Off The Hook - 2008-11-05

[00:00.700 --> 00:06.240]  [SPEAKER_00]: Work together and live in peace, you know?
[00:06.540 --> 00:08.300]  [SPEAKER_00]: That's what we need, you know?
[00:08.380 --> 00:09.360]  [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody to work together.
[00:09.360 --> 00:11.200]  [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't matter the race, the color.
[00:12.200 --> 00:16.900]  [SPEAKER_00]: I think all this war and stuff, it's really ridiculous, you know?
[00:17.840 --> 00:19.740]  [SPEAKER_00]: People dying for no reason, you know?
[00:20.240 --> 00:23.440]  [SPEAKER_00]: I got family in Baghdad.
[00:23.600 --> 00:25.020]  [SPEAKER_00]: I got family in Kirkuk.
[00:26.060 --> 00:29.300]  [SPEAKER_20]: No, I'm really proud to be part of history today.
[00:29.640 --> 00:32.640]  [SPEAKER_20]: I can die today, I'll be the happiest person on earth.
[00:35.560 --> 00:38.840]  [SPEAKER_23]: And you're listening to radio station WBAI New York.
[00:38.960 --> 00:40.580]  [SPEAKER_23]: That was an abrupt ending to the news.
[00:41.560 --> 00:44.680]  [SPEAKER_23]: And it's time now for Off The Hook.
[00:59.080 --> 01:00.100]  [SPEAKER_16]: It's time now for me to make a call.
[01:00.580 --> 01:02.940]  [SPEAKER_16]: We couldn't get much worse.
[01:05.740 --> 01:08.360]  [SPEAKER_16]: The Biddley Bump, but the best is back the worst.
[01:09.200 --> 01:10.900]  [SPEAKER_16]: I hope that's understood.
[01:11.220 --> 01:11.960]  [SPEAKER_16]: The Biddley Bump!
[01:47.620 --> 01:49.780]  [SPEAKER_15]: This is your celebration.
[01:59.940 --> 02:01.600]  [SPEAKER_09]: Celebrate good times.
[02:01.760 --> 02:02.340]  [SPEAKER_09]: Come on!
[02:03.040 --> 02:04.160]  [SPEAKER_09]: Let's celebrate.
[02:05.160 --> 02:08.480]  [SPEAKER_09]: There's a party going on right here.
[02:08.480 --> 02:12.500]  [SPEAKER_09]: A celebration to last throughout the years.
[02:12.780 --> 02:16.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: So bring your good times and your laughter too.
[02:17.440 --> 02:20.920]  [SPEAKER_09]: We gon' celebrate your party with you.
[02:21.200 --> 02:21.840]  [SPEAKER_09]: Come on now.
[02:23.740 --> 02:24.660]  [SPEAKER_09]: Celebration.
[02:25.460 --> 02:28.960]  [SPEAKER_09]: Let's all celebrate and have a good time.
[02:31.620 --> 02:32.540]  [SPEAKER_09]: Celebration.
[02:33.580 --> 02:37.020]  [SPEAKER_09]: We gon' celebrate and have a good time.
[02:37.900 --> 02:38.940]  [SPEAKER_23]: And a very good time for everybody.
[02:39.000 --> 02:40.060]  [SPEAKER_23]: The program is Off The Hook.
[02:40.240 --> 02:46.360]  [SPEAKER_23]: Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this celebratory Wednesday here in New York City.
[02:46.500 --> 02:55.720]  [SPEAKER_23]: And wow, we have a lot of stories to tell as to what's been going on here in the wake of probably the most historic election that I think we've ever seen.
[02:56.020 --> 02:56.540]  [SPEAKER_23]: Let's introduce...
[02:56.540 --> 02:57.500]  [SPEAKER_23]: We have a studio.
[02:57.700 --> 02:58.960]  [SPEAKER_23]: Wow, we have so many people here.
[02:59.060 --> 03:00.780]  [SPEAKER_23]: It's like one of the pre- or post-Hope shows.
[03:01.100 --> 03:06.740]  [SPEAKER_23]: But it's unbelievable how so many folks have just kind of popped in out of nowhere, it seems.
[03:07.360 --> 03:09.480]  [SPEAKER_23]: Let's introduce some regulars.
[03:09.700 --> 03:10.280]  [SPEAKER_23]: We've got...
[03:10.280 --> 03:10.820]  [SPEAKER_23]: Let's see.
[03:10.940 --> 03:12.120]  [SPEAKER_23]: Oh, there's so many irregulars here.
[03:12.200 --> 03:12.680]  [SPEAKER_23]: Where do I start?
[03:12.760 --> 03:13.520]  [SPEAKER_23]: There's Mike over there.
[03:13.820 --> 03:14.180]  [SPEAKER_23]: Hi.
[03:14.720 --> 03:17.500]  [SPEAKER_23]: And there's RedHacked just came running in.
[03:17.680 --> 03:18.540]  [SPEAKER_23]: Here, this is for you, by the way.
[03:18.700 --> 03:19.060]  [SPEAKER_23]: Take that.
[03:19.560 --> 03:23.060]  [SPEAKER_23]: And we have Rob T. Firefly.
[03:23.440 --> 03:23.920]  [SPEAKER_23]: Good evening.
[03:24.300 --> 03:26.160]  [SPEAKER_23]: And there's Notkevin over on the other side.
[03:26.300 --> 03:26.560]  [SPEAKER_23]: Hello.
[03:26.820 --> 03:27.600]  [SPEAKER_23]: There's dot.ret.
[03:28.140 --> 03:28.540]  [SPEAKER_23]: Hello.
[03:38.140 --> 03:38.760]  [SPEAKER_23]: I don't know.
[03:38.820 --> 03:39.380]  [SPEAKER_08]: The light's on.
[03:39.620 --> 03:41.520]  [SPEAKER_23]: Okay, well, why don't you try reaching him again.
[03:41.600 --> 03:43.560]  [SPEAKER_23]: This is why I asked you to check beforehand.
[03:43.720 --> 03:47.600]  [SPEAKER_23]: People can never get a phone call connected properly in this place.
[03:47.780 --> 03:50.080]  [SPEAKER_23]: That looks like Mark Hosler from Negativland.
[03:50.260 --> 03:51.240]  [SPEAKER_23]: Is that actually you?
[03:51.460 --> 03:52.540]  [SPEAKER_23]: That actually is me.
[03:52.660 --> 03:52.920]  [SPEAKER_23]: Wow.
[03:53.020 --> 03:53.460]  [SPEAKER_23]: That's Hosler.
[03:53.660 --> 03:54.220]  [SPEAKER_23]: Like, ha, ha.
[03:54.300 --> 03:56.000]  [SPEAKER_23]: Like you're laughing at me.
[03:56.000 --> 03:56.980]  [SPEAKER_23]: I've been wrong all these years.
[03:57.100 --> 03:57.160]  [SPEAKER_23]: That's right.
[03:57.260 --> 03:58.700]  [SPEAKER_23]: The thing about it like you're laughing at me.
[03:58.840 --> 04:00.000]  [SPEAKER_04]: Ha, ha, Hosler.
[04:00.040 --> 04:01.380]  [SPEAKER_23]: Mark Hosler.
[04:01.460 --> 04:01.980]  [SPEAKER_23]: Yes, that's right.
[04:02.120 --> 04:02.520]  [SPEAKER_23]: Got it.
[04:02.740 --> 04:05.340]  [SPEAKER_23]: And this looks like Lynn over here from Georgia.
[04:06.160 --> 04:06.440]  [SPEAKER_05]: Hello.
[04:07.540 --> 04:08.440]  [SPEAKER_23]: And there's Junts.
[04:08.580 --> 04:09.500]  [SPEAKER_23]: Look, there's Junts over there.
[04:09.620 --> 04:09.800]  [SPEAKER_23]: Hi.
[04:09.880 --> 04:10.500]  [SPEAKER_23]: How you doing?
[04:11.100 --> 04:11.820]  [SPEAKER_23]: Everyone's here.
[04:12.060 --> 04:13.200]  [SPEAKER_23]: Did I leave anybody out?
[04:13.780 --> 04:15.080]  [SPEAKER_23]: There's Danielle from Italy.
[04:15.240 --> 04:16.220]  [SPEAKER_23]: He's here as well.
[04:16.760 --> 04:17.800]  [SPEAKER_23]: Do we have Bernie on the phone?
[04:18.140 --> 04:18.380]  [SPEAKER_23]: We do.
[04:18.580 --> 04:19.460]  [SPEAKER_23]: Bernie, are you with us?
[04:19.900 --> 04:20.200]  [SPEAKER_23]: Greetings.
[04:20.460 --> 04:21.940]  [SPEAKER_23]: And where are you talking to us from?
[04:22.460 --> 04:25.920]  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I was in New York last night, but I decided to stay up here instead of going back to Philadelphia.
[04:25.920 --> 04:26.800]  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wait.
[04:26.860 --> 04:27.720]  [SPEAKER_23]: You stayed in New York?
[04:28.560 --> 04:28.880]  [SPEAKER_23]: You stayed...
[04:28.880 --> 04:29.880]  [SPEAKER_08]: There's this noise.
[04:30.520 --> 04:30.800]  [SPEAKER_23]: Oh, wait.
[04:30.820 --> 04:31.460]  [SPEAKER_23]: Are you at the door?
[04:31.580 --> 04:32.240]  [SPEAKER_23]: Come inside.
[04:32.240 --> 04:32.960]  [SPEAKER_23]: My goodness.
[04:33.520 --> 04:35.640]  [SPEAKER_23]: Why are you on the phone if you're actually here in the studio?
[04:36.060 --> 04:38.360]  [SPEAKER_23]: Let's listen to what Bernie has actually sounds like.
[04:38.600 --> 04:39.100]  [SPEAKER_23]: Talk to him.
[04:39.340 --> 04:39.640]  [SPEAKER_23]: Talk to him.
[04:39.960 --> 04:40.600]  [SPEAKER_23]: There you are.
[04:40.760 --> 04:41.000]  [SPEAKER_23]: Okay.
[04:41.540 --> 04:42.700]  [SPEAKER_23]: No, you don't have to be on the phone.
[04:42.900 --> 04:43.540]  [SPEAKER_23]: You're here in the...
[04:43.540 --> 04:44.720]  [SPEAKER_23]: This is a special program.
[04:45.140 --> 04:46.340]  [SPEAKER_23]: Everybody's coming out of the woodwork.
[04:48.340 --> 04:50.260]  [SPEAKER_23]: So, we just need to find headphones for Bernie.
[04:51.160 --> 04:52.440]  [SPEAKER_23]: Bernie, let's hear your voice.
[04:54.320 --> 04:55.860]  [SPEAKER_23]: Bernie's giving us a silent vow here.
[04:56.000 --> 04:56.800]  [SPEAKER_23]: He's not giving us...
[04:56.800 --> 04:57.500]  [SPEAKER_23]: He's not speaking to us.
[04:57.620 --> 04:58.020]  [SPEAKER_23]: There you are.
[04:58.060 --> 04:58.200]  [SPEAKER_23]: Okay.
[04:58.200 --> 04:59.380]  [SPEAKER_02]: I can't hear myself because I don't have...
[04:59.380 --> 04:59.940]  [SPEAKER_02]: But you can hear me.
[05:00.040 --> 05:01.160]  [SPEAKER_23]: I'm three feet away from you.
[05:02.180 --> 05:02.640]  [SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[05:02.780 --> 05:03.140]  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[05:03.300 --> 05:04.120]  [SPEAKER_02]: You might have my pocket.
[05:04.480 --> 05:04.800]  [SPEAKER_02]: No, no.
[05:04.920 --> 05:05.620]  [SPEAKER_23]: All right, folks.
[05:05.720 --> 05:07.060]  [SPEAKER_23]: You can bicker about the headphones later.
[05:07.200 --> 05:07.540]  [SPEAKER_23]: That's right.
[05:07.540 --> 05:13.580]  [SPEAKER_23]: This is a happy occasion as Barack Obama has been elected to be president of the United States.
[05:13.840 --> 05:17.740]  [SPEAKER_23]: And a bunch of us actually were in the East Village last night.
[05:18.320 --> 05:22.120]  [SPEAKER_23]: And, boy, who wants to start as to what was going on here?
[05:23.760 --> 05:25.580]  [SPEAKER_23]: Redhack, you're all the way on the other side of the room.
[05:25.680 --> 05:27.600]  [SPEAKER_23]: You've got to grab a microphone and...
[05:27.600 --> 05:28.900]  [SPEAKER_06]: It was madness.
[05:29.020 --> 05:29.540]  [SPEAKER_06]: It was madness.
[05:29.600 --> 05:32.880]  [SPEAKER_06]: I've never seen anything like that except maybe around New Year's.
[05:33.060 --> 05:33.320]  [SPEAKER_23]: Uh-huh.
[05:33.920 --> 05:41.400]  [SPEAKER_06]: And I heard and saw videos anyway that also Times Square was packed completely and I don't know if that was organized or not but at least in the village it was definitely not organized.
[05:41.520 --> 05:49.700]  [SPEAKER_23]: Well, what happened in the village was basically we were walking down St. Mark's and what happened was I think it was fairly spontaneous.
[05:49.900 --> 05:52.220]  [SPEAKER_23]: I was kind of expecting something fairly spontaneous to happen.
[05:52.660 --> 05:54.720]  [SPEAKER_23]: We just kind of heard all this shouting.
[05:54.860 --> 05:59.140]  [SPEAKER_23]: We heard fireworks, people high-fiving each other, total strangers walking by in the street.
[05:59.440 --> 06:06.360]  [SPEAKER_23]: And then as we walked down towards First Avenue, there was this massive crowd of people that kind of took over the entire street.
[06:06.420 --> 06:08.480]  [SPEAKER_23]: In fact, it closed off First Avenue for a while.
[06:08.580 --> 06:12.960]  [SPEAKER_23]: And what struck me was that the police were completely letting it happen.
[06:13.120 --> 06:17.620]  [SPEAKER_23]: They were not interfering in any way and I just thought that was cool.
[06:17.620 --> 06:26.840]  [SPEAKER_23]: It was actually peaceful and it's sort of very European-ish what happens at New Year's where people kind of just take over a city and the cops are just somewhere.
[06:26.840 --> 06:29.800]  [SPEAKER_23]: You don't see them and everyone just sort of takes care of each other.
[06:30.200 --> 06:31.720]  [SPEAKER_23]: That didn't last unfortunately.
[06:31.920 --> 06:32.900]  [SPEAKER_23]: It lasted for a few hours.
[06:32.940 --> 06:34.820]  [SPEAKER_23]: It lasted for a few hours but after that...
[06:34.820 --> 06:36.400]  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm impressed it lasted that long.
[06:36.440 --> 06:37.740]  [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I was kind of surprised.
[06:38.100 --> 06:46.380]  [SPEAKER_06]: Well, I mean they did try to break it apart several times but what happened was you'd have a crowd of policemen push everyone to the side and then they would just fill in behind them.
[06:46.480 --> 06:58.240]  [SPEAKER_23]: Well, you're getting a bit ahead because what happened initially was that one cop car would show up, two cops would get out and tell this crowd of several hundred people could you maybe just move aside so let the cars go through.
[06:58.240 --> 06:59.660]  [SPEAKER_23]: but the cars weren't even complaining.
[07:00.260 --> 07:04.320]  [SPEAKER_23]: We had people dancing in First Avenue but somebody actually got on top of...
[07:04.320 --> 07:05.260]  [SPEAKER_06]: I saw somebody on a bus.
[07:05.340 --> 07:06.460]  [SPEAKER_23]: They got on top of a bus.
[07:06.880 --> 07:07.580]  [SPEAKER_04]: And a taxi cab.
[07:07.740 --> 07:08.080]  [SPEAKER_04]: There was somebody on top of a taxi cab.
[07:08.080 --> 07:09.820]  [SPEAKER_04]: And the bus drove off while they were on the bus.
[07:09.820 --> 07:10.800]  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, they were still on it.
[07:10.900 --> 07:11.760]  [SPEAKER_04]: They were just like a parade.
[07:11.760 --> 07:13.240]  [SPEAKER_23]: You have a video of this.
[07:13.380 --> 07:13.820]  [SPEAKER_23]: I don't.
[07:14.080 --> 07:14.920]  [SPEAKER_23]: Someone has a video.
[07:15.300 --> 07:15.900]  [SPEAKER_23]: Who has a video?
[07:16.000 --> 07:18.160]  [SPEAKER_23]: You can watch it over your radio right now.
[07:18.320 --> 07:19.540]  [SPEAKER_02]: I took a video of this last night.
[07:19.640 --> 07:22.460]  [SPEAKER_02]: There was a guy who somehow got himself on top of an MTA bus.
[07:22.620 --> 07:24.640]  [SPEAKER_23]: We didn't see him actually get off the bus, didn't he?
[07:24.700 --> 07:28.140]  [SPEAKER_02]: No, he was on top of the bus while the bus was stopped amidst the large crowd.
[07:28.440 --> 07:31.380]  [SPEAKER_02]: And then finally the crowd opened like the Red Sea.
[07:31.620 --> 07:37.140]  [SPEAKER_02]: And the bus sped off with a guy on the roof just walking around while the bus was going about 30 miles an hour.
[07:37.140 --> 07:38.460]  [SPEAKER_06]: I don't think the bus driver had any call.
[07:38.460 --> 07:40.200]  [SPEAKER_02]: No, the bus driver did not know the guy was on the roof.
[07:40.420 --> 07:41.340]  [SPEAKER_02]: So we don't know what happened.
[07:41.480 --> 07:41.820]  [SPEAKER_02]: Wait, wait, wait.
[07:41.920 --> 07:42.200]  [SPEAKER_08]: I'm sorry.
[07:42.260 --> 07:44.900]  [SPEAKER_08]: Did you just say a bus in New York City went at 30 miles an hour?
[07:45.220 --> 07:47.760]  [SPEAKER_08]: That is much bigger news than anything I've heard tonight.
[07:47.800 --> 07:48.180]  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, maybe 20.
[07:48.200 --> 07:52.280]  [SPEAKER_02]: It was going at a much faster speed than I would want to be if I were on top of a bus.
[07:53.060 --> 07:55.520]  [SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, well, hopefully he got down from the bus at some point.
[07:55.620 --> 07:58.020]  [SPEAKER_23]: But the thing is, you know, that sounds horrible.
[07:58.020 --> 07:59.440]  [SPEAKER_23]: That sounds like anarchy.
[07:59.580 --> 08:00.400]  [SPEAKER_23]: But it was so cool.
[08:00.500 --> 08:01.000]  [SPEAKER_23]: It was amazing.
[08:01.120 --> 08:05.200]  [SPEAKER_23]: Everyone was just sort of just running around and having a great time.
[08:05.320 --> 08:06.280]  [SPEAKER_23]: And here's the weird thing.
[08:06.420 --> 08:10.100]  [SPEAKER_23]: There was so much flag waving, people singing the national anthem.
[08:10.520 --> 08:11.220]  [SPEAKER_23]: And it was...
[08:11.220 --> 08:12.140]  [SPEAKER_23]: I'm not used to that.
[08:12.200 --> 08:13.700]  [SPEAKER_23]: I'm not used to being in crowds like that.
[08:13.900 --> 08:15.760]  [SPEAKER_23]: But it was just this unbridled joy.
[08:16.420 --> 08:19.040]  [SPEAKER_23]: And people were just well behaved.
[08:19.200 --> 08:23.440]  [SPEAKER_23]: There was no problem at all until until the police decided that this could not go on.
[08:23.540 --> 08:28.500]  [SPEAKER_23]: They had to open up that vital block between First Avenue and Avenue A on 8th Street.
[08:28.740 --> 08:29.580]  [SPEAKER_23]: That absolutely had to...
[08:29.580 --> 08:34.680]  [SPEAKER_23]: Even though nobody really wanted to go down there in a car, they felt that they had to clear everybody.
[08:34.880 --> 08:36.900]  [SPEAKER_23]: And they came with the orange netting.
[08:36.960 --> 08:39.120]  [SPEAKER_23]: And that just put the fear of the Lord into me.
[08:39.800 --> 08:42.200]  [SPEAKER_23]: And then they just started really pushing people.
[08:42.280 --> 08:44.300]  [SPEAKER_23]: In fact, they were pushing people while they were on the sidewalk.
[08:44.580 --> 08:46.040]  [SPEAKER_23]: And I was one of the people being pushed.
[08:46.160 --> 08:47.880]  [SPEAKER_23]: And it just really was not pleasant at all.
[08:48.480 --> 08:50.940]  [SPEAKER_23]: And none of us could figure out why they were doing this.
[08:51.220 --> 08:53.820]  [SPEAKER_23]: It was just such a mood killer.
[08:54.040 --> 08:54.720]  [SPEAKER_02]: I heard the lieutenant...
[08:54.720 --> 08:56.120]  [SPEAKER_02]: They need billable hours.
[08:56.300 --> 08:56.800]  [SPEAKER_02]: You know.
[08:56.980 --> 09:03.580]  [SPEAKER_02]: I heard the lieutenant who was directing about a dozen officers give his rationale why they had to net these people.
[09:03.720 --> 09:04.220]  [SPEAKER_02]: What was the rationale?
[09:04.380 --> 09:07.760]  [SPEAKER_02]: There's people down there, there's a bunch of people in there drinking and smoking marijuana.
[09:07.980 --> 09:09.220]  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, there were a lot of people drinking.
[09:09.260 --> 09:10.880]  [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't see or smell anybody smoking marijuana.
[09:10.880 --> 09:13.160]  [SPEAKER_02]: But, I mean, there was no...
[09:13.800 --> 09:14.900]  [SPEAKER_02]: Nobody was getting hurt.
[09:15.020 --> 09:16.200]  [SPEAKER_02]: Nobody was complaining about anything.
[09:16.520 --> 09:18.140]  [SPEAKER_02]: No cars were even trying to go down that street.
[09:18.240 --> 09:22.540]  [SPEAKER_02]: There was no reason to wrap these people in net or tell them to go away.
[09:22.660 --> 09:25.900]  [SPEAKER_02]: It was like the great national sigh of relief.
[09:26.080 --> 09:31.380]  [SPEAKER_02]: These people were just letting out like eight years of stress over this past administration or regime.
[09:31.660 --> 09:33.760]  [SPEAKER_02]: And it was just like we commented.
[09:33.940 --> 09:38.820]  [SPEAKER_02]: It was just like you see on TV about third world countries when there's a regime change.
[09:38.820 --> 09:45.360]  [SPEAKER_02]: like there's a coup d'etat and everybody's just driving on cars and waving out of their cars on tops of, you know, vehicles.
[09:45.620 --> 09:46.420]  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's just...
[09:46.420 --> 09:47.720]  [SPEAKER_02]: It felt like that.
[09:48.620 --> 09:50.900]  [SPEAKER_23]: It was an amazing sigh of relief.
[09:51.040 --> 10:09.520]  [SPEAKER_23]: It reminded me, actually, after RNC, after all the crap that happened during RNC 2004 when people just sort of gravitated towards Union Square Park and basically there was this amazing sigh of relief then because we found out that Bush had left town and all of a sudden the police pulled back and people just kind of relaxed.
[10:09.740 --> 10:10.960]  [SPEAKER_23]: But this was much better.
[10:11.120 --> 10:15.380]  [SPEAKER_23]: This was such a joyous occasion for so many people.
[10:15.540 --> 10:25.760]  [SPEAKER_23]: Not so much because I don't really think people expect miracles to happen next year but just the feeling of empowerment that, wow, we did this.
[10:25.820 --> 10:26.720]  [SPEAKER_23]: We actually made a change.
[10:26.820 --> 10:29.560]  [SPEAKER_23]: We actually taught them a lesson and kicked them out.
[10:29.720 --> 10:32.020]  [SPEAKER_23]: You know, and that's a cool thing to feel that.
[10:32.020 --> 10:35.540]  [SPEAKER_23]: It felt more like the grown-ups might be in charge again.
[10:35.900 --> 10:36.300]  [SPEAKER_23]: Maybe.
[10:36.360 --> 10:39.740]  [SPEAKER_23]: Or people at least who can string a sentence together and know something about the rest of the world.
[10:39.920 --> 10:41.440]  [SPEAKER_23]: And this happened all throughout the world.
[10:41.460 --> 10:47.380]  [SPEAKER_23]: In fact, we'd like to hear from our listeners tonight to tell us what happened in their particular part of the world if there was something similar.
[10:48.000 --> 10:55.300]  [SPEAKER_23]: And, you know, maybe there was some angry celebrations or anti-celebrations of McCain supporters.
[10:55.380 --> 10:55.720]  [SPEAKER_23]: Who knows?
[10:55.880 --> 10:59.740]  [SPEAKER_06]: I thought what really struck me also was yesterday it was a little crazy.
[10:59.740 --> 11:04.560]  [SPEAKER_06]: I'm jumping I'm screaming I'm happy and I'd like totally just ran right into somebody.
[11:04.740 --> 11:09.940]  [SPEAKER_06]: And I think any other day in New York if you were just you know kind of bump into somebody they wouldn't take it very kindly.
[11:10.600 --> 11:13.200]  [SPEAKER_06]: But this person just grabbed me and gave me a big hug.
[11:13.320 --> 11:14.080]  [SPEAKER_06]: That was their reaction.
[11:14.280 --> 11:14.420]  [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[11:14.500 --> 11:15.940]  [SPEAKER_06]: So I was really struck by that.
[11:16.060 --> 11:17.760]  [SPEAKER_23]: You know something else amazing that happened today.
[11:18.040 --> 11:25.260]  [SPEAKER_23]: Bernie and I were walking down St. Mark's and we went to this hot dog place that we like and they're giving away free hot dogs.
[11:25.380 --> 11:28.120]  [SPEAKER_23]: If you voted for Obama they say you get two hot dogs and a soda.
[11:29.100 --> 11:31.920]  [SPEAKER_02]: And I had an Obama volunteer button on so I guess I qualified.
[11:32.100 --> 11:34.480]  [SPEAKER_23]: But we sort of we sort of messed it up because we confused them.
[11:34.800 --> 11:38.660]  [SPEAKER_23]: I don't know I still don't know what we did wrong but we only wanted one hot dog each.
[11:39.060 --> 11:42.900]  [SPEAKER_23]: So we asked for that but for some reason that meant we couldn't get two sodas.
[11:43.060 --> 11:55.020]  [SPEAKER_23]: And we just got into this whole big discussion back and forth and we went look if we're dividing it in half and they're giving it to us for free so we didn't feel right you know bickering about it but it seemed pretty logical that if we could get So we had enough having to pay for one soda.
[11:55.040 --> 12:00.600]  [SPEAKER_23]: Yeah if we could get two hot dogs and a soda each then if we just got one hot dog each we should be able to get two but whatever.
[12:00.800 --> 12:06.060]  [SPEAKER_23]: You're trying not to be greedy and we're spending money Yeah you know I would have but it was just a good feeling a good feeling overall.
[12:06.300 --> 12:27.180]  [SPEAKER_02]: But last night after maybe an hour or two's celebration as Obama was giving his acceptance speech we found we ducked into some underground bar We got dragged into some bar I never even knew It was like an art space almost Yeah we got dragged into a bar and there was this auditorium and all these people were sitting there cheering watching the speech it was like we were in the underworld Yeah all
[12:27.180 --> 12:48.000]  [SPEAKER_02]: of a sudden this place just materialized Yeah It was cool It was cool And the people were really well behaved in this big underground facility watching on the screen this acceptance speech and it was just people were just so thrilled to be watching something and they weren't out of hand People are well behaved generally you know if you give them the opportunity to behave on their own they
[12:48.000 --> 12:56.240]  [SPEAKER_23]: generally will do so if you treat them like they're not going to then yeah you'll get all kinds So did any of you guys all get emotional?
[12:56.620 --> 13:04.880]  [SPEAKER_04]: I was quite surprised that... I mean, I have real problems with Obama's vote for FISA and where he is in Iraq and Afghanistan and Israel and all that.
[13:05.540 --> 13:20.840]  [SPEAKER_04]: But I still, having... I remember when I was a little kid when Martin Luther King was killed and been aware of the civil rights movement and all the racial issues and problems we still have in this country, that I started...
[13:21.180 --> 13:23.480]  [SPEAKER_04]: you know, weeping during the acceptance speech.
[13:23.480 --> 13:25.640]  [SPEAKER_04]: And every friend of mine I've talked to around the U.S.
[13:25.740 --> 13:28.320]  [SPEAKER_04]: that I've called all said the same reaction.
[13:28.460 --> 13:37.620]  [SPEAKER_23]: You know what struck me, and Bernie mentioned this too, was the fact that probably the first presidential speech ever to address gay and straight people, you know, in the acceptance speech.
[13:37.620 --> 13:41.700]  [SPEAKER_23]: He said, I reach out to everybody and all these different categories of people.
[13:41.940 --> 13:43.700]  [SPEAKER_23]: But, I mean, can you imagine Bush doing that?
[13:43.780 --> 13:44.900]  [SPEAKER_23]: Can you imagine Reagan doing that?
[13:45.440 --> 13:46.400]  [SPEAKER_23]: It's never happened before.
[13:46.420 --> 13:46.840]  [SPEAKER_23]: Never happened.
[13:46.840 --> 13:54.880]  [SPEAKER_04]: McCain's speech was actually quite... I mean, I think he's a terrible speech deliverer, whatever the word is for it.
[13:54.960 --> 13:59.160]  [SPEAKER_04]: But he had brought race into it, like, absolutely head-on.
[13:59.160 --> 14:03.360]  [SPEAKER_04]: That's what he dealt with in his acceptance speech about the racial aspects of what this meant.
