Social Justice - A Conversation

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Charles Stanton 0:18
Good evening. This is Professor Charles Stanton, I'm a professor of Boyd School of Law,

Blanca Pena 0:23
and my name is Blanca Pena. I am a third year law student at the Boyd School of

Charles Stanton 0:26
Law, and this is social justice, a conversation,

Blanca Pena 0:29
a conversation.

Charles Stanton 0:33
Well, good evening, everybody. Once again, Professor Charles with my my partner, Blanca Pena, it's good to be back with you. Where do we start here? Well, let me just, let me just sort of open this thing up a little bit. It's been the major story of the last week and a half, two weeks as to, first of all, the election results, and then the question of whether the Democrats did the right thing in helping to end the shutdown. But the issue hovering over the whole country like a dark cloud is the Jeffrey Epstein matter, and when you when you analyze this as best you can, and I've tried to analyze it in a legal, logical way, what we've basically seen over a number of weeks or a number of months, is the absolute attempt to obstruct justice, to prevent the real troops from coming out to try to make some kind of a deal with one of the participants and participants in the scandal, which is Lane Maxwell and all of that. And of course, of course, we know that by by law and by ethics, none of those things should be, should be going on. But finally, I think we're moving toward a resolution of this. I don't know how long the resolution may take, but I do think now that we're going to start to see a consensus, which I think certainly will be in the House of Representatives to allow these documents, in their totality, to be released. I think we will be getting a large number of Republican congresspeople to also join with the Democrats in the House of Representatives. I will say that I think some of those people are principled in their decision. I will also say that I think some of those people who would join that vote are looking for political cover now that this issue has gotten so far out of hand. So that's so, that's, that's one part of it, once that, of course, once that vote, of course, happens, then the next, the next obstacle, obstacle is going to be whether United States Senate will go along with what the House of Representatives is going to do, which I think at this point is not a certainty, although I think events of the last four or five days would indicate To me that I could very easily see a majority of the senators in the United States Senate going along with what the House of Representatives was doing. One of the very disturbing things though, that this whole thing is bringing out on last Friday, the President apparently spoke to Pam Bondi, and he wants her to be involved vis a vis prosecution of people who were Democratic lawmakers and office holders who were supposedly involved with Jeffrey Epstein. One of the interesting things about this whole, about this whole sordid affair, though, regarding regarding the president, is the fact that it's never him. He's never actually involved in anything. It's it's a cabal, it's a lie, it's a hoax, it's fake news, but it's not a hoax or a cabal or fake news to all the people who are harmed by men in power, and this is really what we're talking about here. I think it goes way beyond the investigation of President Trump or President Clinton or even people that. We know, but a whole, whole underbelly of American big business and politics who absolutely believe they have the right to do anything that they want to do, because they're entitled. They're privileged, they're enabled, even if it involves ruining the life of an innocent person

Blanca Pena 5:21
that's very well put I think, in the past two weeks now, everything has been moving so fast. And I mean, today, I am feeling a little bit optimistic. It looks like, from my point of view, everything is snowballing. And no matter how many times Trump, you know, calls Wolf, or in this case, it's a hoax. It's the Democrats' fault. It's a setup, this, that. And third, I don't think people are convinced anymore. And I wish it was simpler than this. I wish it wasn't all about the fact that rich and powerful men are, you know, sometimes women, but men getting away with whatever they want simply because they have wealth and influence. I wish it was as simple as believing victims and having action start there, as opposed to waiting on these these votes and these meetings and these resolutions and you know, all of this time spent on releasing files when it could have just ended for that man way back then when those victims came out, that's, that's really, you know, all I can say about that. I think you know, as I said, So many things have been moving incredibly fast, and I am optimistic. There is that fact, though, that, you know, came out where it was Jackie Rosen and Cortez Masto, who were two of the Democrats who helped reopen the government again, and that's just, I mean, it's cowardice, in my opinion. It's almost like, Why did, why did we have this shutdown then, like, for what if, if there was, if it was going to end up the exact same way on day one, then, you know, after the 30 something days that the government was closed, why? Why do all of that? And I remember looking into when those two were up for reelection, and I forgot, you know, which one is which, but one of them isn't up for re election until 2028 and the other one until 2030 so in my opinion, it's more of like, well, they probably thought that they were going to be off the hook, you know, because by 2028 by 2030 people would have forgotten their vote from the last few week, or something like that. Yeah, and it was just gonna move on like that. And, I mean, I've mentioned this before, I don't rely on like federal or government assistance, but I can only imagine the impact that people will have to suffer with their health care and with everything changing. I mean, that's just and that's this is all occurring, by the way, with Elon Musk becoming a trillionaire. I had said it a few episodes back that he was on track to being a trillionaire in 2026 but he did it so fast he's a trillionaire now. Isn't that crazy? And people lost healthcare. People lost their ability to go and make sure that they are healthy, that they have their insulin, that they are taken care of. I mean, the disparity here is just incredible in the worst way ever.

