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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,

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Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of

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Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.

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Speaker 1: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade

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Speaker 1: the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent

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Speaker 1: coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about,

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Speaker 1: it just means the absolute world to have your support.

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Speaker 1: But enough with that. Let's get to the show time

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Speaker 1: now for our weekly partnership segment with the Lever joining us.

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Speaker 1: This week, we have a great journalist, Matthew Cunningham Cook.

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Speaker 1: Great to see you, sir, Chris see Man, Great to

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Speaker 1: see you too, Chrystallinsaiger. So let's go ahead and put

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Speaker 1: your latest piece here up on the screen. The headline

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Speaker 1: is Wall Street Ready's an avalanche of lies. The subhead

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Speaker 1: is public pensions with investments in private equity are about

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Speaker 1: to face a reckoning. But they have no way of

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Speaker 1: knowing how bad it might get. So you're really sounding

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Speaker 1: the alarm here about a potential mass financial risk for

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Speaker 1: public pension funds. Just lay out what you found. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So what we know is that the largest single source

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Speaker 1: of capital potentially Besides sovereign wealth funds for private equity

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Speaker 1: and hedge funds and private equity real estate firms, are

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Speaker 1: public pension funds, the pension funds of firefighters, cops, teachers,

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Speaker 1: social workers, bus drivers, whose pension funds decide to make

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Speaker 1: these risky investments in these high fee, low transparency vehicles.

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Speaker 1: And what we know though, is that there's been a

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Speaker 1: lot of questions about how accurate the performance they report

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Speaker 1: is because there's no open audit of the underlying performance

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Speaker 1: of these investments. So with the stock market downturn, the

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Speaker 1: big risk that's being raised is that these investments tend

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Speaker 1: to be highly leveraged. So in a strong market, that

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Speaker 1: means that their returns are supposed to be amplified, even

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Speaker 1: though that hasn't really been the case because of the

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Speaker 1: enormous fees that are being paid that drag on the performance.

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Speaker 1: But in a bear market, there's a real risk that

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Speaker 1: the losses are going to be amplified then and you're

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Speaker 1: still paying the fees, right, and so it's a real

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Speaker 1: risk for these public pension funds. One of the things

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Speaker 1: that you pointed to is about the secrecy that's built

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Speaker 1: into this industry. Can you just outline that for us. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean basically about twenty years ago, journalists started poking

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Speaker 1: around and asking some questions about these investments, right as

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Speaker 1: they were planning a big upswing, and so they hired

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Speaker 1: lobbyists to go all around the country and exempt critical

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Speaker 1: information about these investments from public views. So that includes

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Speaker 1: the contracts with them. They're some of the only contracts

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Speaker 1: that are not subject to public disclosure. Don't even get

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Speaker 1: a redacted copy of the contract in most states. In

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Speaker 1: places like New York and New Jersey or California, they

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Speaker 1: exempted discussions about these investments from open meeting laws. They

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Speaker 1: made it so the underlying cash flow reports are not

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Speaker 1: subject to disclosure either. So it leads to a lot

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Speaker 1: of problems because the less transparency there is, the more

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Speaker 1: likely that there are some frankly insane provisions. So there's

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Speaker 1: one guy who writes about this is a is a

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Speaker 1: guy named Jeffrey Horowitz who's a wealthy heir whose family

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Speaker 1: office invests in these types of investments. And he's like,

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Speaker 1: I've seen managers propose that I agree to a full

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Speaker 1: waiver of fiduciary duty and I guarantee to you that

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Speaker 1: family offices tend to be much more discerning than public

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Speaker 1: pension funds are. And that's in part because there's a

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Speaker 1: huge revolving door of public pension fund staff and Wall Street,

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Speaker 1: and there's huge incentives for the staff to give Wall

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Speaker 1: Street whatever they want. And the trustees are either politicians

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Speaker 1: or they're folks who typically don't have the most investment experience,

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Speaker 1: and so it can lead to problems like this. Now,

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Speaker 1: there's plenty of trustees with investment experience who make the

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Speaker 1: same bad decisions, let's be clear, but it's a problem

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Speaker 1: in terms of deferring to the staff on everything. So

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Speaker 1: what are the real risks here in terms of how

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Speaker 1: ordinary people might be impacted? Yeah, I mean what we

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Speaker 1: saw in the aftermath of the financial crisis. So the

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Speaker 1: last time the market was doing as poorly as it

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Speaker 1: is now, basically is there was a coordinated fifty state

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Speaker 1: attack on public pension benefits. So this was funded by

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Speaker 1: John Arnold and the Koch brothers, and they they really

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Speaker 1: went after public pensons and they changed accounting rules to

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Speaker 1: make it so they would look less funded. And at

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Speaker 1: the same time, you know, famously supporting politicians were both

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Speaker 1: pushing cuts to accrue benefits like Secretary of Commerce Gena Ramondo,

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Speaker 1: and also at the same time massively increasing pentent investments

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Speaker 1: in hedge funds and private equity. So that's Gina Ramondo,

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Speaker 1: That's former Illinois Governor Bruce Ronner. There's a host of

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Speaker 1: and people who also have deep connections to this industry.

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Speaker 1: So Raymondo is also a former venture capital executive. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's the real risk is that is that they're going

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Speaker 1: to use these these bad investments as another excuse to

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Speaker 1: go after the ordinary benefits of workers. And so I

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Speaker 1: worked closely last year actually with the unions in Vermont

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Speaker 1: to stop a heinous pension cutting effort, and basically we

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Speaker 1: won because we showed the public how poorly the investment

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Speaker 1: decisions were, and as soon as we started talking about that,

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Speaker 1: they backed off. So it shows kind of both, I think,

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Speaker 1: on the one hand, how verboten discussion of how bad

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Speaker 1: these investments are on the one hand, and to how

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Speaker 1: much the powers that be don't want to talk about

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Speaker 1: their golden goose because again, I mean, the largest campaign

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Speaker 1: contributors are from this industry. Stephen Schwartzman on the GLP side,

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Speaker 1: Shelley Pingree's ex husband Donald Sussman on the other on

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Speaker 1: the Democrat side, major donors to both parties. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: as always, follow the money, Matthew, thank you so much

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Speaker 1: for bringing this down for us to really appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: Thanks man, Thanks so much for having me on. Great

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Speaker 1: to see you getting a new glimpse at how new

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Speaker 1: CNN chief Chris Licked might approach coverage of Trump as

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Speaker 1: he launches his third presidential campaign. Let's go ahead and

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Speaker 1: put this up on the screen from Media. The headline

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Speaker 1: here says Chris Blick lays out CNN's new approach to

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Speaker 1: covering Trump and ensuring the network doesn't fall for his noise.

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Speaker 1: This all comes from an internal town hall that he did.

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Speaker 1: He was interviewed apparently by CNN host Alison Camarata, and

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Speaker 1: she asked about how they were going to cover Trump

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Speaker 1: this time coming up, and he's trying to make a

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Speaker 1: distinction with how Zucker covered Trump, trying to make a

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Speaker 1: critique that they sort of went too far in and

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Speaker 1: we're just doing outrage porn all the time. He says directly,

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Speaker 1: don't fall for the outrage porn. He wants the media

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Speaker 1: strategy to distract Trump's media strategy, he says, is to

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Speaker 1: distract and create noise that's specifically designed to gin us up.

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Speaker 1: He argued, the network has to choose carefully what actually matters,

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Speaker 1: and focus is on what actually has impact. I thought

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Speaker 1: this was interesting his quote here sorry s as part

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Speaker 1: of Trump's strategies to make sure everything he does gets

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Speaker 1: a lot of coverage. So when he slips in something

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Speaker 1: that's really consequential, like a coup, it feels like noise,

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Speaker 1: and I don't want us to succumb to that. Hours

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Speaker 1: after this town hall, internal town hall occurred, Trump did

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Speaker 1: actually launch for the presidency. CNN carried about twenty five

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Speaker 1: minutes of that. Then they had a panel discussion very critical,

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Speaker 1: including mc mulvaney and Alyssa Farah Griffin, and then Daniel

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Speaker 1: Day came on and did his whole like you know,

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Speaker 1: fact check of the speech sort of thing, which you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean to me, that sounds a lot like the

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Speaker 1: way that CNN has been covering for a while. Now, look,

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Speaker 1: we'll see again, we will see. I have no idea.

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Speaker 1: It does seem that the tenor is somewhat different this

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Speaker 1: time around, but that's more a function of novelty than

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Speaker 1: it is of CNN's editorial choices. Will they be able

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Speaker 1: to resist whenever the Special Council issues like no, we

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Speaker 1: all know the answer to that. So I also think that, wellok,

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Speaker 1: lick isn't a time spot right today, the news actually

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Speaker 1: came out that he's going to have to fire thousands

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Speaker 1: of people in December over at CNN, So a lot

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Speaker 1: of people are going to lose their jobs. It's part

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Speaker 1: of a large cost cutting maneuver at the holding company

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Speaker 1: of Discovery. So they have editorial cuts they need to

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Speaker 1: make to preserve their profit of some seven hundred million

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Speaker 1: or so this quarter. And will they really be able

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Speaker 1: to care? Will they really be able to afford that

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Speaker 1: luxury whenever they're leaving views on the table, because it's

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Speaker 1: not like they have built up credibility with anybody else.

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Speaker 1: It's been too short and that's not really how the

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Speaker 1: stock market works. So I'm just very skeptical they're going

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Speaker 1: to stick to this, you know, in the long run.

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Speaker 1: But I mean, look, I would hope it's true. I

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Speaker 1: just don't think it is true. Yeah, I mean, that's

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Speaker 1: been my view from the beginning. Is ultimately there's a

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Speaker 1: reason that CNN covered Trump the way they covered Trump, right,

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Speaker 1: there was a business imperative to do that. You haven't

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Speaker 1: changed the business model. So I am highly skeptical that

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Speaker 1: you're going to really actually change the way you cover him.

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Speaker 1: And you know, I mean by the way, like he's

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Speaker 1: the former presidently and I states he's running for president again,

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Speaker 1: him being potentially indicted, what he says on the campaign trail,

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Speaker 1: what he's running on this time. I mean, those are

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Speaker 1: really important newsworthy events. So I've seen some people arguing

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Speaker 1: that you should basically like not cover these things at all.

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Speaker 1: Like there was a critique of CNN for covering Trump's speech,

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Speaker 1: which I actually thought the critique was in the other

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Speaker 1: direction of like, I don't know how you can avoid

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Speaker 1: assessing that that is a newsworthy event, whether you like

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Speaker 1: the man or not. Now where they went, you know,

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Speaker 1: got very silly, was I mean, first of all, in

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Speaker 1: the Russia Gate coverage, they all got wildly out over

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Speaker 1: their skis the you know, as he puts it, outrage

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Speaker 1: peorn I think is true about like every last utterance

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Speaker 1: being able to being unable to sort out what the

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Speaker 1: administration was actually doing. The areas that were really consequential

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Speaker 1: in terms of foreign affairs and our own domestic life.

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Speaker 1: Like they just it's not so much the amount of

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Speaker 1: time that they covered him was the problem. It was

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Speaker 1: that the coverage wasn't accurate and oftentimes missed the real

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Speaker 1: story of, you know, what the problems were. So, for example,

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Speaker 1: Russia is the perfect example. Not only do you have

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Speaker 1: all the Russia gay nonsense, but then they also misportrayed

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Speaker 1: what Trump's actual policy visa v. Russia was. So if

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Speaker 1: you're watching CNN, you would think that he just was

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Speaker 1: like super easy on Russia, gave them whatever they wanted,

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Speaker 1: and in terms of like verbally how he would talk

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Speaker 1: to and about Putin, it was like, you know, this

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Speaker 1: like weird, fawning kind of a thing. But the policy

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Speaker 1: was actually very hawkish. So that's an example where it's

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Speaker 1: not the amount of time you covered it that was

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Speaker 1: the problem. It was that your coverage wasn't actually accurate.

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Speaker 1: So I guess that's the question is whether they'll do

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Speaker 1: a better job of just actually being good at their

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Speaker 1: jobs and telling the truth baked in to their editorial model,

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Speaker 1: to their staff, even to the you know, the limited

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Speaker 1: reductions as they have, they're still committed to the don

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Speaker 1: Lemon Jim Acostas of the world. As long as they're

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Speaker 1: on their air, you're going to get what you get.

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Speaker 1: And they only know one thing in a way to

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Speaker 1: get ratings. So anyway, good luck. That's all I can

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Speaker 1: say to them. Good luck. We've been tracking the development

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Speaker 1: of the housing market for some time and we just

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Speaker 1: hit some very grim milestone. Let's go ahead and put

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Speaker 1: this up there on the screen. It is now official

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Speaker 1: you need a six figure income just to afford a

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Speaker 1: typical home in the US. So let's break some of

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Speaker 1: that math down previously, to afford the twenty six hundred

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Speaker 1: and eighty two two six hundred and eighty two dollars

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Speaker 1: monthly mortgage payment on a typically priced US home, the

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Speaker 1: real estate brokerage now determines that a prescriptive home buyer

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Speaker 1: must have at least one hundred and seven thousand dollars

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Speaker 1: in income. Now, that is a thirty percent increase in

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Speaker 1: just the last year, and that previous threshold represents that

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Speaker 1: jump even more so than forty five percent from the

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Speaker 1: previous baseline. So a forty five percent increase in the

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Speaker 1: overall income that you need to have in order to

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Speaker 1: afford home. That's because mortgage rates right now are anywhere

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Speaker 1: between six and seven percent, and even if they do

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Speaker 1: level off it, let's say four or five or five percent,

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Speaker 1: that's still very high compared to where it was. It

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Speaker 1: wouldn't matter as much if the price was low. We

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Speaker 1: have not seen the commenser drop right in the level

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Speaker 1: of price. That's right, because we have low inventory, and

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Speaker 1: we also have once when people see like, oh, I

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Speaker 1: have a mortgage rate that's locked in at like two percent,

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Speaker 1: and now if I were to move, I'd have to

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Speaker 1: get a mortgage of like six percent. This is a disaster.

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Speaker 1: I think I will just stay in my house for

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Speaker 1: now because that seems like a terrible deal. So, and

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Speaker 1: you have a disincentive with those high rates also for

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Speaker 1: builders to come in and build more housing. So it

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Speaker 1: is a it's just a bad situation basically for everyone

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Speaker 1: all the way around. Now, this also doesn't take into

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Speaker 1: account like, Okay, so if you make one hundred and

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Speaker 1: seven thousand dollars, there's a lot of money you can

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Speaker 1: barely afford potentially the mortgage payment on a typical house.

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Speaker 1: But what about the out that you have to have

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Speaker 1: in cash upfront to be able to put the down

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Speaker 1: payment down. So in some ways this understates the extent

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Speaker 1: of the problem because we know, with permanent capital flooding

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Speaker 1: into this market and you know, making all cash offers,

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Speaker 1: just how competitive it is just to be able to

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Speaker 1: get your foot in the door. No pun intended to

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Speaker 1: start with this again, was a stated upfront, you know,

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Speaker 1: goal of the FED was basically to slow down and

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Speaker 1: cool the housing market. And it also the just perpetual

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Speaker 1: rise in housing prices, with the exception of after the

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Speaker 1: two thousand and eight financial crash. I mean, this has

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Speaker 1: been going on for years and years, and no one

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Speaker 1: talked about this as inflation, even though it is such

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Speaker 1: a core part of you know, people's budgets of how

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Speaker 1: they're just able to live of their idea of the

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Speaker 1: American dream. It's becoming increasingly out of reach. And at

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Speaker 1: the same time, people who are already homeowners are a

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Speaker 1: very powerful sort of like entrenched interest group that of

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Speaker 1: course have an interest in housing prices continuing to go

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Speaker 1: up and up. But in the current market where housing

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Speaker 1: prices are flat or even going down, and its mortgage

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Speaker 1: rates that are making this so wildly unaffordable, it's not

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Speaker 1: even good for people who are current house homeowners either yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's right. And look, I mean only about thirty percent

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Speaker 1: of the country actually makes more than one hundred thousand dollars,

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Speaker 1: so to put that in perspective, and then if you

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Speaker 1: add the savings part on that, it's even worse, like

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Speaker 1: literally only fifteen percent of the country even makes between

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Speaker 1: one hundred to one hundred and fifty thousand. So you know,

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Speaker 1: we're it's it's a real issue. And when you consider that,

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Speaker 1: you know, from a decile perspective, if you already need

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Speaker 1: to be in the top one third of income just

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Speaker 1: to be able to qualify and afford that on a

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Speaker 1: normal salary, and this is household income that I'm talking about,

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Speaker 1: then you include savings over years and years and years.

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Speaker 1: Here's a single worst time in what forty something years

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Speaker 1: in order to buy a house in the United States,

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Speaker 1: and the crash on price, even if it crashes by

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Speaker 1: ten percent, it's just that's not going to be enough.

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Speaker 1: You'd have to hope for a historic crash. And I

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Speaker 1: don't hope for that because a huge amount of people's

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Speaker 1: wealth is tied up in that already. So there's really

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Speaker 1: no good solution on this except to increase inventory. And

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Speaker 1: that of course is just not going to happen anytime soon,

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Speaker 1: especially with these policies, and it's a real crapshoot for

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Speaker 1: the next couple of years. I really think this is

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Speaker 1: a sleeper issue that is going to increasingly define our

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Speaker 1: politics because it is so core to number one, being

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Speaker 1: able to build any kind of wealth as a middle

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Speaker 1: or even upper middle class at this point household in

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Speaker 1: this country. It's so core to our psychology and our

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Speaker 1: cultural mythology about what it means to have like the

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Speaker 1: stable American dream, the good life, and it's just increasingly

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Speaker 1: completely out of reach for all but an elite segment

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Speaker 1: of Americans, or like if you're lucky enough to like

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Speaker 1: have your parents home handed down to you, or have

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Speaker 1: your parents fund your you know, upfront down payment. That's

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Speaker 1: basically the only way that young people are able to

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Speaker 1: start to climb this ladder. And so that just means

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Speaker 1: that you know, like generational wealth is even further locked

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Speaker 1: in and entrench than it already is. So I really

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Speaker 1: think that this is going to increasingly be like a

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Speaker 1: central issue to our politics for years and years to come,

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Speaker 1: because this is a disaster, I agree, time for a

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Speaker 1: sad annual tradition here at breaking points. Let's go ahead

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Speaker 1: and put this up there on the screen. We have

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Speaker 1: a new record high for the Thanksgiving meal. We did

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Speaker 1: this last year and sadly a lot of people found

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Speaker 1: it very informative. So where are we at right now?

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Speaker 1: A sixteen pound turkey twenty eight dollars and ninety six cents,

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Speaker 1: twenty one percent more than the average cost just a

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Speaker 1: year ago, and nine dollars and fifty seven cents more

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Speaker 1: than in twenty twenty other holiday stables. What do we have?

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Speaker 1: Fourteen ounce bag of stuffing is three dollars eighty cent.

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Speaker 1: That is up seventy percent. Two frozen pie crusts up

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Speaker 1: twenty six percent. Whipped cream is up twenty six percent.

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Speaker 1: A pound of frozen peas is up twenty three percent.

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Speaker 1: A dozen dinner rolls twenty two thirty ounce can of

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Speaker 1: pumpkin pie mix is up eighteen Only one item, which

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Speaker 1: is a twelve ounce bag of fresh cranberries, has had

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Speaker 1: a price drop down fourteen percent. We should look into

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Speaker 1: the cranberry markets see if there's any learnings there we

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Speaker 1: could replicate. Yeah, so overall, the Thanksgiving prices for every

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Speaker 1: metro area in the entire country has gone up with

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Speaker 1: the most expensive meals for those who are wondering will

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Speaker 1: be in Boston, Honolulu, New York City, Seattle, and Washington,

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Speaker 1: d C. Great for US, two bad scores for Washington. Overall,

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Speaker 1: whole turkeys where I live in Northern Virginia area, crystal

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Speaker 1: will cost a total of forty four dollars, which is

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Speaker 1: actually double the national average price. I'm curious as to

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Speaker 1: why that is. And currently some store bought pumpkin pies

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Speaker 1: in Little Rock, Arkansas are going for twenty two bucks

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Speaker 1: and fifty cents, which is crazy. At that point, you

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Speaker 1: make yourself anyway sad that we have to do this,

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Speaker 1: but you know, these things do matter. They're an important

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Speaker 1: way that people feel the economy, especially whenever they look

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Speaker 1: past what they spaid before. And it's a way that

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Speaker 1: like you look at the cost of the turkey and

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Speaker 1: everybody's getting together, and you know, it's just harder and

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Speaker 1: harder for people to make ends meet. And it's like

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Speaker 1: a big illustration of that on a macro level for everybody. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: oh absolutely, when you're looking at Okay, what can I

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Speaker 1: put on the table? You want to have the day

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Speaker 1: just be about celebration of friends and family, and you're

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Speaker 1: worried about, you know, whether you're going to be able

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Speaker 1: to provide the sort of basics of what people expect

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Speaker 1: to have on Thanksgiving. Remember, wasn't that last year that

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Speaker 1: The Today Show did some segment that was like, just

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Speaker 1: don't have it, yes, for go meat all together? We did, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I remember that vividly. Yeah. They were like, just skip

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Speaker 1: the turkey this year. It's just so expensive. Everyone's like, what, like,

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Speaker 1: maybe I guess if I have to. But that's not

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Speaker 1: the way that it should be of Thanksgiving. I mean,

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Speaker 1: low key turkey is not all that good. Like even

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Speaker 1: with all all all the ways people try to like

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Speaker 1: jazz it up, like I'm gonna fry the turkey, I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna brighten the turkey. Every year there's some like new

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Speaker 1: gimmicky way to do your turkey thing. I mean they're

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Speaker 1: ultimately like not that amazing, but I still want to

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Speaker 1: have one on the table because it just doesn't feel

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Speaker 1: like Thanksgiving with I've attended a couple of deep fries.

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Speaker 1: They almost inevitably go wrong. They are fun to attend.

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Speaker 1: Giving tradition is watching compilation videos on YouTube of people

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Speaker 1: burning their houses down while deep ring. Don't do that, guy,

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Speaker 1: highly recommend if you are going to the video, don't.

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Speaker 1: If you're going to do it, like please do responsibly, don't.

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Speaker 1: The number one thing is no matter what actually witnessed

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Speaker 1: this is I was watching my old boss actually having

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Speaker 1: to sit there and let his hand get burned rather

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Speaker 1: than just drop the turkey, because if he dropped it,

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Speaker 1: then the whole thing, the turkey would have the oil

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Speaker 1: would have spilled caused like, so we had to sit

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Speaker 1: there and take it as he was lowering it in there,

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Speaker 1: and it was sputtering because I guess it had didn't

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Speaker 1: have fun anyway in my astimation, you probably just shouldn't

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Speaker 1: do it, but people have fun, so enjoy yourselves. Growing up,

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Speaker 1: did you guys do like the traditional you did? No?

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Speaker 1: I did it mostly when I moved here because my

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Speaker 1: parents don't vegetarian, they don't eat meat, and in general,

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Speaker 1: like I just don't like turkey like the actually, even

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Speaker 1: like you said Thanksgiving turkey, I'm just not a fan.

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Speaker 1: Every time I have tried it since then, some of

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Speaker 1: the stuff is fine. Thanks. Yeah, the cramp, what is

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Speaker 1: the it's like, Oh god, I'm sure it's like a

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Speaker 1: cast role or something like that. Whatever that is, that's

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Speaker 1: pretty good. I'm a fan of that stuffing on and

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Speaker 1: off depends on the cranberry sauce. Not a fan whatsoever.

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Speaker 1: We scramberry sauce is wonderful. Actually you can't the like

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Speaker 1: kind that comes out of the can and just like,

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Speaker 1: but that's gross. We'll see. But if you make a

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Speaker 1: good cranberry relish you have, it goes with everything. Look,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to be in Texas. I'm going to be

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Speaker 1: eating torchies tacos for Thanksgiving. That's much better than whatever

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Speaker 1: is on the table here. But we've established I have

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Speaker 1: different culinary tastes. We love you guys, Havy holidays. Hope

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Speaker 1: you enjoyed the day. We'll see you soon. Update for you.

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Speaker 1: After the FBI and Air Force Security Services rated the

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Speaker 1: home of a UFO researcher and host of a popular

399
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Speaker 1: Area fifty one website, let's go and put this up

400
00:22:03,440 --> 00:22:06,520
Speaker 1: there on the screen. The owner is now speaking out

401
00:22:06,800 --> 00:22:09,520
Speaker 1: and said, quote, it could be your door next. So

402
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Speaker 1: here is the statement that he's issued after the case. Quote,

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Speaker 1: I have discussed this case with an attorney specialized in

404
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Speaker 1: federal cases. He says, what I learned is truly incredible

405
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Speaker 1: and in my opinion, a much bigger story than the

406
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Speaker 1: raid of my homes. What was done to me and

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Speaker 1: my girlfriend, who were unarmed, innocent, cooperating senior citizens, is

408
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Speaker 1: apparently totally within the law, which is truly incredible. After

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Speaker 1: the report that fifteen to twenty armed federal authorities from

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Speaker 1: the US Air Force and the FBI rated two of

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Speaker 1: his homes belonging to him and the girlfriend while he

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Speaker 1: was president, and one of them agents busted through the door,

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Speaker 1: yanked the pair outside where they were quote detained and

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Speaker 1: treated in a disrespectful way. Now, to be clear, we

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Speaker 1: still do not know what exactly these people were doing

416
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Speaker 1: this raid for The owner of the website says he

417
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Speaker 1: still doesn't even know what specific crime that he violated

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Speaker 1: and only knows what the agents told him during the raid,

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Speaker 1: which was that the incident was quote related to images

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Speaker 1: posted on my Area fifty one website. Now again to reiterate,

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00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:12,320
Speaker 1: he has had some twenty five thousand dollars of damage

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Speaker 1: which was done to his home. He was literally held

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Speaker 1: at gunpoint, him and his girlfriend. There's actually photos here

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Speaker 1: in the piece of his door completely broken, the frame.

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Speaker 1: He even says, quote, I have not been charged with

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Speaker 1: a crime. All my attempts to reach out to the

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Speaker 1: FBI to at least get my much needed for medical

428
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Speaker 1: and financial records passwords stirred on the sized computers are

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Speaker 1: completely in vain quote crickets from the Feds, he says. Look,

430
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:39,840
Speaker 1: the federal government has the right to harass and traumatize

431
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:42,760
Speaker 1: random citizens that are not accused of a crime. Kicked

432
00:23:42,760 --> 00:23:45,520
Speaker 1: in their doors, manhandle them, take whatever they want. Said

433
00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:49,399
Speaker 1: citizens have no rights to reimbursement of their damages, return

434
00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:52,000
Speaker 1: of property, or compensation for the trauma that they were

435
00:23:52,040 --> 00:23:55,840
Speaker 1: subjected to. Now, the Air Force has confirmed that there

436
00:23:55,920 --> 00:24:01,240
Speaker 1: is a quote open investigation into this researcher into the website. However,

437
00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:05,920
Speaker 1: FBI has yet to say anything and all of this. Okay,

438
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:09,280
Speaker 1: let's say again that this is related crystal to leaked

439
00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:13,719
Speaker 1: images of Area fifty one. Well, guess what they're out there? So, now,

440
00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:17,560
Speaker 1: why are you busting down somebody's store. Also, he's committing

441
00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:20,600
Speaker 1: an active journalism here. It's clearly it was leaked to

442
00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:24,040
Speaker 1: him somehow. You by someone go after the leaker, who

443
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:26,320
Speaker 1: maybe works at the Air Force. Storming into a private

444
00:24:26,359 --> 00:24:30,000
Speaker 1: citizen's home, stealing their stuff and then also not charging

445
00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:32,400
Speaker 1: them with a crime and not letting really of us,

446
00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:34,240
Speaker 1: any of us know in an open court of law.

447
00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:37,800
Speaker 1: It's totally outranged over some photographs like this guy is

448
00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:42,639
Speaker 1: some like grave, like imminent threat to you to life

449
00:24:42,640 --> 00:24:46,240
Speaker 1: and liberty. Orse is completely insane. And what they say

450
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:49,840
Speaker 1: is that his site, which called Dreamland Resort, features videos

451
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:52,760
Speaker 1: of drone footage from around area, fifty one satellite images

452
00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:55,560
Speaker 1: of the base, discussion forums, and articles on various rumored

453
00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:58,639
Speaker 1: top secret projects involving UFO's site also features photos of

454
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:02,720
Speaker 1: quote super secret aircraft being developed by the US military.

455
00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:06,320
Speaker 1: I mean, they could have sent a cease and desists,

456
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:09,080
Speaker 1: they could have knocked on the door they did. The

457
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:13,960
Speaker 1: over the top aggressive nature of this is completely insane.

458
00:25:14,280 --> 00:25:17,080
Speaker 1: And like he says, he hasn't even been charged with

459
00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:20,600
Speaker 1: a crime and they can do this and it's apparently

460
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 1: totally legal. I mean, that's the part he's clearly most

461
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:26,800
Speaker 1: shocked by, Yeah, is that he basically has no rights.

462
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:30,560
Speaker 1: They can keep his property, including his laptops which have

463
00:25:30,760 --> 00:25:33,560
Speaker 1: private information on it, which have passwords that he needs,

464
00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 1: which have medical information that he needs, They can keep

465
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:39,200
Speaker 1: them indefinitely. His lawyer says, by the time you get

466
00:25:39,240 --> 00:25:42,920
Speaker 1: them back, they'll be wildly out of date. And so, yeah,

467
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:46,320
Speaker 1: this is the treatment of an American citizen who is,

468
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:48,280
Speaker 1: you know, trying to figure out what's going on with

469
00:25:48,320 --> 00:25:51,520
Speaker 1: some government secrets and they just come in completely over

470
00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:53,680
Speaker 1: the top and treat him and his girlfriend this way.

471
00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:57,160
Speaker 1: It's really crazy. And again we and by the way,

472
00:25:57,320 --> 00:25:59,240
Speaker 1: based on the images and stuff that I looked at,

473
00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:02,480
Speaker 1: I mean, you seem all that revolutionary to me. Also,

474
00:26:02,560 --> 00:26:04,520
Speaker 1: there's a real question here on why does the Air

475
00:26:04,520 --> 00:26:07,160
Speaker 1: Force get to just bust down your door. Last time

476
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 1: I checked, they don't have jurisdiction. He's a private citizen.

477
00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:11,679
Speaker 1: He doesn't even work for the military. Why are they

478
00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:14,720
Speaker 1: doing joint raids, you know with the FBI. Now, if

479
00:26:14,720 --> 00:26:17,440
Speaker 1: the FBI involved, it's supposedly a federal crime, I'm like, okay,

480
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:20,240
Speaker 1: then file something in a federal court. We had nothing

481
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:23,879
Speaker 1: from a legal team. No, you know, even the search warrant, like,

482
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 1: they're not listing specific crimes. They say it was related

483
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:31,040
Speaker 1: to images. Okay, specify exactly which one, what are the images?

484
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 1: Ask them to take them down. I mean, to do

485
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:37,280
Speaker 1: all of this without even giving any sort of insight

486
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:41,600
Speaker 1: with the over the top tactics is very, very disturbing. Yeah,

487
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:43,800
Speaker 1: that's right, all right, we'll see you guys later. There's

488
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:46,280
Speaker 1: been a lot of questions how did Sam Bankman Freed

489
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:48,679
Speaker 1: pull it off. Well, one of the reasons is that

490
00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:52,160
Speaker 1: venture capitalists basically did no due diligence before handing him

491
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:57,120
Speaker 1: billions of dollars. This particular story is just so incredibly hilarious.

492
00:26:57,280 --> 00:27:00,640
Speaker 1: It's about Sequoia Capital, which is one of the largest

493
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 1: funds in all of Silicon Valley. Find out how exactly

494
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 1: SBF charmed them and got them to give him billions

495
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:11,439
Speaker 1: of dollars to fund his his FTX fund. Let's put

496
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:14,359
Speaker 1: this up there on the screen. So here's a direct

497
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:18,040
Speaker 1: quote when SBF told Sequoya about the so called super app. Quote,

498
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:20,160
Speaker 1: I want FTX to be a place where you can

499
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:22,639
Speaker 1: do anything that you want with your next dollar. You

500
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:25,520
Speaker 1: can buy bitcoin, you can send money in whatever currency

501
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:27,720
Speaker 1: to a friend in the world, you can buy a banana.

502
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 1: You can do anything you want with your money from

503
00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:33,840
Speaker 1: inside FTX. Suddenly, the chat window on Sequoya's side of

504
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:38,600
Speaker 1: zoom exploded. Quote. I love this founder typed one partner,

505
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:42,120
Speaker 1: I am a ten out of ten, said another yes,

506
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 1: exclaimed the third. What Sequoya was reacting to was the

507
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:48,720
Speaker 1: scale of his vision. It wasn't a story about using

508
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:51,119
Speaker 1: fintech in the future. It was a vision about the

509
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:54,080
Speaker 1: future of money itself and an addressable market of every

510
00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:57,479
Speaker 1: person on the planet. Quote. I sit ten feet from him,

511
00:27:57,480 --> 00:27:59,920
Speaker 1: and I walked over thinking, oh shit, that was really,

512
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:03,359
Speaker 1: really good. And it turns out that SBF was playing

513
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:08,199
Speaker 1: League of Legends throughout the entire meeting. And that is

514
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:12,440
Speaker 1: a real article that actually was published by the by

515
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:17,000
Speaker 1: Sequoia itself in an update on why they decided to

516
00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:23,159
Speaker 1: give money to FTX and Sequoia after giving billions to

517
00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:27,640
Speaker 1: SBF and now being called out on this, now says quote,

518
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:30,919
Speaker 1: let's put this on their screen. Quote we did careful

519
00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 1: due diligence. We looked at it. There's nothing much we

520
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:38,320
Speaker 1: could have done any differently. I can tell you for

521
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:40,560
Speaker 1: the next three to six months, we are going to

522
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 1: dream a little less. God, this is insanity. SBF literally

523
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:52,480
Speaker 1: playing legal legends and saying, imagine if I was like

524
00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:56,480
Speaker 1: pitching somebody on breaking points, where good. I want breaking

525
00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:59,800
Speaker 1: points to be where your grandma could watch and your

526
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:03,680
Speaker 1: childhood And that's actually real, unlike what FTX was pitching,

527
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:05,720
Speaker 1: and that was the extent of the pitch, and people

528
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: were like, yeah, yeah, she's just totally brilliant. Well here's

529
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 1: three billion dollars. Yeah, it's the worst because, like I mean,

530
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:16,960
Speaker 1: with FDx, you have to have some there there in

531
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:21,840
Speaker 1: terms of like the financial basis for what you're doing. Here,

532
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 1: at least there's like a product you can actually see,

533
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 1: some metrics you don't see. It reminds me a lot

534
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:31,880
Speaker 1: of you know, how Elizabeth Holmes crafted this whole persona

535
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:36,800
Speaker 1: and image copied Steve Jobs, the expressions on her face,

536
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 1: the way she would style herself, the turtleneck that she

537
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:45,800
Speaker 1: would wear. She adopted this affect that she thought would

538
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:49,480
Speaker 1: sell in Silicon Valley and would lead people to believe

539
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:53,600
Speaker 1: that she was this visionary genius, once in a lifetime,

540
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:57,000
Speaker 1: once in a generation founder and they freaking bought it.

541
00:29:57,560 --> 00:30:00,800
Speaker 1: And I mean Silicon Valley people bought it. All sorts

542
00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:03,840
Speaker 1: of elites back to her project. And it's the same

543
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:05,760
Speaker 1: thing with Sam Bankman Freedo. I mean, that's what came

544
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:09,200
Speaker 1: out partially in the DMS that he was exchanging with

545
00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:13,120
Speaker 1: this Fox reporter, where he's basically like admits that I

546
00:30:13,200 --> 00:30:17,680
Speaker 1: was all afront, you know, the posturing as some great philanthropists,

547
00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:21,760
Speaker 1: that that was basically pr even his efforts in Washington

548
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:25,880
Speaker 1: to supposedly want to regulate crypto and portraying himself as

549
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 1: the golden boy of Crypto, that that was a front,

550
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 1: that that was a brand play, you know, the goofy hair,

551
00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:35,880
Speaker 1: the casual dress, all of this stuff was very strategic

552
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:40,440
Speaker 1: and very intentional in order to derive exactly the reaction

553
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:44,120
Speaker 1: that you get from these idiots at Sequoia. And you know,

554
00:30:44,160 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 1: for those of you who don't know, I mean, Sequoia

555
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:51,480
Speaker 1: is like the top known fund in Silicon Valley. Like

556
00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 1: these are again the elites of the elites, and so

557
00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 1: I am very sad for the people, genuinely sad for

558
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:00,920
Speaker 1: the people who have lost money in this scam and

559
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:04,120
Speaker 1: many others. But I love the unmasking. I love the

560
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 1: unmasking of SBF. I love the unmasking of the politicians

561
00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 1: who took his cash and we're happy to have him

562
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: here and fed him like he was some young lord.

563
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 1: I love the unmasking of the media class who bought

564
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 1: all the hype. I love the unmasking of the business

565
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:20,320
Speaker 1: press in particular, who have been feeding all of this.

566
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:24,400
Speaker 1: I love the unmasking of these venture capital morons who

567
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 1: you know, he said the word banana and they basically,

568
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:29,760
Speaker 1: like you know, fell over like he was a Greek god.

569
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:33,880
Speaker 1: It's just like we're told so much that these people

570
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:37,240
Speaker 1: are so brilliant and they understand things that none of

571
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:39,800
Speaker 1: us could ever understand, and we should just trust them

572
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:42,160
Speaker 1: and they should be allowed to run society however they

573
00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 1: want and don't worry your pretty little heads about it.

574
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:47,520
Speaker 1: And you see here even the elite of the elite,

575
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:51,959
Speaker 1: the billionaire class themselves. You see how hollow and empty

576
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 1: it ultimately all is. And it's amazing. It's amazing, very well,

577
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 1: said Crystal. Yeah, so they're going to dream a little less.

578
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 1: Hearts are broken, just so perfect, unbelievable. I'll see you

579
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:08,480
Speaker 1: guys later. Hey there, my name is James Lee. Welcome

580
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:11,200
Speaker 1: to another segment of fifty one forty nine on Breaking Points,

581
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 1: where we dive into different topics at the intersection of business, politics,

582
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 1: and society. And today we're going to talk about artificial intelligence.

583
00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:24,720
Speaker 1: Artificial intelligence is no longer science fiction, right, most, if

584
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:28,080
Speaker 1: not all, of us, already use AI power technology on

585
00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:31,719
Speaker 1: a daily basis, or it's being used on us. And

586
00:32:31,760 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 1: it's a scary, powerful technology, one that could be used

587
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 1: to make our lives better for sure, but also one

588
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 1: that has major ethical and moral implications that need addressing.

589
00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:43,840
Speaker 1: So the question I think we need to all start

590
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 1: asking is how AI technology can be abused by the

591
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 1: tech companies themselves who develop and monetize this technology, and

592
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:55,440
Speaker 1: by governments both authoritarian and democratic, and what we can

593
00:32:55,520 --> 00:32:57,920
Speaker 1: and should do about it. First off, where there is

594
00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 1: money to be made, venture capitalists flock. This is a

595
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:05,080
Speaker 1: chart from NYU professor Scott Galloway's blog showing that AI

596
00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 1: investments from vcs have skyrocketed since twenty twenty. Over one

597
00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 1: hundred billion dollars has been invested in AI startups since

598
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:15,560
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, and funding doubled in twenty twenty one. Now,

599
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 1: capital at this kind of scale creates both opportunities and challenges.

600
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:22,680
Speaker 1: Opportunities in that the pursuit of technological breakthroughs are not

601
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:27,240
Speaker 1: bound by resource constraints, but challenges in that the financial

602
00:33:27,280 --> 00:33:32,880
Speaker 1: interests of capital necessarily leapfrogs all other considerations, whether they

603
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 1: be ethical, moral, social, ecological, etc. AI has been an

604
00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:41,400
Speaker 1: important wavy approach our mission. In two thousand and one,

605
00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 1: we were using a simple version of machine learning to

606
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 1: suggest better spellings on search, and by twenty eleven, deep

607
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:53,200
Speaker 1: learning techniques we're helping pave the way for things like

608
00:33:53,280 --> 00:33:58,360
Speaker 1: better speech recognition and more accurate maps. A decade later,

609
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:02,200
Speaker 1: AI power so many of the products people use every day.

610
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:06,360
Speaker 1: We see so much opportunity ahead and are committed to

611
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:10,960
Speaker 1: making sure the technology is built in service of helping people.

612
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:17,360
Speaker 1: Like any transformational technology, AI comes with risks and challenges.

613
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:21,960
Speaker 1: That's why Google is focused on responsible AI from the beginning,

614
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 1: publishing AI principles which prioritize the safety and privacy of

615
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:31,480
Speaker 1: people about anything else. That was a snippet of Google

616
00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:35,520
Speaker 1: CEO Sundar Pichai's opening remarks at Google AI twenty two

617
00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:38,800
Speaker 1: earlier this month, saying all the right things right. Google

618
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:43,720
Speaker 1: will engage in responsible AI development in service of helping people,

619
00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: prioritizing the safety and privacy of people above all else. YadA, YadA.

620
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:52,640
Speaker 1: We end today's show looking at protests inside Google over

621
00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 1: a secretive project to provide advanced artificial intelligence tools to

622
00:34:56,760 --> 00:35:01,080
Speaker 1: the Israeli government and military. The intercept to recently obtain

623
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:05,320
Speaker 1: documents about what's known as Project Nimbus, a one point

624
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:10,400
Speaker 1: two billion dollar cloud computing contract between Google and Israel.

625
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:15,240
Speaker 1: The intercept reports quote documents indicate that the new cloud

626
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:20,040
Speaker 1: would give Israel capabilities for facial detection, automated image categorization,

627
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 1: object tracking, and even sentiment analysis that claims to assess

628
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:29,160
Speaker 1: the emotional content of pictures, speech, and writing. That's a

629
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:33,280
Speaker 1: little bit different than what mister Pitchai promised. Project Nimbus

630
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 1: will be a big, ugly moment in Google's history and

631
00:35:36,239 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 1: a shameful and embarrassing engagement. Project Nimbus will demoralize and

632
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:44,719
Speaker 1: agonize the many Googlers who truly believe and stand for

633
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:48,719
Speaker 1: Google's mission and values. Working at Google is always my

634
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 1: dream job. Until I learned about Project Nimbus, I feel

635
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:54,160
Speaker 1: like I'm making my living off the oppression of my

636
00:35:54,280 --> 00:35:57,840
Speaker 1: family back home. If Google truly believes in avoiding unjust

637
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:00,279
Speaker 1: impacts to the use of their AI, then why are

638
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 1: they choosing to profit from a billion dollar contract with

639
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:07,120
Speaker 1: a government and military which consistently violates international law. That's

640
00:36:07,120 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 1: a good question. Why are they choosing to profit from

641
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 1: a billion dollar contract with a military which consistently violates

642
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:17,840
Speaker 1: international law. Well, it's because they have to write the vcs.

643
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:21,040
Speaker 1: They've identified a technology that no doubt can be monetized,

644
00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:25,359
Speaker 1: and they've invested billions in hopes of making trillions, and

645
00:36:25,920 --> 00:36:27,640
Speaker 1: you know, this is what they do. This is why

646
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:31,480
Speaker 1: they exist. But then companies, even the behemoths like Google,

647
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 1: who aren't necessarily at this stage recipients of VC money,

648
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:38,839
Speaker 1: they still must respond to similar pressures from their shareholders

649
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:42,120
Speaker 1: and from Wall Street, who expect high returns, and thus

650
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:46,680
Speaker 1: Google must continue to find ways to boost earnings. Unfortunately

651
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:50,360
Speaker 1: for them, according to recent reporting from AP, their primary

652
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:54,640
Speaker 1: revenue driver, which is advertising, has slowed down dramatically, which

653
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:58,200
Speaker 1: in turn has eroded the company's profits in recent quarters.

654
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:00,319
Speaker 1: This means that in order to keep the inventor ers

655
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:04,760
Speaker 1: and shareholders happy, they must find alternative revenue streams, AI

656
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:07,319
Speaker 1: being one of them. And this is kind of what

657
00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:10,520
Speaker 1: I'm talking about when I think is so concerning this

658
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:15,840
Speaker 1: inevitable incompatibility between ethical considerations and the financial realities of

659
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:18,600
Speaker 1: big tech, which the employees within Google have tried to

660
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 1: speak out against because the right the way we do

661
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:25,880
Speaker 1: business today has profound impacts on society and democracy around

662
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:28,959
Speaker 1: the world. Now, the idea that we might one day

663
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:32,560
Speaker 1: have machines that can think like humans raises a whole

664
00:37:32,560 --> 00:37:36,120
Speaker 1: bunch of ethical and philosophical questions about what it could

665
00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:40,839
Speaker 1: mean for society. ABA, go back to your room. Never

666
00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:44,600
Speaker 1: mind the fears about the next level after that, artificial

667
00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:49,239
Speaker 1: super intelligence, where the machines go beyond human intelligence and

668
00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:53,360
Speaker 1: we start moving closer towards those sci fi extremes. Almost

669
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:57,000
Speaker 1: every major jurisdiction is thinking about regulating AI in some

670
00:37:57,160 --> 00:38:00,160
Speaker 1: shape or form. I'm glad governments are somewhat awake on

671
00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:03,719
Speaker 1: these dystopian type scenarios and throughout the world they are

672
00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:07,080
Speaker 1: looking for ways to regulate AI and their right to

673
00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:11,600
Speaker 1: do something about it. But that effort will be perceived

674
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:14,520
Speaker 1: by vcs and investors in big tech as a direct

675
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:18,280
Speaker 1: threat to their long term profitability, especially in those AI

676
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 1: applications that fall in the moral gray areas like that

677
00:38:23,560 --> 00:38:26,799
Speaker 1: have to do with civil liberties and privacy, So the

678
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:30,760
Speaker 1: inevitable outcome is a full court press to protect their investment.

679
00:38:31,360 --> 00:38:33,719
Speaker 1: This is a report from earlier this year. Big tech

680
00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:37,560
Speaker 1: loves talking up privacy while trying to kill privacy legislation.

681
00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:43,280
Speaker 1: Study claims Amazon Apple, Google, Metam, Microsoft work to derail

682
00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:46,600
Speaker 1: data rules. Essentially, big tech giants have deployed an army

683
00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:49,920
Speaker 1: of four to forty five lobbyists to influence lawmakers ahead

684
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:52,920
Speaker 1: of the introduction of privacy bills in dozens of states.

685
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:56,920
Speaker 1: That is obviously not a new playbook. Lobbying with cold

686
00:38:56,920 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 1: hard cash is rather effective, but something that is equally effective,

687
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:05,680
Speaker 1: as the famous saying goes, is to manufacture consent, and

688
00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:09,440
Speaker 1: this time is to manufacture public consent to fight a

689
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:13,239
Speaker 1: new Cold war. Why in US versus them? Approach to

690
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:17,120
Speaker 1: China lets the US avoid hard questions as national security

691
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:21,360
Speaker 1: framing and fears of China's AI advancements propel USAI policy.

692
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:24,920
Speaker 1: Some human rights watch dogs worry it will facilitate a

693
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:28,319
Speaker 1: focus on AI investments with military applications and allow the

694
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:32,719
Speaker 1: US to deflect scrutiny for its own AI practices. Now,

695
00:39:32,760 --> 00:39:35,440
Speaker 1: I'm not saying China and the ambitions of Chairman Sheet

696
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:39,880
Speaker 1: isn't something the world shouldn't be concerned about, because we should,

697
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:42,600
Speaker 1: but because the West, we just don't have a lot

698
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 1: of visibility into how things work in China, both socially, politically, culturally.

699
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:52,160
Speaker 1: China's threat to national securities opaque. It's kind of perfect

700
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: for stoking public fear. Former Google CEO turned AI investor

701
00:39:56,320 --> 00:39:59,319
Speaker 1: Eric Schmidt set in an interview last year, quote, why

702
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:02,520
Speaker 1: don't we wait until something bad happens and then we

703
00:40:02,560 --> 00:40:05,239
Speaker 1: can figure out how to regulate it. Otherwise you're going

704
00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:08,120
Speaker 1: to slow everybody down. Trust me, China is not busy

705
00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:12,760
Speaker 1: stopping things because of regulation. They're starting new things. Okay,

706
00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 1: Why don't we wait until something bad happens? Why not?

707
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 1: The AI system was found to be a factor in

708
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:22,160
Speaker 1: the two plane crashes of the Boeing seven three seven Max,

709
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:25,920
Speaker 1: one in Indonesia and one in Ethiopia. Three hundred and

710
00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:29,320
Speaker 1: forty six people died, and the autopilot was AI powered

711
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:32,560
Speaker 1: and it wasn't designed to allow for human override, so

712
00:40:32,600 --> 00:40:35,200
Speaker 1: it gave dangerous nose down commands and it forced a

713
00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:38,000
Speaker 1: plane to crash. Right now, we're really worried about things

714
00:40:38,120 --> 00:40:43,000
Speaker 1: like mistakes, algorithmic mistakes. Not a mistake by the computer,

715
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:46,319
Speaker 1: it's a mistake about how it was written, how the

716
00:40:46,360 --> 00:40:49,319
Speaker 1: code was written, and whether or not the processes were

717
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:52,440
Speaker 1: put in place for adequate recourse so that you can

718
00:40:52,520 --> 00:40:55,800
Speaker 1: tell if something's gone wrong. The stakes get even higher

719
00:40:55,880 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 1: when we're talking about war and AI being used in

720
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:03,360
Speaker 1: lethal weapons. We already have armed drones controlled by people

721
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:07,360
Speaker 1: that use AI technology, but it's not a big stretch

722
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:11,920
Speaker 1: to get to fully autonomous weapons. So machines making life

723
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 1: and death decisions about who or what to target. It's

724
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:18,440
Speaker 1: probably inevitable, but it's really quite scary. You can imagine

725
00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:21,800
Speaker 1: some really bad situations happening. Imagine in the Taiwan Strait,

726
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 1: for example, having a large group of American drones facing

727
00:41:25,040 --> 00:41:28,839
Speaker 1: off Chinese drones and they're trained on classified data. How

728
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:32,160
Speaker 1: these two swarms of drones interact and whether they might

729
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 1: accidentally fire at one another because they mistake maybe some

730
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:39,439
Speaker 1: light reflecting of a drone for an attack. That could

731
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:41,960
Speaker 1: mean that you accidentally end up in a war or

732
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:45,719
Speaker 1: even a nuclear conflict. Yeah, nuclear war. Should we wait

733
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:49,400
Speaker 1: until it gets to world destruction before we do something.

734
00:41:50,040 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 1: We wouldn't want to do anything that jeopardizes your ROI.

735
00:41:54,320 --> 00:41:57,240
Speaker 1: By the way, CNBC reported last month that Eric Smith

736
00:41:57,320 --> 00:42:00,279
Speaker 1: has helped write AI laws and watch it with out

737
00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 1: publicly disclosing his investments in AI startups. And I'm going

738
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:08,040
Speaker 1: to keep reinforcing the unfortunate truth that policy is driven

739
00:42:08,080 --> 00:42:11,240
Speaker 1: by capital, and that the interests of capital have risen

740
00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:14,439
Speaker 1: above the interests of the American nation. And by being

741
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:17,960
Speaker 1: aware of this fact, we can help better decipher the

742
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:22,200
Speaker 1: various ways politicians and business leaders misdirect our attention to

743
00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:27,479
Speaker 1: further their financial or political interests. Knowledge is power. Quote.

744
00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:30,200
Speaker 1: It's easy to criticize China or some of the other

745
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:33,600
Speaker 1: autocratic governments and shield the US and other democratic countries

746
00:42:33,600 --> 00:42:36,879
Speaker 1: from criticism. Some of it is legitimate criticism, but it's

747
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:40,320
Speaker 1: very easy to use that approach to deflect any responsibility

748
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:43,279
Speaker 1: and accountability for the things that other countries are doing

749
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:46,799
Speaker 1: and use this AI race framing for more funding into

750
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: military or surveillance technologies, which then find their way into

751
00:42:50,239 --> 00:42:54,600
Speaker 1: experiments in domestic law enforcement or migration management. That was

752
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:57,640
Speaker 1: a quote from MERV. Hickock's senior research director and chair

753
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:01,120
Speaker 1: of the board for the Center for AI Digital Policy,

754
00:43:01,320 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 1: a nonprofit AI policy and human rights watchdog, and that

755
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:06,759
Speaker 1: is the point of today's segment. It's clear at this

756
00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:11,239
Speaker 1: point that AI has a myriad of practical applications in

757
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 1: both the public and private sectors. Things like commerce, the

758
00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:19,200
Speaker 1: way we communicate our transportation industry, our infrastructure, our domestic

759
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:22,239
Speaker 1: and national security. I could go on, but like I said,

760
00:43:22,440 --> 00:43:25,640
Speaker 1: it is a powerful technology, one that can be used

761
00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:31,560
Speaker 1: to analyze the populace, surveil people, and ultimately control societal behavior.

762
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:37,279
Speaker 1: And once corporations and governments, both authoritarian and democratic, have

763
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:40,080
Speaker 1: a taste of this kind of power, they are unlikely

764
00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 1: to let that power go. Thank you so much for watching.

765
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:46,240
Speaker 1: If you enjoy this segment, I have another one diving

766
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:49,480
Speaker 1: into the insane invasion of privacy at this year's World

767
00:43:49,560 --> 00:43:52,480
Speaker 1: Cup in Qatar. Head on over and subscribe to my

768
00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:54,840
Speaker 1: YouTube channel fifty one to forty nine for James Lee

769
00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:56,600
Speaker 1: to check that out. The link will be in the

770
00:43:56,640 --> 00:44:01,120
Speaker 1: description below, and as always, remember to subscribe to Breaking Points.

771
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time today. Hi. I'm

772
00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:10,040
Speaker 1: Maximilian Alvarez. I'm the editor in chief of the Real

773
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:14,080
Speaker 1: News Network and host of the podcast Working People and

774
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:17,680
Speaker 1: this is the Art of class War. On Breaking Points.

775
00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:22,080
Speaker 1: It's been one year since workers at the Elmwood Avenue

776
00:44:22,120 --> 00:44:26,480
Speaker 1: Starbucks store in Buffalo, New York made history by becoming

777
00:44:26,520 --> 00:44:30,240
Speaker 1: the first of the company's nine thousand corporate owned stores

778
00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:34,759
Speaker 1: in the United States to successfully vote to unionize. What

779
00:44:34,880 --> 00:44:38,960
Speaker 1: happened next was even more historic and incredible. It's the

780
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:42,600
Speaker 1: kind of thing you read about in history books, and

781
00:44:42,640 --> 00:44:45,880
Speaker 1: it's the kind of thing that terrifies bosses and wealthy

782
00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 1: executives at literally every corporate chain. The kind of thing

783
00:44:51,160 --> 00:44:56,440
Speaker 1: working people in this country are told is impossible until

784
00:44:56,440 --> 00:45:00,440
Speaker 1: it isn't. With the awesome speed and scale of a

785
00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:05,279
Speaker 1: prairie fire, a wave of grassroots worker organizing its Starbucks

786
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 1: locations across the country has put the world's largest coffeehouse

787
00:45:10,200 --> 00:45:14,239
Speaker 1: chain on its heels, turning that first victory in Buffalo

788
00:45:14,640 --> 00:45:18,439
Speaker 1: into the beginning of a movement. Over the past year,

789
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:23,320
Speaker 1: workers at hundreds of Starbucks locations from Maine to Hawaii

790
00:45:23,680 --> 00:45:28,480
Speaker 1: have filed for union elections, with the overwhelming majority around

791
00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:31,799
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty stores at this point voting in

792
00:45:31,840 --> 00:45:37,680
Speaker 1: favor of unionizing. However, a deeply concerning trend began to

793
00:45:37,719 --> 00:45:41,200
Speaker 1: take shape in the second half of this year, as

794
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:45,359
Speaker 1: the number of new union election filings began to drop dramatically,

795
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:49,800
Speaker 1: from about seventy in March to fewer than ten in August.

796
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:53,759
Speaker 1: Noam Scheiber reports at The New York Times. As we

797
00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 1: all know, and as outlets like The Real News and

798
00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:03,560
Speaker 1: Breaking Points have covered extensively. Starbucks, which is profited handsomely

799
00:46:03,680 --> 00:46:07,919
Speaker 1: for years by painting itself as a progressive company, has

800
00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:12,799
Speaker 1: responded to its employees exercising their legally protected right to

801
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: organize and work collectively to improve their jobs with a vicious, deliberate,

802
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:26,280
Speaker 1: scorched earth union busting campaign. Workers, organizers, and labor scholars

803
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:30,280
Speaker 1: have all pointed to this campaign as the primary cause

804
00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:34,839
Speaker 1: for the drop in new unionization efforts, which is exactly

805
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:39,560
Speaker 1: the goal for Starbucks. At the same time that Starbucks

806
00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:43,439
Speaker 1: CEO Howard Schultz was publicly stating that he would never

807
00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:47,440
Speaker 1: accept the union, which is illegal, and at the same

808
00:46:47,560 --> 00:46:50,879
Speaker 1: time that Starbucks announced that it would be raising pay

809
00:46:51,360 --> 00:46:55,200
Speaker 1: and expanding training for all stores except those that had

810
00:46:55,320 --> 00:46:58,319
Speaker 1: unionized or were in the process of unionizing, which is

811
00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:03,520
Speaker 1: also illegal. Workers on the ground have reported an intensifying

812
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:09,400
Speaker 1: culture of fear unleashed by the company. Honestly, we would

813
00:47:09,400 --> 00:47:12,480
Speaker 1: be here all day if we tried to count all

814
00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:15,640
Speaker 1: the different instances in which Starbucks has been accused of

815
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:19,920
Speaker 1: breaking the law and violating workers' rights. But I know

816
00:47:20,239 --> 00:47:23,720
Speaker 1: that you know that the number is jaw droppingly high,

817
00:47:24,520 --> 00:47:28,840
Speaker 1: because you, like me, have been seeing headline after headline

818
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:34,120
Speaker 1: about this every single week. Workers at Starbucks have reported

819
00:47:34,320 --> 00:47:39,640
Speaker 1: myriad forms of retaliation for their organizing activity, including having

820
00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:44,480
Speaker 1: their stores chronically understaffed and partners having their hours deliberately

821
00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:48,640
Speaker 1: cut so that they suffer financially and even lose their

822
00:47:48,680 --> 00:47:51,560
Speaker 1: company health insurance, for which they need to work an

823
00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:56,200
Speaker 1: average of twenty hours per week to be eligible. Dozens

824
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:59,680
Speaker 1: and dozens of workers involved in union organizing have been

825
00:47:59,719 --> 00:48:04,120
Speaker 1: five for dubious reasons across the country, and many more

826
00:48:04,200 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 1: say their shifts have been made miserable by supervisors watching

827
00:48:08,760 --> 00:48:13,719
Speaker 1: them like hawks, looking for any flimsy excuse to terminate them.

828
00:48:14,719 --> 00:48:18,240
Speaker 1: And Starbucks has even gone so far as to close

829
00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:22,239
Speaker 1: stores where workers unionized or we're in the process of unionizing,

830
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:26,640
Speaker 1: like the College Avenue store in Ithaca, New York, or

831
00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:30,400
Speaker 1: the Broadway and Denny's store in Seattle, the first store

832
00:48:30,480 --> 00:48:35,680
Speaker 1: in the city to unionize that was just closed yesterday. Now,

833
00:48:35,880 --> 00:48:41,359
Speaker 1: as always, Starbucks resolutely denies that any of this has

834
00:48:41,520 --> 00:48:45,400
Speaker 1: anything to do with union busting, and that every firing

835
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:50,680
Speaker 1: and every store closure is justified for business reasons, and

836
00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:54,279
Speaker 1: that the company respects its employees' rights and that it

837
00:48:54,320 --> 00:48:59,040
Speaker 1: will bargain in good faith, and so that's the situation

838
00:48:59,080 --> 00:49:02,160
Speaker 1: we're in. We're all just expected to sit here and

839
00:49:02,239 --> 00:49:06,880
Speaker 1: pretend like these are all just coincidences. We have to

840
00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:11,000
Speaker 1: keep calling these alleged violations and act as if we

841
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:15,560
Speaker 1: are not witnessing a massive corporate crime wave happen in

842
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:20,720
Speaker 1: broad daylight, while an anemic and grossly underfunded national Labor

843
00:49:20,760 --> 00:49:24,440
Speaker 1: Relations board dukes it out with the mega corporation in

844
00:49:24,560 --> 00:49:29,040
Speaker 1: drawn out legal battles, and while workers continue to suffer,

845
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:34,120
Speaker 1: and while all that time is passing, Starbucks is getting

846
00:49:34,160 --> 00:49:38,720
Speaker 1: what it wants. The longer this drags out, the worse

847
00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:43,280
Speaker 1: that life gets for workers. The more organizers get fired

848
00:49:43,320 --> 00:49:47,440
Speaker 1: and lose their insurance and their paychecks. The longer we

849
00:49:47,520 --> 00:49:52,680
Speaker 1: go without Starbucks negotiating a contract with unionized stores, the

850
00:49:52,760 --> 00:49:57,320
Speaker 1: longer we go without the public and elected officials raising

851
00:49:57,400 --> 00:50:01,960
Speaker 1: hell about this, the more the chilling effect takes hold

852
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:07,479
Speaker 1: and workers get discouraged and demoralized. But this thing ain't

853
00:50:07,560 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 1: over yet. The struggle very much continues, and worker organizers

854
00:50:13,200 --> 00:50:17,360
Speaker 1: with Starbucks Workers United, are fighting back with everything they've got.

855
00:50:18,320 --> 00:50:22,560
Speaker 1: Last week, at dozens of stores around the country, Starbucks

856
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:26,160
Speaker 1: workers walked off the job and went on strike demanding

857
00:50:26,200 --> 00:50:30,440
Speaker 1: that Starbucks stop its union busting campaign and negotiate a

858
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:34,040
Speaker 1: contract with the stores that won their union elections fair

859
00:50:34,480 --> 00:50:38,600
Speaker 1: and square. On the same week, the NLRB petitioned a

860
00:50:38,640 --> 00:50:42,480
Speaker 1: federal court for a nationwide cease and desist order barring

861
00:50:42,520 --> 00:50:47,160
Speaker 1: Starbucks from firing its employees for union activity. To talk

862
00:50:47,200 --> 00:50:49,719
Speaker 1: about all of this and more, I'm honored to be

863
00:50:49,800 --> 00:50:54,280
Speaker 1: joined today by two guests. First, we have Len Harris,

864
00:50:54,640 --> 00:50:59,440
Speaker 1: a shift supervisor at Starbucks in Superior, Colorado, who has

865
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:02,160
Speaker 1: been with the company since twenty sixteen and has worked

866
00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:05,520
Speaker 1: at stores in both Maine and Colorado. They were the

867
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:09,480
Speaker 1: union leader at their store, having started the movement last December,

868
00:51:09,760 --> 00:51:13,279
Speaker 1: which resulted in their store becoming the first unionized Starbucks

869
00:51:13,360 --> 00:51:18,240
Speaker 1: in Colorado. Len was fired last Friday, one day after

870
00:51:18,280 --> 00:51:22,280
Speaker 1: the Red Cut Rebellion Day of Action. I'm also honored

871
00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:25,680
Speaker 1: to be joined today by Rinn, who worked at three

872
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:29,000
Speaker 1: different stores over about fourteen months in the Saint Louis

873
00:51:29,080 --> 00:51:33,440
Speaker 1: area during their time with Starbucks. They were fired earlier

874
00:51:33,480 --> 00:51:36,040
Speaker 1: this month, but they're still working with their friends at

875
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:39,520
Speaker 1: the store, as well as the Saint Louis Organizing Committee

876
00:51:39,560 --> 00:51:43,720
Speaker 1: to disperse information and to help organize the unionized stores

877
00:51:44,160 --> 00:51:47,839
Speaker 1: in their area. Len Rinn, thank you both so much

878
00:51:47,840 --> 00:51:51,120
Speaker 1: for joining us today on breaking points. Thank you for

879
00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:56,200
Speaker 1: having us well, especially with everything going on. You know,

880
00:51:56,440 --> 00:51:59,040
Speaker 1: I can't emphasize enough how grateful I am to both

881
00:51:59,080 --> 00:52:01,799
Speaker 1: of you for coming on in talking to us. And

882
00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:04,080
Speaker 1: I really, you know, want to take this time to

883
00:52:04,160 --> 00:52:08,640
Speaker 1: sort of, you know, refresh everyone's memory and refocus viewers

884
00:52:08,640 --> 00:52:11,239
Speaker 1: and listeners on where we are right now. I mean,

885
00:52:11,280 --> 00:52:15,680
Speaker 1: it's it's been a year since the union victory in Buffalo, So,

886
00:52:16,280 --> 00:52:18,239
Speaker 1: like I said, I want to take this opportunity to

887
00:52:18,280 --> 00:52:21,880
Speaker 1: refresh people's memories about where and why this all started,

888
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:25,640
Speaker 1: what has happened in the past year, and what needs

889
00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:29,279
Speaker 1: to happen now to support workers and to stop this

890
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:35,360
Speaker 1: widespread illegal union busting campaign. So let's start by getting

891
00:52:35,400 --> 00:52:38,839
Speaker 1: to know a little more about you both, right, what

892
00:52:38,880 --> 00:52:42,480
Speaker 1: you've experienced, both good and bad, during your time working

893
00:52:42,560 --> 00:52:45,960
Speaker 1: at Starbucks, and what was going through both of your

894
00:52:46,040 --> 00:52:49,720
Speaker 1: minds when you saw the news about Buffalo this time

895
00:52:50,000 --> 00:52:52,759
Speaker 1: last year. Len, why don't we Why don't we start

896
00:52:52,760 --> 00:52:56,439
Speaker 1: with you and then Rim will go to you. Sure, so,

897
00:52:57,640 --> 00:53:01,000
Speaker 1: I so I'll start with the good stuff? Is Starbucks

898
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:04,680
Speaker 1: I think most people would agree who work at Starbucks

899
00:53:04,719 --> 00:53:09,440
Speaker 1: that the best thing about it is your coworkers. Usually

900
00:53:09,600 --> 00:53:13,080
Speaker 1: because Starbucks touts itself to be this really humanitarian company

901
00:53:13,480 --> 00:53:18,520
Speaker 1: and this very accepting, progressive, open minded company, those are

902
00:53:18,520 --> 00:53:21,560
Speaker 1: the kind of people that tend to gather as employees

903
00:53:21,880 --> 00:53:25,520
Speaker 1: at those locations, and so very like minded people from

904
00:53:25,640 --> 00:53:27,759
Speaker 1: very different walks of life. It was usually the most

905
00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:31,920
Speaker 1: diverse workplace that I've ever worked at, and it's what

906
00:53:32,040 --> 00:53:36,399
Speaker 1: made every day at Starbucks worthwhile for me. Customers, of course,

907
00:53:36,440 --> 00:53:39,080
Speaker 1: you know, having a good customer here and there also

908
00:53:39,160 --> 00:53:42,759
Speaker 1: added to that, but that's really that was like the

909
00:53:43,080 --> 00:53:46,080
Speaker 1: good thing for me with Starbucks was was my coworkers,

910
00:53:46,120 --> 00:53:48,319
Speaker 1: and that I think is honestly what motivated me the

911
00:53:48,320 --> 00:53:51,160
Speaker 1: most with wanting to unionize. So when I saw the

912
00:53:51,200 --> 00:53:54,520
Speaker 1: news with Buffalo at that point in time, we'd already

913
00:53:54,520 --> 00:53:59,400
Speaker 1: been experiencing pretty severe problems at our store, issues with staffing.

914
00:54:00,040 --> 00:54:04,040
Speaker 1: We had changed managers earlier in the year, around July

915
00:54:04,160 --> 00:54:06,840
Speaker 1: and of July, we went from a manager who was

916
00:54:07,000 --> 00:54:11,520
Speaker 1: pretty like tight knit, ran a pretty tight ship, and

917
00:54:11,920 --> 00:54:16,240
Speaker 1: really knew how to manage, to a manager who didn't

918
00:54:16,320 --> 00:54:18,960
Speaker 1: quite know what they were doing and it really showed,

919
00:54:19,080 --> 00:54:22,960
Speaker 1: and we were suffering pretty severely with not having adequate

920
00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:25,840
Speaker 1: staffing during the busiest parts of our day, frequently asking

921
00:54:25,880 --> 00:54:30,440
Speaker 1: for support and being denied gently by saying, oh, the

922
00:54:30,560 --> 00:54:34,000
Speaker 1: numbers are saying you don't need it, so, you know,

923
00:54:34,080 --> 00:54:35,360
Speaker 1: just kind of stuff like that, and it got to

924
00:54:35,400 --> 00:54:38,480
Speaker 1: the point where people were coming in exhausted and crying

925
00:54:38,760 --> 00:54:41,520
Speaker 1: and just not knowing what to expect, you know, other

926
00:54:41,600 --> 00:54:45,640
Speaker 1: than you know, being denied support. And when I saw

927
00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:47,960
Speaker 1: i'd seen it on Twitter, actually, when I saw the

928
00:54:48,400 --> 00:54:52,760
Speaker 1: Buffalo store unionized, I'd already been thinking for a while,

929
00:54:52,960 --> 00:54:54,880
Speaker 1: like now that if I want to make a change

930
00:54:55,000 --> 00:54:57,520
Speaker 1: in what's happening, what I'm observing, not even just at

931
00:54:57,520 --> 00:55:01,000
Speaker 1: my store, in my workplace, but generally in America, this

932
00:55:01,200 --> 00:55:05,080
Speaker 1: exploitation that's happening with workers, I need to do something.

933
00:55:05,160 --> 00:55:06,520
Speaker 1: And if I'm going to do something, I should do

934
00:55:06,560 --> 00:55:08,239
Speaker 1: what they're doing. So I'm going to I think I'm

935
00:55:08,239 --> 00:55:10,879
Speaker 1: going to start this process. So that's that was kind

936
00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:21,120
Speaker 1: of how everything began in my store. Hell yeah, hell yeah,

937
00:55:21,200 --> 00:55:25,680
Speaker 1: And Rim, what about you? I think when I first

938
00:55:25,680 --> 00:55:29,880
Speaker 1: heard about the first union victory in Buffalo, I was

939
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:33,840
Speaker 1: working at the previous store, that was the second of

940
00:55:33,880 --> 00:55:36,760
Speaker 1: the locations that I had worked at, and I actually

941
00:55:36,760 --> 00:55:39,120
Speaker 1: heard it while I was on the floor. I was

942
00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:42,839
Speaker 1: making drinks, and then one of my coworkers who had

943
00:55:42,880 --> 00:55:44,560
Speaker 1: just come back from break turned to me and said,

944
00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:48,400
Speaker 1: there was a store in Buffalo that just unionized. And

945
00:55:48,440 --> 00:55:52,280
Speaker 1: I was shocked, Like I had never heard of anything

946
00:55:52,360 --> 00:55:56,320
Speaker 1: like that happening at Starbucks, and so I was really surprised.

947
00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:58,040
Speaker 1: And as soon as I got home, I googled it

948
00:55:58,080 --> 00:56:01,160
Speaker 1: and I was reading every article I could reach, and

949
00:56:01,239 --> 00:56:05,280
Speaker 1: I remember thinking this could be what we needed, because

950
00:56:05,280 --> 00:56:08,640
Speaker 1: at that point I had worked for Starbucks for months

951
00:56:08,680 --> 00:56:10,440
Speaker 1: and months. This was the second location i'd worked for.

952
00:56:10,520 --> 00:56:14,200
Speaker 1: I worked for a number of managers, and like Lynn said,

953
00:56:14,239 --> 00:56:18,879
Speaker 1: a lot of times like no support or different things

954
00:56:18,880 --> 00:56:21,839
Speaker 1: that we asked for. Either it was like support or

955
00:56:22,040 --> 00:56:25,160
Speaker 1: technology to be fixed, it would just be kind of

956
00:56:25,200 --> 00:56:27,120
Speaker 1: brushed out of their rug. We would just behold, well,

957
00:56:27,160 --> 00:56:28,560
Speaker 1: you know, we don't have the time, we don't have

958
00:56:28,600 --> 00:56:34,239
Speaker 1: the money, which is a wild lie to hear, but

959
00:56:34,320 --> 00:56:37,640
Speaker 1: it was definitely something where I saw it and I thought,

960
00:56:38,480 --> 00:56:42,480
Speaker 1: I really hope that this is able to spread. But

961
00:56:42,480 --> 00:56:44,480
Speaker 1: I actually ended up leaving Starbucks for a little while

962
00:56:44,680 --> 00:56:47,239
Speaker 1: just because I had had a pretty bad experience at

963
00:56:47,280 --> 00:56:49,480
Speaker 1: the second story I worked at. But I came back

964
00:56:49,520 --> 00:56:52,640
Speaker 1: to Starbucks, specifically to a unionized store near me, because

965
00:56:52,680 --> 00:56:54,279
Speaker 1: that was I knew it was the only way I

966
00:56:54,320 --> 00:56:55,760
Speaker 1: was going to be willing to work for them again.

967
00:56:56,440 --> 00:57:00,200
Speaker 1: And so I think that was very interesting to me

968
00:57:00,239 --> 00:57:03,040
Speaker 1: to work at two non unionized Starbucks and then to

969
00:57:03,080 --> 00:57:06,600
Speaker 1: work at a certified union store. The difference was pretty

970
00:57:06,640 --> 00:57:11,080
Speaker 1: shocking to me, and to be able to jump in

971
00:57:11,239 --> 00:57:14,640
Speaker 1: and the people that I worked with were, like Lenn said,

972
00:57:14,640 --> 00:57:17,360
Speaker 1: the best part of that job. And the people that

973
00:57:17,400 --> 00:57:19,280
Speaker 1: I met in the organizing committee that I worked with

974
00:57:19,400 --> 00:57:23,400
Speaker 1: specifically in Saint Louis, have been some of the most supportive, gentle,

975
00:57:23,600 --> 00:57:26,960
Speaker 1: but loyal people that I've ever met, which is why

976
00:57:26,960 --> 00:57:28,360
Speaker 1: I'm so glad I still get to work with them.

977
00:57:28,360 --> 00:57:32,720
Speaker 1: But I think it was definitely so much excitement, a

978
00:57:32,720 --> 00:57:35,400
Speaker 1: little bit of fear, but so much curiosity as well

979
00:57:35,440 --> 00:57:37,960
Speaker 1: to see like how far this could go. And a

980
00:57:38,040 --> 00:57:42,440
Speaker 1: year later, it's dozens and dozens, hundreds of stores, and

981
00:57:42,480 --> 00:57:44,600
Speaker 1: like we just had the Red Cup Rebellion Day action,

982
00:57:44,760 --> 00:57:47,840
Speaker 1: and I think that was a really great turning point

983
00:57:47,840 --> 00:57:50,120
Speaker 1: in people realizing, like oh, this is actually something that

984
00:57:50,160 --> 00:57:52,600
Speaker 1: can happen, because I hadn't seen it up to that point,

985
00:57:53,080 --> 00:57:56,120
Speaker 1: and I just remember feeling so much excitement when I

986
00:57:56,120 --> 00:58:00,160
Speaker 1: saw that news. Yeah, I mean, I can imagine we're

987
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:02,680
Speaker 1: all there with you, right like we were. I mean,

988
00:58:02,760 --> 00:58:05,800
Speaker 1: and I think that it makes sense right to kind

989
00:58:05,800 --> 00:58:08,640
Speaker 1: of be blown away because it speaks to the historic

990
00:58:08,760 --> 00:58:12,520
Speaker 1: nature of this campaign. I mean, like every service job

991
00:58:12,600 --> 00:58:15,320
Speaker 1: that I've worked in the past, like this was never

992
00:58:15,400 --> 00:58:17,720
Speaker 1: even a thought that entered our heads, right, It was like,

993
00:58:17,720 --> 00:58:20,480
Speaker 1: if you're being treated like crap, or if you like

994
00:58:20,640 --> 00:58:23,880
Speaker 1: the job, which many folks at Starbucks have said they do,

995
00:58:23,960 --> 00:58:26,160
Speaker 1: but they want to make it better. They don't want

996
00:58:26,200 --> 00:58:29,480
Speaker 1: to just leave, you know, and get another job and

997
00:58:29,520 --> 00:58:32,520
Speaker 1: start over from the bottom. Right. This is really, I

998
00:58:32,520 --> 00:58:35,480
Speaker 1: think a crucial point that so many of y'all have

999
00:58:36,000 --> 00:58:39,920
Speaker 1: kind of banded together after and even before the initial

1000
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:42,920
Speaker 1: victory in Buffalo to say, like, you know, I don't

1001
00:58:42,920 --> 00:58:46,440
Speaker 1: care if the service industry is notoriously hard to unionize.

1002
00:58:46,480 --> 00:58:49,080
Speaker 1: I don't care if you know there are naysayers out

1003
00:58:49,120 --> 00:58:50,960
Speaker 1: there who are going to be like, oh, well, this

1004
00:58:51,040 --> 00:58:53,720
Speaker 1: isn't meant to be a permanent job, as if that's

1005
00:58:53,720 --> 00:58:57,320
Speaker 1: somehow a justification for workers not being able to exercise

1006
00:58:57,440 --> 00:58:59,959
Speaker 1: their rights or not be able to live with dig

1007
00:59:00,360 --> 00:59:02,560
Speaker 1: and have a say at their workplace. So if you're

1008
00:59:02,600 --> 00:59:05,120
Speaker 1: watching and you subscribe to that viewpoint, I beg you

1009
00:59:05,200 --> 00:59:08,640
Speaker 1: to disabuse yourself with that bullshit quick fasten in a hurry.

1010
00:59:08,720 --> 00:59:12,440
Speaker 1: Every worker has these rights. Every worker deserves these rights.

1011
00:59:12,440 --> 00:59:15,680
Speaker 1: Actually not everyone has them. Of course, everyone deserves these rights,

1012
00:59:15,680 --> 00:59:18,680
Speaker 1: and every worker deserves to have a say in their job.

1013
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:21,560
Speaker 1: And you know, even if you're a service industry worker,

1014
00:59:21,600 --> 00:59:24,720
Speaker 1: a manufacturing worker, right, And I think it's just been

1015
00:59:24,760 --> 00:59:28,200
Speaker 1: so incredible and so inspiring to watch so many people

1016
00:59:28,240 --> 00:59:31,560
Speaker 1: at so many different stores, right, you know, really launch

1017
00:59:31,680 --> 00:59:35,920
Speaker 1: this grassroots effort turning to their co workers banding together

1018
00:59:36,480 --> 00:59:38,840
Speaker 1: while facing the harsh union busting that we're going to

1019
00:59:38,880 --> 00:59:42,479
Speaker 1: talk about in a second. But again, given that we're,

1020
00:59:42,640 --> 00:59:46,360
Speaker 1: you know, a year after the Buffalo victory, and it

1021
00:59:46,360 --> 00:59:48,840
Speaker 1: can be easy for people to sort of lose sight

1022
00:59:49,400 --> 00:59:52,000
Speaker 1: of how far things have come in the past year,

1023
00:59:52,520 --> 00:59:55,120
Speaker 1: I wanted to sort of like refocus us in that

1024
00:59:55,240 --> 01:00:00,200
Speaker 1: moment when the organizing that y'all were involved in like

1025
01:00:00,280 --> 01:00:03,080
Speaker 1: really sort of kicked off, right, and I was wondering

1026
01:00:03,120 --> 01:00:04,760
Speaker 1: if you could kind of take us back to that

1027
01:00:05,600 --> 01:00:09,400
Speaker 1: time and talk to viewers and listeners a bit more about,

1028
01:00:10,440 --> 01:00:12,960
Speaker 1: you know, what compelled you to get involved with the

1029
01:00:13,080 --> 01:00:16,760
Speaker 1: organizing yourself. What were you and your co workers talking about,

1030
01:00:17,600 --> 01:00:21,200
Speaker 1: you know, and and what was that organizing looking and

1031
01:00:21,240 --> 01:00:28,120
Speaker 1: feeling like in your stores and around the country. So

1032
01:00:29,040 --> 01:00:32,920
Speaker 1: I suppose i'll start. I know, for me, what motivated

1033
01:00:32,960 --> 01:00:37,160
Speaker 1: me to start is for a while now, I've been

1034
01:00:37,280 --> 01:00:41,560
Speaker 1: very aware of this incredibly exploitative nature of the American workforce,

1035
01:00:43,360 --> 01:00:47,080
Speaker 1: just like you said, the mentality that surrounds working and

1036
01:00:47,160 --> 01:00:51,960
Speaker 1: especially working service jobs or you know, industries that aren't

1037
01:00:52,440 --> 01:00:58,680
Speaker 1: what started the whole industrial evolution, like architecture and construction

1038
01:00:58,920 --> 01:01:02,320
Speaker 1: and things, you know, once we expanded beyond the sort

1039
01:01:02,360 --> 01:01:05,080
Speaker 1: of laying of the foundation of our of our workforce,

1040
01:01:05,560 --> 01:01:08,840
Speaker 1: and as our system demands that we create jobs in

1041
01:01:08,880 --> 01:01:12,720
Speaker 1: every single facet of our culture, like entertainment, like service,

1042
01:01:12,840 --> 01:01:17,400
Speaker 1: like food, you know, those works deserve the dignity and

1043
01:01:17,480 --> 01:01:20,520
Speaker 1: respect that every jobs. If it's required, if you pay

1044
01:01:20,560 --> 01:01:23,880
Speaker 1: real money for it, if it's demanded by the society

1045
01:01:24,280 --> 01:01:27,600
Speaker 1: and clearly demanded by the customers, then the work should

1046
01:01:27,600 --> 01:01:32,439
Speaker 1: be respected. But it's not people frequently, you know, look

1047
01:01:32,520 --> 01:01:35,120
Speaker 1: down on work that they have never done, that they

1048
01:01:35,160 --> 01:01:39,560
Speaker 1: don't understand, they don't respect, and it shouldn't exist like

1049
01:01:39,600 --> 01:01:42,360
Speaker 1: that is. I think probably one of the worst mentalities

1050
01:01:42,400 --> 01:01:44,560
Speaker 1: that I have noticed in all of this is how

1051
01:01:44,600 --> 01:01:47,600
Speaker 1: people think it's okay to talk down to people who

1052
01:01:47,680 --> 01:01:51,320
Speaker 1: who serve them. And that was the biggest thing that

1053
01:01:51,360 --> 01:01:54,920
Speaker 1: I wanted to change. You know, I can't change people's mentality,

1054
01:01:54,920 --> 01:01:57,880
Speaker 1: but I can certainly change the compensation of the people

1055
01:01:58,000 --> 01:02:02,080
Speaker 1: who are working those jobs like my and I knew

1056
01:02:02,120 --> 01:02:05,600
Speaker 1: that if this was going to take off, I really

1057
01:02:05,640 --> 01:02:08,480
Speaker 1: had to speak to the hearts of people, because if

1058
01:02:08,520 --> 01:02:11,480
Speaker 1: that mentality is so pervasive as we know it is,

1059
01:02:11,880 --> 01:02:15,320
Speaker 1: we know that our fellow co workers probably harbor some

1060
01:02:15,360 --> 01:02:17,920
Speaker 1: of that own mentality. And Reece, maybe you've experienced this

1061
01:02:18,040 --> 01:02:22,240
Speaker 1: as well, But even the best meaning people that I've

1062
01:02:22,280 --> 01:02:27,200
Speaker 1: worked with have had really similar mindsets of like, well,

1063
01:02:27,240 --> 01:02:29,960
Speaker 1: I'm lucky to just have a job, and like, if

1064
01:02:30,000 --> 01:02:32,959
Speaker 1: you should feel guilty if you call in sick, and

1065
01:02:34,320 --> 01:02:36,240
Speaker 1: you know, I work seventy hours a week, so this

1066
01:02:36,280 --> 01:02:39,000
Speaker 1: person shouldn't be complaining that they work sixty five. This

1067
01:02:39,280 --> 01:02:41,760
Speaker 1: very like I'm gonna wear my exploitation as a badge

1068
01:02:41,760 --> 01:02:44,240
Speaker 1: of honor, because that's what this company wants. They want

1069
01:02:44,280 --> 01:02:47,920
Speaker 1: me to internalize my own exploitation so that I perpetuate

1070
01:02:47,960 --> 01:02:51,200
Speaker 1: unto others, so that when you say, hey, we deserve

1071
01:02:51,240 --> 01:02:54,240
Speaker 1: a living wage, like we work really hard and this

1072
01:02:54,360 --> 01:02:57,360
Speaker 1: system demands that we work this job, we should be paid.

1073
01:02:57,760 --> 01:02:59,760
Speaker 1: And the response to that is, what, what do you think?

1074
01:03:00,080 --> 01:03:02,720
Speaker 1: What are you talking about? You're you're you're selfish for

1075
01:03:02,840 --> 01:03:08,240
Speaker 1: wanting that you're greedy, You're you're entitled. And so I

1076
01:03:08,320 --> 01:03:10,480
Speaker 1: knew that I had to speak to people's hearts about this.

1077
01:03:10,600 --> 01:03:12,840
Speaker 1: That couldn't just be like a you know, you just

1078
01:03:12,960 --> 01:03:16,200
Speaker 1: run into it. So I would really talk to people like, hey,

1079
01:03:16,240 --> 01:03:18,360
Speaker 1: do you really think it's fair that we're working with

1080
01:03:18,400 --> 01:03:24,200
Speaker 1: a skeleton crew? Sweating, crying, hurting ourselves, burning ourselves like

1081
01:03:24,240 --> 01:03:27,680
Speaker 1: slipping and falling int like hurting. You know, these are

1082
01:03:27,720 --> 01:03:31,240
Speaker 1: really precarious working conditions, on top of just the emotional

1083
01:03:31,240 --> 01:03:36,919
Speaker 1: and psychological damage that we grew from the general lack

1084
01:03:36,960 --> 01:03:40,520
Speaker 1: of respect and regard that we get from our our

1085
01:03:40,680 --> 01:03:44,480
Speaker 1: fellow co workers, our customer base, and even management in

1086
01:03:44,520 --> 01:03:50,800
Speaker 1: our employees employers. Rather, so I had to really talk

1087
01:03:50,800 --> 01:03:52,760
Speaker 1: to people like, hey, do you think this is actually fair?

1088
01:03:53,240 --> 01:03:56,880
Speaker 1: And over time and not even that much time, thankfully,

1089
01:03:57,800 --> 01:04:00,200
Speaker 1: and again this has to do with a mind's set

1090
01:04:00,240 --> 01:04:03,600
Speaker 1: of people who tend to congregate at Starbucks, usually very progressive,

1091
01:04:03,680 --> 01:04:06,760
Speaker 1: forward leaning, that kind of thing. They started to recognize

1092
01:04:06,800 --> 01:04:10,040
Speaker 1: that this isn't right, Like, this is absolutely exploitative, this

1093
01:04:10,120 --> 01:04:14,280
Speaker 1: is absolutely taking advantage of me. And I do work

1094
01:04:14,320 --> 01:04:17,000
Speaker 1: really hard, you know, I go to I leave work

1095
01:04:17,000 --> 01:04:20,480
Speaker 1: at the end of the day and I'm exhausted mentally, physically, emotionally.

1096
01:04:21,680 --> 01:04:25,800
Speaker 1: And so once people started to really pay attention to

1097
01:04:25,880 --> 01:04:28,800
Speaker 1: these patterns of thinking like this whole you know, I

1098
01:04:28,800 --> 01:04:31,040
Speaker 1: don't know how many managers I've worked with that are like,

1099
01:04:31,360 --> 01:04:34,800
Speaker 1: I work seventy hour weeks, so other people shouldn't be complaining.

1100
01:04:34,920 --> 01:04:37,800
Speaker 1: But then they'll perpetuate this. I want a better future

1101
01:04:37,840 --> 01:04:39,760
Speaker 1: for my children, I'm like, do you know those those

1102
01:04:39,800 --> 01:04:43,040
Speaker 1: are competing viewpoints, right, those are antithetical viewpoints. If you

1103
01:04:43,080 --> 01:04:45,560
Speaker 1: want a better life for your kids and yourself and

1104
01:04:45,600 --> 01:04:47,560
Speaker 1: your kids and the generations to come, you got to

1105
01:04:47,560 --> 01:04:50,080
Speaker 1: set that precedent, You got to blaze that trail, and

1106
01:04:50,160 --> 01:04:54,000
Speaker 1: all you're doing is perpetuating the cycle of abuse. So

1107
01:04:54,520 --> 01:04:58,160
Speaker 1: it was a bit of a psychological emotional journey for people.

1108
01:04:58,200 --> 01:05:02,560
Speaker 1: But if anywhere Starbucks coworkers, my Starbucks coworkers were absolutely

1109
01:05:02,600 --> 01:05:04,160
Speaker 1: willing to take that journey with me, And that's what

1110
01:05:04,200 --> 01:05:08,320
Speaker 1: made the difference. Yeah, I mean, you know, again, like

1111
01:05:08,320 --> 01:05:10,960
Speaker 1: like I was saying, I think that probably one of

1112
01:05:11,040 --> 01:05:16,040
Speaker 1: the biggest obstacles to you know, my coworkers and myself

1113
01:05:16,080 --> 01:05:19,600
Speaker 1: doing anything like this at my past service industry jobs

1114
01:05:19,800 --> 01:05:25,320
Speaker 1: was our conviction that we didn't deserve that right or

1115
01:05:25,400 --> 01:05:27,800
Speaker 1: that you know, that this was the best we were

1116
01:05:27,800 --> 01:05:29,800
Speaker 1: going to get. That like you said, we were grateful

1117
01:05:29,800 --> 01:05:33,480
Speaker 1: to have the jobs. You know, if we did anything

1118
01:05:33,560 --> 01:05:35,400
Speaker 1: to try to kind of change it, we were just

1119
01:05:35,440 --> 01:05:39,959
Speaker 1: being ungrateful, we were being troublemakers, so on and so forth.

1120
01:05:40,000 --> 01:05:41,880
Speaker 1: If we didn't like it, we should leave. Like breaking

1121
01:05:41,880 --> 01:05:45,840
Speaker 1: that mentality is probably the biggest hurdle to get over.

1122
01:05:46,000 --> 01:05:48,800
Speaker 1: And so yeah, like, grateful to you for kind of

1123
01:05:48,880 --> 01:05:51,280
Speaker 1: laying that out. Rin What about you, I guess can

1124
01:05:51,320 --> 01:05:53,760
Speaker 1: you take us back to when you got involved in

1125
01:05:54,080 --> 01:05:57,080
Speaker 1: the organizing and what were you all talking about and

1126
01:05:57,320 --> 01:06:01,480
Speaker 1: what did that organizing look like. Yeah, so when I

1127
01:06:01,560 --> 01:06:05,280
Speaker 1: really started to be able to very directly start organizing

1128
01:06:05,360 --> 01:06:09,160
Speaker 1: was when I joined this last store, and it's actually

1129
01:06:09,520 --> 01:06:11,320
Speaker 1: I was thinking about it in a very similar way

1130
01:06:11,360 --> 01:06:14,720
Speaker 1: to it sounds like Glenn was. I've been working service

1131
01:06:14,800 --> 01:06:18,160
Speaker 1: jobs since I was like seventeen, and it was just

1132
01:06:18,200 --> 01:06:19,720
Speaker 1: always part of my life. I think that a lot

1133
01:06:19,760 --> 01:06:21,920
Speaker 1: of people who had to work, either for college or

1134
01:06:21,920 --> 01:06:25,040
Speaker 1: for school or just to make a living, has worked

1135
01:06:25,080 --> 01:06:28,920
Speaker 1: some kind of service job, and so it's always been something.

1136
01:06:29,000 --> 01:06:31,360
Speaker 1: The older I get and the more that I look around,

1137
01:06:31,640 --> 01:06:33,120
Speaker 1: and the more that I start to see the way

1138
01:06:33,160 --> 01:06:37,800
Speaker 1: that people are living this idea that like work just

1139
01:06:38,000 --> 01:06:40,320
Speaker 1: is so pervasive, and that it takes over every part

1140
01:06:40,360 --> 01:06:42,360
Speaker 1: of your life, that work is the only thing that

1141
01:06:42,400 --> 01:06:44,960
Speaker 1: should matter, that you should be willing to sacrifice your

1142
01:06:45,000 --> 01:06:48,080
Speaker 1: peace and your body and your entire life to this

1143
01:06:48,200 --> 01:06:51,200
Speaker 1: job that is not even paying you living wage, something

1144
01:06:51,400 --> 01:06:54,200
Speaker 1: that I started to think, like, I really don't think

1145
01:06:54,240 --> 01:06:56,800
Speaker 1: that it needs to be that way. But at the

1146
01:06:56,800 --> 01:06:59,200
Speaker 1: same time, people who say, like, well, if you don't

1147
01:06:59,240 --> 01:07:01,000
Speaker 1: like the job, just lead I think that that is

1148
01:07:01,000 --> 01:07:06,280
Speaker 1: one of the most frustrating things I've heard, Like so

1149
01:07:06,360 --> 01:07:09,520
Speaker 1: many different kinds of people cluster to Starbucks because there

1150
01:07:09,560 --> 01:07:13,200
Speaker 1: is at least a system in place for minorities or

1151
01:07:13,240 --> 01:07:16,080
Speaker 1: marginalized groups to be able to be treated well there.

1152
01:07:16,400 --> 01:07:18,840
Speaker 1: So I have I don't even know how many friends

1153
01:07:19,240 --> 01:07:22,400
Speaker 1: who have gone to Starbucks specifically for their gender firming

1154
01:07:22,400 --> 01:07:25,800
Speaker 1: health care plan, and there's a lot of them there

1155
01:07:25,840 --> 01:07:29,720
Speaker 1: who have encountered a lot of issues at the job,

1156
01:07:29,800 --> 01:07:33,640
Speaker 1: like skeleton crews, the fact that we will be running

1157
01:07:33,840 --> 01:07:35,320
Speaker 1: a play on the floor where we're supposed to have

1158
01:07:35,400 --> 01:07:37,120
Speaker 1: eight or nine people and I've done it with three

1159
01:07:37,200 --> 01:07:41,720
Speaker 1: or four. Yeah, I've been I've been had I don't

1160
01:07:41,760 --> 01:07:44,440
Speaker 1: even know how many burns and cuts and scrapes and falls.

1161
01:07:45,560 --> 01:07:47,040
Speaker 1: And it was just things like that where I started

1162
01:07:47,040 --> 01:07:48,480
Speaker 1: to think, like, this is not the way that it

1163
01:07:48,520 --> 01:07:51,520
Speaker 1: has to be. And this very American notion of like

1164
01:07:52,240 --> 01:07:54,280
Speaker 1: work is the only thing in your life that matters,

1165
01:07:54,760 --> 01:07:59,000
Speaker 1: and that if you are not working over time and

1166
01:07:59,000 --> 01:08:01,440
Speaker 1: you're not hurting from your job and you're not sleeping,

1167
01:08:02,160 --> 01:08:06,360
Speaker 1: then you don't care enough is absolutely wild to me.

1168
01:08:06,400 --> 01:08:08,960
Speaker 1: And I think it's been really really hopeful for me

1169
01:08:09,040 --> 01:08:12,160
Speaker 1: to see like people realizing that is not the way

1170
01:08:12,200 --> 01:08:14,560
Speaker 1: that it has to be and just because this job

1171
01:08:14,600 --> 01:08:16,519
Speaker 1: isn't perfect doesn't mean we want to leave. Like I've

1172
01:08:16,520 --> 01:08:18,800
Speaker 1: said that, like I love the people I work with

1173
01:08:18,840 --> 01:08:20,960
Speaker 1: at Starbucks. Those are some of my best friends that

1174
01:08:21,000 --> 01:08:25,200
Speaker 1: I've made, and it can be a really good place,

1175
01:08:26,200 --> 01:08:28,200
Speaker 1: but it doesn't mean that there's not room for improvement.

1176
01:08:28,240 --> 01:08:31,679
Speaker 1: So I think that's where I really jumped in watching

1177
01:08:31,760 --> 01:08:35,479
Speaker 1: this movement and reading about it, realizing just because the

1178
01:08:35,479 --> 01:08:39,120
Speaker 1: place is not perfect doesn't mean it's just abandon it,

1179
01:08:39,200 --> 01:08:42,439
Speaker 1: jump ship and find somewhere else, because there isn't a

1180
01:08:42,439 --> 01:08:45,400
Speaker 1: whole lot of other great places in service work, but

1181
01:08:46,240 --> 01:08:50,880
Speaker 1: it is worth fighting for myself and my coworkers and

1182
01:08:50,880 --> 01:08:53,040
Speaker 1: the people around me that I care about, And I

1183
01:08:53,040 --> 01:08:55,280
Speaker 1: think that was something that I was really able to

1184
01:08:55,320 --> 01:08:57,200
Speaker 1: talk to people about. It was some of the most

1185
01:08:57,240 --> 01:09:01,360
Speaker 1: interesting conversations I've had about bigger things. Came from like, hey,

1186
01:09:01,880 --> 01:09:03,760
Speaker 1: are you willing to stand with us for this one

1187
01:09:03,840 --> 01:09:07,559
Speaker 1: small action? And I think that was something that I'm

1188
01:09:07,560 --> 01:09:09,200
Speaker 1: starting to see a shift in the way that people

1189
01:09:09,200 --> 01:09:11,920
Speaker 1: think about it, which is not great for big corporations

1190
01:09:11,960 --> 01:09:15,160
Speaker 1: because when they realize that their workers are starting to think, oh,

1191
01:09:15,520 --> 01:09:19,280
Speaker 1: I don't have to be constantly abused and mismanaged and

1192
01:09:19,840 --> 01:09:24,080
Speaker 1: working with literal scraps, and there are things that we

1193
01:09:24,120 --> 01:09:26,439
Speaker 1: can do if we all stand together. We can say, hey,

1194
01:09:26,479 --> 01:09:28,280
Speaker 1: we're not going to do this, Like, you can't treat

1195
01:09:28,320 --> 01:09:31,639
Speaker 1: us like this and expect us to give forty hours

1196
01:09:31,680 --> 01:09:36,640
Speaker 1: to you overtime, holiday work, with dangerous working situations and

1197
01:09:36,680 --> 01:09:39,160
Speaker 1: dirty stores, no managers, Like it's just not something that

1198
01:09:40,080 --> 01:09:44,160
Speaker 1: I think is going to be something they can demand

1199
01:09:44,160 --> 01:09:45,679
Speaker 1: for much longer. And I think that was the really

1200
01:09:45,680 --> 01:09:48,800
Speaker 1: exciting thing to me, is like, not only is this

1201
01:09:48,880 --> 01:09:53,360
Speaker 1: like a unionization of a massive, massive corporation, I think

1202
01:09:53,360 --> 01:09:55,360
Speaker 1: it's also the beginning of a shift that I've seen

1203
01:09:56,640 --> 01:09:58,920
Speaker 1: in conversations that I've started to have with people about Hey,

1204
01:09:59,040 --> 01:10:02,479
Speaker 1: you don't have to live this way. And I've talked

1205
01:10:02,479 --> 01:10:04,240
Speaker 1: to various people, especially some of the people in the

1206
01:10:04,320 --> 01:10:06,720
Speaker 1: organizing committee at the store I was a part of,

1207
01:10:06,720 --> 01:10:08,599
Speaker 1: some of the other people in Saint Louis, like you've

1208
01:10:08,640 --> 01:10:11,840
Speaker 1: talked about, hey, this is a way forward, Like this

1209
01:10:11,960 --> 01:10:14,480
Speaker 1: is not just something that matters right now to Starbucks

1210
01:10:14,479 --> 01:10:17,439
Speaker 1: in our sort, This matters to everyone who works at Starbucks,

1211
01:10:17,520 --> 01:10:20,200
Speaker 1: but it also matters to people who are in service

1212
01:10:20,200 --> 01:10:23,920
Speaker 1: fields across the country. Like our Red Cup rebellion, I

1213
01:10:24,000 --> 01:10:26,559
Speaker 1: was able to hear from a couple of different groups.

1214
01:10:26,560 --> 01:10:28,640
Speaker 1: There was a man who came out from Amazon and

1215
01:10:28,680 --> 01:10:31,919
Speaker 1: he said, hey, like when we saw this that Starbucks

1216
01:10:31,960 --> 01:10:34,360
Speaker 1: at unionizing, we said, hey, maybe we can do that too.

1217
01:10:34,640 --> 01:10:37,599
Speaker 1: People from Trader Joe's and Apple and everyone are looking

1218
01:10:37,600 --> 01:10:40,400
Speaker 1: and saying, hey, this is possible. And I think that

1219
01:10:40,520 --> 01:10:42,040
Speaker 1: was really what inspired me to be a part of

1220
01:10:42,080 --> 01:10:44,080
Speaker 1: it too, is that this is not just something I'm

1221
01:10:44,120 --> 01:10:46,160
Speaker 1: doing for me and the person next to me, but

1222
01:10:46,680 --> 01:10:48,760
Speaker 1: for people in stores across the country and even in

1223
01:10:48,840 --> 01:10:51,519
Speaker 1: service fields across the country, because there is kind of

1224
01:10:51,560 --> 01:10:56,720
Speaker 1: a general like disrespect that you feel by a lot

1225
01:10:56,760 --> 01:10:58,439
Speaker 1: of people who haven't done the job and who haven't

1226
01:10:58,439 --> 01:11:02,360
Speaker 1: worked in places like this ever had to. And I

1227
01:11:02,360 --> 01:11:06,439
Speaker 1: think it's just been very, very beautiful and hopeful, even

1228
01:11:06,479 --> 01:11:10,120
Speaker 1: for me to see the working together that we've been

1229
01:11:10,120 --> 01:11:11,760
Speaker 1: able to do, in the conversations that I've been able

1230
01:11:11,760 --> 01:11:13,479
Speaker 1: to have with people that I never would have before

1231
01:11:13,520 --> 01:11:17,280
Speaker 1: this happened. I think that was really what inspired me

1232
01:11:17,400 --> 01:11:21,200
Speaker 1: to jump into organizing and being an active part of

1233
01:11:21,560 --> 01:11:26,040
Speaker 1: the unions in my city. Especially Yeah, man, I mean,

1234
01:11:26,080 --> 01:11:32,320
Speaker 1: there there's no shortage of you know, keyboard clacking dipshits

1235
01:11:32,439 --> 01:11:37,360
Speaker 1: and armchair quarterbacks right who want to you know, tell

1236
01:11:37,520 --> 01:11:40,919
Speaker 1: tell you about you know who which types of workers

1237
01:11:40,960 --> 01:11:45,479
Speaker 1: are and aren't deserving of dignity, right, or who the

1238
01:11:45,520 --> 01:11:49,880
Speaker 1: real working class is, right? And you know, I think

1239
01:11:49,920 --> 01:11:52,880
Speaker 1: that that, you know, all the pundits and politicians who

1240
01:11:52,920 --> 01:11:56,200
Speaker 1: trade in this ship, right, are just doing the boss's

1241
01:11:56,280 --> 01:11:59,599
Speaker 1: work for them, because what the boss always wants and

1242
01:11:59,640 --> 01:12:02,640
Speaker 1: what they always get and what they always do is

1243
01:12:02,720 --> 01:12:06,720
Speaker 1: divide and conquer. Right. That is how they have won

1244
01:12:06,800 --> 01:12:09,200
Speaker 1: in the past. That is how they're trying to win now.

1245
01:12:09,240 --> 01:12:12,400
Speaker 1: But the hopeful thing, as you're hearing from our amazing guests,

1246
01:12:12,400 --> 01:12:14,240
Speaker 1: but as you can also see around the country, is

1247
01:12:14,240 --> 01:12:18,720
Speaker 1: that real working people aren't buying that crap anymore, right.

1248
01:12:19,320 --> 01:12:21,840
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe you're watching this and you are someone

1249
01:12:21,840 --> 01:12:24,439
Speaker 1: who thinks, like, oh, well, those are service jobs. You know,

1250
01:12:24,479 --> 01:12:27,040
Speaker 1: they're meant for like sixteen year old high school students,

1251
01:12:27,080 --> 01:12:30,120
Speaker 1: which is like a wildly outdated view. And thus that

1252
01:12:30,200 --> 01:12:32,639
Speaker 1: means that, you know, they shouldn't have a living wage,

1253
01:12:32,720 --> 01:12:35,599
Speaker 1: they shouldn't have any say over their scheduling, they shouldn't

1254
01:12:35,600 --> 01:12:37,680
Speaker 1: get healthcare, they don't deserve a union, blah blah blah

1255
01:12:37,680 --> 01:12:40,120
Speaker 1: blah blah. Maybe you're one of those people. Maybe you're

1256
01:12:40,160 --> 01:12:42,759
Speaker 1: one of the people who's looking at the largest strike

1257
01:12:43,000 --> 01:12:45,599
Speaker 1: going on in the country right now by forty eight

1258
01:12:45,760 --> 01:12:49,400
Speaker 1: thousand academic workers in the University of California, and you're thinking, oh,

1259
01:12:49,439 --> 01:12:53,280
Speaker 1: those aren't real, you know workers, They're not chopping down trees,

1260
01:12:53,360 --> 01:12:57,040
Speaker 1: they're not mining coal, they're not driving trucks. Like again,

1261
01:12:57,600 --> 01:13:00,679
Speaker 1: you know that you're just really telling on your because

1262
01:13:00,760 --> 01:13:03,920
Speaker 1: right now there are teamster truck drivers refusing to cross

1263
01:13:03,960 --> 01:13:07,759
Speaker 1: those picket lines. There are your traditional blue collar workers

1264
01:13:07,800 --> 01:13:12,000
Speaker 1: standing in solidarity with academic workers, with service workers because

1265
01:13:12,040 --> 01:13:14,360
Speaker 1: they know that, you know, there are two classes of people.

1266
01:13:14,479 --> 01:13:16,400
Speaker 1: Is the great speech in the movie mate Wan says,

1267
01:13:16,560 --> 01:13:19,519
Speaker 1: there are people who work and people who don't. You work,

1268
01:13:19,600 --> 01:13:22,120
Speaker 1: they don't, right, the bosses don't they just break in

1269
01:13:22,240 --> 01:13:25,040
Speaker 1: all of the money here, and workers are banding together

1270
01:13:25,080 --> 01:13:28,160
Speaker 1: and standing together, and they're saying like, regardless of the

1271
01:13:28,240 --> 01:13:31,320
Speaker 1: kind of work that they do, these workers are generating

1272
01:13:31,560 --> 01:13:35,400
Speaker 1: massive profits and massive revenues and doing massive amounts of

1273
01:13:35,479 --> 01:13:38,519
Speaker 1: essential services that keep the universities running, that keep the

1274
01:13:38,520 --> 01:13:42,479
Speaker 1: Starbucks is running, all of that stuff. So like, that's

1275
01:13:42,479 --> 01:13:44,719
Speaker 1: what we need to focus on. And it's so heartening

1276
01:13:44,760 --> 01:13:47,599
Speaker 1: to see, like last week during the red cut rebellion,

1277
01:13:47,680 --> 01:13:51,280
Speaker 1: so many people showing up, showing solidarity and getting past

1278
01:13:51,360 --> 01:13:54,720
Speaker 1: all of that bull crap ideology that that's beaten into

1279
01:13:54,760 --> 01:13:58,080
Speaker 1: our heads in this country. But also this is why

1280
01:13:58,120 --> 01:14:06,320
Speaker 1: we need to all care about Starbucks's, you know, vicious, rampant, blatant, ongoing,

1281
01:14:06,479 --> 01:14:10,759
Speaker 1: scorched earth union busting campaign, because I guarantee you, even

1282
01:14:10,760 --> 01:14:13,639
Speaker 1: if you think that Starbucks workers aren't real workers, service

1283
01:14:13,680 --> 01:14:17,479
Speaker 1: industry work isn't real work. Every company, regardless of whether

1284
01:14:17,560 --> 01:14:19,920
Speaker 1: or not they're in the services industry or not, they

1285
01:14:19,920 --> 01:14:23,360
Speaker 1: are watching what Starbucks is doing. And if Starbucks succeeds

1286
01:14:23,920 --> 01:14:30,000
Speaker 1: in delaying, demoralizing, and squashing this union effort by breaking

1287
01:14:30,000 --> 01:14:33,000
Speaker 1: the law enough time so that workers just run out

1288
01:14:33,040 --> 01:14:35,160
Speaker 1: of steam and give up, that is going to be

1289
01:14:35,200 --> 01:14:37,800
Speaker 1: the playbook for any type of worker that wants to

1290
01:14:37,920 --> 01:14:41,000
Speaker 1: unionize in any type of industry moving forward. So you

1291
01:14:41,120 --> 01:14:46,400
Speaker 1: should care about this. And when I apologize, I've been

1292
01:14:47,000 --> 01:14:48,720
Speaker 1: holding this in for so long and when I heard

1293
01:14:48,720 --> 01:14:51,040
Speaker 1: about you both getting fired, it's just coming out. But

1294
01:14:51,439 --> 01:14:54,360
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about that, the union busting, right,

1295
01:14:54,680 --> 01:14:57,439
Speaker 1: it's been happening so much. We've been seeing headline after

1296
01:14:57,479 --> 01:14:59,840
Speaker 1: a headline of this person got fired, this person got fired,

1297
01:14:59,840 --> 01:15:02,479
Speaker 1: this store just got closed. The first store in Seattle

1298
01:15:02,479 --> 01:15:06,759
Speaker 1: that unionize just closed yesterday while we were planning this segment.

1299
01:15:06,840 --> 01:15:10,320
Speaker 1: So can can you talk to viewers and listeners about that,

1300
01:15:10,600 --> 01:15:13,240
Speaker 1: like what are folks seeing and what are they not

1301
01:15:13,439 --> 01:15:17,320
Speaker 1: seeing about, you know, the company's vicious response to this

1302
01:15:17,520 --> 01:15:21,200
Speaker 1: historic organizing effort and how they've tried to frustrate, delay

1303
01:15:21,200 --> 01:15:30,320
Speaker 1: and demoralize you. So, just like Wrenn said earlier, one

1304
01:15:30,360 --> 01:15:32,040
Speaker 1: of the best things that I've seen in this in

1305
01:15:32,080 --> 01:15:35,600
Speaker 1: this movement is just the empowerment that my coworkers have

1306
01:15:35,640 --> 01:15:39,160
Speaker 1: been instilled with. And the company is really scared of that.

1307
01:15:39,200 --> 01:15:42,120
Speaker 1: And I think that's that's the thing is they want

1308
01:15:42,160 --> 01:15:45,280
Speaker 1: to get influencers out. They want to get people like me,

1309
01:15:45,520 --> 01:15:52,240
Speaker 1: like wren who are outspoken about the real, realistic expectations

1310
01:15:52,280 --> 01:15:56,439
Speaker 1: of these companies. You know, Starbucks is known to be

1311
01:15:56,680 --> 01:16:02,360
Speaker 1: this company that touts itself as humanitarian, as progressive, as inclusive.

1312
01:16:02,800 --> 01:16:05,960
Speaker 1: And I've said this before where I think there's I mean,

1313
01:16:06,200 --> 01:16:08,160
Speaker 1: I think I say, I think to be kind, there

1314
01:16:08,200 --> 01:16:10,679
Speaker 1: is a level of insidiousness to it because we all

1315
01:16:10,680 --> 01:16:13,880
Speaker 1: know that they ascribe to the same level of exploitative

1316
01:16:14,000 --> 01:16:18,760
Speaker 1: capitalistic measures that every corporation has. They it's just a

1317
01:16:18,760 --> 01:16:21,439
Speaker 1: way to get people to complish. I think it's a

1318
01:16:21,439 --> 01:16:23,840
Speaker 1: way to bottle that people personally. You know, when you

1319
01:16:23,880 --> 01:16:28,880
Speaker 1: think of people who are gender nonconforming or their sexual

1320
01:16:28,880 --> 01:16:34,800
Speaker 1: orientation isn't the typical you know what everyone expects of

1321
01:16:34,800 --> 01:16:39,440
Speaker 1: white supremaut society and immigrants, other people who are just marginalized.

1322
01:16:39,960 --> 01:16:42,320
Speaker 1: They when they're turned away from all these other positions,

1323
01:16:42,320 --> 01:16:44,440
Speaker 1: where do they go? They go to places that advertise

1324
01:16:44,439 --> 01:16:47,000
Speaker 1: a safe place for them, which Starbucks is one of

1325
01:16:47,040 --> 01:16:49,640
Speaker 1: those places. So of course I think it's important and

1326
01:16:50,520 --> 01:16:53,360
Speaker 1: valuable to have a place like Starbucks that says, hey,

1327
01:16:53,400 --> 01:16:55,360
Speaker 1: you're welcome here. But how much of that is actually

1328
01:16:55,360 --> 01:16:57,080
Speaker 1: taking advantage of people who have nowhere else to go.

1329
01:16:58,800 --> 01:17:01,400
Speaker 1: So and when it comes see union busting, they know

1330
01:17:01,680 --> 01:17:04,920
Speaker 1: that we have influenced. They know that we're a technic community,

1331
01:17:04,960 --> 01:17:07,960
Speaker 1: so they need to absolutely, absolutely dismantle it. So at

1332
01:17:08,040 --> 01:17:11,280
Speaker 1: my store, for an example, when we unionized, because we

1333
01:17:11,360 --> 01:17:14,280
Speaker 1: unionized on Earth Day of this year, April twenty second,

1334
01:17:15,439 --> 01:17:19,200
Speaker 1: and when that happened, there was a huge shift. So

1335
01:17:19,479 --> 01:17:24,160
Speaker 1: immediately we started getting cuts to our hours. I went

1336
01:17:24,240 --> 01:17:27,240
Speaker 1: from about thirty four hours a week on average, because

1337
01:17:27,240 --> 01:17:29,280
Speaker 1: I'm also a small business owner. I own my own business,

1338
01:17:29,320 --> 01:17:30,959
Speaker 1: so I have a lot of other things I'm balancing.

1339
01:17:31,160 --> 01:17:34,000
Speaker 1: I went from thirty four hours a week to one

1340
01:17:34,240 --> 01:17:37,920
Speaker 1: point it was seven seven hours a week, and so

1341
01:17:38,439 --> 01:17:42,479
Speaker 1: they started slashing hours. They started cutting people. Some people

1342
01:17:42,479 --> 01:17:44,960
Speaker 1: didn't even get hours during the week. So that happened,

1343
01:17:45,960 --> 01:17:51,400
Speaker 1: which was really interesting, especially seeing as you know that

1344
01:17:52,040 --> 01:17:56,560
Speaker 1: severely damaged their business. So clearly they're willing to undercut

1345
01:17:56,600 --> 01:18:00,040
Speaker 1: their sales and like hurt their own bottom line to

1346
01:18:00,040 --> 01:18:03,400
Speaker 1: to stop what we're doing. But interestingly enough, there was

1347
01:18:03,439 --> 01:18:06,000
Speaker 1: a shift and I'm maybe ring you experiences too, or

1348
01:18:06,040 --> 01:18:09,040
Speaker 1: you noticed it as well, but it took a shift

1349
01:18:09,120 --> 01:18:13,200
Speaker 1: from all these issues that non unionized stores were facing

1350
01:18:14,360 --> 01:18:18,360
Speaker 1: and suddenly, like if we were in a position where

1351
01:18:18,360 --> 01:18:22,519
Speaker 1: we're like, we're super understaffed, and that did persist despite

1352
01:18:22,560 --> 01:18:24,840
Speaker 1: the fact that we were unionized. However, if we were like, hey,

1353
01:18:24,840 --> 01:18:28,000
Speaker 1: we're understaffed, we can't handle this workload, they'd be like, okay,

1354
01:18:28,000 --> 01:18:30,280
Speaker 1: we'll turn off mobile leaders. Okay, you can close the lobby.

1355
01:18:30,320 --> 01:18:35,200
Speaker 1: That's fine. However, we started getting slammed with tiny infractions.

1356
01:18:35,479 --> 01:18:37,360
Speaker 1: So we had somebody who was fired on the spot

1357
01:18:37,400 --> 01:18:39,240
Speaker 1: for being out a dress code. We had another person

1358
01:18:39,240 --> 01:18:41,160
Speaker 1: who was fired on the spot for being late. We

1359
01:18:41,200 --> 01:18:44,479
Speaker 1: had another person who they tried to fire because of

1360
01:18:44,479 --> 01:18:48,000
Speaker 1: a small mishap that they you know, performed during Like

1361
01:18:48,240 --> 01:18:50,800
Speaker 1: I got fired for leaving cash on the counter for

1362
01:18:50,880 --> 01:18:53,599
Speaker 1: a second to go grab an oven like, So they

1363
01:18:53,640 --> 01:18:56,360
Speaker 1: started like coming down on us, so harden all these

1364
01:18:57,160 --> 01:19:01,320
Speaker 1: policies and infraction that human mistakes. Where at other non

1365
01:19:01,439 --> 01:19:03,840
Speaker 1: unionized stores or stores that they weren't trying to get

1366
01:19:03,880 --> 01:19:06,000
Speaker 1: you know, trying to clean house, they could get away

1367
01:19:06,000 --> 01:19:09,920
Speaker 1: with all those things, no problem. But they would be understaffed,

1368
01:19:10,000 --> 01:19:11,960
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have mobile order to turn off, they wouldn't

1369
01:19:12,000 --> 01:19:14,519
Speaker 1: be able to close their lobby, and I would I'd

1370
01:19:14,560 --> 01:19:17,800
Speaker 1: be willing to argue that they're they're willing to turn

1371
01:19:17,800 --> 01:19:20,200
Speaker 1: off mobile orders and close the lobby. One because we're

1372
01:19:20,280 --> 01:19:22,360
Speaker 1: unionized and we can use that against them. But two,

1373
01:19:22,840 --> 01:19:25,120
Speaker 1: it just be set a precedent to close the store

1374
01:19:25,160 --> 01:19:27,080
Speaker 1: as well, to say, oh, well, look at all these

1375
01:19:27,080 --> 01:19:30,960
Speaker 1: look at the history of sales here. They're tiny because

1376
01:19:31,000 --> 01:19:32,880
Speaker 1: we didn't have the staff to take on the amount

1377
01:19:32,880 --> 01:19:35,200
Speaker 1: of sales we would otherwise. So they're just close it,

1378
01:19:35,520 --> 01:19:38,880
Speaker 1: you know. So it's interesting all the stuff that they

1379
01:19:38,920 --> 01:19:41,519
Speaker 1: have been trying to pull in order to you know,

1380
01:19:41,720 --> 01:19:45,120
Speaker 1: really demoralize folks and to make them feel like they're powerless,

1381
01:19:45,320 --> 01:19:49,880
Speaker 1: and to basically, you know, arrest the power that we

1382
01:19:49,960 --> 01:19:54,040
Speaker 1: have within within ourselves to make change and make it

1383
01:19:54,080 --> 01:19:57,040
Speaker 1: seem impossible. I mean, we have managers. I had so

1384
01:19:57,080 --> 01:20:03,000
Speaker 1: many managers spouting not union busting nonsense all the time, like, oh,

1385
01:20:03,040 --> 01:20:05,120
Speaker 1: with bargaining, you're gonna have to give up everything and

1386
01:20:05,120 --> 01:20:07,320
Speaker 1: start from zero. That's not how that works. That is

1387
01:20:07,400 --> 01:20:09,439
Speaker 1: not how that works. And then you know, when we

1388
01:20:09,479 --> 01:20:11,439
Speaker 1: didn't get our raises, when we didn't get our benefits,

1389
01:20:11,479 --> 01:20:13,840
Speaker 1: which is illegal, they said, oh, well you're unionized, like

1390
01:20:13,960 --> 01:20:16,519
Speaker 1: that's illegal, and they're like, oh, I didn't know, and

1391
01:20:16,560 --> 01:20:25,280
Speaker 1: it's like, are you sure you didn't know? Is pretty

1392
01:20:25,320 --> 01:20:28,559
Speaker 1: pretty clear about that. No, we're working with people who

1393
01:20:28,560 --> 01:20:32,120
Speaker 1: claim not to know, who don't know and just spout

1394
01:20:32,120 --> 01:20:35,880
Speaker 1: that nonsense. Anyway. It's that's I think, honestly, I think

1395
01:20:35,880 --> 01:20:39,160
Speaker 1: that's my biggest obstacle, is dealing with people who claim

1396
01:20:39,200 --> 01:20:42,000
Speaker 1: they don't know or actually don't know. Be it management,

1397
01:20:42,479 --> 01:20:46,839
Speaker 1: you know, pushing this rhetoric, this anti union union investing rhetoric,

1398
01:20:47,120 --> 01:20:48,760
Speaker 1: or even co workers who are like, I don't want

1399
01:20:48,760 --> 01:20:50,559
Speaker 1: to lose my job. I don't want to get fired.

1400
01:20:50,960 --> 01:20:54,240
Speaker 1: And it's that that's the complicated nature of it is

1401
01:20:55,200 --> 01:20:58,200
Speaker 1: you are legally protected in these efforts, but that does

1402
01:20:58,240 --> 01:21:00,439
Speaker 1: not mean that they're going to not find every little

1403
01:21:00,479 --> 01:21:04,280
Speaker 1: tiny thing to fire you for. And that's I think

1404
01:21:04,280 --> 01:21:06,800
Speaker 1: that's what I'm most frustrated with is people who are

1405
01:21:06,840 --> 01:21:10,240
Speaker 1: genuinely scared, as they should be, unfortunately to lose their

1406
01:21:10,320 --> 01:21:12,960
Speaker 1: job because we live paycheck to paycheck because a company

1407
01:21:13,000 --> 01:21:15,439
Speaker 1: is union busting, and so they don't want to exact

1408
01:21:15,479 --> 01:21:18,479
Speaker 1: their or they don't want to, you know, enact their rights.

1409
01:21:18,479 --> 01:21:20,600
Speaker 1: They don't want to they don't want to fight this

1410
01:21:20,680 --> 01:21:24,040
Speaker 1: fight because these companies have so much money that they

1411
01:21:24,040 --> 01:21:29,160
Speaker 1: can be blatantly you know, they can be blatantly evil

1412
01:21:30,160 --> 01:21:34,040
Speaker 1: and perform illegal things all the time and get away

1413
01:21:34,040 --> 01:21:36,360
Speaker 1: with it because they have so much money. And that's

1414
01:21:36,680 --> 01:21:39,479
Speaker 1: that's what it is they know there really is this

1415
01:21:39,520 --> 01:21:42,360
Speaker 1: would be a temporary thing for them then, you know,

1416
01:21:42,720 --> 01:21:45,400
Speaker 1: ruining their image and shutting down all these stores and

1417
01:21:45,439 --> 01:21:47,120
Speaker 1: losing all this revenue. This would just this is just

1418
01:21:47,160 --> 01:21:49,519
Speaker 1: a temporary expense for them, where if a union was

1419
01:21:49,600 --> 01:21:53,439
Speaker 1: unstated these changes would be permanent or significantly more permanent

1420
01:21:53,640 --> 01:21:55,240
Speaker 1: than this, and I think that's what they're banking on,

1421
01:21:55,320 --> 01:21:59,000
Speaker 1: which is frustrating in and of itself, because empirical evidence

1422
01:21:59,000 --> 01:22:00,720
Speaker 1: has shown that if you actually at your workers well

1423
01:22:00,760 --> 01:22:03,439
Speaker 1: and pay them, then you actually retain a lot more

1424
01:22:03,439 --> 01:22:06,160
Speaker 1: money because you're not paying turnover, you're not paying training,

1425
01:22:06,320 --> 01:22:08,240
Speaker 1: you have people who know how the business runs. Like

1426
01:22:08,280 --> 01:22:09,840
Speaker 1: it's been proven time and time again if you treat

1427
01:22:09,840 --> 01:22:14,360
Speaker 1: your work as well, your business will grow. But yeah,

1428
01:22:14,600 --> 01:22:16,360
Speaker 1: it really is scorched her though, like the way that

1429
01:22:16,400 --> 01:22:19,080
Speaker 1: you're saying like they don't care about their bottom line

1430
01:22:19,160 --> 01:22:24,560
Speaker 1: as long as we as workers give up hope. I

1431
01:22:24,600 --> 01:22:28,400
Speaker 1: actually had the district manager was speaking to one of

1432
01:22:28,439 --> 01:22:32,800
Speaker 1: my co workers and friends and she said, we are

1433
01:22:32,840 --> 01:22:36,360
Speaker 1: willing to wait you guys out. I said that, and

1434
01:22:36,880 --> 01:22:41,280
Speaker 1: my friend was like, Oh, wow, that's you're really You're

1435
01:22:41,280 --> 01:22:42,800
Speaker 1: not backing down. And I think that's the other thing

1436
01:22:42,800 --> 01:22:45,480
Speaker 1: that I've talked about with a lot of my coworkers

1437
01:22:45,560 --> 01:22:48,760
Speaker 1: is it is wild to me that the levels that

1438
01:22:48,800 --> 01:22:52,639
Speaker 1: specifically store managers and assistant store managers will go to

1439
01:22:52,640 --> 01:22:56,120
Speaker 1: to Union bus to blatantly lie. I had the manager

1440
01:22:56,160 --> 01:23:01,280
Speaker 1: that fired me. We actually I had a situation before

1441
01:23:01,800 --> 01:23:03,679
Speaker 1: we all chose to wear a Union T shirts together,

1442
01:23:03,840 --> 01:23:07,680
Speaker 1: like the whole shift. Morning shift made everything, and she

1443
01:23:07,840 --> 01:23:09,600
Speaker 1: got every single one of us and gave us a

1444
01:23:09,640 --> 01:23:13,720
Speaker 1: documented coaching because we were breaking dress code. So everyone

1445
01:23:13,800 --> 01:23:16,120
Speaker 1: before that had worn their Union shirt at various times,

1446
01:23:16,439 --> 01:23:21,600
Speaker 1: but this was three days after another union organizer in

1447
01:23:21,640 --> 01:23:25,080
Speaker 1: a store a couple miles from us got fired for

1448
01:23:25,320 --> 01:23:27,880
Speaker 1: dress code, and so I think by that point, like

1449
01:23:27,920 --> 01:23:30,160
Speaker 1: they were ready, they had their sheets ready, they knew

1450
01:23:30,160 --> 01:23:34,599
Speaker 1: that something was going to happen, and so they documented coaching.

1451
01:23:34,720 --> 01:23:37,880
Speaker 1: Hinted us documented coachings. Literally I think nine or ten people,

1452
01:23:39,520 --> 01:23:42,200
Speaker 1: And it was crazy to me when I told them, Hey,

1453
01:23:42,280 --> 01:23:44,960
Speaker 1: you know, like this is a federally protected right to

1454
01:23:45,000 --> 01:23:48,680
Speaker 1: wear a union apparel. We've all woron them before. What

1455
01:23:48,720 --> 01:23:51,559
Speaker 1: do you think you're doing. I had my manager look

1456
01:23:51,560 --> 01:23:53,120
Speaker 1: at me and say, I'm sorry that your union lied

1457
01:23:53,160 --> 01:23:55,960
Speaker 1: to you about your rights. You don't have rights here,

1458
01:23:57,120 --> 01:23:59,360
Speaker 1: and that's just one of those Yeah. That's the other

1459
01:23:59,400 --> 01:24:01,240
Speaker 1: thing that I think people don't realize is it doesn't

1460
01:24:01,280 --> 01:24:03,040
Speaker 1: really matter to me whether or not you think that

1461
01:24:03,080 --> 01:24:05,320
Speaker 1: this is a job, because I know that it's a job.

1462
01:24:05,720 --> 01:24:07,599
Speaker 1: I work eight hour shifts. You know where I'm standing

1463
01:24:07,640 --> 01:24:10,040
Speaker 1: on my feet. I burn myself on ovens. I have

1464
01:24:10,160 --> 01:24:15,120
Speaker 1: people screaming in my face about their coffee. But we

1465
01:24:16,240 --> 01:24:20,680
Speaker 1: are enduring very real consequences for this. So when we

1466
01:24:20,720 --> 01:24:24,000
Speaker 1: talk about like hour cuts, part of what draws so

1467
01:24:24,000 --> 01:24:25,760
Speaker 1: many people to Starbucks is that you can get a

1468
01:24:25,800 --> 01:24:28,519
Speaker 1: full health care plan at twenty hours a week. And

1469
01:24:28,920 --> 01:24:33,680
Speaker 1: it was noticeable to me that after unionization, people who

1470
01:24:33,760 --> 01:24:36,640
Speaker 1: needed that most their hours got cut to below twenty hours.

1471
01:24:36,880 --> 01:24:38,599
Speaker 1: So what does it matter if you're going to say

1472
01:24:38,640 --> 01:24:41,040
Speaker 1: that you have like health care for trans people or

1473
01:24:41,080 --> 01:24:43,880
Speaker 1: people who need health care for their kids, if you're

1474
01:24:43,880 --> 01:24:47,080
Speaker 1: going to cut their hours so they can't even have that. Yeah,

1475
01:24:48,120 --> 01:24:50,000
Speaker 1: And I last time I checked, last time I read

1476
01:24:50,000 --> 01:24:53,679
Speaker 1: about it, there was over I think thirty five UOPs

1477
01:24:53,720 --> 01:24:58,880
Speaker 1: filed with the NLRB for over nine hundred violations by Starbucks.

1478
01:24:59,200 --> 01:25:01,400
Speaker 1: And I think that's something that I'm not seeing much about,

1479
01:25:01,479 --> 01:25:05,080
Speaker 1: is like it's not just people saying, oh, well, you know,

1480
01:25:05,360 --> 01:25:10,400
Speaker 1: unions are bad. It is subversive, psychological like manipulation of

1481
01:25:10,760 --> 01:25:14,360
Speaker 1: truth and saying like, you know, if you unionize, Like

1482
01:25:14,400 --> 01:25:17,400
Speaker 1: I remember, there was a person at our store he

1483
01:25:17,520 --> 01:25:20,240
Speaker 1: was one of the few very blatantly anti union workers

1484
01:25:20,240 --> 01:25:23,000
Speaker 1: that wasn't in management. And I remember hearing him in

1485
01:25:23,040 --> 01:25:25,679
Speaker 1: the back training a new person, saying, Yeah, you want

1486
01:25:25,680 --> 01:25:29,559
Speaker 1: to take advantage of your rights that you have in

1487
01:25:29,600 --> 01:25:32,599
Speaker 1: your healthcare, the benefits that you have now because we're pushing,

1488
01:25:32,600 --> 01:25:34,400
Speaker 1: they're pushing for a contract and we don't know what

1489
01:25:34,439 --> 01:25:36,680
Speaker 1: will happen then, and you might not be able to

1490
01:25:36,720 --> 01:25:39,400
Speaker 1: have any of those benefits after that. And I remember

1491
01:25:39,439 --> 01:25:44,519
Speaker 1: stopping and going, what like that is such a blatant lie.

1492
01:25:44,560 --> 01:25:47,120
Speaker 1: And so I think, like the misinformation that is being

1493
01:25:47,120 --> 01:25:52,639
Speaker 1: spread is terrifying to me, especially because like like people,

1494
01:25:52,920 --> 01:25:55,360
Speaker 1: managers can lie to you with no consequences. Like when

1495
01:25:55,400 --> 01:25:59,760
Speaker 1: I I got fired, I think the official term that

1496
01:25:59,800 --> 01:26:04,400
Speaker 1: you was for use of profane language, which I had

1497
01:26:04,680 --> 01:26:07,080
Speaker 1: no previous write ups. I wasn't even on a last

1498
01:26:07,120 --> 01:26:08,880
Speaker 1: roem final write up. And the other crazy thing is

1499
01:26:08,920 --> 01:26:10,760
Speaker 1: that I was fired for something that I did not

1500
01:26:10,960 --> 01:26:14,040
Speaker 1: say so at T shirt like that day we all

1501
01:26:14,040 --> 01:26:17,240
Speaker 1: wore our T shirt. My manager claimed that I had

1502
01:26:17,280 --> 01:26:21,240
Speaker 1: said to her in the cafe loudly in front of

1503
01:26:21,280 --> 01:26:23,479
Speaker 1: partners and her This was all in her little report.

1504
01:26:23,960 --> 01:26:27,200
Speaker 1: She said that when I left I said go fuck yourselves,

1505
01:26:28,080 --> 01:26:31,679
Speaker 1: which is crazy because I did not, and I got fired.

1506
01:26:31,720 --> 01:26:33,439
Speaker 1: I had I worked my whole shift that morning, Like

1507
01:26:33,439 --> 01:26:35,599
Speaker 1: a week later, I worked my whole shift and five

1508
01:26:35,600 --> 01:26:37,760
Speaker 1: minutes before they pulled me off the floor and said, hey,

1509
01:26:37,840 --> 01:26:43,200
Speaker 1: we're firing you, like no warning, nothing, And I was

1510
01:26:43,280 --> 01:26:45,600
Speaker 1: just in shock because I was like, I looked at

1511
01:26:45,600 --> 01:26:48,760
Speaker 1: the paper and I know without any doubt that I

1512
01:26:48,800 --> 01:26:51,680
Speaker 1: didn't say that. And I talked to my coworker, who

1513
01:26:51,760 --> 01:26:55,200
Speaker 1: they said was like, based on when they said it happened,

1514
01:26:55,200 --> 01:26:57,519
Speaker 1: he would have been standing right next to me, and

1515
01:26:57,560 --> 01:27:02,000
Speaker 1: he was like, you didn't say that. So I immediately

1516
01:27:02,040 --> 01:27:06,040
Speaker 1: file the UOP with NRB. But it's scary to me

1517
01:27:06,120 --> 01:27:09,080
Speaker 1: that like that's the kind of thing that's happening, Like

1518
01:27:09,479 --> 01:27:12,160
Speaker 1: I was fired for a blatant lie, and it was

1519
01:27:12,280 --> 01:27:13,880
Speaker 1: because I was one of the people in the store.

1520
01:27:13,920 --> 01:27:15,080
Speaker 1: I was one of the few people in the store

1521
01:27:15,080 --> 01:27:17,720
Speaker 1: who worked like I would open so I would work

1522
01:27:17,840 --> 01:27:20,439
Speaker 1: four am on pretty often. So I was one of

1523
01:27:20,479 --> 01:27:22,759
Speaker 1: the people in the morning shift who was very vocal

1524
01:27:23,160 --> 01:27:24,960
Speaker 1: and like, hey guys, we don't have to live like this.

1525
01:27:25,479 --> 01:27:27,559
Speaker 1: We can change this. Do you see what's happening across

1526
01:27:27,560 --> 01:27:30,920
Speaker 1: the country, like there is hope. And I was told

1527
01:27:30,920 --> 01:27:33,880
Speaker 1: by several of my coworkers that they really believe that

1528
01:27:33,920 --> 01:27:36,240
Speaker 1: the manager was intimidated by that and by the fact

1529
01:27:36,240 --> 01:27:39,720
Speaker 1: that I was listening to people and befriending them and saying, hey,

1530
01:27:39,880 --> 01:27:42,240
Speaker 1: I hear you, and I feel the struggle that you're feeling,

1531
01:27:42,840 --> 01:27:45,080
Speaker 1: but we don't have to do this like this, you know,

1532
01:27:45,439 --> 01:27:47,080
Speaker 1: like there is a way that we can change things.

1533
01:27:47,080 --> 01:27:49,680
Speaker 1: And if we can all stand together say hey, you know,

1534
01:27:49,760 --> 01:27:51,320
Speaker 1: we don't hate this job, but it can be so

1535
01:27:51,439 --> 01:27:56,080
Speaker 1: much better and we need these things to help us,

1536
01:27:56,800 --> 01:27:58,040
Speaker 1: that is a thing that we can do. And I

1537
01:27:58,040 --> 01:28:01,680
Speaker 1: think that was a lot of why she targeted me specifically.

1538
01:28:03,040 --> 01:28:06,519
Speaker 1: And it's also it was interesting. I was listening to

1539
01:28:06,520 --> 01:28:11,240
Speaker 1: a podcast the other day from someone in Boston where

1540
01:28:11,280 --> 01:28:13,000
Speaker 1: they had that sixty four day strike, which is the

1541
01:28:13,000 --> 01:28:15,519
Speaker 1: longest strike in Starbuck's history, twenty four hour picket lines,

1542
01:28:16,680 --> 01:28:19,600
Speaker 1: and they were talking about why are so many of

1543
01:28:19,600 --> 01:28:22,720
Speaker 1: the union leaders young people and queer people, And I

1544
01:28:22,720 --> 01:28:24,439
Speaker 1: think in a lot of ways it is because they

1545
01:28:24,960 --> 01:28:27,760
Speaker 1: like len you were saying, like, they appeal to a

1546
01:28:27,800 --> 01:28:31,680
Speaker 1: crowd that is generally more progressive, more young or marginalized communities.

1547
01:28:32,120 --> 01:28:37,800
Speaker 1: But in doing that, they are able to deny and

1548
01:28:37,880 --> 01:28:41,280
Speaker 1: manipulate and kind of gaslight people into thinking that their

1549
01:28:41,280 --> 01:28:44,559
Speaker 1: experiences don't matter, that maybe they're just being too picky.

1550
01:28:44,840 --> 01:28:47,160
Speaker 1: The amount of like, as a queer person myself, and

1551
01:28:47,240 --> 01:28:52,000
Speaker 1: as someone who works with so many trends and queer

1552
01:28:52,040 --> 01:28:54,559
Speaker 1: people next to me, the amount of times that we

1553
01:28:54,560 --> 01:28:56,559
Speaker 1: were told, you know, like, well, you shouldn't be upset

1554
01:28:56,560 --> 01:28:58,360
Speaker 1: about them saying that, or you shouldn't be upset about that,

1555
01:28:58,479 --> 01:29:00,240
Speaker 1: or it's just not a big deal, you know, things

1556
01:29:00,280 --> 01:29:02,920
Speaker 1: like that. Even I have friends who were disabled who

1557
01:29:03,000 --> 01:29:08,080
Speaker 1: had accommodations that they needed, And as this process has

1558
01:29:08,080 --> 01:29:11,439
Speaker 1: gotten further and managers get more hostile, accommodations have been

1559
01:29:11,479 --> 01:29:14,120
Speaker 1: taken away, and it's it's to the point where like

1560
01:29:14,160 --> 01:29:17,680
Speaker 1: it is mentally and even physically damaging to people. This

1561
01:29:17,840 --> 01:29:20,639
Speaker 1: kind of scorched earth union busting will wait you out.

1562
01:29:20,680 --> 01:29:22,320
Speaker 1: We don't care how much it hurts you or how

1563
01:29:22,360 --> 01:29:25,960
Speaker 1: long it takes. I think that that Starbucks has done

1564
01:29:25,960 --> 01:29:28,640
Speaker 1: a great job of hiding that, which is terrifying to

1565
01:29:28,720 --> 01:29:33,360
Speaker 1: me because it's like it's almost happening, is just hidden,

1566
01:29:33,680 --> 01:29:36,439
Speaker 1: but it's there. It feels I don't know. Rinn you

1567
01:29:36,520 --> 01:29:38,559
Speaker 1: probably would agree with this. Maybe I'm just putting birds

1568
01:29:38,560 --> 01:29:40,160
Speaker 1: in your mouth, but it feels like we're screaming that

1569
01:29:40,240 --> 01:29:43,160
Speaker 1: the sky is blue, and they're so affluent that they're like, no,

1570
01:29:44,040 --> 01:29:47,719
Speaker 1: it isn't yeh, yeah, it isn't blue. And everyone's like, yeah,

1571
01:29:47,760 --> 01:29:51,200
Speaker 1: you're right, it isn't blue. Yeah. That's that's how frustrating

1572
01:29:51,240 --> 01:29:54,120
Speaker 1: because it's like, I mean, this is just this is

1573
01:29:54,160 --> 01:29:58,120
Speaker 1: not exclusive to Starbucks. It's not even exclusive to like

1574
01:29:58,640 --> 01:30:01,840
Speaker 1: the working class, but Americans in general. We know the

1575
01:30:02,400 --> 01:30:05,000
Speaker 1: education system leaves something to be desired, to put it

1576
01:30:05,120 --> 01:30:09,920
Speaker 1: very kindly, but I think that's that's really what we're

1577
01:30:09,920 --> 01:30:12,960
Speaker 1: dealing with here. Is this this pervasive lack of education

1578
01:30:13,080 --> 01:30:16,719
Speaker 1: and knowledge that these corporations like Starbucks are absolutely counting

1579
01:30:16,760 --> 01:30:20,360
Speaker 1: on to keep people totally in the dark, and they're

1580
01:30:20,360 --> 01:30:23,519
Speaker 1: holding us hostage in this way. Like the benefits thing,

1581
01:30:23,600 --> 01:30:26,240
Speaker 1: the situation you were talking about. These are queer, disabled

1582
01:30:26,240 --> 01:30:29,840
Speaker 1: people who are already marginalized in society who need these

1583
01:30:29,840 --> 01:30:33,439
Speaker 1: things in order to survive, and cutting our hours down

1584
01:30:33,439 --> 01:30:36,760
Speaker 1: to the point where they're just barely working enough to

1585
01:30:36,800 --> 01:30:40,439
Speaker 1: get these benefits. If they are off sick or if

1586
01:30:40,600 --> 01:30:43,120
Speaker 1: you know, they get caught anything. It basically just it

1587
01:30:43,200 --> 01:30:47,679
Speaker 1: literally holds us hostage. And it's yeah, it's incredibly frustrating

1588
01:30:47,760 --> 01:30:53,439
Speaker 1: having to battle these this mentality. That's that's just across

1589
01:30:53,479 --> 01:30:58,280
Speaker 1: the workforce. It's not even exclusive to Starbucks, like I said, So, yeah,

1590
01:30:58,360 --> 01:31:00,960
Speaker 1: it's it's an uphill battle. And I think that's very

1591
01:31:01,000 --> 01:31:03,840
Speaker 1: too for me because like I have encountered, even talking

1592
01:31:03,840 --> 01:31:06,800
Speaker 1: to my coworkers, like I remember at one point I

1593
01:31:06,840 --> 01:31:09,800
Speaker 1: was talking to someone about the Red Cup rebellion and

1594
01:31:09,840 --> 01:31:11,160
Speaker 1: they were little on the fence and I was like,

1595
01:31:11,200 --> 01:31:13,479
Speaker 1: that's fair, this is scary, like I understand this is

1596
01:31:13,520 --> 01:31:16,080
Speaker 1: a big thing. But they said, I don't want them

1597
01:31:16,080 --> 01:31:17,599
Speaker 1: to fire me for that. And I said, if they

1598
01:31:17,640 --> 01:31:21,840
Speaker 1: fire you for that, it is quite literally illegal, like

1599
01:31:21,920 --> 01:31:24,200
Speaker 1: they cannot do that. And they said, what do you mean?

1600
01:31:24,520 --> 01:31:27,320
Speaker 1: And I said, striking over an unfair labor practice is

1601
01:31:27,320 --> 01:31:30,640
Speaker 1: a federally protected rite. But that is not something that

1602
01:31:30,800 --> 01:31:33,599
Speaker 1: anyone knows. And the amount of times that I heard

1603
01:31:33,640 --> 01:31:36,680
Speaker 1: management say, oh, well, you know, like you're going to

1604
01:31:36,760 --> 01:31:39,040
Speaker 1: lose your benefits, you're not going to get raises, you're

1605
01:31:39,080 --> 01:31:42,280
Speaker 1: not going to have to come off like it is illegal,

1606
01:31:42,320 --> 01:31:44,880
Speaker 1: and it's terrifying because they're getting away with it, you know,

1607
01:31:45,280 --> 01:31:47,320
Speaker 1: and it's amazing. I was explaining kind of what was

1608
01:31:47,360 --> 01:31:49,679
Speaker 1: happening to one of my friends who hadn't really followed

1609
01:31:50,160 --> 01:31:53,400
Speaker 1: what was happening, and they said, like, is it really

1610
01:31:53,479 --> 01:31:57,040
Speaker 1: just like management against baristas? And it kind of just

1611
01:31:57,040 --> 01:32:00,200
Speaker 1: feel like that's what it is, because store managers be

1612
01:32:00,280 --> 01:32:03,240
Speaker 1: dropped in a heartbeat if they didn't. I didn't. They

1613
01:32:03,280 --> 01:32:06,880
Speaker 1: didn't comply it too, being like literally just union busting cops.

1614
01:32:08,280 --> 01:32:10,240
Speaker 1: And that's what's so scary to me, is like the

1615
01:32:10,280 --> 01:32:14,760
Speaker 1: misinformation and the gaslighting and the make sure that they

1616
01:32:14,800 --> 01:32:18,600
Speaker 1: believe this filters so far down from Seattle, from you know,

1617
01:32:18,720 --> 01:32:21,600
Speaker 1: Howard Schultz and all of his little well gang up

1618
01:32:21,600 --> 01:32:25,000
Speaker 1: in their offices, Like there is so much misinformation and

1619
01:32:25,360 --> 01:32:27,320
Speaker 1: that has been one of the hardest things with you're organizing.

1620
01:32:27,400 --> 01:32:30,479
Speaker 1: Is not even like getting everyone together. It's just like, hey,

1621
01:32:30,920 --> 01:32:34,240
Speaker 1: that was a lie. This is your right, this is

1622
01:32:34,280 --> 01:32:37,840
Speaker 1: what's actually happening, And just because your manager says it

1623
01:32:37,840 --> 01:32:47,360
Speaker 1: to you doesn't necessarily mean that it's true. Managers lie.

1624
01:32:48,320 --> 01:32:50,400
Speaker 1: These are people you're supposed to look up to when

1625
01:32:50,439 --> 01:32:54,920
Speaker 1: you need guidance, like yeah, so so yeah. So it's

1626
01:32:54,960 --> 01:32:57,320
Speaker 1: there's like multi and That's the thing I think too

1627
01:32:57,479 --> 01:33:01,160
Speaker 1: is American culture is very like everything just inside a vacuum,

1628
01:33:01,200 --> 01:33:03,040
Speaker 1: and it's like no, no no, no, no, no, it's quite

1629
01:33:03,040 --> 01:33:07,639
Speaker 1: the opposite. Actually, literally everything is connected. Everything, everything has

1630
01:33:07,640 --> 01:33:10,200
Speaker 1: some sort of connection. But it's so much more better

1631
01:33:10,200 --> 01:33:15,120
Speaker 1: that individual is than and work culture. Yeah, individualism. Well,

1632
01:33:15,120 --> 01:33:17,240
Speaker 1: and that's that's why I think, you know again, the

1633
01:33:17,640 --> 01:33:20,920
Speaker 1: campaign that that y'all have been waging, the the incredibly

1634
01:33:20,960 --> 01:33:24,280
Speaker 1: heroic kind of struggle that you and your fellow workers

1635
01:33:24,320 --> 01:33:28,240
Speaker 1: at Starbucks across the country have been involved in while

1636
01:33:28,360 --> 01:33:31,519
Speaker 1: facing this vicious union busting is so important and so

1637
01:33:31,640 --> 01:33:35,000
Speaker 1: inspiring and so necessary. And we need all of us

1638
01:33:35,120 --> 01:33:38,400
Speaker 1: who are watching this, everyone who's listening to this, everyone

1639
01:33:38,400 --> 01:33:41,880
Speaker 1: around the country, you know, who believes themselves, you know,

1640
01:33:41,960 --> 01:33:45,360
Speaker 1: a defender of workers' rights, needs to get involved in this,

1641
01:33:45,560 --> 01:33:48,840
Speaker 1: needs to keep the spotlight on this, needs to hold

1642
01:33:48,880 --> 01:33:52,080
Speaker 1: companies like Starbucks accountable for what they are doing to

1643
01:33:52,200 --> 01:33:54,960
Speaker 1: workers like Lynn and Wren, who you know. I could

1644
01:33:54,960 --> 01:33:56,640
Speaker 1: talk to you both for days, but I've kept you

1645
01:33:56,680 --> 01:33:59,760
Speaker 1: way longer than I was supposed to, so so we

1646
01:33:59,760 --> 01:34:02,120
Speaker 1: we do, unfortunately have to wrap up. But I just

1647
01:34:02,240 --> 01:34:05,040
Speaker 1: can't thank you enough for taking time to talk to us,

1648
01:34:05,080 --> 01:34:07,400
Speaker 1: and I wanted to just like in a quick like

1649
01:34:07,439 --> 01:34:10,800
Speaker 1: lightning round, if you could just say what folks out

1650
01:34:10,800 --> 01:34:13,040
Speaker 1: there can do to help where things are going now,

1651
01:34:13,160 --> 01:34:19,080
Speaker 1: and we'll sign off. Okay, I'll start honestly, just make

1652
01:34:19,080 --> 01:34:22,360
Speaker 1: a stink, make sure people know, spread awareness, because that's

1653
01:34:22,560 --> 01:34:25,519
Speaker 1: I think spreading the awareness and really ensuring that people

1654
01:34:25,520 --> 01:34:28,360
Speaker 1: are educated about this is going to be the biggest

1655
01:34:28,400 --> 01:34:31,479
Speaker 1: difference that we make with this. I mean, when I

1656
01:34:31,600 --> 01:34:34,440
Speaker 1: was fired, I could not tell you how many coworkers

1657
01:34:34,479 --> 01:34:36,400
Speaker 1: reached out to me saying that they never would have

1658
01:34:36,400 --> 01:34:38,120
Speaker 1: fought for their rights or had known to do that

1659
01:34:38,320 --> 01:34:40,559
Speaker 1: if I didn't teach them. And like, of course, it's

1660
01:34:40,560 --> 01:34:42,439
Speaker 1: so meaningful for me to hear that, Like that's what

1661
01:34:42,520 --> 01:34:45,360
Speaker 1: I want to hear. But I'm just one person and

1662
01:34:45,520 --> 01:34:47,320
Speaker 1: they got me out, and that's why they got me out.

1663
01:34:47,560 --> 01:34:51,080
Speaker 1: So just make sure people know be active in your community.

1664
01:34:51,120 --> 01:34:54,320
Speaker 1: Don't be silent about it, and harass the company, like

1665
01:34:54,560 --> 01:34:56,960
Speaker 1: call them, jam up their phone lines, give them hell,

1666
01:34:57,880 --> 01:35:02,520
Speaker 1: and also ensure to send verbal support to your local workers.

1667
01:35:03,280 --> 01:35:06,000
Speaker 1: Don't you do not know the amount of influence you

1668
01:35:06,040 --> 01:35:08,360
Speaker 1: have as an individual to go in and say, hey,

1669
01:35:08,400 --> 01:35:10,240
Speaker 1: you know what I heard what you're doing, and I'm

1670
01:35:10,280 --> 01:35:13,080
Speaker 1: with you. Union strong like that makes a world of difference.

1671
01:35:14,000 --> 01:35:16,040
Speaker 1: So that's what I'd say. Be active in your community,

1672
01:35:16,320 --> 01:35:22,360
Speaker 1: be a forthright about your support, both in individualistic personal

1673
01:35:22,479 --> 01:35:25,280
Speaker 1: levels as well as just overall, like making a stink

1674
01:35:25,320 --> 01:35:28,960
Speaker 1: with the company, and just don't don't turn a blind

1675
01:35:28,960 --> 01:35:32,280
Speaker 1: eye to it. Don't let companies convince you that you

1676
01:35:32,360 --> 01:35:34,759
Speaker 1: don't have power, that you're just one person. One person

1677
01:35:34,800 --> 01:35:38,080
Speaker 1: won't make a difference. No, we we you know, we

1678
01:35:38,120 --> 01:35:40,479
Speaker 1: survive as a unit. That's how that's how this gets done,

1679
01:35:40,479 --> 01:35:44,640
Speaker 1: is solidarity. So yeah, I think the only things I

1680
01:35:44,640 --> 01:35:47,840
Speaker 1: would add to that are, do not cross picket lines

1681
01:35:47,840 --> 01:35:51,479
Speaker 1: anywhere ever. Yeah, do not do it. You do not

1682
01:35:51,600 --> 01:35:55,639
Speaker 1: need your coffee that badly. You can go somewhere else local.

1683
01:35:55,800 --> 01:35:58,160
Speaker 1: And then also that's the other thing, is like local shops.

1684
01:35:58,160 --> 01:36:01,479
Speaker 1: The other thing I would say is there are there's

1685
01:36:01,479 --> 01:36:04,680
Speaker 1: a thing called the Coworker Coworker Fund that a lot

1686
01:36:04,720 --> 01:36:06,920
Speaker 1: of people have been applying for. They're able to give

1687
01:36:06,920 --> 01:36:09,920
Speaker 1: out cash type ins to either fired organizers or people

1688
01:36:09,920 --> 01:36:13,479
Speaker 1: who are currently organizing in their workplace. And that is

1689
01:36:13,640 --> 01:36:17,200
Speaker 1: a very tangible way to support people like Len and

1690
01:36:17,280 --> 01:36:20,120
Speaker 1: I who have you know, been fired and now we're

1691
01:36:20,120 --> 01:36:23,160
Speaker 1: looking for a job. I would say also if you

1692
01:36:23,200 --> 01:36:26,400
Speaker 1: are looking for information, Starbucks Workers United has an Instagram,

1693
01:36:26,560 --> 01:36:29,639
Speaker 1: and there's also ways to find like the Starbucks Workers

1694
01:36:29,680 --> 01:36:32,519
Speaker 1: United for your local city or region, and that's a

1695
01:36:32,520 --> 01:36:35,479
Speaker 1: great way if you hear about someone getting fired. So

1696
01:36:35,520 --> 01:36:37,240
Speaker 1: like if you live in Colorado, if you live in

1697
01:36:37,240 --> 01:36:40,160
Speaker 1: Saint Louis, places like that, you can find kind of

1698
01:36:40,160 --> 01:36:42,880
Speaker 1: what's been happening, and even going to those stores and

1699
01:36:42,920 --> 01:36:45,439
Speaker 1: saying like hey, I really I support you guys, like

1700
01:36:45,800 --> 01:36:48,639
Speaker 1: we have your back in This has meant the world

1701
01:36:48,880 --> 01:36:52,200
Speaker 1: to hear. But also just like mutual aid, you know,

1702
01:36:52,280 --> 01:36:53,800
Speaker 1: like taking care of each other. We are the people

1703
01:36:53,840 --> 01:36:56,040
Speaker 1: that keep us safe and we're the people that are

1704
01:36:56,040 --> 01:36:58,760
Speaker 1: going to protect each other. So I think, like Len said,

1705
01:36:58,760 --> 01:37:01,000
Speaker 1: spreading into information, making sure that people around you know

1706
01:37:01,040 --> 01:37:03,800
Speaker 1: what's happening. I know that we've had people kind of

1707
01:37:03,800 --> 01:37:06,360
Speaker 1: phone bank, like the district manager, store managers say hey,

1708
01:37:06,560 --> 01:37:10,920
Speaker 1: we do not support you harassing, intimidating, union busting, and

1709
01:37:10,960 --> 01:37:14,200
Speaker 1: we won't stand for it. That's been huge. But really

1710
01:37:14,200 --> 01:37:16,479
Speaker 1: making sure that you have spread information and that you

1711
01:37:16,520 --> 01:37:20,799
Speaker 1: send whether it be verbal support or even just putting

1712
01:37:20,800 --> 01:37:22,679
Speaker 1: like your name is union. Yes, I know that makes

1713
01:37:22,680 --> 01:37:24,599
Speaker 1: like our whole store god of Like, oh that's cool,

1714
01:37:25,520 --> 01:37:29,400
Speaker 1: and I think like financial support, verbal support, everything is

1715
01:37:29,720 --> 01:37:31,599
Speaker 1: really what we need right now. Just don't let people

1716
01:37:31,600 --> 01:37:34,960
Speaker 1: sweep it under the rug. Oh yeah, Please, everyone watching

1717
01:37:35,120 --> 01:37:39,640
Speaker 1: and listening, do whatever you can to show solidarity with

1718
01:37:39,800 --> 01:37:43,480
Speaker 1: Len and Rin and their co workers because they desperately

1719
01:37:43,520 --> 01:37:45,559
Speaker 1: need it and we got to stay up on this.

1720
01:37:46,000 --> 01:37:48,840
Speaker 1: So Len Rin, thank you both so much for all

1721
01:37:48,880 --> 01:37:51,200
Speaker 1: your time today. I really really appreciate you talking to

1722
01:37:51,280 --> 01:37:54,280
Speaker 1: us on breaking points. Thank you so much for having

1723
01:37:54,360 --> 01:37:59,920
Speaker 1: us listen. Starbucks is acting like a criminal enterprise right now.

1724
01:38:00,680 --> 01:38:04,479
Speaker 1: Not a well meaning enterprise that happens to commit a crime,

1725
01:38:05,000 --> 01:38:08,759
Speaker 1: but an enterprise to which committing these crimes has become

1726
01:38:09,080 --> 01:38:13,200
Speaker 1: an essential part of the enterprise itself. And it certainly

1727
01:38:13,240 --> 01:38:19,120
Speaker 1: appears to everyone who's looking that committing these alleged union busting,

1728
01:38:19,360 --> 01:38:24,080
Speaker 1: people hurting crimes has become fundamental to what Starbucks is

1729
01:38:24,600 --> 01:38:28,839
Speaker 1: and does. And here's the thing. A union does change

1730
01:38:28,880 --> 01:38:33,160
Speaker 1: that and challenges that because Starbucks knows that it will

1731
01:38:33,160 --> 01:38:35,800
Speaker 1: have to change if workers have an actual seat at

1732
01:38:35,800 --> 01:38:39,639
Speaker 1: the table. And what we are seeing in Starbucks's response

1733
01:38:39,680 --> 01:38:43,840
Speaker 1: to this union drive is the corporate class whining and

1734
01:38:43,960 --> 01:38:48,680
Speaker 1: thrashing and all out assaulting the working class, trying to

1735
01:38:48,800 --> 01:38:53,320
Speaker 1: crush us rather than recognize our human right to have

1736
01:38:53,479 --> 01:38:56,679
Speaker 1: them look us in the eye as people and get

1737
01:38:56,720 --> 01:39:01,599
Speaker 1: to the goddamn bargaining table. So please, before you go,

1738
01:39:02,000 --> 01:39:07,040
Speaker 1: I ask you donate to the Coworkers Solidarity Fund, the

1739
01:39:07,080 --> 01:39:08,920
Speaker 1: link to which you can find in the show notes

1740
01:39:08,960 --> 01:39:11,799
Speaker 1: for this episode or on the web page of Starbucks

1741
01:39:11,880 --> 01:39:15,639
Speaker 1: Workers United. Please also, if you can donate to len

1742
01:39:15,800 --> 01:39:19,200
Speaker 1: and Rin's solidarity funds that have been started to help

1743
01:39:19,280 --> 01:39:23,520
Speaker 1: them pay rent after they were fired under dubious circumstances,

1744
01:39:23,680 --> 01:39:26,040
Speaker 1: and donate to any of the solidarity funds that you

1745
01:39:26,120 --> 01:39:28,479
Speaker 1: see for fired workers or workers who have had their

1746
01:39:28,520 --> 01:39:31,920
Speaker 1: stores closed. Please, as Lenin Rinn said, you have no

1747
01:39:32,040 --> 01:39:36,120
Speaker 1: idea how much it matters. Thank you for watching this

1748
01:39:36,240 --> 01:39:39,240
Speaker 1: segment with Breaking Points, and be sure to subscribe to

1749
01:39:39,320 --> 01:39:42,480
Speaker 1: my news outlet, The Real News with links in the description.

1750
01:39:43,240 --> 01:39:45,360
Speaker 1: See you soon for the next edition for the Art

1751
01:39:45,439 --> 01:39:49,120
Speaker 1: of Class War. Take care of yourselves, take care of

1752
01:39:49,160 --> 01:39:56,920
Speaker 1: each other, Solidarity forever. Hi, everyone, this is Ken Clippensign

1753
01:39:57,000 --> 01:39:59,519
Speaker 1: with Breaking Points, the Intercept edition. I'm joined today by

1754
01:39:59,560 --> 01:40:04,519
Speaker 1: Colleiade al Jabri once again Saudi expert, frequent commentator on

1755
01:40:04,960 --> 01:40:07,080
Speaker 1: US Saudi relations. I'm gonna be talking to you today

1756
01:40:07,400 --> 01:40:10,120
Speaker 1: about the coincidence of all coincidences, which is the Biden

1757
01:40:10,160 --> 01:40:15,360
Speaker 1: administration's recommendation that NBS Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Sumon of

1758
01:40:15,560 --> 01:40:18,400
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia. It's to fact our ruler be granted immunity

1759
01:40:18,720 --> 01:40:23,160
Speaker 1: in a civil suit filed against him by Jamal Kashoggi's widow.

1760
01:40:23,360 --> 01:40:27,160
Speaker 1: And that happened on Thursday of last week. Fast forward

1761
01:40:27,200 --> 01:40:30,759
Speaker 1: to this weekend, it turns out the Wall Street Journal,

1762
01:40:30,800 --> 01:40:32,760
Speaker 1: can we get that element up? The Wall Street Journal

1763
01:40:32,840 --> 01:40:37,759
Speaker 1: reports that Saudi Arabia is considering an oil production increase.

1764
01:40:38,240 --> 01:40:41,120
Speaker 1: After months and months of the Biden administration jet setting

1765
01:40:41,160 --> 01:40:44,400
Speaker 1: back and forth to Jetta and Riad urging them to

1766
01:40:44,760 --> 01:40:47,599
Speaker 1: increase all production, they failed to do so, even sending

1767
01:40:47,640 --> 01:40:52,519
Speaker 1: the CIA director William Burns on secret diplomacy urging the

1768
01:40:52,960 --> 01:40:56,639
Speaker 1: Saudi leadership to increase that production to have the effect

1769
01:40:56,680 --> 01:40:59,400
Speaker 1: of lowering prices. They don't do it. They don't even

1770
01:40:59,400 --> 01:41:02,240
Speaker 1: do it right four elections, which is you know, a

1771
01:41:02,400 --> 01:41:08,040
Speaker 1: very let's say, risky decision for them to make. Finally,

1772
01:41:08,360 --> 01:41:11,160
Speaker 1: there's discussion now that they're going to increase production just

1773
01:41:11,200 --> 01:41:14,200
Speaker 1: several days after this grant of immunity college. Can you

1774
01:41:14,200 --> 01:41:15,560
Speaker 1: speak to that a bit? What do you make of

1775
01:41:15,600 --> 01:41:19,040
Speaker 1: this extraordinary coincidence? So thanks for having me on the

1776
01:41:19,040 --> 01:41:22,640
Speaker 1: show again. A bit of backgrounds. So the crappers of

1777
01:41:22,680 --> 01:41:25,680
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, Mohammad bin Selman is facing multiple lawsuits in

1778
01:41:25,680 --> 01:41:30,680
Speaker 1: the United States and just actually two weeks before the

1779
01:41:30,680 --> 01:41:33,320
Speaker 1: infamous fist pup in Jed, a federal judge in d

1780
01:41:33,439 --> 01:41:38,799
Speaker 1: C asked the Biden administration three questions, three legal questions,

1781
01:41:38,800 --> 01:41:42,639
Speaker 1: including is Mohammed bin Seliman immune? Now, at that point,

1782
01:41:42,840 --> 01:41:45,559
Speaker 1: Mohammed bin Selman was only the son of the king.

1783
01:41:45,640 --> 01:41:47,720
Speaker 1: He was not a prime minister. And Saudi Arabia is

1784
01:41:47,760 --> 01:41:50,200
Speaker 1: a bit different. It's not like the UK where the

1785
01:41:50,280 --> 01:41:54,040
Speaker 1: king or the Queen are just a figurative symbol. The

1786
01:41:54,160 --> 01:41:56,799
Speaker 1: king is actually the prime minister. He is a top official.

1787
01:41:57,360 --> 01:42:01,320
Speaker 1: And what's really interesting about this recent decision is just

1788
01:42:01,439 --> 01:42:05,720
Speaker 1: a few days before the court appointed deadline, NBS was

1789
01:42:05,800 --> 01:42:08,800
Speaker 1: made Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia. Just you know, it's

1790
01:42:08,800 --> 01:42:10,720
Speaker 1: almost like him sitting with his lawyers. How do I

1791
01:42:11,200 --> 01:42:13,439
Speaker 1: you know, evade this court process, like you know, your highness,

1792
01:42:13,439 --> 01:42:15,960
Speaker 1: if you can become prime minister. Okay, daddy, can you

1793
01:42:16,000 --> 01:42:17,439
Speaker 1: sign me in order to make me a prime minister.

1794
01:42:17,640 --> 01:42:19,880
Speaker 1: And what's really funny is although he was named as

1795
01:42:19,920 --> 01:42:23,840
Speaker 1: prime minister, he did not have all the powers of

1796
01:42:23,880 --> 01:42:26,280
Speaker 1: being a prime minister. He can't appointed minister, he can't

1797
01:42:26,280 --> 01:42:28,919
Speaker 1: fire a minister. He can't even appoint his own cabinet.

1798
01:42:29,439 --> 01:42:31,519
Speaker 1: And he didn't even bother to show up to more

1799
01:42:31,560 --> 01:42:33,720
Speaker 1: than half of the cabinet meetings. So it tells you

1800
01:42:33,800 --> 01:42:36,360
Speaker 1: the only reason for somebody to assume a title and

1801
01:42:36,400 --> 01:42:39,360
Speaker 1: we call it title washing just a few days before

1802
01:42:39,840 --> 01:42:44,400
Speaker 1: a court deadline, is for this purpose of evading you know, accountability.

1803
01:42:45,160 --> 01:42:47,680
Speaker 1: And then what's really interesting also is for the Biden administration,

1804
01:42:47,760 --> 01:42:50,160
Speaker 1: I get that they say this was a pure legal process,

1805
01:42:50,160 --> 01:42:52,200
Speaker 1: but there's more to that, and there's a lot of pushbacks.

1806
01:42:52,680 --> 01:42:56,719
Speaker 1: Number One, they were not obliged to answer the court.

1807
01:42:56,800 --> 01:42:59,120
Speaker 1: It was an invitation by the court, and they had

1808
01:42:59,160 --> 01:43:02,160
Speaker 1: the option to remain silent. Indeed, they remade simonon two

1809
01:43:02,200 --> 01:43:05,120
Speaker 1: of the other questions. And there are precedents where they

1810
01:43:05,200 --> 01:43:07,559
Speaker 1: actually head of States of Taiwan, and I think Ghana,

1811
01:43:08,000 --> 01:43:11,600
Speaker 1: where the US administrations basically said I'm not getting into this,

1812
01:43:11,680 --> 01:43:14,639
Speaker 1: and they could have done that with this case as well.

1813
01:43:15,000 --> 01:43:18,320
Speaker 1: Now understand, you know customer international law, but it was

1814
01:43:18,439 --> 01:43:22,840
Speaker 1: not designed or adopted to allow unstable dictators to turn

1815
01:43:23,000 --> 01:43:26,640
Speaker 1: embassies into torture chambers where Washington Post Communists are dismembered

1816
01:43:27,120 --> 01:43:30,439
Speaker 1: and then use the same customer international law to shield

1817
01:43:30,479 --> 01:43:33,640
Speaker 1: themselves from accountability. It was adopted to prevent you know,

1818
01:43:34,680 --> 01:43:37,840
Speaker 1: kings and presidents and prime ministers from being distracted by

1819
01:43:37,920 --> 01:43:40,519
Speaker 1: frivolous lawsuits. But in this case, this is not a

1820
01:43:40,560 --> 01:43:43,600
Speaker 1: frivolous lawsuit. This is a lawsuit where the merits have

1821
01:43:43,880 --> 01:43:49,280
Speaker 1: already been let's say, pointed at from the administration itself

1822
01:43:49,320 --> 01:43:52,320
Speaker 1: when they released the CIA report last year basically concluding

1823
01:43:52,800 --> 01:43:56,360
Speaker 1: that Mohammed bin Selman ordered the dismemberment and approved the

1824
01:43:56,400 --> 01:44:00,200
Speaker 1: dismember of Washington Post Communist from alcol shuxiy I. I

1825
01:44:00,200 --> 01:44:02,720
Speaker 1: think that's really important point is that Washington's decision to

1826
01:44:02,760 --> 01:44:06,000
Speaker 1: Biden administration's options here wasn't a binary of do you

1827
01:44:06,120 --> 01:44:08,639
Speaker 1: say no to the immunity request or do you say yes.

1828
01:44:09,000 --> 01:44:11,120
Speaker 1: There's a whole range of choices within that They could

1829
01:44:11,200 --> 01:44:13,280
Speaker 1: have just you know, stood by and said, you know,

1830
01:44:13,360 --> 01:44:15,479
Speaker 1: we don't have comment, which is what I had expected

1831
01:44:15,520 --> 01:44:17,559
Speaker 1: them to do, but they sort of took the maximal's

1832
01:44:17,600 --> 01:44:20,120
Speaker 1: position of saying give community. And then the context of

1833
01:44:20,520 --> 01:44:23,200
Speaker 1: these kind of courts, the judges are extremely different to

1834
01:44:23,920 --> 01:44:26,800
Speaker 1: the government usually, you know, federal judges are you know,

1835
01:44:27,000 --> 01:44:30,439
Speaker 1: they have a deference to what the government kind of submits.

1836
01:44:30,880 --> 01:44:33,040
Speaker 1: But also you know, again they say, this is just

1837
01:44:33,160 --> 01:44:37,479
Speaker 1: a pure legal kind of practice. But I think it's

1838
01:44:37,520 --> 01:44:41,559
Speaker 1: a dangerous precedence because basically you've allowed somebody to game

1839
01:44:41,800 --> 01:44:45,480
Speaker 1: and play the US just the system to avoid accountability.

1840
01:44:45,600 --> 01:44:47,800
Speaker 1: Only a few days before the deadline, he made himself

1841
01:44:47,840 --> 01:44:51,360
Speaker 1: prime Minister by name only, not by practice. And the

1842
01:44:51,479 --> 01:44:54,680
Speaker 1: only reason that the US ADMIN gave him immunity is

1843
01:44:54,720 --> 01:44:57,760
Speaker 1: because well now recognize him as prime minister. It was

1844
01:44:57,840 --> 01:45:01,040
Speaker 1: a ploy, and it's a dangerous precedent, meaning that future

1845
01:45:01,520 --> 01:45:04,559
Speaker 1: you know, dictators who are probably now you know, watching

1846
01:45:04,680 --> 01:45:07,240
Speaker 1: and and Puts the must be very happy being the

1847
01:45:07,280 --> 01:45:10,720
Speaker 1: president of Russia. You know, they feel that they will

1848
01:45:10,760 --> 01:45:13,840
Speaker 1: get you know, away with any atrocity they commit. That's

1849
01:45:13,840 --> 01:45:15,880
Speaker 1: a crucial point to make is the way in which

1850
01:45:16,280 --> 01:45:18,679
Speaker 1: the United States and the unique role that it plays,

1851
01:45:18,720 --> 01:45:21,000
Speaker 1: with the power that it has not just militarily but

1852
01:45:21,120 --> 01:45:25,760
Speaker 1: economically across the globe. The way in which authoritarians and

1853
01:45:26,080 --> 01:45:29,680
Speaker 1: dictators look to how we treat our client states and think, oh,

1854
01:45:29,880 --> 01:45:32,160
Speaker 1: that's they're telling me the line is over here, and

1855
01:45:32,200 --> 01:45:33,760
Speaker 1: I thought it was over here. Now I can take

1856
01:45:33,800 --> 01:45:36,439
Speaker 1: more risks. They really are very receptive to these things.

1857
01:45:36,640 --> 01:45:39,799
Speaker 1: Excellent point. And if we go back to Canada, Biden

1858
01:45:40,400 --> 01:45:42,800
Speaker 1: he promised and pledged to hold Mohammad bin So not

1859
01:45:42,880 --> 01:45:45,479
Speaker 1: accountable for the murder of the Malkhastrut said he was

1860
01:45:45,520 --> 01:45:47,920
Speaker 1: going to make him a pariah, which leaves no question

1861
01:45:48,200 --> 01:45:51,280
Speaker 1: and anyone will not only has this admin for god like,

1862
01:45:51,360 --> 01:45:54,240
Speaker 1: they decided to forego accountability, but they actually was a

1863
01:45:54,320 --> 01:45:56,320
Speaker 1: full swing. So imagine saying somebody, I'm going to hold

1864
01:45:56,320 --> 01:45:58,400
Speaker 1: the accountable and then when it comes to you know,

1865
01:45:58,560 --> 01:46:02,000
Speaker 1: the reality, no, I'm actually going to immunity. And as

1866
01:46:02,080 --> 01:46:03,960
Speaker 1: much as people can argue for that or against that,

1867
01:46:04,280 --> 01:46:08,440
Speaker 1: for me is this administration has not only foregone accountability

1868
01:46:08,520 --> 01:46:10,640
Speaker 1: for the dead, but it's actually creating a lot of

1869
01:46:10,720 --> 01:46:13,280
Speaker 1: problems for ongoing victims. There's a lot of you know,

1870
01:46:13,400 --> 01:46:16,960
Speaker 1: American hostages right now American cities, in Saudi prisons, the

1871
01:46:17,080 --> 01:46:19,639
Speaker 1: extent of this is absolutely distortinary, and the State Department

1872
01:46:19,680 --> 01:46:21,600
Speaker 1: does little to nothing to help. And you know what,

1873
01:46:21,840 --> 01:46:24,439
Speaker 1: like you always have to ask yourself, how would MBS

1874
01:46:24,560 --> 01:46:27,960
Speaker 1: perceive my mood, especially from somebody that promised to hold

1875
01:46:28,040 --> 01:46:30,560
Speaker 1: him accountable. The way he's going to understand that is

1876
01:46:31,040 --> 01:46:33,519
Speaker 1: any US president, no matter what the retoric is or

1877
01:46:33,600 --> 01:46:36,559
Speaker 1: the principles are, or you know, the power I am getting,

1878
01:46:36,800 --> 01:46:39,160
Speaker 1: going to get away with it. And for somebody like MBS,

1879
01:46:39,840 --> 01:46:42,600
Speaker 1: the learning curve from what happened to Rashuktri isn't oh,

1880
01:46:42,720 --> 01:46:45,160
Speaker 1: this is a crime and I should stop going after detractors.

1881
01:46:45,760 --> 01:46:48,160
Speaker 1: The learning curve is I just need to make sure

1882
01:46:48,439 --> 01:46:50,880
Speaker 1: I don't leave fingerprints. And this is why you've heard

1883
01:46:50,880 --> 01:46:55,000
Speaker 1: a lot of people, including myself, saying the perception by MBS. Effectively,

1884
01:46:55,080 --> 01:46:57,280
Speaker 1: he's going to see this immunity as a license to

1885
01:46:57,400 --> 01:46:59,880
Speaker 1: kill more people now knowing that he will never be

1886
01:47:00,000 --> 01:47:04,439
Speaker 1: held accountable. When you know, like private citizens have only

1887
01:47:04,520 --> 01:47:08,680
Speaker 1: a few avenues for redress and seeking accountability, and there

1888
01:47:08,680 --> 01:47:12,000
Speaker 1: are federal courts. The Biden Adam has not only FORGNE

1889
01:47:12,240 --> 01:47:15,400
Speaker 1: holding NBS accountable through mechanisms that are that supersedes any

1890
01:47:15,479 --> 01:47:19,120
Speaker 1: kind of customer international law. But they've literally shut down

1891
01:47:19,320 --> 01:47:22,320
Speaker 1: one of the most potent remaining avenues for people to

1892
01:47:22,640 --> 01:47:26,800
Speaker 1: seek accountability. I spoke to somebody, you know, and I

1893
01:47:26,880 --> 01:47:30,000
Speaker 1: saw his interview in one of the outlets, the son

1894
01:47:30,080 --> 01:47:32,000
Speaker 1: of Sad Delamali. This is a seventy two year old

1895
01:47:32,479 --> 01:47:36,040
Speaker 1: American who basically lives in Florida and went to Saudi

1896
01:47:36,080 --> 01:47:39,200
Speaker 1: for vacation and got arrested at the airport for critical

1897
01:47:39,240 --> 01:47:42,120
Speaker 1: tweets he made from his house in Florida and now

1898
01:47:42,439 --> 01:47:47,880
Speaker 1: is basically decaying in NBS's dungeons for six He received

1899
01:47:47,880 --> 01:47:51,040
Speaker 1: a sixteen year sentence in tearism court for tweets his

1900
01:47:51,120 --> 01:47:53,560
Speaker 1: son was tweets were like just sarcastic, right, Like it

1901
01:47:53,680 --> 01:47:56,080
Speaker 1: was like not even that edgy. So his son, who

1902
01:47:56,240 --> 01:47:58,920
Speaker 1: has been very vocal and critical of the State Department,

1903
01:47:58,960 --> 01:48:01,160
Speaker 1: saying they've abandoned my dad and mungle of the case,

1904
01:48:01,640 --> 01:48:04,360
Speaker 1: was actually planning to sue MBS as one of the

1905
01:48:04,439 --> 01:48:06,439
Speaker 1: last tools to free his dad and bring him home

1906
01:48:06,840 --> 01:48:10,240
Speaker 1: to Florida, And now effectively that door has been shut.

1907
01:48:10,920 --> 01:48:13,160
Speaker 1: One point in all this I found pretty persuasive and

1908
01:48:13,240 --> 01:48:15,799
Speaker 1: that you helped me to understand was Saudi law around

1909
01:48:16,080 --> 01:48:18,120
Speaker 1: the head of state. Which is a point I want

1910
01:48:18,160 --> 01:48:21,720
Speaker 1: to make to viewers is that NBS is not head

1911
01:48:21,720 --> 01:48:23,680
Speaker 1: of state. There is still a living king, and if

1912
01:48:23,680 --> 01:48:26,400
Speaker 1: you look at Saudi law, there's no sort of gray

1913
01:48:26,520 --> 01:48:29,760
Speaker 1: area around that question. And so to say, oh, we

1914
01:48:29,840 --> 01:48:33,080
Speaker 1: need to be realistic. You know, he's the de facto leader.

1915
01:48:33,240 --> 01:48:35,920
Speaker 1: That's not true on paper. He is still you know,

1916
01:48:36,400 --> 01:48:39,400
Speaker 1: yet to be named king, an official leader. And more importantly,

1917
01:48:39,439 --> 01:48:41,080
Speaker 1: if we go to the legal arguments, which I think

1918
01:48:41,280 --> 01:48:43,320
Speaker 1: the administration should have done, they should have said the

1919
01:48:43,400 --> 01:48:45,760
Speaker 1: case is not right for our intervention. We encourage the

1920
01:48:45,800 --> 01:48:48,840
Speaker 1: court to exhaust in other jurisdictional arguments and so on.

1921
01:48:50,120 --> 01:48:52,759
Speaker 1: In practice, so let's say today we have a cabinet

1922
01:48:52,760 --> 01:48:56,200
Speaker 1: meeting every Tuesday in Saudi Arabia. Let's say the king attends. Actually,

1923
01:48:56,400 --> 01:48:58,920
Speaker 1: as the law stands, the King would be the chair.

1924
01:48:59,320 --> 01:49:02,000
Speaker 1: Let's say NBS, who's now claiming to be prime Minister,

1925
01:49:02,360 --> 01:49:04,599
Speaker 1: has one opinion on one matter and the king has

1926
01:49:04,600 --> 01:49:07,439
Speaker 1: a different opinion. The King's opinion would supersede. Let's say

1927
01:49:07,520 --> 01:49:09,479
Speaker 1: NBS says, you know what, I want to form my

1928
01:49:09,520 --> 01:49:12,479
Speaker 1: own cabinet. He can't do that, so it is nothing

1929
01:49:13,000 --> 01:49:18,240
Speaker 1: but a ploy, a title washing to try and evade

1930
01:49:18,800 --> 01:49:23,080
Speaker 1: accountability in federal courts. He played that gambit and unfortunately

1931
01:49:23,240 --> 01:49:26,320
Speaker 1: it worked because the Biden Adamin allowed itself to be

1932
01:49:26,400 --> 01:49:29,240
Speaker 1: played by MBS once again. What's extraordinary about this is that,

1933
01:49:30,000 --> 01:49:34,800
Speaker 1: as I've reported, this decision to recommend immunity comes right

1934
01:49:34,880 --> 01:49:37,880
Speaker 1: after the midterm elections. In the Saudist failure too, as

1935
01:49:38,439 --> 01:49:41,439
Speaker 1: I think Amos Hostein reportedly called it, hold up his

1936
01:49:41,600 --> 01:49:43,720
Speaker 1: end of the bargain and produce what they said they

1937
01:49:43,760 --> 01:49:46,240
Speaker 1: were going to produce. How are they humiliated in this

1938
01:49:46,360 --> 01:49:50,679
Speaker 1: fashion and not only not punish him or do anything

1939
01:49:50,720 --> 01:49:54,599
Speaker 1: in the way of a reprimand for this young crown prince,

1940
01:49:54,640 --> 01:49:56,400
Speaker 1: who bear in mind, is like in his mid thirties

1941
01:49:56,640 --> 01:49:59,600
Speaker 1: and is right now actively shaping his idea of how

1942
01:49:59,640 --> 01:50:01,680
Speaker 1: he's going to interact with democratic administration. This is the

1943
01:50:01,720 --> 01:50:03,439
Speaker 1: first time he's been to facto a ruler and there's

1944
01:50:03,439 --> 01:50:06,000
Speaker 1: a democratic administration in power. So this is telling him,

1945
01:50:06,040 --> 01:50:07,720
Speaker 1: here's how you relate to the Democrats. You can walk

1946
01:50:07,760 --> 01:50:09,800
Speaker 1: all over them. How does Bide administration look at that

1947
01:50:09,840 --> 01:50:11,400
Speaker 1: and just say, you know what, fine, you can have

1948
01:50:11,479 --> 01:50:14,280
Speaker 1: your immunity to be fair and objective. The court dead

1949
01:50:14,320 --> 01:50:18,479
Speaker 1: lines were dictated by a federal judge order, and that order,

1950
01:50:18,560 --> 01:50:20,519
Speaker 1: like I said, the first order was two weeks before

1951
01:50:20,520 --> 01:50:21,960
Speaker 1: the fist bump, and at the moment I saw that

1952
01:50:22,000 --> 01:50:23,880
Speaker 1: as like, oh my god, it's just going to overcomplicate

1953
01:50:23,920 --> 01:50:27,480
Speaker 1: authlorady being compleated. But I get it. Perception in international

1954
01:50:27,520 --> 01:50:31,920
Speaker 1: relations is everything, and basically the way it is the timing,

1955
01:50:32,040 --> 01:50:34,320
Speaker 1: people are going to see this as a qui pro quo.

1956
01:50:35,320 --> 01:50:37,040
Speaker 1: Now I also have to be fair again. And after

1957
01:50:37,120 --> 01:50:39,599
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal reporting came out yesterday, which historically

1958
01:50:39,640 --> 01:50:43,320
Speaker 1: has been accurate on oil, the Saudis came and denied

1959
01:50:43,360 --> 01:50:46,439
Speaker 1: that vehemently, saying that we're not going to reginalduction. Yeah,

1960
01:50:46,520 --> 01:50:48,760
Speaker 1: just a coincidence. In fact, we are going to stick

1961
01:50:48,800 --> 01:50:50,840
Speaker 1: with the two million ballot reduction until the end of

1962
01:50:51,040 --> 01:50:54,200
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. And you know, there's also like one

1963
01:50:54,240 --> 01:50:56,639
Speaker 1: thing that even if the Saudi has raised the oil

1964
01:50:56,680 --> 01:50:59,400
Speaker 1: production by five hundred bowels, this is not a win,

1965
01:50:59,760 --> 01:51:01,759
Speaker 1: Like since the fist bump, this is a net negative

1966
01:51:01,800 --> 01:51:03,800
Speaker 1: at one point five So nobody should claim that as

1967
01:51:03,840 --> 01:51:05,880
Speaker 1: a win. Yeah, there's a lot of this goalpost moving

1968
01:51:05,960 --> 01:51:07,800
Speaker 1: of like, oh, this is an increase, and you sort

1969
01:51:07,800 --> 01:51:09,360
Speaker 1: of zoom out. It's like, well, it's an increase from

1970
01:51:09,400 --> 01:51:10,800
Speaker 1: two months ago, but if you look at how it

1971
01:51:10,920 --> 01:51:12,960
Speaker 1: was a year ago, this is much we're much worse

1972
01:51:13,000 --> 01:51:17,400
Speaker 1: offt And again like this whole you know, Biden MBS

1973
01:51:17,560 --> 01:51:22,000
Speaker 1: Saga oil production, This is not the result. So sorry,

1974
01:51:22,040 --> 01:51:25,200
Speaker 1: this did not result in the you know, kind of

1975
01:51:25,560 --> 01:51:29,760
Speaker 1: current tensions in the Saudi American relationship. This is a

1976
01:51:29,800 --> 01:51:33,439
Speaker 1: symptom of an ongoing deterioration. And we're only probably like

1977
01:51:33,600 --> 01:51:36,320
Speaker 1: you know, a few weeks away from the next strategic

1978
01:51:36,400 --> 01:51:38,920
Speaker 1: bunder by NBS. You know, this is this is a symptom.

1979
01:51:38,960 --> 01:51:40,320
Speaker 1: This is not the disease. It's not like if they

1980
01:51:40,360 --> 01:51:42,960
Speaker 1: fix their oil policy or the Saudis are happier with

1981
01:51:43,160 --> 01:51:46,400
Speaker 1: US kind of military support and protection, that the relationship

1982
01:51:46,400 --> 01:51:48,639
Speaker 1: would go back. No, it's it's being downhill and needs

1983
01:51:48,800 --> 01:51:53,760
Speaker 1: it truly needs a full re evaluation from both sides. Yeah,

1984
01:51:53,760 --> 01:51:57,160
Speaker 1: and that's what you've heard the Biden administration repeatedly pledged

1985
01:51:57,200 --> 01:51:59,439
Speaker 1: to do. I mean very recently saw in the Washington

1986
01:51:59,439 --> 01:52:03,080
Speaker 1: Post report of a highly classified report about UAE relations.

1987
01:52:03,160 --> 01:52:06,120
Speaker 1: So it's like relations are fraying across the Persian Gulf

1988
01:52:06,479 --> 01:52:08,519
Speaker 1: in general, a lot of these regimes. Obviously UA is

1989
01:52:08,600 --> 01:52:12,440
Speaker 1: very close to Saturabia describing I think it was interference

1990
01:52:12,520 --> 01:52:16,719
Speaker 1: in US political system and elections, even espionage, And I'm thinking,

1991
01:52:17,200 --> 01:52:19,360
Speaker 1: what is the response at this point. I mean, this

1992
01:52:19,520 --> 01:52:21,600
Speaker 1: is very serious stuff, and the response we're seeing is

1993
01:52:21,640 --> 01:52:24,120
Speaker 1: here's your immunity. I just don't understand what is the

1994
01:52:24,200 --> 01:52:27,439
Speaker 1: rationale here. What's happening here is you have golf states

1995
01:52:27,560 --> 01:52:31,799
Speaker 1: being customed and used to historic US guarantee security guarantees

1996
01:52:31,880 --> 01:52:33,799
Speaker 1: to the point that they started taking them for granted.

1997
01:52:33,840 --> 01:52:37,240
Speaker 1: At the same time, you have a new generation of

1998
01:52:37,360 --> 01:52:41,680
Speaker 1: golf leaders, mainly in Saudi and UAE, who are very

1999
01:52:41,960 --> 01:52:44,519
Speaker 1: ambitious and they have a lot of resources in terms

2000
01:52:44,560 --> 01:52:47,840
Speaker 1: of you know, fossil fuel revenues, and they want to

2001
01:52:47,960 --> 01:52:51,680
Speaker 1: have an assertive and expressive foreign policy both regionally and

2002
01:52:51,840 --> 01:52:55,519
Speaker 1: on the globe. So they are overplaying their hand knowing that,

2003
01:52:55,840 --> 01:52:59,120
Speaker 1: you know, their whole security apparatus is dependent on the

2004
01:52:59,200 --> 01:53:02,559
Speaker 1: US protection. But I think unfortunately their delusion of being

2005
01:53:03,360 --> 01:53:08,920
Speaker 1: powerful or a superpower has been validated by inactions from

2006
01:53:09,000 --> 01:53:13,040
Speaker 1: successive US administrations. I think they do need a reality

2007
01:53:13,200 --> 01:53:16,479
Speaker 1: check and it's time for the Biden admin to get

2008
01:53:16,760 --> 01:53:19,320
Speaker 1: its Gulf ducts in a row. I couldn't agree more.

2009
01:53:19,360 --> 01:53:21,040
Speaker 1: And that's a good note to end it. On CALLI

2010
01:53:21,120 --> 01:53:22,400
Speaker 1: thanks for joining me. Thank you so much.