Speaker 1: Infrastructure Week became sort of a running joke during the
Speaker 1: Trump administration, but President Biden has also talked a lot
Speaker 1: about infrastructure and is unveiling some plans in Pittsburgh today
Speaker 1: on that front. Meanwhile, progressives have been organizing around the
Speaker 1: Thrive Act. THRIVE stands for Transform, heel and renew by
Speaker 1: investing in a vibrant economy, and it was reintroduced by
Speaker 1: Senator Ed Markey and Representative Wie Dingle last month. More
Speaker 1: than a hundred actions supporting the Act are taking place today,
Speaker 1: and progressive organizers have already succeeded in convincing the Biden
Speaker 1: administration and Democrats in Congress that they should go big
Speaker 1: on green infrastructure. The administration's Build Back Better proposal does that,
Speaker 1: but organizers say the problem is scale. In a nutshell,
Speaker 1: this is great, but it needs to be three times bigger. Today,
Speaker 1: I'm joined by Kanniella Ng, former Representative for the Great
Speaker 1: State of Hawaii and current Climate Justice campaign director for
Speaker 1: People's Action, a grassroots organization that's been mobilizing behind the
Speaker 1: Thrive Act. He's going to walk us through the details
Speaker 1: and what he's hearing from communities on the ground that
Speaker 1: conversation coming up right after this quick break. I'm Ami Westervelt,
Speaker 1: and this is drilled.
Speaker 2: Maybe we could start with just what you've kind of
Speaker 2: what you've been seeing so far in the Biden administration
Speaker 2: on climate, like what you were sort of expecting, and
Speaker 2: how the administration has met those expectations or failed to
Speaker 2: meet them exceeded them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look, I supported Bernie Sanders in the
Speaker 3: primary election, and.
Speaker 2: You weren't riding with Biden from the jump.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, Biden is like a self proclaimed moderate, right,
Speaker 3: so I when when Bernie lost, I don't think I mean,
Speaker 3: I definitely. If you're tell me that you fast forward
Speaker 3: to March twenty twenty one and we'd be looking at
Speaker 3: a four trillion dollar climate like infrastructure package, I think
Speaker 3: you're crazy. Yeah, that's a testament like Biden is a really,
Speaker 3: really good politician. He's been doing this his whole life.
Speaker 3: He's been a state he's been a US Senator in
Speaker 3: his twenties. Not in the fact that he's like a
Speaker 3: champion for the things that will actually help our communities,
Speaker 3: that the things we actually need, but in the fact
Speaker 3: that he figures out where the middle is right in
Speaker 3: the base he needs to win and then he moves
Speaker 3: his ass there right away. And the fact that look
Speaker 3: when in twenty eighteen, I think when we first talked
Speaker 3: like brand new Congress, justicemocrats, they are running candidates right
Speaker 3: are still on seventeen and the big platform pillar was
Speaker 3: like this one trillion dollar infrastructure ask demand and that
Speaker 3: was considered radical. The fact that we have Biden, who
Speaker 3: is self proclaimed like a centric, it's like a modern
Speaker 3: in the middle talking a fortunately is a testament to
Speaker 3: the power of the movement and how much we've shifted
Speaker 3: the common sense of the general public. And that you
Speaker 3: know that's due to the Sunrise movement, the youth climate
Speaker 3: strikes a long time environmental justice advocates, people making really
Speaker 3: bold bets on elections, like when the youth decided to
Speaker 3: support Senator Marquee over Joe Kennedy and like all these
Speaker 3: big bets that really paid off. So yeah, yeah, surprised
Speaker 3: by how how aggressive Biden has been in on climate
Speaker 3: is definitely not enough, like the four trillion or I
Speaker 3: think four hundred billion, or someone that's actually going to
Speaker 3: go at a green investment like that's not like I
Speaker 3: have a one in four year old and like the
Speaker 3: place they grew up in will be underwater by the
Speaker 3: time you're thirty years old. Yeah, we have a real
Speaker 3: project here in Abaddi. That is, it's like forty years
Speaker 3: now and it's still not done and attached on working people.
Speaker 3: Like that's gonna keep training money from them and they're
Speaker 3: never going to really be like come to me in
Speaker 3: the middle class ever, and like it doesn't have to be.
Speaker 2: That way, you know, Like yeah, so yeah, but.
Speaker 3: It's like up to Biden and to like step it
Speaker 3: up right now in this key moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want to ask you to read the
Speaker 2: tea leaves too much, but like how much do you
Speaker 2: think how much further left do you think Biden can
Speaker 2: actually be pushed?
