Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 1: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
Speaker 1: the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent
Speaker 1: coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about,
Speaker 1: it just means the absolute world to have your support.
Speaker 1: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Hello, everybody.
Speaker 1: Almost immediately after we wrapped our show, some breaking news
Speaker 1: happened that we just absolutely have to cover. So let's
Speaker 1: go ahead and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 1: From the New York Times. Quote intelligence suggests pro Ukrainian
Speaker 1: group sabotage pipelines. US officials say, oh my, okay, so
Speaker 1: let's keep reading. New intelligence reviewed by US officials suggests
Speaker 1: a pro Ukrainian group carried out the attack on the
Speaker 1: nord Stream pipeline last year, a step towards determining responsibility
Speaker 1: for this act of sabotage. They are important to add. Quote.
Speaker 1: US officials say they had no evidence President Zelenski of
Speaker 1: Ukraine or as top lieutenants were involved in the operation,
Speaker 1: or that the perpetrators were acting on the direction of
Speaker 1: any Ukrainian government official. The brazen attack on the natural
Speaker 1: gas pipelines, which link Russia to Western Europe fueled speculation
Speaker 1: about who was to blame from Moscow to Kiev. Now,
Speaker 1: after there was no evidence that Russia did it, now
Speaker 1: US officials are leaking to the New York Times that
Speaker 1: actually it was a quote pro Ukrainian group. So who
Speaker 1: exactly are these people? Well, it's kind of interesting. According
Speaker 1: to the Times, they say that the review of intel
Speaker 1: suggests that they were opponents of Vladimir Putin of Russia. Okay,
Speaker 1: but they do not specify the members of the group
Speaker 1: or who directed or paid for the operation. US officials
Speaker 1: claim that they had no advanced knowledge of this incident.
Speaker 1: So anyway, let's take a step back for everybody. So obviously,
Speaker 1: the pipelines were blown up last year international waters just
Speaker 1: twelve miles away from NATO, ally from the International Zone,
Speaker 1: and it caused a major incident. Immediately, Western countries were
Speaker 1: quick to blame Russia. Now, Chrystal wasn't able to join
Speaker 1: me because this is such a breaking story here, but
Speaker 1: here's what she had to say. Quote, I'm going to
Speaker 1: read her comments, you guys can get her input. Quote.
Speaker 1: It beggars belief that a sophisticated operation using experienced divers
Speaker 1: of thousands of pounds of military explosives was a non
Speaker 1: state actor with zero US involvement. It's amazing they will
Speaker 1: now openly admit that Russia never made any sense as
Speaker 1: a culprit, and when they all but blamed that country
Speaker 1: and suggested that you were a fool if you thought otherwise. Quote. Finally,
Speaker 1: if it actually was Ukraine and we didn't know what
Speaker 1: the hell are we doing with those people, that's also
Speaker 1: my immediate take here as well. So here's what I
Speaker 1: put out. Quote. Two options, Either we helped Ukraine blow
Speaker 1: up the Nord Stream pipeline, or we didn't. We found
Speaker 1: out later, and we continued to provide tens of billions
Speaker 1: of dollars to an ally, which finds Ally put in
Speaker 1: quote here, which finds it preferable to risk great power
Speaker 1: conflict to draw us in. I'm not sure which is worse.
Speaker 1: And it's really interesting, right, every time Ukraine blows up
Speaker 1: the Crimean Bridge, assassinates Dugan's daughter on Russian territory, or
Speaker 1: blows up the Nord Stream pipeline. The New York Times
Speaker 1: and other pro intel a friendly media comes out later
Speaker 1: and says, hey, just so you know, yeah, they definitely
Speaker 1: did it and it was definitely bad, and they're kind
Speaker 1: of upset with them, but Zelenski had no ideas, Like,
Speaker 1: are we really supposed to believe that Zelenski had no
Speaker 1: idea that people inside of his government blew up the
Speaker 1: Nordstream pipeline and that they were able to do it
Speaker 1: in a directed operation which obviously required sophisticated military equipment, financing,
Speaker 1: and logistics to pull it off. Same with the Crimean bridge,
Speaker 1: and same with the assassination of Dugan's daughter in Moscow.
Speaker 1: If you believe that, I honestly just think you are
Speaker 1: a complete fool. And you know, the major takeaway of
Speaker 1: this is just that it was outrageous from the beginning
Speaker 1: to smear anybody who said that either the US wasn't
Speaker 1: involved or that it wasn't Russia. I will note that
Speaker 1: on our show we took a tremendous amount of caution
Speaker 1: from the very beginning, and we're very always important to
Speaker 1: say we're like, we don't know who the pipeline it could,
Speaker 1: you know, laid out the case in several different things.
Speaker 1: Will remember the infamous tweet from the Polish MP who
Speaker 1: said thank you USA whenever the pipeline was eventually exploded.
Speaker 1: And here's the worst part. It's almost certain, almost certain,
Speaker 1: we will not learn anything more about this. Also, it's
Speaker 1: very possible that the only reason the US is even
Speaker 1: leaking this limited amount of information right now is because
Speaker 1: Ukraine could be on the verge of conducting another similar attack.
Speaker 1: And also, as Crystal noted, it does not seem like
Speaker 1: it's a surprise that this happens to drop just weeks
Speaker 1: after Seymour Hirsch published that article in which he claimed
Speaker 1: to have a source that said that it was directly
Speaker 1: the United States that was involved in bloe owing up
Speaker 1: the nord Stream pipeline. That seems very much on the
Speaker 1: table now, given Seymour Hors's reporting, given all of the
Speaker 1: questions that remain around this incident, and you know, really,
Speaker 1: all I have to come back to is you can
Speaker 1: believe that what happened to Ukraine was wrong, but you,
Speaker 1: I think would be a fool to believe that we
Speaker 1: should a trust them to just do whatever is in
Speaker 1: our best interest and that we should just back them
Speaker 1: with a blank check. And two that the idea that
Speaker 1: their state apparatus was not involved in this in some
Speaker 1: way and that Zelenski didn't at least have some knowledge
Speaker 1: is just crazy. Remember they immediately blamed Russia for those
Speaker 1: two missiles that landed in Poland and killed two people.
Speaker 1: They tried to get America to have a no fly
Speaker 1: zone and come in only until hours later it turns
Speaker 1: out that they were Ukrainian anti aircraft missiles. The whole time,
Speaker 1: their interest is to get us involved in this war.
Speaker 1: Their interest is to escalate this to the great power
Speaker 1: conflict level because Russia is such an existential threat to them,
Speaker 1: regardless of how well they've done on the battlefield in
Speaker 1: the last year. It's just extraordinary, and you know you
Speaker 1: can get you can bet, you can absolutely bet this
Speaker 1: is going to land with crickets on the cable television
Speaker 1: and amongst the Neapho Brigade and all the other pro
Speaker 1: Ukraine forces who are just going to write this off.
Speaker 1: Is what you do whenever you defend yourself. Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're right, maybe this is something that you do,
Speaker 1: be sure as hell, don't do it with American money,
Speaker 1: with American resources and possibly even a US directed operation.
Speaker 1: We're going to continue to stay on this story, guys.
Speaker 1: I'm sure Counterpoints will have a hell of a lot
Speaker 1: of covers, but thought we owed it to you to
Speaker 1: have an immediate reaction. I'll see you guys later. Magan
Speaker 1: Markle been in the news recently, I guess to the
Speaker 1: misfortune of us all. Apparently her and Prince Harry wanted
Speaker 1: to sue the South Park creators for the We Want
Speaker 1: Privacy Tour episode that made fun of them. Not the
Speaker 1: only comedian though, that have taken notice. Chris Rock in
Speaker 1: his latest special going after Megan Markel as well. So
Speaker 1: let's gohea and put this up on the screen. I
Speaker 1: wish you could play the clip for you, but you
Speaker 1: could take that up with Netflix and they're insane copyright standards.
Speaker 1: So here's what he had to say, and again, it's
Speaker 1: not as funny whenever you read from somebody he says, quote,
Speaker 1: everybody's trying to be a victim, Like, who is this girl?
Speaker 1: Megan Markle seemed like a nice lady just complaining. I
Speaker 1: was like, didn't she hit the light skinned lottery? She
Speaker 1: hit the e fing light skinned lottery? And is still
Speaker 1: going off complaining, acting all dumb, like she didn't know
Speaker 1: nothing going on, Oprah, Like I didn't know, I had
Speaker 1: no idea how racist they were. It's a royal family.
Speaker 1: You didn't google these mother efforts? What the f is
Speaker 1: she talking about? She didn't know. It's a royal family.
Speaker 1: They were the original racists. They invented colonialism. They're the
Speaker 1: ogs of racism, the Sugar Sugarhill gang of racism. That's
Speaker 1: like marrying into the Budweiser family and saying they drink
Speaker 1: a lot. So continuous there a little bit. What I
Speaker 1: think is funny about this is not only just with Chris,
Speaker 1: but for a while Megan Markle was untouchable. I know this.
Speaker 1: I did my monologue famously defending Piers Morgan, who I
Speaker 1: still stand by my brother Peer's brother in arms in
Speaker 1: that fight against Megan Markle's narcissism. But for a while
Speaker 1: here in the US press it was completely verbot and
Speaker 1: to say anything about how this is one of the
Speaker 1: most obvious narcissists in the history of the world. Who
Speaker 1: you know, she wants to be president. She's calling up
Speaker 1: senators advocating for legislation. It's like, who the hell or
Speaker 1: you why should we care about anything that you say.
Speaker 1: One of the most obvious attention seekers ever actually a
Speaker 1: very modern American tradition. It seems American divorcees are always
Speaker 1: a problem whenever they get involved with the royal family.
Speaker 1: The point, though, is that I think that the tide
Speaker 1: is turning. So Charlemagne the God actually backed up Chris.
Speaker 1: Let's put this up there on the screen Monday's edition
Speaker 1: of The Breakfast Club where he says, whenever you went
Speaker 1: after Megan Markle, and he backed up and said, quote
Speaker 1: everything that he said was accurate before playing the clip.
Speaker 1: After some people said that they were mad about the
Speaker 1: Megan Markle thing where Chris Rock went after So I
Speaker 1: don't know, Cristal. I think that between South Park Chris
Speaker 1: Rock and now you've got South Rock, south Park Chris
Speaker 1: Rock and Charlomagne the God, all these people speaking out,
Speaker 1: I think we are now able to discuss the fact
Speaker 1: that Megan Markle is not only likely a liar, maybe
Speaker 1: not necessarily about this racism thing, but just in general,
Speaker 1: but such an obvious attention culture. Two together have become,
Speaker 1: I mean, they're just completely insufferable. I feel worse for
Speaker 1: Harry because I think he's obviously been taken advantage of,
Speaker 1: and he had a tough child. I feel bad. I
Speaker 1: mean he lost his mom y, right, Like, I feel
Speaker 1: bad for him about that. Nevertheless, come on, like you're
Speaker 1: a member of the royal family, you got a pretty
Speaker 1: good life, like multimillion. Yeah. I actually I watched the
Speaker 1: South Park episode. I watched segment because you know, I
Speaker 1: like to do my research, and it was hilarious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: attest to it was called the Worldwide Privacy Tour, which
Speaker 1: pretty much sums up the whole thing. And then they
Speaker 1: end up moving to South Park across across from Kyle
Speaker 1: Anyway and his book. In the South Park episode, instead
Speaker 1: of what is it called spare the name of it,
Speaker 1: it's called Way, And there's a whole brand management company
Speaker 1: that's like trying to pitch these kids on like how
Speaker 1: to lean into it, how to create a brand for themselves.
Speaker 1: And it becomes revealed that Megan has been using this
Speaker 1: brand management company and her brand is sorority Girl, actress
Speaker 1: influencer Victim. So yeah, it's too perfect. And the punchline
Speaker 1: with the brand management thing is that everybody who goes
Speaker 1: in there for their brand, it's like whatever you are,
Speaker 1: and at the end it's always victim. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to take a hopeful silver lining analysis of the whole
Speaker 1: Harry and Meghan situation, which is, I really think this
Speaker 1: could bring the nation together. As you point out, the
Speaker 1: emotion around this couple, I think is now widely shared
Speaker 1: across the political spectrum, across racial demographics and other typical
Speaker 1: dividing lines in American society. So I really think it
Speaker 1: is a beautiful thing for us to all come together
Speaker 1: around in contempt and orison of their publicity. So I
Speaker 1: certainly hope. So something I do love about the UK
Speaker 1: is that it's only in this country where we bought
Speaker 1: her bullshit. In the UK, in the tabloids, they were like,
Speaker 1: she's a full of shit, attention narcissist. They got it
Speaker 1: from the rigin. I love it. Yeah, So Peers, you know,
Speaker 1: he spoke through the masses. I still love him even
Speaker 1: though he went to go work for Rubert Murdock, and
Speaker 1: he was right right from the very beginning on this woman. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm glad the tide is turning. We'll see guys later.
Speaker 1: So John Stewart has just launched a new season of
Speaker 1: his show The Problem with John Stewart. Already a bunch
Speaker 1: of the clips are getting a lot of attention, and
Speaker 1: I'm actually excited for some of the interviews he has
Speaker 1: coming up. He says he's going to talk to Larry Summers.
Speaker 1: That will be spicy. I'm sure he's also going to
Speaker 1: talk to David Petraeus about the military industrial complex, and
Speaker 1: he teases that they have some pretty heated disagreements about
Speaker 1: the size and nature of said military industrial complex. I'm
Speaker 1: looking forward to that. But in his initial sort of
Speaker 1: teaser for the season, some comments he made about the
Speaker 1: Wuhan lab and the whole lab leak hypothesis got a
Speaker 1: lot of attention. You might recall, I'm pretty sure we
Speaker 1: played it here. We definitely played it when we were
Speaker 1: on with Joe Rosen. We did. We did end up
Speaker 1: covering it because we were on Rogan the very same
Speaker 1: day that it d That's right. So he did a
Speaker 1: whole bit that was hilarious with Colbert about the lab
Speaker 1: leak and just making fun of the fact that, like,
Speaker 1: it's so obvious that this is the most likely explanation
Speaker 1: versus what was sold to the American people at Slowet Market.
Speaker 1: It's very controversial at the time, but it was also
Speaker 1: very hilarious. He reacts here in this clip I'm about
Speaker 1: to show you to the public reaction and freak ount
Speaker 1: over this bit that he did take a lesson. It
Speaker 1: was a pretty good bit that expressed kind of how
Speaker 1: I felt. And the two things that came out of
Speaker 1: it were I'm racist against Asian people and how dare
Speaker 1: I align myselves with the alt rights I was doing
Speaker 1: a bit about, and it was similar to a bit
Speaker 1: I've done on religion. It used to do a bit
Speaker 1: about religion, saying religion's giving comfort to a world torn
Speaker 1: apart by religion. So the idea was, you know, about
Speaker 1: the vaccines and other things that science had truly helped
Speaker 1: heal a world from a pandemic, probably called by science.
Speaker 1: And then I proceeded to go on a kind of
Speaker 1: a long tangent about why that, Why I thought that?
Speaker 1: And the backlash was swift, immediate, and quite loud, which
Speaker 1: is just a sign of something we've been talking about
Speaker 1: for a while. How even contemplating or giving any sort
Speaker 1: of credence to lab Leak was coded as being a
Speaker 1: right wing conspiracist. And it's the way, yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: the way that, you know, and also by the way,
Speaker 1: you were racist against Asian people, even though, as I've
Speaker 1: also said many times, like the wet market theory, if
Speaker 1: anything was going to be racist, that sounded a lot
Speaker 1: more racist to me. But whatever. But one of the
Speaker 1: most extraordinary moments when he was actually delivering that, you know,
Speaker 1: that whole like doing the bit on Colbert, was how
Speaker 1: visibly uncomfortable Cole Bear was, who basically like interrupted him
Speaker 1: and cut him off. And I remember Rogan was like,
Speaker 1: as a comedian, deeply offended and triggered by the fact
Speaker 1: that he would like jump in and screw up the
Speaker 1: bit in the way that he tried to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and actually it's true because Colbert made his bones being
Speaker 1: a comedian, so for him to violate that code for
Speaker 1: John Stewart also who's doing it on his show. And
Speaker 1: by the way, oh's his entire career to John Stewart
Speaker 1: is also you know, one of those major I would say,
Speaker 1: faux pause, but you know, as what did Joe say,
Speaker 1: He was like he saw his yacht sailing away. Yeah, look,
Speaker 1: the whole thing I think was silly from the beginning.
Speaker 1: Glenn has been talking about this as well, about how
Speaker 1: John eventually had to not walk it back per se,
Speaker 1: but clearly was affected by the criticism. And I think
Speaker 1: that's the problem, which is, look, A, he was a
Speaker 1: comedian making a funny joke, and B the reason it
Speaker 1: was funny is we all knew it was true. And
Speaker 1: the fact is is that they couldn't did not want
Speaker 1: to grapple with the facts. It didn't even want to
Speaker 1: allow it into pop culture. So the whole episode is
Speaker 1: one of the most embarrassing things happened to the mainstream media.
Speaker 1: It seems like this just keeps happening too quickly, Like
Speaker 1: we had twenty years or so so in between Russiagate
Speaker 1: and Iraq WMD, but now it's like every two years
Speaker 1: we have a new one where they just cover themselves
Speaker 1: in glory, I guess, and never admit the failures, just
Speaker 1: keep pushing forward, never acknowledge that the train wreck that
Speaker 1: just happened behind them. Yeah, I mean, listen, John Stewart
Speaker 1: is fine. He has his show, he has his fame,
Speaker 1: he has this. He's all good, right, But I think
Speaker 1: the critique is more about Listen, if you're up and coming,
Speaker 1: you may not make that joke because you're worried about
Speaker 1: what it's going to mean for you in terms of
Speaker 1: your career prospects. And I also think outside of comedy,
Speaker 1: it's just a more meta narrative and commentary on the
Speaker 1: way that things get coded as Republican or Democrat or
Speaker 1: right or left in at times these really bizarrely arbitrary ways,
Speaker 1: Like there's nothing inherent about a lovely hypothesis that would
Speaker 1: make it somehow right wing, but because Trump said it,
Speaker 1: then instantly it becomes part of this weird, stupid partisan
Speaker 1: culture war that kept the media from actually investigating what
Speaker 1: really happened here for years. So it's not like it
Speaker 1: doesn't have any impact anyway. Always, you know, always insightful,
Speaker 1: always interesting to hear from Jensuar, And I am excited
Speaker 1: about the upcoting season because he does such a great
Speaker 1: job in those interviews one on one. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: just relentless. Maybe we should have him back on the show.
Speaker 1: I would love to have him back on his front
Speaker 1: or go for producers, let's do it, let's get it done,
Speaker 1: all right, We'll see you guys later. Hello, everybody. Breaking news.
Speaker 1: One of the most disgusting attacks by senior government officials
Speaker 1: against independent media I have ever seen just occurred today
Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill. Matt Tayebe and Michael Schellenberger appeared before
Speaker 1: Congress to talk about the Twitter files. This could have
Speaker 1: been a substitute discussion if they had wanted it to be. Instead,
Speaker 1: it was character assassination and it was attack on independent
Speaker 1: media itself. So let's start. Stacy Plaskett, who is the
Speaker 1: delegate to Congress from the US Virgin Islands, the ranking
Speaker 1: member on the committee, starts off the hearing by attacking
Speaker 1: the credentials of Matt Tayebe of Michael Schellenberger, calling them
Speaker 1: quote so called journalists. Let's take a listen. This isn't
Speaker 1: just a matter of what data was given to the
Speaker 1: so called journalists before. So now there are many legitimate
Speaker 1: questions about where Musk got the financing to buy Twitter.
Speaker 1: First of all, let me just say this, Stacy Plaskett
Speaker 1: is not even a real member of Congress. So who
Speaker 1: is a lady who literally can't even vote in the
Speaker 1: chamber to call anybody a so called member. See, we
Speaker 1: can all do this if we want to, or we
Speaker 1: could focus on the substance that's the problem. They would
Speaker 1: rather go after Tyibee and Schllenberger's credentials than talk about
Speaker 1: the actual censorious content of the Twitter files. Matt, to
Speaker 1: his credit, he handled it with total grace and he
Speaker 1: laid out his credentials. Take a listen to his response,
Speaker 1: ranking member Plasket. I'm not a still called journalist. I've
Speaker 1: won the National Magazine Award, the if Stone Award for
Speaker 1: Independent Journalism, and I've written ten books, including four New
Speaker 1: York Times New York Times bestseller. You know. Here's the thing, though,
Speaker 1: and look, I'm glad he obviously is an accomplished person.
Speaker 1: But credentials don't matter anybody anybody who exposes information not
Speaker 1: previously known, that person has committed an act of journalism.
Speaker 1: That person is protected by the First Amendment. Who the
Speaker 1: fuck are these members of Congress to think that they
Speaker 1: can decide who a journalist is and who a journalist
Speaker 1: is not. Now It's not just Stacey Plaskett. Many other
Speaker 1: Democrats on the committee humiliated themselves today. One of them
Speaker 1: is Debbie Wasserman Schaltz. Let's talk about Debbie Wassermanshall's I
Speaker 1: think we all remember her from the DNC days. Here
Speaker 1: she is attacking Matt Tayebi for the idea that he
Speaker 1: might have made money by doing his job. Take a listen.
Speaker 1: I imagine your sub stack readership, which is a subscription
Speaker 1: increased significantly because of the work that you did for
Speaker 1: Elon Musk. Now, I'm not asking you to put a
Speaker 1: dollar figure on it, but it's quite obvious that you've
Speaker 1: profited from the Twitter files. You hit the jackpot on
Speaker 1: that Vegas slot machine to which you referred. That's true,
Speaker 1: isn't it. I've also reinvested. No, no, no, no. Is
Speaker 1: it true that you have profited since you were receiving
Speaker 1: you were the recipient of the Twitter files. You've made money?
Speaker 1: Yes or no, it's probably honestly. No, you have made
Speaker 1: money that you did not have before. Correct, But I've
Speaker 1: also spent money that I didn't have. Okay, where I
Speaker 1: just hired a whole group of people to patently obvious
Speaker 1: answer reclaiming my time. Attention is a powerful drug, eyeballs, money, prominence, attention.
Speaker 1: All of it points to problems with accuracy and credibility,
Speaker 1: and the larger point, which is social media companies are
Speaker 1: not biased against conservatives, and if anything, they ignored their
Speaker 1: own policies by allowing Trump and other magnet extremists to
Speaker 1: post incessantly endangering public safety and even our democracy. Hypocrisy
Speaker 1: is the hangover of an addiction to attention. Oh, first
Speaker 1: of all, Matt says, it's a wash because, as all
Speaker 1: of us know, it's not for free. We actually have
Speaker 1: to invest a lot of what we quote unquote make
Speaker 1: into our business because we don't have big corporate advertisers
Speaker 1: to back up our work. But second, when the New
Speaker 1: York Times and the Washington Post break a story, you
Speaker 1: know what they do. They advertise because we know that
Speaker 1: people you want to support work whenever they find it
Speaker 1: to be good. So what is she attacking here? The
Speaker 1: idea that Matt Tayibi and Michael Schellenberger, an of these
Speaker 1: people did their job and so we're rewarded for it.
Speaker 1: So what what's wrong with that? This is an attack
Speaker 1: on independent media itself? Are they calling the TV executives
Speaker 1: who make billions of dollars from the big pharma companies
Speaker 1: in all their commercials? Oh, that's not so called journalism.
Speaker 1: That's fine when they profit whenever they spin up a
Speaker 1: fake story like Russia Gate and sell corporate ad dollars
Speaker 1: on their higher ratings. That's totally legitimate, right, But it's
Speaker 1: not legitimate when he exposes the censorship industrial complex that
Speaker 1: existed over at Twitter, the actions of the FBI and
Speaker 1: the DHS. That's what the problem is. And then final
Speaker 1: this clip. This you can tell I'm hopped up because
Speaker 1: this is everything. Watch this Democratic member of Congress refer
Speaker 1: to substack quote as some sort of a website, which
Speaker 1: she finds confusing. Yet you yourself post in on your
Speaker 1: I guess it's kind of like a web page and
Speaker 1: don't quite understand what substack is. But that I know
Speaker 1: a lot of boomers watch the show. Some of them
Speaker 1: get upset when I attack. But look, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: say it. That's exactly why we need some new blood
Speaker 1: in Congress because that's what we're up against. People. This
Speaker 1: is everything they are attacking. Substack is some not legitimate
Speaker 1: forum of journalism so called journalists Matt Tayebi and Michael Schellenberger.
Speaker 1: If you make money to support yourself outside of the
Speaker 1: corporate industrial complex, that suspect. But when you take Pfizer's
Speaker 1: money to support your sixty minutes program, that's totally fine.
Speaker 1: And this has got to be one of the most repulsive,
Speaker 1: disgusting things I have seen from members of Congress. You
Speaker 1: are a government official, you say nothing about who is
Speaker 1: a journalist, who is not? Who the fuck are you?
Speaker 1: I can't I just that's all I can continue to
Speaker 1: think whenever I see the way that they behave today
Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill. We could have had a real discussion here.
Speaker 1: We could have had a real questioning, not just with Tybee,
Speaker 1: with Schellenberger, about the actual content of the Twitter files.
Speaker 1: That's what Jim Jordan and some of the other people
Speaker 1: who were in before Congress tried to do. But instead
Speaker 1: they chose to attack their character and look, in some
Speaker 1: ways that's a good thing. That means that they're winning.
Speaker 1: That means that they don't actually have anything to say
Speaker 1: about the content. The tacit acknowledge is that they have
Speaker 1: to attack the credentials because they have no defense whatsoever
Speaker 1: of the content. But you know, don't mistake this for
Speaker 1: what it is. This is not you know, take breaking
Speaker 1: points or whatever out of it. This is an attack
Speaker 1: on all of us so called viewers, so called journalists,
Speaker 1: so called people who question anything that these people say.
Speaker 1: So anyway, go support Matt if you can you know what,
Speaker 1: Let's actually make him some money. We'll drop a link
Speaker 1: to his substack in the description just a repulsive, repulsive
Speaker 1: display on Capitol Hill today. Hey, their money is James Lay.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for tuning in to another segment
Speaker 1: of fifty one to forty nine on Breaking Points and
Speaker 1: today I'm here to talk to you about what I'm
Speaker 1: calling a cooperative arms race that is currently unfolding between governments,
Speaker 1: big tech, and the ruling elites. To colonize your mind.
Speaker 1: You glance at the program running in the background on
Speaker 1: your computer screen and notice a now familiar site that
Speaker 1: appears whenever you're overloaded with pleasure. Your data bringway back
Speaker 1: to the decreasing in the temporal of your brain. You
Speaker 1: mentally move the cursor to the left and scroll through
Speaker 1: your brain data over the past few hours. You can
Speaker 1: see your stress levels rising as the deadline to finish
Speaker 1: your memo approached, causing a peak in your beta brain
Speaker 1: wave activity. Right before and alert popped up telling you
Speaker 1: to take a brain break. Your mind starts to wander
Speaker 1: to the new colleague on your team, whom you know
Speaker 1: you shouldn't be daydreaming about, given the policy against intra
Speaker 1: office romance, but you can't help fantasizing just a little.
Speaker 1: But then you start to worry that your boss will
Speaker 1: notice your amorous feelings when she checks your brain activity
Speaker 1: and shift your attention back to the present. When you
Speaker 1: arrive at work the next day, a somber cloud has
Speaker 1: fallen over the office, along with emails, text messages, and
Speaker 1: GPS location data. The government has subpoenaed employees brainwave data
Speaker 1: from the past year. They have compelling evidence that one
Speaker 1: of your coworkers has committed massive wire fraud. Now they're
Speaker 1: looking for his co conspirators. You discover they are looking
Speaker 1: for synchronized brain activity between your coworker and the people
Speaker 1: he has been working with. You know you're innocent of
Speaker 1: any crime. You've been secretly working with him on a
Speaker 1: new startup venture, shaking you remove your earbunds. What a
Speaker 1: pitch a wearable device that monitors all of your brain
Speaker 1: activity with a new type of technology for which they
Speaker 1: are attempting to manufacture public consent in the name of
Speaker 1: human wellness. How predictable with supposed applications like being able
Speaker 1: to help keep you healthy, make you more productive, steer
Speaker 1: you clear of certain vices and even fight crime. No
Speaker 1: other possible motivations. Right, companies already investing in tech to
Speaker 1: scan employees' brains. The general pitch for this device class
Speaker 1: is familiar, if not convenient. It's a tool not only
Speaker 1: for enhancing productivity, but for ensuring employee wellness. They might
Speaker 1: technically be monitoring employees, but only for their sake. We're
Speaker 1: going to monitor you for productivity, yes, but that's not
Speaker 1: a real focus. What we're really after is ensuring your wellness,
Speaker 1: your safety. We're monitoring you for your sake. Consider the
Speaker 1: fact that right now, many workplaces have individuals who have
Speaker 1: to be awake and alert at all times in order
Speaker 1: to do their jobs well. Sometimes that doesn't happen. Take
Speaker 1: this example, where this trucker decided to take a twenty
Speaker 1: hour shot for a fifteen hundred mile ride. It's well
Speaker 1: exceeding the amount of time that any trucker long haul
Speaker 1: trucker is supposed to drive. His employer didn't discover his
Speaker 1: choices until the fatal accident that was disastrous for the
Speaker 1: company and cost many lives. Note the order of priorities
Speaker 1: first and foremost disastrous for the company, and then secondarily
Speaker 1: many lives lost. Quote, in five thousand companies across the world,
Speaker 1: employees are already having their brainwave activity monitored to test
Speaker 1: for their fatigue levels. Fairhni says she is the presenter
Speaker 1: in the clip we just watched from the world that can.
Speaker 1: She cites mining operations, including one of the biggest mining
Speaker 1: companies in the world, that have their employees wear hard
Speaker 1: hat and baseball cap like devices that detect fatigue. No mention,
Speaker 1: of course, of alleviating the conditions that lead to over
Speaker 1: fatigued workers in the first place. I don't know. You
Speaker 1: tell me. Is this technology meant to improve the human experience,
Speaker 1: improve human wellness, improve the human condition? Or is this
Speaker 1: technology meant to enable human control visa vis a centralized
Speaker 1: authority open the pod bay door as well. I'm sorry, Dave,
Speaker 1: I'm afraid I can't do that. This mission is too
Speaker 1: important for me to allow you to jeopardize it. You see,
Speaker 1: I don't think the goal is to preserve humanity. Rather,
Speaker 1: I think the goal fairly transparent goal is to turn
Speaker 1: humans into programmable robots with no freedom to engage in
Speaker 1: independent thought, their only function being defined as whatever is
Speaker 1: necessary to serve their corporate masters. That is perhaps the
Speaker 1: only real use case of this application and the only
Speaker 1: way that this type of technology is actually financially viable. Quote,
Speaker 1: we find the once autonomous cowboys of the highway, strapped
Speaker 1: to monitors and monitoring vests, scanned with intelligent cameras and
Speaker 1: tracked while they drive, forced to ride along with silent
Speaker 1: spies instead of hitchhiking kids like me. Despite what I
Speaker 1: think is pretty eloquent pros there that is not some
Speaker 1: movie script. That is reality, real life applications of surveillance
Speaker 1: technology already in use to spy on people. In twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: the US Department of Transportation decided to do something about
Speaker 1: terrible accidents and long haul trucking. The problem, as that
Speaker 1: DOT saw it, was that drivers were evading the hours
Speaker 1: of service rules that limited how long they could drive,
Speaker 1: So the federal solution was to mandate a digital ride
Speaker 1: along to stop the evasion. Starting in twenty seventeen, the
Speaker 1: DOT required that all trucks be equipped with electronic logging
Speaker 1: devices elds. This is the exact scenario that Professor Parahani
Speaker 1: invokes in her presentation at Davos to illustrate the use
Speaker 1: case of such brain monitoring technology. But according to reporting
Speaker 1: from the American Prospect, after the ELD rollout, trucking safety
Speaker 1: stayed the same or declined. There were even more crashes
Speaker 1: in some part of the industry. As right, the roads
Speaker 1: aren't made any safer, but corporate bosses are surely more
Speaker 1: powerful and more wealthy. Every moment spent idling is a
Speaker 1: blinking red data point at headquarters. Now drivers get pinged
Speaker 1: by their superiors when a truck stop break goes longer
Speaker 1: than expected. When a driver is tired or encounters bad weather,
Speaker 1: they no longer feel free to make a decision to
Speaker 1: sleep or take a break, because the tracking technology signals
Speaker 1: to headquarters that the truck is idle. Elds also create
Speaker 1: a new structure of ongoing data collection, which positions employers
Speaker 1: to be able to more precisely set change and withhold wages.
Speaker 1: They use the data to push for competition between drivers,
Speaker 1: shame drivers who are less productive, and discipline them. There
Speaker 1: is a reason, not a coincidence, why corporations call it
Speaker 1: human resources. You and I are humans from the point
Speaker 1: of view of corporations, nothing more than resources that are
Speaker 1: to be managed, deployed, and transformed into a commodity, meaning
Speaker 1: to them, humans are to be treated only as objects
Speaker 1: of trade for means of generating economic value. The moment
Speaker 1: you seize to serve that function, there is no other
Speaker 1: outcome for you other than being discarded. When do you
Speaker 1: look at it at technology transformation, it usually takes place
Speaker 1: in the terms of a S curve. And we are
Speaker 1: just now where we move into the exponential phase. And
Speaker 1: I agree artificial intelligence, but not only artificially intelligence, but
Speaker 1: also some meta worls near space technologies. And I could
Speaker 1: go on and on, synthetic biology. Our life in ten
Speaker 1: years from now will be completely different, very much affected.
Speaker 1: And who master or SOI technology cheese in some way
Speaker 1: will be the master of the world. Masters of this
Speaker 1: technology will be masters of the world. Klaus Schwab, the
Speaker 1: WF kind of oftentimes shrouded in this kind of conspiratorial mystery,
Speaker 1: but if you listen, they are actually pretty transparent in
Speaker 1: terms of telegraphing what their plan is. In this case, technology,
Speaker 1: while pitched as a tool to empower humans, is in
Speaker 1: reality an instrument of control to rule the masses and
Speaker 1: increase corporate power. A silicon value lawmaker wants to protect
Speaker 1: workers from employer spying. Assembly Member ash Kolera proposed a
Speaker 1: bill Monday that he said would ensure workers gain some
Speaker 1: protection from off duty employer surveillance and retaliation. The Workplace
Speaker 1: Technology Accountability Act, or AB sixteen fifty one, would create
Speaker 1: a set of privacy standards for employer workplace monitoring to rules.
Speaker 1: All right, So not lost on me that I'm sort
Speaker 1: of advocating for government intervention as a potential solution to
Speaker 1: protect work or privacy, since I also in this piece
Speaker 1: heavily alluded to the fact that governmental agencies and other
Speaker 1: centralized corporate authorities are prone to abuse such a technology.
Speaker 1: But what I would say to that is, I'm not
Speaker 1: opposed to governments creating rules. It's just who are they
Speaker 1: creating the rules? On? Behalf of that is what we
Speaker 1: have to pay attention to. Does the rule centralized power
Speaker 1: or decentralized power? Is the rule meant to benefit multinational
Speaker 1: corporations or regular citizens? That is how I think we
Speaker 1: should evaluate legislation. That bill, by the way, did not
Speaker 1: even receive a vote. It was withdrawn before even a hearing.
Speaker 1: Big business predictably got involved to kill it and smear
Speaker 1: it as a job killer and that is the point.
Speaker 1: The current economic paradigm necessarily incentivizes or requires businesses to grow,
Speaker 1: to look for new frontiers, new geographies to conquer, to monetize.
Speaker 1: It just so happens that we've just about colonized every
Speaker 1: corner of the globe. So the mind, which was once
Speaker 1: sacred to the individual, is now the final untapped trove
Speaker 1: of value, and it is under siege to be conquered
Speaker 1: and exploited by the ruling elites. So let's be mindful
Speaker 1: of that as we scrutinize AI power, surveillance technology and
Speaker 1: the ways in which various groups, whether it be big
Speaker 1: business or consortium of public and private interests, look for
Speaker 1: ways to manufacture public consent to accept this technology. That
Speaker 1: is all for me this time. I hope you found
Speaker 1: today's segment about surveillance and brain monitoring technology to be
Speaker 1: informative and helpful. What are your thoughts? Is boss weare
Speaker 1: a concern for you? Is privacy concern for you? I
Speaker 1: would encourage you to share your thoughts in the comments
Speaker 1: section below. Also make a ton of other videos like
Speaker 1: this breaking down many different topics on my YouTube channel
Speaker 1: fifty one to forty nine with James Lee, I would
Speaker 1: encourage you to check it out and subscribe. The link
Speaker 1: will be in the description below. Of course, keep on
Speaker 1: tuning into Breaking Points and thank you so much for
Speaker 1: your time today. Cheles tair Pak, Welcome back to Breaking Points.
Speaker 1: I saw some news about TikTok and social media screen
Speaker 1: time limits that be built into the apps. I thought
Speaker 1: you'd be the perfect person to talk about this with
Speaker 1: the Breaking Points audience. So, yeah, what's happening. What's the
Speaker 1: big headline? You offered a bit of a correction, let's
Speaker 1: take it in there. Yeah, so there's a few headlines
Speaker 1: happening about TikTok right now, but what we're focusing on
Speaker 1: was a big headline last week is that TikTok is
Speaker 1: implementing limits on teens to just being on the app
Speaker 1: for sixty minutes per day. That was the headline and
Speaker 1: that's what a lot of people on Twitter were going with,
Speaker 1: you know, big shock value. But there is missing context
Speaker 1: within that headline. So what it left out is once
Speaker 1: this limit is hit, the user is able to put
Speaker 1: in a passcode that they set for themselves, unless they're
Speaker 1: under the age of thirteen, the parents sets the passcode
Speaker 1: for them, so they can go right through that limit,
Speaker 1: similar to the way that we have Apple screen time
Speaker 1: screen time limits, and also that they can turn off
Speaker 1: the feature completely. So that's where it gets a little weird.
Speaker 1: But what is good about it is that it is
Speaker 1: going to be a default setting for those under eighteen
Speaker 1: years old, So I want to be very precise. So
Speaker 1: the significance is when you download TikTok for the first
Speaker 1: time and you're under eighteen, there is just going to
Speaker 1: be by default the setting that there's going to be
Speaker 1: a sixty minute limit. And the key thing that people
Speaker 1: should understand then is that this limit is optional in
Speaker 1: the sense that whenever you hit the sixty you just
Speaker 1: put in the pass code. When you said the point
Speaker 1: about how thirteen year olds will require a parent to
Speaker 1: input the number, how many thirteen year olds are even
Speaker 1: like using TikTok, I don't use the app, so I'm
Speaker 1: just like curious about that, Like under thirteen's yeah. So
Speaker 1: it's similar in the way that Instagram, if a user
Speaker 1: is under thirteen, it is supposed to kind of be
Speaker 1: a parent run account if the user is under thirteen
Speaker 1: and they created the account themselves, and the birthday obviously
Speaker 1: shows that they're under thirteen. Even though it's easy to
Speaker 1: bypass that by in putting a that shows you're over thirteen,
Speaker 1: they cannot post on the app, and they also have
Speaker 1: a bit of more content generation in terms of what
Speaker 1: is pushed them as well as they don't get ads
Speaker 1: and things like that. So it ends up not being
Speaker 1: attractive for people under thirteen and they end up not
Speaker 1: really utilizing it unless they're utilizing like their parents' platform
Speaker 1: for example, but it's not frequently used. This, I would say,
Speaker 1: is mostly a big story between those like thirteen to
Speaker 1: eighteen and what do you think about social media screen
Speaker 1: time limits in general? So screen time limits are kind
Speaker 1: of proven to be very ineffective within China right now.
Speaker 1: For it's actually users that are under fourteen years old.
Speaker 1: Within TikTok, they have a hard screen time limit of
Speaker 1: forty minutes per day and it's no efans or butts,
Speaker 1: like there is no passcode. They actually get kicked off
Speaker 1: after forty minutes per day. This is inching towards that.
Speaker 1: But again we know as just like adults using screen
Speaker 1: time limits, it's something more to make you. It's more
Speaker 1: for awareness than it is for like clearcut enforcement. And
Speaker 1: what TikTok is also pushing with this as like weekly
Speaker 1: emails to teens about their screen time and all these
Speaker 1: different things that again it's very similar to what Apple
Speaker 1: has within the system, and I think it's pretty ineffective
Speaker 1: though it is again good for awareness. But what I
Speaker 1: really like about this is that it is becoming the
Speaker 1: default setting because right now, users like ninety five percent
Speaker 1: of users never change their default settings on apps. So
Speaker 1: when you have kids come in and the settings for
Speaker 1: social media platforms are default for privacy and safety and
Speaker 1: their well being, that can make them more conscious of
Speaker 1: these things and their consumption. So that move about it,
Speaker 1: I do think is positive. But again the fact that
Speaker 1: it's just a screen time limit, I don't think it's
Speaker 1: going to be effective in the long run. TikTok said
Speaker 1: that they did beta testing on this and within the
Speaker 1: first month it made use of screen time limits within
Speaker 1: the app go up two hundred and thirty four percent.
Speaker 1: But I'm more interested in how many of those users
Speaker 1: actually within five minutes of getting that screen time limit
Speaker 1: actually exited the app. I assume it would be a
Speaker 1: very very small person. Yeah, so why is TikTok doing this?
Speaker 1: Assuming good faith and bad faith. There is two different
Speaker 1: answers of the question, because on the one hand, their
Speaker 1: whole business is keeping you on the app so that
Speaker 1: you see more ads, you scroll more, et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Are they doing this because they're concerned that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of just discourse in the country and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of even like legal and political talk
Speaker 1: about like prestrictions in the way that China has them.
Speaker 1: How how should we think about their motivations here? For sure,
Speaker 1: I would say there is a ton of pressure on
Speaker 1: TikTok right now, and especially just how advanced again the
Speaker 1: algorithm is, and the design of the platform, having a
Speaker 1: endless scroll, bottomless feed on like ever before on other platforms,
Speaker 1: is known to be extremely addictive, and the time spent
Speaker 1: on this platform because of how addictive it is, is
Speaker 1: way more than any other platform right now. So it
Speaker 1: sucks users in As adults, we have all experienced that
Speaker 1: on TikTok if you've ever been on the platform, and
Speaker 1: so we know that it was probably just as bad,
Speaker 1: if not worse for kids. So there is a ton
Speaker 1: of pressure on them with that. Also, there is just
Speaker 1: a ton of legislation talk around youth well being in
Speaker 1: social media right now over the past two years. Joe
Speaker 1: Biden has mentioned it in the State of the State
Speaker 1: of the Union, addressed two years in a row now.
Speaker 1: And also there's a bunch of different things on the table.
Speaker 1: So you know, California last year passed the Age Appropriate
Speaker 1: Design Code. There are other states right now having that
Speaker 1: in play. There's KOSA, there is a different bill that
Speaker 1: is trying to ban kids sixteen and under on social media.
Speaker 1: And there are a bunch of things at play right
Speaker 1: now because in the US there hasn't been a bill
Speaker 1: protecting kids online passed since nineteen ninety eight, and obviously
Speaker 1: the Internet is completely different than nineteen ninety eight. Social
Speaker 1: media wasn't even a thing back then. So there is
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure right now against just social media
Speaker 1: companies in general. And I think TikTok, first of all,
Speaker 1: the pressure amongst them as well as just trying to
Speaker 1: be a leader in that space, probably wanted to make
Speaker 1: this move. But I will say Instagram has had parental
Speaker 1: controls for years now. We're going to launch youth mode
Speaker 1: for kids years ago, but they ended up pausing that
Speaker 1: because there were a lot of just discrmpancies and scares
Speaker 1: around that. But yeah, so TikTok is trying to just
Speaker 1: be a player in the space of youth well being
Speaker 1: for sure. You know something I'm curious about when you
Speaker 1: use the word addiction. I'm really interested in the like
Speaker 1: clinical use of the word addiction and just how we
Speaker 1: actually think about it, because, for example, back when I
Speaker 1: was in high school, like I think you could say
Speaker 1: that me and a lot of people in my generation
Speaker 1: of cohort were addicted to Facebook. Now we're just like
Speaker 1: not on Facebook. I tried to use Facebook for an
Speaker 1: event recently and I literally couldn't figure out where the
Speaker 1: event section on the mobile apples because I'm so unused
Speaker 1: to using it anymore. So like I was addicted, but
Speaker 1: I wasn't addicted. Like there's a world war caid work.
Speaker 1: I don't want to sound like a libertarian here, but
Speaker 1: this does seem to be like something like that, Like
Speaker 1: how do you think about that? I think it's a mix, uh,
Speaker 1: the type of content you're pushed, the features that what
Speaker 1: is enabled on the platform, and all these little cultural
Speaker 1: things that create these subconscious pools to always be opening
Speaker 1: these apps, whether it's notifications, whether it's public facing number metrics,
Speaker 1: all these different little things are these nuances that make
Speaker 1: people more appeal to keep checking the numbers, keep checking
Speaker 1: the content, keep checking the notifications. And this has just
Speaker 1: become more prevalent over the years. I mean, yeah, I
Speaker 1: was on Facebook heavily ten years ago, but just the
Speaker 1: different features and everything weren't as compelling as the feature
Speaker 1: designs are on TikTok today. They have really optimized time
Speaker 1: spent on the platform and really hitting our psyche when
Speaker 1: it comes to that. Yeah, it's kind of funny. I'm
Speaker 1: comparing this to Facebook in the you know, late two thousands.
Speaker 1: But like, obviously, if Facebook would have could have designed
Speaker 1: what we now have of TikTok, they'd be in a
Speaker 1: much better place than they'd be enjoying that. So it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily a defense. Yeah, like, can you get Twitter
Speaker 1: dow Yeah? Surprisingly yes, but slightly Yeah. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: this is this is the this is why tech talks
Speaker 1: so unique, just like putting aside the geopolitics and the
Speaker 1: China and the band debate, Just like short form video
Speaker 1: is just like the apex of mobile based computing entertainment.
Speaker 1: It's a lot more engaging than text or sharing things
Speaker 1: among friends. It's like, instead of making social media about people,
Speaker 1: you know, which is Facebook and Instagram or at rest
Speaker 1: Instagram at the start, it's about things outward, beyond yourself.
Speaker 1: So I think the last thing that people are thinking
Speaker 1: a lot about I would love to hear your thought
Speaker 1: on is just like the debate around social media TikTok,
Speaker 1: Instagram and depression, which relates to all this because if
Speaker 1: we're thinking of social media as something that can cause depression,
Speaker 1: that could cause like self image with teen girls to
Speaker 1: be in a disastrous place. Obviously they're gonna be calls
Speaker 1: for screen time limits, bands, etc. Like what's your big
Speaker 1: take on this issue? Yeah, it's a loaded question. I
Speaker 1: feel like this topic can be like a two hour conversation,
Speaker 1: so or try to keep it short. Okay, So first
Speaker 1: of all, we'll talk about my experience. So when I
Speaker 1: was in middle school and early high school, I was
Speaker 1: heavily on Tumblr, and Tumblr was known to be like
Speaker 1: the first platform that really romanticized mental illness. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what suicide was before then, I didn't really know
Speaker 1: what mental health issues were before then. This platform really
Speaker 1: exposed it to me. Because it's a mix of like Twitter,
Speaker 1: Energy and Pinterest, as well as like anonymous anonymous question platforms.
Speaker 1: Tumblr was kind of like the Holy Girl of all
Speaker 1: of that, though it didn't have an algorithm. It was
Speaker 1: all based on who you followed. But I was exposed
Speaker 1: to content of people cutting themselves, all these different things,
Speaker 1: and when I was twelve years old, it warped my
Speaker 1: mind almost to think that an appropriate reaction to any
Speaker 1: feeling of negativity or sadness was to contemplate hurting myself.
Speaker 1: It was this weird mind warp right right. And when
Speaker 1: I think about TikTok today, Wall Street Journal did amazing
Speaker 1: coverage of this, I think about three years ago now
Speaker 1: where they made a couple thousand bots on the platform
Speaker 1: and they gave these bots different interest and one of
Speaker 1: the bots they gave interests of sadness and depression, And
Speaker 1: within forty minutes of this bot being on the app,
Speaker 1: they were watching the hashtags that had anything to do
Speaker 1: with like sadness and depression, any of those any of
Speaker 1: that type of content, they would the bot would watch
Speaker 1: those videos for longer. It got a little mixed up
Speaker 1: of if the bot one relationship content or all these
Speaker 1: different things. But again within forty minutes. Around ninety percent
Speaker 1: of the content pushed this bot had to do with
Speaker 1: sadness and depression. It makes me really think about Tumblr
Speaker 1: and my experience there, But it was more self curated
Speaker 1: TikTok when it gets a sense of like your state
Speaker 1: of mind, your mood, everything, and is continuously pushing this
Speaker 1: content to you. The other ten percent of the content
Speaker 1: that was pushed to the bot was supposed to be
Speaker 1: content that kind of served testing their other interest, but
Speaker 1: a lot of that content ended up being advertisements. And
Speaker 1: as an adult, I've seen this. I saw it with
Speaker 1: the Andrew Tate phenomenon. When I was interested in that
Speaker 1: in terms of like curiosity around the whole phenomenon of it,
Speaker 1: I was getting pushed like every other video on TikTok
Speaker 1: was Andrew tait. I remember when the Queen died, for example,
Speaker 1: you know, rest in peace, But I was never interested
Speaker 1: in that type of content or just like conversation around
Speaker 1: the royal family. I was getting pushed so many videos
Speaker 1: about her that day. I watched one in full out
Speaker 1: of maybe fifteen of them. In the next five videos
Speaker 1: were about the Queen. So when I think about this,
Speaker 1: when you're exploring your identity and exploring different sides of life,
Speaker 1: exploring different emotions in your earlier state of mind and
Speaker 1: just your earlier years. An advanced algorithm like TikTok can
Speaker 1: just push you into these rabbit holes like crazy, and
Speaker 1: that is really worrisome on TikTok right now. I've been
Speaker 1: tweeting a lot about this and it kind of sounds trivial,
Speaker 1: but it's actually pretty crazy. Is this trend of plastic
Speaker 1: surgery is exacerbating like crazy TikTok pushes like so like
Speaker 1: the trend cycle has gotten so much shorter because of
Speaker 1: the platform and so many different areas of life. But
Speaker 1: for example, someone who recently blew up the platform. Every year,
Speaker 1: there's a few people who are known to be like
Speaker 1: the Holy Grail creators of the platform kind of has
Speaker 1: a really positive sentiment towards plastic surgery. And now all
Speaker 1: the biggest lifestyle influencers on the app have been getting
Speaker 1: plastic surgery in the past month. It's actually crazy. And
Speaker 1: a lot of the conversations about this, because you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the conversations about girls and mental health
Speaker 1: have to do with comparison and editing their pictures. All
Speaker 1: this different stuff. People are worried. We have even adults
Speaker 1: who have made the conscious decision themselves to get these
Speaker 1: types of things. They're worried that teen girls are also
Speaker 1: consuming this content because as soon as you're thirteen, you're
Speaker 1: seeing the same exact content as everyone else on that app.
Speaker 1: You're able to see all of this, And there's this
Speaker 1: weird conversation about transparency versus yeah, the safety of young
Speaker 1: users because they are able to be exposed to all
Speaker 1: of this. So it's kind of like a rant on
Speaker 1: the TikTok side of it, but it's these rabbit holes
Speaker 1: as are pretty crazy. Yeah, I mean, the real takeaway
Speaker 1: there is that algorithms, especially in the TikTok short form
Speaker 1: video context, are just so powerful and we can't just
Speaker 1: understate what they can do, and not in like a
Speaker 1: science fiction y unhelpful way, but just like, don't just
Speaker 1: think this is This is why it's exhausting when someone
Speaker 1: just refers to TikTok as like you know, people dancing
Speaker 1: and stuff like the steaks, and of what this means
Speaker 1: is so much bigger than that. So I think the
Speaker 1: last question I'll ask you is I want you to
Speaker 1: think about like the teen girl aspect of this. Why
Speaker 1: do you think this is affecting teen girls more of
Speaker 1: and boys, Because as you now, there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of discourse now about how like young men in America
Speaker 1: are struggling in a much of other contexts, but this
Speaker 1: seems to be a place where we're specifically talking about
Speaker 1: like young women. Seems to one of the only indicators, hey,
Speaker 1: outside of school, like work, et cetera, that we're saying, actually,
Speaker 1: young women are doing much worse here being on men are.
Speaker 1: Do you have a theory or like a reaction to
Speaker 1: why that's happening. I feel like the conversation around young
Speaker 1: young men and boys a lot of it has to
Speaker 1: do with kind of systematic things. I feel like social
Speaker 1: media obviously plays a part in it, but I do
Speaker 1: feel like there's a broader cultural conversation. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of the things happening with teen girls are very
Speaker 1: social media specific, and you know, in magazines everything beauty,
Speaker 1: beauty standards, whatever, comparison has always been pushed. But again,
Speaker 1: these algorithms exacerbate that relationship like crazy. And it's also
Speaker 1: known that girls are more like they are kind of
Speaker 1: the ones who post on social media more when it
Speaker 1: comes to like Instagram and TikTok, Twitter and like YouTube
Speaker 1: are kind of a pretty even mix, but on things
Speaker 1: like Instagram and TikTok, it is mostly girls who are
Speaker 1: posting and kind of running those platforms in terms of
Speaker 1: content a lot of the time, and a lot of
Speaker 1: that does have to do with, you know, lifestyle type
Speaker 1: content and beauty standards and all these different things. There's
Speaker 1: kind of jokes all the time of like today's thirteen
Speaker 1: year olds look the same as like today's twenty five
Speaker 1: year olds, and like all these different things of like
Speaker 1: pushing them to girl up a lot faster and get
Speaker 1: into these different consumer culture things a lot faster. So
Speaker 1: I do think the girl conversation is very much social
Speaker 1: media specific and the guys is kind of a mix
Speaker 1: of maybe some more systematic things as well. I think
Speaker 1: that's an actual place to leave at Jewels. Thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us on breaking points. You want to give
Speaker 1: a shout out to where people should find your work
Speaker 1: if they're want to delve in deeper. Yes, I'm just
Speaker 1: at Jewels Turpack on all platforms, So see you guys there.
Speaker 1: Thank you, marsh Wessume Hi. I'm Maximilian Alvarez. I'm the
Speaker 1: editor in chief of the Real News Network and host
Speaker 1: of the podcast Working People and This is the Art
Speaker 1: of Class War. On breaking points, a sixteen year old
Speaker 1: was crushed to death on the job by a multi
Speaker 1: ton tractor. A fifteen year old died after falling fifty
Speaker 1: feet on his first day working for a roofer. Horrific
Speaker 1: revelations continue to come out about the common exploitation of
Speaker 1: child labor in meat packing and food processing plants, industrial
Speaker 1: and office cleaning, and even auto manufacturing, including in at
Speaker 1: least four Alabama parts suppliers to Hyundai and Kia. These
Speaker 1: are not stories from the early nineteen hundreds. This is
Speaker 1: happening here now, all around us. While we Americans like
Speaker 1: to believe that child labor is a thing of the past,
Speaker 1: an antiquated detail of a dark history that is safely
Speaker 1: in our rear view mirror, the sad reality is that
Speaker 1: even today, in the year of our Lord twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: the exploitation of children and their labor continues to be
Speaker 1: a dismal feature throughout the production and supply chains behind
Speaker 1: many of our favorite brands and companies, including Lucky Charms, Cheetos, Walmart, Target,
Speaker 1: Whole foods, fruit of the loom, Ben and Jerry's I
Speaker 1: mean there are kids farming the produce that we buy
Speaker 1: in the supermarket, kids making the parts that end up
Speaker 1: in our cars, kids cleaning industrial bone saws, office buildings
Speaker 1: and houses. Kids on construction sites and in the backs
Speaker 1: of restaurants. And it is getting worse. As Lauren Gurley
Speaker 1: recently reported at The Washington Post, according to data from
Speaker 1: the Department of Labor, child labor violations in the United
Speaker 1: States have nearly quadrupled since twenty fifteen. And if that
Speaker 1: wasn't bad enough, Rather than be justifiably horrified by this
Speaker 1: situation and take serious steps to address the scourge of
Speaker 1: child labor, Republican lawmakers in states like Arkansas, Iowa, and
Speaker 1: Ohio are pushing to roll back labor laws and to
Speaker 1: make it easier for businesses to hire miners, have them
Speaker 1: do more dangerous jobs, and even extend their working hours.
Speaker 1: As doctor James a Merchant, Professor Emeritis of Public Health
Speaker 1: and Medicine and founding Dean Emeritus in the College of
Speaker 1: Public Health at the University of Iowa recently wrote in
Speaker 1: the Des Moines Register quote last November, the US Department
Speaker 1: of Labor filed an injunction in US District Court in
Speaker 1: Nebraska against Packers Sanitation Services for illegally employing children in
Speaker 1: meat packing plants. It serves Judge John M. Garred swiftly
Speaker 1: granted the injunction, requiring packers to stop employing oppressive child labor.
Speaker 1: The Department of Labor has now found that packers had
Speaker 1: employed at least fifty children in night shifts in four Minnesota, Nebraska,
Speaker 1: and Arkansas meat packing plants. The children, ranging in age
Speaker 1: from thirteen to seventeen, were not fluent in English, and
Speaker 1: they cleaned kill floor, bone cutting saws, grinding machines, and
Speaker 1: electric knives with corrosive cleaning fluids. The Department of Labor
Speaker 1: reported that some of the children had suffered chemical burns
Speaker 1: and other injuries. Now in Iowa Senate File one sixty
Speaker 1: seven in House File one thirty four are moving forward
Speaker 1: in the General Assembly. The bills, as introduced BOOST seek
Speaker 1: to weaken existing child labor governed by Child Labor laws
Speaker 1: governed by the Fair Labor Standards Act by proposing multiple
Speaker 1: changes in Iowa co Chapter ninety two. The bills would
Speaker 1: change Iowa law to allow children to work in several
Speaker 1: hazardous jobs. They would allow children as young as fourteen
Speaker 1: to work in freezers and meat coolers, work prohibited by
Speaker 1: federal law, and they do not clearly state in what
Speaker 1: other making meat packing plant areas work would be permitted.
Speaker 1: They would allow fifteen year olds to load and unload
Speaker 1: non power driven equipment weighing up to thirty pounds and
Speaker 1: up to fifty pounds, with a waiver from the Labor Commissioner,
Speaker 1: work now prohibited by federal law. Provisions for youth under
Speaker 1: eighteen could allow youth to be employed as motor vehicle drivers,
Speaker 1: clearly hazardous work, also inconsistent with federal regulation. Would also
Speaker 1: allow youth under eighteen to sell alcoholic beverages currently prohibited
Speaker 1: by Iowa law, if approved in writing by a parent
Speaker 1: or guardian end quote. All right, so, what the hell
Speaker 1: are we doing here? How the hell is this even
Speaker 1: a discussion right now? And what do these attempts to
Speaker 1: roll back child labor laws tell us about the economic, political,
Speaker 1: and frankly moral state of our society today? And what
Speaker 1: can we do to fight back to talk about all
Speaker 1: of this and more. I'm honored to be joined today
Speaker 1: by Charlie Wishman. Who currently serves as the President of
Speaker 1: the Iowa Federation of Labor afl CIO. Charlie was appointed
Speaker 1: unanimously unanimously to the role in May of twenty twenty
Speaker 1: by the IFL Executive Council and was elected in August
Speaker 1: of that same year at the sixty fourth annual Iowa
Speaker 1: Federation of Labor AFL CIO convention and has ser in
Speaker 1: that role ever since. Charlie became Secretary Treasurer of the
Speaker 1: Iowa Federation of Labor AFLCIO in January of twenty twelve
Speaker 1: and was re elected to that role many times after
Speaker 1: initially serving as Communications director for the Iowa Federation of
Speaker 1: Labor AFL CIO. Charlie is a member of AFT Local
Speaker 1: seven sixteen and has previously been a member of the
Speaker 1: International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, as well as
Speaker 1: the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Charlie,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us today on Breaking Points.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. Hey, thank you very much for
Speaker 1: having us. Wish we were meeting under other circumstances, but
Speaker 1: Breaking Points is exactly the kind of appropriate title for
Speaker 1: where we are right now in Iowa. Yeah, man, I
Speaker 1: mean I think that's well put, because, like, we got
Speaker 1: a lot to dig in here in a short amount
Speaker 1: of time to do it, and I know how busy
Speaker 1: you are, so I really really appreciate you taking time
Speaker 1: to chat with me. And let's just start by making
Speaker 1: sure that folks watching and listening have just all the
Speaker 1: basic info that they need about these bills in Iowa specifically, right,
Speaker 1: So what would these bills do if signed into law?
Speaker 1: And like who the hell is actually pushing for these
Speaker 1: rollbacks of child labor laws? And like what is there
Speaker 1: justification for this? Sure, so a lot to unpack there,
Speaker 1: So I think it's important to start with. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: who is pushing this sort of legislation. So there's kind
Speaker 1: of the people who are out front doing it, which
Speaker 1: is the restaurant Association and the hospitality associations and things
Speaker 1: like that. You have the home builders and some folks
Speaker 1: who are out front. But it's really interesting, I think,
Speaker 1: just really briefly, I uncovered in the last Iowa Workforce
Speaker 1: Development notes that the actually our Governor's office had helped
Speaker 1: draft this legislation as well as the Department of Workforce Development.
Speaker 1: So it's not just we can't find enough people to
Speaker 1: work at McDonald's or Burger King or wherever. There's something
Speaker 1: much much larger going on here. And I just think
Speaker 1: that you see that reflected in the legislation because I
Speaker 1: can go over what it currently does. There's been slight
Speaker 1: amendments to it. But you know, this is just some
Speaker 1: of the low lights I think, highlights, lowlights, whatever you
Speaker 1: want to call them, of this legislation. You know, it
Speaker 1: would allow youth as young as fourteen to work six
Speaker 1: hour nightly shifts during the school year and expands working
Speaker 1: hours to extend to nine PM. And the problem is
Speaker 1: those are both beyond federal regulations as they're currently written
Speaker 1: in for Labor Standards Act and DOL Rules and Regulations.
Speaker 1: But in addition, it also allows employers to recruit teams
Speaker 1: for a work based learning program for jobs and formerly
Speaker 1: off limits hazardous but now they would be open to
Speaker 1: fourteen to seventeen year olds under waivers provided by Iowa
Speaker 1: Workforce Development or the Department of Education. In our state,
Speaker 1: It would allow sixteen and seventeen year olds to perform
Speaker 1: light assembly work in plants or that manufacture or story
Speaker 1: even explosives would not performed in that shipping area by machines.
Speaker 1: Even if you're not working with explosives, if they're in
Speaker 1: the building, that's pretty darn darned dangerous, as you could
Speaker 1: see in East Palestine, Ohio or even here recently in Iowa,
Speaker 1: we had an entire plant explode and we still don't
Speaker 1: even know all the chemicals that were in that plant
Speaker 1: at the time. It allows sixteen and seventeen year olds
Speaker 1: to work in meatpacking plants and shipping in assembly areas.
Speaker 1: Ask anybody who's ever worked in a meat packing house,
Speaker 1: there is no place for anyone under eighteen anywhere inside
Speaker 1: of a meatpacking plant. It allows sixteen and seventeen year olds.
Speaker 1: They struck the word coal from mining, but we've got
Speaker 1: other kinds of mines here. You know, the coal mines
Speaker 1: have been decommissioned pack probably decades and decades ago, but
Speaker 1: we still have gypsum mining. You know, your drywall comes
Speaker 1: from somewhere. We've got other kinds of minds here. And
Speaker 1: you know, one of the more troubling proposals does go
Speaker 1: back to the restaurant industry, and for example, it would
Speaker 1: allow sixteen and seventeen year olds to serve alcohol, which
Speaker 1: is I know a lot of people at first blush
Speaker 1: are like, hey, that's no big deal, But I don't
Speaker 1: know would you want your as I I asked the
Speaker 1: Majority leader of the IO House when we marched on
Speaker 1: his office, do you want your daughter to be bartending
Speaker 1: at sixteen? For god knows who who's been drinking for
Speaker 1: how long, let alone if they're a pedophile or not.
Speaker 1: He said, well, you know, my daughter works at an
Speaker 1: ice cream shop, and it's like, well, there's a big
Speaker 1: difference between ice cream and alcohol. So I mean, that's
Speaker 1: just some of the stuff that's out there. But if
Speaker 1: I think that, what I'm talking about here is, if
Speaker 1: you go and look at everything that's in this bill,
Speaker 1: it's not just the restaurant industry that wants the changes
Speaker 1: that are being made. And even with the example right
Speaker 1: of like, oh my daughter works at an ice cream shop,
Speaker 1: I mean like, by and large, I mean not even
Speaker 1: by and large, we already know that the people in
Speaker 1: power who are making these decisions, who are pushing for
Speaker 1: these bills, it's not going to be their goddamn kids
Speaker 1: who are in those those minds. It's not gonna be
Speaker 1: their goddamn kids who are cleaning you know, bone saws
Speaker 1: and meat packing plants. It's not their kids who are
Speaker 1: going to be cleaning office buildings at midnight when everyone's
Speaker 1: gone home. And they know that. And I think that's
Speaker 1: kind of like one of the big unspoken truths about
Speaker 1: this whole situation is like it's not just that, you know,
Speaker 1: Republican legislators in states like Arkansas, Ohio, and Iowa are
Speaker 1: pushing to roll back child labor laws and so like
Speaker 1: it's like child labor is going to come back. Like
Speaker 1: child labor is already here. As I said in my introduction,
Speaker 1: a lot of it is being done by you know,
Speaker 1: brown kids, poor kids, black kids, migrant kids, people the
Speaker 1: most underprotected and underserved populations that we have, and everyone
Speaker 1: just kind of sits around pretending like it's not happening,
Speaker 1: even though deep down, I think we all know that
Speaker 1: it is right, and the people pushing this legislation damn
Speaker 1: well know that as well. And you know that's that's
Speaker 1: me speaking for myself. I'm not speaking for for Charlie
Speaker 1: or anyone else here. Just want to be clear there,
Speaker 1: But like you are right, okay, It's like I'm really
Speaker 1: trying to restrain myself here because I'm about to lose it, man.
Speaker 1: But like, let's let's put you said something about how
Speaker 1: like the deeper you dig into this, the more you
Speaker 1: realize that this is part of a bigger issue, right,
Speaker 1: And so I wanted to focus on that, Like, let's
Speaker 1: let's put this bill in Iowa or these bills in
Speaker 1: Iowa in context, like along with you know what's going
Speaker 1: on in Arkansas in Ohio, right, like, because I think
Speaker 1: people may hear about this and they may wonder, like,
Speaker 1: well that that may just be like a sort of
Speaker 1: legislation that's put out by like some fringe elements. You know,
Speaker 1: it has no you know, hope of passing, YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 1: So like, how much is this push to roll back
Speaker 1: child labor laws in multiple states around the country, Like
Speaker 1: how much of that is actually a fringe movement by
Speaker 1: the most extreme edges of the business class and it's
Speaker 1: political acolytes, And how much is it actually symptomatic of
Speaker 1: a broader onslaught to further weekend labor protections across the
Speaker 1: board and workplace standards, right and in so doing, to
Speaker 1: undercut organize labor power, and you know, undercut workers who
Speaker 1: are trying to make a living wage. Right, I mean,
Speaker 1: like we everyone knows we're in a what's called a
Speaker 1: tight labor market right now, right, I mean we talk
Speaker 1: about this all the time in the reporting we do
Speaker 1: here at breaking points on my show. Working people at
Speaker 1: the Real News Network like that. That's why you're seeing
Speaker 1: or partially why you're seeing a lot of rank and
Speaker 1: file action. That's why you're seeing people quit their jobs
Speaker 1: in record numbers because they have more leverage to say,
Speaker 1: if you don't pay me more or treat me better,
Speaker 1: I'm going to walk right. At the same time, we've
Speaker 1: had the you know, the boomer generation I mean, is
Speaker 1: aging out of you know, the workforce. A lot of
Speaker 1: people died or got sick or still dealing with long
Speaker 1: term effects of COVID, right, I mean, so this is
Speaker 1: the kind of labor situation that we're seeing here, and
Speaker 1: it feels like this is again me editorializing, this is
Speaker 1: me hypothesizing. It feels like that rather than I don't know,
Speaker 1: listen to the concerns of workers, improve your workplace, treat
Speaker 1: workers better, pay them more, let them have a better
Speaker 1: work life balance, make yourself more attractive to job seekers.
Speaker 1: Instead of doing that what we are instead doing is
Speaker 1: saying let's raise the retirement age and let's let kids
Speaker 1: work at these jobs instead. No, I want to go
Speaker 1: back to something that you said earlier. It's let's be clear,
Speaker 1: it's not their kids that we're talking about here. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's our kids. Right. There's nobody named that's going
Speaker 1: to be working in a packing house, I guarantee you,
Speaker 1: and if it is, it has nothing to they're no
Speaker 1: relation to Senator or Speaker of our House, Pad Grassley.
Speaker 1: Because you hit on something that's really really important here
Speaker 1: is that while this seems like out of the blue,
Speaker 1: out of left field, this wasn't on my Bengo card, right. No,
Speaker 1: what is going on here, in large part is a
Speaker 1: legalization of bad practices that are already going on. You
Speaker 1: just saw the Department of Labor uncover hundreds of violations
Speaker 1: in meat packing plants of people who are under the
Speaker 1: legal age doing cleaning services. But this is just like
Speaker 1: one that's one industry, one section. This is going on
Speaker 1: all over the place. I think there was a New
Speaker 1: York Times article earlier where there's a girl who's a
Speaker 1: young Latina I believe, who's fifteen who's working past midnight
Speaker 1: to make our cheerios. Right. This is multiinational corporations. They're
Speaker 1: trying to legalize their already bad practices. And last year,
Speaker 1: I think we saw the big push in a lot
Speaker 1: of states, including ours, was let's go after unemployment because
Speaker 1: really the problem is that there's just a bunch of
Speaker 1: lazy people out there sitting at home watching Judge Judy
Speaker 1: or whatever. Well, like you just explained, that's not the case,
Speaker 1: that's not where this is coming from. You've got a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of people who are just fed up with
Speaker 1: it all. We've had, i'd say a number of strikes.
Speaker 1: Our most high profile one here in the Midwest and
Speaker 1: in Iowa I think has been the John Deere strike,
Speaker 1: But there's been so many that you have heard of,
Speaker 1: and this really has picked up since the pandemic. It's
Speaker 1: because people have had enough. It's because they've been called
Speaker 1: essential for three years now and they get treated as
Speaker 1: nothing but expendable. And you go to any picket line
Speaker 1: and the first things out of their mouths when you're
Speaker 1: talking to a member who's on strike, they know exactly
Speaker 1: how much their company made during the pandemic, and they
Speaker 1: know exactly how much their CEO made during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and they know exactly how much they're making, and they
Speaker 1: know they know that trickle down isn't trickling down to
Speaker 1: them on the corporate side. Now, we got to help
Speaker 1: them understand the tax side of it as well, that
Speaker 1: trickle down isn't working for the working class of this country.
Speaker 1: Never has. But this is just part of the bigger
Speaker 1: picture of what's going on here. I think you had
Speaker 1: so many great points in your editorializing. I wouldn't call
Speaker 1: them editorializing their opinions, I'd call them facts. Thanks man,
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. And again I just I beg people, right,
Speaker 1: don't push this under the rug, right, don't just hope
Speaker 1: that this is going to go away, right? I mean,
Speaker 1: because it's not right. You know, this is the most
Speaker 1: craven crap that you can imagine. But they're going to
Speaker 1: keep pushing it if they can get away with it, right,
Speaker 1: and if we keep buying these bs justifications for it,
Speaker 1: if we believe the corporate manufactured narrative that quote, no
Speaker 1: one wants to work anymore and that's why businesses have
Speaker 1: to seek fourteen year olds to do these jobs. Bull crap. Right,
Speaker 1: listen to my show, Listen to the workers I talk
Speaker 1: to every single week, and tell me that people don't
Speaker 1: want to work. Then you'll actually hear directly from the
Speaker 1: mouths of the people who make our society run, the
Speaker 1: people delivering our packages, picking our food, delivering our grocery,
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. Right, I mean, these are
Speaker 1: hardworking people who are being taken advantage of left and right.
Speaker 1: You to listen to workers, not to overpay pundits, not
Speaker 1: to bought off politicians, and not to chamber of commerce
Speaker 1: boot liquors. And I also wanted to, if I may
Speaker 1: editorialize one more time, just really entreat people to understand
Speaker 1: that as we as a society that has can agree
Speaker 1: that this is not worth it, This is not this
Speaker 1: child labor crap needs to stay in the past. We
Speaker 1: also need to soberly acknowledge that, you know, the thing
Speaker 1: that is always in the back of our minds, but
Speaker 1: that we, especially here in the West, especially in developed countries,
Speaker 1: have the luxury of pushing out of our view right,
Speaker 1: pushing out of into the back of our minds. You
Speaker 1: already know what I'm about to say, but it needs
Speaker 1: to be said. Your phones right, have minerals are made
Speaker 1: from minerals that are mined by children around the world. Right,
Speaker 1: A lot of the food that you eat is picked
Speaker 1: by literal children. A lot of the clothes that we
Speaker 1: wear is made by in sweatshops that are contracted out
Speaker 1: to some of the biggest brands around the world. We
Speaker 1: know that this is a problem, but we just allow
Speaker 1: ourselves to comfortably put it out of sight, out of mind.
Speaker 1: So even as we address it here in the United States,
Speaker 1: we need to understand that this is the direction that
Speaker 1: the business class that capital that the ruling and order
Speaker 1: giving class always want to move. They want to close
Speaker 1: down in dust industries in the United States and move
Speaker 1: them across the border where they can pay workers next
Speaker 1: to nothing. Right. They want to always search for the
Speaker 1: lowest possible wage they can pay the most and the
Speaker 1: most exploited they can make their workforce so that they
Speaker 1: can pocket all the difference. That is what this is
Speaker 1: really about, in my opinion, And we're not going to
Speaker 1: be able to address the systemic issue there unless we
Speaker 1: understand that this is not something new, This is not
Speaker 1: something that is just happening in red states or you know,
Speaker 1: like random parts of the country. It's happening all over
Speaker 1: the place, and it is happening sadly all over the world,
Speaker 1: but there are things that we can do to fight
Speaker 1: against it. And Charlie Wit the remaining couple of minutes
Speaker 1: that I have you, I just wanted to turn it
Speaker 1: over to you and ask what can people do to
Speaker 1: push back against this? And what is being done on
Speaker 1: say the labor side and the legislative side, and like
Speaker 1: how does the Department of Labor factor in all of this?
Speaker 1: Sure all very good questions, So number one I would say,
Speaker 1: like always, whether you think you're being heard or not,
Speaker 1: you have to contact your legislators, even if you don't
Speaker 1: believe that they're listening. The last thing that you ever
Speaker 1: want to hear is them come back to you when
Speaker 1: you complain to them about it later during election time
Speaker 1: or whenever, them saying well, I never heard from you
Speaker 1: about this, which sometimes is a BS deflection, but sometimes
Speaker 1: it's true. So they absolutely absolutely need to hear from
Speaker 1: you in whatever form possible. We also need to make
Speaker 1: sure that even in states like ours, where legislatively and
Speaker 1: both inside the capitol and outside the capitol, we're trying
Speaker 1: to raise hell to make sure that our voices are heard.
Speaker 1: But knowing that some version of this is likely to pass.
Speaker 1: You know who knows. I believe in believing right, and
Speaker 1: that's what we do in the labor movement. But gosh,
Speaker 1: we have to make sure that our voices are heard
Speaker 1: in all kinds of different ways. So write letters to
Speaker 1: the editor, write op ed pieces. Even if this isn't
Speaker 1: happening in your state, it is coming to your state soon,
Speaker 1: I promise you. I feel like I'm out here with
Speaker 1: a lot of other people who are trying to jump
Speaker 1: up and down and and raise the flag and say, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: help us stop this thing. Because we can stop this
Speaker 1: in a red farming state like ours, which by the way,
Speaker 1: wasn't always read and we can come back from this.
Speaker 1: But like, if we can do this here, we can
Speaker 1: stop this from moving all across the country. But again,
Speaker 1: if it hasn't even gotten there yet, you know, make
Speaker 1: sure that this issue is front and center and preemptively
Speaker 1: make this an issue, and make it make it so
Speaker 1: that it's just deplorable for anyone to even want to
Speaker 1: bring up. I mean, there's a reason why our governor
Speaker 1: and why workforce development will have to look in note
Speaker 1: in the minutes from you know, the board meetings and
Speaker 1: things to find out that they've been working on it
Speaker 1: because they wanted a secret because they know it looks
Speaker 1: like crap. So one of the most important points here, Max,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, we have the Department of Labor
Speaker 1: that is typically relies on waiting until state legislation has
Speaker 1: passed before they'll come in and actually enforce the rules,
Speaker 1: regulations and laws that are already on the books before
Speaker 1: they tell us state, hey, you can't do that. And
Speaker 1: too often our progressives forget that the courts are not
Speaker 1: our friends and that we can't rely on them really
Speaker 1: for anything. And unfortunately, you know, part of the bigger
Speaker 1: picture here too is that this is another attack on
Speaker 1: the federal government to be able to enforce on states
Speaker 1: what is right in terms of federal labor standards. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's not just about this, It's about so
Speaker 1: many different things that we see weakened. But it's this is,
Speaker 1: you know, we cannot pretend like there's only two branches
Speaker 1: of government. Progressives need to realize and take seriously that
Speaker 1: there are three branches of government and that our courts
Speaker 1: are are in big trouble. And then we have to
Speaker 1: take that seriously, and not only that, we need to
Speaker 1: make sure that corporations are forced to do what they
Speaker 1: are supposed to do, because we know too often that
Speaker 1: unless it's at legislative or regulatory gunpoint, they're not going
Speaker 1: to do the right thing. So that is Charlie Wishman,
Speaker 1: who currently serves as president of the Iowa Federation of
Speaker 1: Labor AFL CIO. Charlie, thank you so much for joining
Speaker 1: us today on Breaking Points and helping us break this down. Man,
Speaker 1: I really really appreciate it. Thank you for having me,
Speaker 1: and I think right now we're at the stage where
Speaker 1: we're just really uncovering a national tragedy that has been
Speaker 1: going on for a while now. But the next time
Speaker 1: we talk, hopefully that we're going to be talking about
Speaker 1: how things are moving in the right direction and that
Speaker 1: we were able to maybe either if we're not able
Speaker 1: to stop this, how we are able to push back
Speaker 1: all over the country and make sure that not only
Speaker 1: are we were making this a better world for workers,
Speaker 1: but for our kids and generations to come. So thank
Speaker 1: you very much, appreciate it all. Right back at you, brother,
Speaker 1: and thank you all for watching this segment with breaking
Speaker 1: points and be sure to subscribe to my news outlet,
Speaker 1: the Real News Network, with links in the description to
Speaker 1: this video. See you soon for the next edition of
Speaker 1: the Art of Class War. Take care of yourselves, take
Speaker 1: care of each other. Solidarity Forever,