Social Justice - A Conversation

Unknown Speaker 0:00
This is a k u and v studios original program. 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.

Unknown Speaker 0:18
Hi, I'm Charles Stanton. I'm on the faculty of the Honors College of UNLV. And the Boyd School of Law.

Unknown Speaker 0:24
Hi, I'm Gabriela Tam, I'm a fourth year accounting student.

Unknown Speaker 0:28
And welcome to social justice, social justice, our conversation a

Unknown Speaker 0:33
conversation.

Unknown Speaker 0:36
Well, good evening, everybody. This is Charles Stanton. I'm here along with my partner, Gabriella tan, hello, social justice, a conversation another episode in our show to try to, I guess, make people aware of all the things that are unjust in the world. We wanted to try to do something a little different on this show. For the vast majority of our shows, the focus, of course has been on our country and what's going on in the United States. But we wanted to talk at the outset today about what's going on in Russia. And the murder of the freedom fighter I would call them Novotny, and how it struck such a chord around the world, in our country and and other countries regarding a person who was basically trying to fight for democracy in a nation that basically has not known democracy, except for a few years. And, you know, it was very interesting to me how the United States in all these countries reacted to his death. And the question now of what what, what what are we going to do to in some way? Make his debt have meaning?

Unknown Speaker 2:01
Yeah, um, I just feel like, it's how the United States views dictatorship, all over the world is very different. If it's like, like we were talking about for like, like Russia, the Russian dictatorship is, is okay. It's okay to not have like, not help them change to democracy or whatever. But if it's like China, or like North Korea, it's a big, it's a big problem. And like, I know, like, in the beginning, you said that we are switching from not what's happening in our country, but what's happening in Russia. But I feel that what happened in Russia has a huge impact to what's happening in America. Like, I've seen a bunch of stuff on social media where it's been revealed that the, like, the Russian like Russian Russians are, and they have like, a huge impact on the Republicans. And while I'm not, I don't know, like how I feel like I'm like, shocked, puzzled, not kinda shocked. I'm like, some, like surprise, it's like, oh, like you. We have all these people who are bashing dictatorship, they want a dictator. And all that week, they want to be able to vote for our president or whatever. But at the same time, you're supporting a country that is run by a dictator, like, I don't know, it's just like, so hypocritical to me. Confusing. I don't understand.

Unknown Speaker 3:34
Well, I think I think a lot of it. I think a lot of it is the the association that the ex president had was Vladimir Putin. I think that has a lot to do with it. Yeah. I think that they were heavily involved in the 2016 election, trying to hack our election systems. So

Unknown Speaker 4:00
scary.

Unknown Speaker 4:01
I think that the very interesting thing now with this man who was supposed to testify against Joe Biden and his son, and he was this was supposed to be evidence against them, was found out to be somebody who had Oh, yeah, had been had been, had received information from the Russians actually, about what Joe Biden and his son were doing, which was not true, it was all made up, etc, etc. That's

Unknown Speaker 4:30
so, so crazy, because it's like, you could probably find someone who's saying, oh, Joe Biden said this lie about Trump, and he has ties to this, this this country that we don't like, but now that it's like that, like now that the Trump administration like or Republicans, like have that information, it's like, it's not a problem anymore.

Unknown Speaker 4:56
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think you know, it's sort Certainly, I think explains, in some ways, the reluctance of the House of Representatives to vote the aid bill for the Ukraine. Because one of the things that was always one of the standard beliefs of the Republican Party, for many decades, was a strong defense and a strong NATO. This was always something that was part of their platform. And all that seems to have been forgotten. And we see the House of Representatives now. Basically, basically, impeding the government, basically, basically shutting down one of the parts of the branches of our government, which is the legislative branch, disappearing for days at a time, and vital, important issues that have to be decided, that affect all of us. They're unwilling to even bring these things to a vote. We had, we had the situation with the immigration where they had a consensus in the Senate. And the thing is not brought to a vote, we have the issue, the super urgent issue now in the Ukraine, because of the fact that, you know, the war was going badly. There's a shortage of materials, there's a shortage of weaponry and everything like that, which could be cured by us stepping forward to, you know, help them out. We have been behind Ukraine from the beginning. Now, at this late stage of the war, it's like we're leaving them. And I see I see some parallels, not an exact parallel, but some parallels to what happened in Afghanistan. Yeah, where we just like it was almost like we just split. It wasn't planned out, we just left out and we were gone. But this this decision, if they if they keep to it has very dire consequences. Yeah. Because if we, if we do not support them, then how's the other countries in NATO, to which we're a signatory actually believe if something happened if Russia tried to invade other countries, that we would that we would step forward? And it doesn't, it does, it doesn't send it doesn't send a good message at all. And what's also very interesting about it, too, is there was an article, I guess, it was in the journal the other day, about how there's a lot of things that the United States could have done, from an economic point of view, that would have impeded the Russian war effort. visa vie, you know, the seizing of assets, the freezing of, of accounts. And while the rest of us though, and the United States, the United States didn't do anything about it, and this is going back for a long time now. So obviously, obviously, economics are a huge part of the war, and the freezing of assets, and, you know, cracking down on all these things will definitely impede their war effort. And, and the wealth of a lot of the people who were behind the invasion of Ukraine. What's embarrassing, is that you're reading about this in the newspaper where this person who was the writer of the article, laid out all the steps. But what is our government doing? These are things that can be done. From the power of the executive. Yeah, we don't need even the Congress to approve it. And there doesn't seem to be any leadership there. It seems I mean, you know, I'm not I'm not crazy about Joe Biden. I mean, I think, you know, obviously, you know, the alternative is a lot worse.

Unknown Speaker 9:17
Yeah, it's the it's the lesser of two evils. But but

Unknown Speaker 9:21
but he to me, he, to me, is not a leader. And a leader is somebody who leads every day. Now, he'll come out once in a while and I'll say certain things. And you know, it people will listen to what he has to say. But then why he disappears. Yeah. And then two overs time goes by Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 9:44
and words can only go so far. It's like how we were talking about last week, like, you know, like thoughts and prayers, like the words thoughts and prayers, but what are you going to do to, to support and to help? Where do your actions Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 9:59
well, I said Well, that's it. And we have, we have the resources that are means to do it in two ways. First of all, it's a fun their resistance of the fact that been invaded, but also to use the sanctions to impede their progress financially, so that the war will be extraordinarily expensive for them to continue. Yeah. And the fact that a person who's it who's, who's writing in the newspaper, basically, the not a member of the government, is able to come up with all these ways. And means that should have been used by the government does something wrong there? Yeah. You know, and whether, whether they, they don't want to do it, or they're not interested in doing it, or what have you. I don't know. But it does not look good. Yeah, it does not look good.

Unknown Speaker 10:58
I think another thing is like, like, yes, we sent so much money to Ukraine, but we're like what we mentioned before, like, it seems like Russia is now having a heavy impact on the United States. And now it's making us look very, I feel like it's making us look very wishy washy. Yeah. Like, do we? are we supporting Ukraine? Or are we supporting Russia right now? Yeah. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 11:19
Well, it's, it's, it's disturbing, because, you know, they had the, you know, the European conference over there. And, you know, the man, the man was murdered, and now his wife is trying to take up the leadership role. But it's exactly what you said, in a way, it's sort of in a completely different way. It's sort of like the gun issue. Yeah. You know, where we've reached the point now. I mean, well, one of the stories that can get broken last 10 days, of course, was the shooting at the parade, when they had the Chiefs victory celebration for the Superbowl, and

Unknown Speaker 12:03
there was another school shooting was at University of Colorado, Colorado. That

Unknown Speaker 12:08
was another one. That was another one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But I think I mean, I think we're way past we're way past words. Yeah, we need we need the Congress, we need the Congress to do all these different things that they're supposed to do. But because we have a, I wouldn't say even dysfunctional comp, Congress, we have a non functional Congress, they still do anything. They just, they just, they just they just don't want to, they just don't want to do their job and participate in the legislative process. Yeah, when you can't even get when you can't even get these vital things that are affecting our nation. Get to get a vote on us. That's bad. And my fear and my fear. And I, I had said this to you off the air. My fear is that as far as the budget is concerned, it's really an open question whether they will be whether we will be able to get a budget. Yeah. And, um, I've thought, I've thought for a long time. And now this is just my, my personal opinion. But we have seen, we've seen the situation with the immigration crisis. We've seen it with, you know, the foreign aid funding. And now we're coming up upon the budget. I think there's a lot of these people actually believe us, they want to bring the whole thing down, oh, 100, they want to shut they want to shut the whole thing down. They want to bring not all of them, but a lot of them want to bring the country to a step towards standstill. And it's kind of frightening because this has really never happened before. I mean, there has been there has been there were there were shutdowns, you know, during President Clinton's time, and you know, other times, but it's more than just, you know, a difference in ideology. In other words, you could have a difference on foreign policy issues. But what we're seeing now is a complete failure to participate in in the work of a legislative body. We saw this an example. That's another example of it, again, not not related at all to foreign policy, but when they had the when they had the gun murders in Tennessee, where those children were killed at the school. And all these all these people came in who were parents, and they were they were petitioning and fleeting with the legislature of Tennessee that they would need to to have it Though gun reform and everything? Well, the answer to them basically is inaction. The answer is not to do anything. And this has become this has become a norm. Another case, again, not related to, you know, per se but we're talking about now, the guy who's the Attorney General of Texas, they have a huge vote and one of the bodies of the legislature he should be removed for for misfeasance and malfeasance, nonfeasance, whatever you want to say. And, and it comes to the vote of, you know, the the other part of the legislative chamber in Texas, and that they won't act on it, it's like they it's not even that they won't come up with votes, is that they just ignore it. They that they don't want to entertain, they don't want to entertain the issue at all. So what does that say? It says, well, basically, the legislation as we know, it is, is is on life support, basically, yeah. Because you know, you get elected to a position, your duty is to entertain these issues, you can vote for it, you can vote against it, whatever it is, they could have put the immigration voted to a vote on the floor, they could have put the aid bill to the to Ukrainian Israel on the floor. But they don't want to do it. They don't want to do it. So now what you have basically, is a Congress that basically you only have one part of the of the legislature that's functioning, that's the Senate, the other part of the legislature doesn't function.

Unknown Speaker 16:38
Like, I just think this is gonna go crazy. And like US history books, like, it's just gonna be, like 10 pages where it's like, yeah, our Congress really did nothing. Nothing during this period. Yeah. Even though we had all these issues going on. They just sat on their butts and did nothing.

Unknown Speaker 16:56
Well, I mean, it's just like, you know, it's just like, all the money that was was supposed to be appropriated for the war. Okay. Regarding the border, okay. You know, I'm not I'm not proceed for the wall. But, I mean, there needs to be immigration policy. So some, some reform some way. Okay. So I don't know how many billions of dollars was spent. But the actual amount of building that they did, was completely out of whack to the amount of money that was spent. So where did where did all that money go? Now that now we're back again, though? We have we have a tremendous we have a tremendous problem at the border, okay. That they they have, I guess it was three senators or four senators, both Republican and Democrat, and they worked out of the immigration policy. And some would say, well, the immigration policy was was was conservative, almost Republican in nature that it was it was it was very restrictive, but they couldn't even get a vote on that. Then they have the thing with, then they have the thing with the Ukraine, where we've poured in billions of dollars already. And we've we've put our put our name, our, our legacy, our reputation everywhere, whatever word you want to use, behind these people. And then at the most important part of the of the, you know, battle war. We're a nerd. We're not doing anything.

Unknown Speaker 18:32
Yeah, we just we just leave Ukraine like, high and dry. Like we're just leaving them.

Unknown Speaker 18:35
Yeah, well, another another example is, you know, the thing in Gaza with the ceasefire. This is another issue, because, again, we're not going to go over all history here. But but, you know, there needs to be a ceasefire, many needs of the fighting needs to stop. There's been so many people killed already. Okay. All right. So, three times the United States has vetoed in the Security Council. The plans have had an immediate ceasefire. Okay. And the rationale that's used as well, we have a plan that we've been working on. Well, hell, we're gonna work on this plan for four or five months. Yeah. And it hasn't gotten us anywhere. Yeah. Which is wasting our time. And you're

Unknown Speaker 19:21
we're killing a bunch of people, of course. Yeah. Well,

Unknown Speaker 19:24
it makes no sense. But again, again, we get back we get back to leadership, though, get back to leadership, that the one side doesn't want to do anything. And the other side, the leadership is intermittent. When you look at the great presidents that we've had, whether it was Lincoln, whether it was FDR, whether it was Lyndon Johnson, Barack Obama, what have you, these were leaders, these people. You could disagree with certain things they did or certain policy positions they had. But they were out there on a regular basis. Yeah, advocating for certain things. Leadership is not a sometimes hobby, where, you know, you make a pronouncement. And then you disappear. And then a few weeks later, you come back and make another pronouncement and disappear. Especially in the office of the presidency. Yeah, the president, the president, hopefully, for good. And sometimes, of course, as we've seen for bed, sets the agenda. You're the president of the United States, you're the leader, you're the person who people look to, as the representative of our country, look to as citizens of our country, we look to that person, be they a man or a woman, and the world looks to that person as representative of, hopefully the values and ideals of what America should be like. But we don't have that. We don't have that. Yeah. So the so the leadership is, is sort of like been diffused. And what you have basically is, basically have people who are proxies, who are speaking up about what needs to be done. And yes, they are right in saying what needs to be done. But a lot of these people aren't even part of the government. It's people, you know, who are commentators and experts. I mean, together, man, I'll go back to it again, to get a man who's a columnist in the newspaper. And no, no, no, no disrespect to, obviously a man of high intelligence, and, you know, financial acumen. But this is not the guy that's supposed to be setting our policy. He's gonna He's a man, this man is giving advice to the United States Government on what they're supposed to do to impede rushes for the answers. And he's writing for newspaper, and all this information, apparently, is available to our government. And they haven't used any of these methods. I mean, come on here. What are we doing? And then whenever and then when, you know, people talk about, you know, why is the war not going? Well, the wars not going? Well, because we're not supporting them. Yeah. You know, and, you know, but but I think I think the world I think the world is very frightened of what the future is going to be especially I would say, the countries in that part of the world that are adjoining the Ukraine. Yeah, like Poland is one, or Poland, Poland, a huge Estonia, Latvia, these countries, you know, what's to prevent Russia from attacking us. And, of course, the thing there, of course, though, is that we're the single we're a signatory to the treaty. And the treaty, the treaty is not ambiguous. The treaty says the treaty says that an attack on one member state as an attack on all the member states, but we're not showing like the resolve in this case, to to respond to a country that was supposedly been supporting. So what is Russia going to think? Well, the United States not gonna do anything? They help these people out there left, and they left holding the bag,

Unknown Speaker 23:21
and even just that, but like, like, we like talked about before, like, they're, they're literally Republicans who are supporting Russia right now. So like, yeah, when I know, we've like said many times, how divided our country this is just another thing. Yeah, like another thing on the long list of how our country's divided? Well, I mean,

Unknown Speaker 23:40
I think, you know, when someone says, like, you know, that some amount of Jews if they were short on their dues, that they would encourage Russia to invade a NATO country. I mean, that alone is just, I mean, it's mind boggling. Yeah. But But again, these issues are not being presented in a strong way to the people. And I think, I think that's the vision that we have. A lot of it has to do with a lack a lack of information, and a lack of resolve on the part of the people who want to keep this country a democracy that needs to be much more strong and pronounced and aggressive in promoting our democracy. And we were I don't see that yeah, I don't see that.

Unknown Speaker 24:35
It's just like, what is the like the Democratic side doing, you know? Yeah. Like, why are they so afraid to stand up? Stand up to the other side. Well,

Unknown Speaker 24:50
I don't think I don't think it's all of them. Like I think I think and in the in the set Uh, you would get you would get, I would say, pretty much every Democratic senator to vote for the aide, I would say almost all of them. Yeah, I think in the house you'd get I would say pretty much everybody in the house too. Yeah. But it's as the leadership at the top, it's the leadership at the top. I mean, it's, you know, it's not, it doesn't seem to be a well run operation. I'll give you an example. The guy who's the Secretary of Defense, who, you know, didn't inform anybody helps Seiki was cetera, et cetera. And now apparently, he's really, really sick. I mean, he's, he's really sick. But that was that was another bizarre example of like, it doesn't seem like the government. Everybody knows what's going on. It's like, there's a lack of direction, there's a lack of guidance, you need somebody was to reiterate this, again, you need a leader, you need a leader. And the question is now, where is that leader? If you look around the political landscape, and you say, Well, you know, we need somebody who has a vision for the future, because all the all the great presidents had a vision. And, you know, I mean, certainly Lyndon Johnson did with the Great Society, and the Voting Rights bill. Certainly Eisenhower did. Certainly FDR did suddenly vote Barack Obama did, but the health care plan. And it just seems like it's it's like an administration that goes from day to day. They're not like, they're not like really seizing the wall and saying, Listen, you know, we need to do these things. I mean, if it was me, if it was me, and I was in opposition, I would I would address the country. I would go I would get on television. I would say, you know, we have we have, we have more than three networks now. But in the olden days, when they had those when they had those issues, they would go on ABC, NBC, CBS, they would ask, they would actually ask the network's what time and they said, You know, I need I need 30 minutes tonight, I need to discuss some very important issues regarding our country. I mean, even when Jimmy when Jimmy Carter gave them a lady's speech when he was, I guess, in the second or third year as president, he got that time John Kennedy did during the Bay of Pigs. And the crisis with the missiles in Cuba, he got the time Lyndon Johnson got the time. And it's almost like they were afraid to put this guy out there. I don't know. I don't know. He doesn't have any press conferences. Really? Yeah. You know, I mean, it's it's disturbing. It's troubling.

Unknown Speaker 28:00
I think we need someone who will obviously like, who does have, like a plan for the future, but will actually take steps to get to that future? Yeah. And I think that if we find someone like that, it will bring a lot of hope back to United States.

Unknown Speaker 28:19
I think so. Yeah. Yeah. I think he needs somebody who's just going to speak to who, as much as possible, can directly speak to everybody who can connect can connect, yeah, who can connect and say, Listen, we're very divided. But this is what we need to do. Just don't pull any punches. Just put the cards right on the table. Yeah, we need to do ABC, this is what we need to do. And I'm gonna I'm gonna ask for all your help, that you need to get in touch with the Congress, people in Washington, who don't seem to want to do that. Send them telegrams, emails, whatever it is, that this is an important point in our country's history. And we have to do things and have to take action that really reflects on all of us as individuals and reflects on our country's future. Yeah. And that and that's what we need to do, basically. Well, we'll throw in a few of these ideas out there. And hopefully, all of us together can store a fire in a place where people look like they, you know, went off on vacation, unfortunately. But it's been a great pleasure to do the show with my with my colleague here, and we look forward to talking to you next week.

Unknown Speaker 29:32
Thanks for listening. Good night. Good night. 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 satin at charles.stanton@unlv.edu See you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai