DB: You notice that? God, they're disappointed they won.
JS: Not him, and not his wife either, who really looks miserable. The two of them on Election Day... [and] ... on Inauguration Day it looked like they were at a funeral. They did not expect this. Now, he's being progressively cornered. He's had to lose some of his key advisers, he's lost some key cabinet positions, his ratings continue to plummet. They were rock bottom to start with. He is a land mine of liabilities: legal, constitutional and ethical liabilities. There's just case after case, lawsuits against him. His immigrant policy is about to be stopped again, for the second time. So, this is a guy who should not be in office. He's being stopped.
I think it's important for us to remember Richard Nixon, one of the most corrupt and authoritarian presidents in our history. What did we do under the rule of Richard Nixon? We brought the troops home from Vietnam. We established women's right to choose, from a very conservative Supreme Court. We got the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, OSHA, protecting workers' health and safety. How did we do that? We did it because we were out in the streets with a passion knowing that our lives were on the line, because our brothers were being sent to die, to Vietnam.
Well, guess what? Now, we've woken up to find our lives are on the line again, whether it's from poverty and homelessness; a generation locked into unpayable student debt; from the expanding war which is blowing back at us with a vengeance; from the climate [warming] which is now accelerating, given the news last week that the meltdown of permafrost is well established, and is moving forward at horrific speed. And all the dire predictions from Jim Hansen, that we could see 10 or 20 feet of sea level rise, as soon as 2060. That's not far away.
Well, guess what? Those predictions are coming far closer now, because those models did not include the impact of methane. We didn't know when this was going to hit. The meltdown of the permafrost, for those who aren't familiar, it's basically frozen, organic debris, like dinosaur flesh, and plant matter, and stuff like that. It's just... the organic matter, the living creatures and plant life, of the ages, that's been frozen. It's becoming unfrozen. That means it turns into methane, which is one of the most powerful greenhouse gases. This is a major accelerator of climate change.
So, it means that it's time to stand up. It means that we are out of time. It means it's time to take action, now. So, people are getting out, knowing that our lives are on the line, for all these issues. On account of immigrant deportations, and the attack on women, and all the rest.
DB: Let me just stop you there, because that's the other issue I want to hit. I'm referring to it [the bulk-up of US Border and ICE agents] as Trump's jobs program for ex-military. And I was joking when I said to the audience the other day that, I swear, I know I'm going to open Stars and Stripes, the U.S. Army newspaper, and see major ads.
So I got a call right after the show, from a listener who said, "Are you kidding me? Look at page 9, Stars and Stripes, huge, double page ads, $10,000 and $9,000, special courts and expanded private prisons." This is really the cutting edge of, if you will, the new civil rights movement.
If we have a responsibility, it is in terms of the incredible attack on brown people in this country. Undocumented workers who do the hardest work, and, of course, the whole Middle East. Anything darker than John Wayne, and you're in trouble. And we're seeing Sikh, the other day, a Sikh man was assassinated, because he was like Osama Bin Laden, or something.
JS: Yes, you're right. And this is where immigrant rights come together with unbridled militarism. Because this refugee crisis... it's a refugee crisis, it's not an immigration crisis, it's a refugee crisis. We create that crisis through our military policies, not only in the Middle East, but also [by] overturning democracies: Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador. Where we, [...] through our U.S. trained death squads, or through the outright overturning of democracies, we've created this culture of violence that forces people to flee over the border. So militarism, economic exploitation, and the role of NAFTA, which was awful for workers here, as well as farmers south of the border.
These are fixable problems. They can only be fixed together. To my mind, that's what a political party is. A political party is a coalition that's going to work together around an explicit agenda for people, planet and peace, over profit. The time has come. We have to stand up, like our lives depend on it, because they do.
And, now, this is sort of the silver lining behind this awful scary thunder cloud here that has just descended all over us: That our lives are on the line, so we gotta stand up and do it, in the way that we did under Richard Nixon. And then we impeached him. Trump's days are numbered.
We just saw the president of South Korea impeached, today, upheld by the courts. Why did this happen? In part it was millions of people getting out into the street. It happened in Guatemala, two years ago. In East Germany, Chris Hedges tells the story, he was there as an investigative reporter. And the democracy advocates were meeting and saying "How are we going to get rid of this awful, authoritarian government?" And they said "Maybe in ten years." The next week the wall came down, because people came out.
We've just... we're at the breaking point, and we're also at the wake up point, right now. And so, this is going to accelerate resistance. We're not only creating sanctuary communities, but we're actually now building sanctuary institutions, where people will be kept safe, where the ICE agents can't even go. And, there are other plans that may be in the works with some indigenous tribes, and the role that they can play. Because they are essentially independent nations.
So, there are very exciting things here. In the same way that the Muslim community stood up for the Jewish community and raised money in the face of these anti-Semitic attacks, and all the bomb threats that are going on. We're seeing these wonderful, just life-affirming, humanity-affirming alliances. And, as we wake up to the fact that our days are numbered right now, and that it is in our hands. It's only us, we are the ones we've been waiting for. The time has come, enough of the lesser evil. It's time to stand up, and fight for the greater good.
And even this issue of spoiling elections, and splitting the votes. Well, hello, there's a system called ranked-choice voting which Greens have been promoting forever. The state of Maine just passed it by voter referendum.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
