0-2 or go to give to WBAI.org. Give what you can because we will most
certainly take it. I mean money-wise I'm talking about. Anyway, stay tuned for Off
the Hook coming up.
WBAI New York time now for Off the Hook. And you're listening to radio station
WBAI New York. The time is seven o'clock time once again for Off the Hook.
I hope that's understood. My name is Mo.
And a very good evening to everybody. The program is Off the Hook. Emmanuel Goldstein
here with you. Joined tonight by Kyle. Are you there? Oh yeah, I'm here. Okay. And we
got the cue just right this week. It was perfect. It was really good
because we had a phone connection so there wasn't any hesitation or not
knowing if we were on the air because we can't hear the station where we are.
But we managed to figure out something else to screw up and why are we not
connected to anybody else? What's going on? I got locked out of my Skype account.
You got locked out of Skype. How do you get locked out of Skype? I guess I'm
suspicious. Well I'll second that but you're locked out of Skype. Can't you
just make a new Skype? I mean... Well we could use one that... I think you're using
that machine right now to read stories. I'm sorry for using my machine. Yes. It's
gonna be complicated. So we have some angry co-hosts who don't know
what's going on. They have no idea what's going on. For some reason we can't talk to them in any...
Okay, you're doing something though, right? You're working on something, some
solution here? Yeah, it's basically... I got these dialogues... You should also point
out your phone is dead too. Let's throw that into the mix. That's the other part of it.
I'm getting to that. I'm sorry. Are you? Forget I said that. Are you? Go ahead. I'm trying.
Well it's the situation where you get dialogues that are kind of pestering you
and in this case it was being sort of apologetic but insisting that, hey, you
know, that's great that you entered in your information but now we want to
send you this code. Oh, you got to get a code over SMS? Well, I allegedly already
got the code but the problem is the device that I received that code, like
it's out there floating around. The device? The device is out there floating around?
Oh, the code. Right. It's like it's all over. It's everywhere. Uh-huh. Yeah. But my device
isn't on that network. You want to know why? Why is your device not on the
network? I'll tell you why. Actually, you ruined it earlier but I'll go ahead and
get to that. Because your battery is dead. Okay, I'll ruin it again. Yeah, actually you'll be
surprised to know that my battery is actually very low and in this particular
model of handset or aged electronic technology, it requires like a baseline
of charging before it wants to cooperate and that means it can be plugged in but
still refuse to boot up which itself takes ever so long. Not anything like the
phones the kids of today use. So while I'm rubbing sticks together trying to
make my phone light up. You should plug it in then. Oh, it's been plugged in. Oh, good, good.
Okay, that's Foresight. You plugged it in. I had Foresight with the other aspects of
producing remote broadcasts on WBAI New York. We were going to talk about how the RNC is
technologically, what's the word, incompetent? But I don't think we're going to get to that
because I think we're going to focus on ourselves. That's news to me. There's a story there about
their incompetence? Well, no. There isn't a story that says that but I think that we can share our
own observations as to how they just don't get it. Okay, but I don't know if we're going to get to that.
You want to avoid the overall irony. If we can't even communicate with ourselves, I don't know if
we're ever going to get to that. No, that would be sick with irony and kind of inappropriate. So I'm
okay with wherever you want to go. So no doubt our co-hosts are listening to this right now over
internet or even the radio if Rob and Gila and Queens and I'm hoping that your phone is taking
a charge and that that will allow us, that will allow you to receive the code from Skype which
you inexplicably got locked out of. And why did that happen exactly? I don't know. You don't know.
I loaned my computer to a friend. Okay. And my friend was using that machine and I trust that
person. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You're talking about me. I just realized I borrowed
your machine and oh, so this is the cause of it. I didn't say, you know, draw your own conclusion.
Full disclosure, I am finally getting around to digitizing this family collection of slides. So
I've got all these carousels. You ever have slides, you know, slide projectors, all that
kind of thing. I have a whole stack of those. And for some reason, the computer that I have
wouldn't run the software properly. By the way, actually I'm thinking of something else. I'm
thinking of digitizing vinyl. We're doing two things at once, digitizing vinyl and digitizing
slides. And I wanted to do both of them at the same time. And the vinyl software wasn't working
on one computer at all for no reason. And we wound up just, okay, never mind. It doesn't matter. It's
not important. The thing is, I was using that computer. So what? I broke it? No, no, no. It's
just, well, I'm going to reserve the right to assign blame errantly because that is my area
of expertise. So no, no, no, no. In fact, the machine being out of my overall control, I guess
led to Skype getting suspicious. How would Skype know that I had your machine? I wasn't using Skype.
You know what? That's right. Yeah, but that's fine. I mean, maybe they noticed what you were
doing while that was going on. That is just scaring me. I'm totally making this up. Yeah,
I think you might be. I mean, do you know for sure that I'm not? Okay. How's your damn phone?
