Host Erik Fleming interviews philosopher Roger S. Gottlieb about his book "Nature Spirituality and Environmental Crisis: Embracing a Sacred, Wounded Earth." They explore how encounters with nature foster spiritual virtues like gratitude, compassion, and love, and examine the moral and practical implications of environmental damage.
The episode also touches on podcasting updates and political context, and offers accessible suggestions for individual and collective action to protect the planet and strengthen our spiritual connection to the natural world.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:06 Welcome. I'm Eric Fleming, host of A Moment with Eric Fleming, the podcast of our time.
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00:01:15 --> 00:01:20 The following program is hosted by the NVG Podcast Network.
00:02:00 --> 00:02:05 Hello, and welcome to another moment with Eric Fleming. I am your host, Eric Fleming.
00:02:07 --> 00:02:12 So today, we've got a guest, Roger Gottlieb.
00:02:13 --> 00:02:18 Roger has written a book called Nature Spirituality,
00:02:18 --> 00:02:24 and we'll go into the whole title of the book in the interview,
00:02:24 --> 00:02:29 but that's going to be the title of the podcast, since he's the only guest, Nature Spirituality.
00:02:31 --> 00:02:37 And Roger is a philosophy professor at Worcester Polytechnical College.
00:02:38 --> 00:02:46 And he's written several books, and he's very, very bullish on the environment.
00:02:47 --> 00:02:51 And if he wasn't a philosopher, he would be a full-time environmentalist, No doubt about it.
00:02:51 --> 00:02:57 But anyway, you're going to enjoy that interview and looking forward to y'all
00:02:57 --> 00:03:02 listening to that update on the black podcasting awards.
00:03:04 --> 00:03:08 Did not win yet again. Nominated for a third time, did not win.
00:03:09 --> 00:03:14 However, one of the things that was noted during the ceremony that I could stay
00:03:14 --> 00:03:22 on was that a couple of people who had been nominated several times finally won their first award.
00:03:24 --> 00:03:28 This year, so keep hope alive.
00:03:31 --> 00:03:38 No, seriously, though, my joy comes in the fact of being recognized.
00:03:39 --> 00:03:45 You know, I was really amped up that, you know, I had a chance to be nominated,
00:03:46 --> 00:03:47 you know, for the cover art.
00:03:48 --> 00:03:54 That really, really was special to me because of the work that I put into it.
00:03:54 --> 00:03:55 And I hope that y'all like it.
00:03:56 --> 00:04:02 You know, I know several people voted on my behalf, but it wasn't enough to
00:04:02 --> 00:04:06 get nominated. But nonetheless, that was that was really vindication.
00:04:07 --> 00:04:11 Not to mention the fact that the podcast has been nominated for a third time.
00:04:11 --> 00:04:16 So I just want to thank the Black Podcasting Awards for recognizing the work
00:04:16 --> 00:04:19 that I am doing, as well as other black podcasters.
00:04:20 --> 00:04:28 There were over 80 podcasts nominated this year in the different categories, 80.
00:04:31 --> 00:04:38 One podcast walked away with five. And it's a podcast dealing with history of
00:04:38 --> 00:04:44 Afro-Caribbean music and how it impacts the diaspora and stuff.
00:04:46 --> 00:04:53 It walked away with five. And so it is obviously pretty good, right?
00:04:53 --> 00:04:57 I have not had a chance to hear it, but I definitely will try to take the time
00:04:57 --> 00:05:02 to do that, you know, over the next coming days and months.
00:05:03 --> 00:05:08 But it's really just a cool experience. And, you know, we got to support each other.
00:05:09 --> 00:05:15 And regardless if I ever win or not, we've got to support those folks that are
00:05:15 --> 00:05:17 trying to support us, right?
00:05:18 --> 00:05:21 So, again, I just want to thank the Black Podcasting Awards.
00:05:21 --> 00:05:25 I mean, our show is a three-time nominated program.
00:05:25 --> 00:05:31 So, you know, some people have never been nominated. So there you go.
00:05:32 --> 00:05:37 So, yeah, that's that. And then, you know, I just, if y'all want to continue
00:05:37 --> 00:05:43 to show their support for the podcast, always go to www.momenteric.com and do that.
00:05:44 --> 00:05:50 And I want to send a shout out to Leonard Young and MBG Podcast Network that
00:05:50 --> 00:05:54 I've been affiliated with for about two years now, I guess.
00:05:54 --> 00:05:59 And, yeah, it's been a great relationship.
00:06:01 --> 00:06:06 You know, and it's taken the podcast to yet another level. So I just thank him for that.
00:06:07 --> 00:06:14 And I understand there's going to be some new things coming out with the network.
00:06:14 --> 00:06:19 So I'm looking forward to hearing those changes.
00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 All right, guys, let's go ahead and get this show started. And as always,
00:06:23 --> 00:06:27 we kick it off with a moment of news with Grace G.
00:06:34 --> 00:06:40 Thanks, Eric. The Supreme Court revived expanded voter citizenship checks to
00:06:40 --> 00:06:42 combat voting by non-citizens.
00:06:43 --> 00:06:47 A Mississippi grand jury declined to indict anyone in the death of 18-year-old
00:06:47 --> 00:06:51 Nolan Wells, finding no evidence of criminal conduct.
00:06:51 --> 00:06:56 President Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping for a White House summit
00:06:56 --> 00:07:00 that produced no major policy breakthroughs, though Xi pressed the U.S.
00:07:00 --> 00:07:02 To oppose Taiwanese independence.
00:07:03 --> 00:07:07 The White House reinstated access for journalists from CNN, MSNOW,
00:07:07 --> 00:07:11 and Politico after a federal judge ruled President Trump's ban on the outlets
00:07:11 --> 00:07:13 was likely unconstitutional.
00:07:14 --> 00:07:18 At the U.N. General Assembly, President Trump defended U.S.-Israeli military
00:07:18 --> 00:07:22 operations against Iran and rejected new AI regulations.
00:07:23 --> 00:07:27 The Supreme Court, for the third time, rejected a Republican-drawn Missouri
00:07:27 --> 00:07:33 congressional map as state officials proceed with a prior map for the upcoming midterm elections.
00:07:33 --> 00:07:38 A federal appeals court reinstated an Ohio law requiring proof of citizenship
00:07:38 --> 00:07:41 when registering to vote at state motor vehicle offices.
00:07:41 --> 00:07:47 An ICE officer shot and wounded 28-year-old Venezuelan immigrant Wilbur Rafael
00:07:47 --> 00:07:51 Garces Perez during a foot pursuit in Austin, Texas.
00:07:51 --> 00:07:57 The Trump administration is halting Obamacare enrollment for over 760 individuals
00:07:57 --> 00:08:00 as part of an anti-fraud crackdown.
00:08:00 --> 00:08:08 DoorDash agreed to a $131.5 million settlement, including $115 million in worker
00:08:08 --> 00:08:14 relief and a $16.7 million fine, to resolve a New York City wage probe.
00:08:14 --> 00:08:20 President Trump announced plans to convert a proposed 250-foot Triumphal Ark
00:08:20 --> 00:08:26 near Washington into a drone and sniper-equipped military complex on national security grounds.
00:08:26 --> 00:08:31 Jason Eaton was convicted of attempted second-degree murder on three counts
00:08:31 --> 00:08:35 for the 2023 shooting of three Palestinian-American students in Vermont.
00:08:36 --> 00:08:41 And Converse pulled an advertisement and issued an apology over imagery that
00:08:41 --> 00:08:45 critics said evoked Ku Klux Klan robes and black lynchings.
00:08:45 --> 00:08:49 I am Grace Gee, and this has been a Moment of News.
00:08:56 --> 00:09:00 All right. Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. And now it is time for
00:09:00 --> 00:09:03 my guest, Roger S. Gottlieb.
00:09:03 --> 00:09:10 Roger S. Gottlieb, William B. Smith Professor of Philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute,
00:09:11 --> 00:09:16 is the author and editor of 23 books on religion, environmental ethics,
00:09:16 --> 00:09:21 and spirituality, including This Sacred Earth and A Greener Faith.
00:09:21 --> 00:09:25 He has received multiple Book Awards and has written for both scholarly journals
00:09:26 --> 00:09:31 and venues such as Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Boston Globe,
00:09:31 --> 00:09:36 Orion Afield, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
00:09:36 --> 00:09:38 He lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
00:09:39 --> 00:09:42 His latest book, which we will talk about in this interview,
00:09:42 --> 00:09:50 is Nature's Spirituality and Environmental Crisis, Embracing a Sacred Wounded Earth.
00:09:50 --> 00:09:55 Ladies and gentlemen, It is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest
00:09:55 --> 00:09:59 on this podcast, Roger S. Gottlieb.
00:10:09 --> 00:10:13 All right. Professor Roger Gottlieb, how are you doing today?
00:10:14 --> 00:10:17 Thank God I'm okay. How are you? I'm doing good.
00:10:18 --> 00:10:19 I'm grateful to God I'm okay as well.
00:10:20 --> 00:10:24 We're here to talk about this book that you have written, Nature,
00:10:24 --> 00:10:30 Spirituality, and Environmental Crisis, Embracing a Sacred Wounded Earth.
00:10:31 --> 00:10:43 And I want to tell the listeners, it's not strictly an environmental or climate change book.
00:10:43 --> 00:10:49 It is really a book about philosophy and the way that you wrote it.
00:10:50 --> 00:10:53 You know, I kind of, I kind of figured that it was going to be a philosophy
00:10:53 --> 00:10:58 angle because you are a philosophy professor, but you went deep in this thing.
00:10:59 --> 00:11:03 So I'm, I'm limited in time to how many questions I could ask you,
00:11:03 --> 00:11:07 but I was just going through and I was like, okay, let me write that down.
00:11:07 --> 00:11:12 Let me do this. And then when I realized, yeah, I got to shut it down at some
00:11:12 --> 00:11:19 point. So, but, but I really enjoyed reading that and just, it, it,
00:11:20 --> 00:11:23 Anytime I get into something like that, it really makes you think.
00:11:23 --> 00:11:27 And I hope that the listeners, when they read the book, that they'll feel the same way.
00:11:27 --> 00:11:29 But we're going to go ahead and get started.
00:11:30 --> 00:11:34 And as always, I start off with a couple of icebreakers to kind of get the conversation going.
00:11:35 --> 00:11:40 And the first icebreaker I throw at the guest is a quote that I want you,
00:11:40 --> 00:11:41 professor, to respond to.
00:11:42 --> 00:11:47 The best remedy for those who are frightened, lonely, or unhappy is to go outside.
00:11:48 --> 00:11:52 Somewhere they can be alone, alone with the sky, nature, and God.
00:11:53 --> 00:11:58 For then and only then can you feel that everything is as it should be and that
00:11:58 --> 00:12:02 God wants people to be happy amid nature's beauty and simplicity.
00:12:03 --> 00:12:09 As long as this exists and that should be forever, I know that there will be
00:12:09 --> 00:12:12 a solace for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances.
00:12:13 --> 00:12:18 Yes, quite beautiful. From Anne Frank, if not all your listeners recognize that name.
00:12:18 --> 00:12:23 She was a Jewish teenager who was hiding in an attic in Amsterdam when the Nazis
00:12:23 --> 00:12:27 took over. And she lived in that attic for, I guess it was 19 months or something
00:12:27 --> 00:12:28 before she was found and murdered.
00:12:29 --> 00:12:33 And her diary is a classic. It's been hundreds of millions of copies read.
00:12:35 --> 00:12:38 And Anne, despite everything, had this hope.
00:12:39 --> 00:12:43 And she's talking about an experience that I imagine many of your listeners
00:12:43 --> 00:12:44 will have had, which that,
00:12:45 --> 00:12:49 you feel a little crummy right you're a little angry you're a little jealous
00:12:50 --> 00:12:53 you don't feel life has treated you the right way your wife or your husband
00:12:53 --> 00:12:57 or your kids or your parents are giving you a hard time your back hurts,
00:12:57 --> 00:12:59 so one thing you do,
00:13:00 --> 00:13:05 is you go into the woods or you go to a beach or you go by a river or you just
00:13:05 --> 00:13:08 sit in a park next to one favorite treat and.
00:13:08 --> 00:13:15 And you feel better after a while. Not better the way three drinks or half a
00:13:15 --> 00:13:19 chocolate cake makes you feel. There's no hangover. There's no kind of shame
00:13:19 --> 00:13:20 that would use stuff to your face.
00:13:20 --> 00:13:26 No, you feel more grateful, more accepting, more connected.
00:13:26 --> 00:13:31 And that very simply is a description of what nature's spirituality is.
00:13:31 --> 00:13:37 It's becoming more spiritual, having a support for spiritual virtues by the
00:13:37 --> 00:13:39 experience, the encounter with nature.
00:13:40 --> 00:13:47 And what I imagine in the book is Anne Frank miraculously surviving the Holocaust,
00:13:47 --> 00:13:51 going into the woods, going to a little pond up a dirt road in the woods,
00:13:51 --> 00:13:55 and starts to feel that God wants her to be happy and that there is,
00:13:55 --> 00:14:00 a balm for every, a cure for every solace, every sadness.
00:14:00 --> 00:14:05 And then a truck comes up the dirt road and backs up into the pond,
00:14:05 --> 00:14:06 dumps something into the pond.
00:14:07 --> 00:14:12 Toxic smoke goes up, the vegetation droops, dead fish rise to the surface.
00:14:13 --> 00:14:14 And Anne Frank starts to cough.
00:14:15 --> 00:14:21 So what happens to the solace that nature has given us for thousands of years
00:14:21 --> 00:14:28 in every human culture, what happens to that solace when it's being burned, poisoned,
00:14:29 --> 00:14:32 made extinct, and flooded and burned?
00:14:32 --> 00:14:35 What happens then? That's what the book is about. Yeah.
00:14:35 --> 00:14:40 All right. So now the next icebreaker is what I call 20 questions.
00:14:41 --> 00:14:47 So I need you to give me a number between one and 20. 12. All right.
00:14:48 --> 00:14:52 What advice do you have for recognizing fake news?
00:14:53 --> 00:14:54 That's a very good question.
00:14:55 --> 00:15:03 Well, one thing is to read or listen outside of people who think like you.
00:15:04 --> 00:15:07 I periodically read Fox News.
00:15:08 --> 00:15:11 I look at the free press, which has a nice variety of viewpoints,
00:15:11 --> 00:15:14 though it shades it a little bit more to the right on climate issues than I would like.
00:15:15 --> 00:15:21 I look at some of the better known conservative commentators as well as different
00:15:21 --> 00:15:25 kinds of liberal commentators. I'm not on any one side anymore.
00:15:26 --> 00:15:32 However, I do think that whatever side you're on, and too bad that this seems
00:15:32 --> 00:15:38 to be a matter of sight, you know, we're all physical beings.
00:15:38 --> 00:15:45 We all need to breathe air, drink water, eat food, and live in a climate for which we're prepared.
00:15:46 --> 00:15:49 And all those things are in question now.
00:15:49 --> 00:15:54 The greatest follower of Trump and the current really horrible head of the EPA,
00:15:55 --> 00:15:57 where they flooded this summer, those folks?
00:15:57 --> 00:16:01 Is it so hot that people started to die or you couldn't go out?
00:16:02 --> 00:16:05 What do you say to your kids? Some seven-year-old kid, it's July.
00:16:06 --> 00:16:13 No school, time to go out and play. Well, kid, you can't go out because we broke
00:16:13 --> 00:16:18 the air because of forest fires thousands of miles away.
00:16:18 --> 00:16:22 And the air, you look at that little app on your phone and it says 193,
00:16:22 --> 00:16:24 don't go out unless you're crazy?
00:16:25 --> 00:16:31 And you have to say that to your kid. So I would also say, pay attention to
00:16:31 --> 00:16:34 something that's not technical, not just impossible.
00:16:34 --> 00:16:39 Pay attention to the floods, the fires, the bad air, and get a little bit of
00:16:39 --> 00:16:44 basic information, like how much plastic is in your brain, is in your inner
00:16:44 --> 00:16:47 organs, is in your genitals.
00:16:47 --> 00:16:51 Find out. That's a common thing. You can Google that in 15 seconds.
00:16:51 --> 00:16:59 You'll get the answer. And then you begin to say, well, who is producing the fake news on this topic?
00:16:59 --> 00:17:04 And why are they doing it? What kinds of license to pollute?
00:17:04 --> 00:17:08 What kinds of profits are they making? What do they want us to forget about?
00:17:08 --> 00:17:14 What would have to change? How huge would have to change for us to do something just about plastic?
00:17:14 --> 00:17:21 Never mind all the other chemicals. Never mind climate. Forget climate. Just the plastic.
00:17:21 --> 00:17:23 That's everywhere.
00:17:23 --> 00:17:28 Well, and then you begin to become more critical, and then you start to get anxious.
00:17:28 --> 00:17:32 If you're not anxious already, if you're not anxious, you haven't been paying attention.
00:17:34 --> 00:17:42 So you begin to, and so the second thing to do is to pay attention to the emotions that the truth,
00:17:43 --> 00:17:47 or these perspectives that you haven't been exposed to, pay attention to the
00:17:47 --> 00:17:50 feelings that they arise. Do they make you mad?
00:17:51 --> 00:17:56 Are you stuck in grief? Are you in a rage? Are you scared for the future if
00:17:56 --> 00:17:59 you have young children, if you have grandchildren?
00:17:59 --> 00:18:04 What kind of the United States of America or other parts of the world,
00:18:04 --> 00:18:09 if you have listeners outside of our country, what kind of a world do you think
00:18:09 --> 00:18:11 they will be living in 50 years from now?
00:18:11 --> 00:18:14 Each year is the hottest we've ever had.
00:18:15 --> 00:18:22 So, is that a perfect answer? No, but it might give you a start. Yeah. Well,
00:18:23 --> 00:18:28 When I was listening to you explain about your political thoughts,
00:18:28 --> 00:18:32 I was thinking about the gentleman that's running in Kansas, Mr. Hamilton.
00:18:32 --> 00:18:38 And he was speaking to an audience, and he said, you know, we're all liberal and conservative.
00:18:39 --> 00:18:44 And he said, the most liberal person here has conservative values,
00:18:44 --> 00:18:47 and the most conservative person here has liberal ideas.
00:18:48 --> 00:18:51 And he said, if we start thinking like that in our politics,
00:18:52 --> 00:18:56 then we'll start electing people that are more responsive to us,
00:18:56 --> 00:18:59 which I thought was profound. Of course, he's a pastor.
00:18:59 --> 00:19:03 So it was like, okay, that makes sense that his mindset is like that, right?
00:19:04 --> 00:19:06 But he just reminded me of him when you said that.
00:19:07 --> 00:19:12 Well, there are unfortunately a lot of pastors who call down fire and brimstone
00:19:12 --> 00:19:14 on anybody they don't like.
00:19:14 --> 00:19:18 And they're convinced that the Antichrist and the war is at hand and all this
00:19:18 --> 00:19:22 sort of thing. And it's, you know, it's toxic masculinity masquerading as Christianity,
00:19:22 --> 00:19:25 which is too bad, really. Yeah. Yeah.
00:19:26 --> 00:19:29 Why is loving the earth a simple truth?
00:19:31 --> 00:19:37 Well, you know, on one level, it's very easy to get distracted from it.
00:19:37 --> 00:19:42 It's very easy to think that really the only thing that are important are things we manufacture.
00:19:42 --> 00:19:47 Manufacture, forgetting, for example, that we only manufacture stuff because
00:19:47 --> 00:19:51 we live on an earth with gravity and a climate and water and oxygen and materials
00:19:51 --> 00:19:56 which we operate on in order to get this stuff that we manufacture.
00:19:57 --> 00:20:01 It's very easy to be so caught up in one's social identity.
00:20:01 --> 00:20:04 I'm white, I'm black, I'm rich, I'm poor, unsuccessful, not successful,
00:20:04 --> 00:20:07 gay, straight, all these kinds of things, Jewish, Christian, Muslim.
00:20:09 --> 00:20:14 We forget that we are physical being. And I think that the digital revolution,
00:20:14 --> 00:20:19 which I'm old enough to have seen from the beginning, has led us further in that direction.
00:20:19 --> 00:20:23 I remember hearing somebody say, this was, you know, when the internet was just
00:20:23 --> 00:20:28 starting, and he was a very enthusiastic proponent of the internet and video
00:20:28 --> 00:20:32 games, all that sort of thing. And he said, look, the real action now is online.
00:20:33 --> 00:20:39 That's the reality now. And I thought, well, this is a sad case of profound
00:20:39 --> 00:20:44 dissociation from reality, because he's looking at a computer screen,
00:20:44 --> 00:20:46 which is a physical object.
00:20:46 --> 00:20:50 He's working with a computer, which is fueled by electricity,
00:20:50 --> 00:20:55 which we get by burning gas, burning oil, or doing something like that.
00:20:55 --> 00:21:00 He's sitting in a chair having had breakfast, but he wants to say the real stuff
00:21:00 --> 00:21:04 is online, just like Elon Musk wants to download his brain onto a chip.
00:21:04 --> 00:21:09 All right, fine. Download your brain onto a chip. The chip is a physical object.
00:21:09 --> 00:21:16 It doesn't exist in cyberspace. Cyberspace exists because we are physical beings. That's one thing.
00:21:16 --> 00:21:20 The other thing is, if you are a theist, Christian, Jew, Muslim,
00:21:20 --> 00:21:24 that sort of thing, well, the earth is a gift.
00:21:25 --> 00:21:31 The earth is a gift that God gave us from your perspective. And it was, if you read the Bible.
00:21:32 --> 00:21:37 Pronounced good by God. A couple of popes ago, John Paul II,
00:21:37 --> 00:21:40 said he was an environmentalist because after the sixth day of creation,
00:21:40 --> 00:21:44 God looked at everything God had created and said, very good.
00:21:44 --> 00:21:48 Now, it's interesting because of all the popes before him, one would imagine
00:21:48 --> 00:21:51 that is, some of them are practically illiterate, those popes,
00:21:51 --> 00:21:55 but they all read the first book of the Bible. They also read the book of Genesis.
00:21:55 --> 00:22:00 But he plucked out that line and used it to justify environmentalism.
00:22:00 --> 00:22:02 He was very good, John Paul II.
00:22:03 --> 00:22:07 There is, if you are a believing Christian, you know, or a Jew or Muslim,
00:22:07 --> 00:22:14 there are environmentalists among your theologians, among the people who lead your religious groups.
00:22:14 --> 00:22:20 There are religious groups that are doing environmental activism for explicitly religious reasons.
00:22:21 --> 00:22:25 And it's also the case that nature has something to teach us.
00:22:26 --> 00:22:30 Nature has something to teach us. Think of trees. I'm very big on trees.
00:22:30 --> 00:22:32 I live in the city of Boston, but my street, thank goodness,
00:22:32 --> 00:22:37 has a line with big trees, big old trees. And I'm a five-minute walk from a
00:22:37 --> 00:22:41 gorgeous park with a lake that's a mile and a half around, all within the city
00:22:41 --> 00:22:42 limits. It's remarkable.
00:22:43 --> 00:22:46 Think of what trees do, right? They grow.
00:22:47 --> 00:22:50 They provide shade. If they're fruit or nut trees, they provide that.
00:22:51 --> 00:22:54 They provide homes for birds and squirrels, other kinds of animals.
00:22:54 --> 00:22:56 They hold the soil from being eroded.
00:22:57 --> 00:23:02 They exchange energy for minerals with fungal networks underneath the earth.
00:23:02 --> 00:23:05 They do all those things. Here's something they won't do.
00:23:06 --> 00:23:11 No tree will spend any energy saying, God damn it, there's other tree over there.
00:23:11 --> 00:23:13 He's got a better situation than I do, and he gets more sun.
00:23:14 --> 00:23:15 Trees don't get envious.
00:23:16 --> 00:23:21 If somebody's coming with a chainsaw to cut it down, It will resist with every
00:23:21 --> 00:23:23 fiber of its being, but it won't get angry.
00:23:24 --> 00:23:27 It won't think, I don't deserve to die. It won't do that.
00:23:28 --> 00:23:33 Trees don't have egos. So when we go out to the forest, the shore,
00:23:33 --> 00:23:37 we look at plants, even if it's grass coming up through the cracks in the sidewalk,
00:23:37 --> 00:23:39 if you're in a poor neighborhood without fancy stuff,
00:23:40 --> 00:23:43 we look at things which function, which live, which breathe,
00:23:44 --> 00:23:49 which interact, which reproduce, which give us so much without an ego.
00:23:49 --> 00:23:54 And it tamps down our ego, that part of us which is constantly wanting more,
00:23:54 --> 00:23:58 better, feeling unloved, unheard, I didn't do enough.
00:23:58 --> 00:24:02 Yes, that worked well, but what about next week? All the kind of things that egos do.
00:24:03 --> 00:24:09 You know, behold, you shall be as little children, said Jesus. And what did he mean?
00:24:10 --> 00:24:13 He didn't mean not be toilet-changed. He mean function without an ego.
00:24:14 --> 00:24:18 Yeah. Explain what nature of spirituality is.
00:24:19 --> 00:24:22 Well, the simple answer is begin with the concept of spirituality,
00:24:22 --> 00:24:26 which is used in countless different ways and, by my understanding,
00:24:26 --> 00:24:33 exists in every global religion and also exists for people who are spiritual but not religious.
00:24:33 --> 00:24:35 There's 30 or 40 million people like that in the United States.
00:24:36 --> 00:24:42 And spirituality is the belief that there are certain virtues that we can live
00:24:42 --> 00:24:45 by, And if we live by them, we're going to be a lot better off.
00:24:46 --> 00:24:50 Take an obvious one. Gratitude. You get up in the morning. Your back hurts.
00:24:50 --> 00:24:51 You got to go to the dentist.
00:24:52 --> 00:24:56 The neighbor next door is doing some work on his house and the noise is driving you nuts.
00:24:59 --> 00:25:02 Instead of that, you could wake up and say, this is what traditional Jews do,
00:25:02 --> 00:25:07 the first word out of your mouth for a traditional Jew is supposed to be, thank you. Modah.
00:25:07 --> 00:25:15 Ani lefanecha melechai v'kayom. I give thanks to you, God, for returning my soul to my body.
00:25:15 --> 00:25:20 So if you begin with gratitude, you're a lot less envious. You're a lot more
00:25:21 --> 00:25:22 generous. You're a lot more fun to be around.
00:25:23 --> 00:25:29 Gratitude is a key spiritual virtue. So, spiritual teachers say that there's these several virtues.
00:25:30 --> 00:25:34 I have written a book about it, a couple of books, and I use awareness,
00:25:34 --> 00:25:37 acceptance, gratitude, compassion, and love.
00:25:38 --> 00:25:41 Other spiritual teachers use other virtues. Not important, those differences.
00:25:42 --> 00:25:46 And so, the question then is, how do we stimulate, support, nourish the spiritual
00:25:46 --> 00:25:51 virtues? Well, we pray, we read books, we engage in good action in the world,
00:25:52 --> 00:25:54 we follow a spiritual teacher, a good teacher.
00:25:56 --> 00:26:01 And we go out to the woods. And like I said at the beginning of our conversation,
00:26:01 --> 00:26:04 not always. You might go out to the woods just to kill and show what a tough
00:26:04 --> 00:26:09 guy you are. You might go out to, you know, take your trained dog and harvest
00:26:09 --> 00:26:10 all the mushrooms you can.
00:26:11 --> 00:26:15 But if you go out there needing some kind of spiritual sustenance,
00:26:15 --> 00:26:18 it's there. And people have written about this endlessly.
00:26:19 --> 00:26:26 And now the problem is it's threatened. It's difficult. We can't trust it will always be there.
00:26:26 --> 00:26:32 To make a clear point here, one of the relationships, I believe,
00:26:32 --> 00:26:37 which calls on us for great spiritual development, and also you can really blow
00:26:37 --> 00:26:39 it completely, is relations with our children.
00:26:39 --> 00:26:43 We want the best for them. We want to control them. We want them to turn out
00:26:43 --> 00:26:46 a certain way. We're willing to give them freedom.
00:26:47 --> 00:26:51 One of the best things we can do for children is introduce them to the spiritual
00:26:51 --> 00:26:54 quality of wilderness, woods, outdoors.
00:26:54 --> 00:27:00 And we would like to say to them, look, Sammy, Susie, no matter what goes wrong
00:27:00 --> 00:27:03 for you, you're too fat, you're too thin, you didn't do this,
00:27:03 --> 00:27:05 you didn't do that, you're good in school, you don't have the right friends.
00:27:06 --> 00:27:11 No matter what, you can go to this place which is going to welcome you and heal
00:27:11 --> 00:27:16 you because it doesn't have an ego and it will treat everybody the same.
00:27:16 --> 00:27:23 The best-looking movie star and the grumpiest old man like me treat us exactly the same.
00:27:24 --> 00:27:28 The billionaires and the people on welfare, they're treated just the same.
00:27:28 --> 00:27:30 There's a kind of equality there, so forth and so on.
00:27:30 --> 00:27:34 But now we can't say to our kids, look, you can always go to those woods.
00:27:35 --> 00:27:36 Maybe they'll be gone tomorrow.
00:27:37 --> 00:27:42 And that's a tremendous loss. and it's a tremendous spiritual loss for children,
00:27:43 --> 00:27:46 especially when children look at the adults.
00:27:47 --> 00:27:51 You've got to ask yourself, Eric, what does every religion and every secular
00:27:51 --> 00:27:54 philosophical framework have in karma? Absolutely every one.
00:27:55 --> 00:27:57 They tell kids that they know what's right.
00:27:58 --> 00:28:02 The Christian pastor does it, the Jewish rabbi does it, and the secular atheist
00:28:02 --> 00:28:04 does it, and they all do it.
00:28:05 --> 00:28:09 And some smart 12-year-old kid finds out what's going on And he looks at the
00:28:09 --> 00:28:14 adult world and say, who the hell are you to tell me anything? Look what you've done.
00:28:15 --> 00:28:21 So there's a deep spiritual loss of trust between children and the older generation.
00:28:21 --> 00:28:22 That's a tremendous loss.
00:28:22 --> 00:28:26 And that's one reason I believe that when kids get to my university,
00:28:26 --> 00:28:31 17, 18 years old, a third of them are already on psychiatric medications.
00:28:31 --> 00:28:36 That's, you know, what's going on with that? Not to mention all the teasing
00:28:36 --> 00:28:37 and the torturing and all that kind of stuff.
00:28:38 --> 00:28:42 So it's still there. I mean, the book is not relentlessly downbeat.
00:28:42 --> 00:28:46 You can see why I don't get invited to too many cocktail parties,
00:28:46 --> 00:28:49 right? It's about the bad news.
00:28:51 --> 00:28:57 One environmentalist said environmentalists walk alone in a world of wounds. A world of wounds.
00:28:58 --> 00:29:01 But let's take a simple thing. Let's go back to gratitude.
00:29:02 --> 00:29:07 How can somebody be gratitude for that forest that you see is being decimated
00:29:07 --> 00:29:12 by the pine bark beetle because of global warming? The pine bark beetle has
00:29:12 --> 00:29:15 more life cycles in a year.
00:29:15 --> 00:29:18 And so millions upon millions of trees in the American West are being eaten
00:29:18 --> 00:29:20 alive by the pine bark beetle.
00:29:20 --> 00:29:24 You can see huge hillsides in national parks, all dead trees because of the
00:29:24 --> 00:29:26 pine bark beetle. How do you feel grateful?
00:29:27 --> 00:29:34 Well, I offer in the book a simple idea, which is it's enough that it ever was.
00:29:34 --> 00:29:38 It's enough that it ever was. And that doesn't mean we feel good about what's
00:29:38 --> 00:29:42 happening, or we don't feel angry at the people who have power who could change
00:29:42 --> 00:29:46 things, or we don't feel irritated with the people who can't change their consumption habits.
00:29:47 --> 00:29:49 But it means we switch the attention.
00:29:50 --> 00:29:53 Spirituality is a great deal about switching attention. You know,
00:29:53 --> 00:29:56 take your mind off the screen and put it on your breath, right?
00:29:56 --> 00:30:01 Take your mind off advertisements and put it on the teachings of the New Testament, whatever.
00:30:01 --> 00:30:04 So think for a moment.
00:30:05 --> 00:30:08 There was no cosmic guarantee we'd have this earth.
00:30:08 --> 00:30:11 No cosmic guarantee any of us would ever exist.
00:30:12 --> 00:30:16 That we'd live in our earth with colors, the sound of birds,
00:30:17 --> 00:30:20 with the graceful motions of a cat jumping up onto a couch.
00:30:21 --> 00:30:23 There's no guarantee there would ever be such a thing as an orgasm.
00:30:24 --> 00:30:26 Pretty nice. Pretty good stuff.
00:30:26 --> 00:30:33 So, while grief for what's been lost, fear for the future, anger,
00:30:33 --> 00:30:38 these are all reasonable, appropriate ways to feel gratitude,
00:30:38 --> 00:30:41 I suggest in the book. I go into some detail with this.
00:30:42 --> 00:30:46 Gratitude is also something that's appropriate.
00:30:47 --> 00:30:51 We should never forget what a miracle it is to be alive.
00:30:52 --> 00:30:56 What a miracle it is that we might have a friend, a wife, a husband,
00:30:56 --> 00:30:58 a child, a teacher, a student,
00:30:59 --> 00:31:05 That 90% of the species that ever existed on this earth Went extinct in the
00:31:05 --> 00:31:10 course of evolution Leading up to Eric Fleming Look what it produced,
00:31:10 --> 00:31:13 a wonderful person like you,
00:31:13 --> 00:31:16 That's really something to feel good about,
00:31:17 --> 00:31:22 So, that's one way in which nature's spirituality is still possible.
00:31:23 --> 00:31:27 Not in the old form of certainty, or Anne Frank, in that wonderful,
00:31:28 --> 00:31:32 painful quotation you read, is sure that it will always be there. Well, no, we can't be.
00:31:33 --> 00:31:35 We can't be sure. But it has been.
00:31:36 --> 00:31:40 I'll give you another way to think about this. One of the great spiritual virtues
00:31:40 --> 00:31:43 is love. It's in the Bible.
00:31:43 --> 00:31:49 You know, it's all over the place. When Muslims pray five times a day and say,
00:31:49 --> 00:31:51 There is no God but Allah.
00:31:51 --> 00:31:55 If they're actually real Muslims, they're not just spouting a line.
00:31:56 --> 00:32:01 They are committing themselves to love above all one being. Not their bank account.
00:32:03 --> 00:32:07 Not some sexual partner. Not their new car. Not their beautiful house.
00:32:08 --> 00:32:10 They're loving God. So love is an essential virtue.
00:32:11 --> 00:32:15 You know, what does the Mahayana Buddhists say? I vow to save all beings,
00:32:15 --> 00:32:18 all beings from suffering. That's a kind of love.
00:32:18 --> 00:32:25 So let me take an example. God forbid, God forbid your mother is in the hospital,
00:32:25 --> 00:32:28 your mother whom you love, and doesn't look good.
00:32:29 --> 00:32:32 Nurse takes you aside and says, better get her affairs in order.
00:32:32 --> 00:32:34 Maybe she'll be saved, but it doesn't look good.
00:32:35 --> 00:32:41 Would you want to spend all your energy being sad, anxious, resentful?
00:32:41 --> 00:32:45 No, it can't happen to mom. she can't die. How will I live without mom?
00:32:45 --> 00:32:46 You want to do some of that.
00:32:47 --> 00:32:53 But don't you also want to go into her hospital room, hold her hand,
00:32:53 --> 00:32:58 stroke her hair, sing to her, tell her how much you love her.
00:32:59 --> 00:33:04 The focus is not on, oh, the future must work out in a good way.
00:33:05 --> 00:33:09 The future is today. I'm here. Today.
00:33:09 --> 00:33:13 I'm here. And I can show love to life.
00:33:14 --> 00:33:18 Whether it's another person, that people are suffering from environmental damage.
00:33:18 --> 00:33:23 Millions upon millions of people have died. Tens of millions have died from
00:33:23 --> 00:33:25 pollution and climate change already.
00:33:26 --> 00:33:30 And clearly people, racial minorities, and the poor are more vulnerable.
00:33:30 --> 00:33:35 I mean, everybody's vulnerable, but like everything else, it's worse to be the
00:33:35 --> 00:33:41 subject of some kind of racism or social exclusion or social inequality and face these things.
00:33:41 --> 00:33:48 So it's not that it's not important for people, but the field of concern is
00:33:48 --> 00:33:51 all of life, which is a much bigger field.
00:33:51 --> 00:33:56 So save a person, Save a tree, save a lake, save a species of fish.
00:33:57 --> 00:34:01 Argue with people, you know, not argue in a mean way, but bring it up in your
00:34:01 --> 00:34:05 church, in your neighborhood, in your family gatherings, where you work.
00:34:06 --> 00:34:09 Every place has some kind of environmental organization. I mean,
00:34:09 --> 00:34:12 thank God we live in a country where environmentalists are not routinely murdered.
00:34:13 --> 00:34:16 There are countries where that's true. 40 to 50 environmental journalists are
00:34:16 --> 00:34:19 murdered every year because they're criticizing something in the host country.
00:34:20 --> 00:34:24 And certainly in a place like Russia or China, you try to be an active environmentalist
00:34:24 --> 00:34:29 in the wrong, say it in the wrong way, and you're not going to be around for too long.
00:34:29 --> 00:34:33 So, but we're, I imagine most of your listeners are in the United States.
00:34:34 --> 00:34:41 We can do things. We can show love. And in that love, which is a form of resistance,
00:34:41 --> 00:34:45 the energy becomes freed up because there is a tendency.
00:34:45 --> 00:34:48 And certainly it's not like I've never had these experiences.
00:34:48 --> 00:34:52 I certainly have. I've been doing this for 35 years, this environmental bit.
00:34:53 --> 00:34:58 And certainly at times I just get overwhelmed. But when you do something,
00:34:58 --> 00:35:03 when I do something, when you resist, a certain kind of fundamental energy is liberated.
00:35:03 --> 00:35:08 You no longer have to feel so powerless that there's nothing I can do.
00:35:08 --> 00:35:12 No, you can go into that hospital room and sing mama's song.
00:35:13 --> 00:35:17 And after all, what's a bigger cliche than mother nature, right? It's a cliche.
00:35:18 --> 00:35:21 Everybody says it, but what gave birth to us?
00:35:21 --> 00:35:25 And even if you believe that God created us, all right, but he created a mechanism
00:35:25 --> 00:35:30 of evolution so that there would be human beings at the end of that change.
00:35:31 --> 00:35:34 And even if you don't believe in evolution, well, God sustains us.
00:35:34 --> 00:35:35 Well, isn't that a miracle?
00:35:36 --> 00:35:42 Isn't that a miracle? What do you do with a miracle? Do you throw it in the garbage?
00:35:43 --> 00:35:47 Do you use a beautiful, suppose you're an aspiring violinist.
00:35:48 --> 00:35:51 And classical violinists need certain kinds of violins that they can't make
00:35:51 --> 00:35:53 anymore. I don't know why.
00:35:53 --> 00:35:57 But they're one, two, three centuries old that can be worth a half a million dollars.
00:35:58 --> 00:36:02 So if you're an aspiring violinist And somebody, you get a bank or a very rich
00:36:02 --> 00:36:04 person Says, well, you can use this violin in your career Because you're very
00:36:04 --> 00:36:09 good You don't use it as an ashtray You don't put your feet up on it.
00:36:10 --> 00:36:14 You treat it with the utmost respect Even though it's not a living thing But
00:36:14 --> 00:36:16 it's this incredible gift Well,
00:36:16 --> 00:36:20 take a look around, folks Isn't this incredible?
00:36:21 --> 00:36:24 Do you see the birds? Even if they're crummy old pigeons or seagulls And you
00:36:24 --> 00:36:27 live near the ocean Aren't they a miracle?
00:36:28 --> 00:36:32 Most of the listeners here, you can see in three dimensions.
00:36:33 --> 00:36:37 And when the amount of light in the room changes, your eye will change automatically.
00:36:38 --> 00:36:43 If you cut your finger cooking, you put a little slice there and you put a band-aid
00:36:43 --> 00:36:45 on it and you don't have to do anything.
00:36:46 --> 00:36:49 The body miraculously makes the skin heal.
00:36:50 --> 00:36:57 How incredible. And that's true. Things grow, things fly, things swim. the bacteria.
00:36:58 --> 00:37:01 All the dead stuff. So we're not endlessly accumulating dead stuff.
00:37:02 --> 00:37:04 It's one enormous miracle.
00:37:05 --> 00:37:09 We can really appreciate it. We can really feel grateful.
00:37:09 --> 00:37:16 And we can engage in some kind of struggle to protect it, to claim it, to reclaim it.
00:37:17 --> 00:37:24 This is, I believe, the central question of our time. There are other questions.
00:37:24 --> 00:37:28 I mean, as a Jew, I'm so thrilled by the rise of anti-Semitism.
00:37:29 --> 00:37:33 There are wars. There are other kinds of oppression. Incredible treatment of
00:37:33 --> 00:37:36 women is still terrible about the world. The murder of women.
00:37:37 --> 00:37:41 There's certainly racism in our country and in other countries. All those things.
00:37:42 --> 00:37:49 But we're all physical beings. All the claims we make, all the things we want to accomplish.
00:37:51 --> 00:37:58 Or things we depend on require a certain kind of physical, biological setting.
00:37:59 --> 00:38:05 And if we're messing around with that, you know, certainly Israel and Hamas
00:38:05 --> 00:38:07 can fight over that land.
00:38:07 --> 00:38:10 But what makes anybody think in 50 years, the land will be inhabitable because
00:38:10 --> 00:38:13 of climate change? It's pretty warm there now in the summer.
00:38:13 --> 00:38:15 What if it goes up five degrees?
00:38:15 --> 00:38:22 What's going to happen you know ukraine and russia can fight over a terrible terrible terrible but.
00:38:24 --> 00:38:30 Hot it's going to get really hot there eastern europe etc etc yeah all right
00:38:30 --> 00:38:32 i see you can really go and uh,
00:38:33 --> 00:38:40 i'm trying to let me see if i can combine this question here a popular phrase
00:38:40 --> 00:38:42 in the lexicon now is touch grass.
00:38:44 --> 00:38:50 So, do you think our connection to nature is more powerful than our need for technology?
00:38:50 --> 00:38:57 And would you say our desire for comfort is the basis of our conflict between technology and nature?
00:38:58 --> 00:39:01 That's a remarkably good question. That's excellent.
00:39:02 --> 00:39:10 There cannot be denied that technology makes a lot of things very much easier.
00:39:10 --> 00:39:14 I have a 40-year-old, highly disabled daughter, got many problems.
00:39:14 --> 00:39:19 One problem she had was scoliosis, a 135-degree curve in her spine,
00:39:19 --> 00:39:22 which was shutting off her lungs. She would have died.
00:39:23 --> 00:39:27 So they did this incredible operation where they fuse every vertebrae in the
00:39:27 --> 00:39:30 spine, and they put two titanium rods on either side of the spine,
00:39:30 --> 00:39:33 hook the rods, the spine to that, and that holds her up.
00:39:34 --> 00:39:35 That's pretty sophisticated stuff.
00:39:37 --> 00:39:40 That's quite remarkable. Well, without these things, oh, you can't see me.
00:39:40 --> 00:39:43 That's right. I'm wearing glasses. I've worn glasses since I was eight years old.
00:39:44 --> 00:39:47 Without these glasses, I couldn't drive. I couldn't read. I couldn't function.
00:39:48 --> 00:39:50 You put me in a corner, give me a tin cup to hold out on the street.
00:39:51 --> 00:39:55 So, endless. You know, I live in an old house, 100 years old.
00:39:55 --> 00:39:57 I don't have a smart this, that, or the other thing.
00:39:57 --> 00:40:02 But if I want it warmer, I use maybe one thousandths of a calorie,
00:40:02 --> 00:40:06 turning my thermostat slightly to the right, a sixteenth of an inch to the right.
00:40:06 --> 00:40:10 And miraculously, the oil goes into the burner down in the basement.
00:40:10 --> 00:40:13 Everything's taken care of. So, yes, it's tremendously dangerous.
00:40:14 --> 00:40:20 Comfort makes things easy, but sometimes it makes things too easy.
00:40:22 --> 00:40:26 If somebody looks up a fact on AI, well, okay, so you want to know what the
00:40:26 --> 00:40:28 population of Uzbekistan is, fine.
00:40:29 --> 00:40:33 But if you use Uzbekistan to write your philosophy papers, you know,
00:40:33 --> 00:40:36 it's like flying to the top of a mountain instead of walking up it.
00:40:36 --> 00:40:40 Yeah, you can get to the top of the mountain quicker, but look what you've missed
00:40:40 --> 00:40:44 by walking up that five-mile trail. Now, of course, it can be tiring,
00:40:44 --> 00:40:46 hiking the mountains, which I've done a great deal of.
00:40:46 --> 00:40:50 I really love the mountains. It can be a real pain. Your back can hurt your legs.
00:40:51 --> 00:40:55 The back straps cut into your shoulders. But you've had an experience.
00:40:56 --> 00:40:59 You know, you don't want to have a sexual encounter and just get to the post-orgasm
00:40:59 --> 00:41:01 feeling. No, you want to have everything that leads up to it.
00:41:02 --> 00:41:05 Doesn't always work out well, that's for sure. But there's a difference.
00:41:06 --> 00:41:13 So what we need to do is have some kind of pause, some kind of wait,
00:41:13 --> 00:41:17 some kind of reflection, some kind of evaluation.
00:41:17 --> 00:41:21 I tell my students who think I'm crazy because I teach at Worcester Polytechnic
00:41:21 --> 00:41:23 Institute, which is an engineering school.
00:41:23 --> 00:41:27 I tell them no technical innovations for the next 10 years.
00:41:27 --> 00:41:30 Let's spend all our time and energy and money learning to meditate,
00:41:31 --> 00:41:34 learning to deal with our emotions, learning to talk to people who are very
00:41:34 --> 00:41:36 different from us, learning to slow down.
00:41:36 --> 00:41:41 And I think I'm crazy, of course, but what if such a thing were to happen?
00:41:42 --> 00:41:47 We introduced technology which seemed just beneficial.
00:41:47 --> 00:41:51 Look what social media has done to our children. It's destroying their mental health.
00:41:51 --> 00:41:57 That's, again, not even a question for the general people in psychology and
00:41:57 --> 00:41:59 psychotherapy. We didn't think to stop.
00:42:00 --> 00:42:05 AI is running ahead. Break net. It's already out of control in certain places.
00:42:05 --> 00:42:09 It's already screwed around with the American government website, right?
00:42:09 --> 00:42:15 That just came out in the last day or two. So would there be ways in which you
00:42:15 --> 00:42:18 can save lives with more and more technology? Yes.
00:42:19 --> 00:42:24 But are no lives being lost now to the out-of-control technology?
00:42:25 --> 00:42:32 Is there now no misery because of the explosion of viciousness on social media? There sure is.
00:42:33 --> 00:42:37 There sure is. Do we need comfort? Yes. We desperately need comfort.
00:42:38 --> 00:42:42 And we're not getting very much of it from the hundreds of billions of psychiatric
00:42:42 --> 00:42:45 medications we're taking every year.
00:42:46 --> 00:42:53 Nature can comfort us, even when it's wounded. We can look at nature and say, we're not alone.
00:42:53 --> 00:42:57 You go for a walk in the woods, there are no people there. You're not alone.
00:42:57 --> 00:43:01 There's all those trees and the squirrels and the chipmunks and the fungal networks
00:43:01 --> 00:43:03 underneath the earth. You're not alone.
00:43:04 --> 00:43:09 We're not alone. We have relatives. The American Indians talk about all my relations
00:43:09 --> 00:43:12 when they give a talk in public. They're not talking about their cousins.
00:43:14 --> 00:43:21 We have all this it's precious we can still love it it can still nourish us,
00:43:21 --> 00:43:25 but it's fundamentally different and that difference its woundedness,
00:43:26 --> 00:43:30 calls on us to heal if we possibly can yeah.
00:43:32 --> 00:43:35 Excuse me, you asked the reader several questions in the book.
00:43:36 --> 00:43:38 So I want to flip one of those questions onto you.
00:43:39 --> 00:43:45 If a Catholic communion wafer in some mysterious way evokes the spiritual presence
00:43:45 --> 00:43:52 of Christ, does it matter if that spiritual presence contains carcinogenic pesticide residues?
00:43:53 --> 00:43:58 Yes, it's a way of pointing out, once again, that we are physical beings and
00:43:59 --> 00:44:02 our religions, which to some extent,
00:44:03 --> 00:44:06 not entirely, but in many ways, concentrate on what we think,
00:44:07 --> 00:44:11 what we believe, what we read, what we hear in church or mosque,
00:44:11 --> 00:44:12 they concentrate on that.
00:44:13 --> 00:44:15 They forget that they're physical beings.
00:44:16 --> 00:44:22 What does it mean to forget that the communion wafer is not just an idea?
00:44:23 --> 00:44:26 Because if you just want to have an idea, you can sit and think very deeply
00:44:26 --> 00:44:27 about the reality of Christ.
00:44:29 --> 00:44:33 The communion wafer is a physical object, just like the wine that a Jew drinks
00:44:33 --> 00:44:38 on Friday night is a physical object that has a physical history.
00:44:38 --> 00:44:41 What does it mean that this is poisoned?
00:44:42 --> 00:44:48 The major river in India is unbelievably polluted, and it's a sacred river to the people of India.
00:44:49 --> 00:44:53 We're physical beings, and we cannot forget that.
00:44:53 --> 00:44:59 Another thing that every religion has in common is it wants to continue to next
00:44:59 --> 00:45:04 year and the next decade and the next century. It wants to be here.
00:45:05 --> 00:45:09 But there's no guarantee with the way things are moving that it will be here.
00:45:10 --> 00:45:14 There's the pollution, there's the climate change, and there's the conflicts
00:45:14 --> 00:45:17 that will arise, the wars that will arise over things like water.
00:45:17 --> 00:45:21 When all the Himalayan glaciers are melted, there's going to be tremendous conflict
00:45:21 --> 00:45:23 between Pakistan and India.
00:45:24 --> 00:45:30 So what are we doing? How insane human beings have become. And I don't think
00:45:30 --> 00:45:33 computers make us more sane. They give us more information. They allow me to
00:45:33 --> 00:45:35 do research, which I very much appreciate.
00:45:36 --> 00:45:40 But, you know, you have a war between Ukraine and Russia. And one time,
00:45:41 --> 00:45:46 there's Ukraine blowing up the oil depots in Russia, and Russia is blowing up
00:45:46 --> 00:45:48 the barges from the Ukraine, which are filled with grain.
00:45:49 --> 00:45:55 So, you know, it's like some insane nine-year-old who takes a 12-pack of eggs
00:45:55 --> 00:45:58 and just smashes them on the floor.
00:45:58 --> 00:46:02 You think of all the energy and time and effort that went to produce the oil
00:46:02 --> 00:46:05 in Russia. And oil is a wonderful resource. It's incredible.
00:46:05 --> 00:46:09 There's so much contained power in a gallon of oil. It's spectacular.
00:46:10 --> 00:46:12 And you think of what it went in to produce the grain in the Ukraine,
00:46:12 --> 00:46:16 also packed in energy for the good of human beings.
00:46:16 --> 00:46:20 What are we doing? Well, we have to stop and think.
00:46:21 --> 00:46:26 Stop and think. And I think we know this.
00:46:26 --> 00:46:30 I think there is in the back of minds of many people that we have gotten out
00:46:30 --> 00:46:33 of control, that we're not looking.
00:46:34 --> 00:46:38 We got the foot on the grass, on the gas, and we're reading our phones.
00:46:39 --> 00:46:44 But it's very scary to make a change. Look, the environmental crisis is fueled,
00:46:44 --> 00:46:47 number one, by people making a tremendous amount of money.
00:46:48 --> 00:46:52 The amount of money that the fossil fuel people and plastic people and all that
00:46:52 --> 00:46:57 kind of stuff, construction, endless construction, that's staggering amounts
00:46:57 --> 00:46:58 of money. And you know what? That's the stuff.
00:47:00 --> 00:47:04 That's one thing. The environmental crisis is fueled by people who are used
00:47:04 --> 00:47:07 to certain kinds of what look like conveniences.
00:47:07 --> 00:47:11 Meat, especially red meat, chickens. It's terrible for the environment.
00:47:11 --> 00:47:13 It's bad for your health in any kind of quantity.
00:47:13 --> 00:47:17 So we're used to drive the pickup truck. Don't care. You know,
00:47:17 --> 00:47:21 throw things away. Throw it away. There's no away, you see. There's no away.
00:47:21 --> 00:47:23 There's just another place. There's not a way.
00:47:24 --> 00:47:28 But there's also, the third thing, is a kind of addiction.
00:47:28 --> 00:47:32 Now, if any of your listeners have had any experience knowing somebody very
00:47:32 --> 00:47:35 well who has an addiction issue, I do know that.
00:47:36 --> 00:47:42 People who are addicted to heroin or fentanyl or alcohol or reckless behavior,
00:47:42 --> 00:47:45 cigarettes, oh God, cigarettes, I went through that.
00:47:47 --> 00:47:51 They don't not know they're addicted. They know they are addicted.
00:47:51 --> 00:47:54 They know they're destroying their health, their relationships, their income.
00:47:55 --> 00:48:01 They cannot envision a life without the substance. They can't see beyond the
00:48:01 --> 00:48:03 next hour or day, the next fix.
00:48:04 --> 00:48:10 And we are like that. So the question, what does it take to break an addiction?
00:48:10 --> 00:48:15 Well, sadly, very sadly, sometimes it takes death. That's the only way it's broken.
00:48:16 --> 00:48:22 But sometimes people can step back from the abyss. And so, insofar as I can
00:48:22 --> 00:48:25 offer hope, and I don't usually think of myself as offering hope.
00:48:25 --> 00:48:27 I try to offer courage, not hope.
00:48:28 --> 00:48:33 It may be that we can step back from the abyss as it continues to get worse
00:48:33 --> 00:48:38 and worse. We can step back. We have developed some technologies that are better for the climate.
00:48:38 --> 00:48:41 We have to make that a priority, make that a priority.
00:48:42 --> 00:48:46 We have to remember that we would like our grandchildren to have a habitable
00:48:46 --> 00:48:47 planet. We really would.
00:48:48 --> 00:48:52 We really would. And if we remember that, than Republican, Democrat,
00:48:52 --> 00:48:55 this, that, or the other thing, we can take it seriously.
00:48:55 --> 00:48:57 We can take it as seriously as it needs to be taken.
00:48:59 --> 00:49:04 Explain this passage from the book. From politicians who brag about our noble
00:49:04 --> 00:49:09 nation, a light unto the world, to the religious leaders who represent themselves
00:49:09 --> 00:49:13 as moral experts, it's the emperor's new clothes all the way down.
00:49:14 --> 00:49:21 Yes, I think that, I don't know, the classic example is if you're on the Titanic,
00:49:21 --> 00:49:25 and you're arguing over what the string quartet should play.
00:49:26 --> 00:49:31 Or you're telling everybody how important your knowledge is while the boat is
00:49:31 --> 00:49:35 sinking, well, you're out of touch with what's really going on.
00:49:36 --> 00:49:40 And I think that, I mean, there are some politicians who are talking about it,
00:49:40 --> 00:49:44 even in places where it's unexpected that this guy Byrne, or Byrnes,
00:49:44 --> 00:49:47 I forget which one, who's running for governor of Iowa,
00:49:47 --> 00:49:52 as is Iowa, he's a Democrat, and he's talking about the consequences of pesticide
00:49:52 --> 00:49:55 use on the health of the farmers of Iowa.
00:49:55 --> 00:50:00 Now, this is Republican Iowa, right-wing Iowa, MAGA Iowa, but he's getting a
00:50:00 --> 00:50:02 serious hearing, and he's doing very well in the polls.
00:50:03 --> 00:50:07 So, he's seen it, and these people have seen it. They've seen too many of their
00:50:07 --> 00:50:10 friends get cancer from the pesticides.
00:50:11 --> 00:50:15 And there are other places where people do have a clear sense of it.
00:50:16 --> 00:50:19 Are you in Louisiana? Am I correct about that? No, I'm in Georgia,
00:50:19 --> 00:50:25 but I used to live in Mississippi. Okay, so I imagine you know that there's
00:50:25 --> 00:50:28 a section of the United States of America called Cancer Alley.
00:50:29 --> 00:50:33 You ever heard of that one? Oh, yeah. Right? That's in the coast of Louisiana, Cancer Alley.
00:50:34 --> 00:50:38 You know, 50-mile stretch of oil refiners and chemical plants.
00:50:38 --> 00:50:42 So people, I think, are getting the point.
00:50:43 --> 00:50:44 But unfortunately, yes.
00:50:46 --> 00:50:51 It's such a complex problem, and it's such a long-term solution that people
00:50:51 --> 00:50:55 with very short attention span, and if there's anything that gives you a short-term
00:50:55 --> 00:50:57 attention span, it's computers.
00:50:57 --> 00:50:59 They have cell phones, the internet.
00:50:59 --> 00:51:02 I mean, I've seen it myself. When I first started using a computer,
00:51:02 --> 00:51:05 I realized after a few years, wait a minute, I've written books,
00:51:05 --> 00:51:08 I've edited books, I've edited a series of books, I've reviewed books,
00:51:08 --> 00:51:10 I'm a very bookish kind of person, among other things.
00:51:11 --> 00:51:13 And I was losing the patience to read a book.
00:51:15 --> 00:51:23 Why? Because everything was so quick on the internet. So it requires us to slow down.
00:51:25 --> 00:51:28 Now, just that thought is incredibly radical.
00:51:30 --> 00:51:35 Slow down with the technological development. Slow down with the way we interact.
00:51:36 --> 00:51:42 Slow down and think about what do we really want. You can have a really nice Bill Klaas house and...
00:51:43 --> 00:51:47 If you're in the wrong place, you can't get house insurance on it anymore because,
00:51:48 --> 00:51:54 a fire and flood fears. Or the house insurance goes up to four times what it was five years ago.
00:51:55 --> 00:51:59 Is it going to be easy for us now? But we can't. It's possible.
00:52:00 --> 00:52:03 It's not impossible. It's possible. Yeah.
00:52:04 --> 00:52:08 You used this phrase earlier in our discussion.
00:52:09 --> 00:52:14 In your op-ed, The Summer of Our Discontent, you ended it by saying it's enough,
00:52:14 --> 00:52:20 can even coexist with justified anger at the irrational and unjust social realities,
00:52:20 --> 00:52:22 causing the environmental crisis.
00:52:23 --> 00:52:27 The trick, the spiritual turn, is to understand that such anger as a form of
00:52:27 --> 00:52:31 love and to let that love lead us to action.
00:52:31 --> 00:52:36 So, my question to you is, what actions can ordinary humans do to bring back
00:52:36 --> 00:52:41 harmony and repair the damage to nature? Okay, it's a very good question.
00:52:42 --> 00:52:47 And, you know, it's a question I'm often asked at the end of my really depressing public lectures.
00:52:49 --> 00:52:53 Well, the first thing I would say is, number one, take a serious look at yourself,
00:52:54 --> 00:52:58 about what you care about and how you feel about what's going on.
00:52:58 --> 00:53:03 Really, really acknowledge that this is not a small thing. This is huge.
00:53:03 --> 00:53:08 This is huge. This is the human future and the future of the rest of most species
00:53:08 --> 00:53:11 on Earth. I mean, I think jellyfish and cockroaches will do fine,
00:53:11 --> 00:53:13 but, and tardigrades will be okay.
00:53:14 --> 00:53:19 But the rest of them, deep trouble. by the time our frogs seem to be doing good,
00:53:19 --> 00:53:25 well some of them no no no a lot of them aren't i mean even 15 years ago they
00:53:25 --> 00:53:28 were in the in the great lakes they were born with organs outside their bodies
00:53:28 --> 00:53:29 because of the pesticides.
00:53:30 --> 00:53:36 Yeah but so first thing is take a look see what's going on emotionally second
00:53:36 --> 00:53:39 thing is educate yourself it's that's one thing about the internet there are
00:53:39 --> 00:53:41 all sorts of sources of information.
00:53:42 --> 00:53:45 The third thing is you can't do it by yourself.
00:53:46 --> 00:53:50 You can eat less or eat no meat, and you can drive less. You can do things like
00:53:50 --> 00:53:55 that. But to make the fundamental changes, you need political organizations, political actions.
00:53:55 --> 00:54:00 So find other people in your neighborhood, in your city, in your state.
00:54:00 --> 00:54:03 There are national organizations. There are global organizations.
00:54:03 --> 00:54:06 There's probably people on your block, right? And there are people,
00:54:06 --> 00:54:11 again, in your church, where you work, ask questions of people.
00:54:12 --> 00:54:17 And keep in mind that we all participate in this environmentally destructive society.
00:54:18 --> 00:54:22 So there's one thing no environmentalist should ever do, which is come across
00:54:22 --> 00:54:24 arrogant and self-righteous.
00:54:26 --> 00:54:31 Environmentalists should be the most cheerful, sweet, friendly people in the
00:54:31 --> 00:54:33 world. We should appear to have the best sex lives.
00:54:33 --> 00:54:35 Then people will want to come to our meetings.
00:54:38 --> 00:54:43 You don't want to do the thing Which is so prevalent in today's politics Both on the left and the right,
00:54:44 --> 00:54:48 which is, you know, lay a bunch of trips on people. Tell them how horrible they
00:54:48 --> 00:54:51 are. Are you a racist pig? Are you a horrible...
00:54:52 --> 00:54:54 No. Are you a terrible woke person? No.
00:54:55 --> 00:54:59 We want to say, look, we're all in this together. We'd love to have you come
00:54:59 --> 00:55:02 to our meeting. If there's any questions you have, we'd be happy to answer.
00:55:02 --> 00:55:05 What are your ideas? Here are our ideas.
00:55:05 --> 00:55:12 You want to talk gently and carefully when you're trying to get more people
00:55:12 --> 00:55:13 to be environmentalists.
00:55:14 --> 00:55:19 Screaming about it energizes the base, but the base is too small.
00:55:19 --> 00:55:23 It's too small unless it's be like 75% of the country, then we might be getting something.
00:55:24 --> 00:55:27 So those are the things I would say. Find something, and the last thing is,
00:55:28 --> 00:55:29 find something you care about.
00:55:30 --> 00:55:32 Do you care about this lake here?
00:55:32 --> 00:55:35 Do you care about plastic accumulating on the beaches?
00:55:36 --> 00:55:41 Do you care about the stuff in the air that makes your child cough so much.
00:55:42 --> 00:55:47 What do you care about what all the undersea noise is doing to sea mammals?
00:55:47 --> 00:55:49 We're driving them crazy with the amount of noise we produce.
00:55:50 --> 00:55:54 What is it that you care about? Work on that, respond to that.
00:55:55 --> 00:55:59 Chances are other people are, you know, 99 times out of 100, you're not the first.
00:56:00 --> 00:56:08 Go for it. Join in it. You know, the evangelical Christians who tend to be rather
00:56:08 --> 00:56:11 socially conservative, and they're like Trump and all this sort of thing,
00:56:11 --> 00:56:15 there was an evangelical environmental network.
00:56:16 --> 00:56:18 And they did some very good things for a while. I'm not sure what they're up
00:56:18 --> 00:56:23 to now. They did a cavalcade across the American South called What Would Jesus Drive?
00:56:23 --> 00:56:27 What Would Jesus Drive? And they started off talking to Detroit about fuel efficiency.
00:56:27 --> 00:56:31 They went through various Christian communities saying, we have to remember
00:56:31 --> 00:56:34 the golden rule includes our transportation choices.
00:56:34 --> 00:56:39 And they ended up at the largest Christian rock festival doing their thing.
00:56:39 --> 00:56:42 There were 1 news stories written about them.
00:56:42 --> 00:56:48 I mean, look, I'm your archetypal old 60s guy. If you heard of the 60s,
00:56:48 --> 00:56:49 that was me and my friends.
00:56:50 --> 00:56:52 What did I know? They were Christian rock festivals. But that's where they went.
00:56:53 --> 00:56:57 They were evangelical Christians, black suits, narrow ties, Bible under the
00:56:57 --> 00:56:59 arm, committed environmentalists.
00:56:59 --> 00:57:05 So it's everywhere. You can find it everywhere. You might have to look harder, but you can find it.
00:57:06 --> 00:57:12 It's there. You can do it. You don't have to huddle in your room with a sheet,
00:57:12 --> 00:57:15 with a blanket over your head saying all is due. Well, all is due,
00:57:15 --> 00:57:19 but get out into the world. The world is still there.
00:57:20 --> 00:57:26 Even if five out of 10 trees are done, five out of 10 trees are not doing. Give them a hug.
00:57:26 --> 00:57:32 Feel the energy. Realize these are your family, along with your mother,
00:57:32 --> 00:57:34 your father, your cousin, that crazy old uncle.
00:57:35 --> 00:57:38 The trees also are a family. We're together.
00:57:39 --> 00:57:43 What can we do? You can find it. You're smart. You're capable.
00:57:43 --> 00:57:45 You can. You have to look. That's all.
00:57:46 --> 00:57:51 All right. So based on one of your answers, This challenge, I think,
00:57:51 --> 00:57:56 that I've been giving all the guests will be interesting to see how you respond to it.
00:57:57 --> 00:58:01 Finish this sentence, I have hope because...
00:58:02 --> 00:58:08 I have hope. As I say, usually what I'm trying to do is offer courage rather than hope.
00:58:08 --> 00:58:14 But I have hope because life is a miracle, and human life is a miracle,
00:58:15 --> 00:58:17 and the future is not set.
00:58:18 --> 00:58:20 Well, Professor Roger Gottlieb.
00:58:23 --> 00:58:27 I like guests like you because I don't have to ask a whole of questions.
00:58:27 --> 00:58:36 I get you going and you go there. And I really appreciate the way that you explain
00:58:36 --> 00:58:41 and go into detail as far as what you're thinking and what you want other people
00:58:41 --> 00:58:42 to start thinking about.
00:58:43 --> 00:58:44 How can people get this book?
00:58:45 --> 00:58:50 Okay. The book is called Nature Spirituality and environmental crisis.
00:58:51 --> 00:58:54 Subtitle is Embracing a Sacred, Wounded Earth.
00:58:55 --> 00:58:59 It's on Amazon right now. The publisher, if you don't like Amazon,
00:58:59 --> 00:59:05 the publisher is Bloomsbury, a big, very big publisher, Bloomsbury and Amazon.
00:59:05 --> 00:59:12 If you are interested in stuff about me, the last name is spelled G-O-T-T-L-I-E-B,
00:59:12 --> 00:59:17 Rogers, S.L.E.B. I have a website. I'm not hard to find on the internet.
00:59:18 --> 00:59:21 You know, read the book. Buy 25 copies. You feel better?
00:59:22 --> 00:59:26 It'll improve your karma. Now, what better Christmas presents than this stuff
00:59:26 --> 00:59:30 I've been talking about? Yes, read it, and I hope it helps.
00:59:30 --> 00:59:34 Well, I hope people follow that suggestion and read it. It is a very good read.
00:59:35 --> 00:59:39 It's not really that long, ladies and gentlemen. So, it's really,
00:59:39 --> 00:59:43 really a good read, and it'll really get you thinking about not just nature
00:59:43 --> 00:59:47 itself, but about us as humans.
00:59:47 --> 00:59:51 And I think, you know, we always need to be reflective about our existence.
00:59:52 --> 00:59:56 And there were so many questions. So one of the rules I have is that once you've
00:59:56 --> 01:00:00 been on the show, that you have an open invitation to come back.
01:00:00 --> 01:00:04 And I would love to pick your brain some more about some things.
01:00:04 --> 01:00:10 There's a couple of questions I was like, yeah, yeah, I need to talk to him about that.
01:00:10 --> 01:00:12 But, you know, we're constrained with time.
01:00:12 --> 01:00:16 But again, I just appreciate the time that I did have with you,
01:00:17 --> 01:00:24 and I look forward to either reading something new that you put out or just
01:00:24 --> 01:00:29 your continued work, because I hold educators in high esteem.
01:00:29 --> 01:00:33 So again, Professor Gottlieb, just thank you for coming on.
01:00:34 --> 01:00:38 Thank you for inviting me, and thank you for your very precise,
01:00:38 --> 01:00:40 well-formulated questions.
01:00:40 --> 01:00:44 Thank you, sir. All right, guys, and we're going to catch y'all on the other side.
01:01:05 --> 01:01:12 All right, we are back. So I want to thank Roger S. Gottlieb for coming on the
01:01:12 --> 01:01:17 podcast to talk about his book. And please go get that.
01:01:18 --> 01:01:24 It's a very, very short book. It's under 200 pages for sure.
01:01:25 --> 01:01:31 I dare say it's under 180. But it is very, very powerful, as I would expect
01:01:31 --> 01:01:36 somebody who teaches philosophy to write one like that. And as you can tell
01:01:36 --> 01:01:38 in an interview, he can go.
01:01:41 --> 01:01:46 He believes in what he's writing and saying. And I greatly appreciate that.
01:01:46 --> 01:01:50 You know, as I told him in an interview, it makes my job easier.
01:01:50 --> 01:01:52 I can just throw out a couple of questions and let them have it.
01:01:53 --> 01:01:56 But, yeah, this is a really good book.
01:01:58 --> 01:02:05 It's not just your typical climate change is bad kind of book.
01:02:05 --> 01:02:09 It really gets into the essence of life itself.
01:02:10 --> 01:02:19 And how we deal and perceive life is connected to how we deal and perceive nature.
01:02:20 --> 01:02:27 It's really meaty. It's a good book. And I encourage everybody to get it.
01:02:29 --> 01:02:38 A couple of things real quick before we go. I was listening to a podcast that,
01:02:39 --> 01:02:44 I think is called Clock It that Simone Sanders and Eugene Daniels does.
01:02:45 --> 01:02:50 And they've been catching some hell based on the episode they had with Hassan Piker.
01:02:51 --> 01:02:58 And I want to say there's some people, my favorite contrarian had something to say about it.
01:02:58 --> 01:03:02 And a few other people, let me say this.
01:03:03 --> 01:03:08 That was a hell of a get to get Hasan Piker on their show.
01:03:09 --> 01:03:17 And, you know, whether it was whatever side you're on, whether you felt it was
01:03:17 --> 01:03:22 antagonistic or protagonistic, it was a good interview.
01:03:24 --> 01:03:27 And I think Mr. Piker acquitted himself.
01:03:28 --> 01:03:34 Because he's not really a boogeyman. He is who he is. He's a comedian who has political opinions.
01:03:35 --> 01:03:39 Like a lot of folks, Joe Rogan is a comedian with political opinions.
01:03:39 --> 01:03:47 A lot of people know him for the UFC, MMA stuff, but Joe Rogan's a comedian by trade.
01:03:47 --> 01:03:51 That's how he got into business. And then everybody remembers the show Fear Factor.
01:03:51 --> 01:03:56 So, you know, and some of the other guys, I forget the young man's name,
01:03:56 --> 01:04:02 Andrew, whatever. A lot of those guys are in what we call the roast circuit that Jeff Ross does.
01:04:03 --> 01:04:07 Which to me is hilarious. Now, I have never watched a Kevin Hart roast because
01:04:07 --> 01:04:09 everybody was just so upset.
01:04:10 --> 01:04:17 I said, man, I got it in safe. So one day, maybe after I've had a little liquid
01:04:17 --> 01:04:22 courage, I might be mellow enough to listen to it, but a lot of black folks
01:04:22 --> 01:04:24 were really upset with it, so I haven't watched it.
01:04:24 --> 01:04:31 But a lot of those guys that are in that roast circuit, that,
01:04:31 --> 01:04:35 you know, with Kevin, have their own little podcast.
01:04:35 --> 01:04:40 So, you know, and they had a major impact in the election. And so Hassan Piker
01:04:40 --> 01:04:42 is basically doing the same thing.
01:04:44 --> 01:04:48 And to be fair, so is Simone and Eugene, right?
01:04:48 --> 01:04:54 But they're actually, well, Simone is, you know, has been a political staffer and consultant.
01:04:54 --> 01:04:58 And Eugene was, you know, he is a journalist.
01:04:58 --> 01:05:03 So, you know, But both of them have extensive backgrounds in communications.
01:05:03 --> 01:05:11 If you know Simone's mother, I believe, runs or owns a black newspaper in Nebraska
01:05:11 --> 01:05:15 or something. I believe that's where her lineage comes from.
01:05:16 --> 01:05:21 Nonetheless, you know, so they gave Fasan his moment.
01:05:22 --> 01:05:28 And, you know, and he, I think he handled it well. And I think the way that
01:05:28 --> 01:05:32 people have been trying to make him a boogeyman for these candidates is.
01:05:33 --> 01:05:38 I think the approach that Simone and Eugene did was appropriate because they
01:05:38 --> 01:05:40 came at him like he was the boogeyman.
01:05:41 --> 01:05:45 So, yeah, I think it was a good show.
01:05:46 --> 01:05:51 But then the follow-up was with Senator Angie Nixon, and I'm calling her senator
01:05:51 --> 01:05:56 now because I believe that's what's going to happen in Florida.
01:05:57 --> 01:05:58 But Angie is running for the U.S.
01:05:58 --> 01:06:05 Senate in Florida and they asked her the question about Chuck Schumer.
01:06:06 --> 01:06:12 And I already knew the answer before she gave it because almost 20 years ago,
01:06:13 --> 01:06:15 I was in the same damn position.
01:06:15 --> 01:06:18 Well, really 20 years ago because that was the first time I ran and then two
01:06:18 --> 01:06:19 years later, I ran again.
01:06:21 --> 01:06:24 And I was a Democratic nominee again and I was in the same damn position.
01:06:25 --> 01:06:27 And got the same damn response.
01:06:28 --> 01:06:33 So for over 20 years, this dude has done everything.
01:06:35 --> 01:06:43 He could possibly do to make it hard for candidates in states where we got to have to work to win.
01:06:44 --> 01:06:47 He's done everything he possibly can to make it harder, right?
01:06:48 --> 01:06:53 It's like, it's one thing to meddle in the primaries, which I don't encourage.
01:06:54 --> 01:07:00 But, you know, the reality is a politics that happens because the party wants
01:07:00 --> 01:07:03 their particular candidate that they think can win, right?
01:07:04 --> 01:07:08 So, you know, they put a lot of money in Colonel Vindman.
01:07:09 --> 01:07:15 Colonel Vindman has been amazing. Colonel Vindman has given money to Angie.
01:07:16 --> 01:07:20 He has basically dedicated part of his pack to help her.
01:07:21 --> 01:07:25 But now that he's not on the ballot, he's free to roam about the country.
01:07:25 --> 01:07:31 So he's helping other Democratic Senate nominees with his PAC.
01:07:31 --> 01:07:33 He was sitting on $18 million.
01:07:34 --> 01:07:37 So it's like, okay, let's spend it.
01:07:38 --> 01:07:41 I'm going to make sure that Angie gets hers because she beat me fair and square.
01:07:42 --> 01:07:46 And then I'm going to help these other folks that need some help, you know.
01:07:47 --> 01:07:49 And, you know, Schumer and them
01:07:49 --> 01:07:53 wanted Vindman because his brother's in Congress. He's basically a hero.
01:07:54 --> 01:07:56 He stood up to Trump during the whole Ukraine thing.
01:07:57 --> 01:08:00 He's basically the reason why Trump got impeached the first time.
01:08:01 --> 01:08:06 So he's not a bad guy. He just got beat by a good woman.
01:08:07 --> 01:08:13 So it is what it is. That happens in politics. I can attest to that, right?
01:08:14 --> 01:08:21 So Venman said, all right, you need some of this money. Let me help you out.
01:08:21 --> 01:08:23 No strings attached, nothing.
01:08:25 --> 01:08:33 So, you know, that's part of the reason why she is competitive,
01:08:33 --> 01:08:35 because Vindman was not selfish.
01:08:36 --> 01:08:39 But Chuck Schumer is Chuck Schumer.
01:08:40 --> 01:08:47 And when it seems like this New York thing, and don't get mad at me,
01:08:47 --> 01:08:49 New York State. I love people from New York.
01:08:51 --> 01:08:53 I couldn't live in the city, but I love people from New York.
01:08:54 --> 01:08:59 Although people from New York have hurt me, right, politically and adversely.
01:09:01 --> 01:09:06 But I don't harbor any will against the state or New York City itself,
01:09:07 --> 01:09:12 but Donald Trump and Chuck Schumer are not your best ambassadors.
01:09:13 --> 01:09:18 And King Jeffries better start reading the room. That's all I'm going to say.
01:09:19 --> 01:09:23 I want to see that black speaker happen, but he's got to start reading the room.
01:09:23 --> 01:09:27 He needs to stop listening to Chuck, start reading the room.
01:09:28 --> 01:09:31 He might need to listen to Nancy a little more.
01:09:33 --> 01:09:41 Nonetheless, so when they asked, Simone and Eugene asked Angie had he helped her,
01:09:42 --> 01:09:50 she said that she has talked to him and that the response was, we'll wait and see.
01:09:51 --> 01:09:58 Now, you know, if this was November of last year,
01:09:59 --> 01:10:03 and she was talking about running and she reached out to Schumer and had a meeting,
01:10:04 --> 01:10:07 and he's late looking at who might be running all that stuff.
01:10:07 --> 01:10:10 He said, yeah, we'll wait and see. That's an appropriate response.
01:10:12 --> 01:10:17 When you are the Democratic nominee, duly elected Democratic nominee to run
01:10:17 --> 01:10:21 for the United States Senate, wait and see is not the answer.
01:10:22 --> 01:10:27 Let me see what I can do is a better answer. It's not great,
01:10:28 --> 01:10:30 but it's better than wait and see. We were waiting on.
01:10:31 --> 01:10:37 She's every poll has shown that the race is dead even. That's a seat that we can flip.
01:10:38 --> 01:10:42 But you ain't hesitate on Tallarico, and he's got an easier route.
01:10:42 --> 01:10:47 At least the lady in Florida has not been convicted on anything yet.
01:10:47 --> 01:10:50 I do think there's some corruption stuff floating around on her.
01:10:51 --> 01:10:55 But it's not as bad as Susan Collins in Maine. But that's a whole other story.
01:10:55 --> 01:11:00 But, you know, Tallarico is running against the worst possible candidate the
01:11:00 --> 01:11:01 Republicans could have put up.
01:11:01 --> 01:11:05 You had an incumbent senator, and you ran him out in the primary.
01:11:06 --> 01:11:11 So you basically said, we want the Democrats to have the seat because that guy,
01:11:11 --> 01:11:20 Ken Paxton, no way. If he called me and said, Eric, I want you to be on my political consultant. Okay.
01:11:21 --> 01:11:27 And I go through his background, I'd say, look, you can't beat Ken Paxton,
01:11:27 --> 01:11:34 Mr. Paxton. You can't beat the Ken Paxton that's been impeached, been indicted.
01:11:36 --> 01:11:42 And also, you know, your wife left you for biblical reasons. I mean, come on, man.
01:11:44 --> 01:11:47 What are we doing? Why do you think that you have a shot? Because you're still
01:11:47 --> 01:11:52 alive? I mean, why do you think you have a shot?
01:11:52 --> 01:11:57 Because it's Texas and they just vote Republican like on instinct? Ah.
01:11:57 --> 01:12:02 Alabama votes Republican on instinct, but they voted for Doug Jones over that Moore fellow.
01:12:03 --> 01:12:09 They sure did. it. Once it came out, he was using high school yearbooks as Tinder.
01:12:10 --> 01:12:15 It was like, hold up, we can't send Ed Bad to Washington. He was entertaining
01:12:15 --> 01:12:19 in the Supreme Court here in Alabama, but he can't represent us on a national level.
01:12:19 --> 01:12:25 The Alabama folks said, man, let's get the guy that put the bomber of the 16th
01:12:25 --> 01:12:26 Street Baptist Church in there.
01:12:27 --> 01:12:30 Let's get that guy that put that guy in jail. Let's put him in there.
01:12:31 --> 01:12:35 Even if it's just for the remain of a term. Let him do that.
01:12:36 --> 01:12:39 Not Rory Moore. That's not happening.
01:12:39 --> 01:12:46 So people, regardless of how loyal they may be politically or what their tendencies
01:12:46 --> 01:12:49 might be, if you throw a candidate out there that's garbage,
01:12:49 --> 01:12:52 they're not going to vote for him. That's not going to happen.
01:12:53 --> 01:12:57 And I get it. You got to spend money in Texas because Texas is very expensive
01:12:57 --> 01:13:03 state media-wise because, first of all, it's huge, and you've got multiple major
01:13:03 --> 01:13:05 media markets. It's Dallas and Houston alone.
01:13:07 --> 01:13:11 Then you throw in San Antonio, then you throw in Austin, Lubbock, El Paso.
01:13:11 --> 01:13:17 I mean, a lot of money's got to be spent in Texas just to be credible. We get that.
01:13:18 --> 01:13:23 But it's like, okay, you budget for Texas, and then you start looking to see
01:13:23 --> 01:13:26 where you're going to steal stuff. And now, because of what's going on,
01:13:27 --> 01:13:30 we're in play basically in every Senate race.
01:13:30 --> 01:13:34 Every one Alaska to Florida. Every one.
01:13:35 --> 01:13:38 We were just ready, the Democrats were just ready to pat themselves on the back
01:13:39 --> 01:13:41 with Roy Cooper in North Carolina and keep it moving.
01:13:42 --> 01:13:48 Sherrod Brown might return to the Senate in Ohio after they let him go.
01:13:49 --> 01:13:54 Because people are hurting. People need help.
01:13:55 --> 01:14:01 People want real American leaders. Angie Nixon is one of them, right? Right.
01:14:04 --> 01:14:10 Michigan had an embarrassment of riches. Dr. Saeed emerged at the top.
01:14:11 --> 01:14:13 Go for it. Right.
01:14:14 --> 01:14:18 And here's my thing. If you think El Saeed is this bad person,
01:14:19 --> 01:14:23 compare him to the bad person in the Republican Party.
01:14:24 --> 01:14:29 I give you three right we got Pax we already declared we got this guy Marshall
01:14:30 --> 01:14:38 who's a doctor in Kansas who sued his patients for $700 $700.
01:14:40 --> 01:14:43 He sued him that's a different kind of evil you're a doctor,
01:14:44 --> 01:14:49 You're supposed to take care of people. You get you enough money from the insurance
01:14:49 --> 01:14:54 companies to live the lifestyle you need to live. As a matter of fact, you're a U.S. senator.
01:14:55 --> 01:14:59 But you're going to sue people for a $700 bill? Really? Yeah.
01:14:59 --> 01:15:02 How much health care costs? $700?
01:15:03 --> 01:15:05 Don't even sweat that, bro. There's
01:15:05 --> 01:15:09 a reason why your health bills are not counted on your credit score.
01:15:10 --> 01:15:14 It's because everybody knows it's ridiculous, especially if you don't have insurance.
01:15:15 --> 01:15:21 Which should be telling to public policy people, but save that for another day.
01:15:21 --> 01:15:27 Mike Collins, here in Georgia, he's got Nazis running his campaign.
01:15:27 --> 01:15:31 So John Ossoff's going to beat the brakes off of him. Easy.
01:15:32 --> 01:15:35 If people just, the regular, if just a regular turnout happens,
01:15:36 --> 01:15:39 John Ossoff would beat the guy from like with eight points.
01:15:40 --> 01:15:44 If the turnout I think is going to happen, starting, I guess,
01:15:44 --> 01:15:46 in a couple of weeks, early voting here in Georgia.
01:15:47 --> 01:15:52 If the turnout is amazing, Collins is going to be a footnote in history.
01:15:52 --> 01:15:56 That's how bad he's going to get me, right? You know.
01:15:59 --> 01:16:02 I just don't know about Chuck Schumer. I don't know.
01:16:03 --> 01:16:10 You know, he's of that generation where he morphed from being part of the Senate
01:16:10 --> 01:16:12 when it was still kind of chummy,
01:16:13 --> 01:16:19 until when he stayed in long enough to see how divided American politics really is.
01:16:20 --> 01:16:25 And he hasn't adapted. He's still the chummy guy. He still calls Republican
01:16:25 --> 01:16:28 senators his friend, right?
01:16:29 --> 01:16:33 That used to be a thing. You know, when you got up and spoke, it's like.
01:16:34 --> 01:16:40 My friend from such and such, or whatever. It was almost like a colloquialism in politics.
01:16:41 --> 01:16:46 But the way things are going now, the nicest thing you can say is my colleague,
01:16:47 --> 01:16:48 because they're not your friends.
01:16:49 --> 01:16:52 They're trying to kill you. They're trying to kill us.
01:16:53 --> 01:17:00 They don't care. They are literally trying to live out every science fiction fantasy,
01:17:01 --> 01:17:06 you know, create their own Elysium, create their own world where they don't
01:17:06 --> 01:17:10 have to rely on Elon Musk taking you to the moon or to the stars,
01:17:10 --> 01:17:12 right? They want to wipe us all out.
01:17:13 --> 01:17:16 That's why Bobby Kennedy is in Health and Human Services. They want to wipe
01:17:16 --> 01:17:20 us out. They put Elon Musk over those because they want to wipe us out.
01:17:21 --> 01:17:26 You know, Donald Trump says, I don't care if people got to pay higher prices
01:17:26 --> 01:17:32 for gas or health care, because I'm trying to annihilate these people in Iran, and they won't let me.
01:17:33 --> 01:17:36 They say we need to talk, but I really want to annihilate these people,
01:17:37 --> 01:17:40 because I'm tired of them. They tried to kill me, so I won't kill them.
01:17:41 --> 01:17:46 That's his mindset, right? And whatever little restraint they have,
01:17:46 --> 01:17:49 they've been able to restrain him enough where he doesn't do that.
01:17:50 --> 01:17:53 It was up to Donald Trump, that nuclear bomb would have dropped in Iran already,
01:17:53 --> 01:17:56 and then where will we be?
01:17:57 --> 01:18:00 Screw gas prices. How about survival? Right?
01:18:02 --> 01:18:07 So these, all these people on that side of the aisle want to take us out.
01:18:09 --> 01:18:15 If you're a DoorDash driver and you are not white or Uber driver, watch your six.
01:18:16 --> 01:18:24 Because ICE might stop you in the middle of a delivery or the middle of a ride share, right?
01:18:25 --> 01:18:28 Shoot you and then throw you in a detention center.
01:18:28 --> 01:18:34 Not at a hospital, in a detention center, with a bullet still in your body.
01:18:35 --> 01:18:40 But Chuck Schumer wants to be buddies with them because he still has his mindset,
01:18:40 --> 01:18:43 well, you know, we got to work together and blah, blah, blah, this, and the other.
01:18:44 --> 01:18:48 Bro, you have a chance to build a train.
01:18:50 --> 01:18:56 To start ramming through legislation, start putting the president on his back
01:18:56 --> 01:19:01 feet, on his heels, I should say, and have him backpedal it.
01:19:01 --> 01:19:06 Even if he vetoes everything, put the pressure on him. And then two years later,
01:19:07 --> 01:19:11 it's like, look, we tried to do this, do that, but we had to get him out the way.
01:19:12 --> 01:19:17 And we can't let anybody affiliated with him in that office if you want what we're pushing.
01:19:18 --> 01:19:24 And you'll get a Democratic president. Whether that person is like Angie or
01:19:24 --> 01:19:29 Donnie, or that person's a moderate, You'll get a Democrat in there.
01:19:30 --> 01:19:34 And then we can start repairing the breach.
01:19:35 --> 01:19:38 And for the American people, especially my listeners, it's going to take a moment.
01:19:40 --> 01:19:43 Because what this man has done in 10 years is amazing.
01:19:45 --> 01:19:51 I just want people to understand politics like when you were a child and you
01:19:51 --> 01:19:53 had like a Lego set, right?
01:19:53 --> 01:19:56 Or I'm old enough to remember Lincoln Logs.
01:19:58 --> 01:20:02 Or even simple blocks, right?
01:20:03 --> 01:20:08 And how meticulous and how much time it took for you to create something with
01:20:08 --> 01:20:12 those Legos or those Lincoln logs or those blocks, right?
01:20:12 --> 01:20:17 How you had to stack it a certain way and all that stuff. That took time.
01:20:18 --> 01:20:23 But it didn't take no time for the dog or you or your parents to run over what
01:20:23 --> 01:20:25 you created and destroy it.
01:20:26 --> 01:20:30 No time at all. Just one bad step. One trip and fall,
01:20:33 --> 01:20:38 tell the dog to go fetch, dog doesn't weave, straight line, boom,
01:20:38 --> 01:20:40 there goes your Lego city, right?
01:20:41 --> 01:20:43 It doesn't take any time to destroy anything.
01:20:43 --> 01:20:45 And Donald Trump has had 10 years.
01:20:49 --> 01:20:55 To do damage. So there's a lot of damage that's been done, and it's going to
01:20:55 --> 01:20:57 take some time to rebuild it.
01:20:58 --> 01:21:03 Now, in the course of time, if the Republican Party changes,
01:21:04 --> 01:21:09 and some of them want to offer a conservative view of how to get to a point
01:21:09 --> 01:21:13 where everybody is whole and everybody is healed, let's have that conversation.
01:21:14 --> 01:21:16 But until then, uh-uh.
01:21:17 --> 01:21:22 If everything that they decide is predicated on eliminating anything that's
01:21:22 --> 01:21:27 not white, they can't be in public office anymore. Period. End of discussion.
01:21:28 --> 01:21:31 This is not about saving the white race. This is about saving the human race.
01:21:32 --> 01:21:37 It's about helping Americans, right?
01:21:38 --> 01:21:43 Making things affordable, which means that prices have to come down and wages have to come up.
01:21:44 --> 01:21:48 Period. If you're a billionaire in the United States of America,
01:21:48 --> 01:21:50 you're good for the rest of your life.
01:21:51 --> 01:21:55 If you achieve that status, you're good. So start paying some taxes.
01:21:56 --> 01:22:01 It was a privilege for you to make that money here. I don't care what kind of
01:22:01 --> 01:22:06 business genius you are, whether you're good at mergers and acquisitions or innovation.
01:22:07 --> 01:22:15 It's time to reward or show gratitude to the nation that gave you the opportunity. It's time.
01:22:16 --> 01:22:20 The giving pledge that some billionaires have signed up on, great.
01:22:21 --> 01:22:27 But the most effective institution to help the citizens of the United States
01:22:27 --> 01:22:31 by design is the United States government.
01:22:32 --> 01:22:36 The government that was forged on the concept of being independent of a king.
01:22:38 --> 01:22:43 The nation that eventually came around to realizing that every human being has rights.
01:22:44 --> 01:22:49 There's some folks that still don't get that concept. A lot of them vote Republican.
01:22:49 --> 01:22:53 A lot of them are elected Republicans. That's why they need to go.
01:22:53 --> 01:22:57 Chuck Schumer, you don't need to be friends with them. You need to be friends
01:22:57 --> 01:23:00 with people like Angie Nixon. It's one thing to talk to her on the phone.
01:23:01 --> 01:23:03 You might need to come down to Florida.
01:23:03 --> 01:23:08 If I was the DSCC chair, Mary, when can I come to Alaska?
01:23:09 --> 01:23:14 Reverend Hamilton, when can I come to Kansas? Dr. Saeed, when can I come to Michigan?
01:23:14 --> 01:23:19 Representative Nixon, when can I come to Florida? Representative Tal Rico, when can I come to Texas?
01:23:20 --> 01:23:24 That's what you should be doing. But that ain't in your nature.
01:23:24 --> 01:23:30 Why? Because I got a 20-year track record to prove that it's not.
01:23:31 --> 01:23:35 So everybody's worried about Akeem Jeffries not being speaker,
01:23:35 --> 01:23:38 because of positions with...
01:23:41 --> 01:23:45 The tragedy of Israel and Gaza.
01:23:47 --> 01:23:53 But if the Senate majority flips Democratic, I promise you Chuck Schumer is
01:23:53 --> 01:23:56 not going to be the majority leader. I promise you that.
01:23:57 --> 01:24:02 It might be days before we figure out who emerges as the majority leader of the Senate.
01:24:03 --> 01:24:05 Because Chuck's going to fight it. There's going to be some people who's like,
01:24:05 --> 01:24:11 well, you know, he is a minority leader already. There'll be people like that.
01:24:12 --> 01:24:15 With people like Angie Nix and all these folks that are fighting and scrapping
01:24:15 --> 01:24:22 and clawing to get in there, if they get in there, which I think they will, he's gone. He's gone.
01:24:24 --> 01:24:30 So, you know, you're strutting. All these new people coming in, they, uh-uh.
01:24:31 --> 01:24:34 Because they understand that these folks are not our friends.
01:24:35 --> 01:24:37 They are our colleagues, but they're not our friends.
01:24:38 --> 01:24:39 So you know.
01:24:41 --> 01:24:44 Situation, the AFL COO had to step in.
01:24:45 --> 01:24:50 I don't know who has to step in for Angie or some of these other folks,
01:24:51 --> 01:24:59 but somebody needs to step in to make sure that the Democrats don't snatch defeat
01:24:59 --> 01:25:00 from the jaws of victory.
01:25:01 --> 01:25:05 The people are ready for a change. They're ready for some help.
01:25:06 --> 01:25:10 They voted for Donald Trump over Kamala Harris because for some reason they
01:25:10 --> 01:25:12 thought he was going to help them.
01:25:12 --> 01:25:17 Even though his track record had shown he wasn't, they drank the Kool-Aid.
01:25:18 --> 01:25:25 Now they realize the error of their ways, and they're ready to take a chance on new leadership.
01:25:26 --> 01:25:30 So let's give it to them. Let's pull every resource. People are upset about
01:25:30 --> 01:25:33 Ken Martin, about, well, the Democrats are broke, blah, blah,
01:25:33 --> 01:25:37 because Ken Martin put money in early.
01:25:38 --> 01:25:45 A lot of the nuances and enthusiasm changes because he took a gamble and said,
01:25:45 --> 01:25:47 let's stir up some shit early.
01:25:48 --> 01:25:49 Let's not wait till Labor Day.
01:25:50 --> 01:25:57 Let's get some stuff started during the primaries. Let's get people showing up to the primaries.
01:25:58 --> 01:26:03 And in most of these states that people said Democrats can't win,
01:26:03 --> 01:26:08 more people showed up to the Democratic primary than the Republican primary.
01:26:09 --> 01:26:16 That's what Ken Martin was trying to do. Get the base excited to pick a champion to fight for.
01:26:17 --> 01:26:19 And then once that champion was picked.
01:26:21 --> 01:26:27 Apparatus will kick in. The DC, the DCCC, the DSCC, the PACs,
01:26:28 --> 01:26:35 the labor union, the trial lawyers, the normal apparatus will kick in and do what they have to do.
01:26:36 --> 01:26:40 And when history is said and done, if we flip the house in the Senate in this
01:26:40 --> 01:26:45 election, Kent Martin will be considered one of the best party leaders in history.
01:26:46 --> 01:26:50 Doesn't matter if you think that he's boring. Doesn't matter you think that
01:26:50 --> 01:26:55 he's vanilla, he took a gamble, and it looks like it's going to pay off.
01:26:56 --> 01:27:01 Nonetheless, Chuck Schumer figures out a way to mess it up.
01:27:04 --> 01:27:07 In the military, they say, lead, follow, get out of the way.
01:27:08 --> 01:27:14 Mr. Schumer has proven he's not capable to lead. Mr. Schumer has proven he's unwilling to follow.
01:27:15 --> 01:27:17 So Mr. Schumer, get out of the way.
01:27:18 --> 01:27:22 All right, that's all I got. Thank y'all for listening. Till next time.