Charles Stanton 8:25
Yeah, well, I'm going to say something that I've thought about for a long time, regarding regarding the scandal and how it ties into the shutdown. I think the people who were involved in the scandal, the last thing they wanted was for the shutdown to end. They would have preferred that the shutdown continue, even though the collateral damage and the harms of all these people, air traffic controllers, the poor, the needy, the hungry, this was all devised so that this issue could not be taken up. And if it lasted another four weeks, or it lasted another month, or it lasted another two months, they would have been okay with that too. I think that the country needs to have, like, a major wake up call that there is in our government, not not merely at the executive branch, but in our Congress, a complete disservice to all of us who are the citizens of our country, that it has that it has failed, that it has failed so colossally and so and so, not just failed, but what you're seeing, what you're seeing in the Jeffrey Epstein case is more than the fact that the truth was hidden, or even that you know all these innocent. When children and young women were harmed, it has to do with the generations long acceptance that women can be harmed and we're not going to do anything about it, because that is not a priority for us, that women are not our equal so what happens to them, happens to them, and nothing can be done about it, and it just has to be accepted by society as a normal part of society. The case of Jeffrey Epstein is just one of many, many cases that have that have permeated, not merely the capital or state capitals, but have permanent, permeated Hollywood, have permeated media. Have been permeated big business, etc, etc. This stuff has been going on forever, a very interesting story that that I learned about was a few years ago, 60 minutes had reached its I guess it was its 50th anniversary at that time, and they wanted to do a commemorative special book on the show, which, you know, made sense and everything. And 60 minutes was probably the longest running series ever on television, and won all kinds of awards. Well, anyway, they got a man who was a reporter who they hired to basically do this, to do this book. And the man was, like, super excited about it, because it's a big it's a big thing. Anyway, he starts, you know, doing his investigation and talking to all kinds of people. And what does the man find? The man finds that 60 minutes to show and the the atmosphere was permeated with mistreatment and harassment of women that literally went on for decades. We had Charlie Rose. Is just one example where he was bounced out of CBS, bounced off PBS, but he was not he was not alone. There were a whole bunch of people. And anyway, the man you know, prepared the galleys and he wrote the he wrote the book. He presented them with the book. Well, they rejected the book. They rejected the book. They gave the task of writing the book to one of the executive producers of the show who wasn't there that much longer, when he was found guilty of sexual mistreatment and sexual harassment, and they had to get rid of him. This is something, this is something that is endemic in America. This is part of the American you want to say mosaic, I guess you could say it part of the American mosaic. You know, we talk about, we talk about racism. And, of course, racism, obviously, it's always been part of the American mosaic, prejudice against Latino people, prejudice against black people, etc, all true. But as far as gender is concerned, it's practically an institution now. It's practically something that is accepted, that this is just the way things are. Men want men are men. Boys will be boys, and all the rest of this stuff. And now and now it's reached, and now it's reached the ultimate conclusion of what was always going to happen eventually, that the hunger for power, the mistreatment, the self aggrandizing behavior of people. Finally, it went over the cliff, and it got to the point where for stuff to function even, not even at an optimal rate, there had to be some kind of an accounting if they really wanted to do the true accounting of what was actually going on in this country vis a vis business and corporate America and political America, the place would be empty. You wouldn't have very many people there, because so many of these people are mixed up in this stuff. And you know, it doesn't matter whether they're Democrats or Republicans. We had these we had these issues. We had these issues when we had President Clinton and and now we have these issues with President Trump, and it's just a different party name, but it's the same kind of behavior, and the society itself has to take responsibility. We have to take responsibility too as individuals, because obviously it seems that those behaviors people are okay with it,