Speaker 3: I mean, just over the last few months we've i
Speaker 3: mean just the past few weeks. It was supposed to
Speaker 3: be a two trillion dollar package. Now it's three trillion.
Speaker 3: Some articles are saying, for I mean, help Joe Manchin,
Speaker 3: who's supposed to be the one hang up the reason
Speaker 3: why we need to be more careful and moved to
Speaker 3: the right. He went ahead and said like months ago
Speaker 3: that he's comfortable with the four trillion dollar package. So
Speaker 3: you know, at this point, there's not a lot of
Speaker 3: excuses left why you shouldn't go bold, Like not only
Speaker 3: is it really popular to go big, but you have
Speaker 3: like a majority of like all your members are on
Speaker 3: line too now, like inside and outside, and it's only
Speaker 3: going like we're doing an action, organizing that action on
Speaker 3: Wednesday on March thirty, first time to arrive where we
Speaker 3: already have like one hundred and two people signed up
Speaker 3: to host events like direct actions outside members of Congress's
Speaker 3: offices and homes, digital events. Like the momentum is only
Speaker 3: getting bigger, and like I mean even in Mangin's district,
Speaker 3: like the Republican governor Jim Justice being like even he's
Speaker 3: calling for more. He's saying, like we need to err
Speaker 3: on the side of of spend too much not too little.
Speaker 2: You're organizing some actions, Now, what are the asks on
Speaker 2: the table for for this week?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that the day of action is called time
Speaker 3: to Thrive, And we just rolled out to thrive back today.
Speaker 3: We had a press conference. You know, we had folks
Speaker 3: from all across the Democratic Party, Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley,
Speaker 3: DeBie Dingle. Champions include like Ihan Omar, Jamal Bowman, permid A,
Speaker 3: jayapar Rokana, just a lot of good folks and not
Speaker 3: just all on the hard left either, you have like
Speaker 3: Biden allies on this too. So we're showing that you
Speaker 3: can have big solutions and a big ten like you
Speaker 3: don't have to choose. So the demand is one trillion
Speaker 3: dollars per year over ten years. And the idea is
Speaker 3: like this is a huge crisis moment and like the
Speaker 3: stars just happened to be a line. We have a
Speaker 3: trifecta in the House, Senate and White House, and we
Speaker 3: have a governor who's trying to be I mean, a
Speaker 3: president who's telling everyone he's trying to be the next
Speaker 3: FDR and like past New Deal esque legislation, so we
Speaker 3: got to take advantage of it, like we have no
Speaker 3: choice but to plan ahead, especially when we know the
Speaker 3: other side's going to continue pushing austerity measures and allowing
Speaker 3: our communities to suffer. So we're demanding fifteen million people
Speaker 3: getting put back to work through this investment, passing the
Speaker 3: pro Act, so enshraining labor rights into the law, and
Speaker 3: really advancing like gender, environmental indigenous justice, racial justice, with
Speaker 3: particular attention to like black Indigenous people, so that's the
Speaker 3: thrive back then, it's it wasn't easy to find alignment
Speaker 3: on it. It's taken like over a year and a
Speaker 3: half now as a coalition, and it didn't start from
Speaker 3: elected officials either. It wasn't just like some some lawyers
Speaker 3: on the hill, just like the room like now, we
Speaker 3: tried that before. In fact, like we spent millions of
Speaker 3: dollars during the healthcare fight in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 3: What's different about this app is it's really from the
Speaker 3: grassroots up. We just asked politics to sign up on
Speaker 3: it after like after I was already written, and and
Speaker 3: it's like the organized there's an actual campaign behind it,
Speaker 3: a campaign where there's millions of dollars not spent on
Speaker 3: ads or TV or consultants, but on actually field organizing.
Speaker 3: So that's how we're able to organize all these actions
Speaker 3: because the outside game is just one thing we've learned
Speaker 3: from two thousand and eight and two thousand and nine
Speaker 3: is that you need you need the field up or libration,
Speaker 3: like you need the outside game if you're going to
Speaker 3: win anything, especially anything that's going to be durable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's so it is interesting to me how
Speaker 2: quickly people have have shifted their thinking on like, you know,
Speaker 2: what is quote unquote reasonable and and what kinds of
Speaker 2: policies we can we can actually implement. I remember when
Speaker 2: the Greeny Deal was first announced, and so many people
Speaker 2: in the climate space were like, this is asking for
Speaker 2: too many things at once, you know, like if we
Speaker 2: try to get people to think about social justice and
Speaker 2: you know, energy sources at the same time, we're never
Speaker 2: going to get anywhere. And then here we are, you know,
Speaker 2: two years later, I guess two and a half, and
Speaker 2: it sort of would be ridiculous to see a climate
Speaker 2: policy proposed without any kind of provisions for labor and
Speaker 2: equity and indigenous rates and you know, gender and all
Speaker 2: of these things. So I don't know, I'm curious, like
Speaker 2: if you hear, are you hearing the same kind of
Speaker 2: you know, quote unquote be reasonable pushback that people were
Speaker 2: hearing even as recently as you know, a year or
Speaker 2: two ago.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 3: The answer is no, not nearly as much as we
Speaker 3: used to. There's still some of that, but yeah, what's
Speaker 3: unreasonable is is the fact that, like we still have
Speaker 3: people who don't have drinkable water or breathable air, and
Speaker 3: we might not have a livable planet. We don't have
Speaker 3: livable jobs for many people that were like heralding as
Speaker 3: essential frontline workers and like without essential wages, and even
Speaker 3: now with a vaccine rollout, they don't even have access
Speaker 3: to it because they're not in that you know, that
Speaker 3: modicum of power and wealth. So that it's just it's
Speaker 3: it's an unreasonable hierarchy that we've created for ourselves. And
Speaker 3: the other thing is like, if you speak to people's needs, like,
Speaker 3: people have diverse needs, so the more needs you speak to,
Speaker 3: the more diverse base you can build. So when you're like,
Speaker 3: do you expect people to sign on to social justice?
Speaker 3: Like no, do you expect someone who's worried about getting
Speaker 3: shot by the cops as soon as they step out
Speaker 3: of their house or even when they're asleep. How are
Speaker 3: you supposed to sell a clean energy sounded to that person,
Speaker 3: you know, without addressing that first native to be.
Speaker 2: Like, we'll take care of you being able to you know,
Speaker 2: not be killed later, but right now, we need to
Speaker 2: talk about batteries.
Speaker 3: That's right, if you're a native person, like your family
Speaker 3: owned is getting stripped away by colonial forces or you're
Speaker 3: an immigrant and like your family's getting deported and your
Speaker 3: kids are getting stripped from your arms. It's unreasonable to
Speaker 3: think that they're going to care about two degrees celsius.
Speaker 3: You know, what they're going to care about is like
Speaker 3: they're the direct impacts. And unless you're talking about that
Speaker 3: and making the connections to to like the larger problem,
Speaker 3: which is this colonial, extractive economy that we've created. And
Speaker 3: we'll get nowhere. But look, when you focus on it all,
Speaker 3: then you build the literally the biggest movement that we've
Speaker 3: ever seen in the United States history. And that's where
Speaker 3: we're are.
Speaker 2: You know, I feel so I spend a lot of
Speaker 2: time on on history, and you know how how like
Speaker 2: the sort of counter movement to the current climate movement
Speaker 2: was built, and it's so broad, you know, like it's
Speaker 2: it's like the right wing does not just concentrate on
Speaker 2: climate denial. It's like, you know, the same people that
Speaker 2: are doing that are also working on you know, quote
Speaker 2: unquote school choice and privatizing everything and getting rid of
Speaker 2: indigenous rights and getting rid of tribal sovereignty and all.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like I don't it's it's it's crazy
Speaker 2: to me every time I I look at that and
Speaker 2: then compare it to the left, which is like I
Speaker 2: don't know, I don't know if we can like think
Speaker 2: about two things at the same.
Speaker 3: Time, maybe maybe there's truth in that, right, Like we
Speaker 3: don't have to we can focus on like one to
Speaker 3: three things, but they don't have to be policies per se,
Speaker 3: Like policies can be a means to an end, which
Speaker 3: is a shift of your value said, And that's what
Speaker 3: the right has been doing, right, like like the bootstraps, individualism,
Speaker 3: the free market, like these are all like valisms that
Speaker 3: the policies they propose and tactics even are just like
Speaker 3: meant to bolster like that that frame of thinking, and
Speaker 3: like we that we can do that, like we can
Speaker 3: propose all kinds of things and kind of like dissolve
Speaker 3: these eradicate these false diconomies like planet versus paycheck, right,
Speaker 3: like you know, jobs are actually good, like climate actually
Speaker 3: means tons of jobs, like this idea that where we
Speaker 3: can just move on our own as individuals, like you
Speaker 3: can't keep the lights on in Texas on your own,
Speaker 3: like you can't stop wildfires in California on your own.
