Social Justice - A Conversation

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This is a k u and v studios original program.

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The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

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Hi, I'm Charles Stanton. I'm on the faculty of the Honors College of UNLV. And the Boyd School of Law.

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Hi, I'm Gabriela Tam, I'm a fourth year accounting student.

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And welcome to social justice, social justice, our conversation a

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conversation.

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Well, good evening, everybody. And welcome. Welcome to Social Justice conversation. I'm Charles Stanton. And I'm here with my partner, Gabriella Tam. Hello. And we're here to discuss the events of the day and the week. And to try to enlighten as many people as we can, as to what's going on. We're going to start out today with I think, a source of concern for pretty much everybody who likes to travel in our country. And that's the situation with with the Boeing Company. Very, very disturbing. Again, we've spoken about it. Again, and we're speaking about it against it tonight. But a really, really serious questions are being raised about the efficacy of Boeing and how these planes are being put together, and how they're being maintained. They've had I've had inspectors coming into doing audits, and 1/3 of the audits were unsatisfactory. It seems to be a regular thing now. Every week, you're reading numerous cases where there is malfunctions. In one case, not too long ago, they had they had a failure of a hydraulic system on the plane. One of the people who apparently was a whistleblower had given a lot of information to the FAA. The next day apparently committed suicide. So it is it is it is extraordinary, extraordinarily troubling.

Unknown Speaker 2:11
Yeah, like quotation marks on like, apparently, I feel like, you know, I've, I've taken like, a couple of your classes and a lot of the movies that we watch, especially in like, our, their ethics and business have to deal with, you know, like, whistle blowers. Bit. Like it's like, weird how they die, you know? Yeah, it's like, yeah, hinted, it tends to that they were that were murdered, which I feel like, this situation is very similar. And, honestly, it's so scary, like, how bow like, flying already. That is a scary thing for a lot of people. It's, it's supposed to be like, you know, like, if you want to, like make people feel safe to travel the like, travel the world or travel like, even like, like the country, you know, right. Put, put to put, like, so many, like, lies that race? Yeah. Yeah. It's sad and scary. Yeah. Well,

Unknown Speaker 3:25
I mean, I think one of the one of the things that comes through when you when you look at these when you look at these movies, and not just the movies, but also, you know, keeping on top of current events, is the is really, in a sense. And I wouldn't say for every corporation, but certainly there are such people out there the indifference to the public good, the indifference to safety protocols, the indifference, basically, to fulfilling the responsibility that you have, when you have lives that are basically depending on you. And of course, you know, not only not only in a situation like that, do you have the general public being possibly put in jeopardy, but you have your own people as well. You have the flight attendants, those people who are interacting with the public who fly and then you have you have the pilot and the co pilot of the plane. Now, if you are putting out a plane basically, that hasn't been inspected properly, or has been inspected, and despite it slimmer Patients, you're gonna fly that plane. What does that say? Not only about not only about, you know, the relationship between your duty and the public, but also your duty to the people who work for you. I mean, you've got people who've probably worked for some of these Airlines for years. And that, you know, you get you're getting on a flight, and one of the one of the givens should be and I always thought it was, you know, was the fact that, you know, you know, no one knows, you know, whether there can be trouble when you fly or not. That's, that's, that's a given. But the vast majority of the flights that you have going across the country going across the world, if you get on those flights, because basically, there's the assumption that, you know, everything humanly possible was done from a mechanical and technical point of view, to make the flight as safe as possible. Without that was supposed to, that was supposed to be the given. And, of course, the other thing that's, that's going on here, which is also related to flying, which is not really about Boeing so much, but the lack of the lack of, of air traffic controllers, in a lot of the airports in our country, they're they're undermanned. There there there. You have people who are working ridiculous hours, because they don't have enough air traffic controllers to handle the traffic, a lot of people have quit. And that, yeah, that's a sure that's another issue. I mean, you know, and those are two things. But I think I think also, one of the issues that you have, is, you need to have in certain situations, a very aggressive response. And if if you if you have recurrent, if you have recurrent problems that have gone on now seems for quite a while. And those problems don't seem to be getting redressed. In fact, it seems that there are more and more of these incidences popping up, then you have to do something that probably would be very unpopular. And that is you need to have a policy to start grounding planes. And you have to, you have to do that, because that's the only way ultimately, that you're going to get this resolved. Because that's going to hurt these people in the pocketbook. And unless you hurt them in the pocketbook, unless you convince them by by your, by your stand on it, that, you know, it's something that's not going to be tolerated. That's the only way you're gonna get that's when we got you're gonna get it solved. I don't see. Agree, you know, I don't see how otherwise you could do it. But it is. It is frightening. There is no doubt, I

Unknown Speaker 8:19
feel like for I feel like for a lot of these businesses, like the way to, unfortunately get them to change is to take away their money. Like we always say like, it's always about the money, you know,

Unknown Speaker 8:36
yeah. Yeah. Well, that's, that's one part of it. And the other part of it, you know, when you're dealing with other issues, that, you know, they're not not related to this, but other issues about workplace behavior, and, you know, women's, you know, women's issues visa vie, not being treated, not being treated appropriately. And, you know, a lot of the stuff that happens in corporate America that's covered up by a lot of these companies is is ultimately you know, having criminal penalties and you know, making making making the people run the corporation making the officers at the top making the making the board of directors, what have you, at some point criminally responsible, because that's the only that's the only way really, you're gonna get you're gonna get you're gonna get change, and you're gonna get reforms that need to be made. I mean, it's a problem that we have today a really a corporate indifference where, you know, they're making this enormous amount of money, but there doesn't seem to be a correlated responsibility about how to serve the public that always seems to be missing somehow. And, you know, of course, you Uh, you know, that's that has to do with the legislature and, you know, our Congress, which is also, which is also compromised as well. So you have an issue of the Congress being compromised. The Supreme Court, we don't, I don't think we need to, to get into that again. And, and their, their their action or lack of action or, or what have you, but it all evolved was supposed to evolve is supposed to work together in our country and see our country with all its faults, and I'm not I'm not excusing them or or absolving them had to do with having three branches of three co equal branches of government. What was the purpose of that? Well, the purpose of that was a response to the tyranny of King George, and how the people who lived there, were under the subjugation of a monarch. So now, of course, we're supposed to have these three functioning parts of the government, each one supposedly a check on the others, but also, that there's an implied integrity, and an implied public interest in the actions of each one of the branches of government. But of course, we see now basically, that that's, that's not true. That's not true. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 11:19
Now, it's like, it's very, getting kind of close to going back to, you know, a monarchy or like, you could even argue like a dictatorship.

Unknown Speaker 11:34
Yeah, well, sure. I mean, if you have people if you have people who go out there, and they they express admiration for people who are dictators. That's very troubling. That's very troubling.

Unknown Speaker 11:49
I feel like that's a red flag. Yeah. Well, yeah. Because I mean, of course,

Unknown Speaker 11:53
the genius of the American experience of the American experiment was that you would have a check on these things. So the legislature would check the president or the President would check the legislature, or ultimately, the Supreme Court would be able to check, you know, things that were done by either of the other branches, that might have violated the Constitution. But that really doesn't seem to be, that really doesn't seem to be the case anymore, unfortunately. So in that vein, we're going to talk a little bit about, you know, the case of the case down in Georgia, regarding the conspiracy charges. And some of the some of the charges, of course, were removed by the judge, basically, having to do with, you know, basically the solicitation and pressure on the Secretary of State to basically to certify the election. And the the excuse, if you want to use that, to remove some of these charges, was, according to what the judge said the failure to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of their commission. Well, let's look at this. Let's look at this. From a point let's look at this from a point of view of logical thinking here. Okay. First of all, the votes were counted down in Georgia. And the current president had more votes. Okay. Yeah, so what they did then what they did then, which the losing side is entitled to, is they did a machine recount of the votes. And the machine recount of the votes basically showed the same result. Okay. So then they did the extraordinary step. And I say extraordinary because it is not something usually done. They literally did a hand recount of literally millions of votes. Okay. At the end of that hand recount at the end of that hand recount. They actually had more votes for President Biden than they had for President ex President Trump. So they had actually they had actually expanded his lead. Okay. So when the phone call came, when the phone call came, and and these other these other methodologies had failed, in other words, that they had to count the recount that the you know, the the hand count he calls the guy who's who's in charge of the election. Now out. No one, including myself is making up what he said. What he said was basically, we need to find 11,000 or so votes to overturn the vote in Georgia. Okay. So let's, let's think. So so let's think logically about this. Every legal purpose at that point had been fulfilled, the people had voted, the votes had been counted, that had been machine machine checked. And then they've been checked by hand. So where were these votes gonna come from, though, if all the legal methods had been used up? Where was he gonna find those votes? Well, I think I think, logically speaking, basically, what he was being told, and not being told explicitly, of course, because it was told in a way to inference do what you got to do, basically, and so and so many words, but but the fact that the fact that the fact that the Secretary of State was was pressured to find these boats. And he had also sent a letter to Secretary of State to the certify the votes. And then there was also apparently a conversation he had with a man who was the Speaker of the Georgia House, about calling a special legislative session to to certify the votes and to appoint new electors. I mean, what what what other what other evidence would you need? I mean, yeah, you know, I really, I really don't. I really don't, I really don't understand that, though. I really don't understand that. You know,

Unknown Speaker 17:18
the whole thing just screams like, very shady, you know, but

Unknown Speaker 17:24
but but we'll let's let's even, let's even think about this, though. Let's even think about this, though. If the ex president was a man of probity if the ex president was a person who I honestly believe that the election was was fraudulent, and obviously believed that while these votes were were, you know, not counted and what have you. If all those things were believed? And there's a lot of people who would not believe it, they would that, you know, obviously, the Democratic Party wouldn't believe it, Joe Biden wouldn't believe it. But the people who taped his phone call were Republicans. So those people, obviously didn't trust him either. Because if they had he did trust them, why would they take the phone call? Why would they taping the phone call? The I mean, because the president, the president, he was still the president at that time. And he's entitled to respect and dignity as he is the president. And when a president would call you, obviously, why would you find it necessary to take his phone call, unless, unless you wanted some kind of a proof that what he was asking you to do? was beyond your authority to do it? And that way you would need supporting you would need supporting confirmation that that was true. And that must have been the case because why else would you do that? You see, why else would you do that? And I you're onto something. Yeah, I mean, it's see. I mean, look, look at look at in another case, Michael Cullen Michael Cohen recorded all these phone calls. Well, it would be like if you know when you get when you when you get your accreditation, let's say in your in your profession of accounting, and you're working in a place okay. Would you be would you be recording the office of your supervisor or the guy who's in charge the accounting for that would be pretty strange, wouldn't it? Unless, unless you thought that there was something good going on, that wanted you to do it, basically. And I think that's that's the more interesting question. That's the more interesting question. And why people, why these people rather than kept records about all the other about all these other things. Now, what was also interesting, of course, you know, the case down in Florida, which, you know, seems to be moving at a snail's pace. Well, one of the people who apparently works for the ex president, Mr. Lago, he was involved in actually taking boxes out of documents, and putting them on a plane. And the plane went to the plane went to Jersey, with all these boxes of documents. So again, if you know, it's not onto percent proof, but it is, it is troubling, it is very troubling that Yeah, I know you have you have these, you have these occurrences, and that apparently, they had apparently a video system, which monitored the places where the documents were kept. And apparently, I guess, the FBI or the, you know, the people who are going to pick up the documents, we're going to be coming in a relatively short time. And the man asked this man who had been involved in, you know, bringing those boxes to the plane, he apparently was asked like, well, how, how long is the videotape run? That that, that that has the video of where the documents are kept? And the man was like, very puzzled. He says, Well, why would you ask me a question like that? Because that's, that's basically supposed to be our security, securing the place? Why would you ask me how long the video ran? Unless the idea would be to to replace the video or, or tamper with the video or do something? So so it doesn't matter? It doesn't make it doesn't make any sense? It doesn't make any sense. But, you know, the justice system is what it is, and hopefully, and hopefully, the justice system will act in the right way, you know, but I think I think when you see some of these things, obviously, and I'm not I'm not prejudging any I'm not prejudging anybody's guilt. That's for the the jury, a jury will decide, in all these cases, what what is right and what is wrong, who was guilty and who was not guilty. But I do think one of the things I think that's, that sticks out to me, though, is and I'm sure it sticks out to a lot of people is that there there is an there is an unequal system of justice, the system of justice, you know, the system of justice is not, is not equal. I mean, judo. It's just not. And I think one of the things, that's one of the things that's harming our country, and causing the lack of faith in our institutions, is you see how the court system works, you see how the justice system works. And there's a completely different system of justice for different people. And if you're, if you're, if you're affluent than if you were in the power structure, and you're in the establishment, the justice you get, is not the justice that an average person gets, if you're a person of color, you know, etc. But But I think that I think the message for the country now is we're going to be coming up, we're going to be coming up on an election and not that long a time. And I think people really need to think very carefully about what they want to do in this election as to where the future of the country is. This is this. You know.

Unknown Speaker 24:11
I think it's interesting. Like, the the one thing that they can agree on, though, is dealing with tic tock

Unknown Speaker 24:20
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 24:23
Like the quickness of the quickness of their decision on that versus all these decisions on like, you know, the ex president's trial and you know, the ceasefire, and you know, homeless like all there's all these other issues. You Cray had an eye country, Ukraine, and like, like, the list literally goes on and on. But they're taking they're taking their sweet, sweet time on making these decisions. But when it comes to A tick tock and which is like something that is like an a news source for a bunch of kids. It?

Unknown Speaker 25:09
Can it spread misinformation? Yeah, of course, like, a

Unknown Speaker 25:13
lot of things could misinformation. It's up to us to decipher that, of course, but

Unknown Speaker 25:20
it's just like,

Unknown Speaker 25:22
it's just another thing that makes people lose hope in our justice system. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 25:29
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, I find it interesting that, you know, that it's, it's, it's owned by a Chinese company, basically. And there's what's been, what interests me in that sense, of course, is, you know, obviously, China is not an ally of the United States. It's an adversary of the United States. And, and, and then the idea basically, as well, you know, they could use the information or stuff like that, which, which, which, in a way, sounds, sounds logical, but from my memory, and I'm a little older than you are, and my memory, there's always been in this country, a fear of, you know, people from, you know, Asiatic countries, buying up properties in our country, and not just not just people who are Asiatic people who are who are Arabic, too. So I think I think there's always that, that racial component to it. I always think that, you know, unfortunately, you know, and I think the other thing about it, too, is I think the other thing about us who is that? The A lot of the people above the people who are behind this attempt to, you know, take take history out of the schools, removed diversity, equity and inclusion. I think that's all the same cloth. I think these there are, there's a group of people and they say, Make America Great Again, make America great again, make America great again, for who, though? You know, because if you think about it, we're a diverse country, okay. We just are, that's a fact of life. We're, like, I

Unknown Speaker 27:24
found hold foundation. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 27:27
And all the people who came here came from, from different parts of the world, the world to come here also was supposed to be an equitable society. And we're also supposed to be a society that's inclusive. But my theory on it is basically, let's, let's, let's, let's change history. Let's not teach history, let's ignore history. Because if we do that, and we don't educate people as to what the history is, we don't need any diversity. We don't need any inclusion, we don't need any equity. We don't need any affirmative action. Because all these people, none of them were mistreated. There was no slavery, there was no denial of the vote. There was no mistreatment of the Indians, there were none of these things. And because we're not going to allow the history to be taught. They were treated just like everybody else, of course, to be historically accurate. Of course, they weren't. I think one of the one of the things that that was a disappointment to me in watching the Oscars was the fact that Ms. Gladstone did not win the did not win the Best Actress Award, because I thought beside the fact that she gave a fantastic performance and, and that's no knock on Emma Stone, Emma Stone is a great actress and a worthy actress. But I think I think her winning that award would, would have shed light on like a lot of the deplorable things that our government has done to the American Indian, that in many ways continue to continue to this day, regarding the reservation system and other things, you know, but anyway, we will, we will, we will not only we will not solve all the world's problems tonight. But hopefully, you know, it's food, it's food for everybody to think about. So, we want to thank you for all listening. And, as I always do, I want to thank my partner for being such a, such an important part of our broadcast. And with that said, I will say good night,

Unknown Speaker 29:31
everyone, thanks for listening. Bye.

Unknown Speaker 29:34
Thank you for listening to our show. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at tangi one that is t a M, G, one at UNLV thought nevada.edu. Or to contact Professor Charles Stanton at charles.stanton@unlv.edu. See you next time.

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