Host Erik Fleming opens the episode with news and housekeeping before interviewing three guests about urgent public issues. He speaks with Charles Gueli, an 80‑year‑old author of Fixing Federal Dysfunction, about gerrymandering, campaign finance, housing, and ways to revive citizen engagement in government.
Alexa Morris joins to share The Courtyard, the intimate Holocaust memoir of her father‑in‑law Benjamin Parket, highlighting neighborly courage, survival in occupied France, and the importance of preserving memory for new generations.
Maritza Perez‑Medina of the Drug Policy Alliance discusses drug policy and criminal justice reform, harm reduction, immigrant and labor impacts of cannabis enforcement, and the need to shift resources from punishment to public health.
The episode ties these conversations together around themes of civic responsibility, human dignity, and practical reforms to strengthen communities and protect rights.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:06 Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.
00:00:06 --> 00:00:09 I want to personally thank you for listening to the podcast.
00:00:09 --> 00:00:12 If you like what you're hearing, then I need you to do a few things.
00:00:13 --> 00:00:19 First, I need subscribers. I'm on Patreon at patreon.com slash amomentwitherikfleming.
00:00:20 --> 00:00:24 Your subscription allows an independent podcaster like me the freedom to speak
00:00:24 --> 00:00:28 truth to power, and to expand and improve the show.
00:00:28 --> 00:00:33 Second, leave a five-star review for the podcast on the streaming service you listen to it.
00:00:34 --> 00:00:39 That will help the podcast tremendously. Third, go to the website, momenterik.com.
00:00:40 --> 00:00:43 There you can subscribe to the podcast, leave reviews and comments,
00:00:43 --> 00:00:47 listen to past episodes, and even learn a little bit about your host.
00:00:47 --> 00:00:51 Lastly, don't keep this a secret like it's your own personal guilty pleasure.
00:00:52 --> 00:00:57 Tell someone else about the podcast. Encourage others to listen to the podcast
00:00:57 --> 00:01:02 and share the podcast on your social media platforms, because it is time to
00:01:02 --> 00:01:04 make this moment a movement.
00:01:04 --> 00:01:10 Thanks in advance for supporting the podcast of our time. I hope you enjoy this episode as well.
00:01:15 --> 00:01:20 The following program is hosted by the NBG Podcast Network.
00:02:00 --> 00:02:05 Hello, and welcome to another moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.
00:02:06 --> 00:02:10 So today I have three guests. We were supposed to have four,
00:02:10 --> 00:02:17 but Jody Freeman, who I hope that we can get on later, wasn't feeling well.
00:02:18 --> 00:02:23 And she let me know early enough where I could make some adjustments.
00:02:23 --> 00:02:28 But as far as promoting the show, so if you've been following social media,
00:02:29 --> 00:02:35 You see that I was putting her on, showing her as a guest, but she's not going to be on.
00:02:35 --> 00:02:39 And we hope to get her on later on.
00:02:39 --> 00:02:45 She was one of the people that I had to change the schedule, as you know.
00:02:45 --> 00:02:49 And we had rescheduled for this episode and it didn't work out.
00:02:49 --> 00:02:55 So hopefully, Attorney Freeman, Professor Freeman will grace us with her presence.
00:02:56 --> 00:03:01 Because I think she really is somebody dynamic that y'all need to hear from.
00:03:02 --> 00:03:05 But I do have Charles Gueli.
00:03:07 --> 00:03:14 Who is a retiree, and he's 80 years old, and he's been watching what's happening
00:03:14 --> 00:03:17 with ICE over the last year or so, and he got activated.
00:03:17 --> 00:03:23 And so he decided to write a book to try to fix the federal government dysfunction.
00:03:23 --> 00:03:27 And the name of the book is Fixing Federal Dysfunction. And so he's going to be on.
00:03:27 --> 00:03:33 Alexa Morris, who co-authored this beautiful book with this gentleman named
00:03:33 --> 00:03:36 Benjamin Parket, who happens to be her father-in-law.
00:03:37 --> 00:03:42 It's called The Courtyard, and it's a story about his experience during the
00:03:42 --> 00:03:44 Holocaust. He is a Holocaust survivor.
00:03:45 --> 00:03:48 And Maritza Perez Medina.
00:03:49 --> 00:03:55 Maritza is the, basically, she's the lobbyist for the Drug Policy Alliance on Capitol Hill.
00:03:56 --> 00:04:00 And so she's going to be talking about the work that they're doing and why it's
00:04:00 --> 00:04:06 important to have of drug reform and criminal justice reform in the United States.
00:04:07 --> 00:04:11 So it was a good show anyway, and Ms. Freeman was just going to be the cherry
00:04:11 --> 00:04:15 on top. But like I said, we'll get her on later on.
00:04:16 --> 00:04:20 So I thank y'all for that. I thank y'all for listening. Appreciate y'all's support.
00:04:20 --> 00:04:25 If you would, go to www.momenteric.com.
00:04:27 --> 00:04:33 Where you can donate or subscribe to the podcast and, you know,
00:04:33 --> 00:04:36 find out some neat stuff about me or whatever.
00:04:37 --> 00:04:45 You know, but again, in this day and age, we need to support as many independent
00:04:45 --> 00:04:49 podcasters as we can, especially those of us who are black,
00:04:50 --> 00:04:54 who are out here trying to do the work and get information out there,
00:04:54 --> 00:04:59 especially the few of us who are really dealing with the news and the politics of the day.
00:05:00 --> 00:05:07 So I appreciate y'all listening, and I would encourage you to do more,
00:05:07 --> 00:05:10 and not just with me, but with others like me.
00:05:11 --> 00:05:15 All right, so with all that housekeeping out the way, let's go ahead and get
00:05:15 --> 00:05:20 this program started. And as always, we kick it off with a moment of news with Grace G.
00:05:27 --> 00:05:33 Thanks, Erik. President Trump used a primetime address to revive unfounded election
00:05:33 --> 00:05:38 grievances and release classified documents to justify pushing the Save America Act.
00:05:39 --> 00:05:44 South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster appointed Darlene Graham Nordone to temporarily
00:05:44 --> 00:05:48 fill the Senate seat left vacant by the sudden death of her brother,
00:05:48 --> 00:05:49 Senator Lindsey Graham.
00:05:50 --> 00:05:54 ICE officials in Maine fatally shot an unauthorized immigrant worker,
00:05:54 --> 00:05:59 Johann Sebastian Duran Guerrero, who was not the target of their warrant.
00:06:00 --> 00:06:04 Attorney General nominee Todd Blanche faced bipartisan Senate scrutiny during
00:06:04 --> 00:06:06 his confirmation hearing.
00:06:06 --> 00:06:12 CDC Director nominee Erica Schwartz frustrated senators by refusing to state
00:06:12 --> 00:06:17 whether she would defy Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on vaccine science.
00:06:17 --> 00:06:22 Shredded iceberg lettuce from a California supplier for Taco Bell is the suspected
00:06:22 --> 00:06:27 source of a massive multi-state cyclosporiasis outbreak.
00:06:27 --> 00:06:33 The U.S. House defeated an amendment to cut off $3.3 billion in annual aid to
00:06:33 --> 00:06:37 Israel, despite receiving support from 103 Democrats.
00:06:37 --> 00:06:43 New York enacted a one-year moratorium on the construction of large new AI data
00:06:43 --> 00:06:48 centers to evaluate their strain on the power grid and local resources.
00:06:48 --> 00:06:54 A federal appeals court ended a 1960s desegregation mandate for a Louisiana school district.
00:06:55 --> 00:06:58 The New York Times is fighting federal grand jury subpoenas,
00:06:58 --> 00:07:03 issued to three journalists who reported on security flaws in President Trump's
00:07:03 --> 00:07:05 new Qatari-donated Air Force One.
00:07:06 --> 00:07:12 Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Elena Kagan urged Congress to approve
00:07:12 --> 00:07:17 a budget increase for court police to counter a sharp rise in threats against the justices.
00:07:17 --> 00:07:22 The Trump administration finalized a rule imposing fixed time limits on visas
00:07:22 --> 00:07:26 for foreign students, cultural exchange visitors, and journalists.
00:07:27 --> 00:07:33 And civil rights leaders announced an August 2026 March on Washington to protest
00:07:33 --> 00:07:37 recent court decisions weakening federal voting rights protections.
00:07:37 --> 00:07:41 I am Grace Gee, and this has been a Moment of News.
00:07:48 --> 00:07:54 All right. Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. Now, it's time for my
00:07:54 --> 00:07:57 first guest, Charles Gueli.
00:07:58 --> 00:08:03 Now, this is going to be interesting. So, I talked to Mr. Gueli,
00:08:03 --> 00:08:06 and he said, read it as I wrote it.
00:08:08 --> 00:08:11 So, this is my intro for Charles Gueli.
00:08:12 --> 00:08:17 Mr. Gueli says, I am 80 years old and retired. In July 2025,
00:08:17 --> 00:08:22 I had occasion to be in my car for one and a half hours a day for 28 days.
00:08:23 --> 00:08:28 By chance, I listened to NPR on the radio and was appalled by the way Latino
00:08:28 --> 00:08:31 immigrants and others were being abused by the government.
00:08:32 --> 00:08:37 That led me to looking at podcasts on YouTube, which led me to reading the ACLU
00:08:37 --> 00:08:39 summary of Project 2025.
00:08:40 --> 00:08:47 I was angered and terrified. I felt I had to do something, and my son suggested writing a blog.
00:08:47 --> 00:08:50 I've written more than 200 daily posts since mid-November.
00:08:51 --> 00:08:56 The research for those convinced me that there are solutions to every condition that needs fixing.
00:08:57 --> 00:09:02 So I put several of the posts together and organized them into a book called
00:09:02 --> 00:09:04 Fixing Federal Dysfunction.
00:09:05 --> 00:09:10 And so, ladies and gentlemen, me and Mr. Gueli are going to talk about the
00:09:10 --> 00:09:13 book, Fixing Federal Dysfunction.
00:09:14 --> 00:09:21 So it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest on this podcast, Charles Welling.
00:09:32 --> 00:09:37 All right. Charles Gwely. Is it Gwely or Gwely or Gwely?
00:09:38 --> 00:09:44 Gueli. Gueli. Okay. Charles Gueli. How are you doing this morning? So you're doing good?
00:09:44 --> 00:09:50 Yeah, I am doing. I'm very good today. Well, glad to have you on the podcast
00:09:50 --> 00:09:54 because you wrote this book called Fixing Federal Dysfunction.
00:09:54 --> 00:09:58 That's just the title alone. It's like, really? That's what you wanted?
00:09:59 --> 00:10:05 You wanted to pursue that. Okay. So what I normally do to kind of start the
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 conversation off is I do a couple of icebreaker exercises.
00:10:09 --> 00:10:13 So the first icebreaker is a quote I want you to respond to.
00:10:13 --> 00:10:19 And the quote is, a federal government that cannot act effectively will lose
00:10:19 --> 00:10:22 the confidence of the people it serves.
00:10:23 --> 00:10:26 Yeah, the people lose trust.
00:10:27 --> 00:10:32 The institutions have to function properly in order for the people to trust them.
00:10:32 --> 00:10:37 And that goes through to, it applies to all three level parts of the government.
00:10:38 --> 00:10:45 Okay. All right. So now the next icebreaker is what I call 20 questions.
00:10:46 --> 00:10:49 So I need you to give me a number between one and 20.
00:10:50 --> 00:10:56 15. All right. Your question is, when you think about the challenges our country
00:10:56 --> 00:10:58 faces, what gives you hope?
00:10:59 --> 00:11:03 Well, that's kind of a multi-part answer.
00:11:03 --> 00:11:11 I hope, number one, that the current administration has caused a lot of.
00:11:12 --> 00:11:20 Organizations to form for the purpose of having people communicate with government.
00:11:20 --> 00:11:28 And I worry that once the administration changes, that those organizations may
00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 not feel that they are still needed.
00:11:31 --> 00:11:36 And I believe that the current situation isn't,
00:11:37 --> 00:11:45 it's a result of the dysfunction, which has been getting worse for probably 40 or 50 years,
00:11:45 --> 00:11:52 and that in order to fix those basic dysfunctions, we're going to have to maintain
00:11:52 --> 00:11:55 citizen participation in the democratic process.
00:11:56 --> 00:12:03 So I'm hopeful that those organizations do not disband once the administration changes. Yeah.
00:12:04 --> 00:12:07 All right. So you're 80 years old. Is that correct?
00:12:07 --> 00:12:15 Yes, it is. And Fixing Federal Dysfunction is your first book that you've written, right?
00:12:15 --> 00:12:23 Actually, I wrote a book in 1993, small. It was called How to Cope with Change.
00:12:23 --> 00:12:30 And it was a learning experience, as was this one, actually.
00:12:32 --> 00:12:37 So my question is, so this is your second book. What inspired you to write this
00:12:37 --> 00:12:42 book at 80? Why did you feel you had to write this particular book?
00:12:42 --> 00:12:50 All right. Well, before last summer, I was among the great majority of citizens
00:12:50 --> 00:12:54 who are very complacent and just participate when it comes time to vote.
00:12:55 --> 00:13:00 And that was my entire adult life. But last summer, I had occasion to be in
00:13:00 --> 00:13:03 the car for an hour and a half a day and,
00:13:04 --> 00:13:10 And I listened to NPR just by chance. I happened to get them on the radio station.
00:13:10 --> 00:13:15 And they were talking at that time about what was happening to the immigrants
00:13:15 --> 00:13:19 and families being separated and so on.
00:13:19 --> 00:13:21 And it really bothered me.
00:13:22 --> 00:13:28 So I started looking for things, podcasts and things.
00:13:28 --> 00:13:34 I found several on YouTube that gave me more information. I wanted to find out
00:13:34 --> 00:13:40 more about what was going on after those NPR programs I listened to.
00:13:40 --> 00:13:49 So I did that for a while. And then in November, I actually considered running for Congress.
00:13:51 --> 00:13:56 But I decided after giving that more thought, I decided that wasn't a good idea,
00:13:56 --> 00:14:00 mainly because it wouldn't get the word out past my local district.
00:14:01 --> 00:14:08 And my son, one of my sons suggested starting to write a blog.
00:14:09 --> 00:14:14 So in mid-November, I started writing a blog about all different aspects of
00:14:14 --> 00:14:18 the government and also the economy.
00:14:18 --> 00:14:20 And it's a daily blog.
00:14:20 --> 00:14:23 I've sent out over 200 posts at this point.
00:14:24 --> 00:14:30 And the research in doing those blogs convinced me that there were solutions
00:14:30 --> 00:14:37 to the dysfunction in Washington and that there are other places where a lot
00:14:37 --> 00:14:38 of the solutions already exist.
00:14:38 --> 00:14:42 Some countries in Europe have failed.
00:14:43 --> 00:14:50 Governments that run pretty smoothly. And there are states, some states and
00:14:50 --> 00:14:54 some municipalities that have solutions to some of these issues also.
00:14:55 --> 00:14:59 So I thought, you know, my just trying to get,
00:15:00 --> 00:15:06 dates for talking to people like yourself and going to libraries and other places
00:15:06 --> 00:15:10 to give talks about the information I was collecting, I thought,
00:15:11 --> 00:15:19 writing a book would allow me to get more exposure, to send it to more sources,
00:15:19 --> 00:15:23 and to meet people like you, and also,
00:15:24 --> 00:15:30 to use as an excuse or a lead-in to have talks locally.
00:15:30 --> 00:15:37 And I think that it's been functioning fairly well in that respect. Okay.
00:15:38 --> 00:15:43 So, excuse me, because of your research, you feel that government,
00:15:43 --> 00:15:49 dysfunctional government is not inevitable or irreversible, that it can be fixed.
00:15:49 --> 00:15:52 Correct? That's correct. Yes. Okay.
00:15:54 --> 00:16:00 Excuse me. So we don't have the time really to go in through every item in the
00:16:00 --> 00:16:04 book because you've packed a lot of stuff in that book.
00:16:04 --> 00:16:09 It's not a big book, y'all, but it's very detailed as far as his,
00:16:10 --> 00:16:13 you know, Mr. Gueli's ideas and thoughts.
00:16:14 --> 00:16:17 But I do want to share some of your solutions during the interview.
00:16:17 --> 00:16:22 So we'll deal with some of the hot topics that's on the news.
00:16:22 --> 00:16:23 So let's start with gerrymandering.
00:16:24 --> 00:16:28 How would you address this issue that the U.S. Supreme Court has basically given
00:16:28 --> 00:16:33 its blessing to, especially gerrymandering for political reasons?
00:16:34 --> 00:16:35 Well, I think.
00:16:37 --> 00:16:42 That's the function of the states, and I'm not very optimistic that you're going
00:16:42 --> 00:16:45 to get all the states to get rid of gerrymandering.
00:16:45 --> 00:16:53 The the simple solution would be for congress to pass a bill or an amendment
00:16:53 --> 00:16:59 that would that would get rid of gerrymandering and make it you know for independent,
00:17:00 --> 00:17:05 commissions to select districts that are strictly on a population basis and
00:17:05 --> 00:17:11 not on any kind of political affiliation The other thing that might help is
00:17:11 --> 00:17:14 to go to ranked choice voting,
00:17:14 --> 00:17:23 which is being used to a degree in Maine and Alaska so far, and that would create less of a...
00:17:25 --> 00:17:29 Voting by party kind of thought process.
00:17:29 --> 00:17:37 It would rank the candidates and you'd end up with, or what's happening in Maine
00:17:37 --> 00:17:42 anyway, is that you end up with more moderate people being elected.
00:17:45 --> 00:17:45 Those are.
00:17:46 --> 00:17:52 I'll say that's all I've come up with so far regarding how to get rid of gerrymandering.
00:17:52 --> 00:17:57 Well, that's a good start because one of the things you were saying you would
00:17:57 --> 00:18:03 hope that Congress would pass a law is your concern that if Congress does pass a law,
00:18:04 --> 00:18:09 man is saying that every state should have an independent commission.
00:18:11 --> 00:18:14 Are you afraid that some states would challenge that in court,
00:18:15 --> 00:18:18 you know, saying that violates our state rights and all that stuff?
00:18:19 --> 00:18:23 Yeah, I expected that would happen. And.
00:18:25 --> 00:18:32 If it passed through the court process, then it would be universal, 50 states.
00:18:32 --> 00:18:37 The other thing that could happen is what Hawaii did.
00:18:37 --> 00:18:42 Other states could duplicate that. But again, that's not going to be all of the states.
00:18:43 --> 00:18:48 To get rid of corporate money out of the campaigns, that would be very helpful.
00:18:49 --> 00:18:55 Yeah. So a couple of those things, the taking the corporate money out and the
00:18:55 --> 00:18:58 rank choice voting, you had stated that,
00:18:59 --> 00:19:06 those were some steps also to make Congress more of an active lawmaking body again.
00:19:07 --> 00:19:11 Outside of those, what else do you think needs to be done to make,
00:19:12 --> 00:19:14 get Congress back to being Congress again?
00:19:15 --> 00:19:18 We got to get rid of the campaign financing the way it is now.
00:19:18 --> 00:19:24 There are five countries in Europe that have public campaign financing,
00:19:25 --> 00:19:31 and I've run some numbers, and to do that in this country, there are a couple of options.
00:19:32 --> 00:19:36 One is to have mandatory public funding.
00:19:36 --> 00:19:42 It would be $15 per taxpayer, $30 if you file jointly.
00:19:44 --> 00:19:51 And that would provide enough funding to do all of the federal and governor
00:19:52 --> 00:19:56 elections, but nothing lower than that.
00:19:57 --> 00:20:01 And the other option is to raise the corporate tax by 1%.
00:20:02 --> 00:20:06 That would bring in pretty close to $5 billion a year for the purpose.
00:20:07 --> 00:20:12 But I think there's a psychological benefit to the public doing it. You know, right now,
00:20:13 --> 00:20:18 The public pays the salaries of the people in Congress, but nobody thinks about that.
00:20:19 --> 00:20:24 But if they were to do the campaign funding as well, and they get reminded that
00:20:24 --> 00:20:28 they're doing that every time they file an income tax return,
00:20:28 --> 00:20:34 I think that psychologically they would consider themselves and the people in
00:20:34 --> 00:20:40 Congress would also consider them as the boss, you know, and they would act more like it.
00:20:41 --> 00:20:43 And I think that would be a big benefit.
00:20:44 --> 00:20:49 But campaign financing is crucial. That's got to change.
00:20:49 --> 00:20:55 And the citizens have to participate more and communicate with Congress.
00:20:55 --> 00:20:57 Those two things are absolutely essential.
00:20:58 --> 00:21:05 And you also think that if ranked choice voting was in all 50 states, that you.
00:21:07 --> 00:21:14 Would assume that the voting public would select more civic-minded,
00:21:14 --> 00:21:17 more moderate politicians,
00:21:18 --> 00:21:21 and therefore they would be more productive.
00:21:21 --> 00:21:23 That's kind of your thought process?
00:21:24 --> 00:21:29 Yeah, it is. And it apparently is what's been happening in Maine and Alaska.
00:21:30 --> 00:21:35 I don't know if it would make them more productive, but it would make them more
00:21:35 --> 00:21:39 capable of debate instead of this extreme polarization that exists now.
00:21:40 --> 00:21:47 Okay. What ideas do you have to create affordable housing? Because for those
00:21:47 --> 00:21:52 of y'all listening, if you really want to get a lot of ideas going at your...
00:21:53 --> 00:21:59 Bridge Club or at the diner and all that stuff, you really need to read what Mr.
00:21:59 --> 00:22:03 Gueli has written because he's thrown out a lot of ideas. I just want you,
00:22:03 --> 00:22:08 sir, to share some of the ideas that you've had because the housing issue seems
00:22:08 --> 00:22:11 to be something that you're really, really keen on.
00:22:11 --> 00:22:15 Yeah, well, because it's pretty universal. I mean, it's everywhere.
00:22:15 --> 00:22:19 I know in my area right here, I'm on the eastern end of Long Island,
00:22:19 --> 00:22:24 and there's a lot of grandchildren that have moved off of Long Island and can't
00:22:24 --> 00:22:28 be near their families because they can't afford to stay here.
00:22:29 --> 00:22:38 And I think some of the solutions have to do with building costs and municipalities
00:22:38 --> 00:22:42 getting involved in funding some of the,
00:22:43 --> 00:22:47 opportunities to have affordable housing built.
00:22:48 --> 00:22:52 I think that the government definitely has to focus on it.
00:22:54 --> 00:22:59 They just passed a bill, and I'm not really familiar with all of the ins and
00:22:59 --> 00:23:03 outs of that bill, but I understand it was pretty substantial,
00:23:03 --> 00:23:08 and it should do a lot to helping the housing situation.
00:23:10 --> 00:23:10 I think.
00:23:12 --> 00:23:18 There are houses that can be more efficiently designed so that they're less
00:23:18 --> 00:23:23 expensive to maintain and better use of space.
00:23:23 --> 00:23:28 They don't have to be extravagant houses. They could be pretty modest in size,
00:23:29 --> 00:23:30 but still remain pretty functional.
00:23:31 --> 00:23:36 So design might be a helpful element to solving the problem.
00:23:36 --> 00:23:40 So off the top of my head, I can't think of anything else at the moment,
00:23:41 --> 00:23:46 but I'm pretty sure that, and there are all different kinds of housing too,
00:23:46 --> 00:23:50 you know, between rentals and co-ops and condos and single family homes.
00:23:51 --> 00:23:58 And I think zoning restrictions could be changed to make it easier for more
00:23:58 --> 00:24:02 modest homes to be built rather than big homes.
00:24:02 --> 00:24:06 Yeah. Well, like I said, you wrote most of your ideas down.
00:24:07 --> 00:24:13 The book, which is very helpful. So I think, you know, people reading the book
00:24:13 --> 00:24:17 will get a good sense of the focus that you put on there. But there was one
00:24:17 --> 00:24:22 thing you had mentioned the housing bill. How do you feel about.
00:24:23 --> 00:24:28 The language that would say that corporate companies,
00:24:29 --> 00:24:34 investment companies, all that stuff, they would be prohibited from buying or
00:24:34 --> 00:24:41 restricted as far as buying homes that are supposed to be for families and residents.
00:24:42 --> 00:24:46 Yeah, thank you for reminding me about that. Yeah, private equity firms have
00:24:46 --> 00:24:49 really hurt a lot of people.
00:24:49 --> 00:24:54 The way they work is, well, first of all, they're very wealthy.
00:24:54 --> 00:24:55 There's a lot of money involved.
00:24:55 --> 00:25:00 And they could, not only with the residential communities where they buy up
00:25:00 --> 00:25:04 entire, say, mobile home communities or apartment communities,
00:25:05 --> 00:25:14 and then they could raise the rents and the inhabitants are at a great disadvantage.
00:25:14 --> 00:25:18 And a lot of them have to relocate because of private equity firms.
00:25:19 --> 00:25:24 They also do that with retailers, and they've done it with hospitals,
00:25:24 --> 00:25:26 which has really hurt the ability
00:25:26 --> 00:25:31 of people in rural areas to get medical attention when they need it.
00:25:32 --> 00:25:38 The way they work is that they buy either a chain, a retail chain,
00:25:38 --> 00:25:40 Toys R Us are a prime example.
00:25:40 --> 00:25:50 Toys R Us was a financially stable and thriving retailer and a private equity firm bought them up,
00:25:50 --> 00:25:56 and to buy them, they borrowed money from a financing institution.
00:25:56 --> 00:26:03 And they applied the loan to the Toys R Us company. So the Toys R Us then had
00:26:03 --> 00:26:08 to pay the interest fees and pay the loan back.
00:26:08 --> 00:26:16 And they eventually couldn't cope with that and had to file for Chapter 11 after two or three years.
00:26:17 --> 00:26:21 And the same thing happens with hospitals where hospitals end up,
00:26:22 --> 00:26:27 closing because they can't handle the debt and they go belly up.
00:26:29 --> 00:26:35 The equity firm took the borrowed money and gave most of it to shareholders,
00:26:36 --> 00:26:38 and the rest of it they might have put into,
00:26:39 --> 00:26:46 the business, but they probably did it by choosing new suppliers and,
00:26:47 --> 00:26:51 having equipment and supplies that are,
00:26:52 --> 00:26:56 of a lesser quality than what used to be there and,
00:26:57 --> 00:27:00 they also may have to raise the.
00:27:03 --> 00:27:10 Well, the deterioration of the situation also ends up with people losing their
00:27:10 --> 00:27:16 jobs until finally the hospital or the business closes.
00:27:17 --> 00:27:25 And it's really a terrible situation. And it was caused by the antitrust laws
00:27:25 --> 00:27:30 being modified during the Reagan administration.
00:27:30 --> 00:27:37 Yeah. Yeah. And your fear is that that'll happen in the housing market,
00:27:37 --> 00:27:42 that these private equity firms will buy so many of these houses and then,
00:27:43 --> 00:27:46 they'll have to liquidate them and all that stuff. And.
00:27:49 --> 00:27:53 It may be too costly for average people to buy the homes.
00:27:54 --> 00:28:01 Yeah, that is a concern that I have. I believe one aspect of the new bill that just got passed is that,
00:28:03 --> 00:28:09 they are prohibited from buying more than 5% of the homes or the residences
00:28:09 --> 00:28:11 within a certain square area.
00:28:12 --> 00:28:20 And that should prevent that from lowering the values of the houses in the future.
00:28:21 --> 00:28:24 That's something that's really, really prevalent here.
00:28:25 --> 00:28:29 And I'm based out of Atlanta. And so that's something that is really,
00:28:29 --> 00:28:33 really, I guess, for lack of a better term, epidemic here.
00:28:34 --> 00:28:39 And so that's why Raphael Warnock, the senator from Georgia,
00:28:39 --> 00:28:44 was really pushing that and got that in the bill because he's seen it firsthand
00:28:44 --> 00:28:45 what's going on down here.
00:28:46 --> 00:28:51 What is the cost of apathy, and how can we end public complacency?
00:28:54 --> 00:29:02 I think there are people like you and other podcasters that I've seen on YouTube,
00:29:02 --> 00:29:05 that instill enthusiasm,
00:29:06 --> 00:29:13 and keep the public somewhat engaged a lot more now than before 2015.
00:29:14 --> 00:29:24 And as I said earlier, I'm a little concerned that that peters away to some degree after 2028.
00:29:25 --> 00:29:33 But I think the concern of the population now and the atrocities that go on with what ICE has done,
00:29:34 --> 00:29:41 and the detention centers, I think that is what is instilling a lot of citizen
00:29:41 --> 00:29:43 participation at the moment.
00:29:43 --> 00:29:51 And hopefully we won't have those, call them incentives, to participate after 2028.
00:29:52 --> 00:29:57 And we're just going to have to try to change the culture and just inform people that,
00:29:58 --> 00:30:04 they have to get informed initially and then stay informed and then communicate
00:30:04 --> 00:30:07 with their people in Congress, their representatives.
00:30:08 --> 00:30:12 And I think the message has to keep going out. One thing that would help,
00:30:12 --> 00:30:19 but I'm not very optimistic about it happening, is something akin to FDR's fireside chats,
00:30:20 --> 00:30:27 where the next administration might have a half hour weekly TV show where they
00:30:27 --> 00:30:28 talk about what's going on.
00:30:29 --> 00:30:37 Or maybe a reply to requests that they got from citizens, just inform the people,
00:30:38 --> 00:30:44 and then remind the people that they should let Congress know what's on their mind.
00:30:44 --> 00:30:50 Something like that would go a long way to keeping the participation going. I think.
00:30:52 --> 00:30:59 If it only lasts five years or less, we'll end up going back to what happened
00:30:59 --> 00:31:05 and this has really got to be a culture change and i have 11 grandchildren so,
00:31:06 --> 00:31:08 i have a you know a stake in the game,
00:31:10 --> 00:31:18 indeed you do so you know i guess like to for where we are now you were saying the fireside chats,
00:31:19 --> 00:31:23 i guess it wouldn't hurt because we used when i was growing up you know the
00:31:23 --> 00:31:28 president had a weekly address on public radio and all that kind of stuff.
00:31:29 --> 00:31:33 So I guess a podcast, if say the president decides to have a podcast every week,
00:31:34 --> 00:31:39 and then that way it's like if people don't catch it live, then they can listen
00:31:39 --> 00:31:40 to it at their own leisure.
00:31:41 --> 00:31:46 And like you said, maybe it'll generate some interest, keep people interested.
00:31:47 --> 00:31:57 But since you're in Long Island, so you've got a good view of what Mayor Mamdani is doing.
00:31:58 --> 00:32:05 Do you feel that, does he fall under the concern that you have as far as political
00:32:05 --> 00:32:11 extremism? Or do you think his kind of politics is what will get people excited and stay involved?
00:32:12 --> 00:32:18 I i i think the latter and i'm hope i'm hoping that that's the case and,
00:32:19 --> 00:32:25 one thing that that bothers me is the throwing around of names you know like
00:32:25 --> 00:32:31 socialist communist and other names i think politicians but on both parties
00:32:31 --> 00:32:34 they do things like that uh just to,
00:32:34 --> 00:32:38 frighten people and to get them to think the way they want them to think.
00:32:38 --> 00:32:45 I think that the population has to ignore the name calling and just look at
00:32:45 --> 00:32:51 the issue itself to determine whether or not it's an issue that would benefit
00:32:51 --> 00:32:53 the population at large.
00:32:53 --> 00:32:56 And if that's the case, then support it.
00:32:57 --> 00:33:02 And if it's something that's not going to benefit the population, then don't support it.
00:33:03 --> 00:33:08 And then communicate that to your congressman. All right. So I got a couple
00:33:08 --> 00:33:09 more questions before I let you go.
00:33:10 --> 00:33:14 Why is education a foundation for civic engagement?
00:33:15 --> 00:33:18 Well, you know, young people...
00:33:20 --> 00:33:25 I think it's 18 to 25. They don't vote. Of course, they're probably in college
00:33:25 --> 00:33:28 and they've got other concerns. It's a different part of their life.
00:33:29 --> 00:33:36 But they also, civics isn't taught anymore in high school or grammar school.
00:33:36 --> 00:33:42 And I think there are a great many of them would have more of an interest in
00:33:42 --> 00:33:45 it if they were getting educated about it.
00:33:45 --> 00:33:50 I think, I don't know this for sure, but I saw something on the news a few months
00:33:50 --> 00:33:54 ago where some interviewer on the streets of, I think it was New York,
00:33:55 --> 00:33:59 was asking people if they knew about what the three...
00:34:00 --> 00:34:06 Parts of the government were. And there were a pretty good percentage of people,
00:34:07 --> 00:34:09 that couldn't identify all three parts of the government.
00:34:10 --> 00:34:15 So, you know, things like that were troublesome to me. And I just think civics
00:34:15 --> 00:34:20 has to be part of the education for the first 12 years. Yeah.
00:34:21 --> 00:34:27 When a person finishes reading your book, what do you want them to take away from it?
00:34:28 --> 00:34:31 Well, the last part of the book was just the suggestion.
00:34:32 --> 00:34:36 And I went through the exercise and I found it almost entertaining.
00:34:36 --> 00:34:38 I mean, I enjoyed doing it.
00:34:38 --> 00:34:42 And the first four parts of the book convey a lot of information.
00:34:42 --> 00:34:48 And with that information, I think people have the ability to determine what
00:34:48 --> 00:34:52 they would like to see and what they might even,
00:34:53 --> 00:34:59 think about doing if they could imagine themselves in a position of authority and,
00:35:00 --> 00:35:05 lay out an actual step-by-step list of priorities to take to address,
00:35:05 --> 00:35:07 to be addressed by the government.
00:35:07 --> 00:35:12 And that way, they could do a few important things. They could evaluate the
00:35:12 --> 00:35:17 candidates before anybody is elected and communicate to the candidates,
00:35:18 --> 00:35:20 possibly sway thinking.
00:35:20 --> 00:35:27 And then after people are elected, they could also either encourage or complain
00:35:27 --> 00:35:30 about what's not being done that they feel should be done.
00:35:31 --> 00:35:34 Okay. So how can people, Mr. Gueli, get this book?
00:35:35 --> 00:35:43 Well, it's on Amazon, Amazon.com. But, you know, this computer process of self-publishing
00:35:43 --> 00:35:50 was a little alien to me. And I ended up creating what I now refer to as a draft copy.
00:35:51 --> 00:35:57 And I ended up correcting everything. And I put out a second edition,
00:35:57 --> 00:35:59 which is the copy that you have.
00:36:00 --> 00:36:05 And I just want to alert people that if they go to Amazon for the book,
00:36:05 --> 00:36:09 they should definitely only consider the second edition.
00:36:10 --> 00:36:15 The information in it is essentially the same, but there were a lot of layout
00:36:15 --> 00:36:19 issues on the first try that I was unhappy with.
00:36:20 --> 00:36:26 That's cool. All right. So if people wanted to reach out to you, how could they do that?
00:36:26 --> 00:36:31 Readily available by email. I check my email four or five times a day because
00:36:31 --> 00:36:34 I'm involved in some other community stuff here. And, you know,
00:36:34 --> 00:36:37 there's reasons why I have to stay in touch.
00:36:38 --> 00:36:46 My email address is GueliDad, that's G-U-E-L-I-D-A-D, at gmail.com.
00:36:47 --> 00:36:53 Well, Charles Gueli, first of all, let me commend you for staying engaged and,
00:36:54 --> 00:37:01 using your elderly wisdom to try to educate some folks out here about politics.
00:37:01 --> 00:37:08 And one of my rules is that, excuse me, whenever you have been on the show,
00:37:08 --> 00:37:10 you have an open invitation to come back.
00:37:10 --> 00:37:14 So if you decide to write another book, please feel free to reach out to me
00:37:14 --> 00:37:19 and we'll get you back on. But Charles, thank you so much for doing this and
00:37:19 --> 00:37:20 thank you so much for being on the show.
00:37:21 --> 00:37:24 I really appreciate you having me, Mr. Fleming. Thank you.
00:37:25 --> 00:37:29 Thank you for what you said. Yes, sir. All right, guys. We're going to catch
00:37:29 --> 00:37:30 you all on the other side.
00:37:50 --> 00:37:55 And we are back, and so now it is time for my next guest, Alexa Morris.
00:37:56 --> 00:38:00 Alexa Morris grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., dabbling in several
00:38:00 --> 00:38:05 jobs, including being a page for the United States Senate, before choosing the
00:38:05 --> 00:38:07 world of nonprofits where she remains to this day.
00:38:08 --> 00:38:13 When she married Ben Parket's daughter and learned of his Holocaust survival
00:38:13 --> 00:38:17 journey, she became determined to help him turn his story into a book.
00:38:17 --> 00:38:22 That book, The Courtyard, and was published by Amsterdam Publishers.
00:38:22 --> 00:38:28 Alexa lives with her family in Northern California and is currently at work on her first novel.
00:38:29 --> 00:38:33 And so our discussion will be based off of this book called The Courtyard.
00:38:34 --> 00:38:37 So ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a
00:38:37 --> 00:38:41 guest on this podcast, Alexa Morris.
00:38:54 --> 00:38:59 Alexa Morris, how are you doing? I'm doing very well this morning. How are you doing?
00:38:59 --> 00:39:04 I'm doing good. I'm doing good. I am glad that we were able to get this interview together.
00:39:05 --> 00:39:09 I had told my listeners because of the situation at my real job,
00:39:09 --> 00:39:14 I had to adjust all the schedules and you were one of the people I had to reschedule.
00:39:14 --> 00:39:19 So I was really, really glad I was able to get you because this is a really beautiful book.
00:39:20 --> 00:39:25 It's very similar it was another lady i think her name was Pauline Steinhorn if i remember,
00:39:26 --> 00:39:31 i know Pauline yeah yeah and so she had written a similar book and it was but
00:39:31 --> 00:39:36 you you had a different tact it was like hers was based off uh journals,
00:39:37 --> 00:39:41 and yours was actually the guy was recounting his stories,
00:39:41 --> 00:39:45 and it's just fascinating it's just fascinating to me that a person,
00:39:46 --> 00:39:51 could remember all those details like that that that and so that makes the book
00:39:51 --> 00:39:53 really really compelling,
00:39:53 --> 00:39:57 hard to ask questions about it but i'm going to navigate through there because
00:39:57 --> 00:40:00 it was it was just it was just a good read no well thank you for saying that
00:40:00 --> 00:40:04 yeah it's a beautiful beautiful story but since,
00:40:05 --> 00:40:10 it's it's similar to what miss Pauline did i'm gonna i'm gonna give you this
00:40:10 --> 00:40:14 to start off, I'm going to give you the same quote that I asked her to respond to.
00:40:15 --> 00:40:20 And the quote is, the lessons of the Holocaust are not Jewish, but universal.
00:40:20 --> 00:40:24 And unfortunately, the lessons remain relevant today.
00:40:25 --> 00:40:29 Who said that, by the way? Where's that quote from? I pulled it off.
00:40:30 --> 00:40:35 I got to go back. I can't remember who did it, but I pulled it off. It's true. It's true.
00:40:36 --> 00:40:41 Yeah. Well, Google knows everything and it's true. It's a very true statement, unfortunately.
00:40:41 --> 00:40:44 And they're broader than just, you know, relating to anti-Semitism.
00:40:45 --> 00:40:51 It's just a broader lesson about what we're doing with immigration and all sorts of things right now.
00:40:51 --> 00:40:56 Yeah. All right. So now my next icebreaker is called 20 questions.
00:40:56 --> 00:41:00 So I need you to give me a number between one and 20. Hmm.
00:41:01 --> 00:41:04 Let's go with eight. Okay.
00:41:04 --> 00:41:10 What is one thing you hope the current administration will do or not do during
00:41:10 --> 00:41:11 the remainder of their term?
00:41:12 --> 00:41:13 One thing?
00:41:16 --> 00:41:22 Well, you know, the situation with ICE is pretty troubling and on my mind these
00:41:22 --> 00:41:24 days with the two recent killings.
00:41:24 --> 00:41:30 And I'll pick that as something that I think needs to stop right away because,
00:41:31 --> 00:41:37 to me, it ties very much into the theme of the book and how we treat people
00:41:37 --> 00:41:39 that come to our country, because,
00:41:41 --> 00:41:45 the protagonist of my book, my father-in-law, who I had dinner with last night,
00:41:45 --> 00:41:50 was among other things also, his family was an immigrant to his country of France.
00:41:50 --> 00:41:55 And what we're doing now feels very counter to the spirit of the people that
00:41:55 --> 00:42:01 helped Ben and his family in his book, in his story. So I would like heist to go away.
00:42:03 --> 00:42:08 Yeah yeah i think you know and it part of my my background story is that right
00:42:08 --> 00:42:13 after i left the legislature i worked for an immigrants rights organization,
00:42:14 --> 00:42:21 and you know i just the the process that people have to go through the fees,
00:42:21 --> 00:42:27 you know it's like there's a the old saying is there's a better way to run the railroad.
00:42:28 --> 00:42:34 And I think, you know, that, and that's been almost 20 years ago and it hasn't gotten any better.
00:42:34 --> 00:42:41 And so I, I think that, you know, I personally think a boss ICE needs to be
00:42:41 --> 00:42:45 abolished and we could get into a whole nother podcast about that.
00:42:45 --> 00:42:49 But I, you know, I, I feel there are sentiments about that because it,
00:42:49 --> 00:42:54 it doesn't make any sense for us, a country that's been based on immigration,
00:42:55 --> 00:43:03 to lack the political will or to let it get to a point where it's like people
00:43:04 --> 00:43:07 feel they have to do extreme things to address the problem.
00:43:08 --> 00:43:12 I agree. All right. So what compelled you to write this book?
00:43:13 --> 00:43:18 Well, my father-in-law, who Benjamin Parket, who I wrote the book with,
00:43:19 --> 00:43:20 he wanted to write a book.
00:43:20 --> 00:43:25 So he wanted to write his story, but he had really struggled to find a way into it.
00:43:26 --> 00:43:30 And it was actually my partner, his daughter, who put us together and said,
00:43:31 --> 00:43:34 you know, said to me, I know you want to write. You like to write.
00:43:34 --> 00:43:39 And my dad has a story to tell. And I think that you two should work on it.
00:43:39 --> 00:43:42 So in some ways, it was very much just a family project. You know,
00:43:43 --> 00:43:46 I wanted to help him bring his story to life.
00:43:46 --> 00:43:52 But then the more I learned about his story, I just felt like there was a lot there.
00:43:52 --> 00:43:56 It's a quiet book in many ways. It's not as dramatic as many stories of the
00:43:56 --> 00:44:00 Holocaust, but I think that's what makes it special.
00:44:01 --> 00:44:05 And it makes this story beautiful, actually, because it's a story of people
00:44:05 --> 00:44:10 doing the right thing in a time of real evil and darkness, which is not the
00:44:10 --> 00:44:14 typical story you hear when you're reading about the Holocaust.
00:44:15 --> 00:44:20 I like that description, a quiet book. And that's perfect as far as,
00:44:21 --> 00:44:25 because you just, you go into the story, even when, you know.
00:44:26 --> 00:44:32 The Nazis occupy France, It's just kind of like, you know, it's not as traumatic
00:44:32 --> 00:44:35 as you would think, but it is life-altering.
00:44:36 --> 00:44:42 And so, you know, the way that he was recounting things, it was just,
00:44:42 --> 00:44:44 again, it's an amazing story.
00:44:45 --> 00:44:49 And it leads me to many survivors of the Holocaust are reluctant to tell their
00:44:49 --> 00:44:52 stories, but it seems like Mr.
00:44:52 --> 00:44:57 Parkett, And that's an interesting nuance, too, because his name is Parkette,
00:44:58 --> 00:45:01 but his family is Parkiet. Is that how you?
00:45:02 --> 00:45:05 I think it's Parkiet, but I'm honestly not sure. Yes.
00:45:06 --> 00:45:10 Yeah, that's just a strange thing that I think it happens a lot,
00:45:10 --> 00:45:14 or it used to happen more maybe. But his family all immigrated from Poland to
00:45:14 --> 00:45:18 France before he was born, and he was the only one born in Paris.
00:45:18 --> 00:45:21 His two older brothers and his parents had immigrated previously,
00:45:21 --> 00:45:23 and it was just recorded incorrectly.
00:45:23 --> 00:45:27 Like the eye was just dropped on his birth certificate, and it was during a
00:45:27 --> 00:45:30 time when you didn't correct such things. And so he always has had a different
00:45:30 --> 00:45:35 name from his historic family name. No.
00:45:35 --> 00:45:39 Yeah. But he was, but he, he wasn't reluctant in telling his story.
00:45:39 --> 00:45:45 So why, why do you think that he, well, I mean, well, why, why do you think
00:45:45 --> 00:45:49 he wanted to tell the story as compared to say some other survivors?
00:45:51 --> 00:45:56 I would have to guess a little bit, but I'm pretty sure that it likely comes
00:45:56 --> 00:46:00 down to the fact that his story is actually not as traumatic as a lot of people's stories.
00:46:00 --> 00:46:08 I think that there are so many survivors that endured or witnessed such horrific,
00:46:08 --> 00:46:14 inhumane acts that you don't know how to process that. You just shove it down inside.
00:46:14 --> 00:46:19 And his story, you know, there's trauma there. You know, he was in hiding for
00:46:19 --> 00:46:23 over two years. There was a lot of fear and there was a lot of terror,
00:46:23 --> 00:46:25 certainly, that his parents experienced.
00:46:25 --> 00:46:29 But also, to a degree, he was protected from a lot of that because he was 9
00:46:29 --> 00:46:35 to 11 years old and he, his parents, he was the youngest, so his parents really tried to insulate him.
00:46:36 --> 00:46:42 So I think that's one reason why. And I think, you know, he's one of the last survivors.
00:46:42 --> 00:46:46 We really are, that generation is dwindling and is almost gone.
00:46:46 --> 00:46:48 He's going to be 93 next month.
00:46:48 --> 00:46:54 And I think he really wanted to, and I know that he really wanted to leave his
00:46:54 --> 00:46:57 story behind for his children and his grandchildren.
00:46:57 --> 00:47:03 I mean, as I spoke with him, I learned more about his life than his kids had heard.
00:47:04 --> 00:47:08 So it wasn't, he had talked about it openly, but he had never talked about it
00:47:08 --> 00:47:13 in the detail that he shared in writing this book.
00:47:13 --> 00:47:17 And I think it was important to him to capture that. Yeah.
00:47:18 --> 00:47:20 All right. So the name of the book
00:47:20 --> 00:47:24 is called The Courtyard. So what is the significance of The Courtyard?
00:47:26 --> 00:47:32 So the courtyard is a real courtyard in Paris. It's at 5 Rue des Chirones.
00:47:32 --> 00:47:34 It's in the 11th arrondissement.
00:47:34 --> 00:47:40 And the courtyard is where Ben both was born and lived and grew up.
00:47:40 --> 00:47:43 And then we're also where he hid with his family during the war.
00:47:45 --> 00:47:50 So it's really like the literal and figurative heart of the book.
00:47:51 --> 00:47:56 Because the people that lived in that courtyard, which was mostly a business courtyard.
00:47:56 --> 00:48:00 It was mostly a center for woodworking. So most of the people that were there
00:48:00 --> 00:48:04 during the day would leave at night, but there were a number of families that
00:48:04 --> 00:48:09 lived in the area that his family lived in, in one corner of the courtyard.
00:48:09 --> 00:48:15 And those are the people that came together during the war and when the Nazis
00:48:15 --> 00:48:19 came and occupied Paris and protected him and his family.
00:48:19 --> 00:48:22 So it really all comes down to the courtyard, you know,
00:48:23 --> 00:48:29 and and the people in it yeah because that it was it was it was like all of
00:48:29 --> 00:48:31 them were some kind of artisans in some kind of way,
00:48:32 --> 00:48:38 because i think ben's dad was like a varnisher if that was yeah yes so you know
00:48:38 --> 00:48:43 so they all kind of each had a skill set that they would cooperate with each
00:48:43 --> 00:48:46 other and on different projects and all that kind of stuff um,
00:48:47 --> 00:48:51 Yeah. So it's like, it's just that central spot where everybody was.
00:48:51 --> 00:48:57 I forget the lady's name that was the rent, that was renting a place, Madame something, but.
00:48:57 --> 00:49:03 Ramon. Yeah. The Ramons. Yes. She, it was like, she was an imposing figure for
00:49:03 --> 00:49:05 a woman and all that stuff. I thought that was pretty cool.
00:49:06 --> 00:49:10 Yes. Of course. Yeah. You know, nine years old, it's like, really?
00:49:10 --> 00:49:12 Wow. You know, I can imagine. Yes.
00:49:13 --> 00:49:16 Yeah. Yeah. Especially when he was a toddler, I think he was really,
00:49:16 --> 00:49:20 really scared of her, but, but, but she had a heart of gold, you know, really. So.
00:49:20 --> 00:49:26 Yeah. One of my favorites parts of the story was the broken glass where,
00:49:26 --> 00:49:32 you know, I guess he had kicked a soccer ball into, you know, he, he's from Europe.
00:49:32 --> 00:49:36 So he called it football, but he kicked a soccer ball and broke a window.
00:49:37 --> 00:49:38 And that led to his dad.
00:49:41 --> 00:49:46 Explaining a Jewish tradition to him about the significance of broken glass.
00:49:46 --> 00:49:51 And I thought that was really, really cool. And I could imagine as a child that
00:49:51 --> 00:49:54 would leave a lasting, lasting impression on somebody.
00:49:55 --> 00:49:59 When you were helping Mr. Parket tell the story, how were your emotions swayed,
00:50:00 --> 00:50:08 especially from 1937 Bastille Day celebration to the eventual occupation of Paris by the Nazis?
00:50:09 --> 00:50:13 I mean, I was learning about not just his story for the first time,
00:50:13 --> 00:50:19 but also the history of France during the war, because I just had only kind
00:50:19 --> 00:50:21 of a cursory understanding of World War II.
00:50:21 --> 00:50:24 I knew the basics, but I didn't really understand France's role,
00:50:24 --> 00:50:30 how France collaborated with the Nazis, how much the French government participated
00:50:30 --> 00:50:35 in the arrest and, you know, and putting people into camps.
00:50:35 --> 00:50:37 I mean, it was really the French police who did that.
00:50:37 --> 00:50:41 So it was, you know, interesting very much.
00:50:41 --> 00:50:46 And it was also pretty heartbreaking. I mean, the story particularly of Ben's
00:50:46 --> 00:50:51 father, who was one of the earliest men arrested and taken to a camp outside
00:50:51 --> 00:50:54 of Paris called Drancy, a camp that
00:50:54 --> 00:50:59 would then become the main French gateway to Auschwitz.
00:50:59 --> 00:51:05 That was pretty heart-rending to understand what he had endured for the time that he was there.
00:51:05 --> 00:51:11 But at the same time, when I was learning all of these pretty terrifying and tragic details.
00:51:12 --> 00:51:18 At every step, I was also hearing about how somebody stepped in with kindness
00:51:18 --> 00:51:23 or how somebody intervened in a way that actually saved them.
00:51:23 --> 00:51:27 I mean, even that particular story with Joseph, Ben's father,
00:51:27 --> 00:51:31 being taken to a camp and being in a camp for several months,
00:51:31 --> 00:51:33 like near starvation, extremely ill.
00:51:34 --> 00:51:38 Many people died in the early months of that camp because it wasn't set up to
00:51:38 --> 00:51:41 house the thousands and thousands of men that they had arrested for absolutely
00:51:41 --> 00:51:44 no reason, except for the fact that they were immigrants and Jewish.
00:51:45 --> 00:51:50 He ended up being released. You know, he was one of only a few that was sent back home.
00:51:50 --> 00:51:55 And that is a miracle, really. I mean, if he hadn't been, the whole trajectory
00:51:55 --> 00:52:00 of their family's life would have been dramatically different,
00:52:00 --> 00:52:02 I think. I doubt they would have survived. Yeah.
00:52:04 --> 00:52:10 Since you brought that up, what struck you as impressive about the Parky Eds
00:52:10 --> 00:52:12 and their neighbors' survival skills? Yeah.
00:52:13 --> 00:52:21 Well, I think Ben's father, Joseph, was extremely resourceful for someone who,
00:52:21 --> 00:52:25 really was still very much an outsider to the French way of doing things.
00:52:25 --> 00:52:30 You know, he had immigrated in 1931, I think. Ben was born in 1933.
00:52:30 --> 00:52:34 So they had lived there for a while. But like a lot of immigrants,
00:52:34 --> 00:52:38 you know, they really congregated with their own communities.
00:52:39 --> 00:52:43 Other immigrants from Poland. And so he had only learned, and also his wife
00:52:43 --> 00:52:45 had only really learned basic French.
00:52:45 --> 00:52:49 So their communication with the neighbors was very rudimentary.
00:52:49 --> 00:52:54 It was sort of not much beyond just saying hello and kind of exchanging pleasantries.
00:52:55 --> 00:53:00 But at the same time, I think he was known as a very good and hard worker.
00:53:00 --> 00:53:03 He was known as somebody who could be relied upon.
00:53:03 --> 00:53:07 Ben told me that even though neither of his parents ever drank wine,
00:53:07 --> 00:53:12 they just weren't drinkers, They always had a bottle of wine sitting inside
00:53:12 --> 00:53:17 the door of their apartment just in case somebody came by to offer a glass of wine.
00:53:17 --> 00:53:24 I think these kinds of things made people care about the family.
00:53:24 --> 00:53:28 I mean, and also, you know, having young Ben being one of only two children
00:53:28 --> 00:53:30 born and growing up in that courtyard, I think that,
00:53:31 --> 00:53:37 the other citizens of their particular corner of the courtyard just were invested
00:53:37 --> 00:53:41 in this family in a way that they weren't necessarily invested in the lives
00:53:41 --> 00:53:44 of some other people in the courtyard who actually did not survive.
00:53:44 --> 00:53:48 So, and the people in the courtyard themselves were, as I'm sure we'll talk
00:53:48 --> 00:53:50 about, were special in their own way, too.
00:53:51 --> 00:53:56 Yeah, well, I mean, that was kind of the thing I wanted you to get into with
00:53:56 --> 00:54:01 the neighbors as well, is like, you know, their ability to just...
00:54:02 --> 00:54:08 You know, in a moment, just focus in on helping people. And I guess,
00:54:09 --> 00:54:16 yeah, so based on the story, why do you think crisis brings out the best in humans?
00:54:17 --> 00:54:21 Oh, that's a great question. I mean, I don't think it always does.
00:54:21 --> 00:54:23 I think it can bring out the worst.
00:54:24 --> 00:54:27 I've thought a little bit about this and I don't have anything wise to say,
00:54:27 --> 00:54:34 but I've thought about the different kinds of bravery that the different neighbors exhibited.
00:54:34 --> 00:54:42 Because just to go into the story a little bit more, the first person that intervened
00:54:42 --> 00:54:46 right before the family was going to be arrested was their upstairs neighbor.
00:54:46 --> 00:54:50 Her name was Madam Nicola, and she was a young widow, and she happened to work
00:54:50 --> 00:54:52 as a secretary at the Central Police Station.
00:54:52 --> 00:54:58 And because that was her job, she saw that the family's names were
00:54:58 --> 00:55:02 on a list of all of the families that were going to be arrested the next day
00:55:02 --> 00:55:05 in what would become very infamously known as the Valdiv Roundup,
00:55:05 --> 00:55:11 where everybody was put into a sports arena and kept there before they were deported.
00:55:12 --> 00:55:17 When she saw their names, she just left work and she rushed home and she pounded
00:55:17 --> 00:55:21 on their door in the middle of their midday meal and said, you have to leave.
00:55:21 --> 00:55:23 You can't be here in the morning and you can't go to the metro.
00:55:23 --> 00:55:24 They're going to be waiting.
00:55:24 --> 00:55:27 You have to not be here when they come to arrest you.
00:55:28 --> 00:55:32 So that was a very specific kind of bravery because if she had been caught,
00:55:33 --> 00:55:35 if somebody had seen her, she would have been a traitor. She could have been,
00:55:36 --> 00:55:40 shot herself or put in a camp. I mean, what she did was literally risking her life.
00:55:41 --> 00:55:46 But it was a very I feel like if I put myself in her shoes it feels like a very
00:55:46 --> 00:55:50 impulsive bravery like I have to do this I have to do this right now and then
00:55:50 --> 00:55:53 there were the people that ended up helping them for the.
00:55:53 --> 00:55:57 Two years they were in hiding because the next thing they had to do was they
00:55:57 --> 00:56:02 had to find a place to hide and where they ended up going was in a warehouse
00:56:02 --> 00:56:04 in that same courtyard that another
00:56:04 --> 00:56:09 furniture maker emptied out for them and they crossed over and they moved into
00:56:09 --> 00:56:13 this warehouse the size of, say, a single car garage with only a wood stove
00:56:13 --> 00:56:16 and obviously no electricity or no refrigeration.
00:56:16 --> 00:56:18 Nobody had that where they lived.
00:56:19 --> 00:56:23 And that was a different kind of bravery and a different kind of stress because,
00:56:23 --> 00:56:30 for two years, he was at risk of having the family being discovered.
00:56:30 --> 00:56:35 And imagine, I mean, the family, of course, was under the most level of stress
00:56:35 --> 00:56:40 but that had to be a lot to carry for for two years that kind of weight of of
00:56:40 --> 00:56:45 of being worried that that this might be discovered and then there were also these,
00:56:45 --> 00:56:50 that these neighbors who happen to run shops deli and a grocery store and then
00:56:50 --> 00:56:55 each day they put food aside so that young bed could go outside and get food
00:56:55 --> 00:56:58 from they put it aside and he would just slide the money across the counter
00:56:59 --> 00:57:03 and and he would take the food back to the warehouse to feed his family because
00:57:03 --> 00:57:04 Otherwise, they would have not had food.
00:57:05 --> 00:57:08 So they were each brave in different
00:57:08 --> 00:57:12 ways, I feel like, and each took a different level of risk. But...
00:57:14 --> 00:57:18 I asked myself that question a lot, and I don't have an answer because one of
00:57:18 --> 00:57:22 the questions that kept coming up for me when I wrote this book is,
00:57:23 --> 00:57:24 well, what would you do for your neighbor?
00:57:25 --> 00:57:30 Like, what would you do if a neighbor you only knew in passing who had never
00:57:30 --> 00:57:36 really dined in your house, who wasn't a close friend, came to you in desperate need of protection?
00:57:36 --> 00:57:39 And I want to say that I would do the right thing, but I, you know,
00:57:39 --> 00:57:43 you don't know until you're tested. Yeah, yeah.
00:57:44 --> 00:57:51 So I noticed that Benjamin recounted sentiments of anti-Semitism that existed prior to the war.
00:57:52 --> 00:57:55 Why was that an important context to share in the story?
00:57:55 --> 00:58:00 Well, a lot of the anti-Semitism that his father experienced was actually in
00:58:00 --> 00:58:02 Poland. It was one of the reasons they had immigrated.
00:58:03 --> 00:58:10 So I think, you know, Poland was really a very anti-Semitic country even prior to the war.
00:58:11 --> 00:58:17 He and Joseph was really when he was a soldier he wanted to he was a socialist
00:58:17 --> 00:58:22 he wanted to fight for his country he believed in his country but he felt that,
00:58:23 --> 00:58:27 there they didn't include him in their definition of what what it meant to be
00:58:27 --> 00:58:31 Polish and that is one of that's the primary reason why they immigrated
00:58:32 --> 00:58:36 in France though I mean in early days when they first moved there they didn't
00:58:36 --> 00:58:39 feel anti-Semitism at all. They felt very accepted.
00:58:39 --> 00:58:45 It was really only until the Nazis occupied Paris that they started feeling
00:58:46 --> 00:58:50 that, and I think Ben will say he never felt it, honestly, but.
00:58:52 --> 00:58:57 The way they felt it was through the change in legislation, which restricted
00:58:57 --> 00:59:01 their movements and which restricted what kind of property they could have.
00:59:01 --> 00:59:04 They couldn't have a radio, They couldn't have a bicycle. So those were the
00:59:04 --> 00:59:07 real ways in which this particular family felt it.
00:59:07 --> 00:59:11 And they were, I think, maybe a bit protected by, again, the community they
00:59:11 --> 00:59:16 lived in, which insulated them through, you know, just being in this courtyard
00:59:16 --> 00:59:19 from some of what was going on in broader city.
00:59:22 --> 00:59:28 Let's see. How do I want to work this? So what was the most memorable moment
00:59:28 --> 00:59:35 of August 25th, 1944 for Ben? Wow. Well, that's a good question.
00:59:35 --> 00:59:38 I'm a little bit bad with dates. I mean, that's the liberation, right?
00:59:38 --> 00:59:45 That's when Paris was liberated. And so he remembers that they went down into
00:59:45 --> 00:59:51 the courtyard and he remembers very vividly the celebration and seeing his mother.
00:59:52 --> 00:59:57 Sitting with, when they all came out, they gathered around and she sat in folding
00:59:57 --> 01:00:01 chairs with the other women. And she just, he remembers this ring of black dresses
01:00:01 --> 01:00:03 and them all crying tears of happiness.
01:00:05 --> 01:00:08 Then the next thing, and I don't remember which day it is, which is why I wasn't
01:00:08 --> 01:00:13 hesitating a bit, but de Gaulle, Charles de Gaulle, came to the city of Paris
01:00:13 --> 01:00:17 and was parading to Notre Dame.
01:00:17 --> 01:00:22 And Ben's father and older brothers and he wanted to go see it.
01:00:22 --> 01:00:27 And so they went down and wanted to witness de Gaulle walking through the streets.
01:00:27 --> 01:00:30 Of course, it was so crowded that they couldn't get close and they were on a
01:00:30 --> 01:00:33 nearby bridge just sort of peering and they could basically barely see.
01:00:33 --> 01:00:37 He was a very tall man, so they could see his hat, his kepi, bouncing.
