Social Justice - A Conversation

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Charles Stanton 0:16
Good evening. My name is Charles Stanton. I'm on the faculty of the Boyd School of Law and the UNLV Honors College. My

Kira Kramer 0:23
name is Kira Kramer. I'm a fourth year honors college student, a public health major and a pre law student. And this

Charles Stanton 0:30
is social justice a conversation, a conversation.

Welcome. Good evening. Everybody. Welcome back. Charles Stanton here with my partner, Kira Kramer to discuss a overwhelming menu today. We could probably be here till the next millennium, but as it is, we are limited to half an hour, and we will try to put into that half hour everything we can regarding what's going on in our country. I wanted to start out with a couple of things, maybe things that you know have sort of skipped, skipped our attention, and maybe the country's attention to has to do with our cyber defenses. And it's very interesting that the the gentleman who was the head of the National Security Agency was fired a person of very, very long experience. And I'm trying to I'm trying to understand, I'm trying to understand something that really does not does not compute with me, regardless of whether we are Republican or Democrat, progressive or conservative, it would seem to me, with all that's going on in the world at this time there would there would be a priority in upholding our cyber defenses. And certainly, you know, with all the different stuff that's going on vis a vis the economy and all the rest of that stuff, that would seem to be a priority, but what's happened in that in that area, has also happened in to so many of the agencies in our government, where it seems that all the people who have the expertise and knowledge about all these different agencies, they've all been gotten rid of for some reason. And it's not merely you know, as we know when different administrations come in and other administrations leave, there's a turnover in personnel. But this is more than just a turnover in personnel. This is seemingly a removal of every single competent person that was working for our government to be replaced by people, largely who have very little, if any, experience in these extremely complex fields. And this is the this is the question that that we've been asking, and I've been asking and Kira has been asking for the last number of weeks, is, what is the purpose of putting in these sensitive positions people who are unqualified. Now, one could say, well, you know, basically, this is a man who doesn't like to be told that he doesn't know what he's doing. He doesn't like to have to deal with people are highly competent. But if the the status, the the the survival of our government and our country depends on, on, on basic competence. Why is he? Why is he basically deleting all that, deleting all that, I

Kira Kramer 3:51
think, at the end of the day, like you've mentioned, that he doesn't care if someone is competent or not, but what he does care about is whether or not when he wants to do something, or one of his yes men want to do something, or any of his stakeholders or billionaire friends want to do something. He needs to have people in every place that will say yes to him, and he doesn't care if it threatens our allies or pretty much anyone period. He doesn't care who it hurts or how his constituents will be affected. That much is plainly clear, and as long as he has someone in a high place that will bend to his every will, then he's satisfied,

Charles Stanton 4:45
yeah, yeah, it's, it's the thing with the with the security, the cyber security, though, is so, is so egregious because, you know, from, from, you know, knowing a little bit. About it and its complexity. The idea that you could just drop somebody who had years of experience fighting these threats and knowing all the nuances of what needs to be done to, you know, keep our country safe is really it's really a dereliction of the President's duty. Basically, it's almost like, you know, he doesn't the security of our country doesn't seem to mean anything to him. And you know, what's also true, I think, is that he has people working for him who are trying to do on the job training in areas that require literally years of prior experience. So you don't, it's not something like, oh, you can just, you can just pick it up overnight, if there's a manual for it, there's there. There are things that these people have encountered and probably in their previous experience dealing with Russia and China and all that stuff that's that's almost like treasure that you know you you need to rely on those people and their expertise and their experience. But there doesn't, there doesn't seem to be any any kind of responsibility that way. And the other thing that's interesting to me too, though, when everybody's talking about make America great again, and all the rest of this stuff, and the really basic things, the protection of America, has been abandoned, all the things that we're doing, basically, whether it's cyber security or alienating Our friends, or putting these ludicrous tariffs and all the different countries are traded with, are all things, basically, to weaken our country, to weaken our economy, to harm our harm our position as world leader in so many industries. I mean, you look at this, just to segue to the tariff thing, the tariffs, if they're fully enacted, are going to kill the car industry. You're not even going to be able to afford to buy a car, no less the fact that the expense of just building the car is going to be prohibitive, because a lot of these parts that go into making the car are all being brought in and and we had, we had good relationships with the countries that were doing this. It wasn't like, you know, there was some kind of malicious intent on the part of China or Mexico or or Canada or any of these countries. We had a, we had a responsible trading relationship with them and all that's been sort of thrown out the window no

Kira Kramer 7:44
100% and as the Wall Street Journal is even reporting, CEOs are finally starting to speak out about how they have no idea how much the like the incoming tariffs are going to impact their management of their product, the production lines it may like raise costs between 20 and 40% for groceries, products like cars, like you said, and in one of my honors classes, we had A in depth discussion about the idea that is being shared around why Trump is pushing these tariffs in the first place, with that theoretical idea that it's going to bring industry here. But what industry is it bringing here? The industries that we outsource much of our production and labor to our factory jobs or industry jobs where there are no safety precautions for their workers. In fact, we have lobbyists in DC for take, for example, the clothing industry that dedicate their entire careers to lobby against any type of regulation of labor abroad. Essentially, all they're doing is to make sure that we can't enforce human rights standards to the labor we outsource abroad, because that would cost our manufacturers or distributors here more money because they'd have to pay for a living wage, for health care, for other rights that in America we completely take for granted, and so to bring those factory jobs here, no American is going to accept the working conditions that your average laborer accepts in India, in a fabric factory and so And meanwhile, he's deporting any type of laborer that probably would accept that type of condition, which is heinous. He's destroyed OSHA so any violations. That would protect these American workers, or these for these American jobs that he wants to sponsor. If you get injured on the job, you're not going to be able to tell no one's going to know. And he's also anti union, so you have no way of being able to band together and protect yourself in any way. But let's say that it does bring American industry here, and for some reason, Americans actually do want to work these jobs. Then the cost of paying them a livable wage, and just barely, like minimum wage, not anything that's actually livable, would inherently drive up prices, inherently and to build these factories here, and of course, he's doing away with all regulation that would cost these factories money just to put these regulations in, such As for pollution and all these other high cost initiatives that are just inherent to the factory industry. Many communities aren't going to want these polluting factories here. In fact, so much of our pollution that this country sponsors is outsourced. And so if prices are going to rise either way, if you have factory worker here because you have to pay them because they wouldn't work if they didn't have that, you're going to be looking at an increase of price either way. And so whether you tariff them and you bring industry here or you don't. And so it's very much a catch 22 in terms of his ideology of bringing American manufacturing here. But something else that I think is worth mentioning is that as a result of outsour of using tariffs and of course, inherently, the civil rights violations that are occurring because we outsource our labor is a entirely separate conversation. But from a purely economical standpoint, if you want to approach it that way and not look at the human cost to us outsourcing our labor economically. Outsourcing these types of markets to other countries is extremely beneficial to us economically, because what it allows the US to do is bring in high tech and very innovative industries that pay extremely well and generate so much revenue, and like these high tech industries, are able to sell their products across the globe. And so these types of industries, which we attract, currently contribute greatly to our GDP, and if we're refocusing our economy on supporting these factory jobs, which don't bring as much. We're hurting the economy either way. And so all in all, it really just doesn't make any sense.

Charles Stanton 12:50
Yeah, yeah. Well, it's the same thing in a different sense, with the million and a half people that Biden allowed to come in who were workers, okay, and the people that he brought in from from many different countries, primarily from Latin America, who do the majority of the work that's done on the farms. So a woman that I know, she and her husband, have a farm in Michigan, and they have, I guess, 70 or 80 people who are working there, and they're all now basically under danger of being removed out of the country. So without those 70 people, that farm is going to fold up and in Michigan and in Minnesota and Wisconsin, just to name three states, although there are others, a whole bunch of farms are going to fold up. They're not going to be able to get that labor. And if those farms fall fold up, then the work that those people do on those farms is going to fold up, which means a lot of the things we take for granted in our country, primarily when we sit down to have our feast, and certain edibles and vegetables and other things that we're used to having are going to disappear. Is going to be a certainty. And what's also going to happen is that whatever can be produced, there's going to be a scarcity, so the prices are going to go through the roof. So it's really, in a sense, self defeating. Well,

Kira Kramer 14:29
scarcity is not the only thing we have to worry about in terms of the agricultural industry right now, I'm reading a book as a part of one of my public health classes called the American way of eating. It's by Tracy McMillan, and she is an investigative journalist who decided to really understand the farm to table process by working in California in garlic grape vineyards, garlic fields and orange fields in California alongside. Paid undocumented and immigrant workers making maybe $20 a day, if she was lucky, generally, a lot less than that. And so this is horrifically below minimum wage, which they don't pay those workers, because they pay them by how much product they produce. And so, and it's not humanely possible for them to produce enough product that would match the minimum wage in California like humanely possible and so. But what the real scare is with, perhaps, as you mentioned, this farm in Michigan, is the fact that these smaller farms, which I would describe that as probably a smaller or mid sized farm, are pretty much the only players in the game that create any differentiation outside of the huge farms that completely dictate distribution in prices. And so not only for this idea of scarcity, may the prices go up, but it's the fact that there is a monopoly of our agricultural and distribution systems of food in the United States, which means that only these mega farms, who completely dictate how they'll treat the environment like these smaller farms have they Allow the producer some agency in terms of being able to perhaps care about organic farming practices, or care about runoff and these other problems that are or tilling practices and erosion that happens in the farms and pretty much just food sustainability for the future, smaller farms have a greater ability to kind of control their farming practices, which can promote food sustainability and agricultural sustainability for the future and for the future, to be able to use that land, and so to lose smaller farms, which will probably get bought out by bigger farms, means that we lose our ability to leverage prices to leverage agricultural practices overall, it's very dangerous for the American consumer. Yeah,

Charles Stanton 17:11
well, the consumer, the consumer, is in for an even bigger surprise than they were already been getting. You know, in the last number of months. Of course, even during the period of the election, there was all this talk about, you know, the prices are too high. Nothing's going to be done about it, etc, etc. But actually now, with all these confluence of events, the prices are going to go way beyond where they were already. And, of course, the other aspect of the whole thing is that there's, as you say, it's a mixture of a whole bunch of things. It's a mixture of the complete abandonment of any kind of environmental rules. It's the complete abandonment of any safety rules. It's the complete abandonment of any kind of cohesive policy. And it's, it seems, when you when you really look at it, when you step back and look at it, there's no real plan, and that's been what's been going on since, since the beginning of this administration. Whereas you see all these agencies where, instead of like, doing like, a very detailed report of like, who might have to stay and who might have to go, who's, who's, who's expendable and who's not, it's just a mass it's just a mass firing of people. And now we're seeing in the social service industries, particularly in the people who administer Medicare, people administer Medicaid, people who administer Social Security, where all these people have been taken out and now that people may need help and guidance, particularly the elderly retirees and stuff like that. That's not going to be available. That's in addition, that's in addition to basically all the other stuff that they're trying to do, which is basically, you know, I believe, trying to privatize the post office, which is another interesting thing, because the guy who was the postmaster, he had been appointed by Trump DeJoy, and he had been, you know, there for, for a number of years, through the Biden administration, and he just checked out this guy. He just said, this is what's going on here. Is not, it's not saying, but one of the problems that you have, and what's enabled him to do what he's done, and people who work from that he's done, is the Congress. The Congress has been, you know, missing in action. All these people who, largely in the Republican Party, have basically, you know, remain very quiet like sheep. And whenever he does, you know, is okay with them, because they're all terrified. And. Being, you know, a primaries and all the rest of that stuff. You said it though, well, in I guess it was our last program when you were talking about how we think too much about party, but really it's about the benefits that these people get regardless of the party that they're in. So even though they may be Republican or they may be Democrat, they're both feasting at the same trough, and

Kira Kramer 20:24
they're all in the same committees that are passing and presenting and gutting these bills like the sausage has to get made regardless, and like when the cameras turn on, they hate each other, but when the cameras turn off, they're colleagues, and that's the reality that we have to live with. Like every single day that they the sausage still gets made. Bills still get passed, and at the end of the day, they have to cooperate with one another and corroborate And so unfortunately, I also want to highlight the mass protests that occurred on April 5, this past Saturday, we saw an incredible turnout across 1800 cities in the United States. And I think it's really important that we acknowledge the amazing work that everyday individuals who live and work in this country and make it turn and keep it afloat. These are the real people that America represents. Yeah, and our citizenry, while I do believe is probably a little bit too uneducated, is still a force to be reckoned with. Well,

Charles Stanton 21:40
I would say, I would say this, I would say this, and I agree completely with what you're saying. But as far as you know, the political part of it, the people who were supposed to represent us, okay, so you have Cory Booker, you have AOC you have Bernie Sanders, okay, we have 535 members of Congress, we have Bernie Sanders. We have AOC we have Cory Booker. Now that percentage of people who are speaking out and going around not just the complete absenteeism of the Republican Party, but the absenteeism in the Democratic Party, particularly of leadership by the Minority Leader of Chuck's, Chuck Schumer, and those of his, millions of his that's an embarrassment when we, when we actually, if you really step back, if you really step back, and look at what's happened over the last couple of months, There should be numerous people in Congress who are speaking out in the in this, in the sessions when the House of Representatives is in session, or when the United States Senate is in session, and you got, I jokingly said, You've got old Bernie Sanders, you got young AOC, I guess Cory Booker's in the middle somewhere. He's not Bernie Sanders, but he's not AOC but, I mean, this is it. I mean, you have, as you were saying, you know, you have all these rallies all across the country of all these people who mean well and are well intentioned. But where are the where are our representatives? Where is our no leadership?

Kira Kramer 23:17
And I would just like to highlight I received a text message last Friday from Jackie Rosen's team. This is our senator in Nevada, and the message says she just cast two critical votes to reject Bernie Sanders radical anti Israel agenda. And instead of supporting our democratic partner, Bernie Sanders wants to undermine our allies, security, and that's just wrong. And thank you to Senator Rosen for standing up to Bernie Sanders, and you're a Republican in disguise. That is what this message is sending to me. Also, why are you proud of the fact that? Because that this is what this says to me when in 2021 the UN took a vote to decide whether or not like hunger or having access to food was a human right. The two countries that voted no, the only two countries, not Russia, not China, but the two countries that voted no were America and Israel. So this message, I'd rather call her and tell her that she is absolutely not representing our interests, because that's outrageous, because while you are voting against him, he's actually held rallies in our state and has actually heard her constituents voices, but has she No, she's hid behind a smoke screen and pretended to give some speeches that rallied Congress when I was there at the legislative session, and for all the work that she was doing to save Medicare and for voting for the CR and preserving, you know, all. Art, financial integrity, which that does none of the sort. It's heinous,

Charles Stanton 25:05
yeah, well, I think a lot of it is, you know, I think it was Sam Rayburn, who said, many years ago, who said, to be in Congress, he said, to get along, go along. But I think a lot of it is, I think a lot of it is the club. It's a club, and the club eventually submerges the people who go in the club, so that when you go in there, you may start out with good intentions, but the good but the good intentions get lost. I think what we need to do is start is recruit people who are not part of any of those clubs or groups or any of that, but just individual people, even people who are protesting, who have no connection to you know, you know, the actual political system, but are removed from it because you have these people now, basically they're compromised. That's what's going on. That's how she could come out with what she said. Because she's, she's, she's compromised. Unfortunately, you know, I think that, I think that the future is grim if those are our representatives. I mean, you were up at, you know, the conference, so you saw it, you know, you

Kira Kramer 26:24
saw many great young people and represent state legislative representatives that are very common sense and do the hard work on the ground to represent their constituents. And I am proud of the work that they're doing, and I am proud of my representation, particularly for my district. Howard Watts and Fabian donate, I would like to say thank you to them, to the work for the work they are doing incessantly, and for taking the time out of their own careers, because that's what they do, like they are not full time legislators, and so taking the time away from their families and their careers to really fight for Nevadans more so than I think any of our politicians federally do. And so with that, I would like to encourage you all to stay involved and stay active. There will definitely be more hands off protests in the future, and I highly encourage you to get involved and to pay attention with all the efforts that are occurring, whether it be boycotting, protesting or celebrating our few but very exciting wins that we have in this country.

Charles Stanton 27:41
Well, on that note, we would like to thank you for listening. As always, it's been a great pleasure to for the two of us to be here, and we look forward to seeing you and hearing from from you know, as you get in touch with us, as we get in touch with you next week. So thank you again, and take care. Thank you good night.

Kira Kramer 28:09
Thank you for listening to this broadcast, and if you have any questions or ideas for future discussion topics, please contact myself at K, R, A, M, E, K, two@unlv.nevada.edu. Or Professor Charles Stanton at C, H, A R, L, E, S, dot, S, T, A N, T, O n@unlv.edu, see you next time

Charles Stanton 28:39
we look forward to it. I.