In a jam-packed program full of abundant insight, Ralph first welcomes back Dahr Jamail to discuss his work “We Are the Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth” about what we can learn from indigenous people who have survived incredible disruptions to the climate to their families and to their way of life. Then Karen Friedman from the Pension Rights Center gives us an update on how they are fighting to save our hard-earned money. And finally, Cal Berkeley grad students, Sandra Oseguera and Jesus Gutierrez explain the university’s “inverted priorities” as it spends millions of dollars on football coaches’ salaries and real estate while shutting down campus libraries.

Dahr Jamail is the author of Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, as well as The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption. He is co-editor (with Stan Rushworth) of We Are the Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth.

One of the themes of the book is the difference between the Western settler-colonialist mindset of: What are my rights? I have my rights. Versus a more Indigenous perspective that we came across time and again in the book of: We have two primary obligations that we are born into. One is the obligation to serve and be a good steward of the planet. The other obligation is to serve future generations of all species. So, if I focus on my obligations, it’s very very clear that I have plenty of work to do in service to those. If I focus only on my rights, I’m going to be chronically frustrated.

Dahr Jamail, editor of We Are the Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth

Karen Friedman is the Executive Director of the Pension Rights Center. She develops solutions and implements strategies to protect and promote the rights of consumers, and for more than 20 years has represented their interests in the media and before congressional committees.

Social Security is the strongest system we have. While opponents of Social Security have tried to undermine confidence in its future, the truth is that Social Security is one of the most universal, efficient, secure, and fair sources of retirement income…It’s not going broke, folks. It's a great system. That’s all propaganda, meant to scare the bejesus out of you.

Karen Friedman

Sandra Oseguera and Jesús Gutierrez are graduate students in the Anthropology department at The University of California, Berkeley.  Last month, campus administration announced their plan to close the Anthropology Library, one of only three dedicated Anthropology libraries in the US. In response, stakeholders including students and faculty have organized to demand that the Anthropology Library be protected and fully supported by the University.

[Fighting to save the library] has been a wonderful experience of community and collaboration among many stakeholders. However, we the grad students see ourselves as the keepers and also the main users of [the Anthropology Library’s] collection because all of our research really relies on the resources that are there.

Sandra Oseguera

The library is a really valuable space. It’s not only a space for simply going in and accessing a book. It’s also a space of encounter. The kind of thing that the University is trying to destroy is essentially this possibility for having a happenstance run-in with a book that you may not necessarily have intended to type into the catalog system or with a person who you may not otherwise run into.

Jesús Gutierrez

The situation at Berkeley has become grotesquely inverted, in terms of the University. They have millions for football and other sports and paying coaches huge salaries. They have millions for administrative officials. But they want to shut down one of the great Anthropology libraries in the Western World.

Ralph Nader

In Case You Haven’t Heard1. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that six former Phillies players have died of the same brain cancer. All six played between 1971 and 2003. The paper obtained samples of the astroturf used between 1977 and 1981, and found 16 different types of PFAS, otherwise known as “forever chemicals.” Researchers only discovered that PFAs were present in artificial turf in 2019, so it is unknown whether these chemicals are linked to this cancer cluster.

2. Reps. Barbara Lee and Mark Pocan, both outspoken progressives, have introduced the “People Over Pentagon Act” which would cut $100 billion dollars from the defense budget. The Biden administration requested $813.3 billion in Pentagon funding in 2022. This bill would redirect these funds to healthcare, education, combating the climate crisis, and more. Public Citizen is fighting hard to advance this legislation.

3. The Hill reports a bipartisan group of Senators have introduced a bill to lift the embargo on Cuba. This “gang” is primarily made up of Senators representing states with large agricultural sectors, including Senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Jerry Moran of Kansas, among others. Senator Moran is quoted saying “the unilateral trade embargo on Cuba blocks our own farmers, ranchers and manufacturers from selling into a market only 90 miles from our shoreline, while foreign competitors benefit at our expense.”

4. Breaking news from the Intercept: Today, Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz is bringing to the floor a War Powers resolution requiring US troops to withdraw from Syria within 180 days. The Congressional Progressive Caucus is urging a “yes” vote on the resolution. This comes on the heels of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announcing that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has reached an agreement to move forward with the repeal of the Iraq War Authorization of the Use of Military Force, or AUMF. It remains to be seen whether the Republican-controlled House will reach a similar agreement.

5. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, has opened an investigation into Tesla’s Model Y SUV after receiving complaints of steering wheels flying off while the vehicles were being driven. This probe will cover an estimated 120,000 vehicles from the 2023 model year, via AP.

6. From the Intercept: A new, proposed FDA rule would mandate that foods labeled “healthy” contain a major food group – dairy, fruits, or whole grains – and must be under certain limits on saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars. In response, General Mills, Kellogg’s, and Post Consumer Brands – which

collectively produce almost all cereal on the market – are bitterly lobbying against this rule.

7. In Israel, a video shows former Knesset speaker Avrum Burg – who has endorsed full equality for Palestinians – being roughed up by IDF soldiers for protesting against what he calls the “pogrom” in Huwarra. Huwarra has become a flash-point in Israeli politics. The New Arab reports Israeli Finance

Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the village to be “wiped out” before retracting that statement under immense pressure.

8. From the Washington Post: Child labor violations are up 69% since 2018. This surge is driven in part by an increase in children working hazardous jobs like meatpacking.

Ralph welcomes William Kleinknecht, author of “States of Neglect: How Red-State Leaders Have Failed Their Citizens and Undermined America” about how red state governors and legislatures fight culture wars while starving education and health care, empowering polluters, engaging in voter suppression, and neglecting their citizens’ well-being in the interest of cutting taxes for their wealthy donors. Plus, Oliver Hall, founder of the Center for Competitive Democracy tells us all about how ordinary people can use an extremely underused legal forum, Small Claims Court.

William Kleinknecht is a longtime newspaper reporter who covered politics, government, criminal justice, and the environment for the Detroit Free Press, New York Daily News, and Newark Star-Ledger. He is the author of The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America and States of Neglect: How Red-State Leaders Have Failed Their Citizens and Undermined America.

I wrote the book because when national news organizations talk about the red states, the focus is always on hot-button issues like abortion, immigration, election subversion, and even Critical Race Theory. And that’s by the design of the Republicans who run those states— that’s what they want people to be talking about because that fires up their base. What has gotten very little attention is just how damaging Republican leadership in those states has been for a longer period of time and across a much broader range of issues.

William Kleinknecht, author of States of Neglect: How Red-State Leaders Have Failed Their Citizens and Undermined America

I found that when I went to where the poorest people were— and the people who were suffering from environmental degradation or poor healthcare— I think they got it. I think it’s a different segment of their population that is the MAGA Republicans. And I didn't spend as much time around them because I was looking for where the damage was.

William Kleinknecht, author of States of Neglect: How Red-State Leaders Have Failed Their Citizens and Undermined America

Oliver Hall is a public interest attorney in Washington, DC. He is founder of and legal counsel to the Center for Competitive Democracy, which aims to strengthen American democracy by increasing electoral competition.

The fact is, in our increasingly corporatized world where transactions are automated, contracts are one-sided (contracts that corporations create with so much fine print you couldn’t possibly read it all, and ostensibly require you to sign away your rights), I think people get intimidated. Or they assume that they don’t have the right to pursue a claim in small claims court. And the fact is they do have that right. It can be done. And there's no reason more people shouldn’t do it, especially given the level and pervasiveness of corporate abuses, just in terms of everyday normal transactions that we all engage in.

Oliver Hall on Small Claims Court

I’ve been listening to Elon Musk speak out against government subsidies of corporations over the months— and talking about himself as a great capitalist entrepreneur— when, in reality, he takes all kinds of corporate welfare… Anytime he opens up a plant or starts a company like Starlink, he demands all kinds of subsidies, handouts, giveaways, grants, and especially a tax referral or tax holidays or tax breaks.

Ralph Nader on his Twitter exchange with Elon Musk

In Case You Haven’t Heard:

1. Former Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, who opposed COVID aid, admitted that he retired due to complications from long COVID. He suggested that many other members of Congress are also struggling with long COVID but have kept that fact hidden from the public.

Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/republican-senator-opposed-covid-aid-retired-due-long-covid-2023-2

2. The Jewish Federations of North America, which represents nearly 150 Jewish federations, penned a letter calling on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to drop the override clause, which would allow the Knesset to override laws deemed unconstitutional by the Israeli Supreme Court. The Federations warn that “such a dramatic change to the Israeli system of governance will have far-reaching consequences in North America.”

Source: https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2023-02-21/ty-article/.premium/major-u-s-jewish-org-calls-for-negotiations-between-netanyahu-and-lapid/00000186-755e-dcba-a19e-f77fc52e00003. In Florida, legislators are considering a “Dealer Bill” which would block consumers from purchasing electric cars directly from manufacturers like Ford and Honda. If passed, consumers would be forced to deal with notoriously usurious car salesmen to purchase these vehicles. The sponsor of this legislation, state rep. Jason Shoaf received $10,000 from Braman Motors – owned by billionaire car magnate Norman Braman – one week after filing the bill.

Source:

4. On February 21st, over 30 members of CodePink occupied the offices of Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. They held a teach-in and ended by delivering demands for negotiations and peace in Ukraine to the armed services committee. CodePink is also one of the core sponsors of the upcoming March 18th antiwar rally in Washington D.C., along with nearly 80 other organizations including Veterans for Peace, Black Alliance for Peace, and US Labor against Racism and War.

Source for the action:

Source for the rally: https://www.codepink.org/piu20iraq

5. According to NPR CEO John Lansing, the network will lay off at least 100 staff – roughly 10% of its current workforce – and eliminate most vacant positions. Lansing blamed ever-declining ad revenues for precipitating this extreme cost-cutting measure.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158710498/npr-layoffs-2023?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_term=nprnews&utm_campaign=npr6. A startling report published in Rolling Stone shows there have been at least seven coups in Africa led by US-trained soldiers since 2021. The recent spate of coups has been a marked shift for the continent, which had seen an average of less than one successful coup per year between 2011 and 2021.

Source: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/west-africa-coup-american-trained-soldier-1234657139/7. The EPA has approved several “green biofuels” which are in fact not biological and are instead made from waste plastic. One of these fuels is so carcinogenic even Chevron estimates that one in four people exposed to the fumes will develop cancer. The EPA claims they are too underfunded to properly evaluate these fuels.

Source: https://www.propublica.org/article/chevron-pascagoula-pollution-future-cancer-risk

Legendary investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, tells us all about the story he broke that describes in great detail how the U.S. blew up the Nordstream pipelines in a covert “act of war” against Russia. Plus, Mickey Huff, of Project Censored joins us to speak to Ralph about the state of the so-called “free press.”

Seymour Hersh is the pre-eminent investigative journalist of our time.  He has won five George Polk Awards, two National Magazine Awards, and more than a dozen other prizes for investigative reporting. In 1970, Mr. Hersh won the Pulitzer Prize for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War. In 2004, Mr. Hersh exposed the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in a series of pieces in The New Yorker. Among his many books are The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House, Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, The Dark Side of Camelot, The Samson Option, The Killing of Osama Bin Laden, and his latest, a memoir of his storied, decades-long career, entitled simply Reporter.

The pipeline industry all know that Russia didn’t [sabotage the Nord Stream pipeline]. Everybody knows they did not do it. There might have been some vagueness about who. But they were pretty sure all along who. Because who else threatened to do it, but the President and his Under Secretary Victoria Nuland? They’re the two that went public with it— much to the dismay of the people actually doing the covert operation.

 Seymour Hersh

We always saw the Russians’ great abundance of gas and the Russian delivery of gas to Europe—from Jack Kennedy in 1962— we saw it as weaponizing gas.

Seymour Hersh

It’s a famous notion that the CIA and all those secret groups, they don’t work for the Constitution. They work for the Crown. They work for the President.

Seymour Hersh

Mickey Huff is the director of Project Censored and the founder and host of The Project Censored Show, a weekly syndicated public affairs program. He is professor of social science, history, and journalism at Diablo Valley College. He has authored and edited several books including ​​United States of Distraction: Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America (and what we can do about it), Let’s Agree to Disagree, The Media and Me: A Guide to Critical Media Literacy for Young People, and Project Censored’s State of the Free Press 2023: The News That Didn’t Make the News—And Why.

[The Norfolk Southern crash] is a bipartisan disaster. It’s a direct example of what happens with regulatory capture. And it shows, once again, the gross failure of the corporate media— they’ll cover balloons, and the Super Bowl, and a bunch of other distractions, instead of things that really matter to working class Americans.

Mickey Huff, co-editor of State of the Free Press 2023: The News That Didn’t Make the News—And Why

You’re not allowed to ask the tough questions, Ralph. And anybody who’s been in the press pool long enough knows that. They don’t have to be told that. The censorship doesn’t have to be directly from the government, or even from the corporate owners. Reporters know that if they ask questions that don’t get answered too often, and get overlooked, they’re going to get yanked. They’re going to get called back to the office. They might end up losing their jobs because they don’t have copy and they don’t have stories.

Mickey Huff, co-editor of State of the Free Press 2023: The News That Didn’t Make the News—And Why

Encourage members of the press not to forget [the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq on March 19th]. That was a massive war crime— over a million innocent Iraqis died, the country destroyed, falling apart to this day— and Bush and Cheney are luxuriating in the US without any accountability whatsoever. There’s a lot of talk now on the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But very little talk about the US and its sociocide destruction of the Iraqi people. And I think that illustrates how important it is to ask questions on subjects that have been taboo or censored.

Ralph Nader

Ralph welcomes old friend, Judge Andrew Napolitano, to talk about why the U.S. government offered a plea deal to the supposed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four others. He asks, “Why would the government agree to such a plea for the persons it claims are the monsters who murdered 3,000 Americans on 9/11?... What does the government fear?” Plus, Ralph gives us his take on the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. And then on a lighter note, we talk about the Super Bowl.

Judge Andrew Napolitano is a former Superior Court Judge, a syndicated columnist, and host of the Judging Freedom podcast. Judge Napolitano has taught constitutional law and jurisprudence at Delaware Law School and Seton Hall Law School, and he was Fox News’ Senior Judicial Analyst from 1997 to 2021. He is the author of several books on the U.S. Constitution, the most recent entitled Freedom’s Anchor: An Introduction to Natural Law Jurisprudence in American Constitutional History.

“I would try (Bush & Cheney) for war crimes for which there is no statute of limitations… the war crimes are well-known. The war crimes are leading us into war under false pretenses; intentionally targeting civilians in the Middle East; authorizing torture and purporting to protect it against state law if done in the U.S. and international law. These are all well-known war crimes for which the penalty is life in prison. They can also be execution… There is still an E.U.-wide arrest warrant live out there issued by Spanish authorities for the arrest of George W. Bush, because of the war crimes I have just summarized.”

Judge Andrew Napolitano

“George W. Bush, arguably the worst president in the post-World War II era for bringing us into two totally useless and very costly wars – Afghanistan and Iraq – which cost us in excess of two trillion dollars, which had over 850 thousand people killed – only five thousand were Americans – which destroyed the moral order in that part of the world for a full generation also instituted a regime of torture. I believe, Ralph, as do many of us who follow this – we haven’t seen it in writing – that Bush somehow pardoned or granted immunity to the torturers, because the torture was so vast and so extensive, and no one has been prosecuted for it. Obama and Holder who said loudly that they were against torture had every opportunity to do it. And they knew the names of the torturers, but it just didn’t happen.”

Judge Andrew Napolitano

“I do believe that Rupert Murdoch called up Donald Trump and said to him, to Murdoch’s credit - to his face, although it was on the phone – ‘you are just not institutionally, constitutionally, or temperamentally, or intellectually qualified to be the president of the United States and we will not support you.’”

Judge Andrew Napolitano

This is super Sparta on steroids—the aggressiveness, the lack of diplomacy, the lack of waging peace by the US government. It’s like they’ve mothballed the charter of the State Department, which was diplomacy. They’ve turned it into a bellicose agency, sometimes much worse than the spokespeople for the Defense Department.

Ralph Nader

Ralph welcomes Dr. Nason Maani, co-editor of “The Commercial Determinants of Health,” to explore the larger forces, forces beyond the power of an individual to control, that shape our environment and therefore our health. Then Chris Hedges stops by to discuss his latest article, “Woke Imperialism” which highlights the tension between class politics and identity politics. Plus, Ralph gives us a short take on President Biden’s State of the Union address.

Dr. Nason Maani is a lecturer in Inequalities and Global Health Policy at the University of Edinburgh. He is also the host of Money Power Health, a podcast on how our health is influenced by commercial forces, wealth, and power. He is co-editor of the new book The Commercial Determinants of Health.

These are forces that science should bear witness to. The same way we bear witness to physical forces like gravity, we should be able to bear witness to commercial forces and describe the ways in which they influence the world.

Dr. Nason Maani, co-editor of The Commercial Determinants of Health

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He is the host of The Chris Hedges Report, and he is a prolific author— his latest book is The Greatest Evil Is War.

These people are selected to essentially provide an appealing face to a system that carries out tremendous cruelty and imparts tremendous suffering on the very people these women or people of color claim to represent. So, they’re not actually serving their communities. They’re serving the system.

Chris Hedges on "Woke Imperialism"

I have a little suggestion for listeners: next time you meet someone, instead of saying, “How are you?” why don’t you ask, “How’s your civic life?”

Ralph Nader

Ralph welcomes professor Karen Levy, who talks to us about how regulations aimed at making trucking safer have been turned into a tool of corporate surveillance as chronicled in her book “Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance.” And on the opposite side of the tech spectrum, high school senior, Logan Lane joins to tell us how she and her friends have liberated themselves from their iPhones and social media by forming a group they call “The Luddite Club.”

Karen Levy is an associate professor in the Department of Information Science at Cornell University, associate member of the faculty at Cornell Law School, and field faculty in Sociology, Science and Technology Studies, Media Studies, and Data Science. Her new book is Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance.

I think we’re actually all aligned in our interests. Truckers don’t want to die on the road any more than the rest of us do. So, if safety is really the motivation for the electronic logging device, it feels as though we might all be able to get behind legislation and regulation that helps address the root causes of this fatigue.

Karen Levy, author of Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance

Logan Lane is a high school senior in Brooklyn and the founder of the Luddite Club.

It felt like when I became a Luddite, I started off on this reading journey. We’re all on our individual reading journeys. I saw mine starting with Anaïs Nin’s Collages, and it was amazing, and it was something I didn’t think I could have interacted with so much and been so passionate about if I had been on the phone. And from then onwards I started doing this reading challenge. Every year I would set a goal— so my first year I read 50 books, the second year 95 books… It felt like the friends I’d lost on social media; I’d picked up those friends in the authors I was reading.

Logan Lane

Ralph welcomes James Damico and Mark Baildon, authors of “How to Confront Denial: Literacy, Social Studies, and Climate Change.” They discuss all forms of denial including climate science denial and climate action denial. Then, Ralph, Steve, David, and Hannah discuss three topics in the news, mass shootings, the war in Ukraine, and the outrage of pharmaceutical companies raising the prices of taxpayer funded Covid vaccines.

James Damico is a professor of literacy, culture, and language education at Indiana University Bloomington and a former elementary and middle school teacher from New Jersey. He is co-author of How to Confront Climate Denial: Literacy, Social Studies, and Climate Change.

There tends to be a lot of emphasis on “personal responsibility” for climate change. And I think we need a lot more nuance about how we talk about personal responsibility, but we want to start with an industry lens. Because that’s the kind of inquiry we think will be most productive in social studies and university classrooms.

James Damico

Mark Baildon is an associate professor in foundations of education at the United Arab Emirates University and a former middle and high school social studies teacher in schools around the world (United States, Israel, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and Taiwan). He is co-author of How to Confront Climate Denial: Literacy, Social Studies, and Climate Change.

Social Studies is a pretty crowded field. But if we use climate as a connecting point, it’s an opportunity to talk about environmental racism, to look at the most vulnerable populations in societies and how they’re being affected by climate change.

Mark Baildon

We should never forget that many of these industries would never be in existence— much less the size they are— without government research and development funds. And that means your taxpayer money. And the industries include the aerospace industry, the biotech industry, the computer industry, the nanotech industry, the containerization industry. You name it, one industry after another was given a huge birth give by the taxpayer from Washington, D.C.

Ralph Nader

January 6th has become one of those days like September 11th where you need to say no more than the date for people to know what you’re talking about.  Ralph welcomes New York Times congressional reporter, Luke Broadwater, who was in the Senate chamber when the rioters breached the building and has not only been covering the January 6th hearings but wrote the introduction to the NY Times  version of the final report.

Luke Broadwater is a congressional reporter in the Washington bureau of the New York Times. He played a key role in the paper's coverage of the January 6th attack on the Capitol, for which the Times was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist. His work is featured in the Twelve Books edition of The January 6 Report: Findings from the Select Committee to Investigate the Attack on the U.S. Capitol with Reporting, Analysis and Visuals by The New York Times.

Congress is a place that, for better or worse, prides itself as its own island of niceties. You’re not supposed to criticize another member by name on the floor, and you're supposed to pretend that you’re all colleagues and there’s a level of respect between people. And it was seen on the Hill as very aggressive that they even issued a subpoena.

Luke Broadwater

Bruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on international law.  Mr. Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and he is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, and American Empire: Before the Fall.

In the Watergate situation, we had the star witnesses who appeared in person… That was vivid. The American people were riveted. There were no star witnesses who were shown in the January 6th hearings. These were all second- or third-tier people. Even someone like Pat Cipollone was interviewed in private, not in public. And that’s why I think the impact was so much less than in Watergate— you’re never going to get a public to oppose a president based upon paper documents, and not flesh-and-blood where the public can make their own evaluation of credibility.

Bruce Fein

The civic community that used to get a lot of media in the ‘60s and ‘70s and connected with members of Congress and changed the consumer, worker, and environmental framework of legislation in those golden years is no more. And civic community’s shut out like beyond my wildest nightmares.

Ralph Nader

The letter from a listener concerning Apple’s privacy policy that Ralph referred to in the program as a sterling example of constructive correction… of him:

Hello RNRH Team,

I am a loyal listener, active Congress Club member and grateful for the important work you do.

Thank you for all that your team invests in creating your show and, Ralph, for your decades of service and tireless efforts to hold our elected officials accountable so that our government will actually serve the People.

Your work is important, and I am grateful for all you do.

I do my best to keep an open mind when listening and very rarely question any of the perspectives that you and your team share during your show.

Nevertheless, I believe that fairness and accuracy is critical for trusted sources of information like your show.

In the recent Big Tech Spying episode of your Podcast you make this statement:

“That's what Apple and Google are deliberately doing; they’re making it difficult…"

I believe that Google and Apple approach this issue quite differently, but this was not communicated in the episode - instead, the companies were lumped together as though their work in this space is the same or very similar, which I believe was not accurate and, therefore, concerning.

Disclosure: I’ve worked at Apple for 15 years - mostly in our Retail locations though I’ve supported Recruiting for the past 5 years - and I’ve done my best to mitigate my biases as I listened and now drafted this message.

I am not an executive earning ridiculous salary and stock options, so this is not an effort to protect the status quo because I’m living high on the hog.

My wife and I have lived in the same 2 room Studio apartment in San Francisco because it’s rent-controlled and enables us to save so we might purchase a home and move into the next phase of our lives.

Nothing I share here represents Apple in any way, and no-one at Apple knows or would approve of my sending this message since I’m not part of the PR team.

* I’ve anonymized my email address and signature as I could experience repercussions should any details of this message become known to Apple.

I am an individual with opinions and not a spokesperson for the company, and I am also a worker who has contributed much of my salary to participate in Apple’s Employee Stock Purchase Program so that my wife and I might one day purchase a home and find the quality of life we strive for.

I often work 50 - 60 hour weeks and have done so for more than a decade, and I hope that this hard work will provide us financial security.

So, admittedly, my own self-interest influences my perspective and why I am sending this message.

People (myself included) trust what they hear on your show, and the impact on sentiment may affect their choices as consumers - and that ultimately impacts our long-term financial planning along with tens of thousands of other Apple employees who work hard, save all they can and try to plan for their futures.

Apple is not perfect.

I acknowledge that Apple’s business model depends heavily on the % they collect from all Developers and in-App purchases and that stock buy-backs have artificially inflated share prices since Tim Cook assumed the role of CEO after Steve Jobs’ passing.

The dominance of the “Freemium” model in Apps is problematic as many people spend more money than they should for in-App purchases; heck, I’ve been guilty of that myself and know how dangerous this can be.

Though this is not unique to Apple, it troubles me, and I hope that greater regulation is introduced to further protect users who are unable to resist the urge to buy virtual items or otherwise spend beyond their means.

In spite of these imperfections, I do believe that Apple’s commitment to user privacy and safety is vastly superior to Google and other product and software developers, but this was not clear in this particular show.

Apple has introduced many important features and enhancements that are easy to use and truly empower people using their products to control their data and protect their privacy.

2020 iOS 14

With the introduction of iOS 14, Apple actively equipped users of their products with the most powerful tools ever released enabling people to protect their privacy and data.

* Safety Check enabled customers to immediately stop any Apps or individuals from accessing data from Apps in Apple products.

* Apple introduced Privacy “nutrition labels” in the App Store to increase transparency and report how developers use data to provide greater customer control.

* App Tracking Transparency (iOS 14.5) introduced a feature in which Apps are required to ask users’ permission to track their activity, and iOS users receive App Privacy reports showing what Apps requested information and if/ when/ how that information was used.

* Finally (for 2020) Apple enabled users to control any Ad Targeting on their Apple devices.

All of these enhancements enraged notable and rather despicable characters like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, which is alone quite satisfying.

2021 iOS 15

Apple further refined privacy features in 2021 with the release of iOS 15

* Users were now empowered to hide mail activity as well as their email address as the OS enabled them to use a randomly generated email address when creating site profiles.

* Instead of pinpoint accuracy for location services, iOS enabled people to share “approximate location” so that they can still benefit from location features without disclosing their precise location.

* Users were now able to deny access to their local network for Apps and also to detect Camera and/ or Microphone access requests from Apps.

* Safari was further refined with warnings about problematic passwords (used multiple times and/ or easily guessable passwords) and also provides a privacy report.

2022 iOS 16

In 2022 Apple continued refining their commitment to protect user privacy.

* A simplified and enhanced interface to Manage Sharing enables people to not only view what information they are sharing with others but also to see in great detail what data Apps have accessed and easy tools to adjust those access levels.

* Several companies are working on “passkeys” to eliminate the risk of passwords, and Apple will undoubtedly release the most effective version of this - though not always the first to release a new product or feature, developers at Apple get it right and optimize these features.

* Finally, Lockdown Mode, is the most extreme protection measure I’ve ever seen in tech, and this is specifically intended for activists, journalists and others concerned about spying or malicious parties trying to access their information.

I hope you find some value in this feedback and the details I’ve provided.

I continue to listen to your show and take the actions you recommend to influence our elected officials and push them to actually work for their constituents and improve conditions for underserved and marginalized Americans.

Devoted supporter and fan from San Francisco.

J

Ralph welcomes back retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson to talk about American military policy, including the record $816.7 billion Pentagon budget, the war in Ukraine, the insanity of nuclear weapons, potential conflict with China and what the right-wing caucus in the House of Representatives really wants when they say they want to cut military spending. Plus, Ralph reads and responds to your questions and feedback from previous programs.

Lawrence Wilkerson is a retired U.S. Army colonel and former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. During the course of his military service, Colonel Wilkerson was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Bronze Star among other awards and decorations. At the Department of State, he earned the Secretary’s Distinguished Service Award, as well as two Superior Honor Awards.

My position on Ukraine now is: Shut up and start talking. To both sides. I’m convinced, from my contacts in Moscow, that the Russians would do that. If we even seemed to be serious. We’re the impediment.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson

Let’s just take a scenario: let’s put ourselves down on the ground in Ukraine. Let’s say we put our army (which is smaller than the army of Bangladesh) on the ground in Ukraine, with the purpose of fighting the Russians. We would have 10,000 casualties a day for the first 30 days… The American people have never had these kinds of casualties. NEVER. Never. Not in any of their lives have they had these kinds of casualties. And they’re going to have them. That’s what it’s all about.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson

One person, an otherwise very gifted diplomat, said to me the other day, “We don’t know how to do diplomacy anymore. We don't do diplomacy anymore. Because our diplomacy has been replaced by bombs, bullets, and bayonets.” He’s right. He’s absolutely right. That’s what we’ve done. That’s the kind of insanity I’m talking about. You have no diplomacy.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson

We do not have a democracy. We have a deep-state oligarchical corporatocracy. And the American people are on the outside. And the American people— intuitively and, in some cases, intellectually— understand that and go about their business and do what they have to do… but they don’t participate in the government.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerso

Ralph explains it all for you, the history and the consequences of the legal fiction that is corporate personhood. Then his associate, Francesco DeSantis, from the Center of Study of Responsive law updates us on progress being made to institute a corporate crime data base along the lines of the street crime database in order to track repeat corporate criminal offenders.

Francesco DeSantis is a public interest advocate and Outreach Coordinator at the Center for Study of Responsive Law. He has coordinated with the offices of Representative Mary Gay Scanlon and Senator Dick Durbin to get the Corporate Crime Database issue back on the Congressional agenda, and he’s advocated for it among members of Congress and consumer, labor, and environmental groups.

Once unleashed, [a corporation] doesn’t conform to normal human accountabilities. It doesn’t have the same level of shame or guilt. It can make a lot of mistakes and hurt a lot of people and still be credible.

Ralph Nader

It’s important for all of our listeners to know that corporations are not created by investors. They are created by state authority.

Ralph Nader

Limited liability was the yeast that unfurled the future elaborations of corporate power.  

Ralph Nader

The Justice Department has every statutory authority to [create a corporate crime database] on their own. It completely, 100% falls within their purview to monitor crime, to attempt to arrest criminals, to prevent recidivism… So, we are very hopeful that the Justice Department will see the light on this issue.

Francesco DeSantis

If you think about the kind of crimes that corporations engage in, they would be completely beyond the pale for any individual.

Francesco DeSantis

If the American people—journalists, academics, prosecutors, and so on— were able to see that “X Corporation” committed a crime, committed it again, committed it a third time, and each time got basically no serious penalty, I think that that would go a long way towards the political movement to demand more from the corporate criminal enforcement division of the Department of Justice.

Francesco DeSantis