Ep 352 - Nothing to Hide with Heidi Boghosian
Heidi Boghosian is an attorney, author, and co-host of Law and Disorder podcast and radio show. She joins Steve to discuss how the US surveillance state is a tool of class discipline and repression. From the Federalist Society pipeline to post-9/11 “safety” theater, both parties helped build a digital police state that criminalizes poverty, protest, and anyone messing with profits. And let’s not forget the copaganda about “crime” and “illegals” to keep folks scared while manufactured austerity produces the very crises the state then punishes. Classic ruling class two-step.
Silicon Valley’s tech bros are kind of like bouncers. Thiel, Apple, Google et al. snort up our data, rig information flows (algorithms, anyone?) then lobby to block regulation. The “nothing to hide” line is an ideological bait and switch. The killer is inside the house!
There’s no easy fix. Heidi urges immediate digital self-defense – the OPSEC basics, privacy tools, scam awareness. Meanwhile the ruling class isn’t losing sleep over your “I voted” sticker. We should be thinking in terms of local organizing and building counter-hegemony. (Heidi references the Young Lords. Look ‘em up!)
Heidi Boghosian is a New York-based attorney and activist. She's the author of "Spying on Democracy" (2013), "I Have Nothing To Hide" (2021), and "Cyber Citizens: Saving Democracy with Digital Literacy" (June 2025).
Heidi is co-host of the radio show and podcast, Law and Disorder. Find her work at lawanddisorder.org and heidiboghosian.com
Transcript
STEVE GRUMBINE:
All right, folks, this is Steve with Macro N Cheese. Another banger this week. I'm excited, very
2
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
excited, because, you know, as we always talk about economics, and I know that gets some of
3
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
you guys excited when we talk econ, because that's how we started and that's the main thrust.
4
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
We talk about the things that are connected to it because there's nothing worse than trying to
5
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
present ledgers to somebody who is getting pepper sprayed by a ICE agent out in the streets
6
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
or somebody who is food insecure, trying to figure out how to get taken care of. And
7
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
we're busy saying, "Well, actually the ledger says," right? So we sometimes stray, and we're going to
8
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
stray today because unfortunately, we are living in a new world. We are living in a Peter
9
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
Thiel world full of boogeymen and bad guys and people that are ne'er do goods and are
10
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
part of the Antichrist and all the other things that come with being Peter Thiel. But we're
11
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
also talking beyond AI. We're going to talk about internet responsibility and being a good cyber citizen,
12
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
and we're going to be talking about that in the framework of the current scenarios that we're
13
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
watching play out before our very eyes. And folks, there is something morbidly grotesque about the individual
14
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
that says, "What are you worried about? I have nothing to hide?" And the absolute ridiculous nature
15
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
of that belief system. We're going to bring it out and we're going to air it out
16
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
and we're going to get to the bottom of why that's a foolish belief system. We're also
17
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
going to talk a little bit about being a good, you know, cyber guy, understanding how to
18
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
interpret the news and understanding how to pay attention to what's happening around you via the internet.
19
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
And my guest is going to bring it all to us. My guest is Heidi Boghosian. And
20
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
Heidi Boghosian is a New York based attorney and activist. She's the author of Spying on Democracy:
21
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
lic Resistance, published in:
22
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
ance and Privacy. Fancy that.:
23
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
Hide and it was published in:
24
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
ith Digital Literacy, June of:
25
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
we have much of a democracy, so this will be fun to talk about. Anyway, with that,
26
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
let me bring on my guest, Heidi Boghosian. Thank you so much for joining me today.
27
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
It's so great to be with you. Thank you.
28
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
Absolutely. I am so happy our friend [Project Censored staffer] Mischa Geracoulis put us together. And
29
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
this comes at a very timely moment. Looking at the kinds of work that you've
30
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
done, it has really made me think hard, you know, because we are an organization
31
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
that is-we're not even biased. We are left leaning. We are, we're so left, we're
32
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
falling off the side of the earth. You know, we are left. So we don't
33
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
pull any punches there. The subject matter we talk about is directly in that space
34
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
and with the current administration as it is, I hate to say this, but even
35
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
looking at your books, you can tell this stuff didn't just start with Donald Trump.
36
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
This stuff has been going on in a bipartisan way, in a way that our
37
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
government has a goal. And that goal, it's not regular people's goals, it's somebody else's
38
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
goals. And it's being pushed upon us. You know, even if we don't need it,
39
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
even if we don't want it, they're bringing it to us. And one of the
40
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
things that greatly concerns me, obviously, as an activist, as a person that's trying to
41
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
get the word out about things that just ain't so that we're told are so
42
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
through cultural hegemony. I am very concerned about the lies that are being pushed out
43
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
on the internet by the official sources, unofficial sources. Their sidekicks that push this stuff
44
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
out, that make us believe things that just ain't so, and we act as if
45
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
they are so. And we live part of this lie out in the public space.
46
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
We facilitate it. We promote it. We pass it on, and all the while we're
47
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
helping facilitate manufactured consent for lies that keep us trapped and quite frankly have really
48
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
in many ways destroyed whatever mirage of a democracy we had by being very fascist
49
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
in nature. Your thoughts? Because this is clearly a subject that you have spent an
50
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
incredible amount of time researching, writing about, and in your own radio program, talking about.
51
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
Would you mind kicking us off with that?
52
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Of course. I would like to talk about what you mentioned
53
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
in terms of this has been a long time coming because
54
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
conservatives in this country have really been smart about laying a
55
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
long-term plan. Go back several decades to the formation of the
56
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Federalist Society, for example. Now the Federalist Society is responsible for
57
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
installing the very conservative members not only of our Supreme Court,
58
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
but in judicial positions around the country. And they've done that
59
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
by creating a big tent where they don't quibble about relatively
60
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
minor political differences among themselves. They have the goal of really
61
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
taking over the legal landscape, the political landscape of this country.
62
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
So it started in terms of legal areas back with the
63
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
beginning of the Federalist Society. They mentored young law students. They
64
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
got them positions in government. They frame themselves as engaging in
65
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
debate with people whose viewpoints differ from theirs. But really they're
66
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
a well-organized, extremely well-funded entity that has been working on their
67
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
plan for decades. At the same time, we've seen think tanks
68
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
originally formed near the beginning of the 20th century to provide
69
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
information to leadership, government and otherwise on different policies and practices,
70
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
to give them the information they needed to set policy. But
71
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
they morphed, as your listeners I'm sure know, into now very
72
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
carefully constructed political, almost lobbyists. And I write about that in
73
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
my current book, how these mega think tanks, and I liken
74
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
them to sort of mega churches, which we've also seen on
75
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
the increase with ministries of thousands across the nation. They work
76
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
online, as many of the forces that I think are contributing
77
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
to our demise of democracy do. And they're really exercising out
78
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
undue influence that works along with lobbyists in various fields, including
79
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Big Tech, which is a big problem for us now as
80
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
we've rapidly entered the digital age and laws have not kept
81
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
up with our use of electronic devices and internet connected devices
82
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
and misinformation and disinformation. So I think that we've seen under
83
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
the radar plans, we are now seeing them surface and we're
84
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
seeing how successful Republicans largely have been and really moving us
85
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
toward a more polarized society, one where anyone who looks different
86
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
or speaks differently, has different views, is called the enemy. And
87
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
I also think that what happened was after the attacks of
88
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
9/11, plans for a massive surveillance state which was already underway,
89
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
the government was able to use the specter of fear of
90
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
another terrorist attack to try to convince people in a big
91
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
public relations campaign kind of way, the so called "war on
92
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
terror," that we needed, for example, more surveillance to keep us
93
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
safe, that we can turn fellow citizens essentially into spies. We
94
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
see neighborhood apps, ring cameras, looking out for so called "suspicious
95
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
activities," making even our neighbors sometimes prospective enemies. So I think
96
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
that taking advantage of certain moments like 9/11 and even in
97
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
mass shootings on school campuses has opened up a whole new
98
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
industry, for example, and monitoring students, telling parents that we're watching
99
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
their emails. We're even having them show us cameras of their
100
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
rooms when they take remote exams. We've normalized over the last
101
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
couple of decades, a vast industry of surveillance apparatus. And by
102
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
normalizing this, I think that it lays the groundwork for even
103
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
more insidious infractions. For example, on our Bill of Rights.
104
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
You know, when you say the Bill of Rights, a lot of these documents,
105
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
and I consider the US Constitution part of this, are written by white slaveholding
106
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
landowners and not the people out of doors, which it references. It has always
107
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
been something I think most of us just took for granted. We went to
108
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
elementary school, grade school, middle school, high school, whatever, college, hearing about these things,
109
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
and have held on to them for dear life like they are our support
110
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
blanket. But the more you dig in and the more you realize that these
111
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
things were written by and for elites and for wealthy white landowners. Now, there's
112
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
been a lot of struggles over time that have been fought, but you can
113
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
see clearly, at least I think so anyway. Going back to even, like you
114
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
said, the Mont Pelerin Society and the Federalist, the John Birch Society, you name
115
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
it. Going back to the 60s, Milton Friedman era, this libertarian kind of strain
116
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
of, I don't know, proto-fascism has been going on for quite a while, and
117
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
they are rewriting the world in their image. And to your point earlier, it
118
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
is the long game. How do you think these documents hold up under current
119
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
environment that we live in? I mean, I think that we maybe thought really
120
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
high and as long as we believed they were okay. But when push comes
121
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
to shove, there's laws for us, the people, and then there is laws that
122
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
aren't really holding the elites and they're meant for the little people. It's kind
123
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
of like, I don't know, a bifurcated society.
124
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Well, we've had decades fighting for civil rights, you know, grassroots
125
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
movements that have dramatically changed, I would now say temporarily, the
126
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
arc of how citizens are realizing that those documents were not
127
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
written for them. The sort of ordinary people, the non-elite. And
128
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
now what we're seeing, and I think many people would agree
129
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
that with the election of Barack Obama into the highest office
130
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
of the land, it became fertile territory for hate groups, white
131
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
supremacist and other extremist groups. There was a reaction, and I
132
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
think with the installation of Donald Trump as president, we've really
133
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
seen how he is abrogating the laws of the nation, even
134
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
refusing in certain instances to abide by the few Supreme Court
135
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
decisions that rule against his executive orders and other really regressive
136
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
policies. So public confidence in the Supreme Court is at an
137
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
all-time low, and rightfully so, because it's now a political arm
138
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
of government and not, as it should be, an independent part
139
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
of our democratic system. I think that anger, white nationalist, really,
140
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
hatred of an integrated and racially just society is now paving
141
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
the way for so quickly a series, and a continuing series
142
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
of actions by Trump militarizing our society, taking over cities in
143
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
unlawful ways by bringing in the National Guard and ICE officers,
144
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
who really have also normalized the use of violence against citizens.
145
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
You know, back in around:
146
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Battle of Seattle, we witnessed the use of so-called "less lethal
147
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
munitions" against protesters. And for many of us, that was a
148
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
shocking public display of armed force against Americans and others lawfully
149
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
engaging in the right to protest and ask the government for
150
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
redress of wrongs. We've become a society so recently that has
151
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
turned to violence, and I think a recent poll from a
152
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
year or two ago even said that a majority of Americans
153
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
feel it is okay to use violence as a last resort
154
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
when you cannot resolve disputes. So we're seeing this with freedom
155
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
of the press and other fundamental rights enshrined in the Bill
156
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
of Rights that we took for granted. Often knowing, of course,
157
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
that over the years laws were applied unfairly to non-white groups
158
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
in this country and that those who could pay for a
159
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
vigorous high profile legal defense would prevail in court. So unfortunately,
160
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
we made some very wonderful gains in civil rights and other
161
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
areas of rights for individuals, the right for gay and LGBTQ+
162
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
persons to marry. But now we're seeing that all quickly taken
163
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
away, I think in a desperate attempt to bring us back
164
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
to what the so-called founding fathers may have written. Although I'm
165
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
not saying everything they wrote was necessarily unfair to everyone in
166
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
the country. I think there were good aspirations and some sensible
167
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
provisions. But I think that the backlash is coming harder than
168
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
we've seen before to taking back the rights we've given the
169
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
ordinary people.
170
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
I agree in large part. One of the things that jumps to mind is we saw
171
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
a moment where we thought, "Hey, maybe we're going to have universal health care. Hey, maybe
172
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
we're going to have a Green New Deal. Maybe we're going to have student debt elimination,
173
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
maybe..." you know, on and on and on. "Maybe we'll have a federal job guarantee so
174
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
people are never left out in the cold during these ebbs and flows of a recession"
175
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
or whatever, in these manufactured austerity moments create conditions. They create conditions that create outcomes. And
176
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
those conditions tend to be wherever austerity is, you have increased immiseration. You have increased poverty.
177
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
You have increased crime. Because what do people do when they're desperate and hungry? They do
178
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
whatever they have to do to survive. And so when you create the conditions to ratchet
179
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
up that kind of fascistic tendencies, those kind of, you know, "tough on crime," and "We're
180
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
going after the bad guys," and you know, on paper it sounds good. It's like, of
181
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
course you don't want a rapist living down the street or, you know, you don't want
182
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
to let your kids get kidnapped and sent to some prison camp somewhere. You don't want
183
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
the horrible things that they paint out there. I mean, it makes sense, we want the
184
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
guy selling the poison fentanyl to the children taken off the streets. But what they don't
185
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
do is they don't explain how they create the conditions that allow those things to happen.
186
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
It's almost like a setup for harsh penalties and set up for mass surveillance and set
187
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
up for tough on crime. And "Hey, we're just doing this for your good. This is
188
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
not us doing it because we're mean. We're doing this because we're here to protect you.
189
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
We're the government and we're here to make it work for you." And you know, I'm
190
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
a big G kind of guy. I believe in big government. I believe in we the
191
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
people kind of approaches to things, but they don't tell the story, they don't tell the
192
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
full story. So all these kind of, you know, "We're going to round up the immigrants
193
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
and we're going to kick them out of the country because they've been raping our women.
194
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
They've been doing this, that and the other" and all these litany of things that if
195
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
you just read it on its face, you're like, "Oh my God, it's horrible. Of course
196
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
you've got to take action." And then reality is that it's not real or it's blown
197
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
out of proportion or it is strategic for the purposes of some other thing that you
198
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
don't see something you don't see coming, like a surveillance state, like jackbooted military thugs that
199
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
are yanking people out of their apartment complex at 3 o'clock in the morning, their children,
200
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
et cetera, all in the name of "getting those illegals out of the country." These things
201
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
build on each other. That long game that you were talking about, can you talk to
202
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
me a little bit about the bait-and-switch of what they propose that they're fighting and the
203
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
conditions by which they set it up so that those conditions become, you know, yeah, of
204
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
course they're happening. Of course, poor people in given area that have been starved out and
205
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
welfare taken from them or support structures taken from them are now floundering. What did you
206
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
expect? You expect it to go great and swimmingly? I don't know. What are your thoughts
207
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
on that?
208
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
So many thoughts as you were speaking, because I recall during
209
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
the Nixon administration, the campaign, as you were alluding to, about
210
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
having safer streets and that ads that were on television, the
211
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
public service ads, would show a dark night in Chicago, for
212
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
example, and a woman, a white woman holding her bag closely
213
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
to her chest, walking down the street with an African American
214
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
man half a block away. The ominous messages of, you know,
215
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
it's sort of like, "Do you know where your children were?"
216
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
campaign. Really ratcheting up the fear, especially in large urban centers
217
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
and portraying, and this is, I think, critical to this whole
218
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
propaganda formula. You have to have an enemy. So at that
219
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
time, inner-city Black Americans were the enemy. And we've come to
220
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
see the war on drugs, the war on so-called crime have
221
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
led to the US having the largest penal system in the
222
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
world, which, you know, years ago was supposed to rehabilitate, now
223
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
is purely punitive and really segmenting large parts of our communities
224
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
to being behind bars or under supervision. I mean, all these
225
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
campaigns have failed. The war on drugs is an abysmal failure,
226
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
but ruined so many lives and continues to do so. That
227
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
alone shows a thinking person how the government isn't genuine. I
228
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
mean, they may take a certain moral panic and notice how
229
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
they always enforce certain laws after a high profile killing, often
230
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
of a young white child or a kidnapping. [Yeah] But we
231
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
don't see those hidden consequences of how it's devastating large parts
232
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
of our fellow community members, people we know. And I think
233
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
now the beauty of the Trump administration is that he gets
234
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
how the use of humor and how sort of social media
235
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
can be used to tap into some of those basic fears
236
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
that Americans have, be it economic or otherwise, how things are
237
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
going to affect their pocketbooks saying, you know, allowing this government
238
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
shutdown to go on and pretending that it's vilifying Democrats. And
239
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
what I'm concerned about is during 9/11, we saw so many
240
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
communities of colors being vilified as potential terrorists. Now we're seeing
241
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
it on an even larger level: Democrats, liberals. I mean, I
242
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
run a small foundation that gives grants to activist organizations that
243
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
are doing things that according to the current government's logic might
244
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
fit into their rubric of anti-American activity, you know, supporting Palestinian
245
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
rights, environmental rights, all of the things that are now being
246
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
labeled as a threat to democracy. So he's done a brilliant
247
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
job in terms of public relations and really normalizing fantasy as
248
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
some kind of new reality in his book.
249
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
t's easy to break out the old:
250
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
they sometimes fit and I try to go light on them. But this is one
251
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
of those ones where you can see the kids standing over the parents as they're
252
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
sleeping, going up. Thought crime. And I'm watching this with how, "Hey, you laughed at
253
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
Charlie Kirk." Thought crime. "Hey, you raised up George Floyd. He's a criminal." Thought crime.
254
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
On and on and on. But while you were talking, and this is gonna... I'm
255
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
dating myself, so forgive me, I'm an old Dude, I'm 56. I look back and
256
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
I say to myself, I remember when Paul Tsongas was running against [former POTUS} George
257
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
H.W. Bush and the old Willie Horton thing came out. And you talk about a
258
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
real... like I was a young man, you know, we were dealing with all kinds
259
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
of stuff. And that was the first time I had actually as a, I don't
260
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
know, 18, 19, 20, 21 year-old, whatever I was at the time, man didn't have
261
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
the tools to weed through the propaganda, didn't have the tools to understand or the
262
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
class awareness or the, the systemic racism awareness or any of the things that they're
263
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
trying to put the kibosh on us talking about because 'It's woke." Right? But you
264
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
look back and you think about nothing has been more identitarian than that kind of
265
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
conservative logic. And I don't want to just paint it out at Republicans, I really
266
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
don't. Because Bill Clinton went to a mentally handicapped man's execution to prove he was
267
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
tough on crime. So we're not going to cut anybody any breaks here. They've been
268
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
complicit across the board. I think it's been kind of a universal oligarch, trait-driven thing
269
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
that we're going to use this as a means of ratcheting up control. Ratcheting up.
270
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
There's a crisis of hegemony going on. "We need to make it more and more
271
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
and more constrictive on the regular person so that they don't get uppity and think
272
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
that they're free and, you know, but we'll sell it as we're protecting freedom while
273
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
simultaneously ripping away freedom." I don't know if you remember the Willie Horton stuff, that
274
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
left an impact on me at the time, but I was completely lacking in analysis.
275
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
I didn't have any kind of worldview other than, "Yeah, what are they doing? Soft
276
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
on crime, liberals, screw them, blah, blah, blah." You know, do you remember the Willie
277
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
Horton moment?
278
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Of course I do. And I must agree. You know, Bill
279
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Clinton enacted some very restrictive laws, especially regarding prisoners' rights to
280
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
int. But when you were saying:
281
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
you made me think of one of my favorite examples of
282
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
a television ad. And this was Apple's Super Bowl ad. It
283
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
only ran once. It won many awards. They were competing against
284
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
IBM and they wanted to sort of position Apple as the
285
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
"non-corporate entity." So they had sort of a Big Brother figure
286
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
speaking on a large screen and then a woman with a
287
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
sledgehammer coming to smash that screen. And "Apple's different we're for,
288
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
you know, independent thinkers." And then you look at what's happened
289
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
now in terms of Apple, Macintosh, the other Big Tech companies
290
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
who now monetize our personal data, exercise monopolies, squash small competition,
291
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
and really, in addition to commodifying our private information and profiting
292
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
enormously from it invading our privacy, totally taking over, really, some
293
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
of our virtual identities, you look back and you wonder, wow,
294
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
was that ad naive? Was it something we should have? You
295
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
know, it appealed to people and it got so many lifelong
296
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Apple users. And now we have Google in the classroom, technology
297
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
really taking over some of the essential functions of our lives.
298
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
And I'm not knocking technology because it's been incredibly opening and
299
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
great at sort of democratizing certain kinds of communication, but we're
300
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
seeing the downsides of that right now as AI escalates so
301
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
quickly. And one of the things people may not be aware
302
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
of is that how Congress and our lawmakers have no... we
303
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
don't even have a national privacy law. And now with everything
304
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
done digitally, we don't have sensible and adequate laws to keep
305
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
up with the fast rush of technology. So I think in
306
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
that respect, the government and its partner, big business, Big Tech,
307
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
have us exactly where they want. We're malleable. We're still uninformed
308
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
about how data aggregators work. Some people are paying attention, but
309
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
it has to happen on a mass level.
310
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
Well, it's funny you say that. I have been doing a lot of study on
311
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
things like [Italian communist Antonio] Gramsci's cultural hegemony lately. It's really become super important to
312
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
me. But you also see the algorithmic use. I mean, how do you manufacture consent?
313
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
By ensuring that the algorithms are rigged, by ensuring that people can't see one another,
314
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
that people that you want to follow you don't see, and people you don't want
315
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
to follow, all you do is see, the well-placed ads. This is going to sound
316
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
insane, but I was on a call, personal call, over my lunch break at work.
317
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
And when I came back to work, I was talking about router bits for woodworking.
318
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
And when I came back from lunch, I guess I was sitting near my computer.
319
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
All of a sudden on my computer screen was an ad for router bits on
320
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
my work computer. I was like, "What in the world is it listening to me?
321
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
Did it hear me?" And I mean, I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist
322
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
here, but they're listening. They're checking your clicks. They're checking where you go, who you
323
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
talk to, you know. You got people like Larry Ellison flat out saying, "You citizens will
324
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
behave because we will be watching you." And the guy just bought TikTok and owns
325
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
Oracle. And then of course you've got lunatic fringe with Peter Thiel who is ready to
326
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
fight the Antichrist. And you know, God forbid any of us look like that sweaty
327
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
wax figure. Anybody that doesn't look, sound, act like him is in the crosshairs. I
328
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
mean, we're talking about a guy who sells AI technology to allow drone strikes on
329
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
children in Gaza, for God's sake. We're not talking about good people here, but these
330
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
are the people that are controlling the technical apparatus that is observing us and watching
331
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
us and controlling us and socially enforcing cultural hegemony through these electronic means. What are
332
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
your thoughts on that?
333
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Well, so many thoughts. First of all,
334
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
lobbyists for companies promoting artificial intelligence are
335
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
spending millions and millions of dollars to
336
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
really leave their imprint and fight against,
337
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
for example, the Algorithmic Accountability Act, which
338
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
was introduced in:
339
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
repeatedly reintroduced. Keep stalling. Each cycle, OpenAI
340
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
in this year increased its lobbying by
341
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
nearly 50% over the same period last
342
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
year, spending 1.2 million in those six
343
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
months. I think that when you have
344
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
the interest of the ultra-wealthy few, really
345
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
dictating how we craft safeguards, as we
346
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
mentioned earlier, it's very clear who's running
347
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
the country and who's essentially, in subtle
348
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
and not so subtle ways, really dictating
349
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
our choices, be they political or mundane.
350
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
And yeah, every time I have a conversation with someone, in a few hours I
351
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
get a pop-up ad, as you said. And I also almost got duped by an
352
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
AI clone. I had a, an email from someone claiming to be a Yale law
353
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
student who wanted part -time work. So we hopped on a zoom and I thought
354
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
something was off, but his face and mannerisms looked real. And then I realized after
355
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
when he started hitting me up for money that I was duped and, boy did
356
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
I feel stupid. But every day friends email or text me and like, do you
357
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
think this is a fake? And I'm like, yeah, it has all the hallmarks, and
358
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
I try to bullet point a few things to look for, but we are definitely
359
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
and you referenced I have nothing to hide argument. If I could just mention briefly
360
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
why that is so flawed. Because it wrongly equates privacy with concealing wrongdoing.
361
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
Amen.
362
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
So ignores privacy's true purpose as a right that we have to
363
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
control our personal information and totally disregards how data can be used
364
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
in ways that are not only illegal, but harmful. Because privacy isn't
365
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
just about hiding bad things. It's about keeping our autonomy and protecting
366
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
sensitive or personal information like our medical records or our political beliefs,
367
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
if we don't want to share those.
368
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
It's really powerful, I mean, people want to remain anonymous in this world and go
369
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
through life and do their thing. And all laws that are on the books that
370
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
we believe defend us, like the Fourth Amendment, you know, people, "Ah, my First Amendment
371
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
rights." Your First Amendment is not from the private sector, it's from the government. And
372
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
so by the government allowing the private sector to do a lot of its policing
373
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
for them and then making those records available to law enforcement, they can do a
374
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
whole host of damage to you just for having a contrary opinion. I think it's
375
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
important to kind of look at how we can protect ourselves, if at all. I
376
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
think to myself, you know, what do we do if we're at a protest and
377
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
a camera picks up our identity there and we haven't done anything? Maybe we're just
378
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
standing there, maybe we're cheering and using our First Amendment rights, whatever. But ultimately you're
379
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
caught on a camera, a crime occurred at the event, and now all of a
380
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
sudden you're in the crosshairs and can be detained due to the Insurrection Act or
381
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
the, these, some of these anti-, you know, spying acts or anti, I mean they've
382
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
got a million of these things. Each time an event occurs, they create a new
383
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
law to make it harder on us. And then of course, it's wielded in the
384
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
way that the people that crafted it the time appear to not want. But I
385
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
not so sure that they're that stupid. I think that they know it will be
386
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
exploited later by whoever or however. But that said, I mean, how do we protect
387
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
ourselves in this? What does some citizen hygiene look like in terms of protecting ourselves
388
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
from AI, protecting ourself from a surveilling government? I mean, do we have any protections?
389
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
I'll be honest with you, I don't know what they are. I don't think we're
390
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
voting our way out of this. And I'm very, very concerned.
391
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Wow, what a question. I think the first answer would be that
392
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
people say, do we have any privacy anymore? And citing everything you
393
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
just said, many are inclined to say, "It's too late. It's out
394
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
of our hands". Now that's exactly what our government and corporations want
395
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
us to think. And so this is an area that I refuse
396
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
to be defeatist about because they say regarding First Amendment rights, if
397
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
you don't use them, you lose them. And obviously it's getting more
398
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
frightening to exercise our rights because we've seen in very visible, you
399
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
know, news clips and firsthand videos the violence that the state inflicts
400
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
on people just wanting to take to the streets peacefully to practice
401
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
those rights. And I'd look back when we had a lot of
402
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
hose protests starting around:
403
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
National Conventions, because I attended a lot of big protests at national
404
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
special security events. We saw the panoply of lethal weapons being used.
405
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
But then in:
406
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
because people were then carrying personal surveillance devices in our pockets, as
407
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
you alluded to more recently. In terms of how they're tracking everything
408
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
we do and listening and using geolocation data. I think that the
409
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
first advice is do not give up hope. And you can take
410
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
baby steps. Look, everyone can do something. Everyone should know by now
411
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
because you can go on any website and find out tips about
412
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
practicing good hygiene, which those are the everyday digital safety practices that
413
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
reduce our vulnerability to cyber threats like hacking, phishing, surveillance. Use strong
414
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
passwords for each account. Don't use the same one over multiple platforms.
415
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Use multifactor authentication. That's easy to do. And also easy to do
416
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
is update all your devices and apps. And I always say don't
417
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
use too many apps unless you definitely get them from trusted sources
418
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
like the company itself. But update with latest security patches. Install strong
419
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
protective ransomware search software. Regularly backup important data and Signal is easy
420
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
and great to use for sensitive communications. But use your privacy settings
421
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
on social media and browsers to limit your data tracking. The Electronic
422
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Frontier Foundation has a wonderful platform called Privacy Badger. I have it
423
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
installed on my laptop and when I look at it, it shows
424
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
the number of times someone had wanted to track me, but they
425
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
blocked it. Which is fun. I mean, a lot of these basic
426
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
habits can be fun. Partner up with a friend and share what
427
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
you're doing. Read up about things. And I'm sure that everyone listening
428
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
has had their personally identifiable information hacked in one of the companies
429
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
that they have interacted with, including Equifax or the other data entities
430
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
that collect everything about us. And when that's hacked. And you can
431
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
also go to a site online, Have I Been Pwnd? P-W-N-D, which
432
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
is great. You can put in a password. It tells you how
433
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
many times it's appeared on the dark web. So I would make
434
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
the first steps fun. Just enact a couple of new things and
435
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
then read up about the most current phishing attempts. Because every state
436
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
is getting hit, individuals are hit every day. Just start to be
437
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
savvy, but do it in a way that isn't overly burdensome or
438
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
daunting for you.
439
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
I appreciate that. You know, in my day job, we have a lot of
440
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
phishing education that we have to go through and tailgating for physical security and
441
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
other types of spoofing, and you name it. I mean, there's a number of
442
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
spearing attacks, text messages, you name it. They always get you with that urgent
443
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
request, "Quick do this or quick do that or hey, five minutes from now,
444
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
if you don't do this, you're going to lose your house or whatever" and
445
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
some unsuspecting person goes ahead and clicks on it and voila, they're done. And
446
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
there is no government guardrails because the government is in bed with these tech
447
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
companies. The tech bros are large and in charge. I mean, they have a
448
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
seat at the table, whereas Main Street does not. And even the things they're
449
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
trying to do with crypto and stablecoins and all these other things, they come
450
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
off on one hand as if they're trying to do us all a favor
451
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
and while simultaneously locking us in deeper and deeper and deeper. I am curious,
452
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
as we're watching, for example, activists that are protesting in Chicago, or we're watching
453
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
activists that show up in New York City in your backyard, there's lots and
454
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
lots and lots of protests that go on and how these kinds of things...
455
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
And I don't think this is conspiratorial. I mean, it is a conspiracy, but
456
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
I don't think it's like a conspiracy theory. I think it's a proven mode
457
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
of operation where these private firms work hand in glove with the government and
458
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
they use a backdoor approach to violating all of the constitutional rights you have.
459
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
Because the only constitutional rights you have are really protection from the government, not
460
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
protection from a private entity doing private things. Because that right there is the
461
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
hat tip to, you know, the wealthy white landowners from the original documents. How
462
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
do you manage that? I mean, to me, quite frankly, Heidi, it feels like
463
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
we are assuming good things in entities that are not doing good things. We're
464
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
assuming good intentions from entities that don't have good intentions, or we believe that
465
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
they've just been captured, when in reality we're just finally seeing their true essence.
466
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
And I know that you probably have a much more favorable opinion than I
467
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
do on this stuff, but I'm interested in hearing your well-researched thoughts.
468
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Oh, I'm completely in agreement with you. Look, years before the attacks of
469
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
9/11, business was coming up with surveillance and security devices to sell. I
470
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
think that 9/11 is when they really took off. But corporations, you know,
471
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
I used to say, well, they were partnering with government. Well, I really
472
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
don't think there's a line of demarcation there. They're operating really as a
473
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
twin terror in terms of exercising control over everyone through monitoring, through these
474
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
catchily named slogans, the war on whatever. So I have shifted how I
475
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
look at things, especially since my most recent, almost falling for a con,
476
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
in that my default is no longer trust. My default is suspicion now.
477
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
I don't think that's defeatist because I do want to sort of emphasize
478
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
that I think we have to fight with all our might against this
479
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
hydra of evil forces. We still have neighbors, friends, we have communities. And
480
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
I think it's important to act locally. What you spoke about at the
481
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
beginning describes when one goes to a protest now, if people still want
482
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
to, because it's terrorizing, we're bombarded with images of violence by police against
483
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
citizens. First you have to make a decision how you want to get
484
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
involved. And there are many ways. If you don't want to take to
485
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
the streets to protest, donate money to a favorite group that is doing
486
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
something to fight this. There are so many wonderful digital rights organizations that
487
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
are keeping tracks of laws telling us which are good laws, bad laws.
488
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
They'll make it easy by signing onto a form to send to your
489
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
elected officials. That's one way to get involved. Letter writing, writing, op eds,
490
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
talking to your neighbors, forming little coalitions if you don't like something you're
491
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
seeing. But I think importantly, if you do go into the streets, you
492
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
know, make clever signs, have an exit route, be really aware of what's
493
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
happening around you. So often people go to events and they're focused on
494
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
marching and they're not looking at the lineup of cops at the next
495
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
corner, hiding on the side street, which we see in Manhattan all the
496
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
time. Personal safety comes first. But this is a time to make our
497
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
voices heard. Because for years I've been saying we're at a critical point.
498
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
I mean, right now things are beyond what we might have imagined years
499
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
ago. So this really is a time to take action. Just find the
500
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
level of action that's comfortable and safe for you, but always maybe push
501
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
a little more outside your comfort zone.
502
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
I'm going to say something and I'm going to regret it. I am going
503
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
to regret it, I'm sure. But I am a voracious reader. And one of
504
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
the things that I read recently was Che Guevara's Guerrilla Warfare book, which is
505
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
a staple of leftist circles going back a long time. But it's also a
506
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
staple for West Point and green berets and everybody else as a counterinsurgency to
507
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
understanding the way rebels operate. But when you think about operating, you know, to
508
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
change the system, the system was built with self-reinforcing guardrails. You've got superdelegates within
509
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
the primary process. In fact, the Democratic Party fought successfully in federal court in
510
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
Florida, or it's just thrown out, that they have no responsibility whatsoever to voters
511
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
to honor the outcomes of primaries, much less to conduct a primary, much less
512
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
to direct funds for said candidate to said candidate through their van system and
513
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
everything else their, their vote blue, check blue, whatever it's called anymore. And these
514
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
were some of my first awakenings in this getting away from being what I
515
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
call a normie to being a bit of an aware human being, surviving in
516
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
this world and trying to make heads or tails of it. But that I
517
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
found was rather frightening. The fact that because they are a private corporation, they
518
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
have no responsibility whatsoever. Their bylaws are their bylaws. They're not legally bound by
519
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
those bylaws and they can change them and choose to ignore them. They can
520
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
do whatever they want. But yet that is presented to us as our pathway
521
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
to change. And reality is that trying to get a mass movement of people
522
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
together to stand for anything is a real challenge within this system because we
523
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
have all been kind of led to believe, you know, get out the vote.
524
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
We got the "I voted" sticker on our forehead, on and on and on.
525
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
But in reality, until you get to the actual national elections or whatever, and
526
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
even those have been proven by Gillens and Page's Princeton study that public opinion has
527
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
approximately 0.0% impact on legislation. Like you feel it in your heart, you're like,
528
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
"yeah, it just doesn't measure up right." But now you've got empirical evidence, you've
529
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
got evidence that it's rigged, that it's not real, that we are living in,
530
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
I hate to say a simulation, but we are living in a kind of
531
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
a World Wrestling Federation style society now where we all go along because we're
532
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
afraid not to. We're afraid not to go along, to get along. Because once
533
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
you scratch past the veneer of the world they're trying to cultivate and you
534
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
start seeing the diseased, toxic underbelly of this, it's kind of impossible to put
535
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
the lead back in the pencil. You know, it's a rough, rough world. So
536
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
people guard themselves from seeing these things to protect their psyche to, I don't
537
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
know, whatever. Because beliefs, not facts, but beliefs, are a stronger, more compelling system
538
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
to function in than actually knowing the truth. The truth is scary. It's like,
539
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
"Oh my God, what happens if I acknowledge this? If I acknowledge this, what
540
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
does that do to my belief system? Am I going to be dealing with
541
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
more pain and suffering? Am I going to struggle more now that I've accepted
542
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
the truth? What does this mean to me?" How would you advise somebody to
543
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
think about that? I mean, the things I'm saying, they may not be pretty,
544
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
but I've done my homework, they're real. What do you think about that? People's
545
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
ability to process information when in fact their belief system depends on them not
546
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
believing and not changing to stay where they are because of fear.
547
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
This is a real problem. I was thinking when you began addressing
548
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
this, about a group of students in Rhode Island who felt they
549
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
were not getting proper or adequate civics education in their school, their
550
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
high school. So they sued the school district and said they were
551
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
entitled to learn the basics of civics, rights and responsibilities of citizens.
552
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
And they reached a settlement in which the school district agreed to
553
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
reinstate certain civics classes. They are monitoring this on a regular basis.
554
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
I think they're giving out a civics award once a year. I
555
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
love examples like that because in addition to everyone that you're sort
556
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
of addressing, backed by statistics. There are those who are willing to
557
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
do something creative, to effect some kind of change, largely on a
558
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
local level. So it's, you know, easier to take on a local
559
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
deficit by being creative, pairing up with a nonprofit organization or an
560
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
advocacy group that can help, as they did in this case, bring
561
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
the lawsuit. I mean, some people have an instinct. They get angry
562
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
when they see an injustice, and they immediately step into some kind
563
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
of action. I've got to say, we're at the point where we
564
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
need more people to acknowledge the potentially harmful or uncomfortable repercussions of
565
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
taking a stand and doing something. But there are so many creative
566
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
ways. We need to start using our minds. Pair up with other
567
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
people, brainstorm with ideas of how you can do something, no matter
568
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
how small.
569
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
Agreed.
570
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Fighting a local injustice to take back our rights, whatever they were.
571
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
But I still think that people respond to other people's stories, and
572
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
we need to share those stories, fight for what's right. And you
573
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
know what I hate? All the mom-and-pop shops that were put out
574
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
of business in my neighborhood by big corporate.
575
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
Walmart.
576
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Yeah. Target, all of those.
577
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
Yep.
578
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
So I support all the local little ones. I try not to
579
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
use Amazon. You know, you support your independent businesses, get involved in
580
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
your schools, other institutions to just get your voice out, however you
581
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
do that. But people can no longer sit by and be fearful.
582
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
And honestly, this whole surveillance apparatus is designed to make us censor
583
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
our behavior and our speech, to check ourselves so we don't stand
584
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
out. And I'm saying it's time to stand out, people.
585
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
I'm with you. You know, one of the things that you said that I want
586
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
to make sure that I'm clear on here is while I may not believe that
587
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
we can vote our way out of this, I do believe in the people. I
588
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
do believe that we can use tactics. We don't have to be one for one.
589
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
That's why I brought up the Guerrilla Warfare book, is that even though I've never
590
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
owned a gun in my life, I would never advocate for violence. You know, I
591
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
mean, like, that's not my M.O. at all. But I want to be crystal clear.
592
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
There are tactics, there are lessons to be learned from mass organizing strategies and understanding
593
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
the current material conditions we face today. I think a dialectical perspective on how we
594
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
got here might be the most important awakening. It's not good enough to be educated.
595
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
You have to have an awakening. And unfortunately, most people's awakenings come when something horrible
596
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
has happened to them, when they have a child that gets hurt, you know, they
597
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
have a spouse that gets killed, they have a home that is seized, they have
598
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
a car that is destroyed or their career is ruined, whatever. Then they have their
599
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
awakening. It'd be nice if we could let people learn vicariously and have an awakening
600
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
based on someone else's world as opposed to having to experience it themselves. But the
601
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
fact is that voting is simply not enough. I don't really think it does anything.
602
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
But on the same hand, I'm not here to tell you don't do it. I'm
603
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
here to tell you that I don't think that's where the change happens. I think
604
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
taking action, direct action, organizing really, truly, honestly, having a sober understanding of the forces
605
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
that are against you and not Pollyanna-ing the political parties and making excuses for the
606
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
destruction of Gaza. Because "...what do you want, Trump?" No. You stand for the right
607
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
no matter what, period. You stand for the correct thing. Period. And when it comes
608
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
to making a stand, the kind of change you need to see, that we need
609
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
to see, I don't believe just happens at the ballot box. I think it really
610
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
requires us to mentally, spiritually and emotionally embrace that we're in a war whether we
611
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
asked for it or not. This is not business as usual. This is not a
612
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
day in the life. This is a new reality that is an old reality that
613
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
we're just finally... It's kind of like you're going into the Wizard of Oz and
614
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
you finally get into the great Emerald Castle or whatever, and you pull back the
615
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
curtain and there's this little elf pulling the stuff. We are finally seeing behind the
616
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
curtain a little bit. And we've had moments during COVID where we got to see
617
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
behind it. We had moments during the TikTok live streaming of a genocide in Gaza
618
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
where we got to have a look. We've had peeks behind the curtain multiple different
619
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
times. Little things like the ability to conjure up enough money to keep us staying
620
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
at home and closing businesses down during the pandemic. And guess what? We didn't go
621
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
broke because the country creates its own money. Stop believing that the country is broke.
622
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
The country is a creator of its currency. So we have to really, really, in
623
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
my opinion, ratchet up our direct action, ratchet up our organizing. Otherwise, people are just
624
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
going to go stand in line, get an "I Voted" sticker on their forehead, brag
625
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
at brunch that they went and voted for... you know, John Fetterman, who is now
626
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
saying Donald Trump should be given the Peace Prize. What did that get you right?
627
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
"Oh, gosh, aren't I happy I voted for John Fetterman?" You know, these are things
628
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
that I think that if people stop hero worshiping, stop celebrating rich people, stop glamorizing
629
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
the elite and start realizing that there is a real class war going on right
630
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
now and that these surveillance tactics are a tool of oligarchy. They're a tool of
631
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
that elite suppression of our rights and of our lives. I think then we have
632
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
a chance. But the more we glamorize, like, fake things. We put our hope in
633
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
false gods, false idols, false outcomes based on false tactics that are sold to us
634
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
just to manufacture consent and keep us engaged in the lie. You know, I think
635
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
of the Truman Show where Jim Carrey was living his life and everybody else knew
636
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
it was a lie about him, and he just bounced around. He finally figured out,
637
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
"Oh, my God, it's a lie." You know, it's kind of like a Westworld moment,
638
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
if you remember that. This feels very much like a moment where we need to
639
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
get very sober very fast, have very frank and honest conversations with one another, and
640
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
work together. Vote to your heart's content. Vote twice on Sunday. Whatever it is you
641
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
want to do with your voting habits, do your thing. But in order for the
642
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
change to happen, I believe that it takes place through community impact and through direct
643
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
action and through organizing. Your thoughts as we check out here.
644
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
What a wonderful way to end, because I love direct action. My
645
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
organization supports it with money. I love grassroots organizing. The grassroots organizing
646
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
is behind some of the most significant movements in this country that
647
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
have fought for social change to benefit the rights of all and
648
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
for equality. I'm going to mention quickly a book that a friend
649
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
of mine wrote called The Young Lords: A Radical History. The Young
650
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Lords were a political group in New York and Chicago, often compared
651
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
to the Black Panthers as the Puerto Rican counterpart. They engaged in
652
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
colorful, clever street actions and made enormous reforms in New York City
653
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
in how healthcare access to economically disadvantaged communities was improved. They had
654
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
a garbage offensive action when their neighborhoods weren't having garbage pickups. I
655
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
think that we have to be creative. We have to be fearless
656
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
as best we can. And we have to realize we are the
657
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
ones who rightfully dictate our country's trajectory. And we have to be
658
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
vocal, and that means going beyond our comfort zone and fighting for
659
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
the values that so many of us were brought up to think
660
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
this country stands for. We haven't seen those practiced in many years,
661
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
but I think that everyone taking some kind of action, being clever,
662
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
bringing humor, being willing to work on an issue that isn't as
663
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
polarizing as some of the big ones we know about now, but
664
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
things that will improve your local community and then sharing word about
665
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
them that with photos and clever mottos. It's time to step up,
666
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
people.
667
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
I love it. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Heidi, where can we find more of your work and tell us a little bit about your radio program.
668
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
I am a co-host for 20 years now of lawanddisorder.org. It's
669
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
a civil liberties radio show that airs every week and on
670
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
about 140 stations around the country and its podcast. My website
671
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
is just heidiboghosian.com and I try to keep that updated.
672
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
Well, we are going to be putting your books on our bookshelf@realprogressives.org and I hope between our relationship
673
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
with Project Censored and your own grassroots network, that we're able to get this podcast out far and
674
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
wide. Because I think there's some really important information that we were able to cover today. I'm sure
675
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
somebody's gonna say, "hey, you forgot about this." And you know what? Maybe we'll have you back on
676
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
another time so we can find out what those things we missed were and we can cover them
677
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
next time. You are a great guest. I really appreciate you joining me today, Heidi.
678
:HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Thank you so much.
679
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
All right, folks, my name is Steve Grumbine. I am the host of
680
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
Macro N Cheese and the founder of this nonprofit, Real Progressives. We survive
681
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
on your donations, not somebody else's donations. Because don't believe the hype. They
682
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
didn't donate. We're surviving on your donations. So if you believe the content
683
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
that we produce is valuable, that we're working hard as volunteers trying to
684
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
produce this information for you to help keep you in the know, your
685
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
donations are going to help us with that process. We really need your
686
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
help. You can go to our website, realprogressives.org there's a dropdown menu. Please
687
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
select donate. Or you can go to our patreon@patreon.com/realprogressives or you can go
688
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
to our Substack, realprogressives.substack.com and become a monthly donor there as well. Folks,
689
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
it's that time of year, so if you become a donor, these are
690
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
tax deductible. I hate to ask you for the purpose of tax deduction,
691
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
but my goodness, we need the money. We need the help. So with
692
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
that, on behalf of my guest, Heidi Boghosian, myself, Steve Grumbine, the podcast
693
:STEVE GRUMBINE:
Macro N Cheese and the nonprofit Real Progressives, we are out of here.
