Varn Vlog
Abandon all hope ye who subscribe here. Varn Vlog is the pod of C. Derick Varn. We combine the conversation on philosophy, political economy, art, history, culture, anthropology, and geopolitics from a left-wing and culturally informed perspective. We approach the world from a historical lens with an eye for hard truths and structural analysis.
Varn Vlog
Voices of Change: Palestinian Solidarity and the Uncommitted Campaign
As we wade through the turbulent waters of political advocacy, our latest episode brings to the forefront the passionate voices Clarissa Cunningham, Dr. Elektra Kosopoulou, and Maryam Syed. These dynamic women, whose lives are steeped in academia and activism, share their powerful narratives surrounding the Uncommitted Campaign and its crusade for Palestinian solidarity. Grappling with the profound complexities of the Israel-Palestine conflict, our conversation unearths the potential of grassroots movements to influence U.S. foreign policy and the moral imperative of confronting humanitarian crises head-on.
Amidst the echoes of political disillusionment, this episode lays bare the challenges confronting vulnerable communities under the current U.S. administration. From the nuances of transgender rights to the battleground of abortion laws, our guests dissect the Democratic Party's stances, questioning the sincerity of its commitments. The discussion traverses the terrain of post-9/11 America, capturing the generational shifts in attitudes towards activism and civil rights, and illuminating the intersection of human rights issues with broader political themes like immigration.
Our dialogue culminates in a critical analysis of the Democratic Party, with a focus on the disillusionment stemming from unfulfilled progressive promises and controversial war policies. The narrative does not shy away from confronting the stark realities of inequality, education gaps, and the economy; instead, it spotlights the urgency of political change. As we conclude, we draw inspiration from historical figures and encourage our audience to recognize the power within each action—no matter how small—to catalyze a revolution for true change. Join us as we share invaluable insights and equip you with the determination to raise your voice in the name of justice and solidarity.
For more information: https://uncommittednj.org/
Crew:
Host: C. Derick Varn
Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake.
Intro Video Design: Jason Myles
Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn
Links and Social Media:
twitter: @varnvlog
blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social
You can find the additional streams on Youtube
Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon
Thank you.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to VarmBlog. And today we are talking about the uncommitted campaign and what it might mean for Palestinian solidarity, and I have three guests who I'm going to let introduce themselves for once, because the number of guests and we'll go and I guess clockwise order I don't think that'll work.
Speaker 3:So, dr Cunningham, so close but so far away I am. I'm Carissa Cunningham, my pronouns are they, them. I am currently a Rutgers professor, but I also am a professor over at SUNY Purchase College in New York, in Westchester. Long story there, but anyway, I'm also part of Central New Jersey DSA and, most importantly, right now I'm on the Vote Uncommitted Steering Committee.
Speaker 4:Mariam, oh, we're going clockwise, I'm sorry. So my name is Electra Kosopoulou. You can call me Dr Kosopoulou. I'm a professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies. I'm myself an immigrant to the US. I came about 10 years ago now 12 years ago and I come from the broader region, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. The way I see it and approach it, we are part of the same ecosystem political and socioeconomic ecosystem. So I come from the region and I have been studying and writing about the broader region for about 20 years now. I teach at the Federated Department of History in New York, new Jersey, radgers and NJIT and, as of recently, I was lucky enough to become involved with the Uncommitted Campaign here in New Jersey that gives us so much an opportunity to do something regarding the truly devastating circumstances amid which we find ourselves.
Speaker 5:So that's it on my end, okay, hi, hello. My name is Maryam Syed and I am actually the supervisor for ESL up in Patterson. I've been in education for about 12 years now and my experience is kind of diverse Lived in a few different countries, traveled a lot and I teach ESL mostly. So I'm in communication with people from a lot of different places all the time. Basically, I work with DSA North New Jersey, dsa particularly, and I am on the Uncommitted Campaign.
Speaker 2:All right. So let's talk about the Uncommitted Campaign specifically for a little bit. This seems to be a strategy that developed in Michigan. It has a history there, but it hasn't been used, I don't think, for foreign policy purposes. Before Knock on, desk me probably being wrong about that. So how did each of you get involved with the Uncommitted campaign and what are its immediate goals?
Speaker 3:Okay, I guess I'll start because we're doing clockwise again, I assume. Um. I get involved um initially through central new jersey dsa, um. I became educated about the issue of palestine during my during graduate school actually, which is really sad and genuinely pathetic, honestly, but really I think speaks to the state of American education. But one of my advisors is Jasbir Puar and I read her book, the Right to Mame, and that's what really actually educated me about Palestine as an issue.
Speaker 3:Obviously, like after October 7th I was, I'm a political scientist and I teach political science classes, and so I'm going to be perfectly honest, I took the day off immediately after, but then in the next class I did address it quite openly and honestly with my class and it led to some really intense conversations and that's just kind of been my journey on the academic side is like dealing directly with students who are trying to process this, and my class is like one of the few spaces they have to talk about it, and so then I was actually kind of getting involved in the electoral working group at DSA for a totally different campaign, but then this one popped up after Michigan, I think that I don't think really I know that me personally, I didn't anticipate or really even know about the Uncommitted campaign until I heard about Michigan's success.
Speaker 3:And when we heard how successful it was in Michigan I think it really lit a fire in everyone, and I know for me. I thought to myself this is an opportunity for me to do something about genocide. I'm not going to not take that offer up, right. And so that's how I really started to get involved and I mean we only got started on this campaign. Gosh, gosh, has it been two months already, less.
Speaker 4:Yeah, A little less I think A little less.
Speaker 3:And it was a super fast turnaround time because we had to get. We had to get 100 signatures in 20 different delegate districts all over the state of New Jersey just to get it on the ballot. And we did that in what a week. And then we collected over 3,500 signatures in about two weeks all over the state of New Jersey, mostly by canvassing mosques, but also at Rutgers University. That's where I did my canvassing, I went to several Ramadan celebrations and prayers and that's kind of where I collected a lot of signatures. But yeah, I'll let Trix go next.
Speaker 4:Well, and I think you beautifully described how spontaneous this movement was, despite the fact that all three of us happen to be active DSA members and we're coming from different perspectives and we have different experiences a partisan mobilization and there are many, many very active people who are not affiliated with the DSA. On my end, I remember that when all this started, I was clearly devastated and I was sharing with you how it's a curse to be a historian who studies the longer term patterns, because you cannot help but predicting the likely outcomes, and I was telling my students as well that I feel like the Cassandra in the room. In Greek mythology, cassandra was always predicting bad disasters and bad developments and she was hated by everybody. But she was just predicting things, she wasn't just making them happen. So I found myself in this peculiar position, also given my Greek origin, acting as a Cassandra, constantly for six months now, entering every classroom after classroom, and given that they teach population movements, genocide, displacement in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, starting the collapse of the Ottoman Empire all the way to the 21st century this is what they specialize in. But how could I avoid the overwhelming developments? And why should I avoid the overwhelming developments with which we're all faced. So I was. I was overwhelmed and I was participating in anything our faculty was doing and in any way as a citizen in my neighborhood. But it wasn't enough. And then I was invited to join.
