Social Justice - A Conversation

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Charles Stanton 0:15
Good evening, everybody, and welcome to Social Justice: A Conversation. I'm here with my new partner, who I'm very excited to work with, Dave Machado, and she is a student at Boyd, and I think she's going to bring a tremendous amount of energy, enthusiasm, and knowledge to this broadcast. So I want to welcome her, and you know, I think you're you're going to be in for a lot of learning from her as this year goes on.

Yvette Machado-Tuinier 0:46
Thank you, Professor. I am just so grateful to be here. I wish we could be here under different circumstances, that it could be a different type of conversation. But I think that conversation is important nonetheless, and I'm just grateful to be having it with people who I admire as much as you, and you know, talking out what we're going through right now collectively, it's been it's been a lot.

Charles Stanton 1:04
Yeah, yeah, yes. Well, we wanted to get started. You know, we're talking about the upcoming elections in November, and this is a subject that we could spend hours talking about. But I think what's at the root of the problem, which was the the ill the ill-gotten fruit of Citizens United, was the totally unlimited amount of money pouring into campaigns, money that is not even tracked. There are practically no records kept on this stuff, and we basically are are in a situation now where literally not just the elections are are bought, but the whole apparatus around the elections are bought. So that when the when the actual comes to the day when we're going to have people voting, we're we're through this money, basically. We've basically brainwashed like 85% of the people who were going to vote, and and and this is this is not this is not what should be going on in our country.

Yvette Machado-Tuinier 2:12
I agree, and something I think is really interested about Citizens United is that it's a Supreme Court case, and normally names titles of Supreme Court cases don't like bleed into the general public as much as you know other different sound bites that we have. But Citizens United, I think, was was ruled on 16 years ago, if I'm not mistaken. And to have like presence in the community dialog, I think is is really powerful because of how many people in the community don't want money in our politics. Like this is a decision made by the Supreme Court, nine unelected justices that has affected generations of voters, and it's really unfortunate. But I, I do appreciate that a lot of people still talk about it. That people are enraged by it. I think it can really start a conversation about the Supreme Court as a governing body, that a lot of people don't talk about being in a law school setting or in higher education, we talk about these things. But what are we talking about at our dinner tables? I think Citizens United is definitely one of those cases where even if we don't know the facts or what exactly happened, we know that billionaires can pour money into our elected officials, and of course, that's going to taint the the goals that they have, and it's not going to be a government that's governing for the people, and it prevents people from wanting to run. I know so many young people who want to put themselves out there, but they're like, "Oh, I don't want to go against so and so because money.

Charles Stanton 3:38
Yeah, money. Well, sure. They were saying it was in the Times that the the minimum the minimum that they thought was going to be dumped into this election thing as of like a week or 10 days ago the the low number was $1 billion and this is all this is all anonymous money but the the needs of the donors are are well known. That our Congress, in many ways, has been bought and sold by the people at the top of the food chain, and the needs of the vast majority of the rest of us have been ignored. It was I had a very interesting conversation with somebody. This was a few weeks ago about the past election with you know President Trump and Kamala Harris, and I was talking with this guy, and he goes, "Well, he said he said he she had no shot. He said so. I said, "Well, she had no shot because Biden didn't get it, didn't you know, give her enough time to you know ferment her campaign. He said, "No, had nothing to do with that. He said she was outspent 10 times.

Yvette Machado-Tuinier 4:49
Wow!

Charles Stanton 4:50
So you're talking about you're talking about billions of dollars now. And I think what's happened is there's such a proliferation of these ads. That it really is like a mind. It's like a mind turner. Well, you you could really lose your identity and lose who you really thought was a good person because you're constantly being bombarded by the fact that all this all these lies are being spread out there.

Yvette Machado-Tuinier 5:15
Yeah, it's and it you can't escape it. I um I'm a mom myself. I have young children, and you know, from their YouTube or whatever it is that they're watching, even at school, like these ads are flooding into the youth. They're flooding in all over the place. You can't turn on TV without it coming on, and it's really unfortunate because the general public has been so responsive to sound bites, and these sound bites are. It just takes the nuance out of things. How can we really get to know somebody when all we're focused on is that 32nd ad of this person believes this, this, and this? But like, what does that even mean? It's all meant to trigger emotions, to trigger responsiveness, reactiveness, and just like really pull on the most the worst parts of human of human reaction,

Charles Stanton 6:01
yeah. Well, I think I think that's I think that's absolutely right. I think that what has happened in many states is the complete obscuring of the actual important issues that people need to be discussing because it affects their livelihood and you know their their style of life and everything. But the way the system has worked, that it's it's a few people who have special interests, and and unfortunately, those special interests usually are in major conflict with the needs of the rest of us. But to run for Congress today, to be in Congress, to to have a career after Congress, you're dependent on on on on the ultra wealthy.

Yvette Machado-Tuinier 6:44
Absolutely, but I think there is a response communities can have to that, and I think local elections are so important. Even though this money floods into local elections, but I mean, when you think about a school board, for example, like that, that's attainable for some people, it's it has big money in it, sure. But talking to students is so easy and so accessible, and real change can happen at the local level. Unfortunately, like it, it is disheartening to think, like you know, where does that trickle up to do like the opposite of Reagan economics? But how does that you know affect Congress and the Senate, and ultimately how the country is run? It's it's a lot of work that we're facing when we have to go against these giant corporations. But making those small steps and starting small, starting local, going to town halls and getting involved with your board of regents or your public school boards, just being you know talking to your commissioner, things like that can affect locally what we're allowing into our communities, and that can go against like these these big dollars that are being spent elsewhere because it's not just a Republican or Democrat party. There's big anonymous dollars going into both parties, and sometimes it's the same donor. I mean, we wouldn't know because they're private, but it's just disheartening. And I see it the most with young people. Like I am not a traditional law student. I started, I dropped out of high school, got my GED, so I had to go to community college first. But there is no one more active, I think, in local stuff than community colleges. I'm a huge community college advocate, and students there are talking about politics and how much they hate these slander campaigns. How much they don't feel like they're being represented, and unfortunately, it's either going to turn people away from politics altogether. Why vote if my voice doesn't count? Or it's going to make you think that like it's a David and Goliath thing. But one, it's something that you can't measure up to.

Charles Stanton 8:38
Yeah. Well, I think one of the things that's happened is I think the voting public has become very cynical, and I think that that cynicism is more than just ads that people have bought. It's the conduct of the people who are in our Congress primarily. I can't speak to you know every state government, but there's been so many sexual misconduct scandals in in the Congress over the past year, year and a half, two years, where they've had to replace these people who were serving there. So that's one part of it. The other part of it, of course, is that you have a situation now, like in the Senate, and and I never really, I never really grasp this as I have as I have recently. I was talking with a guy who was a lobbyist, and we were discussing. But I used to work in politics for a number of years, and we were talking about you know a lot of the nominations that were being put forward that the Senate had to vote on. And I'm saying, boy, I said, you know, a lot of these people. I mean, it's not even a question of progressivism or liberal. They're just unfit. They're not qualified. So there were a number of senators who the president they fell into his disfavor, and he supported the other candidate. And I said, well, but why are those people who were who were. Dismissed by the president and not supported by the president. Why did they? Why did they vote to confirm these guys? So he says you got to understand they're looking for their next career. So I said, well, what do you mean their next career? And he says, well, everybody or most of the people who leave the Senate primarily they become lobbyists. So if you want to attach yourself to a lobbying firm who represent corporate clients. You don't want anybody who's in bad with the president because you're going to have to come forward toward the president and his administration to get things that you need for your corporate clients. Now, if you didn't go along with him and vote for these people, your value to the lobbying firm is meaningless, and you're going to be out all that money. But the other thing I never knew, which which really fascinated me, was that as a senator, even if you're a senator that's no longer a senator, you are allowed down on the floor of the Senate while they're voting on these bills. And I said, "Whoa, how in the name of sanity is that, but that's it's a club.

Yvette Machado-Tuinier 11:03
That's exactly what it is. It's a club, and it's who has membership in this club. Who's controlling the membership like requirements? It's all of these things, and when you're, I I never even that like blows my mind because I didn't even think about what their career post Senate would be, and to to know that they go into lobbying firms to just buddy up with the people that that you know they're they were in on the floor with to start is just completely unethical and wild. And how how do we rail this in? Like what do we what do we do? Well,

Charles Stanton 11:35
well, I think I think that there's a there's a few things that that that are troubling. We have a democracy based on separation of powers, but there's a couple of things that are essential. One thing that's essential is that they are our servants. We are not their servants. There's some misguided idea that all these people, you know, can do whatever they want and have no responsibility towards serving the needs of the public. That's that's one of the problems. But I think the other problem that accounts for a lot of what's going on in the Congress and a lot of what's going on in the Supreme Court. And I made this mention in one of the in one of the classes because you know you you soon will be you know taking the bar exam, and and you'll pass the bar exam, and you'll you'll you'll you'll take the oath of that you know is required of of a student and and and a person who wants to be admitted to the bar. And I said to myself, you know, all these positions, the president, vice president, everybody takes an oath, but there's a condition precedent to taking the oath that's never mentioned, and the condition precedent to taking the oath that's never mentioned is a set of deeply held beliefs. This is where I think the problem lies. It lies on the Supreme Court. It lies in the Congress. It lies in the you know the executive branch. But you know, and it got me to thinking. It got me to thinking about the Supreme Court. Okay, so when I was going to law school, I'm not going to say how long ago that was. Probably back in the prehistoric days of Jurassic Park. But anyway, when I was going to law school, I I took courses in ethics at the law school, and now of course I'm teaching I'm teaching one boy now, but the man who was teaching the course, he worked for the Attorney General's Office of the State in New York, and he was he had been involved in all kinds of investigations having to do with art fraud, where deceased artists had their work stolen, actually, and they were being sold in these different galleries. And he used to say, we would talk about you know ethical things. He says he used to say you can't take a pencil. That was his standard of ethics. You can't take a pencil. Now we have a Supreme Court. People are going around the world. They're in the Marbella Club. They're you know doing all this stuff. But I'm saying to myself, now wait a minute there. All the other federal courts have ethics codes. The Court of appeal, the district courts-they don't have an ethics code. They don't want an ethics code. They're not interested in an ethics code. So you say to yourself, "Well, if that's the case, then what are they doing there?

Yvette Machado-Tuinier 14:11
You know, I I listen to a lot of really intelligent people speak on things that are much smarter than me, and I heard the term "emotional support billionaire" be used by a few professors, a lot of professors out there, and I think that's exactly what it is. Is the Supreme Court has these emotional support billionaires, and they're they're ruling in the interests of their friends who may not be funneling direct money to them, but they are taking them on private jets and you know paying for really expensive things, and the Supreme Court-they are public servants. They-they're not elected, but they are meant to be there as the bulwark of justice and working for the people. And when we consider these corporations as people, it completely diminishes the everyday person. Because how is a corporation, an entity, the same as a regular person? And I think it's really interesting because we don't learn about the Supreme Court much until higher education. At least I didn't growing up in Las Vegas, and I taught. I spoke with some high schoolers today, actually, and I asked them what they think of the Supreme Court, and if it's important that we have it, and they all started with, "Yeah, we need someone to set what the capacity of the Constitution is. So then I asked them, "I'm like, okay, well, they're not elected, so how do you think they get to their seat? Only a few of the students knew that they were appointed by presidents, so I asked them, "Like, do you think it's fair for a Supreme Court justice to be appointed to this position for your whole life, not just a generation, but your whole life, and making decisions for you that will impact your everyday experience. And you had no say in it, and they hadn't thought about that before. And I think when we think of like the life tenure of the Supreme Court justices and what that was meant to do, which it was meant to protect them from, you know, the public's backlash and things like that. But what it really has done is insulated them from personal accountability. And I think a good conversation that should be had is maybe we should talk about court expansion, or maybe once we have a working Congress, can talk about putting guardrails on what the Supreme Court can and can't do because we like it's a a body you can regulate if you have a function in Congress. Now, will the Supreme Court, if it was challenged, like would they decide against their own power? Yeah, there you go. Maybe not, but but at least the at least the population, like the community would know that, like, hey, they they should be regulated.

Charles Stanton 16:45
Yeah, well, I'll tell you my feeling on that. A number of years ago, I saw a movie called The Brotherhood of the Bell, and I've I used it last semester, and I'm using it again in this semester, and it's a very interesting movie. But it's not about the judiciary per se, but it's about this man who goes to a very special college, and he belongs to a fraternity. It's called the Bell, and he enjoys the benefits of that. He enjoys the connections. He enjoys all these things. And then one day, he's given an envelope and he's told you got to do X, Y, and Z. And there's no out, there's no off ramp. You got to do it. This is what I think the problem is with the court system. I can, I can, I know of a number of cases where people went to different law schools and they got involved in the Heritage Foundation and all the stuff. They somehow got those summer jobs that nobody could get. They somehow got clerkships that nobody could get. They somehow got on the list to be in the district court. They somehow got on the court of appeals and they somehow became on the supreme court. Well, those people are own lock, stock, and barrel. The belief, the belief that these cases are being decided impartially, I can tell you that that's not true. I have, I have, I do know, I have known students who were attempted to be recruited to just go through that process and eventually wind up in the in the in the upper upper echelon of the law, but their votes are already spoken for. They're not going to come out and you know say you know certain things are wrong or people are doing certain things because their whole career has been built on this, getting these these goodies. But then the bill came due, and they can't get out of

Yvette Machado-Tuinier 18:38
it. Yeah, and sometimes they don't want to get out of it. And I think of Chief Justice Roberts, and again, because this is not the things that I knew about before coming into law school. But when you're so invested in it, and you start to have pattern recognition, I look at the career of Chief Justice Roberts, and from when he, you know, was a lawyer for the government all until now, like he's had a very he's had a very personal vendetta. It seems like to me for the Voting Rights Act, and look at where we are today with the Calais decision that came down, where it just completely is dismantling this thing that our country held so sacred and that people risk their lives to to have. And when the Supreme Court is challenging what duly elected Congress and our legislators have put forth that the community supports, and the Supreme Court, for their own interests, whatever they may be, tears that down. Why do we just sit and take it? I think we because we've been told that the Supreme Court has like the final say, and I think teaching students, whether it's law students or students, you know, in any part of their education, that you know, do they have the final say? Can we make you know something different? I think challenging the power of the Supreme Court by telling more people about the justices and their careers, where they came from, how they got to their position. Is very important because if you go into an elementary school, for example, example, you might see photos of Sonia Sotomayor or Justice Jackson, even you know Chief Justice Roberts up there. You might see these people as icons that kids will look up to. But if you're in a public school in a Title One school here in East Side of Las Vegas, like can can you really be that when you grow up? We tell kids they can, and then you realize how people get to the Supreme Court and these special clubs that they they either have to be a part of or that they sell little pieces of themselves to be a part of, and it really like it creates it like it removes a veil, so to speak. And I think if we remove the veil early and say, hey, like you could have been, you know, one of these people maybe in you know in the past, but like as of today, these people are carefully selected for these reasons, and we should challenge it because I think an informed public is probably one of the biggest, one of the best weapons against this type of corruption at the highest levels.

Charles Stanton 21:00
Yeah, well, I remember I'll tell tell everybody a humorous story. It wasn't humorous then, but it's humorous now. When I was going to graduate from law school, my mentor sent me to a couple of firms, but one firm in particular. This was a firm on Wall Street, and I go in there. I was very excited. You know, you you always have these, you know, you know, thoughts of, you know, doing things that are great. And the man said to me, he said, "Oh, you were very highly recommended. He says, "All I need to know, he said, "is what book you're in. He says to me, and I says, "What do you mean? He says, "Well, you know, you you must understand that the the attorneys in this firm, have to be connected to the social registry, and I don't. I don't think being Jewish helped me either. That wasn't. That wasn't. That wasn't really a plus. But the craziest thing was, so I went back to see their professor. Hey, who was a who was a good man? He was a well-intentioned man, and he said, "How did it go? And I said. Well, it didn't go too good, and he says, "Well, you know, you have all the credentials. And then he he pauses and he says, "I should have known better than to send you over there. And I'm thinking to myself, "Whoa, you know, you knew about it too. That's what you're dealing with. Yeah, that's what you're dealing with, basically.

Yvette Machado-Tuinier 22:18
Absolutely, it's a lot of secrecy. It's a lot of complicity. I think, especially at the highest levels of like institutions, we all know about it. Sometimes it's talked about, but the discourse around it isn't something that's as common as it should be. But historically, I think this is going to be something that future generations talk about, and that they wonder, like, what were people thinking? What were they doing? How could they not have seen these obvious things?

Charles Stanton 22:45
Well, I think it's I think it's a segue. I think it's very true about what you're saying regarding the deportation situation, where it's almost like the rule of law has completely disappeared, and it's not merely that they would deport someone. It's the way these people have been treated, abused, disrespected, harmed without any feeling for their humanity. See, this is what troubles me. That you know, and and and not only that, but everybody's covered up, so nobody knows who they are, and I'm saying to myself, what what part of of what justice should be is having amassed men, you know, doing these things and basically trying to terrorize a whole group of people.

Yvette Machado-Tuinier 23:35
Absolutely, and and it's heartbreaking because I think every generation has had their you know, sector of the community that has been vilified in a way where they're dehumanized, they're likened to animals, more of like a product to be traded or something that's bad for the country. As like they talk about it like as a virus or thing, and it's it's awful. And if you are a student of history, then it's a hard time for us right now because the pattern recognition is striking when we look at what we've overcome and the moments where we have said never again and we continue to do it. But a lot of it comes from this place of comfort. When we look at the suffering of others from a place of comfort, we're really not moved to change. And I think the the shield against that is that these are our neighbors. These are people that we've grown up with. These are you know they could be our friend's aunt or uncle or parent, and it's that sense of community that is going to fight against this. And people are outraged, but I don't think that it lasts long enough in the media. I mean, the deaths of Renee Goode and Alex Preddy. It was there. It was shocking, and then it was gone. And it's something that people, unless it's on social media and it's getting likes and shares and all these things, then it disappears from like the the human consciousness. And that has been so troubling to see in young people because.

Charles Stanton 25:00
One

Yvette Machado-Tuinier 25:00
of the the most important things I think we need to instill is like a deeper attention span. How much can we read? How much can we tolerate? Because the more we have to confront this inhumanity face to face, the more we will stand against

Charles Stanton 25:13
it. Yeah, of course.

Yvette Machado-Tuinier 25:14
When this type of oppression has happened around the world at at different times, we couldn't scroll away from it. It was there and it was present. And I think we need to find a way to not let it die. And conversations like this is how that happens.

Charles Stanton 25:29
Yeah. Well, I think I think that the dehumanization part is very clear. There's no. I am not. I am not a person of color, but the evidence is overwhelming that this is being done deliberately to harm these people. But what's also what's also very troubling to me, though, is the silence of so many people who who know that this is wrong, who are in positions not controlled by the president or anybody else, they have the the ability to speak out and and discuss and see what's going on, and they don't want to be bothered. It was it was interesting this morning when I was talking with somebody about this, and they were saying, you know, America. They said they're very frightened for the future of our country, and I said, "Well, I said we suffer from a disease. I said it's called indifference. People just don't, you know, like they'll see things and they don't care. It's I'll give you a perfect example. This city now, this is a very prosperous city. This is a city with literally billions of dollars of worth of real estate and gambling and everything. How can you defend the homeless situation in this city? You see these people all over the street now. There's no conceivable way that we don't have the resources that you can't find housing for these people. But they don't care though.

Yvette Machado-Tuinier 26:55
And you know, I think the something that my parents have always taught me is that revolutions happen at the dinner table, like in the conversations that you have, and talking to people about this and putting the pressure on, like, why aren't we doing something about it? That in itself will cause more people to to come forward, and especially in Vegas. I mean, the homeless situation, the unhoused situation, I should say, is just gut wrenching, especially when it's 115 degrees outside, like this is a dangerous time to be unhoused. The conditions here are not friendly, and it's easy to drive by in your air-conditioned car and not make eye contact. But I think we need to sit with it and make eye contact and realize, like, hey, this should make us feel uncomfortable, and we should demand more from our legislators. We, whether we pay taxes, or we just live here. Like we, we need to do something about it because they are our neighbors too.

Charles Stanton 27:45
Yeah, that's well, that's the thing. You know, that's the thing that the society, in many ways, through media, through social media, through a lot of the computerization stuff, has allowed people in a way to be removed from that. Yes, it has. Yes, it can tell us when you know, you know, there were terrible things like Rodney King and stuff like that. But it's also very insular. So you can be in your you can be in your your your silo for six seven hours a day, and you you will not know anything about what's really go what's really going on because that's your world, and I think it's sad that it's not being used more fruitfully to spread the word about things that are obviously wrong. Because that's what the ultimate purpose should be,

Yvette Machado-Tuinier 28:34
and that's why it's a great time to step away from the screens. And you don't have to go completely analog, but listening to conversations like this and having conversations like this, talking to other people, reading actual books, reading a newspaper-like it's an important time to do that. And I'm grateful to be doing it. I think we need to recognize in ourselves when we're being sucked into that place of comfort. It's like the cognitive dissonance, but but this is a great way

Charles Stanton 28:59
to do it. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think on that on that high note, we will thank you for listening to our program, and we look forward to speaking to you next week. And may God bless all of you and protect you.

Yvette Machado-Tuinier 29:12
Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai