WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 125 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:02.920 Al Zone Media. 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:05.800 Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:09.480 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:12.559 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:16.400 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:18.880 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:20.840 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:22.639 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:24.600 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:29.720 Hello, everybody, Welcome to It could happen here. This is 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:34.559 Sharene and today is a very special day. It is 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:38.040 the first of April, April Fool's Day. Someone may or 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:41.160 may not have been born on this day. But little 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:43.640 known fact that I didn't know about until I was 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:47.200 an adult was that the first of April is historically 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:52.120 Syrian New Year. That's right. I learned about this as 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:54.920 a Syrian in my mid twenties, so it's not exactly 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:58.279 very well known, but when I learned about it, I 0:00:58.320 --> 0:00:59.800 got obsessed with it. So I'm going to talk about 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:02.920 that and just the history of April Fool's Day and 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:08.440 how it became April Fool's Day, in particular because originally, 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:11.319 as I said, it started as the Syrian New Year, 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:14.959 and many researchers consider it the oldest recorded holiday in 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:18.040 the history of the Near East. The Syrian calendar is 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:21.000 also considered one of the last remaining ancient calendars that 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:25.200 is still celebrated. Up until now, he had uns no relation, 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:28.280 but he's a doctor in archaeology in Ancient Languages at 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:31.800 the University of Damascus. He said that the celebrations of 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:35.600 the New year coincided with the celebrations of the arrival 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:39.200 of spring, and they began the day of the vernal equinox, 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:42.280 and they continued until the first of April, a Syrian 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:46.119 New Year's day. This day is associated with the celebration 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:48.400 of the end of the reigning season and the start 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.960 of fertility and the growth of crops and fruits, as 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:56.400 the celebrations were accompanied with religious rituals in which offerings 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:59.600 were made. Unis also noted that the Syrian calendar is 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:03.480 related to Ishtad, who is the first mother goddess, the 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.680 goddess of life, the morning and evening star. At the 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:11.560 same time, the ancient texts describe Ashtar as in her 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:15.720 mouth lies the secrets of life. The word astar comes 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:19.400 from the Akkadian language. She is known as Anana or 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:22.680 Nana in Sumerian. And she was the first deity for 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:25.200 which we have written evidence of, as well as the 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.320 world's first goddess of love and war. And she had 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:33.519 a lover named Tammuz in ancient Mesopotamia, which roughly corresponds 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:37.520 to modern Iraq parts of Iran, Syria, Kuwait, and Turkey. 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:42.239 Love was a powerful force capable of upending earthly order 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:46.680 and producing sharp changes in status and Ashtar definitely deserves 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:50.360 an episode all for herself. She's completely fascinating and needs 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:52.440 more than just a blurb. But I had to at 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:54.600 least mention her, and maybe one day I'll do an 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:58.119 episode about her. But that's a Shtar for you for now. 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.640 There are other researchers, though, that have criticized the validity 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:05.440 of April first as the Syrian New Year. Because of this, 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:07.760 the origin of the Syrian New Year's a key to 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:13.639 celebration aki Tu. It has sparked some controversy, with debates 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:17.560 fueled by history and religion. The validity of the ritual 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:21.040 is disputed because it is not widely celebrated locally and 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:26.040 its relevance is not generally accepted by academia. Some would 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:29.239 argue that the celebration of Syrian New Year is useless. 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:33.480 Among them is Bashar Khalif, who is a history researcher 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:37.880 specializing in the Mashrich Calif says the celebrating a key 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:41.920 to quote stems from nostalgia and an attempt to escape 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:45.640 the present. So what are the origins of a key 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:49.800 to A key to marks the Assyrian and Babylonian New Year, 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:52.600 and it is observed the first of April and last 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:57.560 twelve days. The Akkadians and Chaldeans also have celebrated the holiday. 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:01.360 Doctor Joseph is a tune fun fact. Zetun means olive, 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:04.720 what a cute name. Doctor Joseph Zetun is an expert 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:07.160 in Syrian history, and he is one of the historians 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.640 who considers ake to quote the oldest recorded holiday in 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:14.280 the history of the Near East. The earliest reference to 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.360 this holiday dates back to twenty five hundred BC in 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:22.000 er U are Er was an important Sumerian city state 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:25.880 in ancient Mesopotamia, located at the site of modern Tel 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:30.960 l Moreyed and South Irax dir Klar Governorate. According to 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:34.800 Syrian researchers, the Akitu holiday was quote held for the 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:39.200 Sumerian moon god Nana. For the Babylonians, it chronicled the 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:45.039 god Marduk's victory over the goddess Timayat. During the Babylonian era. 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:48.960 The first four days were traditionally reserved for religious rituals. 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:53.440 Babylonians used to offer prayers and sacrifices and recite the 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:58.440 anuma Alish, which is the Babylonian epic of creation. The 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:02.920 remaining days would include social and political rituals. According to 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:07.040 the researcher Hazad and Majidi, the Sumerians observed this holiday 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:09.800 on March twenty first of every year, and this marked 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:12.960 the start of the Sumerian New Year. On the other hand, 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:17.760 Semitic peoples like the Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, they celebrate a 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:21.080 key to on April first. What is this word a 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.920 key to? I asked the same thing. I asked the 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:26.200 mom the same thing, because I'm still a child who 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:29.360 thinks my mom knows everything, but she doesn't. She doesn't 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:31.039 know what that means. She's ever even heard the word, 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:33.680 and she didn't know the origin of a ke to. 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:38.520 And apparently there's no consensus among historians on the exact 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:42.760 meaning of this word. However, researcher On Majdi details his 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:46.960 theory in the books Summer Corpus and Prehistoric Religions and Beliefs. 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:50.200 According to m. Majidi, the word a key to is 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.880 the name of the feast and the place where celebrations 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:57.760 were held. The word appeared in late Sumerian texts as 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:02.120 a key t. The word is then believed to be 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:07.080 of Sumerian origin. The sign ah means rain, Ki means earth, 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:11.039 and t is a verb meaning to draw near. Thus 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:14.680 it roughly translates to drawing water closer to the earth. 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:20.800 Very poetic, according to jam M Shahin, numerous ancient scriptures 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:24.760 mentioned the same aki t. For instance, the holiday bears 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:30.200 the name Akitu in Aramaic, Akiti sunonym in Sumerian, Visha, 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:34.960 Deshata in Akkadian, and Rabi Nissan in Assyrian. Nissan, by 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:39.200 the way, is April in Arabic. The shah Deshaeta and 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:42.360 Krabi Nissan are often used in the Levante to mean 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:46.680 head of the year and first of April, respectively. On 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:50.120 the other hand, doctor Mahmud Hossein and Amen wrote that 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:53.200 the celebrations were held at a specific location known as 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:57.559 the House of Celebrations or Akitu, which was outside the city, 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:00.000 so this makes a k to a location as well 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:05.159 well a sacred location. In ancient beliefs, the Akitu house 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.880 refers to the gods dwelling on earth. The purpose of 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:12.480 having a celebratory feast is to celebrate the gods choosing 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:15.800 to temporarily reside in this city, and the purpose of 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:18.720 this house is to guard and cherish that moment forever. 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:22.440 And Even though now the name Nissan is used for 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.000 what we know as the month of April, the month 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:27.400 of Nissan used to be around the time of the 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:31.440 vernal equinox, which starts around March twenty first. The vernal 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:35.320 equinox is still celebrated throughout Greater Iran as Nurus, which 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:39.800 means new Day on March twenty first. However, in ancient Assyrian, 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:43.960 Akkadian and Babylonian traditions, the spring festival was celebrated in 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:46.840 the first days of the month known as Nissan, and 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:50.280 the calendar adopted by ancient Assyrians had the month Nissan 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:52.800 at the beginning of the calendar year, which lends to 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:56.440 the term Kabi Nissan or the first of Nissan. So 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:59.640 let's talk about the Syrian calendar and April Fool's Day 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:02.600 what we all came here for. By the fact, about me, 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.480 my birthday is today, April fools Day. 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:06.160 Wow. 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:08.520 And I didn't even know about this history, as I said, 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:10.600 until I was an adult person in my mid twenties. 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:13.440 But once I learned about this history, especially as a 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:17.200 Syrian person who was really proud to be Syrian, it 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:20.320 really made me appreciate my birthday and my ancestry a 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:25.440 lot more because growing up, not gonna lie, it's honestly 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:28.920 a pain in the ass birthday. Lots of empty gift 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:33.240 boxes and people saying Happy Birthday, April Fools and just 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:35.920 me like rolling my eyes and grimacing throughout the entire day. 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:40.080 There is one particularly traumatic memory I have from middle 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:42.880 school where I was given a box of chocolates and 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:46.400 the joke was that the chocolates tasted like shit. And 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:48.960 I know this because I tasted a chocolate and then 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:51.400 I immediately spit it out. And to this day, I 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:53.240 don't know what that chocolate was made out of, and 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:55.480 I hope I never find out, But anyway, it's just 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:59.000 a weird ass birthday to have you know what else 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:15.679 is weird? Weird ass ads, listen and we are back. Okay. 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:19.120 Doctor ze Tune believes it is more accurate to call 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:22.040 the calendar that starts at April first as a Syrian 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:26.840 calendar rather than Assyrian, since all in Syria and Mesopotamia 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:30.400 adopted it. He also thinks that the ancient Syrian calendar 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:32.960 begins on the first of April, and that quote This 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:37.840 calendar was present and endured in multiple Syrian civilizations, including 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:43.360 the kingdoms of Ugadit, Elba, Mari, Palmyra, and Damascus until 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:47.000 the early twentieth century. Syrians traditionally began their year in 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.840 April first, but transitioned to the Western calendar during the 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:53.839 period of the French mandate, so it actually wasn't even 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:56.440 that long ago that April first marked the beginning of 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:59.640 the new year in Syria. The rituals of Assyrian New 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:03.400 Year are linked to April Fools. There are rituals aimed 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.640 at quote humbling the king, which would start from the 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:10.000 fifth day of the celebrations. Lying was also a big 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:13.280 part of the celebrations, as the king would abdicate his 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:17.480 throne in favor of a criminal sentenced to death. That 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:21.520 part is crazy to me. Enslaved people also became masters, 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:25.160 and people disguise themselves in costumes and masks to hide 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:28.680 their identities until they awoke from the lie the next morning. 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:33.520 So the whole day would be a farce essentially, and 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:35.920 you would all knowingly live a lie until the next 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:41.600 day everything is suddenly backed normal again. Hannasumi, head of 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:46.160 the Syriac Cultural Association in Syria, said, after the common 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:49.480 folk occupies the king's throne, he blends in with the 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:53.680 people incognito. Chaos ensues in Babylon and on the first 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:57.679 of April, the king is found and joy prevails, and 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:00.480 that is the origin of April Fool's Day. The king 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:04.200 did not truly disappear, It was but a charade. There's 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:07.120 also another reason the first of April is associated with 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:12.280 an April fool, doctor Shaheen writes. Until fifteen sixty four AD, 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:16.079 the Syrian calendar was adopted in most countries. In France, 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:20.000 celebrations started on March twenty first and ended on April first, 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:23.360 just as the Assyrians and Babylonians did thousands of years ago. 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:28.800 After King Charles the ninth adopted the new Gregorian calendar, 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:33.199 celebrations began on December twenty fifth and ended January first, 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.600 which we now all know is the beginning of the 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:39.320 new year. However, some of the publics still continued to 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:42.040 celebrate on April first, and the people who still held 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:45.080 onto this tradition became the target of mockery by the 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:49.199 nobility for still believing in April Fool's Day. Other historians 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:52.600 speculate that April fools Day dates back to fifteen eighty two, 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:57.040 when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.160 as called for by the Council of Trent in fifteen six. 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:03.800 In the Julian calendar, as well as the Syrian calendar 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:06.760 and also the Hindu calendar, the new year began with 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:11.240 the Spring equinox on April first, but people were slow 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:13.719 to get the news or they failed to recognize that 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:16.360 the start of the new year had moved to January first. 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:19.480 Those who continue to celebrate the new year during the 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:22.200 last week of March through April first became the butt 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.840 of jokes and hoaxes, and were called April Fools. These 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:29.480 pranks included having paper fish placed on their backs and 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:33.480 being referred to as april fish in French, which is 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.520 possan di'avril. I can't say that correctly, and I can't 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:39.120 even attempt to do a French accent. But it's the 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:42.080 april fish you refer to as an april fish and 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:45.760 symbolizing a young, easily caught fish and a gullible person. 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:48.560 So it's kind of like an elevated kick me sign 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:52.640 on your back. Interestingly enough, fish are also considered a 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:55.360 lucky symbol in many areas of the world, and are 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:59.079 also important to many New Year's traditions. There was an 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:02.160 opinion piece for a few years ago about the marginalization 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:05.079 of the holiday of Akitu as part of a quote 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:10.000 systemic battle against ancient civilizations. Doctor Shaheen noted that this 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:15.200 prohibition has continued until recently. Different regimes and religious figures 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:19.319 prohibited it because it is a pagan feast and has rituals, prayers, 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:23.280 and texts that offend the followers of the monotheistic religions. 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:27.400 He added that ak To is witnessing a renaissance among 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:32.480 the Assyrian, Chaldean and Syriac communities abroad, particularly as a 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:37.280 result of religious freedom. He asks will Akitu return or 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:40.080 is it merely a trend that will fade away once again. 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.800 Many cultures still recognize the significance of April first, including 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:50.480 the Assyrians. Despite being scattered across the world, Assyrians preserve 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:54.120 their history and heritage through holidays like Assyrian New Year 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:58.320 on April first, Assyrian New Year is the spring festival 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:02.120 among the indigenous Assyrians of non northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:09.320 southeastern Turkey, and northwestern Iran. Celebrations involve parades and parties, food, music, 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:13.400 and dancing. Some Assyrians wear traditional costumes, are dressed like 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:18.320 Assyrian royalty, and dance for hours. Celebrations take place throughout 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:20.920 Assyria and other areas in the Middle East, along with 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:23.800 some in the United States, Europe, and Australia among the 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:28.640 Assyrian diaspora communities. The modern observance of aki To began 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:33.360 in the nineteen sixties during the Assyrian intellectual Renaissance. However, 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:37.480 due to political oppression, the celebrations were largely private until 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:42.080 the nineteen nineties, but the event is still largely celebrated 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:46.520 by Assyrians residing in Syria. Although the Syrian government does 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:50.400 not acknowledge the festival at all, Assyrians still continue with 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:54.160 the celebration. In two thousand and two, Assyrians and Syria 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:57.920 celebrated the event with a mass wedding of sixteen couples 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:02.560 and over twenty five thousand attendees. After the formation of Turkey, 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:06.880 Kabi Nissan, along with no Ruz, were banned from public celebration. 