As the climate crisis escalates, a just and rapid transition to renewable energy might seem like the obvious solution. Yet somehow, fossil fuel expansion always remains on the agenda. Environmental activist and author Bill McKibben joins Inequality Watch to expose the network of carbon guzzling billionaires manipulating our media to keep our planet warming and their pockets flush with oil and gas profits.
Produced by: Taya Graham, Stephen Janis Studio Production: David Hebden, Cameron Granadino Post-Production: Adam Coley Written by: Stephen Janis
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Taya Graham:
Hello, my name is Taya Graham, and welcome to our show, The Inequality Watch. You may know me and my reporting partner, Stephen Janis, for our police accountability reporting. Well, this show is similar except, in this case, our job is to hold billionaires and extremely wealthy individuals accountable. And to do so, we don’t just focus on the bad behavior of a single billionaire. Instead, we examine the system that makes the extreme hoarding of wealth possible.
And today we’re going to unpack a topic that is extremely unpopular with most billionaires. It also might not seem like the most likely topic for a story about inequality, but I think when we explain it and talk to our guests, you might find there’s more to it than meets the eye.
I’m talking about the future of renewable energy and how it could impact your life. And now wait, before you say, Taya, you’re crazy, I mean, Elon Musk builds electric cars. How do you know billionaires don’t like green energy? Well, just give me a second. I think the way we approach this topic will not be what you expect. That’s because there’s a huge invisible media ecosystem that has been constructed around the idea that green energy is somehow too expensive or useless — Or, even worse yet, a conspiracy to fill liberal elite politico coffers.
But what if that’s not true? What if it’s not just fault, but patently, vehemently untrue? If you believe the right-wing media ecosystem, we’re apparently destined to spend tens of thousands of dollars to purchase and then tens of thousands to maintain gas-guzzling cars for the rest of our lives. We’ll inevitably be forced to pay higher and higher utility bills to pay for gas, oil, and coal that will enrich the wealthiest who continue to extract it.
But I just want you to consider an alternative. What if, in fact, the opposite is true? What if renewables could finally and for once, and I really mean for once, actually benefit the working people of this country? What if solar, for example, keeps getting cheaper and batteries more efficient so that using this energy could be as cheap and as simple as pointing a mirror at the sun? And what about the so-called carbon billionaires who are enriched by burning planet-heating gases while they jet set in private planes burning even more carbon while I’m busy using recycled grocery bags? What if they’ve constructed an elaborate plan to make you believe that electricity from the sun is somehow more costly and less healthy?
And what if that’s all wrong? What if someday your utility bill could be halved? What if you could buy an electric car for one-fifth the price of a gas powered and leave gas stations and high gas prices behind forever? And what if your life could actually be made easier by a new technology?
Well, there is a massive media ecosystem that wants you to think you are destined to be immersed in carbon. They want you to believe that progress is impossible, and ultimately, that innovation is simply something to be feared, not embraced.
But today we are here to discuss an alternative way of looking at renewable energy, and we’ll be talking to someone who knows more about its potential than anyone. His name is Bill McKibben, and he’s one of the foremost advocates for renewable energy and a leader in the fight against global climate change. Bill McKibben is the founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 for action on climate injustice. His 1989 book, The End of Nature, is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and it’s appeared in over 24 languages. He helped found 350.org, the first global grassroots climate campaign, which has organized protests on every continent — Including Antarctica — For climate change. And he even played a leading role in launching the opposition to big oil pipeline projects like the Keystone XL and the fossil fuel divestment campaign, which has become the biggest anticorporate campaign in history. He’s even won the Gandhi Peace Prize. I cannot wait to speak to this amazing champion.
But before we turn to him, I want to turn to my reporting partner, Stephen Janis, and discuss how issues like renewables fit into the idea of inequality and why it’s important to view it through that lens.
Stephen Janis:
Well, Taya, one of the reasons we wanted to do this show was because I feel like we are living in the reality of the extractive economy that we’ve talked about. And that reality is psychological. Because we have to be extracted from. They’re not going to give us good products or good ways or improve our lives, they’re going to find ways to extract wealth from us.
And this issue, to me, is a perfect example because we’ve been living in this big carbon ecosystem of information, and the dividend has been cynicism. The main priority of the people who fill our minds with the impossibility are the people who really live off the idea of cynicism: nothing works, everything’s broken, technology can’t fix anything, and everything is dystopian.
But I thought when I was thinking about our own lives and how much money we spend to gas up a car, this actually has a possibility to transform the lives of the working class. And that’s why we have to take it seriously and look at it from a different perspective than the way the carbon billionaires want us to. Because the carbon billionaires are spending tons of money to make us think this is impossible.
And I think what we need really, truly is a revolution of competency here. A revolution of idea, a revolution that there are ways to improve our lives despite what the carbon billionaires want us to believe, that nothing works and we all hate each other. And so this, I think, is a perfect topic and a perfect example of that.
Taya Graham:
Stephen, that’s an excellent point.
Stephen Janis:
Thank you.
Taya Graham:
It really is. I feel like the entire idea of renewable energy has been sold as a cost rather than a benefit, and that seems intentional to me. It seems like there is an arc to this technology that could literally wipe carbon billionaires off the face of the earth in the sense that the carbon economy is simply less efficient, more costly, and, ultimately, less plentiful.
But before we get to our guest, let me just give one example. And to do so, I’m going to turn to politics in the UK. There, the leader of a reform party, a right-wing populous group that has been gaining power called renewable energy a massive con and pledged to enact laws that would tax solar power and ban — Yes, you heard it right — Ban industrial-scale battery power. But there was an issue: a fellow member of the party in Parliament had just installed solar panels on his farm and had touted it on a website as, you guessed it, a great business decision. The MP Robert Lowe, as The Guardian UK reported, was ecstatic about his investment, touting it as the best way to get low-cost energy. I mean, I don’t know if the word hypocrisy is strong enough to describe this.
Stephen Janis:
Seems inadequate.
Taya Graham:
Yeah, it really does.
But I do think it’s a great place to introduce and bring in our guest, Bill McKibbon. Mr. McKibbon, thank you so much for joining us.
Bill McKibben:
What a pleasure to be with you.
Taya Graham:
So first, please just help me understand how a party could, on one hand, advocate against renewable energy and, on the other, use it profitably? What is motivating what I think could be called hypocrisy?
Bill McKibben:
Well, we’re in a very paradoxical moment here. For a long time, what we would call renewable energy, energy from the sun and the wind, was more expensive. That’s why we talked about it as alternative energy. And we have talked about carbon taxes to make it a more viable alternative and things. Within the last decade, the price of energy from the sun and the wind and the batteries to store that when the sun goes down or the wind drops, the price of that’s been cut about 90%. The engineers have really done their job.
Sometime three or four years ago, we passed some invisible line where it became the cheapest power on the planet. We live on an earth where the cheapest way to make energy is to point a sheet of glass at the sun. So that’s great news. That’s one of the few pieces of good news that’s happening in a world where there’s a lot of bad news happening.
Great news, unless you own a oil well or a coal mine or something else that we wouldn’t need anymore. Or if your political party has been tied up with that industry in the deepest ways. Those companies, those people are panicked. That’s why, for instance, in America, the fossil fuel industry spent $455 million on the last election cycle. They know that they have no choice but to try and slow down the transition to renewable energy.
Stephen Janis:
So I mean, how do they always seem to be able to set the debate, though? It always seems like carbon billionaires and carbon interests seem to be able to cast aside renewable energy ideas, and they always seem to be in control of the dialogue. Is that true? And how do they do that, do you think?
Bill McKibben:
Well, I mean, they’re in control of the dialogue the way they are in control of many dialogues in our political life by virtue of having a lot of money and owning TV networks and on and on and on. But in this case, they have to work very hard because renewable energy, especially solar energy, is so cheap and so many people have begun to use it and understand its appeal, that it’s getting harder and harder to stuff this genie back into the bottle.
Look at a place like Germany where last year, 2024, a million and a half Germans put solar panels on the balconies of their apartments. This balcony solar is suddenly a huge movement there. You can just go to IKEA and buy one and stick it up. You can’t do that in this country because our building codes and things make it hard, and the fossil fuel industry will do everything they can to make sure that continues to be the case.
Taya Graham:
Well, I have to ask, given what you’ve told us, what do you think are the biggest obstacles to taking advantage of these technological advances? What is getting in our way and what can we do about it?
Bill McKibben:
Well, look, there are two issues here. One is vested interest and the other is inertia. And these are always factors in human affairs, and they’re factors here. Vested interest now works by creating more inertia. So the fossil fuel industry won the election in 2024. They elected Donald Trump. And Donald Trump in his first day in office declared an energy emergency, saying that we needed to produce more energy, and then he defined energy to exclude wind and solar power; only fossil fuels and nuclear need apply. He’s banned new offshore wind and may, in fact, be trying to interfere with the construction of things that had already been approved and are underway.
So this is hard work to build out a new energy system, but by no means impossible. And for the last two years around the world, it’s been happening in remarkable fashion. Beginning in about the middle of 2023, human beings were putting up a gigawatt’s worth of solar panels every day. A gigawatt’s the rough equivalent of a nuclear or a coal-fired power plant. So every day on their roofs, in solar farms, whatever, people were building another nuclear reactor, it’s just that they were doing it by pointing a sheet of black glass at the great nuclear reactor 93 million miles up in the sky.
Stephen Janis:
Speaking of around the world, I was just thinking, because I’ve been reading a lot, it seems like we’re conceding this renewable future to China a bit. Do you feel like there’s a threat that, if we don’t reverse course, that China could just completely overwhelm us with their advantages in this technology?
Bill McKibben:
I don’t think there’s a threat, I think there’s a guarantee. And in fact, I think in the course of doing this, we’re ceding global leadership overall to the Chinese. This is the most important economic transition that will happen this century. And China’s been in the lead, they’ve been much more proactive here, but the US was starting to catch up with the IRA that Biden passed, and we were beginning to build our own battery factories and so on. And that’s now all called into question by the Trump ascension. I think it will probably rank as one of the stupidest economic decisions in American history.
Taya Graham:
Well, I have to follow that up with this question: Do you think that the current administration can effectively shut down this kind of progress in solar and renewables? And how much do you think the recent freeze in spending can just derail the progress, basically?
Bill McKibben:
So they can’t shut it down, but they can slow it down, and they will. And in this case, time is everything. And that’s because one of, well, the biggest reason that we want to be making this shift is because the climate future of the planet is on the line. And, as you are aware, that climate future is playing out very quickly. Look, the world’s climate scientists have told us we need to cut emissions in half by 2030 to have some chance of staying on that Paris pathway. 2030, by my watch, is four years and 10 months away now. That doesn’t give us a huge amount of time. So the fact that Trump is slowing down this transition is really important.
Now, I think the deepest problem may be that he’s attempting to slow it down, not only in the US, but around the world. He’s been telling other countries that if they don’t buy a lot of us liquified natural gas, then he’ll hit them with tariffs and things like that. So he’s doing his best to impose his own weird views about climate and energy onto the entire planet.
Again, he can’t stop it. The economics of this are so powerful that eventually we’ll run the world on sun and wind — But eventually doesn’t help much with the climate, not when we’re watching the North and the South Poles melt in real time.
Taya Graham:
I just want to follow up with a clip from Russell Vought who was just confirmed the lead to the Office of Management and Budget. And he was giving a speech at the Center for Renewing America. And I just wanted Mr. McKibbon to hear this really quick first and then to have him respond. So let’s just play that clip for him.
[CLIP BEGINS]
Russell Vought:
We want the bureaucrats to be tramatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they’re increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. We want to put them in trauma.
[VIDEO CLIP ENDS]
Taya Graham:
So the reason why I played this for you is because I wanted to know what your concerns would be with the EPA being kneecapped, if not utterly defunded. And just so people understand what the actions are that the EPA takes and the areas that the EPA regulates that protect the public that people just might not be aware of.
Bill McKibben:
I’m old enough to have been in this country before the EPA, and before the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. They all came together in the early 1970s right on the heels of the first Earth Day and the huge outpouring of Americans into the street. And in those days, you could not breathe the air in many of the cities in this nation without doing yourself damage. And when I was a boy, you couldn’t swim in an awful lot of the rivers, streams, lakes of America. We’ve made extraordinary environmental progress on those things, and we’d begun, finally, to make some halting progress around this even deeper environmental issue of climate change.
But what Mr. Vought is talking about is that that comes at some cost to the people who are his backers: the people in the fossil fuel industry. He doesn’t want rules about clean air, clean water, or a working climate. He wants to… Well, he wants short-term profit for his friends at the long-term expense of everybody in this country and in this world.
Stephen Janis:
It’s interesting because you bring up a point that I think I hear a lot on right-wing ecosystem, media ecosystems that, somehow, clean energy is unfairly subsidized by the government. But isn’t it true that carbon interests are subsidized to a great extent, if not more than green energy?
Bill McKibben:
Yes. The fossil fuel subsidy is, of course, enormous and has been for a century or more. That’s why we have things like the oil depletion allowance and on and on and on. But of course, the biggest subsidy to the fossil fuel industry by far is that we just allow them to use our atmosphere as an open sewer for free. There’s no cost to them to pour carbon into the air and heat up the planet. And when we try to impose some cost — New York state just passed a law that’s going to send a bill to big oil for the climate damages — They’re immediately opposed by the industry, and in this case, with the Trump administration on their side, they’ll do everything they can to make it impossible to ever recover any of those costs. So the subsidy to fossil energy dwarfs that to renewable energy by a factor of orders of magnitude.
Stephen Janis:
That’s really interesting because sometimes people try to, like there was a change in the calculation of the cost of each ton of carbon. That’s really a really important kind of way to measure the true impact. You make a really good point, and that is quite expensive when you take a ton of carbon and figure out what the real cost is to society and to our lives. It’s very high.
Bill McKibben:
Well, that cost gets higher, too, all the time. And sometimes people, it’s paid in very concentrated ways — Your neighborhood in Los Angeles burns down and every house goes with it. And sometimes the cost is more spread out. At the moment, anybody who has an insurance policy, a homeowner’s insurance policy in this country, is watching it skyrocket in price far faster than inflation. And that’s because the insurance companies have this huge climate risk to deal with, and they really can’t. That’s why, in many places, governments are becoming insurers of last resort for millions and millions of Americans.
Taya Graham:
I was curious about, since I asked you to rate something within the current Trump administration, I thought it would be fair to ask you to rate the Inflation Reduction Act. I know the current administration is trying to dismantle it, but I wanted your thoughts on this. Do you think it’s been effective?
Bill McKibben:
Yeah, it’s by no means a perfect piece of legislation. It had to pass the Senate by a single vote, Joe Manchin’s vote, and he took more money from the fossil fuel industry than anybody else, so he made sure that it was larded with presence for that industry. So there’s a lot of stupid money in it, but that was the price for getting the wise money, the money that was backing sun and wind and battery development in this country, the money that was helping us begin to close that gap that you described with China. And it’s a grave mistake to derail it now, literally an attempt to send us backwards in our energy policy at a moment when the rest of the world is trying to go in the other direction.
Stephen Janis:
Speaking of that, I wanted to ask you a question from a personal… Our car was stolen and we were trying to get an electric car, but we couldn’t afford it. Why are there electric cars in China that supposedly run about 10,000 bucks, and you want to buy an electric car in this country and it’s like 50, 60, 70, whatever. I know it’s getting cheaper, but why are they cheaper elsewhere and not here?
Bill McKibben:
Well, I mean, first of all, they should not, unless you want a big luxury vehicle, shouldn’t be anything like that expensive even here. I drive a Kia Niro EV, and I’ve done it for years, and you can get it for less than the cost of the average new car in America. [Crosstalk] Chinese are developing beautiful, beautiful EVs, and we’ll never get them because of tariffs. We’re going to try and protect our auto industry — Which would be a reasonable thing to do if in the few years that we were protecting that auto industry, it was being transformed to compete with the Chinese. But Trump has decided he’s going to get rid of the EV mandate. I mean, in his view, in his world, I guess will be the last little island of the internal combustion engines, while everybody else around the world gets to use EVs.
And the thing about EVs is not just that they’re cleaner, it’s that they’re better in every way. They’re much cheaper to operate. They have no moving parts, hardly. I’ve had mine seven years and I haven’t been to the mechanic for anything on it yet. It’s the ultimate travesty of protectionism closing ourselves off from the future.
Taya Graham:
That’s such a shame. And because I feel like people are worried that in the auto industry, that bringing in renewables would somehow harm the autoworkers, it’s just asking them to build a different car. It’s not trying to take away jobs, which I think is really important for people to understand.
Stephen Janis:
Absolutely.
Taya Graham:
But I was curious, there’s a bunch of different types of renewables, I was wondering maybe you could help us understand what advantages solar might have versus what the advantages of wind [are]. Just maybe help us understand the different type of renewables we have.
Bill McKibben:
Solar and wind are beautifully complimentary, and in many ways. The higher in latitude you go, the less sun you get, but the more wind you tend to get. Sun is there during the midday and afternoon, and then when the sun begins to go down, it’s when the wind usually comes up. If you have a period without sun for a few days, it’s usually because a storm system of some kind that’s going through, and that makes wind all the more useful. So these two things work in complement powerfully with each other. And the third element that you need to really make it all work is a good system of batteries store that power.
And when you get these things going simultaneously, you get enormous change. California last year passed some kind of tipping point. They’d put up enough solar panels and things that, for most of the year, most days, California was able to supply a hundred percent of its electricity renewably for long stretches of the day. And at night when the sun went down, batteries were the biggest source of supply to the grid. That’s a pretty remarkable thing because those batteries didn’t even exist on that grid two or three years ago. This change is happening fast. It’s happening fastest, as we’ve said in China, which has really turned itself into an electro state, if you will, as opposed to a petro state, in very short order. But as I say, California is a pretty good example. And now Texas is putting up more clean energy faster than any other place in the country.
Stephen Janis:
That’s ironic.
Taya Graham:
Yeah. Well, I was wondering, there’s a technology that makes the news pretty often, but I don’t know if it’s feasible, I think it’s called carbon capture or carbon sequestration. I know that Biden administration had set aside money to bolster it, but does this technology make sense?
Bill McKibben:
These were the gifts to the fossil fuel industry that I was talking about in the IRA. It comes in several forms, but the one I think you’re referring to is that you put a filter on top, essentially, of a coal-fired power plant or a gas-fired power plant and catch the carbon as it comes out of the exhaust stream and then pump it underground someplace and lock it away. You can do it, you just can’t do it economically. Look, it’s already cheaper just to build a solar farm than to have a coal-fired power plant. And once you’ve doubled the price of that coal-fired power plant by putting an elaborate chemistry set on top of it, the only way to do this is with endless ongoing gifts from the taxpayer, which is what the fossil fuel industry would like, but doesn’t make any kind of economic sense.
Stephen Janis:
You just said something very profound there. You said that it’s cheaper to build a solar field than it is to build a coal plant, but why is this not getting through? I feel like the American public doesn’t really know this. Why is this being hidden from us, in many ways?
Bill McKibben:
In one way, it is getting through. Something like 80% of all the new electric generation that went up last year in this country was sun and wind. So utilities and things sort of understand it. But yes, you’re right. And I think the reason is that we still think of this stuff as alternative energy. I think in our minds, it lives like we think of it as the whole foods of energy; it’s nice, but it’s pricey. In fact, it’s the Costco of energy; It’s cheap, it’s available in bulk on the shelf, and it’s what we should be turning to. And the fact that utilities and things are increasingly trying to build solar power and whatever is precisely the reason that the fossil fuel industry is fighting so hard to elect people like Trump.
When I told you what California was doing last year, what change it had seen, as a result, California, in 2024, used 25% less natural gas to produce electricity than they had in 2023. That’s a huge change in the fifth largest economy on earth in one year. It shows you what can happen when you deploy this technology. And that’s the reason that the fossil fuel industry is completely freaked out.
Stephen Janis:
By the way, as a person who has tried to shop at Whole Foods, I immediately understood your comparison.
Taya Graham:
I thought that was great. It’s not the Whole Foods of energy, It’s actually the Costco, that’s so great.
Stephen Janis:
There is that perception though, it’s a bunch of latte-drinking liberals who think that this is what we’re trying to get across —
Taya Graham:
Chai latte, matcha latte.
Stephen Janis:
That’s why it’s so important. It’s cheaper! It’s cheaper. Sorry, go ahead —
Taya Graham:
That’s such a great point. We actually, we try to look for good policy everywhere we go. And we attended a discussion at the Cato Institute, and this is where their energy fellow described how Trump would use a so-called energy emergency to turn over more federal lands to drilling. So I’m just going to play a little bit of sound for you, and let’s take a listen.
[CLIP BEGINS]
Speaker 1:
What does work in your mix?
Speaker 2:
So I call it the Joe Dirt approach. Have you seen that scene in the movie where he’s talking to the guy selling fireworks, and the guy has preferences over very specific fireworks, it’s like snakes and sparklers. The quote from Joe Dirt is, “It’s not about you, it’s about the consumer.” So I think, fundamentally, I’m resource neutral. I will support whatever consumers want and are willing to pay for. I think where that comes out in policy is you would remove artificial constraints. So right now we have a lot of artificial constraints from the Environmental Protection Agency on certain power plants, phasing out coal-fire power, for example. So I would hope, and I would encourage a resource-neutral approach, just we will take energy from anybody that wants to supply it and anybody that wants to buy it.
[CLIP ENDS]
Stephen Janis:
Mr. McKibben, I still feel like he’s not really resource neutral. Do you trust the Cato Institute on this issue, or what do you think he’s trying to say there?
Bill McKibben:
Well, I mean, I think he’s… The problem, of course, is that we have one set of energy sources [which] causes this extraordinary crisis, the climate crisis. And so it really doesn’t make sense to be trying to increase the amount of oil or coal or whatever that we’re using. That’s why the world has been engaged for a couple of decades now in an effort, a theoretical effort, with some success in some places, to stop using these things. And the right wing in this country that has always been triggered by this and has always done what they can to try and bolster the fossil fuel industry. That was always stupid economically just because the costs of climate change were so hot. But now it’s stupid economically because the cost of renewable energy is so low.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, I mean, the right always purports to be more cost effective, cost conscious or whatever. I just don’t understand it. I would think they’d be greedy or something, or they’d want to make more money. Is it just that renewables ultimately won’t be profitable for them? Or what’s the…
Bill McKibben:
If you think about it, you’re catching an important point there. For all of us who have to use them, renewable energy is cheap, but it’s very hard to make a fortune in renewable energy precisely because it’s cheap. So the CEO of Exxon last year said his company would never be investing in renewable energy because, as he put it, it can’t return above average profits for investors. What he means is you can’t hoard it. You can’t hold it in reserve. The sun delivers energy for free every morning when it rises above the horizon. And for people, that’s great news, and for big oil, that’s terrible news because they’ve made their fortune for a century by, well, by selling you a little bit at a time. You have to write ’em a check every month.
Taya Graham:
Stephen and I came up with this theory about billionaires, that there’s conflict billionaires, for example, the ones who make money from social media; there’s capture billionaires with private equity; and then there’s carbon billionaires. So I was just wondering, we have this massive misinformation ecosystem that seems very much aligned against renewables. Do you have any idea who is funding this antirenewable coalition? Is our theory about the carbon class correct, I guess?
Bill McKibben:
Yes. The biggest oil and gas barons in America are the Koch brothers, they control more refining and pipeline capacity than anybody else. And they’ve also, of course, been the biggest bankrollers of the Republican right for 30 years. They built that series of institutions that, in the end, were the thing that elected Donald Trump and brought the Supreme Court to where it is and so on and so forth. So the linkages like that could not be tighter.
Stephen Janis:
So last question, ending on a positive note. Do you foresee a future where we could run our entire economy on renewables? I’m just going to put it out there and see if you think it’s actually feasible or possible.
Taya Graham:
And if so, how much money could it save us?
Bill McKibben:
People have done this work, a big study at Oxford two years ago, looking at just this question. It concluded that yes, it’s entirely possible to run the whole world on sun, wind, and batteries, and hydropower, and that if you did it, you’d save the world tens of trillions of dollars. You save more the faster you do it simply because you don’t have to keep paying for more fuel. Yes, you have to pay the upfront cost of putting up the solar panel, but after that, there’s no fuel cost. And that changes the equation in huge ways.
We want to get this across. That’s why later this year in September on the fall equinox, we’ll be having this big day of action. We’re going to call it Sun Day, and we’re going to make the effort to really drive home to people what a remarkable place we’re in right now, what a remarkable chance we have to reorient human societies. And in a world where everything seems to be going wrong, this is the thing that’s going right.
Stephen Janis:
Well, just [so you] know, we did buy a used hybrid, which I really love, but I love electric cars. I do want to get an electric car —
Bill McKibben:
Well, make sure you get an e-bike. That’s an even cooler piece of [crosstalk] technology. Oh, really?
Stephen Janis:
Oh, really? OK. Got it. Got it. But thank you so much.
Bill McKibben:
All right, thank you, guys.
Taya Graham:
Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate you, and we got you out in exactly 40 minutes, so —
Bill McKibben:
[Crosstalk].
Taya Graham:
OK. Thank you so much. It was such a wonderful opportunity to meet you. Thank you so much.
Bill McKibben:
Take care.
Stephen Janis:
Take care.
Taya Graham:
OK, bye.
Wow. I have to thank our incredible guest, Bill McKibben, for his insights and thoughtful analysis. I think this type of discussion is so important to providing you, our viewers, with the facts regarding critical issues that will affect not only your future, but also your loved ones, your children, and your grandchildren. And I know the internet is replete with conspiracy theories about climate change and the technologies that we just discussed, but let’s remember, the real conspiracy might be to convince you that all of this possible progress is somehow bad. That the possibility of cheap, clean energy is what? It’s a plot. It’s a myth.
Stephen, what are your thoughts before I try to grab the wheel?
Stephen Janis:
I want to say emphatically that you’re being fooled in the worst possible way, all of us. And we’re literally being pushed towards our own demise by this. You want to talk about a real conspiracy, not QAnon or something, let’s talk about the reason that we don’t think that we could embrace this renewable future. And it’s for the working class. It’s for people like us that can barely afford to pay our bills. We’ll suddenly be saving thousands of dollars a year. It’s just an amazing construct that they’ve done on the psychology of it to make it think that we’re antiprogress, in America of all things. We’re antiprogress. We’re anti-the future.
Taya Graham:
We’re supposed to be the innovators. We’re the ones who have had the best science. Didn’t we get to the moon first?
Stephen Janis:
[Crosstalk]
Taya Graham:
We have scientists, innovation. I mean, in some ways we’ve been the envy of the world and we’ve attracted some of the most powerful scientists and intellectuals from around the globe to our country because we’re known for our innovation. This is really —
Stephen Janis:
We embrace stuff like AI, which, God knows where that’s going to go, and other things. But this is pretty simple. This is pretty simple. Something that could actually affect people’s lives directly. We spend $2,500 a year on gas, $3,000 to $4,000 a year on utilities. And here’s one of the leading, most respected people in this field saying, you know what? You’re not going to pay almost anything by the time it’s all installed. And yet we believe it’s impossible. And it’s really strange for me. But I’m glad we had him on to actually clarify that and maybe push through the noise a little bit.
Taya Graham:
Yeah, me too. Me too. I just wanted to add just a few closing thoughts about our discussion and why it’s important. And I think this conversation literally could not be more important, if only because the implications of being wrong are literally an existential crisis, and the consequences of being right could be liberating.
So to start this rant off, I want to begin with something that seems perhaps unrelated, but is a big part of the consequences for our environment and the people like us that will have to live with it. And hopefully in doing so, I’ll be able to unpack some of the consequences of how these carbon billionaires don’t just hurt our wallets, but actually put our lives in harm’s way. I want to talk about firetrucks.
Stephen Janis:
Firetrucks?
Taya Graham:
Yes. OK. I know that sounds crazy, but these massive red engines, they scream towards a fire to save lives. Isn’t this image iconic? Who hasn’t watched in awe as a ladder truck careens down a city street to subdue the flames of a possibly deadly blaze? But now, thanks to our ever increasingly extractive economy, they’re also symbol of how extreme economic inequality affects our lives in unseen ways. And let me try to explain how.
Now, we all remember the horrific fires in Los Angeles several weeks ago. The historic blazes took out thousands of homes, leaving people’s lives in ruin and billions of dollars in damage. But the catastrophe was not immune from politics. President Trump accused California of holding back water from other parts of the state, which was untrue. And Los Angeles officials were also blasted for not being prepared, which is a more complicated conversation.
However, one aspect of fire that got less attention was the firetrucks. That is, until The New York Times wrote this article that is not only shocking, but actually shows how deep extractive capitalism has wreaked havoc on our lives.
So this story recounts how additional firefighters who were called in to help with the blaze were sidelined because of lack of firetrucks. So the story notes that the inability to mobilize was due to the sorry state of the fleet, which was aging, in disrepair, and new replacements had not been ordered, and the ones that had been ordered had yet to be delivered.
So this, of course, all begs the question why? Why is the mighty US economy not able to deliver lifesaving equipment in a timely manner? Well, the failure is, in part, thanks to private equity, the Wall Street firms who buy out healthy companies and then raid their coffers to enrich themselves. Well, during the aughts, a private equity firm named American Industrial Partners started buying up small firetruck manufacturers. They argued that the consolidation would lead to more efficiency — And, of course, higher profits. But those efficiencies never materialized. And as a result, deliveries of firetrucks slowed down significantly, from 18 months, to now to several years.
And this slow down left fire departments across the country without vital lifesaving equipment, a deficit that Edward Kelly, who’s the general president of the International Association of Firefighters, he said it was all due to extractive capitalism run amuck. Here’s how he capitalized it.
How can anyone place profits over first responders and their lifesaving equipment? To me, this is a failure of market capitalism, and it’s indicative of what we’re seeing with our renewable energy and our country’s failure to take advantage of it. They have literally captured the market and set the terms of the debate. Set the most widely beneficial and efficient solution is buried underneath an avalanche of self-serving narratives. Greedy, private equity firms, hedge fund managers, and Wall Street investment banks have not just warped how our economy works, but also how we even perceive the challenges we face. They have flooded the zone, to borrow a phrase, with nihilistic and antagonistic and divisive sentiments that the future is bleak, hope is naive, and the only worthy and just outcome is their rapid accumulation of wealth.
And so with an alternative system of clean, affordable energy that’s achievable, that promises to save us money and our environment, consider the firetruck — Or as author David Foster Wallace said, consider the lobster. Consider that we are being slowly boiled by the uber rich. They distract us with immersive social media and misinformation so they can profit from it. They distort the present to make serious problems appear unsolvable to ensure the future so their profits will grow exponentially. They persuade us not to trust each other or even ourselves. And they literally convinced us to lack empathy for our fellow workers and then profit from our communal doomerism.
And like with the example with the firetrucks, they value, above all else, profits, not people, not the world in which we all live, not the safety of firefighters or the safety of the communities and the future that we’re all responsible for. None of it matters to them and none of it ever will. It’s up to us, we the people, to determine our future. Let’s fight for it together because it really does belong to us.
Well, I have to thank my reporting partner, Stephen Janis, for joining me on this new venture of The Inequality Watch. I really appreciate it.
Stephen Janis:
I’m very happy to be here, Taya. Thank you for having me.
Taya Graham:
Well, it’s a pleasure. It. I’m hoping that in the future we’ll be able to bring on more guests and we are going to bring on people that might surprise you. So please keep watching, because we are looking for good policy and sane policy wherever we can find it. My name is Taya Graham, and thank you so much for watching The Inequality Watch.
“Are these really the female soldiers of Taiwan nowadays? Mini skirts, bras, high heels? … Are you sure they can actually fight in a war?” a X post reads in part.
The one-minute and 21-second video shows a group of women in army uniform participating in what appears to be a military drill.
Some social media users claimed the video shows a military drill of Taiwanese female soldiers.(X and Weibo)
The claim began to circulate online amid speculation in the Taiwan media that women may be conscripted into the military to fill gaps in combat units. But Taiwan’s defense minister dismissed the speculation.
Taiwan’s armed forces saw a drop in the number of active-duty personnel to 152,885 in June 2024 from 164,884 in 202, with experts saying this is a problem for the island as it is facing mounting threats from one of the world’s largest militaries: China with more than 2 million active-duty personnel.
Higher wages and the recruitment of foreigners are among proposals being discussed to address the manpower shortage in the military.
But the claim made in the video is false.
A Google reverse image search revealed older versions of the same footage, where a distinctive bulletin board appears in the lower right corner around the 32-second mark, displaying the words “Giant Cannon Company.”
A keyword search for “Giant Cannon Company” found that it refers to a mobile game.
Further keyword searches found a promotional video of the game published on YouTube in April 2014.
Part of the video matches the video circulated among Chinese social media users.
“2014-04-10 Giant Cannon Company Launch Press Conference – Yao Yuan-hao + 50 Girls,” reads the caption of the video.
Yao is a Taiwanese actor, who is seen in the video leading a group of women.
The video circulated among Chinese social media users was in fact taken from a promotional video of a mobile game in 2014.(YouTube and Weibo)
Women volunteers do serve in the Taiwan military and AFCL has previously debunked similar claims that they were “overly sweet” and unfit for combat.
Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alicia Dong for RFA.
Authorities in a single district of the southwestern megacity of Chongqing have installed 27,900 surveillance cameras and 245 sensors as part of a comprehensive “grid” surveillance plan to keep tabs on residents, officials from the district said Monday.
The move offers a rare glimpse into the running of China’s “grid” system — the close-up monitoring of every aspect of its citizens’ lives to mediate disputes, influence public opinion and minimize protests and dissent.
“We in Beibei district have fully pressed the fast-forward button to promote the construction of … a digital Chongqing [and] deepened networked governance … to build a smart grassroots governance system,” Lin Xuyang, delegate to the National People’s Congress and secretary of Chongqing’s Beibei District Committee, told delegates in Beijing on March 10.
The annual gathering of delegates from across the country ends Tuesday.
“There is certainly no single way to govern, but precision is definitely one of them,” Lin said, likening the local grid monitoring and surveillance systems to “fine needlework.”
“The key to governance lies in people,” he said, adding that interconnected grids have now been extended from district to residential compound level, employing a “grid leader,” full- and part-time grid members to coordinate “more than 10,000 party member volunteers” and other volunteers.
Monitors report on residents’ activities
In July 2021, China empowered local officials at township, village and neighborhood level to enforce the law, as well as operating a vastly extended “grid management” system of social control in rural and urban areas alike.
According to directives sent out in 2018, the grid system carves up neighborhoods into a grid pattern with 15-20 households per square. Each grid has a monitor who reports back on residents’ affairs to local committees.
CCTV cameras overlook Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China September 30, 2022.(Thomas Peter/REUTERS)
China’s “red armband” brigade of state-sanctioned busybodies have been dubbed the biggest intelligence network on the planet by social media users, and have supplied information that has also led police to crack major organized crime, according to state media.
Neighborhood committees in China have long been tasked with monitoring the activities of ordinary people in urban areas, while its grid management system turbo-charges the capacity of officials even in rural areas to monitor what local people are doing, saying and thinking.
A former employee of a residential compound in Chongqing who gave only the surname Yang for fear of reprisals said the cameras are mostly used to monitor the activities of local residents.
“This kind of surveillance has existed for a long time — its official name is SkyNet,” Yang said. “In rural areas, it’s known as Project Xueliang.”
“Its purpose is to monitor what’s going on in every corner of a district,” Yang said. “People’s every move takes place under their watchful gaze.”
Aim of reducing costs
A resident of the central province of Henan who gave only the nickname Lao Wan said local governments are struggling to afford the staffing costs of the “grid” surveillance system, so are installing automated, digital equipment to monitor people instead.
“There are two main reasons for [these cameras],” Lao Wan said. “One is they can’t afford to pay their grid workers, and on the other, they want to reduce administrative costs.”
“That’s why they have mobilized civilians and volunteers to do this work, such as older men and women who have nothing else to do,” he said. “They seem to be just being friendly towards their neighbors, but in fact, they’re monitoring your every word and deed.”
The revelations about Beibei district come after the ruling Communist Party’s official newspaper, the People’s Daily, reported that authorities in the southeastern port city of Xiamen have set up “neighborhood supervision” stations in 11 streets and 144 residential communities in Tong’an district, in a bid to improve “grassroots governance.”
Legal affairs commentator Lu Chenyuan said local governments are struggling to pay wages, so are coordinating older people as volunteers to implement the government’s “stability maintenance” system.
“It’s a way to reduce administrative expenditures and maintain stability amid a sharp fall in tax revenues,” Lu said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Qian Lang for RFA Mandarin.
The fingerprints of antebellum slavery can be found all over the modern prison system, from who is incarcerated to the methods used behind bars to repress prisoners. Like its antecedent system, mass incarceration also fulfills the function of boosting corporate profits to the tune of $80 billion a year. Bianca Tylek, Executive Director of Worth Rises, joins Rattling the Bars to discuss her organization’s efforts to combat prison profiteering across the country, and expose the corporations plundering incarcerated people and their communities to line the pockets of their shareholders.
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
In the heart of downtown Baltimore lies the Maryland Reception, Diagnostic and Classification Center, commonly called Diagnostic, which is a place where people convicted of a crime go to be classified to a particular prison based on their security level.
December the 5th, 2019, I was released from Reception Diagnostic Classification Center after serving 48 years. I was given $50, no identification, and no way of knowing how to get home. I’m not from Baltimore, I’m from Washington, D.C, and I heard my family member called me. I realized then that I had a way home. This is the state that most people are released from the Maryland system, and prison in general. No source of income, no identification, and no place to stay. So I had a few items, so I had to go get my stuff from my apartment. So they let everybody else look… Everybody came out the back, but they let them go “pew, pew, pew.” So most of them dudes wasn’t long term, they was familiar with the layout, right? Me, I know… I’m familiar with Green Mountain Madison, right? Me and another dude stand down here on the corner. I’m like, “Man…”, because I ain’t know my people. I ain’t know my people here was going to be, I ain’t know if they had got… Because they wouldn’t let me make no collect calls. Right? So every time, and I had money.
Speaker 2:
You’ve been released, and they…
Mansa Musa:
I had money on the books. I’m serious. They wouldn’t even let you make the call. So I kept on dialing, and it would go to a certain point, then it cut off, but my sister say, “Look, come on. Something going on. Let’s go down there.” This is what this show is about. This show is about giving a voice to the voiceless.
As we venture into the segments and the stories that we’ll be telling, we want people to take away from these stories, the human side of these stories. More than anything else, this is not about politics. This is about humanity. We’re trying to address the concerns of people, their families, their friends, and their loved ones that’s affected by the prison industrial complex, be it labor, be it medical, be it the food, be it being released with all identification and just a minimal amount of money to get home, and you don’t even live in the city that they released you from. Rattling the Bars will be covering a multitude of subject matters and a multitude of issues, and we ask that you stay tuned and tune in.
Welcome to this episode of Rattling the Bars. Recently, I had an opportunity to talk to Bianca Tylek, executive director of Worth Rises. Worth Rises is an organization whose mission is to complete abolishment of the prison industrial complex as it now exists, they have a strategy where they identify major corporations that are investing in or exploiting labor out of the prison industrial complex. You’ll be astonished at how many corporations have their tentacles in the prison industrial complex and the amount of money they’re sucking out of it in astronomical numbers, but first, we’ll go to this interview I had with Lonnell Sligh, who was on one of our previous episodes to talk about the impact the prison industrial complex is having on the communities at large.
We’re in East Baltimore at Latrobe Projects talking about how, in the shadow of the Maryland Penitentiary and Diagnostic, the housing projects are affected by the existence of these prisons. Many women walk out of their houses in Latrobe into the Maryland prison system, and why? Because of the devastation of the social conditions that exist in this particular community.
Now, my interview with Lonnell Sligh.
When I first got out, I never thought I’d be out and not be in the van. These vans right here, this is all our modes of transportation, three-piece shackle, and that’s how we’re being transported.
Lonnell Sligh:
What we said about the gloom and doom, one of the first things that I noticed when I got to MRDC was the projects and the kids playing outside of their area. Looking out and seeing the kids, and they looking up at this place. So I’m making a connection of that pipeline, because this all they see.
Mansa Musa:
Then when… That’s what he’s seen. What I seen when I came here, this building wasn’t right here. This was a parking lot. This building wasn’t right here. This was a lot. So the kids had a clean shot to the Maryland Penitentiary. So every kid that lived in these projects right here, this is what they seen. They see barbed wire on the Maryland Penitentiary. Then they seen another big building come up, there’s another prison. Then they seen this is a prison, and outside their front door, what they see when they come out their house is barbed wire and a wall.
Lonnell Sligh:
So it might be ill concealed to us, but for them and their mindset, this was a perfect, “Oh man, we got our clients and our…”, what’d you call it when you check in the hotel? Our patrons, you know what I mean, right here, because they got their industry, they got their pipeline, they got everything that they designed this to be.
Mansa Musa:
As you can see from my conversation with Lonnell Sligh, the prison industrial complex has a devastating impact on everyone. The men and women that’s in prison, the communities that they come from, the infrastructure they build on, the entire system has devastating consequences that should be recognized and addressed.
Some communities that they’re building, it’s the major source of their industry, like in Attica and Rikers, Hagerstown, Maryland, Louisiana, but some communities that they’re building, they’re building it for one reason only. To occupy the psyche of the community. So people walk out of their houses every day, this is all they see, and ultimately they find themselves in these spaces, but now you are going to see who’s behind this, the corporations that’s responsible for this exploitation.
I have the list right here. The Prison Industrial Corporation Database put out by Worth Rises. Super Ammo, Visa Outdoors, Warburg Pincus, 3M, T-Mobile, Tyson Foods, SS Corporation, Advanced Technology Groups, major corporations that are using prison labor to exploit it, profit, and profit alone, with no regard to human life.
Now my conversation with Bianca Tylek.
Yeah, we’re talking to Bianca Tylek from Worth Rises. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Bianca, and how you got in this space.
Bianca Tylek:
Sure. Thank you so much again, Mansa, for having me, and so great to meet you, and I’m glad that you’re home. My name is Bianca Tylek, as you noted. I am based in the New York area, and I’m the executive director and founder of Worth Rises. We are a non-profit criminal justice advocacy organization that works nationally to end the exploitation of people who are incarcerated and their loved ones and dismantle the prison industry.
I came to this where I founded the organization, it’s seven and a half years ago now, and we’ve been doing a tremendous amount of work all over the country towards our mission, and I come to this work through a few different sort of paths. I think most recently, I’m an attorney. Before that, I was on Wall Street, and so I actually worked in the investment banking and corporate sector, and then I think previously, what really makes me passionate about this issue is that I was myself an adjudicated youth and had others in my life who had experienced incarceration and were touched by this system, and all of those sorts of experiences collectively have brought me to this point.
Mansa Musa:
Worth Rises is dedicated to dismantling the prison industrial complex, it’s an abolition group, and as I listened to some of the things that you talked about, I thought about the war in Vietnam when the North first became known for their ferocious fighting where they had what they call a Tet offense, and the Tet offense was like when they had their initial salvo of repelling or resisting the United States and South Vietnam, and I thought when I heard some of the ways you was attacking this industry, that came to mind how systematic your group is in terms of dismantling, as you say, dismantling this group.
Bianca Tylek:
Yeah, I appreciate that so much. So I would say we have a three part strategy that we deploy at the organization, and it is narrative policy and corporate, and so each one of those tentacles is sort of a part of how we approach the industry, and specifically not so much guilting it as much as demanding and forcing it and pressuring it into better getting out or not exploiting our people in the same way, and so just to expand a little bit on each, our narrative work is really designed to help educate the populace, the American people and beyond on the harms that the prison industry is committing.
I think in particular, we know that the prison industry is an $80 billion industry, more than that these days, and a lot of people just simply do not know and are not familiar with it. Folks who have done time, like yourself, are familiar with, for example, the cost of phone calls in prison, but a lot of people walking the streets are not. They don’t know that phone calls are so expensive, they don’t know the cost of commissary, they don’t know that people pay medical co-pays, they don’t know that people are making pennies, if anything, an hour for work, and I think often, when we talk about these things, people are pretty surprised, because all of the modern media has people convinced that you go to prison, you get everything you need, and it’s some kind of luxurious, pushy place to be.
So a lot of our role is to simply… Through our narrative work, what we’re trying to do is get people to understand the reality of prisons and jails, both what the experiences are of people there, the exploitation that happens, and then importantly, at the hands of who, and that’s the industry, and so we do everything from published research to storytelling and beyond to help people really understand what the prison industry is.
So that’s sort of the narrative work, and that really builds the foundation, because we need informed people in order to be able to cultivate their outrage into action, and that leads us to our policy work. Our policy work is really designed to undermine the business model of the industry, and so we work to change legislation and regulations that would sort of hinder the ability of these companies to continue to exploit people in the exact same ways, and so for example, what that means is when it comes to prison telecom, where we know that one in three families with an incarcerated loved one is going into debt over the simple cost of calls and visits, and the large majority of those folks are women who are paying for these calls.
So what we have done in the last about five or so years is we have started a sort of movement to make communication free in prisons and jails. We passed the first piece of legislation in New York City in 2018 to do so, and since then, we’ve been able to pass legislation at the county, state and federal level to make communication entirely free, and today, over 300,000 people who are incarcerated have access to free phone calls, and so that changes the business model and revolutionizes the space entirely.
We also managed to pass game-changing regulations at the FCC to curb the exorbitant charging of phone calls in those places that still do charge for calls, and then finally, in our corporate side of the work, we sort of harness the work we do on the narrative side and the policy side to bring these corporations that are exploiting our communities to account, and really, in some cases, shut them down.
So we have companies that we’ve gone… We’ve had investors divest, we have removed their executives from the boards of cultural institutions like museums. We have blocked mergers and acquisitions. I mean, we’ve done all types of corporate strategies when it comes to those who are exploiting folks who are incarcerated and their loved ones, and we’re bringing some of them to their knees fully to bankruptcy, and so that is the kind of work that we do and really stress that it’s time that this system stopped responding to the profit motives of a few.
Mansa Musa:
Okay, let’s throw in this examination because in California, they was trying to get a proclamation passed about the 13th Amendment, because the genesis of all this has come out of the legalization of slavery under the 13th Amendment. I think that a lot of what we see in concerns of us versus the interest of them comes out of the fact that they can, under… Anyone duly convicted of a crime can be utilized for slave labor, and in California, they voted against this proclamation. How do you see… Is this a correlation between the 13th Amendment prison industrial complex, and if it is and you recognize that, how do y’all look at that? Because this industry is always fluid, it’s continuing to grow, it’s got multiple tentacles, and it’s all designed around profit. So when it comes to profit and capitalism, profit is profit is profit. That’s their philosophy. So however they get it, whoever they get it from, but in this case, they got a cash cow. Talk about that.
Bianca Tylek:
So we actually run a national campaign called End the Exception campaign that is specifically about the 13th Amendment. So we’re very close to this particular part of the fight. So if you visit EndTheException.com, you’ll see that entire campaign, which is, like I said, a campaign to pass a new constitutional amendment that would end the exception in the 13th Amendment.
While we run the national campaign at the federal level, which has over 90 national partners, a lot of states are taking on similar causes, including the state of California, and so California was one of several states in the last five or six years that brought a state constitutional amendment through a ballot initiative. Eight others have won in the last five years. So I do think despite the fact, and I have thoughts about California, despite the fact that California lost, other states like Alabama, Tennessee, Oregon, Vermont have all passed, and so I remained hopeful that it’s something that we can do both at the state level, but also at the federal level.
I think unfortunately, California lost, I think for various reasons, both the moment in time in California. There was also Proposition 36, which was expanding sort of tough on crime policies, and I think Prop 6 got a little bit mixed up into that. The language of Prop 6 was really not particularly helpful, and I think some of the local efforts also needed to coalesce and have those things happen, maybe, and hopefully it would’ve passed. It lost by a relatively small margin, albeit it did lose.
So I think your question, though, about how do these things relate, I mean, I guess what I’d say which degree with you, which is that I think that exploitation in prisons and jails is absolutely rooted in antebellum slavery, right? I think that what the Emancipation Proclamation and 13th Amendment in large part did was certainly, obviously, free a lot of people, but it also transitioned slavery behind walls, where you can’t see it, and then our carceral system, because in the years that followed during reconstruction, the prison population went from being 99% white to being 99% black. Many of the practices of antebellum slavery were shifted into the carceral setting and became normalized in that setting and continue today.
I tell people all the time, when you think of solitary confinement, which, as you know, is often referred to as the hole or the box, those are terms that come from antebellum slavery. When enslaved people disobeyed, their enslavers, they would be put in what was called the hot box or a literal hole.
Mansa Musa:
A hole, exactly.
Bianca Tylek:
And held there in darkness, in solitary without food, separation affairs, things like that, and those are essentially punishments that we’ve just modernized, but don’t actually change the true function of them. They’re meant to break down people into obedience, and the same terminology is used and the same practices are used.
Consider another example. When people who are enslaved again would disobey their enslavers, they would often be separated from their families. Their children would be sold off or their spouse would be sent away. Well, similarly, when people who are incarcerated exhibit what the system would call disobedience, they can be denied visits and phone calls with their families, contact, right? All of these sort of penal sanctions that exist today were the same ones that existed then, just in a newer 2025 version, and so I’d say I think much of… And that’s not to obviously mention the most obvious aspect, which people in prison are forced to work and they’re forced to work often for essentially nothing, and then are expected to be grateful for crumbs when given 15 cents or 30 cents on the hour or something like that, and so I think it would be foolish for anyone to suggest that the system isn’t once that was adapted from antebellum slavery.
Mansa Musa:
As you can see from our conversation with Bianca Tylek, the extent to which the prison industrial complex and corporate America merge is beyond imagination.
She was once involved with the criminal justice system. This in and of itself helped her to focus on what she wanted to do. She worked on Wall Street, and while on Wall Street, she started seeing the impact that corporate America was having on the prison industrial complex, the profit margin. From this, she developed this strategy and this organization on how to attack it. As you can see, she’s very effective, as is her organization, in dismantling the prison industrial complex.
Recently, I had the pleasure and opportunity to speak to some young people at the University of Maryland College Park. The group is the Young Democrat Socialists of America. You’ll see from these clips how engaging these conversations were, and when they say we look to our future, remember, our movement started on the college campuses. The intelligent element of society started organizing. As they started organizing, they got the grassroots communities involved, and this is what we’re beginning to see once again.
Student:
So today we have a speaker event with Mansa Musa, AKA Charles Hopkins. He is a former Black Panther, political prisoner. He’s done a lot of activism after re-entering society. He spent nearly five decades in prison, and that kind of radicalized him in his experience, and you can learn a lot more about him today during this meeting.
Mansa Musa:
We’re about completely abolishing the prison system. What would that look like? We was having this conversation. What did that look like? You’re going to open the doors up and let everybody out? I’ve been in prison for their year. It’s some people that I’ve been around in prison. If I see him on the street today or tomorrow, I might go call the police on it, because I know that’s how their thinking is, but at the same token, in a civil society, we have an obligation to help people, and that’s what we should be doing.
People have been traumatized, and trauma becoming vulgar, everybody like, “Oh, trauma experience.” So trauma becoming vulgar, people have been traumatized and have not been treated for their trauma. So they dial down on it, and that become the norm. So we need to be in a society where we’re healing people, and that’s what I would say when it comes to the abolition. Yeah, we should abolish prisons as they exist now. They’re cruel, they’re.
You got the guards in Rikers Island talking about protesting and walk out, wild cat strike, because they saying that the elimination of solitary confinement is a threat to them. How is it a threat to you that you put me in a cell for three years on end, bringing my meal to me, and say that if you eliminate this right here, me as a worker is going to be threatened by that not existing? How is that? That don’t even make sense, but this is the attitude that you have when it comes to the prison industrial complex.
The prison industrial complex is very profitable. The prison industrial complex, it became like an industry in and of itself. Every aspect of it has been privatized. The telephone’s been privatized, the medical has been privatized, the clothing’s been privatized. So you got a private entity saying, “I’m going to make all the clothes for prisons.” You got another private entity saying, “I want the telephone contract for all the prisons.” You got another company saying, “I want to be responsible for making the bids, the metal,” and all that. Which leads me to Maryland Correction Enterprise.
Maryland Correction Enterprise is one of the entities that does this. There’s a private corporation that has preferential bidding rights on anything that’s being done in Maryland. I’m not going to say these chairs, but I’m going to say any of them tags is on your car, that’s Maryland, it’s Maryland Enterprise. I press tags. So I know that to be a fact. A lot of the desks in your classroom come from Maryland Correction Enterprise. So what they giving us? They gave us 90 cents a day, and you get a bonus. Now, you get the bonus based on how much you produce. So everybody… Now you trying to get, “Okay, I’m trying to get $90 a month. I just started.” So somebody’s been there for a while, might be getting $2 a day and some. We pressing tags till your elbows is on fire, because you’re trying to make as much money as you possibly can, you’re trying to produce as many tags as you possibly can to make money, but they’re getting millions of dollars from the labor.
Student:
In your previous podcast episode, you interviewed the state senator, and he mentioned the 13th amendment and the connection between prison labor and slavery. So what do you think are some of the connections between the prison abolition movement and the historical movement for the abolition of slavery?
Mansa Musa:
Right now, the 13th Amendment says that slavery is illegal except for involuntary servitude if you’re duly convicted of a crime. So if you’re duly convicted of a crime, you can be treated as a slave, and the difference between that and the abolition movement back in the historical was the justification. The justification for it now is you’ve been convicted of a crime. Back then, I just kidnapped and brought you here and made you work. So the disconnect was, this is a human, you’re taking people and turn them into chattel slaves, versus, “Oh, the reason why I can work you from sunup to sundown, you committed a crime,” but the reality is you put that in there so that you could have free labor. All that is is a Jim Crow law, black code. It’s the same. It’s the same in and of itself. It’s not no different.
You work me in a system… In some states, they don’t even pay you at all. South Carolina, they don’t even pay you, but they work you, and Louisiana, they still walk… They got police, they got the guards on horses with shotguns, and they out there in the fields.
In some places, in North Carolina and Alabama, they work you in some of the most inhumane conditions, like freezers. Women and men. Put you to work in a meat plant in the freezer and don’t give you the proper gear to be warm enough to do the work, and then if you complain, because they use coercion, say, “Okay, you don’t want to work? We’re going to take the job from you, transfer you to a prison, where now you’re going to have to fight your way out.” You are going to literally have to go in there and get a knife and defend yourself. So this is your choice. Go ahead and work in these inhumane conditions, or say no and go somewhere and be sent back to a maximum security prison where you have to fight your way out.
So now it’s no different. Only difference is it’s been legislated, it’s been legalized under the 13th Amendment, and in response to abolition, so we’ve been trying to change the 13th amendment. We had an attempt in California where they put a bill out to try to get it reversed, and the state went against it. The state was opposed to it. Why would I want to stop having free labor? The firefighters in California, they do the same work that the firefighters right beside them… They do the same work, the same identical work. They’re fighting fire, their lives in danger, they getting 90 cents a day, maybe $90 a month. They don’t have no 401k, they don’t have no retirement plan, and they’re being treated like everybody else. “Oh, go out there and fight the fire.”
So yeah, in terms of abolition, the abolition movement is to try to change the narrative and get the 13th Amendment taken off out of the state constitution, because a lot of states, they adopted it. They adopted it in their own state constitution, a version of the 13th Amendment, that says that except if you’ve been duly convicted for a crime, you can be treated as a slave. If you’ve been convicted of a crime, you can be treated as a slave. That’s basically the bottom line of it. That’s our reality.
So as we move forward, my message to y’all is don’t settle for mediocrity. Don’t settle for nothing less. Whatever you thinking that you think should be done, do it. If you think that, but more importantly, in doing it, make sure it’s having an impact.
There you have it. Rattling the Bars. As you can see from these conversations, the seriousness that corporations have on the prison industrial complex, how they’re exploiting prison labor with impunity. We’ve seen this from the conversation we had with Bianca Tylek, who talked about her involvement with the criminal justice system, but more importantly, how she worked on Wall Street, how she developed this strategy of dismantling the prison industrial complex by going straight to the heart of the matter, corporate America. Her strategy, the organization’s strategy is to dismantle it one corporation at a time.
We’ve also seen it from our conversation with Lonnell Sligh, as we talked about the impact that these corporations have on the community, how most communities live in the shadow of major prisons, like in East Baltimore, the troll projects, where kids come out every day and see these buildings and ask their parents, “What is that?”, and their parents say, “Oh, that’s where you going to go if you keep doing what you’re doing,” or, “That’s where your uncle’s at,” or, “You don’t want to go there.” At any rate, it has no positive value to their psyche, but more importantly, we’ve seen how the youth are taking the stand to change and find this place in the struggle.
The exception clause and exception movement to abolish the 13th Amendment is constant, and on the rise. We have suffered some major setbacks, we’re trying to get legislation passed, but the fact that we have a consensus on, “This has to go,” because this is the reason why we find ourselves in this situation, where corporations have unlimited access to free prison labor with impunity. We ask that you give us your feedback on these episodes. More importantly, we ask that you tell us what you think. Do you think the exception clause should be passed? Do you think they should abolish the 13th Amendment, or do you think that corporations should be able to profit off of free prison labor? Do you think that communities should not be overshadowed by prisons? That our children should have the right to be in an environment that’s holistic? Or do you think that our youth that’s taking a stand against corporate America, fascism and imperialism should be given coverage? That institutions of higher learning should be held accountable for who they invest in? Tell us what you think. We look forward to hearing from you.
Police violence has shaken the US to its foundation multiple times in the past decade, but the problem has not been solved and only grows with each passing year. In the face of this, intrepid cop watchers across the country have stepped up to defend working people and communities. Why does the cop watching movement matter, and what can the rest of us learn from activists who have done this vital work for decades? On the sixth anniversary of the launch of Police Accountability Report, Taya Graham and Stephen Janis speak with a panel of cop watchers, including James Freeman, Tom Zebra, Otto The Watchdog, The Battousai and Laura SharkCW.
Pre-Production: Stephen Janis, Taya Graham Written by: Stephen Janis Studio: Cameron Granadino, Adam Coley
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Taya Graham:
Today we are not only going to be celebrating the sixth anniversary of our show, but we will also be seeking to answer a fairly profound question about a form of activism that has as much to do with the evolution of our show as policing itself. And that is cop watching. That’s because during the last six years as we have produced hundreds of shows, many have featured the work and personalities of this uniquely American art form. So we thought as we celebrated this special anniversary, we should do so in tandem with the people who have shared their work with us, which is why over the next hour we’re going to try to answer several important questions. First, why does Cop watching matter? In fact, why does any sort of activism matter and what makes it matter? It’s a question that I think is not asked enough, an idea that we feel must be explored in light of all the challenges we are facing.
And we’ll be trying to address it by examining the work of one of the people who literally helped invent it. He’s a man who started watching cops when VHS tapes were the dominant technology, and he’s a person who’s impacted Steven and my life in ways that are hard to measure. And of course, to help us unpack all of these ideas, we’ll be joined by cop watchers who are legends in their own rights. James Freeman, out of the Watchdog and Laura Shark, and they will be with us later to discuss their work. And at the end of the show, we’ll be making a big announcement about something Steven and I have been working on for quite some time. So please make sure to stay tuned. But of course, all of this begins with this show, the police accountability part. I mean, when we started it six years ago, we had no idea where it would lead.
I mean, sure policing was front and center as an institution that needed serious reform. Examples of police brutality were everywhere. And in our own hometown, we had just experienced the uprising after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody, which engulfed our city and led to even more recognition that law enforcement was basically broken. But really, if we’re honest, there was something else, not just immediate concerns that prompted us to launch this show. Instead, I think our impetus was about something deeper. Remember at the beginning of the show, we always made clear it’s not just about the bad behavior of individual cops. No, it was and is more than that. It was a way to examine the system that makes bad policing possible. And it was that system which allows rogue law enforcement to be pervasive, which has divined our work, prompted us to dig deeper and to explore the underlying imperative that we will interrogate further as we celebrate our anniversary. So Steven, can you talk a little bit about that idea and how the show came together?
Stephen Janis:
Well, every time we looked at policing, especially the worst parts of policing, or there’s some of the worst policing we’ve seen, it occurred in communities where there was an absolute underlying unfairness to the way the community was situated. And when I say that, I mean a community which was beset by poverty or a community that had unfair economic and unfair economic inequality. And so we said, why is bad policing always part of this equation? Well, it’s because policing in a sense, enforces the idea that unfairness is okay, that unfairness is actually a natural outcome of what we call late stage capitalism. So the idea was saying if we just look at a bad cop and take what they do and just show it on the screen and not really give some context, and we’re not doing our job as journalists. So the idea was to expand the palette and say, look, this is part of a system of unfairness. Please enforce that ideology that this is actually inevitable. And so we wanted to go beyond that. That’s why we look at the system.
Taya Graham:
Really well said, Steven. Thank
Stephen Janis:
You.
Taya Graham:
And just as he was saying, back in February, 2019, we just kind of launched the show. Just sort of did it. I mean, I wish I could say it was all planned out and we were sort of working in trial and error mode, but we weren’t winging it, but we just didn’t really know where it would lead. Maybe let’s watch a brief compilation of some moments from our first shows.
Stephen Janis:
The audience is small, we’ll be out of business pretty soon. So we got this idea that we need to focus on what we did best on what we knew best.
Taya Graham:
So one thing about Baltimore City is that policing is everywhere. You’re probably familiar with the death of Freddie Graham police custody in 2015, or you might know that my city is under consent decree for racist and unconstitutional policing.
Stephen Janis:
We had to pick what we knew and make it something special.
Taya Graham:
So when Steven said he wanted to do a show called the Police Accountability Report, I thought it really made sense.
Stephen Janis:
I think that came up at the same time I’d been teaching journalism at a local university and I was trying to teach the next generation of journalists to survive. I came up with this idea of subject matter expertise, like do a show or report on what you know the best. And to us, well that was policing.
Taya Graham:
And honestly, I think it was like a last ditch attempt to really make this work to find an audience for our reporting.
Stephen Janis:
So in January of 2019, we shot our first show. We just went ahead and did it.
Taya Graham:
Hello, my name is Taya Graham and welcome to the Police Accountability Report on the Real News Network. Honestly, I was just hoping we could break 10,000 views.
Stephen Janis:
I would’ve been perfectly happy with that. We’re talking about 10 years. These police officers were robbing people,
Taya Graham:
So we kept going and doing more shows. This is Taya Graham and Steven Janis for The Real News. Welcome to the Police Accountability Report.
Stephen Janis:
And it seems like T’S talent hosts a show and the topic was working, and we finally found a way to get a broader audience.
Taya Graham:
Oh my gosh, Steven, look how young you were. Look how young I was reporting on policing ages. You I think a
Stephen Janis:
Little bit. It was weird because we really did just kind of do it and we just sort of made up was going along. So it’s interesting to see that how the show has evolved themselves.
Taya Graham:
I know it really has. But as we were building the show, we started to hear about a community that we knew nothing about, a group that was in a way doing what we were doing, but let’s just say in a more different and more direct style. It was a slowly growing YouTube based movement that caught our attention. Thanks in part to our mod, Noli d Hi Noli D that we couldn’t ignore. Of course, I’m talking about Cop watchers, the people and personalities that go out and actively watch the police and then post their encounters on YouTube. Now, of course, cop watching existed long before YouTube. We all know the Black Panthers who watch police in African-American communities by taking notes and keeping track of the officers who were problematic. But along with the growth of YouTube, a new type of cop watching emerged. And that’s what Steven and I decided to report on the evolution of this form of digital activism that was different in many respects than what we were used to. And Steven, this version of Cop watching was uniquely formed by YouTube, wouldn’t you say?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, I mean, the thing was you had a historic moment where for once an average working person could form an audience or have an audience. Remember before YouTube came along, and obviously the internet, most people who wanted to report the news or report what’s going on in their community needed an intense amount of capital. They needed a broadcast license or they needed a newspaper. But suddenly YouTube had created this alternative form of reaching an audience. It was kind of revolutionary. And I think that’s why Cop watching was so uniquely positioned and why it was so different, because YouTube gave a platform that didn’t exist before, a way of communicating to an audience, a way of forming an audience that didn’t exist before. So it was really revolutionary in a lot of ways.
Taya Graham:
I have to agree. And just to let people know, I will be trying to address some of the folks in the chat. I want you to know I see you, I saw you. Linda Orr. I see you. Lacey R. Hi, Lacey. R Hey, Lacey. So I just wanted to make sure to acknowledge some of the moderators and the supporters in our community are here, and Noli Dee helped introduce me to Cop watching. And I think we can honestly say that without Cop Watchers, this would be a very different show, very different. I mean, not that we couldn’t report on police, of course we could, but reporting on Cop Watchers and the personalities that drive it gave us access to a community that shaped how we thought about law enforcement by examining their work. It changed our perspective on how law enforcement had become more pervasive and powerful than even we could imagine.
And in a way, it gave us a sense of how much policing could affect not just the health of the community, but the entire psychology of it. Meaning the fact that there was a community of people who would literally go out and document police in communities across the country day in and day out for no other reason than it had to be done influenced how we thought about our show and what we needed to report again on the system, which is how and why the idea of making a show that we called Reverse Cops emerge. So let me explain. I’m sure most of you’re familiar with the show called Cops. It’s one of the longest running police reality series ever. The format is also pretty familiar, a bunch of photo follow cops as they arrest working class Americans for generally speaking petty crimes. The show, I believe, is meant to solidify the notion that only police can impose order and that the police are the moral arbiters of right versus wrong, and that working class folks are simply degenerates only worthy of arrest and jail cells. But Steven, I think our experience with Cop Watchers gave us some other ideas on how to, in a sense, reverse this narrative through journalism.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, I mean because Cop Watchers and people like Tom Z were had gone out and sort of shifted the narrative, right? Gone out every night and reported from the community perspective, we sort of adopt that into our show where the person, the cops would make look bad. This guy who cops go and arrest for some dumb reason, not always the dumb reason, but a reason that is questionable, let’s put
Taya Graham:
It that way. Or at least maybe for a nuisance crime,
Stephen Janis:
Right? For a ance crime. We thought, okay, let’s reverse the perspective of the camera there. The way cop watchers are. Let’s turn the camera around. Let’s not tell it from the police going in and rushing after some guy and chasing him. Let’s do it the way Tom Zebra and Otto the Watchdog and James Freeman do, where they’re the ones holding the camera and telling the story from their perspective. So we ended up dedicating a huge amount of our show to the people who had been either brutalized, questionably, arrested, whatever. That actually became like the linchpin of our show, which is just as someone from the mainstream media, that’s not the way we report on police. We follow the police around and we follow their cues. So this whole community that created this kind of reverse cops, we just followed their cues and said, we’re going to give 15 minutes to the person who got arrested and let them tell their story, just the way police get to control the narrative. And it was really, again, sort of a revolution of narratology. We are actually looking from the different perspective that the cop watchers have adopted, and I think that’s why, how it influenced our show, what made our show kind of different in some ways.
Taya Graham:
Steven, I think that’s such an excellent point and something that I think you really teased out there is that not only did Cop Watchers show us to turn the perspective around, but they also showed us, you were talking about how you had to have money to be able to control the narrative and to sort of democratize the process.
Stephen Janis:
They absolutely democratize and absolutely took away the need to have other than a cell phone camera and the ability to edit and the ability to be creative, which is what’s really cool about it. There’s so much creativity. It kind of inspired me to say, play around with the show, have the swipes, all the things that we know are signature. Or the police accountability report came from just watching Cop Watchers and what they would do. And I’d be like, well, we can’t just be this blase report. We’ve got to have a little action in there.
Taya Graham:
Yeah, we have to add a little creativity. Absolutely.
So as we built the show, we dedicated a large part of it to the perspective that mainstream media ignores. We turned the camera around to give the people who’ve been negatively impacted by policing the opportunity to tell their stories in detail. And we made the show not about police, but about the community. And no other community played a bigger role in this evolution than of course cop watchers. And no other cop watcher embodies the spirit of that ethos better than the man we will be talking about tonight. And I am of course referring to the legendary og cop watcher, Tom Zebra. And like our show, his story and his life is intertwined with his work, and it is that work that’s transformed him and the community he lives in. But let me try to share part of his story so you can understand why that is so important.
It’s the story of a man who lived in Los Angeles in one of the city’s struggling neighborhoods who saw a problem. People have been cracking down on, excuse me, police have been cracking down on working people for years with aggressive car stops, arrests for minor infractions. Law enforcement had adopted more and more punitive tactics as a way to fight crime, but that’s not what happened, and that’s not really why they were doing it. And this man understood this implicitly. He knew that over policing was an instrument of poverty. He understood that it only made the lives of those struggling to afford housing and even put food on the table. Even worse, he comprehended the pain inflicted by a system that trapped people and stripped them of their ability to fight back. But what did he do? I mean, in a sense, he didn’t have the tools necessary in our money fueled system to fight back.
He wasn’t a powerful politician or billionaire. He wasn’t a celebrity. He was just a man, passionate man, but one seemingly without the power to protect the community he loved. So what did he do? Well, he picked up a camera, not a cell phone, but a camera back when video was recorded on VHS tapes when YouTube didn’t even exist when the internet was still in its infancy. And when his fight was essentially his own will and ingenuity against the entire Los Angeles law enforcement industrial complex. But against those odds, he decided to fight. And he did it despite a powerful institution more than willing to fight back despite the obvious imbalance of power of one man with a camera against a legion of guns and badges. And he did it for the myriad of reasons people in our flawed democratic republic decide to step forward. He did it because it had to be done. Let’s watch a little bit of his video from 2005.
Speaker 6:
Man, where you going? Why a hard T got a bike license? Have a bike license. The driver’s license. I told you to that I, yeah, it does. Your bike over here. Probation, parole. Why you being such an ass about it? What’s your problem tonight? I have no problem. Good. You have a bike license for your bike? No, I don’t see one on there. No, you need to register your bike and the city have a bike license. You riding the city. Where are you going? Okay, where are you coming from? Okay. You want to
Taya Graham:
Do a difficult No,
And of course that was the OG I was talking about at the beginning of the show, Tom Zebra. In that dramatic footage, you can see how one person with one camera lit a fire that burns bright to this day. You see someone who’s fighting against power in ways that would eventually be adopted by thousands of cop watchers and activists using the camera, not just as a mirror, but as a tool of dissent recording video that no one would perhaps ever see, but still recording. Anyway. Steven, can you talk a little bit about how Tom has helped shape contemporary cop watching?
Stephen Janis:
Well, the thing when I was watching that video and I was thinking about it, and we both hung out with him a little bit. He is tireless, right?
Taya Graham:
Yes.
Stephen Janis:
He’s like a one man mainstream media kind of org,
Taya Graham:
One man media machine,
Stephen Janis:
Right? Because the thing that was really interesting about Tom and talking to him, we interviewed him a lot. He goes out every night and he goes out every night and he just films. And sometimes when he films, something happens and he will confront police as what he sees as being wrong. And that to me is such a David and Goliath story of someone who goes out and is willing to every night, watch cops no matter what, and willing to push back. And that creates, I would say, an alternative mainstream media ecosystem. Not mainstream in the sense that it looks like mainstream media, but that counter power, that counterbalance that doesn’t always exist in a community to tell their own stories. And so he was out there like a storyteller looking at what’s happening, watching and observing and exposing police in ways that are more subtle. It’s not just about the really, really bad events, but the way they abuse their power. And when you watch these Zoe videos, you can see where are you going, where are you headed, what are you doing? Those are the things that create this psychology of power that makes policing so devastating for people living communities where that type of policing is allowed. And I think Tom did the work
And that really made a difference.
Taya Graham:
Absolutely. That’s such an excellent point. And just to add to that idea, let’s run a clip about Tom Zebra. We produced for this yet to be announced project.
Stephen Janis:
Why were they focused on policing? What were they getting out of this and what was the real story?
Speaker 7:
It was like to protect myself from the police.
Stephen Janis:
Hello.
Speaker 8:
What’s going on
Stephen Janis:
Man?
Speaker 8:
Not much you doing here.
Speaker 7:
Doing know the tapes will just go in a box.
Speaker 8:
Good. How are you? Just your car?
Speaker 9:
Yes sir. Where are you coming from? Where do you
Speaker 8:
Live? I’m coming from getting dinner and I’m going home. Do you
Speaker 9:
Any guns or knives in the car?
Speaker 8:
No, sir.
Speaker 9:
You got valid driver’s license?
Speaker 8:
Yes,
Speaker 9:
Sir. Where is it at? It’s
Speaker 8:
In my center
Speaker 9:
Console. Don’t reach. You got any? You don’t have a gun or anything in
Speaker 8:
There? No, sir. There’s nothing illegal in here.
Speaker 9:
What’s going on with the camera? That’s the camera. Yeah, but what’s going on with that? Well, it’s sitting there
Taya Graham:
Recording. Mr, why don’t you pull me over? But this is only just part of the story, the beginning about the growth of a collection of YouTube activists that stood up for communities across the country, a movement that has actually achieved something tangible. People who connected on YouTube and other social media platforms to push back against power and actually made a difference. Activism that might’ve started with OGs like Tom Zebra, but has expanded to include hundreds if not thousands of channels and YouTubers working in big cities and small towns across the country. And so to talk about how this happened and what it means, and of course the work of Tom Zebra, we’re going to be joined by several guests who have been intimately involved in all of it. And to get this discussion started, we are happy to have Otto the Watchdog as our first guest. I mean, really, who else could it be? And just to let you guys know, if you see me looking down, that is because I’m looking to make sure to put some of your lovely comments on the screen. And I wanted to let you know, I think we finally have super chats and super stickers.
Now, I don’t know if you guys know this, but we don’t run any ads on our channels, and I’m sure you’ve noticed I’ve never done a HelloFresh commercial, so we don’t take any corporate sponsors, but if you want to buy us a little super chat so we can say hi to James Freeman or a The Watchdog for you, we’d be happy to do that.
Stephen Janis:
And also, we should also tell people to try to subscribe to our newsletter. Go to the real news.com. You can subscribe because that way, even if you don’t have money to be able to support our journalism, you can also subscribe to the newsletter and keep in touch with what we’re doing. So we really would like people to do that as
Taya Graham:
Well. Yes, absolutely. You can hit and subscribe to the email and that would really help us as well. Now back to Otto, he’s probably one of the best, along with our other guest, James Freeman, at actually injecting comedy into the practice of Cop watching. He’s a style that is both unique and illuminating. You know what? Let’s watch a quick clip about Otto talking about how he came up with this.
Otto The Watchdog:
So I wanted to do something comical because I was becoming an angry person. I was sitting at my kitchen table, I was writing down slogans. I said, well,
Speaker 10:
He’s got stuff from there and in other counties that they’re going to try to put together and they’re going to try to get his ass organized crime.
Otto The Watchdog:
I said it out loud and I was like, hand stuff
Speaker 4:
That
Stephen Janis:
Awesome, Otto, that could have been a hit song if maybe Otto, if you’d had a few less swear words in it, I
Taya Graham:
Guess. But the thing is, I’m sure with the beeps, I am sure you all could probably figure out what was being talked about. Some of you who know the cop watching community, well might’ve recognized the other voices singing despite all the beeps. And that Otto is another important member of the cop watching community, Eric Brant, who was known for his extravagant actions to help protest treatment of the Denver homeless community. And like Tom Zebra, Eric Brat is an important part of the Secret project that we’ve been working on that we cannot wait to share with you. But perhaps it would be better to let the fellow singer speak for himself, which is why we are joined by Otto the Watchdog. Thank you so much for joining us.
Otto The Watchdog:
Hi. It is pleasure to be here. Thanks. It’s always nice to be here.
Taya Graham:
Well, we’re so glad to have you are so glad. And first, we just want to ask you a very simple question, or maybe actually it’s not a very simple question. What got you involved in COP watching? What prompted you to pick up a camera and start filming your encounters with police?
Otto The Watchdog:
Well, those are two separate things. So what got me started looking towards police and being upset in general was license plate lights. A lot of my friends were being pulled over and they were being pressured to allow a search of their vehicle over license plate lights. And when one of my friends was roughed up and one of those traffic stops, I decided that something had to be done. And the inspiration to film it came from people like Tom Zebra and James Freeman. Freeman was in my local area at the time, and I saw those guys and I thought that it was a great idea. And then I found out that there was actually a lot of people doing this, and I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to get run over and falsely accused of some pretty terrible stuff. And I wasn’t expecting that it was going to go bad, but it did quickly. So
Stephen Janis:
When you say it went bad quickly, can you just explain a little bit what you mean by that? It went bad quickly. Are you talking about the potatoes or something like
Otto The Watchdog:
That? Oh, no. So yeah, the potatoes, the first time I went out with the camera, I was only out for 15 minutes before I had my first police contact. And that was when I was like, oh, this is probably going to be a little bit more of a thing than I thought it was. Then I took a break for a while and I really went out and looked and made sure that what I was doing was going to be legal. And if it wasn’t for people posting on YouTube, their encounters, I never seen it. And like Tom Zebra, he was doing it before when VHS was out and he said that he put all those tapes in a box and nobody would ever know unless a major production company put it together and then distributed those videos.
Stephen Janis:
Right, which is what we’re trying to do. Not really, but we did use some excerpts from them. But Kate, go ahead.
Taya Graham:
Oh, I do have to ask though. I mean, we’ve discussed and highlighted some of your more humorous approaches to watching cops. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I know it might seem strange to people who see police brutality or police overreach and says, that’s not a funny topic, but you managed somehow to bring humor into it. Can you kind of explain how you did it and why you did?
Otto The Watchdog:
Well, I did it because I brought humor into it because it is so dark. It is not a funny topic. And it was something that I felt passionate about and I think that everybody should know, mainly because my family was very supportive of law enforcement. I have several members of my family who are law enforcement, and we get along fine, just for the record, everybody’s fine. Thanksgiving can get a little bit, sometimes we have to change the topic of conversation,
But I believe that they were good people and they think that they were doing good work and doing good things. And since I’ve been more active in this topic genre specifically, we’ve come to the conclusion that they might’ve not been breaking the law and violating, violating people’s rights, but they were violating people’s rights. You mentioned the long running show cops. Well, that was very popular when I was a kid. We watched it all the time, and I watched it for a long, long time, and I loved that show. It was always entertaining. There was always something going on. Now here I am many years later, I go back and watch that show and shows like it, and basically every single encounter is a violation. Every single one of those is like, oh, well, why are they doing that? Why are they immediately pulling somebody out and putting ’em in handcuffs? What’s the purpose of that? And they’re beating people up. They’re very violent. But that was because that’s the content that got them the most views and interesting. Nothing’s really changed about that. I guess there’s still the thing that gets them the most views is when they’re the most violent.
Stephen Janis:
That’s really interesting because now there shows live pd and there just seems to be this fascination with other people’s misery. But that’s really interesting. And so at some point you kind of said, I’ve seen enough actual encounters with cops that I know that kind of propaganda the cops is promulgating or whatever. I know that’s actually false. I mean, is that what someday it just clicked for you? Or is it because after you went out a couple of times you kind of felt like, wow, this is all wrong?
Otto The Watchdog:
Oh no. It was a slow progression and then a sudden snap. I was watching these things because I wanted to know what I was illegally required to do at traffic stops
Laura Shark:
And
Otto The Watchdog:
Things of that sort. I didn’t really have any run-ins with the law, but when I was not quite an adult yet, there was an incident where law enforcement, there was a fight in the park and the law enforcement showed up and somebody pointed at me and I was arrested. I was not involved in it,
But nevertheless, I went to jail and I was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. And that case was dismissed because I wasn’t the guy, but I had to call into a bondsman every Wednesday with the threat that I could be arrested if I didn’t. And that went on for a while. So that was my first, oh, maybe these guys aren’t all superheroes. And then again, one of my friends was pulled over for their license plate lights being too dim, not being bright enough, and she’s a minority. And when the police officer pulled up to the window, said, get out, and she asked one question and he opened the door and yanked her out and then roughed her up a little bit. And I just had enough. I just had enough. And that’s when I put my boots on for the first time and actively what I love about cop watching. Thank you for asking Steven. What I love most about Cop watching is that protesting in general is a reactive response to a situation that has occurred. Cop watching is a proactive protest, or No,
Stephen Janis:
You’re right.
Otto The Watchdog:
I’m using protests loosely there. Cop watching is proactive. We can go out and actively look for these.
Stephen Janis:
That is such a great way to put it.
Otto The Watchdog:
I love
Stephen Janis:
That. Cop watcher is always smarter than me because I wrote this whole script, but Otto said it in a way. Otto, sorry, I should be looking at you. But you said that, and that is so right. You guys go out there sometimes when there’s nothing going on, right? I mean, you’re just, you’re out there and you’re just watching
Taya Graham:
Or listening to a scanner, right?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. I mean, that’s such a different form of protest. You’re right. We have protests now against this administration or that, but Cop watchers just out there active. That’s pretty interesting.
Taya Graham:
I just want to mention this, since we did have Eric Brat singing earlier, we’re going to talk a little bit more about him later as we share our big project, but you connected with him and others that helped create this community that we covered. How did you connect with people like Eric Brat or Monkey 83 or Joe Kool or any of the other folks that we were fortunate to meet?
Otto The Watchdog:
That was definitely a 100% direct response from James Freeman being in my local area at the time, that I needed somebody to be local. And he just happened to respond to my email. And we’ve been good friends ever since. And I mean, he might disagree, but I can’t count James Freeman among my friends. I would invite him over for dinner. That’s wonderful. Eric. I had seen some of his videos and this man looks absolutely nuts, and I love it. I love it because he is so far out there that if he can get away with what he’s doing, then what I’m doing must be fine. And he was kicking ass and he would be arrested. And then before you know it, the cases are dismissed. And he did file a lot of lawsuits and he won quite a few, a lot of lawsuits, and he won a lot of his cases.
Taya Graham:
It was actually impressive. I think some of his lawsuits, he won the right for body cameras and
Stephen Janis:
Englewood,
Taya Graham:
Colorado.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah. First a training,
Taya Graham:
First Amendment training,
Stephen Janis:
He $35,000 tattoo that
Taya Graham:
That’s right.
Stephen Janis:
He got arrested for a tattoo.
Taya Graham:
I think he was arrested on nearly 200 times and won over 80% of his cases. I mean, that’s a pretty impressive track record.
Otto The Watchdog:
It’s a staggering track record. It really is.
Taya Graham:
I am glad you mentioned Eric again, because I know he must have shaped to some extent how you do cop watching and how the community came together. I mean, how would you describe Eric’s role, just out of curiosity?
Otto The Watchdog:
Well, the cop watching and protesting are two separate things that I do both. I do both of them, but they are sometimes intertwined, but they are different. Cop watching is usually a little bit more somber. You’re just trying to document the thing. And then sometimes I would just get the calling and have to sing a song. And the song was inspired by Eric, his signs, and then I just wanted to make it into a rhyme. And then it just evolved into a song and it sounded really good. It was easy to sing, and I could do it loudly, and that was the key. And Eric and I, we could harmonize together and just pop it off. We had a unique chemistry that allowed such a thing like that. And as far as the protesting, Eric definitely shaped the protesting. He absolutely shaped what I was, everything from the sign and then his clothes. I liked that he would wear bright green clothes and everything about him screamed protestor. And then for him to be arrested, it’s clear and obvious to everybody that he was arrested for what he was saying and what the sign that he was holding. And I appreciated that.
Stephen Janis:
Wow. Well, last question we wanted to ask you, just give a little bit about what do you think about Tom Zebra? Did Tom Zebra influence your work at all? Or how do you feel about his work and how it’s influenced cop watching?
Otto The Watchdog:
Yeah. So I saw Tom Zebra after I had gotten fully immersed in what was going on because he’s in California and I’m not.
So I was trying to find somebody in Texas because I knew that Texas and California law were different, different enough that you need to know what goes on in Texas, not California. Right? So when I finally found Tom, I was well into my activism. So he didn’t necessarily shape and drive me directly, but I guarantee you that he inspired somebody that I saw at some point, or the six degrees of separation. I know that Tom Zebra shaped me and encouraged me through his actions, even though I hadn’t heard his name until well after I had begun. And again, Tom Zebra goes out every single night.
Stephen Janis:
I know,
Otto The Watchdog:
Right? It’s amazing. And if he’s not posting a video every single day, it’s because nothing happened last night. And when a cop watcher is not posting a video, in my opinion, that’s a good thing. We should not have content.
Taya Graham:
That’s a good point.
Otto The Watchdog:
None of us should be anybody worth interviewing because our channels should have zero followers. We should have zero views. But that’s not the case. And it’s not the case because, well, police officers feel like they can do whatever they want to because they’ve been able to do whatever they want to. They’re told that they can do it. And until that changes, I think that this genre is going to continue to grow. And as it has dramatically. So in the last five years since specifically the Floyd protests
Stephen Janis:
Instead Armada, the show should be, this show would not exist without the bad behavior of individual cops, I guess, right?
Taya Graham:
In some way. I mean, I’ve said before I would be happy if I didn’t, if I could report on something else.
Stephen Janis:
That’s a profound statement. We should have no followers and no videos.
Taya Graham:
That’s a really profound statement. Just before we let you go, I believe it was Tyler Smith asked what happened to Otto’s arrest at the gas station where the cops solicited a complaint on the day he had court for custody. Did you have that resolved?
Otto The Watchdog:
It did. That case is resolved. It took a while, and I took a beating. So we resolve that case out of court for, I believe that settlement was $90,000. And I took that money and split it 50 50 and put it into savings accounts for my children because they’re the victims. And I am deeply bothered by the events that happened early in my channel because they continue to affect you every single day. It’s something that never goes away, and I never wanted that, never thought that that would be a thing. And I’m glad that it’s over and looking forward, all we can do is hope that justice will prevail.
Taya Graham:
Wow. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you for sharing that. And we just want to tell you how much we appreciate hearing from you, and we’re going to drag you back on a live stream in the future. I’m sorry. And we’re just have to do it.
Stephen Janis:
And remember, we both are going use Invisit on our car.
Taya Graham:
That’s
Stephen Janis:
Right. Your sponsor.
Otto The Watchdog:
Oh yeah, invisit. It’s the only window film approved by Nala.
Stephen Janis:
Okay, well let’s not go there, but let’s say this. It’s completely transparent, so police can’t see it. Neither can you. It’s pretty awesome. Perfect
Taya Graham:
Tint to make sure you never get arrested for Windows again.
Stephen Janis:
Alright,
Taya Graham:
Otto,
Stephen Janis:
Thank you Otto, it
Taya Graham:
Great to have you as always. Awesome. And I did just want to make sure that people saw that we had some lovely comments here. People really appreciate you, Otto. Thank you.
Otto The Watchdog:
Hey, I appreciate you guys. I wouldn’t have made it through it if it wasn’t for my friends and fantastic supporters. I could not have gotten through that if it wasn’t for you guys.
Taya Graham:
Oh, Otto,
Otto The Watchdog:
Thank Attia. And Steven, thank you for doing what you do because when I was doing this, we didn’t have a lackluster that would focus on these channels. You guys also pioneered your own little branch here because before the police accountability report, we really didn’t have anybody that cared enough to bring our videos to a larger audience in a professional way. Because a lot of people who do this are motivated, dedicated, passionate, but we’re not video editors, audio producers, and we don’t have all the skills and material and resources to do what you guys do. So thank you. Thank you as well. You’re
Stephen Janis:
Welcome. It was our pleasure,
Taya Graham:
Otto. We appreciate that more than thanks for being know that was really kind of you. Thank you. Thank you.
Stephen Janis:
That means a lot.
Taya Graham:
Especially because the Washington Post came in and said, oh, there is such a thing as Cop Watchers. I was like, thanks for noticing. Five years later,
Stephen Janis:
Right? Good
Taya Graham:
Job
Stephen Janis:
Five years after, but
Taya Graham:
At least finally, you guys are getting the recognition that you deserve.
Stephen Janis:
Absolutely.
Taya Graham:
Absolutely. Absolutely. We’re so happy about that. And I just did want to also make sure to say thank you to Michael Willis, who was kind enough to give us a donation. Very kind.
Stephen Janis:
Thank
Taya Graham:
You, Mike. And I thought that was really kind. Thank you. And I just want to make sure someone else said in response to our conversation about Eric, they could not stop Eric, so they put him away like they did. That was from DJ Plus. So I just wanted to let you all know I am taking a look at your comments, and I’m going to put them up whenever I can. You know, Stephen, that story about how Otto and Eric Brandt and Monkey 83 and Friends in Code and Chris Powers, how they got together is pretty incredible.
I mean, they all met on YouTube and they were all connected because of their support for Cop Watchers and each other, and they sort of built a community together. I mean, that’s an interesting story.
Stephen Janis:
Well, no, I think it’s interesting listening to Otto talk about how he connected with James Freeman, and you know how James Freeman connected with Eric and these guys are all working in different places.
Taya Graham:
Yeah. All
Stephen Janis:
Across the country. And organically created a network of people to bring these stories to people’s attention. And that’s not how YouTube is often advertised, is building communities and building actual physical activism. As Otto said, it was proactive. We said, here’s the problem. We’re going to go out every night and film that is so different from many things that, and I think we could all learn something from that activism.
Taya Graham:
And I have to say this, and this is a personal opinion, but I think it is very brave to go out on the streets armed with nothing but a camera.
Stephen Janis:
Absolutely.
Taya Graham:
And trying to make sure that your community has justice. So I think that’s a very brave thing to do,
And that is one of the reasons why we did that documentary. But we’ll save some more of those details for a little bit later. Hope you stick around and hear more about it. But for now, we’re going to be joined by a person who has been one of the most visible, prolific, and creative members of the community. He is notorious for turning routine encounters with police into revealing examples of comedic role reversal that reveals much about the power that police have and how it affects us in unseen ways. Let’s watch a clip of one of his encounters.
Speaker 11:
But these people have been told that they’ve got it in their head, that they literally have a right. They have the authority to just arbitrarily control everyone around them.
Speaker 12:
Hey, what’s up everybody? It’s James Freeman. You doing all right over here? What department are you with? You got ID on you. I sir. Dude, can I see it? Please.
Speaker 11:
I was even disturbed by the fact that this cop let me do it. Most of the people in the comments are like, man, this is the nicest cop ever. No human should tolerate that from another human. It’s wrong.
Taya Graham:
And now we have to give a big welcome for James Freeman. James, thank you so much for joining us.
James Freeman:
Hey guys, thank you for having me on the show again. It’s always good to be here.
Taya Graham:
We love having you. So happy to have you. And so first off, if you don’t mind, I would like to ask you about the legendary Tom Zebra. What did you think of his work? When did you first see it and has it influenced you at all?
James Freeman:
Honestly, I can’t remember the first time I saw it, but Tom Zebra influenced, he was one of the first. And when he was out there doing this stuff, I’ve said this before actually, I’ve compared Tom Zebra to a pioneer. Well, I have a lot of ancestors that crossed the plains over into the west, and we call ’em pioneers, right? And they blazed a trail. When they did it, it wasn’t easy. Basically when I came into the game, it was a lot easier than when Tom Zebra did it because Tom Zebra was basically Bush whacking it. He came up with the idea. He was the one who decided, alright, I’m going to go out and record these guys. When I started, I had people like Tom to help me understand what I legally could and couldn’t do. Tom, I don’t know who was his influence, but without people like Tom, I probably would’ve ended up in prison or in jail before I even really hit the ground. Got going.
Stephen Janis:
And what prompted you personally to start doing cop watching? Why did you decide that, Hey, I’m going to do this. I’m going to take this risk, the risk of getting arrested and go out and film police. What kind of motivated you to do that? How did it get started for you personally?
James Freeman:
Like Otto, it was a lot of things. I wouldn’t say it was necessarily just one thing.
I can tell you that the first video I ever shot though was when I was going through an inland border patrol checkpoint that I traveled through on a regular basis as me and my family were traveling between Arizona and Texas. And for those who don’t know what that is, you don’t cross a border or anything. But these federal police stop you and start asking interrogating questions. And it really doesn’t even have anything to do with stopping immigration or drug trade or anything like that, because all you have to do is they ask you, are you a US citizen? And if you can say the word yes, it’s like that’s the magic word. Yes. You’re no longer what they’re looking for. And I was realizing that this really wasn’t even about stopping crime or even immigration or drug traffic or anything. It was about conditioning people to obey and to understand who their master was. When master tells you to say yes, you say yes.
Speaker 7:
Wow. Wow. That’s
James Freeman:
Really
Speaker 7:
Powerful.
James Freeman:
So I shot that video and I really only shot the video to show it to four or five of my close friends and one of my friends, I couldn’t figure out a way to share it. I was trying to email it. I didn’t know anything about this technology stuff. I sucked at it. And one of my more technologically advanced friends said, Hey, best place to share a video is on YouTube, or even just with friends. So I uploaded it to YouTube. I didn’t even know how it worked. And so it was set to public, and two weeks later, a handful of other people who did this type of stuff regularly saw the video, shared it, and it had a half a million views within two weeks. And people were reaching out to me and saying,
Stephen Janis:
James,
James Freeman:
Do this again. Do it again. And I’m like, dude, what? That’s
Stephen Janis:
Incredible. That’s amazing. I mean, a half a million views, that’s not easy.
Taya Graham:
Wow. Wow. That’s amazing.
Stephen Janis:
That is amazing.
Taya Graham:
I have to ask you though, and I suppose this is somewhat of a serious question, but what is it like going out there holding a camera knowing that you might possibly be arrested, and how do you deal with that threat and how does it affect you?
James Freeman:
People talk in my comment sections. People are like, oh, James, you’re so brave. You never back down and you never get scared. That’s not true at all. Anybody who does this knows that the people we’re dealing with are armed terrorists. That’s all there is to it. It doesn’t matter what laws or don’t law, or I’m sorry, it doesn’t matter what laws or don’t know. These people don’t operate under Law and order. They’re terrorists. They’re armed people who are willing to do anything that they can get away with to you. And law legislation, none of it really plays a part. The only thing to me that really plays a part is that I think that they feel some duty to hold up the illusion that they’re some type of legitimate law enforcement or some type of legitimate entity. And so I try to play on that more than anything because I know they don’t actually care about the law, but sometimes they do care about public opinion because if people really understood, if people really knew what they were, they’d be completely abolished immediately. I’m not just talking about the people that you talked about earlier, poor lower class, financially. I mean, if everybody middle class upper, maybe upper class knows what they are, but I really think that if most people really knew what they were, they would say, whoa, we want a system of law and order, and this is not it. This is armed thugs ruling our streets.
Stephen Janis:
Now, is that why you did those? Because we showed some of the videos, the video where you’re asking an officer for ID and those sort of rural reversal kind of videos. Is that where you got that idea? Because to me, they’re so revealing about policing space saying, I can come up to any person at any time and demand almost with the threat of arrest. Is that why you did those kind of videos because of that?
James Freeman:
Yeah.
Yeah. And that was inspired by a book that I read, the Most Dangerous Superstition by Larkin Rose. And I was reading it, and he was basically comparing, most of us were told that government is by the people, for the people, and that we delegate power and authority to our government. Therefore, and the point that he makes is if that’s true, then I can only give to you or delegate to you what I have. And so a lot of people even mimic this, that government can only have the power or authority that we give to them. But when we talk about it hypothetically and say, what if I were to go up to a cop and do this, still usually just doesn’t quite click with people. It’s a hypothetical, but when you actually do it, all of a sudden it’s shocking. It’s like, wow, what an arrogant piece of crap. This guy is a total douche bag. And I did it recently just a couple of weeks ago for the first time in years, and the internet has gone crazy over it. People described me in the way that people like Tom Zebra have been describing cops for a long time, and it’s horrible the way that they were talking about me. I said, that’s it. That’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you.
Taya Graham:
Wow, that great. And those new videos are really amazing. I
Stephen Janis:
Would encourage everyone to go to James Freeman’s channel.
Taya Graham:
Absolutely. And of course, all the watchdogs channels as well, watch or Tommy. But it’s amazing. And there’s a moment, one of the videos where, I know it sounds like a strange thing to say, but you snap on these gloves and it’s like somehow it gives you another level of authority. You already had the authority in your voice, but then when you snapped on the gloves, it was as if the person, the officer you were interacting with just handed over her authority to you. It was amazing. So when you folks have a chance, definitely go check out his channel. And I wanted to mention, since I was mentioning Otto as well, when did you find yourself really interacting with other YouTubers and other cop watchers?
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, that’s good question.
Taya Graham:
I mean, I think you connected with Eric Brant fairly early on, but when did you find yourself interacting with other cop watchers and forming that community?
James Freeman:
Actually, Otto Otto was one of the first that I really connected with because he was local where I was at. So I mean, I had talked to a few others. Johnny five Oh was out in California. He flew out to visit me, but Otto was actually one of the first that I regularly connected with because it was important when we were doing this stuff to have somebody close by because there is a good chance that you’re going to get arrested, you’re going to go to jail, you’re going to need help from somebody else. The truth is, you really can’t do this stuff alone. You’ve got to have some type of support group. I mean, these cops are 900,000 strong across the whole country, and they’ve got legislators and judges and prosecutors and a whole team of people to terrorize you. And so just having a small handful of people, it was David Borin and Auto, the Watchdog that were my local people that I regularly worked with and connected with. And Otto really got the poopies end of the stick on what happened out there.
Taya Graham:
And also, I think David Bore was in the chat. So Hi, David Boron.
Stephen Janis:
Hey, David. I just want two more questions. One, Alice one then to you, what did you learn about YouTube using YouTube as a tool for publishing your videos and showing people what you were learning? How did YouTube influence your work? And I know it’s kind of a weird question, but I think YouTube is always left out of this conversation. And what did you learn about YouTube in the audience too? What kind of audience you have?
James Freeman:
Let’s see. What did I learn about YouTube?
Stephen Janis:
Well, what I mean is, I guess YouTube is a big feedback machine. You kind of learn things when you do videos certain ways, and
Taya Graham:
Some
Stephen Janis:
People like something.
Taya Graham:
I mean, and do you feel like in using YouTube, do you think the activism or the work that you’ve done would be even possible without YouTube? How important is YouTube to this whole idea, to this whole idea to the work that you do?
James Freeman:
Yeah, it’s essential. My wife asked me when I recorded at a border patrol checkpoint again, just last week, we were just traveling. We traveled an hour to go have dinner with family. And on the way back ended up going through a border patrol checkpoint. And I yelled at him and told him, you don’t have the right to do this and blah, blah. I got out of the car, I was belligerent, I was nuts on this one. And I get back in the car and my wife says, would you do this if you didn’t have a camera in your hand? I said, no, of course not.
Taya Graham:
I love the honesty.
James Freeman:
But the truth is that in the nineties when I was being bullied by cops, it didn’t mean that it wasn’t right for me to do what I do and wrong for them to do what they do. It was just that if you tried to assert your rights back then you were guaranteed to get that crap beat out of you and be thrown in jail and or prison. And so just like a cop wouldn’t do what he does without that badge and gun. And so you’re right, but also, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing here if cops weren’t doing something wrong. But you’re absolutely right though the camera, the ability to publish this and show it to the world, I really wouldn’t do it if I couldn’t show the world. I just end up beat up or dead. It wouldn’t help anyone if I wasn’t showing it to the world.
Stephen Janis:
That’s deep.
Taya Graham:
That’s incredible. But the thing is, you’ve also like Otto, you’ve incorporated humor into it, I mean, I thought what you said, because you had me read that book by Lobar, and I appreciate that, but you incorporated humor and there are these moments that seem really spontaneous. How did you decide to evolve that and why did you Yeah, it’d be funny. Yeah. How did in
Stephen Janis:
Situations sometimes didn’t seem like they were funny, but
Taya Graham:
Somehow you made them funny somehow might make them work. I don’t know how you managed to do that. Yeah.
Stephen Janis:
How do you do that? Or why did you do that?
Taya Graham:
Yeah. Better was the question. Why did you one day do that? I mean, would you see the absurdity of the situation? How did you get there?
James Freeman:
Yeah.
I think that it was both from a necessity, because I get kind of depressed watching too much of this stuff and being immersed in it too much. It’s really sad, and I am sure that you guys experience it too. Day after day after day, you see people’s lives being destroyed. You see people being terrorized, good working people. And so the comedy comes from some people have been offended by me making jokes out of really horrific stuff. But I don’t know, like Otto said, you got to do something to lighten it up. You’re either going to laugh or you’re going to cry once you really see what’s going on. So I try to laugh a little bit, and I think that it does help people. Making jokes and comedy of it, I think helps people to really truly see the absurdity of what government does, what cops do.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, I think it was funny because the one that we used, the famous one where he asked the cop for his ID
Taya Graham:
And just the look
Stephen Janis:
On his face. But what’s interesting, he pauses for a second, and then you see something click in his head like, oh, this is kind of weird. Right?
Taya Graham:
Because initially he does sort of react to the authority in James’ voice, like, oh, and you see him processing, wait a second, wait a second. I’m the one who does
Stephen Janis:
This. Wait, the Exactly.
Taya Graham:
And that power reversal James, that is so powerful for people to see. It’s incredible. I don’t know. It spoke to me on a different level and it helped me interrogate for myself how much of other people’s authority, especially with law enforcement I have accepted and how I’ve had to do a lot of work to distance myself from that and find my own autonomy. And your work really highlights that. James or
Stephen Janis:
The better one, have you been drinking to, we should be showing these, but you can go to his, not the poor guy, but the cop looks at him like
Taya Graham:
Just confounded, just flabbergasted. We’re shortcircuiting his brain in that moment. Okay. Obviously I think we’re showing we’re James Freeman fans. I think we’re kind of embarrassing ourselves right now.
Stephen Janis:
But anyway, James, thank you so much for joining us.
Taya Graham:
Thank you so much. Because we are going to have to get to the super secret special person that we’ve been talking about this whole time. So we have to make sure to go forward and speak to the legendary Tom Zebra shortly. So James, we just wanted to thank you and before you go, if there is anything that you want to shout out into the world, please feel free to do so.
James Freeman:
Yeah, thanks for having me on the show. And guys, congratulations on six years.
Stephen Janis:
Thank
Taya Graham:
You,
James Freeman:
Thank you, thank you for what you guys are doing. It’s always an honor to be able to come on your guys’ show. Thank you.
Stephen Janis:
Thank you
Taya Graham:
James. Appreciate that’s really kind. We appreciate you so much. And next time we have you on the live stream, we’re locking you in for a full hour and you’re just going to have to sit with us. Just letting you know
Stephen Janis:
I’m
Taya Graham:
There. We’re locked in. Alright, wonderful.
Stephen Janis:
Cool.
Taya Graham:
Thank you James. Thank you so much. And so
We will be turning to the man we mentioned at the beginning of the show the OG cop watcher who started filming cops. And it sounds almost prehistoric to say this when people were just recording video on VHS tapes. And if you didn’t already know, his name is Tom Zebra and as we’ve explained it already and have discussed at length, his work was both pioneering and instrumental in building this community known as Cop Watchers. And just to give viewers just a little of how dedicated he is to his work and how he practically invented the current form of cop watching. We have a clip from 2012 we’re going to show, and then we’re going to have his legendary cop watcher partner, Laura Shark, come on and talk to us about it as well. So let’s take a look at this clip. Yep.
Speaker 8:
Officer, I hate to be the one to bring you the bad news. I’m going to try to break it to you gently. It’s against the law for you to ride that motor vehicle on the sidewalk here. Did you know that? Has anyone ever mentioned that to you before? Nope. None of your police didn’t tell you that in your police training.
Speaker 12:
Do you have a point?
Speaker 8:
I made it very clearly. It’s against the law for you to be on that sidewalk for me to make that left. Turn in the middle of the road and cut off that car. You’re mistaken Bacon. You need to get your motorcycle off that sidewalk. Why is that? You guys, you guys ride people on bicycle tickets every day for riding on the sidewalk, don’t you? Every day you guys write tickets to people on bicycles, don’t you? For riding on the sidewalk. And guess what? That’s not an enforceable law, but you’re on a motor vehicle. Let me ask you this, do you have an ID with you? I’m asking questions right now, not you. No, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you’re wrong. You’re wrong. Let me explain something to you.
Speaker 12:
I’m asking the questions now. No, keep filming. Lemme see your id.
Speaker 8:
No, I don’t have id. You don’t need to have an ID to record. It’s the camera. It has nothing to do with recording. It has to do with
Speaker 12:
You making an illegal turn
Speaker 8:
Here. I didn’t make an illegal turn. I didn’t cut off a car. I beg to differ, bro. Keep begging to differ. Do you have an ID with you? I already told you. Told me what? I already told you. I don’t need an ID to record. You’re missing the point. You’re missing the point. The reason you just pulled around and questioned me is because I was questioning you is because you made an illegal turn. Came over here to question me wrong. Do you have a supervisor, Mr. Garver?
Speaker 12:
I’ve got plenty of supervisors.
Speaker 8:
Who’s the watch commander right now? I don’t know. Why don’t you find out? Why don’t you have ’em come out here? First of all, I don’t have No, no, no, not first of all, you do work for me. I’m a taxpayer and you do work for me. Why don’t you find out who’s the watch commander and you haven’t come out here right now?
Taya Graham:
That was pretty amazing, don’t you think?
Stephen Janis:
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Taya Graham:
I mean incredible.
Stephen Janis:
I know because motorcycle cops, they have their own TV show, so Yeah,
Taya Graham:
They do. And I have a little,
Stephen Janis:
What do you
Taya Graham:
Have? Some have just some folks saying that they love Tom Zebra and Laura Shark. Thank you. Slushy 58. And then I have someone saying hello, just saying, hi Jeff. Thank you. Hi. Real news fam. Good to see you. And I thought there was something that was really powerful here that was written and this is Leonine. And they said, then they came for the socialist and I did not speak out. Then they came for the next trade unionist and I did not speak out. And then they came for me and there was no one left to notice. And I thought that was really powerful because something that James said that was really important to have community that you can get in trouble, you can need help with
Speaker 4:
Bail,
Taya Graham:
You can need legal advice. And so that’s why I think the fact that this became a community so important.
Speaker 4:
And
Taya Graham:
Also of course, I appreciate that I’m a union member myself. I’m a union steward. So shout out Leah Teen. Thank you for that.
Speaker 4:
Yeah.
Taya Graham:
Okay, now we are going to go to Laura Shark and Tom Zebra. Are they here with us? Do we have Laura Shark to join us? Laura Shark?
Laura Shark:
Yes. Yes.
Taya Graham:
Do I hear her? Lovely boys. I think I do
Laura Shark:
Tom
Taya Graham:
Now. So Laura and Tom, we got you.
Stephen Janis:
Oh, finally together. Great
Taya Graham:
To see you.
Stephen Janis:
Great to see you guys. Great to see you.
Taya Graham:
So first, thank you both so much for being here. And then we have to ask Tom, this is your video. Maybe you can tell us a little bit why you felt it was so important to let this officer on his motorcycle know that sidewalks are not for motorcycles. You seemed very determined there.
Tom Zebra:
You cannot imagine the amount of abuse that not just myself, five years before this, before YouTube or anything else, I had gone through the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. This is something that I’ve never really published, but the Ninth Circuit Court of appeals already ruled in my favor. I had already been through depositions with high power attorneys. I had already destroyed them and proved every single one of them was a liar. So when that video rolled around and you could still hear the fear of my voice despite 10 or more years of being proven and the police’s courts, the law, it’s not my court, it’s their court. I had beat them repeatedly. I knew the difference between right and wrong. And I knew even you hear Dusty Garber in that video, he tried to say, I don’t work for you. Whatever he was going to say, I don’t think he got all of those words out by that time. I already knew what they were going to say before they could say it. And it was like I was just on autopilot.
Taya Graham:
Wow.
Tom Zebra:
But that video, when I said mistaken bacon, I think that must’ve put me on the map because that’s what people just love that. And
Before we go any further, I just want to say thank you for having me on the show and Otto and James and Laura and all you guys, it is a pleasure to be here with you. The conversation, I don’t have the video playing like the audience, but all the conversation I’ve heard has just been inspiring. All these thoughts, comments. There’s no way the human mind would be able to remember all the thoughts I just had. So I’m just happy to be here and unfortunately my mind can’t keep up with all the brilliance you guys have already discussed.
Taya Graham:
Well Tom, you are part of the reason we’re here. You have inspired us and we are just so happy to have you and have all these people talk about how important you’ve been to the community. We should ask Laura, so we have to ask Laura, I mean, how did his work affect yours? And actually, actually even before I ask that, how did you guys meet? How did this connection
Stephen Janis:
Connect? We both cop watching. You just ran into each other? No,
Laura Shark:
No, no. Literally at a store. I was walking in and we both weren’t really paying attention and we almost ran into each other.
Taya Graham:
No, you’re kidding. That’s like a
Laura Shark:
Me too. And I had been shown a video, a friend of mine was like, look at this crazy guy on YouTube. And I remembered seeing it in passing and then so when we almost ran into each other, I was like, wait a minute, are you the guy from YouTube? And he was all, oh, and it kind of just kind of spiraled from there. He’s all messaged me or I think I made a comment on one of his next videos and then, I mean I really had no intention to be doing this as well, but it gets you. I went on a cop watch with them and I was terrified. I mean naturally I couldn’t do it by myself for the first couple of times and it was just kind of amazing how much I didn’t know at that point in my thirties it’s just like, how did I not know that this was happening? And then I kind of teamed up with Boxy just to be able to break the mold and not be afraid anymore. He was doing his own thing and then we met back, I guess he’d seen some of my videos and he started to take me seriously and I really appreciated that. And then we were kind of just did all that. It’s
Stephen Janis:
Interesting, I kind of think of you as a team, even though I don’t, you both have your separate channels.
Laura Shark:
Absolutely.
Stephen Janis:
Do you work as a team a lot or is it just my impression?
Laura Shark:
We cop watch a lot, but we butt heads even more. We dunno what’s up. We have no experience with that.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, we have no experience with that at all. We don’t know how to relate to that.
Laura Shark:
Yeah, we definitely have. I’ve come a long way because of him and I admit that sometimes I don’t want to. But no, he’s taught me a lot, him, Catman, Ricky, just the people that I’ve met through him too. I mean, you can’t stop learning. Every time I pop watch, there’s always something new and something else that I absorb into the situation. Something shocking, something simple. When we experience the Christopher Bailey incident, that was shocking for me. Even though it happens when you see something like that, it changes you
Stephen Janis:
Just so people know.
Laura Shark:
Friedman was saying that it will start to mess with you if you really don’t try to make a little bit of humor out of it. But that situation, there was nothing funny that
Stephen Janis:
We could. Just really quickly, so
Taya Graham:
Everyone knows who might not have seen it, Christopher Bailey,
Stephen Janis:
Who might not have seen it, it was a man who was beaten near to death by police
Taya Graham:
And or
Stephen Janis:
By sheriffs.
Taya Graham:
And your recording was instrumental, was absolutely instrumental.
Stephen Janis:
And your recording in a lie to a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Is that correct?
Laura Shark:
Yeah, it was almost a year to the day till we heard from the lawyer. I had almost had to accept that I would never know who he was, if he survived what his story was. But we kept on the story one way or another because of the deputies we would see day in and day out. So I kept posting about it and I also did a sent video to the, I think the, forget who it was, they were doing a whole thing. They were trying to Department of Justice, sorry? Oh yeah, department of Justice, department of Justice, because they were calling for any video of sheriff abusing that stuff. And I was like, oh, I had a couple. I had a lot. And that was the first on the list that I sent them and I think that’s who contacted the lawyer or something behind the scenes.
And then she contacted me and it was literally I had resorted the fact that I would never know and then boom. And yeah, we took part in that case from beginning to end and it was a weird experience. It taught me a lot and Chris couldn’t have been so undeserving of that. There are bad people in the world, I’ll admit. Police can serve a purpose. It’s just too much that we see is the abuse part, but this is so undeserving of it, the nicest man you’ve ever met. It broke my heart when we did a Zoom. We never met him in person, but we did do a zoom with him and the lawyer and he was so sweet. He actually said he was glad it to him being in his health and just being able to take that opposed to somebody that might be on drugs or just be kind of health wise. And I was like, what? He was an amazing man and he did not deserve that and I’m glad he was able to have his resolve.
Stephen Janis:
Tom, do you remember when you decided to pick up a camera? Do you remember that moment? I know when we interviewed before, you said it was to protect yourself. Do you remember that day? Oh, you do. Okay. Can you talk about that?
Tom Zebra:
I remember it was to protect me. No, I couldn’t tell you when At first I put a bunch of cameras in my car because they would pull, I had a Cadillac that I think the stereotype is they’d expect to find a black person driving it. I don’t know if that’s the reason, but I just had a really shiny, beautiful car and I, there were certain agencies I couldn’t drive through without being pulled over. I mean, even though nobody would look at these videos, I couldn’t show them. Nobody cared to watch ’em. Not even my girlfriend friends, it didn’t matter. But
Stephen Janis:
No one wanted to watch it.
Tom Zebra:
Nobody gave a shit. There was no such thing as video sharing or whatever. It wasn’t like people’s phones probably. I don’t know if they had cameras or they didn’t, but they probably didn’t. So it wasn’t a thing where everyone just makes videos and whatnot.
Stephen Janis:
That’s so interesting. And you did it. I’ve got question, Steve. Yeah, no, no, I’m sorry. I’m thinking about that. I’m trying to understand. You’re making these videos and probably at that point you had no idea YouTube was going to and you just kept doing it.
Tom Zebra:
Go ahead. Well, I knew that they’re not going to keep pulling me over and searching me. Gosh, sorry. That’s okay. They’re not going to keep pulling me over and searching me. I wasn’t very smart, but I was wise enough to know because they had already started framing me, but they were framing me for little irrelevant things and the more they would frame me and make me have to go to court and all these stupid things just because they’re mad that they were wrong when they pulled me over, the more angry I got. Eventually I didn’t want to get out of the car and be searched again.
And so the camera thing, it was just like I said to protect me and it would confuse them and throw them off so it wouldn’t have matter if I had a hundred dead bodies in the trunk. Once they seen the camera, they’d be like, what’s that for? I’m like, the video you showed just today, you hear the guy said, well, what’s that for? Well, it’s a device, it records audio and video. I guess you never heard of such a thing, right? It’s sitting there, it’s recording you. So act accordingly. And usually at that point they would just disappear so I could continue on with my a hundred dead bodies in the trunk. Yeah. So it was to protect myself. Yeah. I mean neither of them or myself, none of us understood at that point that these videos would ever even have a purpose.
If I was smart enough to think, oh, one day there’ll be, and I told you this Steven the other night, when if I was smart enough to think ahead and realize one day I’ll be able to share these videos with the world, and if the police were smart enough to realize the same thing, we could have brought some police accountability around sooner, but unfortunately adopted. Yeah, exactly. If I would’ve been that smart, I would’ve been the inventor of YouTube. And unlike the inventor of YouTube who only published one video, he published the very first video, I think, and never to this day never published a second. I would’ve never stopped publishing videos and nobody would’ve been able to terminate my channel and take my videos down. So I think police accountability would’ve went much further. I was as smart. Unfortunately I’m not, and I wasn’t
Taya Graham:
Tom, I was sort of curious. We have our theories on why sometimes police are so aggressive in communities. Why do you think the police were so aggressive in your community? I mean, there’s one of the videos we showed. There’s a clip and I see you just sitting there and eating your chicken nuggies just looking as innocent as the day is long. And I’m like, why is this cop harassing him? And so I’m just curious, why do you think the police were so aggressive in your community and aggressive towards you?
Tom Zebra:
Okay, well, let me try to explain what I think is the reason it’s part of it. I can answer that question a hundred different ways depending on my mood. But this is according to the sheriff. I know you guys are well aware of their budget. All the money that’s spent a billion dollars goes towards what I would call unlawful traffic stops. They call it pretextual. Lemme try again. Pretextual traffic stops only half of 1% of these stops results and any contraband whatsoever, according to them, that’s their story. I don’t know if is the truth better or worse, but according to them, despite all these searches, they only find something illegal 0% of the time. Wow. They sure have a whole lot of motivation. Why would you search 200 cars and you’re only going to find something once.
Stephen Janis:
Yeah, it’s a very inefficient way of police
Tom Zebra:
Make what you will that either they’re finding shit more often than they’re willing to admit and taking it home or their supervisor’s taking it home. Somebody’s taking it home because you’re not going to search 200 cars, find out a damn thing, and then next week you’re going to search 200 more cars. Why not just go have lunch
Stephen Janis:
Now, Laura, it seems like every cop knows Tom at least, and a lot of ’em know you was going out with Tom a little fraught. Everyone would see you with Tom Zebra and then the cops would be like, oh, it seems like they talk to you guys. They’ll use your names.
Taya Graham:
Yeah. It seems like they know you. Do they
Stephen Janis:
Respect you? Or they just saying, Hey, we know who you are. We’re going to retaliate. What’s that about?
Laura Shark:
I don’t know if it’s respect. I would say maybe they loathe us. They’re like, oh, great
Stephen Janis:
Here. I
Laura Shark:
Mean, yeah, they always recognize, Daniel’s got so much history with most of the police in our area. I mean, there are a lot, especially when we were doing sheriff, there’s just no way to get away from me on and around 2020, I was just put to the ground. I was just doing it almost every day. And yeah, they could not know me. But overall, just the surrounding cities, I appreciate the history that he has with them. I do feel like I’ve kind of paved my own path when it comes to it. We do kind of post in different kind of formats, but for the most part, yeah, I do appreciate when they do remember me, to be honest, like good. That’s what we’re dealing with now. Okay,
Stephen Janis:
That’s back. That also means your work’s having an impact. They wouldn’t recognize, you know who you are if they weren’t all watching your videos. So that is a good sign.
Taya Graham:
Oh no, I just wanted to mention, no, there’s Chuck Bronson is in the chat, actually have watched him. I’ve lurked during some of your videos while you’re driving around listening to the police scanner, Chuck. So hi, it’s great to see you. And Laura, I had put a comment on the screen that you’d mentioned that there are a lot of great women cop watchers, and I feel like they’re maybe not quite as well known. I was wondering if there are any cop, female cop watchers that you like in particular? Any names you’d want to shout out at
Laura Shark:
All? Oh, I love a lot of them. Yeah. And Jody of course.
Taya Graham:
Is that Jody Cat Media who you’re referring
Laura Shark:
To? Yeah.
Taya Graham:
Okay.
Laura Shark:
Hi, Jody Kat. She’s close friend. I met a lot of, I mean, I don’t want to just kind of throw out names like that mean, sure, I do do Miss Denise. We lost her and I’m
Speaker 4:
Sorry.
Laura Shark:
I do know that. I mean, so many flooding my mind right now and I don’t want to forget to say one.
Taya Graham:
Sure.
Laura Shark:
But I feel like I’ve been, it has blown my mind, the evolution of women cop watchers and it’s always so great to see when I see their posts, I’m like, and they’re doing way more than me, better than me, and I can’t express how much I appreciate their work.
Stephen Janis:
Tom, you heard what people said, James Freeman, all the watchdog about your work. I mean, how does that make you feel to know that people learn from you and how much they respect you and how much you’ve meant to their lives, and also just the fact that it’s all about YouTube connected you. How do you feel about that?
Tom Zebra:
I kind of feel like I’m not allowed to say bad words, but Tom f and Zebra, whatever, I know that’s my name, my moniker, but that’s just a persona. I’m Daniel, and I feel like the town zebra, that wasn’t really a choice that I made. Didn’t, it’s going to be tough to talk about this.
Speaker 4:
It’s okay.
Tom Zebra:
It wasn’t a conscious choice. I didn’t say, oh, I’m going to hold these police accountable. I felt like they didn’t give me any choice except to defend myself. And I feel like Otto, I can’t speak for him, but I feel like he might feel that same way, James. I don’t know if James had a bad experience or not, but just in general, it wasn’t something that I chose to do. It was something that they either I had to bend over and just spread my cheeks and take it and try to smile, or I had to turn around and stand up and it wasn’t easy. But I don’t deserve all the credit. Like I said, Tom Zebra, anybody could be the Tom Zebra in their town or the Jodi Cat or the Laura or the James or the Otto. But I’m not going to suggest anybody should. You got to be willing to probably take a beating and if you have kids, if you have a wife, if you have a mortgage, it’s going to be really difficult to accomplish anything because you can’t be going to jail and court. It’s going to be rough. You guys have all said so many brilliant things. I can’t remember all. I feel like I had a comment for everything and I’ve lost track of all of them.
Taya Graham:
No, but Tom, I think you brought up a really good point, and I think it shows the sort of self-sacrifice that I see and a lot of people in the community because like you said, if you’ve got a kid at home and let’s say you’re working two jobs, you literally can’t afford to go out and cop watching. So someone’s got to go out there and take the hit, so to speak.
Tom Zebra:
Look what happened to Eric Brandt. I mean, I can make a whole show I did. I spent weeks, if not months riding around. They put a bunch of laws in his name. That’s because he’s righteous. That’s because he’s the one telling the law what it is. It’s true if they named it after him. So how do a bunch of corrupt judges send him to prison when the same corrupt judges a year later are buried in their own corruption? If they were smart, they would’ve embraced Eric brand because instead of being embarrassed and all this by their own corruption, they could have avoided it. But they’re not smart because there’s no damn consequence for ’em. So they’ll never care. They laugh all the way to the bank. I’m sorry,
Stephen Janis:
Thomas. Okay, that’s perfect. I think you had a clip that you wanted to play.
Taya Graham:
There is a clip I do want to play. I just want, so actually I will play this clip. I have one more question for Laura before we lose, have our guest leave. Let’s play the clip, but let’s play this clip. This is very special. First, it’s a very special thank you to The Battousai who, because unfortunately because of a scheduling conflict, he couldn’t be here with us today, but he wanted to make sure to say hi to us.
Stephen Janis:
Let’s watch.
Taya Graham:
Let’s watch this.
The Battousai:
Hey Tom. Unfortunately, I was unable to make the live stream however, I wanted to make a quick video in my absence. I just wanted to say that you are one of four people who inspired me to record the police. Now, I did have the honor to meet you a few years ago back in California, and we did some cop watching together. I never forgot that moment. In fact, it was probably one of the biggest highlights of me recording police. Just wanted to wish you well and hope that you’re doing well, and hope to hear from you soon. Take care, buddy.
Taya Graham:
Wow. So we want to thank Philip of the infamous well-known Philip Turner of Turner V Driver. If anyone doesn’t know that case law, go look it up right now. It’s named after that young man who in his work has helped affirm and protect the right to record police as well as support your first amendment rights. So either one of you, Laura or Tom, I just wanted to know what you thought of, but two sides stopping in to say hi.
Laura Shark:
Yeah, no, he was great. We got to meet him and when he came out, I actually went to Texas before that and met up with him. Super sweet. Just the knowledge he has is amazing, and everything that he’s accomplished is makes me a little jealous, right? He’s so young. I know. Yeah. I mean, he is a great guy.
Tom Zebra:
If I could add, it was wonderful. We made a spoof video. We also made serious videos. He went through DY checkpoint with nothing, but I’m sorry, with his, instead of giving the license, he gave his carry concealed weapon id. I think something so outrageous that that’s kind of an outrageous thing to do. You don’t get my license. I’m not rolling the window down, but I do have a gun is basically how we went through that DUI checkpoint.
Speaker 7:
Wow.
Tom Zebra:
Obviously not my id. I would’ve never put him in that situation. But besides that, everybody here, you guys too. Happy anniversary. I’m going to shut up. If you don’t shut me up, I will talk forever. Thank you guys for having me and James Otto, everybody. Laura, even I told the one guy to put his name because I don’t remember it now. Is it Adam?
Taya Graham:
Did I
Tom Zebra:
Get it
Taya Graham:
Right? Yeah. Adam behind the scenes. Yeah. Adam, that’s Adam. Absolutely. Adam, thank you Adam. Adam’s
Tom Zebra:
Making friends.
Taya Graham:
Yeah. Oh, that’s awesome.
Tom Zebra:
I’m going to mute my microphone and just tell you guys, I love you and the viewers, everybody. I love all you guys, and I’m so happy to be back. I’m finally healthy again. I never stopped being on the street, but hopefully one of these days I’m going to start publishing again. And I look forward to seeing each and every one of you again. I’m going to mute.
Stephen Janis:
Okay.
Speaker 4:
Thank you. Thank you
Taya Graham:
So
Stephen Janis:
Much. And Laura, thank you too.
Taya Graham:
That’s
Laura Shark:
Beautiful. No problem. Yeah, thank you. And congratulations to you.
Stephen Janis:
Thank you.
Taya Graham:
Thank you, Laura. We really
Laura Shark:
Appreciate it you guys so much. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated how much you’ve done for my channel, for our channels, I mean in publishing about some of our stories and things we’ve seen. So
Stephen Janis:
Is our pleasure, the
Speaker 16:
Community for the world, happy to do it.
Laura Shark:
Oh, I thought you were going to mute
Stephen Janis:
Tom. You
Taya Graham:
Said I love the interaction
Stephen Janis:
Between them. It seems familiar.
Taya Graham:
You know what, Laura, I really appreciate that. And we are just grateful that you were willing to trust us because we are journalists and the media has a certain reputation and some of it is well earned.
Speaker 4:
So
Taya Graham:
We really appreciate that you trusted us with your stories. Thank you. We do.
Stephen Janis:
And keep up the great work out there in la.
Taya Graham:
Yeah, keep up the great work you guys. We love you too.
Tom Zebra:
One more thing, guys. I told you I’m coming through town Baltimore, right? I’m putting them motor homes. It’s going to have the mistaken baking pig on the back on both sides. I’m going to stop in as many cities as I can, and when we get there, I want you guys to tell me and teach me all about the Gun Trace Task Force and the work that you guys have done in your community. Make sure you mute me so I can’t come back on, please.
Taya Graham:
That was wonderful. We would be delighted to take you on a tour of Baltimore. We can show you where the gun trace task force dealt drugs. We can show you, we can take you to the courthouse where Sergeant Ethan Newberg shot us both daggers
Speaker 4:
As
Taya Graham:
He read his statement to the courtroom if he was being convicted on how many counts was it
Stephen Janis:
32? It was nine counts of false arrest. It
Taya Graham:
Was
Stephen Janis:
A lot.
Taya Graham:
It was 32 counts overall, but nine counts were false
Stephen Janis:
Arrest. I don’t remember exactly.
Taya Graham:
It was, it
Stephen Janis:
Was significant.
Taya Graham:
It was a significant number of counts. So we would be absolutely delighted to,
Stephen Janis:
And thank you both for being here to take you on our
Taya Graham:
Tour through Baltimore. We appreciate you.
So we have to thank all the wonderful cop watchers who joined us today. All of them are special to us because they have helped guide us through this meaningful movement. But now, just for a moment, we’re just going to spend just a little bit of time talking about us and what it means to have reached our sixth anniversary. And with that, the announcement about something we’ve been working on for quite some time now. One of the aspects of the most overlooked aspects of copy watching Cop watching is unlike much of YouTube is that it’s not all talk. What I mean is that it is about action. Literally the people we spoke to, the others who do it all must decide to go out, get a camera, find and film police. And that’s what makes it so unique in the offerings of YouTube. It is a hands-on assertion against the policing of space, against the policing of movement and against the policing of behavior and all the other sorts of psychological aspects of policing that would be hidden or less obvious if not for the work of these folks on YouTube. And that’s one of the reasons Steven and I decided we needed to explore this collection of YouTubers in more detail, tell their stories in conjunction with ours. So Steven, do you just want to talk just a little bit about what that means?
Stephen Janis:
Well, I mean, we had encountered just today listening to the cop watchers that we had so many insights about things that you wouldn’t even expect beyond the realm of cop watching, about the psychology of how our government works, the psychology of how law enforcement works and the way it affects everyone’s life. And what we thought was very interesting to us, because we had to learn as journalists who adopt to YouTube and kind of become YouTubers. And through that, through the Cop watchers, we learned how to make that work on some level. And we wanted to tell that story, how our work evolved with their work. Wanted to tell through the prism of one particular cop watcher, which is Eric Brand and his story, and sort of uses a lens for which to view this whole movement, the movement, not just about cop watching, but about journalism, right? I mean you, like I said before, I started a newspaper and suddenly I found myself in our basement recording you and producing shows. And it was a journey for all of us. I mean, we kind of wanted to share how we learned from them and also look at some of the extremes and some of the questions that Eric raised as a cop watcher going to extremes that got him in a lot of trouble and celebrate this community. So we put together a film,
Taya Graham:
And it is a film that examines cop watchers, and it does so through the lens of Eric Brandt, but it’s not just about cop watching and cameras in YouTube. It’s about an aspect of YouTube that contravenes a lot of how we characterize it. Now we have to say Eric is considered very controversial. His tactics have been criticized and sometimes even condemned. And he has also been sentenced to 12 years in prison by Denver Judge for alleged telephone harassment of judges. And this story of how it unfolded and the consequences we cover in this film is just part of explaining why YouTube is not just a platform for videos, because we also covered the improbable community that emerged from the cop watchers who met on YouTube through Eric. And these connections are forged by activism which evolved into friendship, and I would say even into a family.
And the pushback from law enforcement that wreaked havoc on their lives is also explored as well, and the way they supported each other and how they endured the consequences of watching cops and how this collective fight forged real friendships and family that led to meaningful new achievements. But most importantly, as we told the story, one aspect of it seemed increasingly clear all of this, every single aspect of it was again, premised upon taking action, along with identifying the problem, policing these people decided to do something and do something specific, not just talk, not just speculate, not just debate, but act. And that was critical because through action things changed. People picked up cameras, watched police for hours on end and create videos. They were doing something specific about a specific problem. Now, by acting, things changed and by connecting their lives were transformed by using YouTube to come together in this, I don’t know, tactile sphere we call reality.
They changed it. I mean, as we mentioned earlier, I think we might have an issue with the Washington Post article. Even the Washington Post finally acknowledged in this article that cop watchers had changed police behavior. But enough of that kind of analysis onto the official announcement, Steven and I have filmed multiple documentaries, including the Friendliest Town, which is on policing on the eastern shore, about a Maryland police chief who was fired under very controversial circumstances and tax broke, which is a feature length investigation into the ways wealthy developers get even wealthier off the backs of my city’s taxpayers. And hopefully we might have a few links to those in the chat. We now have a new film that I’m excited to announce. It’s called I Am, but The Mirror, the Story of American Cop watching. It’s the story of the evolution of the YouTube version of Cop watching through not one, not two, but possibly three separate lenses. But let’s watch the trailer first and then maybe we can talk about it a little
Speaker 4:
Bit. Global. Globaltel Link has a collect call for you
Speaker 11:
From Eric.
Stephen Janis:
Our top story, a controversial Denver activist, is facing sentencing for threatening, not one, but three Denver judges.
Speaker 10:
Eric Brandt is an agitator. This is why I now advocate for the random shooting of judges. Judges have absolute
Otto The Watchdog:
Immunity, nothing that they do can they be held accountable for. I met Eric through YouTube. I really didn’t like the guy when I first saw his stuff. I thought that I’m going to watch his poor guy get his ass whipped on tv.
Speaker 16:
He’s going to say something, this cop’s going to flip the and whip his ass.
Speaker 10:
Here’s what he did in this case, he told Judge Rudolph’s staff, it is my thought that Judge Rudolph should be violently murdered. Who in the world thinks that that’s okay, Mr. Brandt, on each of these three counts, you’re sentenced to four years in the Department of Corrections. For those of you who do not know, a congregation of adult pigs is called a sounder.
Stephen Janis:
When TERs came to me with this idea of we’re going to cover these people called Cop Watchers, I was like, what? And I watched a couple videos and I was like, no.
Taya Graham:
So I finally come in, Stephen, to look at this video of a man who got arrested for filming the police.
Speaker 12:
Hey, what’s up everybody? It’s James Freeman. You doing all right over here? What department are you with? You got ID on you.
Speaker 16:
I’d say there’s about 800 people that have their own channels that are filming the police and either going live and doing it or posting in their videos later.
Speaker 17:
One of the things that, in talking about all that’s gone on is that without Eric Brand, none of this would’ve come to be.
Taya Graham:
Well, Steven, I’m sure you might have something to say since you’re the one who put together that trailer and also is the one playing the guitar and doing that music. So
Stephen Janis:
Do you want me to sing the theme song?
Taya Graham:
No, that would Maybe next time, maybe next time everyone, he can sing for you. But this time, maybe just give us a little bit about the layers of the film.
Stephen Janis:
Well, the layers, like I said, you have Eric’s, I guess, the evolution of Cop watching through the eyes of Eric and how Eric became sort of tested the extremes. And then you have the other layer of this community that was formed by YouTube of all things where people met online, but then ended up doing something active in the actual world and the tactile existence. And then you had the evolution of our journalism, as I said before, of how we learned become journalists on YouTube, and how we covered a movement that actually ended up changing the way we covered things. I mean, literally, it was like a mirror effect in some way where we adopted the way Cop watchers kind of adopted to YouTube. So all those things are told in the story,
Taya Graham:
And
Stephen Janis:
I thought it should all be put together in one place, what I like to do. And it had 1500 edits.
Taya Graham:
Yes,
Stephen Janis:
It was very,
Taya Graham:
This took a lot of work traveling out to Colorado, back and
Stephen Janis:
Forth.
Taya Graham:
And if you think cops cop watchers chasing cops or something, we were chasing the cop watchers around as they were chasing cops.
Stephen Janis:
So
Taya Graham:
We put a lot of heart and effort into it, and we really hope that you’re going to check it out when we do our launch.
But one of the reasons though, I really wanted to tell the story myself is to show how my evolution as a journalist was actually accelerated by reporting on the community of cop watchers that we feature in this documentary. And I wanted to share that I learned a lot from people I really didn’t even know and would’ve never have known at all if it hadn’t been for YouTube. And I’ve mentioned before that I grew up in Baltimore City and that I understood police misconduct, of course, which is something I experienced personally, but I had seen it as an urban issue. Cop watchers and auditors and independent journalists and people who are literally this comment section right now, they reached out to me and they helped me understand that I should investigate rural communities. That those communities were also enduring pain and harassment and exploitation at the hands of police.
And this was critical to me understanding that the police industrial complex has a boot that steps on many necks, and we need broad consensus across racial lines across city versus country, right versus left. We’ve got to agree this needs to change because it’s hurting all of us. And that for me is what makes this whole story so critical that these social media platforms that normally just keep us isolated and divided can actually be used to accomplish real change, but only if we act together and only if we use the ability to communicate, to translate our ideas into practice. And it taught me a lot about what journalism can do. That by covering a grassroots movement with all the effort and energy that the mainstream media normally heaps on the elites, we could help connect the dots. We could be part of accelerating ideas and connecting the people to each other in a way that made the push for progress more tangible, not just theoretical.
So on this the six anniversary of the Police Accountability Report, I want to express more than anything gratitude. Gratitude to the people who openly share their stories with us, despite the threat of police retaliation to the guests on our show who talk to us about some of the worst moments in their lives, and the brave souls from small towns to big cities who are willing to push back simply because they know it’s right. I know I’ve been inspired by them. I have seen Stephen Bees inspired by them, and we both understand that independent journalism is wholly dependent upon people being willing to speak to us and share with us and trust us. So please let me say this as my final thought. Thank you, all of you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for watching. Thank you for caring, and thank you for being willing to push for knowledge, the truth, and hopefully seeing the best in all of us. Thank you all. I really appreciate you.
A video surfaced in Chinese-language social media posts alongside a claim that it shows a Taiwanese special forces soldier stumbling on an amphibious landing craft while disembarking from it.
But the claim is false. The video in fact shows a European military officer, not Taiwanese.
“I think there’s really hope for Taiwan’s counterattack against the mainland! This army is too strong!” reads a sarcastic caption for the video.
The 10-second video shows people in military uniform struggling to get off an amphibious landing craft.
Some Chinese users on X claimed that a Taiwanese special forces soldier stumbled while disembarking from a landing ship.(X)
The claim began to circulate online amid reports about escalating military tensions between China and Taiwan.
China has conducted live-fire drills near Taiwan’s coast, prompting Taiwan to mobilize its defense forces. Additionally, China’s defense ministry issued a warning to Taiwan, stating: “We will come and get you, sooner or later.”
In response, Taiwan plans to increase its defense spending and enhance military cooperation with the United States.
But the claim about the video is false.
European military officer
Keyword searches found the identical video circulating on Facebook with users saying that it shows a Swedish marine.
A white logo mark in the upper left corner can be seen in the video on Facebook, which has been edited out of the videos circulating on X.
The Swedish Army, Navy, and Air Force Film Foundation originally posted the video on Facebook in 2024.(Facebook /AMF)
“These videos of recruits in training show how hard it is to keep your feet on the ground,” the caption of the AMF’s video reads.
An official at AMF told AFCL that the footage was shot more than 20 years ago for an unfinished video project designed to show what difficulties could occur during military training.
The official also confirmed that the pictured soldiers are European, not Taiwanese.
According to SoldF.com – an independent website monitoring the Swedish Armed Forces operated by Swedish veterans – the vessel in the video is an iteration of the Combat Boat 90, a standard Swedish Navy assault landing craft first mass-produced in the early 1990s.
Taiwan is not on the list of countries or territories that have purchased or are using the Combat Boat 90, according to Saab, the Swedish company that produces the vessel.
Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Dong Zhe for Asia Fact Check Lab.
The oil boom in Alberta, Canada has brought Big Oil in confrontation with First Nations for decades. This year, a breakthrough struggle occurred as the Woodland Cree First Nation established a blockade to stop construction of new oil wells by Obsidian Energy. Demanding respect for their treaty rights and a more equitable deal, the struggle of the Woodland Cree united Treaty 8 First Nations and local non-Indigenous industry owners against Obsidian. Brandi Morin reports from Treaty 8 territory in this exclusive documentary from The Real News and Ricochet Media.
Pre-Production: Brandi Morin, Geordie Day, Maximillian Alvarez, Ethan Cox Videographer: Geordie Day Video Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
A transcript will be made available as soon as possible.
The shaky ceasefire in Gaza is entering the final days of its first phase, but the genocide of the Palestinian people has not been paused. On Feb. 25, Israeli tanks stormed Jenin, the heart of the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank, for the first time since the Second Intifada. From Donald Trump’s declarations that the US should “own” Gaza to promises to deport pro-Palestine student activists, the new administration’s intentions to accelerate the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and criminalize solidarity with Palestinians have been made clear. Abby Martin, independent journalist and host of Empire Files, joins The Real News to help analyze how war on Palestine is expanding and evolving.
Studio Production: Cameron Granadino, David Hebden, Adam Coley
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Welcome to the Real News Network and welcome back to our weekly live stream Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Fear that Israel is preparing to unleash the same people destroying population, displacing civilization, erasing force that it unleashed on Gaza for 15 months, beginning just days after Israel and Hamas began Phase one of last month’s fragile ceasefire in Gaza, the Israeli military has sent troops, bulldozers, drones, helicopters, and heavy battle tanks into the Northern West Bank, United Nations. Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez said on Monday that he was gravely concerned by the rising violence in the occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers and other violations. Palestinian writer and journalist, Miriam Bardi told democracy now this week that what we are seeing in fact is a green light of annexation. What is happening right now, she said in the West Bank is defacto annexation of lands. This Israeli offensive, the so-called Operation Iron Wall, is one of the most intense military operations in the West Bank since the height of the second Infa Palestinian uprising against Israel’s occupation.
Just over two decades ago, Israel’s defense minister Israel Kaz, said this week that 40,000 Palestinians have been forced out of the refugee camps in Janine Tu and Hams. All activity by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in those areas has also been stopped. Now, Katz made it clear that this is not a short-term operation. In a written statement, Katz said, I instructed the IDF to prepare for a long stay in the camps that were cleared for the coming year, and to not allow residents to return and the terror to return and grow, we will not return to the reality that was in the past. He said, we will continue to clear refugee camps and other terror centers to dismantle the battalions and terror infrastructure of extreme Islam that was built, armed, funded, and supported by the Iranian evil axis he claimed in an attempt to establish an Eastern terror front. Now, I want you to keep those statements from Israel’s defense minister in your head as you watch this next clip. This is actually from an incredible documentary report that we filmed in the now empty Janine Refugee Camp in July of 20 23, 3 months before October 7th. The report was shot produced by shot and produced by Ross Domini, Nadia Per Do and Ahad Elbaz. Take a look.
Nadia Péridot:
The Real News Network spoke to Haniya Salameh whose son Farouk was killed by the Israeli army just days before he was due to be married.
Speaker 3:
Far
Nadia Péridot:
Like many of Janine’s residents is a refugee of the 1948 Zionist expulsion of people from across Palestine. Today, these depopulated villages either remain empty or have been raised to the ground to make way for Israel’s settlements. Palestinians are banned from returning to these
Speaker 3:
Homes
Maximillian Alvarez:
With these tanks and bulldozers rolling through the occupied West Bank right now with Israel launching new attacks in southern Syria this week with the ceasefire in Gaza, still very much in danger of collapsing before phase one of the deal is set to end on Saturday and with Donald Trump still joking that it would be best if the US took over Gaza. The bubble has officially burst on any pre inauguration hopes that people had that Trump’s presidency would somehow usher in peace in the Middle East and an end to the humanitarian horror of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from what remains of occupied historic Palestine and the United States’ support for it. Quite the opposite in fact. And not only that, but here in the so-called West the United States, Canada, Europe, we’re seeing a corresponding surge in state and institutional repression of free speech, the free press and the independent and corporate media sides speaking the truth about Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and our government’s complicity in it.
We are also seeing a surge in the criminalization of Palestine solidarity protests and attempts to classify solidarity with Palestine as support for terrorism. So listen, we need to get real about where we are right now, what we are facing, and how we can keep forging forward, fighting for what’s right and good and beautiful in times of great darkness and great danger, like the time we’re in now, fighting for peace in a world of war, fighting for life in a culture of mass death. And that is why I could not be more grateful that we’ve got the great Abby Martin on the live stream today to help us do just that. You all should know Abby by now, but in case you don’t for some reason and you’ve been living under a rock, Abby Martin is an independent journalist and host of the Empire Files, an interview and documentary series that everyone needs to watch and support.
She’s the director of the 2019 documentary, Gaza Fights for Freedom and is also directing a new documentary called Earth’s Greatest Enemy, which examines how the United States Empire is not only a primary contributor to climate change, but the central entity that imperils life on earth. Abby, thank you so much for joining us again. It’s always so great to have you back on the Real News. I want to start with the latest horrifying developments in Israel’s war on Palestine. Can you walk us through what we’re seeing and perhaps what we’re not seeing in the West Bank right now?
Abby Martin:
I mean, I think your intro did a really great job at laying out the current situation Max, and thank you for the intro. To me, that was wonderful. Look, it’s very clear that whatever ceasefire deal was negotiated, that the annexation and the green lighting of the further annexation of the West Bank was part of the sweetheart edition to that ceasefire deal. And that’s exactly what we’ve seen, just completely transition from Gaza to the West Bank where extremist settlers in tandem with Israeli soldiers are clearing out entire refugee camps and villages and at an expulsion rate that we have never frankly seen before. I mean, 40,000 Palestinians being expelled just over 35 days is just extraordinary. And this is happening almost on a daily basis. We’re at the barrel of a gun. Dozens of Palestinians are being forced and rejected from their homes. We’ve seen 60 Palestinians be killed in this timeframe.
Several children, just over the last week, we saw two Palestinian children being gunned down. This just is happening at such a rapid pace. It’s very dizzying, and it just seems like there are no measures in place whatsoever to stop this rapid annexation and this whole operation Iron Wall. It’s very clear that the ultimate goal is to clear out as much as possible and just have the plausible deniability, oh, it’s settlers. Oh, it’s Hamas fighters. Oh, well, we have to do it because of the violence that’s happening. I mean, again, if you don’t get to the root of the violence, it’s just going to erupt. It’s a tinderbox and it’s a pressure cooker. So all of the things that are happening as a result of the clearing out of these villages and refugee camps, it’s an inevitability. So you’re going to see waves of attacks, whether they be knife attacks or suicide bombings or like the inert bombs that didn’t explode and actually kill people on those buses. I mean, all of these things are inevitabilities. Once you engage on a full scale invasion and war to the native population, that’s already under a very extremely repressive police state dictatorship that prevents them from doing anything at all.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Could you say just a little more on that last point you filmed there in the West Bank, you’ve been there, you’ve reported on it many, many times. I guess for folks who maybe haven’t looked into the West Bank as much as they’ve learned about Gaza over the past two years, could you just say a little more for folks who are watching this about the state of life as such in the West Bank before this operation Iron Wall began?
Abby Martin:
Yeah, and a perfect example of that is this current ceasefire deal, phase one where people may be asking themselves how is it possible that hundreds of Palestinian prisoners really their hostages in their own right? How is it possible that there’s so many hundreds of Palestinians being held and being released at the behest of Hamas’ demands? It may be confusing to some to see just a couple dozen hostages from the Israeli side being released for hundreds of Palestinians. Well, the answer is basically the fact that there’s this repressive police state style dictatorship that wantonly just arrests hundreds of people, detains them, arbitrarily, keeps them without charges or trial, and that’s precisely what we’ve seen, ramp up and escalate in the aftermath of October 7th, hundreds and hundreds of Palestinians, including dozens of children and women, not to take away the revolutionary agency or political agency of women, but it is just unbelievable how many people have been detained arbitrarily and held.
Why aren’t they called hostages? I have no idea. But it just again, just kind of paints the picture of what Palestinians are living under. They cannot raise a Palestinian flag. They cannot practice any political activity. It is crazy. I mean, they can set up arbitrary checkpoints, resort these people’s lives to a living. Hell set up just random blockades that can reroute people just take hours out of their day just to make their lives extremely uncomfortable. But it just goes far beyond that. I mean, raiding killing Palestinians arbitrarily having no recourse whatsoever. You certainly cannot have armed resistance. I mean, anything that can be construed as a weapon in these people’s homes or cars can just subject you to not only humiliating tactics, but also just being thrown in prison. I mean, we’re talking about such a crazy level of control that simply the David versus Goliath, just symbolism of throwing a rock at a tank. There’s a law on the books that can put a Palestinian child in prison for 20 years for simply throwing a rock at an armed tank. So these are the kind of measures that have been in place since 1967 when this military dictatorship was imposed illegally. And ever since then, we’ve been placated as Westerners with this promise of a two states solution, which has just been a cover for the continued annexation of the West Bank and under Trump, we’ve seen just a complete rapid green lighting of just continuing that policy.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Yeah, man. I mean, I did not want to incorporate it as a visual element in this live stream because frankly, it’s too ghoulish and horrifying to give any more airtime to. But I would point folks, if you haven’t already seen it, to an AI generated video that our president shared on his truth social account, promoting the transformation of Gaza into a luxury beach front destination filled with skyscrapers, condos, bearded belly dancers like Monde Weiss reported the video shows Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sunbathing together in Gaza, Elon Musk eating hummus, the area being converted into resort called Trump, Gaza, a golden Trump statue and children running from rubble into picturesque beaches. What the hell, man? I mean, I guess where do you even find your center of humanity in such an inhumane timeline?
Abby Martin:
I mean, that’s what’s so creepy about it. It’s the dizzying spectacle of it all. And I feel like Trump, I feel like he was much more dialed in 2016 personally because he was less senile and whatever. He was younger and more astute. But now it does seem like he’s kind of, he doesn’t give a shit. I mean, he is just going for it and letting all of these crazy outliers just take the government for a ride. I mean, Elon Musk, this AI stuff, it’s like by the time that you’re trying to unpack this press conference where he is sitting next to this grinning genocide fugitive talking about how Gaza is a hellhole and how you’re going to get, why would you want to go back to Gaza? You’re just going to get shot and killed next to the grinning genocide fugitive, who did it. I mean, once you unpack that, he’s already signed another thousand executive orders once you try to make sense of this AI generated video of Trump’s golden head on a balloon, and kids running out of the rubble into a more attractive version of Elon Musk eating hummus and peta.
I mean, they’ve already done this, that and the other. So again, it’s the spectacle. It’s like no response is the good response. It’s so difficult to even maneuver this new political landscape even for us who follow it for a job. I mean, a perfect example is the sig. He twice the Nazi salute from Elon. I mean, it’s like, what is the appropriate response to this? Because they will just gaslight you and say what you see isn’t reality. And so by the time you’re like, no, no, no, that’s a Nazi salute. No, no, no, it’s like they’ve already done this, that and the other thing. So it’s such an insane time to be living and to navigate this political space, and I just keep comparing it to the mass hallucinations. Everyone’s relegated to their own framework of reality. The algorithm boosts whatever it is that you want to justify as that reality, and that’s kind of our respective mass hallucinations that we’re wading through. I mean, I feel like I’m living in reality, and that’s why I’m so aghast and horrified by everything. But
Maximillian Alvarez:
Yeah, that’s why I wake up screaming every night. And in fact, so much of our politics is a war on the means of perceiving reality. It is a war over the narrative of what we’re actually seeing. And from everyone’s watching a plane crash down the road in Washington DC and it’s immediately a battle over is this DEI or is this something else? Is the fires in my home state of California? Is this A DEI thing? Is this climate change? The war over the means of perception, I think is really the terrain upon which so many of us are fighting or forced to fight in the 21st century. And I definitely want to circle back to Trump Musk and how we navigate all of this here at home in the second half of the discussion. But I guess before we move on, I wanted to bring us back to the West Bank.
You mentioned the gaslighting, right? You mentioned the ways that that war on perception, the top down narratives handed to us by the very villains who are committing genocide and destroying our government and so on and so forth. I am not drawing an equivalence between our situation and that of the occupied Palestinian. But I think in your amazing conversation and interview with the great Muhammad Al Kurd about his new book, I was learning so many lessons from him that feel very relevant to us today, particularly the gaslighting and the sort of top down effort to turn the victim into the terrorist. I wanted to play that clip really quick from Muhammad El Kurd. This is a clip from Abby show, the Empire Files, which she interviewed Muhammad on recently. So let’s play that clip and let’s talk about what this can tell us about how to navigate what we’re up against now.
Mohammed el-Kurd:
Yeah, and I think the average person, anybody with common sense would understand that defending yourself against intruders, against colonizers, against thiefs, against burglars, against murderous regimes is a fundamental right that you are entitled to defend yourself and your family. And actually across history, people who have done so have been hailed as heroes. But violence itself is essentially a mutating concept. It’s something to celebrate when it’s sanctioned by the empire, and it’s something to pearl clutch out when it’s done by natives, by these young men in tracksuits. But again, this is, it’s not like a fundamental western opposition to violence or militias or whatever. It’s a rejection of any kind of political prospect for the Palestinian, because anytime the Palestinian has engaged in armed resistance or has engaged in kinds of resistance that have extended beyond the bounds of what is acceptable to a liberal society, that those are some of the only times we have been heard.
So what does that say about the world and what does that say to the Palestinian? When we are told time and time again, the only time people are going to listen to us and talk about us and put us in their headlines is when we engage in violent resistance. But ultimately, this is about the rejection of Palestinian. Armed resistance is about a rejection of a Palestinian national project is about a rejection of actually ending the occupation. Everybody can sing every day about ending the occupation, but when it becomes real, we are terrified of it. We lose our compass. We refuse, we refuse to even entertain it. For years, maybe all of my life, I’ve been hearing about a two-state solution while Israeli bulldozers eat away at our land in areas that are supposedly under Palestinian authority control. It’s like a circus where they’re just telling us these narratives to buy time while they’re creating facts on the ground, while they’re setting greedy the terms of engagement and creating the roadmap for the future while robbing us of any kind of future.
And while sanctioning even our ambitions, even our intentions, even our hopes and dreams. You know what I mean? There’s also a hyper, when we say defanging of Palestinians, it’s not just taking our rifles and vilifying our freedom fighters, but there’s also an interrogation of our thoughts. They ask us, do you condemn this and do you condemn that and do you want to do this, and do you want to throw Israelis into the sea? And what’s your issue with those people? And it’s never about actually engaging with you in a certain political uplifted discourse, but it’s about making sure you concede to the liberal world order before you are even allowed entry to the conversation. And that needs to be,
Maximillian Alvarez:
Everyone should go watch that full interview first thing. Second thing, everyone should go read Muhammad l Kurds book by Haymarket Books. Perfect victim. Third thing, Abby, I’ve got just some questions I want to throw at you really quick. Can you talk about that clip, what Muhammad’s saying there and how this applies to what we’re seeing in the West Bank? A lot of these refugee camps, yes, they’re where freedom fighters lived, but also a bunch of regular people who have nowhere else to go. So can you help folks apply what Muhammad’s saying there to what we’re seeing unfold in the West Bank, but also how this applies to us here? It does feel eerily reminiscent of the right wing in this country, condemning violence of Black Lives Matter protesters while celebrating Kyle Rittenhouse shooting them. Right? That double standard does seem to be very much at play here. So I wanted to ask if we could talk about it in the context of the West Bank first and then bring it back home after that.
Abby Martin:
Absolutely. I think, look, it’s really, really clear to understand that the West Bank is under a legal occupation and under international law, Palestinians as well as other people under occupying forces have the legal right to armed resistance that is enshrined in law. And so when you’re looking at a place like the West Bank that hosts houses 3 million Palestinians, and a lot of people are resisting naturally, so of course, I mean, that’s going to be an inevitability you’re going to resist if you’re denied basic human rights, denied clean water, denied mobility. I mean, when you’re living under this harsh repression where you can’t even celebrate the hostages coming home, you can’t grieve, you can’t publicly mourn. You can’t erect a flag. I mean, it’s absolutely insane what these people are subjected to on a day-to-day basis. And given the genocide that we’ve seen erupt in Gaza, the unending slaughter of children, I mean, obviously Palestinians are united front despite the political schisms and divisions.
And so you’re going to see resistance in the West Bank, especially when you see full scale mobilizations to invade and annex your land illegally. And so it’s actually a legal right to see resistance mobilized against Israeli invaders. So first and foremost, we need to zoom out and realize not only is this an egregious and flagrant violation of just the ceasefire, the idea of a ceasefire that Israel considers a ceasefire, just no one reacting to them constantly violating the ceasefire, whether it be in Lebanon or Gaza or in the West Bank. They can just go on and do whatever they want with complete impunity. And the second that a Palestinian fights back, oh, they’ve broken the ceasefire. Oh, the deal’s off the table. It is so disgustingly. But when you zoom out from that, I mean, yeah, Palestinians have the right to resist. So what you’re seeing in refugee camps, what you’re seeing in places like Janine is resistance, legal resistance actually.
So when Israel uses that as a precursor to then further colonize, it’s just absolutely dumbfounding because it’s just completely violating every single law in the books, and this is what they’ve done for decades. And they’re ramping it up under the cover of the ceasefire of the genocides saying that Hamas fighters are on the ground. Oh, well, they did this. So of course we need to go and eject thousands of people from their homes say that they can never return. And it’s gaslighting upon gaslighting, but it’s also just a refusal of just basic reality and the facts that we know to be true Max. When you apply that to the United States, it is just such a double sighted. I mean, it just a completely absurd notion that we worship. We’re a culture of violence. We worship war. I mean militarism and war is so ingrained in the psyche of American citizens, especially in the wake of nine 11.
It’s just a constant thing. But it’s only the good arbiters of violence. I mean, of course, the US military can do whatever it wants around the world as long as it’s doing it in the name of democracy and human rights. If Ukrainians resist against evil Russia, give them all the weapons in the world, turn it into a proxy war where we’re throwing Ukrainians into just making them cannon fodder. I mean, it’s absolutely insane. But when you’re looking at just the basic tenets of what would you do if someone came to your home and said, get out, this is my home now because the Bible says that it is from thousands of years ago, get the hell out at the barrel of a gun. What would you do? What would your family do? Obviously you would band together and resist like anyone would, especially Americans. I mean, we’re talking about a country that has stand your ground laws that if you just go up and knock on the wrong door, you could get shot and killed legally.
So it is just the paradoxical nature of propaganda. It does not make sense and it does not equate, and it’s only because of the deep, deep embedded dehumanization of Arabs and specifically Palestinians. And this has been part and parcel with the war on terror propaganda, the deep dehumanization of just Arabs and Muslims in general, and Palestinians are just, I mean, it’s absolutely absurd how much they’ve been dehumanized where people, even my fellow colleagues as journalists don’t even consider Palestinian journalists, journalists. So it’s a disgrace upon disgrace. But I think what Muhammad’s talking about is so many salient points there of just the utter hypocrisy of the way that we perceive violence. And when it comes to actual decolonization and liberation, which are concepts that make liberals feel uncomfortable, they’d rather keep Palestinians in a perpetual victimhood and treat them as if they just need aid instead of need freedom. Because when you talk about what that actually means, it means fighting back. It means resisting this unending violence and slaughter. What do these people think it means? So what does that actually look like? How does that play out and how is it successful? And that’s why history is so sanitized, and these things are just rewritten by the victors because they don’t want to teach us the hard lessons of how entire countries and peoples have been victorious and have been liberated from empires and from their colonizers in the past.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Yeah, man, I think that’s powerfully put. And I just wanted to emphasize for folks, when Abby was asking us like, what would you do if someone came in and pointed a gun at you and said, get out of your home. That happened to Muhammad, that happened to him and his family. He became a very prominent international voice, like while settlers were taking over their home from the states. So we’re not asking a rhetorical question here. This is a real question. What would you do in that situation? And in terms of how those rules of engagement he talked about are set by this by definition, hypocritical by definition, like Ill intended entity that does not want us to win, that does not want us to have a leg to stand on. We’re seeing that being baked into this kind of repressive apparatus that is spreading out across the so-called west here to make an example, claiming that Palestine solidarity encampments on a college campus are a threat to the safety of Jewish students while Zionists beating the shit out of student encampment.
Students who are encamping on campus is not categorized in the same violent way. So keep that in mind because I want to kind of focus in here on this sort of the state of repression back here at home as the war across over Palestine. The war on Palestine intensifies because over the past two years, even with the ruling elites in government and this whole imperialist capitalist warmaking establishment doing everything that they could to maintain the longstanding, unconditional support for Israel’s genocidal occupation, ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, while all of that has been going on, we have seen a sea change at the base of societies around the globe, and especially here in the United States, the explosion of the Palestine solidarity movement, mass protests in DC and around the country, the student encampment movement that I mentioned, but the empire is striking back. As you know, Abby, the reactionary ruling class answer to all of this grassroots opposition to Israel’s war on Palestine has been to criminalize the methods of that opposition and to even criminalize and legally recategorize solidarity with Palestinians itself as anti-Semitic, anti-American, and even supportive of terrorism like here in the United States.
For folks who may have forgotten in the first weeks in office of his new administration, president Trump signed an executive order to deport foreign university students who participate in Gaza solidarity protests in a chilling quote fact sheet that accompanied the executive ordered the White House said quote to all the resident aliens who joined in the pro jihadist protests. We put you on notice, come 2025, we will find you and we will deport you and quote, but this is not just happening in the us. Our colleague, Ali Abu Nima, Palestinian American journalist and executive director of the online publication, the Electronic Intifada, traveled to Switzerland last month to give a speech in Zurich. And after being allowed to enter the country, Abu Nima was arrested by plainclothes officers, forced into an unmarked vehicle, held incommunicado in jail for two nights, and then he was deported from the country.
And in Canada, things were getting very dark very quickly. pro-Palestinian Canadian author and activist, Eves Engler was jailed this week for criticizing Zionist influencer Dalia Kurtz on the social media platform, X Kurtz accused angler and his posts of harassment. And he was jailed by Montreal Police for five days. And all of this is happening back in Toronto. The largest school board in Canada has taken steps to adopt the institutional recategorize of Zionists as a protected class and anti-Zionism as antisemitism. And we actually asked our friend and colleague, the brilliant Toronto-based journalist and founder of On the Line Media, Samira Moine to give us a little update on that story. So let’s play that really quick, and then we’re going to go back to Abby.
Samira Mohyeddin:
The decision by the Toronto District School Board to receive this report on antisemitism is dangerous for a number of reasons. The most important being is that the report conflates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism and moves to make Zionist a protected class of people under the anti-racism policy. So basically a political ideology such as Zionism will now be protected as anything else, will be like race, religion, gender, sexuality. It will fall under that realm, which means that to criticize a political ideology such as Zionism will mean that you will be falling under someone who I don’t know, is critical of someone’s religion, critical of their sexuality. It will actually make it so that this is a weaponization of people who criticize the actions of Israel, which is a state. So this is very dangerous, and we don’t know what sort of effects this will have, what effect will it have on teachers who are teaching history, who are teaching social studies? Does this mean that they can’t criticize Israel? What does this mean for Jewish students who are critical of Israeli actions? Will they be penalized? So there’s a whole realm of things that the Toronto District School Board really doesn’t have answers for yet, and we’re really waiting to see how receiving this report or what even receiving of the report means, what impact it will have, both on parents, on students, and most importantly on teachers who really don’t know how to navigate such a thing. And so this is very, very dangerous.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Okay. Abby Martin, what the hell is going on with all of this? How are you seeing, I guess, the broad sweep of all this repression?
Abby Martin:
I mean, even before the genocide in Gaza, I foresaw the writing on the wall because I myself was engaged in this litigation against the state of Georgia for their anti BDS law. So I knew that states were taking measures to preempt the wave of Palestine solidarity that they inevitably knew would come. And that’s why we’ve seen consulate officials and the Israeli lobby officials going and essentially seeking to undermine our first amendment rights, the constitutionally protected right to boycott a country that was enshrined during the Montgomery Bus boycotts during the civil rights movement. So I knew that pro-Palestine speech was among the most repressed, among the most criminalized because of these laws. And we’ve seen attacks on college campuses even though there’s this kind of notion that right wing speech is what’s heckled and suppressed and repressed on college campuses. I think it’s very clear as day, especially in the wake of the Gaza genocide, that pro-Palestine speech is the most repressed and criminalized speech in the country, even though we have the sacred First Amendment, which unfortunately places like the UK doesn’t.
So you’re seeing raids and arrests of journalists like Aza Wi Stanley from the electronic ADA as well, who was also his electronic communications were seized. I mean, people like Richard Medhurst, they are being arrested and detained with their communications seized and their devices seized under these absurd counter terror powers. I mean, usually the charges don’t stick at the end of the day, but it’s just meant to create a chilling effect and to cement that repressive state where you feel like you can’t even do your job as a journalist. So even though we have the First Amendment, it is not doing much to protect us, especially with what’s happening on college campuses. I mean, the threats even from Israeli government officials saying, you’re never going to have a job again. I mean, it’s just absolutely insane. I don’t even know the words to describe this political climate because like Muhammad articulated so well, it is living in someone else’s hallucination.
It’s like living in a fever dream imposed by someone. It’s just like, what are we even talking about here? You’re telling me that saying from the river to the sea is a terrorist incitement to genocide. While I’m seeing genocide, I’m logging onto my device and seeing a genocide. But you’re saying that people’s words for liberation is the threat. So it’s just this topsy-turvy reality that we’re trying to wade through. Meanwhile, people’s lives are being ruined and destroyed. People are being suspended, expelled. I mean, their jobs are being taken away from them for just speaking facts and just trying to stand in solidarity with people who are being repressed and occupied and killed, and what’s happening to journalists. I mean, the fact that Western powers, European powers are more concerned with criminalizing pro-Palestine journalism and speech, and they are stopping a genocide, really just says it all, doesn’t it?
These institutions, these global bodies that have been in place for the last 70 years to try to prevent the never again to try to stop genocide, at least in the era or the auspices of, and these same institutions have just been made a mockery of by the same states that have created them. I mean, I think we know at this point the rules-based order in these international bodies. It was never designed to really have egalitarianism or to protect all peoples who are oppressed. No, it was to protect and shroud the west with impunity. And when it’s a western ally that’s committing genocide in plain day, well, we see exactly what these institutions are designed to do. And we’ve seen the threats, the ICC sanctions against the members of the court, their families, what’s happening in South Africa from the Trump administration. It is an upside down world where drone bombings are not terrorism because that’s just seen as normal day-to-day operations of the empire, and its junior collaborators and its colonial outposts.
But words and incitement, all of these things are unacceptable. And so that’s what you’re seeing. You’re seeing an extreme policing of our language and intent, intent. Meanwhile, the people who are ruling the world, the global elite, can do whatever they want out of the shadows, plain as day, commit genocide and ethnic cleansing and boast about it and make all of us just scurry like mice trying to catch up. Meanwhile, we can’t say shit. And so it’s a war on the mind. It’s a war on our thoughts. It is beyond even an information war. I mean, it is a war on reality itself,
Maximillian Alvarez:
And those of us who are trying to report on it mean we didn’t even mention it, but there’s on top of everything, there’s the nonprofit killer Bill HR 9 4 9 5 or the stop terror financing and tax penalties on American Hostages Act that already passed the House of Representatives going to pass the Senate at some point. But that’s another thing that I think about daily because I am the co-executive director and editor in chief of a nonprofit journalism outlet. And this bill if passed, would effectively give the Trump administration the ability to unilaterally declare that orgs like ours are terrorist supporting, not because we’re providing material support for Hamas or anything like that, but because our speech, the way we report honestly about the genocide in Palestine is being re-categorized as support for terrorism. And so we could lose our nonprofit status that’s going to kill most nonprofits that get targeted.
It won’t kill all of them, but it’ll be a massive financial hit. But also the leaders of those orgs could be held personally liable. They could be attacked, like this is something that I have to think about and talk to my family about all the time. I mean this plus the firings of tenured professors at universities threats to deport foreign students who are participating in protests, locking up journalists for social media posts. This is a really intense and dark time. And while all of this is happening, Elon Musk and is leading a techno fascist coup in our government, and I want to end there in a second, but by way of getting there, since we’ve got you on, and since you mentioned it, Abby, of course, you, Abby Martin, were famously at the center of this critical free speech battle against Georgia Southern University when the university rescinded the offer to have you deliver a keynote speech because you refuse to sign a BS contract that illegally stipulated speakers were forbidden from openly supporting any boycott of Israel. So I wanted to ask if, just by way of getting us to the final turn, if there are any lessons that you learned even from just the decision to fight that we could really internalize and need to internalize to face what we’re facing today?
Abby Martin:
Yes, I think it’s a multi-pronged battle, and we have to utilize every arm of the fight. I mean, the courts are absolutely one important facet that we need to utilize. I think if there were plaintiffs in every state taking on these BDS laws, then hopefully it will go to the Supreme Court, even though they said that they didn’t want to hear it. Right Now, there are enough mixed verdicts that would bring this to the attention of the Supreme Court, and I think if anyone is trained in constitutional law, well, we don’t know about these Trump appointees, but I mean anyone who knows the Constitution would say it’s very clear these are flagrantly unconstitutional laws, and hopefully we would put an end to it. But I think that they’re just so desperate and they know that it’s going to take, it’s a long slog to challenge all these laws, but we absolutely have to have in every single state.
And that’s just one part of it, max. I mean, the media, obviously, the fact that Elon Musk has taken over our town hall, he is, I mean, on one hand what Trump and Elon Musk are doing is kind of exposing the incestuous relationship with the so-called legacy media and the way that the political establishment operates within it. But on the other hand, it’s very scary because they’re maneuvering it all to consolidate it with the right wings, sphere of influence, and using this kind of populist fake news rhetoric to do that. And that’s very disturbing and damaging because as leftists and people who are trying to do citizen journalism for grassroots organizing and things like that, we are in for a very tough road ahead because we don’t have billionaire funding like they do. But I would say my biggest lesson learned is that we have to take on every part of the battle they have. I mean, they’ve planned for 50 years taking over the institutions, taking over the media and taking over the courts, and we are 10 steps behind and we have to do everything in our power. And that means day in and day out. It’s not pulling the lever every two to four years. It’s being a part of this active struggle to maintain democratic rights, human rights, and try to have some sort of international solidarity with the people living under the boot of our policies.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Let’s keep talking about that in this last 15 minutes that we’ve got here. One of the many folks that I’ve been thinking about a lot since Trump was inaugurated, really wondering what your analysis of all of this is. And so many of us are trying to figure out and articulate what is actually happening. I just interviewed three federal workers, two of whom were illegally fired for the podcast working people. We published it yesterday. Folks should go listen to what they have to say. It’s really important. But even there, we’re talking about battling the narrative that Musk himself and Trump and the whole administration and Fox News and these rejiggered algorithms on social media that are platforming and pushing more right-wing narratives. All of that is saying that this is all done in the name of efficiency that Trump and Musk are out there cutting government waste, attacking the corrupt deep state that’s getting in the way of the will of the American people. But if you talk to federal workers, they’re like, no, that’s not what they’re doing at all. They are slashing the hell out of it. They are just non-surgically destroying government agencies, laying groups of people off and throwing the government into disarray. None of this is done in the name of efficiency, and we shouldn’t even be taking that at face value when the guy who’s telling us that it’s being done in the name of efficiency is giving Ziggy salutes on public stages. So maybe we should stop assuming as the great
Abby Martin:
Adam Johnson said, it’s a stiff, armed, awkward gesture,
Maximillian Alvarez:
Stiff arm, Roman stiff
Abby Martin:
Arm, Roman salute in an awkward gesture.
Maximillian Alvarez:
It is nuts, but it’s just like, maybe the point being is, hey, maybe this guy is acting ideologically, maybe he’s acting self interestedly. Why do we keep buying the narrative that he’s acting uninterested in just the name of efficiency? That’s insane. It requires us to ignore the reality in front of our faces. But again, I wanted to bring us back to this point because everything we’ve been talking about now from tanks in the West Bank, the potential of the Gaza ceasefire falling apart, criminalization and crackdown on free speech and protest across the west, all of that is happening while like Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and the unelected destroyer of government agencies is literally and figuratively like on a maniacal chainsaw, wielding rampage through the institutional guts of what remains of liberal democracy and the administrative state. And so this all feels so overwhelming, and I think most folks, because they know what you just said is right, that we’re playing so far behind and they have seemingly all the control, the impulse is going to be to close off to protect what’s ours, to hide, to silence ourselves. So I wanted to ask you, with those last few minutes we’ve got, what is your analysis of what’s happening in our government right now and what does this all mean for how do we move forward and keep fighting for what’s right and good, even though it’s getting really perilous and really dangerous out there? Oh
Abby Martin:
My God. I mean, it’s really difficult. And looking at the lessons gleaned from the Iraq war era when I was radicalized and activated to do media work and activism, what was different about that time was the fact that there was a more multi-pronged kind of united front with a lot of libertarians who were disaffected, a lot more like right wingers who hated the Bush administration. There seems to be a cult-like emergence of the sycophant, worshiping of a figure like Donald Trump. And that’s what’s so disturbing about MAGA in general and by proxy, someone like Elon Musk, a South African oligarch as well as the whole PayPal Mafia, all these oligarchs from South Africa coming over here and just seizing government control, which is completely illegal. I mean, that doesn’t even really need to be said, all the unconstitutional nature of what they’re doing, but it’s just so perplexing because of the way that he’s been able to siphon support from people who historically would not necessarily just worship a billionaire.
I mean, back decades ago it was the Republican party was kind of cartoonishly, just so detached from the working class because it was just so clearly just a party for billionaires and tax breaks for the wealthy. But because of the abject failure of the Democrats to form any sort of opposition, I mean, what is their project 2025? There is no goal. There’s no vision. They’re scrambling to figure out how could they even stand in opposition to what’s going on their 10 steps behind, but because of their failure and their ineptitude and the lies and the propaganda and the media manipulation and the war, the war on terror, because they’ve failed so horribly and mirrored Republicans on so much naturally, you’ve seen this kind of faux populism reroute a lot of disaffected people into the Republican party. And for the first time we saw people who were under a hundred thousand dollars or less actually vote en mass for Trump.
This is an unprecedented shift, a tectonic shift in how these parties have really played out. So I would argue the failure of the Democrats have driven people into the hands of Trump, and it doesn’t matter if it’s fake or not, they want someone to blame for their problems. And they look at Trump and they say, yeah, immigrants, trans people, sure, whatever will help solve my basically buffer my reality. They want people to say what is wrong and who’s doing it. That’s why Bernie resonated so much. I mean, he pointed to the oligarchic class, he pointed to the people, the actual robber barons who consolidated all of the wealth during the Covid era, but now we’re in this really bizarre, weirdly entrenched new Trump regime where he’s folded in all of the tech overlords, who, by the way, all the DEI rhetoric and all the people who are like corporations are woke, woke and liberalism have taken over and dominated our culture.
Actually, it was just the notion that women should have rights and gay people should be out because you saw the virtue signaling completely go by the wayside. The second that everyone resigned to the fact that Trump was going to be president again, what happened with Google, don’t be evil. All of these people who were actually protesting the Muslim ban and had really strong rhetoric against Trump back in 2016, they’re completely folded in just seamlessly because it never was about that. It was all virtue signaling. They were always right wing. They always didn’t care that Trump was who he is. I mean, it really is just so obvious. The ruling class never really cared about Trump or his policies or the threat of fascism or the erosion of democracy. They just cared that he was a bull in a China shop. He was just unpredictable. He was uncouth, and all they care about is that peaceful transition of power, and the system just keeps going, and the status quo just keeps churning on.
And that’s why January 6th was such an abomination for them. It wasn’t because of anything else. And so now I think everything’s been exposed. Everything is clear as day. That’s why we don’t see anything. There’s no actual opposition forming. And when you look at the grassroots and all the mobilized efforts, I mean, I think there’s such a fatigue with activism because for the last 15 months, people have been out in the streets opposing biden’s subsidization and oversight of genocide. So now we’re supposed to go and fight tooth and nail against the fascist takeover of the government. It’s like, God damn, for the last 15 months we’ve been out in the streets and no one’s been listening to us about stopping genocide. So I mean, it’s such a dizzying, disorienting time intentionally, the shock and awe of this mass firings of federal workers, the thousands and thousands of federal workers, it’s so clear as day what they’re doing.
They’re just gutting in the interim. They’re trying to do as much damage as they can because they know that the time that the courts basically do their jobs, it’s going to be too late. Trump has stacked enough courts at the end of the day, and Republicans have that. Even if there’s a million challenges legally, the damage is going to be done. You can’t pick up the pieces and just go back to the way things were. And that’s the intent. For all intents and purposes, they’re trying to gut any sort of semblance of institutions that care for people. Cruelty is the point. Poor people, elderly people, disabled people, those are who are going to be the brunt of these services that are being cut. The veterans affairs, I mean, all these people from the crisis hotline, all these veterans who are calling with suicidal ideation, those people are being cut Medicaid.
I mean, the statistic flying around 880 billion, that’s the entirety of Medicaid. So when they’re talking about, oh, these budget cuts are going to cut 880 billion from this one committee, yeah, that’s the entirety of Medicaid. Who is that going to affect 73 million Americans? I mean, the shortsightedness of all of this is just astonishing, but that’s not the point. They know how much damage it’s going to do. They don’t care. They want to gut everything and privatize everything, the post office, the va, every last bastion of government services that work that are good and healthy for a democratic society, and it’s going to do so much damage. I mean, just the environmental damage, the environmental damage. And what’s so funny, all of the discussions, people like to take everything that Trump says at face value. They’re like, oh, well, he says he wants to cut the Pentagon budget in half.
Oh, well, really, because on the other side of his mouth, he’s saying the exact opposite, that he wants to increase the Pentagon budget for this, that and the other. And when you look at what Hegseth is saying about what they’re actually cutting, it’s all the climate change initiatives that they were all the cursory attempts to try to placate environmentalists like, no, no, no. We’re greening this global military empire. So it’s just all, it’s so bad in every way, but I would just urge people to just not feel overwhelmed with the barrage of news, the rapid fire nature of the algorithm. Our brains are not meant to digest news in this way or information in this way. Let max and I do it. Let us do it. Don’t get overwhelmed by the day to day just paralysis of the shock and awe of what they’re doing because that’s the intent. You cannot get paralyzed. You cannot just detach yourself from this. We have to be plugged in to the capacity that you can. We have to all be plugged into how we can all make a dent in our lives and let Max and I do the dirty work of sorting through the propaganda on the day to day. But it’s going to be a really tough road ahead, max.
Maximillian Alvarez:
It is, and I appreciate everything that you said, and I just kind of had a final tiny question. I know we got a wrap, but on that last point, because Abby and I, our whole team here at the Real News, everyone you see on screen and also everyone, you don’t who makes everything that we produce possible. We’re going to keep manning our posts. We’re going to keep doing our work. We’re going to keep speaking the truth. But as you have learned from this conversation, there may be a great cost to pay for that. And I think that’s also something that we all need to sit with and think about because people don’t ask to be kind of in the moments in history they find theirselves in, but how we respond to those moments defines who we are as people, as generations and as movements. And so Abby, I didn’t go to journalism school.
I don’t know if you did. I never set out to be a journalist. I never thought I would find myself sitting in this chair as the executive director, co-executive director and editor in chief of a nonprofit journalism outlet. But if I can think back to even my early days, the through line from then to here, I was raised by great people who taught me to stand up for what’s right and speak my truth, especially speak it unwaveringly in the face of those who want to shut me up. And I’m not someone who shuts up easily. That’s probably why I’m here. That’s why Abby’s doing what she does. If you try to shut her up, she’ll file a lawsuit against your ass and win it, right? I mean, but there’s a non-zero chance that being who we are, doing what we do, because we’re going to do it.
We’re going to do it for you. We’re going to do it because it’s right. There’s a non-zero chance we could end up in prison for it or have our outlet shut down, but that just is what it is. And so Abby, with that kind of on the table, I just wanted to ask if you had any kind of parting words to folks out there who depend on our journalism, folks out there who do journalism, any final notes about the real state that we’re in, what we’re facing, but also how we need to be kind of stealing our hearts to keep fighting for what’s right and not allowing ourselves to be silenced, even though they’re going to try really hard to do so?
Abby Martin:
Absolutely. I mean, it’s going to be so hard for just average Americans and workers who are suffering the brunt of these policies. Obviously it’s going to be really hard for them to engage in the struggle because they’re worried about how they’re going to survive day to day. They have no savings and their living paycheck to paycheck, and it’s just going to get worse. I mean, look, I became a journalist out of necessity because I saw the failure of the institutional media and the legacy media and the drive to the Iraq war, and I realized that it didn’t matter if I was standing in a street corner with a sign. I mean, no one’s going to hear what you have to say unless you advocate through a media avenue. I mean, you have to utilize the tools that we have available to speak these truths, to speak powers truth to power, to hold, power to account.
And we’re in a very dystopian era where again, words are considered terrorist incitement, especially when it comes to pro-Palestine advocacy. I run a nonprofit as well. Empire Files is a nonprofit, and it’s this paradox where you have our job revenues and our ability to tell this information potentially being threatened with shut down. Meanwhile, you have charities very active and lucrative, being able to fund people from America to go over and take over a Palestinian family’s home, like literally, nonprofit charities can go fund a genocidal army to kill Palestinians for sport. So that’s the world that we’re living in. It’s a very topsy turvy world set by actually a crime syndicate and a global mafia. And the enforcer is the US military. I am in a place of privilege to the point where I can at least speak these facts. We’re not living under a totalitarian dictatorship yet where our First Amendment is completely gone.
So I will continue to speak out and speak these facts and hold power to account and speak the truth as I see it and not be played or propagandized by the billionaire class. I am happy that at least we can rise above this deep seated propaganda where they’re telling us black is white and saying, no, this multi-billion dollar propaganda apparatus does not work on me. And we’re able to see things clearly, and we’re going to speak those truths clearly no matter where they take us, because Max, I think you and I both know that even though it’s a dangerous road ahead, we’re not going to stop doing our jobs. We’re going to speak truth to power, and we see what’s happening to our colleagues. But you know what? I’m going to keep speaking truth to power because my colleagues are being gunned down, mowed down systematically.
And so until that threat is on my doorstep, you’re not going to be able to shut me up, man. You’re not going to be able to shut me up because my friends are being killed. And I take that very seriously because a threat to justice anywhere means that injustice is still rooted everywhere. So we have to keep fighting because we can’t stop. We’re going to let these criminals win. We’re going to let them destroy the planet and kill off the sake of any viable habitat for our children. We’re going to let that happen. No. Yes, the odds are stacked against us. Yes, the institutions have completely been hijacked by these maniacs, these genocidal maniacs and sociopaths. But that’s not enough to stop us. We have to keep fighting. We have no other choice. And even if we lose, well, we sure as hell tried. We sure as hell tried, and we owe it to every person on this planet that is living under the boot of our policies that doesn’t have the privilege of being an American citizen.
That’s just dealing with the brunt of the effects of sanctions, of war, of bombings, of this economic terrorism. We owe it to them and we owe it to the kids that we’ve brought into this world. We cannot stop, max. We cannot stop. And history has been stacked before. Yes, the crisis is more existential with the environmental calamities that we’re facing, but we’ve been in deep crises before slavery, the civil rights, I mean, not people literally living in abject slavery. We have to continue to fight for the better future that we know is possible. I would not be able to live with myself if I gave up. It’s not an option. It’s not an option.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Wholeheartedly agree sis. And I love you, and I’m in solidarity with you, and I’m as scared as I think I’ll ever be, but I’m not going to stop either. So it’s an honor to be in this struggle with you and to all of you watching again, we will continue to speak truth to power, and we will continue fighting for the truth and speaking that truth to empower you because that is also why we do what we do. Because when working people have the truth, the powerful cannot take that away from us. And it is the truth that we need to know how to act because we are ultimately the ones who are going to decide how this history is written. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few years, but I know what will happen if we regular people, people of conscious do nothing.
If we do nothing, I can tell you what’s going to happen. But what happens next is up to us and Abby, the Real News, all of our colleagues who are out there fighting for the truth. We’ll keep doing that as long as we possibly can to empower you to be the change that we need to see in this world because this world is worth fighting for and the future is worth fighting for, and it’s not gone yet. So thank you all for fighting. Thank you for caring. Abby Martin, thank you so much for coming on The Real News yet again, thank you for all the invaluable work that you do. Can you please just tell folks one more time where they can find you, how they can support your work? And then I promise we’ll let you go.
Abby Martin:
Max, thank you so much. I couldn’t agree more. I mean, the love and the family are in the struggle. And for people who may be feeling really isolated out in the middle of nowhere and feel, what can I do? I’m totally just immobilized from all of this. The paralysis from our political state of affairs, I mean, reach out. It is literally the most important thing you could do is reach out to your like-minded people in your area, go on meetup groups, figure out what people are doing to just generate activism with whatever issue because that is where the love and the family and the friendships are is the struggle and getting involved, and that’s going to take you out of this kind of atomization that the system imposes on us. I love Real News Network. I’m so honored to be on Anytime Max, I’m honored to call you a friend in a comrade. People can find my work at Empire Files, the Empire Files tv, and also our new documentary is going to come out this year. I’m really excited about it. Earth’s greatest enemy.com. Thank you so much again.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Oh yeah, thank you sis. And all you watching that is the great Abby Martin, if you are not already, please, please, please go subscribe to her channel. The Empire Files support the work that she’s doing, and please support the work that we’re doing here at The Real News. We cannot keep doing it without you, and we do it for you. So please, before you go subscribe to this channel, become a member of our YouTube community, please donate to The Real News by going to the real news.com/donate, especially if you want to see more conversations like this and more coverage from the front lines of struggle around the US and across the world. And for all of us here at the Real News Network, this is Maximilian Alvarez signing off. Please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, solidarity forever. Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories and struggles that you care about most, and we need your help to keep doing this work. So please tap your screen now, subscribe and donate to the Real News Network. Solidarity forever.
A video has been circulated in Chinese-language social media posts that claim it shows the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dancing before he became his country’s leader.
But the claim is false. The video, which has been digitally altered, in fact shows a Russian dancer who goes by the name “Vusaaal” on TikTok.
The 19-second video showing a man, who appears to be Zelenskyy in a red outfit dancing to fast music, was published on Weibo and X on Feb. 20.
Social media users said the man seen in the video is indeed Zelenskyy, with some echoing online criticism about his past career as a comedian, thus not qualified to lead Ukraine.
Some Chinese social media users posted a video purportedly showing Zelenskyy dancing.(Weibo and X)
Zelenskyy, who was a comedian, actor, and producer before becoming president, gained fame as the star of the popular Ukrainian television series Servant of the People, where he played a high school teacher who unexpectedly becomes president.
While his background in comedy and entertainment played a significant role in his rise to political office, critics mocked Zelenskyy for his lack of political experience, arguing that a comedian couldn’t lead a country effectively.
Some also pointed to his past performances, including satirical and risqué skits, claiming they were unpresidential, while others dismissed him as merely playing the role of a leader rather than being one, suggesting his presidency was an extension of his TV persona.
But the claim about the video is false.
A reverse image search of screenshots from the clip led to an identical video featuring a different man’s face, which was published by a TikTok user “Vusaaal” in January 2022.
The purported clip of Zelenskyy dancing (left) is nearly identical to an older video posted on TikTok in 2022 (right).(Weibo and TikTok)
Keyword searches found that the user “Vusaaal” is a Russian dancer who posts his videos on different social media channels.
Vusaaal told the Reuters news agency in January 2024 that he was the man in the video.
Siwei Lyu, a professor of computer science at the State University of New York in Albany, also told Reuters that the online video featuring Zelenskyy dancing was an AI-generated deepfake, pointing to color and border discrepancies around the face as several commonly seen flaws in such videos.
The claim about the video has been also debunked by AFP and India’s fact-checking organization Boom.
Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Zhuang Jing for Asia Fact Check Lab.
Across Maryland’s prison system, incarcerated workers assemble furniture, sew clothing, and even manufacture cleaning chemicals. In spite of making the state more than $50 million annually in revenue, these workers are compensated below the minimum wage in a system akin to slavery. But how does the system of forced prison labor really work, and how do state laws keep this industry running? Rattling the Bars investigates how Maryland law requires government institutions to purchase prison-made products, and how legislators like State Senator Antonio Hayes are working to change that.
Producer: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to Rattling The Bars. Recently, I had the opportunity to speak to State Senator Antonio Hayes from the 40th district of Baltimore City about a bill he sponsored around prison labor in Maryland. The bill was designed to regulate Maryland Correctional Enterprise, which is the prison industry in Maryland, around their preferential treatment they receive for contracts, be it furniture, tags, clothing, or any chemicals that’s used for cleaning. The purpose of the bill was to regulate how much money they were getting from free prison labor.
Antonio Hayes:
They bring in anywhere in a high $50 million a year in business that they’re generating. So they perform everything from furniture making to license plates, to, in some cases, even on the Eastern shore, they have inmates working on poultry farms and agriculture. So the variety of services that they offered have expanded dramatically since its inception.
So here’s the thing, it’s not just state universities. All state universities are using it. The General Assembly is using it. The Maryland Department of Labor is using it. The Maryland Department of Education is using it. Maryland State Police is using it. Maryland DHS is using it. If you are a state agency, you are required by state procurement law to purchase from MCE as long as they have the product. So that’s why they’re able to bring in that type of revenue. Like I said, if you look at their annual reports, it’s somewhere around $58 million a year.
Mansa Musa:
Later, you will hear a conversation I had with former prisoner Lonnell Sligh, who was sentenced in Maryland, but was sent out of state to Kansas. And while in Kansas, he worked in prison industry. I was surprised to hear how Kansas is treating this prison labor force versus how prisoners are being treated throughout the United States of America. But first, you’ll hear this conversation with Senator Antonio Hayes.
I want you to talk a little bit about why you felt the need to get in this particular space, because this is not a space that people get in. You hear stuff about prison, okay, the conditions in prison, the medical in prison, the lack of food, parole, probation. But very rarely do you hear someone say, “Well, let me look at the industry or the job that’s being provided to prisoners.” Why’d you look at this particular direction?
Antonio Hayes:
Yeah. So interesting enough, I’ve been supporting a gentleman back home in Baltimore that has an organization called Emage, E-M-A-G-E, Entrepreneurs Making And Growing Enterprises. So the brother had reached out to me and said, “Hey, I’m manufacturing clothing, but I hear the correctional system is teaching brothers and sisters behind the wall these skills. I’d like to connect with them. So when brothers and sisters return into the community, I’d like to hire them.” Muslim brother, real good, very active member of the community. So I said, “Excellent. Let me reach out to Corrections.”
So I found the organization, MCE-
Mansa Musa:
Yeah. Maryland Correctional Enterprises.
Antonio Hayes:
Maryland Correctional Enterprises. And I asked them to come out and do a site visit with me so we could build a pipeline of individuals returning back to West Baltimore, Baltimore City period, especially if they’re already learning these skills so they could get jobs. And I’ll never forget the CEO at the time responding to me, pretty much saying, “Look, we’re in the middle of a pandemic. How dare you invite us to come into the community?” So I was taken aback by the thought that they would clap back in such a way. But if you look at my legislative agenda, it’s really focused around economics. A lot of the things that I push is around economics.
When my mom showed me how to shoot dice in West Baltimore-
Mansa Musa:
Right, right.
Antonio Hayes:
… one of the things she used to always say, “If it don’t make dollars, it don’t make sense.”
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Antonio Hayes:
So when I looked at this, like why MCE existed and the fact that they had a procurement law in the state, a preferred provider status, there’s three organizations that have a preferred provider status. It’s America Works, who hire individuals that have disabilities to have employment. Because if they didn’t do it, these individuals would probably be getting state resources from some other pot. But it takes people who have disabilities, so people who are somehow impaired. There’s another organization called Blind Industries.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Antonio Hayes:
They supply janitorial products to the state of Maryland, and these people are blind or visually impaired. And then you had MCE, which were people who were incarcerated for whatever reason. And it didn’t seem to really fit with the other two that were serving populations of individuals with disabilities. So then I began to research even more the existence and how much money they were generating. And I found out, here in the state of Maryland, they were generating revenue of upwards of fifty-something million dollars a year. Whereas, the individuals who are incarcerated, the individuals that were doing the work, were getting paid no more than a $1.16 a day. So that alarmed me, one, the fact that they had a monopoly, because they were eliminating opportunities for other individuals to participate in the economy. Right?
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Antonio Hayes:
So they had a monopoly over. And then two, they had an unfair advantage, because they were essentially paying wages that were subordinate to any other wage anyone could afford. So their overhead was so much cheaper, because they were taking advantage of the status of people who are incarcerated and paying them far less than anyone else could even think of competing against.
Mansa Musa:
And you know, it’s ironic, because as we’re sitting there, we’re talking, and we’re at this table, these chairs, all this furniture was made at Maryland Correctional Enterprise. But on back, I worked in the cash shop at Maryland Correctional Enterprise. And prior to becoming Maryland Correctional Enterprise, it was State Use-
Antonio Hayes:
State Use Industries, correct.
Mansa Musa:
… which is my next lead to my next question. So this particular, going back to your point, it’s three people, or it’s three organizations, three industries that get preferential treatment, but they created… In your research, did you find out that they created this entity solely to be able to get that preferential treatment procurement, or was it a bid more on who is going to get the third slot? Because the first two slots, I can understand, they [inaudible 00:07:45] the Maryland Penitentiary. Some guys had brought in. And they were networking with the Library of Congress to try to bring all the books in the Library of Congress into Braille. And they were getting minimum wage, and they were paying it to the social security. All that was being done in that entity.
But from your research, was this particular… Maryland Correctional Enterprise, was this created as an institution by the private sector for the sole reason to have access to the label?
Antonio Hayes:
Right. So what I found was, actually, the federal government at some point had made it against the law to transfer prison-made goods across state lines. So in order for the industry to… So also, there’s some tie to this. This has really evolved as a result of the abolition of the 13th Amendment.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right.
Antonio Hayes:
So when you had the abolition of slavery, and individuals… They lost a workforce that they would’ve had.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Antonio Hayes:
So there was a need to supplement that workforce, and the way they did that was through the, what is it called? The loophole in the constitution-
Mansa Musa:
The constitution, right.
Antonio Hayes:
… that said that slavery was illegal except for those who were being incarcerated-
Mansa Musa:
Convicted of a crime, right.
Antonio Hayes:
… due to convicted of a crime. But in Maryland and another state, I think they needed a way to create an artificial audience, because they didn’t necessarily have an audience to make the purchases in order to make it sustainable. So what they did was they put this preferred provider label on it through the state procurement so they could create an audience and customer base to support the work that they were doing.
Mansa Musa:
Okay. And now I can see. I can see it now, because, like you say, it’s all about exploitation of labor on the 13th amendment, giving them the right to use convicted convicts. So they saw that loophole, they saw the opportunity.
Antonio Hayes:
Yes.
Mansa Musa:
This is continuing black hole. They saw the opportunity. Okay. As we wrap up on this particular segment of this thing, you spoke on the economics, that’s your focus. And we know that, coming out of prison, a person having job, the likelihood of coming back to prison is slim to none. Because if you got an income… This is just my philosophy, and I’m a returning citizen, I came out of prison. Once I got an income, it allowed me to be able to get my own place. It allowed me to be able to create a savings. It allowed me to get my credit score.
In terms of, from your perspective, what would it look like if, and this is something that you might want to look at from your office level, as opposed to the opposition of them having that right, wouldn’t it be more feasible if they gave minimum wage? If the advocacy from policy would be, “Okay, you get this preferential treatment, but in order to get it, you have to provide minimum wage and you got to let them pay into their social security.” Is that something that you could see happening?
Antonio Hayes:
I think something that shows that isn’t as unbalanced as the current system is, is definitely where we want to be. Remember, a lot of the stuff that I do is around economics. I would’ve never looked at the criminal justice system or this system as something that I would want to focus on. I just wanted to make sure that individuals that were returning back to the communities that I grew up in, West Baltimore, had an opportunity to be successful. And this current system, the way it’s structured, it doesn’t give individuals an opportunity to transition back into the community, to have a greater chance of success. It’s literally setting them up for failure.
And my last visit to Jessa, I met three individuals, if you combine their sentences together, they had a hundred years. Some of them were life, some of them were never coming back to the community, ever. And I know to some degree, you need something for these individuals to do. But what I’m told anecdotally is the people that most likely will have these opportunities are people who have very long sentences. Because from a labor perspective, going back to the whole 13th Amendment thing, it’s more predictable that they will be around for a long time, as opposed to just the opposite, using this as a training opportunity. So when they reintegrate back into society, they will have a better chance of being successful and a productive member of society.
I think this current system, the way it’s working, even if you look at the suppliers, where are they getting the equipment from? We’re subsidizing MCE, and the supplies we’re getting from, from somewhere out of state. Right?
Mansa Musa:
Yeah.
Antonio Hayes:
We’re not even doing business. This wood is being procured from some out of state company. We’re not supporting Maryland jobs. So I think we need to just reevaluate and deconstruct piece by piece, how could we better get a better return on its investment, not just for the state, but also for the individuals who are producing these products that we enjoy?
Mansa Musa:
That was Senator Antonio Hayes, who, as you could see, sponsored a bill to try to get the labor force, prison labor force in Maryland regulated. We’ll keep you updated on the developments of that bill.
Now, my conversation with Lonnell Sligh. Lonnell Sligh told me about his experience in working with the prison industry in Kansas. He told me that the average prisoner in Kansas has saved up to $75,000 while working in prison industry. That it doesn’t matter how much time you’re serving, if you have a life sentence or not, most of the prisoners that’s working in the industry have long term. But because of them being able to work in the prison industry, they’re able to save money, to assist their families, pay taxes, buying to social security, and more importantly, live with some kind of dignity while they’re incarcerated.
Lonnell Sligh:
The blessing of me going to Kansas, I saw the other side of that slave industry that we called and we thought about for so many years. Now, going to Kansas, I saw an opportunity where they afforded guys to work a minimum wage job. And in that, guys were making living wages. I met guys that had 60, 70 or a hundred thousand dollars in their account.
Mansa Musa:
From working in the prison industry?
Lonnell Sligh:
From working in the prison industry. So when I saw that, that kind of changed my mindset. Because at first, I thought it was a joke. Because they asked me say, “Hey, Mr. Sligh, you want to work in the minimum wage shop? Because you’re doing a lot of good things.” And I said, “Man, get out of here.”
So going back to what I was saying, when I found out that it was true and I was afforded to get a job there, it changed my whole outlook on it. Because now, my wheels started turning on, how can we make this better?
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Lonnell Sligh:
You know what I mean? How can we change the narrative?
Mansa Musa:
Right. Okay. In every regard, okay, how did you change the narrative? Because, okay, now, reality being reality, Kansas might be an anomaly, and by that, I mean that might be in and of itself something that they doing. But overall, when you look at the prison industry throughout the United States of America, and it’s massive, they don’t have that narrative. So what would you say? How would you address that? What would you say about the Kansas model and the need to adapt it to other states’ prison industries?
Lonnell Sligh:
Well, you know firsthand that when I first came back to Maryland, my whole mindset was bringing some of the things from Kansas back to Maryland and taking some of the things that was progressive and good for Kansas back to Kansas. Now, the prison industry, we are in process now trying to bring that to Maryland. And one of the things that I’m advocating for, and I’m sure, because in the process when I got the job and I saw how we can, it’s an opportunity to make some changes and make it better for the people that’s inside, I crafted a set of guidelines and things that I presented to the administration.
So one of the things was allowing people with long-term sentences to be afforded that opportunity. So when they gave it to me, and I showed them through example that… Because I was never supposed to get out of prison.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right.
Lonnell Sligh:
So I was never supposed to have that job. But the blessing in that, I showed them two sides of promise, and that was that now the companies that were coming in there had a long-term person that can be there that they can depend on, because they had a high turnover rate.
Then secondly, I crafted a thing as far as giving dudes the opportunity to learn financial literacy, things of that nature. Because one of the things that I know for sure, a lot of guys that’s getting those jobs, that was getting those jobs were leaving out of the prison with a lot of money, but they were just as ignorant as when they came in.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Lonnell Sligh:
So if you got a hundred thousand dollars in your account and you don’t know how to pay bills or you don’t know any financial literacy, the first thing you’re going to do is go out and buy a Cadillac, a bunch of flashy clothes.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, yeah.
Lonnell Sligh:
So you’re going to end up broke or back in prison. So that’s one of the things that we are working to craft, bringing this to Maryland, having it upfront, having a criteria, a curriculum that’s designated the design for success. And one of the things that, like I said, in Kansas, the politicians, the prison industry, the corporate industry, if y’all want to help with this cause, you say you want to give people a second chance, what better way than bringing in private industry jobs, but making it something for the better, not as a slave camp?
Mansa Musa:
In terms of, how did you come out? And were you able to come out, after being in the industry, to be able to feel some sense of security financially? Or were you in need of getting support from family members to make sure that you had what you needed? Or were you able to save some money, bottom line?
Lonnell Sligh:
Absolutely.
Mansa Musa:
Not going into how much.
Lonnell Sligh:
Yeah.
Mansa Musa:
But what did your savings allow you to do in terms of adjust, readjust back into society? That’s really what it’s all about. If you’re coming out and you can’t adjust in society with the money that you made out of the industry, if you don’t have no sense of security with the money that you’re making out of industry, then likely your chances of survival is slim to nothing.
Lonnell Sligh:
Yeah. But I’m going to take it back even before, because remember, I was never supposed to get out of prison.
Mansa Musa:
Right.
Lonnell Sligh:
So having that job really took a burden off of my family.
Mansa Musa:
Okay.
Lonnell Sligh:
And it took a burden off of me, because now I didn’t have to reach out and ask for money, somebody to send me money to make commissary. So my whole strategy when I first got the job, because remember, I wasn’t ever thinking about getting out of prison, so my thing was helping my family, saving as much money as I can, building a bank account, like some of them guys that I knew had 60, 70, a hundred thousand dollars in their account.
So then I transitioned over to finding out that now I may have an opportunity to get out of prison. So that really changed the whole narrative and outlook that I had, because now I got in my mind that if I’m able to get out, not only can I afford to pay for a lawyer to help this cause, but now when I get out, I don’t have to come out in a desperate situation not knowing where I’m going to live at, not knowing if I can put a roof over my head or get a car.
Mansa Musa:
Right. Right, right. So then in that regard, the model that Kansas had in terms of giving the minimum wage, allowing you to pay into your social security, and allowing you to save, in that model, it allowed for you to transition back in society. But more importantly, while you were incarcerated, it allowed for you to be able to feel a sense of self-sufficiency in terms of taking care of your family, or providing for your children, not having to rely on them to put money on your phone or put money in your books. So that Kansas model is really a model that you think that… Well, then let’s just ask this, why do you think that other states haven’t adapted this model?
Lonnell Sligh:
Because one of the things we know is that it’s an old mindset. It’s an old way of thinking, that’s not progressive. And it’s not beneficial for a lot of states to transition or to try to do something better. They don’t want to help us. They don’t want to help the incarcerated person or the person that’s serving their times, even though they say their Division of Corrections. And they need to change that name from the Division of Corrections, because they’re not helping correct anything.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right, right.
Lonnell Sligh:
But Kansas most definitely afforded the opportunity for… But their mindset when this first started was in the seventies, so they were about making a dollar themselves.
Mansa Musa:
Right, right, right, right.
Lonnell Sligh:
So it evolved, and just like I said, it was still a hundred years behind the timing, by me being afforded to get in that space, it was a blessing because I was able to help bring a different light to it. But other states, just like I say, it’s about their bottom line and their control and old way of thinking. But my thing is, and what I’m advocating for is, is that you have to think outside the box. Because if you don’t think outside the box, then you’re going to get the same results, the same thing.
Mansa Musa:
Well, how do you address this part of the conversation? That long-term imprisonment people, that most people in those situations, those jobs after you spoke on this and have long-term, and so therefore, the benefits for them is not in comparison to the benefits of people that got short-term that can get the skill and get the money and come out. How do you… Can you have it both ways, or either/or?
Lonnell Sligh:
I think, for me, you can have it both ways. But one of the things that we mess up so much on in our way of thinking in society and in the department, we’re stuck on a certain way of thinking. So my thing is that, if you want to breed a successful person, no matter what kind of time you have… That’s my focus and my mindset, because I took a stance knowing I was never getting out of prison, but I took a stance that I was going to better myself and I was going to walk every day and do the things that I needed to make myself successful and act like I was getting out of prison tomorrow, even though I knew I was never getting out of prison. So for me, it was about me better than myself.
So having a minimum wage job or allowing a person to have a job that they can create wages, it makes a better person. It gives you a better product, whether you’re getting out or not. But you have to instill those things in people so that they can understand that it’s a different way. If not, you’re going to think that old way of thinking. Nothing is going to change.
Mansa Musa:
There you have it. Two conversations about prison labor. The prison industry. I worked in MCE. I earned 90 cents a day, a dollar and something with bonuses, approximately $2.10. The bonuses came from how much labor we produced.
On the other hand, you had the conversation I had with Lonnell about Kansas. In Maryland, I didn’t pay taxes, I wasn’t allowed to pay into the social security. I didn’t pay medical, and I didn’t pay rent. In Kansas, a person is allowed to pay into social security. That means when he get released, he had his quarters to retire. Pay the medical. That means, if he is released, he’ll be able to afford medical. Pay taxes. That means that he’s also making a contribution to society in that form. But more importantly, they’re allowed to save money. And in saving money, they will become less of a burden on the state upon their release.
What would you prefer? A person that earns slave wages and don’t pay back into society, or a system where the person is paying into society in the form of taxes, social security, medical, and also becoming economically sufficient upon their release? Tell me what you think.
Speaker 4:
Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories, and struggles that you care about most. We need your help to keep doing this work, so please tap your screen now, subscribe, and donate to the Real News Network. Solidarity forever.
I’m good! We’ve been busier than ever, but all good things. A lot of exciting projects in the works. Honestly, the last couple of years have been wild in the best way. We’ve grown the team, pushed into new mediums outside of photo and video, and added a more physical side to my practice.
I see that—there’s furniture, sculptures, even food in your studio right now. Anything else you’ve worked on that was fun?
Yeah! I’ve always had a thing for objects and materials, but we also worked with dogs recently, for a calendar, which was cool. It was a different challenge working with live, non-human subjects, and just rolling with the dog’s mood that day.
You’re an Instagram sensation—I think you’re probably the most internet-famous person I know. A lot of people know your work, but they don’t necessarily know you. What is it like to be famous?
That’s funny because it doesn’t feel that way. I’m just living my life. That’s always been my mindset: I make what I want, and if people connect, great. But I also have the benefit of being relatively faceless. I show my face sometimes, but my platform is so global that I don’t really get recognized locally. It’s an audience of around 700,000 people, but they’re spread across the world—mostly digitally. So it doesn’t really translate to real life, which I actually appreciate.
How has having a wide global audience changed your practice?
It’s shaped some of the partnerships we get, for sure. It’s opened up opportunities I wouldn’t have had otherwise. But in terms of how we work—me, my team—it hasn’t changed. We still go off intuition and personal taste. That’s always been the core.
When I first met you, you were a one-woman show. Now you have a team. What’s that like, and why did you build one?
It’s been great. I hired my first studio assistant a little over three years ago, and from there, it just grew. Everyone has different roles. Some tasks are daily, and others are more fluid. We have a thoughtful, complementary team where everyone knows what they bring to the creative vision.
It’s more collaborative now. I still lead the creative—that’s the essence of my practice—but the execution is a bigger conversation. We work with a huge network of vendors because so many of our ideas require specialized skills or materials. That collaboration is key to bringing things to life. Never in a million years would I be able to do the scope of what I do today if it wasn’t for my team.
Your work transforms the everyday into something unexpected. What drives your fascination with re-contextualizing objects? What’s your creative process like?
It all comes from childhood. I was an only child, always making things with my hands. What I do now is just an extension of what I loved doing as a kid. It’s a blessing—every day is fun. As for the process, it’s hard to define because it changes. If we’re working on commissions, one week we might be doing a photo series, and the next producing an event. It’s fluid; we start with the idea and work backward, troubleshooting how to bring it to life.
Do you do sketches or mockups?
Depends on the project. Some don’t need them, but others do, especially if we need 3D renders or have to involve architects or engineers for safety. It’s all about the end goal. If it’s an installation, it’s technical. If it’s just a photo for Instagram, it’s a whole different approach.
When you hit a creative block, how do you get through it? Do you have any rituals?
Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever hit one. I have slower moments, but it’s usually about my environment. If my mind is overloaded, I won’t have space for ideas. But I don’t see that as a rut. I know how to fix it: I just step away. As long as I have enough space and quiet, the ideas always come.
So you never get bored.
Never. I never got bored as a kid, and I don’t now. My parents always told me, “You never asked for a sibling. You were always playing, by yourself or with kids on our street.” My mind moves fast and I need constant stimulation. Even at home, I can’t sit still. I’ll think, “Oh, I could clean this cabinet or rearrange my photo wall.” There’s always something.
I read that your dad was a painter. How did that shape your creative process?
My dad was a receptionist for most of his professional life—he’s retired now—but he loved painting. It wasn’t a career, just a passion. That made art feel accessible to me. My parents helped with that, too. They took me to museums and let me go at my own pace. If I wanted to skip something, fine. If I didn’t understand something, no big deal. They gave me audio guides so I could follow along. It never felt intimidating.
Do you remember the first piece of art that hit you?
Yeah, super vividly. It was a painting of strawberries by Renoir. It was super textured, and something about it just hit me. It was at the art museum in Quebec City. I was 13, way too cool to cry over a painting, but I teared up. I have no idea why, but it stuck with me. I bought the postcard of that particular painting at the museum gift shop after going through the exhibit as a way to hold on to that moment.
What are your inspirations outside of art?
I draw a lot of inspiration from objects, especially things that make you do a double take. It could be an unexpected design detail, a surreal landscape, someone’s haircut, or even the way something moves. I love anything that challenges perception or feels slightly off in a way that makes you look twice. Beyond art and design, my boyfriend is an actor, and he’s really expanded my perspective on cinema and theatre. He’s introduced me to films I wouldn’t have sought out on my own, and it’s been incredible to explore storytelling from that angle. Lately, a few cultural moments that have really excited me include The Substance, Tyler, the Creator’s Chromakopia, and Matthieu Blazy’s appointment as Chanel’s creative director.
You constantly push creative boundaries. Have you ever surprised yourself with a project?
Definitely. There are always moments where an idea just clicks, sometimes even more than I expected. One example is the lasagna hair bow. Initially, it was meant to be just a fun closing image in a carousel of other pasta-related photos. But when I saw the final result, it completely exceeded my expectations. It looked so much better than I had imagined and, ironically, ended up being one of my most successful posts online. The best part isn’t just having an idea but seeing it come to life. When the result matches or exceeds what I imagined, that’s the best. But it happens just as often in the opposite direction, which keeps things interesting. What’s so cool about this is it doesn’t exist until we make it.
Gab bois studio photos by Yang Shi
Okay, fun question: if you had to give up one sense for a year, which would it be?
Smell. Easy.
But you need smell to taste!
True… But I’m not giving up sight, touch, or hearing. So yeah, smell.
If you had to create a piece of art using only hospital items, what would you do?
Funny you ask—I was at the dentist recently, and I kept thinking about how medical trays and tools feel like food trays and utensils. I’d probably play with that parallel.
What’s next for you?
So much. We have a bunch of new products coming out, plus some really exciting brand partnerships. I also want to direct more video work. We’ve been dabbling in it, but I want this to be a big video year.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng discussed President Donald Trump’s plans for sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports during an introductory video call on Friday morning, according to readouts from both sides.
Trump has vowed tariffs of “more than” 60% on Chinese imports, and earlier this month began with a 10% levy on all goods from China. That led Beijing to introduce a 15% retaliatory tariff on certain U.S. energy exports to China, leading to concerns about a renewed trade war.
A brief readout from the U.S. Treasury Department said that the “introductory call” between Bessent and Lifeng had largely focused on trade, with the American side raising concerns about the U.S. trade deficit with China, which has long been a bugbear of Trump.
Bessent “expressed serious concerns about the PRC’s counternarcotics efforts, economic imbalances, and unfair policies,” the readout said, using an acronym for the People’s Republic of China.
Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng speaks at the 11th China-UK Economic and Financial Dialogue in Beijing, Jan. 11, 2025.(Aaron Favila/AP)
The Treasury secretary “stressed the [Trump] Administration’s commitment to pursue trade and economic policies that protect the American economy, the American worker, and our national security,” but committed to communication with the Chinese side, it said.
According to the Chinese readout released by state news agency Xinhua, Lifeng meanwhile “expressed serious concerns over recent U.S. additional tariffs and other restrictive measures against China.”
However, both Bessent and Lifeng “recognized the significance of bilateral economic and trade relations,” the Chinese readout said.
US State Department website changes
The video call came days after the U.S. State Department updated its bilateral relations “fact sheet” on China to add a series of grievances about Beijing, leading to a backlash from the Chinese government.
The Feb. 13 changes, which themselves came days after the State Department removed previously standard language about not supporting Taiwanese independence, signaled the Trump administration’s concerns about U.S.-China trade relations.
China is “one of the most restrictive investment climates in the world” the page on U.S.-China relations now reads, before pledging to carry out Trump’s “America First” approach to trade and diplomatic ties.
“In its bilateral economic relations with China, the United States will place U.S. interests and the American people first and work to end China’s abusive, unfair, and illegal economic practices,” it says.
It also accuses Beijing of profiting off “unfair trade practices,” with the United States, including by “using forced labor and massive state subsidies, putting American businesses at a disadvantage, and making them complicit in China’s human rights abuses.”
The updated page notably also discarded the usual American diplomatic practice of referring to China’s government as “The People’s Republic of China,” or by the acronym “PRC,” rather than “China.”
“The United States is firmly committed to countering China’s licit and illicit efforts to obtain U.S. technologies to advance its military modernization,” the page says in one example passage.
‘China’ not ‘PRC’
The State Department did not respond directly to a request from Radio Free Asia to comment about the change in the name used for China’s government, but said the changes to the page in general were made to bring it in line with the priorities of the new Trump administration.
“The China fact sheet on state.gov was updated to reflect the current Administration’s policies and priorities as they relate to China and the U.S.-China relationship,” a State Department spokesperson said.
Speaking at a regular press briefing in Beijing on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said his government “strongly deplores and firmly opposes” the tone of the new page.
“The changes made by the U.S. State Department on its ‘U.S.-China Relations’ page and ‘U.S. Relations With China’ fact sheet misrepresent the facts, attack China’s foreign policy and peddle the so-called China-U.S. strategic competition,” Guo said.
Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alex Willemyns.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng discussed President Donald Trump’s plans for sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports during an introductory video call on Friday morning, according to readouts from both sides.
Trump has vowed tariffs of “more than” 60% on Chinese imports, and earlier this month began with a 10% levy on all goods from China. That led Beijing to introduce a 15% retaliatory tariff on certain U.S. energy exports to China, leading to concerns about a renewed trade war.
A brief readout from the U.S. Treasury Department said that the “introductory call” between Bessent and Lifeng had largely focused on trade, with the American side raising concerns about the U.S. trade deficit with China, which has long been a bugbear of Trump.
Bessent “expressed serious concerns about the PRC’s counternarcotics efforts, economic imbalances, and unfair policies,” the readout said, using an acronym for the People’s Republic of China.
Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng speaks at the 11th China-UK Economic and Financial Dialogue in Beijing, Jan. 11, 2025.(Aaron Favila/AP)
The Treasury secretary “stressed the [Trump] Administration’s commitment to pursue trade and economic policies that protect the American economy, the American worker, and our national security,” but committed to communication with the Chinese side, it said.
According to the Chinese readout released by state news agency Xinhua, Lifeng meanwhile “expressed serious concerns over recent U.S. additional tariffs and other restrictive measures against China.”
However, both Bessent and Lifeng “recognized the significance of bilateral economic and trade relations,” the Chinese readout said.
US State Department website changes
The video call came days after the U.S. State Department updated its bilateral relations “fact sheet” on China to add a series of grievances about Beijing, leading to a backlash from the Chinese government.
The Feb. 13 changes, which themselves came days after the State Department removed previously standard language about not supporting Taiwanese independence, signaled the Trump administration’s concerns about U.S.-China trade relations.
China is “one of the most restrictive investment climates in the world” the page on U.S.-China relations now reads, before pledging to carry out Trump’s “America First” approach to trade and diplomatic ties.
“In its bilateral economic relations with China, the United States will place U.S. interests and the American people first and work to end China’s abusive, unfair, and illegal economic practices,” it says.
It also accuses Beijing of profiting off “unfair trade practices,” with the United States, including by “using forced labor and massive state subsidies, putting American businesses at a disadvantage, and making them complicit in China’s human rights abuses.”
The updated page notably also discarded the usual American diplomatic practice of referring to China’s government as “The People’s Republic of China,” or by the acronym “PRC,” rather than “China.”
“The United States is firmly committed to countering China’s licit and illicit efforts to obtain U.S. technologies to advance its military modernization,” the page says in one example passage.
‘China’ not ‘PRC’
The State Department did not respond directly to a request from Radio Free Asia to comment about the change in the name used for China’s government, but said the changes to the page in general were made to bring it in line with the priorities of the new Trump administration.
“The China fact sheet on state.gov was updated to reflect the current Administration’s policies and priorities as they relate to China and the U.S.-China relationship,” a State Department spokesperson said.
Speaking at a regular press briefing in Beijing on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said his government “strongly deplores and firmly opposes” the tone of the new page.
“The changes made by the U.S. State Department on its ‘U.S.-China Relations’ page and ‘U.S. Relations With China’ fact sheet misrepresent the facts, attack China’s foreign policy and peddle the so-called China-U.S. strategic competition,” Guo said.
Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alex Willemyns.
Within the first month of the new Trump administration, the federal government has already become nearly unrecognizable. Operating through the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has been given carte blanche to wage war on every part of the government that stands in the way of the business and investment needs of the billionaire class. The ongoing attacks on the Treasury Department, the Department of Education, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) are just the opening salvo of a broader, darker plan to remake American society and government to serve the interests of the largest corporations and most powerful oligarchs. On this week’s livestream, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez will speak with organizers of the emergency rally that took place on Monday outside of the CFPB building in Washington DC to protest the Trump administration’s moves to effectively shut down the agency. Then, we’ll speak with media critic and TRNN columnist Adam Johnson and tech critic Paris Marx about DOGE’s attacks on democracy, Musk’s agenda, and the grim future of technofascism materializing before us in real time.
Studio Production: Cameron Granadino, David Hebden, Adam Coley
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Welcome to the Real News Network and welcome back to our weekly live stream. The Trump administration has effectively shut down the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, the very agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage lending scandal. Since its creation, the CFPB has clawed back over $21 billion from Wall Street banks, credit card companies, and other predatory financial institutions for defrauded customers. Russell V, an unabashed Christian nationalist founder of the far right Think tank, the Center for Renewing America, a primary architect of Project 2025, and Donald Trump’s newly senate confirmed acting director of the CFPB ordered all agency staff in an email Saturday to stop working and to not come into the office. Hundreds of federal employees and protesters mobilized for an emergency rally in front of the CFPB headquarters near the White House in Washington DC. On Monday, democratic lawmakers like Elizabeth Warren and Maxine Waters spoke at the event which was organized by progressive organizations indivisible, the Progressive Change Institute move on, Americans for Financial Reform and the National Treasury Employees Union Local 3 3 5, which represents CFPB workers. Here’s Senator Warren speaking to the crowd on Monday.
Elizabeth Warren:
This fight is about hardworking people versus the billionaires who want to squeeze more and more and more money. And now, now is our time to put a stop to this.
Maximillian Alvarez:
On Tuesday night, just 24 hours after that demonstration, dozens of CFPB employees were notified over email that they had been fired for his part. Elon Musk, richest man in the world and unelected head of the newly created Department of Government efficiency celebrated the shuttering of the agency posting Sunday night on X, the platform that he owns. Musk wrote quote, C-F-P-B-R-I-P accompanied by a tombstone emoji. Now Musk, it should really be noted, has a big fat obvious conflict of interest here. Just last month, his site X announced a partnership with Visa to offer a real-time payment system on the platform. And yes, the CFPB would’ve been scrutinizing the whole thing in order to make sure that users weren’t scammed and didn’t have their sensitive information stolen. Now it won’t, but the wrecking balls that Musk and Trump are swinging through the government right now are doing incalculable damage that goes far beyond the CFPB as we speak.
Trump’s administration appears dead set on manufacturing a constitutional crisis if and when they openly defy court rulings, ordering them to halt their numerous illegal moves to shut down agencies, seize operational control of government finances, and to access everyone’s sensitive government data. There’s very much a Silicon Valley esque move fast and break things strategy that’s being applied here and the big tech oligarchs of Silicon Valley who threw their full support behind the Trump Vance ticket have much more at stake here than just Musk’s payment system on X through Trump Musk, JD Vance and others Silicon Valley and its techno fascist oligarchs are waging a coup of their own right now, rewiring our government and our economy to serve their business and investment needs and to accelerate the coming of the dystopian future that they envision for all of us. Over the course of this live stream, we’re going to break down this techno fascist takeover of our government that’s unfolding in real time.
We’re going to talk about what the consequences will be and how people are fighting back in the second half of the stream. We’re going to talk with media critic, real news, columnists and co-host of the citations needed podcast, Adam Johnson, and we’re also going to speak with Paris Marks renowned tech critic, author, and host of the podcast. Tech Won’t Save Us, but we’re going to start right now with the chaos at the CFPB and the protest action outside the DC Agency headquarters on Monday. We’re joined now by Aaron Stevens. Aaron is the former mayor of East Lansing, Michigan, a senior legislative strategist with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and he was an organizer of Monday CFPB protest. Aaron, thank you so much for joining us, man, especially with everything going on. Can you start by just giving us and our viewers an on the ground account of Monday’s action? How did it get organized? What did you see and hear on the day and what were the real core rallying messages of the event?
Aaron Stephens:
Yeah, thanks for having me. So this is a really difficult time. I think that everybody’s kind of dealing with fire hose of news, the Trump administration taking actions, especially taking actions on Fridays, Saturdays to try and get away from the news cycle to really hide some of the worst things that they’re doing during the times when people might not be paying attention. But we got news that some of the Doge, those, I think 20 something year old tech folks got into CFPB and started accessing some really sensitive data that the CFPB has and were looking to shut down the agency. You have to remember that Elon Musk back when Trump first won reelection, tweeted that the CFPB was a redundant agency and one that needed to be deleted in the first place. So this is something that we were expecting to see, but of course we didn’t expect things to happen in the way that it did.
This is an agency that Doge, of course is Elon Musk is not an elected person. There’s been no act of Congress to authorize anything that’s been happening over at the CFPB, but we saw basically a takeover of the agency. People being told stay home, people being told don’t work, and so we quickly mobilized with some of our congressional allies and some of our allies like Indivisible MoveOn, the union folks and Americans for Financial Reform to really show that this was not going to be something that folks just stood by and let happen. We had about a thousand people there, maybe more, many, many members of Congress, and I want to highlight the fact that it wasn’t just members that care and talk about consumer protection every single day. You had freshman members like Yasmin Ansari and members like Maxine Waters who are on the financial services committee and Elizabeth Warren who obviously is the matriarch of this agency, but a lot of support from within the party here to really push back on what’s going on. The core message being that we’re not just going to stand by and let Elon Musk take over at this agency and we’re not going to let what is really the financial cop on the street die in the darkness.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Let’s talk a little more about that for folks who weren’t at the rally or for folks who are maybe not fully up to speed on what the CFPB itself does or did, let’s talk a little more about what the CFPB does, why it was created. And as much as we don’t want to speculate, of course we can’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but if we have a shutdown CFPB, what is that going to mean for people?
Aaron Stephens:
Yeah, I think you really have to look back at why this agency was created, right? This agency was created after the financial crisis in the late two thousands. This is an agency that is meant to hold banks and corporations and financial institutions accountable for malfeasance and advocates for consumers when they are wronged. This is an agency that, for instance, somebody who has been paying their mortgage on time, but the bank has been misapplying those payments as late and then their house got foreclosed on. They go to the CFPB and the CFPB is the one that steps in and says, actually you guys, were in the wrong here. We’re going to keep this person in their house. They are the people on the street advocating for consumers. So getting rid of an agency like that is going to leave millions of Americans without somebody to go to.
I want to just point out some of the numbers here. The CFPB has returned over 20 billion to consumers. It is a billion dollar a year budget and it has returned over 20 billion to consumers just on actions against corporations that have taken advantage of them alone. You have folks like Wells Fargo that have been taken action against and they’ve had to pay back 2.5 billion for misapplying mortgage payments like I mentioned before, and a lot of other actors that are quite frankly in the tech space, which Elon Musk is very, very related to that are seeing action taken against them as well. And so you can kind of see the through line there. Not having this agency protect consumers will mean that corporations will have a much, much easier time stealing from consumers and not having any kind of retribution against them.
Maximillian Alvarez:
I guess this is as much a disclosure as anything, right? I mean, because it’s very hard to sit here as a journalist, as editor in chief of the Real News Network talking about this, but I’m also someone whose family lost everything in the financial crisis. I’ve been open about this my whole media career. It’s where my media career started. We lost the house that I grew up in. I mean, this agency was created because so many millions of families like mine got screwed over in the 2008 financial crash, and now here we are 15 years later being told that shuttering this agency is a win for I don’t know what efficiency for
Aaron Stephens:
Who, right? If you talk about efficiency, again, I’ll point out 20 billion return to consumers billion dollar a year budget. That’s efficient to me. And we’re talking about an agency that is literally dedicated to protecting consumers. So the only thing that I could say this would be efficient for is helping big corporations take advantage of people. There is no other reason to go after an agency that is dedicated to making sure that people have a fair shake in a financial system that is usually difficult to navigate and sometimes, unfortunately, as we’ve seen many, many times in the past, takes advantage of consumers and there’s no reason to go after an agency like this other than to make it easier for those folks to do that.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, I think that’s a really important point and I want to kind of build on that in a second and sort of talk about what the attack on the CFPB tells us about the larger attack that’s happening across the government right now. But I would be remiss if I didn’t ask if you’ve heard anything from the folks at the CFPB who lost their jobs this week or anyone that you were talking to on the ground on Monday. Our listeners want to know,
Aaron Stephens:
I want to couch this and make sure that the point of this really is to talk about the consumers that are affected by this, but there is a really important story that is not probably going to be as told, which is that there are civil servants that dedicated their lives to basically saying, you know what? And many of them have very similar stories to you. I saw somebody get taken advantage of, my family got taken advantage of, and now I’ve dedicated my life to fighting for consumers, and this is the agency that I’m part of. All of those people got an email that said, your work’s not important, stop doing it. And so that’s why so many workers showed up on Monday and their message was very, very simple. It was, we just want to do our job. We just want to protect people, let us do our job.
You’ve got hundreds of people that they’re probably not making as much as they might be able to in the private sector, and they’re doing their best to try and protect people, and they’re just basically being told this isn’t important anymore as part of a larger plan. We’re seeing the same playbook at different agencies. I’m not going to be surprised as Elon Musk goes and attacks social security attacks, the Department of Education, these are services that affect working families everywhere across the country, and you don’t see him having the same kind of vitriol to a large corporation that’s taking advantage of people. It’s very, very clear that what’s going on right now is they’re dismantling the agencies that are protecting people just to give tax breaks and give an easier time for billionaires to take advantage of consumers.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Let’s tease that out a little more, right, because I would hope that that is that clear and obvious sort of message that people are taking away from it. But I mean as well as I do that, it’s not that easy unfortunately. I mean, we’re going to talk about this in the second segment with Paris Marks and Adam Johnson, but this is as much a war over what Musk and Trump are doing as it is over the perception about what they’re doing. And so I see people all the time, people I know, people I’ve interviewed, people in my family who are right-leaning or maybe politically independent who are still very much buying the Musk and Trump line, that this is all being done in the name of efficiency, rooting out longstanding corruption and woke and all that crap. So I wanted to ask if in good faith, if we want to talk to folks who are feeling that way and thinking that way, what does the attack on the CFPB, how does that fit into the larger project that you just described? How can people take that and what’s going on at the treasury and just what the hell is going on here and what’s the end game?
Aaron Stephens:
Yeah, I mean, let’s talk through some of their playbook because what Elon Musk and Donald Trump will do is they will find one little line item budget thing that they know they can message on, and they will say, look at this inefficient spending, and it’ll be like 10 million in a budget of a billion. And they’ll say, look at this inefficient thing. This is the thing that we’re cutting, and then they won’t talk about the millions and millions of dollars going to help consumers, but that’s the thing they’ll talk about so that way they can message to folks, no, no, no, look, we’re cutting. We’re cutting and we’re being efficient. But the reality is that they’re saying that publicly so that way behind the scenes they can cut the things that help people. And so I think that the CFPB is, and one of the reasons why we are so passionate about it is because there are so many stories of people being helped by this agency C I’ll give another random example.
Although there are literally thousands people that went to a for-profit college that was not accredited, took out large loans for this, and the CFPB helped state ags sue that for-profit college, which led to not only money going back to those folks, but also loans being forgiven. Those are people that would’ve been in debt for probably the rest of their lives for a degree that wasn’t even accredited, and that’s the CFUB, that’s what they’re doing. One of the reasons why I think centering this agency in this fight is a very, very good thing to do is because there are thousands of stories of people really going out there and seeking help from the CFB and that agency doing the right thing. One of the rules that they most recently announced, which is a great rule, which is now being attacked by congressional Republicans, is their medical debt and credit reporting rule, right?
You’re talking about folks that for those who don’t know, when you have an amount of medical debt, it goes on your credit report and it can significantly impact your life in the future, not being able to get a mortgage or not being able to get a car. And sometimes those procedures are just not things that you can control. And the statistics have said it and the studies have said it over and over again. Having medical debt does not actually have any real determining factor on whether or not you’re going to be paying back like car loans or house loans, and it really doesn’t affect anything. In fact, Experian has even said that publicly and the CFPB said, you know what? This should be something that we address. We should not have medical debt have something that reported on their credit report. And there are thousands of stories of people saying, I had a procedure done in the nineties.
It was out of the blue. I couldn’t control anything about it, and now 20 years later, I can’t get a house. I have two kids and I can’t get a house. Those are the people that are affected by closing this agency. And so I think centering those stories is really, really important in this conversation. And just talking about really, who is Elon Musk and Donald Trump on the side of, is it on the side of that person that is trying to get a home for their two kids or is it on the side of the banks that just want to make sure that they can make every last dime out of these consumers? And I think the answer’s fairly clear to that.
Maximillian Alvarez:
I think that’s powerfully put, and we do need to center these stories if only to get people out of the hazy miasma of Trumpian rhetoric and actually see the reality in front of them. We were talking about this two live streams ago, a day after the horrific plane crash in DC where over 60 people lost their lives. But that was another clear cut example where the government bureaucrats, the deep state, useless, evil, faceless folks in the government are actually air traffic controllers. I mean, they’re working people who are making sure our planes don’t crash when we come in and out of an airport. They’re also the people in the CFPB, the NLRB, talking to workers about organizing every day. If you just look at this in terms of big awful governments, but you’re not actually seeing the details, we’re going to be sleepwalking into even more dangerous stuff. And I want to kind of hover on that point for a second because for people who are not right in the middle of this, people who don’t live and work in DC and even for people who aren’t employees of the government and they’re really only seeing this from the outside through the media and social media, I wanted to ask you, since you were there, you’re in it, how are people who work in government responding to this? What is the range of emotions that you’re hearing seeing from your colleagues there? In DC
Aaron Stephens:
And I do live in Michigan, so I go to DC fairly regularly, but I’m here on the ground in the wonderful greatest state in the country. But I wanted to, yeah, I mean, there’s folks that are there that are terrified. They get an email one day that says, don’t come into the office. You’re working from home. Get an email the next day that says, stop your work entirely. And I think it’s very important that we engage the union in this protest too, because those are real folks that have families, jobs, lives that are completely in limbo because there’s an unelected billionaire that decided that he wanted to tweet to delete the CCF pb, and that’s a really scary reality to live in currently. To your earlier point about people not really feeling or understanding what a government employee is, I want to point out, I was a mayor back in Michigan, and I think that people have different opinions about different levels of government involvement, but I’ll tell you, when the pandemic hit and you needed those folks out there making sure that people were getting access to vaccines or access to rental assistance or whatever else it was, those are government employees, they’re doing their job.
And those kind of backbone really important things for society are like what government employees do. And I think we can have discussions about where we can direct policy or direct money more efficiently, but shutting down agencies that are dedicated to protecting people is not the way that we need to go about things.
Maximillian Alvarez:
There’s a larger kind of complicated point here to be made, but I have faith that we can manage it because we can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Two things can be true at once. What’s happening right now is a catastrophe and plenty of government agencies have drawn justified criticism and I from working people across this country, I’ll be the first to say it. I talked to working class people, living and fighting in sacrifice zones around the country, people in Michigan, people in Baltimore, people in places like East Palestine, Ohio who have been polluted by private industry, government run sites. I mean all this crap. The point being is that that is what the Environmental Protection Agency was created in response to a half a century ago. The Cuyahoga River was on fire every other month, and toxic pollution was rampant, and people across the country rose up and said, the government needs to do something about this. And it was fricking Nixon’s administration who created the EPA and actually had a sort of understanding that you need to have a level of enforcement there that gives people confidence that this agency is actually doing what it says it’s doing. Now over the last 50 years, both parties have contributed in one way or another, either by just cutting the budget, vilifying the agency, or leaning more towards the interest of the corporations that the agency’s supposed to regulate. And so you end up with people like the folks I talked to in these sacrifice zones, not trusting the EPA at all
Because the EPA is telling them that they’re fine and they can stay in their homes while they and their kids continue to get sick. And so that is the situation that we are in with so much wrought that has been created in well-meaning or established for good reasons agencies. But that doesn’t mean you throw everything out with the bath water. Again, we can do walk and chew gum at the same time, otherwise we’re going to have nothing left at the end of this.
Aaron Stephens:
Right. And I want to put a fine edge point on that. I mean, what we’re not sitting here saying is that everything is perfect, but look at where they’re targeting. They’re taking the frustration of people, people have that’s valid with government or the way that things are happening right now. And they’re using that frustration to attack agencies that are just holding corporations accountable. Where is the energy from them going? It is not going to address people’s actual concerns about government. They’re taking the, again, valid concerns that people have about the way that things are right now. And they’re saying, great, my solution is to give away tax breaks to billionaires, and they’re doing it in a more coached way, but the reality is if they cared about people being taken advantage of, then the CFPB would be enhanced, not taken away. And you see where they’re diverting their energy into cutting, and it’s for public services, for working families. It is not that real angst, and again, real angst from people that are just angry at the current situation and the way things are. So they’re taking advantage of folks fear, unfortunately.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Yeah, no, I mean in that many ways is sort of the political difference here between this magnified Republican party and what I guess we would tend to call the democratic establishment, not the whole party itself, but very much the sort of ruling side of the party that you got to Trump for all of his lies. And the scapegoats and fictive enemies that he creates is still identifying and speaking to those touchpoints of neoliberal system failure that people feel in their real lives. And if you don’t, what is our counter narrative? What is the opposite sort of vision of the future and governance that is being offered instead of the wrecking ball that is the Trump administration? That’s a question that all of us need to sit with, and it’s a question that leads into, we only got about 10 more minutes here before we move into the next segment, but I didn’t want to let you go without asking about what this all means for the Democrats who are still in office right now, this party that people are looking to as the core institutional opposition to what Trump and the GOP are doing right now.
And Axios dropped a story, which I’m sure you saw earlier this week, sparked a lot of justified outrage all over the internet. And this article said, I quote, members of the steering and policy committee with House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries in the room on Monday complained about pressure from activist groups, including ones that helped organize Monday’s action and are putting them, they’re really pissed about the pressure these groups are putting on them to get off their butts and do something. And there was a quote from this Axios article that said, quote, it’s been a constant theme of us saying, please call the Republicans. And that was from Representative Don Byer from Virginia basically throwing up their hands and telling their constituents, Hey, we’re in the minority now. There’s nothing we can do, go call the Republicans. Is this the pervasive attitude from Democrats on the hill right now that you’re hearing who’s fighting back and tell us more about the work that you’re doing with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee to be part of that fight back?
Aaron Stephens:
Yeah, I think it’s important to note. I think everybody’s kind of seen the responses to some of that article, but also just the positive responses to our rally on Monday where Maxine Waters and Elizabeth Warren stood up and said, we’re not going to stand by. Or Maxwell Frost trying to get into usaid. People want to see Democrats fighting back. They feel like at this moment, they are getting, I mean, just hounded with news every single day from a different Trump administration action that is going to harm them in the long term or in the short term. And they want to know that their representatives are fighting back. And so I think that some of that frustration is just going to manifest in people calling their DE representatives and being like, what are you doing? And I think it’s important that Dem leadership hears that. And I think that we as an organization are going to continue trying to channel our members to make sure that action is being taken on the Dem side and that we’re using every single tool in the arsenal, whether that be in the funding fight or whether that be pushing state side, pushing on ags and the courts, whatever it is, people need to see Dems fighting back.
I certainly agree that this is a Republican agenda and we need to be holding them accountable for what they are doing. But again, people need to see Dems fighting back, and if they don’t see that, then they’re going to feel like they’ve been abandoned by the party that claims to be the ones that’s fight for.
Maximillian Alvarez:
And I guess just picking up on that, for folks out here who are watching and listening to this stream, I guess what would be your message to them about why they should fight back and the ways they can? It could be calling your elected representative, but I guess for folks who are maybe feeling like they’re not getting anything out of their representative right now, but we don’t want to leave folks feeling hopeless and powerless, that is never our aim. I guess, what’s your message to the folks around you, the folks you talk to these days about why they need to fight, not give up, and sort of the different things that they can do to hold this administration accountable, preserve the things in our society, in our government that need to be preserved? What’s your message to folks right now?
Aaron Stephens:
Yeah, I mean, my one big message is we need more stories being shared. There are millions of people in this country that have been impacted that are on Medicare and would be in a very, very bad situation if that was reduced or Social security or again, had good action taken by the CFPB or had their grocery store saved in their local community because the FTC stopped a merger. Those things, those stories need to be amplified. And I think that it’s important that people are not just apathetic about the situation. I know that it’s difficult given just how much is going on, but show up to the town hall for your congressional member stage a protest, do it in your own district. We need to be showing that again, we are not going to stand by and let this happen. And quite frankly, I think that Democrats need to see that when they do stand up and when they do take real action that they have support. I think they do just based on what the response was to this rally and what happened at usaid. But I think that we need to be also, while still calling out the folks that are maybe a little bit quieter, we also need to be celebrating the folks that are out there fighting the fight and make sure that folks know that if they do stand up, they’ll have backup. And I think that’s important to do.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Oh yeah. Well man, I want to have you back on soon because there’s so many other big questions to talk about here. What’s going to happen when we hit the debt ceiling crap again, what can we expect in the coming weeks, months, and years of this administration? We’re only one month into this thing, so we got to pace ourselves, but we got to know what’s kind of coming ahead so that we’re not constantly immobilized by the onslaught of news on a given day. So having that sort of long view I think is important for all of us. And I do want to have you back on to talk about that in more depth as we sort of close out. I did want to ask if you had any thoughts you wanted to share on that or if there were any other upcoming actions that you wanted to point people to. I’m hearing that there’s a sort of national day of action that federal workers are going to be participating in on the 17th. Are there other agency demonstrations that you know happening in dc just anything like that that you wanted to put out there before we let you go and also tell folks about where they can find you.
Aaron Stephens:
Yeah, so feel free to find me on Twitter, Aaron D. Stevens, I’ll still call it Twitter, but, and go to bold progressives.org, sign up for our listserv. We’ll send out action alerts on protests and different things that are going on there. We’re also going to be collecting stories from folks that are affected. And I think, again, just because we have those connections in the hill amplifying, those are the offices, so they have things to really push for and they have a little bit more ammunition when they’re having these conversations in the hill is important. And as you said, fortunately, it’s a marathon that feels like a sprint right now with everything going on. We just need to keep it going. I’d be happy to come back on. Thanks for having me.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Thank you so much, man. We really appreciate you being here. I appreciate the work that you’re doing. We hope to have you back soon, man. Thank you again.
Aaron Stephens:
Thanks so much. Have a good one.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Alright, gang. So we’ve got another hour in our live stream today. Want to thank again, Aaron Stevens, senior legislative strategist with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, who is one of the organizers of Monday’s protest outside the CFPB. Thank you to Aaron. Please follow him on X or Twitter if you want to stay up to date with Aaron. And now I want to bring in our next two guests here. They’re longtime friends of the Real News. We’ve interviewed them separately a number of times I’ve had the honor of being on citations needed. Adam himself writes for The Real News, so I’m really, really grateful to see your faces and to have your critical voices here with us guys. And I just want to make sure for folks who are watching, if you are living under a rock and you don’t know about Paris and Adam’s work yet, I actually envy you because you’ve got a lot of great work too at your disposal.
But Paris Marks is a Canadian technology writer whose work has been published in a range of outlets, including NBC News, CBC News, Jacobin and Tribune. They’re also the host of the acclaimed podcast Tech Won’t Save Us, which everyone should go listen to, especially right now. And Paris is also the author of the excellent Book Road to Nowhere, what Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about The Future of Transportation, which was published by Verso Books in 2022. And we are also joined by the great Adam Johnson. Adam hosts the Citations Needed podcast, which everyone should also listen to. And Adam writes at the column on Substack. He is a columnist for us here at The Real News. You should read every column he’s ever written for us because they’re all bangers and all critical media analyses, and he also writes for other outlets like the Nation Paris. Adam, thank you both so much for joining us today. We got a lot to talk about and you guys are exactly the folks I want to be talking to about it. But I wanted to just by way of transitioning from that first segment with Aaron into our discussion, if you guys had any comments on Musk Trump and votes attacks specifically on the CFPB and any thoughts you had on why they’re going after the CFPB that maybe we didn’t cover in that first segment. So yeah, Paris, let’s start with you and then Adam, we’ll go to you.
Paris Marx:
Sure. Yeah, I think it’s pretty clear that the CFPB is low hanging fruit and something easy for them to take on. We know that the right has not liked this agency for quite a while, and then we can also see that an agency like that is going to hinder some of what Elon Musk and these other tech billionaires want to be doing. We know Mark Andreessen, for example, has been angry at this agency and blaming it for banking people in crypto, which is probably not true, but is one of these conspiracy theories that he has embraced. Elon Musk, of course, has ambitions of moving Twitter or X into payments and financial services and things like that. It is not a surprise to me that he would want to take on the CFPB right as he is getting into an area like that. And of course, as I understand, the CFPB has also looked into Tesla in the past and issues with Tesla. So yeah, it’s not a surprise to me that he wants to take on this agency, and I think we’re going to see him take on a lot of other ones as well and try to dismantle them too.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Adam, what about you? Were you surprised? You look surprised. You don’t look surprised at all. Oh, wait, you’re muted, brother.
Adam Johnson:
My apologies. I want to start off by saying I thought that the intro max you gave at the top of the show about 37 minutes ago was excellent. I don’t usually kiss ass to my host, but that was very, very well written, established the stakes. I thought that was really well done. I forget because you edit me that you should do more writing. It was very good. It’s a complex thing to break down, and I don’t usually kiss the ass of the host, but I’m doing it. But to answer your question, yeah, I mean, look, he’s obviously going after the liberal administrative regulatory state. These are all the project 2025 wishlist, Silicon Valley wishlist of people they want to go after. He is going after in a different way than previously. He is going after it in a way that is obviously not legal, which is another way of saying illegal.
He is doing it in a way that is blatantly illegal, knowing that there’s not really any mechanism to hold ’em accountable. They are now openly and flagrantly violating judges’ orders, district judges’ orders. My guess is it’ll have to be escalated to the Supreme Court. And again, as your previous guest mentioned, the fire hose element is because liberal kind of good government groups and progressive groups only have so much resources. So everyone’s kind of putting out fire as an editor at a progressive publication. That’s what this last three weeks have been, is just putting out a series of fires. That’s part of their strategy. They have far more resources. And of course, as you also mentioned as,
Maximillian Alvarez:
Okay, so we lost Brother Adam for a quick second, but it’ll be back on. But yeah, I mean that is something, oh, wait, do we have you back, Adam?
Adam Johnson:
Did I fall out?
Maximillian Alvarez:
Did you Froze for about 30 seconds there, but go ahead and pick right back up.
Adam Johnson:
So sorry. I apologize. I said, while Democratic leadership in Congress has been largely a no show, although that’s changed a little bit lately. Oh shoot.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Okay. Hello? Yeah. So little. Hey, man, it’s livestream baby. So technical
Adam Johnson:
Different. I’m not sure why my wifi says it’s operating at full capacity. I’m not sure what’s going on. I apologize.
Maximillian Alvarez:
No, you’re good, man.
Adam Johnson:
I was in the middle of my deum Ma, and now I’m interrupted. Now I feel
Maximillian Alvarez:
All right. Give me the de, give me the day, you mom, baby.
Adam Johnson:
Well, now there’s a lot of pressure to make it a good day, mom. No, I was saying that governors had pushed back, but they are attempting to dismantle the liberal state that they know they couldn’t possibly dismantle through Congress or other kind of legal means. Because here’s the thing, and this is what I think a dynamic people have to appreciate, which is that Musk can try to do a few dozen illegal things and then what’s the pushback? He gets some court order says, no, you can’t do that, but he can’t lose anything. It’s not like he’s going to go to prison and to say nothing to the fact that he’s obviously abusing stimulants and surrounded by a bunch of Nazi Zoomers who are egging him on. So he’s very much high on his own supply, but he can’t lose. He can only be curbed. And so from his perspective, he’s thinking, what are they going to do?
Take away my birthdays. He can illegally try to shut down whatever department he wants, department of Education, department of Labor to get rid of the NLRA and the NLRB, whatever, name it, because what does he have to lose by doing that? Nothing. It’s really the only thing, the only limiting thing is the, the limiting thing is two things. Number one, how much resources they have on their end, but two, it will ultimately be congressional Republicans because it’s very clear. Obviously Trump can’t run again, must doesn’t give a shit if this harms the long-term Republican party brand. The only real kind of counterforce here, other than Lawfare, which Democrats are doing and ought to do, which is suing them as well as these progressive groups like Bold Progressives and others, is that Republicans do have to run in 2026. And if they’re running on putting grandma on cat food, that doesn’t sound as good as going after whatever woke chimpanzee, transgender studies or some other bullshit they make up.
So right now they’re kind of doing this. This is the project, this is the Heritage Foundation’s wet dream, and this is what we’re seeing. We’re seeing this full-blown assaults on the liberal and administrative and regulatory state because it serves Silicon Valley, it serves non Silicon Valley, just kind of the wealthy in general. Again, we’re getting 4.5 trillion in tax cuts. We’re kind of doing the 2017 tax cuts on steroids. This is why most billionaire money went to Trump and Republicans, despite their faux populous rhetoric and token attempts to make taxes tip free for waiters or other such kind of trivial nonsense. And so they’re kind of just going to go until somebody stops them. Because why not? I mean, again, what’s the downside? It trump’s. It’s not like Musk is going to get arrested for violating the law.
Maximillian Alvarez:
No, no. And I mean,
Adam Johnson:
Even if he did, I mean Trump would just pardon him. And this is why, sorry, real quick. I want to say one thing. This is why the January 6th pardons were so key because it’s a signal to every right wing vigilante and every hardcore right winger that if they can pretty much do anything they want. That’s illegal so long as they are advancing MAGA cause and they can expect to not be held accountable so long as it’s a federal and not a state crime. So as long as they go from Kansas to Nebraska and commit a crime pursuant Trumpism, Trump will pardon them no matter what, even if they have a record of all kinds of horrific crimes. And so that kind of vigilantism and that kind of lawlessness is completely taking hold. That is an escalation from previous. The policies themselves are boilerplate Republican policies, but the extra legal extrajudicial tactics are an escalation. They’re new and we’re seeing some of the ways in which democratic leadership either can’t or won’t be prepared to really address it on those terms.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Yeah, and it’s even been, like you said, from the first time Trump was elected eight years ago to now, that has been a notable and concerted evolution of the MAGA movement is to basically state sanction. And you can see the examples of that not just in Donald Trump and JD Vance like cozy up to known vigilantes like Kyle Rittenhouse or the guy who strangled the poor man in New York on the subway, right? I mean that sort of celebration of typically white men like vigilantes, but also baked into the magnified legislation that’s been creeping through state houses all across the country where you see the weaponization of citizens impulse for vigilantism as a necessary part of executing the policy. That’s why you get abortion laws in Texas that are encouraging everyday citizens to sue anyone who helps with an abortion, even the Uber driver who drives you to the clinic, right?
I mean, so these types of policy points are making the point that Adam made there where you have a party that is not just pardoning the January 6th insurrectionists for their crimes against the country and their violent crimes, but also sanctioning this type of vigilant mode of politics in other policy areas as well. And so I do want to come back to that in a few minutes, but I wanted to, before we get too far afield, come back to the big question that I wanted to ask you both because it really, it’s a question that I feel is at the center of your respective areas of expertise. It’s in that Venn diagram overlap, and it’s something that I’ve been getting asked from our viewers a lot about. So I want to ask if we could sort of break what’s going down now from this angle, because this is as much a war over what Musk and Trump are doing in practice as it is a war over how people perceive what they’re doing and how they want us to perceive it.
I have seen plenty of right-leaning people that I’ve interviewed from sacrifice zones and unions from around the US sharing NEWSMAX posts that are framing this all as a heroic historic moment. And Musk is out there rooting out corruption, and I’ve seen others sharing musk memes with his resting rich face and the texts saying, and I quote, they lied and stole from you for years, and now they all caps want you to be angry at Doge for proving it. Let that sink in. So this is the war that’s going on right now in Paris. I want to kind of start with you and then Adam kick it to you. How would you describe the difference between what Musk and Trump say they’re doing and what they’re actually doing right now?
Speaker 7:
Well,
Paris Marx:
It’s a gulf, right? But it depends on, I feel like it depends on what you’re looking at. These are people who are talking about making government more efficient, making it work better, but actually they are embarking on a major austerity program in order to really gut the US federal government and in particular the aspects and the departments and the agencies within the federal government that they have personal distaste for, and not just them personally. Certainly Elon Musk and his companies will have certain agencies that they want to go after and certain programs that they want to go after. But Adam was mentioning before, we can see the outline for this kind of program in the Heritage Foundation in these other right-wing groups that have been wanting to basically launch this campaign against the federal government for a very long time to remake it by bringing in the tech industry and bring in someone like Elon Musk.
You get the ability to frame this as something that tech is doing to give it this framing that it is modernizing the government rather than taking it apart. And in particular, as they are starting to try to do mass layoffs, people often point to what Bila Musk did at Twitter as a comparison for what they’re trying to do with the federal government where Elon Musk came in, laid off a ton of staff, most of the company, and then kept it running. And they want people to believe that the government is a ton of fraud, a ton of waste, that you can just get rid of all these workers and then you’ll still be able to provide the services that the US government provides, run the government as it is because there’s just all these useless bureaucrats who are around, which is like a right wing narrative that we have been hearing for ages, right?
This is not a new thing, but what they’re also doing as they embark on this project is to say, yes, we’re going to gut all of these workers, but also now we’re going to roll out these incredible AI tools that are going to be able to do all the work of these various workers to provide these services. Because look, AI has become so much more powerful over the past couple of years. They’ve been spreading these really deceptive narratives about how AI is kind of reaching this point where it’s going to be nearly as powerful as a human being and it has this understanding that it didn’t have before and it’s so much more capable. And a lot of that is bullshit, but it really helps with this larger program to say, we are going to gut the government. We are going to bring forward this massive austerity program.
But it’s okay because technology is now going to fill the gap because technology has gotten so much better to present this as inherently like a technological problem, not so much a political one where they are using technology as a form of power against all of these workers and against really the American public as they embark on this massive transformation of the government. And so far it has been focusing on specific agencies, but we’ve already seen the suggestion from people like Elon Musk that they’re just going to have to go after Medicare and social security and these other programs that so many Americans rely on. It’s not just going to end at these things that they perceive as only being about the culture wars and things like that. It’s going to expand much greater as they continue down this road.
Maximillian Alvarez:
I have so many thoughts on that, but Adam, I want to toss it to you.
Adam Johnson:
So from the beginning of this stupid Doge narrative, I’ve been kind of pulling my hair out because the way it’s covered is the exact opposite of the way it exists in reality. I often compare it to the Biden ceasefire talks. It’s just a fictitious alternative reality that is no basis in fact. And the media’s kind of running with it because if you’re powerful, editorially speaking, you’re assumed always have good faith, even if there’s facts that completely contradict reality. So any kind of skepticism is seen as being too ideological, too outside the lane of mainstream reporting. So about two weeks ago, I wrote an article criticizing the media covering Doge as a quote, cost cutting or to find waste and abuse these kind of ostensibly post ideological tech savvy, as Paris said, and we can get into that, the use of the ways that we’re doing a whole episode on the ways in which AI becomes this kind of moral laundromat where you say, oh, we’re going to fire a bunch of people, which sounds evil.
They have jobs, don’t worry, we’re going to replace ’em with ai. But it’s bullshit. Everybody knows it’s bullshit. It’s a way of just firing people so they can have more control. These so-called bureaucrats, which is to say those who are part of the liberal and administrative state, they loath because they want to be able to fucking pollute rivers without anyone giving ’em any flack. And the way the media covered this was, again, this is someone in Elon Musk who if you follow his Twitter activity, which everybody in media does because mostly they don’t have a choice, he jams it in front of your fucking face. He posts right-wing white nationalist memes all day from four chan White genocide is a huge quote, hashtag white genocide is a huge part of his worldview. He’s obsessed with knockout game type lurid, kind of V dare straight up white nationalist propaganda has been doing this for years.
Inauguration date does a God sig heel three times clear as day, non-negotiable? Not even ambiguous, not well, mate. No, no, clear as day does a sig, he, oh no, it was just a troll. Oh, it was a Roman salute. Again, you can’t ironically murder someone. You can’t ironically do Nazi propaganda. You either do it or you don’t do it. Okay? So you would think this would be okay, let’s interrogate what he means by waste and abuse. Is this how some bean counter at the OMB sees it? Is this someone, one of these admittedly right? Winging think tanks like a center for tax fairness or one of these Pete Peterson Foundation? No, to him, waste is an ideological assertion. Fraud is an ideological assertion. Ki mind, he’s been lying for weeks about fraud, citing public fucking databases that are already online as some great revelation that he’s found, oh, they did this, they spent this so-and-so U-S-A-I-D or State Department or whatever.
And it’s like, yeah, it’s a public database and it’s not fraud, it’s just how government spending works, right? So he’s been overtly lying for weeks. And yet, as I wrote on February 3rd, this is how it was covered, the New York Times, they referred to Doge as quote, finding savings budget cutters. In a later article, they wrote cost cutting effort. They called it an efficiency panel, a cost cutting project. The New York Times wrote on January 12th, 2025. Doge is a cost cutting effort to seek potential savings. Washington Post did the same thing. Government efficiency commission, non-governmental fiscal efficiency group, the efficiency group quote, proposed savings. So here’s someone with overt neo-Nazi ide, ideologic, okay, maybe that’s too hard for you. We’ll say far right? Tech, billionaire, whatever, someone who’s overtly ideological and he’s consistently treated like someone who’s genuinely concerned with finding efficiencies. Now, finally, after weeks of this shit, right, again, spreading outright lies about U-S-A-I-D as much as I’m not particularly a fan of them, but just lying about them outright, just completely making shit up out of context, accusing congresspeople of getting money from these organizations for some just out like lurid conspiracy theories that if he wasn’t the richest man in the world, we would say, this guy’s just an anonymous crank on Twitter, just completely made up horse shit.
They’re finally, they being the media, they’re starting to finally publish articles that commit the ultimate sin of reportage, which is the I word ideology, mentioning ideology that this is not some post ideological, post-partisan attempt to find deficiencies, but is in fact a right-wing attack on the liberal and administrative state for programs and departments that have been duly funded by the federal government. And a lot of these programs, of course, were began under or continued explicitly by the Trump administration, but we can talk about the first one, we can talk about that later. So here, finally we have the Washington Post. This is Aaron, Blake, Trump, and Musk can’t seem to locate much evidence of fraud. So now we’re finally pointing out that there’s no actual fraud that them just calling everything fraud is like the Michael Scott. I declare bankruptcy. You can’t just say it’s fraud.
That’s a legal claim. And so for weeks they’ve been saying there’s this fraud, and Musk uses this word all the time, fraud. Fraud, okay, well, if there’s all this widespread fraud musk, then why is the Trump DOJ not arrested anyone? Because there’s no fraud. There’s just spending they don’t like, which they’ve now rebranded fraud. And then Reuters says, is Doge cuts based more on political ideology than real cost savings so far? So finally, after weeks of taking this at face value and in good faith, which again is the holiest of holies, especially if you’re rich and powerful, not if you’re by the way an activist, then as I note in my piece or ideology is I compared it to an article written about Democrats as part of a police reform panel. They referred to them four times as progressive, five different times as activists. So their ideology is put on the forefront.
But if you’re a megalomaniac billionaire who shares white genocide all day that you took off white supremacist websites, ideology is just not mentioned. It’s not mentioned why you’re going after programs that they can say, DEI, as long as you say DEI, not the N word, you can get away with anything, even though clearly this is racially motivated. Clearly it’s about chaining women to the stove. Clearly it’s about hating people with disabilities. Clearly it’s about hating gay and trans people. He fucking loathes trans people post anti-trans shit all day. So just now, I’m not in the business of complimenting the media, and it’s still obviously not nearly sufficient, but we’re sort of just now seeing a pivot from people being like, oh, well maybe this isn’t about efficiency. Well, okay, it would’ve been nice had you done that before. He destroyed several different federal programs. But we’re now seeing people realizing that indulging this premise of efficiency, which morons like Ana consistently do, boggles my mind.
I mean, I know why he’s got terminal lawyer brain and he’s fundraises with a lot of these Silicon Valley billionaires, so he has to play stupid that we’re like, okay, clearly this is a right wing attack on the liberal and administrative state. It is entirely ideological to the extent to which you can even do efficiency non ide ideologically, right? Even that premise is suspect. But for someone who does a hi on national TV again, had you told me a month ago, well, musky is going to do very clear sikhi on national TV and nothing’s basically going to change. And the A DL is a fucking shakedown operation who he paid off a few years ago is going to come to his defense, I’d say. Now clearly there has to be some limit to this, right? He can’t get away with anything. Now he’s got half a trillion dollars, he can pretty much get away with anything.
So we’re just now seeing finally people being like, oh, maybe his ideology is actually what’s motivating this rather than this kind of, again, I could go on and on. I have all these articles just in the New York Times cost cutting panel, cost efficiency panel, reducing waste, fraud abuse. It’s like this guy is sharing the most manic fucking right-wing shug conspiracy theories, completely misrepresenting how you read government spending documents and misrepresenting how you read RFPs, accusing Reuters of, by the way, he did that after Reuters wrote that article. I think that’s why they did it because an unrelated company owned by the same corporation did a defense contractor, RFP, on I think data protection or something not related at all to anything. Sinter completely takes it out of context, just consistently fucking lies all the time. Just straight up Alex Jones shit. But because again, because he’s so rich, he’s so powerful, people kept deferring to him as some kind of neutral expert, and it was literally driving me fucking crazy because sitting there watching this going, are we going to mention that he’s a white nationalist? Isn’t this kind of relevant since he’s going after specifically groups related to racial justice, civil rights, and of course anyone who, as you noted, anyone who undermines this bottom line just as a person who’s extremely rich,
Maximillian Alvarez:
Right? All, I got three quick things I want to say. Then Paris, I want to come back to you real quick, but the first is I would read the crap out of a sort of Adam Johnson tongue in cheek, like weekly low bar award where Adam Johnson rewards like a publication for doing its basic ass job of reporting the facts about something. I would read that Second is just a note on the fraud thing and speaking again, if we’re talking here as media critic, like tech critic, in a former life, I was a trained historian, and so for obvious reasons right now, I’ve been really going back to my bookshelf and pulling all of the big history books that I have on the McCarthy period and the Red Scare, and I can’t help but here kind of what I feel are the very obvious and hackneyed echoes of the McCarthy period when Senator McCarthy’s there saying, I hold here in my hand a piece of paper with the names of communists in the government. And then you got this dickhead musk out there saying like, oh my God, you won’t believe all the fraud I’m finding. I’ve got it all written here.
Adam Johnson:
He keeps doing these lurid vague conspiratorial appeals to some secret list he has, and it’s like, where? What are you talking about? And the evidence they share is just shit that was published already. It’s on, been online, been online because of good government, sunshine law liberals. By the way, this is not, I mean, he’s just doing Alex Jones shit. He’s doing Alex Jones shit, but he’s so rich you can do it and no one cares.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, and pea, I have a kind of question for you about that because like I said earlier, this is a real struggle here over what the great Corey doctor would call seizing and controlling the means of communication. We’re not just talking about, like Adam said, not just rich billionaires. We’re talking about people who control the infrastructure and platforms upon which we communicate in commerce every single day. And so as much as this is the 21st century new digital politics that we’re all swimming in now, who controls the means of communication and who controls the means of public perception is really critical. And I bring this up because I can’t help but notice that as we’re talking about here, the narrative that Musk Trump Vance and their donors from Silicon Valley are trying to spin about this. I think your average person with a basic common sense can sort of see the bullshit, but so much of them are not seeing it because they’re getting news on platforms that aren’t showing it right? Or the algorithms are sort of keeping them locked into echo chambers that are going to keep the points that we’re talking about here out of sight, out of mind. I wanted to ask if you could talk about that side of things as ridiculous as the top down narrative about Doge, the kind of government takeover that’s happening right now. What should people be considering about how these sort of big tech overlords and their accomplices in the government are sort of trying to also adjust our variability to see the truth for what it is here?
Paris Marx:
Yeah, it’s a frustrating one, and I feel like it’s not a uniquely social media discussion. If we look at news, we can see how, whether it’s cable news or radio has been taken over by the right for years, and then they unleash similar more strategies to try to shift how social media worked. These kind of narratives that cable news was too liberal and conservative voices were not present there or not as well represented. Meanwhile, you had Fox News pushing out these right wing narratives and Good,
Maximillian Alvarez:
No, keep going. Sorry. Sorry.
Paris Marx:
Keep going. Yeah, sorry. Meanwhile, you had Fox News pushing out these right wing narratives and all the liberal media adopting these framings and starting to talk about the issues that were being pushed by the right, what you had very clearly the right saw the opportunity to do this on Facebook and other platforms where they kept saying that conservative voices were being silenced on Facebook or on Twitter or because people were being moderated when they were posting hate speech and things like that. And it was no real surprise that people on the right were being moderated much more for those things because they were much more likely to be saying them. But even still think years ago, you had Mark Zuckerberg going on this tour of America to talk to conservatives and all this kind of stuff to show that he was not going to give into censorship and the types of things that he’s talking about in a much more animated way.
Today, I feel like we kind of have this narrative that there has been this shift in the social media landscape in the past little while with Mark Zuckerberg getting rid of the fact checkers and kind of getting rid of everything that he considers woke at Meta, which I think was more of just an opportunity for him to get rid of a bunch of things that he didn’t want to be doing and to lay off more workers, which they’ve already been doing for a while now. But we’ve seen social media companies already abandoning those sorts of things for a while before the election up to a year or more ago. And there was a brief moment where they were doing some additional moderation during the pandemic in that period. But for a very long time, these companies have been quite committed to these right-wing notions of free speech, mark Zuckerberg and Joel Kaplan, who is now in an even more powerful position at the company, a Republican operative.
They stopped Alex Jones’ initial banning on the platform for ages, kept kind of pushing it off. They didn’t want to see Donald Trump be banned, all these sorts of things. Social media is positioned as this place where we can all post what we want to post, and anyone can publish what they want on there. But the reality is that these are environments that are shaped in order to ensure that right wing narratives are the ones that are being encountered most often by people that the algorithmic recommendations are ensuring that you’re in that kind of an ecosystem unless you have explicitly tried to opt out of it. But even then, you’re still going to see a lot of this stuff, and they are platforms that are premised on engagement in order to get ad profits. And what you do in order to make your ad profits is to kind of piss people off a bit and it serve them more extreme content so that they begin interacting with the world in that way.
I think we saw that very clearly during the pandemic when you saw people’s brains basically get fried, and it’s not solely because of social media that happened. There are many different reasons that these things have occurred, but I think even just recently, if you think about before the holidays, there was this big kind of, people were losing their minds over all these drones that were like in the sky in the United States. This was a huge thing, and it was a big conspiracy theory, and even the mainstream media were covering it as though it was a real thing that people needed to be concerned about and not some bullshit that they needed to debunk. These are not just right wing platforms, but platforms that spread a whole lot of bullshit that people end up believing because of the way that the information is presented and the ways that I, that average people don’t have the media literacy, that those of us who are constantly engaging in these things might.
And even then I would say that we occasionally fall for some bullshit as well, right? We occasionally see things that we might want to believe and then need to check into it and say, ah, damn, that was bullshit as well. But anyway, that’s just a long way of saying that. I think that these platforms, I called Facebook a social cancer recently, and that’s not just because of the recent changes that Mark Zuckerberg has made, but I think that these platforms have been very socially detrimental to the discourses that we have. And that’s not to say that traditional media is the most amazing thing in the world. Adam has a whole show where he discusses why that is not the case. But I think that we’re living in this media environment that is very polluted, that has a lot of problems with it, and the independent one that has been set up as the solution to it is often very much funded by these right wing billionaires as well. And if you want to maximally succeed in the new BD environment that’s being set up, you’re encouraged to be a right wing piece of shit instead of to really hold power to account.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Adam, I know you got thoughts on that. Hit me.
Adam Johnson:
Yeah, so here’s a fundamental problem, which is that the right wing embraces populism in the sort of most superficial and aesthetic sense. They’re good at 50 million of condoms in Gaza, all these little thought memes, they’re extremely good at that, disseminating that to everybody, this idea that, again, Musk speaks in these kind of demagogue or pseudo populous terms about he’s taking on the bureaucrats and the establishment again. Again, he’s fucking worth $450 billion, but he’s taken on the man. Trump does this obviously very well, and establishment Democrats and liberals run and are allergic to any form of populism. So naturally they’re going to fail in immediate ecosystem where that kind of thing is currency, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, it is a party run by PR hacks and lawyers and eggheads. And they don’t speak in those terms, they don’t speak in that language, they don’t know how to fight back.
And when someone within that milieu, who’s better at speaking in those terms, whether it be Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders tries to defend the liberal administrative state, it can work, but it’s so rare. And then meanwhile, you have people like Chris Murphy and talking about how, oh, actually Biden’s going to deport more people, and U-S-A-I-D is how we destroyed China. And it’s like, well, that’s not a very populist framing, that’s just ratcheting up the racist machine. And so there’s just an asymmetry of what kind of rhetoric you employ. And again, Democrats, I think by design just don’t have those kinds of Mick talking points, the $50 million in condoms to dollars or whatever. They are talking about 880 billion from Medicare and Medicaid. They’re talking about raising their retirement age. We’re talking about doing a lot of extremist right-wing shit. And for a variety of reasons, liberals and Democrats have been unable to really message around that they are a little bit better over the last week or so.
But there hasn’t been a way of framing this as an elite attack on the liberal administrative state because liberals for 30 years have run away from the idea of government as something that’s good, something that actually protects you, that keeps your water clean, that makes sure that these fucking speed adult billionaires don’t wreck every part of your life. And I think what you see in the sort of messaging asymmetry, the media ecosystem asymmetry, people did all this lamenting about why is there no liberal Joe Rogan? Why is there no democratic media ecosystem? And it’s like because the media ecosystem on the right embraces its extremist because they know ultimately doesn’t really undermine their bottom line. Whereas liberal’s fundamental project is disciplining, managing and marginalizing the left and partisan liberal content is just inherently going to be fucking boring. I mean, how many times can you sort of spin for various unpopular policies rather than having a genuine space where you attack them?
And I think that plays into a similar dynamic here. So when we talk about why Musk has been good at messaging this, again, he goes on Joe Rogan, Rogan’s been doing a fucking six month long musk puff fest about how great he is. I mean, this is someone who does have a huge working class listenership and they’re reframing themselves again as Trump successfully did. And the cognitive dissonance of all these people being multi-billionaires is just something you put aside in your fucking brain somewhere. These are the rogue billionaires who are actually out to help you. It’s what I call the, I dunno if you saw that Jason, them film beekeeper. It’s sort of like this distorted vision of who’s fucking you over. It’s it’s liberal bureaucrats and other billionaires, but not the good billionaires. And there’s also some cops, but some cops are good, and it’s really actually the sort of deep state, but it’s SAID that’s really running the show behind the scenes, not the DOD or the CIA.
I mean, it’s obviously this warped vision because people kind of, again, as you know Max in your intro and elsewhere, people have a vague sense that there is a system fucking them, and they need it to have a name and a face. And liberals don’t do that. They kind of do this facile Republican billionaires. Oh, but they can’t reject billionaires because when the guy who just won the DNC said, we’re going to find the good billionaires, so we are going to take $50 million from Bill Gates, we’re going to take $50 million from Michael Bloomberg. So we can’t really have populist politics, so we have to kind of turn it into this partisan schlock. And I keep going back to Norman Solomon’s definition of neoliberalism, which is a worldview of victims but no victimizers. There’s never a fucking bad guy. And the extent to which there ever is a bad guy. It’s just this, again, it’s like this particular billionaire here. It’s not a form of class politics. So it’s all very kind of frustrated and limp and half-assed and doesn’t really resonate. The fae populism of the right to say nothing to the fact that they just have more control over social media, more control over, obviously billionaires run the media, so there’s going to be a natural asymmetry that you can’t really do much about just by virtue of who funds things.
But you’re seeing that play out and they are winning the messaging war to a great degree. Liberals have and liberal sort of elite media, your centrist media, New York Times Democratic leadership in Congress. I mean, what’s the first thing they did after Trump won? You had Joe Scarborough go on TV and say, we’re going to work with Trump. We’re going to do bipartisanship. You had Hakeem Jeffrey say, we’re going to work with Trump, we’re going to do bipartisanship, the minority leader. And there wasn’t a sense of like, oh, we’re going to resist this time. New York Times had a profile about how big liberal donors, Reid Hoffman, all these guys are, Michael Bloomberg are pulling back. They’re not really donating to the so-called resistance because unlike last time, it can’t be sort of filtered into this neoconservative project like the
Maximillian Alvarez:
Trump is. I’ll say though, maybe one small bit of grace that we’ve gotten compared to the last time Trump was elected is we don’t have to suffer through year after year of mainstream media pundit saying today is the day Donald Trump became,
Adam Johnson:
Oh, well, yeah, that’s where a lot of the money went. They went through the kind of conspiratorial muer, right? As I ironically call it, Mueller Artism. He’s going to come and he’s going to rescue you, and we’re all going to be saved at the 11th hour and here’s the AI picture of Trump in prison clothes, and we’re going to get him in a way that can create space for a genuine resistance where you do try to reorient a party that does address people’s root issues and economic issues and these kind of genuine issues rather than the kind of Liz Cheney brand. But I think that the point is that we’re going to work with Trumpism, right? Because whenever they say bipartisanship, nine times out of 10 or nine times out of a hundred, they’re not talking about saving the spot at Owl or preserving a natural.
They’re talking about punishing Gaza protestors increasing militarism against China. They’re talking about anti woke stuff. I mean, that really was a bipartisan thing. Much of what Trump is executing is just an extreme version of what the Atlantic Magazine and New York Times opinion pages have been advocating since. Frankly, me too. I mean to some extent George Floyd, which is like, oh, the Wokes got too cute. They got overaggressive. We need to put them back in their place. And they viewed Trump as someone that could instrumentalize to do that. So then Musk comes in and does this. And again, a lot of these austerity things Musk is doing is just kind of Bull Simpson on steroids. These are things that a lot of rich Democrats and rich Democrat donors kind of want it anyway. They just didn’t want it to go this far. And so to the extent to which democratic elites and the media and democratic leadership in Congress, again, less so governors are responding now and actually are defending the liberal state, not just like spooky stuff at U-S-A-I-D, but the very idea of a liberal state. I think it is coming from bottom up pressure. I think it’s coming from these not partisan hack groups from genuine protests. I think you do kind of see a liberal resistance in a true sense, liberals. I mean, there was a point where hardcore Democrat pundits on social media, total hacks, people that defended the genocide for 15 months would come on and be like, so are they going to do anything about this? And it’s like, yeah.
And so they began to alienate even some of the more hardcore MSNBC set, and I think that’s why you’re seeing the shift now a little bit more. Not to God forbid, I’m positive, but I do think, again, the law fair stuff has always been there. A lot of the governors have been there. I hate Gavin Newsom, but he’s been suing defending trans rights, the Attorney general of California Pritzker. These guys have been suing. It’s not like people are doing nothing but actual democratic leadership has had no consistent message. They have no little 50 million in condom Gaza meme stuff. They have nothing to really counter the narrative that Musk is somehow taking on the deep state or elites of nebulous origin, even though he himself is 20 billion in government. So he’s not the elite. It’s unclear.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, I want to hone in on that point, actually. I wanted to underline this in red pen, and I know folks in the live chat are asking about it, and it’s on all of our minds, but definitely worth sort of noting here, just in kind of rapid pace, I’m going to read some quotes from other outlets that make this point, right? The lever reported this week, Elon Musk’s government efficiency was reportedly canceling Department of Education contracts in the name of frugality Musk’s Rocket. Oh, as that was happening, Musk’s Rocket Company was this cementing a NASA contract adding millions of dollars to its already massive deal with the space agency. The new supplemental contract dated February 10th at 7.5 million to SpaceX’s NASA work according to the federal procurement data system records, the overall transaction obligated $38 million to Musk’s company as part of its overall deal with nasa.
This is to say nothing of Musk’s. Other companies like SpaceX, which Reuters reports, SpaceX provides launch services to the Department of Defense, including the launch of classified satellites and other payloads. SpaceX’s, CEO. Gwen Shotwell has said the company has about 22 billion in government contracts. But it’s also important to note that the total value of Musk’s company’s contracts with the DOD are estimated to be in the billions, but we don’t know because a lot of them are classified. But you could go through, again, the sort of obvious what should be the obvious conflicts of interest here is Musk is going in there like a bull in a China shop, saying he’s rooting out corruption in waste while he’s still securing contracts for himself in his companies. And the other story there that folks were talking about this morning was as the New York Times, and first the new site drop site reported that apparently the State Department had plans to buy $400 million worth of armored Tesla cyber trucks, which caused a massive uproar.
As of right now on Thursday, Musk has denied those reports and calling Drop site fake news, doing the standard like, oh, I’ve never heard of this. That never happened thing, even though it was written on the state department’s procurement forecast for the 2025 fiscal year, including 400 million of armored Tesla cars. So there’s a whole lot more we could say about that. But Paris, I wanted to come to you because there was another quote that I came across that I think people should really recall right now, and this was a quote from Palantir’s CEO Alex Karp who said that Doge is a revolution, one that will be very good for Palantir in the long run. And this was something that Alex Karp said on Palantir’s fourth quarter earnings call. And so this kind of brings us back to the question of, again, the Silicon Valley oligarchic network that birthed JD Vance’s political career that threw ungodly sums of money behind Trump and Vance the ticket that are sort of embodied in the richest man in the world, Elon Musk that were sitting there in the rotunda on Trump’s inauguration day.
You had Jeff Bezos, mark Zuckerberg, like Musk all there. I wanted to bring this back to you, Paris, because could we describe this as a capitalist coup by the big tech oligarchy? Are they trying to essentially force society and the market to become more dependent on their version of ai? Are they trying to force us to become dependent on crypto even though no one fucking wants to? I guess how do people navigate that question? Is it that concerted? Are they using not just Musk, but Trump and the whole administration to effectively take over our system of government so that they rewire our whole society to fit their needs?
Paris Marx:
Yeah, absolutely. And I don’t think that’s a big surprise. I think that that has been a project that they have been engaged in for quite some time now. It’s just they have an enormous amount of power and wealth that they can use to further force this onto everybody. And it’s not that this kind of tech oligarchy is unique in that way. I think that if we look at the United States, we can see that powerful capitalist interests have always been very influential in shaping government policy and what the government has been doing and also what the wider society looks like in order to benefit themselves and their industries. My book that I wrote was about the transportation industry, certainly looking at what Silicon Valley has been doing recently, but also going back to the early days of Automobility and where you see these auto companies and these various interests like working together to ensure that communities in the United States become dependent on automobiles because it’s great for the oil business and it’s great for the auto business and so many of these other industries that are associated with it.
As we develop this mode of suburban living that is very consumer oriented, there was a concerted effort to create a particular kind of society that was going to be very beneficial to a lot of capitalist interests. And right now what we see is these capitalists in Silicon Valley making sure that they are trying to remake the United States in their interests in the way that they want to see it, and it looks like it’s going to be a total mess because they don’t have a very good understanding of how society actually works. They think that because they can code or just understand code to a certain degree that they understand everything. And that is not the case. They’re very kind of narcissistic people. But you mentioned Palantir and Alex Karp. I was listening to an interview with an executive at Palantir just the other day where they’re talking about how they think it’s very essential for the Department of Defense to increase competition in the development of arms and weapons because not just does that take the defense primes the major companies currently that currently provide weapons to the US government and the US military down from their current pedestal, but also opens the way for Palantir, Andre for these other kind of more tech framed startup companies to get in on some of those Pentagon dollars.
And that is one of the things that they are very focused on in that sector of the tech economy. And a lot of these major tech companies are also reorienting to sell more AI to also develop more defense products so that they can tap into all of this money that the United States spends on defense. And of course, they will promote that as a savings because one of the things that they always point to is SpaceX to say, look, SpaceX reduced the cost of launching, and now the United States has this much easier ability to get things into space. And when you note that the United States is becoming dependent on SpaceX in a way that actually has people really concerned, that’s not a worry to them because they just say, oh, well, other companies could compete on cost, but they’re not. So the problem isn’t with SpaceX, it’s with everyone else.
And that is something that we’re also seeing, as you mentioned NASA is NASA is going to be a focus of Elon Musk and the Doge agency. There were reports today that Doge people are now going to NASA to look through the books and the acting NASA administrator is welcoming them to do that. And it seems quite clear that they are going to seek to remake NASA around Elon Musk’s priorities and SpaceX’s priorities in particular, potentially even the cancellation of the space launch system, which Boeing and I can’t remember the other company that’s working on that, but essentially to cancel that and to make sure that SpaceX is going to get more business out of it. So everywhere you look, they are trying to remake things in order for them to benefit from it. David Sachs, who as the AI in cryptos are says that stable coin legislation is their first big priority.
So to try to legitimize the crypto industry and to make sure that it’s easier to roll out crypto in these products throughout the US economy and financial system, despite the fact that we saw how scam laden this whole industry is and how these venture capitalists benefited from it, we have reporting that Mark Andreessen, despite the fact that he’s not very public facing, he does a lot of interviews and stuff, but he’s not out talking a lot about what he’s doing with the administration, but reportedly he also has a lot of influence in the policies that are being pushed forward. So a lot of these tech billionaires are trying to make sure that the changes that the Trump administration is going to bring forward are going to be in their interests and that the things that are going to make them money and increase their power are things that are going to be pushed forward in the next little while.
That is not a big surprise, but we need to be aware of those things if we’re going to be able to push back on them properly and try to ensure that the tech industry isn’t able to remake American society in the way that it would want to see it, regardless of what that means for everybody else. Because I can guarantee you that just as people have been increasingly waking up to the harms that have come of this industry and these tech companies over the past few decades, despite the fact that they were long positioned as increasing democracy and freedom and convenience and all this kind of stuff, that actually there are a whole load of issues that have come of the transformation of the economy with these digital services because these people don’t really care about average people or the consequences of what they do. They’re capitalists, right? They’re just trying to make their money and increase their power.
Adam Johnson:
That’s what makes this whole deep state framing so goofy. I mean, these are all defense contractors. Totally. Palantir was co-founded by the CIA through its Intel Fund in 2003. Peter Thiel was on their original board of directors the year before he put the first big money into Facebook. This is someone who’s deeply into the so-called Deep State Pentagon contract, CIA, it’s all fucking a show. It’s all an act. This is this victimization link of deep states after them, and it’s like, you are the fucking deep state and this is what they want. They want control over the government. And a lot of progressives have said, why is Doge not gone after the defense department? And I think that’s a little bit of a trap. I think they will go after the defense department in a very particular way. In the same way Josh Hawley holds up DOD bills because he wants to rename basis after Confederate generals.
I think they’ll go after it for anti di stuff to go after trans people, black people, they’ll do that, right? They’ll call it efficiency, but they’ll do the sort of racist disciplining aspect, but they’ll also just get rid of defense contractors that aren’t them. I mean, again, they’ll put it under the auspices of modernization, ai, all this kind of slick dog shit to make it seem like it’s, oh, they’re just streamlining things. But it’s because they want to pay back a lot of their buddies in Silicon Valley. And some of these companies they perceive as dinosaurs, whether it’s Boeing or Lockheed Martin or whatever, will probably lose out on contracts to some of their Silicon Valley. They have a ton of money in defense contractors. So I think they’ll do that. And maybe that’ll shave off at the end of the day, a couple billion.
But ultimately it’s just a power grab. It is got nothing to do with genuinely taking on the power of the deep state or power of the CIA or power of the Pentagon. These guys are not interested in that. They are interested in the raw exercise of American imperial power just like every other capitalist, they want to do it their way. If anything, it’s maybe a civil war within the defense contracting world, but it’s not going to meaningfully push back on the Pentagon. So when people like Ana, and to some extent even Bernie Sanders, they get all cute saying, why don’t you defend, go after the defense department? I’m like, man, be careful what you wish for because what they’re going to do is they’re going to purge it of fucking black people and give their contracts to their buddies. So again, because all this is just in bad faith, it’s got nothing to do with efficiency, obviously. Clearly, in case it wasn’t obvious.
Paris Marx:
No, I think the thing to always remember is you think about the history of Silicon Valley, and when we think of Silicon Valley today, we think of the internet companies and digital technology and all this stuff, but Lockheed Martin and missile manufacturers and all that stuff have always been there. They were where the first kind of microprocessors went to go into these missiles. This relationship has always been there, and we’re seeing it very much come to the fore at the moment.
Maximillian Alvarez:
And guys, this has been a phenomenal conversation and I could genuinely talk to you for two more hours, but I know I’ve got to wrap up and let you go. And so by way of a final, not a question to answer right here, but just maybe looking ahead to the next stream when we can get you guys back on to talk about this. Let’s not forget that the world does not stop and end with the United States. I mean, what happens here is also going to depend on what technology from China and other parts of the world do. And we’ve been seeing that there are plenty of companies, governments, people around the world who are salivating at the chance to make American capitalists and America itself kind of pay the price for all of our bullshit in past years, decades, and centuries. So I wanted to just ask if you had any sort of leading thoughts for things that people should keep an eye on when they’re also trying to get a handle on this subject? What outside of the us, particularly when it comes to China, should we also be factoring in here? So let’s make that just a final kind of note and also tell folks where they can find you and take advantage of your brilliant work after we close out this stream. So yeah, Paris, let’s go back to you and then Adam, we’ll close out with you.
Paris Marx:
Sounds good. Yeah, absolutely. China is the big competitor at the moment when it comes to technology because it has been able to actually develop a proper industry because of protected a lot of its companies. So it was able to do that. We’ve recently saw the AI market get this big scare when a Chinese company called Deep Seek developed a more efficient generative AI model that had all these very energy intensive American companies kind of running and getting nervous. I don’t think it’s ultimately going to change a whole lot, but I would also say in this moment where you have Trump kind of flexing the power of the American government and making it so that the exercise of American power is kind of very short term and very transactional, that you have a lot of countries that were previously aligned with the United States that are still aligned with the United States getting more and more pissed off, I would say, with the US and the American government.
I’m in Canada, so obviously I’m thinking about that a lot these days as we hear about major tariffs being put on Canada and Mexico and talk of Canada being a 51st state. But you also hear what Donald Trump has been saying about Panama, about South Africa, about different parts of Europe, Greenland, Denmark, not to mention his new plan to take over Gaza apparently and turn it into a wonderful resort or something as the United States says more of these things and turns off countries that have been its allies. I think that there’s also an opening there as we see the relationship between the Trump administration and Silicon Valley and these tech billionaires for other countries to come together and to say, not just fuck the United States, but fuck Silicon Valley as well. And we can develop our own technologies to compete against this and increasingly try to reduce our dependence on American digital technology and these tech companies that we were told we kind of had to be dependent on because of this moment and how the internet was supposed to work in this new neoliberal era that increased American power.
So I guess maybe it’s more of a hope. We see the Europeans getting increasingly frustrated. I know Canada is very frustrated and I’m sure a number of other countries are as well. And I hope that that becomes actually some sort of a broader movement for these countries to try something different rather than just keep being dependent on the United States. But we’ll see where that ultimately goes. I think China right now is obviously the one to watch in this area, but I hope it will expand beyond that as people get fed up at the us. And on that, of course, tech Won’t Save Us. Podcast is where I am most of the time. Usually I tweet or post on Blue Sky these days. And I also have a newsletter called Disconnect,
Maximillian Alvarez:
Which everyone should subscribe to. And I can’t stress enough, go listen to Tech Won’t save us. You’ll learn a lot that you’re going to need right now to understand what the hell is happening. Adam, yeah, let’s close out with you. Any final thoughts on that? And where can folks find
Adam Johnson:
You? This is, again, this is an example. What is fascism? It’s imperialism turned in words. I think they are so high on their own ideological supply. They’re getting so greedy, they don’t understand that the liberal state such as it is all these DEI programs, the actual ones, not the racist canard. This is all to preserve capitalism. It’s an HR device. They’re trying to help you, but moss and these right-wing sort of oligarchs. So in their own world, they truly have developed what Stein refers pejoratively as a crippling epistemology. They’re so warped in their mind. It’s like going after U-S-A-I-D. It’s a soft power. It’s a regime change. Like Oregon. Yeah, it does important work, but that’s not really why it’s there. And I think that this level of myopia, I think we’re seeing this play out and they’re so used to just consuming and consuming and consuming that they will let the world burn if it can get them an extra 5% in the sort of smart billionaires, the ones who don’t really see much difference between a hundred billion and 150 billion who understand that, who donate to Democrats, who understand that they’re a fundamentally conservative force are just losing the day.
And they’re not really, that they don’t have that much skin in the game, and they just will keep consuming and consuming until there’s nothing left to consume, even if, again, they blow up the very, I mean, it’s like when they talk about ai, I mean the way they talk, you would think they don’t need consumers or people. It’s humanity without humans. It’s a very dark vision of the world. And Musk really does exemplify this. He has the epitome of this. He views everyone as an NPC. He’s the main actor. People either work for him or they’re in his way. And this is a general pathology in Silicon Valley. It, again, it’s not everybody, but it’s a lot of em. This kind of ranan dark vision of the world of dog eat dog. And they don’t understand that savvy capitalists know how to adapt and throw the little piggy some slop, and they don’t even want to do that. So I think they are sowing the seeds of their own destruction in certain ways. And the question is, what force will emerge to counterbalance that dark vision? And right now, I don’t see that happening,
Maximillian Alvarez:
But I think the question itself is one, we all need to sit with because we need to be the authors of that counter story. What is it? How are we telling it? How are we fighting to make it a reality? That is our task, but we know the story that these oligarchs want to tell and the role that they want us as minor characters and cannon fodder to play in their story. And so we want to end on that sort of note as a call to action to all of us. What is the story that we are telling to counteract this fascist takeover that ends with the potential destruction of civilization as such the planet that we live on, if not checked, what is the check? What are we prepared to do? What are we going to do to fight for a better future that’s still worth living in for ourselves and our children?
We need to answer that question in a hurry, and I really cannot thank enough. All of our incredible guests today on the stream, the great Aaron Stevens, Paris Marks, and Adam Johnson who have contributed to making this a phenomenal conversation. I hope that you all learned as much from it as I did. Please give us your feedback in the live chat. Reach out us over email. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel, become a donor and a community member today because your support directly translates to us getting to do more shows like this, doing more weekly reporting on workers in the labor movement, on the people victimized by the prison industrial complex people victimized by the police, and this gross system of inequality and endless war. We are on the front lines holding a microphone to the folks who are fighting the fight there in the middle of the struggle.
And so we can’t do that work without you and your support. So please let us know how we’re doing. Please let us know what you’d like. Us to address on future live streams and other guests that you want us to have on. But we do these streams for you. We do them to hopefully empower you and others to act in this moment because if we don’t act and we just sort of let this all happen, we are headed towards a very, very dark place. We’re in a dark place right now, but things can still always get darker. So please fight however you can for the light and hold it up and we’ll be right there with you for the Real News Network. This is Maximilian Alvarez thanking you for the whole team here. Everyone behind the scenes who is making this stream happen. We are with you and we thank you for watching and we thank you for caring. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, solidarity forever. Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories and struggles that you care about most, and we need your help to keep doing this work. So please tap your screen now, subscribe and donate to the Real News Network. Solidarity forever.
As a fragile ceasefire falters in Gaza, millions of displaced Palestinians are still without adequate shelter. Exposure and hypothermia now present grave threats to people’s survival. The Real News reports from the Gaza Strip.
Producer: Belal Awad, Leo Erhardt Videographer: Ruwaida Amer, Mahmoud Al Mashharawi Video Editor: Leo Erhardt
Transcript
RANIA HAMD AL-HISI
The cold. What can I say? The situation is dire.
It’s very cold. Look, we’re living on the street. We’re living on a street. This entire campsite is suffering from the cold. Me? I am not a child, and I’m suffering from the cold. I’m not a child. God help the children.
In the morning I try to wash, clean, or do something, and I can’t because of the severity of the cold. We’re literally living on a street. What is protecting us? A sheet.
The children are exhausted, and we’re also exhausted. There is no immunity. We have no immune defenses at all. No nutrition, no heating, nothing. We’re exhausted.
The whole camp is suffering; they have no electricity. No blankets, no sheets. Nothing to keep the children warm. This little girl is always wheezing from the intense cold. We’ve taken her to the doctor a hundred times since we moved to the tents. They don’t know what’s wrong. Her stomach hurts. Every time she eats, her stomach hurts her. From what? The cold.
We’re not handling the cold, so how can the children? I witnessed something with our neighbor that I still can’t process. The sight of him holding his daughter and she’s dead. The whole camp now fears for the children.
She’s a child. Our neighbors have a small child who’s seven months old. My niece is a child, my granddaughter is a child. We’re scared for them. My granddaughter developed a respiratory illness. This one is wheezing. Our neighbor, Um Wissam, had an attack. I have developed chest pains. I swear to you, I’ve been suffering for two months with chest and back pains.
And our neighbor’s daughter, Sila… She died from the cold. We heard her mother. I carried her when she was dead. The girl, she was like ice. Ice. When I found her father carrying her, and her mother was on the floor… I carried the girl, I was the first to get to them, I found blood coming from her mouth. It was as if she had come out of a freezer. Frozen solid. I told them, “This girl has died from the cold.”
MAHMOOD AL-FASIHI
The night that Sila died was extremely cold. We’re living on the coast. At night it’s unnaturally cold. We adults couldn’t tolerate the cold that night when Sila died. Sila was perfectly normal. She didn’t suffer from any health problems. She breastfed three times that night. The final feeding was at 3:00 a.m. When we tried to wake her at 7:00 a.m. to feed her, we found her blue from the severity of the cold, and her heart had stopped.
AFFAF HUSAIN ABU-AWILI
Most of the cases we’re getting right now are called ‘cold injury.’ They are the result of severe cold and the change of season. These cases are usually less than a month old, a week, or two days old. The child arrives already frozen. We call it ‘cold injury’—it means a
deceased child. Of course, all of this is a result of the weather and the cold. Some can’t tolerate the cold. This environment causes respiratory problems.
The scene is very difficult, the father carrying the body, people screaming. A terrible situation, it’s indescribable. A small child, loved by his family, and the mum awakes and finds him like that, dead. I mean, a terrible situation that defies description.
Honestly, the situation is getting worse. Especially when it comes to respiratory inflammation in children and these sudden deaths, it’s increased a lot. Of course, it’s a result of the way people are living. Living in tents, lack of medicine, lack of warm clothing.
MAHMOOD AL-FASIHI
I have to collect plastic from the street to make a fire for my children. I don’t have gas, I don’t have anything. No basics of life, no heating. At night when it’s cold, my children have to huddle together from the cold. As much as I wrap my children, they’re still cold because of the severity of the cold. And nothing is available, the necessities of life are zero here.
The severe cold and lack of nutrition have created a lot of problems for the children. They’ve developed skin problems, they’ve developed a lot of things. My children wake up in the middle of the night scared of bombs. Of the terror we are living in. We’re living in terror. We adults have developed mental health issues from the extreme pressure we’re experiencing. We have developed… what can I say? We’re exhausted. Seriously. We’re exhausted from the war.
RANIA HAMD AL-HISI
When it rains, the whole place swims. When it rained last time, everyone had to leave. Look, you can see. There are no covers, or anything, and no one has given us anything. I have a sister, Um Ahmed, who recently gave birth. Where does the baby sleep? She’s made a bed for him from cardboard. On cardboard! Fearing that he falls into the water. The boy is two months old.
I swear to God, the thing that scares me the most. When it’s nighttime, I start praying: “Oh God, Oh God.” “Oh God please let us get through this night. God, don’t let it rain, please God.” God, please don’t let the people drown from the rain.
All night and the morning too, we can’t sleep because of the bombs. And the rain. The night that it rained, I swear to God I suffered. When the rain comes, it’s not about me—I can tolerate it. It’s the children. I can tolerate it. But the children?
Where’s the world? Where are the Arab people to see us? Would they like their kids to go through this? Now our children wake up from sleep, they’re thinking about water, they collect pieces of paper to help their moms make a fire, they’re thinking about the soup kitchen. That’s it. That’s our children.
I swear to God, what is happening to us—I hope happens to everyone who isn’t seeing or hearing us. I swear to God, I’m talking to you and my fingers are frayed from the cold. So
what about the children? What about the kids, what should they do? I swear to God all they think about is the soup kitchen: “The soup kitchen is here! The soup kitchen is gone!”
This girl, I’m telling you, she’s wheezing the whole night. I wake up and even to make her a herbal tea, we struggle. We don’t have gas or anything. I swear to God, you suffer so much just to make a fire.
State and market solutions to the ecological crisis have only increased the wealth and power of those on top, while greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. Nearly all the experts and professionals are invested, literally, in a framework that is only making things worse. With so much power concentrated in the very institutions that suppress any realistic assessment of the situation, things seem incredibly bleak. But what if we told you that there’s another way? That there are already people all around the world implementing immediate, effective responses that can be integrated into long-term strategies to survive these overlapping, cascading crises?
We spoke with three revolutionaries on the front lines resisting capitalist, colonial projects. Sleydo’ from the Gidimt’en clan of the Wet’suwet’en nation, in so-called British Columbia, Isa from the ZAD in the west of France, and Neto, a militant with the Landless Workers’ Movement based in the northeast of so-called Brazil. They share their experiences gained from years of building collective power, defeating repression, and defending the Earth for all its inhabitants and for the generations still to come.
They share stories of solidarity spreading across a continent, of people abandoned to poverty and marginalization reclaiming land, restoring devastated forests, and feeding themselves communally, stories of strangers coming together for their shared survival and a better future, going head to head with militarized police forces and winning. And in these stories we can hear things that are lacking almost everywhere else we look: optimism alongside realism, intelligent strategies for how we can survive, love and empathy for the world around us and for the future generations, together with the belief that we can do something meaningful, something that makes a difference. The joy of revolutionary transformation.
We learn about solutions. Real world solutions. Solutions outside of the control of capitalism and the state.
The Revolution is Already Here.
Next up: how do we make it our own?
Revolution or Death is a three-part collaboration between Peter Gelderloos and subMedia. Part 1, ‘Short Term Investments,’ examined the official response to the climate crisis and how it’s failing. In Part 2, ‘Heads Up, the Revolution is Already Here’ we talk with movements around the globe that provide inspiring examples of what realistic, effective responses look like. Part 3 ‘Reclaiming the World Wherever We Stand’ will focus on how we can all apply these lessons at home.
As the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles prepare to square off in New Orleans for Super Bowl LIX, security has been unprecedented both in the wake of the deadly Bourbon Street attack on Jan. 1 and in preparation for Donald Trump’s planned attendance. As a result, police, secret service, and even the Department of Homeland Security are turning New Orleans into a garrison city. Residents and local activists are pointing out the inherent dangers of so many police swarming their streets, not to mention the political priorities on display as tremendous resources are mobilized to protect out-of-state fans in a city where most residents still feel the effects of Hurricane Katrina 20 years later. Edge of Sports speaks with frontline New Orleans activist Deon Haywood, executive director of Women with a Vision, about the impact of this and past Super Bowls on The Big Easy.
Studio Production: David Hebden Post-Production: Taylor Hebden
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Dave Zirin:
Welcome to a special Super Bowl edition of Edge of Sports tv, only here on the Real News Network. Look, given everything horrifying going on in the world, you might only be vaguely aware that the Super Bowl is coming up this Sunday pitting the Kansas City Chiefs again against the Philadelphia Eagles. Even if you are focused on the big game, you might not know that for the 11th time, the Super Bowl will be played in New Orleans, Louisiana. And this collision between the great city of New Orleans and the Super Bowl is what we are focusing on today. The immediate backdrop for this Super Bowl is of course, tragedy. In the early hours of New Year’s Day, a deliberate car attack on crowded Bourbon Street killed 14 people by someone who claimed an adherence to isis, but clearly was in the throes of some serious mental health crisis.
Because of that, the police and military presence in New Orleans is going to be according to the NFL, like none in history. The head of NFL Security is Kathy Lanier, the former chief of police in dc. So someone very familiar, let me tell you, with over-policing large events, now the goals of over-policing aren’t just about calming down wealthy tourists who can afford $10,000 Super Bowl tickets. It is also about isolating the most vulnerable residents of a city, building a moat of heavily armed bodies between halves and have nots. But that’s not all. 2025 is also the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the memories of the Louisiana Superdome, the sight of the game, of course, becoming a deadly hurricane shelter from hell, and when the ball is kicked off on Sunday, this should also not be far from people’s minds. And then there’s the state of Louisiana in the present day, a right wing political horror show where members of the state legislature are saying that they will crack down on human trafficking this week, which at mega events like the Super Bowl, is always code for attacking sex workers.
It’s all part of a broader racist and reactionary agenda that surrounds the big game. Look, if we care about the Super Bowl, then we should care about the people upon whose community this game will land. That is why I am honored this week to be speaking with Dionne Haywood for more than 30 years. Ms. Haywood has been a frontline fighter in New Orleans for the rights of those who need it the most. She was named executive director of the organization, women with a Vision after Hurricane Katrina, and utterly transformed it into an organization that has built and practiced solidarity as a way of life. I’m so honored to speak with her today. Let’s bring her on. Dion Haywood. Dionne Haywood, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports.
Deon Haywood:
Thank you so much for having me.
Dave Zirin:
We mentioned in the introduction that this will be the 11th time New Orleans has hosted the Super Bowl.
Speaker 3:
Yes,
Dave Zirin:
In regular times. Regular times, and these are of course not regular times. What kind of strain is it on the most marginalized communities when the big game comes to town?
Deon Haywood:
So New Orleans is one of those cities, like many cities where the people, in some way we talk about the economic boom that the state or the city will have from people coming to town from whatever the event is. And we host large events, massive events all the time. But I think the strain is how do people get to work, how do they make it to take care of their everyday activities? Because it’s hard. It’s even difficult for me. It also puts a strain, this Super Bowl. I think the strain is basically because we just had such a tragic tragedy in the French Quarter, and so local people are still struggling with that moment, with that moment of violence, senseless violence as always, but it makes it more difficult for the people who live and work in the areas where people will be for the Super Bowl. It just makes it hard to navigate and hard for people to get around and hard to get hard for people to get what they need here.
Dave Zirin:
Yeah, I’d love it if you could talk a little bit more about the aftermath of the January 1st Bourbon Street attack in the context of the Super Bowl, in the context of the mood in New Orleans and the whiplash feeling that must exist
Deon Haywood:
Of
Dave Zirin:
Having to play host in the context of mourning.
Deon Haywood:
Yeah, so I think New Orleans is a party city. I often tell people the only reason that I can cope or what makes it easy to cope with so many really hard moments in the world in New Orleans in the US right now is because it’s like every day our head is on a swivel.
We do host a lot of events. We’re known for hosting large events, everything from Essence Fest to Mardi Gras every year. And so it’s not unusual. And normally when we fall right into it and we know what we need to do, we know how to set up, we even know how to direct people what to do and how to be safe and have fun. But what makes it difficult this time is coming off an event that in my opinion, really we didn’t do enough to take care of the people here. We didn’t do enough to make sure that people who worked in the quarter and witnessed what happened, that their mental health and care we’re taken care of. It’s kind of like business as usual. And because of the economy today, it just makes it harder because people have to go to work. They have to work if they want to survive, they have to be able to get their kids where they have to go, and they have to come home and function away from their jobs. New Orleans is a place where we feel deeply when something like this happens. And I have talked to many people, both my staff at Women with a Vision, but also just around the city about this moment. And most people feel like it happened so quickly and seemed like we just kind of glossed over it.
And I don’t think that was the intention all the time that we glossed over it, but it’s kind of like the next big thing is happening. So we got to move. So we had New Year’s Eve, we had the New Year’s Eve tragedy, and now we’re moving between Mardi Gras and Super Bowl, super Bowl and Mardi Gras, right?
Large events where so many people in surveillance and policing are going to be large. I do believe that New Orleans has always done a great job with large events, with crowd control. We do it because we do it all the time. Mardi Gras is huge. You’re talking about millions of people, not just tourists, but locals. Our police department normally does a really good job. But I think after witnessing what took place for New Years, it’s added more policing. It’s added surveillance without really addressing the issues. But this is what we always do, not just here in Louisiana, but I think in the US period, we do not address root causes. We are not good at addressing root causes of a situation and why we got here and who those people were. It’s just like more police. And as much as I understand the idea of security, police don’t keep us safe.
Dave Zirin:
I’m glad you said that, and I’d like to dig into that a little bit more because of course, new Orleans, the people of New Orleans are legendary for being able to figure out how to host these events. But this year there will be an unprecedented, according to the National Football League, military and police presence as well as police from out of town. I mean that level of policing. And you mentioned surveillance, which they also say will be unprecedented. How does that affect the lives of the people with whom you work?
Deon Haywood:
It’s difficult. So let me give you an example. At Women with Division, we have worked for all of our existence 35 years with street-based sex workers, dancers, anybody involved in sex work we’re normally a go-to for those people. But then we also have operated a robust harm reduction program where people are either functioning and working through their addiction or they may be homeless and just need support. It puts a strain on all of us who provides those types of services because how do those people get to us if they’re feeling the pressure of just moving around the city that they live in, regardless of how hard their lives may be, it just makes it even more difficult for them to navigate. Right? So I’ll give you an example. My office is located in Central City, new Orleans, historic neighborhood on a historic street. When I drive to work in the morning, I drive from my house all the way to my job without making a turn, without doing anything because it’s a straight shot. I haven’t been able to do that with all the preparation for Super Bowl because everything is blocked off, the streets are blocked off, and New Orleans is a very pedestrian city, which is why I find it interesting when people are saying, oh, let’s make the French Quarter pedestrian only. Majority of the French Quarter is pedestrian only.
Dave Zirin:
Exactly.
Deon Haywood:
So I feel like we are regurgitating these ideas of safety, these ideas of policing, but they really won’t keep us safe. And it just makes it difficult for not only the people here who live here, but tourists who come here. And most people have been to New Orleans quite a few times, so they kind of know where to go, know how to navigate. I’ve got questions for people and they say, well, I’ll be able to get to all the things I normally do in the city when I’m there. And my answer was, I don’t think you will. I think this year is going to be really different. So if you think about the location of the Superdome and you think about the neighborhoods around the Superdome outside of the central business district, which many people get to see from the TV side. But the other side of that is everyday people who are living their lives trying to get back and forth and live
Speaker 3:
And
Deon Haywood:
Navigate, and those people, they just, and all the preparation, were opening up a food truck park. It’s beautiful. That’s great, but where was that months ago or a year ago? And in doing so now we’ve gathered up all the unhoused people and taken them to a secured location so people don’t see them. That is how people are affected. And I’ll just quickly say this, I know you have other questions, but I can’t
Dave Zirin:
Wait to go. No, please. Without saying it, the attacks on the unhoused is so important to this conversation.
Deon Haywood:
It
Dave Zirin:
Is it, please, please continue, please.
Deon Haywood:
And we saw this, and again, it’s not just isolated here to New Orleans. We see this across the country globally, Paris, the Olympics, we saw them taking busloads of unhoused people out of the city. So people visiting don’t see them as if we don’t know that this is an issue globally. And so knowing that housing advocates here, many who I’m in partnership with, I know personally I know their work. Many of them were so upset in this moment that the governor of Louisiana had all of these people gathered up when many of these people are already working with housing groups
Speaker 3:
To
Deon Haywood:
Find housing, to get housing. There was a recent initiative where they were doing really well, and I don’t remember the dollar amount and I apologize, but to take millions of dollars and pay the Port of New Orleans to house unhoused people for a week when that amount of money would’ve housed them for three years. It just at a time where everybody’s talking about good government and making sense. We don’t have a good government right now. I’m sorry. I’m not sorry. It’s facts.
Dave Zirin:
Yeah. Sorry, not sorry. As they say.
Deon Haywood:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dave Zirin:
You mentioned sex work earlier and the work you do in that area and the work your organization has done
Speaker 3:
In
Dave Zirin:
Providing support for so many years, every time there’s a Super Bowl,
Speaker 3:
The
Dave Zirin:
Government likes to talk about, as they put it, the crackdown on human trafficking. They usually do some kind of photo in the process of the Super Bowl, but what really goes on in these quote crackdowns on human trafficking?
Deon Haywood:
So not my favorite time at all. Again, a waste of resources. We as a society don’t do well with our people.
Some of us do better, most of us do not. The fact that people think it’s okay to remove unhoused people so that people don’t see them, put your poor cousins in the back so nobody sees the poor side of the family. And then when you talk about sex work, we know that trafficking does happen. It does happen, but also we’ve allowed it to happen. And when I say we’ve allowed it to happen, it is because we are so good at figuring out how we are going to incarcerate people and throw them in jail. But yet, you won’t legalize sex work. And when I say legalize, I’m not just talking about, oh, make it legal across the country, but really making it what it is. It’s work, sex work is work People work people make the decision to be involved in sex work, to survive. It might be the best thing for them if we don’t need everybody to agree, we just should agree that criminalization is not the answer. And then you have, for women who dance, again, in economies where people are really struggling, arresting people over surveillance of people is not going to stop trafficking. But maybe if we have programs where we’re really in community and working with women who know what’s going on, that they would be a support and a help to the movement. But trafficking is going to continue to happen because now it’s black market, right? Anything that people can’t access, what happens? It becomes a part of the black market, something to hide still and sell,
But those conditions are created.
Dave Zirin:
Yeah, that’s right. And you keep going back to that issue of root causes. I think that’s the discussion this country is so weak at having.
Deon Haywood:
Yes,
Dave Zirin:
Absolutely.
Deon Haywood:
Because we can’t heal, oh, I’m sorry. Go ahead. I’m sorry.
Dave Zirin:
No, I was just going to say also there are certain people from certain class backgrounds who don’t want to have discussions about maybe the roots of their own empires and their own funds.
Deon Haywood:
Yes, absolutely.
Dave Zirin:
So you do such terrific work on these issues. How does your state legislature either help you or undermine you in the process of trying to do this work?
Deon Haywood:
Right. So as I mentioned, women with the Vision has been around for 35 years, and in those 35 years, we have had great support from Congress people to people who are a part of who are Congress people for Louisiana, state representatives, local government. From the mayor to the city council. We have had support. It’s according to who’s in office at the time. And up until the election this year, we did feel supported by quite a few people. We actually sponsored a sex worker. Decrim Bill was sponsored by State Representative Mandy Landry, and she was with us a hundred percent and really spoke out about how people are targeted and how an arrest record wouldn’t help someone in this situation. And so we tried. It didn’t pass, but we tried, and it’s not the first time we’ve done it. We’ve done it before where we actually challenged Louisiana’s crime against Nature Law.
And at that time, state representative Charmaine Marshan sponsored that bill, and we actually won. We worked with the Center of Constitutional Rights attorney, bill Quigley and attorney Andrea Richie, and we won, ended up removing over 800 people from the sex offender registry who was charged with this. And not only did we win and remove people, we’re still removing people. So we know that the work can progress, but when we have conservative extremists, both state and federal levels, it makes it hard for us to get things done, to make our communities better, to help people find their feet, to find second chance. We just make it really difficult for them. And so hosting events like the Super Bowl, yes, I get the economic impact, but how does that filter to the people when we talk about public safety, sex workers aren’t making you unsafe, unhoused people aren’t making you unsafe. Maybe if public officials thought that, oh, lighting something as easy as lighting will change a situation, crime is less. Most of us has read stats around public safety. We did a thrive study here a few years back, and it really was about how people interact with police. And it turned out to be no, how people are keeping themselves safe. Because again, police come in for the reactionary part, their presence. They react after a crime, but they do not prevent crime because when someone sets their mind on doing a thing, which we saw for New Year’s, they’re going to do that thing, right?
Dave Zirin:
Right.
Deon Haywood:
It doesn’t matter if a barrier was up. He had been here multiple times, scouting the city and looking at things and recording it. That is addressed through mental health, making sure people are getting what they need and addressing again, the root causes of why people commit crimes like this and why they’re willing to go through with it.
Dave Zirin:
Now, 2025, that’s the year we are in. And it means, and I can’t believe this, we are going to be, I do believe the right word is commemorating the 20 years since Hurricane Katrina and the levies breaking now since the sight of the Super Bowl is the Louisiana Superdome.
Deon Haywood:
Right.
Dave Zirin:
I was wondering if you could perhaps share what it was like to see that space at the time being used as a shelter for thousands of residents. If you could take us back there, please.
Deon Haywood:
Yeah. It was probably the most, one of the most difficult times in my life as a person who is a native New Orleans, I was born and raised here, and a person who fights for Louisiana and the people of New Orleans in particular, it was one of the most painful images I think I’ve ever witnessed, especially because it was home and many people I knew was in the dome at the time, between the dome and the convention center, right. Major institutions of parties in Super Bowl and football games and basketball games and concerts. It was extremely painful. But yet again, I feel like we do better now. But in that moment, I don’t think people knew what to do because I think what people don’t remember is that Hurricane Katrina did not hit the city of New Orleans.
The levies broke in the city of New Orleans. When we’re talking about natural disasters versus manmade, this was both. This was both. And being manmade is the part that caused the destruction that we saw, the suffering that we saw. And so I’ve been in a dome multiple times since that time. It doesn’t change the reality of that painful day. I know people who still won’t enter the dome because it’s too traumatic for them. But it’s just the example of how we’re not prepared to care for our people, the US in most states, in the us. We just don’t do a good job at caring for our people. And that was that moment. And as a person who’s rolled out a many of hurricanes here in the city, nobody ever thinks they’re not going to come back. We would’ve been fine had the hurricane hit. We weren’t fine because the levees broke.
Dave Zirin:
You can’t say that enough.
Deon Haywood:
Yeah, it makes it a game changer, right? It’s one thing to have food and shelter for people because rain, when a possible tornado is coming, it’s another thing to have people’s homes in entire communities wiped out because our levies were substandard and weren’t built correctly.
Dave Zirin:
New Orleans is one of my favorite cities, and when I’m there, it’s always a topic of conversation, how the city has changed over the last 20 years and how those changes have really landed on the backs of some of the most marginalized people in the city. I’m hoping you could speak to that particularly about black culture in the city and what the last 20 years has done to the soul of the city as
Deon Haywood:
Well. Growing up in New Orleans, the beauty of it is we had neighborhoods that I could walk around the corner and I’m going to my aunt, I could walk around the corner and I’m going to see my grandmother, right? New Orleans is a very, it’s a walkable city. Most people, if I say, oh, I’m from the third ward, or I live in the Ninth Ward, you probably got 50 family members that live there with you. That is no longer the case in New Orleans. Gentrification, the selling of New Orleans, the buying up from New Orleans, people from Chicago, California, New York, buying up property that they didn’t even see. And now we have a culture of Airbnbs.
They’re everywhere. A culture everywhere. And it’s also raised housing. I’ll give you an example. There was a bar called Mimi’s in the Bywater. Everybody. Mimi’s was truly a place where it didn’t matter who you are, who you were, who you love, who you like, your ethnicity. Everybody went to Mimi’s and everybody danced after Hurricane Katrina, they did reopen, but then all the people who moved here was upset because their playing music in the neighborhood. Are you kidding me? Trying to get local government to create ordinances, noise ordinance. So just the disruption of culture. It is not unusual for us to walk down the street and have young people playing their instruments on a porch, on a corner. It is the voice of New Orleans. It’s the sounds of New Orleans, and much of that has been taken away since Hurricane Katrina.
Speaker 3:
Mimi
Deon Haywood:
Is no longer in existence because the people who bought up that area who are living in that area are renting it out, felt like it was too much noise. But you chose here.
Dave Zirin:
Exactly. I mean, complaining about music in New Orleans is complaining about pizza in New York City.
Deon Haywood:
It’s insane. It’s
Dave Zirin:
Insane. It’s ridiculous.
Deon Haywood:
It really is.
Dave Zirin:
I just have one last question for you, and you’ve been so generous with your time. I just would love for you to speak about your organization, women with a Vision, and particularly the book written with Laura McTigue, I believe I’m pronouncing her name correctly.
Deon Haywood:
Yes.
Dave Zirin:
Ti Yes. And it’s called Fire Dreams, making Black Feminist Liberation in the South. Please, if you could speak about organization and book.
Deon Haywood:
So thank you for asking that question. I appreciate it. Women with A Vision, last year was our 35th year, our 35th anniversary, and Women with A Vision was started by eight black women who bought harm reduction to Louisiana. And it’s been steeped in harm reduction ever since. And for those people may not know what harm reduction is, it is simply a modality used to get you from today to the next day. Somebody may be struggling with addiction today, but tomorrow might be the day they want to change that. And that’s what harm reduction does. We meet the needs of community and meet them where they are. We are a reproductive justice organization, and we do a lot of anti criminalization work, a lot of reentry work, as well as all the other things, but all under the umbrella of reproductive justice.
Dave Zirin:
Got you.
Deon Haywood:
The book written by Laura MCT and the organization, Laura is a friend and board member of Women with a Vision. And in 2012, we had an arson attack in our offices in Mid-City, and it destroyed everything that we had, which was all our history. And so we were really trying to rebuild the history, and it turned into this beautiful offering to the world because the book really talks about how we got started, the fact that we ran underground syringe exchange program for 27 years Here in the state. In the state, but based here in New Orleans. And so we decided to write this book about how we organized and how we were able to do that. And we believe that it is critical in this moment. We just got picked up by eight K Press. The book exceeded expectations for last year. It was just launched, so March would be our one year of the book being out.
And it’s been a beautiful experience, and I love that so many universities in schools are using the book as a guide for how do we move in this moment where we might not be able to say all the things we would normally say, but I feel like myself and women with a vision, we’re up for the challenge because everything that we take for granted today, how we fight, how we use social media is sometimes the only way to communicate with people. We’re still boots on the ground. Yes, we do social media, but we are constantly, every day on a weekly basis, spending time in our community. And this book, our hope with this book is that you realize that you could do this too.
Dave Zirin:
Wow.
Deon Haywood:
That your voice is powerful, and we actually all have guides and our stories will take us where we need to go.
Dave Zirin:
I can’t imagine a more timely message for 2025. The book is called Fire Dreams, making Black Feminist Liberation in the South. It was such a thrill to speak with you. It’s such an important issue. It’s the story the football networks are not going to tell, and it’s so, so vital to be part of the tapestry of the big day that people know who this game is landing upon. Thank you so much.
Deon Haywood:
Thank you so much, David.
Dave Zirin:
Well, that’s all the time we have this week for this special Super Bowl edition of Edge of Sports. Thank you so much to Dionne Haywood for joining us that was beyond memorable. Thank you so much to the whole team here at the Real News Network, Dave Hebden, Maximilian Alvarez, Kayla Rivera, and the whole team that makes this show happen. And please, please stay tuned to The Real News Network, like the YouTube page, get on the website not only to see back editions of Edge of Sports, and we are so proud of the work we have done at the collision of sports and politics, but also because this year we’ve got so much planned and we want you to be on the cusp of everything that we are going to do. We want you to be watching us in the months ahead because we’re going to have a new studio. We’re going to have a series of absolutely amazing Titanic, incendiary and important topics, and we’re going to show you how sports can be part of the resistance in the year ahead. For everybody watching, please stay frosty and be safe. We are out of here. Peace.
Trump’s threats of tariffs on Canada, China, and Mexico have wreaked havoc on US relations with its closest trade partners. While the tariffs against Canada and Mexico have been deferred by a month, lasting damage has likely been done to US relations with the only countries with which it shares land borders. The fallout of the trade spat is already remaking Canadian politics, with many wondering whether the dispute has truly ended given Trump’s repeated calls for the US to annex its northern neighbor. How will all of this shape Canada’s already tumultuous political situation, with Justin Trudeau having just announced that he was stepping down as the country’s Prime Minister, with a high-stakes national election in October looming, and with Canada taking its own rightward political turn led by Pierre Poilievre? What impact will these trade wars have on working people across North America, and how can we fuse our common struggles across borders?
Studio Production: Cameron Granadino, David Hebden, Adam Coley
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Welcome to the Real News Network and welcome back to our weekly live stream. President Donald Trump sparked waves of panic, confusion, disbelief, betrayal, and anger this weekend after announcing on Saturday that he would be imposing 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada and a lower 10% tariff on Canadian oil, natural gas, and electricity. Trump’s announcement also included new 10% tariffs on Chinese goods. Now these are in addition to existing tariffs on Chinese products and already two thirds of all US trade with China is around under 20% tariffs, which Trump imposed during his first term. And the Biden administration actually raised tariff rates to a hundred percent on electric vehicles, 50% on solar cells, and up to 25% on select products like EV batteries, critical minerals, steel, aluminum, and face masks. Now, Canada and Mexico are the two largest trading partners of the us. China is the third.
Together they account for over 40% of all imports into the US according to data from the United States International Trade Commission. Now tariffs are taxes imposed by the government on imported goods, and those taxes are paid to the government by the American buyers of those foreign goods. And often those higher costs are passed on to the consumer either because prices for the same goods are now higher and businesses just don’t want to eat those costs themselves. Or because domestic supply of those goods decreases as a result of the tariffs and the demand in price in the domestic market increases Either way. The point is that we would feel the brunt of it. Now, Trump repeatedly waved away concerns that the cost of his tariffs would be born by regular people already hurting from punishing inflation and an ongoing cost of living crisis on Friday before announcing the new tariffs. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that tariffs don’t cause inflation, they cause something else. Let’s take a listen.
Donald Trump:
Tariffs don’t cause inflation. They cause success. They cause big success. So we’re going to have great success. They could be some temporary short-term disruption and people will understand that.
Maximillian Alvarez:
So that short-term disruption is worth it, and these tariffs are necessary according to Trump in order to correct what he has long called an unfair trade arrangement between the United States and the rest of the world, and to supposedly force America’s neighbors and trading partners to do more to stop illegal immigration and the flow of fentanyl into the United States. And the White House actually said on Saturday after announcing the tariffs, the extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs, including deadly fentanyl, constitutes a national emergency. Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, president Trump is taking bold action to hold Mexico, Canada, and China accountable to their promises of halting illegal immigration and stopping poisonous fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into our country. So Trump’s tariffs on all Chinese products already went into effect at midnight on Tuesday and Beijing quickly hit back as the New York Times reports, the Chinese government came back with a series of retaliatory steps including additional tariffs on liquified natural gas, coal, farm machinery, and other products from the United States.
It also said it had implemented restrictions on the export of certain critical minerals, many of which are used in the production of high-tech products. In addition, Chinese market regulators said they had launched an anti-monopoly investigation into Google. Now Canada and Mexico, on the other hand, managed to avoid the same fate as China. For now, at the 11th hour after this whole melodramatic Trumpian spectacle played out into Monday, president Trump spoke with Mexican president Claudia Scheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and agreed to a 30 day pause on his tariff threat. At 5:00 PM on Monday, Trump posted to truth Social. I am pleased with this initial outcome and the tariffs announced on Saturday will be paused for a 30 day period to see whether or not a final economic deal with Canada can be structured fairness for all he wrote in all caps. So Trump’s line about reaching a final economic deal with Canada is pretty much a direct sign that this was never just about immigration and fentanyl.
And minutes before Trump’s announcement on Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau posted himself on the platform X. I just had a good call with President Trump. Canada is implementing our $1.3 billion border plan, reinforcing the border with new choppers, technology and personnel enhanced coordination with American partners and increased resources to stop the flow of fentanyl. Nearly 10,000 frontline personnel are and will be working on protecting the border. In addition, Canada is making new commitments to appoint a fentanyl czar. We will list cartels as terrorists ensure 24 7 eyes on the border launch a Canada US joint strike force to combat organized crime, fentanyl, and money laundering. I have also signed a new intelligence directive on organized crime and fentanyl and we will be backing it with $200 million. So what does this deal with Canada to avoid this week’s tariffs actually mean in practice. What deals are going to be struck and what concessions are going to be extracted in the future under Trump’s tariff threats?
What the hell is going on and what does this all look like from the Canada side? How will all of this shape? Canada’s already tumultuous political situation with Trudeau having just announced that he was stepping down as the country’s prime minister with Canada now facing its own high stakes election in October. And with the country like many around the world, taking its own hard right turn and with a very Trump like, but also very uniquely Canadian, far right figure ascending in Pierre Pev, what impact will these trade wars have on working people across North America and how can we help each other understand what’s happening with an international perspective and how can we fuse our common struggles across borders? We’re going to dig into all of this today, and I really could not be more honored and excited to have this incredible panel of journalists, media makers, colleagues, and collaborators joining us today from across the border in Canada.
And joining us today, we’ve got Samira Moine. Samira is a journalist and broadcaster and founder of On The Line Media. We’ve got Desmond Cole. Desmond is a journalist based in Toronto and he is currently working with the Breach, an independent media outlet in Canada. He is also the author of the bestselling 2020 book, the Skin. We’re in a Year of Black Resistance and Power. And last but certainly not least, we’ve got Andrea Houston, who has spent more than two decades as a journalist, human rights advocate and journalism instructor. Andrea is currently the managing editor of Ricochet Media in Canada. She is also an instructor at Toronto Metropolitan University School of Journalism where she developed and teaches Canada’s first ever queer media course. So Samira, Andrea Desmond, thank you all so much for joining me on The Real News today. It’s been a hell of a week, but I’m so grateful to have you all here. Thank you.
Andrea Houston:
Thanks for having us
Maximillian Alvarez:
As always. I wish it was under better circumstances, but I could not think of a better panel to help us dig in to all of this. And before we really dig into the real meat and potatoes of the deal that was struck this week and what this all means moving forward, I want to kind of do a quick round around the table and kind of take us back to this weekend. And I want to ask what this all looked like and felt like from where you guys are sitting because after Trump’s announcement on Saturday, like he was squeezing lighter fuel onto a barbecue, Trump escalated fears about what’s behind this massive impending trade war with Canada when he posted on Sunday on truth social, we pay hundreds of billions of dollars to subsidize Canada. Why? There is no reason Trump says we don’t need anything they have. We have unlimited energy, should make our own cars and we have more lumber than we could ever use without this massive subsidy. Canada ceases to exist as a viable country. Harsh but true. Therefore, Canada should become our cherished 51st state, much lower taxes and far better military protection for the people of Canada. And he writes in all caps, no tariffs. So Samira, Desmond, Andrea, what do you see when you see our president posting batshit stuff like this? Walk us through what this weekend was like for you. Samira, let’s start with you.
Samira Mohyeddin:
I mean it’s just full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Canada’s not going to become the 51st state. It’s just absurd. We do just on a daily basis, there’s about $3.6 billion worth of trade coming across the borders. So America needs Canada just as much as Canada needs America. What I can say though is that what’s really interesting is seeing this Canadian nationalism because we’re not really rah rah rah, cis boonah type people here. We’re quite muted in our patriotism. So there’s a lot of bilocal happening, grocery stores, putting signs, showing you exactly what is and isn’t Canadian. These are Peruvian grapes that I’m enjoying. So that’s been really interesting to watch. I didn’t go through the weekend thinking, oh my God, the tariffs are coming. That is not is something that scares me, but I’m seeing sort of the ripple effects of the politicians here and how they’re responding. Like our premier here in Ontario manufactured hats saying Canada is not for sale and all the politicians are finding ways so that they could flex their patriotic muscles. That has been really interesting to watch for me.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Yeah, it’s like truly the Trumpian age where everything is a branding opportunity for Christ’s sake. Andrea, what about you? And then Desmond, let’s go to you.
Andrea Houston:
I think for me like Samira, I was less focused on the tariffs and more focused on some of the other announcements that were coming out that were absolutely gut wrenching and sickening and heartbreaking all at once. What we’re seeing right now is a fire hose of news. We’re just seeing constant bad announcements, bad decisions and executive orders meant to confuse and overwhelm us. So it’s really what I was really focused on was the USAID cuts and the loss of foreign aid and the impacts of that, the devastating loss of life that we’re going to see. I sit on the board of a small NGO in Uganda and L-G-B-T-Q-N-G-O in Uganda, and it’s just one of many that will likely see the impacts of this. Everything from HIV positive people not getting their meds, which could result in a generation of babies being born who are HIV positive because their mothers didn’t get the medication for even a pause.
That is the devastation that that’s can have. That is really what I was focusing on and absolutely in pain over what this is going to have on a global stage. We are seeing an unelected unaccountable non-American who is directing some of the most important political person in the world and how it impacts the lives of everyday people, not just in America but around the world. He’s even called USAID evil. This impacts 25 million people who are living with AIDS around the world, hiv aids, who are suddenly without warning, cutoff from lifesaving medications. This is nothing short of a crime against humanity. Honestly. All of this has been in many ways predicted this is all playing out very much in how at least I have been saying it’s going to play out. And many people that I’ve gone to parties with have heard me talking like We’re going to see a dictator probably rise in North America. Trump is going to come back. Trump is going to win again. To me, this is not shocking. All of this is really watching the history of especially the last 10 years, shows that this has all been written out for us. We’ve seen that the patterns of this. So it’s really surprising to me how so many Americans seem really blindsided by all of this. This is an assault on democracy by far right extremists, and I think the only way we have to fight against it is doing exactly what we’re doing right now, is talking in very frank terms about what we’re seeing. We’re seeing a dictatorship rise.
Maximillian Alvarez:
I think that was beautifully, powerfully put. Desmond, how about you, man? What was this weekend like for you? What are you seeing when you’re seeing all this shit?
Desmond Cole:
Thanks for the invitation Max, and it’s really great to be here with Samira and with Andrea. The circus is back in town, isn’t it? I here we are and I have been really, I think that the game of people like Donald Trump is to suck all the energy from the room is to try and force everybody to pay attention only to them. Nothing exists except what they want. Trade is no good because trade benefits two sides instead of only the United States. Me, me, the baby trying to grab every toy at the same time. It’s just, we’ve known what this is about and we’ve seen it before. I find it exhausting. So it’s not about just pretending it’s not happening and tuning it out, but I have been trying since last weekend to think about what are the things that are going to be missed in the kind of wake of this crisis?
What are we on a domestic level in Canada marginalizing while we turn so much energy and attention towards this threat of tariffs. We have a provincial election happening in Ontario right now. Our premier, Doug Ford wanted initially to have an election early. You can call your own elections here in the parliamentary system of Ontario and of Canada. So Doug Ford chose to decide to have an election earlier than the end of his term, and he wanted to run against Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister because Justin Trudeau is very unpopular and very weak right now. And so Ford’s idea was, I’m going to have an election and I’m going to kind of campaign against this other guy in another jurisdiction who will make me look strong by comparison of then of course Justin Trudeau announced that he was resigning, so now you can’t campaign against him anymore.
What do you do? And here comes Trump, and here comes the tariff threat. And so Doug Ford says, ah, I’ll just pivot to running against the president of another country and I’ll talk about how I’m going to keep you safe from him and all of the threats that he poses to business and to our economy. And it’s working out quite well. I have to say strategically for Doug Ford, the only problem is that we have a dramatically underfunded healthcare system in Ontario that’s been devastated by Covid and no one’s talking about it. We have, I don’t even want to call it a housing crisis because the housing situation in Ontario is happening on purpose and to the benefit of landlords and developers, but against the interests of particularly tenants. We have an explosion of homeless people, of tents popping up in every town and city across the province of Ontario because people cannot afford to pay rent anymore.
These things are becoming secondary to how do we fight Trump? How do we all fight Trump even if the premier, for example, doesn’t negotiate directly with Trump on a daily basis? And that’s not his job. It’s still all kind of funneling down towards this conversation. And we’re also seeing things like Pierre Pev has been mentioned, the conservative leader who wants to take over for Justin Trudeau, and we’ll probably be having an election at the federal level shortly. That conversation has shifted as well because Pierre Pev for what two years now has been telling us that the next election in Canada was going to be about whether or not we have a carbon tax.
And he can’t do that anymore because this conversation about tariffs and protecting ourselves from America has become so dominant that it’s like if you don’t play into that paradigm now, you’re not really talking about anything. So it has changed the conversations that we’re having here politically, and I don’t think that that’s for the better because while we do have to address the issue of tariffs and our trade situation with the United States, we’ve got a lot of other things going on in this country. We can’t live or die by whether or not we buy fruits and vegetables from our country instead of America. Whether we support Galen Weston and corporate billionaires in Canada instead of supporting corporate billionaires in the United, that’s not going to really materially change things for us.
So I had some fun on Twitter on Sunday memeing about having to give up my cherry blasters and Oreos because of this intending trade war. And I do try to have a little bit of fun and lightness with it because I don’t want to talk about this shit. I want to talk about the things that I do as a journalist on a daily basis that relate to immigration, housing, policing, things that are affecting people in their local communities, the rates of welfare and disability. I want to talk about the things that allow people to live a decent life here on the day to day. And again, I’m not saying tariffs don’t factor into that, but we cannot eshoo the rest of our political responsibilities to fight the president of another country.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, I think that’s a really powerful and poignant point and something that we mention
Maximillian Alvarez:
On a previous live stream with Hassan and Francesca Fiorentini and a subject that I spoke with Sarah Nelson about the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants. And Sarah, let’s not forget, became a household name during the Trump led government shutdown in 2019 when she called for a general strike to end the shutdown. And within a day the shutdown ended after 35 days, the longest shutdown in US history. And out of that example, Sarah really gave us a poignant lesson that you were articulating there, Desmond, is that we cannot define our struggle solely by how we respond to Trump. We have to have a sort of shared basis of understanding of what we are fighting for as working people, what our needs are and our methods of getting those needs met. It can’t just all be reactive. We have to be moving forward and advancing the clearly defined causes that unite working people across red states, blue states union, non-union, and even across North America and beyond.
If we don’t have that shared basic understanding of what we’re fighting for, then we’re going to be exhausted by the end of year one of the Trump administration because all we’re doing is fighting against what’s coming and there’s always more coming. So we’re going to talk about this more as the stream goes on, and I want to kind of, before we talk about the details of the trade deal and what this portends moving forward, I want to use a few minutes here to address some of what you guys were already bringing up because we have folks tuning in across the United States and even in Canada. The Real News was actually founded in Canada, so it’s all in the family here, but we know that folks in the US and Canada do not have the shared basis of understanding of what’s going on in Canadian politics right now.
And so I want to just spend a few minutes here clarifying our terms and letting folks know, especially here in the US what the basic context is. What do they need to understand right now about Canadian politics for the rest of our discussion to make sense? You mentioned Paul Ev, we mentioned the upcoming elections and how this is already changing the dynamic. Do we all have a shared understanding of what a tariff is? So let’s take just five to eight minutes here to just sort of clarify any terms that we feel need to be clarified for everything else to make sense. So Samir, let’s start again with you.
Samira Mohyeddin:
A tariff is a tax on goods coming from another country. That is what a tariff is. Actually. I’m constantly looking up what a tariff is, but this is not something that just affects Canadians. When you put a tariff on us, it affects Americans. What is so asinine and absurd is that Trump never talks about the fact that the tariff affects the domestic business that buys that product. So American business owners will be just as affected by high tariffs on Canada. That’s the absurdity of what Trump is doing. But that’s never talked about, unfortunately, when he talks about this. And then at the same time, you’re seeing very different reactions to this imposition of tariffs when if it comes from the different political parties here, poly, for instance, has taken this route that many people have talked about before, but which is to reduce the barriers that are here between sort of provincial businesses.
So we have provinces here in Canada and there are barriers that they’re pushing to have taken away. For instance, if I’m in Ontario, I can’t get wines from British Columbia because the LCBO has this sort of monopoly on what comes in and what goes out. So that’s sort of the route that Paul is taking in pushing back on this. But everyone is sort of wearing a different patriotic hat in looking at how to respond to tariffs. And then you have Mark Carney who’s this sort of showing himself as being the outsider he’s supposed to take over. He’s the new running for the liberal leadership. We have a leadership race here. Also, as you said, Trudeau has stepped down. So there is that aspect too. Carney was the running the Bank of England. He was running the Bank of Canada before. So these, everybody is sort of coming at this in a different way, but I really firmly believe that Trump is just doing this whole tariff thing to divert attention away from a really a coup that is taking place within America.
And I know that some people say, oh, he is just an idiot. I say that at times, but I firmly believe that this is dangerous. I really think that people do need to respond to what is happening and what Trump is doing. And if it’s not taking to the streets, I really think that something needs to happen in the US and I hope this is a bit of a wake up call, not only for people in the United States, but for people in Canada. I have a lot of friends in the food industry, for instance, who for years have been talking about us producing, being more self-reliant in terms of production on food products in supply chains. I firmly believe that this needs to be a bit of a wake up call for all of us.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Yeah, I mean it’s pretty wild to be having this conversation while an unelected oligarch and the richest man in the world and his techno fascist Silicon Valley oligarchs who are cheering it all on are storming my government an hour away. But what we’re trying to do on these streams is channel our focus. Our focus is a form of resistance. As we said. If we’re all just sort of frenetically responding to the endless bad news that’s coming, we can’t stay focused on a given thing. And so of course we are focusing today on Trump’s trade war, the tariffs, the relationship between the US and Canada. But we can’t ignore the fact that that conversation is happening in a context where the corporate led is happening as we speak. So we’re trying to kind of balance those two things, of course. But yeah, I really appreciate you kind of underlying that
Samira Mohyeddin:
Point. I’m only saying that because I’m only saying that because I just keep thinking of what Andrea said about the global implications of this sort of beyond Canada and the us. I mean, she brought up USAID for instance. It’s not just Trump. I mean you saw Marco Rubio today, Elon Musk yesterday saying they’re thieves. I mean, this is very dangerous and this is how fascism starts. This little trickles keep coming at you until you’re like a massive wave and you don’t even know what to focus on, right? Because there’s so much coming at you all the time.
Maximillian Alvarez:
And with all that, it’s even easier to lose again, the sort of context we need to understand any given subject like the tariffs here. And so I guess in that vein, are there more points here that folks watching in the US need to understand about the rise of poly ev, the kind of right word turn and just the key political issues in Canada right now that we should get out on the table before we kind of dig into the deal that was struck this week?
Desmond Cole:
Well, can I try a couple of things maybe in terms of myth busting, Trump has been saying repeatedly that there is all of this fentanyl, particularly flowing from Canada into the United States. The numbers that we have here in Canada is that in 2023, sorry, between 2023, October and September, 2024, the United States seized 19 and a half kilograms of fentanyl coming across the border from Canada. Fentanyl we know is one of the most potent drugs out there. So 19 and a half kilograms of fentanyl can certainly do a lot of damage, but I could fit 19 and a half kilos of fentanyl on the desk that I’m sitting in front of. If you compare that with Mexico, US border agents seized about nine and a half thousand kilograms of fentanyl from the Mexico US border. I don’t think I could fit that on this desk. And that’s not to scapegoat Mexico, by the way, because most of the drugs coming in the United States are coming through ports and places that are just normal business areas. They’re coming on planes. The idea that this is just a strictly border issue is a complete fabrication of Trump. He has also
Maximillian Alvarez:
And smuggled in by Americans.
Desmond Cole:
Sure, of course.
But Trump also says there’s all these people pouring into the United States. He loves the specter of so-called as he wants to say, illegal people. I reject that term out of hand. We’re talking a lot about goods being able to move across borders. People ought to be able to move across borders freely as well. But again, it’s just a myth that there are all of these people entering the United States from Canada without any kind of permissions or visas or supervision. What’s actually happening and has been happening throughout the Trump administration for a long time, but particularly during Trump, is that when he does these anti-immigrant fear mongering, when he says he’s going to get ice to deport 20 million people, they actually come to Canada, they come to our country. It’s the opposite of what he’s saying. So that’s another maybe important thing for American audience to know.
And again, I’m not saying that because I want to demonize anyone crossing any borders. I’m just trying to tell people what the facts of the real conversation here are. And maybe a final thing for people to think about is that this idea of trade between two countries, Trump says that there’s a huge trade deficit between Canada and the United States, meaning that services and goods go across the border both ways, as Samira was saying. But basically the United States exports more goods to us in Canada, then it receives back the other way. And for Trump, that’s a huge problem. Like, sorry, I’m sorry, I’m getting it backwards already. See, because I’m not an economist, the trade deficit is, I had to even write notes because it’s not like I talk about this stuff every day, but basically there’s an imbalance in how much the united exports to Canada versus how much it imports. And Trump thinks that that’s really bad. The only thing is when you buy goods from another country, you get the goods. It’s a trade. That’s the whole idea. So this idea that Canada is somehow screwing over the United States, or I think in the clip that you played, max, that were being subsidized? No, that’s called business, right? I don’t have a trade deficit with the grocery store because when I go to the grocery store, they feed me and I have food in my house.
But again, to this narcissist called Trump, as long as someone else is getting an equal fair exchange, it’s a ripoff. America should get all the benefits, every benefit should come to America and no benefits should go to anyone else. Everyone should buy America’s goods, but no one should receive any benefits back the other way. So I think it’s important for people to understand trade, not as some zero sum thing the way that Trump is trying to paint it, but this is one of the greatest traders. It is the largest actually trading partnership in the world. And the idea of doing these punitive tariffs, Europe and the European Union is essentially founded in part on the premise that this destroys countries. This makes countries want to go to war with each other. This makes it so much more likely that there’s going to be political strife and instability. So when you start fucking around with tariffs and trade, you’re making other kinds of problems and conflicts between your allies by the way, far more likely.
Maximillian Alvarez:
And I’ve got two more clarifying points I want to kind of throw in there, building off what Desmond said, and then Andrea, I want to kind of come to you after that and ask if we could talk a bit more about how this is already reshaping the political landscaping Canada as we head into the federal elections later this year. Sure. But two other,
Andrea Houston:
Can I, oh, sorry. Oh, please. I was just going to jump in just on something that both of them was talking about with regard to trade and that these are just taxes. And it’s actually something that the left in Canada at least many, many years ago, back when the trade deals were first being crafted, the left in Canada was talking about imposing tariffs on many of these American companies back then. And maybe we would be in a different scenario today if say American tech companies had tariffs or taxes imposed on them when they were first rising up, maybe journalism wouldn’t be on the chopping block the way it is currently. There’s a lot of industries, oil and gas immediately comes to mind that we’re not taxing them nearly enough. In fact, we give them money, we give them subsidies. So we give them billions of dollars in subsidies.
So I think you’d find a lot of people on the left in Canada and probably in the US as well, would be very much in favor of raising, dramatically raising the taxes and tariffs on some of these industries, lumber and all these other things that we do trade as countries, the harmful industries. I just want to make sure that that was put out there and especially with the Online News Act here in Canada, that we really, there’s a lot that pro tariffs that we could be doing that we can’t talk about right now because we’re inundated with terrible Trump news.
Maximillian Alvarez:
And let’s not kind of throw the baby out with the bathwater. Tariffs are a commonly used tool. It could be used for many purposes. I mean, the United Auto Workers Union President Sean Fein just came out with a statement this week like saying that the UAW is in favor of tariffs that are going to help the auto manufacturing industry. They’re not like blanket bad or blanket good one way or the other. But FE did also say that he explicitly rejects workers in America being used as political poise in this trade war to demonize immigrants and further fascist agenda. So there is more nuance here than what we’re getting in a lot of the news reports and certainly from them what we’re getting from the White House. So we want to be clear about that too. Building off what Andrea was saying. And we also got to be clear about one other thing when it comes to tariffs here, because the tariffs are not just Trump’s method of diplomatic, strong arming.
They are in fact a key policy that makes the rest of his project work going all the way back to his previous administration. Let’s not forget that the singular like achievement, the biggest achievement from the first Trump administration was a giant tax cut in 2017 that the Congressional budget office estimated at the time would cost $1.9 trillion over 10 years. And Trump has already vowed to make the 2017 cuts permanent and to even add on more tax cuts in his new term. And these are tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the rich and corporations. These are tax cuts that are coming on top of the Bush era tax cuts from 20 years ago. All of this is eroding the tax base that pays for the shit that our government needs or that it is spending money on. And we got to make up for that loss somehow, especially as the Trump administration, like the Biden administration before that keep shelling out money to the military industrial complex.
Trump wants to build his border walls, mobilize like law enforcement, all of that costs money and tariffs are one of Trump’s main answers. The problem of where do we get the money when we’ve been cutting all the taxes of the rich and eroding the American tax base for so long? That’s where you and I come in, as we’ve said consumers, people in these countries working, people like you and me are going to feel the brunt of these tariffs, especially if they’re not offset with increased manufacturing and all that stuff. So, and when those costs are passed on to you and me, it’s not just that we are the ones who are being hurt by the trade war, it’s that the pain that we are feeling in our wallets is paying for these goddamn tax breaks for the rich. That is also another thing to talk about here when we’re talking about tariffs and who they’re actually hurting.
That needs to be understood before we move forward. And also, as Desmond kind of pointed out, and Samir did as well, there is a distraction element here, and Trump already signaled that he claims that these tariff threats were to fight illegal immigration and the flow of fentanyl. And then on Monday when he struck this deal with Shine Baum and Trudeau immediately said that we’re going to pause for 30 days until we have this new economic plan with Canada. So it wasn’t about immigrants and it wasn’t about fentanyl or it wasn’t just about those, it’s about restructuring the relationship between these countries. And that may help explain Trump’s ish, like joking, but deadly serious sort of lines about Canada should become the 51st state. I recognize this line as I’m sure you guys do, having grown up in the same generation. Let’s not forget, as I’ve said on this stream, I grew up deeply conservative.
My conservative friends and I in the early aughts loved punching Canada as the 51st state or America’s hat, right? I mean these sort of tired, old conservative jokes are constantly recycled through Trump’s mouth. And so there is an element there that I think we also need to pay attention to when Trump makes these proclamations and invokes like that outdated sort of bullyish humor. What he is trying to do is basically take school yard dick measuring bully stuff and scale it up to the level of international diplomacy because that’s what he wants out of Canada, for Canada to become the sort of subservient sidekick held under America’s arm, getting a nogi and giving us whatever we want. And that’s what he needs the relationship between Canada and the US to be for so much of his other sort of policy goals to actually work. So like Samir said, Canada’s not actually going to become the 51st state, but in invoking that kind of line, Trump is doing this.
Schoolyard bully politics is going to have real long-term implications that are going to not just affect Canadians and Americans, but are going to ripple across the world. So with all of that, I want to turn to what this is going to mean for Canada and Canadians in the coming months, right? We’ve already sort of addressed the fact that this is kind of hitting like a bombshell in an already tumultuous time in Canada. I wanted to ask if we could dig into that a little bit more, and Andrea, I want to come to you and then Samir, then Desmond. But yeah guys, give us a little more, tell us a little more about who Pierre Pev is, what these elections represent, how the new Trump administration is changing the political dynamic in your country.
Andrea Houston:
I mean, Pierre Pollara is somebody that is a type of leader that Canadians are not used to. This is not a traditional Canadian political leader. He could be described as the most online political leader that we’ve ever seen in how he conducts himself, how he runs his campaign. It is very American to a lot of Canadians. And with regard to Polly ever and his rise in Canada, again, you can point to our history as the roadmap for this very similarly, how we can point to American history as the roadmap for Trump. While Canada has certainly done more to look back on our history and the road to reconciliation, we have a truth and reconciliation process that we have gone through, but it’s barely scratched the surface. And there’s a reason why it’s called truth and reconciliation, not truth reconciliation and accountability.
Many people in Canada, myself included, and people in my circles, I put the blame for where we are right now on the shoulders of both liberals and NDP in many ways, especially the NDP for not responding to the moment and not standing up to poly in ways that would have maybe been a clear resistance to this kind of onslaught. And I’m talking back when he first started to really rise up as the leader around the trucker protests, there was moments when we could have had a different outcome to the road that we’re currently on. The NDP had numerous opportunities to swing extremely left doing the kind of policy initiatives that Desmond talked about with housing and climate and populous policies that would’ve really launched a challenge to poly era and the kind of populism that he has put forward that is clearly popular in Canada, that especially out west, this loyalty to oil and gas, connecting the oil and gas industry to Canadian patriotism and the sort of dominion that we do see coming out of the histories of colonialism and white supremacy. It’s all connected, right? When you study these systems, it’s not surprising where we are right now in both of our countries.
Both countries have undemocratic voting systems and our leaders have done everything to maintain that status quo. Even in Canada, when we had a few elections ago, the liberals ran on changing the voting system. That was the main point of 20 fifteen’s election saying this will be the last run on first pass. The post first thing they did when they were elected is they reversed that policy and like, Nope, we’re not going to do that after all. As soon as they figured out that if they did change the voting system, then it would ensure that it wasn’t just a liberal and conservative likely majority government in power. So all of these moments of opportunism, these missed opportunities from the left have all played into this. And then of course, this fragmenting of the left, the populace has also played into this. We don’t have a solid anti-war movement to stand up against Trump. Where are, where’s the media to really highlight the left in Canada? I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever seen really left wing perspectives on our mainstream media. So we have only ourselves to blame for creating an environment that is fertile for a far right extremist like Pier Pra
Maximillian Alvarez:
Samir, Desmond, anything you want to add to that
Maximillian Alvarez:
Before we talk about what comes next?
Samira Mohyeddin:
I mean, Pierre Poly is a man for these times, and I firmly agree with Andrea that we created this monster because I don’t think people responded to him the way they should have. He has really become a figure, he’s almost like the little brother that Trump wouldn’t let in the room when they were growing up together. Pierre Pev recently did this interview with Jordan Peterson, and I think it was like 12 hours long. I couldn’t sit through the entire thing, but it was all about woke and DEI. And these are the same things that you’re hearing in the US across the administration right now in the United States. Woke is the enemy. Diversity, equity, inclusion are the reasons why planes are going down. This is what we’re actually seeing replicated in our country. And a lot of the politicians who know that it’s wrong, and I’m speaking about the liberals and the NDP are not pushing back on it the way they should be.
I know that a lot of the things that Pierre Pev says are ridiculous, but they’re also dangerous because they’re not being taken seriously. And it’s unfortunate because in a lot of ways I like to think that Canada is better than that, but we end up just replicating what our neighbors to the South are doing politically, unfortunately, because you have figures, and I don’t know if we’re going to touch on this, but I think it’s really important that Gaza, Palestine, what’s happening over there has really influenced and affected our politics here. A lot of our politicians here in Canada are using what is happening in Gaza as a platform for themselves to try and garner support in the federal election that is coming up. And a lot of them are making some big mistakes in the way they’re responding.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, yeah, say a little more about how,
Samira Mohyeddin:
I mean, you’re seeing people like we have a member of parliament here named Kevin Vong who runs as an independent in the federal politics. He has really made this his like thing. He even traveled to Israel and we had a whole bunch of our politicians, our prime minister didn’t go, but a whole bunch of these low level politicians going over to Israel and then chirping all over social media about this person is an antisemite or that person is an antisemite and they’re getting a lot of support from communities because of that, right? And we’re not seeing our more left-leaning like the NDP party rising up and speaking out against this in the way that they really should be. They are not responding in the way that they should be. You’re hearing people, say, for instance, recently the reaction to Trump saying that we’re going to own Gaza and we’re going to make a Riviera of the Middle East there, et cetera.
Paul F for instance, didn’t even respond to it. He had nothing to say, but the liberals came out and said, we believe in a two state solution. How can you say you believe in a two state solution when you don’t even recognize officially the other state, meaning Palestine, right? Canada voted at the United Nations to not recognize it. It didn’t recognize Palestine as a state. So how can you say you believe in a two state solution when you don’t even recognize one of the states that you say that you believe there’s a solution to? And the NDP Jagmeet Singh did come out and say that this is a preposterous thing that Trump is saying, but why are we only reacting when says something the same? NDP is not allowing their member of provincial parliament, Sarah Jama, to come back into the fold. So there’s a lot of talking out both sides of their mouths here. And I don’t think people are taking what is happening seriously, because a lot of people are winning on the progressive conservative side are winning writings because of their responses to what is happening in Gaza.
Maximillian Alvarez:
I want to hover on this point for a second. It reveals a lot for the larger conversation that we’re having here, and we’ve got another 30, 40 minutes here on the stream. So I want to kind of zero in on this because as you all have said, there are so many kind of mirror reflections of the political reality in the US that are being reflected in Canada. But there are also many ways in which Canada is not the United States, and so many times, especially here in the us, we just kind of assume what’s happening here. And the conditions that we have here are the same as they are up there, and that is not always the case. And for example, the latest statistics just came out showing that the United States is now in single digit union density numbers, meaning that less than 10% of workers across this country are in a union.
Canada has around 30%, which is where we used to be at our height back in the fifties and early sixties. So you can’t just talk about the labor movement in the US and Canada as if they’re the same thing. So the point I’m trying to make here is that when it comes to the role of Gaza Israel and its genocidal US and Canada supported war on Gaza and the right of Palestinians to exist, I wanted to ask in terms of how that is shaping the political scene in Canada. What factors are the same Israel’s lobbying influence relatively similar in Canada as it is here in the United States, is the crackdown from universities to the media on pro-Palestinian anti genocide voices following the same kind of playbook is the involvement of big tech. You guys have had Facebook intervening in your news feeds in a way that we haven’t in the past couple years. So I just wanted to kind of through the question of Gaza, sort of try to answer some of those other questions about how circumstances in Canada are very similar to what they are here and also how they are not.
Samira Mohyeddin:
We should start.
Yeah, who do you want to take that on? I mean, in terms of the university campuses, it’s identical. Not so much. We haven’t gotten to the place where we speaking about Zionism as a protected class of people. I think NYU and Harvard both now are seeing Zionists as a protected class like any other race, gender. So we have a political ideology being protected and that is unheard of. We haven’t done that here yet. However, I can tell you that there are numerous professors, numerous students who have been chided for speaking out against genocide, dean’s, provost bringing people in, and the students who were on the University of Toronto encampment were actually taken to court. They were part of an injunction that the university got to have the encampment disbanded. So we don’t have things here like apac, but we certainly have cja, the Center for Israeli Jewish Affairs.
They may not be doling out the same amount of money that politicians in the US get, but they’re still getting free trips to Israel and they’re still getting some funding. So there is, it’s like a little baby replication. We just don’t have that type of funding. But we haven’t gone there yet. The UFT has not adopted ira, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which conflates antisemitism with critiques of Israel, but we certainly had our Canadian Broadcasting corporation use that term, use that definition when they recently gave a workshop to their journalists. So these things are happening here, just not on such a grand scale.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Yeah. Desmond, what about you, man? I see you shaking over there. You got a lot to say. It doesn’t have to necessarily be about Gaza, but yeah, hop in here. Are there other kind of aspects that are similar or distinctly different that you want to highlight or other kind of areas in which this is reshaping the political map in Canada that you want folks to pay attention to?
Andrea Houston:
Sorry, is that for me?
Maximillian Alvarez:
So I was tossing it to Desmond just because I feel like I skipped Desmond by accident.
Desmond Cole:
No, no, no. That’s okay. I mean, it’s public, so I might as well say it on this stream. I’m one of, I believe just over a hundred people in the city of Toronto anyway who have been arrested, and I’m still facing charges because I participated in a Palestine solidarity demonstration last January. We are being treated for these acts as though we are not just allegedly breaking the laws of Canada, but that we are also doing something specifically harmful to the Jewish communities in Canada. That’s the allegation, and I say that specifically because there’s been a lot of conflation, as Samir said, with this idea that if you speak out for Palestinian life and liberation in this moment, it’s because you are an antisemite because you want something specifically bad to happen, not even around Israel, but to Jews all over the world, wherever they happen to be, including in Canada, an absurd claim. So I’ve been caught up in that. I’ve been reporting on other people who have been caught up on it. Samir has been doing some of the best work in this country around that, and we salute that.
It’s been a really awful climate. Canada’s been an enabler of the United States and of Israel. Canada sent weapons to Israel in the last 15 months, but has been doing that for the partnership has decades old Canada’s policy towards Israel and Israeli aggression inside of Gaza and Palestine. They align pretty, I think directly Israel makes the decisions about what’s going to happen in that region and it’s allies, Canada, United States, Germany, France, great Britain. They say, what do you need? How can we help you to the detriment of the Palestinian people? It’s a little different here, I think because the Muslim population, the Arab population, not so much the specifically Palestinian, but the Muslim and Arab population in this country has a fair amount of influence. A growing, I would say, amount of influence in Canada, has people elected in government, has large organizations that have a voice and is part of a lot of conversations that can put a lot of pressure on the government.
And I think Canada has tried to tread a little more carefully than Joe Biden did in the United States during his time. Canada has tried to portray itself as being more even-handed, even signaling towards the formal end of this conflict that maybe it was going to start withholding some weapons in some circumstances that maybe it was going to change its votes at the UN in some circumstances in order to signal to people that it was getting frustrated with Israel’s ongoing siege. But for the most part, I think those things have been similar between the two countries. I think I actually wanted to go back to this idea of the trade and the things like this because we were talking about Pier Polley of the leader of the federal conservative party. So he just recently came out this week with a statement about what he wants to do with fentanyl.
He’s trying to appear as though he’s taking Trump’s fake claims about fentanyl very seriously and that he’s going to do something about it if he’s elected prime minister of Canada. So now he has a proposal that says if he becomes Prime Minister, he’s going to propose a legal change that if you’re caught selling 20 to 40 milligrams of fentanyl, you’ll automatically receive a 15 year sentence. So we are reviving the war on drugs that has existed in this country for decades that we’ve been trying to fight so hard to get rid of. And then he says, if you have 40 milligrams or above, then you get an automatic life sentence. This is his proposal to try and demonstrate how tough that he is. And I bring that up. I want to demonstrate that there are consequences for how people say that they’re going to kind of pursue remedies to this trade war between the United States and Canada that are going to have really, really bad harmful outcomes, not for because this policy by Paul, he’s so stupid.
He claims that that policy is to target who he calls drug kingpins, a kingpin carrying 20 milligrams of fentanyl. That’s somebody who’s probably got that amount of drugs to feed a habit, to sell a little bit to some people around them and to have some for themselves. That’s what 20 milligrams is. It’s not a kingpin of drugs, but because of the specter raised by Trump and because conservative forces in this country want to be seen to respond to that, now we have a renewed kind of front on the war on drugs when we should be going the complete opposite direction. So I just want to say that to talk about some of the impacts that it has domestically on us to have to deal with these things.
Maximillian Alvarez:
I really, really appreciate those points and I
Maximillian Alvarez:
Do in this kind of last half hour, really want to kind of channel our focus on what this is all going to mean for working people, regular people who are trying to get by in a world that is making it increasingly hard for us to do so. And now we got all this shit kind of piling on top of us, but for your average viewer, I want us to talk about what we’re facing and how we actually see our fates as necessarily intertwined. And whatever we do to resist this and get out of it is going to need to be done with a kind of cross border sense of solidarity that allows us to see beyond our own domestic sphere. So I want us to talk about that in this last half hour, but by way of getting us there, Andrea, I did want to toss it back to you in case you had any other thoughts about kind of like yeah, how this week’s bombshell is reshaping the political map, how we got the current political map in Canada that we got. Why is PEV ascending and so popular? What explains this right wing drift that maybe we haven’t covered yet? Anything like that that you wanted to get on the table too?
Andrea Houston:
Well, the short answer is white supremacy. That is the short answer. I mean it’s oil and gas I think is a big part of this. I think that the binds both of our countries, and we can see that in the groups that have been at the forefront of the Project 2025 document, the Heritage Foundation and the Atlas Foundation, and a lot of these sort of far right groups that are, some of them started in Canada, some of them started in the us but they definitely work in both countries and they’re very much interconnected in the lobbying efforts that they do. So I really think that we have to follow the money good journalists do and we follow that money through the groups that are advocating and lobbying and pushing for these wild policies, these crazy policies. I mentioned American exceptionalism before, but there’s also Canadian exceptionalism, right?
This idea that we as North American white people have a more claim to the land, more claim to policy, more claim to direct how things should happen around the world, where the money should flow and who should benefit. And I think that when we really name this, this is not just an American problem, this is a Canadian problem. And again, it’s how both of our intertwined histories of really played out. I actually do think that Canada could become the 51st state. I actually do think that there is a real possibility that Canada could be annexed, that I think our resources, particularly our water and our oil and gas and natural minerals, like the minerals that power the EVs and phones and all that other stuff, the green transition as it’s like to be sold to us, I think is extremely appealing. Whether Trump is smart enough to understand the wealth that he can glean from Canada, the people who surround him most certainly do. And I think that that is a plan for him. Whether he knows how to strategically to execute that plan, I don’t know. But I do think that that is absolutely on the table is something that could happen. And I don’t know what Canada could really do to stop it, to be honest with you,
Maximillian Alvarez:
Burn the
Andrea Houston:
White House, we’ll burn down the White House again. Again.
Maximillian Alvarez:
But is I think a really crucial point, right? Because we are in a new era. I mean, whatever it is, we know it’s not the old one. This is not neoliberalism, this is something new. This is a 21st century where the sort of inviable kind of discourse that we grew up with is very viable right now, by which I mean the very concept of national sovereignty and just people a country’s right to exist and not be invaded. I mean, we grew up sort of believing that, yeah, we don’t do that anymore, but here we are in 2025, Trump’s talking about taking Greenland, taking back the Panama Canal, annexing Canada is the 51st state. Now, of course, the tragic comic irony of all this is that indigenous people here in North America will remind us. People in the global south around the world will remind us that we have been violating other countries, national sovereignty and right to exist in perpetuity.
I mean, that is what we have been doing through our imperial exploits for decades. But that also helps explain what’s happening now because folks watching may have heard the refrain that the empire is coming home. I mean, it always comes back. And that is in many ways, sort of what’s so shocking to people right now. We could 20 years ago be perfectly fine with compromising and violating the national sovereignty of a country like Iraq, but now when we’re talking about doing it to Canada, suddenly everybody is spooked because it’s so close to home. But to Andrea’s point, I mean, I think it really does behoove us to sort of consider this as not just Trumpian bluster and not just sound in fury, though it is a lot of that too. But when Trump says he wants to take Greenland, it’s not for nothing. It’s because Greenland has all the goddamn minerals that we want and want to take for our economic future as green technologies become in higher demand to say nothing of the shipping roots and military strategic positioning of Greenland, as climate change gets worse and as the ice melts and opens up new routes that we want to have control over.
So there is a logic underlying these ridiculous claims about Trump wanting to take Greenland or even Trump wanting to take Canada, whose biggest export is crude oil, right?
Desmond Cole:
I mean, okay, can I say something though? Because yeah, maybe there’s a certain logic there, but these are allied countries. These are countries that as Trudeau was trying to remind everyone the other day have gone to war together and have died alongside of each other. These are countries who are part of the five eyes. These are countries that are part of nato. The idea that Canada is the number one threat or conquest in the eyes of the United States right now is it’s pretty fucking stupid. I’m sorry. At the end of it, we’re not the target we’re being played with so many other countries are being played with because I think that there’s a certain strategic kind of chaos that Trump is trying to sow, as has already been said here, because it also helps him domestically looking like he’s beating up on all these other countries, helps him look strong at home, and it distracts from things that are happening at home.
It’s very convenient for him to do that. We just can’t formulate a politics about worrying about whether or not we’re going to be annexed. Why would you annex your partner when they’re having such nice, Trump was the one that negotiated the Kmsa trade agreement just like five years ago with Trudeau and with Mexico. The idea that he’s not getting everything that he needs or that country isn’t, or that they’re going to upend everything. We have to remember some of these things when Trump says, I’m going to put troops in Gaza. Does the United States actually want to send people there? Does the man who campaigned on saying that all the wars were going to end and all of this nation building was going to stop? Is he really going to be able to turn on a dime and convince people, actually we just have to start putting boots on the ground and all these other parts of the world.
We’re going to be following this little toy on a string for the entire four years if it goes like this. I do think we have to be somewhat careful. And just to the other point that was being brought up before about leftist or leftish entities in Canada, like the new Democrat party, the NDP, I’m guilty of what I’m about to say. So I’m speaking as much to myself as I am to anyone out there listening. But the only way that the NDP is ever going to accept a leftist agenda is if there’s essentially a socialist takeover of that party or if they collapse and there’s a new party that comes up in their place. That’s it. The people who run that party today don’t share the socialist values that maybe some of us do. They just don’t. And they’re not going to take socialist positions out of political opportunism.
I’m saying that knowing people like Sarah Jama, who’s been brought up in this conversation, who are formerly part of the NDP, who really believe this stuff, who are actually trying to shift politics in a more socialist egalitarian direction. Those people are the minority. And the reason that I still kind of orient a lot of my thinking towards the NDPs. I know that there’s people like that in there, and it’s like y’all are trapped because you’re in an entity that wants to bring you along for the ride, but is not about to move to the left. And so when I say this, I’m thinking for Canada, and I’m thinking for Americans who had some hope in Bernie Sanders a little while back and who’ve been looking to the Democrats and being really disappointed that the Democrats don’t stand up to Republicans, we have to stop asking political entities that don’t explicitly have a socialist or leftist agenda to do so out of pragmatism. It’s just not going to happen.
Maximillian Alvarez:
I think that’s really, really clearly and powerfully put, brother. I think something that we all need to sit with and
Maximillian Alvarez:
Something that folks here in the states are trying to kind of work through too. Because when we say the left, I don’t know who that means here or what that means. I think a lot of folks are kind of waking up to the reality that we and others have been warning about for years, which is if Trump comes back, or even if Harris wins and the Democrats prove that they can win without the Bernie wing of the party, then where does the left live? What is the left? Are these terms even useful anymore in the kind of world that we’re living in? That’s a subject for another live stream. But these are the questions that we were kind of asking ourselves right now. But more than that, and again, sticking with the sort of theme here, we’ve got to be looking and thinking and acting bigger.
The left is not, there is no sizable left in the United States to mobilize that even if it was mobilized around a united front back in the forties, could take on the raid forces that are taking over the government right now. It does not exist. And so if you want to fight this, and if you want a world that is different from the one we’re careening towards, you need to stop trying to organize the left. You need to start trying to organize the working class. You need to get out there and talk to your neighbors, workers union, non-union, anyone and everyone that you can to bring us around kind of a shared basis of fact-based reality, like basic human rights and principles, just like the most essential shit that actually unites us. But as far as what that means on the institutional left in this country, again, even if we have an answer to that, it’s a combination of DSA nonprofits, community orgs, all of which are doing invaluable work, but none of which actually have the size and capacity to be a robust bull work against what’s happening right now. So I think we do need to really have some hard questions.
Samira Mohyeddin:
We need small acts from millions of people, and I firmly believe that that is what needs to happen. I mean, I’ll just give you an example, max. We live in a country here in Canada that has a lot of monopolies on different sectors. So for instance, I mean Desmond brought up the Western family. This is a family here who owns multiple grocery chains that really just, and they were involved in, what was that bread they were fixing? The price of
Desmond Cole:
Price fixing. Yeah,
Samira Mohyeddin:
Okay. That’s a reason to have a revolution if you’re in France, people in Canada need to understand the powers that they have. There was a whole movement, the chain is called Loblaw. There was a whole movement to boycott Loblaw right now when these tariffs, they were talking about them. There is Independent Grocers Federation here in Canada, 7,000 independent grocers. I firmly believe that people should just stop shopping at these big grocery stores and support the mom and pop shops at the corner. Trust me, their produce is amazing. They may not have certain things, but you don’t need that right now. I really think that people need to start doing these small acts of being more conscious of where they spend their money, what they do with it, and who they’re giving it to. It makes a difference. BDS, and I’ll bring this back to Gaza again. BDS makes a difference. Companies like Starbucks and McDonald’s are hurting right now, and they have been upfront that it’s hurting them. So I think people need to realize the power of their own pockets.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, I mean, I think that’s a great sort of lead into this kind of final turnaround, the table, right? I mean, I wanted to ask a, we did pose the question right about the deal that was struck between Canada and the US this week, and it feels like there’s a lot of sound in fury. There are some additional resources being committed, but a lot of the details of this new economic plan between Canada and the US have yet to be seen. We’re going to find out in the coming weeks, but I think one of the key questions that’s come out of this discussion is what other concessions will Trump be able to extract out of Canada and Mexico to align them with his own policy priorities to avoid these tariff threats in the future? And so that’s a question that we all need to be asking ourselves moving forward.
So if any of you have something to say on that, this last term would be our time to do it, but also the soul of the kind of question I wanted to ask given that we’re all in the media. We all work in independent media. We are all trying to report on the stuff that matters, and we all believe that people with good information are the stewards of democracy. They’re the ones that we’re trying to inform so that they can safeguard the society that we’re trying to build here and take care of and all that good stuff. Point being is that as media makers, as people in North America facing this shit, and as people who live in countries, that so much of what happens in the coming years here in the United States is going to depend on how Canada and the US respond to it and vice versa. So with all that in mind, how do we get ourselves, everyone watching right now, the folks that we do journalism for, how do we get people to see our fates as intertwined and to see these domestic issues through an international lens, and what opportunities does that give us to resist what’s coming? So there’s a lot there. Please take whichever question you want. Don’t answer all of them, but anything you guys want to say in this final round, Samir? I’ll start again with you and then Andrea, then Desmond,
Samira Mohyeddin:
Close us out. I’m talking too much. Start with Andrea.
Maximillian Alvarez:
All right, Andrea, we’ll start with you.
Andrea Houston:
Okay. I mean, I think the left has to start with a new baseline. I think we need to recalibrate what it means to be on the left and problematic with that term as it is, obviously. But I think the baseline for any movement going forward, for us to collaborate and come together, cross borders, but also globally, we have to agree on democracy and human rights as a baseline, and that has to also be an anti-capitalist analysis. The problem with, as Des was talking about with the NDP and has been a concern for the left in both of our countries is that the left is an anti-capitalist. The Democrats in your country are not anti-capitalist. They’re very much very capitalist, which is breeding all of these issues. We can’t all agree on something when we’re talking about Gaza, whether we’re talking about housing, whether we’re talking about corporations and corporate tax rates, whether we’re talking about any of these issues, climate change, the fundamental facts of climate change, we can’t agree on because of capitalism.
We have to make concessions to corporations. We have to create these kangaroo courts that corporations can go and say, well, these climate activists are cutting into my profits and therefore they can take activists to court. Activists are going to jail because they’re standing up for human dignity, for the possibility of future generations to have a future. God forbid. I think we need to recalibrate, recalibrate what it means to be a left wing person, what it means to support democracy and human rights. We’re living in not just tumultuous times politically, but tumultuous times in our world. I don’t have to tell anybody listening or anybody on this panel the reality of the climate crisis, but it’s so much worse than what we’ve been told so much worse. We are living in a collapse, and I think we need to recalibrate how we talk about the climate crisis.
We are living in an era of collapse and everything that we’re seeing from the rise of dictators, from the shift to far right politics all around the world, to the rise of anti-gay laws, an increase in anti-gay laws in places like Uganda to everything that we’re seeing right now can really be traced back to we’re living through an era of collapse. Meta crisis is actually what it’s called by climate scientists. And so a lot of what I’m seeing is filtered through this lens, and I agree with Samira small acts, we need much more people to come out and do those small acts, take to the streets, join us in protest, stand up locally, get to know your neighbors, mutual aid, all of those things. But we also need big acts. I’m reading how to blow up a pipeline right now, and I know I’m late to the game, but I want big acts, want to see people take big swings.
I want people to really put their bodies on the line, their lies on the line. That’s what it’s going to take. I wouldn’t ask anybody to put themselves in danger, but I think that we are going to all face that in our life at some point over the next five to 10 years, whether we actually see the collapse of our democracy. I think that’s possible. I think that’s on the table, whether we’re seeing collapses of economies all around the world, we’ve already seen that more displaced people, more refugees, more economies in disarray. And so it’s really important that we recalibrate how we talk about these issues and we stop being a slave to capitalism and we stand up and say, unapologetically what this means and what is coming down the pipe. Don’t be afraid to be that annoying person at parties. I know I have been for many, many years, so I think it’s totally fine, but I do think that building the big tent of workers of different movements, L-G-B-T-Q, people, women, civil rights movements all around the world, we all have to come together under a uniform to just help humanity and human rights and democracy.
That has to be the baseline
Samira Mohyeddin:
And not be cynical about those two words too, because we’ve allowed the right to take those two words and ruin them where you see a human, the entire rules-based order and all of these things, I mean, the West went and died in Gaza. So these terms that we’re using, we have to sort of breed life into them again because they’ve been killed in such an abhorrent way. And I’m all for big X, big X, but I’m just one person. What I can say though, before I let Desmond come in here, is to support your independent local media support, the people who are talking about these things, who are covering these things. You have to pay for journalism. It’s not free. We do this work. It’s exhausting. Sometimes there’s only one or two of us. It may look like there’s a lot of us on a team, but sometimes there’s only one or two people, and we’re trying to bring these stories to you. They’re important. And when we do, don’t call us alarmist. Shit’s crumbling, and we’re just sounding the alarm. So don’t shoot the messenger.
Desmond Cole:
A couple of things. So when it comes to what’s going to happen now with the relationship between the two countries, I don’t want to make too much of a big prediction here, but I do kind of feel like Trump has played a lot of his hand when it comes to Canada and the United States. I don’t think what he’s going to be dangling the tariffs sword of Damocles over our head every month for the next 18 months or something. Like he went for it. He got some disruption. He got some really weak concessions because remember Trudeau already said he was going to do a bunch of things at the border before this threat, and when he announced the Fentanyl czar and all these things, he just announced all the things that he had already promised he was going to do. So I don’t know that Canada’s going to be reaching back into the bag to find all of these new concessions for Trump going forward.
I think he’s gotten a lot of what he’s going to get already. And like I said, I don’t think harassing Canada for the next four years is his plan. This is good for him for now. He’s getting what he needs right now. We’re in week four of this man’s administration, and I don’t even think we’re four weeks in. It’s just felt that way, right? So I think we’ve seen a lot of what we’re going to see on this, and things will hopefully start to recalibrate. I do agree with Samira that there are opportunities now that this conversation has sparked a weird kind of nationalism. It takes a lot to get Canadians fired up about living in their own country, but somehow this conversation has managed to do that. And if we’re able to take that energy, right, the breach just had an interesting podcast conversation last week with Stuart True, who’s at the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, and he was talking about this really feels like Green New Deal conversations.
Again, where we’re looking at, for example, we say Canada’s not for sale, and then we say, please buy our oil. Please keep buying our oil. Don’t mess with oil. You know what I mean? It’s very, very silly. But if we weren’t so oil reliant as a country between our relationship with Canada and the United States, that might make us a little secure in the future, that this wouldn’t be able to happen again in the same way we wouldn’t be able to be threatened again. So there are opportunities to do things like that. There are opportunities not simply to buy local. And by the way, there was this really funny list out there telling people to go and for example, don’t shop at Tim, it’s American. Sorry, don’t shop at Starbucks because it’s American shop at Tim Horton’s, a good Canadian brand, which has been owned by Brazilian company for several years now, right?
So we got to brush up on our nationalism. There’s a lot of phony shit going on out there right now. People don’t actually know as individuals what to do, nor should they, because it’s not your individual responsibility to stop Trump and as tariffs. But you might want to try and use this opportunity to start thinking about how do we support people to have decent jobs in Canada, not just buy some products that have a Canada flag on them, but actually supporting better labor in this country. Because what corporate interests want to do in this moment is they want to be like, you know how we should fight back against these tariffs? We should lower taxes. We should get rid of all of the regulations. We should do all of the things that corporate agenda always wants us to do, and that’ll help. But I think we need to actually be pushing backwards in the other direction and being like, wouldn’t it be great if Canada was a place where we were providing better jobs?
Wouldn’t it be great with all of these threats of deporting people in the United States? If Canada was thinking how we could support people, how are we going to support queer people, particularly trans people who are so under assault in the United States? A lot of them are going to try and leave America, and no one can blame them for doing that because of all of the legal crackdowns that are happening. I know people in this country who have been making plans before Trump got elected. How are we going to support trans people coming here and starting a new life because it’s not going to be safe for them to exist as themselves in the United States any further. These are things that we can do as we continue our work and try to continue taking advantage of this moment and what this moment is revealing to us about some of the problems of how we live.
But yes, I agree of also this idea of small acts can mean a lot. Working in our communities locally can mean a lot. It can mean a lot more than people sometimes give it credit for. We talk about a lot of big issues on conversations like this, and it might feel alienating to people, but there’s always something happening in your local community, whether that be around housing or rents that are really expensive to pay, and tenant organizations getting together to support one another, or whether that be about local food issues. There’s always something happening in your neighborhood where you can begin or continue planting these seeds, meeting people, having conversations and organizing. So it’s not all bad news and it’s not all bleak, and we wouldn’t be able to continue doing this work if we didn’t have some hope that something could change in the future.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Oh yeah, I think that’s a beautiful
Maximillian Alvarez:
Point to end on. And we are coming up on our time here. And before we wrap up formally one more time, I really want to thank our incredible guests, Andrea Houston of Ricochet Media, Desmond Cole from the Breach and Samira Moine of On The Line Media. And I want to personally urge all of y’all out there to please support their work and support their outlets because we need them now more than ever, but our work cannot continue without your support. And that is certainly true for us here at The Real News as well. We need you to become a real news member today. Your membership and your support directly translates to more journalism, more live streams like this, more interviews with frontline workers and people brutalized by the police, indigenous Land defenders, more documentaries from Gaza, India, Canada, the US and beyond. We’ve been publishing this stuff year after year, but we can’t keep doing it without you.
So don’t forget to subscribe to our channel. Hit the bell icon so you never miss one of our new reports. And remember, we do not get YouTube advertising money or accept corporate funds. Our survival depends on you. You keep us going, and together we can keep covering the stories that matter, the stories that others won’t cover. And as we close out today’s live stream, I got one more thing I want to say on the topic of independent media and the importance of journalism that still believes in truth and showing the truth and taking together everything that we’ve been talking about tonight and everything that’s going on around us right now. These Trump trade wars, the mass deportations, the emboldened fascists, and outright Nazis who are mobilizing online and offline right now Trump’s horrifying and publicly stated plans for Gaza. These Musk led techno fascists in Silicon Valley oligarchs carrying out a coup on what’s left of our democracy, taking over and shutting down whole government offices, accessing and potentially exposing basically all of our sensitive data and our bank accounts.
And when you add onto this, the fracturing of the digital media ecosystem that we had when Trump was last elected eight years ago with top-down decisions from big tech about injecting AI slop and misinformation into our feeds, or removing news on Canadian Facebook feeds with people fleeing platforms like X and Facebook that they feel are compromised, and with pages and accounts on those platforms getting banned left and right, and with all these pieces falling into place, setting up a free speech, smashing McCarthy, McCarthy Witch hunt on pro-Palestine, anti genocide voices, protests, media outlets, nonprofits. I honestly can’t tell you. I know what’s going to happen in the coming months and years. None of us can, but I want to close with what I do know after interviewing workers for years, I know and have seen the indelible truth upon which the entire labor movement is based, that none of us has the power to take on the bosses alone, but we do have the power to take them on together as individual subjects, as individual media outlets.
None of us can fight what’s happening and what’s coming on our own. We are simply outmatched and outgunned, and that is a fact, and that is why every move these oligarchs make every message they send through their right wing propaganda machine is specifically designed to put us in the powerless position of atomized, isolated, angry, anxious, distrustful, and fearful individuals. They need working people to be divided for all of this to work. They need us to not give a shit about Canadian or Mexican workers so that we cheer on these tariffs that are going to hurt them and us. They need us to not give a shit about immigrants or to actively see them as our enemy for these fascist immigration raids to continue and these concentration camps to be constructed, all while the billionaires, bosses, corporations, tech firms, and Wall Street vampires are robbing us blind.
They need us to not give a shit about union workers and the value that unions have for all of us so that we remain indifferent to the fact that Trump is doing corporate America’s bidding right now by smashing the National Labor Relations Board and effectively rendering most of labor, law and workers’ rights null and void in this country. You want to resist this. Start by resisting every urge that you have, every urge you’ve been conditioned to feel, resist every tempting command you get from people like Trump and Musk and Polly Ev to see your fellow workers as your enemy, Canadian workers and their families, Mexican workers, Americans, immigrant workers, trans and queer workers union and non-union workers. Workers who live in red states and who live in blue states. They want us to focus on what makes us different. So we don’t realize how much more we all have in common with each other than we do with fucking billionaires and zealots who are smashing everything and refashioning our government right now and our economy in order to keep empowering and enriching themselves at our expense.
But we need to do more than resist right now on the individual level. We need to build a real and durable infrastructure that will enable us to survive and resist long-term as a collective, an infrastructure that is welded together by solidarity and tangible commitment. We journalists and media makers across the us, Canada, and Mexico need to form a North American Free Press Alliance with the explicit goal of not only defending journalism, free speech and the people’s right to the truth, but to create a common ground where working people across our countries can find informational stability, where we can find each other and work together on a shared plane of fact-based reality and commitment to basic ass human rights. We need to harness our existing tools and assets to build the infrastructure for a network that will connect us across borders, languages, and algorithmic echo chambers, provide collective protection against censorship and provide working people in North America with news stories, context and analysis that helps us understand what’s happening in our own countries and across the continent through an internationalist lens and with an unwavering commitment to truth class, solidarity and humanity, and a livable planet.
And that network must not and cannot be existentially dependent on these oligarch controlled social media platforms. Doing this, I would argue, is not only necessary as an emergency measure to ensure our survival, but it is necessary for all of us to fulfill our duty to the public as journalists, and to carry out our missions as media making outlets that exist to inform the public with the truth and to empower people to be the change that they’re waiting for. But we won’t do any of this if we just sit and wait. I know that much. I know that competition between journalists and media outlets right now will be a death sentence. Solidarity and collaboration will be our salvation if we choose it. If we don’t stand together, if we just focus on protecting our individual organizations and our subscriber lists and followers, it will be that much easier to pick us off one by one. And for your own sake and for all of ours, don’t let them take action now. Get off the sidelines and get into the fight before it’s too late for The Real News Network and for the whole crew here who has made this live stream happen. This is Maximilian Alvarez signing off. Please take care of yourselves and take care of each other, solidarity forever.
Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories and struggles that you care about most, and we need your help to keep doing this work. So please tap your screen now, subscribe and donate to The Real News Network. Solidarity forever.
Despite their coastal location, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip can only count on the sea for part of their diet. Israeli warships blockade Gaza as part of its overall siege of the strip, and in doing so prevent Palestinian fishermen from venturing into deeper waters. Risking injury and death, which are routine, Gaza’s fishermen persevere nonetheless—fighting to not only preserve their livelihoods, but their heritage and identity as well. The Real News reports from the Deir Al-Balah in the Gaza Strip.
Producer: Belal Awad, Leo Erhardt Videographer: Ruwaida Amer, Mahmoud Al Mashharawi Video Editor: Leo Erhardt
Transcript
Ismail Mohamed – Deir Al Balah, 35 years old:
The sea means everything. You never grow tired of it.
For us, it flows in our blood, the sea. We’re like fish; if we leave the sea, then we die. We have t close to the sea. When we go east, we always return to the sea. Our lives are completely tied to the sea.
The sea is memories and stories.
Subhi Mayek Abu Riyaleh – Muasker Al Shati’, 24 years old:
I love the sea. I love the sea because I eat fish and do something good for people
● Did you inherit it?
● Yes, yes. From my dad. My grandfather, too. My grandfather was a fisherman, my father was a fisherman, and I became a fisher
Ismail Mohamed – Deir Al Balah, 35 years old:
We inherited this work from our fathers and forefathers. We’re close to the sea, we’re close to the coast. So our whole lives are at sea. Since long ago, since our forefathers, we’ve been fishermen
We come to the sea every day; it’s our place of work. We’re here from sunrise to sunset. Subhi Mayek Abu Riyaleh – Muasker Al Shati’, 24 years old:
At 5 o’clock in the morning, with the call to prayer, I come, sit here, and I make a cup of coffee. I sit until the day arrives. I look to see if the cruiser is here or not. If it’s here, I don’t go in; if it’s not, I go.
Ismail Mohamed – Deir Al Balah, 35 years old:
Our biggest obstacle is Israel. The Israeli cruisers—as you can see—are in the sea. 24 hours, you’re under fire and shelling: there’s no merc
Every day, we have the dead. We have the injured. Every day, every day. We have the dead, we have the injured. You go in a little, and the cruiser will fire at you with no prior warning
Subhi Mayek Abu Riyaleh – Muasker Al Shati’, 24 years old:
From the first month of war, they targeted all our boats across the whole of the Gaza Strip. In Deir Balah, Rafah, Gaza City, and Khan Yunis, they completely burned all of the boats. Completely destroyed everything straight away.
We fish along the coast, and then we run away. The cruiser comes and shoots at us, and we run away from it. A cruiser, yes, and the destroyer. The destroyer comes every day.
Ismail Mohamed – Deir Al Balah, 35 years old:
What is it doing? These people are fishermen. They’re earning a living, they’re just getting their dai bread. The sea is forbidden. Fishing isn’t restricted; it’s completely blocked.
It’s forbidden for anyone to go in, forbidden to fish. You can see, the boats are near the coast, around 500 meters away. Go further than this and you will die. You expose yourself to danger; you expose yourself to death.
Subhi Mayek Abu Riyaleh – Muasker Al Shati’, 24 years old:
But why is it forbidden? We’re just civilians. We go in, we fish, and we leave. We have nothing to with anything, we fish and we leave
A big, big, big, big danger! Only yesterday, my cousin was killed. In Gaza City, in Gaza City. He was killed at sea.
Because he wanted to feed his kids, and there’s no food in Gaza City. There’s no food, so he was fishing and he was killed—him and the person with him. By the destroyer
I was exposed to danger twice, in Rafah, my big brother and I. I was lying on the back of the boat, the shooting was at the sides: here and here, and in front of the boat. The Israelis were seeing where they were shooting and what they were doing. They wanted to kill us, that’s it.
Ismail Mohamed – Deir Al Balah, 35 years old:
The fisherman will tell you: “Dying at sea while getting food to feed my children and my family is better than sitting at home waiting for my fate, waiting for a missile or something.”
As you know, our lives are in danger on top of danger. Danger of death. Maybe a missile will get you, maybe a drone would hit you. Rest in peace!
Diesel is cut, electricity is cut, water is cut, and fishing nets are cut. The fiberglass that we nee repair the boats is not allowed in.
We used to go far and catch large fish. Today, because we can’t go far into the sea and we don’t have the fishing nets, and we don’t have proper boats either, all our boats are broken, made of woo some are 20 years old.
So we fish along the beach, we fish these small fish and crabs, that’
Subhi Mayek Abu Riyaleh – Muasker Al Shati’, 24 years old:
Our obstacle in this war is that there is fish in the sea, but it’s deeper, where the cruiser is, where death is.
We don’t go to death, we stay here along the beach. These days, small fish. We sell 1kg for 10 sheke ($2.75): we let people eat. We make 20 ($5.50) or 30 ($8.20) shekels to be able to survive today. Tomorrow, God will provide.
Ismail Mohamed – Deir Al Balah, 35 years old:
There’s no space. All of Gaza is full of refugees. There’s no free land, so people come to the sea—you can see. The sea washes their tents away every day. They moved into the fishing shack
These shacks used to be where we left our boats and things, so we emptied them. Of course, half of them are burnt, half of them are bombed out. The refugees are living there.
There’s not a single meter in Gaza—or in the south—that you can step on. It’s all refugees and tents. People run away from the east, from death, they come to the sea. The fisherman moves them along then they get killed by an airstrike.
We run away from death only to find death. We run away from the airstrikes, only to get swallowed by the sea. Inland, there is nothing, only death and airstrikes.
A person is unsafe in his own home, so we come and pour our problems into the sea, we complain to the sea.
I’m telling you, the people of Gaza, in general, are like fish—if they leave the sea, they die. We ha lived at sea, we were raised by the sea, we learned at sea, and we will stay at sea.
The sea runs in our blood. It runs in our veins, the sea. If we lived to the east, we would die.
All of Gaza’s people are like this. Geographically, the Gaza Strip is along the coast. We don’t have rivers, or fancy hotels, or attractions like other people. We have only the sea.
● It’s the only respite?
● It’s the only respite, the first and the las
The war has destroyed us. We no longer know if we will see each other tomorrow or not.
Today, every step is a blessing, as they say. And in this sea, we witness death in it with our own eyes every day.
Will we return to our homes or not? Will we see our young ones or not?
The best thing about fishing? It’s that you don’t see anyone. You pour all your worries into the se and you get a break from people.
That’s the best thing about fishing
Subhi Mayek Abu Riyaleh – Muasker Al Shati’, 24 years old:
The best thing? We get a lot of patience being at the sea.
A video has been circulated in Chinese-language social media posts that claim it shows a New Year’s dance party on the Taiwanese navy ship ROCS Ma Kong.
But the claim is false. The video was taken at a club in Bangkok, Thailand, in September 2024. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense also said the video was not taken at the ROCS Ma Kong.
“New Year’s dance party of Taiwan’s ROCS Ma Kong,” the caption of the video reads.
The 44-second video shows a group of people dressed in what appears to be navy uniforms dancing to music.
Some Chinese social media users claimed a video showed Taiwanese sailors partying aboard Taiwan’s ROCS Ma Kong on New Year’s Eve.(X and YouTube)
ROCS Ma Kong is a Kee Lung-class guided-missile destroyer in active service in Taiwan’s navy.
The Ma Kong has been involved in monitoring and responding to Chinese military activities near Taiwan. For instance, during the Joint Sword-2024A military exercise conducted by China around Taiwan, a Taiwanese sailor aboard the Ma Kong was photographed monitoring the movements of the Chinese destroyer Xian in waters near Taiwan.
In a 2022 incident, a recording featured a voice identifying the vessel as the Ma Kong, warning another ship that it was approaching the outer edge of Taiwan’s contiguous zone, 44.5 kilometers (27.6 miles) from the baseline.
However, the claim about the video taken in Ma Kong is false.
Club in Bangkok
Some X users said in the comment section of the post that the video was taken at a club in Bangkok, named “BEEF.BKK.”
A keyword search found that the club hosted a sailor-themed event in September 2024.
A clip of the event posted by one of the partygoers on Instagram shows that both the ceiling decorations and DJ booth in the club are very similar to those seen in the video posted on X.
The ceiling design in the Thai nightclub BEEF.BKK (left) matches that of the location shown in the video (right).(Instagram and X)
A closer look at the video shows people in the video are wearing red bows around their necks, instead of the blue neckerchiefs with two white suns that are a part of standard Taiwanese navy uniforms.
The men in the video (right) are not wearing standard Taiwanese navy uniforms (left).(Taiwan’s Navy Command website and X)
Officials from Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense also dismissed the claim.
Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alan Lu and Dong Zhe for Asia Fact Check Lab.
Polling for the 70 seats of the Delhi assembly is set to be held on February 5, with results slated for February 8. Ahead of the elections, the ever-present issue of Yamuna water has again taken centre stage with the BJP and Congress questioning the AAP government regarding the cleaning of the Yamuna river.
At the same time, the Aam Aadmi Party alleges that the Haryana government is poisoning the water of the Yamuna river. Meanwhile, former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal along with many senior leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party shared a 14-second slow motion video and claimed that Haryana chief minister Nayab Singh Saini pretended to drink water from the Yamuna, which he then spat out.
Arvind Kejriwal shared the video and wrote, “Haryana chief minister Nayab Singh Saini pretended to drink water from the Yamuna and then spat the same water back into the river. When I said that Yamuna water can be a threat to the lives of Delhiites due to ammonia adulteration, he threatened to file an FIR against me. They want to make the people of Delhi drink the same poisonous water which they themselves cannot drink. I will never let this happen.” (Archived link)
हरियाणा के मुख्यमंत्री नायब सिंह सैनी जी ने यमुना का पानी पीने का ढोंग किया… और फिर वही पानी वापस यमुना में थूक दिया।
जब मैंने कहा कि अमोनिया की मिलावट के कारण यमुना का पानी दिल्लीवालों की जान के लिए ख़तरा हो सकता है, तो इन्होंने मुझ पर FIR करने की धमकी दी।
Aam Aadmi Party leader and Patparganj MLA Manish Sisodia retweeted Arvind Kejriwal’s tweet, saying that the BJP was unmatched when it came to hypocrisy and deceit. (Archived link)
ढोंग और पाखंड में भाजपा का कोई सानी नहीं!
मुख्यमंत्री नायब सिंह सैनी जी ने जहरीले पानी की सच्चाई खुद कैमरे में दिखा दी।
जिस यमुना के पानी का सेवन करने में सैनी साहब असुरक्षित महसूस कर रहे हैं, वही पानी हरियाणा की भाजपा सरकार दिल्ली भेज रही थी।
Aam Aadmi Party national spokesperson and advocate Priyanka Kakkar shared the video and wrote that the BJP did not care about people’s lives and are simply causing a scene by pretending to drink the water and then spitting it back out. (Archived link)
लोगों की जान की परवाह नहीं इनको, नौटंकी करवा लो बस।
Apart from this, Aam Aadmi Party and Arvind Kejriwal accused Nayab Singh Saini of hypocrisy in a press conference, while explaining the harm caused by the amount of ammonia present in water from the Yamuna river. At the 5:36 mark in this press conference video, a viral video of Nayab Singh Saini was played and it was claimed that he spat out the water after taking it in his mouth. (Archived link)
Fact Check
We performed a reverse image search using one of the key frames taken from the viral video. We found a longer video depicting the same incident in a January 29, 2025 post by Asian News International (ANI) on X (formerly Twitter). ANI’s tweet stated, “Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini drinking water from the Yamuna river at Palla village in Delhi”.
At the 3-second mark in this 57-second video, scenes from the viral video appear in which Saini is seen taking water in his hand and spitting it out. However, eight seconds later in the same video, Saini is again seen taking water from the Yamuna river in his hand and taking it in his mouth. He then wets both his hands and splashes the water on himself. This part has been removed from the video being circulated by Arvind Kejriwal and other Aam Aadmi Party leaders.
#WATCH | Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini takes a sip of water from the Yamuna River in Delhi’s Palla Village. pic.twitter.com/v1rkJXrcbQ
The video is also available on the X handle of Press Trust of India (PTI) and Indo-Asian News Service (IANS). After coming out of the river, he gives news bytes to other media channels, in which he talks about drinking the water from the Yamuna and accuses Kejriwal of creating panic among the people.
VIDEO | Delhi: Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini (@NayabSainiBJP) drinks Yamuna water at Palla Ghat, from where the river enters Delhi from Haryana.
The AAP had accused the ruling BJP in Haryana of intentionally draining industrial waste into the Yamuna, with Kejriwal alleging that… pic.twitter.com/ClhrYqnB5N
Media outlets like Live Hindustan, ETV Bharat and India TV have also covered this incident. Their reports state that Nayab Singh Saini tried to answer Arvind Kejriwal’s allegations of poisoning the Yamuna by drinking water from the river.
To sum up, Arvind Kejriwal and Aam Aadmi Party leaders shared a clipped video of Nayab Singh Saini and made misleading claims.
With Delhi assembly elections knocking on doors, the Bharatiya Janata Party shared a video and accused the national convener of Aam Aadmi Party Arvind Kejriwal of cheating the residents of Delhi and living a luxurious life in a ‘five-star palace’.
In response, the Aam Aadmi Party shared a video on its social media accounts including Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and X. In this video, expensive luxury chandeliers, furniture and shoes are seen inside a luxurious bungalow. The footage was being circulated as the first look inside the residence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed as part of the Central Vista Project. The accompanying caption states, “The video of the royal palace has been shown to the people for the first time. Could this be why its doors are not open to the public?” (Archived link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4)
Alt News looked at the design of the Pradhan Mantri Awas being constructed under the Central Vista Project to verify the Aam Aadmi Party’s claim. We did not find any video similar to the one shown in the viral video.
Upon closer inspection of the unnatural lighting, the interiors, and the objects and their design in the viral video, we noticed discrepancies that indicated that the clip had been altered or entirely made with the help of artificial intelligence.
We found several differences in the design of the building and the garden area seen at the beginning and end of the viral video. These have been highlighted below.
Readers can also take a look at the shoe circled in red at the 0:32 mark in the video. It clearly appears to be created by AI.
In addition, at the 1:06 mark, an unnatural transition is seen in the tap of the kitchen wash basin. This inconsistent change can also be seen on the glasses, flowers placed on the table, etc.
Alt News observed that the video contains a watermark of Sora, a video creation tool by Open AI, visible at the 2:12 and 2:32 mark. It has been highlighted with a red arrow in the picture below. This confirms that the video was created using Sora.
Further, we uploaded several keyframes of the video to Hive AI Image Detector and tested it. The report scored it against AI video generator sites like Sora, Pika, Stable Diffusion, and Flux and came to the conclusion that the video to be AI generated.
To sum up, the Aam Aadmi Party falsely shared an AI generated video and claimed that it depicted scenes from the residence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
AI generated videos or photos are being used a lot these days to make false and misleading claims. Here are some easy ways to identify them:
If you look closely at the AI generated photos/videos, the unnatural texture of the eyes and smooth skin of the person featured in them is clearly visible.
The shadow created by the light falling on a person or object also helps in identifying AI generated photos and videos.
Apart from this, we can also check and verify AI generated photo videos with the help of Hive Moderation, Optic AI or Not and Google’s AI Detector Tool.
From the attempt to broadly freeze federal grants and loans to high-profile firings at the National Labor Relations Board, TRNN Reporter Mel Buer and Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez break down this week’s chaotic directives from the Trump administration and what they will mean for working people and the labor movement. Mel and Max also lay out what we know about the tragic collision of a US Army Black Hawk helicopter and American Airlines regional passenger jet, Trump’s broad attacks on federal workers, including air traffic controllers and members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, and how those attacks have been going on long before Trump. Then, from the historic union victory by Whole Foods workers in Philadelphia to Kaiser Healthcare workers on strike in California, we will highlight key labor stories taking place beyond the chaos in Washington, DC.
Studio Production: David Hebden, Cameron Granadino, Adam Coley
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Welcome to the Real News Network and welcome back to our weekly live stream. Alright, week two of the new Trump administration has been a characteristically chaotic one, but make no mistake, while this all feels kind of familiar, because we have the last Trump administration to compare it to from the avalanche of executive orders and the baffling press conferences to the spectacles filled Senate confirmation hearings, the past two weeks have brought us undoubtedly into historically unique and unfamiliar territory. And we can see that just by looking at this graph from Axios, comparing the current administration’s pace and number of executive orders to those of passed administrations, including I might add the first Trump administration. As Aaron Davis notes in his first nine days in office, president Trump unleashed a flurry of executive orders. Unlike anything in modern presidential history, Trump is reshaping the federal government with a shock and awe campaign of unilateral actions that push the limits of presidential power.
Only President Biden and President Truman issued more than 40 executive orders in their first 100 days in office. So far, Trump has signed 38 after less than two weeks, and the shock and awe effect is very real and it’s very intentional. Faced with a barrage of executive orders and administrative shakeups, some that are purely theatrical bs, others that are deadly serious and could trigger full on constitutional crises from pulling the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement, yet again to declaring a national emergency at the southern border to pardoning the January 6th insurrectionists. There’s just too much here to process at once our brains and our hearts get overwhelmed and we end up immobilized. But our goal with these live streams and with all of our real news productions is to do the exact opposite. And that’s why today my real news teammate Mel Buer and I are going to focus in on a few key stories from this week that have direct implications for workers, our lives and safety, our rights in the workplace, and for the labor movement writ large. And Mel and I are going to try to use our skills as reporters with long histories of covering labor, including on our weekly podcast, working people to answer your questions and give you the information, perspectives and analysis that you need so that you can process this, you can get mobilized and you can be empowered to act. Alright, so Mel, what are we digging into?
Mel Buer:
Okay, so we’re starting with three pretty major headlines from this week. The first is going to be last night’s horrific plane crash in dc. It’s the deadliest on US soil in over 20 years where 64 civilians and three military service members are dead. And there’s a lot we don’t know and new information is coming through at a pretty fast clip. So we’ll lay out what we do know and why that matters. Then we’re going to get into the most pressing headlines coming out of the White House as it relates to Trump’s executive orders, namely the funding freeze fiasco and what that means for workers here in the us. And then we’re going to talk about the recent shakeups at the NLRB General Counsel, a bruso firing and the abrupt termination of the NLRB chair Gwen Wilcox and what that means for the future of labor organizing in this uncertain moment. When you look at these stories together, they reveal a lot about how this administration sees government workers, contractors, and the working people around the country who depend on their services, how it’s approaching governance, using union busting and anti-worker tactics from the private sector, and how explicitly targeting the agencies and precedents that exist to enforce labor law and protect workers’ rights has become kind of a key issue for this administration.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Alright, so let’s dig into the most pressing story that we’re all thinking about right now. Let’s talk about what we know and what we don’t know about this horrific plane crash. And we are going live right now at 4:00 PM on Thursday as I speak, president Donald Trump is holding another press conference his second today, it’s a live briefing on kind of an FA debrief. So there’s going to be things said at that briefing that we can’t comment on now, but we will of course follow up on this story and we’re going to try to give you as much of what we know. Now, let’s start with the basics. What do we know what’s happening? The AP reports, the basics here. A mid-air collision between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines flight that was coming from Kansas killed all 67 people on board the two aircraft.
And the reasons for this crash, the causes of it are still under investigation. That is the official word. So we want to temper all of our collective expectations here and allow for the investigatory process to proceed so that we can get more information. Now, of course, we’ll comment on this in a minute that hasn’t stopped many people in the government from opining and blaming and directing blame at what they perceive to be the causes of this horrific crash. And we’re going to talk about those in a second. So AP continues in their report, which was updated this morning. At least 28 bodies have been pulled from the Potomac River already. Others are still being searched for the plane that carried 60 passengers and four crew members included a number of children who were training for to be in the Olympics and skating one day. This is a truly, truly tragic and horrific loss, and those families will never be whole again.
And we send our thoughts and prayers to them and our love and our solidarity because let’s not forget what really happened here. People lost their lives. So John Donnelly, the fire chief of the nation’s capitol, announced that they are at the point where they’re switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation. This is very similar to what we experienced here in Baltimore of March, in March of last year when the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed and Trump and Republicans tried to blame that on DEI too. We’ll get to that later. But there was a harrowing number of hours where loved ones community members were hoping against hope that their loved ones who were working on that bridge, these were immigrant construction workers working in the middle of the night who as we reported here at the Real News Network, received no warning that they were about to meet their deaths in a ship that was about to crash into the bridge they were working on.
So we were in that same wait and see. Mode two we’re hoping to retrieve living people turned into trying to recover deceased people. And as per the official notice, there are no expected survivors. This is a recovery mission, not a search and rescue mission. As Mel mentioned, this is the deadliest air crash over US airspace. Since the nine 11 attacks that happened in 2001. Collectively, those attacks killed 2,996 people on the day of the attack. There’s no immediate word, as I said on the cause of the collision, but officials have said that flight conditions were clear as the jet arrived from Wichita, Kansas with US and Russian figure skaters and others on board, quote from American Airline CEO, Robert Isam, he said on final approach into Reagan National, the plane collided with a military aircraft on an otherwise normal approach. Now, a top army aviation official did say that the Black Hawk crew was very experienced and familiar with the congested flying conditions of Reagan National Airport.
For those who don’t live in and around dc this is a extremely busy airport in a densely populated part of the city that has been increasing air traffic for years. And Mel and I will talk about that more in a minute. But point being is that from the American airline side, from the military side, there appeared to be no interceding conditions like extreme weather that may have caused this crash that we know of so far. Investigators are going to be analyzing the flight data that they can retrieve from these two flights before making their final assessment. The transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, who was sworn in this week, said that there were early indicators of what happened, but he declined to elaborate on those pending a further investigation. Now I’m going to wrap up here in a sec. As I mentioned, president Trump is giving a second press briefing as we speak.
He gave another one this morning. I’m sure many of us saw it or at least saw the headlines to it because in this press conference where the leader of the country is expected to lead, Trump did what Trump does best and blame everybody else without evidence. Trump blamed the air traffic controllers, he blamed the helicopter pilots and he explicitly called out democratic policies at federal agencies. Trump claimed that the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA, was actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiatives. So as usual, the typical boogeyman of DEI being like the thing at the root of all of our problems was the thing at the root of Trump’s press conference this morning. And MAGA Republicans have spared, have wasted no time reaffirming this line. And we’re going to talk a little more about that as the stream continues. But those are essentially the basics of what we know and what we don’t right now. This is an unfolding story, but we think it does have a lot to tell us. And so Mel, I want to kind of toss it to you and give us some of the broader context here that maybe people aren’t seeing and they’re sure as hell not hearing from the White House press briefings right now.
Mel Buer:
Well, I think it’s important to kind of note here that just like with our railroad reporting that we did in 2022, that’ll oftentimes what we’re looking at is kind of a breakdown of policy among decision makers, right? We know that the A-F-A-C-W-A and other unions that are involved in the aviation industry have been sounding the alarm about needing to have better staffing conditions at airports across the country. Those conditions have been worsening for at least since 2013. So through successive administrations, including the Trump administration where you had the chance to solve that problem and chose not to, and especially in this DC airport, Freddie Booster, Lois partially and David Soda wrote for Jacobin that lawmakers brushed off safety warnings amid mid-flight near misses and passed an industry backed measure designed to add additional flight traffic at the same DC airport where this disaster unfolded. So really, I think the point that I’m trying to make here is that while the aviation industry is trying to bring more flights into these airports, which are welcome, right?
We want to be able to kind of reduce the sort of congestion in terms of wait times for flights, having more options as consumers for traveling across this country that also needs to come with heightened safety measures in terms of better staffing in the air traffic control towers and unions in the aviation industry have been really fighting for this for the last number of years, just like with our railroad reporting, what we learned with the railroads was that lack of staffing and disregard for really tried and trusted safety measures leads to accidents. And tragically, this is what happened here. That isn’t to say that folks aren’t fighting for this. That’s the big point that I want to make. And I think that unfortunately Trump’s blaming of these various groups really is not to put it as lightly as possible, not helpful,
Maximillian Alvarez:
And it’s also not helpful. Let’s also be clear, right, falling into the partisan trap of trying to blame Trump for all of this too, right? Because as we are trying to show here, and as we show in our work at the Real News, these are longstanding problems that have had bipartisan support for many years. Trump is definitely making these problems worse, but he is not the originator of the problem. And you can see that in the question of under staffing. Now of course, a number of pundits and politicians have pointed to the fact that just last week, Donald Trump put a hiring freeze for federal employees, which would include hiring new air traffic controllers at a moment when we’ve been experiencing an extended air traffic controller shortage. And we’ll talk a bit more about that in a second. But also, of course, like Trump’s firing of high level officials, even the heads of the TSA, the FAA and members of the very commissions that are there to ensure air flight safety.
And so of course the impulse is to look at that and see like, well see Trump did this last week and now this week we have a plane crash. It’s a little more complex than that. As I speak to you now, there is a live update from the New York Times that came out just 10 minutes ago, sparse on information. But the information reads, live update control tower staffing was not normal during deadly crash. FA report says, an internal report suggested that the controller on duty the night of the accident was doing a job usually handled by two people. And so what we are trying to show y’all is that that situation did not come from nowhere, and it is not a situation that is sadly particular to air traffic controllers. This is something that Mel and I hear in the worker interviews that we do in industries around the country, the crisis of deliberate understaffing in critical industries, including those that have a direct bearing on our own public safety.
And with the railroads, Mel mentioned, to refresh your memories, a couple years ago, if we all recall, the US was approaching its first potential railroad strike in 30 years. We had been interviewing railroad workers across the industry, engineers, conductors, signalmen, Carmen dispatchers, all of whom were telling us different versions of the same story, which is that the corporate consolidation, the government deregulation, and the Wall Street takeover of the rail industry had created this sort of process that has built into a crisis over decades where the railroads have become more profitable than ever by cutting their costs year after year after year. And so what does that mean? It means cutting labor costs, cutting safety costs, making those trains longer, heavier, piled with more dangerous cargo, while having fewer and fewer workers on the trains and also fewer and fewer workers in the machine shops checking the track in the dispatch offices.
The point is, is that when these layoffs happen, when these corporate restructurings happen, like these policies are implemented in key industries like logistics industries like federal, like aviation, you are not just firing people, you are removing layers of security that are there for a reason and you’re doing so for the benefit, the short-term benefit of higher profits, while the long-term costs are born by the workers in those industries, the public that is being hurt by them and even by the customers who use those industries, rail shippers are as pissed off as rail workers are right now. So the point just being is that Mel and I hear this in education teacher shortages, more students piled on to fewer teachers leading to worse education outcomes, healthcare hospital workers who have been burnt out before covid even more so since covid, more patients piled onto fewer nurses leading to declining quality of care, treating patients more like just a kind of grist for the mill.
Get ’em in, get ’em out. This is a system-wide problem that we are seeing the effects of across the economy, and we can see it here in this tragic plane crash that has claimed the lives of nearly 70 people. In fact, this is much like the horrific train accident that occurred in East Palestinian, Ohio on February 3rd. The anniversary’s coming up, the two year anniversary of that, and the workers on the railroads warned us that something like that would happen and then it did, just like workers in the aviation industry, as Mel mentioned, have been warning us that something like this would happen and now it has. But we have been sort of dancing on the lip of this volcano for a long time. We’re just waking up to the reality now. And I just want to kind of underline this point by quoting from a really great Jacobin article that was published in 2023 by Joseph a McCarton titled The US is Facing a Growing Air Safety Crisis.
We have Ronald Reagan to thank for that. And again, this was not published this week, this was published during the Biden administration. McCarton makes the very clear point that on March 15th, 2023, the Federal Aviation Administration held a safety summit in McLean, Virginia, gathering more than 200 safety leaders from across American aviation to discuss ways to enhance flight safety. What prompted the unusual summit was by the FA a’s own admission, a quote string of recent safety incidents, several of which involved airplanes coming too close together during takeoff or landing. And McCarton also notes in that same article that a, a recent internal study by the Inspector General of the US Department of Transportation found that 20 of 26 critical facilities, 77% of them are staffed below the FA a’s 85% threshold. So again, don’t get it twisted. What Trump is doing is making the problem worse. It’s pouring gasoline on the fire, but this fire was burning before Trump came into office.
And Mel, as you said, this is something that we’ve had workers in these industries decrying for many, many years. And this is also something that we need to sort of have a long historical view on, right? Because as McCartan mentioned in that article, we do have Ronald Reagan to thank for a lot of this. And I just wanted to kind of hover on that point for a second because as we know, one of Ronald Reagan, president Ronald Reagan’s most infamous acts in his first presidential term was to fire striking air traffic controllers over a thousand of them. It was a significant massive percentage of the existing air traffic controller workforce in 1981. Not only did this sort of unleash a new age of union busting across the private sector and elsewhere, but it also is directly relevant to what we’re talking about here because when you fire that many air traffic controllers, as Reagan did, this was 11,000, approximately 70% of the controller workforce at the time that Reagan fired in 1981 and then tried to replace.
So a point that maybe we don’t think about, but that actually connects to the air traffic controller shortage now, is that when you in one year eliminate 70% of that workforce and then you replace it with new hires in the next two to three, four years, you are creating essentially a generational problem where those new hires in the 1980s are retiring in 30 years, and then the process starts again, where suddenly you have kind of a massive aging out of the existing workforce and a dire need to replace those understaffed agencies. So we are still feeling the staffing ripple effects and the safety impacts that has from Ronald Reagan’s original firing of the air traffic controllers. We have not fixed that problem. And as we’ve said a number of times, like air traffic controllers continue to be chronically understaffed, which means all of us who fly are flying at the mercy and our safety hangs on the overworked shoulders of understaffed air traffic controllers across the country right now. And I don’t know, does that make you feel safe, Mel? It doesn’t make me feel safe.
Mel Buer:
No. I take the train. I already have enough air anxiety. The reality is I think as well when you’re talking about, particularly with the PATCO strike, but in any industry where there is high turnover, there is not really a space for the sort of concentration of expertise. And PATCO is a huge example of this where you have career air traffic controllers who have amassed collectively hundreds of years of collective experience and how to work this industry and do it safely. And you’re training new hires who may or may not have the same sort of experience or you’re shuffling folks into these departments. You’re not going to get the same level standard of expertise. We see it in healthcare, we see it, and really any industry that has high turnover from the people who make your coffee drinks all the way up to the engineers who make your planes that you write on.
So this is a huge problem, and we will discuss this a little bit later when we’re talking about what’s going on in the federal government as well. But that is an important point to make that what we’re seeing with this lack of staffing is really a lack of expertise. The ability to have internally these checks and balances that create the safety conditions that we rely on in order for us to live our lives without fear of falling out of the sky literally. And so that’s a really important point here. And again, unions like the A-F-A-C-W-A and the machinists who work with Boeing are acutely aware of that and are willing and able to bolster this workforce. But you cannot attract a new generation of smart, capable, hardworking, willing people to buy into this industry and provide their expertise to this industry if you don’t have a competitive job to offer them.
And that happens a lot in healthcare as well. So it’s kind of a top-down problem. It’s not that folks don’t want to do these jobs, it’s really is this job going to be doable? Am I going to be able to pay my bills? Is my family going to be okay? Am I going to be able to get a pension? Am I going to be able to do this job to the best of my ability without working 120 hours a week and get paid nothing really functionally for it? And again, these unions are really acutely aware of this issue and are bargaining hard to solve these problems. And unfortunately in many cases, they’re coming up against an intractable management who cares more increasing profits for shareholders than actually creating a workplace that is competitive and that is also operating at a higher standard.
Maximillian Alvarez:
And let’s kind of talk a little bit while we’re sort of closing out this section. It does hook into another key sort of subject that we wanted to talk about today, which is Trump and the Trump administration’s all out attack on federal workers and the vilification of federal workers as nameless, faceless, useless, even evil bureaucrats of the deep state who need to be chucked out, fired, eliminated, disciplined. And if we’re not kind of understanding who those people are and what they do, that may sound good and people are going to cheer on Trump’s policies. But what we’re trying to say here is that we need to have a clear-eyed vision of actually who these people are, what they do, and how it directly impacts our lives. And the point being is that you cannot solve these potentially society, destroying society and periling problems if you are not correctly diagnosing the problem itself.
And that is why the sort of attacks on DEI and using the harnessing of DEI to sort of create an explanation for all of this is really, really sinister, right? Because like I said, they tried to do this when the Baltimore Bridge collapsed. They blamed it on DEI here too when the LA fires where Mel and I are from our homes are burning and have been burning for the past two weeks. And while we’re trying to sort of talk to our loved ones and find out if they’re okay, this whole media cycle is blaming the fires and the destruction on DEI and woke democratic policies. And now this plane crash happens, these people die and immediately before their bodies are retrieved from the Potomac River, Donald Trump is out there from the White House press office saying that it was DEI that caused the problem. And I don’t know how it can get any more obvious that this is political snake oil.
It is a built-in perennial excuse crafted by the very same corrupt business lobbies and politicians who are endangering our lives for profit so that they can quite literally get away with killing us and then blame it on a fictional boogeyman. We can talk about the issues with DEI, we’ve got plenty of them. But trying to explain tragedies like this through a DEI only lens is nuts. It’s stupid. It is ignoring the realities that are screaming in our faces and in the workers who are living those realities and who are telling us what the problem is. And there’s something really telling about that because this attack on DEI and this attempt to turn DEI into the catchall explanation is in fact capitalists their own fake solution to the problem that capitalists themselves have created, capitalizing on the pain that they have caused through decades of rampant union busting layoffs, disciplining of labor, focusing on only maximizing short-term profits for executives and Wall Street shareholders while putting us all at long-term risk by removing necessary safety measures and checks and balances and accountability, the onslaught of deregulation over the course of decades.
And the point being is that I want to be very clear and apparent here. I grew up conservative. I’ve said this many times, I’ve been open about it on our show, on this network. And so I have a living memory of being a Republican and championing other Republicans throughout the nineties and early aughts who kept saying, we need to break the backs of unions. We need to privatize government. We need to unleash the genius of the free market and deregulate as many industries as possible so that the genius of the market can lead us to a better society. I believed in all that stuff. I cheered it on, and it’s like no one remembers that the same Republicans Trump himself included, who cheered this on 20 years ago, the same corporations that didn’t want to take ownership over it are now trying to turn around and blame DEI for the things that they got what they wanted.
And it screwed up society the way that people were saying it was going to. And now the same people who profited from that, the same people who push that policy are turning around and trying to create a boogeyman in DEI and woke him to sort of get off scot free. And we are letting them, the corporate criminals, the Wall Street vampires, the corrupt politicians who have put us in this dangerous position, get off scot free and convince us to blame our neighbors and coworkers and policies like DEI for the problems that they’ve created. And that’s absurd. And I want to bring us to the way to fight. This is not in a conceptual policy only way, but to again, look at the ground level and understand who and what we’re actually talking about and where the problems are and where they are not. And I think that this horrific tragedy does really point us instructively to a couple of core truths and that are deeply relevant as we watch what the Trump administration is doing right now using the corporate crafted language of inefficiency and bloat and overstaffing importing these tactics from the private sector into government.
And it reveals how that kind of thinking from the private market fundamentally misunderstands what and who the government is, right? The evil bureaucrats of the deep state, they are people like the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee that Trump fired last week. They are the overworked air traffic controllers that are making sure that our planes don’t crash while they’re getting no sleep. They are the civil servants throughout the government who are being pushed to voluntarily resign and who are being reclassified under Schedule F so that they become at-will employees who are easier to fire. You may not like the government for many justifiable reasons, but without the people who make it work, nothing works for us. And I want to kind of show how the leaders and labor folks in labor that Mel was talking about have actually been telling us this for many years.
On the Real news here, last week I interviewed the great Sarah Nelson, the International President of the Association of Flight Attendants, C-W-A-A-F-L-C-I-O. If you recall, Sarah Nelson became a household name during the Trump LED GOP LED government shutdown of 2018 and 20 19, 6 years ago, it was the longest government shutdown in our country’s history. And Sarah Nelson steps out of the world of organized labor and into the public limelight as this shutdown, which furloughed 300,000 federal workers while keeping 400,000 federal workers working for 35 days without pay. So people like air traffic controllers working all that time while also working second jobs so that they could feed families. We were at the verge of another horrific tragedy like this back during the government shutdown in 20 18, 20 19, but Sarah Nelson and the flight attendants were the ones who were making that point because in DC it was all, oh, this is about Trump’s border wall. This is not about Trump’s border wall. It was the same kind of thing like we’re talking about DEI and woke him now, but we’re not talking about the actual goddamn problem. So let’s tee up these clips of Sarah Nelson speaking to the public in January of 2019, making that case during the longest government shutdown of the US history.
Sara Nelson:
We are here today because we are concerned about our safety, our security, and our economic stability, our jobs for years. The right has vilified federal workers as nameless, faceless bureaucrats, but the truth is they’re air traffic controllers, they’re food inspectors, they’re transportation security officers and law enforcement. They’re the people who live and work in our communities and they are being hurt. This is about our safety and security and our jobs and our entire country’s economic stability. No one will get out of this unscathed if we do not stop this shutdown leader McConnell, you can fix this today. If you don’t show the leadership to bring your caucus to a vote to open the government today, then we are calling on the conscientious members of your caucus to do it for you. There is no excuse to continue this. This is not a political game. Open the government today. We are calling on the public on February 16th, if we are in a day 36 of this shutdown for everyone to come to the airports, everyone come to the airports and demand that this Congress work for us and get politics out of our safety and security it.
Maximillian Alvarez:
So I would highly recommend that everyone watching this stream live or after the fact, go watch that full interview that we did with Sarah Nelson, listen to what she says and apply it to the situation that we’re seeing now, especially those final words, that this is not about an ideological battle between Trump, MAGA and the Deep State and woke and DEI. This is about a corporate class of tyrants who are destroying the people, jobs, and agencies that our basic safety and needs depend on. And so there’s something I think really important here about the lessons that unions and labor specifically can teach us about what’s going to happen here, who’s fighting back against this. Mel, I wanted to toss it to you to just kind of give folks a few points about that before we move on to the other stories.
Mel Buer:
Well, it’s like I’ve been saying, unions across this country in small shops, in large shops, in regions, all across the country from a small coffee shop that’s taking on Nestle to the UAW getting plants reopened in Illinois, all of these struggles are sort of tapped into what I think is a really key thing that we as labor reporters pay attention to, which is to say, workers are experts in their own workplace. They know what’s working, what’s not working, because they’re there every day and they have generally pretty good ideas about how to improve these industries for the people who work in it and for the consumers and the individuals who are touched by these industries. So when you see these labor struggles where you might, oh, I don’t know, disagree with tactics or find certain things to be a little odious, or you’re not sure why a certain thing is being offered in a contract or in a bargaining session or on a picket line, you might open up a conversation with those workers if you’re there and ask them why.
It’s important, because ultimately, from the federal government all the way down to the smallest shop in your city, individuals kind of know what’s going on and their ideas might actually improve our lives. And that’s really what the A-F-A-C-W-A is trying to do is what the machinists tried to do at Boeing. I mean, we’re seeing this play out in successive industries all across this country, and even especially now in this new administration that has already sort of styled itself through its actions as being adversarial to the labor movement, it’s important. It’s important for us to pay attention to these things. So that would,
Maximillian Alvarez:
Just to underline what Mel just said there, I mean, again, as two reporters co-hosts of working people who talk to workers about this stuff every single week, if we sound like broken records, we keep hearing the same thing from all these workers and we’re trying to get people to listen to them. But that’s a really, really critical point here. If it feels like there’s no solution to these problems in DC right now, that doesn’t mean there’s no one fighting for a real solution. Over 30,000 machinists, as Mel mentioned, went on strike at Boeing earlier or late last year. Let’s not forget Boeing’s role in all of this. Let’s not forget the Boeing planes that have been falling out of the sky over the past decades and the way the same corporate Wall Street brain disease that took a once the most vaunted airline company or airline manufacturer in the world had the best reputation for its product in the world.
How it went from that to being the laughing stock of the world and the kind of plane no one wants to get on because we’re all terrified that the plane’s going to fall out of the sky. Who’s fighting for that? And how did that happen? It didn’t happen overnight, but the workers who went on strike at Boeing last year, they’re fighting to have a say in that they’re fighting to have a say in the corporate policies that have put all of us at danger, just like the railroad workers were not only fighting for pay for themselves and better time off policies for their families, but they were doing that so that they could actually do their jobs well and safely and not put us in danger when their trains are bombing past our T-ball games. So there is an inherent connection between what workers in specific industries, unions in specific jobs are fighting for that we have a vested interest in, and we should really kind of think about that, not only in terms of why we should support those struggles, but what that says about alternative pathways for solutions when it feels like the bipartisan politics in DC are presenting none.
So just wanted to really underline that great point that Mel made and let’s, we got more to talk about here, but if nothing else, we hope that you take that point away from what we’re saying here.
Mel Buer:
I think a great way to kind of move forward in this conversation is to kind of take a moment here to see what break down what’s been going on over the last week at the federal level. One of the big things, and it’s been probably the most dominant in headlines over the last five days or so, is this funding freeze fiasco that’s been going on. On Monday night. The Trump administration sent out a late night memo essentially freezing all federal grants and not allowing them to be dispersed to the states and organizations that were scheduled to receive them. Keep this in mind when we’re talking about this, as I’m sure you’ve read about over the last couple of days. But these are funds that Congress has already approved for disbursement to all 50 states. State governments use these funds for a wide variety of items, from SNAP benefits to Pell grants for students to research grants and everything in between to the tune of trillions of dollars.
These grants pay the rent for workers, they keep folks employed, they keep families fed, and in the last couple of days, representatives and governors from states all over the country have registered their alarm and outrage at the move, and they began maneuvering to try and kill the order before it had a chance to really be implemented. But I really do want to underscore something here as I would like to read a piece from this memo that was sent out and ultimately rescinded as of yesterday to kind of underscore the breadth of it and also what may have caused some pretty intense confusion. So this is a quote from the original memo that was sent from the Office of Management and Budget, and it says, financial assistance should be dedicated to advancing administration priorities, focusing taxpayer dollars to advance a stronger and safer America, eliminating the financial burden of inflation for citizens, unleashing American energy and manufacturing ending wokeness, and the weaponization of government promoting efficiency in government and making America healthy again.
The use of federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism and Green New Deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve, this memorandum requires federal agencies to identify and review all federal financial assistance programs and supporting activities consistent with the President’s policies and requirements. And to implement these orders, each agency must complete a comprehensive analysis of all of their federal financial assistance programs to identify programs, projects, and activities that may be implicated by any of the President’s executive orders. In the interim, to the extent permissible under applicable law, federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, non-governmental organizations. DEI woke gender ideology, and the Green New Deal.
Now, here’s the issue with this, and this was the issue that many people have pointed out, and that is the subject of many lawsuits as well, is that this is very broad, and I’m kind of taking a little bit of a charitable reading here, but I really shouldn’t. It’s nonsense is what it is. It’s called impoundment. It’s been illegal for many, many years that the federal government, specifically the executive branch, cannot withhold these funds on the basis of political differences, which is essentially what this is when you include things like woke gender ideology, and the Green New Deal. And understandably, 23 states sued to create a temporary restraining order on this, which was a big piece of news on Tuesdays that there were moves from a variety of different places to try and stop the implementation of this directive and ultimately, the executive order as it stands, right? Why does this matter? I mean, this is what running the government a business looks like. It’s not how you run a government max. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s a absolutely ridiculous idea, and I think a lot of people agree.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Yeah, I mean, again, I’m smiling because as a younger me who used to be a full-fledged Republican loved the idea of running government like a business, and it just kind of baffles me the more that I’ve grown and learned and seen in the world, just kind of how dumb I was to believe that that was a right headed sort of way to look at things. And I’ll kind of touch on that in a second, but let’s step back and when we’re asking why does this matter, there are two key points here that Mel teed up that we really want to drive home. The first reason why this matters is because it is blatantly unconstitutional, but that on its own, sadly, doesn’t mean a whole lot to a lot of people out there today. So if we just say, oh, it’s against the constitution, what do we mean when we actually say that?
If there’s one thing that every four to 5-year-old in this country knows about our country and our national mythology, it’s that America was founded because our ancestors didn’t want to be ruled by kings anymore. They did not. They had spent generations, centuries living under top down futile style king type power structures, and it sucked, right? It was a bad way to run societies. And so we came to this new world and created a more democratic system. I say more democratic, not fully democratic. We know there are plenty of reasons in American history for why we were never a full fledged democracy, but the promise of democracy was meant as a direct refutation of the proven evils and inefficiencies of kingly rule. And so that’s why we have the damn system that we have set up as imperfect as it is, there was a point to it.
And so that’s what we mean when we say it’s unconstitutional, is it is violating that basic social contract upon which this whole country is founded, where a president should not have by definition and by principle, the unilateral authority to just govern by shooting at the hip through executive orders, and totally circumventing the power of the purse that Congress has been democratically endowed with. There is a reason why the house has the power of the purse, why Congress has that power, because it’s meant to be the most beholden to the people, the most representative of the people. And so the should in theory be the ones with that control over how this country spends its money. And so the President, by definition, by principles should not have and does not have the authority to just freeze trillions of dollars that have already been appropriated by that democratic or more democratic system and just decide that they’re going to halt that freezing.
They’re going to review stuff, and they’re going to determine who gets their funding and who doesn’t. What happens in corporations, that’s what happens in, again, king societies run by kings and queens. That’s not what’s supposed to happen in a democratic society, and there’s a reason for that. So when we say it’s unconstitutional and that matters, there’s a really deep kind of principle at work here that we should not be ruled by the whims and unilateral authority of one person. I think that’s a good thing. I mean, again, otherwise, everything that all of us have ever learned in school about our country and why it’s good is wrong. So there’s that. But then there’s also another reason why this matters that Mel mentioned, right? This just really underlines the stupidity, the inappropriateness of thinking of government, like a business thinking of things like the US Postal Service in the terms of the private market and not thinking about the essential service that a functioning postal service provides to a functioning democracy.
That is what the postal service is there to do to make sure people get their damn mail, not just the people who can afford it. And so if you’re judging things like the US Postal Service by its profit margins or its returns on investment, and you’re not including that social investment and that social benefit, that political benefit, then you’re not going to be able to assess the success of that agency or the government writ large. And so, yeah, I wanted to kind of just tee up a clip that we had poll for a previous section, but I think it’s really apt here, but it’s a clip from James Goodwin who is the policy director for the Center of Progressive Reform. Now, I actually spoke with James on when I was guest hosting an episode of Laura Flanders, a show. Shout out to the great journalist Laura Flanders and her show Laura Flanders and friends.
So Laura and I spoke with James last summer about project 2025. Its authors, its plans, but also one particular aspect of Project 2025, which is Schedule F, which is the order that Trump has already brought back in that recategorize, thousands of federal employees who have certain protections that are there for a reason, reclassifies them as at-will employees, the same way that like workers in this country, most workers in this country are, you can be fired like that without just cause. So I asked James what the effect of this was going to be if these federal workers with their worker protections were suddenly made at will employees under this regime, what effect would that have? So let’s play that clip really quick.
James Goodwin:
Yeah. So what makes the foundation of our administrative state is the people, professional, apolitical experts. This is something we started building in this country in the late 18 hundreds to replace what was known at the time as a spoil system. These jobs were essentially done by friends of the president or people in political power, and that was just a breeding ground for corruption and incompetence. This is what Schedule F would do, is it would return us to this system. And so under this proposal, we would take all these experts, these tens of thousands of scientists, engineers, attorneys, what have you, we’d fire them who they’re getting replaced with as somebody who’s somebody whose only real skill is unquestioned loyalty to the president.
Maximillian Alvarez:
All right? So we’re not on the campaign trail anymore. This is no longer a what if situation, this is happening. This is what they’re doing. Now, Russ V, one of the primary authors of Project 2025 is having his hearing right now to be in charge of the Office of Management and Budget so that he can implement the things that he has laid out, and the other authors of Project 2025 have laid out in project 2025 itself, but we don’t have to get into that. The point just being is that let’s talk about this now that it’s actually happening instead of like, is this going to happen or not? Right? The point to really make here is what James said. Again, you can have all the justifiable problems that you have that we have with the government as such with certain government agencies that are not working properly or doing enough to serve the people.
We all get that. But when you take the people who are actually making the government work as much as it is, and you turn them into an unprotected, easily fireable kind of class of employee who are, again, through this sort of memo that was sent out to over 2 million government employees asking them to voluntarily leave the government while also pushing folks back to work in person, trying to get them to leave all reclassifying workers under Schedule F so they could be more easily fired. The cumulative effect here is to purge the government of non ideologically federal workers and restock what’s left of those agencies with Trump aligned loyalists. And this sounds great when you’re thinking in 21st century terms of running government like a business, but as James rightly points out, we’ve had this before. It’s the whole reason that the civil service exists. Because in the 18th century, we had a system that’s working like how Trump and his administration wanted to work now where appointees were loyalists, friends, family members, and it was a corrupt nightmare, and nothing got done, and people were furious about it. So they spent the 20th century trying to get the government to not be that. Now we’re going back. That perspective’s important. That’s why this also matters.
Mel Buer:
Yeah, agree. I think this kind of makes a, I don’t know. It’s a rising mass of corruption that is just getting larger. The farther we get into the Trump administration, they have a very clear policy agenda that they, I think know that they might not realistically be able to slim through via legislative means, which is why the executive orders are happening in this way because they know that many of these bills that they would like to see happen will not get passed. They’ll get stopped. They’ll get sued out of existence. So the best thing they can do is do an executive order. And this is what’s happened with this particular federal funding freeze memo, right? The outcry was really big this week. We had governors going on the TV to say, this directly affects my constituents. These people rely on unemployment insurance and SNAP benefits, WIC and everything else in order to make sure that their families are fed.
I’ve been receiving phone calls from panicked constituents for two days. This is not okay. This needs, there needs to be some pushback. What ended up happening is that there are multiple lawsuits that have been filed, including one where I think 23 plus states filed a lawsuit against this directive. They’re trying to get a judge to grant a temporary restraining order on it after that lawsuit was filed. The White House rescinded that memo yesterday and the White House press secretary leave, it took to Twitter to clarify that it was just the memo itself that was rescinded and not the original order to begin to examine which federal funding could be frozen based on the investigations that they want to do into these appropriations.
Lawyers took that quite reasonably, I would say, to mean that the lawsuits they filed were still worth pursuing. Right. I know there was some confusion on social media yesterday that the memo being rescinded meant that the entire executive order was rescinded, and the press secretary’s clarification on Twitter keyed us into the fact that it was just the memo itself and that they were absolutely planning on continuing to move forward with the directives in the executive orders relating to this. So lawyers made that case to Rhode Island, US District Chief Judge John McConnell yesterday, and they quoted that tweet in their case that despite resending the memo, the plans were still in place to freeze funding at some point in the future, if not in the next week. And the judge agreed and allowed that TRO suit to proceed. So where we’re at with this right now is that the memo has been rescinded, the plaintiffs in this case, for a temporary restraining order.
The lawyers representing 23 plus states refiled their suit last night that seeks to prevent any blocking of federal financial obligations now and in the future, and also prohibits any reiss issues of the now rescinded directive. So the White House can’t, or the Office of Management and Budget cannot put out another memo under different wording. They can’t kind of wiggle their way around it by directing only some agencies to freeze their funding while this TRO is in effect. So they’ve submitted this proposal to the judge, the DOJ has 24 hours to respond, which as of right before we went live, I don’t think they have responded quite yet. And then the judge will signal that a ruling is likely going to come at some point in the next couple of days. So if he grants this TRO on this particular thing, that means that for at least 14 days, there is no federal freezing of the funds.
It means that SNAP benefits will be funded. It means that Pell Grants will be paid out. It means that federal work study will still be available to students at universities and all the way down the list. And that TRO proposal also says that if needed, they can extend that by another 14 days. So what we’re looking at is 14 to 30 days. Presumably it gives additional lawsuits, the chance to kind of move forward with this or the Trump administration can take the L and back away from this policy and rescind this executive order. I think this amongst the 38 that have been filed, and I’m sure more that will be signed today and tomorrow and the next day. This seems to be the one that really kind of kicked up a lot of dust and also kicked the opposition into gear a little bit more than what we’ve been seeing over the last two weeks to three months, because it really is confusing and broad, very, very broad and affects a lot of people.
So in terms of that litigation, hopefully it’s successful. We’ll see in the next couple of days. One thing that I do just want to end on with this specific issue is that there’s a lot of information that’s blurring past your tl, right? We’re getting headlines every other day about some absolutely obscene, harrowing directives coming out of the White House, and they’re coming at this breakneck speed. And there is a tracker that you can follow. Just security publication has a tracker specifically about executive orders that the Trump administration is putting out, and any litigation that is trying to challenge those orders in the future, including updates, they have a pretty solid team that’s doing this across the board, not just about the executive orders, but the tracker that they have is specific to that. And I know that I was looking yesterday on Blue Sky trying to find someone who is aggregating all of this, because you can only listen to so many group chats before you start getting stuck and not spiraling a little bit because the information is, ah, we will just say that there’s so much of it. So I found this tracker, I went through it, and I think it’s really great. We’ll put a link in our description, we’ll drop it in the chat for you, because if you’re like me and you want to stay informed, but you want to stay informed without doom spiraling and see how folks are actually challenging these things to varying degrees of success, then that’s a good place to start. I think I
Maximillian Alvarez:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And again, please let us know here at The Real News in the live chat now, reach out to us on social media. Email us. That is our explicit goal too. As I said at the top of this live stream, it’s more important now than ever when it is an explicit tactic of this administration. It is an explicit prerogative of the social media platforms that we use to bombard us with information so that we stay on those platforms like waiting for the next bit of information to come, but we’re not actually doing anything with that information except consuming it, fearfully reacting to it, or angrily reacting to it, and then moving on quickly to the next thing. And the more of us who are in that position, the less mobilized we are as a populace. And we here at The Real News believe that people, real people, working people across this country and around the world are the solution to the problems that we’re experiencing.
Like we are the ones who are going to work together to build the world that works for all of us. We fundamentally believe that you me, everyone watching this is part of the solution. And so we want to provide information, updates, analysis. We want to give you access to the voices. You’re not hearing the workers on the front lines, the people living in these sacrifice zones, the people brutalized by the police, the people brutalized by our broken healthcare system and our war industry that is wreaking death and destruction across the planet like we are trying to bring you in touch with those people, those voices, the movements that are trying to address them, and to get you to feel that you are part of that and to understand that you can be part of these solutions. So we want to hear from you if we’re doing a good job of that, and if there’s other kinds of information, other voices, other perspectives that you want us to provide so that you feel more empowered to act and to do something and to be part of the solution here.
So please do also reach out to us and share with us any suggestions or recommendations that you’ve got there. And we’ve got about 25 minutes left in this live stream. We also want to hear if this was helpful to you, and we are not going to be able to kind of get to some questions from the live chat itself today, but we have been sourcing questions from y’all leading up to this live stream on social media, we have a text service that you can get real news updates on through text messaging. And folks have been sending us great questions ahead of this live stream through that service, and you can learn more about how to sign up for it in the live chat right now. So we are going to end in a few minutes, kind of like Mel and I will step back a bit and sort of assess based on these questions that we got before the stream began in the final 15 minutes here. But before we get there, I know Mel, there are kind of another key story that we’ve both been really concerned about, but you really want to impress upon viewers why this is one of those headlines passing your timeline that you should actually focus on.
Mel Buer:
Yeah, so in the last week or so, there’s been a bit of a, I hesitate to use the word shakeup, but there has been some changes with the NLRB and what we’ve been seeing is that NLRB, Jennifer General Counsel Jennifer Bruso was fired. Honestly, I think most folks were kind of expecting that there was sort of a changeover. And what she does is she’s kind of the top adjudicator prosecutor investigator for the NLRB. She’s been really good at bringing forth some really important sort of policy changes and also rule changes that really kind of have helped workers organize. She’s been really tough on bosses and really holding corporations like Amazon to feet to the fire kind of expected that to happen. It happened when Biden took over in 2021. There was a shakeup there with the general counselor, if I believe correctly. And so we kind of expected that to happen.
What is surprising is that the NLRB chair G, when Wilcox was also fired, she was appointed in December, I think appointed and confirmed in December, and she is the first black member, black woman member of the NLRB. She is also supposed to keep her job through the next couple of years, and that as it stands, the NLRA and the various policies do not have provisions. These board members are not at-will members. They’re supposed to serve out their term unless there is some sort of malfeasance or a specific event that someone can point to in the administration to fire any member of the board. You can’t do it. And so it was very surprising to see G when Wilcox fired at the beginning of this week. And there is a statement here from the A-F-L-C-I-O President Liz Schuler, that I kind of want to just read a little bit here that says, president Trump’s firing of NLRB member Gwen Wilcox, the first black woman to serve on the board, is illegal and will have immediate consequences for working people by leaving only two board members in their posts.
The president has effectively shut down the National Labor Relations Board’s operation, leaving the workers at defenses on their own in the face of union busting and retaliation alongside the firing of NLRB General Counsel bruso, these moves will make it easier for bosses to violate the law and trample on workers’ legal rights on the job and fundamental freedom to organize. Now this is important and we’ll kind of talk about this just in a moment about what exactly the NLRB does on a sort of granular level. But the way that the NLRB essentially operates is that the board is the sort of adjudicators. They make decisions on union elections, they make decisions on investigations into workplaces. They make decisions on unfair labor practice charges that will bring consequences against employers when they treat their workers badly. Break the law, retaliate fire workers for union organizing, any number of things in order for the board to operate, there has to be quorum.
So of the five members, there has to be at least three appointed working members of the board. Right now, there are vacancies, which is also surprising. Normally in the normal course of things, an incoming president will use those vacancies to kind of shift making. And there were two vacancies on the board that would’ve, I think if you’re talking about the strategy here would have changed policy at the NLRB by itself. Now, there’s only two members of the board after Gwen Wilcox has been fired, which means the board doesn’t have quorum. They do not have the authority to make decisions until they have quorum. So any of the sort of things that the board could do to uphold the NLRA, which is to say the enforcement of the law that protects worker rights in this country can’t happen until a new person is appointed and confirmed or until Wilcox is reinstated, which she has indicated that she will pursue whatever legal avenues that she has to be reinstated to fight this firing.
Because again, it’s illegal. It’s illegal. What Trump did, and I’m not trying to create this doom spiral, but this is concerning. It’s very alarming and it’s important that we kind underscore that I know that there are folks among the labor movement who would love to see the sort of wild west of labor organizing return. We may actually see that at some point in the future, but at the moment, what we have with the NLRA is workable. It’s not great, but it is workable and it does keep individuals employed. It keeps individuals from getting hurt on the job. It keeps individuals from being fired for organizing. And if we don’t have an NLRB that can enforce that because it’s been hobbled by this particular thing, it’s not great Max,
Maximillian Alvarez:
No. It’s like, yeah, I forget who the quote came from. I think it was a democratic legislator, but it was like the message right now is workers are on their own. And functionally that is correct because the NLRB insufficient as it is, and we have reported on that too. We’ve reported on how understaffed, underfunded and the NLRB is and has been for years. We’ve reported over the years about how the NLRB should be more aggressive in enforcing labor law. Again, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. The NLRB cannot be perfect, but things can be a lot worse without it, right? We’re capable of having that conversation, but we need to understand also what that means in real terms. And so I want to kind of tee up a clip here from Mellon MA’s podcast working people where I spoke with workers at the National Labor Relations Board, like rank and file workers, labor lawyers, people who are doing the work of the agency and who are also both representatives in the NLRB Union.
So this was actually an interview that we did when we were approaching the threshold of a government shutdown in, I think that was September, 2023. Remember that was the kind of congressional Republicans internal fighting over more spending cuts, border security, no military aid to Ukraine. It was a high stakes fight between McCarthy and Matt Gates. So it was in that period that I spoke with Colton Puckett and Michael Billick legislative co-chairs of the NLRB Union and full-time NLRB workers about just what it is that they and other NLRB staff do and the role that that work plays in our daily working lives. So let’s listen to that clip right now
Colton Puckett:
At a high level sort of the core functions that we do that I think most folks that know about our agency know about what we do and that’s we investigate unfair labor practice charges. So someone believes that their employer or their union has violated the law in some way. They can file a charge with us and we investigate it and figure out whether or not the charge has merit. That’s a big portion of the work we do and I’ll talk a little bit more about what that means. But another big thing that we do is we run union elections essentially, right? And so when workers come together, they decide we want to form a union, we want to join a union, they’ll file a petition with us. There’s a certain process that entails. And then when it comes time to actually hold the election, we in the field go to wherever that election is taking place and we make sure that it’s done and done as fair and impartial away as is possible.
And then the last thing we do, another big thing that is sort of a part and parcel with unfair labor practice investigations is we try cases. And so if we find that there is merit to one of these unfair labor practice charges that we get, we always will try to settle a case of course, but sometimes it doesn’t work out. And so that means we actually go to trial before an administrative law judge and we litigate the case and we try and prove the violation. And it’s similar to, it’s not exactly like going to federal court, but it’s the same general idea. And so that’s another sort of big portion of the work that we do. And so that’s kind of the big three things at a very high level. But I think sometimes getting into sort of the day to day, some of that can get lost.
And so as field staff, I think Mike mentioned sort of at the top, we work in offices spread all around the country. And so we are essentially the frontline of the agency for working people all across the country. And that means that we interface directly with workers every single day, whether that’s a charging party, we’re trying to help them figure out how to e-file their evidence, for example, or figure out what they need to send to us that might be useful versus what not to, or if we’re just answering questions about where their cases in the process or what certain processes means. Because a lot of this is like legalese, right? And we don’t expect everybody to know exactly what an unfair labor practice is. That’s a big portion of the work we do. One of the things that we do, there’s in every regional office, there’s an information officer on duty every day.
And so you can call your regional office, they might not answer immediately, but leave a voicemail and you will talk to a live person that day and they will walk you through any questions that you have. If you want to file a charge, they can assist you in preparing the charge and informing you how to do that. And I don’t necessarily know that a lot of other federal agencies have that type of direct person to person interaction in that way. And so that’s a big thing that we do. We talk to folks all the time and then just try and help them understand what it is we do and what it is their rights are.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Alright? So that’s not nothing, that’s not evil bureaucracy, that’s real shit that real working people depend on. And in the final kind of minutes here, Mel and I just wanted to drive this point home because we could be playing clips for the next five hours of real world examples that real world workers have told us on our podcast about when they needed the NLRB to adjudicate an injustice, a violation of their rights, and how important that was to their livelihoods, how important it was to their union drive, how important it was for the labor movement itself. But that’s what we’re trying to get y’all to see is that this is not just conceptual, nameless, faceless bureaucratic stuff. That’s what they do. That’s what folks at the NLRB do. And just to give one example, that was the first field report that I did when I started here at the Real News in the middle of Covid in 2020.
Let’s not forget that early in 20 21, 1 of the biggest stories in the country was that workers in Bessemer, Alabama majority black de-industrialized Bessemer, Alabama with twice the national poverty rate that they were leading the charge to form the country’s first unionized workforce at an Amazon facility. Now we know that they ended up being unsuccessful in that union drive, but that drive sparked so many of the other labor struggles that we’ve reported on over the past few years, including it contributed to the Amazon Labor Union successful unionization drive in New York. And so that’s a real world example. I was there on the ground, Mel was talking to these workers, I’ve talked to these workers, I’ve been in their union hall. They tried to hold a union election, which is their right, that is their Democratic right to vote on whether or not they want a union, even if it is at the second largest private employer in the country and one of the biggest international behemoths in the world.
These workers had that right? And they exercised it. And the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Amazon had illegally interfered in that election by placing a US Postal Service mailbox on Amazon property right in front of the employee entrance with the Amazon cameras pointed on it. And so the NLRB said, Hey, that’s not a free and fair election. This is intimidation, this is surveillance. You guys have to have another election. They had that enforcement ability to give workers in Bessemer an another chance, a fair shot at a union election. So that’s just one example of a high stakes ruling that both shows how Amazon is a much bigger behemoth than the NLRB can take on by its own. But that ruling really mattered for workers who were really fighting for what they believed in. Mel, I know you’ve seen tons of others. Are there any few you want to highlight here real quick?
Mel Buer:
Well, I think I want to just, I could name ’em all up top of the bat. We can do Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Strike is A ULP strike, right? We can do half of the walkouts it Starbucks started with ULPs fired because bargaining wasn’t starting fast enough. We can talk about pretty much I would say a sizable chunk of a worker’s ability to withhold their work legally begins with the filing of A ULP. And the NLRB has to reach a certain place with that, right? Where you are filing this grievance and you say, we have checked our boxes and we’ve filed this ULP that says bargaining is not going well. The company’s bargaining in bad faith, which means they are not actually giving a good faith effort to sit across the table and work through this contract negotiation like we are. They have actively endangered workers, for example, at Starbucks during the LA firestorm.
They have enacted policies that are retaliatory. They have held captive audience meetings. When we are trying to form a union, all of these rulings that the NLRB rules on are designed to free and fairly investigate these complaints and then to actually offer some sort of recourse for workers, whether that means ordering a management back to the table and telling ’em to stuff it and get the job done, or whether that means enacting no captive audience meetings in workplaces, right? Whether that means allowing individuals to be on company grounds to organize off hours, to pull in people and have conversations to work on a union campaign that’s gone public. All of these things are what the NLRB helps us do. And there are dozens, dozens of people, dozens of campaigns that I’ve talked to that I’ve reported on in the last just year where the outcome in some way or another depends upon what the NLRB can do for them.
And that’s just the place that we’re in. And that’s really the recourse that we have right now. We have to kind of thread that needle and to use the law as inadequate as it is to our benefit and be able to work within that and use the NLRB as an agency for what it’s there for, which is to say often I look at the nlrbs sort of policies in the last 10 years or so. And when we have a board that is really focused on pro worker focus, a lot of things can happen. Final example I’ll give is that in 2017, the NLRB was full of pro business folks that Trump had appointed and during Trump’s administration and then the subsequent administration after, there was really this kind of watershed moment with graduate student organizing where during Trump’s administration there was restraints on which type of graduate students could organize on college campuses.
That rule changed in the last five, six years as a result of a more pro worker NLRB makeup. And there has been an explosion in new organizing on university campuses that we didn’t see before. And by some metrics, it is the fastest and most consistent organizing that has happened in this country in the last five years. So it kind of underscores the importance of what this agency can do for us as and what this agency can do for us as a worker’s movement. And so when it’s hobbled by an administration as it has been in the Trump administration, things become exponentially more difficult.
My fellow union workers at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette waited for a year and a half for a decision on the ULP that they filed. They’ve been on strike for over three years at this point, trying to get the company at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette to bargain fairly and to stop playing games with their health insurance and their livelihoods. And the NLRB is really the thing that’s driving those consequences so that they can get back to the table and get back to work. And so as much as we want to sit here and say that, oh, it’s just another bunch of feckless bureaucrats, no, it has real world implications for how we can organize in the future. And I truly believe that in terms of movement building in this country, the labor movement is an integral part to that for all its faults. And that institution needs to use the tools that it has at its disposal. So when an administration, any administration, because I’m not saying that democratic administrations in the past haven’t used the NLRB as a cudgel, haven’t deliberately underfunded it and understaffed it because they are also only worker in name, but not really in action.
It’s important for us to be able to uphold this institution because it helps us maintain some semblance of control over our workplaces, at least for now. We will see what the next 10, 15 years look like. As Hamilton Nolan has said, the Democrats squander their chance to really rebuild the labor movement. I agree. And we are now in single digits a little bit in terms of union density, but we’re not cooked by any stretch of the imagination. And if we can pay attention to and internalize the fact that some of these agencies and the work that they do is actually really useful for our movement building, then I think we have a better chance of staving off the worst impulses of this fascist government. So
Maximillian Alvarez:
No, I think that’s powerfully put melon just again, a plea to everyone watching. If you’ve been watching our reporting over these past few years or other people’s reporting on the Starbucks Union Drive, the Amazon Union Drive, but not just those, I mean healthcare workers going on strike for their patients, teachers and educators going on strike for their students, their communities like manufacturing in the auto industry and beyond. John Deere workers journalists at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette entertainers at medieval times. I mean these struggles of working people where people like you and me have realized that if they band together exercise their rights form a union and work together as a union, that they can actually change their lives, they can change their circumstances, they can even change our society circumstances like the machinists going on strike at Boeing or the railroad workers fighting for rail safety that impacts all of us like we were talking about earlier in the stream.
All of that is going to be so deeply impacted by a nonfunctional NLRB or an LRB that is functional but actively hostile to the worker’s side of the struggle and is doing the bidding of the employer class. I don’t know what the stories we report are going to be. I don’t know what the workers we interview are going to say in the coming years if that is the case, but I promise you it’s not going to be what it’s been in the past few years where workers have seen this groundswell and they’ve wanted to be part of it and they’ve seen a path to unionization with an NLRB that actually is functional enough to serve the needs of working people trying to exercise their rights. We are not in that territory anymore. And so even if you don’t give a shit about anything in dc, which I would totally forgive you for, if you give a shit about the labor movement and working people, this is going to impact that this is going to impact you.
And we don’t know what the ripple effects are going to be to the business class, to the private sector, to all the employers out there who now know that workers are on their own like they did after Reagan fired the PATCO strikers in 81. We don’t know what the cascading effect is going to be if employers decide to go more on the offensive in squashing unionization efforts, more on the offensive in rolling back workers’ rights, treating workers with shit, knowing that they’re going to have fewer options for recourse through the NLRB. So if nothing else, let’s remind ourselves that matters. And that concerns us, our neighbors, our coworkers, but also that we, as Mel said, are not cooked here. We are not powerless here. We have a vested interest in the story and we ourselves are part of the outcome. I say, I don’t know how this is going to shape out because I don’t know what you are going to do about it.
I don’t know what everyone watching this is going to do about it, but that’s going to determine what the outcome is. And so again, if anything, we want to leave y’all with that note that this is meant for you for us to figure out what we do next. And with that kind of wrapping up the 90 minutes where we’re sort of looking at these key headlines, I wanted to just have 10 minutes of bonus time here so that we could Mel take a step back and sort of breathe a bit and address these really great questions that some of our supporters and viewers sent into us that helped us think about how to frame this live stream in a way. We’ve been trying to answer the questions over the past 90 minutes, but I wanted to just toss these out there and get your thoughts.
And also what you guys in the live chat think about this. But one of the key questions that we got from Giovanni R, which was really great, which was how much do you estimate this regime will affect what’s left of workers’ benefits and safety standard? So we kind of started to addressing that now, and we’re going to talk about it a little more in a second, but that’s one key question that we’ve been trying to answer here. Another question that we got from David B, which I think is also really crucial is David asked, will labor only present a front for or a front of resistance and fight back, or is it actually going to push the limits of what we as working class people need and demand? Will labor stop seeing the Democratic party as the vehicle for that fight back and resistance? Will labor exert itself as if it understands and believes that the laboring class is the Sina quinan of production and wealth?
Great question so much that we could say about there. But yeah, I want you guys watching to think about that. And the last question that I wanted to throw up on the screen here, which helped us kind of prepare for this live stream was from Edward S. And so Edward wrote to us saying, when will the unions educate their membership about labor history and that the GOP is their foe? It’s atrocious that a huge percent of union members vote for Trump. And so Mel, I wanted to just kind of, now that we’ve gotten through the last 90 minutes, do you feel like there are any kind of other lingering answers to those questions that we didn’t get to or things that are really kind sticking in your mind?
Mel Buer:
I think I’ll start with the first one with Giovanni’s. Maybe we can just kind of do a couple of minutes for each one. But I think when we talk about how much this regime will affect what’s left of workers’ benefits and safety standards, I think one thing that I’ve learned over the course of my reporting, whether it’s been on OSHA agencies in California or in the healthcare industry on the West coast or the railroad industry in the Midwest or wherever else, is that oftentimes these agencies can be equipped with the ability to maintain safety standards, to maintain workers’ benefits. And oftentimes there’s no political will to maintain those subsequent administrations may cater to lobbyists, to understaff these agencies to re-appropriate funds away from these agencies. Just like anything else in the government, you need money to operate. And if you’re being appropriated less and less money each year, that means you’re hiring less and less OSHA inspectors each year.
That means there’s less OSHA inspectors to handle the complaints that happen that are called in, and then they start making hard decisions about which ones to investigate and which ones not to. Or it sits on a waiting list as what happens with the NLRB, where oftentimes, for example, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette complaint was essentially on a waiting list for investigation for over a year because there’s just not enough people who have been tasked with investigating these things. And so I think what we’ve kind of been talking about Max is there’s a bit of a breakdown in the system itself that perpetuates these problems. Something that happens a lot is that workers see this breakdown in an acute area like the aviation industry, like the agriculture industry, like the healthcare industry, and the fight at their disposal is, for example, I just did reporting in Southern California on the Kaiser health system and mental health professionals who are still on strike after a hundred days, who saw these breakdowns in the system that was disproportionately affecting their patients because there weren’t enough people getting hired.
And these are critically, acutely mentally ill patients who require regular treatments who aren’t getting that illegally so in the state of California. And so what they do is they view these as workers’ rights issues, patient issues or workers’ rights issues in the healthcare industry. So what do they have at their disposal? They went on strike, their contract expired, and they’re not going to get off the picket line until they get real written in stone, in paper, signed by Kaiser that these conditions will cease being as horrendous as they are because that means that they can take care of their patients better. So in that sense, subsequent administrations have done something to the effect of deregulating portions of the industry to serious, they create serious problems. The railroad strike happened, almost happened under the Biden administration and was stopped last minute. And if you talk to some railroad workers, they aren’t happy about that. They feel like they lost leverage because the Biden administration stepped in at a critical time where he could have said, actually, I don’t have to do this. So I don’t know, man, I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better are obviously we are looking down the barrel of four years at least of extreme MAGA GOP policies that have their own ideology. Obviously they have their own plan and a lot of us are going to get left out in the cold.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Or
I wanted to jump in on that point too, because when I think about what these conditions are going to be for our fellow workers, current generations and future generations, to answer Giovanni’s question, I guess what we would say is what railroad workers told me and Mel, when we first started investigating that story years ago, every single worker we talked to told us the same thing at the top. What you need to understand is this goes way back. And so if anything, that’s an argument for why all y’all out there should stop fucking watching mainstream political news or even independent news junkie stuff that only focuses on bipartisan politics and follows the news cycle of Washington DC because it rots your brain and you lose the ability to think like a real regular person. Now when you talk to other real regular working people, you get a better frame on the problems that we’re experiencing.
And so when railroad workers are saying, here’s the problem, now here’s how far back this goes, and that’s how far back our memories go because we’ve experienced it. And that is decidedly different from the political election cycle. And this is something that we’ve been bringing up on our reporting here over and over again, is that Donald Trump Biden, these last few election cycles have been characterized by a sort of like, what did the previous administration do that the next administration’s blaming them about and overturning? And why are people voting for Trump? Because they’re mad at Biden and his policies. But really what we are talking about here in the political world is that voters are responding every two to four years to a crisis that’s been building for the last 40, 50, 60 years. And so the cumulative effects of this death by a thousand deregulatory cuts, that is kind of what we’re trying to get a handle on here because that is the frame you need to have to understand how conditions have gotten this bad.
And as Mel said, they’re probably going to get worse before they get any better. I mean, from the air traffic controller staffing shortage to the pollution of industrial pollution of communities in sacrifice zones around the country from East Palestine to South Baltimore. I mean, this stuff starts happening in more and more places year after year when unsexy uninteresting legislation gets kind of passed through, doesn’t really, it’s not really a blip on people’s radars when it happens 15 years ago and then 15 years later, you end up living next to a lake that you can’t swim in that you’ve swam in your whole life. Public policy bioaccumulates, it accumulates in our bodies, it accumulates in our jobs, it accumulates in our communities. It doesn’t all happen overnight. But I guess that’s the point I’m getting at is that we are still in the process of experiencing and feeling the full weight of decisions that have already been made that were made in Trump’s last administration and Biden’s last administration and Obama’s administration in Reagan’s administration, right?
We are still finding out the repercussions of those decisions that have already been made, and we are laying the groundwork for even more impactful decisions to hurt us well into the future. And that’s why I jumped in when you said that we’ll be left out in the cold and I said, or even in the heat, because that’s another storyline that we follow here too. What are workers and workers’ rights and labor unions going to do as the climate crisis continues to spiral out of control, which it sure as hell is going to the more we do this drill, baby drill crap pull out of the Paris Climate accords while LA is burning Western North Carolina is obliterated by hurricanes. We are barreling in the exact opposite direction. But what makes me think of that example is that I remember when the Supreme Court overturned Biden’s attempt to require workplaces of over a hundred people to have covid vaccine mandates, or for folks who didn’t want to take the vaccine that they did regular testing.
The Supreme Court said that they rejected that order and it was hailed as a victory for the anti-vax crowd for the Trump MAGA crowd. But what you and I saw, Mel, and what we talked about because we actually read the ruling, was that the Supreme Court said, because COVID-19 is a general condition that it just exists in the world, no one employer can be responsible for implementing these kinds of policies to address it. And so what they were doing was laying the groundwork for employers off scot-free as the climate gets worse, as people are working in hotter conditions when they’re dying in the summer heat or they’re breathing in toxic chemicals. And basically, we have set the stage for employers to not be liable for our deaths when they’re putting us regularly at hazard in our working conditions as the climate crisis worsens. That’s what I’m trying to point to is these decisions are going to have ripple effects for generations.
So there are things we can do now, but we have to have a full kind of clear sense of the problem. And that’s what we’re going to try to keep taking apart and analyzing piecemeal in these live streams in our reports. Like I said, at the top of this live stream, our goal is to not get overwhelmed by the news cycle, but to practice focus, to use our journalistic tools to give you the information you need to act and not be immobilized and hopeless. And so that’s what we’re working on doing and doing better here. And so we really want to hear from you guys and let us know if we are doing better, if there are things that you’d like us to see do people you’d like us to have on subjects that you really need help breaking down in our team here, not just our journalists, but our incredible whole team of editors, producers, studio technicians, let us be usable to you.
Let us know what you need and we will use our skills to try to help. But ultimately, you are the solution. You are the one who is going to determine with your neighbors, your coworkers, your fellow working people, what happens in the future, what kind of future we are leaving for our children. And so our job here at The Real News is to make sure you’ve got what you need to make change, and we want to hear from you, and we want you to hold us accountable if we are not following through on that. And so please let us know what you thought of this live stream, let us know what you’d like us to cover in future Live streams, and please keep sending questions so that we can be answering them better and more directly. We’ve got so much to say on it, but ultimately what matters is that we’re saying what you are looking for and need to hear and not just listening to ourselves talk, right?
And so that’s the goal here. That’s what we at the Real News are here to do. We are a team that is here for you, and we’re a strong and mighty team. And Mel, I could not be more honored to be on this team with you guys in the back, our whole studio team, Adam, cam, Dave, Kayla, Jocelyn, James, looking at the live chat, everybody on this team is here to help and we are here for you and we really appreciate your support and we look forward to seeing y’all next Thursday when we go live again. But until then, please support our work so that we can keep bringing you important coverage and conversations like this. And more important than ever, take care of yourselves and take care of each other. Solidarity forever.
Several people were killed and many seriously injured in a stampede that took place at around 2 am on January 29 at the ongoing Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. According to official figures, the death toll is 30 and the number of injured stands at 60. According to eyewitnesses, the main trigger for the stampede was the sudden rush of pilgrims at the Sangam who were eager to take a bath at 3 am on the beginning of the auspicious muhurat of Mauni Amavasya. Since it was the morning of Mauni Amavasya, one of the most auspicious days of the Hindu calendar, the rush of crowd that gathered to take a holy bath on this occasion transformed into a stampede.
Following this incident, a flurry of different types of videos and claims are being widely circulated on social media. In one such video, a group of men can be seen raising slogans in support of Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav. Sharing this video, it is being claimed that these men caused the stampede at the Kumbh Mela in which many people lost their lives.
A collage of two video clips is also being shared in which one side features a report by The Lallantop. In this, a person is claiming that a bus had stopped here with 15 to 20 youths getting down from it, which caused the stampede. The second video shows footage of a group of youths shouting slogans of ‘Long live Akhilesh Yadav’. It is being claimed that these boys triggered the stampede.
An X user named Ocean Jain shared this video and wrote, “If eyewitnesses are to be believed, some people got down from a bus and caused a stampede. And you can see in the second video how they are shouting ‘Akhilesh Yadav’ as if they have come to a rally. Was this video taken before the stampede? The police and administration should investigate from this angle.” It is worth noting that this user has been found spreading misinformation earlier as well.
चश्मदीदों की माने तो कुछ लोग एक बस से उतरे और भगदड़ मचाए
और आप दूसरी वीडियो देख सकते है कैसे अखिलेश यादव चिल्ला रहे है जैसे किसी रैली में आए हो
कहीं यह वीडियो भगदड़ वाली स्थिति के पहले का तो नहीं है??
BJP supporter Raushan Sinha shared the video and wrote that the Uttar Pradesh government should investigate whether these young men were the reason behind the stampede. (Archived link)
BJP supporter Rajiv Bhatia (@Ra_Bies) tweeted this video and called it a shocking incident and slammed Akhilesh Yadav. (Archived link)
BJP supporter Nitin Shukla also shared the video and made a similar claim. (Archived link)
Fact Check
We performed a reverse image search using frames taken from the viral footage and found the source video uploaded on Instagram by a user named Pradeep Yadav with over 1.57 lakh views. We reached out to Yadav, who told us that he had recorded the video on January 27 at 5 am.
He also shared with us a screenshot of the metadata details from the phone that was used to record the viral video. It can be seen below that the video was captured at 5:25 am on January 27.
In addition, Pradeep told us that his friend Virendra Yadav is also seen in the video. Virendra also posted the video on his social media accounts on January 27. Pradeep shared with us the link to the video posted by Virendra on Facebook and Instagram. It can be clearly seen that this video was posted on January 27. In other words, the video was posted on social media two days before the stampede, which occurred on the morning of January 29. Therefore, the claim that these youths caused the stampede is false.
To sum up, many BJP supporters shared a video of some men raising slogans of ‘Long live Akhilesh Yadav’ at the Maha Kumbh Mela and falsely claimed that these men caused the stampede which led to the death of many people. However, in reality, this video was posted online two days before the incident.
Over the past week, several social media users shared distressing footage showing a severely injured woman to insinuate that Hindu women were being exploited and tortured in Bangladesh.
The video shows a bleeding woman, sitting by the road, barely able to string together words coherently. When asked where her house is, she replies indistinctly. Those around her then ask if she is from Murshidabad, she nods in agreement.
On January 25, X account @Bangladesh_Fact shared this footage, claiming that it was from the country ruled by “fascist Yunus,” who “fosters terrorism”. (Archive)
Two days later, the graphic video was amplified by X account @ajaychauhan41. The accompanying caption in Hindi said: “Naked women! Mother and sister stripped naked! Naked red freedom…! This is not a film shoot! This is an anti-Hindu picture of the new country of the Islamic Yunus government of Bangladesh which promotes extremism!” (Archive)
The post acquired around 207,000 views.
Other social media users also shared similar claims:
While trying to authenticate the video, Alt News found a similar clip shared on Facebook on January 22. Rekha Patra, a BJP-nominated candidate from Sandeshkhali, West Bengal, posted a video with similar visuals claiming that a woman was hacked to death in a village falling under the Bakultala Police’s jurisdiction in Jayanagar.
Taking cue from this, we tried a Bengali keyword search, which led us to several news reports on the incident. A report by TV9 Bangla said that a woman’s body was found in the Jayanagar constituency with her face smashed. A local toto driver found her lying in a bloody state next to an empty paddy field in the Anandapur-Rathtala area of Mayahauri gram panchayat late on January 21. He called people in the nearby area and informed the chief, who in turn, informed the Bakultala police. The cops reached the spot, rescued the woman and took her to Nimpeeth Rural Hospital where they pronounced her dead on arrival.
An ABP report said that the woman’s body had wounds that seemed to indicate that she was attacked with a weapon. One side of her face was crushed and teeth broken and locals reportedly said that she was bleeding profusely.
Zee 24-ghanta‘s report added that CCTV footage identifying the murder suspect was released and police have started investigating. “Bakultala police are searching for a suspicious bike and a suspicious person caught on CCTV in the area. According to sources, the person and two people on a bike may be involved in the incident,” it said. However, the identity of the deceased woman remained unknown.
The video includes footage of the crime scene, where the police can be seen marking the area. The brick road too is visible. In the report, a man named Abdul Salam explains that he approached the distressed woman and asked her where her house was. Owing to the injuries on her face, he couldn’t understand her response and repeated “Murshidabad?” to which she nodded. Note that Murshidabad is a city in West Bengal.
News reports by Sangbad Pratidin and Hindustan Times Bangla identified the victim as Latifa Khatun and the accused as Giyasuddin Gazi, a resident of Manirtat, which falls under the Bakutala police’s jusrisdiction. Gazi reportedly confessed that he had called Khatun to his home in the area to kill her.
Alt News reached out to Bakultala police who confirmed that they managed to track down and detain the alleged perpetrator—her husband—on January 28. The police also clarified that domestic feud led to the woman getting killed and there was no communal factor in this case. The woman was from Murshidabad while her husband was from the Jaynagar area. Both belonged to the Muslim community.
To sum up, the video is from West Bengal and not Bangladesh and has been wrongly given a communal tinge.
As Senate confirmation hearings begin Wednesday for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, his cousin Caroline Kennedy has published a video slamming him as holding “dangerous and willfully misinformed” views on vaccines and other public health issues. Caroline Kennedy is the former U.S. ambassador to Japan and Australia and daughter of President John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s uncle.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
On the campaign trail and beyond, Donald Trump and MAGA right have repeatedly presented themselves as the true representatives of America’s beleaguered working class. And yet, like the Capitol rotunda on Inauguration Day, Trump’s administration is filled with billionaires, mega-millionaires, and corporate oligarchs whose staggering wealth is increasing year after year while working people struggle to get by. How are people, voters and nonvoters alike, supposed to square this seeming contradiction? In this special post-Inauguration interview, returning guest and legendary economist Dr. Richard Wolff explains how the naked oligarchy on display in Trump’s inauguration and in his administration is not a contradiction, but a clear sign of a society hastening its own collapse under the weight of historic, unsustainable levels of inequality.
Studio Production: David Hebden, Adam Coley, Cameron Granadino Post-Production: Adam Coley, Cameron Granadino Written by: Stephen Janis
Transcript
Taya Graham: Hello, my name is Taya Graham, and welcome to our special postinaugural report, and it’s an extension of our reporting for our Inequality Watch show. And today we’ll break down what we like to call here at The Real News the Second Gilded Age, and that seems perfectly aligned with Trump’s ascent to power.
Now, the first one occurred nearly 100 years ago, and it didn’t end well. Now the chasm between the rich and poor is as extreme as it was in that era. Now, back then, wealthy industrialists like J.P. Morgan and Rockefeller ran the country while elected officials stood by. Now it’s tech bros like Tesla’s Elon Musk, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai of Google. All of whom, mind you, had front row seats at President Trump’s inauguration. And we thought this was worth discussing in light of his inauguration, which seemed to us like peak Gilded Age.
In fact, there were so many billionaires in attendance and so many in his cabinet — I think it’s more than 10, right? — That we were wondering if it was some sort of fire code violation in the Capitol when there’s more than 50 billionaires in a room. What do you think?
Stephen Janis: Well, I think billionaires are accelerants. So yes, it’s possible that they were treated differently in terms of counting for fire code, yeah.
Taya Graham: I think you’re right. But you know what? In all seriousness, it’s pretty odd that an administration that purports to be the champion of the working class is pretty much run by union busting, employee downsizing, planet killing, and private equity hoarding vulture capitalists.
Now, the reason this seeming contradiction exists and what it means for us and how we can understand it will be the focus of our show today. We’re going to delve into the reasons why we’re witnessing this growing marriage between a boomer and a bevy of tech bros and what it means for all of us, because, as obvious as it might seem, there’s way more to this coalition of a few than meets the eye. Mechanisms that make this work that might surprise you, right, Stephen?
Stephen Janis: Yeah, yeah. No, I mean there’s mechanics to this. This is all purposeful. This is not some sort of surprise. We’ve been building towards this for years. So it’s a feature not a bug of this system, and we’re going to talk about that with Dr. Wolff.
Taya Graham: So Stephen, as we know, the upcoming Trump administration is stacked with billionaires, from Elon Musk to the former worldwide wrestling executive Linda McMahon. Media outlets estimate the cumulative net worth of this incumbent aristocracy is hovering around $460 billion.
Stephen Janis: Wow.
Taya Graham: And that’s why today we’re going to discuss what we like to call an economic imbalance and to see it for what it really is: a scam against humanity. To start, we’re actually going to borrow a phrase from President Trump’s speech, which we’ll listen to in just a moment. You’ll hear how he talks about how elites have extracted wealth and the American dream from the working class.
And that is a critical concept: extraction. Now, technically he said extracted, but we’re going to expand it a little bit. So let’s take a listen, and I think we might actually agree with this statement.
[CLIP BEGINS]
President Donald Trump: For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair. We now have a government that cannot manage even a simple crisis at home, while at the same time stumbling into a continuing catalog of catastrophic events abroad. It fails to protect our magnificent, law-abiding American citizens, but provides sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals.
[CLIP ENDS]
Taya Graham: Now, I think it’s interesting he would use the word “extracted”, and I wouldn’t disagree with the statement that wealth has been extracted from our citizens. It’s a pretty important word when we’re talking about the assorted billionaires that will be running his administration. But it’s also crucial for another reason — Stephen, maybe you can talk a little bit about it.
Stephen Janis: Well, I think we’ve moved into an extractive economy [where] there is no value given to the people who are supposedly building this economy, who are creating this wealth, no value exchange. The idea is we’re not going to give you something, anything meaningful, anything substantive. We’re not going to give you good healthcare. We’re not going to give you the ability to afford education. We are going to extract wealth from you.
And I think that’s the only way you can have this much wealth amassing at the top in an extractive economy. You can’t have it in a balanced economy. And I know there’s some people who say, well, capitalism, whatever. But that’s the system we live in, and that system has been corrupted to the point by this massive wealth into being extractive of us.
And it creates a psychology. It creates a psychology where people actually cheer the people who are oppressing them; we love you. And they build systems that put us in conflict. So it’s important to think about psychologically what that means. We are being extracted. We are not part of an economy. We are part of an extraction system that serves the people that were up on that dais or podium.
Taya Graham: I think that’s an excellent insight.
And I know our guest needs no introduction, but I’m pleased to give him one. Professor Richard Wolff is one of the most renowned and respected economists of our time, and he is celebrated for his ability to unravel the complexities of capitalism and inequality with clarity and depth. As the author of numerous groundbreaking books, including Democracy at Work and Capitalism’s Crisis Deepens, and he’s the host of his own YouTube channel, Professor Wolff has dedicated his career to exposing the structural forces behind our economic system. And his expertise in worker-centered economics and his passion for empowering workers makes him the perfect person to help us understand the political and economic shifts we are witnessing today.
Please join me in welcoming Professor Richard Wolff. Professor Wolff, we are so happy to have you join us again.
Dr. Richard Wolff: Thank you, and I will work hard to live up to your very generous introduction.
Taya Graham: Well, thank you. Well, Professor Wolff, last time you were here, you helped us break down this extractive economy and what consequences it does have for working people. So what did you see on Monday with Trump’s billionaire-stacked inauguration? What do you think people might be missing, and what kind of concrete impact do you think this could have on our lives?
Dr. Richard Wolff: Well, sometimes the most impressive reality about a situation like that is not what’s present, but what’s absent. As a philosopher once said, sometimes absence is the most powerful part of what is present. And that’s how it was for me watching the inauguration. Because for me as a professional economist, the most crucial aspects of the American economy today were carefully and studiously kept away. It was like an absence, which, at least for me, was screaming louder than Mr. Trump or anybody else.
So let me briefly explain, and for that a little history is in order. Many years ago, about 75, at the end of World War II, the United States emerged as the absolutely dominant economic power in the world, a position it had never held before; Before, the British Empire dominated the world. Indeed, what became the United States was a small colony in a corner of that global empire.
In 1945, by contrast, Britain was destroyed. So were Germany and France and Britain and Japan and Russia and China. They were all either destroyed by the war or destroyed before and as a consequence of the war, leaving the United States — And we all know that. The dollar became the world currency. America spread its military bases, 700 of them now all over the world, just to let everybody know who the policeman on the corner was or is. The American economy produced so many goods and services that we could and did help Europe rebuild, et cetera, et cetera. We were dominant. We set up the World Bank, we set up the International Monetary Fund. We literally organized, managed, and ran the world economy. And we made America grow very spectacularly in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, even into the ’90s. Very impressive.
But as anyone with the slightest knowledge of history would have known — And there were plenty who did — They said, this is an exceptional moment. You’re not going to have this situation of being the only one at the top. It comes out of the worst war the world has ever seen — And we don’t have that every day, thank God — And therefore it’s going to erode. It’s going to fade. Also, remember that every single empire that the world has ever seen: British, French, German, Dutch, Russian, Greek, Roman, it doesn’t matter, they all went up, and then they all went down. The American empire built up after World War II, went up. So it was only a question of when would it go down?
Here comes the first reality that was nowhere in sight on the inauguration. What are we as a nation going to do? How are we going to go through a declining empire? And lest anyone have a doubt, we are declining, the United States now, the dollar is less and less a global currency. A few years ago, central banks around the world kept 80% of their reserves in the dollar. It was considered as good as gold or maybe better. Now that number is about 40%. The dollar is still important, but nothing like it was.
Let me give you another example. These are big numbers everybody knows. The United States has a group of seven nations, of which it is one, called the G7, the Group of Seven: the United States, Canada, Japan, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy. That used to be the powerhouse core of the economy of the world. The United States as the big one in the middle, and then the other six as its allies. Well, let’s look at it today. If you add ’em all up, they together, all of them, the US and the other six, produce about 26%, 27% of the world’s output.
But there’s another group that has emerged. It’s called the BRICS, B-R-I-C-S, that stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. And the original five, they started about 15 years ago. Now they are 22 countries.
Now let me tell you very briefly about them. If you add up all the goods and services they produce in a year, the way I just did for the G7, the total portion of world output that they account for is about 35%. Let me remind you, the US and its allies account for 27% world output. BRICS, China and its allies, account for more, much more. They’re an alternative pole in the world economy. That is the more enormous reality about our economy than anything else.
Stephen Janis: But that brings up a great question, Dr. Wolff, when I was listening to you, I was thinking about this, and yet our economy is not producing as much or not growing in the way you’re talking about the other economies, but we have more billionaires than any other economy. What does that say about the way our economy operates, that even when we’re declining, there is a smaller and smaller group of people becoming wealthier and wealthier and wealthier and wealthier? How are those two…? Those seem contradictory to me. How do we reconcile that?
Dr. Richard Wolff: Not at all, not at all, because it’s exactly what happened in every other economy, every other empire, and it’s easy to understand why. When an economy is going up, the people at the top can afford to be generous. They’re making a ton of money, they’re becoming wealthy. Sure, they can pay an extra 4%, 5% a year to their workers, keep ’em happy, avoid a strike, and there’s so much money in the growth period that you can afford it.
But when the economy goes down, what the people at the top have always done — And are doing now in America — Is those at the top, the CEOs, the people who we all know who they are, they use their wealth and power, shouldn’t surprise you, to hold on. And because they have wealth and power, they can do that, they can hold on. Which means the costs of the downturn, we, the rest of us, it’s offloaded onto us. So what you’re seeing is that the inequality in the United States gets worse.
And look at the irony — I’ll give you a statistic. Earlier this week, the most important research outfit in the world — Oxfam, located in Britain, keeps track of this — Gave their annual report, and it added up the experience of the roughly 3,000 billionaires that exist in the world today. And, as you rightly said, many of them are American, not all by a long shot, but many of them. And here’s the statistic it gave: across the year 2024, just ended, the collective wealth of the 300 billionaires rose by over $6 billion per day.
Taya Graham: Oh my God, that’s incredible.
Dr. Richard Wolff: OK, so look at what I’m telling you. Capitalism as a global system is making those already super wealthy even more super wealthy.
Stephen Janis: But what’s amazing, extraordinary is that you’re saying as our economy declines, as working class people’s lives get worse, their wealth gets more concentrated and higher. That really seems, to me, a horrible prescription for people.
Dr. Richard Wolff: Unfortunately, if we had better leaders, they would be talking to us about it. What are we going to do as a nation, the road we are on of a declining empire becoming more and more unequal? Look, you don’t need rocket science to understand that’s not sustainable. That situation is going to blow up, and it’s not going to be pretty, not even in a country that didn’t have everybody with a gun. We are in a very strange [place]. That’s what our leaders should be talking about. What do we do about it?
Instead — I have to say this, in all honesty. Instead, what I’m watching at the inauguration and in the days since is a kind of lunatic theater. It’s a theater in which the lead actor, Mr. Trump, pretends to be the world’s tough guy. I’m going to take back the Panama Canal. What? [Crosstalk]
Stephen Janis: You’re saying he’s not?
Dr. Richard Wolff: I’m going to snatch Greenland for a golf course. I’m going to make Canada the 51st state, and I’m going to stick it to the Mexican — My God. Every one of those issues, whether it’s drug traffic or anything else, the war on drugs is at least 65, 70 years old. Every president has announced he’s going to fight it, and every single president has lost that fight. We are [crosstalk] with drugs today every bit as much as when I was 10 years younger, 20 years younger, 30 years younger. I’m not fooled, and I don’t think anyone in America is.
The biggest change in drugs is that we, the Sackler family, which just made a settlement, produced enough opioids to kill 700,000 people over the last few years. We don’t even need Mexico. We’ve got a drug problem in which Mexico doesn’t figure.
And as the new president of Mexico said, and she’s quite right, the drug problem is a problem of supply and demand. Part of it is the supply that comes up, in part, through Mexico, but an enormous part of it is the demand. There is no drug trade unless America, as the single largest buyer of that crap, weren’t doing it. I mean, what are you doing? He’s trying to suggest to a frightened America that the problem is over there, the bad Panamanians, the bad Canadians. This is childish. [These are] gestures of desperation.
There’s an old scene that comes to my mind to explain this. It’s in the cowboy movies we all saw when we were younger. It’s when the sheriff can’t prevent the bad guys from riding into town and robbing the bank. And there he looks. The useless sheriff didn’t stop it. So he says, with great bravado, round up the usual suspects. He wants to look like he’s tough because that’s better than looking like the failure he was.
Stephen Janis: That’s a really good point.
Dr. Richard Wolff: [Crosstalk] Trump has been the president before. Let me assure you, during his time as president, inequality in the United States, by all its measures, got worse. Now I don’t want to be unfair — They got worse under Biden too, and they got worse under Obama too, so he is not outstanding. But did he stop it? Not at all.
The tax cut that he gave in December of 2017, the first year of his office, was the worst blow to equality we could have had — Made the government bankrupt because it didn’t have all the revenue that corporations and the rich no longer had to pay. So the government had to borrow, growing the deficit. And who did it borrow from? The corporations and the rich. The money they didn’t have to pay in taxes, they turned around and lent to the government instead, which means we the people are on the hook to repay all that money plus interest because our leader, Mr. Trump, gave them that tax cut. Instead of being shamed, he goes around celebrating it. And we live in a country — And this scares me, this is what’s scares me —
Stephen Janis: It’s pretty weird. Taya, you had a question?
Dr. Richard Wolff: [Crosstalk] We live in a country of denial, and that is a very big danger we have to face
Taya Graham: Professor Wolff, I really appreciate that you brought up the historical context, talking about that, perhaps, we are in an age of decline. When you were last on the show, we were talking about how we might be living in a Second Gilded Age, but now what I’m hearing from you is that we are an empire in decline. Well, just like with the Gilded Age, that didn’t end well. What does it look like for America to be an empire in decline, like on the ground for us regular folks trying to hold onto our jobs? What does the decline of empire actually look like for us?
Dr. Richard Wolff: Well, I’m afraid it means that we are now governed by those people you saw up on the dais during the inauguration. The only dynamic center of the American capitalist system today is high tech, Silicon Valley. Those people now are the ones that are still making money. Everything else is either better done, or more cheaply done, or both, elsewhere. Indeed, the United States’s corporations have moved, ever since the 1970s, in huge numbers.
Look, half the cars produced in China now are produced by subsidiaries of American companies. The abandonment of America is something led by the corporations. Mr. Trump likes to point to the Chinese, but they didn’t do it. They couldn’t make the corporations go there. Those corporations went there because it was profitable.
Here’s my fear: The United States’s mass of working-class people are being prepared to function the way the poor of the rest of the world function. They are the backwater. They are the hinterland. They’re what you see when you leave the capital city and you go to where the mass of people are much, much poorer. Look at it. This government wants to attack social security and Medicare and Medicaid. It wants to take away the few remaining supports.
Look at us another way. When my fellow economists from around the world ask me, they ask me about the minimum wage. The federal minimum wage in this country is $7.25 per hour. It has been at that level since 2009. Every year since then, prices have gone up, some years only 1% or 2%, other years, 9% or 10%. That means for the last 16 years, 2009 to now, the poorest of the poor amongst us, people living on $7.25 an hour, have been savagely abused. Because every year with rising prices, that $7.25 buys you less. What kind of a society goes to people with $7.25 and does that to them? We are seeing levels of cruelty —
Stephen Janis: It’s interesting you bring up that policy, because one of the things that people that blame, liberals that blame, or we blame, is the idea of neoliberalism, where you have public-private partnerships, and that’s led to this bad policy. But I was wondering, are we now, because listening to you right now, what I’m thinking is, are we in the postneoliberal age? Should we just cast aside that boogeyman we use a lot of times to explain bad policies and think about this whole what we’re seeing now as something different?
Dr. Richard Wolff: Yes, it’s different. It is important that you understand over the last 40 years until 10 years ago, we lived in an age called neoliberalism, globalization. You might remember we were told over and over again that it’s good for the whole world that corporations close their shops in Cincinnati and move them to Shanghai, that we will all be better off to get these marvelous… For 30 years. And the corporations went; They had to, their competitors were going, and they would’ve been outcompeted if they didn’t go. China offered cheaper wages than Americans demanded. China offered the biggest growing market in the world because of their size. So every corporation sent its people over there.
I teach in business schools. We teach people if you want to have a successful business, go to where the wages are low and the market is growing. They listened to people like me and they went over there. That’s why this is the area that is growing. We are becoming what they were, and they are becoming what we were, and that’s very upsetting. But you don’t solve it by pretending that it isn’t there. We don’t have the empire anymore.
Let me remind folks, the war in Vietnam, which was a big turning point, was a war between the United States and the Communist Party of Vietnam. The United States lost the war. The people who have been running Vietnam since, to this moment, are the Communist Party who defeated the United States. I know this is upsetting, but you ought to face the reality. In Afghanistan, we went to war against the Taliban. That war is over. We lost. The Taliban now runs the country. In Iraq, we lost. In Ukraine, we are now losing. How many hints do you need? You are not the big cheese in the world anymore. The best rocket, the best missile in the Ukraine War to this moment is a Russian one.
Taya Graham: Professor Wolff, I have to ask you, because you brought up something really interesting about jobs. Basically, manufacturers sending jobs and goods to where it’s cheaper. If Chinese workers can produce a good for cheaper, then they’re going to produce their goods in China. But now President Trump is coming in at least saying that he has a focus on nationalism and protectionism. That might pit the US worker against global economic corporations. So I’m just wondering, how is this going to affect worker solidarity? How is this going to affect businesses? Some of our most important union movements were international solidarity movements. What do you see happening here?
Dr. Richard Wolff: Well, I think you’re absolutely right. We are shifting to a nationalism. That’s because we have to protect our industries because they can’t compete with others. All will blame the Chinese, and they’re all cheating. That’s very boring and very old. It is what every country that loses in the competition says.
But the fact of the matter is, to give you one example, 15 years ago, every automobile company in the world went to work to try to develop the best, cheapest electric car because that’s the wave of the future. And we now have an unqualified winner. One country and one company produced the best, cheapest electric car. It’s called the BYD corporation. And if you’ve never heard of it, it’s because it’s Chinese.
And you know what Mr. Biden, our president, did? He took the tariff — And remember, a tariff is a tax levied by the United States government on United States people, paid to Washington — The tariff of Mr. Biden on the BYD electric car was 27%; Mr. Biden raised it to 100% percent. That means if BYD produces a $20,000 electric car and you in America want to buy it for your company as an input or for yourself as your personal vehicle, you would have to give 20 grand to China to get the car, and then another 100% percent, $20,000, to Uncle Sam as a tax, costing you $40,000, which is why you don’t see BYD cars on the roads in the United States. But if you went to Europe, as I recently did, you’ll see them all over the road.
Here’s the irony: The United States thinks it’s isolating the bad guys around the world. What the rest of the world now thinks? Their job is to isolate a rogue capitalism in the United States. We are putting tariffs on everybody. We’re slapping everyone — Take back the Panama Canal, make Canada the 51st… You know what that looks like? Exactly. We all know what it looks like. Will Americans find it heady to think of themselves as powerful? Not as they understand. That’s not an expression of power. That’s a desperate theater because they can’t face the loss of power that is our reality, and which we could handle if we were honest enough to admit it.
Stephen Janis: Well, it’s interesting you bring that up because now that the Trump administration is saying they’re withdrawing from the Paris Accords and they’re not going to be really competing to build green energy, green products, alternatives, are we just conceding the future to these countries like China? Are we saying, you know what? We’re out of this. If you want a gas guzzler, come to the US, but if you want a nice, cheap electric car, go somewhere else. Are we conceding the future to these people?
Dr. Richard Wolff: Whether we understand it or not, we are making a future in which everybody who wants a green version of whatever there is will be buying not American goods, because they’re not made that way. We are so strong and tough, we won’t do it, and we’re screwing ourselves. We’re shooting ourselves in the foot. Every company in the world that competes with an American company and that buys cars and trucks as part of its business will be buying the Chinese car because it’s the best deal any capitalist around the world can get for a car, whereas the American can’t get it because of the crazy tariff. That means, sure, we’ll have a few more jobs for autoworkers, but everybody else’s job is becoming more uncertain because their employer can’t get the competitively lower priced goods around the world that the American… It’s awful to watch.
[Crosstalk] The American people by telling them, we’re going to protect you. You’re not. You can’t. We live in an interdependent world which the United States helped to create, and now it wants to withdraw, to which the answer that history will give: way too little way too late.
Stephen Janis: Wow, Taya —
Taya Graham: Professor Wolff, I have to ask you this because you made me think about something that’s actually quite personal, which is AI, and I saw that there was a $500 billion promise to create AI infrastructure for OpenAI and other companies. And it is mind boggling to me, especially because it’s not tied to any kind of regulation. And I would say there are a lot of reasons to be concerned about AI, whether you’re concerned about deepfakes being used to spread misinformation, or you’re worried about a friend becoming attached to an AI person instead of a real partner, or if you’re just worried about all the jobs that will disappear because of the chatbots because so many customer service jobs are being wiped out. And it’s even harming our industry as journalists. I know people who are graphic designers and writers that are in big trouble now. Or you could be worried that an AI bot is going to deny your healthcare just like UnitedHealthcare did.
So this seems like instead of our government protecting us, they’re throwing fuel on the fire. Professor Wolff, what are your thoughts on AI and its impact on our jobs, especially in light of this $500 billion promise?
Dr. Richard Wolff: Well, let me break that into two parts. First off, $500 billion, that’s just Mr. Trump bloviating. It has no meaning. And he got attacked by his buddy Elon Musk within minutes of issuing that because there’s no money to do it. It’s just I’m going to do $500 billion. Where are you going to get the $500 billion? Musk really raked him over the coals. How these guys are great buddies after this is going to be a mystery to watch — Unless neither of them listens to what the other one says, which I doubt. So this is all very early, vague speculation.
But now let’s turn to your bigger question: What about AI? My reaction to that is the same as what about computers? What about robots? What about all the big technical advances? They were always vehicles that could be used in different ways. Don’t listen when someone tells you AI or electricity or robots must be this way.
And I’m going to explain it with a simple example because it gets the idea across. Suppose there was a machine, AI, robot, doesn’t matter, that made workers twice as productive as they used to be. So instead of 10 widgets an hour, they could now make 20 widgets an hour. That typical AIG is supposed to allow one person to work the machine and get the output.
OK, here’s what happens in capitalism: The capitalist says, oh, great, he buys the machine, fires half his workers because he doesn’t need them anymore because the other half are twice as productive. What does he do with the money that he saves from the half that he fired? He keeps it; more profit for himself. He’s overjoyed. And that’s how he uses the technical breakthrough.
OK, now let me give you an alternative. Suppose there were an enterprise that looked at the new AI or whatever it is and says, wow, it’s twice as productive. Here’s what we’re going to do: We’re going to buy that equipment or that machine. We’re not going to fire anybody. We’re going to reduce the workday from eight hours to four hours. Why? Because now with the new machine, the AI in four hours can do us twice the work that it used to. We don’t need people to work four hours. We can be the same firm. Instead of firing the people, you lowered the workday.
Now let me ask you something. If you live in a democracy where the majority rule, we know which way the majority would want to go: Give me half my workday off as leisure because I can be more doubly productive. We don’t do what’s democratic, we do what’s profitable for the tiny minority of people who own the business, so they fire half the workers. That’s why we are afraid. It’s not AI that’s the problem, it’s capitalism that uses each technological advance in order to do what they say they’re going to do: maximize profit.
I have taught in business schools. That’s what businessmen and women think their job is, to maximize profit, but that helps the people who earn profit. It doesn’t help the people who live on wages, but they’re the majority. A democratic workplace would make the decisions that are best for the majority. We don’t live in such a system. Capitalism is the enemy of democracy, and it always was.
Taya Graham: Professor Wolff, that is so incredibly powerful what you just said, that we don’t actually need to be afraid of AI, that we need to be afraid of how capitalists might use it [crosstalk] to line their own pockets. I really appreciate your insights.
I almost feel bad that I’m going to ask you such an unserious question now in light of these important issues we’re discussing, but it’s being debated quite hotly across a lot of social media platforms, and that is, did Elon Musk give a Nazi salute? So just allow me to run a clip for you, and then I would like to hear your thoughts, and I’m also going to share with you a few of the social media posts and things people had to say.
[CLIP BEGINS]
Elon Musk: And I just want to say thank you for making it happen. Thank you [gestures]. My heart goes out to you.
[CLIP ENDS]
Taya Graham: So let me just share with you a few of the social media posts that were also made in light of that. Now, @JonathanPieNews posted, “Now, I know what you’re all thinking, but who hasn’t accidentally done a Sieg Heil on their first day in government?” Now interestingly, the Anti-Defamation League wrote that “[…] @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on edge.” And what was amazing is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded to the ADL with, “Just to be clear, you are defending a Heil Hitler salute that was performed and repeated for emphasis and clarity.”
Stephen Janis: It’s interesting too, Taya, that the epitome of capitalists there would be associated with a fascist symbology. It’s interesting the way — And I don’t know if Dr. Wolff feels anything about this — But does corporatism lead to fascism when corporatism has too much power and the profit motive becomes too embedded in the political system? Does it become fascist in some sense?
Taya Graham: And what did you think of his gesture?
Dr. Richard Wolff: Well, let me deal with Elon Musk first.
Stephen Janis: OK.
Dr. Richard Wolff: The gesture could mean a variety of things. I’m not inside Elon Musk’s mind. I don’t know what he intended or didn’t, if it were there all by itself. It’s open to interpretation. But Elon Musk has also gone out of his way to make himself aligned with the most right-wing forces in the world. He is now a major supporter of the right-wing party in Germany, a party which is widely considered in Germany to be the inheritor of the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler. If he were concerned not to have his gestures misunderstood, why in the world would he choose to endorse a political party? Which makes, by the way, everybody else in Germany who doesn’t like this right-wing party, all of the other parties, all of the other parties have made a declaration they will not work with this right-wing party because of its… He’s chosen to go along with that.
He’s also wealthy because of what his parents got out of Apartheid South Africa. You’d think a kid with that in his background — I’m not blaming him for whatever his parents did — But a kid with that in his background might want to go out of his way not to do anything that might suggest that that commitment to Apartheid, which made his family rich, didn’t live on in him. No, this man is taking many opportunities to show that he is. He’s erased tweets — I won’t repeat them — But that also point in that direction.
Given all of that, I would have to join Ocasio-Cortez in wondering what in the world agitated the Anti-Defamation League, which is supposed to be on guard against symbols like this, from bending over for Mr. Elon Musk. Isn’t it enough to see our president do that? Do we all have to mimic this sort of behavior? That would be my first response.
Stephen Janis: Are we headed towards something? As inequality keeps rising, is it inevitable to be a collapse? Is there any way to fix it politically before we get to that point? Or are we in no way able to avoid the consequences of this historic inequality in the Second Gilded Age we talked about?
Dr. Richard Wolff: I don’t predict the future. I don’t believe in it. I can’t do it. I don’t think anyone else can. So “inevitability” is a word that I don’t think, it’s not in my vocabulary.
Stephen Janis: Got it.
Dr. Richard Wolff: I don’t know. I believe it’s always possible to make interventions, to change things, and in any case, that’s what we have to try to do, otherwise we’re not really full citizens and full human beings.
But I want to make it clear: I believe the United States is heading headlong into a dead end economically, and therefore also politically and ideologically. We as a nation were remarkable in the 19th and 20th centuries. We provided roughly from 1820 to roughly 1970 rising real wages for the American working class every decade for 150 years. That made us special. No other working class in any other capitalist country got that story. That’s why millions of people came to the United States from Europe, for example, during the 19th and earlier 20th centuries, because they expected a better deal here than they could get in Europe, and they got it.
Alright, that made us think we were very special. The religious amongst us thought that God somehow smiled more on America than he or she or whatever you think it is smiled elsewhere. But the reality is it had to do with a particular position in the world at that time that we occupied.
I don’t want to take us away. We made an effort, took advantage of that situation, and we did pretty well for a while. That is now over and it’s not coming back. And the question of the world right now is will there be a new empire to replace the American the way the American replaced the British? And will that new empire be Chinese? Is that one option? You bet.
Let me remind in closing, the United States and its G7 allies together comprise somewhere around, let’s be generous, 12% to 15% of the world’s people. The BRICS today, with their 22 countries, comprise roughly 60% of the world’s people. The future is with them, not with us. We can work a deal, we can work an accommodation, we can make it work for both sides, but we have to be willing to do that. Instead, our leaders are full of bravado, and ugly bullying, and we’re going to shut you down and close you off and bomb you into the — Wow. That’s not an auspicious sign for a loser.
And I know that’s hard for Americans, but that’s the reality. But we can make it work. I believe so, and we can make it a good time for the American people, if not for the billionaires. But we have to face the situation we are in and how to make the best of it. We are not doing that, and we’re losing precious years while we go through these desperate gestures of self delusional make-believe.
Stephen Janis: Well, thank you Dr. Wolff.
Taya Graham: Professor Wolff, thank you so much. Those are some hard truths that I think we all need to accept and understand so that we can chart a path forward that will actually benefit the majority of us.
Stephen Janis: Well, it’s interesting because the picture he paints, it makes Trump seem even more inevitable because if you’re in decline and wealth inequality is increasing, you’re only going to have one emotion that comes out of that, which is anger and resentment. If you don’t, as he points out, acknowledge it and say, look, this is a new reality. We’re not the same as we were 50 years ago. We have to acknowledge it before we can get through it. So what you have —
Dr. Richard Wolff: What Mr. Trump is doing is cashing in unjustified fear and anger, but carefully doing his job, focusing it away from the billionaires, away from the capitalist inequality, and making us learn to hate the Chinese, and maybe now the Panamanians, and the Canadians, and the Mexicans. It’s disgusting, but you understand the logic of why it’s unfolding that way.
Taya Graham: Professor Wolff, thank you so much for making that so clear for us. We hate to let you go, but maybe when you leave, you’ll just give us the promise that you will join us again soon.
Dr. Richard Wolff: I’d be glad to. I believe in these kinds of conversations. I think that The Real News Network is doing a great job producing them and disseminating them. That’s what the country needs. If Americans get a chance to understand the situation, something other than the drumbeat of the mass media, then we have a chance. So I’m as much in your debt as you ever are in mine.
Taya Graham: Thank you so much, Professor. That was very kind.
Dr. Richard Wolff: Good to talk to you.
Stephen Janis: Good to talk to you too.
Taya Graham: You as well.
So, Stephen, I have some thoughts. Do you have anything you want to say before I get started?
Stephen Janis: Well, again, I think it was interesting that everything he said, the psychology of it, is so natural. As a country loses its position of dominance, it turns in on itself, and there’s nothing more turning — And then meanwhile, there’s a few people, fat cats who are profiting off that decline. And that’s why we have this extractive economy, not an economy that improves people and their material existence, but actually puts them in a horrifying psychological position of being extracted from. So what he said made a lot of sense and really explains a hell of a lot.
Taya Graham: And it’s an extraction and distraction economy, which is fueled by those social media billionaires.
Stephen Janis: It’s so true. You need both distraction and extraction at the same time.
Taya Graham: So as we reflect on these sweeping promises and executive orders that President Trump has unleashed in his first days back in office, it’s clear we are facing a profound moment in American governance, and one that demands careful scrutiny, honesty, and compassion. From the deployment of ICE agents to Chicago to the aggressive push for more drilling, these policies seem to serve a really narrow set of interests, consolidating power, deepening inequality, and widening the chasm between the billionaire class and the rest of us. And let’s be clear: these moves are not just policy decisions. They are calculated steps towards entrenching a system of oligarchy where the very wealthy few dictate the terms of our lives.
When you see Tesla’s Elon Musk, or Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, or Google’s Sundar Pichai, or Apple CEO Tim Cook, or Amazon’s Jeff Bezos literally sitting at the right hand of our president, does that not concern you? Don’t you think they will leverage their money and power for more money and power? The appointment of individuals like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswami, and even Linda McMahon, and other billionaires to positions of power only underscore this reality. These are people who epitomize wealth hoarding and corporate influence, now wielding even more control over public policy. Musk, appointed to oversee government efficiency, has made his billions breaking unions and hollowing out the very safety nets that working families depend on. Oh, and I think Vivek Ramawwami, I think King Musk sent him packing.
But Tuesday, Jan. 21, we saw the anniversary of Citizens United. It’s an infamous case that gave corporations a say, literally a First Amendment protection to use their money as a form of speech. How are regular folks supposed to compete against the power of billions in lobbying dollars? Money talks, and billions can talk over us.
What we’re witnessing isn’t even an oligarchy; that might be more pleasant. What we’re about to experience is more frightening: a government that is run like a company store, where we have no other options and are forced to buy what they’re selling.
And just let me expand on that a little bit. So there was a time before unions were able to push back against rapacious capitalism when people lived in what were called company towns. Miners in particular were subject to these feudal arrangements. Employees lived in company-owned homes on company-owned land. They bought food and essentials from company-owned stores, and then they went and worked in the mine. The point is that every aspect of their lives was monetized and turned into profit. And if they lost their jobs, they lost everything.
Well, I think we’re headed towards something similar in outcome, but different in how it’s implemented. And that is how this extractive capitalism works: to extract from us constantly and mine our lives for personal profit.
It’s drilled down into facets of our personal existence that were once unthinkable. Zuckerberg and Musk literally make money every time we post something about ourselves. A picture of our birthday or an anniversary fuels the attention economy for their profit. The platform Musk now uses to impose his political will was, in large part, fueled by our industry, journalism, as we posted our stories and worked just to get a few crumbs of attention from his vast digital audience. And even worse, our worth was measured and is still measured by how many followers we have. In other words, our value as journalists is tied to how much we can enrich a tech bro, and that is not a great idea for journalistic integrity or even for a steady paycheck.
And if you want to get some of that scrip to spend at the company store, maybe you should pick up Trump’s meme coin. It’ll probably be part of the official reserve currency soon [both laugh].
But in relation to the company store analogy with our healthcare system, your healthcare insurance is often tied to your employer. If you are sick, you have no idea how much it will cost. You have no idea [if] your insurance will even cover it, and you could even lose the job that provides the needed health insurance. And if your debts are overwhelming, you try to purchase a digital lottery ticket of a GoFundMe page so that you can hope to pay off the debts that have been incurred by the private equity firms that have turned US medical care into a nightmare.
But I’m going to change my tune a little bit. I’m going to ask us to do something that might be the only option left: resist, resist it all. Tell them to take their overpriced medical bills and stuff ’em. Tell ’em to take their overpriced cars and park them permanently. Tell them to take their rents jacked up by algorithms and pay it themselves. And let’s stop creating content for and arguing amongst ourselves so that Zuckerberg can take Judo classes or buy another yacht. Let us all say enough is enough. Let’s resist making a few rich people richer and richer. Let’s resist the Second Gilded Age and end it now.
Stephen, thank you for being patient with me [Janis laughs]. I had to get that off my chest.
Stephen Janis: I totally understand. when you listen to some of this stuff that Dr. Wolff says, it affects you because you want to feel empowered on some level. And so I appreciate that.
Taya Graham: Well, I want people to know that we can resist. And I want to thank everyone for watching, for being here, for listening, and for caring. Until next time we see you, stay informed, stay passionate about your politics, and stay compassionate to your fellow Americans. Remember, united we stand, divided we fall. Let’s try to find some unity, because we’re going to need it. Thanks for joining us.
CCTV footage from a toll plaza is being shared widely on social media. The footage depicts a group of individuals, some of whom are wearing Islamic caps, riding in a pickup truck. In the video, a few individuals are seen clashing with toll plaza employees and removing barricades to clear the path for their vehicle. One such post reads, “Just as the Muslims have opened the toll today, tomorrow the gate of your house will be opened in the same way. There is still time, treat these Jihadis along with the Congress and Indy parties that nurture them.”
X user Manoj Srivastava shared the video, reiterating the claims that Muslims were involved in vandalism at the toll plaza. (Archived link)
*मुसलमानो ने आज जैसे टोल खोला है*
*कल ऐसे ही आप के घर का गेट खोला जाएगा*
*अभी भी समय है*
*इनको पालने वाली कांग्रेस इंडी पार्टियो के साथ साथ*
Another X user with the handle Mr. Nationalist also shared the footage, adding a caption that reads, “We want to save the future of Hindus and our country.” (Archived link)
I say this to those Hindus who vote for Congress, AAP, SP, TMC, and INDI Thagbandhan: open your eyes and oil your minds. Tomorrow this mob will enter your house when they become the majority. Look around and look at history!
The X handle @kreatelymedia, which regularly shares misleading and communal propaganda, also amplified the video. Their caption, translated to English, said “Will Toll Tax be taken from the scared and persecuted peace ambassadors of the country now?” (Archived link).
We performed a reverse image search using a key frame from the viral footage. The results led to a report published by the Dhaka Tribune on September 18, 2024. The report used a screenshot from the viral video and described the incident as having occurred at the Kuril Toll Plaza on the Dhaka Elevated Expressway in Bangladesh. According to the report, miscreants parked a pickup truck in the middle of the crossing and broke the barricades at the toll plaza.
The Dhaka Tribune report included a statement from AHM Akhtar, the project director of the elevated expressway. Akhtar clarified that vehicles like pickup trucks, motorcycles, CNGs, and rickshaws were not permitted on the expressway. On the day of the incident, there were approximately 30-40 individuals in the pickup truck. The passengers were unwilling to comply with the rules.
Hasib Hasan Khan, an official from the First Dhaka Elevated Expressway (FDEE) Company Limited, while speaking to Bangladeshi news outlet BDnews24.com, explained that open vehicles carrying passengers, such as the pickup truck in question are strictly prohibited from entering the expressway for safety reasons. He noted that the ticket collector initially flagged the truck after observing it via CCTV and sought clarification from the company’s MIS system about whether the vehicle should be allowed to proceed. It was during this time that some of the truck’s passengers got out, wanting to know why their vehicle was being denied access despite paying the toll.
The incident, according to Khan, stemmed from a misunderstanding. He clarified that the individuals in the pickup truck were indeed trying to pay the toll but became confrontational when they thought their vehicle would not be allowed to pass.
Another Bangladeshi news outlet named Somoy TV reported on the same incident on September 18, 2024. This confirmed that the altercation took place at the Kuril Toll Plaza on the Dhaka Elevated Expressway.
To sum up, the incident of a clashe between toll employees and people in a pickup truck and the removal of barricades at Kuril Toll Plaza in Dhaka, Bangladesh in September 2024 is being shared with false claims that it is from India.
The Maha Kumbh Mela officially began in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, on January 13. This 45-day-long spiritual gathering has been attracting thousands of pilgrims daily from across the country, seeking to participate in the auspicious rituals and holy dips.
Amid this fervor, reports have emerged of an incident involving the Tapti Ganga Express, traveling to the Kumbh Mela near Jalgaon in Maharashtra. It has been claimed that the train was attacked, with stones being thrown at its carriages, breaking the window panes. Following this, a video began circulating widely on social media, showing chaotic scenes near a railway track. The footage captured a crowd outside the train, and within moments, there is visible panic among passengers inside. They are seen closing windows and hiding. This video has sparked widespread concern, with several users sharing it alongside captions indicating an attack on passengers heading to the Maha Kumbh Mela.
Instagram user Samrat Bhoj Parmar shared this as footage of Kumbh Mela devotees being attacked.
Instagram user Dinaank Official wrote that the Surat Prayagraj train going to the Maha Kumbh was attacked near Jalgaon. This user also shared two other videos along with the viral video. (Archived link)
We performed a reverse image search using a key frame of the viral video. We found the video in a tweet by Vivek Gupta, a journalist associated with News18 India, dated July 13, 2024. According to the information given in the tweet, several unidentified persons pulled the chain and pelted stones on a passenger train in the Amalner area of Jalgaon district of Maharashtra. (Archived link)
महाराष्ट्र के जलगांव जिले के पैसेंजर ट्रेन पर पथराव..
*जलगांव जिले के अमलनेर इलाके में चेन पुलिंग करके कई अज्ञात लोगों ने किया पथराव..*
We also came across news reports published on the Aaj Tak and Zee News websites that stated that on July 12, 2024, a mob pelted stones on the Bhusaval-Nandurbar passenger train in Jalgaon, Maharashtra, causing panic among the passengers. In addition, according to the reports, a viral video captured the incident. Around 25 people were seen pelting stones at the train while terrified passengers screamed and tried to escape in the footage. Following the incident, the Government Railway Police (GRP) and Railway Protection Force (RPF) began investigations and registered a case under the Railway Act 154. No formal complaint was filed and no injuries were reported.
To sum it up, a six-month-old video of stone pelting on the Bhusaval-Nandurbar passenger train was falsely linked to the Tapti Ganga Express carrying devotees bound for the Maha Kumbh Mela, with social media users falsely claiming that its passengers were injured.