Blanca Pena 14:53
yeah, and the problem extends not even to those big platforms. I mean even more modern day when I was growing up. Hearing, well, growing up on shows from Nickelodeon and Disney Channel and things like that, and then hearing later on that a lot of those child stars were abused, and, you know, it's, it's horrible and, and now it's like, it's, it's almost eerie watching those shows back, because especially, you know, shows like iCarly and Sam and Cat and things like that. I don't know if you ever watch those, but one of the actresses and in those shows, her name is Jeanette McCurdy. I told you about the book that she wrote. I'm glad my mom died, where she just wrote about everything that she went through, going and performing in those shows. And I mean, Dan Schneider was just at the top of his game back then, and no one ever suspected everything that he was doing. And it wasn't even just to Jeanette, like it wasn't gender specific in that situation, because Drake Bell had come out and said that he was being sexually abused. And I think it just boils down to power. You know what? I mean, it's like when someone like a Monica Lewinsky is under this power dynamic with Bill Clinton. You know that situation, or even you know people of color in the country, you know where the power is not in the same it's not balanced in the in the way that it should be. And so that's why you have people who are being abused. I mean, there's that video that came out not that long ago of that man who was having a seizure in his car while ice was pulling him out, and he had his daughter in his hands, and they still managed to pull him out despite the fact that he was having a medical emergency. And I had brought this, this up in our class the other day when we were talking about the movie Fruitvale Station, because in that movie that had to do with the death, or the killing of Oscar Grant, who died in Oakland back in 2014 no 2014 something like that. And it was disgusting seeing the way that after he was shot, the police officers were still putting the handcuffs on him. It's like he's already wounded, he's already down, he's he's bleeding, yeah, he's dying. And you're still gonna dehumanize him and minimize him. Why? Because you're wearing the badge, because you have the gun, because you can go back to your family. It's like, it's, it's horrible. And with, I think even like the tolerance levels, you can see it in the language. Like lately I have been seeing the fact that people keep saying like young women or women when they refer to the Epstein Island victims, right? And it's like, no, say it how it is. They are children. They were children, right? You know? And it starts there. It starts with the language. Because if people are hearing these things and they hear a word like woman instead of child or little girl, they're already being sort of trained, for a lack of a better term, to accept it, because they imagine something acceptable, and it never was. And that's the thing with these politicians, regardless of party, it's like this should have rocked the boat way back then. Yeah, you know what I mean. And I mean, I don't know how things are going to play out. I At this point, like I said in the beginning, everything is moving so fast. I do not know where we're going next, but if the fact that Donald Trump might possibly be bisexual or gay, if that's what rocks the boat, and not the fact that he was abusing children, where have we arrived to? Where have we come to? You know, and that's the same party I mentioned this earlier, before we started recording. This is the same party that crashed Grindr whenever they have their events in certain cities and things like that. It's a it's a whole lot of self hatred, it's a whole lot of hypocrisy, it's a whole lot of greed. And we need a hard reset, like I don't even I saw this clip of Ben Shapiro talking about, I think Marjorie Taylor green, because we've said this before, where she's like, now all for the release of the Epstein files. And Ben Shapiro had said something like, she's doing this because she wants to see the fall of the Donald Trump presidency. I almost wish I was in the room so I could ask him, Why would the release of the Epstein files caused the fall of the of the Trump presidency. Like, can you spell it out for me? Matter of fact? Can you draw that out for me and tell me why? Because if that leads to the collapse of the government, I would love for the government to collapse matter of fact. I don't know where you're at with that, but that's just how I feel.

Charles Stanton 19:39
I this is what I would say, though, ultimately it's on us. Ultimately it's on us all. Ultimately it's on all of us, if you think about it, if you think about it clearly, if you take take away politics, take away Republican. Crack and just deal with basic facts. You have an election in 2024 you have two people running for office. You have one person who has a distinguished record of government service, District Attorney of Oakland, District Attorney of San Francisco, Attorney General of the State of California, United States, Senator, Vice President. Okay, then you have the other person that she's running against, who at the bottom line, not opinion, not that you don't like him, not that you resent him. The man was convicted of 32 felonies, 34 or 34 I'm sorry, forgot we left out too. Okay, all right, 34 Okay, so, so the choice should be absolutely obvious. The choice should be that you cannot to maintain the credibility of our country, the credibility of our political system. You cannot put into office or return to office a man who's been convicted of all those felonies. What makes it even worse, though? What makes it even worse though, was that he was the president before, so people could not claim ignorance, and they said, well, we don't know what he's going to do. He might surprise us. They might do X, Y and Z, but they had, they had seen what he had done before. But it has to do, in that case, it had to do with the fact this is a woman of color. This is, this is a woman, a woman who's trying to be the president in a society and in a country where it seems no matter how qualified the woman is, people cannot accept that fact and respect that fact and enable that highly qualified person to be To be in that office for whatever motivations they have, racial,

Blanca Pena 22:04
whatever it is, they said it was because of her laugh.

