Institute of Politics - Air Date 4-8-22
ELLEN CUSHING: Diane, I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about, like, how journalists can cover conspiracy theories better, like, what should we be doing?
DIANE BENSCOTER: I think that journalists have such an important platform, and so you can educate people about the dangers of misinformation and disinformation.
You can speak about the fact that there are people who will try to take advantage of you. There are people that will try to lie to you because they make a profit from it. People need to understand why [00:25:00] and how this is happening. They need to understand that there's profit to be made, and there's weaponization that is to be made.
No one wants to play the fool. No one wants to be an ex-cult member, and no one wants to admit that they've been had. And so if we do it up front and teach people about how to recognize, like, what you were talking about, Abbie, is that journalists can do a better job of that, of educating the public about psychological manipulation, really.
ELLEN CUSHING: Abbie?
ABBIE RICHARDS: Yeah, I think that journalists, are doing much better than they were a couple years ago when we had a huge amplification problem, and they were writing and covering about conspiracy theories and hate groups in ways that just gave them more oxygen than they needed, and that was often coming from White journalists as well, who have the privilege of not feeling as threatened by those groups and those beliefs and ideologies. I think that that [00:26:00] has gotten a bit better, but there's still room for improvement there, when it comes to how we give attention to hateful narratives and hateful people and groups.
JACQUELYN MASON: You know, to that point, you know, often, not always, newsrooms don't represent the communities that they're meant to serve, right? We saw during COVID-19 pandemic kind of a groupthink, right, for that lack of diversity, saying Tuskegee could be a reason not to get vaccinated. But, in reality, when you're talking to people, a distrust of, you know, the vaccines, how quickly they were formulated, right, a distrust of, you know, one type of vaccine in a different community. Access. At a time there was, you know, people going from other communities and taking up all the vaccine appointments, or a time you could get off of work to go and get a vaccine, or a time you could go across town in a bus to get a vaccine. That doesn't mean people don't want to be vaccinated. And to draw on something like conspiracy, like, uh, Tuskegee, which was a very large trauma [00:27:00] for Black folks, it still wasn't right, right? And that's that lack of diversity showing up, and that will show up with other things that emerge. So, I think that diversity is really important. If you don't have it in your newsroom, there's advocates, as I mentioned, working on the ground who can let you know what's truly happening.
DIANE BENSCOTER: And trusted voices again. Bring on the trusted voices onto your news shows, bring on the people that the community trusts, and hear their voices more.
ABBIE RICHARDS: Yeah, and one of the benefits, too, of just including more diverse voices in journalism is that when it comes to covering conspiracy theories, you also don't want to just say, This is fake. Like, that should not be the end of the coverage. And I think that when we look at how we should be understanding the world, it should be through that framework of, like, ecological literacy, not just, like, is this conspiracy true or not, but also what purpose is it serving? Why does it exist? What source of power structures is it upholding?
Naomi Klein on Her New Book "Doppelganger" & How Conspiracy Culture Benefits Ruling Elite Part 2- Democracy Now! - Air Date 9-14-23
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I wanted to talk to you [00:28:00] about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. In July, the Democratic presidential candidate spoke at a press event in New York City and claimed the COVID-19 vaccine is a genetically engineered bioweapon that may have been ethnically targeted to spare people who are Jewish—Ashkenazi Jews—and Chinese.
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: COVID-19, there is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately. COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, that’s Robert Kennedy. Naomi, you wrote an article before these comments in The Guardian headlined "Beware, we ignore Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s candidacy at our peril". Now, [00:29:00] you write extensively in this piece about his background. It was not just COVID-19 vaccines he was concerned about. He goes way back in his antivax attitudes and activism. Talk about the significance of this and what you continually say throughout the book in that we ignore these views at our own peril.
NAOMI KLEIN: I think in a way he is a doppelganger of his father and uncle. I see it as kind of a counterfeit politics. I’m sorry for RFK Jr. supporters who are listening, don’t know how many there are. I think that what he is doing is tapping into a lot of real fears, angers. There are times when I listen to him when I can’t help nodding along when he is talking about regulatory [00:30:00] capture of government agencies by the corporations they’re supposed to be regulating. That is something I have covered for a long time. Or when he’s talking about the military industrial complex.
I think it’s really important—the reason why I call it a counterfeit politics is that although he is calling this out, if you look at what he’s running on, this is not Bernie. He is not actually running on a platform of significant regulations that would address the crises that he is talking about. It is kind of a libertarian platform. He isn’t even running on universal public healthcare. If you are worried about Big Pharma and profiteering, how about running on pharmacare, that we shouldn’t be leaving life-saving drugs to the market? But you will never hear him say something like that.
I think for leftists who are frustrated with the centrism of the Democrats it can seem like this [00:31:00] is really an alternative, and I would really, really caution against it and look at what he is actually running on. Is he running on raising the minimum wage? No, he is not. He is tapping into these real critiques, these real issues like an inflated military budget, but then his position on Israel, for instance, is just more militarism. Same thing with Steve Bannon, by the way. He talks a great game about the military-industrial complex. He is absolutely obsessed with China and positioning the U.S. for a Third World War with China. If you are serious critic of the military industrial complex, you wouldn’t be as focused as Steve Bannon is on China-bashing.
RFK, obviously that clip that you played is extraordinarily disturbing, dangerous. A lot of conspiracy culture starts ending up in this kind of anti-Semitic [00:32:00] territory. It’s the oldest conspiracy theory in the world. I make the argument in the book that part of what we are dealing with the rise of conspiracy culture—and I call it conspiracy culture, not conspiracy theories, because the theories so wildly contradict each other. It’s just a posture of mistrust and just throwing wild theories at the wall. So, one minute COVID is a bioweapon perhaps and the next minute it’s just a cold so don’t even wear a mask. You really would need to choose, if you had a theory, between whether or not it was a bioweapon or whether or not it was a cold. If it were a bioweapon, presumably, you would want to do pretty much anything you can not be infected.
But they never attempt to resolve these glaring contradictions because the point of it is to throw up this kind of a distraction so that we aren’t focused on what I would describe as kind of the conspiracies in plain view. The fact that the pharmaceutical companies turned COVID into this profit center, that despite the [00:33:00] fact that the vaccine development was funded with public dollars all of the initial orders were from the government. That there are these outrageous patents on these vaccines and they should never have been patented in the first place. And I think we need to be really wary of being overly credulous.
We know that there are real conspiracies in the world. You’ve been covering the 50th anniversary of the overthrow of Salvador Allende, and new documents come out every week that show us these behind-the-scenes meetings. But if we look at that conspiracy, it’s a good example. What you see in the documents about the U.S. destabilization campaign of Salvador Allende, it wasn’t that there was some nefarious goal about depopulating the Earth or draining kids of adrenochrome or whatever the conspiracy culture is claiming. It was to protect U.S. copper interests, U.S. telecom interests. It was just capitalism doing [00:34:00] its thing. And sometimes it takes a plot to do it, is the way I put it in the book.
But coming back to what I said earlier about an absence of basic political education, if people don’t understand how capitalism works, if we don’t understand that this is a system that is really built to consolidate wealth and it will always have a massive underclass, and instead people have been told that capitalism is just Big Macs and freedom and rainbows and everybody getting what they deserve, then when that system fails them they’re going to be very vulnerable to somebody going “Oh, it is all a plot by the Jews” or whatever the conspiracy of the day is. That’s why doing that basic political education and economic education is so critical, because it’s really our armor against this conspiracy culture.
Why People Believe in Conspiracy Theories, with Karen Douglas, PhD - Speaking of Psychology - Air Date 1-13-21
KIM MILLS - HOST, SPEAKING OF PSYCHOLOGY: Is there any way to effectively debunk a conspiracy theory once it's out there? I mean, can you just present the facts? [00:35:00] Like, you talked about the anti-vaxxers, you know, the fact that the Lancet article that kind of led to a lot of beliefs that children were becoming autistic as a result of vaccines, and then it turned out that that article was bogus. It was based on faulty data and it was retracted, and yet some people are still hanging on to that. So is there a way to stop these theories from continuing to swirl?
KAREN DOUGLAS, PHD: Yes, there are ways to do this, but of course it's extremely challenging. It's very, very difficult. Once these conspiracy theories are out there and people believe them, then sometimes people can very, very strongly hold on to these beliefs and defend them very, very strongly as well. And once these attitudes are very, very strong, of course, from other areas of psychology, we know that attitudes that are very strongly held are difficult to dispute, I guess, difficult to change. It's very difficult to change these sorts of attitudes. And so, yes, it is a challenge, but there are things that [00:36:00] can be done, and a lot of research that, especially in very, very recent years as well, has started to come out in terms of how do you address misinformation? How do you address conspiracy theories?
And giving people the facts does work under certain situations. In some of our own research, we've actually found that it's quite effective to provide people with factual information, provide people with the facts - and this was particularly about vaccines - before they're exposed to conspiracy theories, and then the conspiracy theory sort of fails to gain traction. But once the people have been exposed to the conspiracy theory, then giving them misinformation - giving them the, I guess, sorry, the appropriate or correct information - afterwards doesn't really work.
So, others have sort of taken this information and have started to look at ways to inoculate people against [00:37:00] misinformation and to inoculate people against conspiracy theories and fake news and all sorts of other things, which seems to be working as well. So, in other words, you give people either the correct information or some piece of weak misinformation before they're exposed to the worst of it, then that helps them to be able to resist it.
There are other techniques that people have used, that researchers have used as well, and just to give you one other example, some researchers have looked at the idea of presenting people with a pre-warning or a forewarning that they might be exposed to misinformation. And if people believe that information that they might receive could be misleading, and they have that information upfront, then that can sometimes help them to resist the misinformation as well.
Now, I think these are all really, really valuable tools, but of course sometimes the misinformation is already out there. So, it's difficult to get to people beforehand, [00:38:00] so then you have to resort to, I guess, traditional debunking techniques, such as going in with consistent, strong counter-arguments. But I think that these other techniques provide real opportunities to help people to resist conspiracy theories in general that they might come across in the future. So if you give people these sorts of ways to critically think about information and and think, Well, you know, okay, I could be exposed to misinformation, that misinformation is out there, so I'm going to be on the lookout for it, then it might actually help people to resist it when they come across it next time, if that makes sense.
KIM MILLS - HOST, SPEAKING OF PSYCHOLOGY: Yeah, it sounds like the techniques that they're trying to use right now with the COVID-19 vaccines, you know, telling people up front that if you happen to be particularly allergic, you might have a reaction, this is what to expect. And yet it's kind of like a game of whack a mole because they talk about all of this and they're trying to be as transparent as possible. And yet along comes somebody who says the mRNA [00:39:00] that's involved in this is actually going to change the DNA in your body. And so, you know, how do you fight that?
KAREN DOUGLAS, PHD: Yeah, it's very, very difficult. And there are new conspiracy theories all the time. It is exactly like that game. You're constantly trying to, you've got one and then you constantly trying to hit another one away. It is very, very challenging. It's there's a lot, there's a lot out there, a lot going on out there.
KIM MILLS - HOST, SPEAKING OF PSYCHOLOGY: Of course, this is all complicated by the fact that sometimes conspiracies do exist, and sometimes people may have deep seated, valid reasons to distrust authority. So, for example, public opinion polls have found that Black Americans are less likely to say they'll take the COVID vaccine and more wary of its safety because they have a long history of being abused and mistreated by the medical establishment. Is there a way for people to balance this awareness with a healthy skepticism of conspiracy theories?
KAREN DOUGLAS, PHD: Yes, again, this is extremely challenging and you're absolutely right that some people have very good reasons to be suspicious [00:40:00] of these sorts of things because of past events. And so the challenge becomes even greater. And so, and I don't know the solution to this, apart from the fact that people who are attempting to fight the misinformation will need to be sensitive to these concerns and perhaps be more targeted in their efforts to debunk the misinformation, being sensitive to these historical events as well. So it can't necessarily be a one size fits all approach to misinformation.
Birds Aren’t Real? How a Conspiracy Takes Flight | Peter McIndoe - TED - Air Date 9-13-23
PETER MCINDOE: I do not actually believe that birds are robots. And everyone else in this picture is also in on the bit.
This is a character that I played for four years, the leader of a fake movement with fake evidence and a fake history. Our goal was to convince the public that our satirical movement was a real one. And see if the [00:41:00] media would believe what we were saying. To do this, I played this character that I just showed you.
We held rallies, put up billboards, we even sent the media a lot of fake evidence. We hired an old actor to pose as an ex CIA agent, confessing to his crimes. Uh, we sent them a historic email leak called PoultryGate that came out of the Pentagon, where we forged hundreds of fake emails, uh, exposing elites and government officials in the, in the Bird Drone Surveillance plot.
It didn't take much to convince the media. Uh, after just one summer holding rallies like this, it became nationally syndicated news on tons of local news stations that we were a real movement that had been around for 50 years. And there was a resurgence happening, where it was coming back, and there was a radical new leader, myself, uh, bringing the movement back as the rise of conspiracy theories swept the nation.
At this [00:42:00] point, I'm sitting on my couch, watching the media report on my fake movement as a real one. And third, it's probably time to come out of character. One, because we'd accomplished... What we came there to do, uh, but also I didn't want this to snowball into anything it was never supposed to. So in 2021, I broke character, revealed the movement was a farce, uh, on the front page of the New York Times.
And I was very proud, as you can see. Allow me to reintroduce myself one more time. Uh, hi. I'm Peter. Can you say hi, Peter? Hey. Uh, I'd like to tell you a little bit about myself. I grew up in Arkansas, in Little Rock. Where I was homeschooled on the outskirts of town. The community that I grew up with was hyper conservative and religious, and almost everyone that I knew believed in some form of conspiracy theory.
Whether it was that Obama was the Antichrist, or that there are microchips in the vaccines. During my entire life, I always felt like I [00:43:00] was on the fringes of normal society, uh, so as you can imagine, when it became time for me to play a character, the conspiracy theorist was a pretty easy one for me to tap into.
During the years in character, I used the same cadence, logic, and arguments as those I grew up around. Just with a different theory swapped in. I was really dedicated to playing this character as convincingly as I could, as method as possible. So I spent days, sometimes, in character. A lot of time out in public with the van there, just talking with strangers.
It led to hundreds of interactions with strangers who thought that I was a real conspiracy theorist. I'd often be out there, cowboy hat on, handing out flyers that said things like, uh, Like, if it flies, it spies.
We had another flyer that said, Birdwatching goes both ways. Uh, and during these times, as I'm handing out [00:44:00] flyers and talking with people, there were hundreds, maybe thousands of instances over the years where strangers would approach me. You know, they'd see me in public, and I'd see them notice me. They'd walk up to me with complete disdain on their face.
They thought that I was a real conspiracy theorist. And time and time again, they'd come up to me, look me right in the eyes, just as close as I am to you right here, and, uh, they would tell me how stupid I am. They'd tell me I was uneducated, that I was crazy, that I was the problem with this country. When this happened, I didn't feel the emotions of the character that I thought I would.
My out of character self may interpret these interactions as a funny response to someone that fell for the comedy project, but instead I felt the emotions of the character. I felt emboldened, and I felt sad and angry, like they didn't [00:45:00] even take the time to know me. Uh, they instantly condemned me, judged me, and othered me.
I found myself on the opposite side of this equation that I'd grown up around. And in those moments when those people were talking to me, they could not have been more ineffective at what I would assume they really want, less conspiracy theorists in the world. These experiences, hundreds of them over the years, watching how people interact with those on the fringes of our society, gave me an entirely new perspective on our approach to conspiracy theorists.
If our goal is to live in a shared reality with our neighbors, what if our current approach isn't bringing us any closer to that? What if by talking to conspiracy theorists like they're ignorant [00:46:00] and stupid, we're actually pushing them farther away from the truth that we want them to see? Because what happens when someone tells you that you're stupid, you're all wrong, you're the problem?
You'll feel judged and dismissed, and most importantly, you'll feel othered, which may lead you to look for safety in those who are like minded, to do what they have been doing for you. Affirm your selfhood, give you a sense of identity, belonging. These are some of the most basic human desires. We have to consider that conspiracy theorists are not just joining these groups for no reason.
They're getting rewards out of these, things that we are all looking for, a sense of purpose, community. I grew up with the internet, and during my time with this project, especially out of character, people have talked to me about the misinformation age and this, you know, terrifying problem of online echo chambers and conspiracy theorists, but I want to remind us [00:47:00] that there are humans behind a lot of these screens, uh, not just numbers.
Everyone's unique experience influences their own narrative about the world, and there's no blueprint for how to deal with this yet, but I do not think that online echo chambers of conspiracy theorists are this inevitable symptom of life online. The internet is about 30 years old and things are changing quickly, and I think it'll be very important that we develop new solutions for these new problems on a fundamental level.
What if, by addressing belief before belonging... We're starting the conversation at the wrong place. Instead of sitting in collective bewilderment and frustration about how these people could believe these things, these crazies, what if we first looked under the hood and thought about what made them vulnerable to this information in the first place?
What might they be getting out of this that they're not getting in their everyday lives? How much does it [00:48:00] have to do with a different truth? How much does it have to do with the community that that truth brings? We need to think about people's circumstances and reference points to see them as fellow human beings who want to believe in something and want to belong, just like all of us do in this room.
Because if we continue with our current approach of arguing on the level of belief, it's not going to get us anywhere. We're going to end up with more echo chambers, more disinformation, and more polarization. Instead we can do the harder work. of looking into what is fueling the need for an alternate truth.
Not only would this lend us more empathy for those who think differently than us, but I really think this might be the only actually productive means, productive means, of moving toward the shared reality that we all want to live in. Let's direct our energy toward the crisis of belonging, and then maybe we will understand the crisis of belief.
Conspiracies Around Trump, Military Leadership, and Militias - Jordan Klepper Fingers The Conspiracy - The Daily Show - Air Date 7-12-23
DR. AMY COOTER: U. S. [00:49:00] domestic militias are civilian militias.
They are intended to exist outside the military, outside the National Guard, and their members are people who really see it as their personal civic duty to kind of act in concert in some ways with the military, to be almost a civilian line of defense against. Potentially invasion, potentially natural disasters, anything in between.
A lot of the members actually have military training. And among the groups I studied, about two thirds of the leaders and about one third of the other members had some service experience. And many of the others who did not kind of felt like they had missed out. They had wanted to be in the service, but didn't qualify medically, or for some other reason, didn't get that service.
And this was almost like. A surrogate for them. Um, their experiences were really about trying to, in their view, stand up for their [00:50:00] country, defend the Constitution, um, and the American way of life in terms of how they specifically defined it.
JORDAN KLEPPER - HOST, THE DAILY SHOW: And as to a code name. Do you have a code name?
DR. AMY COOTER: Some of them actually did call me a renegade because I would study them at a time when it was not really popular for, uh, liberal academics to be dealing with more conservative topics.
JORDAN KLEPPER - HOST, THE DAILY SHOW: Well, I will say this. I was talking with Amy offline a little bit about this, but, uh, I, I read Amy's dissertation years ago because I'm, I'm fascinated about, uh, militias. I'm from Michigan. Which, if you're into militias, Michigan's a great place to be. We got some OG militia action happening there, um, and I think what is fascinating about it is, uh, there's been a lot of talk about the effects of militias and, uh, extremist groups, uh, uh, recently, but you've been doing this for quite some time right now.
What a lot of people I don't think look into is what is appealing about militias, Uh, the process of militias and the average militia goer. I think what I noticed with some of the time that I spent [00:51:00] with, uh, a few militia members, I spent some time with some Oath Keepers recently, uh, just hanging out, having fun, watching mailboxes, trying to save the election.
And I hung out with some folks in, uh, Georgia way back when, and... I think the military side of it is fascinating, because there are some of those people, Oath Keepers in particular, who are ex military folks, ex cops, who see it as an extension of their service. They, they made an oath to this country and to the Constitution, and this is their extension of it.
There are other folks, too, who feel like, uh, just, uh, day players, who wanted the military, and perhaps some had very... Interesting stories about, uh, um, an inability to get into the military. Uh, like you had an astigmatism, so now you wanna be in the militia. It's good enough. Okay, fine. I get it. Seeing a lot of cosplay here.
There's military here and then there's a lot of these people who are pretending to be military here. You know how, you know? Because [00:52:00] they don't have badges. They just have notes from their wife that says you can go for the weekend and hang out with your friends, but be back on time. But there's this funny balance of people wanting to serve, people pretending to serve, and I guess I'm curious too of how you see that aligned with their relationships to the, to, to actual military forces.
Did you find, is, is, is, do you often see it as in concert with the American, uh, military system or is oftentimes some of these militias looking to act in case the military in and of itself is something that turns on the American people?
DR. AMY COOTER: Yeah, the relationship that militias have with the military is frankly quite complicated.
It's something that they tend to like in the abstract, in theory, at least, because they believe that military and national defense are kind of the primary functions of what the federal government is supposed to do. It's one of the few legitimate functions of the federal government from their perspective, but they think that [00:53:00] in practice, the military is prone to corruption or other problems that they see as being kind of endemic to the government as a whole.
So, it tends to be the case, and there can be variation across units or even across sometimes individual militia members, but it tends to be the case that they really honor and revere veterans and service members themselves, but have a lot of distrust for the military as an institution, have a lot of distrust for military leadership.
JORDAN KLEPPER - HOST, THE DAILY SHOW: Paul, does that go both ways? You, you, you know, the military world and those circles. What, what is the feeling for those in service when they look at the modern militia movement?
PAUL SZOLDRA: There's military people in the militias, but also there are those people who are kind of, uh, you know, we kind of call it stolen valor.
Uh, if you're trying to kind of, um, you know, represent yourself as, as part of the military, you know, and you, you know, like some people will do it. A whole lot, you know, throwing medals on their [00:54:00] chest and stuff like that. Others will just kind of pretend and wear the gear and, you know, there's like, there's air softers and stuff that wear all the gear.
They look very military and represent themselves as if, you know, like, hey, I get, get your, your, thank you for your service free meal at Denny's or something. Um, but I, I think, I think, um, you know, military members probably looking at the militia, they think they're a bunch of geeks, you know, like, you know, get a job, like, get a, do, do, uh, you know, if you want to join the military, then join the military, uh, it just looks like this kind of pretend defense thing, and it really ignores the, the reality of, of military operations and what the US military is capable of, you know, if you're looking at a militia, if you're in a militia and, uh, you're, you're there, you know, you're training to, uh, defend the Constitution, whatever that, that, that [00:55:00] idea they think they are doing, um, you know, bottom line is, is they're also thinking about potentially going up against the US military, um, and that's not a winning battle. You know, like, uh, uh, uh, guys with, uh, guys with, uh, small arms aren't gonna really do much against an army with, you know, drones and, and missiles and all kinds of stuff, uh, and so it, it, it seems a little bit lopsided, um, but I, I think, I think also they, they tap into the military legitimacy of, of wearing a uniform and, and looking like you're organized, um, and, you know, following some sort of chain of command, these are, these are military concepts, and they, uh, they make you look you know, more professional, um, and that's the reason why they seek out military [00:56:00] members and veterans because that lends them credibility and legitimacy among, um, among their, their followers and supporters, you know, even, even if you're not.
Even if you're, you know, if you're a, uh, uh, you know, some nerd who could never, could never get into the military, well, you can at least join the militia and be close to, you know, former military members and kind of, it kind of brushes off on you. Um...
JORDAN KLEPPER - HOST, THE DAILY SHOW: You are spilling that tea, spilling that tea on that militia.
Well, also, I do think it also plays off of also the public perspective of the military. As, as a civilian, I think there is a general misunderstanding of the ranks and the difficulties and the world of the military, and so somebody purporting to be a militia member who wears the outfit, talks the talk, um, in a public setting is almost treated as a person with law enforcement bona fides or has, has put in the time.
It's, it's like you, [00:57:00] if you buy enough T shirts with flags on them, and you have good enough posture, then liberal elites like myself are going to let you get on a plane before them, and they're not going to say anything about it. So, you can, you can steal enough valor to get you in certain positions.
Mother has Moment of Truth that leads to her rejecting conspiracy theories she believed - PBS NewsHour - Air Date 9-27-22
JUDY WOODRUFF - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: Like millions of Americans, Karen Robertson of Iuka, Mississippi, believed in conspiracy theories, until, one day, she had an experience that convinced her to challenge her own beliefs.
She spoke about that moment with student reporter Makenna Mead, who is with Mississippi Public Broadcasting's Youth Media Project.
Their conversation is part of our Student Reporting Labs series on misinformation, Moments of Truth.
KAREN ROBERTSON: It was easier to believe that there was someone, something out there to get you, and that's why my life was as bad as it was.
[LAUGHTER]
hi. I'm Karen Robertson. I'm 30, [00:58:00] and I'm a single mom.
We're here to talk about the fact that I actually believed in conspiracy theories once upon a time ago.
MAKENNA MEAD: Can you tell me, like, a couple of the conspiracy, theories that you believed in?
KAREN ROBERTSON: There was one that I don't even know how to describe it.
Apparently, our birth certificates look like some type of like shipping things where we're selling stuff to China. Basically, China owns us.
And there's a movie called "Zeitgeist." They are trying to show you that, like, a lot of what you have been taught isn't factual. And then, at some point, they go on to 9/11 being an inside job. I kind of just straddled the fence on that one.
MAKENNA MEAD: What resonated with you about the conspiracy theories?
KAREN ROBERTSON: I was in an abusive relationship that I didn't realize at the time was abusive. I was trying to make the world make sense, and it was easier to believe that it was a bad place and [00:59:00] something was out to get you, and that's why my life was where it was at and as bad as it was than it was to realize I had made bad choices.
MAKENNA MEAD: Can you tell me why you kind of went off and researched all of the things that you believed in?
KAREN ROBERTSON: There was a very specific night actually that caused this.
This guy and I were talking, and he knew about all these different conspiracy theories that I did. Then, towards the end of the conversation, he was like, get this, flat Earth. And I was like, I thought he was joking. And he's like, dude, there's evidence that the Earth is flat.
A little while later, I saw him use a very, very hard drug. It made me realize, if I am thinking like someone like that, that I should reconsider my belief system.
So, the very next day, I actually searched how to disprove a conspiracy theory. A month, maybe even less, went by [01:00:00] before my brain just kind of clicked, and I was like, all of this is a bunch of hogwash.
MAKENNA MEAD: If you could go back in time and you could talk to a younger version of yourself that believed all those years ago, what would you say to her?
KAREN ROBERTSON: I definitely would tell her that things are going to get better, because I think that was part of her problem. It's hard to change minds.
But that would ultimately be really cool if just a couple people could decide to go look up something and challenge their own beliefs. That's going to be the moral of my story, because, when I challenged my beliefs, it changed my world and it made my life better.
JUDY WOODRUFF - HOST, PBS NEWSHOUR: What a great conversation. And we salute Student Reporting Labs', our own reporter Makenna Mead.
Final comments on the importance of making connections while avoiding conspiratorial thinking
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips today, starting with The Guardian explaining why we are all wired to believe misinformation. Big Questions spoke with Naomi Klein about how conspiracy theories obscure the real issue of capitalism. [01:01:00] Leija Miller broke down who is most susceptible to conspiratorial thinking. Democracy Now!, in two parts, spoke with Naomi Klein about the dynamics of conspiracy. The University of Chicago Institute of Politics discussed the role of journalism in spreading misinformation. Speaking of Psychology explained why prevention is the best solution to counteracting conspiracies. And we heard a TED Talk about a social experiment involving a fake conspiracy about birds not being real.
That's what everybody heard, but members also heard two additional bonus clips, the first from The Daily Show discussing the relationship between conspiracies and military militias and the PBS NewsHour, which featured a story of a woman who managed to pull herself out of conspiratorial thinking. 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 [01:02:00] requesting a financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.
And now additional episodes of Best of the Left you may want to check out related to today's topic include #1371, "Why Even Seemingly Normal People Are Falling for the QAnon Conspiracy Cult". That's from October 2020, which obviously focuses more on the pro-Trump conspiracy cult of QAnon, explaining what it is and why so many people are getting sucked into it. And then also #1443, "Legacies of 9/11: War on Terror, Islamophobia, and Conspiracy Theories", from September 2021, which looks at the parallel legacies of 9/11, including the War on Terror, which ushered in the adoption of ever wilder conspiracy theories and the acceleration of the political divide in America. Definitely worth checking out. Those two, again, are #1337 and 1443.
Now, to wrap up, I must [01:03:00] say, I'm pretty amused at one of the bonus clips we just played for members. If you didn't hear it, the way the woman managed to snap out of her conspiratorial thinking was to have someone she trusted suggest that the Earth was flat, which made her think, Wait a second, am I thinking along the same lines as someone who believes the Earth is flat? I'd better look up how to debunk conspiracy theories, which is presented as a positive and hopeful story about how people actually can recover from conspiratorial thinking, but I can't help but be disheartened by it because, obviously, the answer to the problem of conspiratorial thinking is not to present conspiracists with the wildest, dumbest possible theory in the hope that they think, now wait a second, that's ridiculous. Is that the kind of stuff I'm thinking of? I should really look into some countervailing narratives. Right? Because that obviously doesn't work most of the time. They're actually more likely to just add your ridiculous theory to their long list [01:04:00] of things to consider.
So it's a nice story, sure, but not one that's particularly helpful. Which brings me to the real issue of conspiratorial thinking that's important to understand. Well, maybe a couple of them. The first is that conspiratorial thinking is based on making connections. And making connections is something that's actually really important. In fact, for an example, you only have to go to the final comments of my very last episode, in which I talk all about making the connections and recognizing the patterns as it relates to how capitalism responds to disasters, with Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, and then the fires on Maui, so being able to recognize patterns is actually extremely important to understanding the world.
Conspiratorial thinking is that same very healthy instinct turned up just a little bit too high, but not just too high, and this is the second piece that's important to understand. [01:05:00] It's not just that it's a good and healthy thought turned up to, like, too high of a sensitivity level. The people who fall into conspiracies also usually come with the wrong framework of how the world generally works. Now, the framework that I subscribe to is one of structural forces that are influenced by individuals, but can take paths that no individual particularly planned on it taking. The other framework lacks a structural understanding and sees the world only through the actions of individuals. Then if something terrible happens, particularly something that actually is the fault of people and not just a natural disaster, and you see the world through individual actions only, then it's all too easy to conclude that everyone's actions are actually intentional and that the terrible thing was brought about by people's actions intentionally. And this is why it's so important to understand the [01:06:00] connection with capitalism, as was described in the show today.
To take a recent example, when the safety of the community was at odds with the profitability of the electric company on Maui, the executives were faced with a decision between competing incentives. They may have genuinely wanted to do their best to protect the community by upgrading their equipment to protect against fire. I'm just giving them the biggest possible benefit of the doubt for this theoretical scenario. But they have the incentive structure of the profit motive for the company pulling in the other direction, causing them to say that they couldn't take action until the state agreed to allow the company to pass on the cost of the upgrades to the citizens.
Now, in this thought experiment, the people had no ill intentions and yet acted in a way that was harmful. And that's a perfectly logical explanation that takes both individual action and [01:07:00] structural forces into account. Now, to jump to a conspiratorial conclusion about anyone intentionally starting the fire, or allowing it to start, even if they managed to profit off of the disaster, requires, or should require, a much higher standard of proof.
Thinking in structural terms doesn't preclude the possibility of nefarious individual actions or real conspiracies. It just recognizes that there is usually a simpler explanation for why things are the way they are, while avoiding falling into incorrect conspiratorial trains of logic by insisting that extraordinary claims be backed up by extraordinary evidence.
That's 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 [01:08:00] [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 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 you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from bestoftheleft.com.
#1582 Maui Fire Sale: Hawaiian Colonization, Disaster Capitalism, and the Climate Crisis (Transcript)
Air Date 9/13/2022
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 complex web of colonialism, disaster capitalism, and climate change, and how it's ravaging Native Hawaiian communities. We explore how corporations and privatization, going back to annexation, have exacerbated wildfires Water Scarcity and Housing Issues, and discuss the role of tourism and its impact on local culture and resources.
But we also look at community led mutual aid efforts that are offering a glimmer of hope for the unhoused in Hawaii and those struggling to reclaim their ancestral lands. Sources today include Democracy Now!, Today Explained, Reed Choi on TikTok, Native America Calling. CounterSpin, and This Is Democracy with additional members only clips from The Amanda Seals Show and Bianca Grolo.
Plantation Disaster Capitalism: Native Hawaiians Organize to Stop Land & Water Grabs After Maui Fire - Democracy Now! - Air Date 8-18-23
KAPUAALA SPROAT: Things are pretty brutal right now in Maui Komohana, or in West Maui. People are still trying desperately to find ways [00:01:00] forward from this disaster of untold proportions. And I’m not on Maui; I’m actually on the island of Kauai, so a couple islands over. And I have not been there since the fire, but that’s also absolutely appropriate, because people who don’t need to be there should stay away but send support from afar, regardless of what that looks like, whether that means making and sending poi or writing opinion pieces or sending money. Whatever’s the best way people can support from where they are, I think, is really important.
But the word from our network of folks on the ground is that people are really struggling. I mean, our community has rallied in amazing ways, and I think that that’s part of the message that we want to get out, you know, that “Lahaina Strong” and “Maui Strong,” that those are more than sayings. Our people are incredibly resilient. People aren’t waiting on FEMA or even on the state or county. Relief organizations are springing up in people’s homes, in their garages, and supplies are coming in by boat, by plane, by vehicle when the roads are open.
But there are also a lot of uncertainties, [00:02:00] and people are concerned, because what’s galling for me is I see in the midst of, you know, all of this attention and focus on resources being streamed towards Maui, that really there’s a naked power grab, and really a land and water grab, that’s also underway. There’s been talk already about folks getting offers on their homes. And I know from friends that that’s happening. But as I mentioned, there’s also water grab in the works. And the discussion around this really makes me fear for the future of Lahaina and whether or not it will be one that includes Native Hawaiians and other local people, or whether the build back will focus on outsiders.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s talk about each issue, first the land grab. What exactly does that mean?
KAPUAALA SPROAT: So, to be clear, again, I am not on the ground on Maui. But what I understand from people who are there is that there are realtors and there are others who are making offers to people in their most desperate time of need, when people are, you know, desperate for [00:03:00] funding and other resources to try to build back their lives. People are getting offers on their ancestral homes, lands that — here in Hawaii, when we talk about ancestral lands and our connection to place, we talk in generations and in hundreds of years. And so, our Native Hawaiian Rights Clinic has been on the ground in Maui Komohana working with community members for several years now, and many of our community members have long-standing relationships to place. And it’s some of these community members who are getting offers on their homes at this most difficult time, which, in my opinion, of course, is completely inappropriate.
AMY GOODMAN: You talk about plantation disaster capitalism. Explain.
KAPUAALA SPROAT: Plantation disaster capitalism, I think, is, unfortunately, the perfect term for what’s going on in Maui Komohana, or in West Maui, right now. The plantations, the large landed interests that have had control over not just the land, but really much of Hawaii’s and Maui [00:04:00] Komohana’s resources for the last several centuries, are using this opportunity, are using this time of tremendous trauma for the people of Maui, to swoop in and to get past the law, basically. They’re using the emergency proclamation that the governor put into place the day after the fires, you know, ravaged Lahaina, and they’re using this as an opportunity to try to get their way, especially with respect to water resources, something they could not achieve when the law and Hawaii’s water code, in particular, were in place.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk more about the water grab.
KAPUAALA SPROAT: So, in Hawaii, Ola i ka wai, water is life. It’s one of our most important resources. In fact, there are many people who would say freshwater is our most important resource. And it’s what enabled our people to be able to not just survive, but really thrive in Hawaii for more than a millennia. And in Lahaina, in particular, this area, sure, it’s special for people who come on vacation and [00:05:00] people who know Front Street, but for the people of this community, Lahaina was really the seat of the Hawaiian Kingdom. It was the capital before the island of — before Oahu. And part of the reason that that was so, that Lahaina was such an important place, was because of the abundance of resources, and the abundance of water resources, in particular.
Before the arrival of Europeans in Hawaii, Lahaina was actually known as the Venice of the Pacific, which for folks who have been there recently might seem extraordinary. Right now Lahaina has been desiccated and is almost like a dry desert area. But when it was managed by Kanaka Maoli, by Native Hawaiians, it was abundant with water and other resources. So, what happened was that with the arrival of plantation interests, those water — and especially after the capital was moved to Oahu -- those resources were grabbed up by landed plantation interests, so for sugar plantations and pineapple plantations, and later those [00:06:00] resources were diverted to support other kinds of development, including luxury residential development, and even to support hotels in some instances. And so, what happened is that the wai wai, as we call it, the wealth of Lahaina, was actually taken by these corporations.
And so, what we also know, at least the people from Hawaii, is that part of the reason for this extraordinary tragedy in Maui Komohana, or in West Maui, is also because there has been more than a century of plantation water mismanagement in this area. It’s because of extractive water policies, where water hasn’t remained on the land, invasive grasses have come up. That’s what created the tinderbox and this unfortunate situation of the tragic fire that took place earlier this month.
Why Maui burned - Today, Explained - Air Date 8-15-23
NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: Abby, how did the fires in Maui get so bad?
ABBY FRAZIER: The fires in Maui are due to several different factors. The number one factor that let these fires be so [00:07:00] severe is the presence of large areas of very flammable non-native grasses. That was combined with very high winds due to a hurricane passing to the south, and a high pressure system to the north. So we had very high downslope winds that fueled the fire and caused it to spread quickly. And the other factor here is that they had actually been in drought for the last month or so, and that helped dry out all of those grasses and create the fuels needed for this massive fire that we saw.
NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: Let's go in reverse order there. So conditions were dry. Is Maui in the middle of a drought?
ABBY FRAZIER: The entire island of Maui is in abnormally dry or worse conditions, and there's a pretty large part of the island that's actually in severe drought. Drought is actually a pretty normal natural phenomenon that occurs in Hawaii. We have a pretty pronounced dry season from about May to October. So having a [00:08:00] drought by itself is not abnormal. But we have found that over the last century, droughts have been getting worse, they've been getting more severe and they've been lasting longer.
JENN BONEZA REPORTER: Brown mountains, cracked dry land; Hawaii is once again experiencing drought conditions. Portions of each of the Hawaiian Islands are impacted, but Maui's being hit the hardest.
NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: And then the next factor you talked about was high winds caused by a hurricane. I think you're saying a hurricane didn't hit Maui, but it what was it, getting the tail end of something?
ABBY FRAZIER: Hurricane Dora passed well south of the island. So there was no direct hit. But hurricanes are these deep centers of low pressure. And to the north of the islands, we have a pretty pronounced high pressure system. And you get a gradient where the wind is moving from high to low. And a really strong Category 4 hurricane means that you have this very strong gradient. So winds were moving very [00:09:00] quickly and we had pretty incredible wind gusts.
HAWAII LIEUTENANT GOV. SYLVIA LUKE: Never anticipated in this state that hurricane, which did not make impact on our islands will cause this type of wildfires.
NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: Okay. So the wind blows the fire. And you said the third reason, large areas of non-native grass. What does that mean? How does that contribute to a really bad fire?
ABBY FRAZIER: About 25% of Hawaii's land area is covered in non-native grasses and shrubs. Many of them are species from African savannas and they are extremely flammable. They have essentially taken over the fallow plantation lands across Maui, and those lands are not being managed the same way as when they were active agricultural plantations. So now you just have these large, large areas of very flammable grasses, and sometimes those areas are very close to [00:10:00] communities. So to have a wildfire you need climate, you need an ignition, and you need fuels. In this case, with the Maui fires, we had the perfect weather conditions to support that fire. Likely it was the strong winds knocking over power lines that may have contributed to the ignition part. And then what you need is fuel. And these grasses supply the fuels for these fires.
NOEL KING - HOST, TODAY, EXPLAINED: So Hawaii presumably is prepared for certain kinds of disasters. Why does it seem that Maui was so unprepared for fires?
ABBY FRAZIER: Wildfires have been more common in Hawaii in the last few decades, and we've seen some really massive fires that have affected especially Maui, but also the other islands as well. We have some amazing groups on the ground who have been working to try to reduce fire risk across [00:11:00] the landscape.
There are groups that are working to build fire fuel breaks to help slow down or stop fires.
LISA KUBOTA: The nonprofit group Team Rubicon brought in military veteran volunteers and equipment to create a firebreak that's 545 yards long. They're clearing trees, grass and debris that could serve as fuel for a fire.
ABBY FRAZIER: A fuel break is essentially an area where you have essentially a gap in vegetation, let's say, a road, and in theory, the lack of more fuels, more grasses for that fire to continue, it could hopefully stop the fire.
LISA KUBOTA: Last year, volunteers put in a fire break behind the nurseries in the valley. Now a second one is going in behind the homes of Mariner's Cove.
ABBY FRAZIER: You have some folks that are using livestock to help graze and bring down those fire fuels, but it's happening without very many [00:12:00] resources. And one thing that's really changed in recent years is the closure of these plantations.
KHON2 CLIP: It's the end of an era for Hawaii's sugar industry, as the final sugar harvest in our state took place on Maui.
ABBY FRAZIER: When the plantations were active, if a fire occurred on the landscape, it probably wasn't going to be as bad because you were irrigating a lot of the land, but you also had staff on site who could open the gates and let the firefighters in. They knew where the roads were. Now everything is overgrown and covering just these vast areas. And so it's really, really hard to keep these fires under control.
We are concerned for you. - Read Choi - Air Date 8-4-23
ELITE: Oh my God! I heard what happened in Maui!
NATIVE HAWAIIAN: Yeah, it's really bad.
ELITE: Is my property okay?
NATIVE HAWAIIAN: What? I don't know. Let me check.
ELITE: I'm just so concerned about the island and its people, my employees.
NATIVE HAWAIIAN: Right. Um, huh. It doesn't look like it was affected at all.
ELITE: Oh, uh, that's [00:13:00] yay! That's -- what a miracle.
NATIVE HAWAIIAN: Yeah. Now that you mention it, it doesn't look like any elite houses were affected.
ELITE: Don't worry, I'm still concerned. That's why I started that fund to help allocate your donations for you on your behalf.
NATIVE HAWAIIAN: Yeah, and you're getting a lot of hate for that. I wond-- Why do you not care? Did you expect this? Careful, once you open the store, you can never close it. What have you done to us?
ELITE: Done to you? No, no, no, no, no. What have we done for you? We let you keep this land amongst yourselves and you couldn't deal with a fire, when you're surrounded by water? And then you come crying to us, the elites, begging for our resources because deep down inside, you know that we are better than you. You crave a master. Deep down inside, you know this to be true. And this fire, if that has [00:14:00] illuminated anything, it is that we will take this responsibility upon our shoulders.
NATIVE HAWAIIAN: If fire reduced the property prices, you're gonna buy all our land. Did you... start the fire?
ELITE: Does it matter? You'll get what you want. Money poured back into the island and you'll be able to live on it again, at a price that we deem... fair on both parties.
Disasters at every turn - Native America Calling - Air Date 8-28-23
SHAWN SPRUCE - HOST, NATIVE AMERICA CALLING: I think a lot of folks are concerned about what's gonna happen to some of these residents who've lost their homes, and will they be able to afford rebuilding their homes or will they have to relocate? What's your thought on that? 'cause that that's a whole 'nother layer to this tragedy.
KU'UWEHI HIRAISHI: Right, you know, for Native Hawaiians, specifically the threat of outsiders coming in and taking our land and control of our natural resources is nothing new. But in the aftermath of the [00:15:00] wildfires, residents were receiving solicitations from off island real estate investors to kind of scoop up their land. The state has issued two separate warnings about predatory real estate pitches targeting local residents, and there are lawyers, uh, folks from our University of Hawai'i Law School there on the ground helping those who are receiving those pitches. The governor, Josh Green, has also mentioned that the Attorney General's Office is looking into imposing a moratorium on land sales at this time. So we are, I believe, the government, at least, is taking action where it can, hopefully for the people on the ground, you know, the financial, that living in limbo aspect of things. Once that calms down, then they can really clearly think through when they receive these.
SHAWN SPRUCE - HOST, NATIVE AMERICA CALLING: Ku'uwehi, being from Hawai'i there, and of course you know anybody who's ever been to Hawai'i, I've been there a couple of times, and it's very obvious that there is a gentrification issue [00:16:00] there and there's a lot of money there. There's multimillion dollar homes and that have sprung up in the recent decades. But did you ever anticipate that it would just get to this point that people have lost their homes and there are speculators coming, and just that quickly, I mean, here the fires are still, they're still burning. I mean, there's still a little bit, there's burning, there's still smoke, and if there's already people coming in and trying to take advantage, carpet bag, right?, just buy up property and, uh, with no regard to the people that who've always lived there, did you ever imagine this happening like this?
KU'UWEHI HIRAISHI: No, I honestly did not. But I think, you know, the level of devastation brought to Lahaina at this point is really going to, in the rebuilding process, spark those conversations about, you know, how much dependence do we want to put on the tourism industry. How much protection should we perhaps have for a Native Hawaiians being able to hold on to some of that land? And Maui [00:17:00] County has been a leader in that aspect. In recent years, they've passed legislation to allow folks who have been on the land for upwards, I think it was 80 years back, if you had title to land that far back, you have a sort of a property tax waiver, or you get to pay the minimum property tax. So there is an awareness, especially on Maui, of the need to keep folks, um, allow them to maintain their ancestral land and access to their ancestral lands. But after this devastation, I think those conversations are definitely going to be heightened.
SHAWN SPRUCE - HOST, NATIVE AMERICA CALLING: And the fire has also created issues around water rights. Can you explain the issue of water in Maui and how the fires drew into that and created more challenges?
KU'UWEHI HIRAISHI: A great question. Yes. Lahaina, for those who might not know, is formally the Venice of the Pacific. That was an area, you can't tell from it now, but an area [00:18:00] famed for lush environment and it's abundant water resources. So right in downtown, it's been filled in, you know, for the last a 100-120 or so years. But it was once a sprawling sort of, you know, fish ponds and taro patches. And so the idea of maintaining water rights for Native Hawaiians specifically is something that was encoded into the state water code in the late 80s. So there is a precedent there for folks, but, the reality is that once all our sugar and pineapple plantations pulled out in the late 90s, folks had swooped in, same idea, bought up that same land and the control of the irrigation system that actually hauls water from the mountains to the county system to the hotels, and the ownership of that water on that side, at least in Lahaina and West Maui, is about 75% private and 25% government. And [00:19:00] so there is worry, at least in the immediate aftermath of the fire, that in one particular area called Kaua'ula Valley, there is only one stream that feeds about 70 individuals, mostly Native\ Hawaiians and there was a request from a private landowner to divert that water for fire suppression elsewhere outside of Kaua'ula Valley. And so there was this sort of push and pull to make sure that those in the valley have that access to that water for the approaching fire at the time. And this is really, I think, set off a lot of conversations in Hawai'i at the highest levels over what we do in these disaster situations when it comes to those water rights.
“We’re Living the Climate Emergency”: Native Hawaiian Kaniela Ing on Fires, Colonialism & Banyan - Democracy Now! - Air Date 8-11-23
KANIELA ING: I think there’s a certain perception of Native Hawaiians who are unsheltered that’s not — that does not fit with reality. Some of the unsheltered Hawaiian communities that continue today were [00:20:00] occupations of land that was getting seized. And they were like, “Look, we don’t want to cooperate with this new extractive economy that y’all created, so we’re going to live on it by ourselves in our own community on this beach. We’re going to govern ourselves.” And they’re quite organized, and they’re living in a way that’s subsistent and in harmony with nature. Now, it’s not to be glamorized. A lot of these folks face some really dire conditions not being a part of this capitalist system. But a lot of them are doing it based on really strong and sensible beliefs.
Now, when a climate crisis hits, when a disaster hits, it’s going to impact these people first and worst, no doubt. And we need to make sure that both relief and recovery efforts, in the longer term, are prioritizing the low-income and Indigenous people that are some — some are still unaccounted for. Some [00:21:00] don’t even have IDs. And, you know, they need to be front of mind with everything we do, from, you know, day zero, when the disaster breaks, to years out, when we’re recovering.
AMY GOODMAN: The wildfires occurred on the same day that President Biden said in an interview that he had “practically” declared a climate emergency, but he has not actually formally done that. What would that mean?
KANIELA ING: Yeah. I’ve just been frantically trying to make sure that my loved ones are OK. But I also work on climate. This is my job. And as soon as I start thinking about that statement from President Biden, I just get so incensed. This is a climate emergency. There’s no practical — [00:22:00] “practically” declared it. You either believe it or not. And I think as bad as Republicans have been by denying climate, Democrats are just as culpable by not doing enough. Scientists say that we need to be investing at least $1 trillion a year in the clean energy transition. We need to end and phase out, deny, all new fossil fuel permits, and really empower the communities that build back ourselves democratically. That’s the solution for it.
And President Biden announced his second term, but he hasn’t told us how he’s going to finish the job. He needs to lay out that vision, what we’ve been demanding from a Green New Deal, if he wants communities that got him elected to come out, that base of climate voters, that happen to be predominantly Black, Indigenous, and low-income people. But we need something [00:23:00] forward-looking to come out, because right now, like, I’m not even thinking about voting, right? Like, nobody in Lahaina is thinking about whether or not they support Biden. Like, give us something. You know, at least let us be seen.
So, you know, I think that sense of urgency, even me, who is in this climate work full time and see these events unfold elsewhere, until it hits you at home and it’s people you know, grocery stores you shop at, schools your kids go to, your church actually being burned down, you’re not going to understand the urgency. Like, it is shocking. And we’re not talking 10 years from now. We’re having — these things are happening right now. It could happen to your home tomorrow. That’s the urgency we’re dealing with, and we need to act accordingly. So, no “practically” speaking. Like, we need to move now and do [00:24:00] everything we can.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you tell us more about the importance of Indigenous wisdom and practices in addressing the climate catastrophe?
KANIELA ING: Sure, yeah. So, going into Lahaina, the people that actually lived there for generations are the keepers of some of the most profound Indigenous knowledge that I have ever met. They understood subsistence fishery, how native plants were buffers against, like, you know, disasters, how to create regenerative agricultural practices. And it’s that view of the world where, you know, our success isn’t determined by how much we hoard, but rather how much we produce for others and share, and where, like, our economy is not based on how well the rich are [00:25:00] doing, but how many people, how many of us, can actually thrive. Like, it’s that — it’s not just Indigenous knowledge, but it’s that value system that really needs to be reestablished.
So, you know, I think over the years, especially in my line of work, there’s been more resources for Indigenous folks to lead frontline fights against bad projects. But the intervention that really needs to happen is Indigenous leaders also need to be resourced to build the good. They need to be the purveyors of and architects of the new green and, like, community-rooted world that’s still possible, even in these dire times.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, would you like to leave us with some images that you have been living through over these last few days, like the banyan tree, where you show us — when you put out on social media the [00:26:00] before and after the wildfires, but other images or stories of people’s bravery in trying to preserve what you have known for so long?
KANIELA ING: Yeah, I mean, as we’re speaking, there’s people that still haven’t found their loved ones. A lot of the friends I grew up with — like, I come from a lower-income neighborhood — they’re firefighters. I ran into one on the way here, and I’m just like, “Hey, y’all are doing a great job.” And he was just sweating and, like, started crying and, you know, barely — looked like he hasn’t slept in days. Hotels are letting residents in, without cost, to sleep. Multiple businesses are just letting people drop off goods, and they’re shipping it three to four times a day. They’re leaving their doors open 24 hours. So, there is that sense of, you know, this is an island; we’re all in this together. [00:27:00] And that sense of mutual aid and solidarity is really carrying us through, and it’s been quite remarkable to witness. But, you know, don’t want to leave you with some toxic positivity either. Like, these are hard times, and unless we take urgent action now, it’ll only get worse.
As Fires Destroy Native Hawaiian Archive in Maui, Mutual Aid Efforts Are Launched to Help Lahaina - Democracy Now! - Air Date 8-11-23
NOELANI AHIA: Nā 'Aikāne o Maui Cultural Center was founded about 20 years ago in historic Lahaina Town, and it happens to sit adjacent to a very sacred area of Maui called Mokuʻula and Mokuhinia. And this is a traditional place, what we would call a wahi pana, or a sacred place, dating back to the 1500s, where one of our former kings, who presided over the islands with peace, lived and his sacred family was birthed there. And we have stories that carry us down today that connect us back to that place, [00:28:00] that reroot us.
And this island, Moku’ula, was in the middle of a wetland. It was lush and beautiful and green. Because of settler colonialism and because of the impositions of the settler government, it was covered over a long time ago, and there’s baseball fields now on it and tennis courts. And the Nā 'Aikāne o Maui Cultural Center has been working to get the access in order to restore Moku'ula and to clean it up and make sure it’s a place of reverence again. And the folks at Nā 'Aikāne have been working for decades on all kinds of issues: protecting burials, protecting land right issues, and just generally being there for the community to provide classes and workshops and cultural practice and cultural protocol.
And that building also housed a collection of artifacts, as well as historical documents, [00:29:00] old maps — just priceless things that are all lost in the blink of an eye. It was burned to the ground, and all of those things are lost. It also had a collection from an esteemed kūpuna, esteemed elder, named Sam Ka’ai, whose collection was being housed there. And for this kūpuna, this elder, this was his life’s work. He’s 85 now, and this was 50 years’ worth of carvings that he himself did, of collecting items from all over the South Pacific when he traveled on the Hōkūleʻa, a double-hulled canoe voyaging project back in the '80s. And I had the burden, you could say, of telling him yesterday that his collection was gone. And it was devastating. It was devastating. This is this man's life work. And he created all of these things not for himself, but for future [00:30:00] generations to understand how brilliant our Kānaka Maoli people are and how ingenious we were, because so much of that history and that culture was lost to us after the overthrow and with the new government and the wave of people that came in and took over lands. Particularly, we’re talking about, you know, the plantations and the oligarchy that Kaniela was talking about. So many Hawaiians were dispossessed from their land, and we lost so much of our culture, including our language. And so, when a kūpuna, when an elder, like this dedicates his life to retrieving and retracing and remembering those pieces of ourselves that allowed us to live here on this isolated island — how to make tools, how to make rope, how to make the instruments that feed us — all of these things that allowed us to have life and [00:31:00] survive here, all of those things that he dedicated his life to are now a memory.
But I will say, he told me yesterday morning that he woke up having a dream about seeds. And what he said was he saw us planting seeds back in the ash. He saw us putting back our traditional — our traditional plants, our traditional medicines, our kalo plant, our taro, which is very sacred to us. We’re ancestrally connected to the kalo. He saw us putting those things back in the ground so that new life can come again. And for somebody of his age, who’s closer to moving into the next realm than many of us, for him to still be thinking about the next generation and still be thinking about what the future could be in Lahaina, for me, is the measure of what it means to be [00:32:00] Indigenous and what it means to be genealogically connected to this land.
AMY GOODMAN: Noelani Ahia, it is so painful to talk to you right now at this moment with the destruction that your island has undergone. If you could talk about the mutual aid efforts? You know, first of all, in the rest of the corporate media, we hear almost no Native voices, no Native Hawaiians, and why it’s so important to hear your voices. And then, what is happening on the ground? You know, there’s a big debate now: Like, why weren’t people alerted earlier? Where was the early alert system? Why were people just looking out the window or smelling the smoke and seeing the fire right in front of them? And how important that is. But also, it’s just described, Lahaina, as a great tourist destination. How tourism has affected the [00:33:00] whole environment, if you could speak about that, as well?
NOELANI AHIA: Absolutely. Thank you so much. You know, it’s very disturbing for us, as Kānaka Maoli, to see the headlines and talk about — you know, see Lahaina as this tourist town, as if that’s all it is, because, for us, it’s so much more. And the tourism is part of the commodification of our culture. It’s part of the erasure of our culture. That narrative literally just takes us out of the picture. And, you know, without Hawaiians, there would be no Hawai'i. Everybody loves aloha, but they forget about the people that breathe aloha into the world, the root and the source of aloha, and that’s the Kānaka Maoli people.
The overtourism, the overdevelopment, the dispossession of Kānaka Maoli from our lands, the monocropping, as [00:34:00] Kaniela Ing was talking about, those are all things that contributed to the conditions that created this. And, you know, as we live on an island, there’s only so much space, and there’s only so much room, and there’s only so much resources. And for over 130 years, our water has been diverted to go to those sugar plantations and pineapple fields.
So, what used to be a lush, verdant Lahaina — in fact, I’ll tell you a little something, that the Lahaina is not an old name. One of the older names for Lahaina is Malu’ulu o Lele, and it means “land of the flying breadfruit,” because Lahaina used to be covered in breadfruit, which is a staple for the Hawaiian diet. It’s incredibly nutritious. It’s being studied the world over to help with food sovereignty in underprivileged areas. It’s just an amazing, rich, rich, historical plant for us. And Lahaina was covered with ulu until the sugar plantations came in and chopped it all down. [00:35:00] And they permanently changed our ecosystem, that one act, that on top of the diversion of water for the plantations.
What’s happening now that the plantations have shut down is unscrupulous developers are diverting the water and banking it for real estate. And it’s not real estate for the Kānaka Maoli or the local people. It’s for foreign investors. It’s for gentlemen’s estate farms that have giant swimming pools. It’s for — excuse me — really inappropriate use of one of our most sacred resources. In fact, the name for water in Hawai'i is "wai", and the name for wealth in Hawaii is "wai wai", which means if you have water, you have life. But our water has been taken away from us. And it’s left us in this dry, barren, almost unrecognizable — it would be unrecognizable to our ancestors, this condition that we’re currently living under, the settler [00:36:00] government.
So, you combine the dispossession with the overtourism, with the overdevelopment, and you have this trifecta for disaster. And that’s what we’re seeing today.
Kehsi Iman Wilson on Americans with Disabilities Act - CounterSpin - Air Date 8-25-23
JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: The devastating wildfires that tour across Maui and early August were covered dramatically, especially visually by US. News media. Words like war zone and apocalyptic were used. But as Robin Anderson notes for an upcoming piece for fair.org, less heard were words like climate disruption and even much less.
Fossil fuels instead, reports like one in the Washington Post forthrightly cited risk factors like quote, months of drought, low humidity, and high winds without [00:37:00] pursuing questions about those phenomena to their. Answerable and actionable roots. A New York Times piece stepped on the accountability question telling readers quote, it's difficult to attribute any single hurricane to climate change.
It can be hard to fault corporate media for ignoring the climate crisis. There is after all reporting that says weird, devastating weather is happening. And there's reporting that says continued fossil fuel driven climate disruption is having predicted impacts on global temperatures. There is also even reporting about politicians' reliance on funding from fossil fuel companies.
What there is is a resistance unto refusal to connecting those dots. Right now the levers, Rebecca Burns, is reporting that oil and industry lobbying [00:38:00] groups in California are working fervently but secretly to block important legislation about carbon emissions and, and here's where the reporting would come in.
It's about blocking regulation by blocking public knowledge. The bill is just one of simple transparency, letting the public know what is being done in our name, a phrase that never seems to capture elite media, but also what's being done in our money. Which seems to interest them all the time. The legislation would require thousands of large companies doing business in California to fully disclose their carbon emissions, including all of those companies who have built PR campaigns around the idea of net zero.
So far this year, industry opponents acknowledge spending some $7 million on state lobbying on this climate disclosure bill. And it's not [00:39:00] just the oil and gas companies that you might expect. And then again, here is where informative reporting would come in because it's also cement and asphalt companies whose processes burns reports account for more global emissions than airline travel.
And then it's Blue Diamond Almond Growers and Coca-Cola and Costco and In-N-Out Burger, Pepsi, Rite Aid, and on and on entities that if this bill would go through, would have to actually acknowledge, no matter the aspirations that they put on their PR page, the actual carbon emissions across their whole production chain.
Wildfires - This is Democracy - Air Date 9-5-23
RANDY DENZER: When you're responding to these fires is that, you know, we, we have this kind of perception in our mind that it's like it is on TV where you can actually see the fire and the smoke and it, and it's very you know, it's very clear air, what I would call clear air and.[00:40:00]
And everything. And that's not the way it is. Uh, the, the folks in Maui, you know, uh, rest their souls, you know, and know and, and, uh, hope, hope everybody's, you know, recovering as much as they can. But they didn't have, you know, a clear view of this thing when you're in front of one of these big wildfires. Uh, it's basically like being in a fog with embers flying everywhere.
Uh, it's very different than I think what people perceive. And that sticks, that stuck out with me in a poem. And then, uh, It is, it is very intrusive right now. We've, uh, we've put ourselves in that position. I'll talk about that a little bit later on. But I think we've, we've kind of, uh, expanded ourselves into a situation that, uh, that I hope, you know, that people, you know, can figure out that we really do need to manage.
JEREMI SURI - HOST, THIS IS DEMOCRACY: And, and, and we have to be preparing well in advance, right?
Because as you say, it's not obvious when, when the wildfire is approaching us. Right?
RANDY DENZER: Yeah. And, and I've operated in a [00:41:00] whole bunch of different facets and different, uh, uh, things like, uh, aircraft rescue, firefighting and, and operations. Firefighting wildfire by far has the most politics in it I've ever seen.
And the reason, the reason Wildfire has politics in it, 'cause there's so many different people that are involved when you start talking about managing the risk, you know you're gonna have the biologists, you're gonna have different groups of people who, you know, don't want their land clear cut. I don't either, by the way.
You know, they don't wanna build fire brakes for one reason or another. But I think we're getting to the point, you know, all across the United States and, and and Canada where this, we really have to start doing something. And it's a very difficult situ, very difficult topic, cause the answers are all expensive, you know, to undo some of the risk.
But one thing I, I would really like to point out is, you know, Uh, me and Allison have worked [00:42:00] together on a lot of these issues in Austin, um, and I think she heard me years back. I've been saying for a long time in West Austin alone that we have an incredible issue there. We're gonna, we are have an incredible risk and we kind of gotta do something.
Um, the Maui fires, what I found most interesting about him, Over the past, you know, couple weeks since they happened was that I, uh, read a, a, uh, article about a group of people who were warning that this was gonna happen. So the risk was there, it was identified and, uh, I don't know whether it was private or government land ownership, but somebody didn't take care of the issue.
And, uh, there were people who were really trying to, to, to get some stuff done to, to reduce the fuel loading, at least near the city there. And it never happened. So, so I think we recognize there's, there's risk. We recognize there's an issue. We need to start acting on it. And that's, that's the hard part.
That's where the politics comes in.
ALISON ALTER: So, Randy, you and I have been [00:43:00] working on this for, for quite some time, and I think that here in Austin, we do recognize the risk. I think we have an opportunity now that folks are seeing what these fires. Can do and how they've played out so catastrophically in so many other communities that people are paying attention and people are acting.
The kind of responses we're now getting for education that we've done about being ready, um, to be part of our war in central Texas to. Really focus on hardening your home are important and they are steps forward. The challenge we have is that the risk is enormous. Um, and in any scenario we were never going to be able to a hundred percent mitigate because fire is a natural phenomenon.
JEREMI SURI - HOST, THIS IS DEMOCRACY: Allison, as you look at this as, uh, someone, uh, in the belly of the beast, uh, dealing with these really difficult politics, as Randy said, and it really sticks with me. Randy, you said that these are the most difficult politics you've seen that's saying a lot. How do you, Allison understand and how do you convey to [00:44:00] people.
Why wildfire is more of a risk today than it's been in the past.
ALISON ALTER: So wildfire is more of a risk today because of climate change and because of how we've chosen to build out our communities. Um, there's a place that we call the wildland urban interface, which is where the wildlands come together with the urban area.
Um, and it's in that interface where you have the most risk from wildfires to life and to structures. Um, and the more you build. In the wildlands, the more wildland urban interface you get, and if you build in those areas and you don't take certain steps, which we now know matter, like hardening your home.
So there's things that you can do when you make choices about your roof, how you deal with your vents, how you build out your vegetation around your home. If you fail to harden your homes in those ways, you're putting more and more people in harm's way. If you do that and you don't have exits and you don't have, um, multiple ways out, you increase the risk of the [00:45:00] impact of the wildfire.
The other thing, which, which Randy alluded to is we have. Forgotten that fire is a natural phenomenon and it is part of the lifecycle. And as we've had more and more people move into these areas, we have, um, prevented that natural phenomenon from playing out. And so I think that's also a problem with climate change.
We have dryer conditions. Um, you have to have the right conditions to have wildfire. Here in Austin, we've been very fortunate because we have had. The dryness and we've had, um, the prolonged heat, um, but we haven't always had the wind conditions, right? One of the things we know is with climate change, our wind conditions are gonna change, and so it's gonna be even that much more likely that we'll have wildfire.
Relationships, Money, and Maui Tourism | EP 172 - The Amanda Seales Show - Air Date 8-18-23
AMANDA SEALES - THE AMANDA SEALES SHOW: Of course we know the wildfires in Maui have been devastating. Mm-hmm. There have been over a hundred deaths. I mean, it really is a tragedy. Yep. But this is not the beginning of the Hawaii conversation. Mm-hmm. Like people have been saying [00:46:00] that the tourism, uh, industry in the, in the island is a problem.
JEREMIAH "LIKE THE BIBLE": Mm-hmm.
AMANDA SEALES - THE AMANDA SEALES SHOW: And that, you know, we really, they've been saying like the natives of of Hava Hawaii have been saying like, please don't come here.
JEREMIAH "LIKE THE BIBLE": Right.
AMANDA SEALES - THE AMANDA SEALES SHOW: Now I fell into a trap because I thought I was being helpful. And I was like, y'all, they said don't go there, Don. Don't go there. So instead, go to Puerto Rico or go to the US Virgin Islands and the, then the Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands was like, pop the breaks.
JEREMIAH "LIKE THE BIBLE": Don't come here either.
AMANDA SEALES - THE AMANDA SEALES SHOW: Don't come here either. And the reason they were saying don't come either, don't come here either, is because they have been colonized as well by America.
JEREMIAH "LIKE THE BIBLE": Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
AMANDA SEALES - THE AMANDA SEALES SHOW: Why is it so hard for people then to respect that these people are saying, do not come to our island. Not because we don't want you here as Americans, but because you are fueling an industry that is eating us alive.
JEREMIAH "LIKE THE BIBLE": I think when it comes to black people specifically, 'cause we are black, she talking to black people, Hey, everybody else. But you know, yeah. We keeping it here. I think this is where we show our Americanism, the intersectionality of being black and American. Because [00:47:00] Americanism is all about being exceptional.
It's about taking, if that makes sense.
AMANDA SEALES - THE AMANDA SEALES SHOW: Mm-hmm.
JEREMIAH "LIKE THE BIBLE": It's very individualistic.
AMANDA SEALES - THE AMANDA SEALES SHOW: Yes.
JEREMIAH "LIKE THE BIBLE": That we can't even conceptualize. Like, what do you mean you don't want, say, kinda spend our money, we helping you out. We doing you a favor. That part right there is, and it like, it's like, it, it's like a conundrum. 'cause in in that, like that American side come out, kicking in the, kicking it up, waving a four fo like I'm trying to, I think especially with black people, I'm trying to help you.
I'm doing something for you. How dare you say you don't want my help? And it's like, well, I don't need your help. Actually, the help thing.
AMANDA SEALES - THE AMANDA SEALES SHOW: And expressly saying that the version of help that I need from you is not that.
JEREMIAH "LIKE THE BIBLE": And, and it is also, we talked about it earlier in the show, especially as black people being a, a community that's often extorted.
AMANDA SEALES - THE AMANDA SEALES SHOW: That's what I was gonna say. My thing was gonna be like, I think a lot of us feel like, well, I thought y'all talking about them. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But we can still come, can we still come because we're us. We didn't, we we definitely didn't colonize y'all.
JEREMIAH "LIKE THE BIBLE": Right. And we, and the, and what it's what it's worth. We're not profiting either in the same way.
As these larger corporations and entities.
AMANDA SEALES - THE AMANDA SEALES SHOW: No, but we are feeding their profits.
JEREMIAH "LIKE THE BIBLE": Yeah. Well, I think that's our thought. Like, we're not profiting off this. It's the white people profiting off this, so we should still be in the clear. [00:48:00] And it's like, no, you're enabling.
AMANDA SEALES - THE AMANDA SEALES SHOW: You're fueling, you're fueling.
JEREMIAH "LIKE THE BIBLE": Because even me as someone, like when I first heard about this, I'm like, what's wrong with the whole thing?
So I did my research, you know? Mm-hmm. To truly just understand like, oh, what's the chasm between the tourism and just the natives I had saw this, um, like mini doc about this and they were talking about how people are getting priced out. Yes. 'cause of the, uh, tourism industry.
AMANDA SEALES - THE AMANDA SEALES SHOW: Yes.
JEREMIAH "LIKE THE BIBLE": People living outside.
AMANDA SEALES - THE AMANDA SEALES SHOW: Homelessness is crazy on the islands.
JEREMIAH "LIKE THE BIBLE": Because it's getting so expensive. Um, and there's like, even, there was a, there was a story about a family that they lived on this certain section of, um, the country that was just, um, they dated for like natives.
Okay. But the waiting list was so long that the people are like, I can't even go on the list. I've on the list since I was, since like 1995. And it, this was done like maybe pre pandemic era or like right after the pandemic. So it was let say 2021 Uhhuh. That's a long time. Been a waiting list for housing as a native person.
When they building up these hotels and these motels and these water parks and you're like, I'm homeless. I can't even live on a land that's designated for me [00:49:00] as an indigenous person to this land. But y'all love over there eating, drinking out my eyes.
AMANDA SEALES - THE AMANDA SEALES SHOW: Don't do it. Leave it alone. And I think as with the cisgender thing, it's like once you see the facts, that should be enough.
JEREMIAH "LIKE THE BIBLE": Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
AMANDA SEALES - THE AMANDA SEALES SHOW: Stop arguing the facts. Mm-hmm. Stop trying to make it rational. Stop trying to, you know, put the pieces together of the puzzle and be like, oh, you know what, but let me put in my 2 cents. You're not that smart. None of us are. Right. Like, the facts are what they are. You are not gonna come and like philosophize your way out of the reality.
Right. Which is, the tourism industry is a byproduct of the colonization of Hawaii. Mm-hmm. And continues to disenfranchise the native people and indigenous people of Hawaii. If you consider yourself a good person, do not help them in that process. Right.
How Native Hawaiians have been pushed out of Hawai'i - Bianca Graulau - Air Date 2-7-23
BIANCA GRAULAU - HOST, BIANCA GRAULAU: The beauty of Hawaii's beaches is unreal. I had never seen water that shade of blue. So it makes sense that Oahu alone gets more than 4 million tourists a year. But all those tourists have to do is turn around to see the harsh reality of life in Hawaii. People living on the [00:50:00] street, many of them Kanaka Maoli, or Native Hawaiian.
The irony is that they can't afford to live on the land that was once stolen from their ancestors.
ABC NEWS CLIP: At the White House yesterday, President Clinton signed a formal letter of apology to the people of Hawaii.
BIANCA GRAULAU - HOST, BIANCA GRAULAU: With the Apology Bill of 1993, the United States admitted to illegally overthrowing the government of Hawaii a hundred years earlier.
Because until the end of the 1800s, Hawaii was an independent nation with its own kingdom, led by Queen Liliuokalani. But that was about to change, thanks to missionaries that had come from the United States seven decades earlier to preach about Jesus. By the 1890s, the descendants of those missionaries had become powerful sugar businessmen who wanted to make more money.
They thought they could do so if only they were in charge. So they decided to take down Hawaii's government. And the United States helped them. They sent a military ship, and in 1893, they removed the queen. And made Sanford B. Dole the new leader. Now if the name Dole sounds familiar to you, it's Because you've probably seen the [00:51:00] brand before.
For a few years after the overthrow, the US struggled with what to do with Hawaii. One president called the overthrow an act of war, but then came 1898 and the US won on a power trip with land hungry leaders who were now going for Puerto Rico, ua, Guam, and the Philippines too. That same year, the US annexed Hawaii.
KAMANAMAIKALANI BEAMER: The United States did not bring Hawaii out of poverty. It did not. Bring Hawaii into enlightenment. If anything, it crushed one of the most amazing progressive places and Indigenous led Nations, on the planet.
BIANCA GRAULAU - HOST, BIANCA GRAULAU: The new government effectively banned Hawaiian language in schools. Students were punished for speaking it.
And they attempted to erase Native Hawaiian culture, turning it into something to be marketed to tourists.
KAMANAMAIKALANI BEAMER: What we've experienced is... The loss of our land, the decimation of our language and our culture, being [00:52:00] overwhelmed and becoming more and more of a minority in our own ancestral homelands.
BIANCA GRAULAU - HOST, BIANCA GRAULAU: By the time Hawai'i voted in favor of statehood in 1959, the Kanaka Maoli were already a minority.
Another thing that changed after the overthrow was the use of the land. The new territorial government had other plans for the places that were being used for agriculture.
KAMANAMAIKALANI BEAMER: We had fish ponds and these taro patches and our people farmed and I think someone got the idea that they could develop it and create hotels.
And so they actually condemned our lands, they kicked Hawaiian people off the lands and they built up Waikiki and they dredged a huge area called the Alawai Canal.
BIANCA GRAULAU - HOST, BIANCA GRAULAU: Today Waikiki looks like this. For some, it's an image of progress, but poverty among Native Hawaiians is higher than the state average.
KAMANAMAIKALANI BEAMER: If I had a time machine, I wouldn't choose statehood for our people. I'll tell you that. [00:53:00]
MAILA GIBSON: I believe statehood was a good thing. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, two parking. It's going for 799,000.
BIANCA GRAULAU - HOST, BIANCA GRAULAU: Myah Gibson is a realtor in Oh wow.
MAILA GIBSON: Business is great. I mean, of course it's, it's like a catch 22 for me because I am native Hawaiian, and so on one hand I'm thankful that I get to make a living in the place that I love so much. But at the same time, my heart breaks for people who aren't so lucky.
BIANCA GRAULAU - HOST, BIANCA GRAULAU: The median price for a single family home in Oahu is over $1 million.
That's how much this house was selling for in a neighborhood next to Waikiki. It was one of Myla's listings.
MAILA GIBSON: Gentrification, to me, isn't such a terrible thing. Um, there's a neighborhood here called Kaka'ako, and it was all just warehouse space, and a lot of people sleeping on the street, and a lot of illegal activity.
So now, you've got Howard Hughes that's gentrifying the neighborhood.
Great amenities, walkable, with easy access to a hundred acre beach park. And of course, you've got [00:54:00] delicious restaurants there, and you've got lifestyle, and you've got community. So to me... That's very positive. What I want to see, though, in addition to the gentrification, is something for Native Hawaiians, something for people that are, you know, of a lower income bracket.
We have to do something. Otherwise, we're going to see more people on the streets.
BIANCA GRAULAU - HOST, BIANCA GRAULAU: About 30 miles from the luxury high rises, we found a long line of people waiting to get food.
Where's your home?
CINDY UMIAMAKA: You're looking at it.
BIANCA GRAULAU - HOST, BIANCA GRAULAU: Cindy Yumiya Maka's husband is Native Hawaiian.
CINDY UMIAMAKA: I never thought I would end up here. We got to the point where we couldn't afford to pay the rent any longer because they kept adding and adding and adding and, and it just, there was no place for us to go.
BIANCA GRAULAU - HOST, BIANCA GRAULAU: Hawaii is currently the most expensive state to live in the U.
S. Some Native Hawaiians have opted for moving away in search of a more affordable [00:55:00] life. Today, there are more Native Hawaiians living in the continental U. S. than in Hawaii.
NATIVE HAWAIIAN 1: I have a lot of my family moved to the mainland already. And I don't want to go there. I want to stay here. This is my home.
BIANCA GRAULAU - HOST, BIANCA GRAULAU: For some of those who stay, food drives like this one can be life saving.
NATIVE HAWAIIAN 1: It helps a lot. If not, you'll never see vegetables on their table or fruit.
PU'UHOUNA DENNIS "BUMPY": This is the lifeline, and that lifeline was broken, broken in the name of development and all that.
BIANCA GRAULAU - HOST, BIANCA GRAULAU: 100 years after taro patches like the ones in Waikiki were destroyed, Hawaii now imports more than 80 percent of its food. That's why those Still fighting for independence or prioritizing farming again.
The nation of Hawaiʻi has its own flag, its own constitution, and rights to this 45 acre piece of land in Waimanalo. We always say that we exit America here and we enter Hawaiʻi there. [00:56:00] The story of this land goes back to the 90s, after the U. S. signed the Apology Bill.
PU'UHOUNA DENNIS "BUMPY": Wanted independence, yeah, not just soveriegnty but independence.
BIANCA GRAULAU - HOST, BIANCA GRAULAU: A group of Kanaka Maoli occupied this beach park, demanding freedom from the U. S.
PU'UHOUNA DENNIS "BUMPY": They admit. And confess to overthrowing our country, right? You confess to that, and we still gotta go through some process that you think is right for us.
BIANCA GRAULAU - HOST, BIANCA GRAULAU: After 15 months, the governor negotiated with them and offered them a lease to this land in exchange for ending the occupation.
PU'UHOUNA DENNIS "BUMPY": This is the beginning of establishing that it's like a dot in what belongs to us.
Instead of... Expanding the land base. How about bringing all of our people back into this land base and seeing? Oh, here's our country. It's getting bigger.
BIANCA GRAULAU - HOST, BIANCA GRAULAU: They're growing food, they produce their own energy, and they're creating their own banking system.
NATIVE HAWAIIAN 2: If we break our dependencies and, and we develop independent solutions, we don't need anybody to tell us we're independent. We will be independent.
Final comments on the need for better systems to respond to predictable disasters
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just [00:57:00] heard clips today starting with Democracy Now! explaining the management of water resources. Today, Explained looked at the impact of non-native grasses on the Maui Fire. Read Choi performed the skit of the concerned billionaire. Native America Calling discussed the fear of land grabs and water theft. Democracy Now! looked at local mutual aid programs in the wake of the fire, and in another clip, discussed the fire as just the latest in a long history of Hawaiian cultural destruction. CounterSpin criticized the media for not connecting the dots on climate disasters. And This Is Democracy discussed the politics of managing and mitigating wildfires.
That's what everybody heard, but members also heard two additional bonus clips from The Amanda Seales Show explaining the destructive nature of the tourism industry on overstretched islands. And Bianca Graulau's mini-documentary about the legacy of colonialism in Hawaii and the Land Back movement. To hear that, and have [00:58:00] 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.
And additional episodes of Best of the Left you may want to check out to dive deeper on these topics include number 1401, from February 2021, which discussed the climate fueled disaster in Texas, including everything from the strictly scientific to the purely political, and all of the disaster capitalism in between; and 1546, from March 2023, in which I describe the mechanisms of colonialism, dispossession, and cultural renaissance, including in Hawaii, as a lens through which to understand alienation, a primary condition of modernity. Those episodes again were 1401 and 1546. [00:59:00]
Now to wrap up, just a couple more thoughts on predictable cyclical destruction. That episode I just described, 1546, was a huge undertaking and was the result of years of thought, gaining new insights, connecting more dots, and then finally putting it all together into a coherent narrative. In fact, I got a great compliment about that episode recently when a friend of mine started telling me about an episode of This American Life that he had heard, and then about halfway through the story he was like, oh no, wait, that was your episode, wasn't it? So anyway, you should definitely check that out if you haven't already.
The point of that episode and this story is that by understanding patterns of things like colonial dispossession, disaster capitalism, and climate disasters, we should be able to build better systems to prepare for them. For instance, putting a moratorium on land sales on Maui right now is a great idea the government is trying to stick to; we'll see how [01:00:00] that goes in the long run. But more generally, climate disasters are starting to remind me of the cyclical economic crashes that we're so used to because they are endemic to capitalism. After the recent recessions and during COVID, there were discussions about why government support mechanisms should be put on autopilot for emergency situations so that things like unemployment benefits and other mitigations would kick in automatically rather than depend on the whims of the current Congress to be able to get its act together and pass new measures in the middle of a crisis. Seems like a bad idea to depend on that.
I have also heard similar discussions around preparing for natural disasters. The way our emergency management agencies and the funding of those are structured are from a bygone era. Emergencies at the time were thought of as rare and totally unpredictable, and so we'll authorize [01:01:00] funding when it's necessary. But, it probably won't be. But in our current age of climate chaos, these kinds of disasters are utterly predictable and terrifyingly frequent, so we need our laws to catch up with the times.
In fact, I just did a quick search, like, right now, as I was writing these notes, and realized that there's a new article in the Washington Post from a day ago making this exact same argument. It's titled "FEMA isn't ready for our new age of climate disasters." And one piece in it that stuck out to me was the fact that FEMA used to be a cabinet-level organization in the Executive Branch, but was shuffled under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of 9/11 in the year 2003.
And I remember that the shameful response to Hurricane Katrina just a couple years later made some people -- I mean at least people like me and the people I was listening to at the time -- [01:02:00] question that move, and recognize that emergency management needs to have a seat at the top table, right? Not just be under someone else's umbrella. And so all these years have gone by and we still haven't corrected that error. But it'd be a good place to start now. But seriously, just a place to start. We need a structural overhaul.
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 message 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 [01:03:00] 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 you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show, from BestOfTheLeft.com.
#1581 Indicted Authoritarianism Up For Debate (Transcript)
Air Date 9/6/2022
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 first GOP presidential debate, which happened without the frontrunner, Donald Trump, who instead just hung over the proceedings like a specter. Meanwhile, Trump's legal troubles continue to mount, and we examine what it is that keeps Republican voters and presidential candidates alike, with minor exceptions, firmly defending the former president.
Sources today include In the Thick, Straight White American Jesus, Democracy Now!, Today Explained, the Thom Hartmann Program, and additional members only clips from Democracy Now!
The Party of Authoritarianism - In The Thick - Air Date 8-23-23
MARIA HINOJOSA - CO-HOST, IN THE THICK: Mike, you joined us on our show in 2016 and we're gonna actually take a listen to how you framed all of this seven years ago. Let's go to the archive tape.
MIKE GERMAN: There are people who have been white supremacists, publicly acknowledged white [00:01:00] supremacists for 50 years and they haven't changed what they've been saying for those 50 years. And three years ago, they were saying it, and no mainstream media organization put a microphone in front of their face. Nobody put a camera in front of them. Nobody asked them what they thought about mainstream issues and ideas. And yet, somehow over the last six months, it's become prevalent that we put a microphone in front of these people who are exploiting that opportunity.
MARIA HINOJOSA - CO-HOST, IN THE THICK: So, Mike, you were giving us the context of how the media was amplifying these perspectives. I mean, we've gotten to a point where we have a presidential candidate who's been indicted four times, so all of it is strange. I'm gonna ask you, I don't think shocked is the right word, but I don't know if you're shocked about how right the GOP is gone, or were you like, yep, this is exactly the trajectory that I've been talking about?
MIKE GERMAN: It's certainly the trajectory I've been warning about since I left the FBI in 2004. [00:02:00] I don't think most people really understand how authoritarianism works and the elements of fascism that as an undercover agent in white supremacist groups, I really learned a lot about the history of white supremacy in Europe and the United States and how foundational it was to so many of our policies.
We were overtly white supremacist nation for a century, and then through Jim Crow and Black Codes and other hundred years of effective white supremacy, and that didn't just evaporate with the Civil Rights movement, it was pushed to the margins to a certain extent, but was still a feature of our politics and the way that politicians, particularly on the right, but broader than that, would make appeals to racism that were often muted. It was called "dog whistle" politics. The people who like me had been trained to listen to those dog whistles, could hear them [00:03:00] regularly, but the general public might view this language as facially benign.
MARIA HINOJOSA - CO-HOST, IN THE THICK: I like that. Facially benign. Okay. Right. In other words, you were like, it's your just weird uncle who's kind of acting up again and it's like, nope.
MIKE GERMAN: Right. Exactly. And we all understand that there are racists in our society, but we look at them as an aberration. In fact, even the FBI and the Justice Department treat white supremacist violence as a form of extremism, compared to Muslim fundamentalism or Black nationalism. But they don't understand how deeply entwined white supremacy is with government power. And that's where it's more dangerous. It's not just the violence that the so-called extremists are committing, but that they're so tied to people who actually hold the levers of government power, who use state violence in a way to maintain the same racial hierarchy that [00:04:00] they're seeking to influence by their extremist violence.
MARIA HINOJOSA - CO-HOST, IN THE THICK: There you go.
Trickle Down Trumpism -Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 8-26-23
DANIEL MILLER - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: You know, and I'm not the first one to say this, lots of people have said it, they always do the "who won the debate?" kind of thing, as much as debates are debates now, regardless of where they are in the political spectrum, right? It's just people trying to score points on each other. But everybody agrees, and I think they're right too, that the sort of looming presence in the debate was the person who wasn't there, right? It was Trump. I've never seen a presidential primary like this where everybody's afraid to criticize the candidate that they want people to vote against, right? You had Chris Christie, who was the only one who really consciously or vocally said something anti-Trump or was taken as anti-Trump gets booed. Everybody says that they'd support, ongoing support for Trump and so forth. And like a lot of other people have said, Trump was the big winner in this.
In any debate, everybody knows the person who's leading has the least to gain from being in a debate. And Trump's not unique in being in the position of [00:05:00] deciding not to participate or doing that. Most candidates end up doing it because they feel like they have to, of course, that doesn't hold to Trump.
That was the big one is just how present Trump was, despite the fact that he's absent. I still can't fully get my head around why in the world people would vote for you if you won't say that your opponent is somebody that you're gonna do a better job than, or something like, I just don't know. I don't know what they're just running down the clock and hoping that he tanks because of legal stuff or what, but that was a piece. And then I think the other one, I'll throw it over to you to lead on it, is the trickle down Trumpism like you're talking about, again, he was present there because so many of -- I think not just the policies or the positions or the attitudes in the GOP, but the articulation of it and the rhetoric of it and the kind of militaristic, hyper masculine, whatever kind of rhetoric is [00:06:00] so prevalent and so common in the GOP now, and I think that is a Trump effect.
BRADLEY ONISHI - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Yeah, let's talk about that. So we have this situation where Trump doesn't attend and Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who wrote Strong Men, many of you will know who Ruth is, had a great tweet and explanation of that. She says, "Trump's not there because dictators don't debate." If you want to be an autocrat, you don't debate. You are just supposed to be the leader. You have authority inherently. It comes from heaven, it comes from the divine. It is whatever. But you don't need to debate because you're not there to show that you're one of the best candidates. You are the candidate, and I think that's something we should take away from Trump not being there.
How can you be a viable presidential candidate if you won't debate the issues? That seems like a fair question. The answer is, I am the candidate who is chosen by God as an inherent right to be the leader, because that's who I am. And he [00:07:00] even said it in his interview with Tucker Carlson, why would I get on stage with a bunch of people who have no business running for president?
And you're like, dude, you've been indicted four times. A judge decided that you sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll. You are the only president to be impeached twice and you incited an insurrection. What right do you have to run for president? And yet he's turning it around on everyone else. So I think that's something to keep in mind.
The very fact that Trump would not debate is not normal. Just don't lose sight of that. That's one. Two, As you said, Dan, most of the folks -- Christie and a little bit of Hutchinson aside -- would say nothing negative about him. When asked, would you vote for Donald Trump, even if he's convicted for crimes?, the majority of the stage raised their hand and said yes.
So there was this fealty to Trump, and as you said, Dan, there was this lack of desire to criticize him, and it almost just felt like a group of people [00:08:00] thinking, well, if he gets arrested and put away, or if he just flames out or something happens, and then hopefully they'll pick me, right? It almost felt like there's no way for me to beat him. There's no way for us to actually usurp him. So let's just hope that he's out of the picture. And if he's out of the picture, hopefully I'll be the guy who they pick.
I'll give you an example of this. I'm a surfer, and when you're out there surfing, there's a very delicate and ritualized order of who gets what wave. And I won't go into it, but if you're surfing and you know the rules, you know that when a good wave comes, you know that somebody in a certain position has the right of way, and you better not take the wave if they're already on it because they're gonna be pretty upset and you're gonna break surfer code and it's a whole thing, right? Fist fights happen, blah, blah, blah. Alright. Why do I say that? I say that because one strategy that you can use as a surfer is sit in a certain position, hope that the person with the right of way wipes out, doesn't [00:09:00] get the wave, messes up, and then you jump on and you take the wave when they are no longer available to get it 'cause they wiped out or messed up or something else.
I felt like that's what was going on at the Republican debate is they're just waiting for Trump to wipe out and then maybe they'll ride the wave of GOP support.
I'm gonna talk about two more things related to this and I'll throw it back to you. The Trumpism was there not only in their fealty to him, but also in the ways that a lot of the candidates discuss the issue. So I'll just go over a couple so that we don't spend all day on this.
One is Ron DeSantis says on day one he will use troops in Mexico. Not at the border; in Mexico. If you go back to 2016, Dan, Trump really -- if you go back to that terrible year of 2016 that I know none of you listening wanna do, and I'm not asking you to -- but if you did, you would find that Trump's meteoric rise in the GOP primary [00:10:00] came when he started talking about the border. He said all the time in 2016, you guys weren't even talking about this until I came on. You guys weren't even talking about this until I showed up. What happens years later, two cycles later? His leading rival is talking about invading Mexico in an act of war on the first day of his imagined presidential term. Dan, this is what happens when you platform a radical. It trickles down. Ron DeSantis: I will invade Mexico. That's an act of war. What are you talking about?
Second, a number of the candidates, including Mike Pence and Ron DeSantis, said they would get rid of the Department of Education. Now, we've heard this before, but I just wanna reiterate, this is an extreme position. So you're telling me you're gonna get rid of the Department of Education, right? We're talking about 200,000 federal employees. Or we're also [00:11:00] just talking about having standards for the ways that our students learn, having an agency that oversees that, and does not allow runaway states or runaway actors to go rogue in the most egregious senses. Dan, it's a radical position to say you want to get rid of the Department of Education, especially in a context where, as we've covered on this show, we have Oklahoma, funding with taxpayer money a Catholic school. We have Texas trying to put the 10 Commandments in schools. We have Idaho saying that coaches, teachers, might be able to pray in front of their students at practice or in the classroom. When we have books being banned, LGBTQ teachers being run out, the teacher of the year in Idaho leaving the state 'cause she feels like she can't teach there anymore.
So the Department of Education, that's a radical position.
An Argument at the Kids' Table John Nichols on First GOP Debate Held Without Trump Part 1 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 8-24-23
AMY GOODMAN: At last night’s debate in Milwaukee, Republican presidential candidates were also asked about the [00:12:00] climate crisis. This was on a day when the heat in Milwaukee forced the closing of the Milwaukee schools. During the debate, Fox News played a question from Alexander Diaz, a student at Catholic University of America.
ALEXANDER DIAZ: Polls consistently show that young people’s number one issue is climate change. How will you, as both president of the United States and leader of the Republican Party, calm their fears that the Republican Party doesn’t care about climate change?
MARTHA MacCALLUM: So, we want to start on this with a show of hands. Do you believe in human behavior is causing climate change? Raise your hand if you do.
GOV. RON DESANTIS: Look, we’re not schoolchildren. Let’s have the debate. I mean, I’m happy to take it to start, Alexander.
MARTHA MacCALLUM: OK. You know what?
BRET BAIER: So, do you want to raise your hand or not?
GOV. RON DESANTIS: I don’t think that’s the way to do. So, let me just say to Alexander this: First of all, one of the reasons our country’s decline is because of the way the corporate media treats Republicans versus Democrats. Biden was on the beach while those people were suffering. He was asked about it. He [00:13:00] said, “No comment.” Are you kidding me? As somebody that’s handled disasters in Florida, you’ve got to be activated. You’ve got to be there. You’ve got to be present. You’ve got to be helping people who are doing this.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: Can we stop the filibuster and answer the question?
MARTHA MacCALLUM: Yeah.
GOV. RON DESANTIS: And here’s the deal —
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: Let’s just answer the question, actually.
BRET BAIER: Is that a “yes”? Is that a “yes”? Is that a hand raised?
MARTHA MacCALLUM: You do not —
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: I think it was a hand raised for him. And it’s — my hands are in my pockets, because the climate change agenda is a hoax.
GOV. RON DESANTIS: No, I didn’t raise a hand.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: Let us be honest as Republicans. I’m the only person on the stage who isn’t bought and paid for, so I can say this: The climate change agenda is a hoax.
ASA HUTCHINSON: Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That’s ridiculous.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: The climate change agenda is a hoax, and we have to declare independence from them. And the reality is, the anti-carbon agenda is the wet blanket on our economy. And so, the reality is, more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change.
BRET BAIER: Governor, Governor Haley, are you bought and paid for?
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: The death rate is down by 98% over the last century.
BRET BAIER: Hold on. Hold on. Listen. Listen. Listen.
CHRIS CHRISTIE: Look, I’ve had — no, no, no. I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like [00:14:00] ChatGPT standing up here. And the last person in one of these debates, Bret, who stood in the middle of the stage and said, “What’s a skinny guy with an odd last name doing up here?” was Barack Obama, and I’m afraid we’re dealing with the same type of amateur standing on stage tonight.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: Well, come over here. Come over and give me a hug. Give me a hug just like you did to Obama.
CHRIS CHRISTIE: The same — the same type of amateur.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: And you’ll help elect me just like you did to Obama, too. Give me that bear hug, brother.
CHRIS CHRISTIE: The same type of amateur.
BRET BAIER: Hold on. Hold on. Governor Haley, would you like to respond? Are you bought and paid for?
NIKKI HALEY: So, Bret, what I would like to say is the fact that I think this is exactly why Margaret Thatcher said, “If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.” First of all, we do care about clean air, clean water. We want to see that taken care of. But there’s a right way to do it. And the right way to do it is, first of all, yes, is [00:15:00] climate change real? Yes, it is. But if you want to go and really change the environment, then we need to start telling China and India that they have to lower their emissions.
AMY GOODMAN: That was the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, who was the South Carolina governor. John Nichols, very quickly, before we move on to foreign policy?
JOHN NICHOLS: Sure. Look, we saw peak climate denial in a Republican debate, and it’s kind of amazing at this late stage in history that it was, A, stated and, B, even on the candidates who weren’t quite as aggressive as Ramaswamy, there was avoidance. And you noticed that in that clip you played, the candidates immediately tried to go off to other topics to talk about whether they were bought and paid for, to talk about China, to talk about Russia, rather than to focus in on the issue that was raised.
And I think this sums up the Republican Party at this point. The moderate [00:16:00] position in the Republican party is avoidance. But I think a very strong position is — you know, a very popular position within the party is one of actual denial. And you saw a candidate on stage go full board on that, which was quite remarkable, especially on a day when, literally, the heat index was 114 degrees in Milwaukee.
Why top Republicans want to bomb Mexico - Today, Explained - Air Date 8-29-23
ALEX: SCORING IN <BUBBLING OVER>
Let's start with Congress. So you have Congressman Dan Crenshaw.
<CLIP>
FoxNews Rep. Dan Crenshaw: If we don't accept the fact that we are already at war, then we're going to lose it pretty quick.
ALEX: Mike Waltz.
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FOXNEWS Rep. Michael Waltz: Cartels are running our border. The cartels are destabilizing the entire Mexican government. We need to go on offense.
ALEX: Both Republicans. They introduced a bill seeking an authorization for the use of military force to go after cartels, which, broadly speaking, gives the US government broader authorities to use the military to start bombing parts of Mexico where the cartels are, but targeting the cartels specifically.
<CLIP>
FoxNews Rep. Dan Crenshaw: This has to be a whole of government approach, with CBP leading the charge, but also with the DEA, the [00:17:00] CIA, the FBI, the military. This is a serious problem. This is some of the most well-equipped, well-armed, most dangerous people on Earth just south of our border.
ALEX: You've got Tom Cotton, who's open to sending U.S. troops into Mexico to target drug lords.
<CLIP>
FOX News TOM COTTON: If al-Qaeda or ISIS set up shop in Juarez or Monterrey or Tijuana and they were killing 100,000 Americans every single year, what would you expect our government to do? Whatever it is, that's exactly what we should do to these cartels.
ALEX: They're not alone in Congress, but they're sort of more prominent ones. But to be clear, all of that would be happening without Mexico's support. So they're basically saying the U.S. needs to take unilateral action against the cartels, even if the Mexican government doesn't help, even though the U.S. would try to pressure them to do so. Now, this is permeating up to, let's say, the presidential level:
<CLIP>
60 Minutes Mark Esper: [on President Trump suggesting missile strikes against drug cartels]
Mark Esper: The president pulls me aside on at least a couple of occasions and suggests that maybe we have the U.S. military shoot missiles into Mexico.
Norah O'Donnell: [00:18:00] Shoot missiles into Mexico. for what?
Mark Esper: He would say to go after the cartels.
ALEX: So when Trump was president, he considered using military force against drug cartels. He didn’t for myriad reasons, one of which was he was worried about an influx of asylum seekers coming north of the border. That's a border that has been a big issue for him. And he was worried about the optics of that. But it is now a part of the campaign. So not only DeSantis, but Vivek Ramaswamy:
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Forbes Vivek Ramaswamy: [Secure The Southern Border] Here's. What we're doing. I'm taking over in January 2025. We take undeployed troops by the hundreds of thousands. We secure the southern border full stop. If we've done it to ISIS in a different part of the world, this should be simple.
ALEX: You have Trump and his acolytes basically saying that DeSantis is stealing Trump's policy, right? They're basically saying that, Oh, wait, bombing Mexico in parts of Mexico to go after cartels is Trump policy.
<CLIP>
KUSI News Trump: [Plan to Destroy the Drug Cartels] The drug cartels are waging war in America, and it's now time for America to wage war on the cartels.
ALEX: And I should note that pretty much every Republican candidate [00:19:00] supports designating the cartels as terrorist organizations. So, like, that's the minimum bar. But I think the big takeaway here is, from what once was kind of a fringe idea within the Republican Party has made its way through Congress, to a Trump administration, now to this campaign, to the point that you have the three polling Republicans, Trump, DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, all supporting this idea. So you could imagine that a Republican – should a Republican win in 2024 – the 'strike Mexico to go after the drug cartels' idea isn't going to go away. In fact, it will probably be one of the earliest foreign policy commitments that people will see if they fulfill.
SCORING OUT
SEAN: Is going after the drug cartels in Mexico with forces, with bombs, with a full military engagement, whatever it might end up being, is that going to war with Mexico?
ALEX: It's not really. So let's take a quick step back. So the one thing they all the candidates [00:20:00] pretty much say is they want to work with the Mexican government to rid themselves of the cartels or at least to substantially curb the amount of fentanyl that comes into the United States, which we should foreground, the opioid epidemic has been, you know, killing tons of people in this country. I'm sure this podcast has talked about it quite a bit.
TAPE SFX IN
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TODAY EXPLAINED: Addicted and alone [August 2021]
SEAN: More than 90,000 people died of an overdose in 2020 in the United States. That’s a thirty percent jump from the year before. A lot of us didn’t notice, but Rachel Lambert did.
TAPE SFX OUT
ALEX: The opioid crisis, which includes a lot of fentanyl, is killing more people than the Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars combined on a yearly basis. So this is obviously something that's top of mind, not only just for Republicans or for Democrats, but this has sort of been the latest and biggest Republican suggestion. So to the point about war. If the Mexican government doesn't help, then what they're basically saying is we would do special targeted either cyber operations or special forces operations or limited strikes on labs. There [00:21:00] is a call to send troops in, but it wouldn't be like a massive invasion. It would be kind of like anti-terrorist operations in, say, Syria and Iraq or Libya or elsewhere against terrorists like ISIS or al Qaeda or anything like it, right? I mean, if we're going to treat the cartels as terrorist organizations, then we're going to fight them like terrorist organizations. And so we're going to do counterterrorism operations. Now, and in differing cases, you know, you have countries that either sort of tacitly give permission or openly give permission and others that simply don't. Right? I mean, lest we forget that the operation to get bin Laden was in Pakistan and Pakistan did not particularly like that we did that.
SEAN: Are there any Democrats taking this idea seriously or is this strictly a Republican thing? Has the president of the United States, the current one, said anything about this notion?
ALEX: I mean, Here's what Adrienne Watson, who's the National Security Council spokesperson, told me: You know, the administration is not considering military action in Mexico, and they actually think that designating cartels as foreign terrorist organizations would not give them any more [00:22:00] authority than they already have. In fact, this is sort of the administration's argument, is that what you're doing by designating them as terrorists is just opening up military options. All the other options like economic sanctions and more law enforcement authorities have already been granted by this administration. Even Mark Milley, the Joint Chiefs chair, has said it was a bad idea:
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CSPAN Chair Mark Milley: I wouldn't recommend anything be done without Mexico's support and they have to request and so on, so forth. There are capabilities that we in the military have, but these are very, very difficult policy decisions. And having spent a fair amount of time in Latin America, I would argue that the best thing that can be done is by, with, and through the local governments that are friendly to the United States.
ALEX: Now, I should say it's not solely Republicans that are calling for treating cartels like terrorists.
<CLIP>
FoxBusiness Rep. Tony Gonzales: [label cartels terrorists] I think it's time to label cartels what they are. They are terrorists and they're terrorizing not only migrants and people along the border. Now they're terrorizing Americans.
ALEX: After there were four Americans kidnaped in Mexico, Rep.. Gonzalez, who's a Democrat [00:23:00] from Texas, he said that the U.S. should start treating cartels like terrorists. Now, he didn't say, you know, he would support an authorization for the use of military force, but he has basically said, look, these cartels are terrorist-like organizations.
SEAN: I think we all know how these presidential primary debates work, Alex. You've got, you know, one party's presidential candidates sort of trying to win the votes of one side and then they have to sort of regress to the mean and try and capture both sides. Is this just some of the top Republicans in the field trying to sort of out-extreme each other, or do you think there's a genuine desire here to go to war — war-war — with Mexican drug cartels?
ALEX: A couple of things here. The first is that I think they are finding it to be lucrative for their campaigns. DeSantis, for example, is fundraising off of the proposal that he said at the debate. [00:24:00] He's selling T-shirts that you can buy for, I believe, like $44 that say that he will leave drug lords, "stone cold dead". And that's in all caps. So clearly, they're finding that this could be a resonating message to his base. And, you know, Desantis had a military career. He was a military lawyer. And so this is a way for him to sort of say, look, I've served. I've got military credentials and here's the things I'm thinking about. I look tough here. And then also to match, I think, Ramaswamy and Trump. But point is that there seems to be an audience. I think that's part of it. The other aspect that I don't really want to miss is that, you know, this really is like the major concern. I've been talking to Republicans for a long time, you know, even before really the primaries got underway in earnest. And when I was saying, what do you think the big foreign policy challenge is going to be or the big foreign policy thing is going to be? Obviously, China is sort of, you know, above all, but second was fentanyl.
SEAN: Hm!
ALEX: And it seems to be that that their constituents are really concerned about what's going on.
Trickle Down Trumpism Part 2 -Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 8-26-23
DANIEL MILLER - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: So that's a piece of it, but part [00:25:00] of it, if people are like, why the extremes? Just a fact to think about is that since 1988, the GOP has won one popular presidential vote. They won the popular vote for president one time. It was 2004, when George W. Bush won his second term. That's it. It was Bush/Kerry, thank you. And the last GOP president before him was his father after Reagan's two terms. They have to become more and more extreme. And again, I don't see this as Trump invented this. He didn't invent it, but he brought it up from the depths. He brought it out in the open. And this is why for me, things like the election denial and everything else, number one, they make sense. There's a certain logic to this. We can't win an election if we're the GOP on even ground in a presidential election. We'll say that it was fake. We'll say that it was stolen, whatever. But it's also gonna push us to more and more far extremes, and we've talked about this for years too, and you [00:26:00] see the culmination of it now. They're so beholden to the far right and a shrinking electorate, an aging white population. And so they just have to get more and more radical to keep those people on board. They can't lose them because if they lose them, they have really nobody to vote for them. And so you get this kind of cycle where they're caught in these radical positions, even if they didn't believe them.
And people ask you, I know they ask you, they ask me, do they really believe this? Do they just say it? Do they, whatever. We brought this question and posed it to our panelists at our Denver event. And the short answer is, it doesn't matter, 'cause the effects are the same. And why I bring that up, I bring that up because I think Ramaswamy's statements are the same kind of thing. Because people also, and I've seen in the wake of that, lots of people posting things and writing, why are people drawn to believe these conspiracy theories and so forth. And one answer is -- and this is gonna sound weird, we think of conspiracy theories often in terms of belief, people get really wrapped up in the how can they believe these things and the data says [00:27:00] this, and how can they ignore, Brad, all the evidence that you're giving, the hints of changing climate patterns and events all over the US, not to mention the rest of the globe -- and the answer is, it feels good to believe it. It feels good. It feels comforting to believe that not that humans screwed up the planet. It's gonna be really hard to try to fix it. Not we have supported the West, the US, countries like this, for generations. Laissez-faire economic policies that despoil the planet, and not because that stuff also gets us wrapped up in all kinds of stuff that we also don't wanna talk about on the right, about colonialism and race relations. And, arguably, why a response to what's going on in Maui is more muted. And it's far away and people don't even realize it's part of the US or there are lots of non-white people who live in Hawaii, including native Hawaiians, right? All of these kinds of things. It feels so much better to say it's a hoax. And then I can just sleep well at night and I can [00:28:00] feel good about it. And this is what the GOP is pandering to.
And I think this is part of why people have to recognize how potent this is, because there are a lot of Americans that it just feels better to feel all these things. It feels better to be angry all the time than to be scared. It feels better to know that, if I'm nervous around people of color, they scare me, they make me nervous, my kids are learning stuff in history classes I didn't learn, it's a lot easier to just be angry about that and shut it out than it is to have to look in a mirror and take a look and say, wow God, what if all the stuff my teachers told me wasn't the way it is?
Obviously I can go on about this forever, but I think that's for me, I guess what I'm trying to get at, which is for me, the emotion that I think all of this ties into that's on display in the debate, that's on display in the election, that's on display in this kind of ramping up of rhetoric, which will jump me over ahead and jump to the next topic then, if we're talking about emotion here, which is the role of abortion in the debate I thought was [00:29:00] really significant. CNN, others have had really good summaries and they summed it up well. It would take a while to go through every candidate and try to pin down what they've said, but they're all over the map, right? Some candidates were like, 15-week federal abortion ban is what we should do. Some said they were opposed to a nationwide ban. Some have been in states that have enacted six-week bans, but nobody was really willing to say whether or not they actually support that at a federal level or if they would as president and so forth.
But I think what it highlights, and this is another piece, is where the GOP is still caught between at least three poles here. One is that same group on the far right who are so adamantly opposed to any form of abortion that they have to take radical positions. As you hammer all the time, a majority, around two-thirds of Americans in general approve, favor some form of abortion access. Then the ones who don't know whether they support a federal ban or whether all that rhetoric they had about state's rights for decades was true, and they don't know [00:30:00] what to do. And I think that was on full display.
The Party of Authoritarianism Part 2 - In The Thick - Air Date 8-23-23
MIKE GERMAN: ...and it reminded me of a shooting in Detroit of a Black Imam.
Narrator: The FBI says Abdullah was a highly placed leader of a nationwide Sunni group of African Americans who converted to Islam. However, members of the community shocked by the allegations tell Al Jazeera that he led a relatively small mosque and was known for his charitable work in the Detroit area.
MIKE GERMAN: And the FBI had a sting operation and it just involved stolen television sets. It wasn't a violent crime that he was being set up for, but the FBI went in full guns blazing in a warehouse where he was completely cornered and then set a dog on him knowing that he was armed with a handgun. So, when he shot at the dog, they shot at him and killed him. And I'm not necessarily questioning the people who are in that shooting incident - you know, when somebody fires a weapon, you can't do a deep analysis of where [00:31:00] exactly they were aiming, and, uh, likewise in Utah when somebody points a gun - but there were choices about how to address that crime and it almost seemed like the part of that state violence that it was, Oh, you want to intimidate us? Well, we're gonna show you, and made it more likely that violence was going to occur.
MARIA HINOJOSA - CO-HOST, IN THE THICK: Which is why when you look at what happened on January 6th, for example, and the fact that law enforcement was just, like, Oh wait, what's happening?
MIKE GERMAN: Right. Law enforcement was the part that was going, Nah, nah.
MARIA HINOJOSA - CO-HOST, IN THE THICK: Exactly!
MIKE GERMAN: The FBI, the Capitol Police.
JULIO RICARDO VARELA - CO-HOST, IN THE THICK: Exactly. That's what I'm fascinated by, right? What you just said there, Mike, in the heart of January 6th, like, you were just saying, I don't know what's going on. And then now we're living in a post-January 6th world. So, in a post-January 6th world, where do we stand? Is the FBI defending democracy? Are we dangerously close to this authoritarianism type of mentality? I mean, what are your thoughts?
MIKE GERMAN: Absolutely. And as you mentioned earlier, one [00:32:00] of the elements of a growing authoritarian movement is to challenge government institutions, and so we have Republicans who had been steadfast defenders of the FBI when it was accused of abuses of minority communities and religious communities and leftist political activists, are all of a sudden treating the FBI as the enemy and undermining the FBI at a time when they're involved in the largest investigation ever in their history, the January 6th assault on the Capitol, that I think in many ways is admirable. They've charged over a thousand people. That's a little confusing what their strategy is on how to address the other thousand plus people that may have committed crimes that day with the resources they have. But they still seem very focused on that day as if it appeared out of nowhere and the problem went away afterwards. When groups like The Proud Boys who [00:33:00] the government has successfully charged with sedition for leading the attack on the Capitol, have reconstituted and are still engaging in public violence all across the country with very little police intervention.
And even though they're, uh, interstate organization, you haven't seen the FBI using its tools to address this ongoing violence and it doesn't even seem to register that it's happening. I mean, one of the big problems which we've been trying to address is the FBI can't tell you how many people White supremacists killed last year. Or the year before that. Or the year before that. Because even though they've now said that they have raised domestic terrorism investigations to a top priority, they don't collect domestic terrorism incident data. So they don't know how many attacks are out there.
JULIO RICARDO VARELA - CO-HOST, IN THE THICK: You know, wait, can I just stop for a second? This is a Mike German moment.
MARIA HINOJOSA - CO-HOST, IN THE THICK: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I bet if it involves a Muslim person that immediately [00:34:00] categorizes something else. Mike is saying, if you have White men committing crime, murdering people, what will it take for those to be seen within the context of domestic terrorism?
MIKE GERMAN: Exactly. That's fascinating.
MARIA HINOJOSA - CO-HOST, IN THE THICK: 'cause it gets to a very, you know, I mean, Timothy McVey, Oklahoma City bombing, 1997. Yeah. I'm fixated on this because this is what he said in his only interview to Time Magazine. He said, Well, wait, do I look like a terrorist?
MIKE GERMAN: Right.
MARIA HINOJOSA - CO-HOST, IN THE THICK: It's a central point: because I'm a White guy, so therefore I can't possibly be a terrorist. This is so important because there's that element, right? The Timothy McVay element, like, do I look like a terrorist, or something else? Right? Which is a complicated element to the conversation about White supremacy, but we're not afraid to take on complicated issues when it revolves around White supremacy, which is, there are a lot of POC a lot of people of color, who express White supremacist views. You do not have to be White to believe and support White supremacy. So, most notably, Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud [00:35:00] Boys who is Afro-Cuban, the mass shooter who killed eight people in Allen, Texas back in May, many of them, Asian, including a child, he was a Latino man who expressed neo-Nazi views, he had a patch that he was wearing with the initials RWDS, which stands for right-wing death squad.
So, we have been talking about and acknowledging Latinos and Latinas who identify with White supremacy. So can you talk a little bit more about why White supremacist groups are actively engaging people of color, to get them to come over to, as it were, their side? And what tools are they using, misinformation, disinformation?
JULIO RICARDO VARELA - CO-HOST, IN THE THICK: And Mike, I'm sure from your history, and Maria, too, back in the nineties, like, this is nothing new, right?
MIKE GERMAN: Right. So it is nothing new. Race is a social construct. It's something that we invented to establish a political-economic-social hierarchy in our [00:36:00] societies. So who is White under the social definition of it is malleable and people are let in and people are pushed out depending on what's going on in a different society's political demographic.
And from the perspective I learned as a White supremacist undercover, they focus on European ancestry. So of course Spain is in Europe, and so anybody with a Spanish surname, as long as they could prove or even just claim ancestry going back to Spain, they were White. And Latino communities aren't exempt from racism. And, you know, Hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race, and right there have always been considered White Hispanics and Black Hispanics and Asian Hispanics. So you've always had an element of that. And with the growing Latino population in the United States, obviously they're attaining more political [00:37:00] power. So there's a interest in incorporating more of them into the far-right movement. And that is the other part of it, is the far-right politics, the authoritarianism, the fascism, is racially exclusive in context. So of course fascism is also something that has been in South and Central America, in many ways. So, you know, you saw White supremacists wearing t-shirts that said "Pinochet did nothing wrong".
MARIA HINOJOSA - CO-HOST, IN THE THICK: Exactly.
JULIO RICARDO VARELA - CO-HOST, IN THE THICK: And you and people bring up Spain and we completely forget if you start looking at the history of Spanish colonialism, there were literal caste systems that based your status in society on the blending of races of how White you were or how Black you were, or how indigenous you were, right?
MARIA HINOJOSA - CO-HOST, IN THE THICK: And the amount of violence that was learned and is perpetuated by a theory of White supremacy from, you know, colonial times. And then you see that manifested in authoritarian dictatorships in Argentina where they are torturing [00:38:00] people based on political views.
JULIO RICARDO VARELA - CO-HOST, IN THE THICK: And White supremacy has a Latin American slant as well, Mike. I think that's one thing that people continue to miss.
Is America Run By A Psychopathic Cult w Seth D. Norrholm - Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 8-24-23
THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: Dr. Norrholm, in this article that you wrote, I read it on Raw Story, I'm not sure where it was first published, you argue that, you're talking about the political parties and how we can't compromise anymore, and that basically the GOP has, you know, morphed into a cult. I'm, you don't literally say that, but I think that there's an element of, it seems to me like you're suggesting that. If that's the case, what do we do about that? How do we interact with family members, friends, who have become cult members, who have come under the sway of Donald Trump? Or of the larger, you know, cult, the White supremacist cult, for example? The White nationalism thing.
DR. SETH D. NORRHOLM: Yeah. You know, if you think about cults in general, you know, obviously there are lots been written about, and cult psychology has been studied for decades, and that's a lot to discuss, so I'm just gonna boil it down. If you think about [00:39:00] the cult experience, you're talking about a reality that is driven by the leader of the organization or the cult, and that is perpetuated by the followers, and usually there is some central doctrine to the cult theology, which is, you know, we will follow this leader who will take us to greener pastures. And in cult history, those greener pastures have been a heavenly destination, you know, something in the afterlife they've been. You know, riches and prosperity here on the human plane. And so there's been some promise of a happy ever after by the cult leader, and that's gonna depend on what the cult leader is professing and what the members are subscribing to.
So what we're seeing now is really the evolution of a major political party. So as I mentioned in this article, there was a time not too long ago when the two [00:40:00] major political parties had fundamental differences but could meet in the middle. There were differences over how much the government plays a role in your daily lives and how much the government should support individuals who need help financially and in other ways, and how much should be left to the individual to provide for themselves and to be a self-starter in some way.
So there were areas where a compromise could be reached between these two ideas. But what has happened over the last seven years now is this evolution into a cult-type organization where there's no longer anchors and links to what's happening in the real world. And everything is happening within this cult-like bubble where the narrative is written by the leader and sycophantic followers that are in his leadership structure so that there is less and less connection to what is really happening.
And so, I describe this in terms of [00:41:00] when somebody is in a cult, you know, for a long time it was thought that cult membership was somehow robotic or automatic, and people were brainwashed and it became in a zombie-like state, and they were in this cult until they could be broken out somehow. But what more recent research has shown is that there is a volunteer aspect to being in a cult, there is more decision making by the person to engage in the cult situation than was previously thought before. And so what you're seeing, whether it's, you know, members of Congress who are Republican or identify as Republican are skewing more towards cult-like thinking and defending the single person, the leader of this organization, and not the objective evidence, the legal evidence, the evidence that's available on video that's really indisputable, but still adhering to the logic and narrative that exists within the cult bubble.
THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: Right. So we just have a minute left. What, how best do we approach friends and family to pop them out of this cult? [00:42:00]
DR. SETH D. NORRHOLM: I think it really is a matter of driving home the objective facts and showing that the cult narrative is wrong. So I think four indictments back to back to back helps to change that narrative. I think being found civilly liable for rape, you know, these two impeachments. Eventually the evidence becomes so great that the majority of people within the cult have to say, Wait a second, something is not adding up here. So if you can aid in that discussion to help people be more receptive to objective information and to say, I know what you're hearing, but try to listen to it from this perspective.
THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: That's interesting. It seems sometimes that they're impervious to facts, but maybe if we could remind them of what life was like before the cult, too.
Trickle Down Trumpism Part 3 - Straight White American Jesus - Air Date 8-26-23
DANIEL MILLER - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Just a quick couple. One, I can hear the emails I'll get now being like, what about the Lincoln Project? And my answer would be, what about the Lincoln Project? I think you hit it on the head when you said, not just show me the moderate Republicans, but show me the modern [00:43:00] Republicans who matter at all within contemporary American conservatism. And that's the issue. I guess where I'm going with that is this is not a fringe minor voice. This is the American GOP at this point.
BRADLEY ONISHI - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: So I understand the Lincoln Project. We've had a lot of success over the last five years battling Trumpism. Now one of us is running for president, and does that person on the debate stage, does someone from the Lincoln Project -- you want to tell who was on the debate stage that represents the moderate Republicans? Chris Christie? Really? Chris Christie, who's really just running for president as revenge? He's not gonna be president and he knows it. He's just out there trying to take shots at Trump. Who is on the debate stage, Dan, that represents the Lincoln Project or any of these other people? No one, no one. Don't talk to me about Nikki Haley. Don't talk to me about Asa Hutchinson or Mike Pence. Anyway, sorry. Go ahead. I apologize. Go ahead.
DANIEL MILLER - CO-HOST, STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICAN JESUS: Nope. That's the point, right? Is that when we talk about this, I guess what drives me crazy is still this knee-jerk response. I think again, it's because it feels good to think it's true [00:44:00] that somehow or another most Republicans are still some sort of reasonable moderates holding on to classical conservative principles and so forth, and there's some minoritarian fringe out there, and I just don't believe it. And I'll point to the same thing you do and say, just show me, show me where that is, if that's how this is. And how it is that events like this don't follow logically from the mainstream discourse of the American right?
Ticking Bomb Inside GOP’s Plan To Defund Trump Prosecution - Thom Hartmann - Air Date 8-31-23
THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: Republicans in Georgia now are talking about defunding Fannie Willis. 'cause how dare you hold a corrupt Republican to to account well in, in her case, 19 corrupt Republicans. Isn't it fascinating by the way that, uh, Jack Smith has, I believe it's 82, I could be wrong, 80 some odd. Anyway, uh, known listed witnesses in his case against Donald Trump, and every single one of them is a Republican.
Who are [00:45:00] lining up to testify that Donald Trump committed crimes. Everyone is a Republican. All of the witnesses, to the best of my knowledge that Fannie Willis has are Republicans. You would think that if a political party had a corrupt member, And had other corrupt people within the party who were collaborating with that corrupt member to commit a major felony crime against the United States of America, you know, defrauding the government, stealing an election.
You would think that that political party would welcome a prosecutor who wanted to clean up the party for them, but no. Georgia State, Senator Colton Moore was on Steve Bannon's little podcast the other day, and he said, uh, it's just like Nazi Germany. I mean, they wanna call us the Nazis, but their actions are Nazism.
I mean, first they go after your [00:46:00] enemies. Seriously, this guy is gonna quote Pastor Nie Moler, right? Uh, okay. First they go after your enemies and you don't say anything because they're your enemies. And that's exactly where the governor is right now. I. See, he's accusing Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia, of being in on this thing because Brian Kemp doesn't like Trump either.
And, and Brian Kemp has been spoken of as a possible candidate to run against Trump in the primaries, although he has not yet stepped up. He says, uh, so you don't say anything 'cause they're your enemies. And that's exactly where the governor is right now. He looks at Donald Trump as an enemy. So he's like, I'm not gonna say anything.
Right. And then they come after your friends. I got a friend who's being indicted. Well, hey, if you've got a friend who's being indicted, you might wanna reconsider your friendship. But then this guy goes completely bat guano crazy. He says, you want a civil war? I don't want a civil war. I don't want to have to draw my rifle.
I wanna make this problem go away with my legislative means of doing [00:47:00] so. And the first step to getting that done is defunding Fannie Willis of any Georgia tax dollars. You see, Brian Kemp signed a law back in May that starting on October 1st, a commission which has five members who then have the power.
To do what I was just talking a minute ago about DeSantis doing down in Florida where he fired two of his prosecutors, two elected state prosecutors. Fannie Willis is also an elected district attorney. DeSantis fired, two elected prosecutors because they were, God forbid Democrats. I. In Georgia, you couldn't do that until the legislature passed this law.
So starting in October, this five person commission can recommend to the governor that any particular district attorney in the state of Georgia be fired. And guess who? The only district attorney in the state of Georgia anybody's talking about firing is right now. You guessed it. [00:48:00] Fannie Wallace. When are the Republicans gonna just clean up their act?
I mean, what, this is a serious question. What do you think it's gonna take for the G O P to say, you know, enough? I, I, I realize probably most people listening to this program are not old enough to remember Dwight Eisenhower. I am, and I do remember Dwight Eisenhower. I remember very well. He was the president throughout most of my childhood.
And he was a good man in many regards. I mean, and you know, obviously he wasn't, you know, Joe Progressive, but can you imagine Dwight Eisenhower saying, yeah, yeah. We we're all in support of a president who tried to overturn an election, who lied to the American people about having lost an election? Who conspired to, to, to flip an election?
I can't imagine it. I can imagine Richard Nixon [00:49:00] going along with it in the background quietly, or Ronald Reagan or even George W. Bush maybe, but I can't imagine My dad's Republican party. My dad called himself an Eisenhower Republican. I can't imagine my dad's Republican party doing that.
An Argument at the Kids' Table John Nichols on First GOP Debate Held Without Trump Part 2 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 8-24-23
AMY GOODMAN: You’ve written extensively about the 14th Amendment. Again, increasingly, conservative legal scholars are also writing about this. Explain.
JOHN NICHOLS: Sure. The 14th Amendment, Section 3, which is a post-Civil War section, a post-Civil War amendment, deals with people who foment insurrection, people who swear an oath to the United States and then, in a position of power, take actions that might upend the government, might in some way cause a political crisis of the sort that we saw certainly during the Civil War and that [00:50:00] many people believe we saw more recently with Trump’s efforts to overturn the election — certainly different actions, by any measure, but yet, at the end of the day, a failure to abide by an oath to follow the basic strictures of the Constitution.
And the people who have been talking about 14.3 have generally been on the left. People like John Bonifaz and other constitutional lawyers have brought it up many times. But in recent months, you have seen conservative legal scholars, and even some conservative activists, bring this issue up.
And it is a legitimate issue, a complex one, because the Constitution doesn’t really lay out exactly how you enforce this standard. But the standard is that if someone swore an oath to the government, either encouraged or supported insurrection, and then seeks to return to government, that they can’t do so, that they can’t [00:51:00] continue to hold an office. And there’s a lot of interpretation in all sorts of ways on this. But, as Asa Hutchinson pointed out, this is something that has been raised. There’s a genuine concern as regards Trump. If he’s convicted, it could become an even bigger concern, particularly if he’s convicted in the Washington, D.C., case brought at the federal level by Jack Smith or in the Georgia case, both of which talk about attempting to overturn an election.
AMY GOODMAN: And to be clear —
JOHN NICHOLS: So this is a big deal.
AMY GOODMAN: — it would be individual secretaries of state who could say Trump is not going to be on our state ballot?
JOHN NICHOLS: Theoretically, that’s one way to do it. And certainly, that’s something that several groups, John Bonifaz’s group and others, have raised as a possibility. There is also the possibility that Congress itself could take action and, via a resolution, say that it is the determination of the Congress of the United States that Donald Trump is in violation of 14.3. I mean, there’s several ways to [00:52:00] go at this. No matter what happens, if it does — if it were to occur, if a secretary of state were to bar Donald Trump from the ballot, you’d have a legal fight. There’s very little question of that.
And I think that what’s significant with Asa Hutchinson bringing this up in the debate is that it brought this issue more to the forefront, and, I think, opens up, hopefully, a broader discussion about the clear constitutional concerns as regards someone like Donald Trump seeking to return to the presidency.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, although Donald Trump, of course, who’s the leading candidate, skipped the debate, he appeared instead in a pretaped interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
TUCKER CARLSON: Do you think we’re moving toward civil war?
Donald Trump: There’s tremendous passion, and there’s tremendous love. You know, January 6 was a very interesting day, because they don’t report it properly. [00:53:00] I believe it was the largest crowd I’ve ever spoken before, and you know some of the crowds I’ve spoken before. And, like, July Fourth on the Mall, I think that had a million people there. But I think that the biggest crowd I’ve ever spoken before was on January 6th.
And people that were in that crowd, a very, very small group of people — and we said “patriotically and peacefully,” “peacefully and patriotically,” right? Nobody ever says that. “Go peacefully and patriotically.” But people that were in that crowd that day, very small group of people, went down there. And then you — there were a lot of — a lot of scenarios that we can talk about. But people in that crowd said it was the most beautiful day they’ve ever experienced. There was love in that crowd. There was love and unity. I have never seen such spirit and such passion and such love. And I’ve also never seen, simultaneously and from [00:54:00] the same people, such hatred of what they’ve done to our country.
TUCKER CARLSON: So, do you think it’s possible that there’s open conflict? We seem to be moving toward something.
Donald Trump: I don’t know. I don’t know, because I don’t know what it — you know, I can say this: There’s a level of passion that I’ve never seen, there’s a level of hatred that I’ve never seen, and that’s probably a bad combination.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, John Nichols, your response to Trump’s comments to fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson? Also the fact, what he said, Vivek Ramaswamy mimicked his line, which is, he said America is “in an internal sort of cold cultural civil war,” last night he said.
JOHN NICHOLS: Yeah. Well, I was in Madison, Wisconsin, on January 6th, and so I can’t attest to what Donald Trump thinks he saw, but my sense of what occurred on that day is [00:55:00] very, very different than his. And I think that the same goes for committees that have investigated it and others. And so, Trump is clearly putting his spin on this.
But the most troubling thing is that he is suggesting that there is a possibility for additional violence. And that is a deeply unsettling statement by a former president, the front-runner in a presidential race. And it also does, as you suggest, parallel what some of the candidates are saying, especially Ramaswamy, who has — you know, did indeed in the debate suggest a very dark vision of America. In fact, he explicitly rejected Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” statement from back in the 1980s, and argued that things are actually pretty awful and potentially could get worse. So, you really do have a split from the Republican Party of the past to a party that is much more, for lack of a [00:56:00] better term, combative.
An Argument at the Kids' Table John Nichols on First GOP Debate Held Without Trump Part 3 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 8-24-23
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Republican candidates were also asked about the war in Ukraine. This is debate moderator Bret Baier of Fox News.
BRET BAIER: Mr. Ramaswamy, you would not support an increase of funding to Ukraine?
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: I would not. And I think that this is disastrous that we are protecting against an invasion across somebody else’s border, when we should use those same military resources to prevent across the invasion of our own southern border here in the United States. We are driving Russia further into China’s hands. The Russia-China alliance is the single greatest threat we face. And I find it offensive that we have professional politicians on the stage that will make a pilgrimage to Kyiv, to their pope, Zelensky, without doing the same thing for people in Maui or the South Side of Chicago —
MIKE PENCE: OK. All right, Bret, I’m in.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: — or Kensington. I think —
BRET BAIER: Hold on.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: — that we have to put the interests —
MIKE PENCE: I’m in.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: — of Americans first —
CHRIS CHRISTIE: Me, too. He was referring to me.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: — secure our own border instead of somebody else’s. …
NIKKI HALEY: A win for Russia is a win for China. We have to know that. Ukraine is the first line [00:57:00] of defense for us. And the problem that Vivek doesn’t understand is, he wants to hand Ukraine to Russia. He wants to let China eat Taiwan. He wants to go and stop funding Israel. You don’t do —
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: False.
NIKKI HALEY: — that to friends. What you do instead —
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: False.
NIKKI HALEY: — is you have the backs of your friends. Ukraine is the frontline of defense. Putin has said, if Russia — once Russia takes Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics are next. That’s a world war. We’re trying to prevent war. Look at what Putin did today. He killed Prigozhin. When I was at the U.N., the Russian ambassador suddenly died. This guy is a murderer. And you are choosing a murderer over a pro-American country.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: I have to address that.
BRET BAIER: First of all —
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: First of all —
BRET BAIER: First of all, Mr. Ramaswamy, you have 30 seconds. Mr. DeSantis, Governor DeSantis, you’re next.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: You know, Nikki, I wish you well in your future career on the boards of Lockheed and Raytheon.
NIKKI HALEY: You know, I’m not on the boards of Lockheed and Raytheon.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: But the fact of the matter —
NIKKI HALEY: And, you know, you have put down —
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: Boeing came off of it, but you’ve been pushing this lie.
NIKKI HALEY: — everybody on this stage.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: You’ve been pushing this lie all week, Nikki.
NIKKI HALEY: But do you know what? [00:58:00] You want to go and defund Israel.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: Yes. OK, let me address that.
NIKKI HALEY: You want to give Taiwan to China.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: I’m glad you brought that up.
NIKKI HALEY: You want to go and give Ukraine to Russia.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: I’m going to address each of those right now. This is —
NIKKI HALEY: You will make our —
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: — the false lies of a professional politician.
NIKKI HALEY: He will make America less safe.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: There you have it.
NIKKI HALEY: Under your watch, you will make America less safe.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: So, the reality is —
NIKKI HALEY: You have no foreign policy —
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: Let me —
NIKKI HALEY: — experience, and it shows. It shows.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: And you know what? There’s a foreign policy experience that you all have…
BRET BAIER: Governor DeSantis, you were mentioned in the territorial dispute. Not only —
NIKKI HALEY: No, it’s not a territorial dispute, either.
GOV. RON DESANTIS: So, as president of the United States, your first obligation is to defend our country and its people. And that means you’re sending all this money, but you’re not doing what we need to do to secure our own border. We have tens of thousands of people —
NIKKI HALEY: We can do both at the same time.
GOV. RON DESANTIS: — who are being killed because — well, we’re not handling both.
NIKKI HALEY: And we can do both at the same time.
GOV. RON DESANTIS: And so, I am going to declare it a national emergency. I’m not going to send troops to Ukraine, but I am going to send them to our southern border. When these drug pushers are bringing fentanyl across the border, that’s going to be the last thing they do. We’re going to use force, and we’re going to leave them [00:59:00] stone cold dead.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that was Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Before that, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and also Vivek Ramaswamy. John Nichols, your response?
JOHN NICHOLS: It was a remarkable exchange. You could write books about that, just those few minutes there, and, in doing so, get a pretty good insight to where the Republican Party is. You clearly saw the “America First” position that Donald Trump obviously articulated in many cases as president, but even taken to greater extremes by Ramaswamy and, to a lesser extent, by DeSantis.
But what was fascinating in that exchange was the extent to which Nikki Haley really emerged as, I think, one of the most effective communicators on the stage, and one of the most aggressive communicators. She is nowhere near the others in the polls. She has got a long way to go. But she’s clearly doing a better job, frankly, than some of the other candidates who are attempting to distinguish themselves, [01:00:00] in putting herself out there. And you saw the crowd’s reaction to her.
But what was fascinating was the extent to which Ramaswamy refused to back down. In fact, he actually, as you noted in that clip, suggested that Haley was really trying out for a place on the board of some defense contractor. It was a very aggressive hit, and one that I think was notable, because it gets to, I think, a lot of the deep divisions within the Republican Party about foreign policy. I wish that the moderators had really played this out a little more and given more time to a deeper investigation of this. And I think it’s especially notable that DeSantis was desperately trying to get into the discussion, but came in not with particularly deep insights, but just a repetition of talking points about the border.
Final comments on the need to ban Trump from office in the right way
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips today starting with In The Thick explaining the mechanisms of White supremacy in government power. Straight White American Jesus looked at [01:01:00] the GOP debate without Trump or criticisms of him. Democracy Now! focused on the question about climate change at the debate. Today, Explained looked at the rhetoric around militarizing the US-Mexico border. Straight White American Jesus looked at the factors pushing the GOP towards extremism. In The Thick looked at the GOP pivot against the institution of the FBI as part of their turn towards authoritarianism. Thom Hartmann discussed the GOP through the lens of cult dynamics. Straight White American Jesus looked at how sidelined moderate Republicans like the Lincoln Project have been. And Thom Hartmann discussed the GOP resistance to cleaning up the corruption and criminality in their party.
That's what everybody heard, but members also heard two additional bonus clips from Democracy Now! discussing, first, the 14th Amendment option to ban Trump from office, and another diving deeper on the GOP debate discussing the war in Ukraine. To hear that, and have all of our bonus [01:02:00] 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 have a couple of thoughts on that 14th Amendment option to ban Trump from office. First of all, obviously, I think that restriction should apply to him, and there's not really any question of that to me. Just today, I saw that a lawsuit was filed from CREW - Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. I think it's starting in Colorado, and that is absolutely how it should be done. I'd also heard talk about simply pressuring secretaries of state to make the decision, like, individually to remove Trump from ballots in their states, which is a terrible idea.
The only way to approach this is through the legal process and the Supreme Court would [01:03:00] absolutely have to weigh in. Any kind of scattershot disqualification in some states but not others would be political disaster that would bleed over into disaster beyond politics. This idea is already getting enough traction that Trump and his followers are responding to it. There was another story today that was highlighting just, you know, people on social media saying they would write in Trump even if he were taken off the ballot in their state, because of course they would.
And... I'm not saying that's like a flaw in the plan to ban him. The point is that we're trying to restore the legitimacy of the election process and get the vast majority of people in the country to once again accept the outcome of elections so that we can stave off politically motivated violence.
Partially disqualifying Trump, though maybe technically correct, would work directly at odds with the goal of establishing legitimate elections and saving our democracy. [01:04:00] Maybe if the Supreme Court weighed in, probably only after some of his convictions had come down, and they voted to say that, yes, the 14th Amendment does apply to Trump, and he should be banned from holding office again, then maybe there wouldn't be an immediate, deafening call for civil war from right wing media, followed by waves of terrible violence. Maybe.
But if Trump loses the election, in part, either actually or just by perception, because he's not on the ballot in some states, and those states are probably going to be run by Democrats, if anyone's just going to unilaterally choose to keep them off the ballot, the reaction would be truly awful, and our goal of re-establishing a functioning democracy would be farther away than before.
So, as you hear conversations about that option, just stretch beyond the... sheer facts [01:05:00] that obviously, yes, it should apply to him and even the possibility of, you know, Could we make it work? Could we get people to keep him off the ballot? Stretch beyond that and think about the actual ramifications and the actual underpinning of democracy. Like, what actually makes democracy work? It is only through the perceived legitimacy of the government that something like a democratic system held together with the minimum of force is possible. And we're, like, already teetering on the edge of enough people thinking the government and our election systems are illegitimate to be incredibly dangerous. So any actions that push further in that direction should be seen and understood to be incredibly dangerous. So, just something to keep in mind.
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 [01:06:00] 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 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, as well as 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 [01:07:00] bestoftheleft.com.
#1580 Bet Your Life: Sports betting is opening new and expensive ways to waste your time and destroy your mental health. (Transcript)
Air Date 9/3/2022
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 Talking Politics and Religion Without Killing Each Other 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 the impact of the rise of highly-addictive smartphone sports gambling, the effects of which are being felt beyond the individual gambler's bank account and anxiety levels. Partnerships between gambling companies and colleges, influencers, and even journalistic institutions like ESPN are changing the fundamentals of the sports themselves and how they're understood by fans, all for the worse.
Sources today include Wendover Productions, Why Is This Happening?, The Dominique Foxworth Show, TYT Sports, Cara Nicole, the PBS NewsHour, and Edge of Sports, with additional members-only clips from Philion [00:01:00] and Full Story.
How the Sports Betting Industry Quietly Consumed America - Wendover Productions - Air Date 12-13-22
The beginnings were as inadvertent as they come. Hastily drawn up and jammed into the entirely unrelated Safe Port Act, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act passed through Congress in September of 2006, then with President Bush's signature, a month later became law. The unremarkable bit of legislation banned gambling companies from taking payments over the internet made in violation of state or federal law.
The old guard of online gambling -- the likes of Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars, and Absolute Poker -- the new law would prove an existential threat. For a set of upstarts, though, it functioned as the legal foundation of an as-yet untapped market. In trying to close one loophole, the act opened another with this seemingly innocuous exemption: that betting and wagering did not include participation in fantasy sports, which were deemed as games of skill, not chance.
At the time, the distinction made sense. Fantasy sports were fundamentally different from any sort of online gambling. People didn't get rich off fantasy sports, nor did they lose [00:02:00] thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in one fell swoop. Fantasy team owners wagered on season-long outcomes with their friends from school or work and poured over stat sheets for bragging rights as much as money. They might have been obsessed, but they were never quite addicted. Then in 2009, a fateful backyard brainstorm at South by Southwest completely altered the trajectory of fantasy sports, and as they would turn out, sports betting.
The company that coalesced under the Austin Sun was called FanDuel, and it was everything that fantasy wasn't. Countering the traditional season-long league, FanDuel offered daily fantasy. Rather than just playing with your buddies, the service provided tournaments and cash games to compete against countless others. Whereas traditional fantasy leagues only saw minimal financial exchanges in league buy-ins and annual draft guides, FanDuel moved to major money. Just one good day they advertised could net a couple thousand dollars. And thanks to the Unlawful Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, it was online [00:03:00] and in your pocket. What had been slow moving and cumbersome was now fast and convenient. Just play from your phone, win, and cash out that very same day.
Young people followed and so too did money. FanDuel's first rounds of funding topped $1 million, then $4 million. Then by 2013, $11 million. As investment climbed, so too did winnings. That same year, the platform crowned its first million-dollar prize winner during its December Fantasy Football championship and dished out more than $150 million in prize money overall. The following year, FanDuel partnered with the NBA, while its rising competitor, DraftKings, nabbed the MLB and NHL. Suddenly, companies that didn't exist just years prior were outspending the entire beer industry, running ads every 90 seconds on national TV. With palm-of-your-hand convenience, cheap buy-ins, mouthwatering prize potential, and unavoidable promotional offers, daily fantasy services had maximized the potential of fantasy sports. Sports fans played, sports leagues and media [00:04:00] invested, while critics and academics began asking exactly to what extent this sped up further gamified version of fantasy sports actually differed from sports betting. Yet, rather than regulators intervening, legislators, league leaders, team owners, and daily fantasy consumers alike began to rethink just how bad sports betting really was. Banned by Congress in every state except Nevada, and opposed by all major leagues, sports betting had long been perceived as the antithesis of fair sports. This wasn't only the position held by league commissioners either, as 56% of Americans polled in 1993 disapproved of its legalization. Through the 2000s, after point-shaving scandals rocked college basketball, then insider betting in the NBA came to light, betting remained a dark, shady sports underworld in the view of most, and to league leaders, a direct threat. Even through 2012, NFL's Roger Goodell, MLB's Bud Selig, NHL's Gary Bettman, and NCAA's Mark Emmert, each came out against the idea of overturning the federal ban. [00:05:00] Or at least that's what they said outwardly.
As teams and leagues entered partnerships with gambling-adjacent fantasy platforms, internal conversations slowly shifted from sports betting as a scourge to sports betting as a potential opportunity. Daily fantasy drove more fan engagement, and so too with sports betting. At the same time, sports fans were voting with their wallets as the American Gaming Association estimated that Americans were spending about $150 billion on wagers annually, with only a small fraction actually going through legal means in Nevada.
Then finally, the head of the NBA came out and said it: If Americans were spending billions on sports bets, American newspapers and media were publishing betting lines, and other countries were finding success in regulating nationwide gambling, then why not just legalize it?
By and large, the public followed the logic, as 2017 polling showed that 55% of Americans had now come to favor the idea of legalized regulated gambling, while only 33% oppose it.
[00:06:00] Polling, though, doesn't overturn federal bans. But the timing was perfect. While daily fantasy shots skyward, and American opinion came around, the legality of the federal ban was coming under question. New Jersey's effort to legalize sports betting to prop up a faltering Atlantic City had climbed all the way to the Supreme Court. And in 2018, a surprise ruling opened the floodgates as Justice Alito delivered at the seven-to-two opinion, acknowledging that while sports gambling is fraught with controversy, it ultimately wasn't the federal government's constitutional right to ban it; rather, that it was the choice of each individual state.
The race was on. Eight states legalized sports betting in 2018. 10 more joined in 2019. Sports books opened in state and tribal casinos. Sports venues added betting kiosks, while DraftKings and FanDuel, the darlings of daily fantasy, opened up brick and mortar lounges across the US and launched mobile online betting in states that allowed it.
But this race to legalize wasn't between states. This was a time trial to see which [00:07:00] gambling industry representatives could secure legalization as quickly as possible in the friendliest terms possible. The likes of FanDuel and DraftKings, who had previously spent millions ensuring that state legislators saw daily fantasy as a game of skill and not of luck, the strategy was already established, and the team already assembled. From Trenton to Tallahassee to Topeka, lobbyists bought lawmakers gifts and presented the plot points of a new path over expensive glasses of wine. Legalized sports betting, they pitched, would bring tax revenue by the millions, and besides, they argued, people were betting illegally anyway. Why not bring it above board, bring in revenue and create a win-win? Or what about a win-win-win? they'd ask. Where regulations and taxes are slightly less burdensome, so more sports books are incentivized to enter the market, so more users have more outlets to bet, so more volume brings the state more tax revenue.
The pressure was immense, as the deep pockets of the world's most recognizable casinos spared no expense in helping state legislators see the issue from their point of view.
The Explosion of Online Sports Betting with Eric Lipton - Why Is This Happening? - Air Date 5-9-23
CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: There's a history here, right? Maybe [00:08:00] it's worth talking about this for a while. I mean, anyone who's seen Eight Men Out, which is about the Chicago White Sox, the Black Sox scandal of the early 20th century, in which players on the team were betting against themselves, they were throwing games, right? That there's always been this concern if you allow a lot of sports gambling, and if you legalize it and if it's accessible, that the actual competitors and participants themselves will get pulled into it. And of course, to the extent, if they end up owing a ton of money to a bookie, then the bookie says to him, here's how you can pay me back: make sure you don't score 20 points tomorrow night. And then someone can bet the under on their individual performance and hit it big. Am I right that that's the thing that has hung over this entire conversation for a century?
ERIC LIPTON: Yeah, no question. It was sort of the Black Plague, especially for baseball with the kind of Pete Rose and the fact that Pete Rose had been a coach at the same time that he was betting on his own in games. And it was a practice that, in fact, that professional sports league cited in their lawsuit as at the same [00:09:00] time as they were suing New Jersey, saying that this would compromise the integrity of the game. Behind the scenes after the oral arguments, when it became clear that the court was likely gonna side with New Jersey, they were already negotiating with DraftKings and FanDuel lobbyists to begin an alliance to legalize state by state. So they saw where this was headed. But yes, this was why baseball in particular was so adamantly opposed to embracing legalized betting, was that they saw that it was gonna undermine the integrity of the game. But they changed their tune just before the Supreme Court ruled.
CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: I have to say that, if you're talking about Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, or Giannis Antetokounmpo, some huge NBA star, or even anyone in the NBA, I don't think it's that likely that these athletes are gonna compromise and risk the millions and millions of dollars they're making for some side bets.
But one thing that's really striking to me is you can bet on anything on those platforms, and I mean, there's some obscure game in a mid-major [00:10:00] Division 1 NCAA basketball team that, I don't know if the lead scorer can tank that game and his friends all put a few thousand on the game, it just seems like once you penetrate down to amateur sports and the kind of sports you could bet on that there's just a ton of opportunities for exactly the kind of corruption and point shaving and thrown games that took down Major League Baseball at one point.
ERIC LIPTON: Right I mean, the bets are not simply about who wins and loses. There's the prop bets that allow you to bet on individual plays and rushing yards, receiving yards, receptions, touchdowns, interceptions, points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, three-pointers. I mean, there's all kinds of little things you can bet on beyond the winner and loser. The professional leagues do prohibit their players from betting. And for example, recently there were I think five NFL players that were punished, and they're tracking their players because they have the capacity to see who's betting. Every time a bet is made in the United States, there's a company called GeoComply, which gets pinged. And it can tell you who's [00:11:00] betting and the exact location of that person. And their computer authorizes every single bet and all the platforms contract with GeoComply and so they know who's betting and they know where that person is. And it allows a compliance to know, assuming they're not using someone else's phone, to know who's betting.
CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: Oh, wait a second. Let's stop there. I don't think I quite realized. So there's a monopoly company that has the contracts with everyone, that is the compliance company, such that if I'm the starting shooting guard on Iona, which is a college here in the New York area, that's not like a big, huge NCAA player, but a Division 1 team. And if I'm a good player, if I'm gonna make a few extra thousand with a prop bet against my own points tonight, this GeoComply basically would know it's my phone if I tried to make it myself?
ERIC LIPTON: Assuming it's your phone, yes. Every single bet goes to GeoComply and they have to sign off on that bet based on where you are located, because they have to know, like for example, in Washington, DC, If you're in Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC, that's a Federal park. You can't [00:12:00] bet in a Federal park. If you're across the street from a Federal park, you can bet. So your exact location has to be known. And that's one of the reasons why, you know, it's the Uberization of cell phones. It's like that Uber, that technology that Uber developed, the reason we have mobile betting now is that the technology, it's only in the last decade that the technology has existed, the latency, the accuracy, the confirmation ability, all of that, and that's what Daily Fantasy Sports really demonstrated is that these phones were incredible tools for online betting. And it was only once that revolution occurred that the company saw that and they realized, we gotta grab this.
CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: So after the 2018 Supreme Court ruling, it's a little bit of like, okay, any state that can manage to legalize this, can do this. What happens, what do those state campaigns look like in terms of getting states to legalize it?
ERIC LIPTON: They're really phenomenal in scale lobbying exercises, I mean, dozens of lobbyists.
CHRIS HAYES - HOST, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?: I feel that, I mean everything, that everything on this topic [00:13:00] seems phenomenal in scale. Every time I see anything having to do with sports betting, even just an ad, I'm like, I feel like that ad costs $5 million to make. Where are these people getting all this money?
ERIC LIPTON: It's actually a billion and a half dollars a year that the gambling companies are now spending on TV and radio advertising. It's an enormous amount of money. But the state campaigns are enormous and elaborate. The thing that I've seen in sports betting is that basically they, for the most part get it passed when the industry decides what it wants collectively. If you have disagreement between the casinos and FanDuel and DraftKings, or disagreement between the video poker player companies and the casinos, or between the Native American tribes and the casinos. If there's any fratricide, for example, in California where you had the Native American tribes and FanDuel and DraftKings going at each other, they spend more than $500 million on competing referendums, and it goes down in ashes. The fratricide is the thing that stops the ball from rolling on the passage of more sports betting the United States. So in Missouri, for example, right [00:14:00] now, it looks like they're past another year even though the Kansas City has had such success with its teams recently, it looks like another year will go by where they will not have sports betting. And that's because the video slots companies desperately want a cut of the bill, they wanna have their piece, they wanna have their 10,000 units of video slots in gas stations. And unless they get that, they keep killing the bill with their patron in the legislature, Danny Hoskins.
And so what I see in the States is it basically have the professional leagues have their own lobbyists, the casinos have their own lobbyists, the video slots people have their own lobbyists, and the Native American tribes have lobbyists, and you'll get like dozens and dozens of lobbyists and they're all there in the rotunda hanging out as these things are being debated and they're working their friends in the legislature to get the language in a way that meets their interest.
Gambling controversy continues to hit the NFL, MORE Players suspended - The Domonique Foxworth Show - Air Date 6-29-23
DOMONIQUE FOXWORTH - HOST, THE DOMONIQUE FOXWORTH SHOW: As money gets more important to these sports leagues, as they operate more and more like businesses and less like teams, the customer changes. And while the customer is still partially the fan, it's [00:15:00] also sponsors and it's also these gambling companies. And their revenue is tied to how true they are to the image that they project.
And what I mean by that is, this is an entertainment property, but it's not pure entertainment, like a TV show, a movie or maybe wrestling would be the example, like, WWE professional wrestling-type stuff. Because they are not trying to trick us into believing that pro wrestling is real, and that hurts how valuable media property it is.
The premise, or one of the biggest catalysts to why sports franchise values have jumped so much recently is because it's one of the last places that it's must-see because this stuff is not scripted. It's live, it matters, and there's connection to your... there's civic pride. And I think this kind of dovetails on the conversation I want to have later.
But the reason why I bring that up is because they've never made a [00:16:00] decision in the past that is this big, that puts that core thing so much at risk, as they have recently. And campaigning and lobbying to legalize gambling is something that all the pro sports leagues were doing because they were running out of ways to maximize the revenue in their current stream, so they were like, You know what, let's open a new stream. And it's something that they always said in the past that they were hugely opposed to, was gambling companies.
And I remember quite clearly when I was, I wasn't president of the union at this point, I was on executive committee of the union and we were talking about moving the Pro Bowl from Hawaii. And they're like, Where should we put the Pro Bowl? Should we go to a bunch of different cities? And I remember saying, it was probably a year after the all NBA All-Star game was in Vegas, I remember saying in a small meeting with Roger Goodell, I told him, I requested, Let's put it in Vegas. I love Vegas. It was fun. I would never go to the Pro Bowl. Not because I was a... I wouldn't go to the Pro Bowl to [00:17:00] visit. Like, you think about NBA All-Star weekend, everybody goes to the All Star Weekend. Players who are not playing in the game go there. It's like a fun thing. The All-Star game in um, or the Pro Bowl in Hawaii, it wasn't the same thing. Nobody going to Hawaii, no people were trying to go all the way to Hawaii to hang out to watch the Pro Bowl.
So anyway, I bring that up to say at that time, their response to that was like, ridiculous. This is a horrible idea for me to even put on the table. And, in their defense, it came like a year after the NBA was there, and if you remember that NBA All-Star game, there were probably four NFL players, I think, three or four NFL players got arrested or got in some sort of trouble. So they're like, we gotta stay out of Vegas. And also we don't want to be that close to gambling. Fast forward to now, they got a team in Vegas and they are in bed with all the major gambling companies and trying to get more money.
So back to the original point. This is the first time that they're putting their most important, like, [00:18:00] pillar, which is the integrity of the game. They're putting it in jeopardy by being close to these companies. And the reason why, and the way that they're trying to protect that is by over punishing players and creating really strict rules around what they can and can't do. I think this is, I know this, I know that perception is as important to them as anything from being around this league a long time and working at the union and all that stuff. But if you don't want to believe me, you can read the, like, five guidelines that they released recently and that kind of makes it quite clear what matters. If you look at it, they're like, we don't want you placing bets from the team facility. I think that's all about perception. They don't want guys on Instagram or on TikTok, like, Yeah, I'm making these bets or whatever on, while they're sitting there in front of an NFL logo or at a team facility. You can't do it on the road, 'cause the same reason. And the real kicker is, In the NFL [00:19:00] regular season, you can't even step foot into a sports book, which technically you're able to gamble. You can't gamble on your own games, obviously, or the games in your league, but you can't even step foot in a sports book. It's like if you wanted to bet on some basketball games, you should be able to go into a sports book. But you know what looks bad? A pro football player being photographed standing in a sports book because they're playing against the Raiders in Vegas, they're standing in a sports book the night before their game, and then let's say anything happens. The next day that's a real hard story for them to corral.
So, I think, I'm sorry I haven't let you say a word, but I think that's a bunch of the stuff that has just been floating around in my mind and is upsetting. But I find myself in a hard place where I want to be defensive of the players because I recognize that they're putting the players in a tough spot.
ESPN Will NEVER be the Same After This Major Decision - TYT Sports - Air Date 8-12-23
THEO ASH: So ESPN has bought the Barstool Sportsbook and is turning it into its own sportsbook, ESPN BET. And I [00:20:00] think that this is an alarming development just because ESPN is the number one resource for sports news, and now they directly profit off of gambling. Gambling sites and news sites becoming the same thing is terrible. That's a terrible idea. Think back to the NBA draft. The biggest, maybe the second biggest NBA reporter on the planet, Shams, tweeted that Scoot Henderson, "it really is looking like he could go number two to the Hornets".
RICK STROM - HOST, TYT SPORTS: Let's pause here for a second. TheoAshNFL on TikTok is making a fantastic point about how some of the most prominent members of the media, how they could potentially be moving betting lines just from their reporting while having a conflict of interest of working with a sportsbook while trying to maintain a level of efficacy in media.
THEO ASH: This guy works for FanDuel. FanDuel profited immense amounts of money off of this report, and I don't think that this tweet was [00:21:00] meant to mess with the odds, but you gotta bring up the possibility. And I think it's messed up that Shams even works for FanDuel at all. I think it's completely immoral as a journalist, as a reporter, to work for a gambling site.
RICK STROM - HOST, TYT SPORTS: That's exactly right. Nobody, anywhere at any point should have this conflict of interest because what you're doing is potentially suppressing truth so you and your company can profit. Not saying Shams did that, but there is that possibility. Here's the question. Why leave open that door?
THEO ASH: And now how many reporters at ESPN now work for essentially a gambling site? We are now in a situation where it is extremely profitable for ESPN to report inaccurate information because if they say something is gonna happen and everybody bets on it, and then it doesn't happen, they just keep all the profit. Right? I mean, maybe I'm being too harsh, but right? That's, that's how it works.
RICK STROM - HOST, TYT SPORTS: No, you are not being harsh at all. If ESPN's [00:22:00] reporters were to say, Hey, you know, there's a really bad injury and Patrick Mahomes is not gonna be playing, and then he suits up last minute, the betting lines would be, and they would potentially profit from false information.
THEO ASH: So there's that conflict of interest. The other big problem with sports dialogue right now is that regular MFs are getting paid thousands of dollars to spread misinformation on Twitter now. Like, what stage of capitalism are we in where trolling on Twitter and posting fake information on Twitter to get everybody mad and dunking on you is now extremely profitable because you can sell ads under that because people are looking at it.
RICK STROM - HOST, TYT SPORTS: To pause real quick, it's about keeping people there to react and maintain staying pissed off. Any chance Musk has. That's it. It's the same school thought with the Pearl Davis'. I agree with whoever that was on Piers Morgan that she's going to be irrelevant, but the whole [00:23:00] thing she's selling is reactionary stuff, and that's exactly what Musk is selling now on Twitter.
THEO ASH: Again, like I understand how that can be a business model under capitalism, but it's fucked up. It's good, good work should make a bunch of money, not bullshit. I don't know. I look at this industry now and I'm like, it's pretty much in shambles, right? Like, is that fair to say?
RICK STROM - HOST, TYT SPORTS: Yes.
THEO ASH: I don't mind the act of gambling itself, like an individual person putting $20 on a game, but I hate the gambling industrial complex. I hate the fantasy industrial complex. I hate the hot take industrial complex. I hate that that is how you're profitable, talking about sports and, I don't know, man. But this page will be talking about personnel at Cardinals training camp and whatnot over the course of the year, I will not bend the knee, and that's my [unintelligible].
RICK STROM - HOST, TYT SPORTS: Alright, I love this guy. So a bit about the news, Penn saw the writing on the wall with [00:24:00] Barstool. Dave Portnoy bought Barstool back the percentage that Penn had from years ago in a deal that was highly criticized. And then ESPN, seeing how they wanna slash $5.5 billion, but also make more money said, Hmm, one space that we're not in, even though it's a complete conflict of interest, is gambling. So they partnered up with Penn. Penn is paying $1.5 billion in cash over 10 years, $500 million in warrants to buy Penn stock. They get exclusive rights to ESPN BET, and it's available in 16 states where it is licensed. The rebrand via espn.com will include a mobile app, website, mobile website, and mutually agreed upon retail locations.
This is incredible for many reasons. Number one: the betting industry accumulated, uh, roughly about $94 billion in 2022. It's only going to go up. ESPN is [00:25:00] a Goliath in comparison to FanDuel and DraftKings. They are David in this situation, although they have raked in profits. They didn't have the years that ESPN had to build up their own company and their own equity to then go all-in on sports gambling. It seems though, like, this is going to be a humongous problem with reporters trying to do their work, being highly criticized for any reports that they put out that could seem to affect the betting lines and ESPN, essentially it'll be an A to B, they will rake in the profits from misreporting and also the erosion of reporting in journalism that they have put forth over the years. This is a very bad idea. From a business standpoint, I get it. But also remember this: the shams stuff, Adam Schefter bought into a gambling company as well. That's a huge red flag. No one said anything about it, and yet here we are today with the worldwide [00:26:00] leader in sports now getting into gambling.
The Toxic Normalization of Online Gambling - Cara Nicole - Air Date 9-30-22
CARA NICOLE - HOST, CARA NICOLE: So if you're a boomer trapped in a young person's body like me, then you might not be an avid Twitch viewer. But here's the deal. Twitch is a live streaming website where people can live stream themselves playing video games or doing crafts or all these things and build up an audience and interact with fans. And some of these popular Twitch streamers are being paid millions of dollars in sponsorships with online gambling companies to stream themselves playing online gambling games. This has led to some controversy because the majority of Twitch's audience is quite young. They're impressionable and arguably showing them hours and hours of gambling content isn't the best for their growing minds and might get them into gambling at a very young age.
And before I get any further into this, Video. I want to make my stance crystal clear that I think gambling is an objectively and statistically negative thing for individuals and for society. Yes, we can go back to the consumer free will argument and say that people should be able to gamble if they want to, What's the problem, annoying lady on the internet? Well, the problem [00:27:00] is that gambling isn't something that you can always just walk away from. If you become addicted, it can be devastating. And research shows that the earlier you're exposed to gambling, the more likely you're going to become a problem gambler in adulthood or even earlier.
Many gambling disorders start in adolescence, and this number blew me away, but one out of 25 teens have a gambling problem. This is an issue for several reasons, including that problem gamblers have the highest suicide rates among addicts. The average debt of gambling addicts ranges from $15,000 for female gamblers and $55,000-$90,000 for male gamblers.
Gambling companies are a business, a business that preys on addiction and makes billions of dollars because you, as the gambler, are always set up to lose. And I know stats can be boring, but I think it's important to illustrate how very destructive gambling can be, especially for young people. Which sadly is probably why these online gambling companies are targeting Twitch streamers and celebrities like Drake.
DRAKE: Eddie, what did I tell you? It's my night tonight.
CARA NICOLE - HOST, CARA NICOLE: Oh, [00:28:00] yeah. Drake is in on this crap too. But back to Twitch's online gambling streams, which I think is one of the best representations for how online gambling is trying to position itself right now as digital entertainment. Watching these streams, it feels super dystopian. Like this one with Adin Ross, a 21 year old Twitch streamer who gets paid reportedly $1 million a week to stream this online gambling stuff by State Casino, who is also the sponsor of Drake and many other streamers.
Like, something about the dealer's suit and mask the gold, the comments in the corner, it's giving major Squid Game vibes, which fits because the main character in Squid Games was a gambling addict. So, you know, maybe that's what the aim of this all is for, is just getting a lot of people in debt so that they're forced to play a game of life or death. Is that a joke or is that just a metaphor? You decide.
But what's crazy to me is how distorted a view of reality these gambling streams create. At one point, Adin Ross is down like a million dollars. A million dollars. [00:29:00] You could live off of that the rest of your life. It makes it so the wins and the losses, they don't feel real. You forget that it's even money in the first place. That makes the wins look enormous too. Here he wins $126,000 in one round. That is multiple amounts of the average salary in the US. That this point, it's just like tokens in a game that feeds into this idea of, like, gambling is just entertainment. It's not real money, and that is a dangerous dissociation to create.
And adding to this idea that these numbers aren't anchored in reality, we have to remember, Adin Ross is being paid $1 million a week for this stuff. And, conspiracy theory hat here, is he getting subsidized to lose and win a little bit? Like is he being given play money by these online gambling companies to make the wins and losses seem huge because that's more entertaining for viewers? And just so that I'm not picking on Adin or Twitch streamers only, like I said, Drake is doing the exact same thing. It's a misrepresentation of reality where the likes of $17 [00:30:00] million can just be tossed around, and highlight videos afterwards don't show the losses. Like, according to the comment on the video, Drake lost most of that money during that same stream. That level of misrepresentation distorts the very realities and dangers of gambling where money is real money. It's money outta your bank account. It is money that could have financed your future and your security and your family and your food and rent and all of these things. You forget that, because it feels like a game. It feels like digital entertainment, and these are just tokens to play the game.
But that's not true. And all those losses you're likely to have if you follow the footsteps of your favorite streamers and you do this online gambling, well, according to "hasanabi", those streamers might be making bank every single time you lose.
HASSAN PIKER: A lot of these websites, Stake in all of them, if they have a code, if you are offering a code, that means that Stake is tracking all of your losses and you're getting a percentage of your fan base's losses. They let you in on it, dude. They lay you in on the losses of your f***ing fan base.
CARA NICOLE - HOST, CARA NICOLE: Through these online [00:31:00] gambling partnerships, influencers are profiting off of the addictions of their fan base, very well possibly being the reason those fans got an addiction in the first place.
Let me be even clearer with this, if this is true, influencers and celebrities like Drake are monetizing off of the financial and mental suffering of the people who look up to them. It is exploitative and a total abuse of one's position, and unfortunately the problem doesn't stop there.
Editing-Cara jumping in here to say that weirdly enough, I've been editing this video this week, and then the news came out that Twitch has officially banned gambling content and gambling streams from their website. I think this is awesome news. Hopefully more companies push against this trend of online gambling. Just wanted to give you guys that update, and back to the video.
Gambling has always been around. That's not new. But what is new is the extreme proximity and easy access we have to gambling on a daily basis. Mix in there some mass media, some tribalism, and a new Supreme Court ruling, and you have the perfect recipe for an [00:32:00] American epidemic in the form of sports betting.
College partnerships are bringing sports betting to campus. Are students safe? - PBS NewsHour - Air Date 2-27-23
SAUL MALEK: I'm winning. Then I feel like an idiot for not betting higher and betting more often.
PAUL SOLOMON: Saul Malek, betting on sports through an online bookie at his Texas college in 2017.
SAUL MALEK: With my strategy, I can make hundreds of dollars in a minute.
PAUL SOLOMON: Once, says Malek:
SAUL MALEK: I was up a few thousand credit that week, and I lost it all betting on someone in an individual tennis game. And I didn't even know if it was a man or a woman.
PAUL SOLOMON: Eventually, he owed nearly 10 different bookies between $15,000 and $20,000.
In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a ban on sports gambling, making it even easier to bet. More than 30 states have legalized sports gambling since, and enticing ads are now everywhere.
KEVIN HART: Two hundred dollars instantly just for betting five bucks.
PAUL SOLOMON: Offering free first bets.
And now five major colleges, Michigan State, LSU, [00:33:00] Maryland, University of Denver, and the University of Colorado, have announced multiyear partnerships with sports betting companies that include placing ads at games, along with promises to, for example, focus on responsible gaming and education.
Colorado was actually paid for bets made using a university promo code, until that deal became public.
ANDY ZIMBALIST: I think it's very scary.
PAUL SOLOMON: Sports economist Andy Zimbalist.
ANDY ZIMBALIST: There are many colleges now that are jumping into bed with sports book companies. They're allowing the sports book companies to come onto campus and to appeal to the students to get involved in gambling.
PAUL SOLOMON: Hey, I gamble on sports. It can be fun, sometimes lots of fun, but, says Zimbalist:
ANDY ZIMBALIST: Six percent of betters tend to become problem or compulsive gamblers. So, we're talking about tens of thousands of students who are likely to become or if they're not already problem gamblers.
PAUL SOLOMON: Students like these at the University of Maryland.
JOEY HAAVIK: [00:34:00] To introduce something like gambling on campus seems like putting kerosene on a fire.
AYELETTE HALBFINGER: If there is supposed to be some sort of educational aspect about betting cultures, the negative ramifications that betting can have on students, particularly at a young age, why aren't we seeing that side of a program?
PAUL SOLOMON: Now, some Maryland students said they like the partnership, but not social work professor Greg Stewart.
GREGORY STEWART: I am concerned that certainly the State of Ohio has made this an option.
PAUL SOLOMON: Stewart studies addiction at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, where sports betting became legal last month.
GREGORY STEWART: It's so convenient for people to engage in this experience, the use of my phone, and I don't have to go anywhere. I don't have to talk to anyone.
PAUL SOLOMON: You could do it in class.
GREGORY STEWART: You could.
PAUL SOLOMON: And as MIT finance Professor Andy Lo once told me:
ANDREW LO: Neuroscientists have documented that the [00:35:00] component of the brain that gets stimulated when we engage in financial rewards is really the same component that is stimulated by cocaine. It's the dopamine system.
KEITH WHYTE: We have seen a big spike since 2018 in risk for gambling problems.
PAUL SOLOMON: Keith Whyte is tracking that impact at the National Council on Problem Gambling, supported in part by the gaming industry.
KEITH WHYTE: Our national surveys between 2018 and 2021 show a roughly 30 percent increase in risk for gambling problems nationwide. But the majority of that increase in risk is among those young male online gamblers.
People with gambling problems have much higher rates of substance use and abuse. But what we're really concerned about are things like the very, very high rate of depression amongst people with gambling problems and also a very high rate of suicidal behavior.
PAUL SOLOMON: College kids, especially young men, are more vulnerable than most because they think they know sports, they like risk, and they are comfortable doing everything on their [00:36:00] phones.
FMR. GOVERNOR MITCH DANIELS: Much of the promotion that the gaming companies have sought to bring to college campuses seems pretty clearly aimed at building new customers.
PAUL SOLOMON: And that's the problem, says former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who wouldn't allow any betting on Purdue University sports when he was, up until recently, president there.
FMR. GOVERNOR MITCH DANIELS: Young people are facing more emotional and mental and psychological challenges, it appears, than they have before. At a minimum, schools should be careful not to be facilitating, enabling, and, while they're doing so, profiting off the marketing that might spread this behavior further.
PAUL SOLOMON: So, are they? All five universities declined our requests for interviews.
The University of Colorado sent a statement: "The last two years have demonstrated that the necessary safeguards are in place to ensure this agreement is beneficial and safe".
The betting companies involved just didn't respond. But Martin Lycka [00:37:00] of Europe's Entain did. And his is one of the world's largest gambling companies.
MARTIN LYCKA: I strongly believe that any country, including the United States, is much better off having regulated this space and help drive out the black market, the unlicensed bookmakers that afford their customers absolutely no protection tools, no nothing, than continuing to step in the dark.
PAUL SOLOMON: If you were running a university now, would you invite in your company or another sports betting company, or would you say, No no, too much risk, too many young people?
MARTIN LYCKA: I definitely would, because the young people — now, we are filming this right after the Super Bowl, so all of them arguably would have gotten exposed to gambling-related adverts in the TV coverage.
PAUL SOLOMON: But does your company have any deals with universities to do advertising, sponsorship, and the like?
MARTIN LYCKA: No. That is a categorical no. My company has no [00:38:00] commercial partnerships with universities.
PAUL SOLOMON: And will you never?
MARTIN LYCKA: No, we never will for those reasons that you have just alluded to, because a shattering majority of college students are underage. They're under 21, and they have got nothing to do on the gambling side. So that is not our target audience. That is not the industry's target audience.
PAUL SOLOMON: But how can it not be the target audience of firms that partner up? In which case, why should universities allow it?
Well, says a former congressman:
TOM MCMILLEN: I don't think you can stop sports betting on college campuses.
PAUL SOLOMON: Also a former Maryland basketball star, Tom McMillen winces at the partnerships, like his own alma mater's.
TOM MCMILLEN: But this is unique America. that you're going to have betting on campuses, on events on campuses. And I think there are risks to higher education with that, but it is almost inevitable. You have this huge sports [00:39:00] enterprise on campuses across the country. And so universities are adopting it, much like they adopted beer drinking and liquor at football games.
PAUL SOLOMON: As for Saul Malek, he went into rehab four years ago and is still in recovery, still paying off his debts, and more worried than ever about college kids, like he once was.
SAUL MALEK: It doesn't seem like you could just go off to college and lose your entire livelihood gambling, and you just don't know any better.
PAUL SOLOMON: Until, for an estimated tens of thousands of U.S. undergrads a year, if all colleges were to follow suit, it will be too late.
What Happened to Black Activism in Professional Sports? - Edge of Sports - Air Date 7-26-23
DAVE ZIRIN - HOST, EDGE OF SPORTS: We need to talk about the new national pastime sports betting. I'm old enough to remember low the many years ago when Pete Rose was banned for life from Major League Baseball for placing bets on his own team. I remember when Sports League said they would never put a team in Las Vegas because of the very physical proximity [00:40:00] to legal gambling.
I remember when the official line was that the integrity of the game and placing bets could not even exist in the same zip code. Well, fast forward a few decades, hell, a few years, and it's remarkable how much has changed. Now gambling is as much a part of sports as beer commercials. Smartphones have opened the door to sports betting apps, and the leagues have embraced the lucrative bounty created and generated by smartphone gambling.
They've jumped on this with the wanting shamelessness of a puppy licking its bowl. It's dizzying. How quickly the commissioners have made this turn from gambling is evil. To selling it to fans is all fun in Americana. I won't insult your intelligence by explaining this radical shift. It's money, a ton of it, but it's not just the league owners panting with their puppy bulls out sports media like the trendsetter, ESPN, SportsCenter and its tall, [00:41:00] smoothly bald host, Scott Van Pelt.
Are always ready with a special sports betting segment. Also, the most esteemed commentators in the sports media world, like TNT's Studio Hoops team led by Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith now do their own giggly gambling bits. In other words, a massive portion of the economic lifeblood of pro sports from the leagues to the top of the media food chain is being underwritten by sports gambling.
Actually, that's not quite right. It's being underwritten by fans making bets they overwhelmingly lose. It's a regressive tax on fans, sort of like the lottery, except with one vital difference. It's privatized. So instead of money going to build roads or schools, it goes into the pockets of billionaires.
Now, I know some clearly most will say it's all good, clean fun, but this isn't just about sports betting. It's about access to betting and it's about the apps. Yes [00:42:00] anyone, especially in the digital age can gamble when everyone likes, but there's something called a hassle cost that has been eliminated by the apps.
Now if anyone wants to lay down some money, there is no need to find a bookie or even navigate a casino website. Just swipe your finger and as quickly as checking text messages, you are done. They have taken the most dangerous part of gambling, and I do speak from experience here, and that's that it's addictive and they've combined it with that other great modern addiction, the smartphone. And for the leagues, it's been like cracking open Fort Knox. Now the phone app Giants do have a warning label for gambling addicts, but it's about as sincere as a lung cancer warning on a pack of smokes. The leagues do not care, and as long as the sweet dough trickles down, the players and a now compromised media. No one else is gonna raise a stink about this either.
But as Neil Young wrote, The devil fools with the best laid plans [00:43:00] and wow as old Satan fooled with the plans here because something incredibly predictable has taken place. The players are deciding in every violation of every league rule to place their own bets. As a result, the NFL has just suspended four more players for gambling, and they didn't get any slap on the wrist either.
These players are suspended for the entire 2023 season. It's an incredibly harsh punishment for doing what everyone in the sports world is promoting from the boss to the media, interviewing these players after the game. The sports owners, let's be clear about this, are terrified that if fans think players are operating in a way that compromises the alleged integrity of the games, the financial hit could be catastrophic.
That makes referees as well, who make a fraction of the players' salaries particularly vulnerable to the allure of gambling and players know it. The ugliest [00:44:00] scene from the NBA season on the court was for me when Dallas Maverick Superstar, Luca Doni, late in a close game, started to make dollar signs with his fingers in the ref's face to indicate that he thought the fix was in.
Expect more of that. So it's Vegas for the fans, owners, and media and the Vatican for the players and the refs. And this is a recipe for future disasters. Players will gamble. The commissioner's office will hand out year long suspensions, and the media will get in deeper with gambling companies they should be covering instead of profiting from.
The early sports organizers way back in the late 19th century were terrified of sports betting, fearful that fans would leave in droves if they felt like the outcomes were manipulated. A little more healthy, fear, a little more introspection, a little more critical thinking, and a little less blind devotion to taxing [00:45:00] fans would be a step in the right direction.
But until there is a massive scandal and that day is coming, We can only sit back and watch gambling, swallow the sports world whole.
The Puppets of Online Gambling - Philion - Air Date 4-7-23
PHILIP RUSNACK - HOST, PHILION: Eddie Craven is a 26-year-old multimillionaire who co-founded Stake.com with 28-year-old Bijan Tehrani. Together, they formed EasyGo Gaming based out of Melbourne, Australia. Not much is known about Bijan Tehrani or how these two came together, but Craven can be seen as the face of Stake. He goes by Stake Eddie on YouTube and you can be the judge if this is real or not.
EDDIE CRAVEN: Oh, this is tough decisions. Do we keep going or what? I don't know. I'm thinking, I'm thinking, can we kick on for a bit and like I'm due for that red crazy time. There's no doubt about it. There's no questioning that spin. Slow down, slow down, slow down, slow down, slow down, slow down, slow down. Holy, holy shit. Holy. This is, get the fucking cameras out. I'm fucking recording this [00:46:00] shit. Oh. Oh. This is 20 x crazy time. This is gonna be fucking crazy. This, this. I tell you what, this is gonna be, this here is gonna be fucking record making. You are about to witness history go down here. Holy fucking jejeebers!
PHILIP RUSNACK - HOST, PHILION: Yo, this shit goes 20 x crazy time. Can I start saying that and just steal it?
EasyGo Games is a startup company based out of Australia that builds the games that these casinos use, and right now Stake is valued at over $1 billion. But how is any of this possible if Australia outlawed online casinos 20 years ago? Craven and Terani have figured out a loophole in Australian law and have been exploiting it for years. Online casinos are prohibited in Australia, so long as you don't advertise or serve anyone in Australia. If they're able to outsource the licensing and they don't explicitly advertise in Australia, then technically they're in the clear.
So how did this website get so big? This is not Craven and Tehrani's first [00:47:00] rodeo. Over eight years ago, they launched PrimeDice and according to Craven himself, PrimeDice was the biggest Bitcoin gambling website at the time. In 2015, Craven posted on the Bitcoin.com forums under the alias Edward Miroslav: "Do you consider offering gambling to be a moral issue? Is your view if we wouldn't offer it, they would gamble on another site? Or do you think that some people may have started gambling by finding PrimeDice and maybe wouldn't have started otherwise? What percentage of PrimeDice players do you think are underage? Do you consider it an issue that players do not have to provide any personal data?" Craven responds by saying, "I don't consider it to be a moral issue. I view it purely as entertainment and enjoy responsible gambling myself. I definitely hit a point where I thought PrimeDice was a net negative for the community, but then I watched site after site scam users out of countless thousands of coins. PrimeDice is a safe haven for people who want to bet, where the user knows the roll will not be manipulated and knows exactly what the odds are. At the end of the day, gambling is the choice of the individual, but what is truly a shame is when casinos fleece [00:48:00] unsuspecting users who think they're getting the advertised odds. Many may disagree, but if PrimeDice and our future offerings can bring provably fair gambling and a lower edge to the masses, we will have definitely impacted this industry in a positive way." The future offerings? Stake.com.
Crypto casinos have exploded in the last three years, and Stake sits at the top of the food chain. Using cryptocurrency instead of actual dollar amounts makes it universally available and evasive for any central government.
The amount of money that we're talking about with Stake.com begins to not make sense the longer you think about it. You'll see streamers lose $800,000 in a matter of minutes and then recoup it back with a million dollar jackpot moments later.
STREAMER CLIP: I've been sitting here for eight days, 12-hour streams, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Everyone else is happy on every other machine hitting big. I've shown loyalty to you and you just spit in my face. How can you do that to a degenerate gambling addict that's trying to give you everything just to get back more?
Oh oh [00:49:00] oh hundred BET two. Bet. That's multiple 60,000 back. Shit. 20 K. Oh my God! Oh my!
PHILIP RUSNACK - HOST, PHILION: You see, gambling is oftentimes compared to other vices like tobacco and alcohol. Although all of them can ruin your life, one of them has mathematical odds stacked against you. It is no secret that the house always has an edge. The game is rigged against you. Yet people still voluntarily partake. Whether it be the rush of neurochemicals firing off making people throw their money away, or an addiction that slowly strangles people, it is glaringly obvious that gambling can ruin lives. And while Craven is correct in stating that gambling is an individual's choice, individual's choices can be influenced. And when you can afford to buy influence, you begin to lose any sort of credibility.
I am about [00:50:00] to explain how the buying power of celebrity advertising through the elaboration likelihood model predicts the persuasive process of Stakes marketing, aka their collaboration with Drake is sinister. According to ELM, people want to hold useful, accurate attitudes. An attitude is defined as an enduring way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, and it has a valence. It's either positive or negative.
This theory states that, one, messages are persuasive if they produce favorable thoughts. Odds are you are not going to be persuaded if something is very annoying. Number two, people's abilities to process information varies. Elaboration is the extent to which someone thinks about issue-relevant information and elaboration likelihood is the probability that high elaboration will occur.
This will all start to make sense once we apply it to Stake's advertising campaigns. If we take a look at Drake's collaboration with Stake.com, it's obvious that he's not going to give us the scientific objective data arguing why we should be gambling. If he did, that would be an example of [00:51:00] high elaboration. Instead, we can see a prime example of a message source -- gamble with Stake -- with low elaboration. The parameters that dictate a message source include expertise, trustworthiness, and attractiveness. Expertise only persuades if we know that the message source is an expert going into the message.
It's safe to say that Drake is not an expert. This collaboration came out of nowhere. Trustworthiness can be measured if the message is unbiased and objective. In this case, Drake's collaboration with Stake is biased, because he's being paid millions of dollars, and subjective because he promotes this company with low elaboration.
The attractiveness of a messenger is more persuasive with low elaboration, meaning the more you think about the message, the less important the actual attractiveness of the source is. But remember, celebrity advertising is banking on low elaboration. You're not supposed to be sitting there critically thinking about why he's collaborating with Stake. That's why Drake's attractiveness matters in this context.
[00:52:00] According to elaboration likelihood model, there are two ways that people digest information. Number one is central route processing. This is when elaboration is high and people can be seen paying attention to every little detail. Number two is peripheral route processing, where elaboration is low and you start to notice the less important things. Celebrity endorsements operate using peripheral route processing. They're banking on the fact that you'll be so enamored or distracted to actually think hard enough to scrutinize the message being delivered. Most people don't just use one route of processing or the other, but actually both interchangeably to varying degrees based on certain personality traits such as relevance.
Most people can't relate to online gambling, but we've been socially conditioned to accept Drake as part of pop culture. Everybody knows Drake. This can be seen when people are fanning money and screaming in excitement whenever Drake gives them money.[00:53:00]
The other personality characteristic that dictates how you process information is one's need for cognition. Is your brain smoother than a chicken cutlet or are you a wrinkly brain Chad? This really just depends on if you're smart or not. Are you on the edge of your seat thinking that Stake.com is cool because Drake said so? Or do you make a mini documentary about the ins and outs of mass communication and its effects on audiences as a whole? It is obvious that no solid information or arguments can convince people why you should gamble away your money online. The only thing in this advertisement is Drake's name attached to it, and he even said that he's going to give back to the people.
This world is diseased. Stake.com's commercials are designed to appeal to the peripheral processing route. They're literally telling you that you're too stupid and lack the cognitive ability to read deeper. I know this because it's impossible to design a central processing route message when it comes to gambling. It is a degenerative activity, proven time and time again to produce net negative results.
This is [00:54:00] precisely why celebrity advertising is Stake.coms favorite way of marketing. Stake is the master of puppets, pulling the strings of their pawns across the globe. They offer a disgusting amount of money to streamers, celebrities, and organizations in order to inject their brand into pop culture. Drake, the UFC and Twitch streamers are just the start of it.
All of these people in corporations are abusing their parasocial relationships that got them in their position in the first place, while insulting the intelligence of their audience, all while hiding behind weak arguments and coping mechanisms to justify their sponsorship.
How Australian sports make money from gambling - Full Story - Air Date 5-10-23
JANE LEE - HOST, FULL STORY: Henry, I don't watch a lot of footy, but when I do it does seem like there are a lot of ads to sports gambling.
GAMBLING AD: On top of their already great odds. Ladbrokes now gives you odds boost
JANE LEE - HOST, FULL STORY: They're on the side of the stadium, um, on the jerseys and also. On many of the ad breaks between plays.
GAMBLING AD: As the official wagering partner of the AFL Crown Bet's Advanced mobile app.
You just gotta take the money and run. BET 3 6 5, the world's favorite online sports betting company. [00:55:00]
JANE LEE - HOST, FULL STORY: Is it just me?
HENRY BELOT: It's not you. I do watch a lot of sport and it's everywhere.
JANE LEE - HOST, FULL STORY: Henry Bellow is a reporter for Guardian Australia.
HENRY BELOT: It's not even just on the games you watch, it's in the podcasts you listen to.
If you go online to read about football, oh my God, there's another gambling advertisement. Why won't they go away? We've had several studies that show there's hundreds of gambling ads on Free to Air tele every day. We've got to a point, Jane, where there's evidence that Australian children can recite gambling advertisements.
They identify brand colors, they know the odds of games because they're read out before the games start. Even professional players are worried that kids just. Can't actually divorce the game itself from the gambling odds. We know that fans hate it. There's a study by the A F L Fans Association. They interviewed 3000 people.
They found that the volume of gambling ads was the most common concern. Three quarters of them [00:56:00] said that they would support a ban. It also doesn't matter who you talk to in politics, liberal labor nationals, independent mps, they all think the volume of ads is too much.
JANE LEE - HOST, FULL STORY: So if everyone hates gambling ads, why are there still so many of them during sports?
HENRY BELOT: Essentially it's because there's a massive amount of money that's being made. And so the outrage from the fans, from players, from some clubs is not enough to actually change what the code is doing. And we've got to the point where the head of a parliamentary inquiry looking into this very topic says that there's overwhelming evidence for change to actually happen here.
But the problem is the gambling companies, the sporting codes, the broadcasters who play the ads, they're all making big money off gambling, and they're all to varying extents trying to push back against change. And that's why we've got this really uncomfortable tension that's going on right now between fans who are watching the games, the players themselves, and the executives who are making money.
And we've gotta remember that [00:57:00] Australians have the highest gambling losses per person in the world. There's a lot of money at stake here and there's also a lot of social harm that's being done right now in our communities.
JANE LEE - HOST, FULL STORY: Hmm. I mean, it's interesting that despite all of these harms and all these concerns that we've got from the fans and and from government, in fact, Australian sports are not just stopping at making money off the local gambling market.
They're actually moving to the US now that we know that the US is legalizing online gambling. What's that all about?
HENRY BELOT: Yeah. Well, the N R L is really keen to get into the United States, which a lot of people would think, why on earth are we taking Alco to the other side of the world? But what's really going on here is the N R L have recognized that there is a booming sports betting market in the United States where until very recently, there was a federal ban on this happening that's been repealed.
Now there's states that have legalized sports gambling, and people are spending very big money. The N R L, taking a bit of a gamble [00:58:00] thinking that this is going to develop into a huge industry. We want to get in on the ground floor, get people familiar with our product so that when it is legalized in more states, we're there and we're ready.
We can get a cut of that money.
PETER V'LANDYS: Sport is better with gambling. Is that, is that truly what you believe? Look, it's entertainment. You, you don't gamble to to win money. You don't do it to, um, be become rich.
JANE LEE - HOST, FULL STORY: In fact, the head of the rugby league, Peter V'landys said some comments recently that you've reported on that.
Raise some eyebrows. What, what did he say?
PETER V'LANDYS: You do it to entertain yourself. Just like you go to a restaurant and you buy a meal. That's entertainment. As long as you are responsible with what you're spending on. On that entertainment. It's no different than any anything else.
HENRY BELOT: Yeah. So when he was actually at the airport about to fly to Las Vegas to try and negotiate this expansion into the us he was asked by a reporter from Channel nine about some of the criticism about him sort of bringing the game into closer [00:59:00] contact with the gambling industry.
And he did not take a backward step at all. He actually earned that. That's what was happening. That's what shocked so many people.
PETER V'LANDYS: Now you'll get blowback from anti-gambling mobs who don't like the idea that, you know, you're encouraging gambling and sport together. No, I'm encouraging entertainment. As I said, if you treat gambling as entertainment and you budget yourself to
have so much on that entertainment, there's no, no problem with it.
HENRY BELOT: And, and this is the comment that I've spoken to some people who have gambling addictions that they were so upset when they heard, I've spoken to people who have lost their superannuation because they had to pay off their debts to gambling companies because they loved sport and they kept getting hit with these advertisements and they fell into real financial ruin. And for them to hear somebody who's running the organization compare what happened to them to going to a restaurant to buy a meal, it caused a lot of anger for them. But I think if you take a step [01:00:00] back, what it really does is, is just show that the head of the N R L is starting to think of his own sport in the same way that gambling companies think of it, that it's an opportunity.
To make money. Yes. Sport is an entertainment product. That's why we love it. That's why so many people watch it. But many people felt that he didn't really take responsibility and ownership of some of the social harms that happen alongside this, that that was diminished in the pursuit of profit.
Summary 9-3-23
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips today starting with Windover Productions tracing the story from fantasy sports to sports gambling. Why is this happening discussed the threat to the legitimacy of sports and the process by which it was legalized. The Dominique Foxworth Show explained the impact of sports teams getting in bed with gambling companies.
TYT Sports looked at the impact of ESPN purchasing a gambling platform. Cara Nicole described how influencers are being used to market gambling to a young audience. [01:01:00] The PBS NewsHour looked into partnerships between gambling companies and colleges. And Edge of Sports commented on the destructive impacts of gambling swallowing the sports world.
That's what everybody heard, but members also heard additional bonus clips. The first from Phyllian looking at a case study of a gambling company using celebrity influencers to target gambling addicts. And, full story, discussed the social harm of gambling on Australian sports. 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. And now, we'll hear from you.
Buddhist teachings and A.I. - Craig from Ohio
VOICEMAILER CRAIG FROM OHIO: Hello, Best of the Left, it's Craig from Ohio, and it's been a while since I've called but I thought I wanted to just give you a quick thanks [01:02:00] for playing that dharma talk at the end of the episode on artificial intelligence, because it got at something that I've been thinking about artificial intelligence, but I have not heard anywhere else, so it was really surprising, I guess -- although I guess it shouldn't be because I familiarized myself with the philosophy of Buddhism oh, about 15 years ago, and to me that made a lot of sense.
Basically the idea that the Buddha I do think laid out a pathway for human happiness, 2500 years or so ago, that involved, first, a practice of contemplation and humility, acceptance that would lead the individual to greater happiness and self-satisfaction or satisfaction with their life, the idea was that that would spread to others. So, perfect yourself, or [01:03:00] if not perfect yourself, at least be on that path and that would help other people.
I, of course, now that we are in the 21st century, we can see two things. One, science has confirmed that a lot of the Buddha's teachings were real, or true. So brain scanning shows that practice of, say, meditation does improve the parts of the mind that help one to be happier, feel more fulfilled, be less stressed, et cetera. And two, we now can see that it has not spread generally to the whole globe. In fact, there is another strain of the human experience that seems to be the poisonous kind which is selfish and it basically sums up by the poisonous ideology of people like Andrew Tate.
So, with artificial intelligence, [01:04:00] as the teacher, the Buddhist -- I think you said is a monk -- said there's a possibility that AI could pick up on what the Buddha counseled that many years ago. But there were a couple problems I saw with that. One is, it's a machine intelligence, and there's no guarantee that a machine will have the same kind of usefulness that humans can put to the practice, the contemplation, et cetera. And the other problem I saw is that there's also just as much likelihood that the bad part of the human experiment will be translated into our machines, the artificial intelligence that we create.
So, I just wanted to point that out, I thought it was really fascinating, and again, thank you for introducing the ideas to a wider audience [01:05:00] because I certainly don't have a platform that I can share with. So that was it. Have a great one everybody. Talk to you later. Bye.
Final comments on the outsized influence of impetuous billionaires
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 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 jay at bestoftheleft. Best to Craig for that call we just heard.
I think he's exactly right to be concerned about the direction AI will go. The monk that he was referring to gave a talk that was a members only clip, so if you missed it, that's probably why. The monk and his talk were both written up in The Atlantic, in an article titled, The Monk Who Thinks The World Is Ending.
So he absolutely shares Craig's concerns. The portion of the talk that we highlighted was his proposed answer to that problem. Find a way to inject the values of Buddhism directly into any [01:06:00] future AI projects as protection against the risk of AI taking the other, more destructive path. On another topic related to tech titans having outsized influence on society, I just read an excerpt of Walter Isaacson's new biography on Elon Musk telling some of the story behind his decision to buy Twitter.
Now, to be clear, I don't think that the ownership and management of Twitter is very comparable to the potential impacts of AI. That is not the point. But the insight that I drew from A piece of that article, I think, can be extrapolated. So while describing the final moments leading up to Musk officially deciding to make an offer to buy Twitter, and using quotes from Musk himself, you know, he's an authorized biographer, he was in contact with Musk, Walter Isaacson includes this sentence, quote, Musk was in a manic mood and he was acting impetuously, [01:07:00] end quote.
And that struck me as something Very human. I know what it's like to be in a bit of a mood and to take action without really thinking it through or taking the time to do it right. And as we've seen, that doesn't seem to be a one off thing for Musk. The way he manages Twitter and, you know, turning it into X and all of that, like a lot of his decisions seem to be made in a bit of a manic state while acting impetuously.
So I got thinking about the political conversations we usually have about the rich. There's the don't punish success argument for letting people accumulate as much money as humanly possible. There's the they should pay their fair share argument for taxing the rich at a higher rate. There's the... Money is speech argument for allowing the rich to wield undue influence and power in our politics.
And there's the no money is obviously not speech argument to try to reign that [01:08:00] in, but we don't talk much about the elements of building a stable and functioning society. As relates to the rich. Now, it's generally a conservative idea to slow down the rate of change in society. They want for government to work slowly and for it to be very difficult to make major changes to society because they supposedly value stability.
You know, things not changing means that they are stable. They might not be good, but they're stable. And there is truth in that, you know? I think it's also true that they don't like a lot of the progress that gets made when policies are changed, and so resisting change also fits their ideological Preferences for how society should work, but it really is true that it could be bad for society if changes could be made too quickly.
Even well meaning people could implement a lot of changes very quickly in the hopes of doing a lot of good, [01:09:00] only to realize later that there were unforeseen consequences. Downsides, and so having institutional mechanisms in place that slow down the process by which change is made can help prevent those unforeseen consequences.
There's just more time to debate, more time to hear out concerns, more time to make adjustments if needed, and avoid mistakes. That's the conservative argument for the benefit of having the wheels of government turn slowly. So then it seems like there should be a natural alliance between the right and left when it comes to billionaires and the role of corporations in society.
Elon Musk being in a manic mood and acting impetuously before buying Twitter to reshape it into his own image because he's gone anti woke and wants to reinstate all the white supremacists and conspiracy theorists to the site is about as far from enforcing slow [01:10:00] change for the sake of societal stability as one could imagine.
And Musk just happens to be so flagrant and so public with his mood swings that we all get to see them. Having mood swings and acting impetuously is a completely normal, human thing for people to do. So this isn't a criticism of him for not being a good enough person to be able to make snap decisions that impact millions or billions of people.
It's a reminder that no one should have enough money, power, or influence. To make snap decisions that influence millions or billions of people. As always, keep the comments coming in. You can leave us a voicemail or send us a text message to 202 999 3991, or keep it old school and 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 [01:11:00] 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 support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships at bestoftheleft.
com. https: www. bestoftheLeft. com. Through our Patreon page or from right inside the Apple Podcast app membership is how you get instant access to our incredibly good bonus episodes. In addition to there being extra content and no ads in all of our regular episodes all through your 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 you twice weekly. Thanks entirely to the members and donor to the show from best of the left.com.
#1579 Positive masculinity is a process (Transcript)
Air Date 8/23/2022
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 Straight White American Jesus podcast, so take a moment to hear what I have to say about them in the middle of the show, and listen to it 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 state of patriarchy for the next generation of boys.
For decades, we have been rightly focused on dialing back endemic misogyny and poking holes in the patriarchy, in the hopes of a new normal of gender relations emerging that would be genuinely healthier for everyone, not just women, but. With so much of the focus on the type of masculinity men and boys shouldn't embrace, we may have fallen short on giving positive direction to boys about what they should be and do.
Sources today include The Daily Show, The Gray Area, The On Boys Podcast, [00:01:00] Paging Dr. Nerdlove, and Swolesome, with additional members only clips from The Daily Show and The On Boys Podcast.
Andrew Tate & Re-examining Masculinity - Long Story Short The Daily Show - Air Date 4-21-23
JORDAN KLEPPER - CORRESPONDENT, THE DAILY SHOW: America's in the midst of some long overdue changes around gender and power: reexamining ideas of masculinity, femininity, the spectrum in between, and how fluid it all is. It's a difficult and necessary conversation. But luckily for us, we get to have these nuanced debates on Twitter.
Now, this cultural change is important and I'm glad it's happening. But when there is a cultural shift, it's easy to get lost within it. And even though it feels strange to say this, a group that is being left out is young boys. And I know, I know, I know. A war on men? I sound like I'm on a network that just got sued out of $780 million. Fine. Mm hmm. I know. Jokes on you. Comedy Central doesn't have that kind of cash.
My point is, we've had a great conversation about what men shouldn't be. Men shouldn't be toxic. [00:02:00] They shouldn't be overly aggressive. They shouldn't pay a porn star to keep quiet about an affair they had right after their son was born. It's a high, high bar.
But we haven't been showing men what they should be. And that matters to young boys who are looking for an identity, for a narrative about what it means to be a man. And that vacuum is being filled by people with the worst possible idea of manhood.
NARRATOR: Former Kickboxer and Big Brother contestant, Andrew Tate, infamous for being the self-proclaimed king of toxic masculinity. Tate's core message centers around the belief that masculinity is in the crosshairs and he's defending it. His target audience: young men.
ANDREW TATE: [clip montage]
This whole idea of being toxically masculine is complete garbage.
I think the most dangerous men on earth are the weak men.
Feel, feel, feel, feel, feel. Leave the feelings to the girls, right? That's what they do. We act. We're men of action.
Empowering females is the easiest way to weaken the will of men.
Study, study, study, give up your whole life in school. Then you get to be a doctor. You can't even buy a mother fucking sports car.
The problem [00:03:00] with most of you is that I am sitting here with my sunglasses, bald head, millions of dollars, nearly unmatched fighting skills. I am Morpheus.
I need action. I need constant chaos in my life to feel content. I need to be driving a supercar and fighting, bunch of champagne and going crazy...
JORDAN KLEPPER - CORRESPONDENT, THE DAILY SHOW: Okay, okay, okay, we get it. You have a small penis. Even through the video you can tell this guy wears too much cologne. And by the way, not to tarnish his sparkling image, but Andrew Tate is currently under investigation for human trafficking. I know it's always the first one you suspect.
Now, maybe you don't know Andrew Tate. Maybe you're thinking, who is this porn parody, Vin Diesel. You may not know him, but trust me, your sons do.
NEWS REPORTER: With over 13 billion views on TikTok, Tate's rhetoric is moving from online to the classroom.
TEACHER ON TIKTOK: So I'm a teacher and I teach sixth grade. The amount [00:04:00] of young 11 year old boys that have told me that they love Andrew Tate is ridiculous.
NEWS REPORTER: One teacher says she hears blatant misogyny from the boys in her class, hearing them say that girls belong in the kitchen and only exist for reproduction. And another claiming they talk about alphas in sixth grade.
NEWS COMMENTATOR: Now, one teacher in South London noticed that his students were parroting Tate's ideology. About a third of the 30 students in the class passionately argued that women were responsible for their own sexual assaults. One of Tate's top lines.
JORDAN KLEPPER - CORRESPONDENT, THE DAILY SHOW: Wow. Times have really changed. When I was in sixth grade, the most toxic role model for boys was Michelangelo. He eats pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That turtle doesn't give a fuck. Seriously, how can you be misogynistic in sixth grade? That's like the one year in life where all the girls are bigger than you. I wouldn't [00:05:00] be running my mouth about Allison if Allison could hang me by my underwear on the flagpole.
The solution to this problem is not to cancel Andrew Tate. Interpol is probably gonna do that for us. Because even if he disappeared, even if he disappeared someone else would take his place and spew toxic shit at young boys just as well. And social media algorithms would pump it into young boys' eyes and ears just as fast, because that's really all this is about. Andrew Tate is not interested in being a role model. He wants clicks for money. He doesn't want to raise your son. He's taking dad's seat at the table, but he is really the loudmouth uncle.
That uncle who seems cool when you're a kid. But when you grow up, you realize living in a hotel is not a vacation. What we need is an alternative positive narrative for young men to follow. And it's ironic that these guys are talking about taking the red pill and using these matrix metaphors because if you're looking for a complex, emotionally available male role [00:06:00] model to counter their bullshit idea of manhood, just look at the guy who took the red pill. Keanu Reeves. This. This is a man who is wildly considered to be kind and decent. He donates huge sums of money to cancer research. He gives up his seat to, uh, women on the subway. He bought Sandra Bullock champagne and truffles because she had never had them before. He's the perfect man. Yeah. Maybe his movies glorify gun violence, but nobody's perfect and that makes him even more perfect because our children shouldn't strive for perfection. That will only make them sad, and those movies sometimes are pretty cool. The point is, young boys need a cultural role model who is kind and comfortable in his skin, not guys who are so fragile in their masculinity they can't puff a cigar without putting it on every social media platform like they invented fire. [00:07:00] Hell, Keanu Reeves, he isn't even on social media. That's how healthy he is.
So, as a society, we have two options. We can either follow Keanu Reeves around and put everything he does on TikTok, or, probably better, we make sure that the conversation about modern society includes a role for men that young boys can look up to. Because long story short, if we don't talk to our boys, Andrew Tate is gonna talk to them. And that means 10 years from now I'm gonna be talking to 'em.
The new crisis of masculinity - The Gray Area - Air Date 8-7-23
SEAN ILLING - HOST, THE GRAY AREA: You know, there is a question lurking here about how, you know, this masculinity crisis intersects with class and race and who we're really talking about when we say men are in trouble. I mean, I'm curious what you think of, or when you think of the platonic ideal of the young man in crisis, what does he look like?
Is he poor, middle class, upper class? Is he White? I mean, obviously not all men are experiencing this problem equally. When I think about an incel, you know, for instance, right?, I think of a certain kind of kid: bourgeois, middle/upper class, usually White. But I don't wanna [00:08:00] reduce this entire problem to just that because it isn't reducible to just that. But does it seem to be affecting a particular demographic in a particularly strong way?
CHRISTINE EMBA: Yeah. Hashtag, not all men. Um [laughing]. Uh, no. I think the class distinctions are actually really important. And there's something that I thought about but didn't have as much space to go into as I wanted to in the piece. The piece, as you have read, is already quite long, but it could have been much longer. And I do think that the crisis of masculinity is kind of cross-class and cross-racial, but maybe presents itself differently in different spaces. I think for sort of bourgeois, fairly well-educated men at the top of the ladder, it presents as kind of a psychic problem, almost. Like it's not necessarily that you don't have resources, it's just you're not really sure of how to be a guy on your Ivy League campus, and so you get really into Nietzsche and, like, intellectualize your problems.
But I mean, for [00:09:00] working class men, that's where you're seeing, you know, like deaths of despair hitting and like this job loss is really hitting there for Black men. There is, there has long been, I think, a sort of crisis of role models because so many Black father figures have been taken out of the community via mass incarceration and elsewhere.
So it's a little bit more of an ongoing thing and there's been actually more community step-in maybe in those places. But you have also seen, or saw, he is now dead, the rise of, Kevin Samuels was sort of like the Black influencer version of Andrew Tate and really popular in Black communities, and he had all these YouTube videos about being a high value man and like making fun of low value women and defining masculinity in that way. And so the anxiety about men's roles in relation to women is clearly visible there, too.
SEAN ILLING - HOST, THE GRAY AREA: One of the things I hate about the culture war, at least as it's waged [00:10:00] very often by Republicans in particular, is that it's often used to mobilize resentments in a way that doesn't address any of the underlying causes of that resentment. It is so much easier to say that women, progressives, elites are to blame for your problems than it is to unpack all of these complicated social and economic transformations, some of which we were talking about earlier. And there's a part of me that just has to believe that, maybe not all of these problems, but many of these problems wouldn't be problems if we lived in a more equitable economy, if we lived in richer communities with deeper connections, if precarity and boredom and despair weren't so widespread.
I mean, how do you make sense of the lines here? I mean, maybe the problem is so complicated and diffuse that all you can really say is that there are a thousand overlapping causes and it's hard to tease it all out, but I don't know. I'm just curious how you make sense of that.
CHRISTINE EMBA: No, I think that's absolutely right and that's a thing that [00:11:00] frustrates me often about the conservative response to this crisis.
So, I write in the piece about Republican Senator Josh Hawley, whose book entitled Manhood went on sale, and unfortunately the jokes, like, really, really write themselves.
SEAN ILLING - HOST, THE GRAY AREA: Yes, they do. Yes they do.
CHRISTINE EMBA: So, right now he's writing a book on manhood, but like the most famous picture of Josh Hawley is him sort of fist pumping outside of the January 6th uprising and then just hightailing it, like heels-to-butt out down the hall when he's confronted by people in the Capitol. So, in his book he blames the crisis of manhood specifically on liberal elites, like that is who he blames. And he basically says it's the elites have ruined manhood and feminists are taking away your manhood and what you really need to do is sort of go back in time almost. And he proposes a vision of manhood that basically is like the life [00:12:00] that your grandfather lived somehow. Like, a man should work a union job and be able to provide for his whole family, and that's the ideal. But Josh Hawley, how are you gonna get there? A) like, what solutions are you offering except this new victim complex where you blame your sadness on women and liberal elites, whoever they are. And then again, Josh Hawley, it was your party who was in favor of NAFTA and, you know, many of these policies that led to the offshoring of these working class union jobs for men. Um, are you going to do anything about that? Like, are you taking responsibility for those economic factors? There are things that we could do in America to make the economy more equitable, to make working life fairer, to make it easier to support a family. But where are the policies?
SEAN ILLING - HOST, THE GRAY AREA: Yeah. Where indeed. And as you put it in the piece, what this often boils down to is a misplaced desire [00:13:00] to belong. And this is a general problem in this society, and maybe it's especially bad for men, but our social lives in the real physical world are so much poorer than they used to be. And belonging is about anchoring our identities in communities. And unfortunately, the easiest way to do this now is to go online and that's a rather short road to some pretty dark places. And that's kind of what we're talking about with the Tate phenomenon and the rest of it.
CHRISTINE EMBA: Yeah, I mean, unfortunately yes, that is very true. So, one of the points that I make in the essay that I think is, it felt mildly controversial to be making this point, was the fact that it was notable that there, and this is something that also almost every young guy who I interviewed for this piece told me, that there were just fewer role models around, and especially father figures. You know, many of [00:14:00] the young men I talked to told me about how they didn't have a good relationship with their father, or their father wasn't around. They grew up in a single parent household. Most of their friends maybe didn't have a great relationship with male relatives, so they didn't really have anywhere to go to sort of learn how to be a man.
And that was part of the reason why they felt kind of lost and were looking for these models online. And I do think that that has been a social shift over the past several decades that has really increased, not in, you know, traditionally marginalized communities, but everywhere. And the young men who seemed to have sort of succeeded in some way or had a better grasp on masculine [unintelligible] told me that they had found a mentor, were guys who had found someone in their community somehow.
One young guy told me about how his father wasn't really part of his life, but he became friends with sort of a priest who was a chaplain at his school who [00:15:00] sort of took him under his wing and, like, taught him how to buy nice shoes and, like, told him to ask women out on dates. And that was what helped him learn how to be a man. And, you know, he went on to talk about this and was sort of like, I think that this is a problem that we don't have these father figures around, but it's hard to imagine a policy solution because you can't mandate community. You know, like you can't just, through fiat, assign of father from the government to every young man who's looking for a model or a mentor. So what are you going to do about it?
In the past, maybe people would go to church and have intergenerational friendships or be in clubs or lodges, and even if it wasn't a relative, they might find a mentor there. But there's so many fewer male teachers in the school system that you don't see that happening as much anymore, and people just don't join community organizations like they used to.
The New Masculinity - ON BOYS podcast - Air Date 4-27-23
ALEX MANLY: So one of the [00:16:00] chapters, I believe, starts with an anecdote from when I was in high school, in gym class, and another kid who I saw as being more sort of popular than me, saw me sort of wearing a bandaid and asked like, Why are you wearing a bandaid? To him, it just seemed, I guess, superfluous or like kind of a mark of vulnerability or weakness or something. And he kind of made fun of me for it a little bit. And for me it hadn't, you know, like, I was coming from, I don't know, a household where there was nothing, I didn't have to hide, you know, if something was wrong or I didn't have to hide a weakness. So it was confusing to me. But it was one of those things where it's like, Oh yeah, you pick up messaging, you know, outside the home. Like this is what's okay, this is what's not. And then he was sort of telling me like, Man up, be tough. You know, like, pretend that you're not injured or power through your injuries.
It was just a kind of like a really tiny encapsulation of this overarching theme that that runs through masculinity, which is you cannot show weakness. You [00:17:00] cannot show vulnerability. You have to pretend that you're great, that everything's fine. And in this specific chapter, basically I explore how that is a killer when it comes to men's health because, in very real terms, if you spend your childhood internalizing messages about being tough and playing through the pain and not being willing to admit that anything's wrong, that doesn't just magically go away when, say, you're later in life and your body starts doing things that you don't necessarily know how to respond to. Your body starts showing signs that something's wrong and rather than looking for help, you just go, Okay, well, I'm gonna be tough. Just, the data shows men die a lot younger than women, and one of the culprits is they have a different relationship to getting treatment for stuff.
NIOBE WADE: As we're recording, the Washington Post came out with an article today about the silent crisis in men's health getting worse, and so as we're recording, the most recent data in the US is a [00:18:00] 5.9 year difference in life expectancy for males and females, and it's the largest gap in a quarter century. This gap has been getting larger. As the article points out, and as many of you listeners know, it's kind of ridiculous, especially because for years, so much of the medical research has been on men. So many of the providers are men. So it should be a system that is set up to take care of you guys and: yet. If we start with, Don't put a bandaid on it, it's pretty easy to see how things get ignored, overlooked, not tended to.
ALEX MANLY: I think it's one of those things that if you think about it for long enough, it starts feeling like, you know, it's a tragedy. We have sent men the wrong messages since they were born, basically. And then there are consequences to that. And there are lots of other factors going into the fact that they die younger, a lot of which I explore in the book. But the relationship to their bodies, to their physical health, [00:19:00] to the concept of weakness or vulnerability is so important. And I'm like, you can't teach someone that weakness and vulnerability are bad and expect it to have no impact when their bodies start to fail as all of our bodies will.
NIOBE WADE: I found myself thinking about this for myself first the other day, but you know, I am traveling through the world in this body. This is my vehicle. This is what I have. I really should be taking good care of it. Like, this is it. And then I thought of that in terms of, I have four sons who are in their teens and early twenties right now. They take care of their cars. They take care of their dirt bikes. Like this is the stereotypically masculine thing. You know, if you've got a cool car, you are out there buffing it, shining it, taking care of it, putting premium gas in it. How can we help make that connection in translation, Alex?
ALEX MANLY: I mean, you're fighting an uphill battle, as am I with my book. But I do think, yeah, it starts with communicating that yourself and your [00:20:00] body are not, I don't know, like, are not a kind of narrative object as they are in masculinity where it's like, oh, it has to be perfect, it has to be, you know, tough, it has to be strong. And rather just, Yeah, okay, you're a person. There are things that are good, there are things that are bad, there... things will go well and go poorly in your life without the pressure to kind of be like a superhero or whatnot. I think that completely like reinvents, or could in any case, reinvent the relationship that these boys have with their bodies as they become men and, you know, as they start aging.
NIOBE WADE: So much of this seems like we all - guys, we as parents, society - need to make it okay, give permission to boys to be human. And I'm curious. This is a question that I have been pondering myself lately, and I'm not sure I have an answer, so I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Is there a difference between [00:21:00] being a decent human and being a good man?
ALEX MANLY: That's a fascinating question and I think it's one that I've thought about no small amount. I do think what's fascinating, AskMen's slogan, my employer, uh, is "become a better man". And so, just, you know, having that in the background of my professional career for the past decade, my ears perk up a little bit when I hear anyone talking about being a good man or a better man. And you hear it in songs and you see it in movies or whatnot, and you don't really see it for women, they think it's fashion.
NIOBE WADE: No. No. Nobody's telling me to be a better, I mean, there are unspoken messages like being a better woman, you know, take care of your skin and..
ALEX MANLY: Or be a better mom, maybe. The idea that there's a, like a moral component to being a man, I feel like is kind of like, at least from what I've seen, it is much stronger. I think that's fascinating. Generally, what I want is for [00:22:00] more men to kind of be aware that being a good man and being a decent person don't have to be, you know, vastly different concepts. You know, that I think like being good, caring about others and improving the lives of those around you and sticking to what you believe in, that kind of stuff, is both of a piece with personhood and also not incompatible with masculinity. And I get into this a little bit in the conclusion like, this book is not a call for you to be weak or effeminate or whatever. It's a call for you to be, you know, strong enough and confident enough in your masculinity to incorporate aspects of femininity or of, just, you know, human personhood generally. The sort of fragile masculinity that we're familiar with becomes more flexible and becomes more open to possibility.
So yeah, I think like what we need is a masculinity that is not so brittle, I guess, and is not so threatened by like, you know, the concept of doing the [00:23:00] laundry or, you know, like being a really great dad while your wife brings home the paycheck or that kind of stuff. That there are ways to be strong and proud of yourself that don't, you know, that aren't just like, Oh, I'm the Marlboro Man, or like, I work in a mine, or like, you know, I'm the superpowered CEO. Because like, just the spectrum of choices that have been available to men for a long time in our culture has just been so narrow.
JANET ALLISON - CO-HOST, ON BOYS PODCAST: Yeah, and you talk about women are outpacing men in education. We've talked about that here before. Women now are better, kind of better trained for the jobs that of the future. This book is, um, it's about a roadmap for the 21st Century and that we need men to be nurses. We need men to be caregivers. And these kinds of jobs take a little bit more of the, what has typically been regarded as feminine. I'll say it. You know, it's the vulnerability, it's the care, it's the communication. But we need that. I think ultimately this book is about [00:24:00] being fluid, being flexible, being adaptive, and somewhere in there you said that "acting like a man", I'll put that in quotes, "is a choice".
Redefining Masculinity and Embracing Vulnerability - Beyond the Scenes - Air Date 3-7-23
ROY WOOD JR - HOST, BEYOND THE SCENES: Because what's interesting about this whole discussion is that men are going through, "Hey, show your emotions. Hey, women can do it too." Meanwhile, women are cooking on the feminism side of the game and going, "We are girls, girls, strong girl power. We gonna march, we can do whatever we want." So it almost seems as if both sides are having two different types of awakenings concurrently that also kind of butt heads.
How much did the lack of women's rights in the thirties and the forties and the fifties? And even if you really want -- 'cause I'm not gonna put this solely on slavery -- but I also wanna put it in the context that for a long time in America, the man had to go do the work and the woman was at the house [00:25:00] and you was in the kitchen, and maybe the man felt that he could never share because no matter what the burden of providing was passed on, he has to do it. And then we got to a time where we didn't have to live like that anymore, but men were maybe subconsciously passing on that rhetoric to their next generation and then their next generation. And by the time we got to the nineties, the idea of what a man should be was molded by what a man had to be at that time.
Someone said to me, something I thought was very profound: "Don't confuse the tactics you use to survive with the tactics you need to go on." How much does the history of gender dynamics play a role in a lot of these bad habits being passed down from generation to generation?
TED BUNCH: Yeah. So in a male dominated society, because that's what it is, and it's a patriarchal society, it's a male dominated society. And then you do have women who are seeking liberation because coming out of all of that in the same [00:26:00] way that in a White supremacist society, you have people of color who are seeking liberation. All of those things. These constructs exist. And there is an antiquated notion of manhood and masculinity that I think is so woven into the fabric of our society that when it's challenged, then sexism rears its ugly head, and seeks to put down what women have achieved or are doing and those kind of things, as if it's taking away from men, but it's not. It's not just this one pie and that everybody's piece is a little smaller; it's an expansion of a pie. It's much bigger than that.
So this allows men to really look at our authentic selves too, that we don't just have to be this rigid notion of manhood, that there's so much more to you and to me and to the men who are listening. There's so much more to who we are that we can now embrace our full authentic selves also, because there's things that you may have wanted to do or your son may wanna do, that the man box says, oh, no, no, no --you're not supposed to do that, right? I have [00:27:00] flowers in my picture all the time when I'm on Zoom. It took me years to accept that, oh, I can go buy flowers because I like flowers in the house. I don't have to bring them to a woman to have flowers in the house or to my wife to have flowers in the house. That actually, I'm the one who likes the color. I'm the one who likes the smell of the flowers. And it took me a while to really accept that. Now that's my authentic self. I love flowers. So now I'll go to the florist and I pick out what I want. They say, do you want me to put it in a vase for you, Mr. Bunch? No, I wanna take them home and arrange 'em. Because you know what, Roy and Niobi? I like flowers.
So there's so much that we're missing as men that these original notions of manhood, patriarchy, harms all of us. It really does. There's lots of wonderful things about being a man. I don't wanna not be a man. I don't want him not be a father. And this is not an indictment on manhood, actually. It's an invitation to men. It's not about calling men out for wrong behavior. This is about calling men into a healthy, respectful manhood.
NIOBE WADE: So what boys have taught me is that we've split our culture, our modern culture -- I call it boy culture, but we call it our modern culture -- has split [00:28:00] us into thinking that thinking is masculine and feeling is feminine, hard is masculine and fem, right? You get where I'm going, Roy? You get where I going?
ROY WOOD JR - HOST, BEYOND THE SCENES: We gotta marinate on that one.
NIOBE WADE: You get what I'm saying?
ROY WOOD JR - HOST, BEYOND THE SCENES: So if thinking is masculine, that's good. Feeling is feminine. It's feminine, right? That sounds like every argument I've had with everybody I've dated in my life. Goodness gracious.
NIOBE WADE: If you live in a culture that says basically independence, thinking, the self, stoicism is masculine, and vulnerability, emotions, sensitivity is feminine, you're gonna be messed up because ultimately, you are half hard and half soft as a human. And again, I'm not doing the human thing because it's my own ideology. I'm doing it, really, 'cause that's what the boys are yelling at us about. They're saying exactly what you just said, Ted. They're saying I am actually half what you call feminine. I am vulnerable, I'm sensitive, I'm emotionally intelligent. I like [00:29:00] flowers or I don't like, you know what, whatever it is. But things that have been associated with femininity. And you are trying to push that down at me and that's how I actually build relationships and friendships. So like, what's your problem? I mean, I feel like young people, honestly, Roy, have been yelling at adults for almost a century and saying, what is wrong with you people? That basically we get it. Young people get it, Ted, you know that. Young people get it all the time.
And so I think when it comes to the women's issues -- this is what I think, Roy -- I think that women, obviously -- and I definitely identify as a feminist and I'm definitely part of the feminist movement -- women are angry because for lots of different justified reasons. So I'm not diminishing that in any way. But the reality is that we keep on seeing the symptom as the problem. So we keep on thinking that it's basically from women's, from a feminist perspective, we keep on thinking, well, it's men's problems, so if you fix men, then the problem should go away. But it's all of our problems, Roy. It's the culture that we have all created with obviously this [00:30:00] hierarchy that some men have been more influential than other men. You talk about white supremacy, et cetera, et cetera. And some women have been more powerful than other women. But basically we have created society that doesn't make any sense, where we've gendered basic human qualities.
So then that means is that women are getting mad at men when really what we should be doing is trying to change the culture. And the more we blame it on men, actually, the more men just feel attacked -- I've heard that a lot, the men just feel attacked -- when we have to see it as a collective problem.
ROY WOOD JR - HOST, BEYOND THE SCENES: Before we go to the break, I want to delve in for a second about your work that you did, where you essentially -- walk me through this -- you had 150 boys, ages 13 to 18.
NIOBE WADE: Well, I followed them over four years, so I followed --
ROY WOOD JR - HOST, BEYOND THE SCENES: You followed them?
NIOBE WADE: Yeah, I followed from 12 to 13. I followed them over four to five years.
ROY WOOD JR - HOST, BEYOND THE SCENES: Okay. How did you measure intimacy and see it slowly start to dissipate in their relationships with other boys of the same age, because you were essentially looking to see how they related and how they spoke to [00:31:00] other boys, and when did the dissipation of feeling and turning into creatures of action, when that started happening?
NIOBE WADE: When you listen to 12-year-old boys, they will use the language of love. Given a safe space, right? Not give 'em a safe space, they won't do it. When they talk about their friends, they say, I love him. I can't live without him. Or I want to find a friend that I could really rely on and be myself and be a real self.
So the language, it's right there in the language. It's literally, they're talking love. They're asking questions about love. They're thinking about love. Both heterosexual love, romantic love, platonic love, all sorts of love. They're having questions about it. And if given a safe space, they actually ask it.
Then as they get a older, it's incredible. Because remember, it's the same kids, so it's the same kids over time. You start to hear this, "I don't care." Ted, you know this language, "I don't care. Whatever. It's all good. It's all good," you know, like, "No, I don't connect to someone that much anymore, but it's all good." You know, that whole pressure to [00:32:00] sound like you're totally invulnerable. So you hear it in the language. And then you also hear the anger, you hear the sadness. And then sometimes in the worst-case scenarios you hear the depression, and the sense of feeling totally isolated, and not knowing what to do about it, and a lot of anger at "why is not anybody paying attention? Why is not anybody paying attention to these basic human needs? And everybody's calling me" -- in some cases mass shooters, I've read the mass shooter manifestos, it's the same thing -- they feel like nobody's paying attention to their suffering.
What Does Positive Masculinity Look Like - Paging Dr. NerdLove - Air Date 4-12-18
HARRIS O'MALLEY - HOST, DRNERDLOVE: One of the issues that comes up in almost any discussion around the subject of toxic masculinity, like I've said before, toxic masculinity does not mean that being masculine or being male is inherently bad, toxic, or something to be apologized for, nor does it mean that the way to not be toxic is to be feminine.
Toxic masculinity refers to behaviors and beliefs around masculinity and manhood that are seen as laudable or desirable yet in [00:33:00] reality, are actually harmful and detrimental to the individual and to society as a whole. And this can manifest in any number of ways, whether it is measuring your worth as a man by your capacity for inflicting violence, or deciding your value by your sex drive or how much sex you've had, or for that matter, the belief that anger, rage, lust, and stoic indifference are the only acceptable emotions for men to feel, and that love and vulnerability are considered to be feminizing and weak and associated with sexual desire. Just, you know, to name a few.
But like I said, non-toxic or positive masculinity doesn't mean apologizing for being a man, nor does it mean trying to be as gender neutral as possible.
There are a lot of behaviors, beliefs, and traits that are coded masculine that are very positive: honor, discipline, intellectual curiosity, compassion, generosity. But at the same time, this [00:34:00] doesn't mean that masculine-coded traits equate to masculinity.
The point of positive masculinity isn't to just switch out one set of definitions for another; it's to expand what it means to be a man -- physically, mentally, emotionally, even socially. Part of what makes toxic masculinity so harmful is that it very narrowly defines what it means to be a man. It restricts manhood to a very limited definition that few, if any, can live up to, yet all men are essentially punished for never achieving.
It's ironic when Tyler Durden in Fight Club says, "Is this what a man is supposed to look like" when he's being played by Brad Pitt, who in this movie, yes, looks exactly like what a lot of men believe a man is supposed to look like, and quite frankly, kill themselves attempting to achieve.
But while it's easy to talk about what toxic masculinity isn't or what positive masculinity is, it can sometimes be a little difficult to actually picture it. And admittedly, whenever we talk about positive [00:35:00] masculinity, the mental images that come to mind are usually either Terry Cruz or Captain America. And to be fair, these are actually excellent examples of positive masculinity. But there are more ways of being a positive example of manhood than to be a big slab of beef with an upper torso, like an inverted Dorito chip, no matter how sensitive or caring they may be. There are more ways of being a good man than just being Steve Rogers.
So let's talk about a different Rogers for a minute. To an entire generation, Fred Rogers was a beloved figure from childhood, someone who invited children to be his neighbor, engaged their curiosity by teaching them about how the world works, took them to interesting places they might never otherwise see, and who encouraged them to be open and caring and honest.
Part of his message was that you were special exactly as you were and deserving of love and caring. And to children who might not fit in for any number of reasons, that was a [00:36:00] really important message to hear.
Despite being incredibly gentle and soft spoken, Mr. Rogers taught children how to live in a world that could often be confusing or chaotic or scary, and he did so with compassion and empathy. He would directly address confusing, even scary concepts -- concepts that some adults would not think were appropriate for children, like death or even the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy -- because he believed that children deserve to be treated with respect and not to be talked down to, and not to be hidden away from the realities of the world. By directly addressing these issues, Mr. Rogers taught children how to be brave and how to confront their fears by taking things that children often had a hard time dealing with and explaining them in a way that they could understand.
And while his message was one of love and compassion, Fred Rogers never shied away from confrontation when it was necessary. Mr. Rogers stared down Congress in order to help secure funding for the Public [00:37:00] Broadcasting System. He would directly address social ills of the day, like racism and segregation. In fact, he enraged evangelical Christian groups because he preached a message of unconditional love and acceptance, and steadfastly refused to condemn LGBTQ individuals. But he did all of this in a uniquely Mr. Rogers way, with a smile and with kindness and a reminder to even those who he disagreed with or who opposed him that they were loved and special just as they were. He was never angry, aggressive, pushy, or stern. But in his own way, Mr. Rogers fought to make the world a better place.
Another great example of positive masculinity comes from the movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Now, Jonathan McIntosh has a great video as part of his Pop Culture Detective series, all about Newt Scamander and why he's a hero that we need. And I don't wanna repeat everything he said. So instead, I wanna point [00:38:00] to Jacob Kowalski. Kowalski is almost the textbook definition of a stock comic relief character. In any other movie, he would be there to be the foil to the macho adventures of the manly action hero. Kowalski's goal in life isn't glory or fame or riches, or to get the girl, it's to open a French patisserie. He's short, he's fat, he's not traditionally good looking, and he's mostly there to mug for the camera and react with crazy expressiveness over the wacky hijinks going on around him. But it's that very emotional openness that is part of why the audience is drawn to him. He's in turn terrified, enchanted, saddened, or awed by the things that go on around him, but we are never supposed to believe that this makes him weak, sad or otherwise lesser. In fact, it's that openness and that expressiveness that draws not just Queenie, but us as the audience [00:39:00] to him. And this is part of what makes him stand alongside Newt Scamander as a great positive example of masculinity. He's surrounded by witches and wizards with immense supernatural power. He knows that he will never measure off to them. He knows that he will never be as special as they are. And yet not only is he not jealous of them, he's not freaked out or scared of them either. To him, what makes them different is what makes them amazing. And while he will never be capable of the same miraculous feats that they are, he is the first to step up because they're his friends and they need him, and he will do whatever he possibly can.
The same could be said about Newt Geiszler from Pacific Rim. He's not exactly the platonic ideal of heroic manhood. He's a skinny, twitchy, nervous intellectual. He freaks out at the drop of a hat. He is very clearly the kaiju equivalent of that kid who had way too many spiders and bugs and reptiles in his bedroom.
And while he may not have perfect hair [00:40:00] and abs that you could bounce a quarter off of, he is as critical to the fight against the Kaiju as Raleigh Becket is. Without his brains and without his almost reckless courage and disregard for his own safety, the war against the Kaiju could not be won.
What is Positive Masculinity: How Patriarchy Oppresses Men - Swolesome - Air Date 12-2-22
FINN - HOST, SWOLESOME: Positive masculinity is whatever we want it to be. It is what men build together and model for boys to give them a brighter. Happier future, but far be it for me to leave it there and not provide some examples of some of the ways that we can do this.
I personally think that a good stepping off point is to actually examine what patriarchy has taught us and then ask how we can repurpose that into something that serves us rather than something we serve. So as an example, let's look at physical strength. Now, not all men are physically strong and being physically strong does not make someone a man.
But this is a pretty universal masculine attribute across a great many cultures patriarchy champions this trait specifically by laying the groundwork for violence. It asserts that male strength exists for the purpose of competition and dominance, and that violence is [00:41:00] inevitable because of this. This framing not only excludes men who are not physically powerful, but it leaves no room for cooperation.
And it sets up a framework for relationships that are inherently competitive and demand submission from other people. And let's be realistic for a moment here, boys. Is this it? Like is, is this what we want? Like let's assume for a moment that you actually are the most dominant guy. You are the most domineering person in any given room at any given time, and everyone submits to you.
But do they like you? Maybe you don't care whether or not they do, but I promise you that no amount of respect without actual affection is a remedy for emotional loneliness. In this context, submission is defeat and there is no love to be found there. So how can we turn male strength into something that brings us connection rather than something that scares others away?
Well, let's ask ourselves what the pro-social flip side of physical strength might look like. Instead of masculine strength being characterized by power and dominance, we can [00:42:00] reconceptualize it as something protective and collaborative. One of the most common responses that I get when I ask people to name the first trait that they think of when they hear positive masculinity.
Is protection strength specifically for the purpose of helping other people feel safe. So many of us have this capacity and it feels really good to develop it and then reach a place where other people trust you not to be confused with trying to protect people who are not asking for it. Mind you, what I'm describing here is more setting a precedent that says you're a safe person to call upon when needed.
That is how strength can be mutually empowering. Pumping iron is all well and good. Personally, I'm a big fan, but regardless of the numbers on the plates, a much more impactful measure of your strength is how well you can lift the people around you. Figuratively, mind you, not literally, at least not unless you have permission, but this isn't just about fostering healthier relationships and helping the people around us feel safe.
This approach also frees us from the pressure of always having to be on, always having to be. Dominant and showing it, and it still [00:43:00] lets us embrace the idea of masculine strength, if that is something that we feel is important to our identities as men. The point here is that physical power does not have to be violent.
Ask any martial artist and they'll tell you. It actually takes a lot more strength to pull a punch than to follow through with it. You can celebrate being powerful and how it defines your identity specifically by applying it in healthy ways. Embracing dominance and violence is one of the ways that patriarchy keeps us subservient.
We have a lot less time and energy to self-actualize when we're preoccupied with some asinine competition and you become very easy to manipulate when your baseline is one of constantly having to prove your manhood. All someone has to do is put you in a situation where you feel it's under threat and boom, you're their pawn.
But you don't gotta prove all my guy. And if you do feel that pressure, it might be worthwhile to ask yourself where it's coming from and who it's serving, because another service we're told to give patriarchy goes back to the idea of being expendable, that male bodies are tools of violence to feed the machine owed to labor and war efforts.
This is usually smuggled into our psyches and a Trojan horse labeled courage and [00:44:00] dedication. It begins with encouragement of recklessness and acting out amongst boys, a sort of devil may care attitude. When it comes to self-preservation and consideration of others, it twists courage into compliant foolishness.
But courage is not the absence of fear or caution. Courage isn't willingness to throw your life away. Courage is being scared of something that needs to be done and doing it anyway, like say, challenging traditional gender constructs at the risk of ridicule, rather than simply looking for grandiose ways to flaunt our fearlessness, we should ask ourselves what we truly fear and how we can face it.
This is what I was trying to get at in my video about vulnerability. It is not easy to go against the tide of patriarchal dominance based masculinity. In fact, it's quite terrifying. To use a personal example, I have faced backlash just by being myself and talking about the topics that I talk about. I'm often scared to put myself out there because of this, but I do it anyway because it needs to be done because enough people have told me that it helps them.
That on [00:45:00] its own is reason enough. But knowing that I'm helping people and the genuine connections that come from that make me feel good more so than the backlash makes me feel bad. And this incredible thing happens when you just start focusing on doing the things that make you happy and defining masculinity as you would like it to be defined.
When you step outside of this dominance based patriarchal manhood that we're taught, which is that when you leave the competition, You crush the very idea that your manhood is something that needs to be defended in the first place. You can ask yourself why you ever felt the need to prove anything to a group of people who built their own identities around being defensive and judging others.
Once you've escaped this thinking, you have a lot more space to explore the fact that masculinity is whatever you want it to be. You unlock a whole lot of autonomy around what it can look like and how you can customize it to be more fulfilling. And like I said, this does not mean you have to. Throw everything out and charge naked into nothingness with no sense of direction.
But it does mean that you unlock the ability to examine the constructs you've been given and to ask yourself whether or not they're working for you [00:46:00] or you're working for them. I'm not about to sit here and tell you that it's easy. It's not, but it is worth it. That much I can promise in some.
Patriarchal masculinity is the path of least resistance and least fulfillment. It is compliant, competitive, and imposed upon us. Conversely, positive masculinity requires boldness. It is active, courageous, and consciously chosen. So choose. If you've been playing the game and you're still hurting, stepping away isn't giving up.
It's breaking out, and it takes a lot of strength and bravery to do that. I will be speaking more about this because I think a key component here is making examples of positive masculinity, more visible archetypes to fill that space that is left behind when we throw away the things that aren't helping us.
Redefining Masculinity and Embracing Vulnerability Part 2 - Beyond the Scenes - Air Date 3-7-23
ROY WOOD JR - HOST, BEYOND THE SCENES: What tools can men take to build and deepen and strengthen the connections that they already have?
NIOBE WADE: Normalize it. When I'm in classes, I will get a switch within four seconds -- I'm not exaggerating -- [00:47:00] I'll read a quote to 12-year-old boys that says something soft: " I love him so much" from my book, Deep Secrets. They will start cracking up. I'll say, "Why are you laughing?" They'll say, "The dude sounds gay." And I'll say, "Well, I didn't look at his sexuality. I'm just telling you that 80% of boys sound like that at some point in their teenage years." And they will say, inevitably, "For real?" And I'll say, "Oh yeah, for real. That's really what teenage boys say." And guess what happens, Roy? Within four seconds -- I'm not kidding -- they will immediately start talking about their own friendships, their desire for friendships. All they need is the permission to feel and the permission to ask. And once they know it's normal that they want friendships, then they can, then they know how to do it. It's natural. I wish the world could hear that the questions that 12-year-old boys ask when given a safe space, because they're geniuses. They're geniuses in terms of understanding how love works, how relationships work, how humans work. And so I just say normalize it. [00:48:00] And then in the homes and teachers and bosses, you just gotta make it normal, so that you create spaces where friendships are valued.
Teachers, don't separate out kids that are friends. Put 'em together. Put 'em together. And then talk about how they can help each other learn the material that they learn better with each other than by themselves. So don't do that thing of "we're gonna separate you 'cause you guys are friends." It's like, no, no. Actually use that relationship to learn.
There's a beautiful study at UVA that has been replicated. The subject of the research stands in front of a hill and has to estimate the steepness of the hill with a backpack on their back. Okay? It's an experiment, a research experiment. They're standing next to a best friend in one condition, standing there, a stranger in another condition, by themselves or with someone they know who they don't know very well. Okay? So in each condition they have to estimate the steepness of the hill. You got it Roy? Those that are standing next to a best friend see the hill as less steep. [00:49:00] So what's incredible is that we actually see the world as less difficult when we're standing next to someone who loves us. We see the math problem, whatever you're doing as less difficult when you're next to someone who loves you.
So use that in education, use that in the workplace. Put people who are close together, working on teams together. You see what I'm saying? So you disrupt all the -- even at home, talk about friendships. We gotta think as parents to say, "Tell me about..." Thinking about our own friendships. Talk about it with your kids. I don't share the intimacies of my own friendships, but I talk about when I get my feelings hurt with friends. I talk about how that made me feel bad when so-and-so didn't return my text. And I wrote her three times that she didn't write back, and that made me feel bad. And then I asked them for advice; they're teenagers. So I'll say, what do you think I should do? What do you think I should say? And I do that with my son as well, by the way. And so what the message they get from this is, this is normal. This is normal. This isn't some weird thing that you have to get special help for.
TED BUNCH: You bring up a lot of great points and you're talking about your kids [00:50:00] and I'm a father also. They're between 21 and 33 now. But it was not unusual at all for me to ask, especially my boys, on a scale of one to 10, how do you feel today? Right? Or to have those conversations that were informal conversations around how they're doing and to really lean in and ask more and more questions. So that's really important.
To your question, Roy, for men, it's normalized that we are taught to not ask for help, to not need any help. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, all those kinds of things. And when we do spend time with each other, it might be around going and having a drink, or it might be around a sporting event or watching a game. That's where the bonding happens. Right? And what we need to be able to do, and what's helpful, is that we really lean into the strength in vulnerability. Like I'm really going through something, and I wanna share that with you. And what men often say is, okay man, it'll get better. Let's just move on. They don't really lean in and process in the same way that women are taught, honestly, in our society, to use more language and ask more questions. Because I'm sure your wife [00:51:00] asks more questions about what you're feeling than you might ask her.
You just wanna know, "You okay? Good. Okay. Now I don't have to talk about anything else."
ROY WOOD JR - HOST, BEYOND THE SCENES: You don't ask enough questions, therefore you don't care. It's like, "I do care! I pay the bills. Don't you see this? You feel this warm heat in this house?"
TED BUNCH: We absolutely care, but we are not comfortable asking those questions because we've been told you don't go into that emotional space. You stay away from that emotional space. So much so that even when we go to -- and just thinking about your listeners, I bet if there's a woman listening to the podcast, there's a man in her life, her brother, her father, a man she's dating, her husband, who's going to the doctor -- she's gonna make sure she goes with him. Why? Because he's not gonna ask the questions that he needs to ask. Because even that for us, is vulnerability, right? Even that for us is like, "Oh, I don't, I just wanna get in and out." "You go to the doctor?" "Yes." Well, did you ask him about this?" "Well, no." It's truth, right? So vulnerability is a strength. It really is.
And [00:52:00] honestly, when men become vulnerable, they're respected for that because other men see that, wow, that was vulnerable and that's a strength. So it isn't something we need to run away from, and that's gonna give us a better sense of wellbeing, a better sense of mental health to really have health mentally and to be able to support everyone else along the way. And it's gonna really make us feel better too. And it's modeling it for our children as well.
ROY WOOD JR - HOST, BEYOND THE SCENES: So with all of that being said, let's end it here.
We've already unpacked ways that we can try and change the culture. What hope and optimism do you have for the future of manhood?
TED BUNCH: I have a lot of hope. [back and forth banter] It looks like you're not finished, Roy.
ROY WOOD JR - HOST, BEYOND THE SCENES: Well, we gonna see how this will grow up. You got to understand, my sample size is one. Y'all's the ones studying 150 people and writing books. I'm not writing books. I'm just raising one. He seems to be doing good so far. He's definitely in tune with his emotions, and [00:53:00] expressive about it way more so than I was at the same mile marker.
TED BUNCH: And that's what we need to allow, right? We really need to allow our children, like your son, to embrace and express his full range of emotions. And we need to do that too. When he's going through fear, we can say, "I feel afraid too, and this is what I do" and I wanna work through that fear. Because on the other side, no matter how it turns out, it's always good that I've worked through that fear.
So we're not saying don't push our children to confront things even though they're difficult. We want them to. But we don't want to motivate them by denigrating them or using girls or women or others to say, don't be like that, or don't be like this. Those are the kinds of things that we really wanna do. Have them express through their language what's going on.
So I have a lot of optimism about men, about manhood. I think that we've reached a point where it's clearly not working and we know that. And so now it's just a matter of time of how do we need to purge what needs to happen so that we can start [00:54:00] talking in real ways that really connect with our humanity. That's the real thing here, really connected, just as there's a racial awakening in a lot of ways, and it's difficult. It's painful. People are being triggered all the time, right? So it's difficult, but we have to get through it. And the same thing here around our own mental health and our own sense of wellbeing.
The New Masculinity Part 2 - ON BOYS podcast - Air Date 4-27-23
ALEX MANLY: Yeah, and I mean, look like I was a product of, of a, an environment where like, I wouldn't say either my parents are sexist.
They both have fairly progressive ideas about, uh, about gender and. They've both been sort of so supportive of, uh, not just my coming out as non-binary, but also like the work that I've done over the years in terms of like looking into masculinity and thinking about it. Still do feel like I just because of, of the culture that we live in.
I grew up in a house where I was definitely consuming like a lot more. Art by men, you know, because there's more art by men sort of in the world. You know, every year when the Oscar, uh, the Oscars give like, best director, uh, to, to a [00:55:00] man again, and you're sort of like, oh, like, you know, Three women have ever won this or whatever.
Mm-hmm. That kind of stuff is always, I don't know, for me it's a jumping off point of like, okay, like who is telling the stories that we surround ourselves by? Because that has such an impact on how people think. And I've heard so many stories of like, oh, we tried to raise our kids gender neutral, but you, you know, our daughter saw a Disney movie and now she wants to be a princess.
Mm-hmm. It's like, well, yeah. What that tells us is like, stories are powerful. So like thinking about the stories that we surround ourselves with, the stories that we kind of. Are kind of take for granted, but are breathing in or whatever that, you know, that can be a really useful avenue to thinking about how people come to see their gender, how people come to see other people's gender, how people come to see gender generally, and how important it is to them.
How, how they feel like, oh, like I'm a boy. That person on screen is a boy. He's acting this way, so it's appropriate for me to act this way. That kind of stuff is [00:56:00] something that I feel like we haven't really thought about enough yet as a culture.
JANET ALLISON - CO-HOST, ON BOYS PODCAST: Yeah, as you're talking, I mean the, the director that comes to the top of my mind is Steven Spielberg and look at the movies that, I mean, he's got a range of movies, but it's still, it's Star Wars, it's action, it's that kind of story.
Mm-hmm. And then, you know, you hear the female directors are, Oh, she's got one movie or two movies and, um, so it's that. And it's it, as you said, it's just like, we just need to wake up to that of who is, who is feeding us the stories and ask the questions around that. And part of this too came out in the chapter about the bro culture.
Bro culture is a monoculture. Mm-hmm. Talk, talk about that a
ALEX MANLY: little bit. Yeah, so what I tried to get into in that, that chapter was just the, the recognition that, as you said, like the, the monoculture is a culture that's always kind of in danger, I guess, because, you know, if you don't [00:57:00] have any diversity, this is true in nature as well.
You're, you're sort of fragile, you're vulnerable, and I sort of, Talk about this through the lens of, of the frats mm-hmm. As being bro culture, you know, taken to its extreme or whatever, but just the idea that you put only guys in a room, or only straight guys, or only cis guys, or only like, you know, white guys or whatever, or, or, or the room is mostly that kind of person and you know, anyone who's not every one of those attributes is sort of a little bit of an outsider.
Then that ends up becoming, I don't know, just, just likely to produce kind of. Outcomes, that privilege those kind of people over everyone else. You know, when you have a room that's a bit more diverse, you can end up with a much more democratic and a much more interesting and a much more balanced, uh, kind of group viewpoint that doesn't necessarily that, where it's not as easy for kind of unhealthy attitudes and unhealthy behaviors to take root and to kind of spread.
Mm-hmm. It's tricky, I think because there [00:58:00] has been some conversation and I have, I have seen sort of some of the people who are trying to create a healthy, you know, new version of masculinity, saying like, we do need all male spaces just for guys to kind of talk through what it's like to be a guy. And I'm sympathetic to that.
Mm-hmm. But I think. It's also important that not all of a guy's spaces are all male spaces, you know? And that he feels comfortable being in spaces where he's maybe in the minority, you know, because like for white men, that's very rarely the case in our culture. You know, they're, they're so used to being in spaces where they feel comfortable.
Then other people, women and people of color, and queer people and and disabled people are so often used to being in the minority in, in a given room. And that totally changes. You know, how comfortable you feel, how you feel articulating your true thoughts, how likely you are to kind of rise up the ranks or whatever, if, if that's a, a thing.
So that chapter is definitely an [00:59:00] attempt to kind of interrogate the, the ways that having too much of one thing can definitely be problematic. Guys can just end up in these situations where they're hearing their own perspective kind of. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Open back to them and reinforce.
NIOBE WADE: I like how you frame that just now as kind of a moderation.
Hmm. Because I do think, especially for young men in this age group, 18 to 25, you say you're talking to, you know, these are guys that have come up in the, the past 20 years or so where there has been a lot of shifts in our culture. Mm-hmm. And shifts regarding. Our expectations or experiences of gender and like, I don't know what you want me to be.
And there's some, you know, frustration and confusion. And so I do think for some of them, you know, they gravitate to other guys just to be like, can I actually say what I'm thinking about all of this here? And that can be healthy, as you said. Mm-hmm. When that is all that you [01:00:00] experience, it can become an echo chamber, which can be dangerous.
So there's need sometimes to be with people that are like you in a lot of ways, but when that is your whole world, that's
JANET ALLISON - CO-HOST, ON BOYS PODCAST: stifling. That's what we're seeing with social media. Your feed is all the things that you're already familiar with, that feel comfortable, that have the same philosophy that you're developing, and you don't see the different perspectives.
ALEX MANLY: The important thing, I guess, about an, an all male space that's healthy or one that's useful and necessary, like you said, to be around people who are like you as opposed to, uh, uh, sort of in these more diverse spaces is just, are you.
Capable of being vulnerable in that space. Is it a space that is okay with vulnerability or is it a space that encourages everyone to put on their row mask and, and be tough and either, you know, explicitly or implicitly lie about like who they are and what they're going through? The all male spaces that we [01:01:00] associate with that kind of quote unquote toxic masculinity, like the sort of.
Golf country club or the, you know, the, the frat house or whatever, you know, it's spaces where everyone's trying to like, outdo each other and like one up each other and show off how great they are. And you know, when I think about the spaces that are maybe more healthy, I'm thinking about like a, a group sort of therapy session, or I'm thinking about like, like a bunch of new dads getting together and talking about the reality of being, uh, you know, a parent and the ways that it's changed their lives or whatever.
And those are situations where like what you're gaining from everyone around you being a guy is, you know, people who have been in similar situations with you, uh, as you and, and can speak to and understand what you're going through. Instead of, there's this sense of like, oh, like let's put down everyone who's not in this room or whatever.
It's, you know, how can we heal together? How can we be together? Mm-hmm. Part of the challenge that we face culturally is just sort of getting guys to shift towards those [01:02:00] kind of more healthy spaces where it's like, okay, like this is a space where we can be vulnerable together and we can explore like what it is we're struggling with as opposed to, uh, the opposite, which is far too often the case.
Why Allan Energy Is The New “Big D_CK Energy” - Barbie Movie - Fashionistas - Air date 8-4-23
Why does Alan have such limited screen time, yet feel like the protagonist we've been waiting for? What does his presence reveal about our definition of a good man? Does he represent the future of masculinity? Let's examine the dynamics between Barbie, Ken and Alan, and explore why this overlooked character might be the key to understanding the film's cultural impact.
What lessons can Alan teach us about embracing our true selves? The Barbie movie has the internet divided. While critics are raving, some men seem strangely triggered, is the real threat to masculinity, Barbie or Ken. And who is this mysterious? Alan representing a new vision of manhood. Ken embodies toxic masculinity at its most cringe-worthy, but the character of Alan offers redemption is can [01:03:00] the problem or the solution.
So who is Alan and why does he matter so much? Here are five reasons why Alan is the unsung hero of the Barbie movie. One, he's comfortable being different while Ken strives to fit in with the other Kens. Alan doesn't seem bothered by being an outsider. He stays true to himself even when the Kens mock him and doesn't compromise.
Just to be accepted, Alan shows men they don't have to conform to traditional masculine stereotypes to have worth. He's confident and secure even in his uniqueness. Two, he respects women. Unlike the Kens who feel entitled to Barbie's attention, Alan treats women as equals. He stands up for Barbie and her friends without expecting anything in return.
Alan is chivalrous, not because he views women as helpless, but because he genuinely cares about their wellbeing. He's the ally that feminists have been waiting for. Three. He's not afraid of his emotions. When Ken starts crying over Barbie, [01:04:00] the other Kens shun him for showing vulnerability. But Alan encourages Ken to feel his feelings instead of repressing them.
Alan isn't constrained by traditional standards of stoicism. He knows that owning your emotions is necessary for growth and wants that freedom for Ken too. Four. He uses force mindfully. When Barbie's friends are under attack, Alan springs into action and forcefully defends them, but he doesn't default to violence in every situation.
Alan understands that aggression and physical strength can be useful when applied consciously. He's not controlled by toxic masculinity, but uses his power judiciously. Five. He's his own man. The narrator observes that there's only one Alan. While there are many identical Kens, Alan doesn't look to others to shape his identity.
He knows who he is and what he values without seeking external validation. Alan represents the inner freedom that comes from defining yourself on your own terms. [01:05:00] The takeaway. In many ways, Alan is the real protagonist of the Barbie movie. While Barbie goes on a journey of self-discovery, Alan already knows who he is.
He represents a model of confident, compassionate masculinity that supports women without needing their approval. His presence shows boys that they don't have to be Ken's to have worth. Alan May be a side character, but his influence reverberates throughout the film. So the next time you watch, keep an Eye out for this unsung hero.
The future of masculinity isn't about repressing emotion or dominating women. It's about embracing all of who you are. Like Alan, the world needs more men like him.
Final comments on why emotionally stunted men are a social, not individual, problem
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips today, starting with The Daily Show describing the problem of role models. The Gray Area looked at the right wing pitch for masculinity in Josh Hawley's Manhood. The ON BOYS podcast looked at the health impacts of toxic masculinity. The Daily Show explored [01:06:00] the damage caused by gendering universal attributes of humanity, like thinking and feeling. Paging Dr. Nerdlove compared various versions of masculine role models, including Fred Rogers. Swolesome explored what patriarchy teaches boys to be. And The Daily Show discussed some of the tools to help build positive masculinity. That's what everybody heard, but members also heard the ON BOYS podcast discussing the balance needed to create healthy spaces for male vulnerability. And Fashionistas looked at the Barbie movie and highlighted the positive masculine traits of Alan.
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, request any financial hardship membership, because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information.
Now to wrap up, [01:07:00] I've been mulling over this episode for a bit today, thinking about what I wanted to say about it, and I think the quickest summary I've come to is this: we rightfully spent a lot of time and energy changing how men and boys talk to women, but almost no time changing how they talk to each other. And since the sort of stoic, unemotional, unfeeling character of a man was the norm before, and we did nothing significant to change that, the pattern is continuing into the next generation. Even among boys who have otherwise been raised to be good feminists, believing in gender equality and all that, they may not think of feminine traits as bad and shameful anymore. They may just think, They're not for me.
As we heard today, continuing to think of universal human traits, like thinking and feeling, as being gendered is destructive because of how it limits people. And as long as men and boys don't feel comfortable expressing [01:08:00] emotion and can't speak with each other with an emotional connection any deeper than a shared joy or grief over a sports game, we will continue to have emotionally stunted men who will be susceptible to backsliding into misogyny.
But not only that, they're the ones who will also end up being on the front lines of the deaths of despair of the future. Weak, brittle friendships based on the more frivolous aspects of life are the ones most likely to either break or simply wither away. And loneliness is one of the biggest contributing factors to those deaths of despair.
But most importantly, this needs to be understood as a social, rather than individual, problem. No one can solve it alone by deciding to change their behavior or their thinking individually. It'd be like being the one person at a party who's decided to not take out their phones in order to be more present and connected in the moment, try to [01:09:00] connect with other people. If no one else joins you in that way of thinking, and they all still get distracted by constant notifications from their devices, then your effort to form a deeper connection will be useless. And that's why having these types of conversations loudly and in public is important. It's a mechanism by which we change social norms across the board when they can't be changed one on one.
Now, I could be wrong about this, your personal mileage may vary, but my impression is that phone culture has actually taken a step back in recent years. Hundreds of articles and podcasts and millions of personal conversations about how distracting and annoying phones are has sort of normalized the idea that it's a bit rude to take one's phone out during a conversation. And frankly, you know, seven to ten years ago or whatever, that really wasn't the case., people would take our their phones, or go to a party full of people, [01:10:00] and everyone would be on their phones. Now, I think the culture has shifted a bit in a positive direction, pulling that back, normalizing the idea that like, Dude, put that away, we're here for a reason, we're here to connect with each other, right? So, similarly, hundreds of articles and podcasts, millions of individual conversations about how much better it is to be a man who's able to connect with other men about real shit in their lives could start to move the needle. And the 12 year olds we heard talked about today set a pretty good example for the rest of us. They were initially resistant to talk about anything emotional right up until they were given permission by the understanding that they wouldn't be the only ones who wanted to do it.
No one wants to be the first to make a move in a new direction when they're unsure how that move will be received by their peers. But these conversations get this sort of new idea out in the [01:11:00] zeitgeist so that it requires less and less bravery to be the one to step out of the old conventional way of thinking and into the new one.
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 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 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 can find that link in [01:12:00] our 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.