[14:03.540 --> 14:07.120]  [SPEAKER_23]: And he addressed the people who didn't support him, which I think is a wise thing to do.
[14:07.920 --> 14:15.200]  [SPEAKER_23]: So, yeah, no matter how you feel about where we're going to be in a year, you've got to admit, this was a moment of history.
[14:15.380 --> 14:15.900]  [SPEAKER_23]: It really was.
[14:15.900 --> 14:20.020]  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's worth noting, too, how last night came to be.
[14:20.920 --> 14:29.900]  [SPEAKER_02]: All the efforts from millions of people around this country that made last night happen, made this election turn the way it did.
[14:30.000 --> 14:31.320]  [SPEAKER_02]: And it wasn't a foregone conclusion.
[14:31.540 --> 14:33.120]  [SPEAKER_02]: There were a lot of people...
[14:33.120 --> 14:36.420]  [SPEAKER_02]: I volunteered in the Obama campaign on and off for the past couple of weeks.
[14:36.420 --> 14:53.180]  [SPEAKER_02]: And when I came up here yesterday on a bus to join and watch the returns, there were a lot of people on the bus coming back from Philly who had originally come down from New York to volunteer in Philadelphia, because New York was a foregone conclusion as far as,
[14:53.260 --> 14:54.780]  [SPEAKER_02]: you know, it was going to be a blue state.
[14:54.900 --> 14:59.960]  [SPEAKER_02]: But Pennsylvania was one of these battleground states where a lot of New Yorkers came down to work on the Obama campaign.
[15:00.340 --> 15:05.640]  [SPEAKER_02]: So a lot of us came back to New York last night, and it was just good seeing a lot of familiar faces from the campaign.
[15:06.040 --> 15:08.480]  [SPEAKER_02]: Obama's campaign made a lot of interesting use of technology.
[15:08.640 --> 15:09.620]  [SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, I'd like to hear about this.
[15:09.720 --> 15:10.800]  [SPEAKER_23]: Now, you worked the phone banks.
[15:10.900 --> 15:12.220]  [SPEAKER_23]: Tell us something about how that worked.
[15:12.380 --> 15:14.840]  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, among other things, I worked phone banks.
[15:15.320 --> 15:23.980]  [SPEAKER_02]: The Obama campaign ended up renting hundreds of cell phones from a company called MetroPCS, which has a no-contract deal.
[15:24.200 --> 15:25.380]  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, you can rent them month to month.
[15:30.060 --> 15:34.920]  [SPEAKER_02]: So it was good to have mobile phones, but also it was just less worry about infrastructure.
[15:35.180 --> 15:39.380]  [SPEAKER_02]: You just had a phone and you could just distribute them easily within the campaign headquarters.
[15:39.540 --> 15:46.160]  [SPEAKER_02]: There were a lot of landline phones as well, but the cell phones sort of filled in the gaps when there weren't enough wire lines.
[15:46.620 --> 15:50.520]  [SPEAKER_02]: But also the other advantage of the cell phones was you could use text messaging.
[15:50.520 --> 15:58.600]  [SPEAKER_02]: So we had drivers... we had probably 500 volunteer drivers yesterday picking up people who needed rides to the polls.
[15:58.840 --> 16:03.080]  [SPEAKER_02]: And they were dispatched by SMS messages to their cell phones.
[16:03.420 --> 16:06.260]  [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of them had GPS things in their cars.
[16:06.640 --> 16:13.780]  [SPEAKER_02]: And it was really well dispatched, this whole getting people out to vote, people who couldn't get to the polls on their own.
[16:14.180 --> 16:17.640]  [SPEAKER_02]: In other words, 500 volunteers were at the city just driving to pick up people.
[16:17.820 --> 16:18.380]  [SPEAKER_02]: It was pretty interesting.
[16:19.000 --> 16:19.360]  [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[16:19.620 --> 16:26.780]  [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, just to follow up on the cell phone thing, if you think about it, think about how much hassle it is to run a landline to any building.
[16:27.000 --> 16:30.700]  [SPEAKER_06]: And so with the cell phone, at least, you have that opportunity to expand, expand, expand, expand, expand if necessary.
[16:30.940 --> 16:32.620]  [SPEAKER_02]: Did that overload the system at all?
[16:33.960 --> 16:40.060]  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, sometimes we were calling certain targeted neighborhoods, registered Democrats in certain demographic areas.
[16:40.060 --> 16:49.020]  [SPEAKER_02]: I frequently got central office messages from Verizon saying all circuits were busy because we suspected the McCain headquarters were also calling the same areas.
[16:49.060 --> 16:52.320]  [SPEAKER_02]: And there were just too many calls going to these certain neighborhoods.
[16:52.680 --> 16:54.760]  [SPEAKER_08]: These poor people are getting all these calls.
[16:54.980 --> 16:55.780]  [SPEAKER_08]: I didn't get a single call.
[16:55.840 --> 16:57.000]  [SPEAKER_08]: Because you live in New York.
[16:57.180 --> 16:58.580]  [SPEAKER_08]: Who cares who you vote for?
[16:58.680 --> 16:59.120]  [SPEAKER_08]: That's true.
[16:59.300 --> 16:59.880]  [SPEAKER_04]: I guess.
[16:59.880 --> 17:14.920]  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm living in North Carolina and I received five or six phone calls and was reading just this morning about how they were able to, on the states where they had early voting, the Obama campaign was able to keep track of, I don't know how they were doing this,
[17:15.000 --> 17:17.920]  [SPEAKER_04]: but they were able to instantly get the information on when someone voted.
[17:18.100 --> 17:21.260]  [SPEAKER_04]: And then they knew they didn't need to follow up with more calls to see whether you had voted or not.
[17:21.260 --> 17:22.780]  [SPEAKER_23]: Wait, they knew when you voted?
[17:23.440 --> 17:24.520]  [SPEAKER_04]: Somehow there was...
[17:24.520 --> 17:25.040]  [SPEAKER_04]: I know.
[17:25.040 --> 17:32.240]  [SPEAKER_04]: The article was very short and it mentioned that they knew and then that it could follow up about every person who hadn't, who was registered but hadn't come out yet to make sure.
[17:32.380 --> 17:34.360]  [SPEAKER_23]: Bernie, how did the Obama campaign know when you voted?
[17:34.440 --> 17:34.500]  [SPEAKER_23]: Bernie, how did that?
[17:34.600 --> 17:35.660]  [SPEAKER_02]: It was pretty well organized.
[17:35.840 --> 17:42.400]  [SPEAKER_02]: We had teams of people, and I was on one of them, where we would call people to find out, to remind them that they needed to vote.
[17:42.640 --> 17:44.820]  [SPEAKER_02]: And we knew who was registered from the public data.
[17:45.140 --> 17:48.340]  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we would call to find out if they had voted yet yesterday morning.
[17:48.340 --> 17:51.820]  [SPEAKER_02]: And we just kept calling to see had they voted yet, had they voted yet, had they not.
[17:52.020 --> 17:59.420]  [SPEAKER_02]: We put all this, plugged all this information into this giant spreadsheet that was a, it was a, one of these Google Docs documents.
[17:59.620 --> 18:01.380]  [SPEAKER_02]: It was a giant spreadsheet that we all shared online.
[18:01.640 --> 18:04.420]  [SPEAKER_23]: Wait, all, the whole campaign or just in your city?
[18:04.420 --> 18:05.920]  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, there was, it was divided up in different areas.
[18:06.020 --> 18:11.240]  [SPEAKER_02]: So Philadelphia had its own spreadsheet for, for voters, whether they'd voted or not.
[18:11.280 --> 18:13.220]  [SPEAKER_23]: Okay, so a Google Doc, explain what that is.
[18:13.260 --> 18:17.020]  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's like an Excel spreadsheet or any of the other spreadsheet programs.
[18:17.920 --> 18:19.240]  [SPEAKER_02]: But it was, it's multi-user.
[18:19.380 --> 18:21.200]  [SPEAKER_02]: You could have a lot of people logged into it at the same time.
[18:21.320 --> 18:22.020]  [SPEAKER_02]: Can I log into it?
[18:23.100 --> 18:24.500]  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, we could try later.
[18:25.160 --> 18:26.240]  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'm curious now.
[18:26.400 --> 18:27.380]  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if it's still online.
[18:27.500 --> 18:27.940]  [SPEAKER_23]: How did you get out?
[18:28.000 --> 18:28.640]  [SPEAKER_23]: Do you know the password?
[18:28.840 --> 18:29.720]  [SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, I have that information.
[18:29.980 --> 18:30.000]  [SPEAKER_23]: Oh, really?
[18:30.140 --> 18:31.240]  [SPEAKER_23]: Oh, yeah, we're going to go out and get out.
[18:31.260 --> 18:31.500]  [SPEAKER_23]: Okay.
[18:32.080 --> 18:33.920]  [SPEAKER_23]: So what kind of information is on this Google Doc?
[18:34.600 --> 18:40.560]  [SPEAKER_02]: Names, addresses, phone numbers, whether they needed to arrive to the polls or not, whether they had voted yet or not.
[18:40.660 --> 18:43.660]  [SPEAKER_02]: And if you hadn't voted yet, we would keep calling to find out if they had voted.
[18:44.180 --> 18:47.200]  [SPEAKER_23]: Didn't that annoy people to keep getting calls constantly saying, did you vote yet?
[18:47.260 --> 18:47.760]  [SPEAKER_23]: Did you vote yet?
[18:47.820 --> 18:48.280]  [SPEAKER_23]: Did you vote yet?
[18:48.360 --> 18:50.360]  [SPEAKER_02]: Actually, a lot of people admired our persistence.
[18:52.100 --> 18:54.220]  [SPEAKER_23]: I admire the fact that you're calling me at all hours.
[18:54.420 --> 18:55.400]  [SPEAKER_08]: The polite ones, maybe.
[18:55.880 --> 18:56.180]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[18:56.400 --> 18:57.800]  [SPEAKER_02]: And we told them this was really important.
[18:57.840 --> 19:02.420]  [SPEAKER_02]: We didn't want to miss anyone because getting out to vote was extremely important.
[19:02.620 --> 19:06.620]  [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, had we not gotten that many people out to vote, I don't think the election would have gone the way it did.
[19:07.420 --> 19:08.120]  [SPEAKER_23]: Very, very true.
[19:08.200 --> 19:10.760]  [SPEAKER_23]: Now, you also were able to infiltrate the McCain campaign.
[19:10.860 --> 19:11.740]  [SPEAKER_23]: Tell us something about that.
[19:11.740 --> 19:20.280]  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, one afternoon I decided I would take a couple hours off and walk over to the campaign headquarters of the McCain campaign in Philadelphia.
[19:20.380 --> 19:23.380]  [SPEAKER_02]: And I just wanted to compare and contrast the two organizations.
[19:23.440 --> 19:26.720]  [SPEAKER_02]: And I was not nearly as impressed with the Obama...
[19:26.720 --> 19:28.240]  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry, with the McCain group.
[19:28.380 --> 19:29.800]  [SPEAKER_02]: It was a smaller headquarters.
[19:30.080 --> 19:31.080]  [SPEAKER_02]: There were fewer people.
[19:31.260 --> 19:32.240]  [SPEAKER_02]: The demographics were different.
[19:32.360 --> 19:35.380]  [SPEAKER_02]: It was an older group of volunteers.
[19:35.680 --> 19:36.640]  [SPEAKER_02]: Almost everybody was white.
[19:36.940 --> 19:39.060]  [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't really that multiracial.
[19:39.220 --> 19:40.880]  [SPEAKER_23]: And I think you said that the food wasn't as good.
[19:40.880 --> 19:44.020]  [SPEAKER_02]: No, they had some pizza there, but that was pretty much it.
[19:44.180 --> 19:48.220]  [SPEAKER_02]: The Obama headquarters, on the other hand, had this huge spread of food.
[19:48.340 --> 19:56.140]  [SPEAKER_02]: People were bringing in homemade baked goods, cookies, vegan food, vegetarian food, hoagies, pasta.
[19:56.280 --> 19:58.180]  [SPEAKER_02]: It was a giant bowl of couscous.
[19:58.500 --> 19:58.960]  [SPEAKER_02]: You name it.
[19:59.060 --> 20:00.760]  [SPEAKER_02]: Anything you wanted, they had it there.
[20:00.760 --> 20:01.180]  [SPEAKER_02]: International.
[20:01.760 --> 20:02.040]  [SPEAKER_06]: Wow.
[20:02.040 --> 20:05.500]  [SPEAKER_06]: I remember when I was volunteering during the primaries down in Philadelphia.
[20:05.820 --> 20:06.380]  [SPEAKER_06]: And it was the same thing.
[20:06.500 --> 20:08.200]  [SPEAKER_06]: People just would cook stuff and bring it.
[20:08.280 --> 20:09.400]  [SPEAKER_06]: And they had a system.
[20:09.500 --> 20:10.760]  [SPEAKER_06]: Okay, well, I'm going to bring dinner tonight.
[20:10.860 --> 20:12.280]  [SPEAKER_06]: And okay, this person's going to bring lunch.
[20:12.400 --> 20:13.000]  [SPEAKER_06]: It's cooperation.
[20:13.340 --> 20:13.500]  [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[20:13.900 --> 20:14.260]  [SPEAKER_06]: Unbelievable.
[20:14.600 --> 20:14.740]  [SPEAKER_06]: It was nice.
[20:15.380 --> 20:15.640]  [SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[20:16.780 --> 20:32.480]  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I don't know if anyone here knows more about this, but there was a couple of tidbits that were leaked from an upcoming Big Newsweek story, sort of behind the scenes in the campaign, stuff that I think the reporters had agreed not to divulge until the campaign was over,
[20:32.580 --> 20:38.600]  [SPEAKER_04]: but that both Obama's and McCain's main computers were hacked during the summertime.
[20:38.600 --> 20:44.400]  [SPEAKER_04]: And the FBI was investigating, and they both had to kind of explain to each other's campaigns that it wasn't...
[20:44.400 --> 20:46.900]  [SPEAKER_04]: McCain wasn't going into trying to get stuff from Obama.
[20:46.980 --> 20:49.540]  [SPEAKER_23]: I hope this wasn't the hope.net thing that we did in April.
[20:49.540 --> 20:50.140]  [SPEAKER_23]: I hope not.
[20:50.260 --> 20:52.540]  [SPEAKER_23]: But no, the conclusion was...
[20:52.540 --> 20:54.900]  [SPEAKER_04]: But this, again, this was very brief, because it was just...
[20:54.900 --> 20:57.300]  [SPEAKER_04]: And there'll be more about it coming out in the next week.
[20:57.440 --> 21:00.600]  [SPEAKER_04]: But it was that they believed it was either coming from China or Russia.
[21:01.200 --> 21:02.600]  [SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, let's blame them.
[21:02.740 --> 21:03.020]  [SPEAKER_23]: All right.