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:11.600 Assyrians and Turkey were first allowed to publicly celebrate Kabi 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:15.760 Nissan in two thousand and five after organizers received permission 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:18.440 from the government to stage the event and light of 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:22.680 democratic reforms adopted in support of Turkey's EU membership. Bid 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:27.240 Around five thousand people, including large groups of visiting ethnic 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:30.280 Assyrians from Europe, Syria and Iraq took part in the 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:34.520 Kabi Nissan celebrations in Turkey. One of the largest Assyrian 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:37.560 New Year celebrations took place in Iraq in two thousand 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:41.520 and eight. Public celebrations were not allowed by Saddam Hussein's 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:44.480 regime prior to the start of the Iraq War. The 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:49.000 event was organized by the Assyrian Democratic Movement ZOA and 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:51.960 between forty five thousand and sixty five thousand people took 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:55.480 part in the parade. In two thousand and four, George 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:59.440 Ridanovich of the California State Assembly recognized the Assyrian New 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:02.360 Year in a extended his wishes to the Assyrian community 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.880 in California. This was later followed by a letter from 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:10.360 our old California governor, Terminator Arnold to the Assyrian community 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:15.760 in California, congratulating them on the annual celebration. I just 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:18.840 thought that was pretty interesting because it is a very 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:23.560 modern resurgence and like renaissance of this day. So fun 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:28.240 facts and in the United States, almost four million Americans 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:31.400 can trace their roots back to an Arab country located 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:33.880 in the Middle East or North Africa. And this is 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:39.360 according to the Arab American Institute. Each year, many school districts, cities, 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:43.720 and states observe Arab American Heritage Month in April. It's 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:47.160 meant to honor the historic achievements and cultural contributions of 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:51.200 Arab Americans throughout the nation. On April first, twenty twenty two, 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:55.600 April was officially designated as National Arab American Heritage Month 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:59.000 by the federal government. The movement for this recognition was 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:02.280 first started in nineteen teen eighty nine, when Congress declared 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:05.880 October twenty fifth as a day to honor Arab American 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:09.800 Heritage and called it National Arab American Day, but the 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:14.320 Arab American community pushed for further recognition. In twenty seventeen, 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:18.000 a media outlet called Arab America, as well as a 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:22.080 nonprofit Arab America Foundation, launched an initiative that called all 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:26.720 lawmakers to make April National Arab American Heritage Month. Arab 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:29.479 America said that April was chosen because it did not 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:33.679 conflict with other observances that highlight marginalized communities, and that 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:38.400 the month symbolizes hope, growth and new beginnings. And yeah, 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:41.440 sure that can be true with spring starting and flowers 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:44.639 blooming and so on, but I think there might be 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:48.080 a little more symbolism there as well. Personally, I think 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:50.640 all national holidays are kind of useless unless you get 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:53.560 like a day off from work, and giving a marginalized 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:56.440 community a day or a month is a rather shallow 0:17:56.560 --> 0:18:00.000 and also useless acknowledgement of that community. I mean, Columbus 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:03.159 also has a day himself, and even though many states 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:06.520 now observe it as Indigenous People's Day, sixteen states as 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:09.679 well as the territory of American Samoa still observe the 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:13.600 second Monday in October as the official public holiday exclusively 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:16.840 called Columbus Day. All this is to say that I 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:21.080 would rather lawmakers actually advocate for marginalized communities instead of 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:23.880 just tossing them a day or a few weeks where 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:27.399 suddenly they exist. It is still kind of cute to 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:31.679 me that Arab American Heritage Month is starting today in 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:35.920 April because of all the symbolism. Let's take our second break. 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:49.679 I don't have a clever segue. Oh well, and we 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:50.240 are back. 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:51.280 Okay. 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.719 Where else have we seen April fools Day in the world. 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:59.040 April Fool's Day has a shockingly global history for a 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:04.639 holiday devote to lies and deception. Historians have also linked 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:08.240 April Fool's Day to festivals such as Hilaria and ancient Rome. 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:12.359 Hilaria is Latin for joyful, and this day was celebrated 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:15.280 in ancient Rome at the end of March by followers 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:19.040 of the cult of Sabelle. It involved people dressing up 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:23.040 in disguises and mocking fellow citizens and even magistrates, and 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:25.280 it was said to be inspired by the Egyptian legend 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:29.720 of Isis, Osiris and Seth. There's also speculation that April 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:32.840 Fool's Day was tied directly to the vernal equinox or 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:35.520 the first day of spring in the Northern hemisphere, and 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:39.960 this is where Mother Nature fooled people with changing, unpredictable weather. 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:41.280 I like that one. 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:45.520 In Latin America, you have few chances to be pranked. 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:49.679 Much of Latin America celebrates Eldiya Delos and Ascentis or 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:53.080 Day of the Innocence, which is a late December Catholic 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.680 feast with an extremely unsilly origin that has now somehow 0:19:56.720 --> 0:19:59.880 become a day of jokes and pranks. In Ebbi elec 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.200 Pant Spain, they mark this day aka they are April 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:06.600 Fool's Day in December by having a town wide food fight, 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:11.280 complete with military strategy and historical lore. Then there's the 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:15.000 Els and Fernat's tradition, which is reportedly more than two 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:19.400 hundred years old and involves a mock military style takeover 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:22.320 of the town where the new rulers get to make 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:25.560 up strange laws that others have to abide by, and 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:28.320 if they don't, they get fined and the money goes 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:31.440 to charity. When I was reading this earlier, I was like, oh, 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:33.760 this is the purge, but then it ends up money 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:36.040 goes to charity and it's like, oh, it's nice, but 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:38.719 so for those cultures, the day to watch out for 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:42.239 is December twenty eighth. In Brazil, however, April first is 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:44.840 still the prank day of choice, and they cut straight 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:48.119 to the chase by congate Dia das Mantidas, or the 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:52.000 Day of Lies. Similarly to Syria, Iran has one of 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:56.040 the oldest April Fool's traditions with the observance of Sista Badud, 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:59.879 which also has a prank playing element. It is celebrated 0:20:59.880 --> 0:21:02.639 on the thirteenth day of the Persian New Year, on 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:06.560 April first or April second. SiZ Da Badad, which is 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:08.919 also said to have been celebrated as far back as 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:13.200 the fifth century BC, is translated as quote getting rid 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:18.680 of thirteen, so it has an appropriately superstitious air. It's 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:22.520 also considered a spring festival, which ties into other April 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:27.240 Fool's predecessors, like the ancient Roman celebration of Hilaria. April 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:31.760 Fool's Day spread throughout Britain during the eighteenth century. In Scotland, 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:35.560 the tradition became a two day event, starting with quote 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:41.639 hunting the gouk that's a word gowk gouk is a 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:45.000 term for a type of bird, but it's also slang 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:50.080 for a fool on this day pranking. Scot's send unsuspecting 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:53.679 Gouq's the people, not the birds on fool's errands just 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:56.320 to waste their time, And if you don't get gouchd, 0:21:56.720 --> 0:21:59.680 there's always an opportunity for humiliation the very next day, 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:04.159 which is Tallly Day. Tallly Day is for largely harmless 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:08.959 Darriere related pranks aka pranks involving your butt, such as 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:14.560 pinning fake tales on someone or sticking Kickney signs on them. 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:17.520 April first in Poland goes about it the same as 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:21.760 any other pro April Fool's place. It's called Prima aprilis. 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:25.119 There is a funny parting phrase for prankers, though that 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:28.800 I thought was worth mentioning, which is Prima aprilis April 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:33.520 Fool's Day, be careful, you can be wrong, which is 0:22:33.520 --> 0:22:36.760 truly like advice to take throughout the entire year. But 0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:39.120 what about what we've come to know as the typical 0:22:39.200 --> 0:22:43.640 April Fool's Day pranks. It's not especially surprising that capitalism 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:46.520 took like a fun little day like April Fool's Day 0:22:46.600 --> 0:22:48.679 and ran with it because, as we know, we live 0:22:48.720 --> 0:22:51.679 in hell. But in modern times, people have gone to 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:56.480 great lengths to create elaborate April fools Day hoaxes. Newspapers, 0:22:56.600 --> 0:22:59.560 radio and TV stations, and websites have participated in the 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:03.679 April First tradition of reporting outrageous fictional claims that have 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:08.159 fooled their audiences. A few examples. In nineteen fifty seven, 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:12.400 the BBC reported that Swiss farmers were experiencing a record 0:23:12.480 --> 0:23:17.160 spaghetti crop and showed footage of people harvesting noodles from trees. 0:23:17.960 --> 0:23:23.080 In nineteen eighty five, Sports Illustrated writer George Plimpton tricked 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:25.760 many readers when he ran a made up article about 0:23:25.760 --> 0:23:28.959 a rookie picture named Sid Finch who could throw a 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:32.120 fastball over one hundred and sixty eight miles per hour. 0:23:33.200 --> 0:23:36.600 In nineteen ninety two, National Public Radio ran a spot 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:40.000 with former President Richard Nixon saying that he was running 0:23:40.040 --> 0:23:44.120 for president again, Only it was an actor, not Nixon, 0:23:44.359 --> 0:23:46.879 and this segment was all in April Fool's Day prank 0:23:47.040 --> 0:23:50.560 that caught the country by surprise. In nineteen ninety six, 0:23:50.760 --> 0:23:53.720 Taco Bell duped people when it announced that it agreed 0:23:53.760 --> 0:23:57.919 to purchase Philadelphia's Liberty Bell and intended to rename it 0:23:57.960 --> 0:24:01.919 the Taco Liberty Bell. In nineteen ninety eight, after Burger 0:24:02.000 --> 0:24:06.600 King advertised a quote left handed whopper, scores of clueless 0:24:06.600 --> 0:24:11.120 customers requested this fake sandwich and then Google also notoriously 0:24:11.200 --> 0:24:14.400 hosts an annual April fools Day prank that has included 0:24:14.440 --> 0:24:18.040 everything from a telepathic search to the ability to play 0:24:18.040 --> 0:24:21.520 pac Man on Google Maps. This is a sentence that 0:24:21.600 --> 0:24:25.400 made me laugh from History dot Com. For the average trickster, 0:24:25.920 --> 0:24:28.879 there is always the classic April fools Day prank of 0:24:29.040 --> 0:24:32.479 covering the toilet seat with plastic wrap or swapping the 0:24:32.520 --> 0:24:35.320 contents of sugar and salt containers. I'm sorry I had 0:24:35.359 --> 0:24:37.159 to mention that, because like the sugar and salt is 0:24:37.240 --> 0:24:39.760 very innocent, But I for one have never heard of 0:24:39.800 --> 0:24:44.159 covering the toilet and plastic wrap. That seems cruel and 0:24:44.240 --> 0:24:46.640 crazy in History dot com. 0:24:46.760 --> 0:24:47.080 Wow. 0:24:48.240 --> 0:24:52.520 Anyway, Impressively, the joke of April Fool's Day has endured 0:24:52.760 --> 0:24:56.720 for centuries, and at this point to have my life 0:24:56.840 --> 0:25:00.640 contribute any part to this joke is an honor. Actually, 0:25:01.280 --> 0:25:05.200 I live for bits in April Fool's Day is basically 0:25:05.240 --> 0:25:09.600 the longest running bit of all time. So it was 0:25:09.640 --> 0:25:13.159 only right that I was born today and that, my friends, 0:25:13.359 --> 0:25:17.199 is our episode today. I hope you had fun. Now 0:25:17.240 --> 0:25:19.400 I'm gonna go do something for my birthday, even though 0:25:19.400 --> 0:25:21.720 this is the past, but today is my birthday and 0:25:21.760 --> 0:25:25.520 I'm doing something now for you. Anyway, that's it. 0:25:25.720 --> 0:25:42.520 Bye, Welcome to Jack it Apping here a podcast about 0:25:42.560 --> 0:25:45.200 things falling apart and putting it back together again. We're 0:25:45.240 --> 0:25:47.200 going fasten this intro because we have a lot of 0:25:47.240 --> 0:25:49.040 stuff to get to and the thing that we have 0:25:49.080 --> 0:25:52.640 a lot of stuff to get to about is the 0:25:52.680 --> 0:25:55.879 election for candidates for the Council of Presidents for National 0:25:55.960 --> 0:26:00.200 Nurses United. And in order to talk about that, and 0:26:00.240 --> 0:26:03.000 we're talking about that, I you know, okay, I shoul 0:26:03.000 --> 0:26:04.399 I should should have ran this one through in my 0:26:04.440 --> 0:26:08.919 head before we started this. But yeah, I'm here today 0:26:09.000 --> 0:26:14.359 with John Jahad and Rosa to talk about Yeah, there's 0:26:14.920 --> 0:26:19.560 slate movement thing I don't know called shift Change and 0:26:19.640 --> 0:26:21.720 why they're running, how they met, et cetera, et cetera, 0:26:21.800 --> 0:26:24.800 and yeah, some other stuff about the union. So all 0:26:24.840 --> 0:26:25.920 three of you, welcome to the show. 0:26:27.600 --> 0:26:30.680 Thank you, thank you, thank you for having us. 0:26:31.840 --> 0:26:34.240 Yeah, so I guess the place we should start for 0:26:34.280 --> 0:26:39.160 this for so we we talked to shift Change last year, 0:26:39.320 --> 0:26:41.760 but I think for people who don't remember that or 0:26:41.800 --> 0:26:44.080 you know, I mean, it's been God, I don't know, 0:26:44.119 --> 0:26:45.960 I don't know how long I've lost track of time. 0:26:46.640 --> 0:26:49.920 Can you explain a bit about what you're running for, 0:26:50.680 --> 0:26:53.160 and I mean specifically what it is, sort of how 0:26:53.200 --> 0:26:54.080 it works. 0:26:54.440 --> 0:26:57.280 I'll just start real quick, like in cases it's not clear. 0:26:57.400 --> 0:27:02.040 We're all members of a large national nurses union called 0:27:02.080 --> 0:27:06.439 National Nurses United, and so we're from individual parts of 0:27:06.440 --> 0:27:10.560 that union, which is kind of an umbrella over California 0:27:10.600 --> 0:27:13.800 Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee, which I'm a 0:27:13.840 --> 0:27:17.560 part of, Brazil as a part of Minnesota Nurses Association, 0:27:17.680 --> 0:27:20.399 which jahead, is a part of NAISNA, which is New 0:27:20.480 --> 0:27:23.400 York State nurs Association, which Sanya Green is a part of. 0:27:23.880 --> 0:27:26.800 And then we also have Michigan Nurses Association and the 0:27:26.920 --> 0:27:31.679 DC Nurses Association and our group shift Change is like 0:27:31.760 --> 0:27:34.199 a caucus, which is like whenever workers instead of a 0:27:34.280 --> 0:27:36.720 union get together because they want to change how the 0:27:36.800 --> 0:27:40.320 union works. And we're running what's something called a slate 0:27:40.480 --> 0:27:43.199 where we have to have groups of people running together 0:27:43.280 --> 0:27:46.760 for specific union offices, and so we have a lot 0:27:46.760 --> 0:27:50.760 of people running not just US three or US four 0:27:50.840 --> 0:27:53.359 for the Council presidents, but we also have Canadas running 0:27:53.400 --> 0:27:56.800 for the Board of Vice presidents and also delegates for 0:27:56.800 --> 0:28:00.520 our convention. And hopefully that's a good basis for this 0:28:00.760 --> 0:28:02.160 starting off the conversation. 0:28:02.760 --> 0:28:07.280 Yeah, so, I guess the first question I wanted to ask, 0:28:07.480 --> 0:28:09.760 because I think this is an interesting story is how 0:28:09.800 --> 0:28:12.280 did how did you meet? Because this is a mostly 0:28:12.400 --> 0:28:15.240 a very different group of people from last time. 0:28:16.359 --> 0:28:17.120 How did we meet? 0:28:17.240 --> 0:28:17.440 Oh? 0:28:17.480 --> 0:28:19.800 My, that is a good story. 0:28:19.960 --> 0:28:23.280 So if you're not aware, or if you've been living 0:28:23.359 --> 0:28:26.679 under a rock, you know there's there's a lot of 0:28:28.720 --> 0:28:32.760 violence that's happening in the world, and specifically there's violence 0:28:32.760 --> 0:28:38.440 that's happening in Palestine. And John, I and Jahad all 0:28:38.520 --> 0:28:42.760 met as nurses who were looking to really be involved 0:28:42.880 --> 0:28:45.960 in Palestine solidarity. 0:28:45.400 --> 0:28:47.800 Work, and so we met on a space. 0:28:48.480 --> 0:28:52.640 We connected there and you know, our politics pretty much 0:28:52.640 --> 0:28:53.200 aligned that. 0:28:53.160 --> 0:28:56.880 We believe that oppressed people should be liberated. 0:28:56.840 --> 0:29:00.080 And that was one of the largest ways that we 0:29:00.120 --> 0:29:03.360 met each other and we became I mean, I feel 0:29:03.400 --> 0:29:07.480 like Jahad and John are part of my family. Definitely, 0:29:07.520 --> 0:29:10.680 we have really connected on the solidarity front for that, 0:29:11.080 --> 0:29:14.960 but also as nurses organizing and really seeing where the 0:29:15.040 --> 0:29:18.840 false law fault lines are within our own union. 0:29:19.440 --> 0:29:23.440 We haven't talked about specifically the nurses organizing has been 0:29:23.440 --> 0:29:27.120 going on for Palestine and solidarity stuff on the show before. 0:29:27.880 --> 0:29:28.880 It's really interesting. 0:29:30.040 --> 0:29:33.200 Even though we haven't met in person yet. We're looking 0:29:33.200 --> 0:29:37.360 forward to meeting in April at the Labor Notes conference. 0:29:37.880 --> 0:29:40.760 But despite the fact that we haven't met in person, 0:29:41.160 --> 0:29:44.600 there is a lot of chemistry among the group and 0:29:44.760 --> 0:29:47.320 we have a lot of you know, similar visions, and 0:29:47.760 --> 0:29:52.680 especially when it came to organizing for Palestine. So I 0:29:52.800 --> 0:29:58.160 joined Resita and John and others and Nurses for Palestine 0:29:58.480 --> 0:30:04.000 chat group and that group is active in highlighting the 0:30:04.000 --> 0:30:07.320 suffering of the Palestinian people and the politics behind it 0:30:07.400 --> 0:30:11.040 and how nurses can be in the front lines not 0:30:11.120 --> 0:30:13.160 only to take care of patients, but also for other 0:30:13.200 --> 0:30:17.800 healthcare workers around the world. And that's a huge part 0:30:17.840 --> 0:30:22.479 of this because this genocide that's going on has claimed 0:30:22.480 --> 0:30:25.480 the lives of so many innocent civilians as well as 0:30:25.920 --> 0:30:32.600 physicians and nurses and other healthcare workers, medics, etc. From 0:30:32.720 --> 0:30:36.920 that big group, or almost you can call it national. 0:30:37.480 --> 0:30:41.800 There are smaller chapters now in different cities. There's healthcare 0:30:41.800 --> 0:30:45.840 Workers for Palestine twin cities where I am from, and 0:30:46.040 --> 0:30:50.120 Chicago and San Francisco, and there's in Seattle and Boston. 0:30:50.480 --> 0:30:53.760 There's a lot of movement among healthcare workers where they 0:30:53.880 --> 0:31:01.000 focus their attention that hospitals, health care facilities, healthcare professionals 0:31:01.400 --> 0:31:05.280 are not a target during a military conflict and all 0:31:05.840 --> 0:31:08.560 the war crimes that have been committed need to be 0:31:08.640 --> 0:31:13.080 answered for. So from that we kind of sprouted a 0:31:13.160 --> 0:31:17.080 smaller group, and with the election coming up for the 0:31:17.160 --> 0:31:20.760 National Nurses United, we thought we could take that more 0:31:20.880 --> 0:31:24.680 of a like a grassroots movement to make a bigger change, 0:31:24.720 --> 0:31:27.920 because we believe, you know, all these smaller changes in 0:31:27.960 --> 0:31:31.560 the base should lead to a bigger change at the top, 0:31:32.040 --> 0:31:36.800 and unions are the perfect example where we can affect 0:31:36.920 --> 0:31:41.080 change and you know, have the politicians and all the 0:31:41.480 --> 0:31:46.360 people up in the highest echelon powers if you will 0:31:46.520 --> 0:31:51.560 listen and do what actually the base needs. And you know, 0:31:51.920 --> 0:31:56.400 there's no better way of doing it but having your 0:31:56.480 --> 0:32:01.280 own union representing what the nurses in the union want 0:32:01.840 --> 0:32:07.960 and their policies and statements should reflect what the nurses need, 0:32:08.040 --> 0:32:10.160 and that's what we're here, and that's why we call 0:32:10.200 --> 0:32:11.920 ourselves Shift Change. 0:32:12.520 --> 0:32:15.080 One thing I wanted to add on to that is that, 0:32:15.240 --> 0:32:18.120 like when we first all came together, there was a 0:32:18.120 --> 0:32:21.800 call from palsening trade unions to push our own trade 0:32:21.880 --> 0:32:24.360 unions here in the US, which have historically not really 0:32:24.440 --> 0:32:30.720 taken strong positions on things like international conflicts or you 0:32:30.720 --> 0:32:34.800 know what's going on in Palestine in particular. And our 0:32:34.920 --> 0:32:38.800 union just adopted BDS language within the last year, the 0:32:38.840 --> 0:32:42.440 California nurs Association National Nurses Organizing Committee, and that took 0:32:42.480 --> 0:32:46.520 an extraordinary amount of pressure from rank and file nurses 0:32:46.560 --> 0:32:48.880 to get the leadership to agree that this was an 0:32:48.880 --> 0:32:53.240 important stance. We noticed that unions had just gone through 0:32:54.600 --> 0:32:57.600 democratic reform processes who have been taken over by rank 0:32:57.600 --> 0:33:03.360 and file workers. UA with Sean Fayn had adopted much 0:33:03.440 --> 0:33:09.040 more like much quickly, much more quickly resolutions in favor 0:33:09.200 --> 0:33:13.320 of peace and ceasefire. And you know, as workers were 0:33:13.360 --> 0:33:16.840 like against war of all kinds. And but in particular 0:33:16.960 --> 0:33:21.920 this is like a particularly egregious situation where nurses have 0:33:22.080 --> 0:33:25.000 borne the brunts of like all the healthcare workers who 0:33:25.000 --> 0:33:30.960 are being targeted specifically, and palisfied in Gaza, the majority 0:33:31.000 --> 0:33:34.640 of those of those healthcare workers are nurses, so we 0:33:34.720 --> 0:33:37.840 believe there's a direct connection between you know, our work 0:33:37.880 --> 0:33:40.800 here and the support of those nurses over there. And 0:33:41.360 --> 0:33:45.760 I guess then going from that to leaning towards how 0:33:45.920 --> 0:33:50.480 our building a democratic rank and file union. Not only 0:33:50.520 --> 0:33:53.160 will it enact these be a way for us to 0:33:53.320 --> 0:33:56.840 enact the kind of positive policy changes we want, but 0:33:56.880 --> 0:34:00.480 it'll build a stronger union for everybody that we can 0:34:00.520 --> 0:34:03.960 fight the bosses at the bedside making sure that our 0:34:04.000 --> 0:34:08.279 patients are taking care of our communities. So I'll let it. 0:34:08.280 --> 0:34:09.360 Go, you know. 0:34:09.400 --> 0:34:14.239 So that's a bit of a segue into the next 0:34:14.280 --> 0:34:16.040 thing I wanted to ask about, which was, Okay, so 0:34:16.040 --> 0:34:18.600 you've talked about sort of you've talked about how you 0:34:18.600 --> 0:34:21.440 all met through like Palcini salid Are you're organizing how 0:34:21.440 --> 0:34:24.759 that's one of the important things for why y'all are 0:34:24.840 --> 0:34:27.759 doing this. But I wanted to say, yeah, so if 0:34:27.760 --> 0:34:29.960 you can go into more detail about the specific things 0:34:29.960 --> 0:34:31.640 that brought you to running for this. 0:34:34.280 --> 0:34:36.000 Rosita, why don't you give a little bit of an 0:34:36.000 --> 0:34:38.160 account of your story of how you first heard about 0:34:38.160 --> 0:34:40.200 shift changes like, I think, because I think that's kind 0:34:40.200 --> 0:34:41.919 of that I think that would be fun. 0:34:44.440 --> 0:34:50.040 So I first heard of Shift Changed last year, and 0:34:50.600 --> 0:34:52.279 you know, I was very apprehensive. 0:34:52.320 --> 0:34:54.279 I was like, oh, wow, who's this new group that's 0:34:54.320 --> 0:34:54.680 coming in? 0:34:54.760 --> 0:34:57.400 And you know, I kept I was hearing from my 0:34:57.560 --> 0:35:00.799 very own union that you know, there was a group 0:35:00.800 --> 0:35:04.320 out there that was challenging and that maybe had gotten 0:35:04.360 --> 0:35:07.440 some things wrong, and you know, they just you know, 0:35:07.520 --> 0:35:10.799 needed to kind of be put aside. And so I 0:35:10.880 --> 0:35:13.480 did join one of the calls. There was an outreach 0:35:13.520 --> 0:35:15.799 call to kind of figure out whose shift Change is, 0:35:16.320 --> 0:35:18.360 and I thought it was pretty interesting. I thought, you know, 0:35:18.440 --> 0:35:22.319 here are some very motivated union members who see that 0:35:22.360 --> 0:35:27.359 there's something that needs to change within our union, which 0:35:27.440 --> 0:35:30.600 is part of what we do as organizers. We see 0:35:30.640 --> 0:35:32.600 that there may be something that needs to change even 0:35:32.600 --> 0:35:35.680 within our own union, and we as rank and file, 0:35:35.840 --> 0:35:37.920 or we as union members should be able to have 0:35:38.000 --> 0:35:40.600 that voice to change it. And what I was seeing 0:35:40.680 --> 0:35:44.680 was that their voice was being really suppressed. Instead of saying, hey, 0:35:44.960 --> 0:35:48.960 how can we move towards what you're asking and really 0:35:48.960 --> 0:35:51.480 come to a place where we can understand where you're 0:35:51.520 --> 0:35:54.320 coming from. Instead it was no We're not going to 0:35:54.360 --> 0:35:56.160 listen to their voices. We're not going to you know, 0:35:56.280 --> 0:36:00.200 even engage with this group. They're this rogue group out 0:36:00.200 --> 0:36:03.279 there that's like, you know, causing all this ruckus, which 0:36:03.360 --> 0:36:06.520 makes me, you know, I'm somebody who loves and gravitates 0:36:06.560 --> 0:36:07.280 towards ruckus. 0:36:09.280 --> 0:36:12.520 That's just my personality. So it just made me more curious. 0:36:12.560 --> 0:36:16.840 And then, you know, when we started organizing for you know, 0:36:16.880 --> 0:36:20.120 the Palestine Solidarity, John came in and I was like, 0:36:20.160 --> 0:36:22.360 oh wait, I think I know this guy, like, you know, 0:36:23.520 --> 0:36:26.160 he's one of those shift change guys. 0:36:27.239 --> 0:36:28.840 And it just made me more curious. 0:36:28.920 --> 0:36:33.000 And you know, we've had great conversations and I really 0:36:33.040 --> 0:36:36.440 really understand, you know, the motivation, and because of some 0:36:36.520 --> 0:36:39.680 things that have happened to me within our union that 0:36:39.719 --> 0:36:43.040 has made me really recognize there are ways that we 0:36:43.120 --> 0:36:47.440 can make positive changes for our union, and as organizers, 0:36:47.480 --> 0:36:51.239 as nurses, we have to strive for those and we 0:36:51.360 --> 0:36:53.920 have to have the ability to have our voices heard 0:36:54.480 --> 0:36:57.360 and to motivate each other to make those changes. 0:36:57.480 --> 0:36:58.680 Because if we. 0:36:58.560 --> 0:37:01.160 Are the union, then we should be able to change 0:37:01.200 --> 0:37:04.640 our union towards what we want to see out of 0:37:04.680 --> 0:37:05.200 our union. 0:37:05.480 --> 0:37:07.200 And that's probably the most important thing. 0:37:08.640 --> 0:37:11.080 I was gonna say, jahead, do you want to talk 0:37:11.120 --> 0:37:14.120 a little bit about your experience with the Minnesota Nurse 0:37:14.200 --> 0:37:18.560 Association strike in twenty twenty two and then watching the 0:37:18.640 --> 0:37:22.360 Nurses Forward people, because I think that kind of ties in. 0:37:22.440 --> 0:37:25.000 Well, sorry, before we do that, we have to do 0:37:25.040 --> 0:37:27.480 an ad break before. I'm also gonna get yelled at 0:37:27.560 --> 0:37:43.640 my bosses at break ay, ads, all right, we're back, 0:37:43.640 --> 0:37:44.600 We're back from ads hell. 0:37:44.719 --> 0:37:45.680 Yeah, let's do this. 0:37:46.320 --> 0:37:50.080 I thought my two cents would be a good fit 0:37:50.200 --> 0:37:53.520 after what Rusida just said. Everybody has their own unique 0:37:53.560 --> 0:37:57.200 experience and how they became interested. I'm a member of 0:37:57.320 --> 0:38:01.400 Minnesota Nurses Association and we went to unstrike two years 0:38:01.440 --> 0:38:10.120 ago to request and demand better contract with the Fairview 0:38:10.200 --> 0:38:15.120 system here in the Twin Cities area. Eventually there was 0:38:15.160 --> 0:38:18.840 a contract that it was ratified. After that there was 0:38:19.120 --> 0:38:23.520 an election. And even though I'm a member, an active member, 0:38:24.440 --> 0:38:27.920 I serve on some committees with M and A, and 0:38:29.160 --> 0:38:33.120 recently I joined the Government Affairs Committee. You know, having 0:38:33.239 --> 0:38:37.280 been really engaged in the politics of the union until 0:38:38.480 --> 0:38:42.839 a new slate another troublemakers, if you will, another group 0:38:42.880 --> 0:38:46.920 of troublemakers, you know, who call themselves Nurse Nurses Forward. 0:38:47.520 --> 0:38:51.600 They ran against the current board and actually they won. 0:38:51.840 --> 0:38:56.239 They won a landslide last November, and that was a 0:38:56.360 --> 0:39:00.680 huge change and an inspiration for me. Really rank and 0:39:00.760 --> 0:39:03.440 file nurses and they're all, you know, nurses working the 0:39:04.680 --> 0:39:07.040 on the floors, and I know some of them personally, 0:39:07.600 --> 0:39:11.120 and I trusted these guys knew what they're talking about, 0:39:11.160 --> 0:39:14.480 and they they were running on a platform that made 0:39:14.560 --> 0:39:17.640 sense where all the rank and file nurses have a 0:39:17.680 --> 0:39:21.279 say and they are well informed because there's a lot 0:39:21.320 --> 0:39:24.640 of stuff that goes behind doors that nurses are not 0:39:24.800 --> 0:39:29.279 brevy to and that, you know, makes things sound a 0:39:29.280 --> 0:39:35.800 little shady sometimes where you know, unions are, say, endorsing 0:39:35.800 --> 0:39:39.400 a politician and this politician kind of drops the ball 0:39:39.640 --> 0:39:43.440 or does something that's not in the interest of the union, 0:39:43.480 --> 0:39:46.719 and yet they're still supporting them. We need to know 0:39:46.760 --> 0:39:49.680 why and how that came to be. So that kind 0:39:49.680 --> 0:39:53.040 of gave me an inspiration and the moment John came 0:39:53.080 --> 0:39:58.000 and recruited me, if you will, and I thought, sure, 0:39:58.120 --> 0:40:01.400 you know, if we if we can do affects some 0:40:01.560 --> 0:40:05.160 change in the local level, I think it's time to 0:40:05.239 --> 0:40:08.960 change at the national level. So we're hoping for the 0:40:09.000 --> 0:40:11.400 best here and we're trying to do our best to 0:40:11.440 --> 0:40:12.280 get a good result. 0:40:12.920 --> 0:40:14.359 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I mean 0:40:14.880 --> 0:40:17.080 that was some thing I remember from last time. Is 0:40:17.880 --> 0:40:20.799 this this issue of transparency in this issue of the 0:40:20.920 --> 0:40:24.919 union acting. I don't know if autonomously is the right word, 0:40:24.920 --> 0:40:29.200 but the union acting just sort of doing stuff that 0:40:30.320 --> 0:40:35.520 members were just like finding out about afterwards. Yeah, and 0:40:35.840 --> 0:40:38.840 you know, I don't know, I think like that's on 0:40:39.160 --> 0:40:42.280 a kind of basic I mean, there's obviously a political 0:40:42.360 --> 0:40:44.120 level to it, but on just the sort of basic 0:40:44.160 --> 0:40:48.120 what is a union level, you would think that the 0:40:48.200 --> 0:40:52.000 union wouldn't be doing that, and yet Comma, I was just. 0:40:51.920 --> 0:40:52.839 Going to comment on that. 0:40:53.280 --> 0:40:55.520 I think one of the biggest parallels that I've been 0:40:55.520 --> 0:40:57.759 able to see is, you know, we spend a lot 0:40:57.760 --> 0:41:02.040 of time of our as nurses fighting against the hospital industry. 0:41:02.160 --> 0:41:05.000 Right it's the big Boss, as we call it. You know, 0:41:05.080 --> 0:41:07.120 we march on the Boss, or you know, we have 0:41:07.360 --> 0:41:10.120 you know, rallies around it, or we do petitions, and 0:41:10.400 --> 0:41:13.120 you know, we're constantly fighting this big entity of the 0:41:13.160 --> 0:41:17.440 hospital industry, which oftentimes keeps us in the dark about 0:41:17.520 --> 0:41:21.759 policies or about changes that they're making or you know, 0:41:21.920 --> 0:41:24.360 various things, and I can't help but to see the 0:41:24.400 --> 0:41:28.839 parallels between our fight with the hospital industry and then 0:41:29.000 --> 0:41:29.600 comes our. 0:41:29.520 --> 0:41:30.840 Fight with our own union. 0:41:31.320 --> 0:41:35.680 So you know, how can we within our union change 0:41:35.719 --> 0:41:39.880 that so that we're not seeing both entities as the same. 0:41:40.520 --> 0:41:43.040 I don't want to be in a union that I 0:41:43.120 --> 0:41:47.080 also am feeling is the same entity that we are 0:41:47.120 --> 0:41:53.040 fighting a bedside. So that transparency for us is extremely important. 0:41:53.320 --> 0:41:57.840 That autonomy, that accountability is extremely important, because why should 0:41:57.960 --> 0:42:00.800 we be having two parallel fights with our own union 0:42:01.320 --> 0:42:02.720 and with the hospital industry. 0:42:03.760 --> 0:42:06.319 I was just going to say, like that the that's 0:42:06.440 --> 0:42:09.799 what the what inspired us the first time around was 0:42:09.800 --> 0:42:12.520 that it felt like we were struggling both against Like 0:42:13.440 --> 0:42:15.880 you've got to fight against management. Why do I have 0:42:15.960 --> 0:42:19.640 to also at the same time turn around and fight 0:42:19.960 --> 0:42:22.440 like with union staff about basic stuff. That's like all 0:42:22.480 --> 0:42:25.320 they have to do is like nurses are really smart. 0:42:25.440 --> 0:42:27.759 I know, it's hard, Like it's a shocking idea that 0:42:27.880 --> 0:42:31.440 nurses might know a thing or two and the idea 0:42:31.560 --> 0:42:34.440 that we that they have to come up and focus 0:42:34.520 --> 0:42:37.439 group amongst themselves to tell us what our values are. 0:42:37.520 --> 0:42:39.920 Right, Like I think I. 0:42:39.880 --> 0:42:41.920 Can walk around my unit and I can tell I 0:42:41.960 --> 0:42:44.719 can find out what nurses values are real fast. I mean, 0:42:44.760 --> 0:42:47.399 we may not all agree on every single thing, right, 0:42:47.800 --> 0:42:53.160 there's a there's a pretty wide amount of ideological like 0:42:53.280 --> 0:42:55.640 alignment in our union. We're not all we're not all 0:42:55.719 --> 0:42:59.040 in locks up about everything except for how important it 0:42:59.080 --> 0:43:03.000 is that nurses are actually leading and driving how the 0:43:03.080 --> 0:43:08.080 union works. And so we have you know, the main 0:43:08.320 --> 0:43:10.600 core thing. And I think this is what's so important 0:43:10.600 --> 0:43:13.000 about union organizing in particular, is that you can set 0:43:13.000 --> 0:43:17.360 aside disagreements on one thing and you focus on the 0:43:17.360 --> 0:43:21.160 thing that's the that's your can your shared material interest 0:43:21.760 --> 0:43:24.360 regardless because we all do the same kind of work. 0:43:24.719 --> 0:43:26.320 It's really important. 0:43:27.040 --> 0:43:29.920 Yeah, And that's and that. Yeah, but that also makes 0:43:29.960 --> 0:43:34.040 it doubly important that the institution that you're using to 0:43:34.080 --> 0:43:37.360 do this is actually doing the things you wanted to 0:43:37.400 --> 0:43:41.279 do when not fighting you at every step. One of 0:43:41.280 --> 0:43:43.759 the things that you mentioned we were talking about this 0:43:43.960 --> 0:43:45.719 was how this kind of stuff in the union was 0:43:45.760 --> 0:43:48.680 impacting Powsinian solidarity organizing. I was wondering if you could 0:43:48.680 --> 0:43:49.560 talk a bit about that. 0:43:52.960 --> 0:43:56.319 Oh, I can, I can take that and then and 0:43:56.400 --> 0:43:59.359 Johad can actually add into it. 0:43:59.560 --> 0:44:03.440 But so I was part of Social Justice Committee. 0:44:03.480 --> 0:44:07.279 I was actually the chair for the entire California for 0:44:07.480 --> 0:44:10.640 n and U. And one of the biggest things is, 0:44:10.680 --> 0:44:13.040 you know, of course we're speaking out for our communities, 0:44:13.040 --> 0:44:17.200 we're speaking out for oppression, against oppression, and specifically for 0:44:17.320 --> 0:44:21.400 marginalized communities. So I thought it would be pretty easy 0:44:21.640 --> 0:44:24.360 for us to align ourselves with our resolutions that we 0:44:24.440 --> 0:44:28.880 had just passed. And actually October the eighth of twenty 0:44:28.920 --> 0:44:31.120 twenty three, and I. 0:44:32.800 --> 0:44:34.480 Ran across a lot of barriers. 0:44:35.080 --> 0:44:39.160 I wanted our union, my union, to put out a 0:44:39.160 --> 0:44:41.600 statement about a ceasefire, and to put out a statement 0:44:41.640 --> 0:44:46.000 about how bombing hospitals and killing our healthcare worker colleagues 0:44:46.520 --> 0:44:53.080 was wrong. And I was constantly, you know, barriers were 0:44:53.080 --> 0:44:55.719 put up. I was told I could not throw, I 0:44:55.760 --> 0:44:59.359 could not do a vigil, I could not initiate, that 0:44:59.440 --> 0:45:02.239 I could not to speak on behalf of me being 0:45:02.239 --> 0:45:07.840 a nurse, and so that infuriated me. I felt really 0:45:07.880 --> 0:45:11.160 really betrayed by my union that we had just signed 0:45:11.200 --> 0:45:16.920 all these resolutions specifically talking about aggression, talking about aparthei, 0:45:17.120 --> 0:45:18.920 and yet I was being told that I could not 0:45:19.040 --> 0:45:21.880 speak up and then I was ghosted on a few times. 0:45:22.200 --> 0:45:24.440 I would start sending emails. I was like, hey, what's 0:45:24.520 --> 0:45:26.040 you know going on? How come I can't do this? 0:45:26.080 --> 0:45:28.200 And there would be no answer. Or I would say, hey, 0:45:28.280 --> 0:45:29.960 I want to do a vigil. Nope, you can't do 0:45:30.000 --> 0:45:32.880 a vigil. Nope, there's no signs that you can use. Nope, nope, no. 0:45:33.160 --> 0:45:35.000 And so I just kept getting all these no answers, 0:45:35.640 --> 0:45:37.600 and a few of us got together, we got a 0:45:37.600 --> 0:45:40.359 petition going, and we sent it in. We're like, hey, look, 0:45:40.760 --> 0:45:43.040 these are all the reasons why we as nurses feel 0:45:43.080 --> 0:45:46.200 that we should be speaking out against what's happening right now. 0:45:46.239 --> 0:45:48.200 And this is even in the early times. 0:45:48.280 --> 0:45:51.440 Even you know, really in you know, the end of October, 0:45:51.480 --> 0:45:55.799 beginning of the next month, and you know, it took 0:45:55.880 --> 0:45:57.600 them a long time to get it out, and it 0:45:57.680 --> 0:46:01.160 was a very middle of the road statement. At that time, 0:46:01.280 --> 0:46:04.360 I had asked the Union to sign on and endorse 0:46:04.560 --> 0:46:07.640 one of the largest and one of the first union 0:46:07.760 --> 0:46:10.359 rallies in support of Palestine that had been called by 0:46:10.360 --> 0:46:14.440 the Palestinian trade unions specifically for us to rally around, 0:46:15.000 --> 0:46:20.560 and they refused, And on that morning I submitted publicly 0:46:21.040 --> 0:46:25.200 my resignation to the Racial Social Justice Committee. I felt 0:46:25.280 --> 0:46:28.640 that it was an absolute dishonor for me to sit 0:46:28.680 --> 0:46:31.680 in that position and to be the face of a 0:46:31.680 --> 0:46:35.560 committee that says it stands for social justice and yet 0:46:35.640 --> 0:46:38.440 was putting up barriers for us to speak out as nurses. 0:46:38.880 --> 0:46:42.200 And that really was a huge deal for me. 0:46:42.800 --> 0:46:45.480 It was a huge deal for many other people that 0:46:45.600 --> 0:46:49.239 saw that as a gesture of solidarity. 0:46:49.600 --> 0:46:50.319 But it was more. 0:46:50.400 --> 0:46:52.120 It was about my ethics and it was about my 0:46:52.560 --> 0:46:57.400 moral standing. I could not legitimately sit in that position 0:46:57.920 --> 0:47:11.600 while my union was stifling and censoring my voice. 0:47:12.960 --> 0:47:14.640 It's a brief thing that you'd take a stand like that, 0:47:14.760 --> 0:47:17.359 and it's also it's the right thing to do, and 0:47:17.440 --> 0:47:18.960 you should never have had to do this in the 0:47:18.960 --> 0:47:24.040 first place, like Jesus Christ. Oh, I don't know, I mean, 0:47:25.880 --> 0:47:30.360 I don't know. It's just deeply and incredibly frustrating, like 0:47:30.600 --> 0:47:36.480 just hearing hearing that and watching them just like ignore, 0:47:36.560 --> 0:47:38.799 ignore the things that they ignore, the resolutions that they 0:47:39.000 --> 0:47:43.520 just passed, and I don't know, that's absolutely terrible. I 0:47:43.560 --> 0:47:49.840 hope they lose hipocrisy much. Yeah. 0:47:49.960 --> 0:47:53.440 Yeah, Well, if I may add to what Rosita has 0:47:53.480 --> 0:47:55.680 just said, First of all I have to say, Rosita 0:47:55.800 --> 0:47:59.279 is the bravest person I know, and what her positions 0:47:59.320 --> 0:48:04.000 and her ethics are of the highest caliber. So I'm 0:48:04.120 --> 0:48:07.680 honored to be running with her during this time. You know, 0:48:07.840 --> 0:48:13.520 from example here in Minnesota, you know nurses as part 0:48:13.560 --> 0:48:17.200 of the government Affairs committee I was involved in. I 0:48:17.239 --> 0:48:19.040 came kind of toward the end, so I can't take 0:48:19.080 --> 0:48:22.480 credit for it, but it was the keeping nurses at 0:48:22.520 --> 0:48:27.720 the bedside bill. It was. It was adopted, was passed 0:48:28.520 --> 0:48:31.480 the House. Now in Minnesota we have all three branches 0:48:31.520 --> 0:48:35.400 basically in the hands of Democrats. It passed the House 0:48:35.480 --> 0:48:39.360 and the Senate, and yet the governor vetoed it. Why 0:48:39.520 --> 0:48:44.000 because there was pressure from corporate you know, the big 0:48:44.040 --> 0:48:47.720 wigs told him, if you do it, we're gonna pull 0:48:47.800 --> 0:48:51.080 some investment or something, or I don't know, maybe we 0:48:51.120 --> 0:48:53.960 won't have you on the board after you retire, something 0:48:54.040 --> 0:48:57.239 like that. So I don't know, but that kind of 0:48:57.480 --> 0:49:01.960 triggered us. It was really stabbing the back, if you will. 0:49:02.040 --> 0:49:05.680 But it's still you know, the union itself could do better. 0:49:05.880 --> 0:49:10.080 It can be more sensitive to its members' needs and 0:49:10.160 --> 0:49:13.360 their demands. For example, we were trying to get a 0:49:13.440 --> 0:49:18.520 resolution or a statement it was back in October about 0:49:18.520 --> 0:49:22.000 a ceasefire here through the union, even though it's I 0:49:22.040 --> 0:49:25.960 would say, inconsequential for them to say, but they even 0:49:26.000 --> 0:49:30.960 refused to hear the suggestion or the movement to issue 0:49:31.000 --> 0:49:35.160 a statement that was the old board. Towards the end 0:49:35.239 --> 0:49:39.040 of the of the reign of the old board, there 0:49:39.080 --> 0:49:42.959 was more effort. I think it was mid December and 0:49:44.040 --> 0:49:49.000 a week really watered down resolution was adopted calling few 0:49:49.040 --> 0:49:52.799 seas fire the new board team and the first or 0:49:52.840 --> 0:49:56.479 second meeting in January. In February there was a much 0:49:56.520 --> 0:50:01.600 more robust resolution that was adapted at a much higher 0:50:02.719 --> 0:50:08.799 you know, NAIs against versus yes versus names in that 0:50:09.520 --> 0:50:12.200 there was no needs. Actually there were some abstentions like 0:50:12.239 --> 0:50:18.480 three out of fourteen, so you know there is a movement. 0:50:18.719 --> 0:50:23.000 There's a grassroots rank and file nurses who are pushing 0:50:23.040 --> 0:50:26.400 towards change the same thing. I'm also not only a nurse, 0:50:26.600 --> 0:50:30.880 but also a nursing faculty at Minnesota State University in Makato, 0:50:32.000 --> 0:50:36.239 and I belong to another union, the faculty Union. In 0:50:36.280 --> 0:50:40.200 the very beginning, there was just kind of deafening silence. 0:50:40.400 --> 0:50:43.880 Nobody wants to hear anything. It reminded me of the 0:50:43.960 --> 0:50:47.280 period after nine to eleven. If you speak anything against 0:50:47.320 --> 0:50:51.120 the government or anything real critique what the government did 0:50:51.200 --> 0:50:54.680 or didn't do, you are on the other side. You know, 0:50:54.800 --> 0:50:57.600 remember that if you're not with us, you are against 0:50:57.640 --> 0:51:00.640 us argument, and it's the same thing. 0:51:00.680 --> 0:51:01.840 It was the same thing here. 0:51:02.160 --> 0:51:04.399 I know people who lost their jobs because they were 0:51:04.400 --> 0:51:09.080 speaking out for Palestine or against the atrocities that these 0:51:09.160 --> 0:51:13.799 radis were committing. And that's from within unions and healthcare organizations. 0:51:13.800 --> 0:51:17.239 People who lost their livelihoods because of it, and they 0:51:17.239 --> 0:51:20.520 are labeled as anti Semitic or anything like that. So 0:51:20.719 --> 0:51:23.080 they were trying to kind of silence people, scare them 0:51:23.400 --> 0:51:28.400 with all these labels and you know, illegitimate ways of 0:51:28.880 --> 0:51:33.640 really conducting a civil discourse or having someone hear a 0:51:33.640 --> 0:51:39.080 different point of view. So, you know, from that sprouted 0:51:39.160 --> 0:51:43.880 this huge movement among nurses and healthcare professionals that we 0:51:44.080 --> 0:51:48.040 want this to go wider, even at the national level 0:51:48.440 --> 0:51:52.400 during the primaries, where a lot of organizing was happening 0:51:52.920 --> 0:51:57.400 for you know, uncommitted votes for the primaries for Joe Biden, 0:51:57.760 --> 0:52:01.560 and that made them feel uh, you know, the pressure 0:52:01.920 --> 0:52:05.760 and as you can see, the US vetoed a ceasefire 0:52:05.800 --> 0:52:09.280 resolution I think three times before, and yet this week 0:52:09.560 --> 0:52:12.520 they allowed one to pass because there is a lot 0:52:12.520 --> 0:52:15.160 of political pressure because they are they are doing their 0:52:15.200 --> 0:52:18.279 own calculation, I understand, but it's still there is a 0:52:18.360 --> 0:52:21.160 grassroot movement that affects this change. 0:52:21.800 --> 0:52:24.239 I just want to tie in, like everything that we're 0:52:24.280 --> 0:52:29.399 saying around organizing, because I think so much a lot 0:52:29.400 --> 0:52:31.480 of people come to unions with the idea that this 0:52:31.640 --> 0:52:34.880 is how they you know, you get a chance to 0:52:34.920 --> 0:52:38.279 build a platform to make a case for the right policies, right, 0:52:38.800 --> 0:52:42.839 and we you know, we push things through legislation and 0:52:43.000 --> 0:52:47.360 lobbying and then for some reason, like a governor decides 0:52:47.400 --> 0:52:50.160 that they're not going to pass it. You know, our union, 0:52:50.840 --> 0:52:54.120 like my part of the union, California Association National Nurses 0:52:54.600 --> 0:52:58.759 Organizing Committee, this is redda's Part two was at one 0:52:58.760 --> 0:53:02.799 point powerful, like was so organized and so powerful that 0:53:02.880 --> 0:53:05.200 they forced the state of California, which is one of 0:53:05.239 --> 0:53:09.000 the largest economies in the world, to pass a ratio 0:53:09.040 --> 0:53:14.240 bill that was you know that the Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor, 0:53:14.600 --> 0:53:16.920 after what was passed that you know, those little nurses. 0:53:17.000 --> 0:53:19.279 I can't believe we're letting them do this. You know, 0:53:19.360 --> 0:53:22.359 our union at one point was powerful enough to help 0:53:22.480 --> 0:53:26.560 end Arnold Schwarzenegger's political career. And so when we talk 0:53:26.600 --> 0:53:30.960 about getting things passed, it requires a lot of power, 0:53:31.560 --> 0:53:33.760 and a lot of people don't understand the power means 0:53:33.840 --> 0:53:38.600 getting people together to commit to take collective action. That 0:53:38.680 --> 0:53:42.040 might mean occupying a capital, that might mean doing things 0:53:42.040 --> 0:53:45.040 that are a little bit outside the law right, but 0:53:45.200 --> 0:53:48.160 we understand that if we don't have the power, then 0:53:48.160 --> 0:53:51.400 none of these you know, ideal, idealistic things that we 0:53:51.480 --> 0:53:54.120 want to have see change in the world or happened 0:53:54.160 --> 0:53:58.239 in the world can happen. And we've seen when we're 0:53:58.239 --> 0:54:00.560 talking about this idea. If you're either with it's against 0:54:00.640 --> 0:54:04.440 us or against us people who are advocating for building 0:54:04.480 --> 0:54:08.399 that power, and that power comes through defending our contracts, 0:54:08.440 --> 0:54:11.799 defending our coworkers to grieve inspits, making sure that we 0:54:12.040 --> 0:54:16.440 are taking aggressive like action when it comes to strikes, 0:54:16.520 --> 0:54:19.520 and getting a strong contract language. In the first place. 0:54:20.640 --> 0:54:23.160 People who are advocating for that are being labeled like 0:54:23.520 --> 0:54:27.319 the enemy inside a union. It's very difficult when you 0:54:28.160 --> 0:54:30.680 put so much of your time and energy into union work, 0:54:30.760 --> 0:54:34.239 which anyone who's a committed unionist can tell you of 0:54:34.320 --> 0:54:37.120 all the countless amounts of their free time that they 0:54:37.160 --> 0:54:39.399 spend away from their family, away from their friends, away 0:54:39.400 --> 0:54:42.040 from their kids, doing the work of making sure that 0:54:42.520 --> 0:54:45.960 the union is strong. To be kind of accused of 0:54:46.239 --> 0:54:49.239 being not on the team right, or not being for 0:54:49.280 --> 0:54:53.920 everyone else, not being a team player, when you're always committed, 0:54:54.160 --> 0:54:56.560 you know, to building the power of the team. I mean, 0:54:56.560 --> 0:54:59.040 this is why we're running is because those of us 0:54:59.120 --> 0:55:02.560 who are making the case that we need to be 0:55:02.680 --> 0:55:05.440 an organized union. We need a union full of people 0:55:05.480 --> 0:55:09.479 who know how to how to fight, how to push back, 0:55:09.600 --> 0:55:12.399 how to stand up for those of us who might 0:55:12.440 --> 0:55:17.080 be weaker than others. To be labeled troublemakers or pains 0:55:17.080 --> 0:55:19.720 in the ads, or they even call us anti union 0:55:19.800 --> 0:55:22.879 or union busting, which is really just it hurts, right, 0:55:23.920 --> 0:55:27.480 It's very stressful, but it's worth it to us because 0:55:27.680 --> 0:55:31.759 our principles and our commitment to our coworkers and building 0:55:32.120 --> 0:55:35.919 a workplace that's a just place, a place that takes 0:55:35.920 --> 0:55:38.680 care of all the people in our communities, people who 0:55:38.719 --> 0:55:42.200 would otherwise be denied the care that they deserve. We 0:55:42.280 --> 0:55:44.680 know that we can only do that by being organized, 0:55:44.719 --> 0:55:50.239 building relationships and taking action together as a union to fight. 0:55:50.560 --> 0:55:53.120 And we know what that looks like. We have members 0:55:53.120 --> 0:55:55.239 of Shift Change who have been there when they've been 0:55:55.840 --> 0:56:00.600 occupying capital buildings, running politicians out of office. I want 0:56:00.600 --> 0:56:03.080 our union to be I tell everybody this. I want 0:56:03.080 --> 0:56:05.680 our union to be strong and powerful, and I want 0:56:05.680 --> 0:56:07.600 it to be frightening to people who stand in the 0:56:07.600 --> 0:56:11.440 way of nurses and our patients. And this is all connected. 0:56:11.600 --> 0:56:14.840 You know what we see, you know our government willing 0:56:14.880 --> 0:56:18.360 to let happen to people halfway across the world. I 0:56:18.400 --> 0:56:21.680 always tell people my coworkers, you know what we let 0:56:21.719 --> 0:56:24.879 our bosses get away with the least of us, it'll 0:56:24.920 --> 0:56:26.680 do to any of us if they had the chance. 0:56:27.719 --> 0:56:31.200 And so all of us come from the point of 0:56:31.239 --> 0:56:34.080 view that we have to build our power. That power 0:56:34.120 --> 0:56:37.160 has to be you know, honed through our fights at 0:56:37.200 --> 0:56:38.520 our work, making sure. 0:56:38.360 --> 0:56:38.759 That our. 0:56:40.200 --> 0:56:43.040 Working conditions are good, because we know when nurses have 0:56:43.120 --> 0:56:46.120 good working conditions, patients get the care they need. And 0:56:46.160 --> 0:56:48.719 when we're powerful and strong at the bedside, we can 0:56:48.760 --> 0:56:50.680 be powerful and strong out in the community where we 0:56:50.719 --> 0:56:52.560 need to take our fights. When we want to make 0:56:52.560 --> 0:56:56.040 the world a better place for everybody. You know, I 0:56:56.040 --> 0:56:59.960 don't think there's any coincidence that you know, Razita is, 0:57:00.360 --> 0:57:03.800 you know, an indigenous woman. Her family's from refugees from 0:57:04.040 --> 0:57:07.600 American foreign policy broad she had learned to be a 0:57:07.680 --> 0:57:14.000 nurse in Gaza. Zenia's family it's from the Dominican Republic. 0:57:14.080 --> 0:57:18.480 Her family like fled like a US back dictator there, Trahiro, 0:57:19.400 --> 0:57:21.680 And I don't think that there's any to me, there's no, 0:57:23.240 --> 0:57:26.080 it's not a coincidence that we're all here doing this 0:57:26.200 --> 0:57:28.520 work of building the kind of powerful union that we 0:57:28.640 --> 0:57:31.960 know that all of our coworkers deserve, that our communities deserve, 0:57:32.040 --> 0:57:34.800 the whole world deserves. 0:57:36.720 --> 0:57:37.680 Four troublemakers. 0:57:38.880 --> 0:57:43.800 Oh yeah, someone, someone smarter than me, once said this one. 0:57:45.760 --> 0:57:50.680 Didn't someone say once that they've been called MAGA supporters 0:57:50.720 --> 0:57:51.120 or something. 0:57:51.960 --> 0:57:55.400 They were telling everybody that we were, uh, you know, weird, 0:57:55.640 --> 0:57:59.760 right wing, trumpy people. And I think that anyone who 0:57:59.760 --> 0:58:05.120 knows any of us but know that that is this 0:58:05.840 --> 0:58:06.280 the truth. 0:58:07.920 --> 0:58:08.920 But it is what it is. 0:58:09.000 --> 0:58:11.200 You know, the people will say whatever they have to 0:58:11.240 --> 0:58:15.760 say to scare people away from us, because that's easier 0:58:15.800 --> 0:58:19.000 than doing the right thing, which is to make sure 0:58:19.040 --> 0:58:24.280 that our union is a bottom up movement led by nurses. 0:58:25.040 --> 0:58:28.000 They're very afraid of us doing getting our stuff together 0:58:28.040 --> 0:58:32.320 because there's you know, there's always it's easier to get 0:58:32.320 --> 0:58:33.919 along with the boss and it is to get along 0:58:33.920 --> 0:58:36.160 with your coworkers sometimes. I think anyone will tell you 0:58:36.200 --> 0:58:38.520 that as long as that we all know people who 0:58:38.560 --> 0:58:40.480 are friends with the boss, because that's an easy thing 0:58:40.520 --> 0:58:43.080 to be. It's hard to stick up for people who 0:58:43.720 --> 0:58:46.440 otherwise can't stick up for themselves. 0:58:46.720 --> 0:58:49.800 Just in the in the you know, for our elections. 0:58:49.840 --> 0:58:54.280 So the fact that we're even running our union doesn't 0:58:54.360 --> 0:58:57.120 want everyone to know about elections, and the way that 0:58:57.480 --> 0:58:59.560 it's kind of we just give you the list that 0:58:59.560 --> 0:59:01.720 we're going to endorse, just vote for them, and no 0:59:01.880 --> 0:59:05.480 questions asked. That that's just how it should be. So 0:59:05.520 --> 0:59:07.200 the fact that, you know, there's not a lot of 0:59:07.200 --> 0:59:09.880 information about the elections that go on in the N 0:59:09.880 --> 0:59:11.960 and U. What does it mean? What does it mean 0:59:12.000 --> 0:59:14.640 to be in, you know, in a Council of Presidents? 0:59:14.880 --> 0:59:17.400 What does it even mean to be a delegate? We 0:59:17.480 --> 0:59:21.640 are often spoon fed the delegate position, just be a 0:59:21.680 --> 0:59:25.000 delegate and then not told exactly what that means. What 0:59:25.080 --> 0:59:27.440 does that mean for us? What does that mean in 0:59:27.440 --> 0:59:29.880 our resolutions? What does that mean when we go to convention? 0:59:30.520 --> 0:59:32.880 Those things should not be a mystery to us. We 0:59:32.880 --> 0:59:36.000 shouldn't have to poke in prod to get that information 0:59:36.040 --> 0:59:38.600 about elections, and so that's also one of the things 0:59:38.600 --> 0:59:41.320 that we're trying to highlight as well. We should be 0:59:41.520 --> 0:59:45.560 very informed. And I think that's also another parallel between 0:59:45.680 --> 0:59:49.640 our US government who chooses you know, they kind of 0:59:49.720 --> 0:59:52.320 sometimes expect us not to go to the polls because 0:59:52.320 --> 0:59:56.560 it works in their favor, to not be informed voters 0:59:56.920 --> 0:59:59.280 because it works in their favor. So we can kind 0:59:59.280 --> 1:00:01.200 of see that same parallel, and that's one of the 1:00:01.200 --> 1:00:03.960 things that you know, I think John has made a 1:00:04.000 --> 1:00:08.040 great way of highlighting that and has really essentially, you know, 1:00:08.280 --> 1:00:11.040 paved the way for making that information known as well 1:00:11.080 --> 1:00:14.200 as Zenya Zenia is. Can I say this, she's a 1:00:14.240 --> 1:00:18.760 full badass because she she her and John, like I 1:00:18.800 --> 1:00:20.960 have to say, like, they are so on it of 1:00:21.000 --> 1:00:24.880 getting that information out, and it's extremely important because we 1:00:24.960 --> 1:00:27.000 want our nurses to be informed, we want all of 1:00:27.080 --> 1:00:27.880 us to be informed. 1:00:29.000 --> 1:00:31.600 Yeah. So on that note, when is the election and 1:00:31.640 --> 1:00:33.240 if you're in the Union, how do you vote? 1:00:35.360 --> 1:00:38.800 Ballots go out April fifth, we have to have you 1:00:38.880 --> 1:00:42.480 have to have your ballot in Oakland in the office 1:00:43.240 --> 1:00:46.760 by May. We're telling people May seventeenth, because they're going 1:00:46.800 --> 1:00:51.080 to be counted the morning of May eighteenth. You will 1:00:51.120 --> 1:00:54.040 get if you are a member, a duce paying member 1:00:54.120 --> 1:00:57.960 in good standing, you will get a ballot in the mail. 1:00:58.360 --> 1:01:00.760 But we are also telling people because we are finding 1:01:00.800 --> 1:01:04.320 that there's kind of like two lists of people, you know, 1:01:04.520 --> 1:01:08.160 in particularly our VA nurses. VA nurses are telling us 1:01:08.200 --> 1:01:11.560 that they have not been getting bad they didn't get 1:01:11.560 --> 1:01:15.760 ballots last election, and so we're encouraging everyone to send 1:01:16.160 --> 1:01:20.360 emails to the election officers to get a ballot if 1:01:20.400 --> 1:01:23.480 you haven't gotten one, to make sure that those lists. 1:01:23.480 --> 1:01:26.560 There's a list of people paying dues and they faithfully 1:01:26.560 --> 1:01:29.680 take your dues out of your out of your check, 1:01:30.520 --> 1:01:32.640 and then there's a list of people who receive ballots. 1:01:33.000 --> 1:01:36.320 You know, definitely very normal and cool, the sort of 1:01:36.400 --> 1:01:39.760 thing that we expect from any sort of union, that is, 1:01:40.320 --> 1:01:43.520 you know, buying for the nurses. And so we have 1:01:43.560 --> 1:01:48.320 an election email. Can I does anyone have that off 1:01:48.320 --> 1:01:49.600 top of their heads? I will pull it up real 1:01:49.720 --> 1:01:50.920 quick as we were talking. 1:01:51.080 --> 1:01:53.200 That's fine, we'll just we'll just show notes. 1:01:53.320 --> 1:01:56.480 Yes, yeah, it will be in the description. 1:01:56.640 --> 1:02:00.120 And in the meantime, you know, people can go to 1:02:00.160 --> 1:02:02.440 our website. We have a website where you can read 1:02:02.480 --> 1:02:07.920 about our story, our philosophy, our platform, you know, all 1:02:08.000 --> 1:02:11.000 the things that people should know and how to request 1:02:11.000 --> 1:02:14.080 the ballot and how to email the union and everything. 1:02:14.360 --> 1:02:18.320 The address is shift change and you one word dot org. 1:02:20.520 --> 1:02:23.480 Awesome. Yeah, thank you, thank you three so much for 1:02:23.520 --> 1:02:28.160 coming on the show. And hope, hope you beat them. 1:02:28.400 --> 1:02:32.240 I'm looking forward to us having a vigor where we can. 1:02:33.280 --> 1:02:34.640 Yeah, I'm excited. 1:02:35.960 --> 1:02:39.360 Thank you, thank you for having us think you appreciate it. 1:02:40.120 --> 1:02:44.160 Yeah, and the cerpanicett appened here you too, also listen, 1:02:44.160 --> 1:02:48.680 dear listener, can go make trouble for your bosses, your 1:02:48.720 --> 1:02:51.400 political leaders and people in your union if they're not 1:02:51.440 --> 1:02:52.360 doing what you wanted to do. 1:02:53.000 --> 1:02:55.520 Hell yeah, absolutely. 1:03:08.760 --> 1:03:11.200 Hello, and welcome to it could happen here. A podcast 1:03:11.240 --> 1:03:14.120 about things falling apart and how we try to put 1:03:14.160 --> 1:03:17.560 things back together again. It's sort of the Humpty Dumpty 1:03:17.560 --> 1:03:20.920 of podcasts. And of course, all the King's horses and 1:03:20.960 --> 1:03:23.040 all the kings men can't put us back together again 1:03:23.480 --> 1:03:26.080 because the attendance of power will never solve our problems 1:03:26.120 --> 1:03:28.440 for us. It's up to us to collectively solve our 1:03:28.480 --> 1:03:33.200 own problems. I'm your guest host with all the dramatic metaphors, 1:03:33.520 --> 1:03:38.800 Margaret Gildoy. Today it's one of those things falling apart episodes. 1:03:39.320 --> 1:03:41.520 Today we're going to be talking about the Kinsey Institute 1:03:41.520 --> 1:03:45.240 for Research and Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, a research institute 1:03:45.240 --> 1:03:49.400 in Bloomington, Indiana. Its mission is to quote foster and 1:03:49.440 --> 1:03:54.640 promote a greater understanding of human sexuality and relationships to research, outreach, education, 1:03:55.160 --> 1:03:59.920 and historical preservation. The Kinsey Institute in many ways is 1:04:00.200 --> 1:04:04.240 just a sexual research center. It's the sexual research Center. 1:04:04.720 --> 1:04:07.720 We're going to be talking to Dev Montonez, who last 1:04:07.720 --> 1:04:10.560 week gave me a tour of the center. But first 1:04:11.000 --> 1:04:15.120 being me, I want to give you all context. I'm 1:04:15.120 --> 1:04:17.600 going to talk about history. I'm going to talk about 1:04:17.600 --> 1:04:22.320 a different institute for sexual research called well, the Institute 1:04:22.360 --> 1:04:25.920 for Sexual Research, except it was in Berlin from nineteen 1:04:26.040 --> 1:04:28.960 nineteen to nineteen thirty three, so they called it the 1:04:29.240 --> 1:04:33.400 Institute for Sexual Wiston Shaft History sometimes remembers it as 1:04:33.520 --> 1:04:38.760 Hirschfeld's Institute after Magnus Hirschfeld, the director of it. For 1:04:38.800 --> 1:04:43.720 fourteen years, the institute researched human sexuality. They offered consulting 1:04:43.800 --> 1:04:46.720 on matters of sex to straight and gay people. They 1:04:46.760 --> 1:04:51.000 pioneered a ton of transsexual medical practices, including pushing for 1:04:51.040 --> 1:04:54.200 the shocking at the time idea that trans people are 1:04:54.200 --> 1:04:57.800 happier if we're just allowed to socially transition and live 1:04:57.840 --> 1:05:01.880 as our preferred gender, which they observed led to a 1:05:01.960 --> 1:05:06.360 dramatic drop in suicide rates. This is medical practice that 1:05:06.400 --> 1:05:09.080 has continued, and we have more and more research about 1:05:09.120 --> 1:05:13.960 that to this day. The institute coined the terms transvestite 1:05:13.960 --> 1:05:18.120 and transsexual. They performed the first gender confirmation surgery in 1:05:18.160 --> 1:05:21.680 known history on a woman named Dora Richter in nineteen thirty. 1:05:22.320 --> 1:05:27.360 They worked alongside pro homosexual advocacy groups. Germany led the 1:05:27.400 --> 1:05:31.360 Western world in acceptance of LGBT folks in the nineteen 1:05:31.400 --> 1:05:35.280 twenties and early nineteen thirties. It was founded by three 1:05:35.360 --> 1:05:39.520 Jewish researchers, the most famous of whom is the director, 1:05:39.600 --> 1:05:45.240 Magnus Hirschfeld. The institute itself, however, is famous today for 1:05:45.360 --> 1:05:50.440 one thing. Imagine a picture of a book burning. The 1:05:50.480 --> 1:05:53.200 first picture that comes to your mind is probably black 1:05:53.240 --> 1:05:57.040 and white, and it's of Nazis. This photo is used 1:05:57.080 --> 1:06:00.360 any time someone wants to say something like the are 1:06:00.440 --> 1:06:04.919 bad they burned books. What usually goes on said when 1:06:04.960 --> 1:06:08.880 this photo is reproduced is what books those Nazis were burning. 1:06:10.040 --> 1:06:14.520 They were burning the institute on May sixth, nineteen thirty three, 1:06:14.960 --> 1:06:18.960 Nazis burned around twenty thousand books, destroying endless amounts of 1:06:19.040 --> 1:06:25.240 research into homosexuality, transsexuality, and cross dressing. Joseph Goebbels, the 1:06:25.320 --> 1:06:28.200 chief propagandist of the Nazis, was present. He gave a 1:06:28.240 --> 1:06:32.320 speech to forty thousand people during that book burning, so 1:06:32.600 --> 1:06:37.120 ended the Institute for Sexual Research. The first trans woman 1:06:37.160 --> 1:06:41.439 to undergo gender confirmation surgery, Dora Richter. She was either 1:06:41.520 --> 1:06:44.200 killed in this attack or she was arrested and died 1:06:44.240 --> 1:06:49.520 in prison shortly thereafter. Her exact fate is unknown. Magnus 1:06:49.560 --> 1:06:51.840 himself was out of the country at the time, and 1:06:51.920 --> 1:06:56.800 he never returned. He died in exile in France. This, 1:06:57.160 --> 1:06:59.360 I believe, is the context we need to hold onto 1:06:59.360 --> 1:07:01.840 when we talk about the Kinsey Institute, when we talk 1:07:01.880 --> 1:07:05.160 about what they're facing today, as we watch people running 1:07:05.200 --> 1:07:08.680 for office in this country. Wielding flamethrowers to burn books 1:07:08.680 --> 1:07:12.720 and campaign ads, while librarians face criminal penalties for making 1:07:12.760 --> 1:07:17.240 books available to students. Eventually, the Nazis were defeated, of course, 1:07:17.440 --> 1:07:20.080 they were defeated through force of arms, after great loss 1:07:20.080 --> 1:07:23.560 of life and a coming together of ideological enemies like 1:07:23.640 --> 1:07:30.000 capitalists and authoritarian communists. Shortly thereafter, in nineteen forty seven, 1:07:30.560 --> 1:07:35.600 a bisexual, polyamorous sexologist named Alfred Charles Kinsey founded his 1:07:35.680 --> 1:07:39.680 own Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, 1:07:40.560 --> 1:07:44.240 seventy seven years ago for those keeping track. Thereafter, he 1:07:44.320 --> 1:07:48.560 produced work that's foundational to modern sexology. Most famous today 1:07:48.680 --> 1:07:52.200 is the Kinsey Scale, which broke homosexuality and heterosexuality out 1:07:52.240 --> 1:07:55.680 of a binary. Maybe the most famous at the time 1:07:55.720 --> 1:07:58.160 of his work, though, was his nineteen forty eight book 1:07:58.520 --> 1:08:02.120 Sexual Behavior and the Human in his later book Sexual 1:08:02.160 --> 1:08:05.600 Behavior in the Human Female, which are often called the 1:08:05.680 --> 1:08:10.320 Kinsey Reports, which offered groundbreaking analysis like it turns out 1:08:10.320 --> 1:08:14.240 women and joy sex also, and also that thirty seven 1:08:14.280 --> 1:08:19.080 percent of men had had quote overt homosexual experience to orgasm, 1:08:19.400 --> 1:08:23.120 which shocked the hell out of the world. Well, it 1:08:23.280 --> 1:08:28.080 probably shocked about sixty seven percent of the world. Since then, 1:08:28.280 --> 1:08:31.200 the Kinsey Institute has been one of the premier sexology 1:08:31.280 --> 1:08:35.040 research institutes and archives in the world, and now in 1:08:35.080 --> 1:08:37.880 the twenty twenties, it finds itself at the center of 1:08:37.880 --> 1:08:41.880 a culture war and conservative backlash. For decades, the right 1:08:41.920 --> 1:08:44.559 wing has tried and failed to find evidence that Kinsey 1:08:44.600 --> 1:08:48.880 himself was a pedophile. Last February, the Republican government of 1:08:48.920 --> 1:08:53.479 Indiana voted for House Bill one thousand and one, which 1:08:53.520 --> 1:08:57.519 bars state money from funding the institute. To tell us 1:08:57.520 --> 1:09:00.000 what's happened with that, what the future of the institute 1:09:00.080 --> 1:09:03.120 it is likely to be, and how all this ties 1:09:03.120 --> 1:09:05.880 into the culture wars that we're living through Right now, 1:09:06.520 --> 1:09:10.000 we have Dev Montanez, the ADMIN coordinator of the institute 1:09:10.040 --> 1:09:16.400 and a student at Indiana University. Hi, Dev, Hey, thanks 1:09:16.400 --> 1:09:17.479 for listening to my long intro. 1:09:19.040 --> 1:09:22.479 It's good for me to know some of the history 1:09:22.479 --> 1:09:25.160 behind the place that I'm at forty hours a week. 1:09:28.320 --> 1:09:31.559 So could you introduce yourself about a little bit about 1:09:31.560 --> 1:09:34.640 the work that you do at the institute? And I 1:09:34.640 --> 1:09:40.640 don't know maybe what brought you there, but just yeah. 1:09:38.840 --> 1:09:43.800 So I started back in early twenty twenty two as 1:09:43.920 --> 1:09:46.639 kind of the person who was spearheading the seventy fifth 1:09:46.640 --> 1:09:53.360 anniversary celebrations that we were going to have. And I 1:09:53.400 --> 1:09:55.839 am lucky enough that I have a background in DIY 1:09:55.880 --> 1:10:00.920 punk and so my organization skills are largely from that 1:10:01.439 --> 1:10:06.599 and not from any type of institution. Somehow, those skills 1:10:06.760 --> 1:10:11.120 go over really well in academia. Okay, a few of 1:10:11.160 --> 1:10:14.240 my friends that are like postdocs and stuff that are 1:10:14.320 --> 1:10:17.200 now in you know, academic worlds, are like, oh, yeah, 1:10:17.200 --> 1:10:20.080 this has helped me. You know, running shows has really 1:10:20.080 --> 1:10:21.640 helped me run research projects. 1:10:22.280 --> 1:10:25.000 Oh yeah, because it's all about having your own initiative 1:10:25.160 --> 1:10:28.160 and working for people exactly and interesting. 1:10:28.680 --> 1:10:31.160 Yeah, it's been. It's been great to see and kind 1:10:31.200 --> 1:10:32.720 of be in the middle of it. 1:10:33.200 --> 1:10:34.240 Yeah. 1:10:34.400 --> 1:10:34.599 Yeah. 1:10:34.640 --> 1:10:37.599 I was originally at Rutgers and then I didn't finish 1:10:37.680 --> 1:10:41.719 my degree there, dropped out because of financial issues of course, 1:10:41.960 --> 1:10:45.599 as that's what happens when you're in college. Yeah, and 1:10:46.600 --> 1:10:51.000 I was in Bloomington for a long time, almost seven years, 1:10:51.040 --> 1:10:53.960 I want to say, before I started working here. And 1:10:54.240 --> 1:10:57.240 I started working here and I was like, well, I 1:10:57.320 --> 1:11:01.479 get like a little bit of tuition reimbursement for working here, 1:11:01.680 --> 1:11:05.400 I might as well finish it. So now I'm at 1:11:05.400 --> 1:11:08.200 the purpose of or at the standstill of my life 1:11:08.240 --> 1:11:11.719 where I am back in school and working full time. Yeah, 1:11:12.520 --> 1:11:13.959 mainly just to get it over. 1:11:13.760 --> 1:11:16.880 With, get working full time over with. 1:11:17.520 --> 1:11:21.920 Uh No, well I wish get the degree over with that. 1:11:22.479 --> 1:11:25.360 If I have the debt, I might as well have it. 1:11:25.840 --> 1:11:29.320 Yeah, so okay. So you work for the Kinsey Institute, 1:11:29.360 --> 1:11:32.880 and the Kinsey Institute is totally fine and on solid 1:11:32.880 --> 1:11:35.160 footing and is completely okay. So this is the thing 1:11:35.160 --> 1:11:38.519 that surprised me, you know, when I came and visited 1:11:38.560 --> 1:11:41.439 the Kinsey Institute and thank you for the tour of 1:11:41.479 --> 1:11:46.680 the institute. I the Kinsey Institute is such a institute, 1:11:46.720 --> 1:11:50.280 such a monolith, such a a thing that has existed 1:11:50.360 --> 1:11:54.719 for so long. It's hard for me to imagine people 1:11:54.760 --> 1:11:57.200 being really mad at it. Like it's it's hard for 1:11:57.240 --> 1:12:02.240 me to imagine that it's in trouble and it seems 1:12:02.280 --> 1:12:04.320 too big to fail. But like not too big, but 1:12:04.400 --> 1:12:10.360 too institutional, too important, Like I can't imagine someone saying, oh, 1:12:10.400 --> 1:12:13.760 we want to get rid of this incredibly important historical thing. 1:12:14.720 --> 1:12:16.160 I guess that's what a lot of the culture wars 1:12:16.200 --> 1:12:19.680 actually are about. So what's going on. 1:12:20.680 --> 1:12:26.719 Okay, So last summer it was like the budget vote 1:12:26.760 --> 1:12:33.880 I think for Indiana government, state government, and they someone 1:12:35.200 --> 1:12:39.760 Larisa Sweet is her name, the representative who proposed this, 1:12:40.280 --> 1:12:47.200 basically decided to say Kensing's too is perverts and you 1:12:47.280 --> 1:12:51.519 we shouldn't fund them with state money, which would you 1:12:51.560 --> 1:12:55.599 know under I guess understandable. But we're not funded by 1:12:55.640 --> 1:13:00.400 state money. Okay, only like a small person of the 1:13:00.479 --> 1:13:04.080 university as a whole is funded by state government money. 1:13:04.800 --> 1:13:08.839 So it's not quite like your tax dollars are paying 1:13:09.040 --> 1:13:13.600 for us to exist. We are able to utilize the 1:13:13.640 --> 1:13:19.120 services of the university, which is very helpful in the 1:13:19.120 --> 1:13:22.679 case of being If we were like a nonprofit, we'd 1:13:22.680 --> 1:13:24.680 probably have to do a lot of that work, like 1:13:24.800 --> 1:13:27.759 legwork in terms of like up keep of a building, 1:13:28.439 --> 1:13:30.559 like we'd have to do that on our own right. 1:13:30.640 --> 1:13:36.080 But the university, the state government, does not fund us. 1:13:36.720 --> 1:13:40.640 We're funded by donors. We're funded by grants that we 1:13:40.720 --> 1:13:45.240 receive and endowments that exist that other people have given 1:13:45.320 --> 1:13:48.000 us because they believe in the worst that we do 1:13:48.400 --> 1:13:50.000 and they want to see it continue. 1:13:51.320 --> 1:13:55.200 So why are they trying to go after the wrong 1:13:55.280 --> 1:13:57.280 source of your funding? And how does it end up 1:13:57.320 --> 1:14:00.960 impacting you like that they've pas asked to this, you know, 1:14:01.080 --> 1:14:04.000 essentially law to take money away from you that you 1:14:04.000 --> 1:14:04.759 weren't using. 1:14:06.000 --> 1:14:11.320 Yeah. So the big thing is that there is a 1:14:11.360 --> 1:14:16.479 lot of misinformation about Alfred Kinsey and his first book, 1:14:16.560 --> 1:14:19.120 The Human Behavior of This or sorry, The Sexual Behavior 1:14:19.160 --> 1:14:24.160 of the Human Male, And there is a table within 1:14:24.240 --> 1:14:29.040 it of doctor Kinzie. When he did his research, he 1:14:29.120 --> 1:14:33.920 interviewed people specifically to ask them, you know, when were 1:14:33.960 --> 1:14:40.680 you first, like first realizing your sexual arousal. And some 1:14:40.720 --> 1:14:43.839 people said, you know, I was this age, I was twelve, 1:14:43.960 --> 1:14:48.160 I was five. And as a child, you know that 1:14:48.200 --> 1:14:51.479 you play around with your body because you're learning it right, 1:14:51.479 --> 1:14:54.679 because you've never used most of these things before. It's 1:14:54.680 --> 1:14:59.920 brand new. And so he had years in their ag 1:15:00.240 --> 1:15:04.240 in there that were younger than anyone that is conservative 1:15:04.280 --> 1:15:07.800 would want to believe that you would be sexually. 1:15:07.400 --> 1:15:12.679 Aroused, right unless you're going to marry a heterosexually into 1:15:12.720 --> 1:15:14.639 a pastor Yeah, yeah, exactly. 1:15:14.800 --> 1:15:18.880 Yeah, child marriage is coming back. So there's that true. Yeah, 1:15:19.000 --> 1:15:22.519 So there's that that exists. It's a lot of people 1:15:22.520 --> 1:15:26.000 who don't understand the research that he does. Period, there 1:15:26.040 --> 1:15:28.080 was a lot of backlash when he had when he 1:15:28.120 --> 1:15:30.800 did his work because people didn't want to believe that 1:15:31.400 --> 1:15:36.040 anyone was having premarital sex, that anyone was homosexual and 1:15:36.080 --> 1:15:41.880 it was normal, or that anyone any woman enjoys sex, 1:15:42.400 --> 1:15:45.240 right because it's for one thing only, right. 1:15:45.840 --> 1:15:48.920 So they looked at this chart that said five year 1:15:48.920 --> 1:15:55.160 olds experienced sexual attraction and said he's interviewing five year olds? 1:15:55.439 --> 1:15:55.960 Is that. 1:15:57.600 --> 1:16:03.320 Basically, or rather that he was doing experiments on five 1:16:03.400 --> 1:16:08.320 year olds. His work is like physical because he is 1:16:08.320 --> 1:16:13.439 a zoologist, right, biologist by nature. And I'm going to 1:16:13.479 --> 1:16:15.640 guess they think that any research that you do has 1:16:15.720 --> 1:16:17.760 to be with a person in one room and not 1:16:18.840 --> 1:16:22.519 you know, social interviews or oral histographies, Like they don't 1:16:22.560 --> 1:16:23.960 put those two things together. 1:16:24.080 --> 1:16:26.519 Right, And I was reading that they have a lot 1:16:26.520 --> 1:16:29.080 of I was expecting when when I looked at this, 1:16:29.120 --> 1:16:31.680 I was expecting to find like op eds from the 1:16:31.720 --> 1:16:34.759 fifties or something, But I'm finding things from twenty twenty 1:16:34.800 --> 1:16:39.200 three of people throwing a fit about the fact that 1:16:39.240 --> 1:16:42.519 he during some of this he did like, I mean, 1:16:42.520 --> 1:16:44.799 he was kinky. It seemed like right, he like filmed 1:16:44.840 --> 1:16:48.559 himself fucking, and he filmed his wife fucking and he 1:16:49.880 --> 1:16:52.840 a bunch of consenting adults had some sex that he 1:16:52.920 --> 1:16:57.240 was around for, and that's like meant to mean that 1:16:57.320 --> 1:16:59.479 he is a horrible, weird monster. 1:17:00.280 --> 1:17:04.040 Yeah, and truly, none of my work has anything to 1:17:04.120 --> 1:17:06.680 do with or literally anyone's work has anything to do 1:17:06.720 --> 1:17:10.080 with what Kinsey might have done when she was here, 1:17:10.160 --> 1:17:14.400 because he died so like within eight years of the 1:17:14.439 --> 1:17:15.920 institute even being a thing. 1:17:16.320 --> 1:17:17.439 Yeah, so. 1:17:19.280 --> 1:17:22.720 I don't know, it's not important to the work that 1:17:22.760 --> 1:17:25.200 we do now, even if he was a kinky person, 1:17:25.360 --> 1:17:30.200 Like people that get into sex research are interested in sex, 1:17:30.760 --> 1:17:33.960 so he wanted to try stuff out. I guess ye, Like, 1:17:34.080 --> 1:17:37.360 who does it? That's like the point of being alive. 1:17:38.040 --> 1:17:41.879 No, no, actually, the point of being alive is buying 1:17:42.040 --> 1:17:45.120 goods and services from our advertisers. I don't know if 1:17:45.160 --> 1:17:46.880 you knew this. I think you thought it was about 1:17:46.880 --> 1:17:51.479 seeking joy, but it's actually about filling the gaping mall 1:17:51.760 --> 1:17:55.479 at the center of your life with products like these ones. 1:18:06.520 --> 1:18:10.839 And we're back, Okay. So obviously people have a problem 1:18:10.880 --> 1:18:12.960 with this man who's been dead since the fifties and 1:18:13.000 --> 1:18:16.320 therefore mad at this institute that keeps track of a 1:18:16.360 --> 1:18:19.200 lot of stuff over the years like an archive. What 1:18:19.280 --> 1:18:22.000 do they when they try to pull state funding from you? 1:18:22.040 --> 1:18:25.040 How does that impact you? You're saying that that's like 1:18:25.120 --> 1:18:29.000 not you know, does it primarily impact you because everyone's 1:18:29.000 --> 1:18:31.120 suddenly aware of and mad at you again, or does 1:18:31.160 --> 1:18:34.400 it actually also like is it going to cut your funding? 1:18:34.520 --> 1:18:35.200 Like what's happening. 1:18:35.920 --> 1:18:41.160 So what's happening is there's now a I don't want 1:18:41.160 --> 1:18:45.559 to say like a disagreement, but there's there's a there's 1:18:45.680 --> 1:18:48.680 people trying to figure out how to be compliant with 1:18:48.720 --> 1:18:52.599 this law, which means that they need to go into 1:18:53.800 --> 1:18:59.400 certain administrative burdens to prove that we don't get these fonts. Okay, 1:18:59.800 --> 1:19:05.200 that's really all that it is. Otherwise we are pretty 1:19:05.320 --> 1:19:10.280 good standing. It's it's more so at least now the 1:19:10.320 --> 1:19:15.479 Border Trustie's voted on Friday and they basically brought in 1:19:15.520 --> 1:19:19.880 the President's recommendation of do not separate us from the 1:19:20.120 --> 1:19:25.840 from the university, and so that happened on Friday, March 1:19:25.920 --> 1:19:30.200 first was the day that that went through. So we 1:19:30.280 --> 1:19:32.960 are all feeling pretty good. We all kind of had 1:19:32.960 --> 1:19:35.719 a little bit of a not so much a victory lap, 1:19:35.720 --> 1:19:40.200 but like a we've been hearing this for the last 1:19:40.240 --> 1:19:44.640 six months of worrying about what's going to happen to 1:19:44.720 --> 1:19:47.400 this place that we all love and that carries so 1:19:47.439 --> 1:19:50.120 many things because of the librarians who are around in 1:19:50.160 --> 1:19:53.519 the artifice, who are around, aren't the people handling the collection, 1:19:55.040 --> 1:19:59.920 And the legislature later decides, I you in a universe 1:20:00.160 --> 1:20:06.800 can't hold anything that is obscene, and obscene is you know, 1:20:06.920 --> 1:20:10.960 I have the beholder. It could easily mean that this, 1:20:11.160 --> 1:20:15.519 like six hundred thousand artifacts that we hold in our 1:20:15.560 --> 1:20:18.240 collections are gone, and we have stuff that spans two 1:20:18.320 --> 1:20:23.960 thousand years. It's not just items that are around today. 1:20:24.200 --> 1:20:27.519 And everything that we get is donated. We don't buy 1:20:27.560 --> 1:20:32.439 any of the items. Per second. People just mail them 1:20:32.479 --> 1:20:33.560 to us. 1:20:34.880 --> 1:20:36.680 The kind of things that normally if you mail to 1:20:36.720 --> 1:20:37.840 someone you might get in trouble. 1:20:38.720 --> 1:20:42.639 Yes, exactly, And that was kind of the people still 1:20:42.640 --> 1:20:45.200 think they're going to get in trouble kind of the point. 1:20:45.280 --> 1:20:49.160 Like I've heard that people have like shipped porn in 1:20:49.920 --> 1:20:54.479 cereal boxes as a way to like hide them because 1:20:54.520 --> 1:20:58.160 they're still worried that the comstock law is around in 1:20:58.200 --> 1:21:02.080 a way that will make these items be destroyed. 1:21:02.479 --> 1:21:05.599 Yeah, well, okay, oh, there's so many parts of this 1:21:05.600 --> 1:21:08.280 that I want to talk about. I actually thought about 1:21:08.320 --> 1:21:11.280 this because I mailed a book from the Kinsey Institute 1:21:11.320 --> 1:21:13.599 to someone last week, and as I was packaging it up, 1:21:13.640 --> 1:21:17.400 I was thinking to myself, this used to be a crime. 1:21:18.000 --> 1:21:20.519 The Comstock laws. For anyone who's curious, there was this 1:21:22.080 --> 1:21:24.960 historical pervert named Comstock, And by that I mean he 1:21:25.040 --> 1:21:27.719 was the largest collector of porn of his era who 1:21:28.040 --> 1:21:34.040 was on a wild crusade against perversion and birth control 1:21:34.080 --> 1:21:37.479 and all of these things. And he went around and 1:21:37.640 --> 1:21:39.760 stopped people. He got all these laws passed that he 1:21:39.800 --> 1:21:43.720 can't pass pornographic materials through the US male That was 1:21:43.720 --> 1:21:47.280 like his big contribution to society, besides ruining an awful 1:21:47.320 --> 1:21:53.000 lot of people's lives. And that's coming up again, like 1:21:53.040 --> 1:21:54.960 the ghost of the Comstock Laws. Do you want to 1:21:54.960 --> 1:21:55.439 talk about that? 1:21:56.640 --> 1:22:02.800 Yeah, So we have a book. Bands happening within libraries. 1:22:03.360 --> 1:22:07.840 I honestly am not positive what is happening within Indiana libraries. 1:22:08.320 --> 1:22:12.439 But there is a group of I would say parent groups, 1:22:13.160 --> 1:22:15.559 but I don't even know that they're actually still parents 1:22:15.560 --> 1:22:20.080 of children. It's usually like women in their mid fifties 1:22:20.760 --> 1:22:25.519 and later who are running for superintendent or the school 1:22:25.560 --> 1:22:30.280 board whatever, and now coming up with these ways that 1:22:30.479 --> 1:22:35.880 children can't interact with items that maybe have never been 1:22:37.240 --> 1:22:40.320 illegal in the past, so to speak. Like if any 1:22:40.400 --> 1:22:45.360 book mentions sex of any kind, right, it can't be around. 1:22:45.400 --> 1:22:50.920 If anyone is homosexual in any of the books, it's 1:22:51.000 --> 1:22:55.599 banned in their eyes. Yeah, and you know a majority 1:22:55.640 --> 1:22:58.480 of our books are a lot of those things. 1:22:59.880 --> 1:23:01.880 I'm sure there's some straight stuff in there if you 1:23:01.920 --> 1:23:02.639 look really hard. 1:23:03.080 --> 1:23:03.360 Well. 1:23:03.560 --> 1:23:06.479 I today I was in the reading room that we 1:23:06.520 --> 1:23:10.519 have and we had out the It was called the 1:23:10.600 --> 1:23:15.080 like Wild Edibles of the Eastern North America, and it 1:23:15.120 --> 1:23:18.160 was a book written by Alfred Kinsey because he was 1:23:18.200 --> 1:23:22.559 a he was like an eagle scout, Yeah, like loved nature. 1:23:22.920 --> 1:23:24.439 He was one of the first Eagle Scouts. 1:23:24.479 --> 1:23:27.439 Actually, yeah, you know more about them than I too. 1:23:27.800 --> 1:23:30.840 I just read about him in order to prepare this introduction. 1:23:32.000 --> 1:23:36.200 But a lot of those groups, like Moms for Liberty, 1:23:35.960 --> 1:23:40.120 they're the ones who are like a big crusade right now. 1:23:40.600 --> 1:23:46.720 When I first started, we just got a statue installed 1:23:47.000 --> 1:23:51.800 behind our building of Alfred Kinsey, And that is kind 1:23:51.840 --> 1:23:55.559 of when the majority of the threats that we would 1:23:55.600 --> 1:23:59.959 get started Okay, when they start talking about this statue. 1:24:00.720 --> 1:24:02.479 I have talked to people that have worked for like 1:24:02.520 --> 1:24:06.639 twenty years and they have said they've never seen threats 1:24:06.680 --> 1:24:10.160 come in like this ever before. Yeah, so it's people 1:24:10.200 --> 1:24:15.120 talking about like bombing the statue. I calls about you know, 1:24:15.240 --> 1:24:19.000 being a sexual predator, a debiant, or you know, you 1:24:19.040 --> 1:24:23.840 guys should all die, and it's very directed at us, right, 1:24:24.439 --> 1:24:27.760 It's it's less of being directed at like a random 1:24:28.600 --> 1:24:29.519 abstract thing. 1:24:30.000 --> 1:24:30.240 Right. 1:24:30.760 --> 1:24:33.240 We have gotten a lot of harassment in terms of 1:24:33.280 --> 1:24:36.719 like people who because they think, oh, you do sex research, 1:24:36.760 --> 1:24:38.240 so you want to picture of my dick? 1:24:39.360 --> 1:24:40.560 So interesting. 1:24:40.840 --> 1:24:44.000 Yeah, so that will happen at times. 1:24:44.320 --> 1:24:47.960 You all should do an exhibit of the dick pics 1:24:48.040 --> 1:24:52.439 that have been donated so kindly to your institution and 1:24:52.520 --> 1:24:56.360 the individuals who work for it are are a ratiing 1:24:56.439 --> 1:24:57.280 system underneath. 1:24:57.680 --> 1:25:04.599 I'm sure a curator, a compassman will love that. We 1:25:04.680 --> 1:25:09.040 actually just got in donated to us was the Cynthia 1:25:09.080 --> 1:25:12.240 plaster Casters her dick molds that she did of the 1:25:12.439 --> 1:25:15.720 in the eighties. She's like a famous groupie, okay, like 1:25:16.080 --> 1:25:19.839 rock stars, So we have like Jimmy Hendrick's keenis whoa, 1:25:20.479 --> 1:25:24.000 you know, bronze mold and that's the next big exhibition 1:25:24.040 --> 1:25:27.000 that's supposed to happen. But we also have like Jello biafra. 1:25:28.160 --> 1:25:28.400 Wow. 1:25:28.760 --> 1:25:30.439 Okay, it's hilarious. 1:25:30.720 --> 1:25:33.960 Would you all get never mind? I was thinking about 1:25:33.960 --> 1:25:35.080 how you all can make some money. 1:25:36.200 --> 1:25:37.720 Lots of people are the gay of that. 1:25:38.120 --> 1:25:45.160 Yeah, okay, huh, well no, it's okay. So it's so 1:25:45.200 --> 1:25:47.599 interesting to me, right, because it seems like their attempt 1:25:47.680 --> 1:25:51.519 to shut you down legislatively was a swing and a miss. 1:25:51.840 --> 1:25:52.040 Right. 1:25:52.160 --> 1:25:54.680 It was this thing that they they thought that they 1:25:54.720 --> 1:25:56.760 had this thing that they're like, Haha, We're going to 1:25:56.800 --> 1:25:59.080 get those perverts by cutting off their funding. And then 1:25:59.120 --> 1:26:02.040 everyone was like, well, that's not where the funding comes from. 1:26:02.080 --> 1:26:04.519 And the university was like, we kind of like this place. 1:26:04.560 --> 1:26:06.640 It's been around for seventy seven years. It's literally the 1:26:06.640 --> 1:26:10.599 only reason anyone outside of Indiana has ever heard of us. Yeah, 1:26:10.760 --> 1:26:11.360 is that kind. 1:26:11.200 --> 1:26:14.559 Of a that's definitely the vibe. We had like a 1:26:14.640 --> 1:26:19.120 series of listening sessions with the higher administration of like 1:26:19.240 --> 1:26:24.400 the public, well the university public coming in and just 1:26:24.479 --> 1:26:27.560 basically a lot of them saying the Kinzians too, is 1:26:27.600 --> 1:26:31.880 the only reason why I came to ium. The fact 1:26:31.880 --> 1:26:35.400 that this is here allows me to do my research, 1:26:35.560 --> 1:26:40.080 even if their research is in like Eastern European you know, 1:26:40.200 --> 1:26:44.880 like faberge eggs. Right, So it gives people a chance 1:26:44.920 --> 1:26:48.479 to see that like academic freedom and like freedom to 1:26:48.600 --> 1:26:53.080 research what you want is possible, and not just possible, 1:26:53.120 --> 1:26:57.400 but like encouraged. Right, Like, as an R one university, 1:26:58.120 --> 1:27:02.040 we should be doing should be researching things that aren't 1:27:02.479 --> 1:27:06.640 or taboo at times, yeah, and are actually trying to 1:27:06.760 --> 1:27:13.759 help the world rather than making money for some investor somewhere. 1:27:14.280 --> 1:27:21.240 Right, No, because that seems like the entire point of academia, right. Academia. Okay, 1:27:21.280 --> 1:27:22.880 this is really interesting to me because I have kind 1:27:22.880 --> 1:27:25.080 of a bit of a love hate relationship with academia, 1:27:25.080 --> 1:27:26.280 and you know, there's a lot of critiques that can 1:27:26.280 --> 1:27:28.840 be laid at sort of Ivory tower and locking away 1:27:28.880 --> 1:27:32.360 information and things. But yet as we enter this sort 1:27:32.400 --> 1:27:35.840 of anti intellectual time that is absolutely a right wing 1:27:35.920 --> 1:27:38.120 culture war thing is to be anti intellectual and in 1:27:38.120 --> 1:27:43.240 this case specifically shut down the academy's ability to preserve 1:27:43.320 --> 1:27:44.479 and transfer knowledge. 1:27:44.680 --> 1:27:44.760 Like. 1:27:44.800 --> 1:27:47.920 The problem from my point of view is that when 1:27:47.960 --> 1:27:51.840 there are limits to how well the information can be transferred, 1:27:52.400 --> 1:27:57.000 rather than the right wing anti intellectualism. Well, I anti 1:27:57.040 --> 1:27:59.519 intellectualism broadly. I'm not trying to make a case for 1:27:59.760 --> 1:28:03.360 any other kind of It is a problem with the 1:28:03.400 --> 1:28:07.320 actual existence of this knowledge, right, It's this like forbidden 1:28:07.400 --> 1:28:10.799 knowledge that no one should know that thirty seven percent 1:28:10.840 --> 1:28:15.719 of men in the nineteen forties like got a handy, 1:28:16.040 --> 1:28:17.480 you know exactly. 1:28:18.120 --> 1:28:22.639 The weird thing is that our collections are literally open 1:28:22.720 --> 1:28:25.479 to anyone who wants to come. We don't need to 1:28:25.479 --> 1:28:30.000 test it in any way. Well, yeah, that happens often, 1:28:32.720 --> 1:28:37.000 which to me is great and is kind of hard 1:28:37.000 --> 1:28:41.840 to come across in any archive. Usually if you have 1:28:41.920 --> 1:28:45.240 an archive, like you need to have an affiliation with 1:28:45.840 --> 1:28:49.160 a university or a company in order to come and 1:28:49.200 --> 1:28:50.320 look at some of these things. 1:28:50.479 --> 1:28:51.720 Yeah, you know. 1:28:51.720 --> 1:28:53.719 I mean that's not to say that like anyone comes 1:28:53.720 --> 1:28:58.200 in and they are doing lude things like there we 1:28:58.280 --> 1:29:04.800 talk with everyone that comes in. There's no mystery happening. 1:29:04.840 --> 1:29:10.040 Really okay, there's no sex dungeon. I was a little 1:29:10.320 --> 1:29:14.879 I think, Yeah, it's really boring. It's just a beige 1:29:15.360 --> 1:29:16.920 hallway for the most part. 1:29:17.400 --> 1:29:19.479 But you know what isn't boring that I have to 1:29:19.520 --> 1:29:26.000 interject quickly, is supporting by like I'm never bored while 1:29:26.000 --> 1:29:29.880 I'm in the process of exchanging little pictures of dead 1:29:29.920 --> 1:29:34.719 people for products and services like the ones that support 1:29:34.840 --> 1:29:47.960 this podcast. And we're back. And I feel really guilty 1:29:48.000 --> 1:29:49.960 for literally cutting you off mid sentence in order to 1:29:50.000 --> 1:29:53.680 do that. I'm so sorry. 1:29:51.680 --> 1:29:55.479 It's weird to be on the other side of this 1:29:55.680 --> 1:30:01.920 to actually see do that. Yeah, one of the big 1:30:01.960 --> 1:30:05.840 things that happened when I first started was Bloomington has 1:30:05.880 --> 1:30:08.920 a big pride. Bloomington as a whole is what they 1:30:08.920 --> 1:30:11.840 call like a blue pocket and the rest of the 1:30:11.920 --> 1:30:14.639 red the sea of red of Indiana. But I've also 1:30:14.720 --> 1:30:18.040 heard people say, like, you know, like Indiana went to 1:30:18.080 --> 1:30:24.200 Obama in two thousand and eight, like it's not as 1:30:24.880 --> 1:30:27.599 red as people really think it is. Right, It's that 1:30:27.960 --> 1:30:29.360 like it just came out today that we're like the 1:30:29.439 --> 1:30:31.000 fiftieth in voter turnout. 1:30:32.000 --> 1:30:34.120 WHOA, that's bad. 1:30:34.479 --> 1:30:35.559 That's really sad. 1:30:36.240 --> 1:30:41.720 Yeah, but people are so disheartened, Like it feels it's 1:30:41.760 --> 1:30:46.800 really hard when these people are yelling about how conservative 1:30:46.840 --> 1:30:50.800 Indiana is constantly that it gets in everyone's head that, oh, 1:30:50.800 --> 1:30:54.400 it doesn't matter that what I do, which I have 1:30:54.439 --> 1:30:56.679 a love hate Yeah, I have a love hate relationship 1:30:56.720 --> 1:31:01.360 with voting. But I also understand that, like I kind 1:31:01.360 --> 1:31:04.519 of need to in this capacity of where I am 1:31:05.000 --> 1:31:09.280 right because it really can change on a dime. Right. 1:31:10.400 --> 1:31:14.200 I think my my personal representative, he was elected by 1:31:14.280 --> 1:31:18.320 like eleven votes and he is a horrible, horrible man. 1:31:18.680 --> 1:31:19.240 Yeah. 1:31:19.880 --> 1:31:24.320 Yeah, And I when I get his fucking mailers that 1:31:24.520 --> 1:31:27.200 just say some dumb shit about trans laws, and I 1:31:27.280 --> 1:31:28.599 just go, I can't with this. 1:31:29.080 --> 1:31:35.120 Yeah, I get pissed because the cowboy hat and his mailers. No, 1:31:35.240 --> 1:31:40.040 but heah, okay, yeah that makes sense. There's no cowboys 1:31:40.080 --> 1:31:43.839 where I live. It's the mountains. Take off the cowboy 1:31:43.880 --> 1:31:46.559 hat and put on a real tree baseball cap like 1:31:46.600 --> 1:31:51.080 everyone else in this town. Poser, Okay, sorry anyway, h huh. 1:31:51.120 --> 1:31:53.759 So a lot of what's going on is that people 1:31:53.800 --> 1:31:56.880 think that Indiana is super right wing, and as someone 1:31:56.920 --> 1:32:01.640 who's who came here from the East Coast, like I 1:32:01.680 --> 1:32:05.840 love it here, Like it's really beautiful in Indiana. Yeah, 1:32:06.360 --> 1:32:10.480 I like not being around a lot of people. Bloomington 1:32:10.600 --> 1:32:12.479 says that there it's a really small town, but it 1:32:12.479 --> 1:32:15.360 really is like eighty thousand people. When the students aren't here, 1:32:15.600 --> 1:32:18.360 which is still to me a lot of people. Yeah, 1:32:18.760 --> 1:32:24.160 but it is small comparatively to anywhere on the East Coast, right, 1:32:24.800 --> 1:32:27.639 But everyone I've met here, I will say, there's great 1:32:27.760 --> 1:32:31.840 organizers that live here. There's a great amount of community 1:32:32.040 --> 1:32:36.960 and just like building of coalitions between people that I 1:32:37.080 --> 1:32:42.920 haven't really seen elsewhere, Okay, which is really important. And 1:32:42.920 --> 1:32:47.400 it's not just through the university, which I think is 1:32:47.439 --> 1:32:50.160 most people think it's all here, But there's so many 1:32:50.160 --> 1:32:55.400 people outside of the university that do amazing work that 1:32:55.479 --> 1:32:57.840 maybe came here to go to school but ended up 1:32:57.880 --> 1:33:01.680 staying or just came here because this used to be 1:33:01.760 --> 1:33:03.200 like the folk punk capital. 1:33:04.000 --> 1:33:04.559 That's true. 1:33:05.120 --> 1:33:07.640 That is whatever. When I was going to Bloomington, that 1:33:07.800 --> 1:33:09.320 is what everyone asked. No one asked me about the 1:33:09.400 --> 1:33:15.320 Kinsey Institute. Everyone asked me about folk punk. Yeah, my 1:33:15.400 --> 1:33:17.559 interests align more to the Kinsey Institute. 1:33:17.600 --> 1:33:17.920 Person. 1:33:18.760 --> 1:33:21.639 No one get mad at me. Well, okay, so it's interesting. 1:33:21.960 --> 1:33:25.240 So in my mind, you're like, oh, okay, the right 1:33:25.280 --> 1:33:27.800 wing came for the Kinsians student and they just failed, right, 1:33:28.360 --> 1:33:30.760 And is that missing the fact that you had a 1:33:30.760 --> 1:33:33.280 lot of organizers and a lot of people working to 1:33:33.320 --> 1:33:35.680 defend the Kinsey Institute. 1:33:36.240 --> 1:33:39.400 I think so, I wouldn't even say that it was 1:33:39.439 --> 1:33:45.280 a failure. It was more of they really don't understand 1:33:45.320 --> 1:33:49.760 what we do and even how these institutions work. I 1:33:49.760 --> 1:33:52.360 think is the real thing is that they are so 1:33:52.720 --> 1:33:58.719 caught up in how things should work, they don't actually 1:33:58.720 --> 1:34:03.439 look into how like neoliberalism is everywhere and it is. 1:34:03.840 --> 1:34:06.760 I don't think they understand what that is and how 1:34:06.840 --> 1:34:12.559 much it's infected, how bureaucratic everything is, and how everything 1:34:12.640 --> 1:34:15.280 is interconnected constantly. 1:34:15.640 --> 1:34:17.639 So that's why they thought tax money would be the thing, 1:34:18.160 --> 1:34:21.040 but it's actually this complicated capitalist system. 1:34:21.640 --> 1:34:25.880 Yes, I mean maybe if they listen to some some 1:34:26.040 --> 1:34:30.080 other people and they're about capitalism, they would probably get more, 1:34:31.360 --> 1:34:34.640 you know, more people to come behind them. But for 1:34:34.760 --> 1:34:37.400 the most part, the folks who are are a loud 1:34:37.400 --> 1:34:42.320 and proud about that, they they don't know what we do. 1:34:42.439 --> 1:34:45.000 They don't know who we are either. They think they. 1:34:44.880 --> 1:34:47.280 Do good since they're trying to murder you. 1:34:48.240 --> 1:34:52.080 Yeah, the director got docked the first year I was here. 1:34:52.240 --> 1:34:55.960 That was fun and there was a protest with some 1:34:56.040 --> 1:35:00.400 three percenters on campus. And we work for closely with 1:35:00.439 --> 1:35:04.240 Blimington Pridle out of the time, and so there's always 1:35:04.320 --> 1:35:08.400 the worry of people showing up there. Yeah, but again, 1:35:08.479 --> 1:35:11.040 like I said, like everyone here is there's so many 1:35:11.120 --> 1:35:15.679 good organizers that they've kept this town safe for so long, 1:35:16.240 --> 1:35:19.400 and I think they'll continue to do that. 1:35:19.400 --> 1:35:22.840 That's cool. I like when we learn and when we 1:35:22.880 --> 1:35:25.360 reinforce the fact that the thing that keeps us safe 1:35:25.400 --> 1:35:28.960 is organizing and is like community organizing and getting people 1:35:28.960 --> 1:35:33.280 together to keep track of what's going on and counter it. 1:35:34.360 --> 1:35:34.880 Yeah. 1:35:35.160 --> 1:35:38.000 One of the big things that we focus on in 1:35:38.080 --> 1:35:41.960 terms of like our research goals is well being and 1:35:41.960 --> 1:35:46.760 that's always something that has stuck with me because to me, 1:35:46.880 --> 1:35:49.640 the well being is us keeping each other safe. And 1:35:49.680 --> 1:35:53.479 I remember when this all first happened. I remember talking 1:35:53.520 --> 1:35:56.280 to the director and just being like, those people aren't 1:35:56.320 --> 1:35:58.080 going to help us. We are going to help each other. 1:35:58.400 --> 1:35:58.639 Yeah. 1:35:58.680 --> 1:36:01.920 It's like, oh, yeah, you're right, we are. It's like, yeah, 1:36:02.000 --> 1:36:05.000 we're not. Like we kind of can't count on everyone 1:36:05.040 --> 1:36:10.719 else sometimes these big institutions, because we know what we're doing, 1:36:10.960 --> 1:36:13.719 but they maybe don't know what we're doing, and maybe 1:36:13.720 --> 1:36:15.960 it's time that we just tell more people about it. 1:36:17.560 --> 1:36:19.679 I like that. I also like that it specifically points 1:36:19.720 --> 1:36:22.160 out that they did right by hiring a diy punk 1:36:22.600 --> 1:36:23.560 into their institution. 1:36:23.960 --> 1:36:26.280 You know, I yeah, I get a lot of weird 1:36:26.360 --> 1:36:31.280 flat but not being an academic right, But then it 1:36:31.320 --> 1:36:34.680 comes to things like this and it's like, oh, I 1:36:34.720 --> 1:36:38.400 always hear like, well we made their choice, yeah, which 1:36:38.680 --> 1:36:41.880 it's nice to feel, unfortunately in a job. 1:36:42.720 --> 1:36:43.160 Yeah. 1:36:43.280 --> 1:36:48.599 No, that makes some sense if people want to support 1:36:48.960 --> 1:36:51.840 you all as individuals who're facing this trouble, or the 1:36:51.920 --> 1:36:55.000 Kinsey Institute in general, or even just like if you 1:36:55.000 --> 1:36:59.200 have advice for people who are stuck engaging in the 1:36:59.200 --> 1:37:02.599 culture war more directly because they don't live on the coasts, 1:37:03.400 --> 1:37:05.960 what would you say? How can people support. 1:37:06.479 --> 1:37:10.719 To support each other? We have a nice queer sports 1:37:10.800 --> 1:37:14.360 league here and I suggest playing kickball with your friends. 1:37:14.720 --> 1:37:19.280 It's been really good, and also doing a honky talk night. 1:37:19.360 --> 1:37:23.360 That's our big, our big thing cool. I'm really proud 1:37:23.400 --> 1:37:26.280 of everyone that put has put that stuff together because 1:37:26.280 --> 1:37:30.599 it has created a world that has brings people from 1:37:30.680 --> 1:37:35.440 all different parts together of the town. YEA for the institute, 1:37:35.520 --> 1:37:38.599 if you want to go to Kinseyinstitute dot org, that 1:37:38.880 --> 1:37:41.880 is kind of where you can see everything. You can 1:37:42.040 --> 1:37:46.000 support us by coming and learning more about sexual research 1:37:46.080 --> 1:37:50.960 and your history, because it's all of our history in 1:37:51.040 --> 1:37:56.760 terms of learning about how people lived and how we 1:37:56.800 --> 1:38:00.880 have like the most mundane things. Yeah, you're talking about 1:38:00.920 --> 1:38:04.080 Hirschfeld earlier. We have a scrap book of his and 1:38:04.120 --> 1:38:08.479 that is like the oldest thing of his that it 1:38:08.520 --> 1:38:11.120 is like his personal item that we have, Yeah, along 1:38:11.160 --> 1:38:14.320 with like published items, but that's like the big thing. 1:38:15.520 --> 1:38:18.280 Yeah, he was almost fifty when he started the institute. 1:38:18.320 --> 1:38:19.960 I think I'm like kind of doing the math in 1:38:20.000 --> 1:38:21.720 my head really quickly because he was born in the 1:38:21.760 --> 1:38:28.400 nineteenth century. Yeah, okay, well, thank you so much for 1:38:28.439 --> 1:38:30.599 coming on and talking about this stuff. I'm so glad 1:38:30.680 --> 1:38:32.720 that this didn't you know, when we first talked about this, 1:38:32.760 --> 1:38:34.559 we didn't know which way the vote was going to go. 1:38:35.000 --> 1:38:38.240 I'm glad to do a little bit of a celebratory 1:38:38.880 --> 1:38:42.960 talk about this important institution. And yeah, thank you so much. 1:38:43.479 --> 1:38:43.840 Thank you. 1:38:45.600 --> 1:38:49.000 And if you want to fill hear me more, I 1:38:49.000 --> 1:38:51.120 have a different podcast, It's Cool People Did Cool Stuff 1:38:51.120 --> 1:38:53.479 and it's also on Cool Zone Media, which is the 1:38:53.479 --> 1:38:56.760 thing you're listening to right now. I hope you all 1:38:56.800 --> 1:38:59.240 are doing as well as you can with everything that's 1:38:59.280 --> 1:39:04.080 going on and putting each other back together again because 1:39:04.160 --> 1:39:05.840 we're all No. I'm not even going to close with 1:39:05.880 --> 1:39:20.840 a humpty dumpty metaphor. I'm just done. 1:39:21.920 --> 1:39:23.120 Welcome, take it up here. 1:39:23.800 --> 1:39:27.679 I'm addressage of the future channel and anddeurism and haven't digging. 1:39:27.520 --> 1:39:28.599 Into political culture. 1:39:29.439 --> 1:39:31.920 Drawn from the work of Dennis Tourist and Tim world 1:39:31.960 --> 1:39:35.120 Fourth in their book On the Edge Political Cults Left 1:39:35.160 --> 1:39:39.320 and Right. I've spoken before about the cult recruitment process, 1:39:39.720 --> 1:39:44.320 the contradictory positions held by cult members, ideological totalism, and 1:39:44.360 --> 1:39:48.760 the commonalities of political cults, including rigid belief systems, immunity 1:39:48.800 --> 1:39:55.280 to falsification, authoritarianism, arbitrary leadership, deification of leaders, intense activism, 1:39:55.560 --> 1:39:58.600 and the use of loaded language. If you want the 1:39:58.600 --> 1:40:01.320 details and all that, you can check out the first 1:40:01.360 --> 1:40:04.240 episode in the Political Cult series, or you can check 1:40:04.280 --> 1:40:06.639 out my video on the topic, or you can pick 1:40:06.680 --> 1:40:09.320 up the book on Political Cults yourself. As I said, 1:40:09.640 --> 1:40:13.720 on the Edge Political Cults left and Right previously, I've 1:40:13.760 --> 1:40:16.880 touched on the Laruche movement and the United Red Army 1:40:16.880 --> 1:40:20.559 of Japan. Today we'll be looking at another case study, 1:40:21.360 --> 1:40:25.120 this time of the various groups associated with Fred Neumann 1:40:25.560 --> 1:40:29.000 refused politics seamlessly with psychotherapy. 1:40:29.479 --> 1:40:30.519 Today, I'm joined by. 1:40:32.320 --> 1:40:35.000 Oh this is my cue. Oh no, I've been waiting 1:40:35.040 --> 1:40:36.720 for my queue and I've missed it. It's me a 1:40:36.800 --> 1:40:40.960 long misser of cues. Uh sometimes host of this podcast. 1:40:42.560 --> 1:40:45.400 I don't this guy's name sounds really familiar, but I 1:40:45.439 --> 1:40:48.400 cannot remember what he was up to, so I'm very excited. 1:40:48.960 --> 1:40:53.600 Yeah, yes, he has some interesting connections, very interesting connections. 1:40:53.960 --> 1:40:56.040 If people want to learn more about him, they can, 1:40:56.080 --> 1:40:58.639 of course pick up the book, or they can check 1:40:58.680 --> 1:41:03.599 out Terror, Love and Brainwashing, Attachments and Culton Tutalitarian Systems 1:41:03.840 --> 1:41:05.000 by Alexandra Stein. 1:41:05.840 --> 1:41:07.360 But anyway, let's get into it. 1:41:08.720 --> 1:41:12.360 Fred Newman was a Korean War veteran who earned a 1:41:12.400 --> 1:41:16.960 PhD in the philosophy of science from Stanford University with 1:41:17.280 --> 1:41:21.439 no formal training in psychology. Newman took a turn towards 1:41:21.479 --> 1:41:25.040 Maoism in the mid nineteen sixties, as one is apt 1:41:25.080 --> 1:41:29.000 to do in the mid nineteen sixties, in a time 1:41:29.000 --> 1:41:32.640 when the mantra the personal is political was coming into prominence. 1:41:32.840 --> 1:41:36.000 There was a greater interest in fusing personal development and 1:41:36.040 --> 1:41:40.120 political action. So that era, both the new psychotherapies cateringto 1:41:40.120 --> 1:41:43.839 a mass market that sought both happiness and social justice. 1:41:44.600 --> 1:41:48.599 Psychotherapy became something like a secular religion, which of course 1:41:48.640 --> 1:41:51.760 opened it up to Charlatan's who would propagate their innovative 1:41:51.800 --> 1:41:56.160 therapies and gain a following without actually testing or thought 1:41:56.200 --> 1:42:00.639 any scrutiny of the effectiveness of the ideas. Ieteen seventy, 1:42:01.200 --> 1:42:05.680 Newman assembled a small collective in Manhattan, sharing an apartment 1:42:05.760 --> 1:42:10.479 on the Upper West Side. By this time post By 1:42:10.520 --> 1:42:12.600 this time, post the collapse to the Students for a 1:42:12.640 --> 1:42:16.160 Democratic Society in the broader New Left, and coinciding with 1:42:16.200 --> 1:42:19.320 the fervor of the Cultural Revolution, people were looking for 1:42:19.360 --> 1:42:22.960 a new direction in a time when the psychotherapy bubble 1:42:23.120 --> 1:42:28.599 was growing. Newman, as another of those charismatic therapists, would 1:42:28.600 --> 1:42:32.040 attract a group of individuals who were yearning for hope. 1:42:33.520 --> 1:42:37.360 New One's collective was first named if dot dot dot then, 1:42:38.439 --> 1:42:42.000 and it was indeed a fusion of radical sixties politics 1:42:42.000 --> 1:42:45.360 and the New Age therapy of the seventies. Newman's concept 1:42:45.439 --> 1:42:49.960 of social therapy or crisis normalization, blurred the lines between 1:42:50.040 --> 1:42:53.439 therapy and political activities, and the group would give rise 1:42:53.479 --> 1:42:57.240 to the Centers for Change the CFC. By nineteen seventy three, 1:42:57.640 --> 1:43:01.680 which proudly identified itself as a Marx Leninist Maoist organization. 1:43:02.479 --> 1:43:04.720 The communal roots of Newman's. 1:43:04.280 --> 1:43:07.439 Group had cast a cult like aura from its inception. 1:43:08.360 --> 1:43:12.760 Core members were expected to leave their jobs, sell their possessions, 1:43:13.040 --> 1:43:16.679 and sustain themselves through activities like fundraising on street corners, 1:43:17.000 --> 1:43:22.320 while embracing shared living spaces within the group. Now buckle 1:43:22.400 --> 1:43:24.880 up for a bit of a crossover episode here, because 1:43:24.920 --> 1:43:28.719 from nineteen seventy three to nineteen seventy four Newman crossed 1:43:28.760 --> 1:43:35.240 paths with Lyndon LaRouche. Oh God, yes, of course he did, 1:43:35.760 --> 1:43:39.879 mind you. He links up with Laruche just after Laruche 1:43:39.920 --> 1:43:43.479 had completed Operation mop Up, so he was just attacking 1:43:43.479 --> 1:43:46.160 his enemies on the left and started shifting right wood 1:43:46.479 --> 1:43:49.440 if they use those terms, and Newman is like, yeah, 1:43:49.560 --> 1:43:51.080 this is my guy. This who I want to link 1:43:51.160 --> 1:43:56.760 up with. So their collaboration formed the United Front, comprising 1:43:56.760 --> 1:44:01.639 of Laruche's National Caucus of Labor Committees, the NCLC at 1:44:01.720 --> 1:44:05.439 Newman's Center for Change, and a third group led by 1:44:05.479 --> 1:44:10.839 Eugenio Parenti Ramos, which later transformed into the Communist Party 1:44:11.000 --> 1:44:14.800 USA Provisional, which I have to note, I have to 1:44:14.840 --> 1:44:17.640 know it is distinct from the Communist Party USA that 1:44:17.960 --> 1:44:19.000 most people know about. 1:44:19.640 --> 1:44:22.599 Yeah, I think, I'm pretty sure there's another. I'm pretty 1:44:22.600 --> 1:44:27.240 sure it's also distinct from the Communist Party USA Revolutionary 1:44:27.240 --> 1:44:31.120 Committee and also the Communist Party USA Provisional Committee. I 1:44:31.160 --> 1:44:33.280 think those are if I'm remembering correctly, those are all 1:44:33.320 --> 1:44:34.640 separate organizations. 1:44:35.240 --> 1:44:36.559 Yes, yes they are. 1:44:37.760 --> 1:44:42.000 Yeah, Parentees group is actually connected with the National Labor 1:44:42.160 --> 1:44:47.080 fred Federation. So anyway, these joint forums were established and 1:44:47.240 --> 1:44:51.400 activities were coordinated among these groups. By nineteen seventy four, 1:44:51.439 --> 1:44:54.760 in fact, the Center for Change disbanded and Newman and 1:44:54.840 --> 1:44:56.960 his followers merged into the NCLC. 1:44:57.479 --> 1:44:59.920 Oh God, there was sort of a. 1:45:00.160 --> 1:45:04.000 Virgins between Larusha and Newman and their perspectives of leadership, 1:45:04.240 --> 1:45:08.760 contre formulation, and the manipulation of membership as Larusha's apocalypse, 1:45:08.800 --> 1:45:12.960 fair Moongarin and elitism would merge very well with Newman's 1:45:13.040 --> 1:45:17.840 use of psychotherapy. Of course, and you learn this quickly 1:45:17.840 --> 1:45:20.639 with cult leaders. They don't get along well for along 1:45:20.720 --> 1:45:24.040 with other cult leaders. So the fusion with Laruge led 1:45:24.080 --> 1:45:29.679 to inevitable clashes. While within the NCLC, the Newman group 1:45:30.080 --> 1:45:35.559 continued its operation, and tensions eventually reached a breaking point later. 1:45:35.720 --> 1:45:37.000 In August nineteen. 1:45:36.680 --> 1:45:39.960 Seventy four, Newman and his thirty eight followers left the 1:45:40.080 --> 1:45:45.120 NCLC to established the International Workers Party or IWP, which 1:45:45.160 --> 1:45:50.400 he declared was the vanguard of the work in class. 1:45:50.840 --> 1:45:52.160 Oh I love the seventies. 1:45:53.000 --> 1:45:57.400 Indeed, still you know Newman's association with Laruche had a 1:45:57.439 --> 1:46:01.439 big impact on his thinking and future developer. He aligned 1:46:01.439 --> 1:46:04.360 with a lot of Larusi's ideologies and was just as 1:46:04.400 --> 1:46:08.880 dismissive of various left movements. Even though they split, they 1:46:08.920 --> 1:46:12.519 still shared a disdain for common citizens, their group's members, 1:46:12.760 --> 1:46:16.760 and the principles of free society. Yet despite dismissing most 1:46:16.840 --> 1:46:20.720 left movements and saying that liberalism is fascism, Newman would 1:46:20.720 --> 1:46:26.480 occasionally dip his toes into democratic primaries infortiate existing leftist organizations, 1:46:26.720 --> 1:46:30.200 and utilized prominent black leaders to advance his own objectives. 1:46:31.240 --> 1:46:33.760 But I realize I haven't fully explained the focus of 1:46:33.840 --> 1:46:39.679 Newman's ideology. In most cases, cult leaders' ideologies ultimately hinge 1:46:39.720 --> 1:46:42.559 on follow me and the best, But you know they 1:46:42.560 --> 1:46:44.479 have their unique quirks here on there as well. 1:46:45.439 --> 1:46:46.360 Lucky for us. 1:46:46.920 --> 1:46:49.439 Newman published a book on his ideas the same year 1:46:49.479 --> 1:46:52.640 he parted with larushe in nineteen seventy four. So the 1:46:52.680 --> 1:46:55.880 book was called Power and Authority, and he basically cooked 1:46:55.960 --> 1:46:58.240 up a theory about the mind and society. They became 1:46:58.280 --> 1:47:00.960 the gospel for his cult and the ultimate manual for 1:47:01.040 --> 1:47:05.200 keeping his followers in check. According to Newman, revolution wasn't 1:47:05.280 --> 1:47:09.360 just about overthrowing the bourgeoisie. You also had to overthrow 1:47:09.400 --> 1:47:15.479 the bourgeoisie ego inside people's minds. So in a sense 1:47:15.520 --> 1:47:17.280 we cook in, you know, because you do have to 1:47:17.360 --> 1:47:19.920 sort of undo that brainwashing and you get. 1:47:19.760 --> 1:47:20.839 In a capitlict society. 1:47:20.880 --> 1:47:23.760 I mean, there's nothing wrong there necessarily, but you see, 1:47:23.760 --> 1:47:27.200 he was taking cues from Marx, Lenin and LaRouche, and 1:47:27.320 --> 1:47:32.280 his solution involved something called the proletarian psychotherapy, where the 1:47:32.360 --> 1:47:35.479 workers of the mind took down the rulers of the 1:47:35.560 --> 1:47:38.080 mind through therapy sessions that would attack. 1:47:37.800 --> 1:47:38.679 The bourgeois ego. 1:47:39.439 --> 1:47:43.320 Of course, he would be the one lead in the therapy, 1:47:43.439 --> 1:47:46.920 because you know, he hated Freudian and other psychotherapies as 1:47:47.000 --> 1:47:50.800 just boosting the bourgeois ego, and he especially hated that 1:47:50.920 --> 1:47:55.040 regular therapy is aimed to cut the emotional umbilical cord 1:47:55.160 --> 1:47:58.679 with the therapist and restore a healthy, independent ego, when 1:47:58.720 --> 1:48:02.520 his social therapy meant to build up a forever dependent 1:48:02.720 --> 1:48:06.720 proletarian ego that would only wither away when the proletarian 1:48:06.800 --> 1:48:13.559 stayed with us away. So basically never Newman's doctrines worked 1:48:13.600 --> 1:48:16.840 for his purposes, though his followers were stuck in this 1:48:16.960 --> 1:48:21.080 loop of dependency for over twenty five years. He had 1:48:21.080 --> 1:48:24.840 an additional component his control mechanisms, though. He developed a 1:48:24.880 --> 1:48:31.000 concept called friend or sexuality. So in his organizations, casual 1:48:31.120 --> 1:48:35.320 sexual relationships were arranged where a designated friend that you 1:48:35.520 --> 1:48:40.680 also had sex with monitored and critiqued individuals to maintain control. 1:48:41.960 --> 1:48:46.760 If pregnancies ever arose, they were usually told to get abortions. 1:48:47.360 --> 1:48:50.800 And as for new And himself, his inner circle was 1:48:50.840 --> 1:48:54.760 referred to as his haram or his wives, and they 1:48:54.800 --> 1:49:00.679 served as both trusted lieutenants in the administration and trusted 1:49:00.760 --> 1:49:02.479 lieutenants in the bedroom. 1:49:03.080 --> 1:49:11.280 If you dig, yes, ah, so yeah, now. 1:49:11.280 --> 1:49:14.320 Let's get into those segments that we can call Newman 1:49:14.520 --> 1:49:21.559 and the FBI sitting in the tree kissig. Because after 1:49:21.600 --> 1:49:25.920 the IWP was formed and briefly flirted with Marlene Dixon's 1:49:25.960 --> 1:49:30.439 Democratic Workers' Party, which was another cult. Newman ended up 1:49:30.479 --> 1:49:34.240 contacting the FBI. By the way, we are still in 1:49:34.360 --> 1:49:38.640 nineteen seventy four, very eventful year. So what happened was 1:49:38.800 --> 1:49:42.680 a guy named Jim Ratherford bailed on Newman's cult and 1:49:42.840 --> 1:49:45.920 took the child that was probably conceived in the cult 1:49:46.040 --> 1:49:49.479 with him. But you see, the child's mother and Green 1:49:50.400 --> 1:49:54.000 who stayed in the cult, and she wanted her child back. 1:49:54.400 --> 1:49:57.840 So Newman recruited two cult members that were also lawyers 1:49:58.120 --> 1:50:00.719 to get the FBI involved in fire and then Rutherford 1:50:00.800 --> 1:50:03.599 and the child. So they dialogued the FBI, set up 1:50:03.600 --> 1:50:05.479 a meet in between Green and the agents, and then 1:50:05.520 --> 1:50:07.760 Green spilled the tea that Rutherford used to roll with 1:50:07.760 --> 1:50:10.839 the Weather Underground and also had connection to the fugitive 1:50:10.920 --> 1:50:15.240 named Jane Albert. Fast forward to nineteen seventy six and 1:50:15.320 --> 1:50:19.080 Newman's IWP gets exposed by a splinter group for working 1:50:19.160 --> 1:50:22.759 with the FBI. But instead of denying it, Newman pins 1:50:22.760 --> 1:50:25.200 the blame on Anne Green and the two lawyers and 1:50:25.200 --> 1:50:28.400 basically pretends that they acted on their own without his direction, 1:50:29.000 --> 1:50:31.720 because obviously the mansoni looking off himself. So that was 1:50:31.760 --> 1:50:34.880 a fun of the side, right, well, collaboration with the FBI. 1:50:35.360 --> 1:50:37.160 Yeah, it's like, if you're gonna be a snitch, at 1:50:37.240 --> 1:50:42.200 least have like, at least have the basic decency and 1:50:42.240 --> 1:50:44.720 self respect to admit that you were the snitch and 1:50:44.800 --> 1:50:46.240 not blameing on someone else. 1:50:46.880 --> 1:50:48.679 No, but a cult lead they would ever do that though. 1:50:48.880 --> 1:50:50.960 No terrible stuff. 1:51:02.080 --> 1:51:03.520 Carrying on chronologically. 1:51:03.680 --> 1:51:07.000 In nineteen seventy seven, Fred Newman shifted his focus to 1:51:07.040 --> 1:51:11.000 the political scene of New York City's Upper West Side 1:51:11.120 --> 1:51:14.479 and basically rebranded his group as the New York City 1:51:14.600 --> 1:51:19.320 Unemployed and Welfare Council. At this point, he abandoned the 1:51:19.400 --> 1:51:23.960 idea of an open vanguard formation and instead, while recruiting 1:51:24.040 --> 1:51:28.320 through therapy, gained political influence within other groups and formed 1:51:28.400 --> 1:51:32.240 broad and ill defined front organizations that could pursue the 1:51:32.280 --> 1:51:35.920 cult schools without too much heat on himself personally. Newman 1:51:36.040 --> 1:51:38.240 was actually able to get one of his cult members 1:51:38.320 --> 1:51:41.840 elected on the local school board, and that led to 1:51:41.880 --> 1:51:45.240 some liberals digging into Newman's background and group dynamics, where 1:51:45.280 --> 1:51:48.080 they found that indeed he was running a therapy cult 1:51:48.080 --> 1:51:51.840 where they relinquished jobs, severed political ties, and strendered all 1:51:51.880 --> 1:51:52.879 property and savings. 1:51:53.000 --> 1:51:53.439 The cult. 1:51:54.760 --> 1:51:57.960 Cut off from the outside world, busy with group activities 1:51:58.000 --> 1:52:02.800 and trapped in endless meetings, Numanites lacked feedback from reality, 1:52:03.240 --> 1:52:06.880 which kept them in line. So Newman's electoral victory in 1:52:06.920 --> 1:52:09.040 the form of the school board member of his own cult, 1:52:09.360 --> 1:52:14.920 gave him a taste a little for electoral activism. So 1:52:15.640 --> 1:52:20.960 when he crossed paths with Black nationalist Leonora Fulani, together 1:52:21.000 --> 1:52:25.280 they formed the New Alliance Party or NAP in nineteen 1:52:25.320 --> 1:52:25.800 seventy nine. 1:52:25.840 --> 1:52:27.320 I'll just call it the NAP, right. 1:52:27.320 --> 1:52:28.840 If I feel like we need to start like a 1:52:28.880 --> 1:52:32.919 party counter we're at like four five already. 1:52:33.880 --> 1:52:40.880 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I WP, THENAP yeah, Communist party professional yeah. 1:52:41.479 --> 1:52:45.120 Fulani ran for lieutenant governor of New York in nineteen 1:52:45.120 --> 1:52:50.160 eighty two and in nineteen eighty eight and ran for president, 1:52:51.040 --> 1:52:54.360 becoming the first black woman to do so, gain in 1:52:54.439 --> 1:52:58.040 ballot status in all fifty states and receive a nearly 1:52:58.120 --> 1:53:02.320 one million dollars in federal match funds. She ran again 1:53:02.439 --> 1:53:05.479 in nineteen ninety two and again qualified for ballot status 1:53:05.479 --> 1:53:08.719 in all fifty states, this time receiving two million dollars 1:53:08.720 --> 1:53:12.200 in federal matching funds, and she secured a whop in 1:53:12.320 --> 1:53:14.799 seventy three thousand, seven hundred and eight votes. 1:53:16.800 --> 1:53:19.360 That's always a depressing thing with these like the vanity 1:53:19.600 --> 1:53:23.479 electoral campaigns, is seeing how much money they spent getting 1:53:23.600 --> 1:53:24.880 like seven votes. 1:53:26.800 --> 1:53:30.120 Yeah, but I mean you'll never guess where this money 1:53:30.240 --> 1:53:30.599 was going. 1:53:31.520 --> 1:53:32.080 Oh no. 1:53:33.080 --> 1:53:36.479 In the background, new Ones financial maneuvers seem to be 1:53:36.560 --> 1:53:40.360 fundling a lot of the party's funds into other organizations 1:53:40.400 --> 1:53:46.920 affiliated with Newman. Lauren Redwood, Working Class Lesbian, actually shared 1:53:46.920 --> 1:53:50.280 her experiences working under the NAP in a letter to 1:53:50.439 --> 1:53:54.479 a Gain newspaper in San Francisco. I won't read the 1:53:54.520 --> 1:53:56.960 whole thing, but she basically talks about how she was 1:53:57.040 --> 1:54:00.160 excited to help a black woman run for president. She 1:54:00.160 --> 1:54:02.839 even found a lover while working on the campaign in Indiana, 1:54:03.680 --> 1:54:07.639 but quote, when it came time for NAP to leave Indiana, 1:54:08.160 --> 1:54:10.960 she I'm assuming the lover asked me to go with them, 1:54:11.080 --> 1:54:14.439 and I did. I was given forty eight hours to prepare. 1:54:14.840 --> 1:54:17.720 I quit my job, left my home, my friends put 1:54:17.720 --> 1:54:20.360 my belongings in storage, found a home for my pet, 1:54:20.600 --> 1:54:22.680 and gave the use of my car to NAP for 1:54:22.840 --> 1:54:24.960 in exchange for their take and over the pay months 1:54:25.720 --> 1:54:27.799 as a working class lesbian. I thought I had finally 1:54:27.800 --> 1:54:30.639 found a political movement which included me. What I found 1:54:30.640 --> 1:54:35.720 instead was an oppressive, disempowered, and misogynistic organization. All my 1:54:35.760 --> 1:54:38.840 decisions were made for me by someone else. I was 1:54:38.840 --> 1:54:41.280 told where to go and who to go with. I 1:54:41.320 --> 1:54:44.640 worked seven days a week, sixteen to twenty hours a day. 1:54:45.120 --> 1:54:48.000 I had two days off in two and a half months. 1:54:48.640 --> 1:54:51.800 There was an incredible urgency which overrode any personal needs 1:54:51.840 --> 1:54:56.640 or considerations, an urgency that meant complete self sacrifice. I 1:54:56.680 --> 1:55:00.000 felt totally powerless over my life, forced into a very 1:55:00.040 --> 1:55:03.080 submissive role where all control of my life belonged to 1:55:03.080 --> 1:55:06.360 someone else. I had given up everything for the campaign, 1:55:06.800 --> 1:55:10.400 my job, my home, and my support system. I felt desperate, 1:55:11.040 --> 1:55:12.800 and later in the letter she said that I was 1:55:12.840 --> 1:55:16.680 completely exhausted, so tired, I was unable to work well. 1:55:17.280 --> 1:55:19.680 Being unable to work, I had no income as I 1:55:19.720 --> 1:55:22.440 was expected to raise my salary myself in addition to 1:55:22.520 --> 1:55:25.360 raising money for the campaign. And she also spoke about 1:55:25.400 --> 1:55:27.840 losing herself and this social therapy thing that Newman was 1:55:27.880 --> 1:55:32.360 doing as a lot of independent thought was discouraged. This 1:55:32.520 --> 1:55:36.880 was Newman's whole emo, you know, manipulating individual distress to 1:55:36.920 --> 1:55:42.680 transform members into political activists under total control, replacing the 1:55:42.680 --> 1:55:46.240 traditional support structures that people would have been coming from 1:55:46.280 --> 1:55:50.440 with the cult as a new family. And despite some 1:55:50.560 --> 1:55:54.920 claims of dissolution, the evidence suggested that the International Workers' 1:55:54.960 --> 1:56:01.000 Party continued to exist even as the NAP was in existence, 1:56:01.520 --> 1:56:06.440 as members divested assets and funding towards the ideo BE 1:56:06.880 --> 1:56:14.400 the whole time. Now, it's quite interesting to learn the 1:56:14.600 --> 1:56:20.720 justification for why Newman picked Leonora Fulani in particular, and 1:56:20.760 --> 1:56:22.760 then would also link up later with some of the 1:56:22.760 --> 1:56:28.040 people that I'm about to talk about. So you're familiar 1:56:28.040 --> 1:56:32.240 with Antonio Gramsci right, Yeah. He introduced the concept of 1:56:32.280 --> 1:56:37.720 the organic intellectual, suggesting that each social class naturally produces 1:56:37.800 --> 1:56:41.000 a stratum capable of projecting its historic mission and a 1:56:41.120 --> 1:56:45.360 Germany on the flip side, Lenin in his What Is 1:56:45.360 --> 1:56:49.920 to Be Done Manifesto, envisioned a vanguard of professional revolutionaries 1:56:49.920 --> 1:56:54.120 from the intellectual elite to bring socialism to the working class. 1:56:55.480 --> 1:56:59.880 Newman was influenced by both concepts and considered his core 1:57:00.040 --> 1:57:04.240 group to be a vanguard mainly composed of white, middle 1:57:04.240 --> 1:57:10.040 class traditional intellectuals, often working as therapists for Newmanite fronts. 1:57:10.760 --> 1:57:14.800 But here's the twist. He borrowed gram Shee's organic leader's 1:57:14.880 --> 1:57:18.480 term and connected with people of color that had organic 1:57:18.520 --> 1:57:21.480 basis of support in their communities and would use them 1:57:21.480 --> 1:57:24.880 to advance the interests of his secretive white. 1:57:24.520 --> 1:57:26.560 Vanguard ah the PSL. 1:57:29.680 --> 1:57:32.960 Indeed, so that's why Newman would create his own version 1:57:33.160 --> 1:57:37.840 of the Rainbow Coalition with his Rainbow Assembly and also 1:57:37.920 --> 1:57:40.520 would engage with people like Lewis. 1:57:40.200 --> 1:57:42.640 Farkhan, Al Sharpton and else. 1:57:43.920 --> 1:57:50.000 Yeah, however, and political incoherence goes BurrH, he'd also link 1:57:50.080 --> 1:57:53.720 up with vague populist movements like Ross Puro's Reform Party, 1:57:54.160 --> 1:57:57.040 who he'd work to register voters for, and in an 1:57:57.040 --> 1:57:59.600 effort to gain more voters for the right winger Ross 1:57:59.600 --> 1:58:03.880 Pero's Reform Party, Newman and Fulani would encourage the Patriotic 1:58:03.960 --> 1:58:07.080 Party at the Independence Party of New York to link 1:58:07.160 --> 1:58:10.560 up with Peru, and then in nineteen ninety nine, the 1:58:10.640 --> 1:58:14.400 Newmanites threw their support behind the Paleo conservative pat Buchanans 1:58:14.440 --> 1:58:17.960 presidential campaign. So, in addition to his political activity, is 1:58:18.880 --> 1:58:23.720 Fred Newman wore many hats. He considered himself a playwright 1:58:24.040 --> 1:58:26.840 and staled as the artistic director of the Castillo Theater. 1:58:27.680 --> 1:58:30.080 He also directed train in at the east Side Institute 1:58:30.080 --> 1:58:34.200 for Short Term Psychotherapy, authored books featured at the Castillo Bookstore, 1:58:34.600 --> 1:58:38.920 and operated social therapy centers in various cities, describing them 1:58:38.960 --> 1:58:44.120 as a unique development community. Despite the deprivations imposed on 1:58:44.160 --> 1:58:48.840 his followers, as they can imagine, Newman lived quite comfortably. 1:58:49.760 --> 1:58:53.879 In nineteen ninety three, he bought a substantial Greenwich Village 1:58:53.920 --> 1:58:58.840 brownstone for nearly a million dollars. I mean, who says 1:58:58.840 --> 1:59:02.120 a cult of revolution and therapy kabi profits, right? 1:59:04.040 --> 1:59:07.480 I keep I keep thinking about that. Oh God, I 1:59:07.520 --> 1:59:11.840 forget which of the the Nepali maoist parties it was, 1:59:12.600 --> 1:59:14.560 but one of one of one of the guys who 1:59:14.600 --> 1:59:16.720 was the head of one of the Nepalese MAOIs parties 1:59:16.720 --> 1:59:18.960 who'd been like fighting a guerrilla war for a long time. 1:59:19.000 --> 1:59:20.960 The end of it was, he moved into the house 1:59:21.040 --> 1:59:23.040 of the guy, the mansion of the guy who'd been 1:59:24.080 --> 1:59:25.760 like Nepal's chief security minister. 1:59:27.160 --> 1:59:27.800 That's wild. 1:59:30.200 --> 1:59:32.120 It's a revolution because it goes in a circle and 1:59:32.160 --> 1:59:33.480 you end up right back where you were. 1:59:36.400 --> 1:59:39.920 I don't remember that one. That's a that's a good quote. Yeah, 1:59:39.960 --> 1:59:44.120 a lot of these organizations like bleazanty cults. 1:59:44.160 --> 1:59:46.440 But of course. 1:59:46.440 --> 1:59:49.520 Newmann, Fulani and others would always deny that they were 1:59:49.560 --> 1:59:50.080 in a cult. 1:59:51.080 --> 1:59:51.840 Cults always do. 1:59:52.720 --> 1:59:55.520 So you look at the evidence, and the evidence points 1:59:55.520 --> 1:59:55.920 to cult. 1:59:56.720 --> 1:59:59.840 Yeah, my, my, my, not a cult. T shirts raising 1:59:59.880 --> 2:00:01.800 a a lot of questions that are answered by the 2:00:01.800 --> 2:00:02.360 the T shirt. 2:00:03.240 --> 2:00:05.960 Yeah yeah, I love how when I first introduced my 2:00:06.480 --> 2:00:10.720 organization after apply disclaimers were actually not a cult, you know, 2:00:11.760 --> 2:00:17.920 like that one meme from King of the Hill. 2:00:18.000 --> 2:00:18.160 Right. 2:00:19.520 --> 2:00:24.520 So, one critic of Newman wrote an article called Inside 2:00:24.600 --> 2:00:30.600 the New Alliance Party Dennis Surratt, and despite initially thinking 2:00:30.720 --> 2:00:34.200 that the NAP was a progressive organization, he ended up 2:00:34.200 --> 2:00:39.720 detailing psychological control, racism, sexism, and the use of millions 2:00:39.760 --> 2:00:44.080 of dollars to manipulate well made individuals, particularly target in 2:00:44.120 --> 2:00:48.680 the black community. The internal structure was of course hierarchical, 2:00:49.200 --> 2:00:52.720 as Newman lived luxuriously while the rank and file members 2:00:52.720 --> 2:00:57.000 worked to long hours and even faced mandatory taxes to 2:00:57.080 --> 2:00:59.600 support new One's seaside mansion. 2:01:00.040 --> 2:01:00.680 Oh my god. 2:01:01.840 --> 2:01:06.240 Numan's political positions were opportunistic. Obviously, they changed based on 2:01:06.320 --> 2:01:09.840 the perceived benefits to him and his attacks on individuals. 2:01:09.960 --> 2:01:14.720 Organizations were ruthless when they failed to support him. When 2:01:14.720 --> 2:01:18.640 members joined, whether through politics or therapy, they were required 2:01:18.640 --> 2:01:21.320 to reveal all their resources and turn them over to 2:01:21.320 --> 2:01:26.120 the organization. They had to go through mandatory psychotherapy sessions, 2:01:27.440 --> 2:01:31.520 which served as a method to recruit vulnerable individuals, exploit 2:01:31.520 --> 2:01:33.760 their weaknesses, and control their behavior. 2:01:34.800 --> 2:01:35.000 Now. 2:01:35.040 --> 2:01:38.760 In another article, Marina Ortiz, who was a former leader 2:01:39.120 --> 2:01:42.640 in the New Alliance Party, explained why she resigned from 2:01:42.680 --> 2:01:48.720 the NAP. What happened was the leadership told her to 2:01:48.840 --> 2:01:53.400 put a child in foster care. I assume because the 2:01:53.480 --> 2:01:55.640 child and her child care was getting in the way 2:01:55.720 --> 2:01:59.000 of her full dedication to the cause. So she revealed 2:01:59.040 --> 2:02:01.560 the NAP did not live up to claims of promoting 2:02:01.600 --> 2:02:07.320 democracy obviously, and would use manipulative tactics and obstruct minority empowerment, 2:02:08.040 --> 2:02:12.080 and had a long history of attacking progressives and embracing 2:02:12.160 --> 2:02:16.680 Pero's nineteen ninety two presidential bid and the harsh streatment 2:02:16.840 --> 2:02:21.160 dissent in voices. In the end, in the book On 2:02:21.200 --> 2:02:25.160 the Edge, Denis Tursi and Tim Wreforth end up termining 2:02:25.240 --> 2:02:30.320 Newman's work new age Leninism, which I think is a 2:02:30.360 --> 2:02:33.280 really good phrase to use to describe what he was doing. 2:02:34.320 --> 2:02:36.680 He had a strong knack for manipulating politics. 2:02:36.920 --> 2:02:37.760 And even with. 2:02:37.760 --> 2:02:42.440 Newman dead and gone, the Newmanites have already proved themselves 2:02:42.600 --> 2:02:46.440 skilled political operatives, regardless of their actual size. So the 2:02:46.480 --> 2:02:48.800 potential for someone to fill his role in the future 2:02:49.600 --> 2:02:54.920 definitely remains, especially given the state of US politics. 2:02:56.360 --> 2:02:57.160 If you want to learn. 2:02:57.040 --> 2:02:59.320 More, like I said, definitely read on the Edge and 2:02:59.440 --> 2:03:03.080 also check the article how Totalism Works by Alexandra Stein, 2:03:03.400 --> 2:03:05.960 who was a survivor of a different cult who ended 2:03:06.040 --> 2:03:09.839 up doing a dissertation on New One. As for final words, 2:03:10.720 --> 2:03:17.680 stay away from cults base if it has Democratic Workers 2:03:17.720 --> 2:03:22.600 Party or People's Party of such and such or popular support, 2:03:24.920 --> 2:03:27.720 m scrutinize it a little bit, you know. Look, it's 2:03:27.720 --> 2:03:29.720 like at the structure, that's like what they're asking you 2:03:29.800 --> 2:03:33.839 to do, especially if the leadership considers themselves a vanguard 2:03:33.920 --> 2:03:34.840 despite having like. 2:03:36.280 --> 2:03:38.280 Fifteen members. 2:03:39.560 --> 2:03:42.760 Honestly, you probably shouldn't follow a group of any size 2:03:43.120 --> 2:03:45.040 that considers itself a vanguard. 2:03:45.800 --> 2:03:46.440 But that's. 2:03:47.840 --> 2:03:54.120 Typical for something for someone like me to putform. That's 2:03:54.320 --> 2:03:57.160 that's all I have to say on New One. Check 2:03:57.160 --> 2:04:00.320 on your friend with sexuals. They're probably going through it 2:04:00.400 --> 2:04:02.560 right now. We'll power to all the people. 2:04:03.680 --> 2:04:20.280 Peace, Welcome to it could happen here a podcast coming 2:04:20.320 --> 2:04:22.919 to you from a country rule by nine unelected dipshits 2:04:22.920 --> 2:04:25.760 and hideous costumes. You can at a whim destroy your life. 2:04:25.920 --> 2:04:28.840 I'm your host. Be along with me as Jim stout. 2:04:29.280 --> 2:04:32.680 Hi, I'm excited to hear about the Supreme Council or 2:04:32.680 --> 2:04:35.280 whatever they called. It's like the Jedi Council. 2:04:36.240 --> 2:04:39.280 God, It's it's a problematic comparison in a lot of ways, 2:04:40.200 --> 2:04:43.080 but like the thing I immediately think of is the 2:04:43.200 --> 2:04:47.760 extent is like like Iran, Like I don't like and 2:04:47.840 --> 2:04:50.440 you're not like Ran, right, but Iran gets so much 2:04:50.480 --> 2:04:53.240 shit for having the Surer Council. Right, this is like 2:04:53.240 --> 2:04:56.280 this council that's above their parliament, above their president, and 2:04:56.280 --> 2:04:57.840 it can make a bunch of decisions as a bunch 2:04:57.880 --> 2:05:00.200 of power. It's like, we also have a s Sure 2:05:00.200 --> 2:05:02.880 a Council, except instead of protecting the Islamic Revolution, it's 2:05:02.920 --> 2:05:04.800 designed to protect like the ideology of a bunch of 2:05:04.880 --> 2:05:06.720 right wingers from Harvard And it's. 2:05:06.560 --> 2:05:11.400 Like, well this is great for sure, Like yes, yeah, 2:05:11.400 --> 2:05:14.280 we we have a group of unelected, half dead people 2:05:14.640 --> 2:05:19.440 whose entire thing is to protect like capital and specifically 2:05:19.680 --> 2:05:22.240 the theft of land from indigenous peoples. That the thing 2:05:22.360 --> 2:05:24.360 that that they love to do. 2:05:25.240 --> 2:05:27.400 And again to defend a round here, like we did 2:05:27.400 --> 2:05:30.800 this first, Like this is like. 2:05:31.680 --> 2:05:34.360 That one won't get ever clipped out and used in 2:05:34.440 --> 2:05:38.760 other context. That's great. We kind of pioted this right 2:05:38.800 --> 2:05:40.480 like we were we were trying to trying to like 2:05:40.720 --> 2:05:44.480 take the give monarchism a soft landing, you know, So 2:05:44.960 --> 2:05:48.240 we we had some other unelected half dead people. 2:05:49.320 --> 2:05:52.120 Yeah, and this has the results of this have been 2:05:52.200 --> 2:05:54.919 disastrous and are widely regarded by everyone as a disaster. 2:05:55.440 --> 2:05:57.720 So we're gonna be talking about a few cases that 2:05:57.840 --> 2:06:03.840 Supreme Court is going to do, and also we're going 2:06:03.880 --> 2:06:05.520 to be talking about the street record and how it 2:06:05.600 --> 2:06:07.840 relates to sort of liberal what I guess I would 2:06:07.840 --> 2:06:10.640 call sort of liberal NGO, a sort of progressive NGO 2:06:11.120 --> 2:06:13.880 political and legal strategy, because all of that stuff needs 2:06:13.880 --> 2:06:17.200 to be thrown out the window immediately and it hasn't been. Yeah, 2:06:17.560 --> 2:06:20.320 So all right, let's just start with Texas Bill four, 2:06:21.160 --> 2:06:28.160 a very basically just like a turbo fascism bill that 2:06:28.240 --> 2:06:31.120 lets Texas police racially profile someone and go, I think 2:06:31.160 --> 2:06:33.600 this person's here legally and immediately arrest them. 2:06:33.920 --> 2:06:34.080 Yeah. 2:06:34.240 --> 2:06:36.000 Crucially, it's it's I think. 2:06:35.880 --> 2:06:40.080 Right, like yeah, so it's like again we are giving 2:06:40.280 --> 2:06:45.040 the Texas police, like the heroes who ran away from Uvaldi, 2:06:45.120 --> 2:06:49.080 we are giving them the power to go, this person 2:06:49.200 --> 2:06:51.840 isn't white, I think they're here legally, I can arrest them. 2:06:52.360 --> 2:06:55.440 And then if they do arrest someone who's undocumented. There's 2:06:56.080 --> 2:06:57.960 the basically the way it works. It so it's it's 2:06:58.000 --> 2:07:02.240 it's it sets up a series of like criminal penalties 2:07:02.360 --> 2:07:04.960 like prison time. I think if you repeat offender, you 2:07:05.000 --> 2:07:07.440 get a felony. But mostly what it does is it 2:07:07.520 --> 2:07:09.400 less a judge immediately just support them. 2:07:09.760 --> 2:07:10.040 Now. 2:07:10.240 --> 2:07:15.320 Yeah, this is, to use a technical term, obviously insanely illegal, 2:07:16.440 --> 2:07:19.840 like constitutionally like it is. The Constitution is very clear 2:07:19.960 --> 2:07:23.280 that that immigration is is, you know, constitutionally the purview 2:07:23.280 --> 2:07:27.480 of the federal government. It's very funny reading like Scotus 2:07:27.480 --> 2:07:30.880 Blog because people have to sort of pretend that like 2:07:31.000 --> 2:07:33.000 people are making real legal arguments here. 2:07:33.720 --> 2:07:36.400 Yeah, it's like when when Donald Trump is ever like 2:07:37.080 --> 2:07:40.720 we're we're looking at Donald Trump's policies next week spoiler alert. 2:07:40.840 --> 2:07:44.160 But like I've been writing about his proposed immigration policies 2:07:44.320 --> 2:07:46.560 and you have to be like, no, this shit's just 2:07:46.600 --> 2:07:50.560 fucking it's not legal. It's just not like, yeah, some 2:07:50.640 --> 2:07:52.760 crackpot old dude who thinks the fringe is on the 2:07:52.760 --> 2:07:55.320 flag mean that you're under abraltry law. That he's got 2:07:55.320 --> 2:07:57.880 a fucking argument, but he's wrong, Like this is ready 2:07:57.960 --> 2:07:58.800 to illegal shit. 2:08:00.280 --> 2:08:00.520 Yeah. 2:08:00.560 --> 2:08:02.760 And so so this bill was supposed to go into effect. 2:08:02.800 --> 2:08:05.400 There there's a whole series of very convoluted court battles 2:08:05.440 --> 2:08:07.760 over it, and this real court was just like, yeah, 2:08:07.880 --> 2:08:11.720 this can go into effect and until basically until the 2:08:11.760 --> 2:08:13.960 case goes on, and then eventually it eventually didn't go 2:08:14.000 --> 2:08:18.600 into effect because another another federal court was like, obviously 2:08:18.680 --> 2:08:21.000 this is insane. We can't let this go into effect. 2:08:21.040 --> 2:08:23.320 What the fuck are you guys talking about? And like 2:08:23.520 --> 2:08:27.120 this this bill the legal justification for this, he's batshit. 2:08:27.360 --> 2:08:34.640 It's so okay. They're trying to invoke the state war clause, 2:08:35.440 --> 2:08:38.360 which is this is this really like old timey law? Okay. 2:08:38.360 --> 2:08:41.600 So the thing the thing about like the seventeen hundreds, 2:08:41.600 --> 2:08:45.280 in the eighteen hundreds is that it takes a significant 2:08:45.280 --> 2:08:48.400 amount of time to get people from I don't know, 2:08:48.520 --> 2:08:52.440 You're you're you're drawing your like border militia from Kentucky 2:08:53.080 --> 2:08:55.120 and you're you're moving it to Texas. 2:08:55.400 --> 2:08:55.560 Right. 2:08:55.920 --> 2:08:58.840 That takes a lot of time. And so basically it 2:08:58.880 --> 2:09:01.120 was like, okay, so if if you're Texas and you're 2:09:01.160 --> 2:09:04.760 getting attacked by someone, you're supposed to be able to 2:09:04.840 --> 2:09:06.440 use your own troops to defend it, and you're supposed 2:09:06.440 --> 2:09:08.760 to be able to like sort of semi autonomously run 2:09:08.800 --> 2:09:11.640 your own defense policy, right, And that was supposed to 2:09:11.640 --> 2:09:15.000 be a thing to let to allow states to like 2:09:15.640 --> 2:09:18.400 you know, use their militia to do stuff before like 2:09:18.560 --> 2:09:23.960 federal troops got there. Abbott is arguing that people crossing 2:09:23.960 --> 2:09:27.080 the border from Mexico is an invasion and that this 2:09:27.200 --> 2:09:30.400 allows him to like legally allows him to start doing 2:09:30.480 --> 2:09:35.240 this stuff. And this is like, it's it's funny because 2:09:35.240 --> 2:09:37.920 you can even see that the Biden administration people being like, 2:09:37.960 --> 2:09:39.959 you've got to be fucking kidding me, because like obviously, 2:09:40.600 --> 2:09:43.160 like I mean, it's not like Biden doesn't want to 2:09:43.200 --> 2:09:46.040 murder people coming over the border, but you know, Biden's 2:09:46.040 --> 2:09:48.160 people are like, well, okay, like no, obviously this is 2:09:48.200 --> 2:09:51.600 not a war, right, I mean just a no in 2:09:51.600 --> 2:09:53.280 fact that war we're talking about. 2:09:54.600 --> 2:09:58.200 No, Yeah, I mean that that was kind of always 2:09:58.240 --> 2:10:02.880 the obvious endpoint with this invasion military males rehetoric, right, 2:10:02.880 --> 2:10:04.480 it was like, okay, well we better shoot them all 2:10:04.600 --> 2:10:06.720 like that that was play what they were shooting for. 2:10:08.000 --> 2:10:12.040 Yeah, and it's it's really it's gotten. Really, it's gotten 2:10:12.080 --> 2:10:14.160 really really grim and it's it's gotten you know again, 2:10:14.200 --> 2:10:15.720 It's it's literally getting to this point when they're trying 2:10:15.720 --> 2:10:17.600 to argue that there is a physical war going on 2:10:17.720 --> 2:10:19.760 and you read these articles about it, and the press 2:10:19.800 --> 2:10:22.200 will be like, well they're saying this because like people 2:10:22.240 --> 2:10:24.560 are crossing the border and like there's cartels. It's like, 2:10:25.560 --> 2:10:28.560 what the fuck are you talking about? This has nothing, like, 2:10:28.720 --> 2:10:31.600 this is nothing. This is literally nonsense. Like it is. 2:10:31.640 --> 2:10:34.680 They are pointing at the sky and going the sky 2:10:34.840 --> 2:10:38.720 is orange, and the press is going, well, if you like, 2:10:38.880 --> 2:10:41.960 if you stare directly into the sun and then blink, 2:10:42.320 --> 2:10:44.640 it looks like maybe this sky is a little bit 2:10:44.760 --> 2:10:47.640 or just like what the fuck are you people doing? 2:10:48.000 --> 2:10:51.240 It's it's it's genuay at least it's some of the 2:10:51.280 --> 2:10:53.520 worst shertalistic about practice I've ever seen you see this 2:10:53.600 --> 2:10:55.360 like every single time they're trying to do this sort 2:10:55.360 --> 2:10:58.160 of like ah balance, It's like, no, there's no actual 2:10:59.080 --> 2:11:00.880 sort of balance here. But on the other hand, this 2:11:00.920 --> 2:11:03.480 doesn't matter because the Supreme Court was just like, yeah, 2:11:03.480 --> 2:11:06.600 this can go into effect, right, And like. 2:11:07.080 --> 2:11:09.880 The other thing you'll see, like I guess this was 2:11:09.920 --> 2:11:13.320 more in the Trump era, right, was like, yeah, you'd 2:11:13.320 --> 2:11:16.120 see someone Trump would do a thing and everyone rather 2:11:16.120 --> 2:11:18.440 than just being like if this one's fucking illegal, everyone, 2:11:18.720 --> 2:11:21.400 can we just wrap this up? Seth Aberton would write 2:11:21.440 --> 2:11:24.400 seventy five thousand tweets about how like it was going 2:11:24.440 --> 2:11:27.840 to result, and people began to have this belief that 2:11:27.920 --> 2:11:30.760 like the fucking Supreme Court was made up of like 2:11:30.880 --> 2:11:34.480 magical rainbow unicorns who were gonna sweep in and save 2:11:34.560 --> 2:11:36.480 us all from fascistm Like these are the same people 2:11:36.720 --> 2:11:38.680 hanging out with the guys who had the like fascist 2:11:38.720 --> 2:11:46.360 statues and yeah, taking massive kickbags. Like it's just none 2:11:46.440 --> 2:11:49.280 of this legality stuff. I guess, No, it doesn't matter. 2:11:49.440 --> 2:11:50.000 It doesn't matter. 2:11:50.160 --> 2:11:53.800 It's a problem, yeah, And like I think this is 2:11:53.840 --> 2:11:55.320 something that you were hint to get earlier, but like 2:11:55.320 --> 2:11:58.400 it shouldn't factor in our organizing. Like I see so 2:11:58.560 --> 2:12:01.120 many people pinned so much hope on ex court case 2:12:01.200 --> 2:12:04.600 or why court case like institutions created by people who 2:12:04.680 --> 2:12:07.920 owned other human beings. I'm not going to fucking save us. 2:12:09.080 --> 2:12:11.360 Yeah, And you know, this is something that the right 2:12:11.440 --> 2:12:13.520 has actually, I think understood it very well, partially in 2:12:13.560 --> 2:12:15.200 the way that they've they've been able to sort of 2:12:15.280 --> 2:12:19.040 institutionally capture huge portions of the court system. And because 2:12:19.120 --> 2:12:23.200 they understand that the law is fucking meaningless and you know, 2:12:23.240 --> 2:12:25.160 it's it's you can because and you can just tell 2:12:25.200 --> 2:12:28.080 the cops to do whatever the fuck you want. One 2:12:28.080 --> 2:12:30.600 of the strategies they've been using has like if specifically, 2:12:30.600 --> 2:12:34.720 to get this bill through, is by just having judges 2:12:34.840 --> 2:12:38.400 issue like temporary injunctions and other injunctions to like allow 2:12:38.520 --> 2:12:40.000 them to go into effect, but then you know, with 2:12:40.040 --> 2:12:42.560 the intention of just never letting them expire. Right, So 2:12:42.600 --> 2:12:46.000 what you're getting basically is just judges implementing policy by 2:12:46.040 --> 2:12:48.760 fiat by continuously going, oh, well, this can go, this 2:12:48.800 --> 2:12:50.520 can go because we're giving like a where we're you know, 2:12:50.560 --> 2:12:54.360 we're on like our thirty eighth one month injunction and right, 2:12:54.880 --> 2:12:57.240 you know, and this is the thing that like the 2:12:57.280 --> 2:13:00.320 Biden administration's plan to deal with this is to be like, well, 2:13:00.320 --> 2:13:03.000 you shouldn't be able to do that, but like, how 2:13:03.040 --> 2:13:05.160 are you going to stop them? Right? The court system 2:13:05.200 --> 2:13:07.680 is set up in such a way that these people 2:13:07.800 --> 2:13:11.200 are just feudal lords. They're almost completely autonomous. The only 2:13:11.200 --> 2:13:13.920 people who can overrule them are the people above them. 2:13:13.920 --> 2:13:15.600 But the problem there too, and this is what the 2:13:15.640 --> 2:13:19.680 Republicans have been using very effectively, is that it takes 2:13:19.760 --> 2:13:24.120 time for a court above it to you know, just 2:13:24.360 --> 2:13:26.920 to overrule the like insane thing the court below them 2:13:27.000 --> 2:13:28.400 is doing. And if the court below them is just 2:13:28.440 --> 2:13:33.280 constantly churning out just nonsense over and over again, then 2:13:33.440 --> 2:13:35.200 they can just do whatever the fuck they want. Because 2:13:35.240 --> 2:13:38.120 even even if the court above them actually did want 2:13:38.160 --> 2:13:40.080 to do something about this, which in a very rare 2:13:40.120 --> 2:13:43.560 cases sometimes happens, they literally can't because they've just been 2:13:43.880 --> 2:13:45.600 you know, because they're just sort of swamped by all 2:13:45.640 --> 2:13:48.840 of this just absolute bullshit that's being thrown out. 2:13:49.240 --> 2:13:51.920 Yeah, Like, if you take a case which just to 2:13:52.000 --> 2:13:54.480 not make this like a partizan thing, if you take 2:13:54.520 --> 2:13:57.280 a case in which, like the Supreme Court might line 2:13:57.320 --> 2:14:00.480 up with the I guess I love of republic competition 2:14:00.640 --> 2:14:02.880 as a position that many people listening to this podcast 2:14:02.960 --> 2:14:06.760 might take. For instance, California's gun laws, right, California passes 2:14:06.880 --> 2:14:11.240 so many fucking gun laws so often that the time 2:14:11.480 --> 2:14:15.080 that it takes for even if they are like contravening 2:14:15.120 --> 2:14:18.000 something like the Brewin decision, right or the spirit of 2:14:18.000 --> 2:14:21.520 the Brewing decision, it takes so long for them to 2:14:21.560 --> 2:14:23.320 pass all the way up and maybe eventually go to 2:14:23.400 --> 2:14:26.800 Supreme Court, maybe not right, that that in effect, California 2:14:26.840 --> 2:14:30.720 can do things which seem like the Supreme Court would 2:14:30.800 --> 2:14:35.960 say they were unconstitutional. It doesn't really matter because they 2:14:36.000 --> 2:14:39.640 can still do them right. And with the go go 2:14:39.720 --> 2:14:42.120 to the Night Circuit in California, you can make decisions 2:14:42.160 --> 2:14:45.800 that affirm those and like it doesn't matter, It doesn't 2:14:45.840 --> 2:14:49.040 matter what's constitutional or more importantly, like what's just. 2:14:53.440 --> 2:14:55.600 If you look if you're looking for the justices for 2:14:55.800 --> 2:14:58.680 justice who are looking in the wrong place. Yeah, exactly. 2:14:58.760 --> 2:15:01.240 And when it comes to bord Us, I guess before 2:15:01.280 --> 2:15:05.400 that me is talking about like that kills people, you know, 2:15:05.520 --> 2:15:09.400 like like and some of the most desperate people on earth. 2:15:09.480 --> 2:15:12.760 Like I've been to the border in Texas, you know, 2:15:12.800 --> 2:15:14.640 like you're not swimming across that river because you think 2:15:14.640 --> 2:15:16.400 you might get a PlayStation five when you get to 2:15:16.400 --> 2:15:19.600 the other side, Like it's fucking dangerous, and the journey 2:15:19.640 --> 2:15:21.200 to get there. People who tend to come across the 2:15:21.240 --> 2:15:23.839 land border to Texas sort of want to like micros 2:15:23.840 --> 2:15:27.440 ain't fucking stupid. They have access to all the same 2:15:27.600 --> 2:15:30.360 news and information that you do. They have smartphones that 2:15:30.400 --> 2:15:31.880 might be a little bit older, but they can still 2:15:31.920 --> 2:15:35.280 read shit and that they know that the ninth Circuit 2:15:35.640 --> 2:15:37.880 is kinder. So if they have the money, they will 2:15:37.880 --> 2:15:42.040 come to California. It's for some people end up in 2:15:42.080 --> 2:15:44.120 California without very much money. We've seen that lot with 2:15:44.160 --> 2:15:46.880 African migrants in Tichuina, But like a lot of the 2:15:46.920 --> 2:15:49.200 people going to Texas, it's because that's the land route 2:15:49.240 --> 2:15:51.200 walking north and they don't have the finances to go 2:15:51.240 --> 2:15:56.840 anywhere else. And those people are extremely like they're like 2:15:57.080 --> 2:15:59.880 there are any number of reasons why they they have 2:16:00.120 --> 2:16:02.960 legitimate right to asylum or just a right not to 2:16:02.960 --> 2:16:05.880 be fucking profiled, or like any other person of kind 2:16:05.880 --> 2:16:08.720 of living in Texas has a basic right note to 2:16:08.720 --> 2:16:12.920 be profiled, and demonizing those people is being used as 2:16:12.920 --> 2:16:16.280 a like a trojan horse just to do straight up 2:16:16.520 --> 2:16:17.280 racism law. 2:16:18.680 --> 2:16:20.480 Yeah, and then and meanwhile, like, you know, you have 2:16:20.560 --> 2:16:22.760 fucking Clarence Thomas, who is sitting there, who has gotten 2:16:22.760 --> 2:16:25.480 more kickbacks than every single one who's people who's crossed 2:16:25.480 --> 2:16:29.120 the border of their total wealth combined, is just sitting 2:16:29.160 --> 2:16:31.160 there being like, nah, fuck you, it's legal to throw 2:16:31.200 --> 2:16:33.720 these people into the chainsaw, Like it's fine. 2:16:34.280 --> 2:16:37.920 Yeah, exactly, Like, I don't really know how people maintain 2:16:38.040 --> 2:16:40.600 their faith in a system which holds this dude completely 2:16:40.640 --> 2:16:45.320 unaccountable for very obviously being bent like bent is in corrupt. 2:16:45.720 --> 2:16:47.360 I'm not using a homophobic slur. 2:16:47.879 --> 2:16:50.440 No, this is the way that's a homophobe. Yeah, I 2:16:50.440 --> 2:16:53.680 think it's really a British English British wild Yeah, I've 2:16:53.680 --> 2:16:55.040 never heard of either of those. 2:16:55.400 --> 2:16:59.480 I really. Okay, we're welcome to the podcast where I 2:16:59.480 --> 2:17:02.000 say British things and in leep some of them out. 2:17:02.879 --> 2:17:05.359 Do you know what else says British things and occasionally 2:17:05.400 --> 2:17:06.520 has some of them bleed it out. 2:17:06.800 --> 2:17:09.800 It's chump a Casino presented by Wangkas. 2:17:21.360 --> 2:17:25.680 And we're back from whatever insane gat We should at 2:17:25.680 --> 2:17:28.880 some point do an episode about the gambling law changes 2:17:28.920 --> 2:17:30.240 I'm sure that'll be fine. 2:17:30.000 --> 2:17:33.160 With yeah, go down, Well, it would be great. 2:17:33.600 --> 2:17:36.600 Oh boy, So we're there are some other so okay, 2:17:36.600 --> 2:17:41.080 So the Texas Senate before case is coming in sort 2:17:41.080 --> 2:17:44.000 of like mid late April, which is now this month, 2:17:44.040 --> 2:17:48.440 by the way, which is nuts great, say snipe. There 2:17:48.440 --> 2:17:51.200 are a couple of other cases coming down the pipeline 2:17:51.200 --> 2:17:53.840 that we wanted to talk about because so obviously the 2:17:53.840 --> 2:17:58.440 Streame court you know, has directly already done stuff with 2:17:58.600 --> 2:18:00.680 s before, but the law there's still still in the 2:18:00.680 --> 2:18:04.879 process for the lawsuit. There's also a case about methic pristone, 2:18:04.959 --> 2:18:07.640 which is an aborder factor, which is, you know, one 2:18:07.640 --> 2:18:10.600 of the ways that if you are if you're in 2:18:10.640 --> 2:18:12.360 a place where it is illegal for you to normally 2:18:12.400 --> 2:18:14.600 get an abortion, this is a way you can do it. 2:18:15.320 --> 2:18:20.680 So okay. The basis of this case is that in 2:18:20.680 --> 2:18:23.920 twenty sixteen twenty twenty one, the FDA did one of 2:18:23.959 --> 2:18:25.840 the few good things it's ever done, and there were 2:18:25.840 --> 2:18:29.640 some sort of changes to legal classifications around for pristone 2:18:29.640 --> 2:18:33.160 that allowed you to get it, not allowed you to 2:18:33.160 --> 2:18:34.959 get it without having to get it directly prescribed by 2:18:34.959 --> 2:18:37.840 a doctor. So you know, you could have nurs practitioners 2:18:37.920 --> 2:18:39.640 do it. And also it was a thing that didn't 2:18:39.640 --> 2:18:42.240 work like you can get it over the counter like 2:18:42.440 --> 2:18:44.000 it was. It was not a thing that suddenly that 2:18:44.040 --> 2:18:47.600 requires an enormous amount of sort of doctor bullshit. And 2:18:47.800 --> 2:18:50.520 it also used to require physical visits, so you'd have 2:18:50.560 --> 2:18:53.600 to go find a doctor in another state and get 2:18:53.600 --> 2:18:55.240 into private to you. And so that all went away. 2:18:55.240 --> 2:18:58.640 You're able to get it through telemedicine. And immediately basically 2:18:58.680 --> 2:19:01.879 after I get I guess probably the peak of the 2:19:01.920 --> 2:19:05.560 Republican counter revolution in the last four years, where they 2:19:05.640 --> 2:19:09.680 destroyed the National well, they destroyed the tatted remains of ROW, 2:19:10.240 --> 2:19:14.240 A bunch of like deranged right wing groups set about 2:19:14.240 --> 2:19:18.600 to get messapristomee bands and so basically what they're trying 2:19:18.640 --> 2:19:22.520 to do is overturn. They're trying to get its approval 2:19:22.520 --> 2:19:24.840 by the FDA overturn, and also the approval for the 2:19:24.879 --> 2:19:29.120 generic version of it overturned. Right, And this is the 2:19:29.440 --> 2:19:34.280 whole strategy here is very weird because okay, so this 2:19:34.360 --> 2:19:36.400 is one of the things about the US and part 2:19:36.720 --> 2:19:39.039 of the reason all of this court stuff is so 2:19:39.200 --> 2:19:41.840 weird because of the structure of the sort of regional 2:19:41.840 --> 2:19:44.600 autonomy of the courts. You can basically just do court shopping. 2:19:44.959 --> 2:19:48.520 You can go find some like guy who's basically a 2:19:48.520 --> 2:19:51.920 feudal baron in Texas and be like, hey, you hate abortion, 2:19:52.200 --> 2:19:55.080 Like here, write some piece of paper that says this 2:19:55.120 --> 2:19:58.320 is legal now. So there have been a series of 2:19:58.400 --> 2:20:02.920 sort of battles over different levels of courts, you know, 2:20:03.080 --> 2:20:05.720 like approving or disapproving some things. This is actually this 2:20:05.760 --> 2:20:08.760 is one of these cases that's actually so obviously it's 2:20:08.920 --> 2:20:11.959 the the immediate consequence here is if the Supreme Court 2:20:11.959 --> 2:20:14.240 decides that you can ban this, it's going to get really, 2:20:14.240 --> 2:20:17.280 really fucking bad for a lot of people. But this 2:20:17.320 --> 2:20:19.360 is also a case that feeds into another trend that's 2:20:19.400 --> 2:20:23.400 been happening, which is the Republicans attempting to use the 2:20:23.400 --> 2:20:27.560 court system to just completely annihilate the federal bureaucracy. Because 2:20:27.600 --> 2:20:29.440 the other thing that's at stake here and this is, 2:20:29.520 --> 2:20:32.400 you know, obviously the people's access to getting abortions is 2:20:32.440 --> 2:20:35.280 the most important part of it. The subsequent less important 2:20:35.320 --> 2:20:37.760 part of it is that right now there is a 2:20:37.920 --> 2:20:42.320 eight there are national standards for for prescriptions. Right there's 2:20:42.400 --> 2:20:45.400 unified nationals like the ADA is unified national standards for 2:20:45.440 --> 2:20:49.280 sort of food safety and like and if this gets 2:20:49.360 --> 2:20:55.440 knocked out, that's like gone. Yeah, and so suddenly large 2:20:55.440 --> 2:20:57.920 massive parts I mean like courts having the ability to 2:20:58.000 --> 2:21:01.760 just sort of go in and nuke FDA approvals for stuff, 2:21:02.240 --> 2:21:05.120 right states being able to like this is going to 2:21:05.920 --> 2:21:09.200 rip like tear, like like tearing the fucking guts out 2:21:09.240 --> 2:21:13.280 of the entire American sort of like legal bureaucracy. It's 2:21:13.320 --> 2:21:16.440 it's coming apart, Yeah, it's yeah. 2:21:16.640 --> 2:21:20.320 And and the the they're like the medical you know, 2:21:20.840 --> 2:21:23.280 your access to medicines that someone else doesn't want you 2:21:23.320 --> 2:21:23.600 to have. 2:21:24.240 --> 2:21:26.080 Yeah, this is one of these cases that has you know, 2:21:26.120 --> 2:21:28.800 there's there's sort of two elements at work here, right, 2:21:28.920 --> 2:21:33.680 there's there there's there's there's the there's the immediate like 2:21:33.760 --> 2:21:35.840 Republicans are trying to ban every single way you can 2:21:35.879 --> 2:21:38.920 possibly get an abortion to force people to have kids 2:21:38.959 --> 2:21:40.440 because this is you know, this is part of their 2:21:40.440 --> 2:21:44.360 sort of reactionary ideology. And then there's the other part 2:21:44.400 --> 2:21:47.280 of it, where there's been there's been a few other 2:21:47.320 --> 2:21:49.879 cases like this too. One of the one of the 2:21:49.879 --> 2:21:52.640 things that looks like they're trying to do is get 2:21:53.120 --> 2:21:54.760 we're gonna I'm gonna do a full upside about this 2:21:54.760 --> 2:21:57.040 at some point when I can get a good labor 2:21:57.080 --> 2:21:59.840 lawyer to talk about it. But they're trying to overturn 2:21:59.879 --> 2:22:02.360 the National Labor Relations Act, which is the act that 2:22:02.400 --> 2:22:05.279 basically sets up the right to unionization and the whole 2:22:05.080 --> 2:22:10.880 the whole process of how how labor mediation works. And 2:22:10.959 --> 2:22:12.680 I mean then there's other ones where I mean, like 2:22:12.800 --> 2:22:18.520 really substantively enormous parts of the American sort of the 2:22:18.560 --> 2:22:22.560 American state are just being torn apart in ways that 2:22:22.600 --> 2:22:27.480 are specifically designed to just allow corporations and these like 2:22:27.560 --> 2:22:30.200 fiefdom judges to have effectively unlimited political power. 2:22:32.400 --> 2:22:35.520 Yeah, I don't know, it's it's a fucking bleak, Like 2:22:35.640 --> 2:22:40.840 it's I mean, it's also predictable, right, Like it's kind 2:22:40.840 --> 2:22:43.440 of the nature of the state, and it's the nature 2:22:43.480 --> 2:22:45.959 of these people to want to take away Like the 2:22:46.000 --> 2:22:50.080 state ultimately is not there to protect you, It's there 2:22:50.080 --> 2:22:53.200 to protect capital. And like it's a failure of our 2:22:53.320 --> 2:22:56.760 organizing when we when we keep going back to the 2:22:56.800 --> 2:22:58.920 state and asking it to do something fundamentally has no 2:22:58.959 --> 2:22:59.720 interest in doing. 2:23:00.360 --> 2:23:06.320 Yeah, and this is really a substantive issue with you know, 2:23:06.360 --> 2:23:08.720 I remember this. This was the ACOU strategy under Trump. 2:23:08.760 --> 2:23:09.960 I've talked about this in the show before. It is 2:23:09.959 --> 2:23:11.840 the sho U strategy under Trump was to go to 2:23:11.879 --> 2:23:13.320 the courts and win there. And I mean this is 2:23:13.360 --> 2:23:16.359 this has been the sort of what the political strategy 2:23:16.400 --> 2:23:19.760 getting back to sort of the civil rights era. And 2:23:20.200 --> 2:23:22.760 that's it's you can't do this anymore because it doesn't 2:23:22.800 --> 2:23:29.040 It doesn't even like whether or not you are correct, 2:23:29.080 --> 2:23:32.320 like like legally correct about a thing right which used 2:23:32.320 --> 2:23:34.080 to be what this was just sort of hinged on 2:23:34.520 --> 2:23:36.360 and whether you could convince justice to this, like this 2:23:36.400 --> 2:23:39.720 doesn't matter anymore. Like they've you know, like if if 2:23:39.720 --> 2:23:42.600 you if you read the ruling on on like if 2:23:42.600 --> 2:23:44.640 you actually go through and read the ruling that overturned 2:23:44.680 --> 2:23:47.440 Rode Wade right, like the league, the legal logic in 2:23:47.480 --> 2:23:50.760 there is deranged. It's just like, yeah, we didn't have 2:23:50.840 --> 2:23:54.720 this X number of years ago, so fuck it, Like 2:23:55.400 --> 2:23:57.600 you can't do this now. It's like this is this 2:23:57.640 --> 2:24:01.240 is nonsense, but it doesn't matter because the the the 2:24:01.280 --> 2:24:03.760 actual weight of the law is not is not you know, 2:24:03.800 --> 2:24:07.000 a sort of like series of debates about like logic 2:24:07.160 --> 2:24:09.280 or about the efficacy or the meeting of text. It's 2:24:09.360 --> 2:24:11.760 just about who has the power to point guns at people? 2:24:12.640 --> 2:24:16.760 And the answer is you don't have that you, you, 2:24:16.959 --> 2:24:20.040 dear listener, do not have that power. Okay, do you 2:24:20.040 --> 2:24:24.160 know who else is going to destroy the American federal bureaucracy? Oh? 2:24:24.440 --> 2:24:25.120 Yes, yes I do. 2:24:25.320 --> 2:24:25.640 Mayeah. 2:24:25.680 --> 2:24:27.959 It's it's a production and services. It's pot this podcast, 2:24:38.959 --> 2:24:40.760 and we are back for more horrors. 2:24:42.040 --> 2:24:44.240 So we're going to talk about one more case, which 2:24:44.280 --> 2:24:47.000 is grap Pass versus Johnson, which is a case to 2:24:47.240 --> 2:24:51.039 decide whether or not you can make it illegal to 2:24:51.040 --> 2:24:51.640 be homeless. 2:24:52.280 --> 2:24:54.760 Yeah, yeah, talking pointing guns at people. This one's This 2:24:54.800 --> 2:24:57.640 one's about pointing guns at homeless people, which is great, 2:24:57.840 --> 2:25:01.320 great and good. So this is one I've been following 2:25:01.400 --> 2:25:05.480 a little bit just because one thing that Todd Lauria 2:25:05.640 --> 2:25:08.920 loves to do is criminalize poverty. And I happen to, 2:25:09.000 --> 2:25:12.279 unfortunately live in a city of which he is mayor 2:25:12.840 --> 2:25:16.560 in San Diego. We have seen, like it's all the 2:25:16.560 --> 2:25:19.600 things they told your Republicans would do, our Democrat mayor 2:25:19.680 --> 2:25:24.880 is doing. And what the Grants passed usus Johnson case 2:25:25.000 --> 2:25:26.760 is about. It's a city of Grant's past, which I 2:25:26.760 --> 2:25:30.000 guess is a place in Oregon, and it's whether they 2:25:30.040 --> 2:25:34.440 can criminalize sleeping on the street if there are no 2:25:34.560 --> 2:25:39.520 safe shelter beds available. So that the idea here being 2:25:39.560 --> 2:25:43.000 that like again, like this is one has to understand 2:25:43.000 --> 2:25:44.520 that I'm speaking from the logic of the state when 2:25:44.520 --> 2:25:47.800 I try and explain this, like that, if there is 2:25:47.840 --> 2:25:50.720 a shelter bed to go to, they can compel you 2:25:50.760 --> 2:25:55.400 to go to it with threat of prosecution, right or criminalization. 2:25:55.840 --> 2:25:57.520 But if there is not a shelter bed to go to, 2:25:57.680 --> 2:26:02.760 then like you're not somehow your culpability changes, right, Like 2:26:03.080 --> 2:26:05.560 you're not refusing to take shelter there is no shelter 2:26:05.640 --> 2:26:10.240 few to take. And so Grant's past is obviously trying 2:26:10.320 --> 2:26:14.280 to criminalize people even when there are shelter beeds available. Now, 2:26:14.320 --> 2:26:18.400 what's interesting about Grant's pass is that not the place 2:26:18.440 --> 2:26:20.800 to the court case. What's interesting about the court case 2:26:20.840 --> 2:26:23.880 is that you'll see these big liberal cities filing amicus 2:26:23.879 --> 2:26:28.080 briefs amicus. It literally means it's from amicus curii friend 2:26:28.080 --> 2:26:31.280 of the court, right, which they can do in favor 2:26:31.320 --> 2:26:36.200 of either side. San Diego, Los Angeles, other large democratic cities, 2:26:36.240 --> 2:26:40.760 I'm sure all filing briefs in favor of criminalizing living 2:26:40.800 --> 2:26:45.480 on the street even when there are not shelter beds available. Now, 2:26:45.840 --> 2:26:49.080 if we look at the San Diego context specifically, one 2:26:49.120 --> 2:26:50.680 of the questions which will come up in this case 2:26:50.760 --> 2:26:53.680 is what is a shafe shelter bed? So what San 2:26:53.760 --> 2:26:56.760 Diego likes to do currently is put people into tents 2:26:57.240 --> 2:27:02.080 in parking lots where they often flood because because San 2:27:02.120 --> 2:27:04.520 Diego is not designed to deal with rain, and because 2:27:04.879 --> 2:27:07.760 our city has completely failed to clear out storm drains, 2:27:07.800 --> 2:27:12.080 resulting in people losing their homes in this winter, right, 2:27:12.160 --> 2:27:15.160 and so some of these parking lots flood where people 2:27:15.200 --> 2:27:18.320 have lived are forced to live. These tents are not like, 2:27:19.040 --> 2:27:21.760 they're not even good tents. Actually they managed to buy 2:27:21.760 --> 2:27:24.640 this is remarkable. Actually, if you were buying a tent there, 2:27:25.280 --> 2:27:28.400 can you think of any well, there's no way for 2:27:28.400 --> 2:27:30.680 me to phrase this. They bought fucking tents with slurs 2:27:30.720 --> 2:27:33.199 on the side. I don't know how you managed to do. Yeah, 2:27:33.520 --> 2:27:38.959 it's like the tents are quote Esquimo brand Jesus Christ. Yeah, 2:27:39.120 --> 2:27:44.560 it's it's it's it's incredible stuff. Like it's see, there 2:27:44.600 --> 2:27:45.840 was no way to be like, what would you be 2:27:45.840 --> 2:27:48.080 concerned about when buying a tent because a slur on 2:27:48.120 --> 2:27:49.440 the side would not have come up. 2:27:49.480 --> 2:27:51.720 I would not think about that. Why why would you? 2:27:51.720 --> 2:27:54.359 Why would there be slur? Why would there be slurs 2:27:54.400 --> 2:27:56.680 on the side of your tent? Yeah? Yeah, why were 2:27:56.720 --> 2:27:57.320 you doing here? 2:27:58.120 --> 2:28:02.119 How could you given the purchasing of the third largest 2:28:02.120 --> 2:28:05.520 city in California, somehow elects to purchase a tent, which 2:28:05.560 --> 2:28:08.400 is racist, Like, I don't know, but that's. 2:28:08.240 --> 2:28:10.640 Why I am not a member of the San Diego 2:28:10.720 --> 2:28:13.360 Democrat Party. So one of the things that will come 2:28:13.400 --> 2:28:18.279 up is what constitutes a safe shelter in practice. Again, 2:28:18.920 --> 2:28:22.240 this doesn't matter hugely other than it's a Supreme Court 2:28:22.320 --> 2:28:27.560 giving a nod to local governments to further criminalize being 2:28:27.640 --> 2:28:31.560 un housed, to drive unhouse people further from services, further 2:28:31.600 --> 2:28:34.920 from site. Right in San Diego's case, that means into canyons, 2:28:34.959 --> 2:28:38.880 into rivers, rivers, flood canyons, get extremely hot in the summer. 2:28:39.040 --> 2:28:41.320 More than one person every single day already dies on 2:28:41.360 --> 2:28:44.880 our streets here in an extremely wealthy and prosperous area 2:28:44.920 --> 2:28:47.600 of the world. This will make it worse because they 2:28:47.640 --> 2:28:50.920 will get that nod to continue criminalizing people rather than trying. 2:28:50.640 --> 2:28:51.240 To help them. 2:28:51.600 --> 2:28:55.280 In practice, what cities will do, including San Diego, is 2:28:55.320 --> 2:28:57.760 just hold back a few shelter beds to allow them 2:28:57.760 --> 2:29:01.680 to cite anyone. Right it practice, they're still going to 2:29:01.720 --> 2:29:04.480 cite people even if the demand for beds is much 2:29:04.560 --> 2:29:08.360 higher than the provision of beds. So like, in that case, 2:29:08.560 --> 2:29:11.560 they will still continue to find it's not a workaround. 2:29:11.640 --> 2:29:13.600 But they think it is right that they can just 2:29:13.680 --> 2:29:17.760 criminalize being in house in this fashion. But it it does, 2:29:17.840 --> 2:29:20.920 it represents like a nod from the top down right 2:29:21.120 --> 2:29:24.040 to go even harder after people who are too poor 2:29:24.080 --> 2:29:26.840 to make rent at a time when rent is less 2:29:26.840 --> 2:29:30.080 affordable than it has been in generations. And so like 2:29:30.560 --> 2:29:33.880 it's one to watch. It's one where like yet again 2:29:33.959 --> 2:29:36.960 you find like the Democrats, I guess, lining up on 2:29:37.240 --> 2:29:40.160 the right hand side of the issue, the right wing 2:29:40.240 --> 2:29:43.400 side of the issue, the state violence side of the issue. Right, 2:29:43.800 --> 2:29:46.800 and it will I'm sure open up the door to 2:29:46.879 --> 2:29:49.560 more what they call camping bands, which is the euphemism 2:29:49.600 --> 2:29:53.760 again they are bands on being un housed within city limits, right, 2:29:53.840 --> 2:29:57.360 And I think it's one to keep an eye on. 2:29:57.360 --> 2:30:01.640 But again, like I don't it's Clarence Thomas the guy 2:30:01.640 --> 2:30:04.040 who goes to the billionaire's house with the racist statues 2:30:04.080 --> 2:30:06.920 and the Nazi statues, Like, he's not the guy who's 2:30:06.959 --> 2:30:09.400 going to come in swinging for the person who has 2:30:09.440 --> 2:30:11.720 to sleep under the underpass because they can't make rent, 2:30:11.800 --> 2:30:12.360 you know, like. 2:30:12.879 --> 2:30:14.879 And like like if if you think the fucking liberal 2:30:15.000 --> 2:30:17.400 justices are going to give a shit either, like these 2:30:17.440 --> 2:30:20.400 are these are the people whose fundamental political principles that 2:30:20.440 --> 2:30:22.920 the police have the right to. Like, Okay, there is 2:30:22.959 --> 2:30:25.000 a decision that I can't remember the fucking name of 2:30:25.480 --> 2:30:27.280 that was a it was it was, it was, it was. 2:30:27.440 --> 2:30:29.760 It should have been a very very basic you are 2:30:29.840 --> 2:30:33.280 guaranteed due process thing right under the Fourth Amendments and this, 2:30:33.600 --> 2:30:36.760 and in a nine to o decision, the Supreme Court 2:30:36.879 --> 2:30:40.440 ruled that the cops are allowed to violate people's due 2:30:40.480 --> 2:30:43.480 process because if they didn't do this, there couldn't be 2:30:43.520 --> 2:30:45.959 a functional police force in this country because this is 2:30:45.959 --> 2:30:48.080 how the police were doing all their fucking work. So 2:30:48.320 --> 2:30:52.240 if you think those people right, that was nine oh 2:30:52.560 --> 2:30:55.680 nine zero decision, that was that was a fucking Ruth 2:30:55.720 --> 2:31:02.040 Bader Ginsburg special, Right, those people are going to be like, 2:31:02.120 --> 2:31:05.640 oh hey, damn, maybe people who don't own property, have rights? 2:31:06.440 --> 2:31:07.840 Like how no? 2:31:08.560 --> 2:31:11.560 Like yeah, no, Like, Look, when faced with a choice 2:31:11.600 --> 2:31:14.879 between like liberty and then then the necessity of maintaining 2:31:14.879 --> 2:31:17.240 a state's capacity to do violence to anyone at any time, 2:31:17.240 --> 2:31:21.360 they chose the latter right. And I guess, like, if 2:31:21.400 --> 2:31:23.000 I can get on my soap box for a minute, like, 2:31:23.280 --> 2:31:25.440 you need to stop expecting these people to come and 2:31:25.440 --> 2:31:28.879 save you, like specifically with reference to the fucking Grants 2:31:28.920 --> 2:31:31.520 past case, Like the person who is going to stop 2:31:31.520 --> 2:31:35.119 your unhoused neighbor dying is you. It's not an NGO, 2:31:35.400 --> 2:31:38.280 it's not the city, it's not the county, it's not 2:31:38.360 --> 2:31:41.720 the feds. Those people fundamentally that they're the incentive is 2:31:41.760 --> 2:31:44.520 not for them to care. Like your incentive, as a 2:31:44.560 --> 2:31:46.960 person who shares humanity with that person is to care 2:31:47.040 --> 2:31:51.360 and to do something. And like, yeah, I guess, like, 2:31:51.720 --> 2:31:53.760 don't wait, take the time you would have spent reading 2:31:53.760 --> 2:31:56.040 about a fucking Supreme Court case and make sandwiches and 2:31:56.080 --> 2:31:58.280 go hand them out, because that is the only way 2:31:58.320 --> 2:31:58.879 we solve this. 2:32:00.000 --> 2:32:01.600 I think that's as good a place as I need 2:32:01.640 --> 2:32:04.040 to stop. Yeah, this has been making up here. 2:32:07.680 --> 2:32:10.840 Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week 2:32:10.920 --> 2:32:12.840 from now until the heat death of the universe. 2:32:13.400 --> 2:32:15.920 It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media. 2:32:16.000 --> 2:32:20.240 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia. 2:32:19.520 --> 2:32:21.840 Dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 2:32:21.840 --> 2:32:25.040 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 2:32:25.080 --> 2:32:27.720 find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at 2:32:27.800 --> 2:32:30.080 coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. 2:32:30.200 --> 2:32:31.039 Thanks for listening.