A Republic, If You Can Keep It w/ George Polisner

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hudson River Radio dot Com.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Hello out there and podcast land and beyond and to
the stars and stripes. That's a joke. I'm Maxie Margot
Rubin along with my co host Malcolm Berman, and this
is The Many Shades of Green, a program that adds
a dash of green into your life as we engage
in conversations that move to inform, educate, activate, and raise

(00:44):
your eco and social and civic consciousness.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
We need that more than ever now. Through culture, politics, music, arts,
science and community, we hope to inspire you to pick
a seade of green and become a steward of this beautiful, blue,
green planet we call Earth, and to also be proactive
in helping Earth be a more democratic place. So Hi Malcolm,

(01:10):
and high George, and Hi Neil. Back there and studio
and welcome to the Many Shades of Green. We're gonna
start off with music today because that seems to be
a thing that we're doing, which I love. And Neil
make sure we get those things going. I'm gonna put
on a tune. I'll tell you about it afterwards, So

(01:33):
if you can queue it up there, Neil and put
it up, let's get it out.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
I don't want you anymore because you took my joy.

Speaker 5 (02:19):
I don't want you anymore. You took my joy.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
You took my jaw I on the back. You took
my joy.

Speaker 5 (02:27):
ILL want it back. I'm gonna go to West Milpers
and look for my choice.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Go to West Whimpers and look for my joy.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Maybe alma's up us m choy. Maybe it was mempus
m choy.

Speaker 4 (02:40):
Or go to slide They only look for my choice
gold to slide. They only looked for my joy.

Speaker 5 (02:47):
Maybe it's like here my joy.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Maybe it's I there my joy.

Speaker 5 (03:10):
You got no right to take my joy. I won't
it back. You got no right to take my joy.
I won't it back. You took my joy, and I
won it back.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
You took my joy and won it back.

Speaker 5 (03:22):
I'm going to go to.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
West me off Us and look for my joy.

Speaker 5 (03:26):
Go to West me off User, look for my joy.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Make me it was my mp us I from my joy.

Speaker 4 (03:32):
Maybe it was my of us. I found my joy
on a Go to slide down and look for my joy.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Golden slide down and look for my joy.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
Maybe it's ill I find my joy.

Speaker 5 (03:43):
Maybe it's I hell I found my joy.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
That's the way to kick off a show of people.
This is Lucinda Williams and I love her, I love her,
I love her. This is from the album that Want
to Gramy called Carl Wheels on a gravel Road and
then you heard the lyric I don't want you anymore, Chris,
you took my joy.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
You have no right to take my joy. You took
my joy.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
I want it back, and I want it back, and
George wants it back, and Malcolm wants it back, and
Neil wants it back, and eighty plus million people want
it back and probably.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Billions of people want it back in the globe.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
And because right now I feel like we've been living
ten years with a little break in between that and
a dystopian nightmare since that entrance down the movable stairs,
and I don't you know, you figure, what what can
we do to fix this all? And so on today's

(05:04):
program and podcasts, we have our resident political analyst, environmentalist,
civic minded, incredible guy, and curmudgeon. I always have to
ask because now he's the king curmudgeon, George paul Is
and a founder of civ dot Works, and he's gonna
give us some insight into the free fall of America
into fascism and what's happening to democracy before our eyes

(05:28):
and other things of course, And so he always sends
me notes and topic ideas for our monthly discussions, which
I look forward to every every month.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
He's like my star.

Speaker 5 (05:38):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
And this week the first note on the list was
titled democracy and Government. Why can't we have nice things? Okay,
so I looked up the phrase why can't we have
nice things? And according to AI, the AI part of
the Google thing, the phrase this is why we can't
have nice things is often used to express frustrate when

(06:00):
something desirable is broken or ruined, either due to accidents, carelessness,
or deliberate actions. It highlights a sense of disappointment and
resignation that the enjoyment or benefit of something nice is
short lived. So I thought, I know George is going
to expand on this a bit, And he also wrote
a great article for Substack this month, which we'll talk about.

(06:22):
There's so many things to talk about. You can't keep
enough things up in the air to swap things down
that come out like minute by minute.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
But so you know, I think.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
I'm gonna put my two cents in that we don't
have nice things because we lost civility, empathy and being
nice to one another. There are many nice people and
good people doing wonderful things, including everyone I'm looking at
on this zoom screen. And you know, at this point
we need to focus on nice people doing good things,

(06:57):
and also that what's going on in front of us
now is.

Speaker 4 (07:02):
A very difficult thing, too nice, and it's not good.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
To take in.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
It's not nice, it's not good. So here, but in
the use of day of late trumpery has taken hold
and is running rampant within a third of the population
in America. The term trumpery originates from the Old French
word tranerie, meaning deceit or trickery. It also refers to

(07:30):
something that is meaningless or absurd, and describes something that
appears impressive but is actually of little or no value.
The rose garden, planted by Jackie Kennedy was absolutely stunning.
It was nice, well use the word nice too. It
had lovely flowers and greenery and added beauty to the
White House.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
It was a garden that made people smile.

Speaker 3 (07:53):
So now we no longer have a nice thing there,
as the flora was dug up in the rose garden
was replaced by a white concrete floor poured over.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
The garden grounds. And apparently he put up chairs when
the umbrellas.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
It's like you're in, yeah, some sick place where you're
gonna have some food served, and.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
It's not really not. I mean I looked at it
and it's horrid.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
The project was initiated by Trump to make standing in
the garden more comfortable for women in high heels.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
This is true.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
This is what it says, especially to prevent their stilettos
from getting caught in the mud. Seriously think about that.
So in addition, he has transformed the Oval office to
include gold plating on the ceiling, the fireplaces.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
And the floor. He wants to compete with King Louis
the fourteenth versi, But try as he might, he is
not a king.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
There are no kings in America, at least so far,
except for the one we expelled two hundred and fifty
plus years ago. So I asked, after I asked George
what his shade of green is today, we'll ask him
why we can't have nice things in the US of
A as democracy and government keeps slip sliding away. I
could have played that one today too, But you took

(09:09):
my joy I wanted back really.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Fit to me.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
So I will welcome George to the many shades of
green and bring you in and of course, as I
said before, Malcolm and Neil back in the studio.

Speaker 5 (09:23):
So George, it's great, great to be here. And now
now you made me think of the frame of the
French Revolution.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
Liberty, which we don't seem to have right now.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
As as if any if anyone, we're filming this, we're filming.
We're recording this the day after. South Park was on
the second episode last night, and Trey Parker and Matt
sterne on My heroes.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
What they've come up with the last two episodes is
say and last night they focused on ice and they
revolved around christin No, I can't even go anymore.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
And then you got to if you can catch it,
please do. It's all I can say.

Speaker 5 (10:14):
You know, what they're doing is so important because you know,
part of what I write about and what was really
at the core of the article I just published, is
a fact that for any kind of meaningful democracy, you
have to have a well educated, well informed, and engaged society.

(10:36):
And so they're taking very important information and it's not
being read by Dan Rather in a news reporter or
Walter Cronkite or Edward Murrow. They're putting it in cartoon
form in a very entertaining and snarky way. And and
so yeah, it's not it's not serious news being read

(10:58):
by a news anchor, but it's just as important in
terms of the information they are impartying, and they're making
it accessible to millions of people, which is which is
really terrific.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
Yeah, and I mean they, I mean they they can
because of the animation techniques now that that give you
opportunities to make animation lut quicker.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
It used to be you couldn't.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
You would have to work on something months before before
it even aired. But now they can actually use current
events in in their episodes, which when they first started,
they've been on a long time, couldn't do that, but
now they can. And so and also Colbert, you know,
he's he's leaving next next June or may or whatever,

(11:45):
and he's just sticking it.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
He's sticking it. All of them are sticking it.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
And we need that, you know, we need an educated populist,
but we need the satirists to be there to fill
in for as you said that the well, the the
news people you mentioned don't exist anymore.

Speaker 5 (12:05):
Well, there's a there's there's a shortage of courage. And
so uh, Parker and Stone and Colbert all have the
courage to speak this truth to power. Uh. And they're
they're given a platform in which they can reach millions
of people. And so they're using this in an incredibly
important way. And so you know whether whether it's serious

(12:30):
information such as in Heather Cox Richardson, the historian at
Boston College who writes letters from an American on a
daily basis and covers not only the kinds of things
that are happening in in the United States, the the
erosion the rapid erosion of decent governance and civility, she

(12:53):
also uh connects it to historical contexts, which is incredibly
important for people to understand. Uh. And so so it's
it's whenever you can take something that's really important uh
and put it in encapsulated in something where more people
are going to see it, it's accessible. The more people

(13:13):
that's huge. And so so it's good good stuff.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
She's something else. I mean, you wrote this, you know,
the article you referred to in substack premature democratization. And
I love the title right there, and and you you
quote MLK, you're saying fierce urgency, you know, the fierce
urgency of now and that couldn't be more on target

(13:39):
than anything. And and and you know, you go back
to to Franklin even and it's just and then you indicate,
you know, there's no societal patience, and trickle down is
like what is that? And I mean you go through
like everything else.

Speaker 5 (13:56):
I mean, uh, you know, I try to try to
present something that's that's fairly comprehensive. I try to include
a certain amount of snark, and I provide a lot
of illustrations because I think kind of that those visualizations
are important. But a lot of the core of the
article that I wrote, uh, which the fun title premature

(14:20):
democratization or you know, the serious condition of PD that
many suffer from, is really was America truly ready for
a democracy? And and this is something that the framers
of the Constitution were likely to have debated. It's most
certainly something that they would have debated, because a real democracy,

(14:45):
a pure democracy, is direct democracy. And so they came
to the conclusion that in terms of their interaction with
the colonists at the time, they probably felt, you know something,
we can't make get a direct democracy. We're going to
kind of make it a step along the way towards

(15:08):
democracy by implementing a representative democracy and then talking about
the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Electoral College, and
other things that were really the result of a lot
of compromise that I think we're now paying the price

(15:28):
or some of those compromises. But as you said, doctor
Martin Luther King, when over sixty two years ago he
spoke and just powerfully eloquently and as I have a
dream speech about the fierce urgency of now. And this
is sixty two years ago, this is multiple generations ago.

(15:50):
So when I also talk about democracy and are we
truly ready for democracy? Democracy is deliberative. It requires patients.
It's not, you know, it's not somebody waking up at
three in the morning and typing out, you know, a
shart on truth social or whatever you know, the criminal
elect uses to get its message out.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
That's incredible in and of itself.

Speaker 4 (16:15):
Did we ever really have a democracy?

Speaker 5 (16:18):
No? And and part of the article has has uh.
Towards the end of the article, I wrote that we
must stop romanticizing a past that never truly delivered democracy,
equality and justice for all. It's always been kind of
a half measure. And again that's a problem too. I mean,
we can see people have fought hard for justice and

(16:44):
for civil rights, and now we're seeing a lot of
that stuff being torn up by this administration.

Speaker 6 (16:51):
A clip that I circulate of Jeff Daniels doing a
monolog for a great.

Speaker 5 (17:00):
Was around and.

Speaker 4 (17:02):
Are the greatest country in the world. It goes off
as a tan.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
It was he's been, he's been speaking about what's happening.
You know, Jeff Daniels has been. But you also said,
you know you Ben Franklin said a republic if you
can keep it and self governance.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Really, I mean he so So.

Speaker 5 (17:24):
Ben Franklin was asked by a woman who was very
interested in the happenings of the Constitutional Convention in seventeen
eighty seven. I know this because I was there. Wells man, Yeah,
Ben and I were flying, flying, flying, flying up above him.

(17:44):
So anyways, she was asking him what kind of government
do we get? And uh, and it's very interesting to
me that Ben Franklin said, it's a republic if you
can keep it. So even then he was, you know,
not quite sure that that the colonists were equipped to

(18:06):
basically be able to maintain and evolve a democracy, right.

Speaker 3 (18:13):
I mean, I can't imagine these people like rolling around
in their grave at this point to see what.

Speaker 5 (18:19):
We are at now.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
And they could never have thought, you know, I mean honestly,
in the Convention, the people cleaning up and serving world slaves.
I mean, you know, the white the white folk were there,
you know.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
I mean this is when our.

Speaker 3 (18:37):
Country was, you know, being developed, the republic, and uh,
and now you know, you see what's going on with
this authoritarian figure and dictator which is happening. It's already here.
We are in a constitutional crisis.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
It is here. And people I think they're numb. I
think when you are just numb right now.

Speaker 5 (19:02):
When you look at a lot of the papers that
were written, and a lot of a lot of what
was written by the framers of the Constitution, they were
very concerned that this would happen. As a matter of fact,
in establishing the constitution, they developed coequal branches of government, uh,

(19:24):
and an attempt to have checks and balances between the
executive branch the legislative branch, which is Congress and the
judicial branch, well, the judicial branch, the Supreme Court has
been subverted and corrupted by money and by Trump lifetime appointments.
The federal courts, some of the federal courts. You know

(19:47):
who's dropped out of the news. I haven't seen her
name in a while, Eileen Cannon. I haven't forgotten her.
I mean, she has a big reason why we're here today.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
Exactly, and and no experience as a for the most part.
How they got her in the wheel that floats around.
I mean I used to go to court and file
cases in Federal Court Southern District of New York, and
you bring in your kate, you know, the someone's complaint
and they I don't know what they have now, but
back in the day, they had a wheel, you know,

(20:17):
and then the card would come out, you know who
you're gonna get. And you know, if I'd call the
office in the pay phone, because they were it was
cell phones, then you know, I'd say, you know, we
got Jode Sweeney or something, and they would go and
if I say, some other judge, oh crap, you know,
I mean, it's like you you don't know what you're getting.
But how consistently this this she came out randomly, you know.

Speaker 5 (20:42):
Yeah. Well, the other thing is, it's one thing when
you're in front of a judge that you know, either
favors or traditionally favors prosecution or defense. It's something else
together altogether, when the judge is actually part of the
legal team on the defense.

Speaker 4 (20:57):
Right.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
And the same thing with the now that's right, and
the AGI.

Speaker 5 (21:03):
Pam bribe me Bondy took a twenty five thousand dollars
bribe from the Trump organization, and suddenly the fraud case
against Trump University really kind of disappeared in Florida.

Speaker 3 (21:16):
Sure, well, it's worse now because everything is disappearing.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
So I don't know, So then i'll I asked. We
never got to the green question.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
So hey, the shade of green is it could be
puke green, or it could be hey, it's beautiful summer green.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Pick one, and then we'll move on.

Speaker 4 (21:34):
By smoke.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
That's true.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
There's a lot of smoke and a lot of I'm
beginning a lot of warnings about don't breathe the air,
like don't don't.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
Go out with green.

Speaker 6 (21:44):
You know, if a majority of the people care, if
we have a a sort of a dictatorship, so to speak.
If prices are downs, are not down. No, no, I said,
if if prices were down, they wouldn't do anything, you know,
and he would lower the tariffs, you know, without any

(22:04):
you know, congressional support, and the lower gas prices and
not be a you know, brutal with his Uh, the
deportation of aliens of undocumented people, I.

Speaker 4 (22:19):
Don't think they'd really care. I took over the part
for Congress and the courts.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
They're taking American citizens American, Yeah, they're taking American citizens
documented right, sports, right, that's what with passports.

Speaker 4 (22:36):
Right, that's what he gets the ARIA.

Speaker 6 (22:37):
But if he did it, if he deported the people
that were truly the criminals, and he did some sort
of I don't think they would object to it.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Can you answer this, because I'm like, I'm going into
the screen right now.

Speaker 5 (22:52):
I think Malcolm is raised in a good point. You
are right for for a long time, and they started
back with Reagan a lot of this stuff. I mean,
Reagan talk about you know, a color that's puke green. Uh, Reagan,
Reagan does that to me. I mean, he was influential
in the extreme wealth concentration that we have today, which

(23:13):
is a which is an economic attack on any form
of democracy. But he basically said, he joked around, Oh
I'm with the government, I'm here to help. He created
this frame that that the reason that you, as an
American citizen aren't wealthy and well to do, it's because
of this big bloated government. Uh you know, it's it's

(23:35):
anti free market, it's anti wealth. Uh. All of these regulations,
all of these safety standards and everything else. Uh, it's
just gets in your way from from being rich.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (23:48):
And so so I think that a lot of Americans, uh,
in terms of what Malcolm is saying, if uh, economics
are doing better, if people have more upward mobility, if
things are happening, I mean, I think I think some
people would certainly say, yeah, it's going great. I don't care.
So I don't so I don't have to vote every

(24:09):
four years or every two years. That's great, saves me time.
So I do. I do agree with that, Malcolm, that
a lot of people just simply wouldn't care. But it
goes back to a very key point that it is
a central point in a lot of the articles that
I write that or a meaningful democracy to be to thrive.

(24:31):
It requires a well educated, well informed, and engaged society,
because a well informed, well educated society is going to
reject tyranny and an author authoritarian, and an authoritarian is
always going to basically create a structure in which some
people perhaps are the valued class of citizen and everybody

(24:53):
else doesn't do as well, right, I mean in Trump's case,
I mean, Trump very early on in his career was
sued by the Department of Justice for housing discrimination against
African Americans.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
And so his dad was in Beechaven, and Woody Guthrie
wrote that song called Beechaven and that was about that exactly.
And I grew up in Brooklyn, across the street, across
the beach, even across the street, well the Trump buildings
across the street, with the Trump buildings.

Speaker 5 (25:27):
So you could have stopped all this, but I no, no,
my mom, my mom.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
Would my mom would call My mom would call him
agnif you know, a crook, and and and right off
the back. I didn't quite understand it when I'm six
years old or whatever it was. But you know, she
just u she knew the score, she knew what the
Beechaven was about. You know, she knew Woody Guthries' songs

(25:52):
and uh so this this goes back a way long time.
And you know he pretty much takes care takes after
his father.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
You know, his father.

Speaker 6 (26:03):
And I was just thinking the you know, not having
a democracy is like having a religion. Religion is as
democracy is headed by a head person who tells all
the laws, and it's not a democracy. People listen to
what the rabbi says, or what the priest says, or
what the father says, and it's all ruled by God,

(26:25):
one person.

Speaker 5 (26:27):
I mean, I mean, it's just another hierarchical organization, right,
I mean. And the thing is part of the problem
when you examine back to doctor doctor King Junior talking
about the fear surgency of now sixty two years ago.
And we'll get to this, I think soon. But part

(26:48):
of the part of the second half, part of the
problem is democracy is slow and deliberate. It's intentionally slow.
So you're not issuing edicts in the middle of the night,
like putting miss holes on top of the White House
or uh you know that, uh that those types of things.

Speaker 3 (27:05):
Nuclear missiles, that's what he say, didn't just say missiles.
But I hate to interrupt. We're gonna have to to
talk about this because we we hit the brake. We
will be talking more about this and about uh democracy
or undermining democracy.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Or what we can do.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
So please stay tuned and we'll be right back.

Speaker 4 (27:24):
Hudson River Radio dot com.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
Yeah, this is Hudson River Radio dot com.

Speaker 4 (27:39):
Hudson River Radio dot com.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
This is Hudson River Radio dot com.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
And we are back with George Powls. Then it talk
more about American democracy from its inception to like the
di the downward sp spiral right now, uh, and the
chaos that's ensuing.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
This is chaos that we're living in. So during the.

Speaker 3 (28:24):
Chaos, please subscribe to our podcast and and follow us
on Instagram and Facebook at Team Sheets of Green and
uh all the major platforms and UH and again I
will shout out as I always do even at this point.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
To Neil, Thank you Neil for all your help.

Speaker 5 (28:41):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
So we were talking about that, so we're let's pick up.
I'll let you start it off with you know how
the democracy is in a mess.

Speaker 5 (28:52):
Well, it's it's it's tough, and it goes back to
what Malcolm was talking about that regardless of the play system,
if people happen to start doing better, which they're not
under this administration. Prices are rising, the tariffs haven't hit yet.
Ten million people are going to lose access to medicaid

(29:13):
after the midterms, and so people just simply aren't going
to be doing better. But if they were, I'm not sure,
as Malcolm was theorizing that a lot of people would
not care what kind of what form of government this is.
And the reality is when you're supposed to have a

(29:33):
government of co equal branches and checks and balances, when
the Supreme Court is controlled by highly partisan judges, and
some of them, namely Clarence Thomas and Alito, are corrupt
and have been enjoyed luxurious gifts on matters from people

(29:56):
that had matters before the Court, and they god of
course to list that, I think in their ethics in
their ethics filings. And when the House, uh, there's obviously
a slight advantage in the House for the GOP. The
GOP controls the Senate. Every so often the news will

(30:19):
cover uh, gee, the Senate's unhappy with something that the
criminal elect is doing. Uh, this is beyond the pale.
But yet they rubber stamp every one of his nominees,
MLO was just I think his nomination went through the Senate, uh,

(30:40):
and he was somebody that was I think advocating attacking
judicial decision. So it's just remarkable to have somebody like
that elevated to the bench. But when you go back
to the Reagan era and you go back to some
of the economic policies, and I don't want to or
everybody with economic policies, but for example, when Reagan worked

(31:05):
on taxation and cut capital gains taxes to fifteen percent,
when you think about the wealthiest people in the United States,
they're not opening up their pay envelope on a weekly
basis and going, oh boy, I get to take this
to the bank. They're heavily invested in stocks and bonds,

(31:25):
and so suddenly they're on a they're paying fifteen percent again,
and then they're making so many deductions they don't really
even come up to fifteen percent. Whereas a nurse or
a teacher, for example, might be taxed federal tax might
be twenty seven to thirty percent, state tax might be

(31:46):
another ten percent, and so ordinary people that are out
there trying to make a living are paying far more
in taxes than somebody like an Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos.

Speaker 3 (31:58):
Right, just breaking a second, like they said, people making
thirty thousand and less are going to be taxed more,
right than the billionaires? Like it?

Speaker 2 (32:10):
It's and when and when they bring up this.

Speaker 3 (32:13):
At town meetings like this guy Flood was like Boould
added his mind, and they kept asking him and and
someone screamed at in another meeting like, I don't know
if it was the same one.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
How much are we paying for fascism?

Speaker 5 (32:26):
They're they're they're not they're very apprehensive right now about
conducting any town halls while they're in recess. Uh. And
so they've been a lot of them have been told
not to do it. And that's the reason in the
big beautiful, the so called big beautiful you know, pile
of bill, that Medicaid is not being cut until after midterms,

(32:49):
as they're counting on voters to forget about it, to
be distracted by other things, you know, the Super Bowl
or the World Series or you know what ever.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (33:01):
And so they're they're thinking that people aren't gonna aren't
going to care, and they're going to continue to just
vote for Republican incumbents. But you can start to see
the concern, and where the concern really manifests is what's
happening right now in Texas. Uh and uh for for
folks that are unaware.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (33:21):
One of one of Trump's uh I guess midnight intellectual
brainstorms was, hey, why wait ten years after a census
is performed to essentially redistrict estate? And so he went
to uh human garbage Governor Greg Abbott in Texas and said,

(33:43):
you should redistrict because if you draw your district maps
a certain way to uh exclude as many democratic districts
as you can, we can pick up five house seats
and and so that's uh. First of all, it hasn't
been done. There's there is settled there's been settled law

(34:04):
about settled law. Yeah sure, and constitutional law that is
supposed to preclude that. But you're absolutely right, Maxine. I
mean right now, Greg Abbott has largely been responsible for
most of the nominations on the Texas Supreme Court. Trump
is responsible for the nominations and the majority uh in

(34:27):
the U. S. Supreme Court. And so if this goes, uh,
the courts may say, you know, that's absolutely fine, and
so I know that thankfully, Uh, the Democratic Party like
news Governor Newsom uh and uh.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
Local uh and the governor uh Pritskerry, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (34:48):
Pritz In in Illinois and Local has said fine, you know,
you draw your maps.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
And we'll draw right.

Speaker 3 (34:56):
Well, I would, you know, HOCl. You know, it was
kind of always on the fence a little that certain
think she was doing. But now she's like coming out gangbusters.
She's saying this is a war. You know.

Speaker 6 (35:11):
The latest thing which I just read this morning before
the show about a Trump wants to do away with
the illegal or undocumented aliens on the census role.

Speaker 4 (35:23):
I think now they're in the census.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
Oh yeah, that sounds about logical.

Speaker 6 (35:28):
And he wants to do away with that, which would
lower the representation of certain areas.

Speaker 2 (35:33):
He also said.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
Today that he wants to test women in the Olympics
coming in to make sure they're women. Well, you know
how from all the different countries, but you know how,
we want to test them, you know, Yeah, probably wants.

Speaker 5 (35:44):
To do it. It's all in the Epstein report that
we can't see.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
You never see.

Speaker 6 (35:49):
But an example I think of what Trump is doing
in a very small way is what's happening in El Salvador.
You know, but they just voted in a Salvador in
the Congress that there's no limitation on the presidency.

Speaker 4 (36:03):
Before I think there were two terms.

Speaker 5 (36:05):
Well, I mean yeah, I mean Trump uses the strong
man model or mater.

Speaker 6 (36:16):
It's unlimited presidency. And I think it's a majority of
the people. A majority of the people are in favor
of him. Why because he did get rid of most
of the gangs in the crime So they're living better.
It doesn't matter what type of government. There could be,
a dictatorship, they're living better.

Speaker 5 (36:34):
There's a lot of there's a lot of nuance there, Malcolm, and.

Speaker 6 (36:42):
Quite a while, I have relatives living there who are Salvadorians,
and most of them are saying.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
And they can speak for the population and that we could.

Speaker 6 (36:52):
Walk the streets and before it was really, uh, you know,
gang infested. You could not walk the streets and the
gangs were.

Speaker 5 (37:02):
There's there's a lot of discussion though there, Malcolm. And
if we got into the root cause for the reason
the gangs exist, we'd have to start talking about the
School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, right, and
the Civil War in which teachers, lawyers, doctors were slaughtered
by the right wing government in also a.

Speaker 4 (37:25):
Lot of the gang bangers, and that we were actually
raised in the United States.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
How do you know all of this?

Speaker 4 (37:34):
How do I know all that?

Speaker 3 (37:35):
I mean, I mean, who's giving you? What is the
source of all this? I don't think I want to
go into it right now.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
But there's a lot of that.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
As George said, is I know you have relatives who
live there, But I mean, there's a lot more to
it than I.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
Think they're saying.

Speaker 4 (37:50):
I have family there.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
I understand, I get that, but there's a lot more
to it.

Speaker 6 (37:58):
There's a lot of more protesting because he he doesn't
have you know, it's not a democracy, because when he's
arresting the gang bangers, they're just putting bangers.

Speaker 5 (38:09):
Come on, there's a there's a history there.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
There gang sounds like the Epstein crowd.

Speaker 5 (38:17):
All right, go ahead, There's there's an absolute history. And
it's a great example. And this again goes back to
Reagan and Reagan's intervention uh in El Salvador.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (38:29):
But it also goes back to American intervention foreign intervention
into Chile where we assassinated Aliende. I mean, we talk
about all of the migrants and refugees coming from south
of the border. But we have to be clear about
how the United States in many respects decimated their economies

(38:52):
and propped up dictators. Uh, and so we caused a
lot of the refugees and migration and abject poverty, entrenched
poverty in those places. And then you know, we want
to close our borders because we can't understand.

Speaker 6 (39:07):
Example again and Cambodia. I think it was in like
nineteen seventy where the US I wanted to bomb the
villages in Cambodia because the via Con were hiding out there,
and I think the king I forgot the name Leno.

(39:28):
They asked him and he said, no, no way. You know,
you cannot bomb it because you're the kill inocent people.
So with the CIA and the American government, they arranged
the overthrow of the government of the Lnou government. That's
when Paul pod came in in nineteen seventy and for
five years he decimated the Cambodian people.

Speaker 4 (39:49):
Well, because by the United States.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
Well, you know, history, Unfortunately a lot of people don't
look to history and they don't see what happened past
the year two thousand and I see that in talking
to people. I mean in areas like where I am,
in different parts of northern Westchester, in areas like Beverly

(40:13):
Hills and bel Air.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
This is a bubble. These are bubble communities. These are
people that are well to do, well off.

Speaker 3 (40:21):
Sure they're concerned, but they are living not anything like
the El Salvadorians or anything like Alligator Alcatraz. These people
that are in there, we are putting in concentration camps.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
In the United States. They want to build one called
speedway in Indiana now, and we're more so you know,
where is this all coming? And why?

Speaker 3 (40:45):
You know, there's so much on this list to talk about.
But the media is really dropping the ball. And one
of the things you wrote in the notes is why
does the media love Trump and the billionaires? Like people
are seeing that a lot to what They are totally
dropping the ball. You cannot trust mainstream media anymore. So

(41:06):
what do you even how do you respond?

Speaker 2 (41:08):
How do you say?

Speaker 5 (41:09):
You know?

Speaker 2 (41:09):
What are you say?

Speaker 6 (41:10):
The stirring arming the media? I mean, they're probably a
lot of things happening that we don't know about.

Speaker 5 (41:16):
There's there's that's part of it. I mean, he's he's
sued and and he sued, and a lot of the
media companies have capitulated to him, just like just like Paramount,
in order to get their merger done. They but but
there's a lot of money involved. And Trump is great entertainment.

(41:36):
He's a twenty four x seven reality show. The comedian
I think John Maloney described it best. It's like suddenly
you have a horse walking around in your your hospital,
right and it's like, you know, hey, everybody, look at
the horse.

Speaker 4 (41:52):
I'm a news addict. I listened to the news stations.

Speaker 6 (41:55):
There was a day when after about eight o'clock at
night or six o'clock at night, there were no new
news stories.

Speaker 4 (42:02):
You know, you could turn off the news.

Speaker 6 (42:04):
It was all local whatever local was, whether the shootings
or whatever, but there was nothing nationally. Now you can
put on the back in the morning when and he's
tweeting something that's going to affect in the United States
and taps because he's yelling at everyone.

Speaker 5 (42:21):
It's entertainment. It's the it's become an entertainment source instead
of instead of actually informing people, it's keeping people actively distracted.
As a matter of fact, in many respects, the GOP
really likes Trump because, first of all, he fires up
a base of people, and secondly, he keeps people distracted

(42:43):
from the economic the trench economic warfare that's really happening.
That's creating generations of economic despair. It's creating entrench poverty
and worse seeing poverty in the United States. And we're
I mean the worst has yet to come. Tariffs, tariffs
are just starting to kick in, and uh, the inflationary

(43:06):
prices are going to really for a lot of a
lot of folks that are living on the edge, that
are putting that are starting to charge groceries on credit cards,
people that are missing car payments. It's it's not going
to be.

Speaker 6 (43:21):
It has not kicked in yet because the tariffs have
been kicked in a lot of the stores the last
few months have supplied, you know, bought supplies before the
tariffs came in, so they were charging old prices now
at the sort of you know September.

Speaker 3 (43:37):
Yeah, no, I mean August. They all the shipments that
came in like before August first are in the stores.

Speaker 5 (43:45):
Right.

Speaker 3 (43:45):
But now you're going to see the port of Los
Angeles empty. I'm going to see the Port of New
Newark empty. You're going to see flood you're going to
see all these areas with empty and that's jobs.

Speaker 5 (43:56):
Yeah, those are jobs that that are going to happen.
And then the other thing that the other There is
a number of ticking time bombs in all of this,
but because at some point in the future people are
so distracted, as you were saying, Maxine about the now
and so, for example, the debt ceiling was raised by
five trillion dollars and at the same time tax cuts

(44:20):
were made permanent, the tax cuts of twenty seventeen, twenty
seventeen were made.

Speaker 6 (44:25):
I don't understand that one made permanent and so and
so that the Congress can lower them.

Speaker 5 (44:33):
So what that means is adding between four and five
trillion dollars to debt, the national debt, and the interest
on that debt service is going to start impacting a
lot of government services and cause a lot of havoc
in terms of programs that are incredibly important and so, Malcolm,

(44:55):
I think that that a future Congress can address them.
But I think that typically a tax provision has some
sort of sunsetting ordinarily, and I think they voted to
make it permanent, so it doesn't sunset, it will actually
have to I think be adjusted by a future Congress,
if there is a future Congress.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
I'm kind of worried about that at this point. I mean,
now they want to send the FBI after the people
the Dens in Texas who fled to Illinois New York.
I mean, they want to send and have them arrested
out of the state federally.

Speaker 4 (45:35):
Have to make it, have to make it a federal offense.

Speaker 5 (45:38):
You know, they're welcome here. They're welcome here in Tavera.
I'd love to you know, I mean, they're welcome. I
appreciate their courage and everything they're doing, and I have snacks.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
Yeah, they should, they should.

Speaker 3 (45:49):
They should just get out of the country, man, except
they'll probably find them if they try to get on
an airplane.

Speaker 5 (45:54):
Well, you know what's said is I think right now
they really are out of the country. I think everybody
in the United States is out of the country except
for you know, the red hat wears right.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
I mean, this is true.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
But but you know, those of us in states where
we feel a little more protected and a little more
you know, I don't even know if you can't even
use the word safe anymore in a dream, you know,
But but it's you don't feel comfortable. You know, there's
no comfort on any level, and people are stressed. I'd

(46:30):
like eighty million people assume from mental stress.

Speaker 6 (46:34):
Yeah, you heard the thing that happened in Los Angeles
today about about I think today yesterday where Ice rented at.

Speaker 5 (46:43):
A van, a Penski van went to van and they had.

Speaker 6 (46:48):
Their ice workers there and they went into uh I
forget where one of the parking lots, and the Ice
people came out.

Speaker 4 (46:55):
We're arresting people.

Speaker 6 (46:58):
Yeah, and they don't know. I mean, they don't know
who they are. They said, you know, we just speak Spanish,
speaking another language.

Speaker 5 (47:04):
You know. Well, the fact that the fact that Christy
Noan was given one hundred and seventy billion dollars, it's
unprecedented that much money to build for private prison contracts,
to build new concentration camps and for her little UH
and and I guess that they're giving bonuses now, signing bonuses.

Speaker 6 (47:26):
Fifty dollars and they yeah, they hundred thousand dollars a year.

Speaker 4 (47:32):
I heard.

Speaker 5 (47:33):
I don't think it's that much, but I mean, I
guess they get to wear their little SS uniforms or
whatever they get to.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
The new thing today was that.

Speaker 4 (47:41):
I wonder if I'm too old for that.

Speaker 5 (47:43):
No.

Speaker 3 (47:43):
Well, they said that there's going to be no caps
on age, because originally it was a cap you had
to be you couldn't be over thirty seven or forty.
But now they're getting rid of that cap. And now
they said that they can hire teenagers.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
Oh teens.

Speaker 6 (47:59):
Can they hire a senior with it walking around with
a cane? Probably I have for one hundred thousand dollars,
I might apply.

Speaker 2 (48:06):
Go ahead, see what happens. We can use you as
a do it. Do it apply to ice and see
what happens. Callow it on the show. Every day we.

Speaker 5 (48:17):
Can give a little helmet camera.

Speaker 6 (48:20):
Instead of arresting the people, I'll just go and put
them in a safe place. I said, okay, we're coming
over hide.

Speaker 5 (48:28):
We'll call it Malcolm.

Speaker 3 (48:29):
I wonder it'll be the malcam And uh yeah, it's
like there's no cap, which means you could be.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
One hundred you know, I mean, what does it need anymore?

Speaker 3 (48:39):
And if and now they say there's no cap, and
if they don't do it, they're discriminating against age.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
Let's sue Christina.

Speaker 4 (48:48):
Then I'll say, why are you discriminating on the president.
He's seventy eight, you know, seventy's.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
He's in his eightieth year now, well you know, and.

Speaker 5 (48:58):
It's pretty pretty remark well that's also his IQ.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
So yeah, I don't even know. I mean standing on
top of a building going, oh, we're gonna put nuclear.

Speaker 4 (49:11):
This, this is mine.

Speaker 2 (49:13):
No, he was looking. He was looking at where the
new two hundred million dollars gold gold plated a room
to hold all sorts of affairs in.

Speaker 4 (49:25):
He's getting adjoining territory to build a golf course, and
he wants.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
To take over.

Speaker 3 (49:31):
He wants to take over the Olympics. So welcome to
nineteen thirty six Zigyle and and and he wants to
stop you know, women from coming in and you know,
because he's gonna tell he's I mean, I can't, I
just can't.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
They should get rid of the Olympics and fifas it's
just allowed in.

Speaker 5 (49:48):
The good news to all of this is I think
that they are getting nervous, and that's important. And I
think the whole reason behind going to you know, Governor
he and Garbage Abbett is because they're very, very worried
about because even if even if the Senate, even if

(50:10):
the Senate remains in Republican control, and I really hope
it isn't. But if it remains in our control, Uh,
if the House changes, investigations will start right up. And
there are so many different prosecutable, criminal, unconstitutional.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Acca and Nuremberg trials would.

Speaker 5 (50:28):
Be you know, basically, yeah, it should be.

Speaker 3 (50:31):
I mean, I'm feeling that that at some point is
going to happen. Although unless they meaning the you know, Newsolman,
Hokel and Twitzker, we re district there.

Speaker 5 (50:47):
I think we have to hope, we have to hope
that there's a future in which they will account for
the suffering that they've caused, for the death that they've caused,
and for the rating of the United States Treasury, because
I think that's the only way that we can preserve
any shred of sanity left is hoping that there is
a future that includes that, because I mean, if they

(51:10):
just basically walk as he has for everything that he's done,
whether it's you know, with Jeff Epstein and attacking you know,
twelve thirteen year old girls or all of the all
of it, taking bribes from Qatar, all of the things
that he's done.

Speaker 4 (51:27):
Yeah, talk from that, what can happen when he pardoners.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
As well. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
I don't because we're kind of at the end of
the show, so we're kind of ending on hope here,
and I mean, we have to just keep keep fighting
and hope that our representatives in the certain states that
we you know, are in me, Malcolm and I and
others in the in the in the Chicago, Illinois.

Speaker 5 (51:59):
It's like, as I close the article, the republic is
not gone yet, but it's rapidly dying under the weight
of cowardice, complicity, greed, and corruption. And if we are
to keep the republic, as Franklin dared us too, we
must earn it every single day with actions that unite us,
reject authoritarianism, and demand justice, equality and democracy for all.

Speaker 4 (52:20):
Great Amen.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
That's a perfect I love this article.

Speaker 3 (52:23):
It was really well well done. So people please go
to substack George Polisner and read it. I have to
send it to you, Malcolm, and George, could you send
them to me directly?

Speaker 5 (52:34):
Yeah? I can do.

Speaker 3 (52:37):
I will do that because then I have to forward stuff,
you know, and it's hard for me to press the
button anyway.

Speaker 5 (52:44):
Well, you know, just subscribe, Malcolm, because then you'll get it.
And they're free. I don't charge.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
Subscribe on substance.

Speaker 5 (52:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:51):
Anyway, So where can people get information on how to
be better civic minded people?

Speaker 5 (52:58):
So the article the link to the articles is on
civ dot works c I V dot orkx w r
r k S and the articles are at bomb da
b O M d I A dot sub sac.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
Dot com bomb da Okay, which is a.

Speaker 5 (53:15):
Good day in Portuguese?

Speaker 2 (53:18):
Portuguese? I have you learned Portuguese? Well, then some things,
I guess. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
All I know is I want to find a place
next to you, like in the fall, and just stay
there for the rest of the year. I don't know
what else to say, but all right, so we're gonna
we're gonna close out and and and please everyone listen,
and and George will be back next month, and I
will have I will have a married son by then,

(53:44):
and and and and a beautiful new daughter in law.
So I'm trying to find some joy. You know, we
started with some joy. I want my joy back. I'm
gonna have some joy this month, you know, like, what
was it this? What is the name of the group
the goats or something? You know, I'm gonna get through
this year. If it kills me, is that? That's the

(54:04):
title Colbert, you know, sing sang that with them when
they did it on his show.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
He's he's awesome.

Speaker 5 (54:11):
You gotta get your joy before it's tariffed.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
I'm gonna get joy before it's tariffed.

Speaker 4 (54:15):
And uh.

Speaker 3 (54:16):
And of course they're deliberately waiting to twenty twenty six
for everything else to kick in, you know, because who's
ever behind this stuff is the evil mind is incredible.
So anyway, on that note, get some joy anyway, Go
go have a beer somewhere or jive beer, whatever's.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
Gonna make you happy.

Speaker 3 (54:34):
There's gonna be a lot of shooting stars out next week,
so look off anyway. Thanks for joining us for the
Many Shades of Green. For more info and shows, go
to Hudson River Radio dot com, Malcolm Presents dot com
and the Many Shades of Green dot com. Uh send
it to your thoughts at Team Shades of Green on
Instagram and Facebook, and subscribe to our podcast on all

(54:56):
major apps. A shout out to Neil back there you Neil,
Brian and Malcolm for their help. Remember to Picochette of
Green and raise your eco and social and civic consciousness,
Get out there and make some noise. I'm Maxie Margot
Rubin and we'll see you again next time.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
This is Hudson River Radio dot com.