Is it charged enough to connect to something or to get a code? Or is there a backup plan we can
put together? Because I'm pretty sure we can think of something. You can focus on this embarrassment
as much as you'd like, or I can quietly try to resolve it. I'll quietly try to resolve it. Okay.
I'll go ahead with that. I have some stories to read. Okay. But I just ask that you quietly try
to resolve it quickly. Okay. My apologies for the inconvenience to all. You can reach Kyle
with your messages of berating. No, at our regular email address, oth at 2600.com. We're the technology
program where we live to talk about technology and how it works and sometimes doesn't and how
other people sometimes make total fools of themselves when they don't use it properly.
So we have been keeping track of both conventions. And in fact, if you keep listening to WBAI,
you will be hearing the Republican convention tonight starting at 10. And you could not tune
into a better place to hear coverage of these people. Because wow, it's just an unbelievable
performance that is being unveiled in front of the entire world. We've gotten through half of it,
Monday and Tuesday. And now we have Wednesday and Thursday still to come. And we're going to
hopefully have some interesting news to share and speeches and things like that. I believe we're
hearing from the vice president tonight and some other braindead heroes. Yes, his wife too. Got to
hear from the wife, the vice president's wife. I think so. Okay. All right. Yeah. And yeah,
there's a lot to analyze and sift through. So have you have you turned on your phone?
Yeah. Have your code yet? I'll let you know. Okay. But you know, we're a quarter of the way
through the show almost. Okay. And no pressure, right? No pressure. Okay. That's fantastic. I'm
getting messages on my phone. So no doubt you are. Is there a way we can divert the code to
a different phone if your phone isn't working? I would love to troubleshoot this with you on
the air. But I don't think that's the most effective use of our program. Okay. Well,
Rob is suggesting that we set up a Zoom chat. So why don't we do that? I can hand you my phone
with the details on it. Sure. Yeah. Here's my phone with the details on it. And you guys get
that set up and we'll see how quickly we can get today's newfangled technology working. And we'll
have a show before you know it. Wouldn't that be nice? Okay. So let's talk about the coronavirus.
Just get off topic. We're going to talk about RNC things, but I guess we can talk about the
coronavirus since that's also in the news and probably will be for quite some time. There are,
of course, many people going back to school now, universities, elementary schools, high schools,
things like that. And it's really kind of going to be a decisive period of time where we don't know
what the effects of that will be. Now in places like New York, which are fairly safe for now,
it seems like a good idea to send kids back to school. But if their behavior changes,
and that's already happened in a few colleges where people are not acting responsibly,
all of a sudden we could be looking at another outbreak if people don't follow the guidelines.
And there seems to be an awful lot of that. No matter where you go, some places a lot more than
others, guidelines are not being followed. Now dealing with all this, there are all kinds of
technological ways that colleges are handling this. Now one Michigan college is tracking its
students with what is known as a flawed app, Albion College. It's a small liberal arts school
in Michigan. They said in June they would allow their nearly 1,500 students to return to campus
starting in August. Lectures would be limited in size and the semester would finish by Thanksgiving
rather than December. The school said it would test both staff and students upon their arrival
to campus and throughout the academic year. But less than two weeks before students began
arriving on campus, the school announced it would require them to download and install a
contact tracing app called Aura, which it says will help it tackle any coronavirus outbreak on
campus. Now we've seen similar things at other campuses as well, but this one really seems to
stand out. Now it's because of the catch that's attached to this app. It's designed to track
students' real-time locations around the clock and there's no way to opt out. Yeah, the Aura app lets
the school know when a student tests positive for COVID-19. It also comes with a contact tracing
feature that alerts students when they have come into close proximity with a person who tested
positive for the virus, but the feature requires constant access to the student's real-time
location, which the college says is necessary to track the spread of any exposure. It makes sense
from a medical point of view, that is the way to track something, but from a privacy point of view,
it's very, very disturbing, especially if people aren't told the facts. Now the school's mandatory
use of the app sparked privacy concerns and prompted parents to launch a petition to make
using the app optional. And worse, the app had at least two security vulnerabilities only
discovered after the app was rolled out. One of those vulnerabilities allowed access to the app's
back-end servers. The other allowed us, meaning the reporters from the story that I'm reading,
which is from TechCrunch, allowed these reporters to... I lost my place when I was looking at where
it came from. Oh yeah, it allowed access to the app's back-end servers and allowed the reporters
to infer a student's COVID-19 test results. So that's really, really disturbing. The vulnerabilities
were fixed, but students were still expected to use the app or face suspension. Now exactly how
Aura came to be and how Albion became its first major customer is a mystery. Aura was developed by
Nucleus Careers in the months after the pandemic began. Nucleus Careers is a Pennsylvania-based
recruiting firm founded in 2020 with no apparent history or experience in building or developing
healthcare apps besides a brief mention in a recent press release. The app was built in partnership