01:00:37 --> 01:00:41 But there were snipers up in the buildings that shot down at de Gaulle.
01:00:41 --> 01:00:45 And so that was, I think, a memorable moment because the whole crowd sort of
01:00:45 --> 01:00:49 scattered. He remembers being pressed down into the pavement by his father,
01:00:49 --> 01:00:50 who was trying to keep him safe.
01:00:51 --> 01:00:56 But de Gaulle didn't even flinch and just kept walking all the way to the cathedral, to Notre Dame.
01:00:56 --> 01:01:02 Those two moments stood out in the immediate days after the war.
01:01:02 --> 01:01:07 Also, he had very badly missed his friend who lived in the courtyard.
01:01:07 --> 01:01:10 He had been missing her, his very best friend from before the war.
01:01:10 --> 01:01:16 And when he saw her, it was clear that her life had moved on and she had not
01:01:16 --> 01:01:21 missed him the way he had missed her, you know, pining away basically for two
01:01:21 --> 01:01:23 years in this warehouse.
01:01:23 --> 01:01:28 And I think that that was a sad, one of the only sad things that happened coming
01:01:28 --> 01:01:31 out of the war was to sort of see that loss of a childhood friendship,
01:01:32 --> 01:01:33 something that had been so dear to him.
01:01:34 --> 01:01:35 Yeah. And that was Renee, right?
01:01:36 --> 01:01:39 Yes. She went by Titi, but her name was Renee. Yes. His very,
01:01:39 --> 01:01:43 very best friend when he was a child.
01:01:43 --> 01:01:47 Yeah. But there was another situation. I think it was his.
01:01:48 --> 01:01:52 I think it was his mom or his grandmom. Oh, the soldiers. Yeah,
01:01:52 --> 01:01:59 yeah. When it was like she didn't want to come and then they had to send a Jewish
01:01:59 --> 01:02:01 soldier came and said it's going to be okay.
01:02:02 --> 01:02:08 And then she left. Yes, that happened about, I don't know, a week or two after liberation.
01:02:08 --> 01:02:14 And what happened there was Ben's mother, she had never left this warehouse
01:02:14 --> 01:02:20 for over two years, right? You know, Ben went out every day to get food, but she had not left.
01:02:20 --> 01:02:26 And after the war, she clearly was more terrified of leaving than anybody really understood.
01:02:26 --> 01:02:32 So as the boys and their father started exploring Paris and just celebrating
01:02:32 --> 01:02:36 the fact that they were free again, she never left the walls of the courtyard.
01:02:36 --> 01:02:40 They moved back into their apartment, which had been completely looted and was
01:02:40 --> 01:02:44 empty. But they moved back in, but she didn't want to leave the courtyard.
01:02:44 --> 01:02:46 So Ben still went and got the food.
01:02:46 --> 01:02:50 And when Ben and his brothers and father were roaming the city.
01:02:51 --> 01:02:53 They met some American soldiers.
01:02:53 --> 01:02:56 They met one particular American soldier, a man named Sidney Feldman,
01:02:56 --> 01:03:01 who became a close family friend and would come over for dinner and bring them
01:03:01 --> 01:03:06 the MREs, the meals ready to eat, those calorie packed meals that soldiers get.
01:03:07 --> 01:03:12 And when he was over for dinner one time, he learned that she had not left the
01:03:12 --> 01:03:14 courtyard. And he was like, well, that doesn't, that's not going to,
01:03:15 --> 01:03:19 that's not okay. You know, Madame Parquet, you've got to, you've got to go see Paris again.
01:03:19 --> 01:03:24 So he returned the next day with three of his battalion mates and or squad mates,
01:03:24 --> 01:03:29 and they literally surrounded her on all sides and escorted her
01:03:29 --> 01:03:35 out of the courtyard and through the neighborhood and walked to the Bastille,
01:03:35 --> 01:03:38 which isn't that far away, but I'm sure it felt very far to her.
01:03:38 --> 01:03:44 And I always like to say that the Americans liberated Paris and then they liberated,
01:03:45 --> 01:03:47 Ben's mom because they made her feel safe again.
01:03:47 --> 01:03:51 Yeah, that was a cool moment. Yeah. So.
01:03:52 --> 01:04:00 Tell me if I'm wrong, but I kind of felt that the theme of the book was circular, right?
01:04:00 --> 01:04:04 So it was like, and there were moments where like...
01:04:05 --> 01:04:10 Ben's mom had lost the locket that Joseph had given them when they were leaving
01:04:10 --> 01:04:12 Paris because they thought it was going to get bombed or whatever.
01:04:13 --> 01:04:17 And then they came back and, and they, and the locket was found. Right.
01:04:18 --> 01:04:22 And, and it just seemed like there was, you know, Joseph got arrested and then
01:04:22 --> 01:04:27 he came back, you know, and then the overall theme was like,
01:04:27 --> 01:04:30 you start off and it's like, you know, you're celebrating Bastille day and it's
01:04:30 --> 01:04:32 freedom and all this stuff.
01:04:32 --> 01:04:36 And then they go through this adventure and then at the end,
01:04:36 --> 01:04:41 you know, they get their freedom restored. So I kind of always I kind of felt
01:04:41 --> 01:04:45 that the theme was circular. Am I a little off base with that or?
01:04:45 --> 01:04:49 It's such that's such an amazing, really interesting observation. I think you're right.
01:04:49 --> 01:04:53 It was not intentionally done. Those are just the facts of the story.
01:04:53 --> 01:04:56 But now that you say that, I think it's really interesting.
01:04:56 --> 01:05:01 You're right. The book begins basically on Bastille Day and it also ends on Bastille Day.
01:05:02 --> 01:05:07 Because that's when we went back and were able to go into the apartment for the first time.
01:05:07 --> 01:05:13 And that was just a lucky coincidence. I mean, these are all just true things
01:05:13 --> 01:05:18 that happened, but there is a very circular nature about it. You're right.
01:05:18 --> 01:05:23 Okay. All right. Well, you know, as long as I'm not crazy, I always tell people- No, no.
01:05:23 --> 01:05:26 I think I'm going to think about that. That's a really interesting observation
01:05:26 --> 01:05:29 that I'm going to sit with for a while. Because I tell people all the time,
01:05:29 --> 01:05:32 it's like, all my guests are smarter than me. So, you know, So I just,
01:05:32 --> 01:05:35 you know, any kind of encouragement I get is great.
01:05:36 --> 01:05:39 How has working on this book inspired you?
01:05:39 --> 01:05:43 So it may sound trite, but it's true.
01:05:44 --> 01:05:49 It has really, and also with the backdrop of our kind of our current political
01:05:49 --> 01:05:52 climate, it's really inspired me to get more involved in our community,
01:05:52 --> 01:05:56 like my community, my neighbors, and try to...
01:05:57 --> 01:06:02 Reach out and be a good ambassador when people move in who are to the neighborhood
01:06:02 --> 01:06:03 who are different, which is happening.
01:06:03 --> 01:06:06 My neighborhood is a changing neighborhood. And a lot of the people that move
01:06:06 --> 01:06:13 in around me now are immigrants and who are coming in. So I'm really having
01:06:13 --> 01:06:17 that, talk about circular, I am having that opportunity.
01:06:18 --> 01:06:21 On both sides of us, we have just gotten new neighbors. They're literally moving
01:06:21 --> 01:06:25 in now and they're both from different countries, from each other and from me.
01:06:25 --> 01:06:31 And so I am having this opportunity to be this ambassador and to practice what
01:06:31 --> 01:06:34 I think is the central lesson of the book, which is to love thy neighbor,
01:06:36 --> 01:06:40 to the differences that we have are not important compared to what we have in
01:06:40 --> 01:06:45 common, and to try to bring and bridge and create community around me.
01:06:45 --> 01:06:47 So that is my central lesson.
01:06:48 --> 01:06:52 Yeah, and you start off the book with that quote from Leviticus.
01:06:52 --> 01:06:58 So I thought about using that as a quote, and I said, well, I'll use the other one.
01:06:58 --> 01:07:03 But yeah, so is that what you want readers to take away from the book,
01:07:03 --> 01:07:08 that love thy neighbor concept, or you want something a little more deeper than that?
01:07:09 --> 01:07:14 Well, I think that's plenty deep in this day and age, honestly. I mean, you see people.
01:07:16 --> 01:07:19 This happened a long time ago, but it happened to a young boy who is now an
01:07:19 --> 01:07:23 old man who is watching similar things happen in this country and around the world.
01:07:24 --> 01:07:28 You see people holding signs with Love Thy Neighbor up in protests now,
01:07:28 --> 01:07:31 and you didn't see that, I don't think, 15 years ago.
01:07:31 --> 01:07:35 It feels to me timeless and timely, and I think that.
01:07:37 --> 01:07:46 One of the ways that we can fight back against the evil or just against any
01:07:46 --> 01:07:48 kind of potential fascistic influence,
01:07:48 --> 01:07:53 Regimes is to create community, to love thy neighbor, to create those bonds,
01:07:53 --> 01:07:58 and to not let ourselves be divided by xenophobia and things like that.
01:07:59 --> 01:08:04 All right. So I need you to finish this sentence. I have hope because.
01:08:05 --> 01:08:11 I have hope because I know that there are good people in the world.
01:08:11 --> 01:08:17 And I recently met a number of young teenagers when I was at the,
01:08:17 --> 01:08:23 this is going to be a very long sentence, Mr. Fleming, but when I did a book signing at the U.S.
01:08:24 --> 01:08:30 Holocaust Museum, I was incredibly surprised that the vast majority of the people
01:08:30 --> 01:08:35 who stopped and who wanted to talk about the book were kids who were 12 to 16
01:08:35 --> 01:08:37 to 18, a bunch of school groups had come through.
01:08:37 --> 01:08:43 But these kids were from all over the country, and they were really interested in the story.
01:08:43 --> 01:08:48 And a number of them, a 13-year-old boy from the Midwest borrowed money from
01:08:48 --> 01:08:50 his friend to buy the book.
01:08:52 --> 01:08:57 And a 16-year-old girl named Cassandra took a selfie with me and then was spotted
01:08:57 --> 01:08:59 reading it in the lobby of the museum.
01:09:00 --> 01:09:04 I have hope because those kids are out there and they're not just in one part
01:09:04 --> 01:09:09 of this country. They are spread throughout the country. So I have hope.
01:09:10 --> 01:09:11 Yeah, that's beautiful.
01:09:12 --> 01:09:15 So if people want to get to Courtyard, how can they do that?
01:09:16 --> 01:09:19 It's available pretty much wherever books are sold. You can go to my website,
01:09:19 --> 01:09:22 which is alexamorris.com. There are links there.
01:09:23 --> 01:09:27 Obviously, Amazon, bookshop.org, if you want to support your independent bookstore.
01:09:27 --> 01:09:30 Some libraries have it, but please read it, and if you like it, please review it.
01:09:31 --> 01:09:35 So, and people can go to your website, too, if they want to reach out to you
01:09:35 --> 01:09:37 as well. Absolutely, please.
01:09:38 --> 01:09:42 I would love to hear from anybody who wants to talk about it or anything related to it.
01:09:43 --> 01:09:47 Well, Alexa Morris, I'm really glad that we had this conversation.
01:09:47 --> 01:09:50 I'm glad that you were able to write the book.
01:09:50 --> 01:09:53 Like I've told other people before that have written similar books.
01:09:54 --> 01:09:58 One of my biggest regrets is not just having a tape recorder with some of my
01:09:58 --> 01:10:03 relatives to talk about some of the stories that they had, because a lot of
01:10:03 --> 01:10:04 them would tell me stories.
01:10:05 --> 01:10:08 And, you know, I was young and I would just sit there and be fascinated by it.
01:10:08 --> 01:10:10 And I could remember some details.
01:10:10 --> 01:10:16 But I really if I had the foresight as a young person to just grab a Walkman
01:10:16 --> 01:10:23 and record it and just be able to to to document that, because I think that's important.
01:10:24 --> 01:10:29 And like you said, when you can see young people gravitating to those stories,
01:10:29 --> 01:10:33 that means that those stories will continue to live on and people will continue
01:10:33 --> 01:10:35 to have a better sense of history.
01:10:35 --> 01:10:42 So I'm glad that you were better than me and reaching out to your loved one and getting that story.
01:10:42 --> 01:10:46 And I wish you much, much success on the book because, like I said,
01:10:46 --> 01:10:48 it's a very, very beautiful story.
01:10:48 --> 01:10:53 It's not it's there's horror in it because of the events that took place.
01:10:54 --> 01:10:58 But it really is a beautiful story, and I'm glad that you were able to write
01:10:58 --> 01:11:00 it. And thank you for coming on the podcast.
01:11:01 --> 01:11:04 Well, thank you. It's been really a real pleasure to talk with you today.
01:11:04 --> 01:11:05 I thank you for your time.
01:11:06 --> 01:11:08 All right, guys. We're going to catch you all on the other side.
01:11:30 --> 01:11:34 Now it is time for my next guest, Maritza Perez Medina.
01:11:35 --> 01:11:40 Maritza Perez Medina is the Director of Federal Affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance
01:11:40 --> 01:11:44 in Washington, D.C., where she leads the organization's federal legislative
01:11:44 --> 01:11:47 agenda and strategy to end the drug war.
01:11:48 --> 01:11:53 Previously, Maritza was a Senior Policy Analyst for Criminal Justice Reform
01:11:53 --> 01:11:57 at the Center for American Progress, where her portfolio included marijuana
01:11:57 --> 01:12:01 policy, policing, and prison and sentencing reform.
01:12:01 --> 01:12:07 Prior to joining CAP, Maritza was a legislative staff attorney at the Mexican-American
01:12:07 --> 01:12:09 Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
01:12:09 --> 01:12:15 She began her career at MALDEF as a Soros Justice Fellow, advocating for policies
01:12:15 --> 01:12:17 to end mass incarceration.
01:12:17 --> 01:12:21 Her portfolio at MALDEF expanded to include immigration policy,
01:12:22 --> 01:12:25 employment rights, education access, and judicial nominations.
01:12:26 --> 01:12:30 Maritza earned her JD at the University of California Berkeley School of Law,
01:12:30 --> 01:12:34 where she received the highest distinction for her pro bono work.
01:12:34 --> 01:12:39 In law school, Maritza worked at the ACLU of Northern California and the NAACP,
01:12:40 --> 01:12:44 Legal Defense Fund, where she conducted legal research on police and prison reform.
01:12:45 --> 01:12:49 She participated in several student clinics, including.
01:12:49 --> 01:12:54 Berkeley Law's Death Penalty Clinic, where she conducted mitigation research
01:12:54 --> 01:12:56 to remove her client from death row,
01:12:57 --> 01:13:01 the Post-Conviction Advocacy Project, where she successfully helped her incarcerated
01:13:01 --> 01:13:06 client gain parole, and the Immigration Clinic of the East Bay Community Law
01:13:06 --> 01:13:11 Center, where she assisted clients to apply for DACA and win relief from deportation.
01:13:12 --> 01:13:20 Through the HBA D.C. Judicial Internship Program, she served as a judicial clerk to Judge Marisa J.
01:13:21 --> 01:13:26 DeMio of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Before attending law
01:13:26 --> 01:13:31 school, Marisa joined Teach for America and was a fourth grade teacher in New Orleans.
01:13:32 --> 01:13:35 A native Nevadan, she received her B.A. from the University of Nevada,
01:13:35 --> 01:13:40 Reno, with academic honors, graduating with double majors in journalism and
01:13:40 --> 01:13:44 Spanish, and double minors in political science and economic policy.
01:13:44 --> 01:13:48 As an undergraduate, she participated in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute,
01:13:49 --> 01:13:53 Internship Program and worked in the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry
01:13:53 --> 01:13:59 Reid in Washington, D.C., where she conducted research on policy issues affecting Latinos.
01:13:59 --> 01:14:01 Maritza is passionate about public service.
01:14:02 --> 01:14:06 Giving back to her community. She is the past president of the Hispanic Bar
01:14:06 --> 01:14:08 Association of District of Columbia
01:14:09 --> 01:14:13 and currently serves on the board of National Immigrant Women's Advocacy Project
01:14:14 --> 01:14:18 at American University Washington College of Law.
01:14:18 --> 01:14:23 In 2019, Maritza was named one of the Hispanic National Bar Association's top
01:14:23 --> 01:14:28 lawyers under 40 in recognition of her outstanding record of public service
01:14:28 --> 01:14:29 and professional excellence.
01:14:29 --> 01:14:34 Maritza is an alumna of the New Leaders Council in Oakland, Women's Media Center,
01:14:34 --> 01:14:37 Progressive Women's Voices Media,
01:14:37 --> 01:14:43 and Leadership Training Program, and the Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education
01:14:43 --> 01:14:46 Program for Leaders of Social Justice Movements.
01:14:46 --> 01:14:51 A criminal justice and drug policy expert, Maritza has been featured in various media outlets,
01:14:52 --> 01:14:56 including the Washington Pools, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times,
01:14:56 --> 01:15:00 Wall Street Journal, Politico, Roll Call, the Boston Globe, CNN,
01:15:00 --> 01:15:05 USA Today, Chicago Tribune, The Takeaway, Latino USA, and more.
01:15:06 --> 01:15:08 She is licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia,
01:15:08 --> 01:15:12 California, and before the United States Supreme Court.
01:15:13 --> 01:15:17 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest
01:15:17 --> 01:15:21 on this podcast, Maritza Perez Medina.
01:15:35 --> 01:15:39 Dina, how are you doing? I'm doing great. How are you?
01:15:39 --> 01:15:44 I'm doing lovely. I am so glad that you were able to readjust the schedule.
01:15:45 --> 01:15:52 My listeners have known for like the last month or few weeks that I did the
01:15:52 --> 01:15:57 saga about me trying to get everybody that I scheduled to get readjusted.
01:15:58 --> 01:16:02 And so I'm really glad that you were one of the people that were able to readjust
01:16:02 --> 01:16:07 and come on because you're talking about something that has been,
01:16:07 --> 01:16:12 you've been a champion of a lot of causes, but you really kind of.
01:16:15 --> 01:16:19 Laid your hay in dealing with drug policy in America.
01:16:20 --> 01:16:25 And so I definitely wanted to tap into that brain of yours and talk about that issue.
01:16:26 --> 01:16:31 So one of the things I like to do to kind of kick the interview off is that
01:16:31 --> 01:16:33 I do a couple of icebreaker exercises.
01:16:33 --> 01:16:37 So the first icebreaker is a quote I want you to respond to.
01:16:37 --> 01:16:40 And the quote is, it's not a war on drugs.
01:16:41 --> 01:16:43 It's a war on personal freedom.
01:16:44 --> 01:16:47 Yeah, I always like to say it's not a war on drugs, it's a war on people.
01:16:48 --> 01:16:51 But I think personal freedom also works because at the end of the day,
01:16:51 --> 01:16:56 we're talking about bodily autonomy, people's rights to put into their body
01:16:56 --> 01:16:58 what they desire to put into their body.
01:16:59 --> 01:17:04 And then, of course, because of the way that the drug war has played out in
01:17:04 --> 01:17:07 this country, people do lose their liberty.
01:17:08 --> 01:17:12 And more than that, actually, we know that any involvement with the criminal
01:17:12 --> 01:17:16 legal system can lead to really dire collateral consequences,
01:17:17 --> 01:17:22 really attacking every part of a person's life, from access to food,
01:17:22 --> 01:17:26 time spent with their families, access to a good quality job.
01:17:26 --> 01:17:30 So we like to think about it as a war on people as well. Okay.
01:17:31 --> 01:17:35 All right. So the next icebreaker is what I call 20 questions.
01:17:35 --> 01:17:39 So I need you to give me a number between one and 20.
01:17:40 --> 01:17:46 Seven. All right. What do you consider the best way to stay informed about politics,
01:17:46 --> 01:17:48 current events, health, et cetera?
01:17:49 --> 01:17:56 Well, I usually keep up with everything, believe it or not, through my Instagram account.
01:17:57 --> 01:17:59 But I think the algorithm has figured these are things I'm interested in.
01:17:59 --> 01:18:02 So it feeds me a lot of news.
01:18:02 --> 01:18:09 But I think generally NPR is also a good source. I will listen to that and also
01:18:09 --> 01:18:11 try to catch up using that. Okay.
01:18:12 --> 01:18:16 All right. So I always like to start my interviews, especially with people who
01:18:16 --> 01:18:23 are either activists or political consultants or actual politicians, elected officials,
01:18:24 --> 01:18:29 with a little backstory about them, kind of like a superhero origin story.
01:18:29 --> 01:18:34 So my question to you is, at what point during your time in law school did you
01:18:34 --> 01:18:36 decide to become the crusader that you are?
01:18:37 --> 01:18:41 Well, you know, it really started for me before law school.
01:18:41 --> 01:18:46 Literally my first memories are those that were political,
01:18:47 --> 01:18:53 i was just born that way like i really was i remember even fighting with my
01:18:53 --> 01:18:57 little brother about gender justice when i was like four years old these are my first memories,
01:18:58 --> 01:19:04 and then as i got older that didn't change i just became more aware i grew up
01:19:04 --> 01:19:10 in a very rural part of the country northeastern nevada and very conservative politically,
01:19:10 --> 01:19:16 where unfortunately I experienced a lot of explicit racism because of the community.
01:19:16 --> 01:19:21 There was a lot of explicit racism specifically against Mexican immigrants,
01:19:21 --> 01:19:25 which I identify as, you know, my whole family as well.
01:19:25 --> 01:19:31 And it really bothered me that people were allowed to publish things,
01:19:31 --> 01:19:35 horrible things about my community in the local newspaper and nobody was pushing back.
01:19:36 --> 01:19:41 So even in early age, in my childhood, I was writing back letters to the editor
01:19:41 --> 01:19:45 standing up for my community, talking about these issues even at school.
01:19:46 --> 01:19:49 And that caught the attention of a teacher, actually. So it was my high school
01:19:49 --> 01:19:53 government teacher who first encouraged me to come out to Washington, D.C.
01:19:54 --> 01:19:57 To learn more about politics and how to change laws.
01:19:58 --> 01:20:01 Because he knew that was an interest of mine, even though I didn't necessarily
01:20:01 --> 01:20:04 know that was an outlet because I'm first generation everything,
01:20:04 --> 01:20:08 not just the first generation in the U.S., but the first to graduate high school
01:20:08 --> 01:20:10 and achieve higher education.
01:20:10 --> 01:20:15 So I had a very limited worldview, especially growing up in a rural place where
01:20:15 --> 01:20:17 we didn't have access to all of those things.
01:20:18 --> 01:20:24 So he really encouraged me to go out with the AP class, the AP government class to check out DC.
01:20:25 --> 01:20:28 And I couldn't afford it at the time. You know, I have a huge family and my
01:20:28 --> 01:20:30 mom was like, there's no way we
01:20:30 --> 01:20:33 can pay for this. But he actually found a scholarship to ensure I can go.
01:20:34 --> 01:20:37 And that trip was really life-changing for me because it was the first time
01:20:37 --> 01:20:38 I had visited Washington DC.
01:20:39 --> 01:20:43 I visited the Capitol. I met lawyers who were changing laws and standing up
01:20:43 --> 01:20:47 for people in their communities and fighting for civil rights.
01:20:47 --> 01:20:50 And I put it in my head after that trip that I was going to be a civil rights
01:20:50 --> 01:20:52 lawyer in Washington, D.C.
01:20:52 --> 01:20:56 Had no idea how I was going to do it, but that was the goal from there.
01:20:56 --> 01:21:00 So yeah, eventually that path did lead me to law school. And when I was in law
01:21:00 --> 01:21:05 school, I had many, many civil rights interests from education,
01:21:06 --> 01:21:10 inequity to racial justice, to criminal justice, to immigration.
01:21:10 --> 01:21:16 But that really narrowed down for me when I got to do some clinics in law school,
01:21:16 --> 01:21:20 which is a cool thing about law school, that you can join clubs and clinics
01:21:20 --> 01:21:22 to really see what interests you.
01:21:22 --> 01:21:26 And the criminal legal work really spoke to me because it sort of encompassed
01:21:26 --> 01:21:30 all the things I was passionate about, civil rights, racial justice.
01:21:31 --> 01:21:37 The devastating harms that we've seen on communities of color because of the
01:21:37 --> 01:21:40 criminal legal system. These were things I was very passionate about.
01:21:40 --> 01:21:44 So it eventually led me to a career in the criminal justice reform space.
01:21:44 --> 01:21:48 And, you know, you can't talk criminal justice without talking about the war
01:21:48 --> 01:21:51 on drugs. It's a huge feeder into the system.
01:21:51 --> 01:21:54 So that's how I ended up at the Drug Policy Alliance. Okay.
01:21:55 --> 01:22:00 Yeah. So if you, I take it you've been to Atlanta. Yeah.
01:22:02 --> 01:22:06 If you haven't been to the Civil Rights Museum, go to that.
01:22:07 --> 01:22:11 It's right next to the Coca-Cola Museum. So it pales in comparison as far as
01:22:11 --> 01:22:14 size, but it's really, really cool.
01:22:14 --> 01:22:19 And one of the cool things is that there is a letter to the editor written by
01:22:19 --> 01:22:23 a young kid, about 15, 16-year-old named Martin Luther King Jr.
01:22:25 --> 01:22:26 So you're on the right path.
01:22:28 --> 01:22:32 You started off young and respond to the newspaper and all that,
01:22:32 --> 01:22:35 it's like, yeah, that's how you do it. You just get engaged.
01:22:35 --> 01:22:40 I think I wanted to be president of the United States when I was three years old.
01:22:40 --> 01:22:44 I saw a article. Well, my parents got me a set of encyclopedias.
01:22:45 --> 01:22:49 So I already knew what my life was going to be like. And everybody else is getting
01:22:49 --> 01:22:52 like train sets and all that. I got a set of encyclopedias.
01:22:52 --> 01:22:58 And when I was three, I saw this two-page spread of these pictures.
01:22:58 --> 01:23:01 And I said, oh I want to be one of these guys and that was the President of
01:23:01 --> 01:23:06 the United States article so that got me on my path into politics and stuff you know.
01:23:08 --> 01:23:12 Right. Enough about me. What is the Drug Policy Alliance? Yeah.
01:23:12 --> 01:23:19 So the Drug Policy Alliance is the leading nonprofit in this country working to end the war on drugs.
01:23:19 --> 01:23:25 So we believe that drug policy should be based in human rights,
01:23:26 --> 01:23:31 in equity, in health, and we fight to remove barriers to care.
01:23:32 --> 01:23:36 There are many people who struggle with drug use. Unfortunately,
01:23:36 --> 01:23:39 for a lot of folks, it's really hard to get help when they need it.
01:23:40 --> 01:23:45 At the same time, we continue to criminalize drugs across the board,
01:23:45 --> 01:23:49 which, again, like we talked about at the top of this call, it's not really
01:23:49 --> 01:23:52 criminalizing drugs. We're talking about people who end up criminalized because of drugs.
01:23:53 --> 01:23:57 So, you know, ultimately, we want to see a world where people aren't punished
01:23:57 --> 01:24:02 for what they put into their bodies, where people receive the care that they need. Yeah.
01:24:03 --> 01:24:09 In October of 1982, President Reagan said, we're making no excuses for drugs,
01:24:09 --> 01:24:10 hard, soft, or otherwise.
01:24:11 --> 01:24:13 Drugs are bad, and we're going after them.
01:24:14 --> 01:24:18 As I've said before, we've taken down the surrender flag and run up the battle
01:24:18 --> 01:24:21 flag. We're going to win the war on drugs.
01:24:22 --> 01:24:26 My question to you is, why did we not win the war on drugs, especially with
01:24:26 --> 01:24:29 all the resources and focus the federal government could muster?
01:24:31 --> 01:24:39 Its inception, the war on drugs was built on this idea that if we merely stop
01:24:39 --> 01:24:46 the supply of drugs, that will solve the quote-unquote drug crisis.
01:24:47 --> 01:24:55 Even before Reagan, you know, the first drug laws that we saw on the books were supply-side tactics.
01:24:55 --> 01:25:00 And, I might add, they were geared at criminalizing people of color.
01:25:00 --> 01:25:07 In fact, the first drug laws we saw were to stop opium dens in California,
01:25:07 --> 01:25:12 outlawing those specific places because that's where Chinese immigrants would hang out.
01:25:13 --> 01:25:17 We saw the same thing with marijuana. It became criminalized to target Mexican
01:25:17 --> 01:25:22 communities. In fact, it was intentionally called marijuana by the federal government
01:25:22 --> 01:25:26 to scare people, to make it sound Spanish and foreign instead of cannabis.
01:25:27 --> 01:25:32 We saw the same thing with crack cocaine and these laws were made up to target
01:25:32 --> 01:25:34 Black men in the South specifically.
01:25:35 --> 01:25:43 And, you know, while the purported purpose of even these early war on drug approaches,
01:25:43 --> 01:25:47 was to stop the supply, again, it was really criminalizing people and certain
01:25:47 --> 01:25:50 groups of people that were undesired in the U.S.
01:25:50 --> 01:25:53 That continued for decades and decades.
01:25:54 --> 01:25:59 You know, and Nixon is credited with really starting the war on drugs that we know it today.
01:26:00 --> 01:26:05 And that's true. And it's been amplified with every president since Nixon.
01:26:05 --> 01:26:06 Whether Republican or Democrat.
01:26:07 --> 01:26:12 And again, the approach has largely relied on stopping the supply of drugs,
01:26:13 --> 01:26:17 which is a failed strategy if we're not addressing demand and the root causes of drug use.
01:26:18 --> 01:26:24 And also acknowledging the fact that not all drug use is problematic and that
01:26:24 --> 01:26:29 people also have the right, again, to put what they want into their bodies as
01:26:29 --> 01:26:30 long as they're not hurting other people.
01:26:31 --> 01:26:34 This approach hasn't worked because we're not, again, we're not addressing the
01:26:34 --> 01:26:40 root causes of problematic drug use, but also we're not viewing this as a civil liberties issue.
01:26:41 --> 01:26:46 You know, in fact, the drug war has been used to take away people's civil liberties.
01:26:47 --> 01:26:52 Right. And that was the real reason why Nixon wanted to, who created this war
01:26:52 --> 01:26:58 on drugs was because he knew he couldn't take away the civil liberty of Vietnam protesters.
01:26:58 --> 01:27:02 Right. It was like they had that freedom of speech to protest the war.
01:27:03 --> 01:27:08 So he figured since a lot of them was in the quote unquote counterculture and
01:27:08 --> 01:27:11 drugs was involved in the counterculture, he said, the way we can get some of
01:27:11 --> 01:27:16 these leaders off the map is we hit them with drug charges. Right.
01:27:16 --> 01:27:21 And it was just like with the gangsters and using that mindset like in the 1920s
01:27:21 --> 01:27:26 when they couldn't catch the gangsters for actual murder, but they could get them for tax evasion.
01:27:26 --> 01:27:32 So they were finding a way to try to silence their critics or whatever they deemed as a problem.
01:27:33 --> 01:27:37 But I did not know that about marijuana. So you're basically saying the name
01:27:37 --> 01:27:39 marijuana is like the name Sony. It.
01:27:41 --> 01:27:46 Has no real, it was just made up, in other words.
01:27:47 --> 01:27:50 It was a term that some Spanish speakers use for it.
01:27:50 --> 01:27:55 But the first person who was in charge of drug enforcement in the U.S.,
01:27:56 --> 01:28:00 awful man by the name of Harry Anslinger, decided, well, you know,
01:28:00 --> 01:28:03 let's go ahead and take that and call cannabis marijuana.
01:28:03 --> 01:28:09 And all of the federal laws that we create in order to villainize it and in
01:28:09 --> 01:28:14 people's minds connect marijuana to Mexicans and Mexican immigrants,
01:28:14 --> 01:28:16 people who were undesired.
01:28:16 --> 01:28:21 You know, at the time, you have to remember that there was a depression.
01:28:21 --> 01:28:23 There was a lot of competition over jobs.
01:28:24 --> 01:28:28 Mexicans were repatriated and deported in mass numbers around this time.
01:28:28 --> 01:28:33 And, you know, that was a move, I think, really to ensure that.
01:28:34 --> 01:28:37 The supermarket was secure for white Americans. Yeah.
01:28:38 --> 01:28:42 Have you ever seen a movie Reefer Madness? I haven't. No.
01:28:42 --> 01:28:46 See, you got that. You know, you're an advocate. I think that should be required
01:28:46 --> 01:28:49 for every advocate to watch Reefer
01:28:49 --> 01:28:53 Madness so you'll get the biggest laugh you'll ever have in your life.
01:28:53 --> 01:28:59 I swear for people in your profession, you would think that it was the equivalent
01:28:59 --> 01:29:02 of whoever your favorite comedian is doing a movie.
01:29:02 --> 01:29:08 It is it's a it was supposed to be a piece to try to discourage people from smoking.
01:29:08 --> 01:29:13 And it is by far the most entertaining, hilarious movie you'll ever watch.
01:29:13 --> 01:29:15 So you got to watch that. All right.
01:29:15 --> 01:29:17 Heard of it. I heard of it. I'll get on it. OK.
01:29:18 --> 01:29:23 American history has shown that any kind of prohibition like the temperance
01:29:23 --> 01:29:25 movement or the war on drugs has always fallen short.
01:29:26 --> 01:29:29 Why do you think that political leaders, despite that history,
01:29:30 --> 01:29:33 still try to engage in these morality-based campaigns?
01:29:34 --> 01:29:39 Really good question. You know, honestly, I think it's just because it is easy
01:29:39 --> 01:29:45 to throw people who use drugs under the bus because we have so many negative stereotypes,
01:29:46 --> 01:29:49 of people who engage in drug use and the drug changes over time.
01:29:49 --> 01:29:51 I mean, you talked about the temperance movement.
01:29:52 --> 01:29:57 At the time, there was a lot of shunning of people who drink excessively.
01:29:57 --> 01:30:02 Now we think about people who use drugs, we usually think of people who inject
01:30:02 --> 01:30:07 drugs or use harder drugs, quote-unquote harder drugs, like meth,
01:30:08 --> 01:30:11 even fentanyl, newer synthetic drugs that are popping up in the market.
01:30:11 --> 01:30:15 And actually, even people who smoke marijuana. I think there's a lot of negative stereotypes.
01:30:17 --> 01:30:21 You know, I have always said that in order to change drug policy in this country,
01:30:21 --> 01:30:24 we really have to change our culture.
01:30:24 --> 01:30:29 We really have to change our culture to not treat certain groups of people as
01:30:29 --> 01:30:32 disposable and to have more compassion for one another.
01:30:32 --> 01:30:36 I do think that's a huge hindrance because for whatever reason,
01:30:36 --> 01:30:41 people have always felt like people who use drugs are a group that they can,
01:30:42 --> 01:30:46 either throw under the bus for political purposes or a group that is less human
01:30:46 --> 01:30:47 that they don't have to care about.
01:30:47 --> 01:30:53 And you see that in our policies. The policies that we have around drug use
01:30:53 --> 01:30:55 are extremely harsh, extremely punitive.
01:30:56 --> 01:31:01 Yeah, and just, I think, really draconian. Yeah, so let's dive into that a little
01:31:01 --> 01:31:06 more. Explain to the listeners the correlation between a failed drug policy
01:31:06 --> 01:31:08 and the need for criminal justice reform.
01:31:10 --> 01:31:17 Yeah. So one thing that I like to remind people about is that the drug war has
01:31:17 --> 01:31:18 been around for decades.
01:31:18 --> 01:31:23 As I said, it might change a bit, but at the end of the day,
01:31:23 --> 01:31:26 it's still a big feeder into the criminal legal system.
01:31:26 --> 01:31:30 Drug offenses are actually a leading cause of arrest in the U.S.
01:31:30 --> 01:31:34 We know that every 40 seconds someone is arrested for a drug offense.
01:31:34 --> 01:31:38 We know that people are disproportionately arrested. Black people,
01:31:38 --> 01:31:43 for example, are 30% of those who are arrested because of targeted policing,
01:31:44 --> 01:31:47 not because Black people use drugs more than other groups of people.
01:31:47 --> 01:31:48 And the data has shown this.
01:31:49 --> 01:31:53 We also know that one in five people who are locked up are there for a drug offense.
01:31:53 --> 01:31:56 So as I said, it's a huge feeder into the criminal legal system.
01:31:56 --> 01:32:02 You cannot talk about reforming the criminal legal system without talking about ending the war on drugs.
01:32:03 --> 01:32:08 Yeah. And, you know, one of the things I think your organization is pushing
01:32:08 --> 01:32:15 is to end mandatory minimum sentencing and stuff like that.
01:32:16 --> 01:32:20 Yes, we always fight against bills that impose new criminal penalties.
01:32:22 --> 01:32:26 Mandatory minimums. And for people who don't know what a mandatory minimum is,
01:32:26 --> 01:32:29 it means that you'll tie a judge's hand so that they have to,
01:32:30 --> 01:32:35 give you a set intent based on the specific substance that you've had,
01:32:35 --> 01:32:38 or the specific, if we want to go broader, broader than drugs,
01:32:38 --> 01:32:41 the specific crime that they're blaming you for.
01:32:42 --> 01:32:45 So yeah, so we've always fought against these criminal penalties for drugs.
01:32:45 --> 01:32:50 Yeah, because the other thing was, and that was some, when I was elected, that was the big thing.
01:32:50 --> 01:32:57 We were saying, so you're saying somebody that alters cocaine gets a longer
01:32:57 --> 01:32:59 sentence than people that take pure cocaine.
01:33:00 --> 01:33:05 And we were saying that doesn't sound right. And that sounds kind of racial.
01:33:05 --> 01:33:08 And so, you know, even in Mississippi, it was like, you know,
01:33:08 --> 01:33:17 we're going to have to change that a little bit. So, yeah, most definitely those two work hand in hand.
01:33:17 --> 01:33:22 And if we're going to have real criminal justice reform, we need to look at,
01:33:23 --> 01:33:29 this whole policy or this whole concept about being on war drugs or.
01:33:31 --> 01:33:35 There's a whole lot. Let me stay focused. How much money?
01:33:35 --> 01:33:38 I did want to quickly comment on something that you said, though,
01:33:38 --> 01:33:40 because I think this is important for the audience to understand,
01:33:40 --> 01:33:43 is that when we think about drug laws,
01:33:43 --> 01:33:47 you know, lawmakers will like to tell you that they are going after the so-called
01:33:47 --> 01:33:52 kingpins, people at the top of the chain who are maybe mixing the drugs or even
01:33:52 --> 01:33:57 above that, people who are responsible for like these bigger drug supply chains.
01:33:57 --> 01:34:01 But that's not actually what happens when you look at who is prosecuted for drug crimes.
01:34:01 --> 01:34:06 At the federal level, for example, we know that drug prosecutions are based
01:34:07 --> 01:34:13 largely or concentrated, I should say, largely on the lowest levels of the drug distribution chain.
01:34:13 --> 01:34:18 I'm talking about people who possess drugs, probably because they also use drugs.
01:34:19 --> 01:34:24 And these are individuals who would most benefit from some sort of addiction
01:34:24 --> 01:34:28 treatment or some other social support, not prison.
01:34:28 --> 01:34:32 We're not going after the Tinkins. We're going after the people who most need help.
01:34:32 --> 01:34:37 And by the way, we also know that the sentences are very racially disproportionate.
01:34:37 --> 01:34:41 It's highly concentrated in Black and Latino communities when we know that Black
01:34:41 --> 01:34:44 and Latino people do not use drugs more than other groups of people.
01:34:45 --> 01:34:50 But they are policed more, and they probably do use drugs publicly more than
01:34:50 --> 01:34:54 other groups of people because they are often pushed into public situations
01:34:54 --> 01:34:55 more than other groups of people.
01:34:56 --> 01:35:00 And that exposes them to more interactions with the police.
01:35:00 --> 01:35:03 I just wanted to share that, that, you know, they like to tell us we're going
01:35:03 --> 01:35:06 after the kingpins, but that's not actually what happens in practice.
01:35:06 --> 01:35:09 No, it's, you know, and I've spent years in law enforcement,
01:35:09 --> 01:35:12 so we call that the low-hanging fruit.
01:35:12 --> 01:35:17 You know, it's easy to get the kids that's out there dealing or whatever,
01:35:17 --> 01:35:19 and it's very rare that you can go up the chain.
01:35:19 --> 01:35:24 And then that's when politics gets involved, you know, when you're trying to
01:35:24 --> 01:35:29 get the big suppliers and all that kind of stuff.
01:35:29 --> 01:35:34 So how much money can be saved by focusing on diversion and deflection efforts
01:35:34 --> 01:35:37 rather than building more prisons and incarcerating more individuals?
01:35:38 --> 01:35:44 Good question. I've never been good at math, but I imagine that number would be in the trillions.
01:35:44 --> 01:35:48 And I say that because there was a study that came out, and this was a few years
01:35:48 --> 01:35:52 ago, and they had estimated how much the drug war had cost U.S.
01:35:52 --> 01:35:55 Taxpayers. And at that point, it was a trillion dollars. And again,
01:35:55 --> 01:35:58 this was like a few years ago, maybe even a decade ago.
01:35:59 --> 01:36:04 But it makes sense. If you think about the vast amount of money that we're spending
01:36:04 --> 01:36:06 on enforcement that could actually go to support people,
01:36:07 --> 01:36:11 to ensure that when people are ready to receive treatment, the doors are open,
01:36:12 --> 01:36:17 that they can receive addiction treatment when they desire, that if they need
01:36:17 --> 01:36:19 help securing a job, that they have that support.
01:36:20 --> 01:36:23 If they need legal support for re-entry because they have a criminal conviction,
01:36:23 --> 01:36:26 that that support is provided within their community.
01:36:26 --> 01:36:30 There are so many ways that we could build healthier communities by investing
01:36:30 --> 01:36:35 in individuals, and that in turn would result in greater public safety for all of us.
01:36:36 --> 01:36:39 Unfortunately, this is not how politicians see it. They'd rather.
01:36:40 --> 01:36:45 You know, think very short-minded because it's good for a political season,
01:36:45 --> 01:36:49 and what sells is locking people up and throwing away the key.
01:36:49 --> 01:36:53 That is changing, I will say, and it's changing because people see it,
01:36:53 --> 01:36:59 but we still have a lot of people, including in Congress, who would rather take,
01:37:00 --> 01:37:05 the easier route rather than investing in people because that does take time.
01:37:05 --> 01:37:07 It takes money. It takes time.
01:37:07 --> 01:37:11 You're not going to see results right away. But we've been doing the war on
01:37:11 --> 01:37:16 drugs for decades, and that hasn't resulted in anything successful either.
01:37:16 --> 01:37:17 It's been an absolute failure.
01:37:18 --> 01:37:21 Now we have more drugs than ever before on the streets, more people than ever
01:37:21 --> 01:37:23 before in jails and prisons.
01:37:24 --> 01:37:27 We have an addiction crisis like we've never seen before. So that's also been
01:37:27 --> 01:37:29 a failure. I think it's about time that they try something new.
01:37:31 --> 01:37:36 So that leads me to my next question. You work on Capitol Hill on behalf of the Alliance.
01:37:37 --> 01:37:42 In this political climate, how challenging has it been to convey that message to Congress?
01:37:43 --> 01:37:48 Now, I've seen a shift. I will say that under President Biden,
01:37:48 --> 01:37:51 I started to see a shift in how we talked about drugs.
01:37:51 --> 01:37:57 And President Biden was really the first that talked about health approaches to drug use.
01:37:58 --> 01:38:01 He still used a carrot and stick approach. You know, he's still very much believed
01:38:01 --> 01:38:04 in the criminal enforcement that we don't believe in.
01:38:04 --> 01:38:08 But at the same time, he was the first to really talk about investing in health
01:38:08 --> 01:38:10 approaches to drug use, including harm reduction.
01:38:11 --> 01:38:14 And for people who don't know where harm reduction is, it means meeting people
01:38:14 --> 01:38:19 who use drugs where they're at, but making sure that they have things like naloxone
01:38:19 --> 01:38:21 in case they overdose and need to reverse it.
01:38:22 --> 01:38:25 Things like drug checking tools so they can check substances and then make a
01:38:25 --> 01:38:29 decision about if they want to use it and if they do how they want to use it.
01:38:29 --> 01:38:35 It also includes things like clean needles. And he was really the first president
01:38:35 --> 01:38:39 that talked about harm reduction and the need to invest in these tools
01:38:40 --> 01:38:45 in order to ensure that people didn't overdose or develop disease because of drug use.
01:38:45 --> 01:38:49 And that really worked because now we're seeing overdose numbers really come
01:38:49 --> 01:38:52 down like we haven't seen in years.
01:38:52 --> 01:38:56 Unfortunately, the Trump administration has reversed all of that progress and
01:38:56 --> 01:39:01 has attacked harm reduction outside of naloxone. You know, they say naloxone
01:39:01 --> 01:39:04 is good, but outside of naloxone, they won't support harm reduction.
01:39:05 --> 01:39:08 And that's a huge detriment because, as I said, the reason we were able to make
01:39:08 --> 01:39:11 so much progress is because, for once, we started to change our approach.
01:39:12 --> 01:39:17 But the good thing about Biden doing that is that I think lawmakers then felt
01:39:17 --> 01:39:21 like they could also be advocates for health approaches to drug use.
01:39:21 --> 01:39:23 So you have seen a shift on the Hill.
01:39:24 --> 01:39:30 That said, you know, the criminal legal approach continues to be very popular across party lines.
01:39:30 --> 01:39:33 So we have a long ways to go to really change hearts and minds,
01:39:33 --> 01:39:34 at least on Capitol Hill.
01:39:35 --> 01:39:42 Yeah, I know I'm a certified CPR instructor. And so now that's part of the training,
01:39:42 --> 01:39:44 that we've added is the naloxone.
01:39:45 --> 01:39:49 We have to teach people how to how to use that and stuff. So,
01:39:50 --> 01:39:52 like you said, the climate is changing.
01:39:53 --> 01:39:58 People are becoming a little more, I think, sensitive, especially on the health end.
01:39:59 --> 01:40:03 But politically, like you said, it's like, you know, every every judge candidate,
01:40:03 --> 01:40:09 they can't run on like cases that they will potentially work on.
01:40:09 --> 01:40:11 But they can all say, I'm gonna lock them up.
01:40:11 --> 01:40:14 You know what I'm saying? And if they, you know, and so that's,
01:40:15 --> 01:40:17 for whatever reason, America has a penchant for just locking,
01:40:18 --> 01:40:24 lock them up is a great political slogan. But we got to, that's a whole nother conversation.
01:40:24 --> 01:40:29 Marijuana legalization is gaining traction because they realize,
01:40:29 --> 01:40:34 because states realize that they can benefit from the taxes like they have for alcohol.
01:40:35 --> 01:40:39 How long do you think it will be before the federal government follows the lead to the states?
01:40:39 --> 01:40:43 You know, that remains to be seen. Something really interesting is happening
01:40:43 --> 01:40:45 with marijuana right now at the federal level.
01:40:45 --> 01:40:50 People may have seen that the Trump administration ordered that medical marijuana
01:40:50 --> 01:40:55 that's approved at the state level be moved to Schedule 3 of the Controlled Substances Act.
01:40:56 --> 01:41:01 That is a long-winded way of saying there is some federal legal reform around
01:41:01 --> 01:41:09 marijuana, but it doesn't make any marijuana legal other than certain state
01:41:09 --> 01:41:10 legal medical marijuana.
01:41:10 --> 01:41:14 You have to be approved by the DEA. You have to go through this process.
01:41:14 --> 01:41:18 And if you're able to do that, then they'll approve your medical marijuana.
01:41:18 --> 01:41:23 But for the most part, marijuana remains illegal at the federal level.
01:41:23 --> 01:41:24 It's federally prohibited.
01:41:25 --> 01:41:30 The Drug Enforcement Administration actually just wrapped up hearings that were
01:41:30 --> 01:41:36 ordered by this order from the Trump administration, where they are going to,
01:41:37 --> 01:41:41 come out with an announcement on whether or not they think all marijuana should
01:41:41 --> 01:41:43 be moved to Schedule 3 of the Controlled Substances Act. Yeah.
01:41:44 --> 01:41:48 Policy Alliance has been watching this closely, but I will say that we don't
01:41:48 --> 01:41:50 support moving marijuana to Schedule 3.
01:41:50 --> 01:41:55 It's called rescheduling because you're just moving it from Schedule 1 of the CSA to Schedule 3.
01:41:56 --> 01:42:00 We support descheduling. We support completely removing marijuana from the Controlled
01:42:00 --> 01:42:04 Substances Act because that is the only way that we will have decrim,
01:42:04 --> 01:42:06 decriminalization for marijuana.
01:42:07 --> 01:42:10 And that would be huge because if we decriminalize the plant,
01:42:10 --> 01:42:13 We decriminalize the people and the collateral consequences.
01:42:13 --> 01:42:16 Unfortunately, I don't think the federal government is there.
01:42:16 --> 01:42:20 I think we'll probably see some sort of Schedule 3 placement.
01:42:21 --> 01:42:25 People might think, well, wouldn't that at least be better than nothing?
01:42:26 --> 01:42:31 To some degree, maybe, especially if you're a medical marijuana patient who then has legal access.
01:42:31 --> 01:42:35 But as long as federal prohibition remains in place, people are at risk,
01:42:35 --> 01:42:40 huge risk of collateral consequences and criminalization.
01:42:40 --> 01:42:44 For example, if you're a non-citizen who's a medical marijuana patient,
01:42:44 --> 01:42:48 even that use, even though it's completely legal, can expose you to automatic
01:42:48 --> 01:42:53 detention and deportation because marijuana remains a federally prohibited substance,
01:42:53 --> 01:42:54 as long as it's on the CSA.
01:42:55 --> 01:42:59 And for those who don't know, the CSA or the Controlled Substances Act is the
01:42:59 --> 01:43:03 federal law that we use to essentially criminalize substances.
01:43:04 --> 01:43:08 We have Schedules 1 through 5. Schedule 1 is reserved for the drugs that are
01:43:08 --> 01:43:12 supposed to be the harshest, like the most susceptible to abuse,
01:43:13 --> 01:43:18 the quote-unquote scariest drugs marijuana has been on schedule one since the
01:43:18 --> 01:43:21 csa was created and put into law in,
01:43:21 --> 01:43:27 1971 signed by nixon so this would be historic reform if it removed to a lower
01:43:27 --> 01:43:28 schedule schedule three at
01:43:28 --> 01:43:33 least recognizes that it has medical value but other than that recognition,
01:43:33 --> 01:43:38 much of the framework would remain the same so what we really need is to remove marijuana from.
01:43:40 --> 01:43:44 Controlled Substances Act, but also acknowledge all the harm that marijuana has caused.
01:43:44 --> 01:43:46 Marijuana criminalization has caused over decades.
01:43:47 --> 01:43:49 This is why we're working on federal bills that would do just that,
01:43:49 --> 01:43:54 that would address marijuana broadly, decriminalize them, and address harm to communities.
01:43:55 --> 01:44:00 You know, I was thinking about when you were giving that answer,
01:44:01 --> 01:44:07 you know, we were celebrating our 250th anniversary and as a country or declaring
01:44:07 --> 01:44:15 our independence anyway and marijuana, alcohol, tobacco, everything was legal in 1776.
01:44:16 --> 01:44:21 You know, we developed a nation out of it. So it just seemed to me it's like
01:44:21 --> 01:44:24 if you really want to celebrate the 250th anniversary, then you should just
01:44:24 --> 01:44:26 go back and legalize everything.
01:44:26 --> 01:44:31 Just let people make decisions based on, you know, their discipline or their,
01:44:31 --> 01:44:34 you know, in some cases, their health or whatever.
01:44:34 --> 01:44:38 But I was just thinking that out loud. Anyway, speaking about legalization,
01:44:38 --> 01:44:44 should psychedelics like Ibogaine and I'm going to see if I'm saying is right, psilocybin,
01:44:45 --> 01:44:49 mushrooms be legalized under the philosophy that health and consumption decisions,
01:44:50 --> 01:44:54 should be made by the individual and a qualified health provider, not law enforcement.
01:44:54 --> 01:44:59 So what's interesting is that generally psychedelics are having a movement.
01:44:59 --> 01:45:03 They are also getting a lot of attention at the federal level.
01:45:03 --> 01:45:07 And I'll be really honest about what I think is happening both with medical
01:45:07 --> 01:45:11 marijuana and psychedelics and even other substances that you may or may not
01:45:11 --> 01:45:14 have heard of, like Kratom, 7-OH.
01:45:14 --> 01:45:19 These drugs have really powerful and moneyed interests behind them,
01:45:19 --> 01:45:26 lobbyists who are willing to pay to play, and that's having a positive impact for those substances.
01:45:26 --> 01:45:31 We also have to look at the profile who uses these substances or who is the
01:45:31 --> 01:45:35 face of these substances. And oftentimes, we're talking about white people.
01:45:35 --> 01:45:40 We're talking about veterans who tend to be more sympathetic to lawmakers.
01:45:41 --> 01:45:45 But that's resulted in more movement for these substances at the federal level,
01:45:45 --> 01:45:49 and support from the Trump administration and even Republicans in Congress to
01:45:49 --> 01:45:51 move these substances off.
01:45:52 --> 01:45:57 The drug schedule or to make them more accessible, to even study and research
01:45:57 --> 01:45:58 them for therapeutic potential.
01:45:58 --> 01:46:02 We know that Kennedy's interested in doing that too, who runs Health and Human Services.
01:46:03 --> 01:46:07 So yes, I do think people should have access to these substances.
01:46:07 --> 01:46:10 I do think we should research into these substances. I think this is great progress.
01:46:10 --> 01:46:16 I just wish that we had the same mindset when it comes to other substances that
01:46:16 --> 01:46:19 maybe don't have the sympathetic face attached to them.
01:46:20 --> 01:46:25 Yeah. And Maritza, that's one of the reasons why I wanted you on the show,
01:46:25 --> 01:46:27 because you make it plain.
01:46:27 --> 01:46:30 And I don't think there's anybody
01:46:30 --> 01:46:34 else that could have broke that down as eloquently as you just did.
01:46:35 --> 01:46:41 How does the Drug Policy Alliance envision a more perfect union as it relates to their work?
01:46:42 --> 01:46:47 You know, that's a great question. I think, as I said at the top of this interview,
01:46:47 --> 01:46:52 we are really invested in ensuring that people have what they need to thrive,
01:46:53 --> 01:46:58 that people have not just human rights, but their basic civil liberties.
01:46:58 --> 01:47:04 And we've seen how the drug war has been used to take that away from people.
01:47:04 --> 01:47:11 And that's especially true under this administration. We really are seeing authoritarianism rise up.
01:47:12 --> 01:47:15 And we see that even through the drug war.
01:47:15 --> 01:47:21 You know, one example is President Trump has decided it's perfectly fine to,
01:47:22 --> 01:47:26 shoot missiles random fishermen in Latin America, all in the name of,
01:47:26 --> 01:47:29 quote unquote, stopping fentanyl from entering the U.S.
01:47:30 --> 01:47:32 These people are being killed without a trial.
01:47:33 --> 01:47:37 Been no information shared with Congress about why this is happening,
01:47:37 --> 01:47:39 who has been targeted, if and when it will stop.
01:47:40 --> 01:47:45 At this point, more than 200 people have been killed in international waters.
01:47:45 --> 01:47:49 And by the way, it hasn't done anything to alleviate the supply because we know
01:47:49 --> 01:47:50 that that's not where fentanyl is coming from.
01:47:51 --> 01:47:56 It's not coming from random fishermen in Latin American sees.
01:47:56 --> 01:48:01 We know where fentanyl comes from, and the supply has not slowed down.
01:48:02 --> 01:48:08 No drug supply has actually slowed down. As I said, we're still facing a situation
01:48:08 --> 01:48:09 where the illicit drug supply is very strong.
01:48:10 --> 01:48:16 But these are authoritarian tactics. Extrajudicial killings are an authoritarian tactic.
01:48:17 --> 01:48:22 And I'm really afraid that what we're seeing internationally will come home to roost.
01:48:23 --> 01:48:27 What we see even in the immigration space will come back to all of us.
01:48:27 --> 01:48:32 And we've already seen that, you know, when immigrants were demonized,
01:48:32 --> 01:48:34 I think a lot of people thought it would stay there.
01:48:34 --> 01:48:40 But we've seen how U.S. citizens had even been killed by ICE enforcement and CBP.
01:48:40 --> 01:48:43 Really scary times we're living in, and we have to really think about the way
01:48:43 --> 01:48:47 that the drug war is used to further this authoritarian agenda.
01:48:48 --> 01:48:55 Yeah. Well, you know, speaking about the authoritarian gender and the ice crackdowns
01:48:55 --> 01:49:00 and all that, there was a tragedy that happened in California with a farm worker, I believe.
01:49:00 --> 01:49:07 And that kind of got you and a few other folks to create a nonprofit.
01:49:07 --> 01:49:11 So tell the story about this nonprofit, this project you're working on,
01:49:12 --> 01:49:17 and, you know, just what motivated y'all to do this and what do you hope to
01:49:17 --> 01:49:19 accomplish with the nonprofit?
01:49:19 --> 01:49:24 Yes, thank you so much for asking about that. So the incident you're referring
01:49:24 --> 01:49:30 to was an ice raid that we saw on Glass House Farms, a cannabis farm in California.
01:49:31 --> 01:49:36 This was, if not the first, one of the first ice raids that we saw under the Trump administration.
01:49:37 --> 01:49:42 And unfortunately, during that raid, not only were a lot of people injured and
01:49:42 --> 01:49:46 arrested, but one man actually died trying to escape ICE. He fell from a roof.
01:49:47 --> 01:49:52 This man had been a laborer in the industry for years and years.
01:49:52 --> 01:49:54 You know, he did this to support his family.
01:49:54 --> 01:50:00 And many of us, especially Latinos who are in this space, were really disappointed
01:50:00 --> 01:50:05 that the greater cannabis industry didn't connect the dots and,
01:50:05 --> 01:50:07 you know, moved on as if nothing had happened.
01:50:07 --> 01:50:11 But for us, it was really clear that there is a clear intersection here between
01:50:11 --> 01:50:14 immigrant rights and cannabis justice.
01:50:14 --> 01:50:18 We have to recognize that immigrant labor, particularly Latino immigrant labor,
01:50:19 --> 01:50:23 is the reason that we have legal cannabis in a lot of places like California.
01:50:23 --> 01:50:28 We're also a huge portion of the consumer base. We're also folks who are in
01:50:28 --> 01:50:34 the industry doing other things like creating product or blood tenders. Yet...
01:50:36 --> 01:50:40 Things that would improve quality of life for Latino immigrants are never something
01:50:40 --> 01:50:46 that you hear cannabis folks advocating for. So we were created to change that.
01:50:46 --> 01:50:50 We are the Latino Cannabis Alliance, and this is an organization that I co-founded
01:50:50 --> 01:50:57 with other amazing advocates in the space, from lawyers to folks in the industry to organizers.
01:50:59 --> 01:51:03 All of these individuals wanted to join forces to again really center Latino
01:51:03 --> 01:51:08 voices in cannabis justice, especially at this time when Latino immigrant communities
01:51:08 --> 01:51:12 are under attack, where our people are being killed, our people are being racially profiled.
01:51:13 --> 01:51:20 And cannabis prohibition is one way that the Trump administration is justifying this.
01:51:20 --> 01:51:24 Already under this administration, we know that more than 600 people have been
01:51:24 --> 01:51:27 deported simply for marijuana activity.
01:51:28 --> 01:51:30 And I want to be clear because I think people get this confused.
01:51:31 --> 01:51:35 You're a non-citizen and if you're participating in an illegal marijuana market,
01:51:36 --> 01:51:39 that doesn't protect you just because the state market is legal,
01:51:39 --> 01:51:41 because marijuana remains federally prohibited.
01:51:42 --> 01:51:45 So you could be a medical marijuana patient complying with state law.
01:51:45 --> 01:51:48 You could be a worker in the industry complying with state law.
01:51:49 --> 01:51:53 You could be somebody who's growing plants, according to state law.
01:51:53 --> 01:51:58 But because of your immigration status, you are still susceptible to detention and deportation.
01:51:58 --> 01:52:02 Really harsh penalties. I think even harsher than the criminal legal system
01:52:02 --> 01:52:05 because you're talking about ripping somebody away from their home and family
01:52:05 --> 01:52:09 forever because of this plant being prohibited.
01:52:10 --> 01:52:13 So we aim to not just educate our community and other communities about it,
01:52:14 --> 01:52:21 but also, again, amplify the reason we need to talk about these issues beyond
01:52:21 --> 01:52:23 just like what the industry needs.
01:52:23 --> 01:52:27 We need to talk about the harm that cannabis prohibition has caused on communities,
01:52:27 --> 01:52:31 including Latino and immigrant communities. Yeah.
01:52:34 --> 01:52:39 I think the term that they try to use is moral turpitude. That's where they
01:52:39 --> 01:52:43 get people like that and try to deport them or whatever.
01:52:45 --> 01:52:51 So I want to finish out the interview with this challenge. I need you to finish this sentence.
01:52:52 --> 01:52:54 I have hope because...
01:52:55 --> 01:53:01 Have hope because I think that when people know better, they will do better.
01:53:02 --> 01:53:06 And that's one thing that I like about my job as an advocate is that I get to
01:53:06 --> 01:53:09 educate people about these issues that they might not be aware of.
01:53:10 --> 01:53:13 I think of a lot of, when I think about injustice, I do think a lot of injustice
01:53:13 --> 01:53:16 happens because people simply don't know.
01:53:16 --> 01:53:20 People are simply trying to survive, you know, live their own lives.
01:53:20 --> 01:53:24 But I think the more you know, I think ultimately people are good And people
01:53:24 --> 01:53:27 want to help their communities. They want to help one another.
01:53:28 --> 01:53:33 And, you know, I think that's one positive thing that we've seen come out of social media.
01:53:33 --> 01:53:41 We've seen some really encouraging participation from people when they see injustice.
01:53:41 --> 01:53:47 When I think about, you know, the racial justice protests we saw around George
01:53:47 --> 01:53:51 Floyd's death from even the recent protests and pushback that we're seeing because
01:53:51 --> 01:53:55 of all these individuals who have unfortunately been killed by ICE.
01:53:56 --> 01:54:01 I have hope because I think people care. And I think when people know better, they do.
01:54:01 --> 01:54:06 Yeah. So you mentioned that the Drug Policy Alliance is a nonprofit,
01:54:06 --> 01:54:08 correct? Yes. So y'all need money.
01:54:09 --> 01:54:13 So how can people donate to the Drug Policy Alliance? How can they reach out
01:54:13 --> 01:54:16 to them, get information? How can people reach out to you?
01:54:17 --> 01:54:21 That's a really great question. Yeah, people should check out drugpolicy.org.
01:54:21 --> 01:54:25 If you go to that website, you can learn more about the drug more generally.
01:54:25 --> 01:54:30 You can learn more about our work. You can follow our organization by signing
01:54:30 --> 01:54:34 up to receive updates. But you can also follow us on social media.
01:54:34 --> 01:54:38 And you'll find a place to donate if you just check out our website. Right.
01:54:39 --> 01:54:42 So find us there. Same with Latino Cannabis Alliance.
01:54:43 --> 01:54:47 You can find us at latinocannabisalliance.org. If you want to engage with us,
01:54:47 --> 01:54:48 we're also on social media.
01:54:49 --> 01:54:56 And I'm on social media as well, but my social media is not as probably as exciting
01:54:56 --> 01:55:00 if you want news updates as my LinkedIn is. But people can also find me on LinkedIn
01:55:00 --> 01:55:03 if they want to know what's happening at the federal level around drug policy.
01:55:04 --> 01:55:09 All right. Well, Maritza Perez, Medina, I am really, really honored that you
01:55:09 --> 01:55:11 came on the podcast today.
01:55:12 --> 01:55:16 I greatly appreciate the work that you're doing. And, you know,
01:55:17 --> 01:55:21 I know a lot of people might say, well, this is an extreme position.
01:55:21 --> 01:55:28 But again, 250 years ago, everything was legal. It was up to you whether you
01:55:28 --> 01:55:30 had access to it or whether you wanted to do it.
01:55:31 --> 01:55:37 And I think we would do better in society if we we focused in on,
01:55:38 --> 01:55:41 other things other than just trying to lock people up, either because they have
01:55:41 --> 01:55:46 a drug addiction or they they have mental health issues.
01:55:46 --> 01:55:50 And I promise the listeners,
01:55:51 --> 01:55:58 if we focused in on other crimes instead of drugs or criminalizing mental health,
01:55:59 --> 01:56:02 this whole system would be a whole lot better.
01:56:02 --> 01:56:09 And so, again, Marissa, I really appreciate you being on the front line doing what you do.
01:56:09 --> 01:56:11 And again, thank you for coming on the podcast.
01:56:12 --> 01:56:15 Thank you for inviting me. I had a great time. Thank you. All right,
01:56:15 --> 01:56:17 guys. And we're going to catch y'all on the other side.
01:56:31 --> 01:56:41 And so now I want to thank Charles Gueli, Alexa Morris, and Maritza Perez-Medina
01:56:41 --> 01:56:43 for coming on to the podcast.
01:56:43 --> 01:56:46 Great interviews. I hope y'all enjoyed them.
01:56:47 --> 01:56:52 Charles, after his interview, was going to give a lecture about Thomas Jefferson.
01:56:54 --> 01:56:58 At his local library. I wish I could have been there to hear that because I'm
01:56:58 --> 01:57:00 sure that was very compelling.
01:57:01 --> 01:57:05 You know, Alexa Morris and her book, The Courtyard, please get that.
01:57:06 --> 01:57:09 It's a beautiful story. It is not the typical Holocaust story.
01:57:10 --> 01:57:19 Yeah, the Nazis are in there and they're invading Paris and all that stuff, but it's not as stark or,
01:57:19 --> 01:57:25 horrible as the other stories because of the experience that Benjamin Parket had.
01:57:27 --> 01:57:34 And it's really, really, really an amazing book. And then Maritza Perez-Medina.
01:57:35 --> 01:57:41 I found out how fortunate I was to reschedule her because she's going to be a mom.
01:57:42 --> 01:57:49 So I offered her congratulations on that. And so, you know, but I really appreciate,
01:57:49 --> 01:57:56 her steadfastness and her commitment to reforming drug policy in the United
01:57:56 --> 01:57:57 States because it's needed.
01:57:58 --> 01:58:03 And if you reform drug policy in the United States, that'll be a major step
01:58:03 --> 01:58:06 in reforming the criminal justice system in the United States.
01:58:06 --> 01:58:13 So I wish her well on her pregnancy and the birth of her child.
01:58:14 --> 01:58:17 So she's going to be taking a break for a minute. But when she gets back,
01:58:18 --> 01:58:22 one of the things I said to her, I said, I will thank you for bringing another
01:58:22 --> 01:58:28 activist in the world because I know her child is going to be on fire pushing
01:58:28 --> 01:58:31 for a lot of the progressive things that we need,
01:58:31 --> 01:58:36 either while I'm here or just a really old, old man. So I'm looking forward to that.
01:58:38 --> 01:58:44 So I want to touch on three things real quick. And the first thing I need to
01:58:44 --> 01:58:47 reiterate is that I have said on this show,
01:58:48 --> 01:58:54 and I'm pleading whoever the next Democratic president is, that they apologize.
01:58:54 --> 01:58:58 Whether it's the first day, like right after you give the inauguration speech,
01:58:58 --> 01:59:03 the first executive order, or immediately upon taking office.
01:59:04 --> 01:59:07 Because it's out of control.
01:59:07 --> 01:59:13 So it's an embarrassment to those of us who have worn a badge, and it needs to stop.
01:59:14 --> 01:59:26 In the last two weeks, we've lost Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, Texas,
01:59:27 --> 01:59:31 and Johann Sebastian Duran Guerrero in Maine.
01:59:32 --> 01:59:36 Neither one of those gentlemen were the target of ICE.
01:59:37 --> 01:59:43 They were killed in similar fashion. The officers were saying that the cars
01:59:43 --> 01:59:44 were being used as weapons.
01:59:45 --> 01:59:47 They were conducting traffic stops.
01:59:48 --> 01:59:55 And, you know, for whatever reason, those gentlemen didn't yield or panicked
01:59:55 --> 01:59:56 or wherever the case may be.
01:59:57 --> 02:00:01 And, you know, in the area of Houston, Texas, where Mr. Araujo was,
02:00:02 --> 02:00:04 it was a lot of carjackings.
02:00:04 --> 02:00:06 So he wasn't going to stop.
02:00:07 --> 02:00:11 If you see some people that are wearing masks and carrying guns,
02:00:12 --> 02:00:13 you don't know who they are.
02:00:13 --> 02:00:20 Yeah, I'm not stopping. Right? And then Mr. Guerrero, he literally just pulled
02:00:20 --> 02:00:22 out of his driveway, heading to work.
02:00:24 --> 02:00:29 And, you know, he had, he was legally here in the United States.
02:00:29 --> 02:00:31 He had worker authorization.
02:00:32 --> 02:00:40 And, you know, before he even gets off his block, next thing we know, he's no longer with us.
02:00:41 --> 02:00:47 And his wife and his three-year-old child saw him being dragged out of a car, lifeless.
02:00:48 --> 02:00:54 I know in the short time that these quote-unquote ICE officers are being trained,
02:00:54 --> 02:00:57 they have no clue what a traffic stop is or how to do it.
02:00:58 --> 02:01:05 And so, you know, this whole ICE thing has been a total, total failure. Total. And.
02:01:08 --> 02:01:16 It just needs to end. So I'm praying that whoever the next president is,
02:01:17 --> 02:01:19 that they just shut this down.
02:01:20 --> 02:01:25 Yeah, they just need to shut it down. There's no redeeming at this point.
02:01:25 --> 02:01:29 I mean, I wish we could go as far as to make sure that those people who are
02:01:29 --> 02:01:36 currently employed in ICE will never, ever be allowed to be in law enforcement again, right?
02:01:37 --> 02:01:44 That if any agency that wants federal dollars, if they hire those folks,
02:01:44 --> 02:01:48 then they forfeit those, they are no longer eligible for federal dollars.
02:01:49 --> 02:01:54 They can't participate in any federal programs, right? That's how serious I
02:01:54 --> 02:01:59 am about these individuals who are working in ICE right now that they will never
02:01:59 --> 02:02:03 be in law enforcement again, ever. This was their one shot.
02:02:05 --> 02:02:10 The man who is accused, has been identified as shooting Mr. Guerrero.
02:02:13 --> 02:02:16 And there's no way he could have passed a psych evaluation in any other law
02:02:16 --> 02:02:18 enforcement agency in the United States.
02:02:19 --> 02:02:25 And, but ICE gave him a badge of the gun and threw him out there.
02:02:26 --> 02:02:31 And so it doesn't matter if it's Christy Noem or Mark Wayne Mullen or Tom Homan or whoever.
02:02:32 --> 02:02:37 They've proven that ICE is a failure in the iteration that they have done it.
02:02:37 --> 02:02:41 And the only way you can fix it is to abolish it.
02:02:42 --> 02:02:48 Get rid of it. You got to figure out a new way to do what you want to do.
02:02:49 --> 02:02:54 But that institution, with the personnel that they have now.
02:02:57 --> 02:03:04 And, you know, it's interesting that those particular incidents happened in
02:03:04 --> 02:03:07 states where the Senate races are really, really close.
02:03:08 --> 02:03:14 And, you know, for those running under Republican banner, for you not to say
02:03:14 --> 02:03:18 anything or not to do anything, especially in Maine,
02:03:19 --> 02:03:27 to lead the charge, to not vote for any more money for Homeland Security and all that stuff in Texas.
02:03:28 --> 02:03:31 I mean, you know, the guy in Texas, he's a criminal anyway, so it doesn't matter.
02:03:32 --> 02:03:36 But, you know, what's the line that the Senator from Maine You know,
02:03:36 --> 02:03:38 he says she's concerned.
02:03:40 --> 02:03:45 Yeah, it's that's great that you're concerned, but we need action at this point.
02:03:46 --> 02:03:54 And there's nothing there's no redeeming ice. None. So that that needs to be abolished.
02:03:54 --> 02:04:00 And, you know, I'm praying for the Guerrero and Guerrero and Araujo family, Araujo families.
02:04:01 --> 02:04:08 And, you know, for all my Latino, Latinx brothers and sisters out there,
02:04:09 --> 02:04:15 you know, stay strong, you know, be careful and, you know, just...
02:04:18 --> 02:04:24 It's a dark moment, but we're going to get through it. So I just keep that in mind.
02:04:25 --> 02:04:29 Now, there's two scenarios that's happening with the U.S. Senate.
02:04:30 --> 02:04:35 One is very, very sad, and I'll get to that one in a minute,
02:04:35 --> 02:04:39 but the one that's terrible is this whole situation with Mitch McConnell.
02:04:39 --> 02:04:48 Now, I know people think that politics is a sport and it's all about games, gamesmanship and,
02:04:48 --> 02:04:54 you know, their mindset is we're just going to own our opponents and try to
02:04:54 --> 02:04:57 always one-up them and all that stuff.
02:04:57 --> 02:05:04 But, you know, I just, I really just think that where we are as a country and
02:05:04 --> 02:05:08 the way that the Republicans are doing things and they're just,
02:05:08 --> 02:05:12 the way that they think is so subhuman.
02:05:13 --> 02:05:14 It's so abhorrent.
02:05:15 --> 02:05:22 So in Kentucky, knowing Mitch McConnell's age and all that stuff, the Republicans,
02:05:22 --> 02:05:28 in the state legislature decided that they wanted to stop because Andy Basseer
02:05:28 --> 02:05:34 is a Democrat and he keeps getting elected governor despite the Republicans' efforts,
02:05:34 --> 02:05:38 because he's actually a good governor, and the people want that.
02:05:39 --> 02:05:45 And so, knowing that Mitch McConnell has had some health episodes and,
02:05:45 --> 02:05:49 like, freezing up on a microphone and at press conferences and stuff like that,
02:05:50 --> 02:05:56 Republicans decided that they wanted to neuter Basir's ability to pick a Democrat,
02:05:57 --> 02:05:59 to replace McConnell, right?
02:06:00 --> 02:06:05 Now, Basir probably would pick a Democrat, but he might pick a Republican that
02:06:05 --> 02:06:12 he likes, just to finish out McConnell's term, because McConnell's term ends in January. And so...
02:06:14 --> 02:06:19 Throw him a bone, because he's that kind of a dude. He would actually consider it, literally.
02:06:20 --> 02:06:26 But the Kentucky legislators, the Republican legislators, did not want to give
02:06:26 --> 02:06:30 Basir that chance. So they created this rule that I still don't quite understand
02:06:30 --> 02:06:34 how they did it, but it's the Commonwealth of Kentucky. I guess they can do what they want.
02:06:35 --> 02:06:39 But they created this rule that said that.
02:06:45 --> 02:06:54 If McConnell doesn't die before August the 3rd, right, of this year,
02:06:54 --> 02:06:58 then Basir can't appoint somebody to replace him.
02:06:59 --> 02:07:05 So I guess that's an arbitrary date that hits every time a Senate position.
02:07:05 --> 02:07:08 So I guess that would apply to Rand Paul in 28.
02:07:10 --> 02:07:16 But, you know, it's like, so if you can't pick anybody by August the 3rd,
02:07:16 --> 02:07:20 if Mitch McConnell doesn't die by August the 3rd, then that seat remains vacant,
02:07:20 --> 02:07:24 where they have to have a special election to finish out the term.
02:07:24 --> 02:07:28 Right. I think that's what it is. They have to have a special election to finish out the term.
02:07:29 --> 02:07:36 So the people of Kentucky possibly could be electing a senator for like a month,
02:07:36 --> 02:07:41 and then electing a senator for the next six years, this November. the way it's going.
02:07:42 --> 02:07:45 So, Mitch McConnell has basically disappeared.
02:07:46 --> 02:07:51 He went to the hospital. According to witnesses,
02:07:51 --> 02:07:58 he was not conscious when he was picked up in the ambulance and taken to not
02:07:58 --> 02:08:03 a hospital per se, but he's supposedly at a rehabilitation center.
02:08:04 --> 02:08:07 And we don't know if he's alive.
02:08:08 --> 02:08:14 Now, there are people going on TV, and every one of them that is Republican,
02:08:14 --> 02:08:17 including Scott Jennings, who used to work for Mitch,
02:08:18 --> 02:08:24 all of these people are saying, oh, yeah, I talked to him for 20 minutes, right?
02:08:25 --> 02:08:30 Like, that's like, I guess, in Republican mindset, that's a standard time to
02:08:30 --> 02:08:34 have a conversation with somebody to prove that they're alive,
02:08:34 --> 02:08:36 it's like 20 minute conversation.
02:08:37 --> 02:08:41 So all of them are having 20 minute conversations. You know,
02:08:41 --> 02:08:43 it's like, yeah, I talked to him for about a couple of minutes.
02:08:44 --> 02:08:48 You know, he said, hey, what's going on? You know, I talked to him for about
02:08:48 --> 02:08:51 an hour. I talked to him about a half hour. I talked to him about 50.
02:08:52 --> 02:08:56 Everybody's talked to him for exactly 20 minutes. Okay. And.
02:08:57 --> 02:09:03 And then they put up a picture of him and his wife, and it's obvious that it's
02:09:03 --> 02:09:04 not an up-to-date picture.
02:09:05 --> 02:09:11 One, because he's fully dressed, like he's about to be released from the hospital.
02:09:11 --> 02:09:18 And we know that his wife went to China for some kind of meeting right after
02:09:18 --> 02:09:21 he was admitted to this rehab center or whatever.
02:09:22 --> 02:09:26 So there's no way that picture could have happened.
02:09:27 --> 02:09:34 But they feel that they have such an influence over their base that they can,
02:09:34 --> 02:09:38 lie and say they talk to this man for 20 minutes and then,
02:09:38 --> 02:09:43 you know, they can post these old pictures and say, see, he's fine.
02:09:44 --> 02:09:49 These folks will say, believe that. And they might be right on their side.
02:09:50 --> 02:09:56 You know, I mean, over this last year or so, two years,
02:09:57 --> 02:10:02 people that I thought I knew, watching what they post and how they react to
02:10:02 --> 02:10:05 certain things on social media, I'm like, you might be right.
02:10:06 --> 02:10:09 You might be right. These people might buy that.
02:10:10 --> 02:10:13 But see, there's no legal repercussions for doing that.
02:10:14 --> 02:10:19 That just falls under political gamesmanship. We'll just lie and say that Mitch
02:10:19 --> 02:10:25 is alive. And then on August the 4th or August the 10th, we'll say that he died.
02:10:26 --> 02:10:32 And that's it. You know, and the thing that's fascinating is that there are
02:10:32 --> 02:10:35 two people that have not had a 20 minute conversation with Mitch McConnell.
02:10:35 --> 02:10:39 And that's the governor of Kentucky, Mr. Brazier, and the president of the United
02:10:39 --> 02:10:42 States, Mr. Trump. Neither one of them have had the 20 minute conversation.
02:10:43 --> 02:10:48 You would think that of all the people, I think I probably would talk to the
02:10:48 --> 02:10:51 president and talk to the governor before I talked to Scott Jennings.
02:10:52 --> 02:10:57 I understand they got a history, but I think they would be up on the chart first.
02:10:58 --> 02:11:05 Let me call these people. Because I remember when Katrina happened and the Speaker
02:11:05 --> 02:11:11 of the House sent out, you know, a call and asked for the members to check in.
02:11:12 --> 02:11:16 Of us that were in the affected area. So definitely wanted to hear from the
02:11:16 --> 02:11:24 coastal members, but the storm was so strong that it went straight up the state.
02:11:24 --> 02:11:27 So it impacted Jackson, impacted Clinton where I was.
02:11:28 --> 02:11:35 And so it was like we checked in and it wasn't long, like maybe about two or
02:11:35 --> 02:11:36 three minutes at the most.
02:11:37 --> 02:11:42 Just go and say, yeah, everything's fine. You know, if you had some damage to
02:11:42 --> 02:11:44 your house or, you know, whatever,
02:11:45 --> 02:11:50 you know, because he needed to assess when he could get all of us together to
02:11:50 --> 02:11:57 have a special session to address whatever we needed to address for the recovery after Katrina.
02:11:58 --> 02:12:01 I don't know, maybe your press conference about it and nobody had to,
02:12:02 --> 02:12:04 But we all had to check in.
02:12:04 --> 02:12:09 And once he realized everybody was safe, then he started working with the governor,
02:12:10 --> 02:12:14 and the lieutenant governor to figure out when we were going to have this special session.
02:12:15 --> 02:12:21 So Mitch McConnell ain't got to talk long. If he's okay, call the president,
02:12:22 --> 02:12:24 call the governor. I'm good.
02:12:24 --> 02:12:27 I'm going to be okay. I'll be back.
02:12:28 --> 02:12:33 That's it. That's all he got to say. And all of this stuff will be averted.
02:12:33 --> 02:12:38 But when you're sitting there and you're talking about a guy who allegedly had
02:12:38 --> 02:12:42 a heart attack or some kind of, you know, he didn't have a cardiac arrest or
02:12:42 --> 02:12:46 else he would be dead. Well, he may have had cardiac arrest. We don't know.
02:12:47 --> 02:12:51 But if you're saying, well, he just had a heart attack or he fell down and was
02:12:51 --> 02:12:56 unconscious or whatever, whatever lie you want to tell about his health condition.
02:12:57 --> 02:13:01 I don't know if I know I didn't want to talk to anybody for 20 minutes and my back was hurt.
02:13:02 --> 02:13:05 I just call people long enough to say, hey, I'm going to the hospital.
02:13:05 --> 02:13:08 My back's hurt. I call people before I went.
02:13:09 --> 02:13:13 Right now. Now, I know I'm younger than Mitch McConnell and I get all that and
02:13:13 --> 02:13:16 everybody's different. But there's some basic things you do.
02:13:17 --> 02:13:20 You find out somebody that you care about in the hospital, you're trying to
02:13:20 --> 02:13:24 reach out to them. If you can't talk to them, you talk to a doctor.
02:13:25 --> 02:13:30 And no doctor has come on and said, Mr. McConnell is fine.
02:13:31 --> 02:13:35 Right. But it's all about gamemanship because this stupid rule that they created,
02:13:36 --> 02:13:42 just so a Democrat can't enjoy the spoils of victory, right?
02:13:43 --> 02:13:45 Because that's one of the things they will throw at you. Well,
02:13:45 --> 02:13:50 you've got to deal with whatever you're dealing with because the Republicans are in charge, right?
02:13:51 --> 02:13:56 But when Democrats are in charge in a situation like Kentucky where the governor
02:13:56 --> 02:14:00 is a Democrat and the legislature is controlled by the Republicans,
02:14:00 --> 02:14:02 that rule doesn't apply.
02:14:03 --> 02:14:08 They do everything like North Carolina. They want to strip the governor of being
02:14:08 --> 02:14:11 able to appoint members of his own cabinet.
02:14:12 --> 02:14:17 Right. In Wisconsin, you know, they tried to do all sorts of shenanigans with
02:14:17 --> 02:14:18 the Democratic governor there.
02:14:19 --> 02:14:23 That's not gamesmanship. That's just being assholes. Right.
02:14:24 --> 02:14:28 And now there's only 100 U.S. senators. Each state gets two.
02:14:29 --> 02:14:35 So now you want to jeopardize the flow of the Senate. to play a game.
02:14:36 --> 02:14:41 Whoever Andy Beshear points is going to be gone in January if they didn't run
02:14:41 --> 02:14:44 for the position and their primaries already happened.
02:14:45 --> 02:14:50 So if that person, he or she didn't run for the position and Beshear points
02:14:50 --> 02:14:51 them, they're going to be gone in January anyway.
02:14:52 --> 02:14:56 And at the rate y'all are going, y'all not passing anything,
02:14:56 --> 02:14:57 so what would they be missing?
02:14:59 --> 02:15:05 What harm could they do? Right? Nonetheless, But what threw a monkey wrench
02:15:05 --> 02:15:09 into plans is that Lindsey Graham actually died.
02:15:09 --> 02:15:13 The senator from South Carolina, he died. Which, by the way,
02:15:13 --> 02:15:16 now, that means that there are two states in the United States,
02:15:16 --> 02:15:21 two, that have black men as senior senators.
02:15:22 --> 02:15:27 Cory Booker in New Jersey and Tim Scott in South Carolina. Two black men are
02:15:27 --> 02:15:29 now senior senators in the United States Senate.
02:15:30 --> 02:15:32 Just wanted to throw that out there. So now...
02:15:34 --> 02:15:40 Graham goes to Ukraine and, you know, he's trying to encourage Solinsky to keep
02:15:40 --> 02:15:44 doing what he's doing. He's making the case that we need to continue to fund
02:15:44 --> 02:15:48 Ukraine despite, you know, his president's reluctance.
02:15:48 --> 02:15:54 And he gets back home and basically the next day he's dead.
02:15:54 --> 02:15:59 And according to official reports that he had aortic ambulism,
02:15:59 --> 02:16:02 which is like a tear in the aortic valve.
02:16:03 --> 02:16:06 And you can go pretty quick when that happens.
02:16:07 --> 02:16:10 And the governor of South Carolina picked his sister.
02:16:12 --> 02:16:16 Finish out the term because they're in an election year.
02:16:16 --> 02:16:22 Now, in South Carolina, everybody's Republican, so governor can do that, right?
02:16:23 --> 02:16:27 But if Henry McMaster was a Democrat, even if he said, I'm going to pick Lindsey's
02:16:27 --> 02:16:30 sister, they probably would have put in some kind of mechanism like Kentucky
02:16:30 --> 02:16:33 and said, man, no, we're not going to let you do that.
02:16:34 --> 02:16:38 Or would they have lied and said Lindsey didn't die?
02:16:39 --> 02:16:42 You know, you understand what I'm saying? It's just crazy.
02:16:43 --> 02:16:48 It's just crazy. And then the other, so that's thrown them in a conundrum where
02:16:48 --> 02:16:53 now they've lost two, they've got two senators that are not there. One, we know he died.
02:16:54 --> 02:16:56 And the other one, we think he died.
02:16:57 --> 02:17:00 And we don't have any credible information, whatever.
02:17:01 --> 02:17:05 I remember it was a young guy who ran for the U.S.
02:17:05 --> 02:17:13 Senate in Mississippi, and he got in trouble because one of his campaign staffers
02:17:13 --> 02:17:18 went to the rehab clinic that Senator Cochran's wife was in.
02:17:19 --> 02:17:24 And I don't know what that, I can't remember what the motivation about that
02:17:24 --> 02:17:32 was, what was the story behind that, but, you know, they went in and took pictures of her in there.
02:17:33 --> 02:17:37 And the only reason why I bring that up is because nobody has thought to do
02:17:37 --> 02:17:40 the same thing with Mitch McConnell. If they know where he is,
02:17:40 --> 02:17:44 that nobody is enterprising enough to take that picture.
02:17:45 --> 02:17:52 I mean, people snuck in to take pictures to show that Elvis was in the coffin. Nobody.
02:17:53 --> 02:17:56 I mean, people, you know, will say, well, that's that poor behavior and all
02:17:56 --> 02:18:00 that stuff, but people do that kind of stuff if they really want to know the truth.
02:18:02 --> 02:18:07 Know. I don't know what that deal is or why people all of a sudden now have
02:18:07 --> 02:18:12 morality, but I just think it's fascinating that we can't get an update.
02:18:12 --> 02:18:18 And then Lindsey Graham actually dying, you know, has really exacerbated the
02:18:18 --> 02:18:22 lie that's being put out by the Republicans in Kentucky.
02:18:23 --> 02:18:28 So anyway, so now South Carolina has a senator, like I said,
02:18:28 --> 02:18:32 Lindsey Graham's sister, and people are talking about whether she's qualified
02:18:32 --> 02:18:33 or not, it doesn't matter.
02:18:34 --> 02:18:38 She's over 30. She's lived in the state for over five years. Okay.
02:18:39 --> 02:18:45 You know, we've had spouses and children of deceased elected officials fill
02:18:45 --> 02:18:47 their spots. It happened.
02:18:48 --> 02:18:54 So I'm not really worried about that. I mean, she's going to do whatever Republicans
02:18:54 --> 02:18:56 tell her to do anyway. It doesn't matter if she was a lawyer.
02:18:56 --> 02:18:58 It doesn't matter if she was a PhD.
02:18:59 --> 02:19:05 She, it don't matter. She's a citizen of the state. The governor picked her. Move on, right?
02:19:06 --> 02:19:10 In the essence of where we are, that's inconsequential.
02:19:10 --> 02:19:15 The only thing that would be bad is if she was like a convicted felon.
02:19:16 --> 02:19:20 Maybe you might ask some questions. And what was she convicted of?
02:19:21 --> 02:19:24 You might want to have some questions. But other than that, no.
02:19:25 --> 02:19:28 Because actually if she was a convicted felon, she wouldn't be eligible to vote.
02:19:28 --> 02:19:31 Therefore, she wouldn't be eligible to serve in the position.
02:19:34 --> 02:19:43 So who McMaster appoint doesn't matter, but this constant lying is a whole different thing.
02:19:43 --> 02:19:47 And then the other thing I wanted to touch on about this whole Lindsey Graham
02:19:47 --> 02:19:52 thing is that, you know, people are being critical about some of the Democrats
02:19:52 --> 02:19:54 saying nice things about him.
02:19:55 --> 02:20:00 I think people need to deal with death the way that they want to deal with.
02:20:00 --> 02:20:06 But if, you know, I'm in the South, so there's all sorts of idioms and sayings.
02:20:06 --> 02:20:11 And, you know, one of the things is you don't speak ill of the dead and all that. Okay.
02:20:12 --> 02:20:17 And then I remember the story of Vernon Johns. It was a guy who hadn't attended
02:20:17 --> 02:20:22 church, but he was the son of a deacon, or I think that's how the story goes.
02:20:22 --> 02:20:26 And so he demanded that he do the eulogy for the funeral.
02:20:27 --> 02:20:34 And Reverend Johns got up there and said, so-and-so lived, so-and-so died, here end of the sermon.
02:20:34 --> 02:20:37 And he walked off the podium, out of the pulpit, right?
02:20:40 --> 02:20:49 And then, you know, it was another case where these guys had been bitter rivals and political rivals.
02:20:49 --> 02:20:53 And so one of them died and the other one came to the funeral.
02:20:53 --> 02:20:56 And so one of the people noticed this guy was there and he said,
02:20:56 --> 02:20:59 hey, man, I didn't expect to see you at the funeral. He said,
02:20:59 --> 02:21:01 yeah, I just wanted to make sure the son of a bitch was dead.
02:21:02 --> 02:21:09 I'm good, you know? So people are going to deal with folks the way that they
02:21:09 --> 02:21:13 feel like dealing with them. If there's some people that have some good stories
02:21:13 --> 02:21:16 about their relationship with Lindsey Graham, fine.
02:21:17 --> 02:21:22 You know, if there's some people who hate his guts, okay, all of us are going to do that.
02:21:23 --> 02:21:26 I just don't want to be like the woman when my mom died.
02:21:28 --> 02:21:33 Like, it's going to matter because I'm going to be gone. But I just don't want
02:21:33 --> 02:21:40 that image for my child or any other family members where my mom was in a smaller,
02:21:40 --> 02:21:42 chapel and it was overflowing.
02:21:42 --> 02:21:46 You know, it was like relatives I hadn't seen, even on my dad's side,
02:21:46 --> 02:21:49 it showed up. My high school classmates, college classmates,
02:21:49 --> 02:21:54 just a lot of people I didn't expect to come to the wake showed up.
02:21:55 --> 02:22:01 So, you know, it was packed and it was lively. And then the woman that had reserved,
02:22:01 --> 02:22:06 the family had reserved the big chapel, right, that could seat like literally 500 people.
02:22:07 --> 02:22:11 That woman was laying there empty, empty room.
02:22:12 --> 02:22:14 And me and one of my cousins went in there and we just kind of sat there to
02:22:14 --> 02:22:19 pay our respects and left just so somebody came. But nobody came during the
02:22:19 --> 02:22:22 time that we were there because the viewings were at the same time.
02:22:22 --> 02:22:26 Nobody came to that big empty chapel for that woman, right?
02:22:27 --> 02:22:33 And so I don't want it to be that, and it's definitely not going to be that for Lindsey Graham.
02:22:34 --> 02:22:39 But people have the right to do what they want to do when it deals with death
02:22:39 --> 02:22:42 and how they want to remember people, how they want to acknowledge folks.
02:22:43 --> 02:22:48 And, you know, people who are critical may come across as cruel,
02:22:48 --> 02:22:56 and people that are too celebratory may come across as either being insincere or out of touch. But...
02:22:58 --> 02:23:03 Most people have been raised to be kind during that moment because somebody
02:23:03 --> 02:23:12 loved them, somebody cared about them, and so they show respect, and that's okay.
02:23:13 --> 02:23:17 When we get to a point in America, especially in politics, where we just can't,
02:23:18 --> 02:23:23 be civil to each other even in death, that's a threat to our democracy too.
02:23:23 --> 02:23:31 Because the whole concept of a democratic republic is based on this moral understanding of civility.
02:23:32 --> 02:23:37 And we can't be civil with each other even in death. Then that's a problem.
02:23:38 --> 02:23:43 And, you know, I know the president has set good examples. When Rob Reiner died
02:23:43 --> 02:23:45 and Robert Mueller died, he said awful things.
02:23:49 --> 02:23:54 Going to say awful things about him when he dies, right? So it is what it is.
02:23:55 --> 02:24:02 And I don't have a high standard for him, right? But everybody else that's relatively
02:24:02 --> 02:24:08 normal, you know, they deal with it how they want to deal with it, you know?
02:24:09 --> 02:24:13 I think I have kinder things to say about Lindsey Graham than I would Strom Thurmond.
02:24:14 --> 02:24:17 If I was from South Carolina, you know, black.
02:24:19 --> 02:24:25 I, you know, it is what it is. Some black people have probably kinder things
02:24:25 --> 02:24:28 to say about Lindsey Graham than they would about Tim Scott.
02:24:28 --> 02:24:34 It is what it is. You know, people don't get in those positions if they don't
02:24:34 --> 02:24:37 have a network, if they don't have a cadre of friends and supporters.
02:24:38 --> 02:24:43 So, you know, and then people say, well, you're not highlighting the bad stuff.
02:24:44 --> 02:24:48 Okay. How long do you want this story to be about his life? Do you want me to
02:24:48 --> 02:24:51 tell the whole story or what?
02:24:52 --> 02:24:58 You know, he was born poor. He achieved one of the ultimate political goals.
02:24:58 --> 02:25:03 He not only got to serve in the United States House, but he served in the United States Senate.
02:25:03 --> 02:25:05 And he was a candidate for president of the United States.
02:25:06 --> 02:25:08 That's normally a success story here.
02:25:09 --> 02:25:15 And, you know, now what he did when he was in office, we can have discussions about that.
02:25:16 --> 02:25:19 Because my biggest disappointment with him was.
02:25:21 --> 02:25:26 So my biggest disappointment with him was when the whole thing was going down
02:25:26 --> 02:25:30 after Mother Emanuel Church had the shooting,
02:25:31 --> 02:25:37 was that it was a push to get rid of the Confederate flag flying over the statehouse.
02:25:38 --> 02:25:42 And Nikki Haley was the governor, and Tim Scott either had just got elected
02:25:42 --> 02:25:45 senator or he was still in the House of Representatives.
02:25:46 --> 02:25:49 I think he had just got elected to the Senate or appointed or whatever the case may be.
02:25:50 --> 02:25:52 And so, you know, Lindsey Graham
02:25:52 --> 02:25:56 was senior senator. And during that whole time, he had nothing to say.
02:25:57 --> 02:26:00 You know, Nikki Haley's out there, you know, having press conferences.
02:26:00 --> 02:26:04 Tim Scott was the one who was pushing for it to come down.
02:26:04 --> 02:26:09 And Lindsey Graham said nothing. So that was a disappointing moment for me.
02:26:09 --> 02:26:15 And then after January 6th, when he basically denounced President Trump for
02:26:15 --> 02:26:20 what he did, you know, the next thing I know, he's back on the team.
02:26:21 --> 02:26:23 He said, I'm it. I'm out. I'm done.
02:26:24 --> 02:26:31 And it wasn't even two weeks later and he was out there trying to help him get folks in Georgia.
02:26:31 --> 02:26:38 He was calling before Trump called, Lindsey called to see if there's any way
02:26:38 --> 02:26:39 you could find any votes in Georgia.
02:26:40 --> 02:26:43 And Trump was the follow-up call, right?
02:26:45 --> 02:26:48 So those are my disappointments with him.
02:26:49 --> 02:26:53 He was a Republican, so we didn't see eye to eye on a lot of stuff.
02:26:54 --> 02:26:59 And then, you know, but he said nice things about Joe Biden,
02:27:00 --> 02:27:03 right? He said nice things about, but he served with Joe Biden.
02:27:05 --> 02:27:09 John McCain, that was kind of like his mentor when he came to the Senate,
02:27:10 --> 02:27:15 you know. So he had redeemable moments, a lot more than the current president.
02:27:16 --> 02:27:19 But he wasn't a friend. He wasn't an ally.
02:27:20 --> 02:27:26 You know, you live this lifestyle, and then politically, you do everything to
02:27:26 --> 02:27:31 take away the rights of the folks that live the lifestyle that you live, right?
02:27:32 --> 02:27:40 Just the hypocrisy in it. but now he's in the judgment part of his life, of his essence.
02:27:41 --> 02:27:44 And so he has to answer to God for that.
02:27:44 --> 02:27:51 But human beings have the right to deal with grief the way that they want to deal with it.
02:27:52 --> 02:27:55 So let's not be critical about people, especially on the Democratic side,
02:27:55 --> 02:27:57 critical about people. I'm asking.
02:27:58 --> 02:28:00 I know people are doing it regardless.
02:28:00 --> 02:28:05 But I'm asking that we don't jump on people,
02:28:05 --> 02:28:11 especially those folks on our side, for being human and trying to remember the
02:28:11 --> 02:28:18 good times, even with people that they vehemently disagree with or they felt were a threat.
02:28:19 --> 02:28:23 We've got bigger things to deal with. For those who are living,
02:28:24 --> 02:28:30 we've got to make sure that we have a health care system that will treat us
02:28:30 --> 02:28:32 the way that members of Congress are treated.
02:28:33 --> 02:28:39 We have to have an educational system, period, in the United States.
02:28:40 --> 02:28:42 We need to have a functioning government.
02:28:44 --> 02:28:49 That this Democratic Republic remains a peaceful society. We need to reform
02:28:49 --> 02:28:50 the criminal justice system.
02:28:52 --> 02:28:55 We need to protect voting rights. There are a lot of other things that we need
02:28:55 --> 02:28:59 to be talking about other than how somebody grieves another human being.
02:29:00 --> 02:29:02 That's no different than judging people.
02:29:05 --> 02:29:11 How they love another human being, right? I think we have gotten to a point
02:29:11 --> 02:29:14 where we have been too acceptable,
02:29:15 --> 02:29:23 I guess that's a word, or have gained this incredible tolerance to inhumanity.
02:29:24 --> 02:29:30 I think we need to remember that even people that we'll never meet,
02:29:31 --> 02:29:37 people that we'll never talk to, are connected to us in some way, shape, or form.
02:29:38 --> 02:29:41 Because when an athlete plays, whether it's in the World Cup,
02:29:41 --> 02:29:47 or the Super Bowl, or Wimbledon, or the Scottish, I mean, the British Open, whatever.
02:29:47 --> 02:29:51 Most of those athletes don't know the fans that are watching them,
02:29:52 --> 02:29:54 but there's a connection, right?
02:29:55 --> 02:29:58 They don't know the people that are there at the arena, let alone the folks
02:29:58 --> 02:30:02 that are watching them on TV. They don't know these people, but they live their
02:30:02 --> 02:30:05 lives, and the people who are watching them live their lives.
02:30:06 --> 02:30:13 And outside of that one moment where they see them perform, there's no personal
02:30:13 --> 02:30:17 connection. But there is a connection because that world of sports couldn't
02:30:17 --> 02:30:20 exist without fans, right?
02:30:20 --> 02:30:25 Same with politics. Most politicians are not going to meet all the people that vote for them.
02:30:26 --> 02:30:32 They're not, you know? But there's a connection. Everything that we do, right?
02:30:33 --> 02:30:38 When we're making the phone call, there are people that are making sure that the phone call happens.
02:30:38 --> 02:30:42 We'll never meet them. We're not going to meet the guys that repair the antenna.
02:30:43 --> 02:30:49 These people, but we're connected because if that person doesn't do their job,
02:30:49 --> 02:30:50 then I can't make my phone call.
02:30:51 --> 02:30:56 You see where I'm going with that? It's like, so we have to treat the 8 billion
02:30:56 --> 02:30:59 other folks on the planet as human beings.
02:31:00 --> 02:31:05 And on the rare chance that you encounter somebody new that you haven't met
02:31:05 --> 02:31:12 before or whatever and engage with them, then do it in a positive way.
02:31:12 --> 02:31:18 That's all I'm asking. If it's somebody that you didn't really care for and,
02:31:19 --> 02:31:24 you know, whatever, if you don't feel like acknowledging their passing, fine.
02:31:25 --> 02:31:28 If you got something nice to say about them, fine.
02:31:28 --> 02:31:32 If you can't muster a nice thing to say, okay.
02:31:33 --> 02:31:36 But you've acknowledged that they've moved on.
02:31:37 --> 02:31:40 And that's all I'm really asking. I'm just asking people to.
02:31:42 --> 02:31:47 The best to elevate yourself. I know it's hard. I am not a perfect human being.
02:31:48 --> 02:31:51 I am not the second coming by any stretch of the imagination.
02:31:51 --> 02:31:56 All I'm trying to do is just do the best I can in the remaining time I have left.
02:31:57 --> 02:32:03 There are some relationships that I have that I think will last until I leave.
02:32:04 --> 02:32:07 There's some relationships that have come and gone. It is what it is.
02:32:08 --> 02:32:13 But my job, and especially talking to you all in this podcast,
02:32:13 --> 02:32:18 is to have a connection, to let you know what's going on, let you know what's on my mind.
02:32:19 --> 02:32:24 And maybe that'll stir up thoughts in your mind and you can have conversations
02:32:24 --> 02:32:26 with other people and so on and so on.
02:32:26 --> 02:32:30 Because the whole thing we're trying to do is that we're just trying to be better.
02:32:31 --> 02:32:35 The whole concept of a more perfect union is not just confined to the walls
02:32:35 --> 02:32:41 of Capitol Hill or places of power. It is about our communities.
02:32:42 --> 02:32:47 You can't have a perfect union if you have imperfect or terrible communities.
02:32:48 --> 02:32:57 It's all connected. And it's all based on how we treat each other and value humanity.
02:32:59 --> 02:33:02 All right. That's all I got. Thank y'all for listening. Until next time.