Surviving The System

This week I'm visiting with Kathie Klarreich about her work to help transform the lives of men and women who are struggling through "the system." Kathie Klarreich started teaching writing in a woman’s prison in 2009 and founded exchange for a change in2014. She is the author of "Madame Dread: A Tale of Love Vodou and Civil Strife in Haiti" and a contributor to two anthologies: "So Spoke the Earth" and "Women, Writing, and Prison." In 2010 she received a Knight International Journalism Fellowship to train journalists in investigative reporting in Haiti, where she spent half of the last 24 years reporting for print, radio, and television, including Time, The New York Times, ABC, and NPR.Exchange for Change [email protected] https://www.facebook.com/Exchange.for.Change  https://www.instagram.com/ex4change/?hl=en  https://twitter.com/Ex4Change

https://survivingthesystem.org/ "What's my purpose? Why am I here?" Have you ever asked yourself that? Better question...how often do you ask yourself that? I remember that feeling of waking up and dreading going to work because something inside me knew I wasn't supposed to be there. So, how do you answer that question? Former guest and friend of the show John Sullivan challenged me to do a show talking about Purpose. This is a big topic and one we only scratch the surface on. And it's a great place to begin!

Description: The revolution has begun! If you haven't been paying attention to what happened with Game Stop, Wall Street Bets and Robinhood...stop what you're doing and start now!The last week of January, 2021, a group of individuals on Reddit decided they were tired of watching Wall Street do as they please with no consequences. What started as an idea on a website turned into a movement that nearly crashed Wall Street in its entirety. And that is not an exaggeration or hyperbole!Our enemy has a weakness, and we just discovered it. The Achilles heel of the global elite.This story is too much for just me to handle, so I welcome back Charlie Robinson from Macroaggressions (now on The Fringe).

Have you ever had a conversation with someone, and it's like the universe is speaking through them directly to you? Almost like they were listening in to you the last day or so, and they're giving you sage wisdom on how to grow and learn. Yeah, that just happened to me.My good friend Bo called me from inside a correctional institution the other day. He was so excited about some updates he had for me that he had written a list down so he didn't forget anything. And every point he covered was like a metaphorical smack upside the head for me. More often than not, these are the conversations that happen with people on the inside. There is insight and knowledge in there that you can't find anywhere else in the world.Stories like this are the ones I want everyone to hear. I hope you get tremendous value from listening.

http://www.survivingthesystem.org/http://www.facebook.com/survivingthesystemTwitter @STSthePodcastAmerica - Land of the free. Freedom and Liberty. Liberty and Freedom. We've been raised thinking they're the same thing. "Give me liberty or give me death!" Or how about "Let freedom ring!" Sound familiar to you? What if I asked you to tell me what exactly that means. Do you know? How many definitions are there for the word "liberty?" This week, let's take some time and really think about what it means to be truly free.

This week, we catch up with my good friend Shawn Bina. When I think of re-entry success stories, Shawn is at the top of my list of examples to point out. When I first had him on the show, he was in process of transitioning back into the community and prison was still fresh in his mind. The things he experienced while inside are tales that the general public would think came right out of a Hollywood script. Those stories needed to be told.Now, over a year later, Shawn has not just successfully reintegrated back into the community, but he has crushed it out of the park! He has been working full time since his re-entry, owns his own successful mobile auto repair company, and got married. I've been with him every step of the way and I couldn't be prouder to call him my friend.This right here...this is the types of stories the MSM will never tell you about. Stories like these happen more often than not. Enjoy!www.aycnow.com

Special guest co-host Alex Rahe!
Jeffrey Ian Ross, Ph.D. is a Professor in the School of Criminal Justice, College of Public Affairs, and a Research Fellow of the Center for International and Comparative Law, and the Schaefer Center for Public Policy at the University of Baltimore. He has been a Visiting Professor at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany, and University of Padua, Italy.
Ross has researched, written, and lectured primarily on
corrections, policing, political crime, state crime, crimes of the powerful, violence, street culture and crime and justice in American Indian communities for over two decades. His work has appeared in many academic journals and books, as well as popular media. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of several books including the Routledge Handbook of Street Culture (2021).
Ross is a respected subject matter expert for local, regional, national and international news media. He has made live appearances on CNN, CNBC, Fox News Network, MSNBC, and NBC. Additionally Ross has written op-eds for The (Baltimore) Sun, the Baltimore Examiner, The (Maryland) Daily Record, The Gazette, The Hill, Inside Higher Ed, and The Tampa Tribune.
www.jeffreyianross.com
www.comcrim.org

Have you ever seen the documentary "The Corporation?" If you haven't, I highly recommend you watch it, not just because it's the premise for my show today. In a nutshell, it describes the personality of a corporation if that business was a living, breathing person. I love that though, and ran with it.
What if "the system" had a personality? What kind of a person would it be? Spoiler alert - not a great friend.
Stick with me to the end on this one and follow me down the rabbit hole. There's a lot of meat on the bone here, and I barely scratch the surface.

November was a ROUGH month. Not just for my family and me, but for those around me as well. As much as I try to keep an optimistic attitude, and focus on the more positive aspects of even the most challenging situations in life, sometimes I can't. Sometimes, I just have to sit down, take a breath, and feel everything. Feel defeated, feel scared, feel hopeless, feel frustrated. All of it.
This seems to be something our culture has lost sight of, and I don't hear much talk about it in personal development circles. You won't always have a great day. Life has its ebbs and flows, and that means you will have bad days. And that's ok! There is nothing wrong with feeling those feelings. It's what you do with them from there that matters.

http://www.facebook.com/survivingthesystem

Today, I'm pleased to welcome back David Mitchell to the show! For those of you that haven't listened to his last interview, and the update show that I did on him, I highly encourage you to go back and listen to those shows. Not only are they relevant to the context
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Damnit....scratch that, hit enter on accident...starting over
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Description: Today, I welcome back David Mitchell to the show! David was arrested back in September and spent 50 days in county jail, only to walk out and get right back in the faces of those trying to keep him down. David was accused of first degree sexual assault of a minor, with apparently little to no evidence. From where I stand, it's a textbook example of how "The System" will attack anyone that would dare to stand up to them. I recognized the playbook, and I wanted to make sure David had a platform to tell his side of the story.
If you haven't had the opportunity to listen to my past interview with David or my analysis of the articles about his arrest, I highly encourage you to listen to the past episodes. Not only are they fascinating, but they are also relevant and will help to provide some context.

www.survivingthesystem.org
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Twitter @STSthePodcast