with Genitworks, a Virginia-based lab providing coronavirus tests. Now the app helps students
locate and schedule COVID-19 testing on campus. Once a student is tested for COVID-19, the results
are fed into the app. Now if the test comes back negative, the app displays a QR code which, when
scanned, says the student is certified free of the virus. Now if the student tests positive or has yet
to be tested, the student's QR code will read denied. Aura uses the student's real-time location to
determine if they have come into contact with another person with the virus. Most other contact
tracing apps use nearby Bluetooth signals, which experts say is more privacy friendly. Hundreds of
academics have argued that collecting and storing location data is bad for privacy. It doesn't take
much to come to that conclusion. Now in addition to having to install the app, students were told
they are not allowed to leave campus for the duration of the semester without permission over
fears that contact with the wider community might bring the virus back to campus. So you see this
works for campuses or it's designed for campuses where people don't leave. It would not work
very well for campuses where people are coming and going. Now if a student leaves campus without
permission, the app will alert the school and the student's ID card will be locked and access to
campus buildings will be revoked. That's according to an email to students that TechCrunch is
reporting on. Students are not allowed to turn off their location and can be suspended and removed
from campus if they violate the policy. Yeah pretty pretty scary stuff here. Private universities in
the U.S. like Albion can largely set and enforce their own rules and have been likened to shadow
criminal justice systems without any of the protections or powers of a criminal court where
students can face discipline and expulsion for almost any reason with little to no recourse.
Now last year TechCrunch reported on a student at Tufts University who was expelled for alleged
grade hacking despite exculpatory evidence in her favor. So pretty much anything goes. Albion said
in an online Q&A that the only time a student's location data will be accessed is if they test
positive or if they leave campus without following proper procedure. But the school has not said
how it will ensure that student location data is not improperly accessed or who has access.
Yeah one student said I think it's more creepy than anything and has caused me a lot of anxiety
about going back. And you know that is that is the choice in the end. You don't have to go back.
In fact this might be a great year to take off for many students. A good gap year just kind of
hang out maybe digitize some slides or something and figure out something else to do instead
of having to deal with deal with all this this anxiety. Now one Albion student was not convinced
the app was safe or private. I imagine quite a number of them were not convinced. The student
who went by her Twitter handle which I can't possibly pronounce here decompiles and analyzes
apps on the side. And I just like knowing what apps are doing. She mentioned to TechCrunch
buried in the app's source code she found hard coded secret keys for the app's back end servers.
Oh yeah. Way to go. That's that's using your college experience to the max. It was hosted
on Amazon Web Services. She tweeted her findings with careful redactions to prevent misuse and
reported the problems to Nucleus but did not hear back. Now a security researcher who asked to go by
her handle Gilda was watching the tweets about or a roll in. Gilda also dug into the app and found
and tested the keys. The keys were practically full access. She reported to TechCrunch. She said
the keys since change gave her access to the app's databases and cloud storage in which she found
patient data including COVID-19 test results with names addresses and dates of birth. Yeah we got
there eventually. It's all out there. It's amazing. Nucleus pushed out an updated version
of the app on the same day with the keys removed but did not acknowledge the vulnerability.
Kyle do you have an update on the. Oh I see I see people on our screen. I got buried in
this story. It really is fascinating what what people are facing when they go back to school.
Yeah a lot of new software and stuff that that works one way or that it's it's taking all kinds
of information really hasn't we haven't even thought thought about it if you know that audit
has been an afterthought at all. It's just ridiculous. So hopefully our friends can join
us and add to this conversation. Let's see if that's possible. It's over there where you are.
Tell us what you did so that people. I didn't do anything. It's all Alex. Alex
say the day he he made a zoom link. I don't know. I don't really. I'm not really well versed in
doing zoom quickly but they set it up so it's there. All right. Well that's good. Alex can
can you hear us. No he can't hear us. Well he can hear us but we can't hear him. We're
muted. Oh that's great. How about now. Wow this is this is really embarrassing.
OK. So we we apparently can't figure out how to unmute ourselves
and we see Alex talking but we can't hear him talking.
Are we plugged into the right. Kyle my plug into the right thing on the console here.
Yeah you should be. Well look at what I'm doing. You got to pay attention. So is it
is this the right thing to have up. No it's not. You see that's why I was asking. Try that. All
right. I'm asking you. You're not looking at me. You're saying yes. And this is why you always have
to look at what people are pointing at. OK. Alex can you hear me now. I can hear you now. Can you
hear me now. Yes. Thanks for the pause by the way. Give me a heart attack. Yes. So we can all hear
each other. How are you. Wonderful. I'm well. I'm well. I just came back from from New York. I was
there for the day and in fact I was racing home to make sure I got back to Pennsylvania on time
before 7 p.m. to get on the air. I guess I didn't have to do that. You didn't have to do that.
