Speaker 1: Good morning, peepsend. Welcome to wok F Daily with Meet
Speaker 1: your Girl.
Speaker 2: Daniel Moody pre recording on the Road.
Speaker 1: I am away traveling for work, making the last push
Speaker 1: for the end of the year.
Speaker 2: And you know, I tell you that.
Speaker 1: I have been taking a break from watching cable news,
Speaker 1: and anytime that I do dip my toe in, I'm like,
Speaker 1: instantly shut it off.
Speaker 2: Instantly shut it off. Folks.
Speaker 1: I will tell you, you know, as you were trying to
Speaker 1: make sense of the senseless, as you were trying to
Speaker 1: piece together this massive, global, disastrous puzzle, make sure that
Speaker 1: you are seeking out sources that have a wide aperture,
Speaker 1: that are bringing in multiple angles and multiple scenes so
Speaker 1: that you are not being fed one line of bullshit.
Speaker 1: And what I find is that I'm having more so
Speaker 1: now to hop around in order to get real information
Speaker 1: and not just sanitized bullshit that is meant to make
Speaker 1: us feel good about our tax dollars going to kill
Speaker 1: thousands of children, because that's what's happening, and I'm not
Speaker 1: going to mince words about it. You know, what I
Speaker 1: continue to say is that violence begets more violence. Right.
Speaker 1: Violence is not the answer, and yet we have always
Speaker 1: been fed that war is a necessity, that there is,
Speaker 1: you know, some evils are necessary. And I am thinking
Speaker 1: now in my you know, older years, that that is
Speaker 1: just a bag of bullshit. That if you were to
Speaker 1: take money off the table, if you were to take
Speaker 1: power off the table, if you were to take toxic
Speaker 1: masculinity off of the table, if you to take ego
Speaker 1: off of the table, I absolutely believe that we could
Speaker 1: get to better solutions than carpet bombing. I think that
Speaker 1: we could get to better solutions than kidnapping. I think
Speaker 1: that we could get to better solutions right than trying
Speaker 1: to defend the indefensible.
Speaker 2: And so where we find.
Speaker 1: Ourselves right now is in a global conundrum where you know,
Speaker 1: it's not being covered on the news, but there are
Speaker 1: massive protests that are taking place all over the globe
Speaker 1: against the war that is unfolding in Israel and the
Speaker 1: fact that Netanyaku refuses to even consider a cease fire,
Speaker 1: and that the comparisons that he uses is like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, the Americans drop the atomic bomb on Japan
Speaker 1: right after Pearl Harbor. You know, the Americans right waded
Speaker 1: into war in Iraq, So like, who are they to
Speaker 1: tell us?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, where the motherfucker's paying the bill?
Speaker 1: You know, America's foreign diplomacy has always been do as
Speaker 1: I say, not as I do. And right now that
Speaker 1: truth is coming home to roosts and Americans are waking
Speaker 1: up to the fact that while their schools may not
Speaker 1: be funded, while community centers may not be funded, hospitals
Speaker 1: may not be funded. Right that billions and billions of
Speaker 1: dollars have been going overseas to do things in quote
Speaker 1: unquote the name of democracy that don't sit well with us.
Speaker 3: US.
Speaker 1: Let's be real, Americans don't really give a shit about
Speaker 1: what happens outside of its borders. Ever, we're not really
Speaker 1: taught to be invested, you know that because like everywhere
Speaker 1: else in the world learns English on top of two
Speaker 1: and three other languages, we don't do that. It is
Speaker 1: not mandated because we have always been at the center
Speaker 1: of the global universe, for better or for worse. And
Speaker 1: I think that what we are seeing as we're watching
Speaker 1: these new axes form is that America's standing is shaky
Speaker 1: at best, and that this country is dealing with its
Speaker 1: own rise in authoritarianism and thinking that the alternative that
Speaker 1: we have is biden. But as We're watching Biden's side
Speaker 1: with another authoritarian, We're thinking to ourselves, how that work?
Speaker 1: How does that make sense? And so, folks, we are
Speaker 1: at a critical moment and juncture in this country and globally.