[21:03.040 --> 21:03.560]  [SPEAKER_23]: It works all the time.
[21:03.560 --> 21:03.920]  [SPEAKER_23]: Well, sure.
[21:04.120 --> 21:04.280]  [SPEAKER_23]: Lynn.
[21:05.040 --> 21:08.500]  [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I have to say that it's a little bit past the moment.
[21:08.600 --> 21:13.780]  [SPEAKER_05]: But my wife and I received not one phone call in Georgia.
[21:14.140 --> 21:33.520]  [SPEAKER_05]: And everybody else that we knew was getting absolutely hounded to death by Saksby Chambliss and the two different, you know, both presidential candidates and Jim Martin, who's that's a hotly contested issue or race in Georgia.
[21:33.520 --> 21:43.160]  [SPEAKER_05]: And it looks like under our bizarre little law in Georgia about most votes doesn't win, it's 50% plus one vote.
[21:43.340 --> 21:49.700]  [SPEAKER_05]: And so it does not appear that, at least the last I saw of it, that senatorial seat will be in a runoff.
[21:49.820 --> 21:50.360]  [SPEAKER_23]: Wait, could you explain?
[21:50.900 --> 21:55.140]  [SPEAKER_23]: Oh, you mean there's a runoff system unless you get 50% plus one?
[21:55.140 --> 21:58.800]  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, to win, you have to get 50% of the vote plus one vote.
[21:58.980 --> 22:00.860]  [SPEAKER_23]: Isn't that how it is in a lot of parts of the world?
[22:01.580 --> 22:04.280]  [SPEAKER_05]: In a lot of parts of the world, but I don't think in the U.S.
[22:04.340 --> 22:11.660]  [SPEAKER_05]: I think that because it causes so many runoff elections in other states, they don't do that as much.
[22:12.100 --> 22:15.780]  [SPEAKER_05]: So, you know, other states have figured out that this causes a lot of runoff.
[22:15.780 --> 22:22.120]  [SPEAKER_05]: So there's a whole bunch of them where we have like six people up for a judge position and for one judge position.
[22:22.460 --> 22:26.560]  [SPEAKER_05]: And so we're going to have runoffs for that.
[22:26.700 --> 22:29.580]  [SPEAKER_05]: And then they'll probably have another runoff from that runoff.
[22:29.700 --> 22:30.320]  [SPEAKER_05]: And then we'll have...
[22:30.320 --> 22:33.080]  [SPEAKER_05]: No, I mean, they pick the top two and then that's the runoff.
[22:33.720 --> 22:35.340]  [SPEAKER_05]: But yeah, I was really surprised.
[22:35.340 --> 22:42.580]  [SPEAKER_05]: But my mailbox was stuffed full of junk mail from these people.
[22:42.980 --> 22:45.600]  [SPEAKER_23]: Lynn, I assume you're here in New York now, but you did vote.
[22:45.780 --> 22:47.880]  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah, I voted or I did early voting.
[22:48.000 --> 22:48.580]  [SPEAKER_05]: How did that work?
[22:49.720 --> 22:51.960]  [SPEAKER_05]: It was a little confusing in Georgia.
[22:51.960 --> 22:52.780]  [SPEAKER_05]: We had...
[22:52.780 --> 22:54.760]  [SPEAKER_05]: Well, actually, I advanced voted.
[22:55.000 --> 23:00.840]  [SPEAKER_05]: We had early voting, which was two weeks prior.
[23:01.180 --> 23:07.320]  [SPEAKER_05]: And that's only at the election headquarters for each county.
[23:07.500 --> 23:09.520]  [SPEAKER_05]: But there's 159 counties in Georgia.
[23:09.700 --> 23:12.380]  [SPEAKER_05]: So that's a lot of counties, more counties per square mile.
[23:12.380 --> 23:13.700]  [SPEAKER_05]: But you can only go to your county, right?
[23:13.700 --> 23:14.860]  [SPEAKER_05]: But you can only go to your county.
[23:16.060 --> 23:22.060]  [SPEAKER_05]: Advanced voting, there was, I don't know, maybe 12 places in each county, nine places in each county.
[23:22.260 --> 23:22.980]  [SPEAKER_05]: Mine was...
[23:22.980 --> 23:23.500]  [SPEAKER_05]: I was lucky.
[23:23.660 --> 23:30.820]  [SPEAKER_05]: Mine, the one that's closest to me, and I could go to any one of them, mine was at a mall in a restaurant that was defunct.
[23:30.960 --> 23:32.920]  [SPEAKER_23]: You voted in an abandoned restaurant in a mall?
[23:33.100 --> 23:33.440]  [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[23:34.100 --> 23:34.760]  [SPEAKER_23]: That's cool.
[23:34.760 --> 23:37.580]  [SPEAKER_05]: And it was cool because everybody else had to stand outside.
[23:39.020 --> 23:42.700]  [SPEAKER_04]: I voted inside of what had formerly been a grocery store.
[23:43.040 --> 23:43.840]  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, cool.
[23:44.080 --> 23:44.180]  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[23:44.280 --> 23:45.460]  [SPEAKER_23]: I voted inside a school.
[23:46.200 --> 23:48.740]  [SPEAKER_23]: I used to vote inside a church, which is kind of weird.
[23:49.560 --> 23:50.540]  [SPEAKER_23]: Where did you vote, Bernie?
[23:51.000 --> 23:57.800]  [SPEAKER_02]: I voted in a union hall, the Steamship Workers Union Hall.
[23:58.280 --> 23:58.680]  [SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[23:58.820 --> 24:00.240]  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how many steamships there are in Philadelphia.
[24:00.460 --> 24:01.160]  [SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to ask Lynn.
[24:01.260 --> 24:04.240]  [SPEAKER_02]: Lynn, were there any interesting ballot initiatives in Atlanta?
[24:05.180 --> 24:13.300]  [SPEAKER_05]: We had three for the state of Georgia and then one more, and I think they all pretty much were no-brainers.
[24:13.460 --> 24:24.860]  [SPEAKER_05]: It was like a $40 million bond referendum for parks in my county and protecting more forest land in south Georgia and stuff like that.
[24:24.940 --> 24:26.560]  [SPEAKER_05]: So they weren't really exciting.
[24:26.740 --> 24:28.820]  [SPEAKER_02]: In San Francisco, there was a couple of ballot initiatives.
[24:29.060 --> 24:30.380]  [SPEAKER_02]: Actually, there are three interesting ones.
[24:30.380 --> 24:40.900]  [SPEAKER_02]: One was a ban on gay marriage, which passed by a narrow margin, and then there was a legalized prostitution ballot initiative, which did not pass.
[24:41.000 --> 24:42.720]  [SPEAKER_02]: And then there was someone to rename the sewer plant.
[24:43.320 --> 24:44.280]  [SPEAKER_23]: That was genius.
[24:44.520 --> 24:46.760]  [SPEAKER_23]: They wanted to name a sewage plant after George W.
[24:46.920 --> 24:49.280]  [SPEAKER_23]: Bush, and I don't know why that was defeated.
[24:50.000 --> 24:54.220]  [SPEAKER_23]: I don't know if people thought that it would be a sign of respect to him.
[24:54.300 --> 24:56.600]  [SPEAKER_23]: Is that why they defeated it or they thought it was just a little bit too much?
[24:56.600 --> 24:57.640]  [SPEAKER_08]: In San Francisco, it got defeated?
[24:57.640 --> 25:00.700]  [SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, I think people might have been confused because I would have gone for that.
[25:00.780 --> 25:01.180]  [SPEAKER_23]: George W.
[25:01.300 --> 25:01.880]  [SPEAKER_23]: Bush sewage plant.
[25:02.100 --> 25:03.940]  [SPEAKER_23]: It was a brilliant proposition, but unfortunately...
[25:03.940 --> 25:05.080]  [SPEAKER_08]: California did pass high-speed rail.
[25:05.520 --> 25:06.160]  [SPEAKER_08]: A lot of money for high-speed rail.
[25:06.180 --> 25:06.920]  [SPEAKER_08]: Okay, what does that mean?
[25:07.100 --> 25:08.180]  [SPEAKER_23]: High-speed rail.
[25:08.360 --> 25:09.340]  [SPEAKER_23]: They're going to have it or...
[25:09.700 --> 25:09.980]  [SPEAKER_23]: Allegedly.
[25:10.120 --> 25:11.020]  [SPEAKER_23]: They're going to explore it or something?
[25:11.020 --> 25:13.340]  [SPEAKER_08]: I mean, I'll believe it when I see it, but allegedly they're going to have it.
[25:13.460 --> 25:14.320]  [SPEAKER_23]: Now, Mike, where did you vote?
[25:14.420 --> 25:15.240]  [SPEAKER_23]: What kind of place were you in?
[25:15.240 --> 25:16.640]  [SPEAKER_08]: I voted in a senior center.
[25:16.920 --> 25:17.380]  [SPEAKER_23]: Oh, really?
[25:17.460 --> 25:18.160]  [SPEAKER_23]: That must have been fun.
[25:18.340 --> 25:19.060]  [SPEAKER_08]: I guess.
[25:19.060 --> 25:20.140]  [SPEAKER_08]: It was a very short line.
[25:20.320 --> 25:28.780]  [SPEAKER_08]: I heard from people I met later in the day that some other people in New York City had to wait several hours to vote, but when I went there, there was just two or three people in front of me.
[25:28.840 --> 25:33.100]  [SPEAKER_06]: And it's not really up to you to decide whether you wait or not, right?
[25:33.100 --> 25:34.360]  [SPEAKER_06]: You can't go to a different polling place.
[25:34.460 --> 25:35.360]  [SPEAKER_06]: You're pretty much stuck, but...
[25:35.360 --> 25:36.420]  [SPEAKER_23]: I've never had to wait.
[25:36.860 --> 25:37.980]  [SPEAKER_23]: I've never had to wait.
[25:38.100 --> 25:44.840]  [SPEAKER_02]: We had lines in Philadelphia that were sometimes five or six hours, and we had what we had called line watcher volunteers.
[25:44.840 --> 25:53.480]  [SPEAKER_02]: We would dispatch people out to polls that had really long lines to encourage people to stay in line, because some people were going home that you couldn't wait any longer, and we just would implore them to stay in line.
[25:53.480 --> 25:56.860]  [SPEAKER_23]: I don't honestly get why there have to be lines.
[25:57.020 --> 26:01.880]  [SPEAKER_23]: How hard is it to plan for this to have enough access to polls, especially...
[26:01.880 --> 26:07.020]  [SPEAKER_23]: I think with the electronic voting, people get so confused, they take so long, that that's where the lines really develop.
[26:07.160 --> 26:16.460]  [SPEAKER_23]: I mean, in Virginia and North Carolina, they had to vote extra attention because it was raining, and the pieces of paper were getting wet, and they couldn't scan them.
[26:16.740 --> 26:20.760]  [SPEAKER_02]: The turnout was much greater in Philadelphia than folks expected.
[26:20.760 --> 26:27.220]  [SPEAKER_02]: When I went, I only had to wait like five minutes, but during certain times of day in certain polling areas, people had to wait as much as several hours.
[26:27.340 --> 26:35.020]  [SPEAKER_02]: But we had people standing there with the voters, encouraging them to not go home, stand there and wait as long as they had to to get their vote in.
[26:36.060 --> 26:36.620]  [SPEAKER_23]: Not Kevin.
[26:37.140 --> 26:41.020]  [SPEAKER_08]: Well, to follow up with the weird places you voted, my town held its elections in its gift shop.
[26:42.160 --> 26:42.900]  [SPEAKER_08]: In a gift shop?
[26:42.940 --> 26:44.400]  [SPEAKER_08]: Wait, your town has a gift shop?
[26:44.400 --> 26:45.100]  [SPEAKER_08]: My town has a gift shop, yes.
[26:45.100 --> 26:47.400]  [SPEAKER_08]: That's almost as weird as holding an election there.
[26:48.260 --> 26:49.880]  [SPEAKER_08]: Well, I didn't... there was no lines.
[26:50.020 --> 26:51.080]  [SPEAKER_08]: That was a plus.
[26:52.320 --> 26:54.380]  [SPEAKER_06]: Do you know what I think was a nice thing about the election, though?
[26:54.520 --> 27:02.480]  [SPEAKER_06]: The fact that if you were watching any network channel or, you know, CNN or anything, they called Virginia maybe two, three minutes before 11 o'clock.
[27:02.600 --> 27:11.880]  [SPEAKER_06]: And then if you did the math quickly in your head, you realized, okay, well, if he has this money now and California has 50, then it pretty much became a countdown at that point to 11 p.m.
[27:11.940 --> 27:14.640]  [SPEAKER_06]: because you knew that the outcome was inevitable.
[27:15.480 --> 27:16.440]  [SPEAKER_06]: So that was kind of nice.
[27:16.640 --> 27:18.140]  [SPEAKER_06]: It made it feel a little bit like New Year's also.
[27:19.560 --> 27:20.640]  [SPEAKER_23]: Now, Dot Rhett, where did you vote?
[27:20.700 --> 27:21.580]  [SPEAKER_23]: What kind of place?
[27:22.420 --> 27:23.700]  [SPEAKER_23]: I voted in a school.
[27:24.360 --> 27:24.720]  [SPEAKER_23]: Really?
[27:24.980 --> 27:25.180]  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[27:25.480 --> 27:27.320]  [SPEAKER_03]: Small little elementary school.
[27:27.800 --> 27:28.340]  [SPEAKER_23]: That's cool.
[27:28.480 --> 27:29.680]  [SPEAKER_23]: That's exactly where I voted, too.
[27:29.760 --> 27:30.540]  [SPEAKER_23]: The same kind of place.
[27:30.700 --> 27:31.900]  [SPEAKER_03]: I had a line of five people.
[27:32.020 --> 27:32.500]  [SPEAKER_03]: Five people?
[27:32.620 --> 27:33.100]  [SPEAKER_03]: Five people.
[27:33.280 --> 27:33.460]  [SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
[27:33.820 --> 27:35.220]  [SPEAKER_23]: I was behind one old lady.
[27:35.400 --> 27:36.500]  [SPEAKER_23]: Now, who voted for the first time?
[27:37.080 --> 27:38.120]  [SPEAKER_23]: Your first time voting?
[27:38.240 --> 27:39.880]  [SPEAKER_23]: I voted before, but not for a president.
[27:40.040 --> 27:40.420]  [SPEAKER_23]: No, okay.
[27:40.420 --> 27:40.980]  [SPEAKER_23]: Not for president.
[27:41.160 --> 27:43.320]  [SPEAKER_23]: Has anybody been to the polls for the first time ever?
[27:43.520 --> 27:44.020]  [SPEAKER_23]: That'd be me.
[27:44.140 --> 27:44.720]  [SPEAKER_23]: That'd be you, not Kevin.
[27:44.820 --> 27:45.040]  [SPEAKER_23]: Yes.
[27:45.140 --> 27:45.660]  [SPEAKER_23]: What was it like?
[27:45.900 --> 27:47.540]  [SPEAKER_04]: It was exhilarating.
[27:47.660 --> 27:47.780]  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[27:48.120 --> 27:49.180]  [SPEAKER_23]: All old mechanical machines.
[27:49.280 --> 27:50.500]  [SPEAKER_23]: You're in New York, so you got to experience...
[27:51.220 --> 27:53.000]  [SPEAKER_04]: I wish I could see these old mechanical machines.
[27:53.060 --> 27:53.680]  [SPEAKER_04]: They sound cool.
[27:53.700 --> 27:58.060]  [SPEAKER_23]: Well, actually, the cover of the current 2600, that's a picture of a mechanical machine.
[27:58.120 --> 28:06.200]  [SPEAKER_23]: A lot of people don't know that because I didn't know until recently that New York was the only state that had these anymore, and a lot of young people never saw one.
[28:06.280 --> 28:07.820]  [SPEAKER_23]: So that's what they look like up close.
[28:07.980 --> 28:10.260]  [SPEAKER_06]: It was nice, though, that they explained it to me before.
[28:10.260 --> 28:15.780]  [SPEAKER_06]: I went in because, actually, my coworker was saying he got in there, and he freaked out because he couldn't flip the levers to select the candidates.
[28:15.900 --> 28:20.020]  [SPEAKER_06]: Because you have to pull the lever first to the right, then you vote, and then you pull it back to the left.
[28:20.200 --> 28:23.500]  [SPEAKER_06]: And so if you don't know to pull it to the right initially, you don't know what's going on.
[28:23.680 --> 28:24.820]  [SPEAKER_08]: It's very self-explanatory.
[28:24.960 --> 28:25.740]  [SPEAKER_08]: There's a numbered system.
[28:25.900 --> 28:27.840]  [SPEAKER_08]: It says, one, pull to the right, two, push levers.
[28:27.840 --> 28:28.920]  [SPEAKER_08]: Okay, well, I didn't see that.
[28:29.060 --> 28:30.020]  [SPEAKER_06]: It was right at the top.
[28:30.300 --> 28:31.460]  [SPEAKER_06]: It was right at the top.
[28:32.060 --> 28:33.440]  [SPEAKER_02]: It was RTFM instructions.
[28:34.500 --> 28:36.560]  [SPEAKER_06]: Well, they told me before I got in the pull, which was nice.
[28:36.800 --> 28:41.560]  [SPEAKER_23]: Well, Juintz, you're all the way back there, and you're from Jersey, so tell us something about what the system was like over there.
[28:41.880 --> 28:43.420]  [SPEAKER_07]: Well, we have an electronic thingy.
[28:43.420 --> 28:43.620]  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[28:44.060 --> 28:44.520]  [SPEAKER_07]: A thing?
[28:44.780 --> 28:45.200]  [SPEAKER_07]: You sure do?
[28:45.460 --> 28:46.620]  [SPEAKER_07]: X's light up beside it.
[28:46.720 --> 28:52.120]  [SPEAKER_07]: It wasn't like these crazy, like, all electronic touchscreen things, but it was certainly electronic.
[28:52.520 --> 28:54.660]  [SPEAKER_08]: But still, your vote doesn't go anywhere.
[28:54.800 --> 28:56.460]  [SPEAKER_08]: Like, there's no way to know what happens to it.
[28:56.540 --> 28:57.900]  [SPEAKER_08]: I mean, the same with the mechanical machines.
[28:57.900 --> 28:59.160]  [SPEAKER_08]: There's no way to know where your vote goes.
[28:59.240 --> 29:02.920]  [SPEAKER_08]: But with the electronic machines, there's even less than no way to know where it goes.
[29:02.920 --> 29:07.580]  [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, you put in all your votes, and you hit the vote button or register your vote button, and all the lights go out.
[29:07.700 --> 29:08.760]  [SPEAKER_07]: So you're like, wow, I hope that works.
[29:08.780 --> 29:11.220]  [SPEAKER_06]: Yours doesn't have, like, a paper thing that it shows you?
[29:11.220 --> 29:17.980]  [SPEAKER_06]: Because a lot of new machines will have this paper record that comes up and you verify the paper record first before you...
[29:17.980 --> 29:26.540]  [SPEAKER_07]: They didn't have anything... I don't know if the machine has one in the back or what, but there was a thing behind the curtain that the lady hits the button to start it for you, but they don't show it to you.
[29:26.640 --> 29:37.320]  [SPEAKER_04]: The touch screen that I got to use had an actual paper roll inside the machine that went up that you couldn't get to it or touch it, but you could see that your vote had registered also on a piece of paper.
[29:37.800 --> 29:40.900]  [SPEAKER_04]: That supposedly was supposed to make... it didn't really make me feel that much.
[29:40.900 --> 29:42.140]  [SPEAKER_04]: Much better, though, but...
[29:42.140 --> 29:56.300]  [SPEAKER_05]: In Georgia, ours was the lovely Diebold machines, and you get no feedback other than the card spits back out at you that the card, the smart card is then collected by the poll worker before you leave.
[29:56.920 --> 29:59.500]  [SPEAKER_05]: Don't accidentally try to leave with the little thing.
[29:59.680 --> 30:01.020]  [SPEAKER_05]: They get really hinky about it.
[30:01.120 --> 30:01.800]  [SPEAKER_05]: They're like, nope, stop.
[30:02.000 --> 30:02.520]  [SPEAKER_05]: You cannot leave.
[30:02.820 --> 30:03.800]  [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, okay.
[30:04.440 --> 30:22.740]  [SPEAKER_05]: But, you know, the thing is, is that I actually called the Secretary of State's office in Georgia to ask if they had fixed the problems that our friends at Penn State pointed out at Hope this summer, and ironically enough, they never called me back.
[30:22.880 --> 30:30.220]  [SPEAKER_05]: I called them back, and they said that there had not been any complaints about the machines.
[30:31.020 --> 30:34.120]  [SPEAKER_08]: Did you file a complaint, or did you just accept this?
[30:34.480 --> 30:40.400]  [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I don't know that I had a real grounds to say that I had a complaint about, you know, the machine.
[30:40.400 --> 30:54.020]  [SPEAKER_05]: And I looked very hard for any irregularities when I was at the polling place, but, you know, I pushed the button, and it said that it voted for Obama, and I, and everybody else that I voted for.
[30:54.020 --> 31:01.180]  [SPEAKER_02]: But for all you know, the machine could have been hacked in a way that it would display that you voted for who you voted for, but the actual vote wouldn't have recorded it.
[31:01.180 --> 31:07.600]  [SPEAKER_02]: Even the printout systems where your vote is printed and you can see who you printed, that doesn't guarantee that that's what's actually registered in the system.
[31:07.640 --> 31:08.980]  [SPEAKER_02]: So we really have no way of knowing.
[31:08.980 --> 31:09.320]  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[31:09.320 --> 31:24.280]  [SPEAKER_05]: But I think that at this point, either, you have to either say that either Obama's camp controlled it this time, or it was so much of an overwhelming difference that it really didn't make any difference this time.
[31:24.280 --> 31:27.740]  [SPEAKER_05]: In other words, it didn't stuff the ballot box enough.
[31:27.740 --> 31:28.180]  [SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[31:28.300 --> 31:41.620]  [SPEAKER_04]: That's what I think, too, is that I'm sure stuff went on to steal the vote in different states in different ways, but we may never know because it was such a landslide, there won't be that much motivation to really dig in and find out what happened to learn for next time.
[31:41.620 --> 31:57.940]  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I talked to a teacher from Louisiana, and she said that her machine was miscalibrated in New Orleans when she went to vote, and when she pressed for Obama, it clicked on McCain, and she made a stink, and they recalibrated all the machines.
[31:58.240 --> 32:04.200]  [SPEAKER_23]: Let's move into our conspiracy mode here, where we theorize as to what might actually be going on.
[32:04.400 --> 32:09.300]  [SPEAKER_23]: Jim from Paramus writes to us and says, Do you ever think that the Republicans don't want to win this time around?
[32:10.020 --> 32:11.880]  [SPEAKER_23]: Bush has made such a mess of things.
[32:12.180 --> 32:15.780]  [SPEAKER_23]: Why would they want the job of cleaning it up?
[32:15.940 --> 32:18.820]  [SPEAKER_23]: Let the Democrats get blamed for not being able to fix things.
[32:19.260 --> 32:20.120]  [SPEAKER_23]: So, yeah.
[32:20.320 --> 32:25.540]  [SPEAKER_23]: You know, it seemed to me McCain was falling on his sword an awful lot during this campaign.
[32:25.880 --> 32:29.620]  [SPEAKER_23]: If you tried to run an inept campaign, I don't see how you could do worse.
[32:29.820 --> 32:30.480]  [SPEAKER_23]: I really don't.
[32:30.580 --> 32:35.200]  [SPEAKER_23]: It just seemed like there were so many bad decisions he made, so many things that he could have done better.
[32:35.200 --> 32:37.820]  [SPEAKER_23]: And I think anyone in this room could have run a better campaign for him.
[32:38.040 --> 32:40.940]  [SPEAKER_23]: You have to wonder, is this intentional?
[32:41.200 --> 32:44.380]  [SPEAKER_08]: If you want suggestions for things he could have done worse, you know, he could have had a sex scandal.
[32:44.540 --> 32:46.400]  [SPEAKER_08]: There's all kinds of things he could have done worse, but...
[32:46.760 --> 32:47.680]  [SPEAKER_08]: McCain, a sex scandal?
[32:47.720 --> 32:48.540]  [SPEAKER_08]: I don't think so.
[32:48.600 --> 32:48.960]  [SPEAKER_08]: He could have.
[32:49.080 --> 32:49.660]  [SPEAKER_08]: I don't know.
[32:49.740 --> 32:51.140]  [SPEAKER_08]: Or a no-sex scandal, anything.
[32:51.400 --> 32:53.700]  [SPEAKER_08]: You know, there's all kinds of things he could have done worse, but...
[32:53.700 --> 32:54.540]  [SPEAKER_23]: He picked Sarah Palin.
[32:54.660 --> 32:57.200]  [SPEAKER_23]: He runs to Washington to mess up the financial thing.
[32:57.680 --> 33:00.020]  [SPEAKER_23]: You know, the grimaces during the debate.
[33:00.140 --> 33:02.820]  [SPEAKER_22]: There's just all kinds of things that, you know, you could do better.
[33:03.620 --> 33:11.100]  [SPEAKER_22]: One thing that really struck me about McCain's concession speech last night is how much of the old McCain seemed to come back.
[33:11.260 --> 33:16.540]  [SPEAKER_22]: Like, the last couple of weeks of the campaign has just been... it seemed hollow.
[33:16.700 --> 33:19.960]  [SPEAKER_22]: It seemed like this guy really doesn't want to do what he's being forced to do anymore.
[33:20.340 --> 33:28.780]  [SPEAKER_22]: But afterwards, there was a glimmer of the guy who I remember from a couple of years ago who I didn't agree with much, but I did have some respect for.
[33:29.740 --> 33:31.700]  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I heard the same thing from a lot of people.
[33:31.700 --> 33:36.960]  [SPEAKER_03]: Some people I know are saying they would have voted for him if he had stayed that way through the whole campaign.
[33:37.740 --> 33:44.180]  [SPEAKER_23]: I just saw something on CNN, how white voters voted for McCain by 12 percentage points.
[33:44.300 --> 33:49.580]  [SPEAKER_23]: So if only white people in this country had voted, McCain would be our next president.
[33:49.680 --> 33:50.460]  [SPEAKER_23]: That's kind of scary.
[33:50.620 --> 33:55.640]  [SPEAKER_06]: You missed the statistic right before that where it said African-American voters was like 95% to 5%.
[33:56.780 --> 34:03.380]  [SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, well, I guess we have some bridges to cross as far as agreeing on a lot of things.
[34:03.480 --> 34:04.900]  [SPEAKER_23]: But wow, that's unbelievable.
[34:05.240 --> 34:09.840]  [SPEAKER_05]: I do still have to give McCain props for one thing in his concession speech.
[34:09.840 --> 34:15.460]  [SPEAKER_05]: He stood up to his supporters who were booing and yelling things about Obama.
[34:16.100 --> 34:19.740]  [SPEAKER_05]: And I think that that at least has some class to it.
[34:19.740 --> 34:21.020]  [SPEAKER_23]: When, last night or during the campaign?
[34:21.120 --> 34:22.020]  [SPEAKER_23]: He didn't do it during the campaign.
[34:22.280 --> 34:23.480]  [SPEAKER_05]: No, he sure didn't do it during the campaign.
[34:23.480 --> 34:27.740]  [SPEAKER_05]: But he did it last night when they started booing him and he said, no, no, no, no, no.
[34:27.840 --> 34:29.840]  [SPEAKER_05]: But he had to say that no, no, no about five times.
[34:29.840 --> 34:31.240]  [SPEAKER_05]: Does anyone here remember...
[34:31.240 --> 34:33.300]  [SPEAKER_23]: I remember when David Dinkins did that with Giuliani.
[34:34.700 --> 34:37.380]  [SPEAKER_23]: When people were booing Giuliani, he kept saying no, no, no all the time.
[34:37.440 --> 34:38.060]  [SPEAKER_23]: That was years ago.
[34:38.060 --> 34:40.480]  [SPEAKER_23]: But that's standard when you're conceding.
[34:40.760 --> 34:49.360]  [SPEAKER_06]: Well, sometimes, I mean, during the campaign, I did see videos of him correcting people saying, oh, well, for this reason or that reason, no, he's not a Muslim or no, he's not...
[34:49.360 --> 34:50.280]  [SPEAKER_23]: He's not an Arab.
[34:50.400 --> 34:51.180]  [SPEAKER_23]: He's a decent man.
[34:51.300 --> 34:53.160]  [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, how do you mess that up?
[34:53.800 --> 34:54.720]  [SPEAKER_04]: That was horrible.
[34:54.740 --> 34:55.280]  [SPEAKER_04]: That was horrible.
[34:55.540 --> 34:56.160]  [SPEAKER_04]: He's not a Muslim.
[34:56.280 --> 34:56.940]  [SPEAKER_04]: He's a good man.
[34:57.260 --> 35:00.020]  [SPEAKER_23]: It took days before anybody caught that, it seemed.
[35:00.180 --> 35:01.240]  [SPEAKER_23]: They just kept showing it.
[35:01.240 --> 35:02.360]  [SPEAKER_23]: But no one said, wait a minute.
[35:02.360 --> 35:09.800]  [SPEAKER_06]: I think to correct at least their misunderstanding about him, their fallacy.
[35:09.960 --> 35:11.460]  [SPEAKER_23]: Well, again, so maybe...
[35:11.460 --> 35:13.460]  [SPEAKER_06]: Whether or not he did it in the right way, but...
[35:13.460 --> 35:19.280]  [SPEAKER_23]: It just seems like they messed up so badly that it was almost a foregone conclusion that Obama would...
[35:19.280 --> 35:23.420]  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think the email you just read is very spot on, that it's going to be...
[35:23.420 --> 35:30.760]  [SPEAKER_04]: There's so many disasters awaiting to unfold because of what's been put in motion over the last eight years that it will all be blamed on the Democrats.
[35:30.760 --> 35:39.060]  [SPEAKER_04]: It's also true that I think big, big, big, big business doesn't really like the political situation in America to swing too far in either direction.
[35:39.320 --> 35:49.600]  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, probably, you know, Bush and Cheney and crew all went way too off the deep end one way, you know, and they really would think, no, we need to, you know, we need to jettison those guys.
[35:49.740 --> 35:50.640]  [SPEAKER_04]: This has not gone right.
[35:50.860 --> 35:51.320]  [SPEAKER_23]: All right.
[35:51.320 --> 35:59.880]  [SPEAKER_23]: I'd like to open up the phones to our listeners if they want to share anything as far as what they noticed in their particular part of the world when this election finally ended last night.
[35:59.880 --> 36:07.880]  [SPEAKER_23]: If there is any particular memorable event they'd like to share with us, we certainly had our memorable events last night in the East Village and throughout Manhattan.
[36:08.520 --> 36:12.520]  [SPEAKER_23]: And I'm sure other parts of the world had similar types of situations as well.
[36:12.640 --> 36:15.080]  [SPEAKER_08]: I just have one question maybe our listeners can answer.
[36:15.340 --> 36:21.600]  [SPEAKER_08]: So about a third of New York, which is not a lot, but, you know, still a couple million people, voted for McCain.
[36:21.600 --> 36:24.160]  [SPEAKER_08]: I haven't seen any of them since the election.
[36:24.340 --> 36:25.740]  [SPEAKER_23]: Where did they all go?
[36:25.960 --> 36:30.180]  [SPEAKER_23]: I saw a lot of glum faces on Wall Street, actually, but I'm not sure if that's because the market dropped 500 points.
[36:30.280 --> 36:31.440]  [SPEAKER_23]: I don't know why that happened either.
[36:32.480 --> 36:34.800]  [SPEAKER_03]: I think they're actually upstate New York.
[36:34.940 --> 36:38.320]  [SPEAKER_03]: I spent some time up there, and there's a lot more Republicans up there.
[36:38.760 --> 36:39.280]  [SPEAKER_08]: No, no, no, okay.
[36:39.380 --> 36:42.640]  [SPEAKER_08]: But I'm just saying, in New York City, Obama won handily.
[36:42.780 --> 36:44.400]  [SPEAKER_08]: He got, I don't know, 80% of the vote.
[36:44.520 --> 36:50.920]  [SPEAKER_08]: But there's still the other 20% of the vote who voted for McCain, and they can't all just have disappeared into pups and smokes.
[36:50.920 --> 36:51.240]  [SPEAKER_08]: In Queens.
[36:51.460 --> 36:52.760]  [SPEAKER_23]: No, they disappeared into pubs.
[36:52.820 --> 36:55.560]  [SPEAKER_23]: Look inside, and you might see people drinking heavily.
[36:55.560 --> 37:01.020]  [SPEAKER_03]: I've seen some neighborhoods in Queens where they actually have had McCain-Palin signs all over the place.
[37:02.020 --> 37:02.800]  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the signs.
[37:02.860 --> 37:03.520]  [SPEAKER_03]: I saw the signs.
[37:03.580 --> 37:06.420]  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but I mean, they're in houses, you know, in front of houses.
[37:06.680 --> 37:13.320]  [SPEAKER_03]: So apparently, certain neighborhoods in outer Queens and other outer neighborhoods around the rim of New York City.
[37:13.420 --> 37:20.960]  [SPEAKER_23]: On Long Island yesterday, I saw a lot of depressed-looking older people sitting on benches, and it just seemed like they were very afraid of the future.
[37:21.200 --> 37:22.500]  [SPEAKER_23]: And, you know, I hope they get over it.
[37:22.580 --> 37:24.880]  [SPEAKER_23]: I hope they get over it because, you know, change can be a very good thing.
[37:25.200 --> 37:29.140]  [SPEAKER_22]: Yeah, but you see sad-looking old people looking frustrated all the time on Long Island.
[37:29.140 --> 37:29.940]  [SPEAKER_22]: That's probably, yeah.
[37:30.000 --> 37:30.640]  [SPEAKER_22]: It could have been that, too.
[37:30.880 --> 37:32.980]  [SPEAKER_23]: Our phone number is 212-209-2900.
[37:33.200 --> 37:39.900]  [SPEAKER_23]: Now, Mark, any other show, we would be featuring all the music and creative stuff that you do.
[37:40.020 --> 37:41.180]  [SPEAKER_04]: This is a special day.
[37:41.180 --> 37:46.500]  [SPEAKER_23]: This is a special day, but I would like to just pay attention for a few seconds to something new that you're putting out.
[37:46.620 --> 37:49.620]  [SPEAKER_23]: This is a piece... I'm going to play a little bit of it.
[37:49.880 --> 37:50.460]  [SPEAKER_23]: This has to do with...
[37:50.460 --> 37:52.760]  [SPEAKER_23]: This is a new record that came out from Negativland just a few months ago.
[37:52.780 --> 37:54.620]  [SPEAKER_23]: One of our most beloved presidents, Richard M.
[37:54.840 --> 37:54.920]  [SPEAKER_23]: Nixon.
[37:55.500 --> 37:57.220]  [SPEAKER_23]: And you want to tell us something about this piece?
[37:57.220 --> 38:04.180]  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, it's just a little, you know, it's just a little wistful, a little nostalgia piece about our wonderful president, Richard Nixon.
[38:04.180 --> 38:04.920]  [SPEAKER_04]: Aw, okay.
[38:04.960 --> 38:05.480]  [SPEAKER_23]: Let's listen.
[38:06.600 --> 38:11.480]  [SPEAKER_13]: If you'll join us in this song, I think you'll recognize it when I start it.
[38:15.290 --> 38:16.630]  [SPEAKER_13]: Let me get a card.
[38:20.450 --> 38:25.290]  [SPEAKER_13]: Always remember, others may hate you.
[38:26.650 --> 38:30.490]  [SPEAKER_13]: Those who hate you don't win, unless you hate them.
[38:32.350 --> 38:34.550]  [SPEAKER_13]: And then, you destroy yourself.
[38:35.410 --> 38:38.150]  [SPEAKER_13]: Richard Nixon died today.
[38:38.150 --> 38:40.230]  [SPEAKER_13]: That's just plain poppycock.
[38:40.570 --> 38:42.730]  [SPEAKER_13]: And then, you destroy yourself.
[38:43.210 --> 38:46.390]  [SPEAKER_15]: I saw it on the news, they said.
[38:46.890 --> 38:47.370]  [SPEAKER_15]: Au revoir.
[38:48.150 --> 38:49.050]  [SPEAKER_15]: Au revoir.
[38:49.530 --> 38:50.370]  [SPEAKER_15]: We'll see you again.
[38:50.730 --> 38:53.630]  [SPEAKER_15]: Oh, I guess he was okay.
[38:54.090 --> 38:54.790]  [SPEAKER_15]: Well, I'm not a crook.
[38:54.890 --> 38:59.050]  [SPEAKER_15]: He was the president everybody hated.
[38:59.430 --> 39:02.550]  [SPEAKER_14]: Because people have got to know whether or not their president's a crook.
[39:03.330 --> 39:04.790]  [SPEAKER_14]: Their president's a crook.
[39:04.890 --> 39:05.690]  [SPEAKER_14]: Well, I'm not a crook.
[39:05.790 --> 39:06.390]  [SPEAKER_14]: Crook, crook.
[39:06.390 --> 39:10.630]  [SPEAKER_14]: And I don't dream about the president anymore.
[39:11.150 --> 39:11.930]  [SPEAKER_15]: Crook, crook.
[39:12.050 --> 39:13.450]  [SPEAKER_15]: As a flower, she grew.
[39:14.010 --> 39:19.030]  [SPEAKER_15]: And all of my friends, they say that they don't either.
[39:19.230 --> 39:19.930]  [SPEAKER_15]: Crook, crook.
[39:19.990 --> 39:22.810]  [SPEAKER_15]: And as a very young flower, she died.
[39:23.050 --> 39:25.590]  [SPEAKER_15]: Richard Nixon died today.
[39:25.970 --> 39:26.570]  [SPEAKER_15]: Copycock.
[39:26.810 --> 39:29.670]  [SPEAKER_15]: I saw it on the news, they said.
[39:29.790 --> 39:30.990]  [SPEAKER_14]: Because people have got to know.
[39:31.150 --> 39:33.490]  [SPEAKER_15]: Oh, I guess he was okay.
[39:33.770 --> 39:34.850]  [SPEAKER_15]: Their president's a crook.
[39:34.850 --> 39:37.470]  [SPEAKER_15]: I'm watching history remain.
[39:37.710 --> 39:38.470]  [SPEAKER_15]: Crook, crook.
[39:38.710 --> 39:42.990]  [SPEAKER_15]: He went to a special place in heaven.
[39:43.450 --> 39:45.110]  [SPEAKER_14]: I have never obstructed justice.
[39:45.170 --> 39:46.490]  [SPEAKER_15]: Call your Belinda.
[39:47.270 --> 39:51.010]  [SPEAKER_13]: We don't have a good word for English.
[39:51.610 --> 39:52.370]  [SPEAKER_13]: Copycock.
[39:53.850 --> 39:58.530]  [SPEAKER_15]: And I don't dream about the president anymore.
[39:59.170 --> 39:59.930]  [SPEAKER_15]: Crook, crook.
[39:59.930 --> 40:01.510]  [SPEAKER_15]: As a flower, she grew.
[40:02.190 --> 40:07.170]  [SPEAKER_15]: And most of my friends, they say that they don't either.
[40:07.310 --> 40:08.070]  [SPEAKER_13]: Crook, crook.
[40:08.190 --> 40:11.070]  [SPEAKER_13]: And as a fair young flower, she died.
[40:11.330 --> 40:13.650]  [SPEAKER_15]: Richard Nixon died today.
[40:13.730 --> 40:15.890]  [SPEAKER_13]: That's just plain poppycock.
[40:16.590 --> 40:17.450]  [SPEAKER_13]: We'll see you again.
[40:19.410 --> 40:22.190]  [SPEAKER_15]: Richard Nixon died today.
[40:23.470 --> 40:24.410]  [SPEAKER_13]: We'll see you again.
[40:24.530 --> 40:25.330]  [SPEAKER_13]: We'll see you again.
[40:25.510 --> 40:26.290]  [SPEAKER_13]: We'll see you again.
[40:26.410 --> 40:27.230]  [SPEAKER_13]: We'll see you again.
[40:27.330 --> 40:27.830]  [SPEAKER_13]: Au revoir.
[40:30.390 --> 40:30.790]  [SPEAKER_23]: Wow.
[40:31.110 --> 40:31.830]  [SPEAKER_23]: That is awesome.
[40:32.430 --> 40:32.830]  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[40:32.970 --> 40:33.450]  [SPEAKER_23]: That is great.
[40:33.490 --> 40:35.190]  [SPEAKER_04]: We've been able to make a lovely duet with him.
[40:35.330 --> 40:38.170]  [SPEAKER_04]: Just from some nice tapes taken off a television documentary.
[40:38.270 --> 40:39.450]  [SPEAKER_04]: And this is brand new?
[40:39.690 --> 40:40.230]  [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, it is.
[40:40.250 --> 40:40.870]  [SPEAKER_04]: It is brand new.
[40:40.990 --> 40:43.750]  [SPEAKER_04]: Even though Richard Nixon's been actually gone quite a long time.
[40:43.750 --> 40:46.670]  [SPEAKER_23]: Well, he has been gone for a while, but I was worried you guys might be gone.
[40:46.770 --> 40:48.210]  [SPEAKER_23]: So Negativland has a new record coming on.
[40:48.290 --> 40:48.790]  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.
[40:48.910 --> 40:53.130]  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, we put out a DVD collection of all of our cut-up collage film work about a year ago.
[40:53.250 --> 40:55.390]  [SPEAKER_04]: And then this record came out in July.
[40:55.610 --> 40:57.270]  [SPEAKER_04]: And it's gotten really mixed reactions.
[40:57.310 --> 40:59.370]  [SPEAKER_04]: Because for some, some people don't know what to make of it.
[40:59.410 --> 41:04.250]  [SPEAKER_04]: Because what's so weird about it is it's a Negativland, basically like a little Negativland pop record.
[41:04.330 --> 41:05.710]  [SPEAKER_23]: Well, we were all singing along to it.
[41:05.750 --> 41:06.270]  [SPEAKER_23]: It's very catchy.
[41:06.470 --> 41:07.150]  [SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, thank you.
[41:07.190 --> 41:07.810]  [SPEAKER_23]: I think it is.
[41:07.890 --> 41:08.910]  [SPEAKER_23]: It's very uplifting, too.
[41:09.390 --> 41:10.430]  [SPEAKER_23]: It's cheerful lyrics.
[41:10.430 --> 41:20.570]  [SPEAKER_04]: It's, yeah, it was our, we've done so much cut-up noise collage stuff that it was a challenge for us to try and make a record that actually has one song after another, kind of like normal records to do.
[41:20.750 --> 41:23.310]  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if we'll ever do it again, but yes, it was fun.
[41:23.410 --> 41:23.790]  [SPEAKER_04]: It was a lot of fun.
[41:23.790 --> 41:25.110]  [SPEAKER_23]: Well, you guys never do the same thing twice.
[41:25.390 --> 41:26.330]  [SPEAKER_04]: We try not to.
[41:26.370 --> 41:27.250]  [SPEAKER_04]: That's our goal.
[41:27.830 --> 41:28.570]  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so.
[41:28.810 --> 41:29.190]  [SPEAKER_23]: All right.
[41:29.450 --> 41:30.810]  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, thanks for playing that, though.
[41:30.890 --> 41:31.770]  [SPEAKER_23]: Well, thanks for bringing it in.
[41:31.790 --> 41:36.370]  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and I, you know, I'm here in New York because I was invited to speak at New York University about what we do.
[41:36.370 --> 41:41.050]  [SPEAKER_04]: And another thing we won't have much time to go into today, but I was in Washington, D.C.
[41:41.270 --> 41:42.810]  [SPEAKER_23]: You had a bit of a surreal experience, didn't you?
[41:42.810 --> 41:43.290]  [SPEAKER_04]: I sure did.
[41:43.490 --> 41:58.490]  [SPEAKER_04]: I was in, there is now an intellectual property advocacy group called digitalfreedom.org, the Digital Freedom Campaign, and they brought me into D.C., and I was taken around to the offices of John Conyers, Patrick, Senator Leahy, Brownbeck from Kansas,
[41:58.710 --> 42:02.410]  [SPEAKER_04]: like ultra-conservative, Daryl Issa, you know, for the congressman from...
[42:02.410 --> 42:04.650]  [SPEAKER_23]: Isn't that weird when they take you to the offices and you meet the people?
[42:04.650 --> 42:06.710]  [SPEAKER_23]: I mean, I met Lieberman with Kevin Mitnick.
[42:06.870 --> 42:08.230]  [SPEAKER_23]: It doesn't get any stranger than that.
[42:09.930 --> 42:11.870]  [SPEAKER_23]: And that was before he ran for vice president.
[42:12.810 --> 42:13.550]  [SPEAKER_04]: I was taller.
[42:13.810 --> 42:14.510]  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, that's what I think.
[42:14.570 --> 42:15.050]  [SPEAKER_04]: Most people are.
[42:15.310 --> 42:31.350]  [SPEAKER_04]: But yeah, it was really strange because I was there to talk about our work and cut up and collage and appropriation, but not just our work, of course, but really to point out to them that, hey, you know, this type of practice of making film and making music and making art isn't just in the fringes anymore.
[42:31.350 --> 42:33.510]  [SPEAKER_04]: This is millions of kids are all doing this.
[42:33.650 --> 42:40.970]  [SPEAKER_04]: So you have a nation of supposed criminals, and perhaps the laws and business practices are really behind the times and behind the curve.
[42:41.810 --> 42:55.210]  [SPEAKER_04]: And my other message was really to say, hey, when the RAA comes into your office or the MPAA comes into your office and they trot out, you know, Sheryl Crow or Elton John or somebody and say that it says, these people speak for all musicians, I'm here to tell you they don't.
[42:55.210 --> 43:05.490]  [SPEAKER_04]: In fact, they speak for about 1% and that, you know, the future of all, you know, so I was, anyway, got to see up close and personal how our government doesn't work very well.
[43:05.670 --> 43:09.050]  [SPEAKER_23]: On Capitol Hill, are there any Negativland listeners?
[43:09.430 --> 43:10.010]  [SPEAKER_23]: Did you find any?
[43:10.150 --> 43:11.610]  [SPEAKER_04]: This was shocking.
[43:11.950 --> 43:16.870]  [SPEAKER_04]: There were some staff members who told me they were excited I was there because they listened to us in college.
[43:16.870 --> 43:30.610]  [SPEAKER_04]: And it also turned out that the president of the Consumer Electronics Association knew all about our court cases and the vice president of the Consumer Electronics Association, who took me around to the office as a guy named Michael Petricone, he owned a copy of our U2 single.
[43:30.930 --> 43:31.190]  [SPEAKER_04]: Wow.
[43:31.390 --> 43:39.850]  [SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, they said, oh, yeah, all the staff at the CEA thinks, you know, you're heroes to those guys, you know, or you're heroes to all of our staff here at the CEA.
[43:39.950 --> 43:47.250]  [SPEAKER_04]: And of course, the CEA represents Yahoo, Verizon, Google, Dell, Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Panasonic.
[43:47.490 --> 43:49.750]  [SPEAKER_04]: So to say it was surreal is an understatement.
[43:49.750 --> 44:00.470]  [SPEAKER_23]: Well, okay, it's great that... and I encourage people out there who may never have listened to Negativland, go find some tracks, Negativland spelled without an E, some amazing stuff there.
[44:00.510 --> 44:03.730]  [SPEAKER_23]: And of course, Mark, Mark Harsley, you spoke at Hope, a couple of Hopes.
[44:03.870 --> 44:04.430]  [SPEAKER_23]: Yes, I have.
[44:04.530 --> 44:05.250]  [SPEAKER_23]: And great panels there.
[44:06.030 --> 44:07.430]  [SPEAKER_23]: But we really don't have time.
[44:07.530 --> 44:08.490]  [SPEAKER_23]: We have to take some phone calls, Mike.
[44:08.490 --> 44:10.050]  [SPEAKER_08]: I just want to know, what is the title of the new CD?
[44:10.150 --> 44:10.670]  [SPEAKER_08]: Oh, I'm sorry.
[44:10.670 --> 44:10.890]  [SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[44:10.890 --> 44:14.790]  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm so bad at self-promotion, but yeah, it's called Figma Tactic.
[44:15.390 --> 44:16.070]  [SPEAKER_04]: That's what it's called.
[44:16.090 --> 44:16.690]  [SPEAKER_04]: How do you spell that?
[44:16.690 --> 44:20.150]  [SPEAKER_04]: T-H-I-G-M-O-T...
[44:20.150 --> 44:20.730]  [SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, okay.
[44:20.890 --> 44:21.250]  [SPEAKER_04]: You know what?
[44:21.750 --> 44:22.610]  [SPEAKER_04]: I can't even spell.
[44:22.890 --> 44:28.450]  [SPEAKER_04]: But yes, and I just wanted to say one last thing that I went to D.C.
[44:28.550 --> 44:32.190]  [SPEAKER_04]: One reason was just for the sheer bizarreness of getting a chance to do this.
[44:32.270 --> 44:33.850]  [SPEAKER_04]: But I really wanted to see what it would be like.
[44:33.930 --> 44:42.830]  [SPEAKER_04]: And could I manage to stay true to who we are and keep our integrity and our ideas and message, you know, but still, you know, go into that environment?
[44:42.950 --> 44:43.570]  [SPEAKER_04]: And I think I did.
[44:43.650 --> 44:44.430]  [SPEAKER_04]: I think I did okay.
[44:44.870 --> 44:46.830]  [SPEAKER_23]: Okay, let's take some phone calls.
[44:46.950 --> 44:48.890]  [SPEAKER_23]: 212-209-2900.
[44:49.130 --> 44:54.370]  [SPEAKER_23]: We're talking to people about this historic day, last night being an historic night.
[44:54.510 --> 44:58.030]  [SPEAKER_23]: And I'd like to know what other experiences people around the world might have had.
[44:58.150 --> 44:59.230]  [SPEAKER_23]: So let's see who is out there.
[44:59.630 --> 45:01.490]  [SPEAKER_23]: 212-209-2900.
[45:01.630 --> 45:02.410]  [SPEAKER_23]: And good evening.
[45:02.530 --> 45:03.050]  [SPEAKER_23]: You're on Off The Hook.
[45:04.030 --> 45:09.130]  [SPEAKER_17]: Yeah, I had a comment about the majority wins voting system, the 50% plus one.
[45:09.350 --> 45:09.850]  [SPEAKER_23]: Okay, go ahead.
[45:10.710 --> 45:14.630]  [SPEAKER_17]: Basically, I just wanted to make the point that it cuts out third parties.
[45:15.550 --> 45:22.530]  [SPEAKER_17]: Normally, if you want to vote for a third-party and you don't want to have your vote get thrown away, a runoff system is a good way of, you know, not throwing it away.
[45:22.830 --> 45:23.410]  [SPEAKER_23]: That's true.
[45:23.630 --> 45:24.070]  [SPEAKER_23]: That is true.
[45:24.370 --> 45:24.710]  [SPEAKER_17]: That's all.
[45:24.850 --> 45:25.030]  [SPEAKER_17]: Thanks.
[45:25.190 --> 45:26.310]  [SPEAKER_23]: Thanks for that comment.
[45:27.010 --> 45:27.830]  [SPEAKER_23]: Let's take this call.
[45:28.570 --> 45:29.130]  [SPEAKER_23]: Now, good evening.
[45:29.270 --> 45:29.850]  [SPEAKER_23]: You're on Off The Hook.
[45:30.510 --> 45:30.910]  [SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[45:31.630 --> 45:32.270]  [SPEAKER_23]: What's on your mind?
[45:33.490 --> 45:34.690]  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I have a comment.
[45:34.870 --> 45:35.130]  [SPEAKER_23]: Go ahead.
[45:35.230 --> 45:35.770]  [SPEAKER_23]: Turn down your radio.
[45:36.370 --> 45:36.550]  [SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[45:37.490 --> 45:37.850]  [SPEAKER_01]: Hello?
[45:38.070 --> 45:38.530]  [SPEAKER_23]: Yes, go ahead.
[45:39.230 --> 45:39.670]  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, hi.
[45:40.250 --> 45:44.210]  [SPEAKER_01]: I have, like, one comment about the voting system.
[45:44.210 --> 45:50.630]  [SPEAKER_01]: And I also want to, you know, just give you guys, I don't know, probably you might have heard.
[45:51.370 --> 45:54.910]  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you guys know that it's a national holiday in Kenya?
[45:55.150 --> 45:55.610]  [SPEAKER_23]: In Kenya, yes.
[45:55.670 --> 45:57.110]  [SPEAKER_23]: You know, I wish there was a national holiday here.
[45:57.190 --> 46:00.250]  [SPEAKER_23]: In fact, Election Day should be a national holiday like it is in many countries.
[46:00.910 --> 46:02.810]  [SPEAKER_23]: But maybe someday it will be.
[46:03.390 --> 46:03.930]  [SPEAKER_01]: It is.
[46:04.050 --> 46:09.830]  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what takes me to my second comment about the voting system.
[46:10.030 --> 46:22.310]  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's high time that, you know, the present federal government take a fresh look at the voting system and maybe introduce a kind of, you know, unified system all over the country.
[46:22.310 --> 46:27.050]  [SPEAKER_01]: I think the statewide system is just creating so much of a lot.
[46:27.050 --> 46:28.090]  [SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, a lot of confusion.
[46:28.230 --> 46:29.090]  [SPEAKER_03]: Many of us agree with that.
[46:29.250 --> 46:30.030]  [SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, a lot of confusion.
[46:30.510 --> 46:42.110]  [SPEAKER_23]: You know, I think with this early, of the early voting that's been going on, that more people are getting involved and that we see the first major change in the way elections are being held in this country in a very long time.
[46:42.690 --> 46:47.610]  [SPEAKER_22]: Speaking of national holidays, I'd just like to quickly wish our listeners in the UK and elsewhere a happy Guy Fawkes night.
[46:48.010 --> 46:48.930]  [SPEAKER_23]: Guy Fawkes.
[46:49.170 --> 46:50.110]  [SPEAKER_23]: Yes, that's right.
[46:50.790 --> 46:51.990]  [SPEAKER_23]: Okay, good evening.
[46:52.030 --> 46:53.170]  [SPEAKER_23]: You're on Off The Hook.
[46:54.410 --> 46:55.610]  [SPEAKER_18]: Hi, my name is Quad.
[46:56.090 --> 46:56.990]  [SPEAKER_23]: Quad, where are you calling from?
[46:57.750 --> 46:58.770]  [SPEAKER_18]: From Riverdale, Bronx.
[46:59.010 --> 46:59.230]  [SPEAKER_23]: Okay.
[46:59.650 --> 47:00.330]  [SPEAKER_23]: What's on your mind?
[47:01.330 --> 47:02.490]  [SPEAKER_18]: Am I on the radar now?
[47:02.490 --> 47:03.130]  [SPEAKER_23]: Yes, you are.
[47:03.210 --> 47:03.430]  [SPEAKER_23]: Go ahead.
[47:03.550 --> 47:03.890]  [SPEAKER_18]: Oh, yes.
[47:04.010 --> 47:12.390]  [SPEAKER_18]: Okay, now I was listening to your show and I want to say the most poignant part of my evening last time was actually taking my one-year-old to go vote with me.
[47:12.390 --> 47:22.890]  [SPEAKER_18]: And then as we left here to go watch the elections, it was so surreal to see how blacks and whites got together, you know, on one stage.
[47:23.750 --> 47:31.050]  [SPEAKER_18]: You had two people, I mean, in the past, like, a good 40 years ago, King and, of course, Kenny, that died because of this.
[47:31.470 --> 47:48.890]  [SPEAKER_18]: And it was very moving to see how everyone on 121st Street, in the village, everywhere else was on television, and how much that we've grown as a country, and it was a more of a surreal moment, you know, as I sat down and I saw, even on stage, when, of course,
[47:48.950 --> 48:03.870]  [SPEAKER_18]: Barack was on stage with, you know, with Joe Biden, and I was like, wow, this is really a turning point in America that we should all be proud of one another, and hopefully I wish, you know, for things to stay as much as we're proud today, that we're all proud,
[48:04.070 --> 48:20.070]  [SPEAKER_18]: whether a lot of whoever lost the campaign, won the campaign, but it's a face that we have now seen, that there is possibility that we all come together throughout the years of fighting or whatever has happened, and I'm a black American, and, you know,
[48:20.810 --> 48:32.430]  [SPEAKER_18]: you know, every time a lot of people talk about, well, black Americans, yeah, we did go through a lot, but the same reason in tokens that whites also, in civil rights, did lose their lives also, and I think sometimes we forget that.
[48:32.890 --> 48:47.070]  [SPEAKER_18]: So, I just want to pretty much say on your show that I hope that everyone, as much as, I guess, the love that we have today, you know, I don't care what race, what, you know, gender, whoever you are, I kind of feel that all across, you know, boundaries and everything,
[48:47.150 --> 49:00.690]  [SPEAKER_18]: and I hope that, you know, and of course continue on, and that's pretty much what I wanted to express, you know, I hope that my daughter as she gets older, when she hits 15, 16, she understands how far, you know, we have gotten, and where she was at, and where everybody was at,
[49:00.730 --> 49:02.050]  [SPEAKER_18]: you know, it was just a historical night.
[49:02.410 --> 49:15.050]  [SPEAKER_23]: All right, thanks, thanks very much for those thoughts, those sentiments, and yeah, I think what I saw last night was just this overwhelming feeling of pride, I mean, seeing people actually waving the flag, and singing national, I mean, it's just so unusual to be in crowds like that,
[49:15.130 --> 49:16.930]  [SPEAKER_23]: it's just very, very weird.
[49:17.070 --> 49:19.930]  [SPEAKER_23]: I cannot remember the last time people were out in the streets singing the national anthem.
[49:20.450 --> 49:23.290]  [SPEAKER_23]: I mean, even after the Mets win or something like that, that doesn't happen.
[49:23.610 --> 49:23.950]  [SPEAKER_23]: It never happens.
[49:24.290 --> 49:25.690]  [SPEAKER_23]: I know they never win either.
[49:25.990 --> 49:29.590]  [SPEAKER_22]: Yeah, it was great, it's like we're taking back the proper definition of the word patriotism now.
[49:29.750 --> 49:37.470]  [SPEAKER_23]: And I just have to wonder, the other people that hijacked the nation for so long, what they're feeling now, they must be really confused, and maybe bitter.
[49:38.210 --> 49:45.210]  [SPEAKER_02]: The feeling I got last night, listening to people singing, repeatedly singing the Star Spangled Banner in unison, and waving...
[49:45.210 --> 49:47.050]  [SPEAKER_02]: And God Bless America, too, because that's a better song.
[49:47.150 --> 49:50.270]  [SPEAKER_04]: And you know the melody of the national anthem was stolen from an English drinking song.