Yeah. But look we're all here. And you know while we're on the subject of the RNC we might as well
just say you know we were always all here. We were never not on the air earlier today.
I don't know what that means exactly but I've been through a traumatic experience.
We were we were always at war with East Asia. Oh I see. We're going to make a show and just
pretend this didn't happen. OK. Exactly. That's right. That's kind of what we did last week
because the first part of the show didn't air and we simply replaced it in our archive
because it was better than than hearing the studio engineer trying to trying to reach us
and us not hearing him. Let me also introduce Rob and Gila. You're you're you're both here as well.
Correct. We are indeed both here. Yes we are. Wow. OK. So this works. We were actually we were
actually going to just split off and have our own show with Alex. But since you guys have joined in
we can we can all just I guess combine our efforts together. Yeah. Maybe you guys should just host
the show and have us on as guests. Maybe maybe that's a better idea. OK. So here we are. What
do you think so far of what we've seen at the RNC. Let's let's start from a technological point of
view. They're doing it differently and they're criticizing the the Democrats for the way they
did it which I think is is is rather similar to the way we did it at the Hope Conference
where we made it virtual. We had a lot of pre-recorded material but the pre-recorded
material was so much better because it it just showed the diversity and the differences and
where we were coming from. And we just seemed a lot more comfortable and it was just variety.
Variety was was was the theme. And I got that out of the DNC. It just seemed to be always going
to something else. What they have at the RNC they have people talking into empty auditoriums
and I know how that's better and basically having the same background for a lot of people.
I don't know what have you guys noticed. I think my favorite moment of all of it was during the
roll call when I don't I'm sorry I don't remember what state the representative was from but who
announced that the state was committing their 82 votes to Donald John president. Yeah I saw that.
But also the difference between the roll call at the DNC versus the roll call at the RNC I think
really does speak to the kind of production stuff whereas you know the it was a kind of a tour
at the DNC and the RNC is already standing in front of the same step and repeat.
And they also forgot Wyoming was a state.
Nice. Well we apologize to our Wyoming listeners and we would never forget you in such a way. Never
never. But yeah the whole thing just seems to and I I know I'm I know I have my own personal biases
when I say this but compared to the DNC and especially compared to what we did at Hope like
there just seems to be no soul behind what they're doing. It's kind of by the numbers and they're
talking to empty rooms which feels sort of I guess indicative of of what they're doing on
grander scales than than just what they're saying. And and it just see it just seems like there's
not much there there. No no. And also you had that thing last night in the Rose Garden with
Melania Trump where all these people were were not observing social distancing. They weren't
wearing masks. What was the point in that. I don't get it. Just putting everybody at risk
for no good reason that that's I think a running theme during the past four years or so. Maybe
longer. Yeah I mean I saw the same thing last night watching that night. I felt like she went
on for quite a long time as well. And it wasn't saying anything particularly impressive to my mind
quite frankly. But it is. They were all sitting pretty close together. Granted though they were
all outside. So that's one mitigating factor. But you would think that they would want to set some
kind of positive example. You know they are being rather revisionist with their facts and their
history. When would you think that Alex. I mean they've been doing nothing but screaming at us
and trying to instill fear. What makes you think safety is high on their list. Yeah well I know. I
mean it's the whole thing really is frightening in so many respects too though because it does feel
when you watch this to me positively Orwellian. You know and that's why I mentioned the we we've
always been at war with East Asia quote because so many of the things that are coming out just have
so little disregard for the truth. And and they're so such a disregard for the truth.
You mean no regard for the truth but there's plenty of disregard for the truth. Yeah.
Yeah. It really is Orwellian. I mean you remember God it was almost four years ago when I wrote my
first opinion piece for CNN which was about Trump in 1984 and decoding Trump's first actions during
the his first 100 days through the eyes of Orwell's novel 1984. You know and when you look
at this this is really really frightening because they are being very revisionist about lives that
were saved by their efforts at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic. You know even being
revisionist about things almost four years ago like the the crowd size and the inauguration
of the inauguration. When you look at the montages and the pictures that they put together
this feels like something that is straight out of 1984. It really does. And you know you hear reports
the platform that was released by the Republican convention basically it's not really a platform
it's just a one page summary. But one of the things that they are saying is that they are pledging
a devotion to Trump or loyalty to Trump. Yeah. Instead of a platform it's a pledge.
It's a pledge. And I do agree that it was like it was hyperbolic hyperbole like layered on top
on top like compounded weird rhetoric around you know envisioning something in your mind
instead of reality. I think I don't know if I was Trump junior or some of the other speakers that
were coming across that like thick just mind warp of of well OK reality might not be what you like
but let's let's all have this this collective consciousness around some some truth or untruth
that we're going to believe in our minds. Well speaking of untruth there was one speaker I
forget who it was particularly but she was criticizing Joe Biden and the fact that his
family members benefited from his position. And I happen to be looking at CNN at the time and at
the bottom of CNN it said coming up later are talks from Tiffany Trump Eric Trump Melania Trump.
The only names on there were Trump's. It was I mean I don't know if that was intentionally done
but it was brilliant if it was. Nowhere has there been nepotism to the degree that we are
seeing now. And yet they have the gall to criticize others. And I realize that's kind of a theme
is that they they commit a heinous offense of one sort or another and then they accuse
their opponents of doing that instead. And they grab the narrative so that their their followers
basically keep saying that their opponents are guilty of this such as not being environmentalist
or being racist or ridiculous things like that. And that allows them to to to sail free. Yeah
they go direct. They want to be first to being aggrieved. The grievance is the they want to be
that first before anyone on the left or anybody could say anything about tone or how something
was done. They want to be first and right there already a victim already compounding in some meta
really warped meta reality that they're pledging to agree. You know one thing I've noticed the way
you can tell good people from bad people and by good people I'm making it very a very wide net
as far as good people and bad people fairly narrow bad people are always angry. They're
always shouting. They're always instilling fear. Look at Hitler. Okay Hitler was you ever saw him
giving a pleasant speech right. You never saw him smiling and saying well done guys because he was
winning you know he was basically conquering left and right and Trump and his people they are in
power. They have been running this place for the last four years and they have been angry the whole
time whereas the Democrats are really kind of friendly and open and and you know one thing I
saw the other Trump Donald Trump Jr. He was he went in his talk. He was said talk his his shouting
seminar. He basically said that the Republican Party is open to everybody and literally the next
sentence he said and the first thing we have to do is get rid of the radicals. You know basically
starting a list of people that have to be purged and so you could not get more Stalinist or well
in you pick it. This this is nightmarish to see not so much what they're doing but to see how
many people are simply falling in line and believing it and not ever questioning. Yeah
allowing the that to be to be spewed from some party that purports to represent them and I just
got a quick I feel like there's a this thing of like I've fallen out of trust with any kind of
bipartisanship in in in so far as this particular convention is concerned because they're casting
this this broad broad characterization of Democrats as radical and they want their base to believe
that no matter what can you imagine matter what I mean BAI listeners we know radical okay there
and and and there are many many degrees of of of left but to call to call Joe Biden
radical to call him Marxist to call him anarchist I mean can you imagine if he actually was any of
those things what what they would be I think no matter what they are just going to try and use
those words to scare people it's hilarious on its face and then to think that that to to cast
or disregard them as being a substantive entity out of hand as a result of that opinion and it is
an opinion it's not based in fact and and so then they can cast that entire party as you know
irrelevant or or invalid by because of that opinion in their heads their collective
hallucination whatever that is that that makes them somehow right in or or make forces the
binary of the non-choice that they must go with this pledge of loyalty and I mean I will say that
the the Republicans are morally bereft I'll say that they're corrupt but I'm not casting aside
the entire entirety of the party that's probably counter to a lot of what more radical individuals
might say they might say the entire you know the party system all that I get it I get it but like
to completely nullify a party in our two-party system it's not fair that's not an even vote
you're setting it up for people to not believe or not even validate people if they get a mandate
right Rob go ahead the thing that strikes me most about this is I've watched a lot of
I've watched a lot of RNC's I've watched a lot of DNC's obviously it's different this year
but one thing that's always been common is it's basically an internal event like people are
talking to their own side with it nobody's trying to convert the others the other side I don't think
anyone is undecided and watching the RNC or the DNC to make their decisions I think it's just
basically preaching to the choir sometimes quite literally but the thing is that it's always
seemed to me to be in the past and even eight years ago at the peak of Obama-mania or 12 years
ago rather but it's always been about like this is what we're gonna do this is what our side is
going to do and it always seemed like more of a collective celebration and this more than any other
one of these that I've seen is about one person and loyalty to him and following him and I think
I think there's something terrifying about that yeah speaking of which this was particularly
interesting to me to watch on on Monday evening because I'm sitting there yeah I'm on the couch
I've got the RNC blasting and you know there's Trump talking with you know some recently freed
hostages and you know making it making the world think that he was solely responsible for this and
there wasn't a cadre of of you know career state department employees that have been working on
these matters for several years and you know he's such an attention-seeking credit-grabbing
fraudster but I'm sitting there on my couch and I thought to myself this is actually pretty cool
because I can say for once in my life while watching the RNC hey guess what I sued that guy
today we filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump on behalf of TikTok employees on Monday at around
four o'clock eastern time on Monday was when we actually named Donald J Trump as president of the
United States as a defendant in a lawsuit contesting the constitutionality of his executive order
banning TikTok because it would essentially make paying TikTok employees illegal on September 20th
so that was pretty cool for me to be able to actually sit there and and watch the RNC and
know full well that I just named that guy as a defendant in a lawsuit well I look forward to
seeing uh in in a courtroom uh in in years ahead uh the people the United States versus Donald Trump
I want to see that in some court papers I'm sure we will see that many many times well we hope so
and you know if he's not a sitting president he doesn't have that kind of immunity but you know
to bounce back to what you and Rob and Kyle were saying too which is you know the other really
scary part of this that is in large part Orwellian in and of itself is the misattribution of positions
to others and in particular of course Joe Biden and he is continually not not just he uh being
Trump but the um the Republicans across the board have been saying that Biden um has supported the
defund the police uh campaigns and he has just never done that I mean it's just you know never
never underestimate the the um the idiocy of the left sometimes too and coming up with a slogan
for the reallocation of certain portions of police budget to you know have a slogan that
can be capitalized and exploited by by the right but but Alex it doesn't matter it doesn't matter
what slogan they came up with because the Trump people would have distorted it no matter it could
be you know praise the sun or something like that and they make evil out of that but this one is
particularly bad I mean it's it's just too easy for them you know not not to exploit the defund
the police because nobody's really talking about defunding the police and disbanding them entirely
you know it's about the reallocation of the budget but I think you know and this is something I've
said in print too but you know again what's Orwellian about this is that you know we're
we have to struggle these days for things like basic honesty and what Orwell warned us about in
1984 is that you know uncorrected lies will quote pass into history and become truth that's what's
scary to me is that if you just barrage the people with all of these lies it becomes the job
of the media and becomes the job of the people to call out these falsehoods and to correct them
and if you're shoveling you know what against the tide some of these lies are going to pass
into history and become what we would consider 50 years from now truth that's terrifying
what did you all think of the framing of it just by using the White House and Pompeo of course
speaking for a party essentially a partisan event oh he was there as a private citizen
he was speaking on his own he had nothing to do with Trump right right but also that's the party
line but just the the visual of like having the White House used I know there were a lot of
explanations and sort of excuses excused it because of the circumstances and and all that
but using all of these DC institutions really kind of loving the swamp but their version of it
and in in in so doing really pitting it visually as we're this institution because it's we're
surrounding are they're sort of like just draping themselves in the flag and of course the
the White House itself being used as a prop I mean what was the takeaway for for people who who
don't see the harm in that the threat in doing something like that what's the big deal with Trump
standing in front of the White House he's the president well because he is speaking as a
candidate and by standing in front of the White House you're basically saying if you're not for
me you're not for that you're not for the White House you're not for the the country and you are
an enemy of the state it's not in so many words but that's the thought that that lands
yeah and there's also uh things like members of the armed services were there uh you know in full
regalia when um uh they're not supposed to be acting on a on a political uh basis either and
just uh there's there's a bit of legislation called the hatch act which has been uh getting a
lot of uh a lot of chatter lately because that that is the uh the act from the 1930s that prohibits
federal employees from from using their titles or uh you know official status in political
activities like this um and uh i don't know if anyone there can really be said uh by any
reasonable definition to not have been acting under uh you know under their office but then
what would happen is my question if it's been shown that nothing no law that gets broken that
gets violated in any way if there's no repercussion for that then what would be the difference now
and i'm not even going to start on where mike pompeo spoke from because that's a whole different
can of worms but i have lots of feelings yes you know i've been jumping up and down rob about the
the hatch act i think you got it exactly right you know the hatch act applies to to all federal
employees uh and and when i was working uh you know in defense and intelligence the hatch act
applied to me in particular and i remember uh actually you know doing research about the limits
of the hatch act you know like well can somebody have a bumper sticker on their car for you know
let's say john kerry and having and park in the um you know the a federal parking lot uh does that
violate the hatch act because having political regalia at your desk or proselytizing while you're
on the job you know certainly would and so you know all these things are taken really really
seriously and apply rigorously to federal employees but when it comes to the trumps
it just seems like they get away as gila noted without any enforcement without any kind of you
know even slap on the wrist violating these these really sacred principles about separating politics
from the operation of government yeah this is this is what concerns me because as you say alex he
gets away with it constantly and uh we that becomes that becomes the norm like we were saying earlier
uh when you repeat a lie enough times it becomes the truth and if trump gets away with this not
not having his tax returns displayed which is traditional uh not uh honoring the hatch act
all these other things that he gets away with well then it just becomes one less thing that
that we believe in and you know it's it's frightening because we're seeing so much
unrest right now we're seeing people in the streets basically demanding justice after
yet another african-american is is shot by police for no reason and basically the the dialogue what
we're hearing not only from trump but from the mass media it's about the violence in the streets
but it's not the violence in the streets of of shooting innocent people it's not the violence
in the streets of a trump supporter yesterday coming and executing two people in the streets
no the violence in the streets it's about burning cars it's about basically people shouting and
taking over streets that is what we seem to be more concerned with and yeah trump is leading
the charge but the mass media also is picking that up and is not questioning saying no that's
not the problem look when we see uh demonstrations in lebanon after after um the the city blows up
because of uh government corruption when we see an election stolen in belarus when we see
uh people marching for democracy in hong kong we don't focus on the vandalism we don't focus on
the broken windows we focus on the issues why don't we do that in our own country why aren't
we talking about what's happening in wisconsin and saying this is about justice this is about
nothing more than than not shooting innocent people and the police are culpable here instead
it's all these horrible uh demonstrators that maybe they're from out of town and they're
they're causing all kinds of problems and interfering with shopping we need to focus
on the actual issues and this goes beyond trump this is something that uh affects the
mass media affects our the way so many of us perceive what's actually happening out there
yeah all right go ahead oh i i think you you've hit it right on the head there too and i think
the the critical word that you mentioned there emmanuel is focus why can't we focus on this
well we've got an attention deficit problem as a nation these days and i and i think it's only
going to get worse and and in large part i think you know what's responsible for this is
social media platforms things like twitter things like facebook and instagram we where we have
instant gratification with these tiny little blurbs you know we even have an acronym for you
know tldr right too long didn't read for articles that you know are usually you know some kind of
or deep dive into into something we all want soundbites we all want to be
uh amused and entertained and we think politics is there for our amusement these days and these
issues we can't even focus on them for for more than 30 45 seconds without getting bored that's
a big problem for us as a nation now i think we we want to do that but the news cycle doesn't
permit it social media platforms operate in in large measure i think on outrage and you know
people are outraged by this and that certainly fuels it for a while but then there's more
outrage on top of outrage sort of like irony upon irony when it comes to the broken windows and you
know and and the violence and the and frankly you know a lot of times like what happened last night
in in wisconsin people have crossed the line i mean people died in these things and so if that
if if people are dying in these demonstrations it's going to eclipse the issues that we can't
even focus on for more than a minute anyhow so i think we have an attention deficit problem as a
nation and we're only going to escape this vicious cycle by escaping from the clutches of these
social media platforms but again alex it's the way it's phrased people are dying in these
demonstrations so they're not dying in the demonstrations they're being executed in the
demonstrations by trump supporters that is what happened there's a picture of this guy in the
front row of a truck now he is gone with his long gun and actually shot people after hanging out
with cops right before that there is a serious problem here that is what needs to be front and
center all i'm seeing on tv right now is the fact that the nba canceled some games tonight you know
that's that's not that's not the most important part of all this we have to watch the rnc tonight
or listen on wbai in two hours if they even address that at all or if they simply continue
talking about the demonstrators as if they're the problems the demonstrators are the solution
thank god you have demonstrators thank god you have people that care about justice if you don't
have that then you just have the executioners and the cops that are assassinating people on the
streets rob go ahead oh sorry i just want to i'll just jump in i wasn't sure who was going to go but
i mean the demonstrators are engaging in constitutionally protected activity i mean
that's the irony here right i mean these are people that love america love the constitution
they love the second amendment but you know the second amendment wasn't you know considered to
be as important as the first amendment our right to peaceably assemble it also has been distorted
ridiculously a lot of a lot of stuff if i might just jump in a lot of stuff that's been damaged
too is symbolic of the system itself the justice system i know some of the buildings around this
courthouse that people were attracted they were gravitating towards and i just wanted to point out
that those would be built 10 times over to substantiate that system and they're being
damaged because it represents the injustice and it needs to be torn down yeah sometimes
we ought not shed one tear for some for some holding cell or some place where more people be
mistreated and their rights violated or or just sucked into a system that doesn't care
and and that i think needs to be said they would build it 10 times over every day of the week
there's funding coming out the ears for this kind of institution and the the argument is
the institution itself is corrupt and wrong go ahead rob so um what what you were saying alex
about the place of social media and all this we really need to examine because i don't think the
media environment is going to get any healthier unless we start really questioning our dependence
on this sort of thing and the people in control of it i'll give you an example i have a youtube
account not my personal one but a separate one that i started just for a project i'm working on
that posts videos and uh so that's not an account that ever watches videos so it's got no like it's
got no like a profile built up of like what it prefers to watch one thing versus another um and
still the default ads when i sign in with that account all for trump stuff all for like right
wing conspiracy stuff all for stuff that stokes the fires because um youtube as one example google
uh as the owner of youtube has made the decision that it uh it's going to seek profit by stoking
these fires by uh fueling outrage and by uh giving people um you know simple uh simple videos on on
why this side is uh is the best versus the other one and you know i i did nothing to instigate that
i didn't watch any right-wing stuff on it i didn't watch any left-wing stuff on it but that's
that's the default and that's where we stand you know it's interesting rob is that i i watch uh i
look at google news and i don't sign into google when i do it and invariably i get fox news and i
get the new york post more than anything else so i think you're right about that i think they
are pushing that guys we're out of time i don't know how this happened but uh we have run out of
time um so um i just want to invite people to keep listening to wbai in about two hours we are going
to start our coverage of the republican national convention uh and i want to invite listeners to
write to us oth at 2600.com with your opinions your thoughts your observations on our show
and um kyle go ahead i was just going to add that it may be a result of people in your area that's
the kind of stuff they're consuming so it's serving you stuff of like-minded individuals
in your geographic location right so um continuing um we'll be back again next week and um please
keep listening to wbai i'd like to go out with um uh someone who is near and dear to wbai
and that of course is george carlin and his thoughts on politicians and how it might apply
today good night it seems that linguistically politicians hit their truest stride when they
find themselves in trouble at times like these the explanations typically begin with a single word
miscommunication how do you answer these felony charges senator the whole thing was a miscommunication
but what about the tapes they took them out of context they twisted my words nice touch
a person who routinely spends his time bending and torturing the english language telling us
that someone has twisted his words but as the problem gets worse and his troubles increase
he's forced to take his explanation in a new direction he now tells us that the whole thing
has been blown out of proportion and by the way have you ever noticed with these blown out of
proportion people that it's always the whole thing apparently no one has ever claimed that
only a small part of something has been blown out of proportion but as time passes and the
evidence continues to accumulate our hero suddenly changes direction and begins using public relations
jujitsu he says we're trying to get to the bottom of this we suddenly he's on the side of the law
we're trying to get to the bottom of this so we can get the facts out to the american people
nice the american people always try to throw them in it makes it sound as if you actually care
as the stakes continue to rise our hero now makes a subtle shift and says i'm willing to trust in
the fairness of the american people clearly he's trying to tell us something that there may just be
a little fire causing all the smoke but notice he's still at the i have nothing to hide stage
but then slowly i'm willing to trust in the fairness of the american people progresses to
there is no credible evidence and before long we're hearing the very telling no one has proven
a thing now if things are on track in this drama and the standard linguistic path of the guilty
is being followed faithfully no one has proven a thing will precede the stage when our hero
begins to employ that particularly annoying technique ask yourself questions and then answer
them did i show poor judgment yes was there inappropriate behavior yes do i wish this never
happened of course but did i break the law that's not the issue the calendar is marching however
and it soon becomes clear that our friend is most likely quite guilty indeed we know this because
now he shifts into that sublime use of the passive voice mistakes were made the beauty of mistakes
were made is that it doesn't really identify who made them you're invited to think what you wish
bad advice poor staff work voodoo curse but it's too late mistakes were made quickly becomes
eventually i will be exonerated which then morphs into i have faith in the american judicial system
and the progression ends with that plaintiff cry whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty
whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty well he's about to find out eventually
in full retreat and federal custody he shuffles off in his attractive orange jumpsuit
and can be heard muttering that most modern of mea culpas i just want to put this thing behind
me and get on with my life and to emphasize how sincere he is he announces i'm taking responsibility
for my actions how novel imagine taking responsibility he says it as though it were
a recently developed technique whenever i hear that sort of thing on the news i always want to
ask one of these i'm taking responsibility for my actions people whether or not they'd be willing
to take responsibility for my actions you know gambling debts paternity suits outstanding warrants
can you help me out here pal regarding this whole put this thing behind me idea in general here's
what i'd like to do i'd like to put this i want to put this thing behind me and get on with my
life thing behind me and get on with my life may i repeat that for you i'd like to put this i want to
put this thing behind me and get on with my life thing behind me and get on with my life i think
one of the problems in this country is that too many people are screwing things up committing
crimes and then getting on with their lives what is really needed for public officials who shame
themselves is ritual suicide harakiri like those japanese business executives who mismanage
corporations into bankruptcy never mind the lawyers and the public relations and the press
conferences get that big knife out of the kitchen drawer and do the right thing
hi this is mitch jesserich inviting you to join us on this radio station for pacifica's live
coverage of the republican national convention starting monday august 24th and going through
thursday august 27th starting each night at 7 p.m on the west coast and 10 p.m on the east
we'll have the main speeches we'll talk to progressives and yes we'll talk to conservatives
too and we'll be taking your calls so join us for pacifica radio's coverage
of the republican national convention