Speaker 3: I can't I can't fucking raise my two todders at home,
Speaker 3: working full time on my own right, right Like that
Speaker 3: that's like no matter what policy you're talking about, if
Speaker 3: if it's like if the crux of it is like
Speaker 3: we're stronger together and if we invest in each other
Speaker 3: in our community, then we can actually you get through
Speaker 3: these crises, then yeah, it's about the policy, but it's
Speaker 3: also about like building up like what it means to
Speaker 3: be in community with one another and like enshuraning like
Speaker 3: enough as a human right, like why why do we
Speaker 3: let why is poverty even allowed in a country with billionaires,
Speaker 3: and just kind of focusing in on that, like having
Speaker 3: moral clarity and focusing in on that, on the values
Speaker 3: first and like the policy, Yeah, like we want to
Speaker 3: win them and they matter because like people are dying.
Speaker 3: But if you actually like these are values that like
Speaker 3: everyone agrees with, right like freedom to thrive, and if
Speaker 3: you actually knock on doors, which is another thing we're doing,
Speaker 3: like these this deep canvassing program around a climate that
Speaker 3: we're launching this year, you can even win win over
Speaker 3: folks in Trump country as well, I mean in people's
Speaker 3: actually network. We have groups like New Jersey Organizing Project
Speaker 3: who's your action? Like these are groups that purposely go
Speaker 3: out into areas that are considered no goes for like
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party, and they organize people and not only
Speaker 3: did they organize them into their group to take action,
Speaker 3: but they've swiftly radicalized them as well. Because it's like
Speaker 3: hating the government and blaming the government and like folks
Speaker 3: that are weaker than you in like the social hierarchies
Speaker 3: that we created. That's not actually not that far from
Speaker 3: like pointing a finger at billionaires instead, and that's true.
Speaker 3: Like a couple, like a few, like really open conversations,
Speaker 3: and I should say, like I you know, when I
Speaker 3: was twenty two, I won my first election in a
Speaker 3: district that went Republican like forty six out of fifty
Speaker 3: years in statehood in Hawaii, And it was by just
Speaker 3: listening to folks. Like the first rap I knock on
Speaker 3: a door, I knocked on twelve thousand dollors. Like the
Speaker 3: first rap was, hey, I'm kindie letting I know. It
Speaker 3: feels like the government doesn't all listened to us, and
Speaker 3: that's why I'm at your door. And then I just
Speaker 3: full stop and here what they have to say. So
Speaker 3: issues sometimes I'll just say this is great, and then
Speaker 3: you do that a couple of times, they're gonna listen
Speaker 3: to you, because the fact of the matter is, like
Speaker 3: they might listen to talk radio, but most people just
Speaker 3: aren't that political, Like they won't see themselves as political beings.
Speaker 3: And that's in many ways problematic, and it's not the
Speaker 3: case in many other countries with like a more strong
Speaker 3: movement history. But like it's also an opportunity for folks
Speaker 3: on the left to like or in like the climate sphere,
Speaker 3: to to really change some minds and move people. I
Speaker 3: think that youths have been then doing a really good
Speaker 3: job over the last couple years. But we can't rely
Speaker 3: on like children to educate parents to go out and
Speaker 3: organize like millennials, experis, boomers, everyone. We gotta do it
Speaker 3: ourselves as well.
Speaker 2: How do you expect things to go with the Thrive
Speaker 2: Act and the pro Act? What's it looking like right now?
Speaker 3: I mean things are heading the right direction. It's just
Speaker 3: you mentioned this on the top of the call, Like
Speaker 3: the things that are sticking in the Biden administration, it
Speaker 3: isn't necessarily rooted in like traditional aspects of power, like
Speaker 3: in the organizing tradition like a lynch Ki or or
Speaker 3: like Marxism or anything. It's like, you know, someone just
Speaker 3: does a white paper or a one pager and they
Speaker 3: put some really nice branding with like some trendy gradient
Speaker 3: behind their mark and it sticks. Yeah, and it just
Speaker 3: picks up. And on one hand, I really welcome this
Speaker 3: shift from like anti intellectualism that we've seen under Trump
Speaker 3: and the Tea Party to like some more thoughtfulness, but
Speaker 3: also like you know, it's like an emperor's it could
Speaker 3: be like an emperor has no close thing. Like some
Speaker 3: of these organizations that have Biden's ear don't really have
Speaker 3: a base. I'm not saying you're not doing work, but
Speaker 3: they're more in the advocacy spirit sphere than not necessarily
Speaker 3: like powerful on the ground, like with real people and
Speaker 3: you know, in people's action. And I know my philosophy
Speaker 3: is like we like working people were the experts of
Speaker 3: our own experiences, Like we know, like if you want solutions,
Speaker 3: go to the people closest to the pain, right, And
Speaker 3: I think that's something that we'd like to see a
Speaker 3: little bit more of, uh in this administration. And if
Speaker 3: they did focus on like those people on the ground,
Speaker 3: you'd see like a lot more not just rooted, but
Speaker 3: aggressive policy as well, and you'll like you'll be building
Speaker 3: bases that will help past futuralization but also help with
Speaker 3: your next election as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So does it seem like the people who are
Speaker 2: who do kind of have his ear are aligned with
Speaker 2: the kinds of things that you're talking about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Actually, I think we're progressives have been really strategic
Speaker 3: about was right when they saw the writing on the wall,
Speaker 3: and actually right after the the primary, we didn't mess around,
Speaker 3: like we knew that Trump was evil and like we
Speaker 3: have to do everything we can to beat them, so
Speaker 3: we didn't like play around, like we threw down for Biden,
Speaker 3: and then we reminded Biden that he needed us to win,
Speaker 3: and very quickly we pushed to get our champions in
Speaker 3: his administration. And you see a lot of folks that, yeah,
Speaker 3: really good people that were part of the transition team,
Speaker 3: like you know, Barshonny from Sunrise Movement Protest was part
Speaker 3: of the transition team, and that in turn shaped some
Speaker 3: really positive policy. The fact that Deb Halen is like
Speaker 3: the first Native you know that, I think that's a
Speaker 3: big deal and that wouldn't have happened without like the
Speaker 3: progressives getting in. So you know, there's a lot of
Speaker 3: good folks in administration, and you know it's part of
Speaker 3: it is getting good people around him. But again, he's
Speaker 3: a really good politician that has his finger on the
Speaker 3: pulse of where the middle is of the needs to win.
Speaker 3: So more importantly is shifting that middle the political common
Speaker 3: sense of the general public. And we we've been It's
Speaker 3: really clear that we've been doing that very well over
Speaker 3: the last few years. To see this shift from one
Speaker 3: trillion being too much to even Joe Matchin talking about
Speaker 3: four trillion. I think that's like the proof is brilliant.
Speaker 2: How much are people connecting their kind of day to
Speaker 2: day stuff with climate And is that even something that
Speaker 2: that is that even like a conversation that that you're
Speaker 2: pushing with people on the ground, or is it like,
Speaker 2: let's figure out, you know, people's most urgent needs first.
Speaker 3: Now, I mean, one thing that Biden has been good
Speaker 3: at in terms of his messaging that really came from
Speaker 3: the movement is this focus that climate action means jobs.
Speaker 3: And right now, in this moment where you have fifteen
Speaker 3: million people unemployed, a lot of these jobs aren't coming back.
Speaker 3: It's a prime moment for tech billionaires who are the
Speaker 3: big winners by the way of this them to automate it, like.
Speaker 2: Yes, and so same with the oil industry. They're covering
Speaker 2: up so much automation shit by saying, oh, we lost
Speaker 2: jobs from COVID, but they were losing them already from automation.
Speaker 3: Sorry, go ahead, No, that's right. And this idea that
Speaker 3: like a Green New Deal like costs jobs like no,
Speaker 3: the jobs are disappearing now because of the private sector,
Speaker 3: and in fact you need the public sector to get
Speaker 3: the jobs back. It's it's completely opposite of what right
Speaker 3: wing pundits and austerity, you know. Yeah, the longers are
Speaker 3: pushing and like right now, like I look out the window,
Speaker 3: there's potholes to be filled, there's bridges to be repaired,
Speaker 3: trees to be planted, Like, there's so much work that
Speaker 3: we need to do that the free market just won't
Speaker 3: provide jobs for because our need it's all wrapped in
Speaker 3: the profit nexus. But if we actually create jobs based
Speaker 3: on what we actually need for a liverapoole planet, for
Speaker 3: you know, clean water, for infrastructure that's up the speed
Speaker 3: literally with the rest of the world, then it's a
Speaker 3: win win win and I think that's the message. That's
Speaker 3: a real take home message because you can find projects
Speaker 3: like you have abandoned malls because of COVID everywhere and
Speaker 3: just reimagining what that could be for your community. That's
Speaker 3: that's one way to bring home, thrive and the green
Speaker 3: New Deal for everyone, no matter where you live, left
Speaker 3: and right, black and white, whatever.
Speaker 2: But also I feel like there has been I think
Speaker 2: a shift for people in understanding that government jobs are
Speaker 2: also jobs. Like this is something that I think the
Speaker 2: right wing did really well for a long time, was
Speaker 2: convinced people that somehow working for the government was like
Speaker 2: not a real job.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean when I was twenty one out of college,
Speaker 3: the only job I could get was selling and copy machines.
Speaker 3: You want to talk about, not a real job like
Speaker 3: the private sector that the like the middle managers that
Speaker 3: make people feel important, like you really really need the
Speaker 3: people that produce it, and like the capitalists like everybody
Speaker 3: else in the middle those layers and layers and layers
Speaker 3: in these corporations are only there for colonial reasons. They're
Speaker 3: only there to make one company take up more land,
Speaker 3: to take up space like you could have, you know,
Speaker 3: So it's just that's not real work, real work building bridges,
Speaker 3: planting trees, carrying for your neighbors. Like and that's the
Speaker 3: other thing that's really like key in this Thrive agenda,
Speaker 3: and like the Green New Deal bills that that will
Speaker 3: be coming out is like we recognize that if you
Speaker 3: just created a bunch of jobs, traditional like infrastructure jobs,
Speaker 3: it will be jobs for white men. So we got
Speaker 3: to be really deliberate that we have like gender justice,
Speaker 3: racial justice, and everything else in the front of all
Speaker 3: the policy that we create. Because even when you're talking
Speaker 3: about unions, like there are like people of color that've
Speaker 3: been left out of union's work for generations now, so
Speaker 3: we need to hear that we addressed that first.
Speaker 2: Again, because I'm a history nerd, I just it like
Speaker 2: blows my mind when I think about how the unions were,
Speaker 2: like you know, the original enemies of capitalists and in
Speaker 2: such a short amount of time have become you know,
Speaker 2: teammates with them in a lot of ways. So, like,
Speaker 2: are you seeing some shifts some shifts in union leadership
Speaker 2: and sort of how unions are thinking about things now too?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I've like I'm I really believe in
Speaker 3: in the value of unions like historically, but also now yeah,
Speaker 3: and yeah, I think there's there's some like not every
Speaker 3: boss of any organization or any or of any organization,
Speaker 3: not every leader is perfect, But like, I don't think
Speaker 3: that's the core of the problem is like you know,
Speaker 3: corrupted leadership or anything like that. It's the fact that
Speaker 3: like they, like you talked about transitional jobs programs and
Speaker 3: this idea of a just transition and it's always been
Speaker 3: like this QTT line that climate advocates, usually predominantly white,
Speaker 3: usually predominantly upper class, highly educated white folks, would be like, oh,
Speaker 3: we'll have a transition program and if you're working, teach
Speaker 3: them to code. Yeah, I might see. If I was
Speaker 3: a union boss, I'd be like, get the f out
Speaker 3: of here, like, all, dare you like show me it?
Speaker 3: Like so, I think that's that's sort of where a
Speaker 3: lot of this has come from. It's like we weren't
Speaker 3: able to show them real benefits, and when we did,
Speaker 3: it was like this these really half like half measures,
Speaker 3: like liberal half measures, but this idea that we can
Speaker 3: invest now where you can you can just walk into
Speaker 3: a public like an employment office, your local employment office,
Speaker 3: and there'll be a job waiting for you. Where you're
Speaker 3: not gonna have like environment You're gonna have your neighbors
Speaker 3: yelling at you, like environmental advocates or animal rights like
Speaker 3: you're gonna be cool, and you're gonna be You're gonna
Speaker 3: be people from rural areas and urban areas doing projects
Speaker 3: with you, like people across generations, across races. Like. That's
Speaker 3: how you create real unity. It's it's not just public jobs.
Speaker 3: Isn't just good for your paycheck, it's not just good
Speaker 3: for the planet, but it's good for our politics. It's
Speaker 3: gonna get get people working together and really building something positive.
Speaker 3: So it's something real, and that's how I think we're
Speaker 3: seeing like unions take it a little bit more seriously
Speaker 3: because frankly, we just haven't given them anything real up
Speaker 3: until now.
Speaker 4: Hm.
Speaker 1: That's it for this time. Big thanks to corniella Ing
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