[49:50.310 --> 49:53.390]  [SPEAKER_23]: Do you know that Negativland has a piece that details that quite a bit?
[49:53.390 --> 49:56.990]  [SPEAKER_02]: There you go, intellectual property borrowing has been going on a long time.
[49:56.990 --> 50:05.150]  [SPEAKER_02]: But I got the feeling that all the patriotism we saw last night was not really a nationalistic, jingoistic type patriotism.
[50:05.290 --> 50:06.810]  [SPEAKER_02]: It had a different feeling to it.
[50:07.330 --> 50:07.810]  [SPEAKER_23]: Right, absolutely.
[50:08.130 --> 50:09.690]  [SPEAKER_23]: This was real.
[50:09.890 --> 50:14.510]  [SPEAKER_23]: This wasn't something that was, I don't know, had an agenda behind it.
[50:14.550 --> 50:16.750]  [SPEAKER_23]: It was just spontaneous, people just coming out into the street.
[50:16.750 --> 50:17.830]  [SPEAKER_23]: I've never seen anything like it.
[50:17.950 --> 50:20.330]  [SPEAKER_23]: And once in a lifetime, I think, really.
[50:20.710 --> 50:23.230]  [SPEAKER_23]: I'd like to hear if other people around the world experience the same thing.
[50:23.250 --> 50:23.910]  [SPEAKER_23]: Let's go to this caller.
[50:23.910 --> 50:24.330]  [SPEAKER_23]: Good evening.
[50:24.750 --> 50:25.430]  [SPEAKER_12]: Yes, hello.
[50:25.830 --> 50:26.490]  [SPEAKER_12]: Yes, you're on off the hook.
[50:26.650 --> 50:27.670]  [SPEAKER_12]: It's Tom from the Bronx here.
[50:27.810 --> 50:28.110]  [SPEAKER_12]: How you doing?
[50:28.250 --> 50:28.990]  [SPEAKER_12]: Redford Park.
[50:29.770 --> 50:36.150]  [SPEAKER_12]: And I'd like to say that last night, the crowd should have been singing Happy Days Are Here Again.
[50:36.710 --> 50:37.870]  [SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, that would have been a good song.
[50:37.970 --> 50:39.890]  [SPEAKER_23]: In fact, maybe some people were singing that.
[50:39.930 --> 50:44.290]  [SPEAKER_12]: Maybe you can play that in the studio if you have that.
[50:44.830 --> 50:46.830]  [SPEAKER_23]: Well, we'll file that request.
[50:46.830 --> 51:06.690]  [SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, but anyway, I'd like to say that a lot of people are hoping that the economics get better and we get back on the road to recovery instead of going, slipping, and sliding down that slippery slope for a bad financial disaster.
[51:07.090 --> 51:12.870]  [SPEAKER_23]: Well, ending some wars, investing in infrastructure, cutting down on the deficit, those things will help.
[51:12.870 --> 51:47.250]  [SPEAKER_12]: In other words, Mr. Obama, or President Obama now, what he could do to sort of lessen the war in the Mideast would be to try to negotiate with Egypt to buy a major portion of the Sinai Peninsula, and to create more work, to create a homeland for the Palestinian people who have been victimized all these years for one reason or the other one of their own making.
[51:48.470 --> 51:57.130]  [SPEAKER_12]: The idea would be to create a new country and leave the territory of Israel intact.
[51:57.310 --> 52:01.290]  [SPEAKER_23]: Okay, well, sir, you're getting a little bit too deep for us right now.
[52:01.290 --> 52:04.530]  [SPEAKER_23]: Right now, we're just sort of focusing on the celebration and what happened.
[52:04.610 --> 52:10.010]  [SPEAKER_23]: And yeah, obviously, these things are going to have to be addressed, and a lot of thinking is going to have to go on, and policy changes.
[52:10.530 --> 52:13.770]  [SPEAKER_23]: And the next few years, we're going to see some historical changes.
[52:13.990 --> 52:15.330]  [SPEAKER_12]: Excuse me, sir, one more thing.
[52:15.430 --> 52:15.930]  [SPEAKER_12]: Very quickly.
[52:15.930 --> 52:23.850]  [SPEAKER_12]: I'd like to say that, as for McCain, McCain should have done Jimmy Durante.
[52:24.210 --> 52:31.270]  [SPEAKER_12]: He said, good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are, and whoever you did vote for.
[52:31.570 --> 52:35.410]  [SPEAKER_12]: But personally speaking, I believe that you've been a traitor to me.
[52:35.870 --> 52:36.690]  [SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, interesting.
[52:37.010 --> 52:37.970]  [SPEAKER_23]: Thanks so much for your call.
[52:38.130 --> 52:40.190]  [SPEAKER_23]: And let's see if we can squeeze in one or two more.
[52:40.810 --> 52:41.750]  [SPEAKER_23]: And good evening.
[52:41.970 --> 52:42.670]  [SPEAKER_23]: You're on Off The Hook.
[52:42.950 --> 52:44.910]  [SPEAKER_21]: Yes, you're talking about Barack Obama today?
[52:44.910 --> 52:45.930]  [SPEAKER_23]: We're trying to.
[52:46.190 --> 52:47.150]  [SPEAKER_23]: We're talking about the election.
[52:48.010 --> 52:51.230]  [SPEAKER_21]: I voted for Barack Obama because he's going to get gas prices down.
[52:51.770 --> 52:52.030]  [SPEAKER_23]: Okay.
[52:54.470 --> 52:55.570]  [SPEAKER_23]: And you think he will?
[52:56.390 --> 52:57.870]  [SPEAKER_21]: Well, he's going to get the church out of Iraq.
[52:57.870 --> 53:00.550]  [SPEAKER_21]: He said he was going to get the church out of Iraq to get gas prices down.
[53:00.850 --> 53:01.130]  [SPEAKER_23]: Okay.
[53:01.130 --> 53:03.170]  [SPEAKER_23]: I'm not sure if that's exactly how he said it, but...
[53:03.750 --> 53:07.010]  [SPEAKER_04]: He's personally going to go around to gas stations and actually change the signs.
[53:07.150 --> 53:08.850]  [SPEAKER_04]: That's how he gets the gas prices down.
[53:09.110 --> 53:09.810]  [SPEAKER_04]: That's kind of amazing.
[53:10.070 --> 53:11.010]  [SPEAKER_23]: Let's go to another call.
[53:11.270 --> 53:11.610]  [SPEAKER_23]: Good evening.
[53:11.750 --> 53:12.490]  [SPEAKER_23]: You're on Off The Hook.
[53:13.210 --> 53:14.750]  [SPEAKER_19]: Thank you so much for taking my call.
[53:14.910 --> 53:15.550]  [SPEAKER_23]: No problem.
[53:15.850 --> 53:18.030]  [SPEAKER_19]: I'm running away from radios and televisions.
[53:18.170 --> 53:18.490]  [SPEAKER_19]: Good, good.
[53:18.490 --> 53:19.010]  [SPEAKER_19]: What's on your mind?
[53:19.130 --> 53:21.850]  [SPEAKER_19]: I've been down in the first in Bronx, New York, 58-year-old African-American male.
[53:22.110 --> 53:23.750]  [SPEAKER_23]: Every single call is coming from the Bronx tonight.
[53:23.930 --> 53:24.270]  [SPEAKER_23]: Wow.
[53:24.610 --> 53:25.550]  [SPEAKER_19]: Yeah, we're hooked in.
[53:27.390 --> 53:29.590]  [SPEAKER_19]: It would be interesting to be able to...
[53:29.590 --> 53:32.870]  [SPEAKER_19]: Oh, first of all, could someone take a look into two things?
[53:33.090 --> 53:37.450]  [SPEAKER_19]: One, is Senator Obama president-elect yet?
[53:37.450 --> 53:41.730]  [SPEAKER_19]: My understanding is that you don't get the title until after the electors vote.
[53:42.150 --> 53:45.550]  [SPEAKER_23]: That might technically be true, but it's a foregone conclusion.
[53:45.570 --> 53:46.290]  [SPEAKER_19]: No, I'm talking about straight across the board.
[53:46.570 --> 53:49.090]  [SPEAKER_19]: Everybody's saying president-elect, president-elect, president-elect.
[53:49.090 --> 53:54.790]  [SPEAKER_19]: And my concern is, once again, the electors can do what they want.
[53:55.450 --> 53:57.650]  [SPEAKER_19]: It's just like electing your congressperson.
[53:57.770 --> 53:59.710]  [SPEAKER_19]: Yes, they are pledged to, however.
[54:00.010 --> 54:03.110]  [SPEAKER_23]: Do you really think that could happen in any universe right now?
[54:03.110 --> 54:14.770]  [SPEAKER_19]: I'm just saying, I'm just throwing it out so that people are aware, because I think part of the whole process is people are not aware of how the process works and what it is that we do.
[54:14.950 --> 54:22.810]  [SPEAKER_19]: The other thing is, could you all take a look into Good Search as a way to raise funds for 501c3s, especially WBAI?
[54:22.990 --> 54:23.630]  [SPEAKER_23]: Good Search.
[54:23.790 --> 54:24.570]  [SPEAKER_23]: I don't know anything about it.
[54:24.650 --> 54:26.370]  [SPEAKER_19]: Okay, Good Search is a search engine.
[54:27.010 --> 54:44.170]  [SPEAKER_19]: It's founded by the Ramberg Brothers, and what you do is you put a charity in before you do your search, and when you do your search, it's a Yahoo search, the revenue, part of the revenue from the website goes to the charity of your choice, usually about a penny.
[54:44.390 --> 54:44.770]  [SPEAKER_10]: Okay.
[54:44.930 --> 54:46.310]  [SPEAKER_19]: And WBAI is registered.
[54:46.750 --> 54:51.290]  [SPEAKER_19]: So anybody who has a 501c3, take a look at goodsearch.com.
[54:51.430 --> 54:52.450]  [SPEAKER_23]: Okay, thanks for that information.
[54:52.550 --> 54:56.730]  [SPEAKER_23]: Of course, here at WBAI, we can use all the help we can get to keep this amazing place going.
[54:57.010 --> 54:59.210]  [SPEAKER_23]: Thanks so much for everybody who called in.
[54:59.290 --> 55:00.330]  [SPEAKER_23]: Any last thoughts?
[55:00.390 --> 55:01.910]  [SPEAKER_23]: Because we do have to get out of here now.
[55:02.770 --> 55:03.690]  [SPEAKER_23]: No last thoughts.
[55:03.990 --> 55:09.830]  [SPEAKER_23]: Well, if our listeners have last thoughts, oth@2600.com is our email address.
[55:10.450 --> 55:12.610]  [SPEAKER_23]: And wow, we have so many people here tonight.
[55:12.810 --> 55:17.210]  [SPEAKER_23]: Mark, I want to thank you for coming by and sharing your Negativland magic with us.
[55:17.730 --> 55:19.470]  [SPEAKER_04]: A teeny eeny weeny little bit.
[55:19.610 --> 55:33.210]  [SPEAKER_04]: I have one sort of last thought, which is that one sort of danger right now is that this huge sigh of relief after eight years means that people stop doing the work of holding Obama's feet to the fire.
[55:33.430 --> 55:34.150]  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't think that's going to happen.
[55:34.250 --> 55:35.510]  [SPEAKER_04]: I think people are going to be very careful.
[55:35.750 --> 55:37.650]  [SPEAKER_04]: I almost think he's kind of asking for that.
[55:37.770 --> 55:44.730]  [SPEAKER_04]: I think he's almost literally said, if I get elected, you people, it's up to you people to keep letting me know what it is you want me to do.
[55:44.830 --> 55:44.990]  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[55:44.990 --> 55:47.510]  [SPEAKER_23]: And I hope he keeps that enthusiastic.
[55:47.890 --> 55:48.490]  [SPEAKER_06]: I sure do.
[55:48.690 --> 55:51.050]  [SPEAKER_06]: I'll make sure to tweet all of my requests to him on Twitter.
[55:51.170 --> 55:53.110]  [SPEAKER_23]: You were Twittering quite a bit last night.
[55:53.170 --> 55:53.530]  [SPEAKER_23]: I was.
[55:53.570 --> 55:54.270]  [SPEAKER_06]: I was trying to.
[55:54.390 --> 55:56.090]  [SPEAKER_06]: Although they seem to have changed their system lately.
[55:56.330 --> 55:59.650]  [SPEAKER_06]: And I noticed that any tweet I had with a swear word in it actually got filtered.
[55:59.790 --> 56:00.450]  [SPEAKER_06]: It didn't make it through.
[56:00.790 --> 56:01.150]  [SPEAKER_23]: Wow.
[56:01.550 --> 56:04.130]  [SPEAKER_23]: Twitter is becoming family oriented.
[56:04.330 --> 56:04.510]  [SPEAKER_23]: Bernie.
[56:04.750 --> 56:07.210]  [SPEAKER_02]: Very briefly, Phiber Optik was at this last night.
[56:07.310 --> 56:07.950]  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, he was with us.
[56:07.950 --> 56:18.690]  [SPEAKER_02]: And he pointed out something, a good observation, that he hopes that Obama puts the solar panels back on the roof of the White House, that Ronald Reagan tore down after Jimmy Carter stepped down.
[56:19.310 --> 56:20.610]  [SPEAKER_02]: So it'll be interesting to see if that happens.
[56:20.670 --> 56:24.810]  [SPEAKER_23]: And let's hope there's more high-speed rail in the works, because Biden now, he rides...
[56:24.810 --> 56:27.830]  [SPEAKER_23]: I don't think he'll be riding Amtrak much anymore, being vice president.
[56:27.950 --> 56:29.850]  [SPEAKER_23]: But still, he remembers it fondly.
[56:30.490 --> 56:32.130]  [SPEAKER_23]: Okay, we are out of time.
[56:32.230 --> 56:34.390]  [SPEAKER_23]: Len, I want to thank you for coming all the way up from Georgia.
[56:34.810 --> 56:35.930]  [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you very much for having me.
[56:35.930 --> 56:38.590]  [SPEAKER_23]: And everybody else, the name's too numerous to mention.
[56:38.990 --> 56:40.350]  [SPEAKER_23]: It's been fun.
[56:40.730 --> 56:41.530]  [SPEAKER_23]: And I'll be back...
[56:41.530 --> 56:41.570]  [SPEAKER_23]: Thank you.
[56:41.890 --> 56:47.210]  [SPEAKER_23]: We'll be back next week with another action-packed edition of Off The Hook.
[56:47.330 --> 56:52.110]  [SPEAKER_23]: And we have a special, once again, phone-related outro to go with.
[56:52.290 --> 56:56.670]  [SPEAKER_23]: This one, actually, you'll hear the 2600 hertz tone at the very beginning of it.
[56:56.750 --> 56:58.990]  [SPEAKER_23]: It's from a group called The Revelations.
[56:58.990 --> 56:59.930]  [SPEAKER_23]: We'll see you next week.