1 00:00:05,480 --> 00:00:09,600 Speaker 1: I recently rewatched that Stomp HBO special from the la. 2 00:00:11,200 --> 00:00:13,320 Speaker 2: Oh. It's just so stomped. 3 00:00:13,440 --> 00:00:18,880 Speaker 1: Like we were like, damn, bro, these. 4 00:00:18,760 --> 00:00:21,200 Speaker 2: People are playing cards, but it's rhythmic and. 5 00:00:22,800 --> 00:00:27,080 Speaker 3: And I just like, yo, they're not even playing They're 6 00:00:27,080 --> 00:00:31,000 Speaker 3: playing pots and using brooms and ship I feel like 7 00:00:31,240 --> 00:00:34,519 Speaker 3: there were a couple things, like just commercials, like the 8 00:00:34,520 --> 00:00:35,800 Speaker 3: basketball commercial where. 9 00:00:35,640 --> 00:00:39,400 Speaker 2: Like the dude is dribbling. They edited together that, or 10 00:00:39,440 --> 00:00:43,360 Speaker 2: that one Volkswagen commercial where the windshield wiper starts like 11 00:00:43,400 --> 00:00:46,480 Speaker 2: going to the beat, and then everything outside the windows starts. 12 00:00:46,159 --> 00:00:46,720 Speaker 4: Going to the beat. 13 00:00:46,960 --> 00:00:53,040 Speaker 2: Stop dude. The influence of stomp. They started stomping. It 14 00:00:53,159 --> 00:01:03,720 Speaker 2: was so stumped, We stopped every everything so stumped. Hello 15 00:01:03,960 --> 00:01:07,880 Speaker 2: the Internet, and welcome to Season three eighty, Episode two 16 00:01:07,959 --> 00:01:11,880 Speaker 2: of Daily Night Day, a production of My Heart Radio. 17 00:01:11,959 --> 00:01:13,959 Speaker 2: This is a podcast where we take a deep dive 18 00:01:14,560 --> 00:01:18,479 Speaker 2: into America share consciousness. It is Tuesday, March eighteenth, twenty 19 00:01:18,520 --> 00:01:19,199 Speaker 2: twenty five. 20 00:01:19,520 --> 00:01:23,640 Speaker 1: Yep, yep, It's National ag Day, Shout out to Agriculture, 21 00:01:23,760 --> 00:01:28,400 Speaker 1: National Sloppy Joe Day, National Awkward Moments Day. 22 00:01:29,160 --> 00:01:33,720 Speaker 2: Yeah, good times, good times, Slopy Joe, Awkward Moments. I know, 23 00:01:35,560 --> 00:01:38,160 Speaker 2: let's just have an awkward moment the HR people who 24 00:01:38,200 --> 00:01:39,759 Speaker 2: are really into these national. 25 00:01:39,440 --> 00:01:43,760 Speaker 5: Days DM like, oh, okay, awkward, Now we have to 26 00:01:43,760 --> 00:01:45,319 Speaker 5: put this one up and put on the bulletin board. 27 00:01:46,800 --> 00:01:48,720 Speaker 2: Did not have that one on my twenty twenty five 28 00:01:49,440 --> 00:01:52,080 Speaker 2: but had on my calendar. Yeah, tried to force an 29 00:01:52,120 --> 00:01:56,800 Speaker 2: awkward moment. Okay, that was so awkward. It's like, no, oh. 30 00:01:57,200 --> 00:01:58,560 Speaker 1: Don't you love Joe Biden. 31 00:01:59,160 --> 00:02:00,760 Speaker 2: Oh okay. 32 00:02:01,600 --> 00:02:02,680 Speaker 4: Anyways, my name is. 33 00:02:02,720 --> 00:02:06,880 Speaker 2: Jack O'Brien aka Potatoes O'Brien, and I'm thrilled to be 34 00:02:06,920 --> 00:02:09,960 Speaker 2: joined as always by my co host, mister Miles Gris. 35 00:02:10,160 --> 00:02:14,359 Speaker 1: Yes, he's still out here. Look, you can actually find 36 00:02:14,400 --> 00:02:16,760 Speaker 1: me on Linkerson Boulevard from time to time. Now, even 37 00:02:17,200 --> 00:02:20,440 Speaker 1: the boulevards of Ventura or Magnolia, you never know, because 38 00:02:20,480 --> 00:02:23,240 Speaker 1: I'm in the San Fernando Valley, the Shogun Window gun. 39 00:02:23,360 --> 00:02:26,400 Speaker 2: Yes in d Yeah, stay out here. You're just all 40 00:02:26,600 --> 00:02:30,200 Speaker 2: just walking making turning the value into a lot of city. 41 00:02:30,440 --> 00:02:33,239 Speaker 2: Do a lot of walking, nice, a lot of walking. 42 00:02:33,560 --> 00:02:35,200 Speaker 1: They call me Chris. 43 00:02:36,919 --> 00:02:38,519 Speaker 2: Well, mister Walkin. 44 00:02:38,600 --> 00:02:41,120 Speaker 5: We are thrilled to be joined in air third Seat 45 00:02:41,680 --> 00:02:45,880 Speaker 5: Wow by the executive director of Civil Rights Corps, which 46 00:02:45,919 --> 00:02:49,079 Speaker 5: is a nonprofit dedicated to fighting systemic injustice. 47 00:02:49,440 --> 00:02:51,840 Speaker 2: He's been a civil rights lawyer, a public defender. He 48 00:02:51,919 --> 00:02:54,359 Speaker 2: was named twenty sixteenth Trial Lawyer of the Year by 49 00:02:54,360 --> 00:02:58,560 Speaker 2: Public Justice. The author of several books, The incredibly compelling 50 00:02:58,880 --> 00:03:03,600 Speaker 2: Usual Cruelty and The brand New Copaganda, which we got 51 00:03:03,600 --> 00:03:07,000 Speaker 2: to read an advanced copy of, is dropping April fifteenth, 52 00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:10,080 Speaker 2: so good go pre order right now. We'll be talking 53 00:03:10,120 --> 00:03:13,880 Speaker 2: about it. Most importantly a great follow on social media, 54 00:03:13,919 --> 00:03:18,960 Speaker 2: of course, please welcome the brilliant and talented Alan Carcasone. 55 00:03:20,600 --> 00:03:21,919 Speaker 6: Thank you all for having me back. 56 00:03:22,280 --> 00:03:26,200 Speaker 1: Oh man, always open door. I got excited when I 57 00:03:26,240 --> 00:03:27,760 Speaker 1: read the word zeitgeist at the end. 58 00:03:27,639 --> 00:03:28,120 Speaker 4: Of your book. 59 00:03:28,160 --> 00:03:30,240 Speaker 2: I was like, oh, yeah, shout out to the show. Yeah, yeah, 60 00:03:30,440 --> 00:03:30,920 Speaker 2: great word. 61 00:03:31,200 --> 00:03:32,320 Speaker 6: I was thinking of you guys. 62 00:03:32,600 --> 00:03:33,960 Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, totally. 63 00:03:37,200 --> 00:03:39,080 Speaker 6: Man, I've been well, I mean, at least as well 64 00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:41,240 Speaker 6: as can be. I'm excited to have this book out 65 00:03:41,280 --> 00:03:44,120 Speaker 6: there in the world, and I think the ideas are 66 00:03:44,160 --> 00:03:47,920 Speaker 6: so important now and at times rising authoritarianism and a 67 00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:53,680 Speaker 6: real assault on basic notions of kindness and truth and love. 68 00:03:53,800 --> 00:03:56,560 Speaker 6: And you know, so I was I was trying to 69 00:03:56,600 --> 00:03:58,960 Speaker 6: explore the last few years, you know, like what do 70 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:01,960 Speaker 6: we make of the mainstream media and how they're leading 71 00:04:02,040 --> 00:04:04,280 Speaker 6: us to these really dark places, and I'm just glad 72 00:04:04,320 --> 00:04:05,880 Speaker 6: to be able to be able to talk about it 73 00:04:05,880 --> 00:04:06,520 Speaker 6: now in public. 74 00:04:06,960 --> 00:04:09,640 Speaker 2: I'd give them an a minus. I think I think 75 00:04:09,640 --> 00:04:12,320 Speaker 2: they're mostly nailing it. What do you guess thinks? Sorry, 76 00:04:12,320 --> 00:04:15,400 Speaker 2: I didn't read the book. But we like the mainstream media, right, 77 00:04:15,920 --> 00:04:16,520 Speaker 2: They're cool. 78 00:04:16,960 --> 00:04:17,400 Speaker 4: Yeah? 79 00:04:17,520 --> 00:04:20,200 Speaker 2: I love the New York Times games. I mean, with 80 00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:22,240 Speaker 2: with many a guest, we like to get to know 81 00:04:22,279 --> 00:04:25,599 Speaker 2: them a little bit better and do a search history underrated, overrated, 82 00:04:25,760 --> 00:04:27,839 Speaker 2: But we got a lot to cover, so we want 83 00:04:27,839 --> 00:04:29,800 Speaker 2: to just kind of dive right in, if that's all 84 00:04:29,920 --> 00:04:33,039 Speaker 2: right with you, Alec, unless you had a search history 85 00:04:33,120 --> 00:04:35,960 Speaker 2: underrated or overrated that was particularly pressing that you wanted 86 00:04:35,960 --> 00:04:37,200 Speaker 2: to get off your chest. 87 00:04:37,440 --> 00:04:40,000 Speaker 6: You know, I don't do anything other than think about topaganda. 88 00:04:40,160 --> 00:04:43,039 Speaker 6: So okay, I said, better just dive right in, you know, 89 00:04:43,240 --> 00:04:44,360 Speaker 6: all right, let's do it. 90 00:04:44,560 --> 00:04:45,760 Speaker 2: I was actually it was funny. 91 00:04:46,160 --> 00:04:48,440 Speaker 1: Yesterday I was hanging out with some people who are 92 00:04:48,440 --> 00:04:51,760 Speaker 1: from out of town, and like they hit me with 93 00:04:51,800 --> 00:04:54,040 Speaker 1: the is LA Safe because. 94 00:04:53,880 --> 00:04:57,600 Speaker 7: Like, and I was like, you, okay, yeah, Kelly's great man, 95 00:04:57,920 --> 00:04:58,520 Speaker 7: what are you talking about? 96 00:04:58,680 --> 00:04:58,760 Speaker 4: Like? 97 00:04:58,880 --> 00:05:00,320 Speaker 7: Because I see a lot of like you know that 98 00:05:00,400 --> 00:05:03,520 Speaker 7: people running into stores and like grabbing stuff and things 99 00:05:03,560 --> 00:05:07,600 Speaker 7: like that, and I'm like, oh, my sweet, sweet child, Yeah, 100 00:05:07,720 --> 00:05:10,880 Speaker 7: this is These are like cherry picked videos that they 101 00:05:10,960 --> 00:05:14,039 Speaker 7: play over and over again to sort of create that narrative. 102 00:05:13,800 --> 00:05:15,799 Speaker 1: Like crime is actually going on, Like whoa really? 103 00:05:16,720 --> 00:05:16,840 Speaker 6: Oh? 104 00:05:16,880 --> 00:05:17,000 Speaker 4: You know. 105 00:05:17,080 --> 00:05:19,760 Speaker 6: One of the things, the thing that I just think 106 00:05:19,800 --> 00:05:24,599 Speaker 6: about a lot, is the curation selectively of anecdote. You know, 107 00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:28,600 Speaker 6: you know, you could you could take a video montage 108 00:05:28,640 --> 00:05:31,279 Speaker 6: of every missed shot that Michael Jordan took in his career, 109 00:05:31,680 --> 00:05:33,960 Speaker 6: put them all together, and you make them look like 110 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:34,640 Speaker 6: a bad shooter. 111 00:05:36,560 --> 00:05:38,679 Speaker 2: He's the worst player in the history of the NBA. 112 00:05:38,800 --> 00:05:40,159 Speaker 2: You can't make a friend shot. 113 00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:43,800 Speaker 6: That's essentially what the mainstream media does with crime. So 114 00:05:44,040 --> 00:05:47,440 Speaker 6: the most effective propaganda, this is such an important lesson 115 00:05:47,440 --> 00:05:50,159 Speaker 6: that I learned in my years of studying this. The 116 00:05:50,200 --> 00:05:54,080 Speaker 6: most effective propaganda is actually based on true anecdotes. Because 117 00:05:54,200 --> 00:05:57,799 Speaker 6: if you do something that's that's blatantly blatantly false, unless 118 00:05:57,800 --> 00:06:00,559 Speaker 6: it's something that people can't really figure out it is false, 119 00:06:00,920 --> 00:06:04,120 Speaker 6: you actually lose credibility. But if you use a bunch 120 00:06:04,160 --> 00:06:07,919 Speaker 6: of true anecdotes to suggest kind of false interpretations or 121 00:06:08,600 --> 00:06:11,760 Speaker 6: then you actually have much more sophisticated propaganda. It's a 122 00:06:11,800 --> 00:06:14,680 Speaker 6: lot harder to tell the difference. And so what we've 123 00:06:14,720 --> 00:06:18,360 Speaker 6: seen the last few years as the example like you gave, 124 00:06:18,400 --> 00:06:21,400 Speaker 6: you know, there was one video that went viral of 125 00:06:21,480 --> 00:06:26,280 Speaker 6: shoplifting from a Walgreens in San Francisco that itself spawned 126 00:06:26,320 --> 00:06:29,480 Speaker 6: three hundred and nine articles around the country, that one 127 00:06:29,720 --> 00:06:33,400 Speaker 6: little video. And at the same time, in that one 128 00:06:33,440 --> 00:06:36,080 Speaker 6: month period that these hundreds of articles are written about it, 129 00:06:36,120 --> 00:06:39,359 Speaker 6: and nightly newscasts all over the country, by the thousands, 130 00:06:39,640 --> 00:06:42,200 Speaker 6: there is virtually no stories about wage staff or tax 131 00:06:42,240 --> 00:06:45,560 Speaker 6: evasion things that are happening way way more and that 132 00:06:45,680 --> 00:06:49,400 Speaker 6: cost orders of magnitude more money for people. And that's 133 00:06:49,480 --> 00:06:52,880 Speaker 6: the selective creation an anecdote that gets us afraid of 134 00:06:52,880 --> 00:06:54,040 Speaker 6: of all of the wrong things. 135 00:06:54,400 --> 00:06:57,200 Speaker 2: And if in case people are like yeah, but like 136 00:06:57,279 --> 00:07:02,359 Speaker 2: it's better like storytelling, or it's like more salient to 137 00:07:02,480 --> 00:07:07,000 Speaker 2: like see the violent thing happening. The wage theft is 138 00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:11,960 Speaker 2: stealing from you, right like those people are stealing from Walgreens, 139 00:07:12,120 --> 00:07:15,440 Speaker 2: a massive corporation. They're doing it like on a one 140 00:07:15,480 --> 00:07:18,480 Speaker 2: off basis, and it's being strapolated into like a massive 141 00:07:18,520 --> 00:07:22,880 Speaker 2: trend they're stealing from a corporation, and the wage theft 142 00:07:22,920 --> 00:07:26,240 Speaker 2: is happening to you and it's not getting reported on right, 143 00:07:26,240 --> 00:07:30,080 Speaker 2: and the Walgreens story is being you know that we've 144 00:07:30,080 --> 00:07:32,920 Speaker 2: got to protect Walgreens. And that is why I gave 145 00:07:32,960 --> 00:07:35,480 Speaker 2: them an a minus instead of a straight A, you know, 146 00:07:35,680 --> 00:07:41,040 Speaker 2: because they they do they have some lapses. Sure, yeah, 147 00:07:41,040 --> 00:07:43,080 Speaker 2: I just want to We're going to get into that 148 00:07:43,160 --> 00:07:45,840 Speaker 2: because I think you do a great job of like 149 00:07:45,960 --> 00:07:49,920 Speaker 2: kind of explaining how some of these things that if 150 00:07:49,920 --> 00:07:56,080 Speaker 2: you ask the average American if these institutions are right 151 00:07:56,480 --> 00:07:59,840 Speaker 2: or left, they are going to say left, like the mainstream, 152 00:08:00,800 --> 00:08:04,600 Speaker 2: like Ivy League, universities, the Democratic Party. You do a 153 00:08:04,640 --> 00:08:08,840 Speaker 2: great job of explaining like how they are some of 154 00:08:08,880 --> 00:08:12,720 Speaker 2: the main ways that this kind of catastrophic system that 155 00:08:12,760 --> 00:08:17,000 Speaker 2: we're all living inside of perpetuates itself. But you actually 156 00:08:17,160 --> 00:08:21,200 Speaker 2: close your book with some amazing talking points that I 157 00:08:21,280 --> 00:08:24,640 Speaker 2: just want to open with because I do think to 158 00:08:24,720 --> 00:08:27,200 Speaker 2: your point, they put people in the right mind frame 159 00:08:27,280 --> 00:08:31,000 Speaker 2: to have this conversation, if that's all right. So you 160 00:08:31,080 --> 00:08:37,120 Speaker 2: have one about how police spend and this specifically relates 161 00:08:37,120 --> 00:08:39,559 Speaker 2: to what has happened in the past four or five 162 00:08:39,640 --> 00:08:43,400 Speaker 2: years since the conversation about defunding the police and all 163 00:08:43,400 --> 00:08:45,839 Speaker 2: these stories that have come out, like they're the only 164 00:08:45,880 --> 00:08:47,720 Speaker 2: thing that we have and they're the only thing keeping 165 00:08:47,760 --> 00:08:50,920 Speaker 2: you safe. You point out that police spend about four 166 00:08:50,960 --> 00:08:54,360 Speaker 2: percent of their time on what they categorize as violent crime. 167 00:08:54,880 --> 00:08:57,840 Speaker 2: Such crimes account for only five percent of the rests 168 00:08:57,880 --> 00:09:01,760 Speaker 2: that police make. For many years, until recent legalization, in 169 00:09:01,800 --> 00:09:05,240 Speaker 2: dozens of states, the police made more arrests for marijuana 170 00:09:05,280 --> 00:09:11,080 Speaker 2: possession than for all violent crime combined with marijuana legal 171 00:09:11,120 --> 00:09:14,880 Speaker 2: and almost half the states marijuana possession arrests are still 172 00:09:15,280 --> 00:09:19,679 Speaker 2: about half of all arrests for all violent crime combined. 173 00:09:20,520 --> 00:09:25,800 Speaker 2: So just that idea, I think because of all the movies, 174 00:09:26,200 --> 00:09:30,040 Speaker 2: all the TV shows that we've been fed about police 175 00:09:30,559 --> 00:09:34,439 Speaker 2: for like in my entire lifetime, Like that's the main genre, 176 00:09:35,080 --> 00:09:38,880 Speaker 2: right is just like cops solving violent crime is like 177 00:09:39,040 --> 00:09:43,600 Speaker 2: a top genre of movies. It's just it's not there. 178 00:09:44,200 --> 00:09:47,719 Speaker 2: It's not there. It's just not supported by fact at all. 179 00:09:48,320 --> 00:09:51,120 Speaker 6: It never has been. Yeah, there has never been a 180 00:09:51,200 --> 00:09:57,000 Speaker 6: time in US history when the significant bulk of police 181 00:09:57,040 --> 00:09:59,760 Speaker 6: activity has been geared at violent crime. You take a 182 00:09:59,760 --> 00:10:03,720 Speaker 6: look through the eras you know, the origin of the 183 00:10:03,720 --> 00:10:08,240 Speaker 6: modern police forces had to do with capturing enslaved people 184 00:10:08,280 --> 00:10:13,760 Speaker 6: who had run away and crushing union organizing in the 185 00:10:13,800 --> 00:10:16,160 Speaker 6: rest of the country. And that's how the modern police 186 00:10:16,160 --> 00:10:19,960 Speaker 6: force developed. And at that point they weren't even they 187 00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:23,760 Speaker 6: didn't feel a propaganda need to make themselves out as 188 00:10:23,880 --> 00:10:26,480 Speaker 6: agents of public safety. They were quite open about what 189 00:10:26,520 --> 00:10:30,120 Speaker 6: they were doing. And as the twentieth century evolved and 190 00:10:30,559 --> 00:10:35,360 Speaker 6: our sort of collective democratic values started to be articulated differently, 191 00:10:35,600 --> 00:10:37,960 Speaker 6: police developed more and more and more of a propaganda 192 00:10:38,080 --> 00:10:42,240 Speaker 6: need to justify their existence not as preserving distributions of 193 00:10:42,240 --> 00:10:45,680 Speaker 6: wealth and power and racial and economic hierarchy, but as 194 00:10:45,840 --> 00:10:49,320 Speaker 6: quote unquote public safety. And so then you see a 195 00:10:49,679 --> 00:10:54,240 Speaker 6: massive effort in the modern era, through huge investments from 196 00:10:54,280 --> 00:10:58,960 Speaker 6: the CIA, from the DoD, from the DEA, from local 197 00:10:59,000 --> 00:11:02,240 Speaker 6: and prosecutor of to the multi billion dollar police pr 198 00:11:02,280 --> 00:11:07,120 Speaker 6: industry today to shift the way we think through through video, 199 00:11:07,320 --> 00:11:10,400 Speaker 6: through TV, through movies, and then, as I argue in 200 00:11:10,440 --> 00:11:13,760 Speaker 6: the book, through a massive and mostly secret and kind 201 00:11:13,800 --> 00:11:18,719 Speaker 6: of unprecedented network of relationships with the liberal media. And 202 00:11:18,880 --> 00:11:21,200 Speaker 6: this is something in this book. As you mentioned, this 203 00:11:21,280 --> 00:11:24,200 Speaker 6: book is really about the role of liberal institutions and 204 00:11:24,240 --> 00:11:27,480 Speaker 6: the way that police and prosecutors and prisons and the 205 00:11:27,559 --> 00:11:30,720 Speaker 6: multi billion dollar industries that profit off of them have 206 00:11:30,960 --> 00:11:33,959 Speaker 6: co opted. Each of these institutions that is thought of 207 00:11:34,080 --> 00:11:37,480 Speaker 6: as liberal, from the kinds of research that are done 208 00:11:37,520 --> 00:11:40,880 Speaker 6: to the kinds of stories you see on your local news, 209 00:11:41,440 --> 00:11:43,880 Speaker 6: And none of it is about helping us understand the 210 00:11:43,920 --> 00:11:47,280 Speaker 6: things that are the greatest threats to our safety. And 211 00:11:48,000 --> 00:11:52,320 Speaker 6: instead it's about creating and sort of a narrative that 212 00:11:52,880 --> 00:11:55,600 Speaker 6: the things that we should fear are the things that 213 00:11:56,040 --> 00:11:59,960 Speaker 6: poor people, immigrants, people of color, strangers due to us, 214 00:12:00,520 --> 00:12:03,840 Speaker 6: and and those are actually not the greatest sources of 215 00:12:04,000 --> 00:12:05,880 Speaker 6: risk that all of us are exposed to on a 216 00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:08,480 Speaker 6: daily basis. For example, just to take one example of 217 00:12:08,480 --> 00:12:12,920 Speaker 6: something that's almost completely ignored by the police, sexual assault 218 00:12:13,240 --> 00:12:18,600 Speaker 6: or child sexual assault. Almost no police time, relatively speaking, 219 00:12:18,720 --> 00:12:21,880 Speaker 6: is devoted to this. Right, they don't have undercover squads 220 00:12:21,880 --> 00:12:24,960 Speaker 6: of officers going to frat houses and other places of 221 00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:28,640 Speaker 6: rampant sexual assault. That's what they do for drugs in 222 00:12:28,640 --> 00:12:31,440 Speaker 6: poor neighborhoods. You also don't have undercover cops going to 223 00:12:31,520 --> 00:12:32,920 Speaker 6: frat houses for drugs, right. 224 00:12:32,840 --> 00:12:36,160 Speaker 2: Yeah, fuse probably doing a lot of drugs, But. 225 00:12:37,520 --> 00:12:42,400 Speaker 1: Do the laziest undercover works that copy uniform like you 226 00:12:42,400 --> 00:12:43,240 Speaker 1: guys got some like. 227 00:12:43,240 --> 00:12:47,559 Speaker 2: Blow cane or something like yeah last week. 228 00:12:48,200 --> 00:12:51,640 Speaker 6: For years, in many major US police departments they had 229 00:12:51,800 --> 00:12:55,360 Speaker 6: hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits, and instead the 230 00:12:55,400 --> 00:12:58,760 Speaker 6: police were spending tens of billions of dollars on drug enforcement. 231 00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:03,319 Speaker 6: This had nothing to do with keeping us safe or 232 00:13:03,760 --> 00:13:08,319 Speaker 6: making intentional, reasonable decisions about which crimes should be prioritize 233 00:13:08,320 --> 00:13:11,160 Speaker 6: and which crimes should not be. It had everything to 234 00:13:11,200 --> 00:13:15,080 Speaker 6: do with using the police force to control certain populations 235 00:13:15,600 --> 00:13:18,680 Speaker 6: and huge amounts of profit that could be made from 236 00:13:18,679 --> 00:13:21,280 Speaker 6: policing of drug cases, which I explain a little bit 237 00:13:21,280 --> 00:13:23,040 Speaker 6: more in the book, but I think that's a really 238 00:13:23,080 --> 00:13:24,640 Speaker 6: important thing to understand. Yeah. 239 00:13:24,679 --> 00:13:28,360 Speaker 2: Yeah, you have the quote from Nixon's assistant to Domestic 240 00:13:28,400 --> 00:13:31,480 Speaker 2: Affairs saying like literally just being like, yeah, this was 241 00:13:31,520 --> 00:13:33,840 Speaker 2: our plan. Make it illegal to be either against the 242 00:13:33,840 --> 00:13:36,200 Speaker 2: war or black or we can't make it illegal to 243 00:13:36,200 --> 00:13:38,280 Speaker 2: be against the war black. But by getting the public 244 00:13:38,280 --> 00:13:42,280 Speaker 2: to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin 245 00:13:42,640 --> 00:13:46,280 Speaker 2: and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities, 246 00:13:46,280 --> 00:13:48,520 Speaker 2: like just straight up, we could arrest their leaders raid 247 00:13:48,559 --> 00:13:51,160 Speaker 2: their homes, break up their meetings. And this is like 248 00:13:51,240 --> 00:13:53,800 Speaker 2: when they came up with the war on drugs in 249 00:13:54,040 --> 00:13:58,199 Speaker 2: its like nineteen eighties, nineties and kind of modern incarnation, 250 00:13:58,559 --> 00:14:01,760 Speaker 2: and they just they straight had the plan and executed it. 251 00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:04,760 Speaker 6: And I want you to understand, I mean, just take 252 00:14:04,840 --> 00:14:07,760 Speaker 6: Chicago for example, at the height of the civil rights movement. 253 00:14:08,520 --> 00:14:10,720 Speaker 6: I'm not even going to count the federal officers, so 254 00:14:10,840 --> 00:14:14,320 Speaker 6: this let's leave out the Feds. The Chicago police had 255 00:14:14,480 --> 00:14:18,560 Speaker 6: five hundred officers devoted to infiltrating and crushing the civil 256 00:14:18,640 --> 00:14:23,000 Speaker 6: rights movement. Five hundred full time cops. Right now, the 257 00:14:23,040 --> 00:14:25,640 Speaker 6: history of our current era has not been written. We 258 00:14:26,240 --> 00:14:29,880 Speaker 6: really have very limited window into what the current police 259 00:14:30,160 --> 00:14:34,320 Speaker 6: are doing with their intelligence divisions, right and the variety 260 00:14:34,360 --> 00:14:37,120 Speaker 6: of informans they're using. But take a look, for example, 261 00:14:37,160 --> 00:14:42,200 Speaker 6: at Chicago itself. After the police murder of Lakwan MacDonald, 262 00:14:42,480 --> 00:14:45,080 Speaker 6: which the police had a video of and hid for 263 00:14:45,120 --> 00:14:48,640 Speaker 6: a long time to get rama manual back elected. When 264 00:14:49,560 --> 00:14:53,080 Speaker 6: McDonald was killed by the Chicago police, they had four 265 00:14:53,480 --> 00:14:57,520 Speaker 6: full time dedicated public relations officials at CPD. Wow, in 266 00:14:58,040 --> 00:15:00,680 Speaker 6: the couple of years after it started becoming a scandal, 267 00:15:00,920 --> 00:15:02,920 Speaker 6: they jumped to thirty and then forty and now they've 268 00:15:02,960 --> 00:15:06,000 Speaker 6: over fifty full time pr people the Chicago Police Department. 269 00:15:06,360 --> 00:15:09,040 Speaker 6: This is this is affecting the information that you and 270 00:15:09,080 --> 00:15:10,320 Speaker 6: I see on the news. 271 00:15:10,400 --> 00:15:14,480 Speaker 2: Right, full full court press all the time. By the way, 272 00:15:14,560 --> 00:15:17,000 Speaker 2: Chicago was it was it a Chicago cop who grabbed 273 00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:19,160 Speaker 2: the back of your neck and told you he had 274 00:15:19,200 --> 00:15:19,800 Speaker 2: your DNA? 275 00:15:20,240 --> 00:15:20,360 Speaker 8: Was it? 276 00:15:20,600 --> 00:15:21,520 Speaker 7: Or no? 277 00:15:21,640 --> 00:15:23,800 Speaker 2: It wasn't any blew my fucking mind. 278 00:15:24,040 --> 00:15:25,160 Speaker 6: Yeah that was in Texas. 279 00:15:25,560 --> 00:15:32,240 Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, that was fucking mind blowing. Yeah, grabbed. It 280 00:15:32,280 --> 00:15:34,120 Speaker 2: was basically like, I now have your DNA, I know, 281 00:15:34,200 --> 00:15:36,520 Speaker 2: and here's the make a model of your car, and 282 00:15:36,720 --> 00:15:40,320 Speaker 2: just the most like sinister threatening shit for what I 283 00:15:40,360 --> 00:15:43,080 Speaker 2: have to assume you were holding up a room full 284 00:15:43,120 --> 00:15:44,920 Speaker 2: of people with a handgun. 285 00:15:45,760 --> 00:15:49,200 Speaker 6: Close I was. I was suing the jurisdictions around the 286 00:15:49,240 --> 00:15:52,600 Speaker 6: country for legally jailing people. So that's just threatening to them. 287 00:15:52,840 --> 00:15:54,600 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. 288 00:15:54,640 --> 00:15:56,560 Speaker 6: But that's the thing you have to understand too, is 289 00:15:56,560 --> 00:16:00,880 Speaker 6: is a lot of people don't talk about this, but many, many, 290 00:16:00,960 --> 00:16:04,560 Speaker 6: many people around the country, progressive local and state officials. 291 00:16:04,600 --> 00:16:11,680 Speaker 6: I've had judges, prosecutors, mayors, state assembly officials all come 292 00:16:11,720 --> 00:16:14,600 Speaker 6: to me over the years and share vivid and well 293 00:16:14,600 --> 00:16:17,920 Speaker 6: documented stories of police threatening them and their families if 294 00:16:17,920 --> 00:16:22,680 Speaker 6: they took anti police stances. The organized right wing police 295 00:16:23,040 --> 00:16:29,160 Speaker 6: bureaucracy is extremely unaccountable and goes to enormous lengths to 296 00:16:29,200 --> 00:16:32,240 Speaker 6: threaten anybody like even me, just a visiting civil rights lawyer. 297 00:16:32,320 --> 00:16:34,800 Speaker 6: You know, the idea that they would follow me and 298 00:16:34,920 --> 00:16:38,040 Speaker 6: document the make and model of my car and take 299 00:16:38,040 --> 00:16:40,000 Speaker 6: the time to you know, threaten me in that way. 300 00:16:40,040 --> 00:16:43,280 Speaker 6: And I was, you know, I was also in another situation. 301 00:16:43,360 --> 00:16:45,160 Speaker 6: I was leading a spring break trip. I was actually 302 00:16:45,240 --> 00:16:48,800 Speaker 6: traveling with a New York Times reporter and a law 303 00:16:48,840 --> 00:16:51,920 Speaker 6: student intern from Harvard, and I was detained by a 304 00:16:51,920 --> 00:16:54,160 Speaker 6: group of armed sheriffs. You know, they've had their hands 305 00:16:54,200 --> 00:16:56,680 Speaker 6: on their guns, on their hips, and they locked me 306 00:16:56,720 --> 00:16:59,720 Speaker 6: in a room and they started demanding that I answer 307 00:17:00,200 --> 00:17:02,480 Speaker 6: questions to them. But what I was, and all I 308 00:17:02,520 --> 00:17:05,760 Speaker 6: was doing at that point, was was asking for publicly 309 00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:09,000 Speaker 6: available records at a courthouse. So this is the kind 310 00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:12,000 Speaker 6: of thing that happens a million times a year. You 311 00:17:12,080 --> 00:17:16,080 Speaker 6: never hear about it, but right deeply shapes how the 312 00:17:16,119 --> 00:17:19,600 Speaker 6: public officials you see taking pro police stands. A lot 313 00:17:19,600 --> 00:17:22,440 Speaker 6: of that is actually driven by fear, right, Yeah. 314 00:17:22,240 --> 00:17:24,119 Speaker 1: I mean I felt like that in La right where 315 00:17:24,280 --> 00:17:26,280 Speaker 1: in the summer of twenty twenty, like there was a 316 00:17:26,280 --> 00:17:28,199 Speaker 1: lot of pressure on the city council to be like, 317 00:17:28,320 --> 00:17:30,440 Speaker 1: are you going to address these budgets, and like these 318 00:17:30,520 --> 00:17:34,199 Speaker 1: motherfuckers pulled up like they were going to get like 319 00:17:34,240 --> 00:17:38,080 Speaker 1: all these cops pulled up to sort of protest that 320 00:17:38,119 --> 00:17:40,679 Speaker 1: they thought it would be detrimental for budgets to be 321 00:17:40,720 --> 00:17:43,359 Speaker 1: touched in any way. But it was so menacing that 322 00:17:43,440 --> 00:17:45,480 Speaker 1: you knew that it was. It wasn't merely to be like, 323 00:17:45,640 --> 00:17:47,920 Speaker 1: we're concerned about our wages. They're like, you know, fuck 324 00:17:47,960 --> 00:17:50,000 Speaker 1: around with us and see what you know, you can 325 00:17:50,200 --> 00:17:52,359 Speaker 1: learn how sort of off the rails we can get. 326 00:17:52,560 --> 00:17:55,280 Speaker 1: And I remember just sort of like that image really 327 00:17:55,320 --> 00:17:58,720 Speaker 1: sort of I think always inherently you have a belief 328 00:17:58,720 --> 00:18:00,560 Speaker 1: that like these who are not here to protect us 329 00:18:00,600 --> 00:18:02,560 Speaker 1: at all, But then you could really just see how 330 00:18:02,720 --> 00:18:06,400 Speaker 1: organized they were in protecting this right to just execute 331 00:18:06,480 --> 00:18:08,920 Speaker 1: violence on people for whatever reason and. 332 00:18:08,840 --> 00:18:09,639 Speaker 2: Get paid for it. 333 00:18:10,040 --> 00:18:14,159 Speaker 1: That was very, very very scary, but also part of 334 00:18:14,160 --> 00:18:16,600 Speaker 1: like I think what is important about this book is 335 00:18:16,600 --> 00:18:18,399 Speaker 1: for us to have a bit of an evolution on 336 00:18:18,480 --> 00:18:20,760 Speaker 1: how we're even looking at it because to Jack's point, 337 00:18:20,800 --> 00:18:23,359 Speaker 1: we're all raised to be like, yeah, they're the good guys, 338 00:18:23,400 --> 00:18:25,600 Speaker 1: and they like to break dance sometimes at the local 339 00:18:25,640 --> 00:18:28,920 Speaker 1: basketball court, and they're fun people. But then they also 340 00:18:29,000 --> 00:18:31,280 Speaker 1: keep us safe and these other things, while meanwhile we 341 00:18:31,320 --> 00:18:33,640 Speaker 1: are hearing directly from their mouths, like in the case 342 00:18:33,640 --> 00:18:36,240 Speaker 1: of like people in Nixon's cabinet, we're like, no, no, no, 343 00:18:36,280 --> 00:18:38,840 Speaker 1: like we need we need these people to sort of 344 00:18:38,880 --> 00:18:41,800 Speaker 1: create the air that people that are sort of opposed 345 00:18:41,800 --> 00:18:45,720 Speaker 1: to what we're doing as a government or municipality that 346 00:18:45,960 --> 00:18:48,359 Speaker 1: this is illegal, and we use the activity of the 347 00:18:48,359 --> 00:18:50,399 Speaker 1: police to sort of connect the dots for people as 348 00:18:50,400 --> 00:18:53,280 Speaker 1: a shorthand to be like, yes, hippie's bad, Yes, yes, 349 00:18:53,359 --> 00:18:54,320 Speaker 1: this makes sense now. 350 00:18:54,960 --> 00:18:56,560 Speaker 6: And another thing you have that I talk about in 351 00:18:56,600 --> 00:18:58,440 Speaker 6: the book that you have to understand is that what 352 00:18:58,840 --> 00:19:02,800 Speaker 6: we're told now is called, in our current sort of 353 00:19:03,160 --> 00:19:09,080 Speaker 6: propaganda discourse, community policing. And you know this this idea 354 00:19:09,080 --> 00:19:11,919 Speaker 6: that you were just mentioning a cops breakdancing, and you 355 00:19:11,920 --> 00:19:14,439 Speaker 6: know they were during the twenty twenty uprisings, there were 356 00:19:14,440 --> 00:19:18,040 Speaker 6: some cops that were doing the macarena with protesters, and 357 00:19:18,920 --> 00:19:22,040 Speaker 6: every local news station runs a story every now and 358 00:19:22,080 --> 00:19:24,760 Speaker 6: then about like a midnight basketball league that the cops 359 00:19:24,760 --> 00:19:28,880 Speaker 6: are running, or like a Thanksgiving turkey giveaway for four families. 360 00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:30,680 Speaker 6: But you have to understand about all that is it's 361 00:19:30,720 --> 00:19:38,479 Speaker 6: all extremely intentional and it derives from counterinsurgency theory that 362 00:19:38,560 --> 00:19:41,359 Speaker 6: was developed by the French military in Vietnam and the 363 00:19:41,359 --> 00:19:45,119 Speaker 6: British military in the Middle East, and it was used 364 00:19:45,440 --> 00:19:48,600 Speaker 6: to great effect by the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan. 365 00:19:49,160 --> 00:19:55,280 Speaker 6: And this there's huge police training industry and the industry 366 00:19:55,320 --> 00:19:59,560 Speaker 6: of police consultants that got to work on converting what 367 00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:01,959 Speaker 6: they used to call counterinsurgency. And they knew they need 368 00:20:02,000 --> 00:20:06,000 Speaker 6: they couldn't call it counterinsurgency in the US. So actually 369 00:20:06,280 --> 00:20:08,600 Speaker 6: Harvard made a mistake a few years ago and they 370 00:20:08,600 --> 00:20:12,240 Speaker 6: had an ex military person teaching a class on counterinsurgency. 371 00:20:12,760 --> 00:20:14,359 Speaker 6: A bunch of Harvard students were going to go into 372 00:20:14,400 --> 00:20:17,640 Speaker 6: a black neighborhood in Massachusetts and help the police do counterinsurgency, 373 00:20:18,040 --> 00:20:20,600 Speaker 6: and they just forgot like that you're supposed to call 374 00:20:20,640 --> 00:20:25,640 Speaker 6: it community policing in the US the goal of and 375 00:20:25,680 --> 00:20:27,239 Speaker 6: so the Harvard had to cancel the class. So they 376 00:20:27,240 --> 00:20:28,960 Speaker 6: have just called it something different. They could have gone 377 00:20:28,960 --> 00:20:31,679 Speaker 6: forward and even been celebrated for it, you know, But 378 00:20:32,040 --> 00:20:35,399 Speaker 6: a lot of liberals over the last twenty or thirty years, 379 00:20:35,720 --> 00:20:37,880 Speaker 6: and this is something that I try to delve into 380 00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:40,320 Speaker 6: great detail into the book with lots of sources and 381 00:20:40,560 --> 00:20:45,560 Speaker 6: recommendations for further reading for people. But liberals really to 382 00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:50,400 Speaker 6: advance this idea that we can repackage authoritarian and repressive 383 00:20:50,400 --> 00:20:53,080 Speaker 6: stuff that our military and other militaries were doing around 384 00:20:53,080 --> 00:20:55,880 Speaker 6: the world to native populations. We can try the same 385 00:20:55,920 --> 00:20:59,719 Speaker 6: strategies in the US but call them reform. And this 386 00:20:59,800 --> 00:21:02,359 Speaker 6: is a central feature of the way the news media 387 00:21:02,440 --> 00:21:05,280 Speaker 6: has covered policing over the last twenty or thirty years, 388 00:21:05,560 --> 00:21:08,200 Speaker 6: and it's been a central strategic focus of the police 389 00:21:08,600 --> 00:21:13,879 Speaker 6: to co opt certain marginalized leaders in different communities to 390 00:21:13,920 --> 00:21:17,760 Speaker 6: get them to support these policies which actually result in 391 00:21:17,800 --> 00:21:20,920 Speaker 6: more people being surveilled, more people being arrested, higher rates 392 00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:24,639 Speaker 6: of incarceration, more profits for the policing industry. They're not 393 00:21:24,680 --> 00:21:27,120 Speaker 6: a reform in any sense of the word, but they 394 00:21:27,119 --> 00:21:29,480 Speaker 6: have come to have and have a whole thing in 395 00:21:29,480 --> 00:21:31,880 Speaker 6: the book, and they've written a separate article which is 396 00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:34,200 Speaker 6: also going to be a book on police body cameras, 397 00:21:34,280 --> 00:21:38,000 Speaker 6: because LA plays a really prominent role in this. You know, 398 00:21:38,040 --> 00:21:41,320 Speaker 6: for years, police body cameras were this thing that the 399 00:21:41,359 --> 00:21:44,040 Speaker 6: policing industry wanted so badly, but they couldn't get the 400 00:21:44,080 --> 00:21:46,280 Speaker 6: money for it. They wanted it so badly that the 401 00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:51,800 Speaker 6: LAPD got people like Steven Spielberg to donate body camera 402 00:21:51,880 --> 00:21:53,040 Speaker 6: technology to the cops. 403 00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:56,439 Speaker 2: And I mean, who better. The guy works with cameras, 404 00:21:56,560 --> 00:22:03,320 Speaker 2: you know, James, he's an issue, yeah, but minority report. 405 00:22:03,359 --> 00:22:06,000 Speaker 2: Really he's bringing us into the future of police. 406 00:22:06,600 --> 00:22:09,880 Speaker 6: And but for years the police dreamed about this because 407 00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:13,399 Speaker 6: you know, companies like Amazon and Microsoft and and Taser, 408 00:22:13,440 --> 00:22:16,880 Speaker 6: which then rebranded as Axon after its tasers started killing people. 409 00:22:16,960 --> 00:22:20,400 Speaker 2: Much evil sounding Axon exactly fun. 410 00:22:21,119 --> 00:22:24,119 Speaker 6: These companies used to talk privately and even you know, 411 00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:27,639 Speaker 6: to shareholders and at policing conferences and stuff about how 412 00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:30,560 Speaker 6: much money there This is a multi billion dollar potential 413 00:22:30,560 --> 00:22:33,359 Speaker 6: industry if they could get the government contracts. But they 414 00:22:33,359 --> 00:22:36,480 Speaker 6: couldn't get a lot of these most big city local 415 00:22:36,560 --> 00:22:38,600 Speaker 6: governments in the US are run by liberals, they're run 416 00:22:38,600 --> 00:22:41,560 Speaker 6: by democrats, and they couldn't get the fun thing for this. 417 00:22:41,920 --> 00:22:44,840 Speaker 6: So actually what they did was they used Michael Brown's 418 00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:47,919 Speaker 6: killing in twenty fourteen, where there was no video of it, 419 00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:51,680 Speaker 6: and and they used that in Obama, you know, requested 420 00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:54,359 Speaker 6: several hundred million dollars for body cameras, and it became 421 00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:57,440 Speaker 6: a mantra of the Democratic Party all over the country. 422 00:22:57,760 --> 00:23:01,720 Speaker 6: And and uh, Meanwhile, the policing folks were beside themselves 423 00:23:01,760 --> 00:23:05,760 Speaker 6: with joy because they wanted to connect. They wanted billions 424 00:23:05,760 --> 00:23:07,760 Speaker 6: of dollars to give every cop in the US a 425 00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:11,520 Speaker 6: mobile surveillance camera. They could connect to artificial intelligence, facial recognition, 426 00:23:12,040 --> 00:23:14,960 Speaker 6: voice recognition, They could go to a protest and scan 427 00:23:15,080 --> 00:23:17,760 Speaker 6: the crowd with their chest camera and have everyone's identity. 428 00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:22,080 Speaker 6: They also wanted and they knew that this evidence was 429 00:23:22,119 --> 00:23:24,159 Speaker 6: only going to be used against very poor people. This 430 00:23:24,200 --> 00:23:25,879 Speaker 6: is how they were going to get video evidence that 431 00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:29,919 Speaker 6: the cops controlled to arrest unhoused people, you know, to 432 00:23:29,960 --> 00:23:31,800 Speaker 6: do drug busts and things like that. They knew it 433 00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:34,040 Speaker 6: was never going to be used or at least very 434 00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:37,560 Speaker 6: very rarely ever used against police. And so we have 435 00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:40,840 Speaker 6: this situation now where there's reams of evidence. Even the 436 00:23:40,880 --> 00:23:44,639 Speaker 6: federal government admits that body cameras do not have any 437 00:23:44,680 --> 00:23:48,919 Speaker 6: positive effect on reducing police violence or making them more accountable, 438 00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:53,280 Speaker 6: more transparent, but they do dramatically increase the extent which 439 00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:55,879 Speaker 6: police can prosecute and get people to play guilty more 440 00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:58,719 Speaker 6: quickly because they have these videos that they that they control. 441 00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:01,439 Speaker 6: So anyway, that's a good example of something that in 442 00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:03,480 Speaker 6: the public imagination, and if you look at and I 443 00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:06,199 Speaker 6: read every single article that I could find, hundreds and 444 00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:08,480 Speaker 6: hundreds and hundreds of articles about body cameras in the media, 445 00:24:08,840 --> 00:24:14,000 Speaker 6: they were all portrayed as an initiative for accountability and transparency, 446 00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:17,479 Speaker 6: when in fact they were developed exactly the opposite. They 447 00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:20,160 Speaker 6: were built exactly to give police more power and less 448 00:24:20,160 --> 00:24:23,800 Speaker 6: accountability by giving police control over what is filmed from 449 00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:26,480 Speaker 6: what angle and when that film is edited and how 450 00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:28,800 Speaker 6: it's edited and when they can release it in public. 451 00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:31,800 Speaker 1: Right, I'm curious, just like along with that to create 452 00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:35,440 Speaker 1: that narrative, like, were they also doing like performative resistance 453 00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:38,480 Speaker 1: to make it feel like it was like a measure 454 00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:39,320 Speaker 1: of accountability. 455 00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:42,160 Speaker 2: Were they giving us body cameras? 456 00:24:42,240 --> 00:24:43,640 Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I mean, like just to kind 457 00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:45,240 Speaker 1: of help that, because I feel like the flow of 458 00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:48,520 Speaker 1: an article like that is like liberal politicians like we 459 00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:50,040 Speaker 1: need the need for it and then there'd be like 460 00:24:50,080 --> 00:24:52,040 Speaker 1: the police version where they're like, I don't think it's 461 00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:54,440 Speaker 1: quite necessary to sort of create that tension, or was 462 00:24:54,480 --> 00:24:56,000 Speaker 1: this just sort of like they were like, no. 463 00:24:55,760 --> 00:24:56,800 Speaker 2: No, go ahead, go ahead. 464 00:24:57,560 --> 00:24:57,720 Speaker 4: Yeah. 465 00:24:57,760 --> 00:24:59,960 Speaker 6: I think there are a couple of interesting and complicated 466 00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:04,600 Speaker 6: the internal dynamics going on with the policing bureaucracy. First 467 00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:07,879 Speaker 6: of all, yes, some of it was performative, and you 468 00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:10,080 Speaker 6: can I don't know if you've ever watched body cameras, 469 00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:12,400 Speaker 6: but I've seen, you know, hundreds and hundreds of body 470 00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:14,280 Speaker 6: care of viadas, especially when as a public defender. But 471 00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:18,119 Speaker 6: the police are trained, so the cameras looking outward from 472 00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:20,600 Speaker 6: their chests, so the camera is actually not showing what 473 00:25:20,640 --> 00:25:22,960 Speaker 6: the police officer themselves is doing. And so if you 474 00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:24,800 Speaker 6: notice in a lot of these videos the cops are 475 00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:28,480 Speaker 6: just screaming, stop resisting, stop resisting, stop resisting, right, That's 476 00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:32,239 Speaker 6: something they're trained to do, so that they're taught that 477 00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:36,000 Speaker 6: it makes it harder to convict them of anything or 478 00:25:36,040 --> 00:25:39,080 Speaker 6: hold them liable civilly because they're they're creating what they 479 00:25:39,240 --> 00:25:44,199 Speaker 6: call a contemporaneous record of resistance, which then justifies their 480 00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:47,119 Speaker 6: use of force, even though you can't actually see like 481 00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:51,120 Speaker 6: what's actually going on anyway. But the internal dynamics were 482 00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:54,639 Speaker 6: that some of the police frontline officers, who have the 483 00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:59,240 Speaker 6: least power in the policing bureaucracy, were worried about you 484 00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:01,919 Speaker 6: wearing cameras. They worried that it was going to enable 485 00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:05,960 Speaker 6: their bosses to spy on them and reduce their their 486 00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:08,639 Speaker 6: ability to engage in some of the activity day that 487 00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:11,760 Speaker 6: might be illegal, et cetera that they tend to want 488 00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:14,439 Speaker 6: to engage in. They weren't sure like what policies and 489 00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:17,479 Speaker 6: protocols they were going to be for when they were 490 00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:20,080 Speaker 6: being recorded, and who was going to control the video 491 00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:24,119 Speaker 6: and so. But at the same time, police leaders and 492 00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:26,679 Speaker 6: leaders in the surveillance industry really wanted them because they 493 00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:29,960 Speaker 6: thought this would enable them to even more completely control 494 00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:33,680 Speaker 6: the behavior of beat cops. And so initially there was 495 00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:37,720 Speaker 6: a much stronger appetite for body cameras among police leadership 496 00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:39,600 Speaker 6: and the companies that make them and that make the 497 00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:42,880 Speaker 6: software then there was among beat cops. But then once 498 00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:45,240 Speaker 6: it became clear that these that they had the right 499 00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:47,960 Speaker 6: protocols in place that was going to make sure that 500 00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:50,320 Speaker 6: the cops were you know, unless the cops really made 501 00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:52,560 Speaker 6: a mistake. They were never going to be recorded doing 502 00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:55,040 Speaker 6: something that they you know, that they didn't want to 503 00:26:55,040 --> 00:26:57,560 Speaker 6: be recorded doing. And also they could control and edit 504 00:26:57,560 --> 00:27:00,159 Speaker 6: the video. And also it was by and large going 505 00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:02,639 Speaker 6: to make it much much more easier to prosecute the 506 00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:06,040 Speaker 6: poor people, because keep in mind, like the body cameras 507 00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:09,680 Speaker 6: have no say over like which neighborhoods are we going into, 508 00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:12,080 Speaker 6: and which neighborhoods are we not? Where are we looking 509 00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:13,800 Speaker 6: for drugs? And where are we not looking for drugs? 510 00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:18,239 Speaker 6: These bigger questions that are really the core of like 511 00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:21,359 Speaker 6: the discriminatory nature of policing in our society. Body cameras 512 00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:25,600 Speaker 6: just ignore all that, Right, So cops became convinced that 513 00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:27,760 Speaker 6: actually body cameras were not going to be a threat 514 00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:31,800 Speaker 6: to business as usual, And there's now much more uniform 515 00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:36,080 Speaker 6: support among even the lowest level line cops for body 516 00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:37,400 Speaker 6: cameras than there was initially. 517 00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:39,679 Speaker 2: All right, just real quick, I also wanted to do 518 00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:42,800 Speaker 2: the talking point that just I think at the broadest 519 00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:46,520 Speaker 2: level is helpful for people to learn that this is 520 00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:49,800 Speaker 2: not normal. Is that the US confines people to jail 521 00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:53,240 Speaker 2: cells at six times its own historical average five to 522 00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:56,560 Speaker 2: ten times as much as other comparable countries and imprisons 523 00:27:56,640 --> 00:27:59,159 Speaker 2: black people at six times the rate of South Africa 524 00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:02,159 Speaker 2: during apart time. So many people have probably heard that. 525 00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:05,719 Speaker 2: I think it's worth just stating up top, for anybody 526 00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:10,720 Speaker 2: who are abnormal and unfucked up, it is very abnormal. 527 00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:13,679 Speaker 6: And that's why you use so much propaganda, right, right, 528 00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:17,639 Speaker 6: I mean exactly, Like, You've got a bureaucracy that is 529 00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:20,720 Speaker 6: larger than any bureaucracy in the modern history of the world. 530 00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:23,600 Speaker 6: Like no country, let alone any country that thinks of 531 00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:26,640 Speaker 6: itself as democracy, has ever tried to spend this much 532 00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:30,160 Speaker 6: money jailing its own people. And in the face of that, 533 00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:34,359 Speaker 6: you've got enormous bodies of scientific evidence that show that 534 00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:37,400 Speaker 6: imprisoning people actually does not make us safer, it actually 535 00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:41,080 Speaker 6: makes us less safe. And you've got even more robust 536 00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:44,560 Speaker 6: bodies of empirical research that show the things that make 537 00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:48,360 Speaker 6: us safer and reduced crime are things like housing, healthcare, 538 00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:52,320 Speaker 6: you know, early childhood education. Like it's obvious, right, And 539 00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:55,720 Speaker 6: so you need a giant propaganda apparatus to get people 540 00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:59,800 Speaker 6: so afraid of strangers and poor people and immigrants that 541 00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:03,760 Speaker 6: they inspired of what all the evidence shows. They constantly 542 00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:06,480 Speaker 6: think that they're in fear and danger that the only 543 00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:09,000 Speaker 6: solution for them is increasing the amount of money that 544 00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:10,360 Speaker 6: our society spends on police. 545 00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:13,680 Speaker 2: Right, let's take a quick break and then we'll come 546 00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:16,520 Speaker 2: back and we'll focus on some of these allegedly liberal 547 00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:18,960 Speaker 2: institutions that are doing a lot of the a lot 548 00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:20,440 Speaker 2: of the legwork and what we're talking about. 549 00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:32,320 Speaker 4: We'll be right back, and we're back. 550 00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:36,080 Speaker 2: We're back. And there's this one moment, as Trump was 551 00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:39,000 Speaker 2: like taking office and dropping a bunch of like fascist 552 00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:44,160 Speaker 2: executive orders and just attacking trans people, the Wall Street 553 00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:47,680 Speaker 2: Journal had another op ed on the front page of 554 00:29:47,720 --> 00:29:50,520 Speaker 2: their paper that was all about how Colleges two woke, 555 00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:55,280 Speaker 2: and I was just I was kind of amazed at that, 556 00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:58,840 Speaker 2: but it it really just was kind of an illustration 557 00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:04,160 Speaker 2: of how relentless they have been and continue to be 558 00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:09,760 Speaker 2: in painting these institutions. We're going to talk about Harvard 559 00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:13,240 Speaker 2: and Columbia, The New York Times and like other mainstream 560 00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:18,000 Speaker 2: media outlets, the democratic part, like these institutions that I 561 00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:21,160 Speaker 2: guess benefit from being like, yeah, we are actually very 562 00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:27,360 Speaker 2: liberal and just basically they are there to perpetuate the 563 00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:32,360 Speaker 2: existing power structures, and you know, wealth distribution, But yeah, 564 00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:35,840 Speaker 2: I wanted to start with Harvard. There's Harvard gets mentioned 565 00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:40,560 Speaker 2: a few times in the book. Specifically, you talk about 566 00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:44,080 Speaker 2: the study where two academics who claim to be coming 567 00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:48,440 Speaker 2: from the left and to be like really bummed out 568 00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:52,800 Speaker 2: by the conclusion that they arrive at are like, guys, sorry, 569 00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:55,760 Speaker 2: we're just calling balls and strikes here. We're just re 570 00:30:56,080 --> 00:31:00,959 Speaker 2: doing the math. And unfortunately, the only way for us 571 00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:05,200 Speaker 2: to move forward as a progressive society is to like 572 00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:09,600 Speaker 2: double the number the already record high number of cops 573 00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:12,960 Speaker 2: that we have on the street. We just need to 574 00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:16,560 Speaker 2: like become even more of a police state. But just 575 00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:18,800 Speaker 2: more generally, you write in the book, I learned over 576 00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:21,440 Speaker 2: time the most important qualification for teaching students. Oh no, 577 00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:24,320 Speaker 2: this was actually a tweet of yours. You wrote, over 578 00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:27,160 Speaker 2: time the most important qualification for teaching students at elite 579 00:31:27,160 --> 00:31:30,400 Speaker 2: schools willingness to use your mind, position and power to 580 00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:34,200 Speaker 2: preserve distributions of wealth and misery. But you just talk 581 00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:37,200 Speaker 2: about like kind of what was this surprising to you 582 00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:40,840 Speaker 2: at a certain point that these institutions like Harvard and 583 00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:44,520 Speaker 2: Columbia were just so in the bag for the existing 584 00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:45,960 Speaker 2: kind of power structure. 585 00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:49,280 Speaker 6: I was pretty naive when I when I got to 586 00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:51,400 Speaker 6: you know, went to college at Yale, at the law 587 00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:55,080 Speaker 6: school at Harvard, and I was pretty naive when I 588 00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:56,000 Speaker 6: got to these places. 589 00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:56,200 Speaker 2: You know. 590 00:31:56,200 --> 00:32:00,479 Speaker 6: I was sort of thinking, Oh, these are institutions of learning, 591 00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:05,120 Speaker 6: and they're so prestigious, and like, people who come here 592 00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:07,760 Speaker 6: must be smarter, and they must be you know, really 593 00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:10,680 Speaker 6: rigorous thinkers. And that's really not what goes on at 594 00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:12,680 Speaker 6: these places at all. I don't want to speak a 595 00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:15,960 Speaker 6: too broad of brushstroke, because like you know, I've a 596 00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:19,080 Speaker 6: lot of incredible friends and relationships that I've made there. 597 00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:22,440 Speaker 6: There are a lot of scholars at these institutions, just 598 00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:27,280 Speaker 6: like at many other universities and colleges and non academic 599 00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:31,080 Speaker 6: institutions around the country. There are people doing amazing scholarship 600 00:32:31,080 --> 00:32:34,440 Speaker 6: and scholarship matters like research and matters. I'm not saying 601 00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:37,000 Speaker 6: that those things are not important. That's not the lesson 602 00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:41,200 Speaker 6: of the book. But one of the key functions of 603 00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:45,920 Speaker 6: a place like Harvard is to launder policies and ideas 604 00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:51,080 Speaker 6: that are designed to preserve existing distributions of wealth and 605 00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:55,160 Speaker 6: power in our society, launder them with a veneer of 606 00:32:55,320 --> 00:33:00,080 Speaker 6: academic backing and of rigorous thought and things like that. 607 00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:03,280 Speaker 6: You learn very quickly at a place like Harvard, what 608 00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:06,360 Speaker 6: does it take not only to succeed there as a student, 609 00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:08,800 Speaker 6: but what does it take to becomefessor? What does it 610 00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:12,400 Speaker 6: take to get tenure? And everybody who it's very political, 611 00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:16,600 Speaker 6: and everybody who's there understands that certain kinds of research 612 00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:20,560 Speaker 6: that benefits certain kinds of people in our society and 613 00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:23,360 Speaker 6: certain institutions is going to be a ticket to success, 614 00:33:23,360 --> 00:33:26,360 Speaker 6: and other kinds of research and views are not. And 615 00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:30,720 Speaker 6: and Harvard is a you know, has an endownment worth 616 00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:34,280 Speaker 6: tens of billions of dollars, is a huge industry, and 617 00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:38,280 Speaker 6: so a lot of the scholarship that is produced at 618 00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:41,040 Speaker 6: a place like Harvard is skewed by these other incentives. 619 00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:43,760 Speaker 6: In other words, it's not this kind of pure place 620 00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:46,880 Speaker 6: where like the best ideas are espoused and the people 621 00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:49,960 Speaker 6: who are the smartest and best researchers with the kindest 622 00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:53,000 Speaker 6: souls are the ones who succeeded it. You know, it's 623 00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:55,800 Speaker 6: not how it works. And I think the example that 624 00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:57,560 Speaker 6: I use in my book, I've a whole chapter devoted 625 00:33:57,600 --> 00:33:59,240 Speaker 6: to this. I think it's one of the funniest. And 626 00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:02,080 Speaker 6: I try to, by the way, throughout the book, I 627 00:34:02,120 --> 00:34:04,800 Speaker 6: try to talk about all these issues with humor and 628 00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:07,440 Speaker 6: get a little bit of joy, because to me, like 629 00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:09,480 Speaker 6: life is not worth living unless you can laugh a 630 00:34:09,520 --> 00:34:12,000 Speaker 6: little bit about these horrific things. 631 00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:15,520 Speaker 2: And these are definitely teetering on the edge of laughter 632 00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:18,919 Speaker 2: or crying one or the other. Yeah. 633 00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:23,400 Speaker 6: And if you can't laugh about two Harvard professors, you know, 634 00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:27,920 Speaker 6: sort of proposing the greatest expansion of policing in modern 635 00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:31,880 Speaker 6: world history by adding five hundred thousand police officers to 636 00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:36,040 Speaker 6: you as based on rudimentary errors that they made that 637 00:34:36,080 --> 00:34:39,200 Speaker 6: are somewhat comical, then you can't laugh about anything, right. 638 00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:42,520 Speaker 6: And these two guys are particularly funny to me because 639 00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:47,200 Speaker 6: they portray themselves not only as progressives but as socialists, 640 00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:52,200 Speaker 6: and they understand something really important, which is it's very 641 00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:55,839 Speaker 6: good for your future as a scholar at Harvard if 642 00:34:55,880 --> 00:34:58,160 Speaker 6: you can be seen as one of those you know, 643 00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:00,759 Speaker 6: it's almost like a false flag opera, right, It's like 644 00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:04,680 Speaker 6: you're parading around as a leftist, socialist progressive, but the 645 00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:09,760 Speaker 6: ideas you're promoting are right wing and serving the interests 646 00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:14,520 Speaker 6: of the people who financially back Harvard and their social circles, 647 00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:18,480 Speaker 6: et cetera. So it's very smart, actually if what you 648 00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:20,880 Speaker 6: were thinking was that you wanted to advance your career. 649 00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:24,000 Speaker 6: But anyway, these guys propose, and I think one especially 650 00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:27,920 Speaker 6: comical thing about it is that in journal that they 651 00:35:28,040 --> 00:35:32,040 Speaker 6: published this call for five hundred thousand more police. And 652 00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:34,319 Speaker 6: by the way, the call for more police is, as 653 00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:37,560 Speaker 6: I talk about in the book, it's absurd they made 654 00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:41,120 Speaker 6: this proposal without counting the social costs of more police. 655 00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:44,239 Speaker 6: You can't you know, say I want it. It'd be 656 00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:48,680 Speaker 6: like installing a new heater in your house and not 657 00:35:48,719 --> 00:35:51,319 Speaker 6: only getting the measurements wrong for the heater, but you 658 00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:55,919 Speaker 6: neglected to include that this heater spews carbon monoxide into 659 00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:57,520 Speaker 6: your house, you know, And. 660 00:35:57,520 --> 00:36:01,239 Speaker 9: So you're saying this heater, yeah, They're like, well, you know, 661 00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:03,799 Speaker 9: we're installing this heater in this house and it's going 662 00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:06,799 Speaker 9: to increase you know, the heat by a degree over 663 00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:09,399 Speaker 9: other heaters, you know, And not only did they get 664 00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:12,080 Speaker 9: that measurement wrong, but they also just neglected to tell 665 00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:13,560 Speaker 9: you it's also going to kill your whole family. 666 00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:16,640 Speaker 6: Right, So you can't promote, you don't make a social 667 00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:20,160 Speaker 6: policy proposal without even asking the question of, like, what 668 00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:23,040 Speaker 6: are some of the costs and downsides to the proposal? 669 00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:26,200 Speaker 6: Right and anyway? But I think like the funniest part 670 00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:29,040 Speaker 6: about it to me is that the journal they published 671 00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:32,960 Speaker 6: this in was created in the wake of the twenty 672 00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:36,800 Speaker 6: twenty George Floyd uprisings by Harvard as a way of 673 00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:40,560 Speaker 6: pacifying student unrest. They're like, we're going to create this 674 00:36:40,680 --> 00:36:44,239 Speaker 6: Journal of Law and Inequality, and it's going to be 675 00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:47,239 Speaker 6: this new thing that people publish to like confront these 676 00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:49,080 Speaker 6: issues of our day. And then and then just a 677 00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:51,520 Speaker 6: short time later, that Journal of Law and in Equality 678 00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:56,280 Speaker 6: or whatever they call it is already publishing bold Please 679 00:36:56,400 --> 00:36:59,920 Speaker 6: by Harvard professors to add five hundred thousand cops. 680 00:37:00,239 --> 00:37:02,840 Speaker 2: Yes, I remember when it came out and we were like, 681 00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:06,120 Speaker 2: oh my god, the mainstream media is going to eat 682 00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:10,399 Speaker 2: this shit. Yes, and sure enough they did. There's also 683 00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:13,880 Speaker 2: just a little detail in that because you kind of 684 00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:16,920 Speaker 2: you know, came at this study and pointed out all 685 00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:20,319 Speaker 2: the ways that it was ridiculous and speaking of these 686 00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:23,680 Speaker 2: two Harvard professors as comical figures, just the fact that 687 00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:27,520 Speaker 2: they were using their students to try to construct arguments 688 00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:31,000 Speaker 2: against your critiques of their book. Was pretty pretty wild. 689 00:37:32,239 --> 00:37:32,479 Speaker 4: Sure. 690 00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:36,000 Speaker 1: Oh wait, so they were asking the students to basically 691 00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:38,400 Speaker 1: like defend this against evil alec. 692 00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:40,719 Speaker 6: Well, no, I mean I think I don't know that 693 00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:43,160 Speaker 6: they were. I don't think that they were, you know, 694 00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:46,160 Speaker 6: specifically talking about me. But they were instead of like 695 00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:49,719 Speaker 6: testing students on like the basics of first year criminal law, 696 00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:52,680 Speaker 6: you know, one of the professors during the exam was 697 00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:56,400 Speaker 6: apparently asking and the students you know sent me these 698 00:37:56,520 --> 00:37:59,239 Speaker 6: exam questions. They sent in the screenshots of them to me, 699 00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:03,480 Speaker 6: and and he was asking for their help developing counter 700 00:38:03,560 --> 00:38:06,280 Speaker 6: arguments to his proposal more police. 701 00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:06,440 Speaker 9: You know. 702 00:38:06,560 --> 00:38:08,960 Speaker 6: It's weren't meet you the wrong way about it, But 703 00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:10,600 Speaker 6: I thought was really funny about it. Was like he 704 00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:14,360 Speaker 6: was he was asking students for help with this research project, 705 00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:15,640 Speaker 6: you know, just. 706 00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:21,640 Speaker 2: Like crowdsourcing, like the fleshing out of research project. 707 00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:24,480 Speaker 6: Yeah, And it turned out like the students you know 708 00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:27,440 Speaker 6: told me that like we had like raised a number 709 00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:31,200 Speaker 6: of the objections that you've lad helpfully with them privately before. 710 00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:33,719 Speaker 6: They So it's not like these people just like had 711 00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:37,319 Speaker 6: like a huge brain fart and forgot about, you know, 712 00:38:37,480 --> 00:38:40,080 Speaker 6: a lot of the critiques and they just like didn't 713 00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:44,120 Speaker 6: care to respond or even rigorously addressed in the first 714 00:38:44,160 --> 00:38:47,200 Speaker 6: place these things. And that's why I think the copaganda 715 00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:49,320 Speaker 6: book that is full of this stuff. 716 00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:49,520 Speaker 2: Right. 717 00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:51,640 Speaker 6: What I try to do is take some of the 718 00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:56,920 Speaker 6: most outrageous, funniest examples of kind of mainstream liberal institutions, 719 00:38:56,960 --> 00:39:01,840 Speaker 6: whether it's it's professors or news organizations, journalists or whatever 720 00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:07,520 Speaker 6: nonprofits sometimes and illustrate stuff that is actually really important 721 00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:09,760 Speaker 6: that we might miss if we just look at the news. 722 00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:12,880 Speaker 6: Because it's not just these Harvard professors are publishing this stuff. 723 00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:15,880 Speaker 6: It's how does that stuff then get translated into the 724 00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:20,719 Speaker 6: mainstream news that you consume right as conventional wisdom, right, 725 00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:24,480 Speaker 6: And that's that's the process that I really try to 726 00:39:24,719 --> 00:39:28,000 Speaker 6: examine in the book with some humor, because you know, 727 00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:31,160 Speaker 6: this is it's you know, there's a lot of upsetting 728 00:39:31,160 --> 00:39:34,160 Speaker 6: stuff in here about about how we're being lied to 729 00:39:34,200 --> 00:39:36,719 Speaker 6: and misled and how many of the institutions that we're 730 00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:40,279 Speaker 6: told to trust are actually really untrustworthy and we need 731 00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:43,280 Speaker 6: to develop better mechanisms of critical thinking. And that's another 732 00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:47,040 Speaker 6: reason why you know this book. We've raised money so 733 00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:50,360 Speaker 6: that any teacher who wants to teach any part of 734 00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:53,040 Speaker 6: this book in school, any person in prison. We have 735 00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:56,120 Speaker 6: free copies of the book available with the people, like, 736 00:39:56,520 --> 00:39:58,680 Speaker 6: obviously I hope that you support the book and and 737 00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:01,480 Speaker 6: all the I don't make any money off the book, right, 738 00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:03,799 Speaker 6: any copy that sold, all the worlties go to the 739 00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:07,360 Speaker 6: Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, which organizes on house people in 740 00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:10,160 Speaker 6: skid row in Los Angeles. But even if if you 741 00:40:10,160 --> 00:40:12,560 Speaker 6: can't afford the book, you know, we can get free 742 00:40:12,600 --> 00:40:15,520 Speaker 6: copies to people because we just want people to have 743 00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:18,200 Speaker 6: a more critical understanding of the news that they're being shown. 744 00:40:18,600 --> 00:40:20,880 Speaker 1: Yeah, which is like interesting that the way you ring 745 00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:23,600 Speaker 1: up Harvard, it immediately relates to the newsroom, right, like 746 00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:26,960 Speaker 1: the way professors and academics can ascend. It's not that 747 00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:30,080 Speaker 1: there's like marching orders, but you can pretty clearly into it. 748 00:40:30,120 --> 00:40:32,120 Speaker 1: You're like, Okay, if I talk about this in this way, 749 00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:34,359 Speaker 1: this is how I get my things pop in, which 750 00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:36,200 Speaker 1: I feel like is another criticism we have of a 751 00:40:36,200 --> 00:40:39,919 Speaker 1: lot of journalism too, where clearly other journalists know, Okay, 752 00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:42,200 Speaker 1: if I write from this perspective or stories with this 753 00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:45,480 Speaker 1: sort of bend to it, that's how I'm able to ascend, 754 00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:48,160 Speaker 1: and that's how it further just sort of reinforces this 755 00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:50,040 Speaker 1: kind of thing, and I think, you know, the New 756 00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:52,640 Speaker 1: York Times is probably a great example of this kind 757 00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:53,000 Speaker 1: of thinking. 758 00:40:53,120 --> 00:40:55,520 Speaker 2: Yeah, that was really You have a great quote from 759 00:40:55,560 --> 00:40:57,400 Speaker 2: David Graeber, who we talk about a lot on this 760 00:40:57,480 --> 00:41:01,839 Speaker 2: show about like the Superman and Batman where they're both 761 00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:07,600 Speaker 2: essential essentially like instituting fascist policies with their superpowers, because 762 00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:10,440 Speaker 2: that's all we can imagine. And like that kind of 763 00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:12,800 Speaker 2: tied back to how I think about the mainstream media 764 00:41:13,239 --> 00:41:16,200 Speaker 2: point that Miles was talking about, where it's like they're 765 00:41:16,239 --> 00:41:19,880 Speaker 2: playing to the audience, like the audience wants to see 766 00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:21,680 Speaker 2: I think there's like a part, at least a part 767 00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:23,640 Speaker 2: of the audience that kind of wants to see this 768 00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:28,120 Speaker 2: fucking fascism like that. That's why Batman does that, That's 769 00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:31,440 Speaker 2: why Superman does that, and so they know they're going 770 00:41:31,520 --> 00:41:34,640 Speaker 2: to get readers, and it's just this like cowardly thing 771 00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:37,879 Speaker 2: that's you know, pleasing their corporate overlords. But I think 772 00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:42,839 Speaker 2: it's also like pleasing some dark, horrible part of the 773 00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:46,400 Speaker 2: audience too that is like, yeah, I want to believe 774 00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:49,799 Speaker 2: that this is the police, good guy, right, and. 775 00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:53,319 Speaker 8: This is it It's an easy solve, Yeah, yeah, I 776 00:41:53,320 --> 00:41:56,120 Speaker 8: think there's there's definitely part of that, but I don't know, 777 00:41:56,160 --> 00:41:58,840 Speaker 8: because I mean, I think it's easy to envision you 778 00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:01,319 Speaker 8: could have really compell local news story. 779 00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:05,160 Speaker 6: Like, for example, if instead of of installing a reporter 780 00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:08,120 Speaker 6: to read all the police press releases and regurgitate them 781 00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:10,239 Speaker 6: for the news every day, what if you had a 782 00:42:10,239 --> 00:42:13,520 Speaker 6: reporter whose job was to report on like landlord tenant 783 00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:15,640 Speaker 6: court and every day you had like a bad landlord 784 00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:19,120 Speaker 6: of the day article or a bad employer of the 785 00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:21,840 Speaker 6: day absolute Like I think people would watch and be 786 00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:24,520 Speaker 6: interested in finding out what landlords are doing to their 787 00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:28,320 Speaker 6: tenants across la or across Chicago or across in the country. 788 00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:31,120 Speaker 6: I think if you if you installed somebody at all 789 00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:33,719 Speaker 6: of the sites that are that are figuring out who's 790 00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:38,120 Speaker 6: polluting our drinking water, who is emitting dangerous gases that 791 00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:40,319 Speaker 6: are hurting our children. And you know, by the way, 792 00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:42,800 Speaker 6: air pollution kills one hundred thousand people in the US 793 00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:46,759 Speaker 6: every year. Okay, that's four to five times all homicides 794 00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:50,000 Speaker 6: can buy. There are people every single day in all 795 00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:52,759 Speaker 6: these cities who are actually just emitting stuff that's killing 796 00:42:52,800 --> 00:42:59,439 Speaker 6: our children and people. Yeah, and I think I think 797 00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:01,480 Speaker 6: people would I mean, I hear what you're saying. I 798 00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:03,799 Speaker 6: definitely think there's part of like they feel like they're 799 00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:07,719 Speaker 6: they're playing down you know, it's like reality TV or 800 00:43:07,800 --> 00:43:10,920 Speaker 6: Law and Order. Like they definitely think they're what they think, 801 00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:14,160 Speaker 6: they know what their audience wants. But I believe audiences 802 00:43:14,160 --> 00:43:17,319 Speaker 6: would tolerate different types of villains and different types of 803 00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:20,680 Speaker 6: stories about who is causing us harm that were more 804 00:43:20,719 --> 00:43:23,120 Speaker 6: consistent with reality. And that's another thing I talk about 805 00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:23,640 Speaker 6: in the book. 806 00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:27,600 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean you have so there's so many 807 00:43:27,600 --> 00:43:31,840 Speaker 2: wild an like what while the Wallgreens shoplifting panic was happening, 808 00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:34,760 Speaker 2: they had to settle a massive lawsuit about like wage theft. 809 00:43:35,239 --> 00:43:38,359 Speaker 2: But get that gets you You make a good point 810 00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:44,120 Speaker 2: about how anytime there are multiple, you know, cases of 811 00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:48,400 Speaker 2: shoplifting or just like viral videos of shoplifting, that becomes 812 00:43:48,400 --> 00:43:52,280 Speaker 2: a wave or a trend or you know, out of control. 813 00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:57,400 Speaker 2: But these things, the you know, the Walgreens wage theft 814 00:43:57,680 --> 00:44:01,279 Speaker 2: settlement is treated as a one off thing. And then 815 00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:05,319 Speaker 2: when you talked to editors, they were like, well, we 816 00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:08,719 Speaker 2: reported on a different company doing that last month, so 817 00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:13,160 Speaker 2: we can't like that that story's been done essentially, which 818 00:44:13,239 --> 00:44:17,839 Speaker 2: is so so wild and doesn't really doesn't really make 819 00:44:17,920 --> 00:44:21,880 Speaker 2: any sense unless you're taking into account. Yeah, but we 820 00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:25,320 Speaker 2: can't like make them mad because they are the big 821 00:44:25,360 --> 00:44:26,680 Speaker 2: corporate overlord. 822 00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:28,640 Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I think you have to understand also 823 00:44:28,640 --> 00:44:30,799 Speaker 6: how the news media works. And there's lots of scholarship 824 00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:34,600 Speaker 6: written about how the media functions. But they it organizes 825 00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:39,640 Speaker 6: things into news themes, and it categorizes things so that 826 00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:42,800 Speaker 6: people can understand them. And so I give this great 827 00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:47,400 Speaker 6: example from the late seventies early eighties of this person 828 00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:51,319 Speaker 6: who supporter, who was embedded in a newsroom, and he 829 00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:56,280 Speaker 6: watched the creation of a supposed crime wave by youth 830 00:44:56,360 --> 00:45:00,720 Speaker 6: of color against old people. And there was this panic 831 00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:04,040 Speaker 6: that emerged that all these young people of color were 832 00:45:04,520 --> 00:45:07,920 Speaker 6: robbing and stealing from and mugging and hurting old people, 833 00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:12,719 Speaker 6: and every time that happened during this period, it was 834 00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:15,200 Speaker 6: seen as further evidence of this trend. But when you 835 00:45:15,239 --> 00:45:17,239 Speaker 6: take a step back and look several years later, you 836 00:45:17,239 --> 00:45:20,280 Speaker 6: actually see that the only thing that had been created 837 00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:24,480 Speaker 6: was this news categorization and this news trend. Actually incidents 838 00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:27,560 Speaker 6: of young people stealing and mugging and robbing old people 839 00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:31,759 Speaker 6: were actually down during that period, and this is it's 840 00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:34,800 Speaker 6: very hard for people to understand. But sometimes the news, 841 00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:38,680 Speaker 6: you know, for example, after the East Palestine trained derailment 842 00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:41,640 Speaker 6: in Ohio a couple of years ago, there were there's 843 00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:44,480 Speaker 6: more of an interest in the news media in covering 844 00:45:44,560 --> 00:45:47,680 Speaker 6: trained derailments. Those are things that are happening all the time, 845 00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:51,279 Speaker 6: right like, but now that you're focused on it and 846 00:45:51,320 --> 00:45:53,520 Speaker 6: it's a theme of your news, it's going to play 847 00:45:53,640 --> 00:45:56,759 Speaker 6: into this idea and the same thing is happening. There 848 00:45:56,800 --> 00:46:01,040 Speaker 6: was a massive society wide panic about shop and retail theft, 849 00:46:01,080 --> 00:46:03,880 Speaker 6: even though retail theft we now know is down, and 850 00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:07,680 Speaker 6: so how we categorize things, it's just so so important. 851 00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:10,239 Speaker 6: It's like the Michael Jordan example I gave earlier. If 852 00:46:10,280 --> 00:46:14,000 Speaker 6: you're looking for it, and if you just only document 853 00:46:14,080 --> 00:46:17,720 Speaker 6: the missed shots, you're going to not capture the full story. 854 00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:20,120 Speaker 6: And that's what makes the media they have such an 855 00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:24,239 Speaker 6: awesome responsibility because they have a choice. Every single day, 856 00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:27,120 Speaker 6: out of the millions and millions of things that have 857 00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:29,439 Speaker 6: happened in the world, they're going to tell us about 858 00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:31,839 Speaker 6: ten or fifteen of them, or twenty of them. And 859 00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:35,960 Speaker 6: also they're going to suggest in their coverage, how should 860 00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:39,120 Speaker 6: we think about this. In other words, is that wildfire 861 00:46:39,520 --> 00:46:42,640 Speaker 6: connected to climate change? Or is it some isolated event? 862 00:46:43,640 --> 00:46:50,440 Speaker 6: Is that airline crash connected to DEI programs at you know, 863 00:46:50,600 --> 00:46:53,840 Speaker 6: like Trump said, right, you know yeah? Or like So 864 00:46:55,200 --> 00:47:01,000 Speaker 6: this is an awesome responsibility because just by juxtaposing two 865 00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:03,600 Speaker 6: stories together or two ideas together, Like I give an 866 00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:07,120 Speaker 6: example in the book where they claim that a certain 867 00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:09,080 Speaker 6: kind of crime went down in a certain city, and 868 00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:11,680 Speaker 6: they say just they just note that also the police 869 00:47:11,680 --> 00:47:14,520 Speaker 6: had been holding a charity basketball tournament. So it's like 870 00:47:14,719 --> 00:47:18,400 Speaker 6: they're suggesting that, like, and what they didn't report is 871 00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:21,440 Speaker 6: that that particular kind of crime had gone down nationwide, 872 00:47:21,640 --> 00:47:24,640 Speaker 6: not just in the place where there's a police youth 873 00:47:24,719 --> 00:47:30,200 Speaker 6: basketball tournament. So these are all these category categories and 874 00:47:30,239 --> 00:47:35,520 Speaker 6: these causes. They're highly manipulable. And if you take nothing 875 00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:37,400 Speaker 6: else away from the book, I want you to take 876 00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:42,040 Speaker 6: away the idea that there are a lot of very 877 00:47:42,080 --> 00:47:45,799 Speaker 6: smart people being paid billions of dollars a year to 878 00:47:45,960 --> 00:47:50,840 Speaker 6: shape how you think about what is newsworthy, what's happening 879 00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:54,600 Speaker 6: in the world, what the causes are, and therefore what 880 00:47:54,719 --> 00:47:56,960 Speaker 6: should we spend money on as the solutions. 881 00:47:58,080 --> 00:48:00,200 Speaker 2: Let's take one more quick break, and then I just 882 00:48:00,200 --> 00:48:02,000 Speaker 2: want to talk to you about like where we go 883 00:48:02,080 --> 00:48:05,640 Speaker 2: from from here, because obviously things are shifting. Some of 884 00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:08,160 Speaker 2: this fascism that has been ignored for a long time 885 00:48:08,280 --> 00:48:10,919 Speaker 2: is getting louder, and so I just want to kind 886 00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:12,440 Speaker 2: of hear your thoughts on that. 887 00:48:12,440 --> 00:48:13,080 Speaker 4: We'll be right. 888 00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:27,439 Speaker 10: Back and we're back, We're back, and yeah, I mean 889 00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:31,759 Speaker 10: we have been living with as your book does a 890 00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:36,400 Speaker 10: really good job of illustrating extraordinary you know, fascism and 891 00:48:36,440 --> 00:48:42,719 Speaker 10: authoritarianism and injustice for years and much of the. 892 00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:46,439 Speaker 2: Mainstream media and much of these you know, supposedly liberal 893 00:48:46,520 --> 00:48:50,240 Speaker 2: institutions have been just ignoring it. And now it feels 894 00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:54,759 Speaker 2: like it's becoming louder and harder to ignore. Like that, 895 00:48:55,000 --> 00:48:57,960 Speaker 2: you know, the truth comes quietly at first, and then 896 00:48:58,040 --> 00:49:00,919 Speaker 2: it speaks louder, and then it's you know, then it's 897 00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:06,280 Speaker 2: a shrieking tent alarm fire, and there are it seems 898 00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:10,800 Speaker 2: like we're entering in some ways kind of a world 899 00:49:10,840 --> 00:49:14,640 Speaker 2: that's recognizable if like net now that you know you've 900 00:49:14,680 --> 00:49:17,320 Speaker 2: illustrated all these things, what once people have read your book, 901 00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:18,799 Speaker 2: you'll be like, oh, a lot of this stuff has 902 00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:22,000 Speaker 2: been happening for a while. But it also feels like 903 00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:29,919 Speaker 2: with the arrest of Michael Khalil and you you wrote 904 00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:32,520 Speaker 2: on Twitter that you've never seen a more clear cut 905 00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:36,520 Speaker 2: First Amendment violation. It just it does feel like things 906 00:49:36,520 --> 00:49:40,680 Speaker 2: are escalating. And so I'm just kind of curious how 907 00:49:40,719 --> 00:49:43,880 Speaker 2: you are thinking about the position. Has it changed, how 908 00:49:43,920 --> 00:49:47,080 Speaker 2: you're thinking about the situation Americans find themselves out? 909 00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:49,839 Speaker 6: Yeah, And look, I'm just one person, So who knows. 910 00:49:49,880 --> 00:49:52,560 Speaker 6: I mean, I think we're all all people of goodwill 911 00:49:52,640 --> 00:49:56,319 Speaker 6: are struggling right now, think about what can I do? 912 00:49:56,680 --> 00:50:01,000 Speaker 6: What's the one do when society is teetering on the 913 00:50:01,040 --> 00:50:04,719 Speaker 6: brink of such an abyss, and how do we how 914 00:50:04,719 --> 00:50:07,799 Speaker 6: do we come together with other people who care? And 915 00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:09,440 Speaker 6: I don't purport to have all the answers, And I 916 00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:12,239 Speaker 6: think different people are in a different position to do 917 00:50:12,280 --> 00:50:15,680 Speaker 6: different things, and we all have to do whatever we can. 918 00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:18,880 Speaker 6: I think there's I mean, I offer some tips in 919 00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:21,920 Speaker 6: the last chapter of the book about you know, one 920 00:50:21,960 --> 00:50:25,560 Speaker 6: of the first steps is like fortifying your own mind 921 00:50:25,640 --> 00:50:28,839 Speaker 6: against you know, relentless propaganda, and like what are some 922 00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:31,520 Speaker 6: things to read and what are some daily practices to 923 00:50:31,680 --> 00:50:35,520 Speaker 6: employ in your life. Also, it's very important who you 924 00:50:35,520 --> 00:50:39,160 Speaker 6: surround yourself with and what kinds of like sort of 925 00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:43,600 Speaker 6: critical thinking communities you put yourself in. And then also 926 00:50:43,719 --> 00:50:45,560 Speaker 6: like I think what's so so so important in this 927 00:50:45,640 --> 00:50:50,960 Speaker 6: moment is the fascists when when people are so afraid, 928 00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:54,200 Speaker 6: but also I'm so hopeless and feel like everything is futile, 929 00:50:54,239 --> 00:50:56,399 Speaker 6: and and I think it's a great time for able 930 00:50:56,440 --> 00:51:00,839 Speaker 6: to get involved wherever they are in their own communities, 931 00:51:01,120 --> 00:51:04,960 Speaker 6: whether that's geographically like getting involved in your local library 932 00:51:05,080 --> 00:51:09,520 Speaker 6: or your local school board, or mutual aid groups that 933 00:51:10,040 --> 00:51:13,280 Speaker 6: help people in your community, or at work or at school, 934 00:51:13,360 --> 00:51:16,640 Speaker 6: like organizing and getting together with people other people really 935 00:51:16,680 --> 00:51:19,480 Speaker 6: any to It could be the smallest little things that 936 00:51:19,480 --> 00:51:21,960 Speaker 6: you're fighting for together, but when you organize other people 937 00:51:22,480 --> 00:51:25,760 Speaker 6: and you fight for things like something that is really true, 938 00:51:26,080 --> 00:51:28,760 Speaker 6: something that is in some small way trying to counter 939 00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:32,840 Speaker 6: the meanness that pervades so much of our society. And 940 00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:34,640 Speaker 6: by the way, I do a lot of work all 941 00:51:34,680 --> 00:51:37,840 Speaker 6: over the country, in rural areas, all over the country, 942 00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:42,839 Speaker 6: in big cities, Democrat Republic and whatever, like it's very 943 00:51:42,880 --> 00:51:45,840 Speaker 6: different from what the world is that we see on 944 00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:50,960 Speaker 6: like Twitter or social media or like people want to 945 00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:54,280 Speaker 6: be connecting to each other relating to each other in community, 946 00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:56,480 Speaker 6: and like it's easy to forget when you see how 947 00:51:56,640 --> 00:51:59,359 Speaker 6: isolated one feels by just spending a lot of time 948 00:51:59,360 --> 00:52:02,080 Speaker 6: on social media. Maybe and maybe that's just me, but 949 00:52:02,840 --> 00:52:05,200 Speaker 6: you have to just remember that, like a we are 950 00:52:05,239 --> 00:52:09,040 Speaker 6: such a social species and there's so much we can 951 00:52:09,080 --> 00:52:11,680 Speaker 6: do for each other if we just adopt the spirit 952 00:52:12,120 --> 00:52:14,520 Speaker 6: of kindness instead of a spirit of meanness. And I 953 00:52:14,600 --> 00:52:17,239 Speaker 6: keep coming back to that it's important now more than ever. 954 00:52:18,080 --> 00:52:21,319 Speaker 6: And then we all just have to fight. I say 955 00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:22,960 Speaker 6: this in the book, and this is one of the themes, 956 00:52:23,000 --> 00:52:26,120 Speaker 6: but I think a lot about Orwell's nineteen eighty four, 957 00:52:26,760 --> 00:52:29,840 Speaker 6: And one of the themes of George Orwell's book is 958 00:52:29,840 --> 00:52:35,200 Speaker 6: that the sort of authoritarian government is constantly trying to 959 00:52:35,200 --> 00:52:38,439 Speaker 6: get people to say, to think tuplus two ekals five, 960 00:52:38,560 --> 00:52:41,920 Speaker 6: tupless two eqals five, touplus two goos five. And in 961 00:52:41,960 --> 00:52:44,759 Speaker 6: whatever way is true to us, we need to be 962 00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:48,560 Speaker 6: able to every day remind ourselves toopus two egos four, 963 00:52:49,000 --> 00:52:50,920 Speaker 6: remind the people that we're close to. And that just 964 00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:52,759 Speaker 6: means the way that I see that, like in our 965 00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:55,799 Speaker 6: civil rights work, even if the courts are getting more 966 00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:59,640 Speaker 6: and more hostile to the kinds of cases that we do, 967 00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:02,279 Speaker 6: even if people are being jailed illegally in violation of 968 00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:06,080 Speaker 6: the Constitution, and just the act of us fighting them 969 00:53:06,520 --> 00:53:08,640 Speaker 6: is our way of saying too plus two of four, 970 00:53:09,160 --> 00:53:11,719 Speaker 6: two plus two equals four. Just standing up to that 971 00:53:12,080 --> 00:53:15,080 Speaker 6: and never becoming you know, like, that's why I think 972 00:53:15,160 --> 00:53:17,759 Speaker 6: is so harmful about what Columbia has done, what Chuck 973 00:53:17,800 --> 00:53:20,719 Speaker 6: Schumer is doing, what a lot of these universities do. 974 00:53:20,840 --> 00:53:25,360 Speaker 6: They are giving in, they are appeasing, they are refusing 975 00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:27,799 Speaker 6: to say touplus two equals four. And once you do 976 00:53:27,960 --> 00:53:31,239 Speaker 6: that as a society, all is lost. And so we 977 00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:33,800 Speaker 6: have to just in our own little ways find our 978 00:53:34,400 --> 00:53:36,759 Speaker 6: strength and courage to keep saying touplos tuoical four. 979 00:53:37,280 --> 00:53:37,640 Speaker 4: Yeah. 980 00:53:37,760 --> 00:53:40,040 Speaker 1: I thought that was really an amazing part at that 981 00:53:40,120 --> 00:53:41,759 Speaker 1: last part of the book, because I think so many 982 00:53:41,800 --> 00:53:43,400 Speaker 1: people right now are just in like this fight or 983 00:53:43,400 --> 00:53:48,320 Speaker 1: flight response to everything and just looking for like a 984 00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:49,759 Speaker 1: silver bullet answer. 985 00:53:49,640 --> 00:53:51,240 Speaker 2: Like what do we do now? 986 00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:55,040 Speaker 1: And you know, myself included all, and I think I 987 00:53:55,080 --> 00:53:57,800 Speaker 1: really loved how again you're talking about what's also important 988 00:53:57,800 --> 00:54:00,359 Speaker 1: is that we fortify our minds to sort of hell 989 00:54:00,480 --> 00:54:03,239 Speaker 1: this kind of messaging and internalizing these sort of like 990 00:54:03,600 --> 00:54:06,560 Speaker 1: lies and making those our reality. But also like again 991 00:54:06,560 --> 00:54:08,440 Speaker 1: it's like really basic things like you're talking about like 992 00:54:08,600 --> 00:54:11,680 Speaker 1: fostering your sense of community, like deepening those relationships with 993 00:54:11,719 --> 00:54:16,000 Speaker 1: people around you, and then even like just engaging with art. Also, 994 00:54:16,280 --> 00:54:18,480 Speaker 1: I thought was, like, that's really brilliant too to just 995 00:54:18,480 --> 00:54:21,360 Speaker 1: think about again, because you're talking about how different messages 996 00:54:21,360 --> 00:54:23,360 Speaker 1: are going to hit our brains differently when they're expressed 997 00:54:23,440 --> 00:54:26,040 Speaker 1: artistically and things like that. So I just thought, yeah, 998 00:54:26,080 --> 00:54:27,920 Speaker 1: like there's sort of like holistic view of it is 999 00:54:27,960 --> 00:54:31,160 Speaker 1: really helpful, and I think helps also like when you 1000 00:54:31,200 --> 00:54:33,120 Speaker 1: say the whole thing of like we got to remind 1001 00:54:33,120 --> 00:54:36,839 Speaker 1: ourselves two plus two is four, that that gives us 1002 00:54:37,080 --> 00:54:39,439 Speaker 1: a better view of sort of like the long term 1003 00:54:39,560 --> 00:54:41,640 Speaker 1: nature of like this endeavor that's in front of us. 1004 00:54:41,640 --> 00:54:44,080 Speaker 1: It's not like, Okay, everybody do these three things and 1005 00:54:44,120 --> 00:54:46,960 Speaker 1: it's over. It's like, no, there are many things that 1006 00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:48,600 Speaker 1: we're going to be doing. But the biggest thing too, 1007 00:54:48,680 --> 00:54:51,960 Speaker 1: is like you're saying, maintaining that sense of humanity and hope. 1008 00:54:52,080 --> 00:54:54,640 Speaker 1: So I hope we're all able to do that. And 1009 00:54:54,640 --> 00:54:56,439 Speaker 1: I feel like that's the biggest thing that we want 1010 00:54:56,440 --> 00:54:57,439 Speaker 1: to be able to do right now. 1011 00:54:57,920 --> 00:55:00,360 Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, thank you Alex so much for coming on again, 1012 00:55:00,960 --> 00:55:04,640 Speaker 2: and congratulations on the book. It's really awesome. Where can 1013 00:55:04,680 --> 00:55:07,439 Speaker 2: people find you? Follow you and where can they find 1014 00:55:07,440 --> 00:55:07,759 Speaker 2: the book? 1015 00:55:08,040 --> 00:55:09,960 Speaker 6: Yeah, so thank you guys both for having me on. 1016 00:55:10,040 --> 00:55:13,280 Speaker 6: And I hope, I hope this book sells more copies 1017 00:55:13,360 --> 00:55:15,440 Speaker 6: than my last book, which I think was maybe just 1018 00:55:15,560 --> 00:55:17,279 Speaker 6: my grandma and my parents maybe about it. 1019 00:55:17,719 --> 00:55:19,440 Speaker 2: But it has to do well. This is going to do. 1020 00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:21,600 Speaker 2: This is where we're going to get it out there. 1021 00:55:21,600 --> 00:55:24,040 Speaker 2: It's going to get the TDZ bump baby, oh yeah, 1022 00:55:24,120 --> 00:55:25,000 Speaker 2: the famous bump. 1023 00:55:25,080 --> 00:55:31,400 Speaker 6: Yeah. Well, so people can can google or search whatever 1024 00:55:31,520 --> 00:55:34,319 Speaker 6: you use to find copaganda and my book. You can 1025 00:55:34,320 --> 00:55:36,760 Speaker 6: buy it wherever books are sold. I've been encouraging people 1026 00:55:36,760 --> 00:55:39,719 Speaker 6: to buy it from this really great black owned bookstore 1027 00:55:39,719 --> 00:55:42,400 Speaker 6: in Flint, Michigan that I've been working with called Comma 1028 00:55:42,480 --> 00:55:44,880 Speaker 6: c MMA. You can just pre order it there and 1029 00:55:45,120 --> 00:55:46,919 Speaker 6: they'll send it to you. And no matter where you live. 1030 00:55:47,000 --> 00:55:49,640 Speaker 6: But also if you have a favorite local bookstore, the 1031 00:55:50,040 --> 00:55:51,560 Speaker 6: easiest thing to do is just go into your local 1032 00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:54,000 Speaker 6: bookstore and order it from there or ask them to 1033 00:55:54,000 --> 00:55:56,440 Speaker 6: carry it. Because go to your local library ask them 1034 00:55:56,440 --> 00:55:58,720 Speaker 6: to carry it. That's actually how we get these books 1035 00:55:58,719 --> 00:56:01,440 Speaker 6: out there is people just going in and talking about it. 1036 00:56:01,480 --> 00:56:04,640 Speaker 6: And if you have friends or family who who are 1037 00:56:05,239 --> 00:56:09,200 Speaker 6: liberals or progressives, who you know, because this book is 1038 00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:14,759 Speaker 6: really written for well meaning liberal progressive people you know 1039 00:56:14,840 --> 00:56:18,040 Speaker 6: to to or or you know, I don't I hate 1040 00:56:18,040 --> 00:56:21,280 Speaker 6: these terms, but like a political people are moderate people 1041 00:56:21,280 --> 00:56:24,440 Speaker 6: who you know, I'm not really writing this book for 1042 00:56:24,440 --> 00:56:27,120 Speaker 6: the far right right. If you know people like that 1043 00:56:27,160 --> 00:56:29,920 Speaker 6: in your life, just encourage them to look up the book. 1044 00:56:30,160 --> 00:56:32,040 Speaker 6: They can also find me on all the social media 1045 00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:34,680 Speaker 6: platforms at Quality ALEC, and you can look at our 1046 00:56:34,719 --> 00:56:37,880 Speaker 6: work at Civil Rights Core as well to see some 1047 00:56:37,920 --> 00:56:40,520 Speaker 6: of our civil rights work that really led me to 1048 00:56:40,600 --> 00:56:42,240 Speaker 6: explore the ideas that are in the book. 1049 00:56:42,600 --> 00:56:44,520 Speaker 2: One of the best books I've read in a long time, 1050 00:56:44,560 --> 00:56:47,080 Speaker 2: and one of the best follows anywhere on social media. 1051 00:56:47,120 --> 00:56:49,520 Speaker 2: So let's go do it, everybody, ALEC. Is there a 1052 00:56:49,560 --> 00:56:53,480 Speaker 2: work of social media or media or anything you've been enjoying. 1053 00:56:53,719 --> 00:56:58,640 Speaker 6: I've been actually reading a book called Ministry for the Future. Yeah, 1054 00:56:58,719 --> 00:56:59,960 Speaker 6: by Kim Stanley Robinson. 1055 00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:00,279 Speaker 2: Yeah. 1056 00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:02,200 Speaker 6: We that would encourage people to check that out. 1057 00:57:02,719 --> 00:57:04,880 Speaker 2: We did a whole episode on the Ministry for the Future. 1058 00:57:04,880 --> 00:57:08,800 Speaker 2: It's so good, awesome, great recommendation. Miles, where can people 1059 00:57:08,920 --> 00:57:10,880 Speaker 2: find you as their working media you've been enjoying? 1060 00:57:11,280 --> 00:57:13,880 Speaker 1: Yeah, just everywhere they got at Symbols at Miles of 1061 00:57:13,960 --> 00:57:17,240 Speaker 1: Gray check Jack and I talking basketball on Miles and 1062 00:57:17,320 --> 00:57:19,640 Speaker 1: Jack on mac Boosties and then I'm talking about ninety 1063 00:57:19,720 --> 00:57:23,200 Speaker 1: day Fiance. That's my solf where I really just can 1064 00:57:23,280 --> 00:57:27,040 Speaker 1: disconnect from talking about news on for twenty day Fiance. 1065 00:57:27,560 --> 00:57:28,480 Speaker 2: A work of media. 1066 00:57:28,560 --> 00:57:33,040 Speaker 1: Yes, at Juniper dot beer on b Sky. But the 1067 00:57:33,120 --> 00:57:35,520 Speaker 1: eye is actually a one I believe all right now, 1068 00:57:35,560 --> 00:57:39,160 Speaker 1: maybe a nuppercase l but Juniper. This is kind of 1069 00:57:39,200 --> 00:57:40,800 Speaker 1: just funny because it aligns with sort of what we're 1070 00:57:40,800 --> 00:57:42,560 Speaker 1: talking about. It says, whenever I see people posting their 1071 00:57:42,560 --> 00:57:46,080 Speaker 1: own acab includes blank posts, I get PTSD flashbacks to 1072 00:57:46,120 --> 00:57:48,280 Speaker 1: four years ago when I posted a police car themed 1073 00:57:48,360 --> 00:57:51,680 Speaker 1: children shopping cart, and a segment of Twitter genuinely got 1074 00:57:51,760 --> 00:57:52,520 Speaker 1: enraged at me. 1075 00:57:54,400 --> 00:57:58,000 Speaker 2: Hey it does include that shopping cart. Yeah, you can 1076 00:57:58,120 --> 00:58:01,560 Speaker 2: find me on Twitter at underscore, Brian on Blue Sky, 1077 00:58:01,640 --> 00:58:04,360 Speaker 2: at jack ob The number one tweet I've been enjoying 1078 00:58:04,440 --> 00:58:09,760 Speaker 2: is from at PPy Onna tweeted hate one anxiety gives 1079 00:58:09,800 --> 00:58:12,240 Speaker 2: me stomach problems, Like baby you are supposed to be 1080 00:58:12,280 --> 00:58:17,880 Speaker 2: a mental disorder. Please stay in your lane and I relate. 1081 00:58:18,600 --> 00:58:21,920 Speaker 2: You can find us on Twitter at daily Zegeist and 1082 00:58:22,040 --> 00:58:24,440 Speaker 2: on Blue Sky at daily Zekes at the Daily Zekeist. 1083 00:58:24,520 --> 00:58:27,640 Speaker 2: On Instagram, you can go to the description of this 1084 00:58:27,680 --> 00:58:29,880 Speaker 2: episode wherever you're listening to it, and you can find 1085 00:58:29,920 --> 00:58:32,360 Speaker 2: the footnotes, which is where we link off to the 1086 00:58:32,360 --> 00:58:34,600 Speaker 2: information that we talked about in today's episode, and where 1087 00:58:34,640 --> 00:58:38,000 Speaker 2: we link off to the book Copaganda, which you have 1088 00:58:38,080 --> 00:58:41,920 Speaker 2: to go by. It is an assignment local. Yeah, also local, 1089 00:58:42,320 --> 00:58:44,880 Speaker 2: stay local. We also link off to a song that 1090 00:58:44,920 --> 00:58:47,720 Speaker 2: we think you might enjoy. Miles, is there a song 1091 00:58:47,800 --> 00:58:49,959 Speaker 2: that you think people might enjoy? Yeah? 1092 00:58:50,000 --> 00:58:53,920 Speaker 1: Every like I feel like every sixteen months the Internet 1093 00:58:54,200 --> 00:58:57,760 Speaker 1: finds out Chumbo Wambas, like this anarchist band and they 1094 00:58:57,800 --> 00:59:00,120 Speaker 1: play this like sort of a cappella song the day 1095 00:59:00,120 --> 00:59:03,760 Speaker 1: the Nazi died, and this clip kind of resurfaces again 1096 00:59:03,760 --> 00:59:06,160 Speaker 1: at this like sixteen month pace, and I saw it 1097 00:59:06,240 --> 00:59:07,520 Speaker 1: bubbling up again and I was. 1098 00:59:07,480 --> 00:59:09,440 Speaker 2: Like, oh, yeah, people need to hear this. 1099 00:59:10,000 --> 00:59:13,200 Speaker 1: So anyway, it's on their album, but the live version 1100 00:59:13,200 --> 00:59:16,600 Speaker 1: where they performed in Dusseldorf, Germany is probably like the 1101 00:59:17,280 --> 00:59:20,520 Speaker 1: vibeest performance of it all but Chumba Wamba. 1102 00:59:20,320 --> 00:59:24,120 Speaker 2: The day the Nazi died for Yeah, tell you never 1103 00:59:24,280 --> 00:59:28,880 Speaker 2: has a anarchist group sounded more like a type of 1104 00:59:28,920 --> 00:59:32,600 Speaker 2: bubble gump Yeah. The Daily Zeiche is a production of 1105 00:59:32,600 --> 00:59:34,440 Speaker 2: My Heart Radio. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, 1106 00:59:34,520 --> 00:59:36,480 Speaker 2: visit the Heart Radio, ap Apple Podcast, or wherever you 1107 00:59:36,520 --> 00:59:38,720 Speaker 2: listen to your favorite shows. That's gonna do it for 1108 00:59:38,840 --> 00:59:39,560 Speaker 2: us this morning. 1109 00:59:39,600 --> 00:59:40,120 Speaker 4: We're back this 1110 00:59:40,160 --> 00:59:42,720 Speaker 2: Afternoon to tell you what is trending, and we'll talk 1111 00:59:42,720 --> 00:59:46,280 Speaker 2: to you all then Bye.