Speaker 1: And if you are feeling unsteady, if you are feeling uneasy,
Speaker 1: know that you are not alone. Know that every single
Speaker 1: one of us is going through a wave of emotions
Speaker 1: and feelings every single day, right and you know, and
Speaker 1: what we need to continue doing is continue being in conversation,
Speaker 1: continue being in community and not just going dark, going silent,
Speaker 1: right and deciding that the other is not worth engaging with,
Speaker 1: because that is how they win. Coming up next is
Speaker 1: my pre recorded conversation with our friend, our in house doctor,
Speaker 1: doctor Jonathan Metzel, getting a sense of how he is doing,
Speaker 1: what's happening on his college campus, as well as where
Speaker 1: he sees our future. Right now, folks, you know that
Speaker 1: whenever I have the opportunity to speak with our friend,
Speaker 1: our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metsel, I am always thrilled.
Speaker 1: However our conversations are depressing, they still do provide some
Speaker 1: guidance and light to at least make us feel like
Speaker 1: we are not alone in our feelings. Jonathan, I will
Speaker 1: start off by just asking how you are doing, How
Speaker 1: are you doing? How are you managing right now?
Speaker 3: I mean for everybody, it's been a it's just been
Speaker 3: a horrible month, honestly. I mean it's just been a
Speaker 3: horrible month. It's like just the violence on all fronts, violence,
Speaker 3: so much violence right now, and then it just feels
Speaker 3: like people are being consciously or unconsciously or or strategically
Speaker 3: set against each other. So very long held alliances are
Speaker 3: fracturing right now, and and I think everybody is feeling it,
Speaker 3: or anybody who's thinking about the world right now is
Speaker 3: feeling it. And we're feeling it in the spaces where
Speaker 3: you know, we don't we were usually feel safe, right
Speaker 3: So we've had a lot of incidents here on campus
Speaker 3: at at where I teach, and and it's set people
Speaker 3: apart and alliances of people who alliances of people who
Speaker 3: thought they were allies and then it's like, how could
Speaker 3: you post that on social media or something like that,
Speaker 3: and so it's just it's a it's it's a moment
Speaker 3: and the question is like are we ever going to
Speaker 3: put this back together? And what's happening?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 3: I mean I think there's just a need for perspective
Speaker 3: right now in terms of what's what's happening. So I
Speaker 3: would say, my my, my, my mood. I mean, it's funny,
Speaker 3: but I actually feel and I don't know if you
Speaker 3: feel this way. I'm curious, like maybe ten days ago
Speaker 3: things felt totally out of control, like totally out of control,
Speaker 3: and now I don't know, I feel like I'm back
Speaker 3: on regular ground. I don't know. I'll give you an example.
Speaker 3: I'm giving the keynote address next week at the DEI
Speaker 3: Summit in a big DEI summit of college presidents at
Speaker 3: the end toward the end of next week, and I
Speaker 3: don't know, I was freaking out because I'm like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, there's so much racism in the world and
Speaker 3: anti semitism and are we still allies and blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: And now I'm like writing my talk and I'm like, fuck, yeah,
Speaker 3: we're still allies. You know, like let's see where we're
Speaker 3: at right now. Let's just take a deep breath and
Speaker 3: figure out like how to move forward. And so, I
Speaker 3: don't know, I guess I just feel a little bit
Speaker 3: more grounded, like it just it doesn't feel like the spinning,
Speaker 3: crazy ass sensation that it felt like before. I don't know,
Speaker 3: how do you feel about that?
Speaker 1: I will say that I feel very unsteady is the
Speaker 1: word to say. I feel very unsteady in terms of
Speaker 1: how this war in Israel is continuing to progress, how
Speaker 1: violence or threats in this country are escalating. I was,
Speaker 1: you know, reading about how the FBI and other intelligence
Speaker 1: agencies say that the continuation of this war is going
Speaker 1: to escalate threats of terrorism in this country, and you know,
Speaker 1: I had been feeling like that before, right Like I'd
Speaker 1: been feeling like that. As we listen to every single
Speaker 1: Republican you know, speak and continue to escalate the a
Speaker 1: violent rhetoric that comes out of their mouths, we seem
Speaker 1: to be inside of a tinderbox. Though in a way
Speaker 1: that even twenty sixteen, twenty twenty, it felt different. And
Speaker 1: I think that it's because now we're on this global
Speaker 1: stage and scale where I think, for the first time,
Speaker 1: for some voters, they feel a real divergence from where
Speaker 1: this administration is placing itself and where they believe that
Speaker 1: their empathy and their compassion and where they frankly their
Speaker 1: tax dollars where they want that to go. Seems to
Speaker 1: be different, right, and it seems to not just be
Speaker 1: a couple of people, you know, it seems to be
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. I'm watching
Speaker 1: as the president posts on his social media platforms and
Speaker 1: I go there to see what the comments are saying,
Speaker 1: and the comments are not good.
Speaker 2: You know, the comments are not good. And you know this.
Speaker 1: Earlier today as we're taping, there was a Cornell student
Speaker 1: that was arrested for threats against the Jewish community. We're
Speaker 1: seeing that all over the place, right, and so I
Speaker 1: just I feel very unsteady about the direction outside of
Speaker 1: the geopolitical you know, I can go down a rabbit
Speaker 1: hole about that, but it's really the emotions that I'm
Speaker 1: I feel very This country feels very very unsteady right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's I mean, there's the thing, right
Speaker 3: The thing is horrible, and I'm happy to talk about
Speaker 3: the thing. I mean, the thing is horrible right now.
Speaker 3: And also, I mean the two complicating parts beyond that,
Speaker 3: Uh Number one is how do you know what's real
Speaker 3: right now? I Mean, there's so much manipulated information right now.
Speaker 3: We did an incredible thing here in Nashville last week.
Speaker 3: I'm part of this group millions of conversations, and we
Speaker 3: brought together it's run I'm on the board of it.
Speaker 3: It's run by a woman, Samar Ali, who's a Palestinian
Speaker 3: Christian her you know, from Lebanon, and we brought together
Speaker 3: a real, a real cross section of people from Nashville,
Speaker 3: Muslim and Jewish leaders, and we had I thought, I thought,
Speaker 3: like a really honest and just honestly the best thing
Speaker 3: that I've been part of right here, right because like
Speaker 3: you know, like I don't know, I'm Jewish, and I've
Speaker 3: been I've been, as you know, protesting the NITA Yahoo
Speaker 3: government for a year and supported a twoesday solution for
Speaker 3: a year and all these kind of things, like I
Speaker 3: don't think I'm I don't think I have some stereotype
Speaker 3: of people because of their religion. And I certainly think
Speaker 3: that if we start doing the protocols of the Elders
Speaker 3: of Zion against all Jews right now, it's also not
Speaker 3: very helpful. So we had this incredible, incredible conversation here.
Speaker 3: It was actually in the news. The Tennesseean was there
Speaker 3: and it was so positive. And then they started trying
Speaker 3: to promote it on social media, like, here's a moment
Speaker 3: where we can actually talk about our anger and our
Speaker 3: fear and our uncertainty and not break the historic connections
Speaker 3: we've built here. The mayor was there and I put
Speaker 3: it up on social media as other people did, and
Speaker 3: it got I think three retweets on tweeter Twitter three retweets,
Speaker 3: and nobody could get more than five engageds on it,
Speaker 3: I mean, like total engagements, even though it was this
Speaker 3: like house thing we did. But then if you look
Speaker 3: at some shit Judith Butler said twenty years ago, it
Speaker 3: gets nine million hits or some crazy thing about zionis
Speaker 3: controlling blah blah blah or whatever. So again, I'm not
Speaker 3: trying to deny the thing itself, but I guess part
Speaker 3: of the anxiety is also there's just some kind of
Speaker 3: high level algorithmic disinformation campaign that's also setting us against
Speaker 3: each other. Right now that I really do feel that.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're not feeling it out of nowhere. It's
Speaker 1: actually true and happening. And we know what Elon Musk
Speaker 1: has done in terms of all of the departments that
Speaker 1: were in place to make sure that there was some
Speaker 1: type of equity that there were some type of guardrails
Speaker 1: and barriers for hate speech and all of the he
Speaker 1: did away with all of those things. So if you're
Speaker 1: promoting positivity, if you're promoting connection and community, that is
Speaker 1: not the desired uh algth, that's not the desired content
Speaker 1: of his new white supremacist platform, reinvented platform, Like, that's
Speaker 1: not the goal.
Speaker 3: It's like this toxic mix of it feels like three
Speaker 3: things are happening at the same time. One is the
Speaker 3: guardrails are off on this. Two is that Americans just
Speaker 3: haven't paid attention to foreign policy ever, I mean ever, right,
Speaker 3: So all of a sudden it's like, oh wait, there
Speaker 3: is a world out there, So it's like this engagement
Speaker 3: with so there's a total kind of lack of knowledge
Speaker 3: in a certain way for a lot of people. And
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden, there's this whole new domain.
Speaker 3: And it really does feel like the forces that are
Speaker 3: setting us against each other didn't didn't just happen two
Speaker 3: weeks ago, Like there's been a It feels like this
Speaker 3: is kind of pre metad some of this stuff from
Speaker 3: a disinformation standpoint, I have no evidence for that, just
Speaker 3: how it feels to me. You know, like I have
Speaker 3: students quoting from the protocols of the Elders of Zion
Speaker 3: who like honestly haven't done their homework all semester, and
Speaker 3: all of a sudden they're reading a text from you
Speaker 3: know whatever. I'm like, come on, man, and so and
Speaker 3: so it's partially that, and then of course it's on
Speaker 3: top of this horrible thing where there's like death and
Speaker 3: destruction and things that seem like absolute human catastrophes of
Speaker 3: you know, state and terrorist sanctioned murder and all these things,
Speaker 3: and so it's just this toxic mix, and I just
Speaker 3: I guess I just feel like we're very easily like
Speaker 3: it's a horrible thing and we're very easily manipulated right
Speaker 3: now because we're scared and we're ill informed, and it
Speaker 3: just feels like all those things are together, and so
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's just a question of like, how
Speaker 3: are we going to fix this right now? Of course,
Speaker 3: there's fixing the actual thing, And I'm not trying to
Speaker 3: be vague about the thing. I mean, I'm happy to
Speaker 3: talk about what's happening in the Middle East. Also. I mean,
Speaker 3: as you know, I've been working in the Middle East
Speaker 3: for a decade. I have very strong feelings, but it's
Speaker 3: also like waking up to all these things. And to
Speaker 3: be honest, I don't think it's just waking up to
Speaker 3: US foreign policy. I think personally American Jews have been
Speaker 3: way too silent about the settler movement and about you know,
Speaker 3: right wing Israeli government people walking through Islamic holie sites.
Speaker 3: I think that I think that there's a collapsing of
Speaker 3: support for Palestinian people and some horrible stuff right now,
Speaker 3: Like all these things are happening at one time, and
Speaker 3: so I don't know. The question is like, how do
Speaker 3: we how do I mean, maybe we've had our moment
Speaker 3: of shock. Maybe maybe we've had our moment of shock,
Speaker 3: and now we're going to step back and figure out
Speaker 3: a way to reconnect. I mean, that's that's my hope.
Speaker 3: But I'm just kind of blabbing on right now because.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: If I don't think that the moment of shock is done,
Speaker 1: I don't I think that when you have a country
Speaker 1: like the United States that has been able to exist
Speaker 1: fairly much inside of a vacuum, not having to pay
Speaker 1: attention to or be concerned with any of the happenings
Speaker 1: outside of our own borders, right, I think that there
Speaker 1: is a great learning and need to understand what is happening.
Speaker 1: I also have been hearing reports, you know, that it's
Speaker 1: actually the older generations, the boomers, that are more susceptible
Speaker 1: to believing misinformation than younger millennials gen Z, gen X
Speaker 1: folks are like, they know what they're you know, they
Speaker 1: know what they're looking for, and they know where to
Speaker 1: source information from. And so I guess one of the
Speaker 1: places that I am readily concerned, and it is a
Speaker 1: self centered concern about our own democracy, which is the
Speaker 1: fact that you know, here we are where this month,
Speaker 1: a year out from the twenty twenty four presidential election,
Speaker 1: the most consequential election of our lifetime. It is honestly
Speaker 1: an election between you know, democracy and authoritarianism. I won't
Speaker 1: even say good and evil, because I'm not feeling quite
Speaker 1: good this moment about this current administration. But what I
Speaker 1: will say is that when you are witnessing in the
Speaker 1: comments in social media, in regular one on one conversations
Speaker 1: with people about their grief and their distrust over what
Speaker 1: this government is doing. I was watching, you know recently
Speaker 1: earlier this earlier in the week a committee hearing at
Speaker 1: the Senate with Secretary of State Blincoln, and it's being
Speaker 1: interrupted every every every other sentence that he is saying.
Speaker 1: There are protests that were breaking out inside of the
Speaker 1: Senate hearing hearing, and people are pissed, they are angry,
Speaker 1: they are outraged, and so I worry about the effects
Speaker 1: of that outrage on an election that is a year away.
Speaker 1: And sure, we like to say that people don't have
Speaker 1: long attention spans, because they don't. It's particularly Americans. But
Speaker 1: I honestly, Jonathan, I feel like this time, this moment
Speaker 1: is different. And if this administration does not get a
Speaker 1: hold of not only their narrative but their actions, then
Speaker 1: I think that they will erode any support that they
Speaker 1: have been able to gain. And people and people, what
Speaker 1: I think is that people will stay home.
Speaker 3: I mean, let me ask you this. I mean again,
Speaker 3: people are pissed. People are pissed for a reason, right,
Speaker 3: A lot of people on different You know, our foreign
Speaker 3: policy has been misguided. We haven't done enough to stand
Speaker 3: up to the Nittanyao government. I've felt that for a
Speaker 3: very long time. I think we've pursued peace treaties under
Speaker 3: the Abraham Accords that made agreements with governments and businesses
Speaker 3: and not with everyday people on the ground. We've too
Speaker 3: easily avoided the catastrophe that is happening in Gaza. Like
Speaker 3: all these things led up to this moment, and and
Speaker 3: there are really important questions about like how how did
Speaker 3: Nittanyahu get elected? How did he get so much power?
Speaker 3: It's not just about Israeli politics, it's also about US politics,
Speaker 3: and so all these things are true. And at the
Speaker 3: same time, I don't know, yep, we've got who's the
Speaker 3: Grand Inquisitor Tokyomata or whatever from the Spanish Inquisition, Like
Speaker 3: that guy just became Speaker of the House of Representatives,
Speaker 3: and it's like it's just kind of passed right through.
Speaker 3: So who is dividing the opposition? Who benefits from that?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: It just seems to me that all these things are
Speaker 3: happening in a way that are incredibly convenient if you
Speaker 3: want to take over the United States ultimately. So I
Speaker 3: find this a terrifying moment because again, all these things
Speaker 3: are true. And even though like a lot of this
Speaker 3: stuff for many people I know, happened yesterday, it's been
Speaker 3: a slow moving train wreck for a really long time.
Speaker 3: But right now, who is benefiting from a totally fractured
Speaker 3: US opposition, you know, the same people who put Trump
Speaker 3: in office in the first place. And so it's a
Speaker 3: scary moment, not just because we're I just it's a
Speaker 3: terrifying moment because I think we have a very short
Speaker 3: time to figure out how to come back together on this.
Speaker 1: I believe that the pieces were put in play in
Speaker 1: probably I don't know, the mid twenty the mid two thousands.
Speaker 1: To divide and conquer, right like that has always been
Speaker 1: the goal of those that have been in opposition of
Speaker 1: the United States and so and democracy. And it's working
Speaker 1: because we have a very malleable right wing, white supremaist
Speaker 1: political party that is more than happy to throw out
Speaker 1: democratic norms in order to uphold their power. And that's
Speaker 1: what that's for me, That's why I feel so unsteady.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And in a global context, right if all this
Speaker 3: leads to Russia having much more influence Yep, and Iran
Speaker 3: having much more influence the current Iranian government, you know,
Speaker 3: if Russia takes over Ukraine and Iran has much more
Speaker 3: influence in the Middle East, that's not a great thing
Speaker 3: for I'll just say liberal protest movements in the United
Speaker 3: States right, if we lose democratic footholds for better or worse,
Speaker 3: and oppressive states that are more aligned with our right
Speaker 3: become more globally powerful. It also has implications for the
Speaker 3: United States, and so how we move right now is
Speaker 3: really perilous and it's really important. And I'm sorry, I
Speaker 3: know I'm talking at like fifty thousand feet right now,
Speaker 3: but I'm just trying to I'm trying to just think
Speaker 3: strategically about like what you do at a moment like this,
Speaker 3: and it's not easy.
Speaker 2: No, it is not.
Speaker 1: And so we will leave it there today, my friend,
Speaker 1: and pick it up again next week. Always appreciate you, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: your insight, your analysis, and all we can be sometimes
Speaker 1: is at fifty thousand feet because that's where we can
Speaker 1: see clearer than when things are up close. So always
Speaker 1: appreciate you, my friend. That is it for me today,
Speaker 1: Dear friends, on wokef as always power to the people
Speaker 1: and to all the people.
Speaker 2: Power, get woke and stay woke as fun