Speaker 4:We had just a group at the beginning, a group, a WhatsApp group that people were chatting about Palestine, and I remember how like devastated we were all because there were atrocities, unprecedented atrocities with disastrous implications taking place right in front of our very eyes, implications taking place right in front of our very eyes. And was this feeling of hopelessness that I was really mentally and clearly we're not the victim here, but for those of us who were observing, observing this from a distance, from the heart of the beast right, the superpower that is directly enabling all of it, it was overwhelming and mentally hard to just accept this feeling of being hopeless. So we started as a chat, just a group, and I remember somebody were just venting and saying, at the end of the day, anything we're doing, actions sure, but the genocide continues, atrocities continue and it's now investigated formally as a plausible genocide and it's escalating and nothing seems to be changing. So what are we doing? And somebody brought up the idea like Michigan, like the uncommitted in Michigan seemed to have some impact and I remember myself stepping in at the time and I very, very directly supported that because to me the campaign is an opportunity for us to I'm speaking about myself or on my end to liberate ourselves from our academic bubble a little bit, given that it touches on a very real situation, and it's an invitation for people from all walks of life to just participate actively and show some basic empathy and understanding of how bad the situation is.
Speaker 4:One doesn't need a PhD or any degree in anything to appreciate how extreme the circumstances on the ground are, especially because of the position of the United States of America. It's not the only crime in the world, although arguably it does. It's beyond any comparison at this point. But let's say it's not the only crisis in the world, but it is the only crisis in the world right now that somehow is presented by our government in a parallel reality type of fashion, as something we have either little to do with, despite the fact that we're fully enabling it, or as a situation in which the victims are to be blamed for getting massacred and the victimizers are somehow the victims. So it is the position of the american government and direct involvement of the american government.
Speaker 4:That makes this outrageous above everything else for me, and I remember when somebody brought up came up with this idea, many of us jumped into this because it gives us an opportunity to connect right. It's very real, it's very direct, it speaks to people, it gives us something to do. Even if it's not much and we'll talk more about it at it's something, and that's the first battle to fight back against this overwhelming feeling that we have no power, which I believe is deliberately imposed on us. Um, so, even if it's a small step, it is something. And this is how I became involved and, as you said, in one week we managed to collect the signatures and we got ourselves on the ballot in almost every district in New Jersey. And here we are, maryam.
Speaker 5:I'm going to add a little bit of a background story to it. A bit of a background story to it. So when I was younger, in my teen years, I volunteered with different mosques and in those days people really didn't know about what was going on in Palestine. There was not much awareness. We were just a bunch of kids from different mosques just gathered to raise awareness and just hand out pamphlets on different you know localities and areas that were crowded, journal Square being one of the main ones, for me at least, because I'm in Jersey City. So in that time, you know, it didn't really connect with people, it didn't resonate. So come October 7th, this time there was so much awareness already and that might be for because of college reasons and, like Carissa said, a lot of people who are growing up here now college educated, and now they kind of know what's going on, how the information is like so handy and anyone can report and it's harder to stop information or spread at least only misinformation. You also get the real news, the raw news. So pros and cons on both sides. But fast forward to now.
Speaker 5:I did get involved again, just like everybody else, with the smaller steps, the rallies, the talks, the council meetings, things like that, trying to pass ceasefire resolutions, and I think the natural next step organically would have been uncommitted.
Speaker 5:And once we saw Michigan do it and even Hawaii, you know, like whoever thought places like that, being able to pull it off, kind of gave us courage.
Speaker 5:I will attach a little bit but probably talk about it more later of the post 9-11 world that the New Jersey demographics of Muslim diaspora are so well acquainted with. That kind of had a role to play with the hesitancy. But once people saw like there's so many people coming coming out and it doesn't really matter where you're from and it's about human rights and just you know some moral and ethical code that every person should and must have people to be delegates and just get everybody involved in this really quick and really crazy campaign where we were out every night I told my family I'm not going to see you for the next two weeks. Pretend I'm not here. So it was that crazy, but we made it happen with everybody involved. I'm so appreciative of every last person who has been a part of Uncommitted and we're hoping to see them on June 4th and prove, you know, that we have a voice and we need to be heard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we didn't have an Uncommitted campaign here in Utah because of the timing. However, we did lead a vote for anybody else that you want to on the primary ballot, and I actually registered as a Democrat for the second time in my life to to participate in that vote, so it means something to us here. We actually have a larger Palestinian community here in Salt Lake City than one would expect. The LDS church is weirdly good to refugees in a way that still makes my eyes go a little crossed, but so there's been a lot of solidarity actions here as well. Well, and one of the things that I have found interesting is that both Zionist and Christian Zionist more out here. I mean, there's, like all of you know, 200 Jews in the state, but those talking points haven't even been working with conservatives here and those talking points haven't even been working with conservatives here. So that's a pretty big change in my lifetime.
Speaker 2:For there to be any conservative sympathy for Palestine at all after, say, 1978 in the United States is very, very rare, and there seems to be, at least here in Utah, a fair amount of it. I don't know whether to blame or thank, given the morbid contents of the IDF's TikTok, but that's done a lot. So let's talk a little bit, though, about the role the US is actually specifically playing in this, because you know, for a lot of people who do think that what Israel is doing is wrong, you still might hear well, what can we do about it? And I am somewhat sympathetic to that, given how unresponsive the executive is to democracy, given how unresponsive the executive is to democracy. But I do think we have to ask ourselves what can we do about it with TEEF, and one of the things that I have thought a lot about is this uncommitted campaign, because potentially it does have TEEF. So let's talk about what effects could this have?
Speaker 3:Well, I'll start off. You're damn right, it's got teeth. And the reason why is because you know president Joe Biden. You know he clearly doesn't care about the protests, he doesn't care about the people's voices because if he did, this would have stopped a long time ago. He would have withdrawn military aid from Israel a long time ago if he gave, frankly, even the slightest bit of care about what you know, about what the people think about this right, like the public is overwhelmingly supportive right of the Palestinian people and I think that uncommitted is really it's the most grassroots thing I've ever seen in my life, truly, and I think that I just want to echo what Miriam said that, like what, June 4th, the election, right on June 4th, the Democratic primary, the people I'm talking to the students, I'm talking to the people that there are people registering to vote for the first time, to vote in a primary, just so they can vote on committed right.
Speaker 3:Like I think I've registered. I've met students when I was doing canvassing for this. I think a lot of students were registering to vote on the spot just so they could sign the petition with me. I think I would say that that had to be the case for at least 100 to 150 of the students that I canvassed was they were registering to vote right there, on the spot, just so they could sign to, just for the hope that it could be on the ballot, right.
Speaker 3:And so I know that, like we've been getting emails from people asking us like, hey, I've never voted in a primary before. You know how do I do this right. Like ever voted in a primary before. You know how do I, how do I do this Right. Like this is motivating and moving people in such a way I think, really speaking to also what Electra was saying about because it is something that we can do and we're, we're hoping, right, we're hoping, we're, we're, we're praying that, like that, if Biden doesn't give a crap about our voices, about our protests, that maybe he'll give a crap about our vote, and I really think that's like what the teeth in this is really about. But I'll pass it over to my comrades to keep going.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely. And this question is to what can we do? I mean, we could do something about not fully enabling this for whatever reason, given that at this point it's self-destructive and nonsensical for everybody. Struggle to see how this can end in any positive way for anybody, including Israel. I really feel that it's very likely that if we somehow avoid a broader war in the region with disastrous implications, it is the beginning for the state of Israel, because all of a sudden, the whole world is learning about Palestine, people who have never had an interest in their lives or weren't exposed to any of this, or even among us. Clearly, we had knowledge of the situation, but again, on my end, that's not exactly what I was focusing on and it wasn't exactly what I was passionate about. And all of a sudden, it's becoming precisely that, for all of the reasons all three of us are touching on. So people need to understand that the United States of America are directly complicit. We are more complicit than anybody else in the world right now.
Speaker 4:Israel, and we can go back to the history of Israel, how it was created and all that. But any way you want to approach this and I personally, as a historian, I always say that I consider it to be an act of anti-semitism, really the foundation of that state, the way it happened, deporting jewish communities from europe, from their historic lands after the holocaust and just giving them the message that as long as you leave this continent, because we don't want you clearly here, just go to Palestine and kill Palestinians because nobody cares. It was an absurd situation right from the beginning and a manipulation of understandable Jewish trauma, quite frankly, after World War II. So it was created from the beginning to serve a variety of interests and I would say Jewish interests were not at the top of the list If we think about truly the understandable quest for security and peace right that was widespread at the time among European Jews who were escaping the Holocaust, right whomever survived. So that was the solution. And from the perspective of British colonialism and American imperialism, I mean we have everything to do with this whole situation right from the outset and I could elaborate if you want me to.
Speaker 4:So fast forward to the 21st century. We find this situation now that it is a demographically impossible to sustain project because the Palestinian population is growing and unless you kill a few millions of them every three years, you try to make the argument that an ethno-religious state will rule over others as second-class citizens, despite the fact that they were the majority, despite deportations and oppression and all that they can become against the majority if at least they are equal in numbers. So this is not a politically demographically sustainable situation and Israel has been to the detriment of the Jewish people as well. The way I see it functioning as a weird military base type of project to stop the Soviet expansion during the Cold War, that was abundantly clear, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union it was really a project without a mission. But it's lots of money and radicalization has been invested in this and after a certain point it started acting as a project that is now spiraling out of control.
Speaker 4:And despite the fact that these are the circumstances and anybody who has even a very, very fundamental, limited understanding of the broader regional dynamic should be able to understand as much it is very clear that the American government, politicians in general because that applies to the opposition as well, that applies to the opposition as well are out of touch with reality, because enabling this whole cruelty in the Middle East, aside from a very clear manifestation of racism, because how else can we approach the fact that the message our government is giving Palestinians and millions of Arabs and Muslims across the world is that we couldn't care less if they kill you by the hundreds of thousands, by the millions. They can burn your children in the crib as you deliver them by the thousands. We don't care, we will still give them money and the weapons to make that possible. Because that's what we do. It's an autopilot. I don't find another rational explanation, but the message is delivered that well, if for the American arms industry to function, we need to kill a few million Arabs and Muslims here and there, that's precisely what we will do and that's precisely what we have been doing, because clearly, gaza is not an isolated situation. We can speak of Iraq. We can speak of Yemen, the crimes in Yemen, where our other glorious allies Saudi Arabia, has fully demonstrated the depths of cynical, sadistic violence we can support in the process of I won't even say defending our foreign interests, because this is not defending anybody's interests.
Speaker 4:American reputation is below zero at this point. People are talking who work for the American government how nobody's returning their phone calls anymore, because money and weapons can only carry you as a superpower to a certain point. After that, if you have below zero credibility if your word stands for absolutely nothing. If the citizens of the world are on the streets on a daily basis by the millions against dictatorships, autocracies, they don't care. They're outraged about what's happening. The Arabs and the Muslims are outraged because they're getting killed. Right, they see their king getting killed and they relate when they see these children like in the rubble, using, like Arabic, to say their last words or mother, father, right, that hits a chord with people.
Speaker 4:But, as in the West as well, we are outraged in Europe and the US because, naively so, we're educated to believe that we are somewhat morally superior, that we have something called the rule of law and democracy and human rights, and we have been convincing our citizens that this is what we're doing. So now our citizens are realizing in large numbers because it's broadcasted, as Teresa said, on social media live that somehow killing 20,000 children in six months, which is a world record, does not exactly translate into defending human rights in any way. You want to approach this. And they're outraged because they did believe. Many people believe naively. They may be ignorant, they may not know what's going on, but you can't blame them for that. That's understandable. But they do realize that the rhetoric of what the West is supposed to be is all. The term that comes to mind is not appropriate, so I will pause for now, but it has zero credibility. And you see people in the West, against all odds right, participating in this movement, and we're living really unprecedented. In my lifetime as well Miriam and I are older, but in my lifetime as well I don't think anything like that happened in the US ever since Vietnam. Maybe the scale of it all is just so.
Speaker 4:June 4th for us is an iconic moment statement. What are we trying to accomplish? For me personally, biden needs to be replaced right now. What's happening is just beyond the pale. It's irreversible. If the Democratic Party wants to survive in any fashion that is recognizable as something different than the second Trump, party quite frankly needs a different leadership right now, and that's the message many of us will be delivering.
Speaker 4:I want to clarify that voting uncommitted during the primaries does not commit anybody to anything During the election. You can vote for Biden If you so decide. You can vote for Trump. You can vote for whomever. Many of us won't be voting for the Democrats. There is nothing Biden can do at this point for me and I'm speaking only for myself, not for the campaign, but there is absolutely nothing that man and whoever is behind him can do at this point to save the Democratic Party. It's just beyond any type of tolerance.
Speaker 4:So the message, june 4th, is very clear. We, the American people, and specifically those of us who truly believe in human rights and whatever the Democratic Party is supposed to stand for, are not going to negotiate with terrorists. This is how I see it. You cannot terrorize us anymore that Trump is going to be worse and, quite frankly, it's becoming increasingly difficult to see how much worse Trump could be, considering the scale of it all. So you cannot terrorize us anymore by saying Trump is coming, let him come, and that's for you to think. If you don't want to see a second Trump presidency and the Democratic Party destroyed, change your leadership. That's the message I will be giving, and the invitation is for everybody to step up and step in June 4th. We have to do something, and Miriam sorry, it's fine.
Speaker 5:Your points are great and I would want to piggyback off of every one of them right now. But what I add on to this would just be that, for one reason or the other, every human being who has some sort of moral compass becomes attached to this issue. I don't think that there is anything happening over there where somebody can stay unconnected. If you talk about children, if you talk about children, if you talk about women, if you talk about how the men are, you know, created as monsters, like every person can relate to something going on there right now. You know, for, from one side or the other, even in politics, with the whole politics thing and how we're supporting it and how you know it's clearly biased Everyone will find some sort of thing that can resonate with them, that can attach, that they can attach to. And I think the point of feeling that what can we do? We, for myself at least, and for the young folk that I'm working with, I see that we're beyond that now, like we've done the what can we do part, and now we feel like we have more power. We feel like we have all of these tools in our hands and we are using them for the betterment.
Speaker 5:Now, what I want to see from the Democratic Party is a complete overhaul, because these are the people that have been voting for them. You know for all this time, hundreds of years maybe, I've been voting for them. You know for all this time, hundreds of years maybe. And if they want us to stay on board, there has to be a complete overhaul and they need to get in touch with their people, because they're definitely not representing us.
Speaker 5:And I'm going to piggyback off of the last point that Electra did mention, that we cannot vote for this, thinking that it's the lesser of the two evil anymore, because at this point we don't know what greater evil can look like, because what we're seeing on our screens every day is insane. And sometimes I just sit there and I'm like I can't even share this. You know, like it's horrific. And I know we've kind of slightly touched on the videos coming from the IDF, those I have never shared because those are beyond any stable mind to be able to share. Like it drives me crazy to think that people can do that, watch that, laugh at it Like I don't understand. And then what gives me more power is just realizing that, as hopeless as that situation seems. We have these people who are still fighting and whether you make a difference with your voice, whether you make a difference with your vote, whether you make a difference as a teacher, whether you make a difference at a rally, whatever small part you play, I am thankful to everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think maybe I'm going to just throw out some statistics for the audience to really grok what's happened. The population of Gaza is roughly 2 million. It's in a tiny area, unfortunately. I've seen it and it's so dense that it's not comprehensible in a lot of ways. The population is, for those of you who don't know, it's 47 to 48% under 18. Also, lots of women in the population, lots of the majority of the population, could not be combatants even if they wanted to. The the number of dead is harrowing. I think it's last time I checked it's around 32k, which puts it 39.
Speaker 2:Oh God.
Speaker 5:Sorry to cut you off, but that's also something I've been noticing. Ever since they threw out all the journalists and things, the counter has kind of stopped.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it has.
Speaker 5:So slowed down like there's like, oh, something just happened there. No, it's not like that on ground. But now we're not getting the statistics because first they were blaming you know, palestinian authorities for sending out fake lists and whatnot, and then people came out with the lists and used them at rallies and things to debunk that as well. But it's at this point like there's no point of even debunking things. It's just so clear. The propaganda is so clear like it's. We don't even want to anymore. Like you can say whatever you want to say.
Speaker 2:We know what's going on and that's where we are at this point yeah, I mean, for me it was the realization that the level of death is already at World War II percentages of the population I mean like which is a horrible thing to think about. But it also completely breaks a whole lot of liberal narratives about how everything has been getting more and more peaceful over the last 50, 60 years, which you know, I guess that's easy to say from the vantage point of the US or Europe. It's much harder to say if you've been anywhere else. But nonetheless this, even statistically, is undeniable reversal of that. And I have noticed that the numbers have gotten sketchy. The reporting's gotten sketchy. I mean the deliberate killing of reporters and aid workers will do that, as we've seen with official government statements and as we were kind of morbidly joking off air I'm, you know I moved my schedule on to get this out fast enough because it feels like every three days something major has happened and I can barely keep up and I follow the news pretty intensely.
Speaker 2:And my fear. Luckily I'm not seeing this, but my fear is that this would fall out of the, the, the new cycle from exhaustion. I mean in prior Middle Eastern conflicts that has definitely happened prior prior Palestinian. The other intifadas, including the ones that people forget about, like the silent one, which has meaning to me for personal reasons, um, those are often forgotten about too. That's not happening this time, uh, which is good, although why it's not happening is also a little bit horrifying, because the scale of death is chilling, to say the least.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to talk about the IDF, I've been actually a little bit shocked. You can tell that there's been kind of I would like to call it hegemony sickness or something where it's definitely hubris. Where know stuff? Even that the us, it happened during the gulf wars. They just, but they had the good sense to hide it, um, that's, we've reached a point in this particular conflict where it's not even being hidden by the perpetrators. They, they just throw it out there for the world to see and that's, you know, that's, uh, one of those things. I also don't share those idf tiktoks, because I don't want to traumatize anyone, um, but uh, it is, I don't. If I wanted to propaganda. I couldn't do as well as the Israeli army is doing for itself right now. Um so, uh, you know there's a lot on the side.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about the good old uncle, joe. Um, uh. So, joe Biden, never, I've never been a fan personally, but you know, I also know that even amongst progressives and and even DSA-ers, I have a minority opinion, but I think a lot of people have realized you know how much on autopilot Joe Biden's foreign policy is, because this does feel like something I would have seen from a Democrat, like in the 90s, and we don't live in that world, but apparently he does. So what's, what's, uh, what? Let's talk about that Cause. Apparently, from what I'm reading, he's not even responsive to his own staff telling him that this is actually leading to a backlash that, in an election, is going to be incredibly close. Um, you know, losing certain key swing populations that happened to be Muslim, are very progressive, could really hurt him, are young. What do we make of that?
Speaker 3:To speak about Joe Biden. I mean, he's just so clearly out of touch with what the majority of people are saying and care about and I just you know. For me, I think I want to speak to also what Miriam was talking about as far, and Elektra as well, about kind of feeling held hostage by the Democratic Party Because, you know, I'm a trans person, I'm non-binary and my older brother is trans as well, and you know people will say to me, they will say, carissa, well, how can you vote uncommitted? Right, are you handing things over to Trump? Right? That's the message that people keep talking about.
Speaker 3:But for me, um, what all of this has really brought for me forward is realizing that, like, I'm no longer going to be indoctrinated to think that my trans brothers and sisters in Palestine are less important than my trans brothers and sisters here in the United States. Right, people are dying and I'm not going to be held hostage anymore and be told that I'm not supposed to care about genocide just because, you know, myself and many members of my family are in the LGBT community and I think there's a lot of populations in the United States who, historically, the Democratic Party holds hostage by saying you know okay. Well, if you don't vote for us, you're just going to be. You know you'll get genocided by the fascist right. It's a threat. It's a threat. It's not. It's. They don't care about us. The Democratic Party does not care about trans people.
Speaker 3:The only policy they've really pushed forward was one of the first things Joe Biden did for trans people is he allowed us back into the military right, so we can, you know, go participate in these wars, in these conflicts, right that lead to the deaths of, you know, our trans brothers and sisters in other places. And I just think it's an absolutely ridiculous argument that I'm frankly tired of hearing. And yeah, anyway, I think that if Joe Biden, I really I don't know what he can do. I think, I think Electra and Miriam are right, like I really don't know what he could do at this point. But I'll stop talking. I want to let the others speak.
Speaker 4:Well, first of all, thank you for this. I think it was very powerful and brave, and this is precisely the human touch right that Miriam also brought up, and, derek, you made an excellent point. So where do we start? There's like so much to unpack here with the Democratic Party that many of us have been voting for getting them elected, in lack of a different option. Again, I think this is not directly relevant, maybe, but it is and if we're to expand as to what they do for all of us, for human rights in general, women, right or black communities, that somehow we are all the hostages? What if Trump? That somehow we are all the hostages? What if Trump? Well, all of these crazy abortion laws, first of all, are passing with Biden in power, right? So what's going to change, given that you did not take the brave steps that you should take in order to protect us and you're playing this game, you let it unfold to make the argument and I really think this is something all of us need to understand that the Democrats are so happy. The Republicans are completely complete lunatics. If we did not compete against a party that lives in the 19th century, imagine what would happen. Derek, you put it very nicely. The other day they were talking about the Arizona abortion law and Joe Biden was asked as to what can we do, given that these people live in the 19th century. He said vote for me. I live in the 20th century. Well, precisely, we are faced with these two options the 19th century versus the 20th century. Well, precisely, we are faced with these two options the 19th century versus the 20th century. We do not have anybody currently living in the present, apparently, which is it would be ridiculous and funny if it weren't so brutally devastating and dangerous for the whole world. And this is such an amazing argument, brave, but also nuanced, what Sarisa says, and I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 4:The Democrats, if we are to talk about this and really talk about this not only they don't help traditionally vulnerable groups groups, but they put us in the front lines. They expose us to all kinds of attacks. Right, they trigger the hatred, the confusion, because, quite frankly, when you talk to Trump Republicans, how many people really care about trans rights to aggressively attack them? How many people wake up in the morning and the first thing that comes to their mind is I really cannot stand trans people generally, because they don't have anything else going on in their lives to care about. This is a false debate. This is the type of hatred that stems from the Republican Party manipulating their base, but also the Democratic Party using vulnerable communities in the front lines saying, oh, we protect them, look at them, look at them, they're right here. Nobody would care if they didn't make so much noise about it all.
Speaker 4:I really, really believe that there is something particularly sinister about how they talk about women, minorities in general, all of us that are again put to the front. Look at these women, we protect them. And then the Republicans pick up and it's like oh, the immoral ones who kill their own babies, right, and it becomes that type of thing. Whereas many of us can agree on some basic things, even among Trump voters right, the argument that comes up again and again, it's like people can do whatever they want. But somehow this whole situation becomes particularly controversial because, I believe, in a very sinister way, the Democratic Party doesn't really have our best interests in mind and when they talk about our rights, it's not genuine. And it becomes actually worse because they give the Republicans then something to play with and to trigger hatred and all kinds of like phobias. Right, and both parties are very happy playing this game?
Speaker 4:And again to your excellent point how can we talk about any types of rights trans rights, reproductive rights, minority rights when our communities are getting slaughtered on a very human level? I, we are all many things. I am, among other things, a mother of two and I want to ask mothers in this country regardless of whether they are straight, gay, republican, conservative, democratic minorities, white, non-white, regardless If you feel that on some level you're a mother, that at some point you held a child, you raised a child and you know the attachment among human beings, how can you possibly look yourself in the mirror and talk about rights when 15, 20, we don't even know the numbers anymore An unprecedented number of children are getting slaughtered right in front of our eyes. When you see their little limbs distributed in pieces and a normal reaction is to think that could be my child and a normal reaction is to think that could be my child that I was holding. When we read these stories about people going to sleep holding their babies, breastfeeding, and then they're bombed and they wake up with their partners and husbands and wives and children dead lying next to them, if they don't die themselves. These are just on a very human level.
Speaker 4:Who can look themselves in the mirror and say that this is okay because we care about human rights of any kind? Who has interacted with children and see the children of Gaza crying next to the graves of their parents, begging them to come back? In the same way, every child in this world would act. The body language has a certain universality, right, crying, devastating, calling them mother, father, come back, please. Who has ever interacted with a child and can still sleep, when you must know, we must know that this is our money, our weapons, our name that become a sad excuse for this atrocity. It's just Joe Biden should go to a retirement home and pray in his final days. He's an old man, he's not going to live forever. That at some reach some type of peace with himself, if that's possible for him. I couldn't care less as to what he does, but right now there is just no excuse, no justification for what's happening with his full support. It's criminal, it's inhumane.
Speaker 5:That's it um.
Speaker 2:You know I uh don't tell this story a ton, um, but I will today and then I'll hand it back over to you guys. Uh, what made this? I've known about palestine since the late 90s. I'm older than I look um, uh, and it was abstractly real for me in the way that, like, most things in the middle East are real for me, in the way that, like, what's going on with the Zaydi is my lease and whatever I was like, it's like. I know it, um, I'm aware of it. I'm not happy about it, um, but when I lived in Egypt um, lots of Palestinian refugees, obviously, but also lots of Egyptians who are just related to Palestinians. That's something that people just don't think about. It's not like. I mean, if you look at where Palestine is on a map, it's a near a bunch of different places and it's also not very big. So of course, you got relatives in Jordan and Egypt and maybe as far away as Amman, um, and I don't normally give trigger warnings, but I'm gonna give a trigger warning for the story, um, uh. So I taught um egyptians for a couple years, uh, mostly uh seventh graders and I would have a student who would just go catatonic every now and then, and I assumed, you know maybe she saw something during the revolution or kind of revolution, this is. You know, after those two things. They were violent enough and I got pulled aside by one of my um, one of my egyptian colleagues and we. We talked about this and they let it slip slip that this student had an uncle in Jabalia and during the silent intifada he was shot in front of her, which she would have been about, let's see maybe 10 when that happened. Today she's probably around 18 years old, um, but um, that made this all very real for me and that was way before any of this happened.
Speaker 2:Um, and to speak to, uh, chris's point a little bit, even on trans rights, I've found that the, the democrats, have not been willing, are able to do a whole lot about what has been going on at the state level, which has been accelerated. So I've been having a hard time myself. I never really bought these arguments anyway, but when people have tried to convince me of them, about harm reduction, it's hard for me to believe that, like they even care about harm reduction here, because they're not, you know, yes, they don't do it themselves, but the situations in the States for trans people got significantly worse under Biden's watch and not and you know, not just the reproductive rights issue, um, and they didn't do anything about the supreme court. They still haven't, they, um, and they knew that they didn't have long to get it done. Um, and I think, if it, you know, I'm gonna be very careful about what I just said because I don't want people to think that I think waking people, any amount of slaughter in another place, is worth waking people up here. But I do hope that people realize that this is a threat and a capture and that, as long as you believe, I was reading in Pew polls the other day that 70% of the United States thinks there should be a viable third party.
Speaker 2:Now, what they think the third party should be, who knows? Some of them might think it should be fascist. I don't know, and no one else does either. Really no one's asking. But what was amazing to me, there was only 2% were not willing to vote for the current candidates, and that's a crazy thing to me when you have 70% of the population who's unhappy with their representation, but they're so afraid of the other people that they can't imagine doing a thing they think they need to do, and I'm with you.
Speaker 2:I've lived in red states most of my life. I've lived when I haven't been living outside of the United States and I'm not here to sing the praises of conservatives. In fact, I've been shocked at how loony it can actually get. But the average person in those areas is not an activist, and that's something that we have to remind ourselves of all the time is that a lot of people aren't aware of what they're signing up for until they're aware of what they're signing up for. And I think that's where we are, and I've had a lot of talks with normie democrats that live in salt lake city. There's a bunch of them and they're like well, you know, this is exact fourth time. Trump's not going to be any better on this, and I'm like yeah, but you guys have kind of proven that you're not going to be either. I mean like if you really wanted to stop trump, maybe don't suck.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, like truly, truly yes, you can say that like yes, yeah, yeah, because you, you make, they make it sound like they couldn't be any other way. And the question is why? Why is that? I mean from the standpoint. I'm going to take off my communist hat for a second and put on my just normie person hat who lives in the middle of empire. Empire is not supposed to be this blatant. They're supposed to be more subtle. We're not supposed to know what's going on. Like you know, there's a plausible deniability thing empires have normally done. Um, that's not happening. I don't think like, like I will tell you, even at the school I teach, which is in an ex-serv of Salt Lake City, not the most progressive place in the world Kids know about this and they're mad. And it doesn't matter if their parents are liberal or conservatives, they know and they're mad. So I'm going to throw this back to you guys. I did a little bit more talking, but I had a lot of threads you guys have thrown out.
Speaker 2:Let's talk a little bit about the Miriam. You mentioned something that I want to pull on a little bit because you know I am, I'm in my 40s and I remember the 9, 9, 11 days and I have been amazed at how brave um muslim and even christian arab friends of mine, uh me and seek, because they got confused. For people too, um, uh have been recently, um, because I mean that community was, we might say, low key, but that's not wrong. It was just straight up like harassed and terrorized for I feel like a decade maybe, you know, uh, maybe a little more, and it was an acceleration of trends. I mean, I remember anti-Islamic stuff when I was a kid too, but it was nowhere near as bad as after 9-11. How has that affected the community and why? You know, how has that been kind of overcome to support the Palestinians?
Speaker 5:Right, basically I'm going to start from the point of 9-11. And it did affect the community Greatly, of course, with the Patriot Act Surveillance things that started. There are many cases that you can find on FBI Actually being infiltrated Into mosques and into communities To kind of Coax people into doing things, just so they can Then catch them before the act. So a lot of ridiculous stuff happened at that time and a lot of people were also just picked up, jailed, deported from the country. I know personally someone who was moved around in the back of a van for about a month before his family even found out where he was. And this is all happening on ground in the United States. So it was very crazy.
Speaker 5:You know rule of law. I don't know how much it applied or it didn't, or whatever, but we all know, from Abu Ghraib to all the way to Afghanistan, everything we've done. But, like you were saying, that was the 90s and you know, at least there was this veil, no-transcript and all this stuff. And quite frankly, they're sick of it because in their generation they've seen much more terrorism is what I'm going to call it gun violence than anything else. And nobody's calling anybody out on that, nobody's labeling that we're still the bad guys. But that's old news, you know. So these kids growing up now are, you know, fresh, and they bring this perspective from their own angle, where now they're aware that the world is going to say what they're going to say, but we have rights and we're here because this is our land too. And that's the same thing that's kind of resonating across the pond all the way in Palestine and it's the same thing that kind of reflects in our society. By seeing them, it kind of both sides empower each other. And that realization is just because of the youth post 9-11. Because I know some of these people, their parents are telling them don't sign anything, you know, don't get yourself stuck. And they're still in this pre 9-11, not pre 9-11, post 9-11 mindset where you know if you sign something, they might just take you in for it. Yeah, so all of that, that shift, has a lot to do with kids that are just growing up here, that have been born here, that are post 9-11 babies, that are just now reaching their youth, is what I would say.
Speaker 5:To connect with people, even in our age group, like the 40s, 50s, because they're still stuck in that time and I don't really blame them, because what they've been through was a lot and, yes, we were younger, so we were among, like the rebellious, where, okay, I may not fit the image of a typical American, but in my brain I think like an American. Like, why are people telling us to not go outside, travel in groups, don't wear hijab, you know why? So that was like encroaching on our rights at that time. But that was the youth. The older people were in this mindset that they wanted to save their families from anything that would go wrong. So, from that generation to then the children being born through that generation, they're telling their parents no, we're not doing what you guys are asking us, because this is a different world we live in and, quite frankly, for this realistic, you know, organic movement to grow out of October the 7th, because I never saw it before either, like you said, in the 90s it wasn't even a thing, it was just, you know, a part of the news, right there on the screen, written really small letters, you know, and that's about all you get from the Middle East. And now people are so aware and the news is everywhere and it's raw and it's real and it's people that you know. We are only six degrees apart now. So how much of it can you actually stop? And that's what's kind of building this organically. We're all on the same page. We're also all from different backgrounds, from different beliefs and faiths, because this is a human rights issue. It's not about, you know, like you're trans, you're gay, you're white, you're black. Nothing matters. Right now it's humanity. Right now it's lives, and you know, okay, maybe an older person did something bad and they deserve to die, but give me an answer for the children. Then you know. You know, okay, maybe an older person did something bad and they deserve to die, but give me an answer for the children. Then you know, how far are you going to go with the labeling? It never stops. And while we were on the topics for Democrats, like about abortion and gay rights and all these things, it's the same situation with the immigrant rights the wall, the wall is almost done, completed, built, or what Like. As far as I know. Um, it's the same situation with the immigrant rights the wall, the wall is almost done, completed, built, or what like. As far as I know, it's the same policies. So again, yes, what lesser. You know, the agenda is the same. It has always been.
Speaker 5:I was very enthusiastic when barack obama came into power. Um terms, he couldn't really do much. At that point I was like, okay, I guess you know, presidents don't really have a say in a lot of things and it depends on other people too, and that kind of you know wore me out a little, because you know that was a little glimmer of hope and then after that is just history because that was the only last glimmer of hope. And then after that is just history because that was the only last glimmer of hope. I remember kicking bernie off, you know, and all that stuff. It just we just went further and further down.
Speaker 4:You know this loophole for yeah uh, if I may, on because this is a huge, huge issue, even if we somehow manage to forget Gaza, which we shouldn't for a while, on every single issue, we have a democratic president who not only messed up the migration system, because it's a complete failure that gives Republicans ammunition to constantly attack Democrats on that issue, but now he's going to the border to say that that's official, miriam. He said himself he invites former President Trump to work with him. Yes, to build an even stronger wall. So what are we talking about exactly here? These are two different sides of the same coin and I have to say at least Trump is a political animal Like. He picks up on people and uses them and abuses them, but he picks up on people.
Speaker 4:It was an iconic moment the other day when they were chanting genocide Joe at the Trump rally. I don't know if you're all aware of that and I'm not sure if they were testing new slogans how much of it was just deliberately. But he sees where the wind blows, right. That's his talent, after all. He's a political animal and he cares only about himself. He doesn't have any ideology, for sure, absolutely. But even Trump realizes which direction the wind blows towards. Joe Biden is not in touch with reality. It is absolutely terrifying. I just wanted to agree with you.
Speaker 5:It's, on every issue, a complete disaster, the more educated one, where college graduates and this, and that it comes down to nothing. If you know we're not doing anything with that intellect, you know if we're just selling the same candy in a better wrapper. You know.
Speaker 4:And honest. Education is not just to get a degree and to learn how to put people down, because this is what we do very well lately. Right that you're ignorant if you disagree with us. Well, the democratic voters are the most ignorant right now because they lack in very basic empathy and that's a form of intelligence. So if you do not understand on a very human level that it is wrong to kill children, quite frankly we can't have a conversation about education or anything else.
Speaker 4:And this idea that this is happening in the Middle East with us a naive little superpower that created this whole thing the arrogance, the hubris, as you said, we are so comfortable putting people down because they vote for Trump, and Trump is a criminal, but many of his voters may be decent people who are just frustrated and misguided, right, but no, they're masters, they're ignorant. We have the likes of Hillary Clinton constantly lecturing us as to how we are all stupid if we somehow fail to appreciate that inflation is inflation and that the genocide is a genocide and that building a wall and working with Trump is not exactly pro-migration policies. So we have this constant attack on our basic dignity and intelligence and freedom of speech. So either you shut up and accept everything, or you're stupid, a Russian spy, a traitor, a Trump supporter, all of the aforementioned. So the most ignorant group of people right now are those who blindly support Biden.
Speaker 4:I can understand that people may have the wrong idea about everything. That's very human. But the fanaticism or the radicalization I see among some Democrats that are blindly attacking everybody right now without really entertaining even the very simple idea that you know there might be a reason as to why 80% of the country is upset about what's happening, it's just. You cannot convince me that these people care about human rights or anybody. And, as you said, this is not about history, it is about basic human rights. I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2:When it comes to Democrats, I think it's in some ways, I don't know I comes to democrats, I think it's in some ways, I don't know. I, I, uh, I'm, I'm guarding how vehement I'm gonna be. Um, uh, I have been a little bit shocked at the pride that they are now a party of people with master's degrees and sometimes the urban poor of whom they cannot even consistently convince to vote. So it's frustrating to me. When is what you can do with all this education is turn a blind eye to the fact that, uh, you've adopted every policy that you criticized, uh, you know, four years ago. I mean, I almost can't think of one actually like I, you know, I guess the muslim ban, they, they undid that kind of although that's really court, um, I guess the? It's hard for me to think of one and it's hard for me to think of the arguments. You know Biden's pro-labor. Supposedly they try that.
Speaker 2:I'm not seeing a whole lot of changes on that front. Almost every Democratic adjacent politician I've had on my show which I don't have a lot because I get mad at them too easily but has told me, and even some DSA people, my friends, has told me that the economy is doing better than than than expected and in a textbook. If you're only looking at GDP in an aggregate way, they're right, but if you think about what it costs to do anything and look at wages, wage growth has not, even though it's gone up significantly, has not kept up with inflation during the Biden administration and inequality has gotten worse. So I mean like so, in everything that I was told to care about, trans rights failed, inequality, failed. A college financing reform, failed Abortion, abortion, very failed, failed, failed, failed reform failed.
Speaker 2:Abortion. Abortion very failed. Failed, failed, failed failed Immigrant Fall.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to be let's be fair, let's actually go into the abortion thing a little bit. I don't think the Democrats have any incentive to fix it either, because they see it as a wedge in red states to get out the vote and if they ever actually succeed again, um, that would go away. So why would they even do anything about it? That it's like when you start, when you start realizing that so many of these things are threats and honestly, you can see it with republicans too. I mean, they played that stuff with the christian right for years where they would never give them anything but, but they'd always promise it. So you had this thing running tally and lo and behold, the Supreme court kind of screwed that up by actually giving them stuff.
Speaker 2:But, um, the uh, the current situation, it's just. It's just hard for me to think about. About this in terms of harm reduction and, and the democratic party and I'm going to call out Democrats here specifically In the creation of the State of Israel after the Balfour Agreements, the US military even was a little bit hesitant to get on the Zion train, and Truman made them and made them full throat endorse it.
Speaker 2:Um, uh, the military was hesitant, and I'm not saying they were for good reasons. I think they thought that Israel was actually going to fall into the Soviet camp, but like, um, nonetheless. Uh, truman made them and they, they got on board, and it was a Democratic Party in specific, and the only Democratic president who's bought this at all was Jimmy Carter, and only you know, 30 years after he was in office. I do remember when he wrote Peace, not Apartheid, and I actually respected the former peanut farmer from my home state just a little bit, because no one else had been in the Democratic Party, had been willing to call it apartheid, which, by the way, I mean that was obvious as early as the 90s and it took about 10 years for that to become clear to the most progressive Democrats, and it's now finally gotten into larger society. But he's been the only one that's been a president. And again, he did it when he was safe and retired. Again, he did it when he was safe and retired so.
Speaker 2:I don't have a lot of faith of the Democrats on this. I don't have a lot of faith on the Democrats on war policy. I too, miriam, had a shred for the first time, the first half of hope for Obama. I uh, uh the the. The other time I voted for a Democrat um other than Bernie Sanders, uh was uh for um. First Mike Revell. Then, when Mike Revell dropped out of the race in 2008, obama, and when he appointed his candidate, I got sick in my stomach and then by 2010, I just couldn't do it anymore. Um so uh. It's hard to see.
Speaker 2:And in the Middle East, we saw a similar reign of hope. Like it was hard for me to explain to people back here in the States in 2017, when I got back, I was living, I had been in Egypt for a little over two years at that point that the, while the educated Western educated kids that I taught more or less, were anti-Trump, that the average Egyptian on the street didn't care and really resented Obama. And the reason why they really resented Obama is because they had believed him in 2008 and 2009. And then his shenanigans during the Arab Spring led them to go. Like we don't know which side you're on, but it's not ours.
Speaker 2:So the resentment at Obama, in particular in the mid-aught teens in North Africa anyway, was really high. I mean, not only did you have his shenanigans with the air spring, you also had Libya, and you know, right next door so, and Syria, and when I was there, you know Libyans, syrians and Palestinians were all over Egypt because that was one of the places they could get into. A lot of the Gulf States weren't taking anybody. So that's where we were and I think Drone striking in Pakistan as well. Oh yeah.
Speaker 5:Yes.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yeah, I forgot about that.
Speaker 5:You know, just, it was like you said it was. There was still like a veil between the common man and your politician, which is now, uh, not even a possibility, as much as they try. You know they're banning everything and everyone they can. Like the valedictorian um just yesterday from usc allowed to speak at her graduation and you know, like from the smallest thing to the large scale of instagram stopping um political posts or whatever you know it's, it's on all scales and levels.
Speaker 4:Now, the tiktok.
Speaker 5:Ban the attempted tiktok ban was a big one actually.
Speaker 4:Yes, and quite frankly, derrick, I also couldn't agree more. Um, we voted for bernie sanders and, like the whole labor argument, that was bernie and whatever he negotiated and got, that's it right. They were forced to do a few things against their will, but after the Trump election I will use, like Walt's description here, the hell of good intentions. Right that there was an establishment in place which is the Cold War mentality and it was like the Democrats, the Republicans, all of them had the exact same foreign policy. Republicans, all of them had the exact same foreign policy. But the Trump phenomenon, which was a wild card, completely destroyed the Republican establishment and became another type of craziness, arguably. But this old warmongering, lobbying the arms manufacturers and like that diplomacy of war and money, which is like very well established and old fashioned, it was served by both parties traditionally during the Cold War and right after, with the Trump revolution or downfall, whatever you want to call it, within the Republican Party Now, it's mainly the Democrats who have this approach.
Speaker 4:Trump is just a wild card. He's all over the place, he's fascist in terms of rhetoric, but he doesn't do much, does he? I mean, he moved the Capitol from to Jerusalem and Biden did not move it back. As far as I know, and that's about it. He did not start or enable three wars that could well escalate into World War III and continue to ask us in shameless ways to give billions to all of these operations because it's good for American manufacturing, which was again a Biden statement towards the American people. We have to give millions, billions, more, billions to Israel because it's good for American manufacturing. This is what we do. We sell weapons. He said that publicly and I will keep repeating it because it was such an outrageous statement considering the climate.
Speaker 4:So right now, democrats need to appreciate that Bush was the last one After Trump. They are leading the warmongering game and Trump is just doing crazy stuff as far as I am concerned, in foreign policy. But the consistent, systematic war-mongering, this whole industry of war that has been created ever since the Cold War at least FDR and Truman obviously is it a surprise that the people who bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki and got us into the Cold War also wanted a military base in the Middle East? It's just. It has been a democratic and republican legacy for quite some time.
Speaker 2:We are approaching an hour and a half, and that's about what I asked of your time, so I'm going to give each of you a chance to make a final statement and tell people how to get involved in their states. Uh, if they can, and particularly any listeners we have in the greater new jersey, new york area, get on it, but um, anyway. So we'll start with carissa um.
Speaker 3:So the main thing for New Jersey is to register to vote right now. Register to vote, register as a Democrat if you want to vote on June 4th, and even if you're unaffiliated, you can still be a part of this. Unaffiliateds are still allowed to vote in the June 4th Democratic primary. So switch over and or, when you go to the polls, you can still go to the polls on June 4th again to participate and vote on committed. One very important thing also I think we haven't mentioned yet, is that our slogan is justice for Palestine permanent ceasefire now. So we have the opportunity to send a very clear message.
Speaker 3:Our uncommitted campaign is clearly about justice for Palestine. So again, june 4th Democratic primary, show up, show out New Jersey wherever you're at, look and see if there's an uncommitted, unobstructed, whatever option in your state. If you want to get involved in our campaign, you can look us up at uncommittednjorg, or we also have uncommittednj, instagram, twitter, Facebook, all of that. You can find us any of those places and that's also how you get involved with volunteering, all that stuff. All right.
Speaker 4:Again, I believe we have said more than enough June 4th. We need to give a message. If we are the blue state, that cannot mean we are the state of the biggest hypocrites in this country. Right, let it mean something substantial. Uh, regarding human rights, this is a human rights issue and, as carissa said, the website you all have created is wonderful if we can share it, maybe with derek the information to share that people can get information from there so june 4th is an opportunity to reclaim something of our dignity.
Speaker 5:As far as I am concerned, all right and I would like to touch on two notes. Um, the prophet muhammad saw us on. He said that if you see something bad happening, some evil, stop it with your hand. And if you can't, you must stop it with your voice. And if you can't, at least in your heart know that it is bad, and that's the weakest state of faith. Along the same lines, martin Luther King, he said when you are on the path to reach something of good, you know, run. If you can't run, you walk. If you can't walk, you crawl, but by all means keep moving. So these two messages are what I'm carrying. And just don't think an action that you can do is too small. Just do it, participate. Nj vote for Uncommitted. On June 4th we are looking to change the narrative. We are looking for actual change and this is going to be a revolution.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much and for all who are listening, if this moves your conscience at all, even if you're not in New Jersey, do what you can to make your voice known, even if it's just too abstract. And on that note, thank you all so much. I will put the website in the show notes if you guys send it to me. And we're out. Thank you.