Charles Stanton 22:07
Well, I'm not even going to go there, but all I'm all, I'm going to say is this, though, on that, on that, on that score, the thing that was always used against her was, we don't know enough about her. Okay, so if you had any intellectual curiosity, any part of your brain that wanted to acquire knowledge about her, the knowledge for about her was voluminous and abundant, and her record of service, her record of distinguishment was was apparent to to anyone, Jeffrey, Epstein, Donald Trump, all these different things that are going on in the country, his election, the way Kamala Harris was treated, is a reflection on our country. It's a reflection on our country, because there's an acceptance of stuff that is completely and profoundly wrong. And it's really, in a sense, you know, I do this show with you and everything, and I, and I, and I know we, we both try to bring to people what's factual and what's true and what's helpful to the society, but my God, that we're in this position now of being messengers of something that is so appallingly apparent. Yeah, this is not something like it's a secret or somebody's, you know, it's hidden in a bank vault somewhere. It's, it's what the country, it's what the country, it's what the country has become. And what the country has become, in many ways, is an acceptance of bad behavior that we now expect these things to happen, disrespect, misogyny, all the rest of this stuff. Well, that's part of culture, the misuse and poisonous use of social media. That's part of our culture. There's nothing we can do about there is something we can do about it. There is something we can do about it. Primarily, what we can do about it is not bringing back into power the people who are representatives of

Blanca Pena 24:28
that. Yeah, I agree with you. It's It's funny, you mentioned that it's true. It's like we're here and we're talking and we do this show every week, but we're not really saying anything revolutionary. You know, we're saying basic things like, hey, get educated. Hey, like, pick up your phone that has any kind of information that you could ever want in a tiny little thing. Like, okay, if you don't know enough about Kamala, go and research her, right? Like, these are not things that that, like you said we had to, like, get out. Of a vault after, like, searching through a cave for what the code was, you know? And it's so sad to see that people are so willing and and taught like they're willing to accept it and they're willing to tolerate it, and it just becomes like, it almost becomes like, like, conformity, right? Like you. I'm sure you've seen those studies of where people face the opposite way in a elevator, and then there's one person who wasn't part of the study, and because everyone's turning it one way, they ended up turning with them. And it's human nature, and I understand that, right? We can't always expect each other to be perfect, but I would, at the very least, expect the American people to see what our history has been like, and work to make sure it doesn't get repeated, because it's horrible. I mean, I remember, and I was a kid, right? But I remember hearing how Obama's tan suit was the craziest thing he could have ever done as president. And meanwhile, we have Donald Trump and his 30 million scandals that happen daily, his crazy truth social posts that are that sound like came from someone who is like, they like they have something wrong in their head, you know, like, It's so disappointing to know that that is who represents us. It's almost like a humiliation, humiliation ritual to the rest of the world. I I just can't and with Kamala, you know, I remember seeing people just talking about how she laughs, or even blaming her for things that Biden did or said. And now that she's doing her book tour with the book, with her book that she wrote 107 days. You know, you have people going to those shows protesting there for the genocide in Palestine, right? And I don't know if you saw the video, but she, like, gets up with the microphone, and she's like, I'm not the president. She's like, if you want to protest, go tell the man that won. Go tell the man that everyone voted for. And it's true. It's like, why are we holding this woman right, this black woman, up to such an impossible standard? I mean, you you listed out her resume. She was the only candidate on the ballot that had experience in the judicial, the legislative and the executive branch. She had all the badges, all of it. She had it. She had it in her resume. She was more than ready to become president. Meanwhile, we have this very average, disgusting person who is associated with the worst of the worst, and he just comes in and he wins and he does these crazy things, and no one holds him accountable. But God forbid, a black person, a Latino person, does anything remotely close to it, right? Because then they're they're done. It's over for them.

Charles Stanton 27:52
Yeah, I think I'm just going to end on this note before I turn it over to you to to say goodnight to all our friends. I think the very disturbing thing to me, though, is the pre knowledge of all these things. If you look at a lot of the documentaries that have been made over the last two years or three years or five years, the documentary about Playboy, the documentary about Hollywood, the documentary actually the actual film. She said, movie about Jeffrey Epstein and on and on and on. People knew about these things, though, the sin is more. The Sin is more than just the actions that the people took. The Sin is also all the people in authority, in the media, in on Wall Street, in the Congress, in the judiciary and all these places who knew all about the stuff were way beyond making another documentary about what was hidden. We need now to actually do things in real time to stop the evil that we know is going on.

Blanca Pena 29:06
Yeah, I totally agree. Thank you all so much for tuning in. Everything's happening so fast, and we'll be here to try cover it every week, so we'll see you next time.

Charles Stanton 29:16
Thank you. Good night and God Bless.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai