Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to Call It Like I
[00:00:17] Speaker B: See it presented by Disruption.
[00:00:18] Speaker A: Now, I'm James Keys and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to take a look at the recent hot conflict and subsequent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and consider whether we're looking at this in the right way with all the things that are going on.
And later on, we're going to consider whether we all need to start eating insects instead of meat if we want to keep the planet habitable.
Joining me today is a man who's always ready to discuss what has been eloquently referred to as continuations of politics by other means.
Tunde Ogonlana Tunde, do you plan on leaning in on any other 19th century philosophical truisms today?
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Today, yes, this was the right day for that. We're talking about the Middle east, so of course I cannot talk about the 19th century.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: All right, now we're recording this on May 25, 2021, and this month we saw a violent conflict erupt between Hamas and Israel.
And with major violence ending in a ceasefire after around 11 days.
In that short time span, it's been reported there's been well over 200 people killed and there's also been reports of massive destruction of buildings and infrastructure, a lot of which will only intensify the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
So, getting right to it, Toonday, what were your thoughts on the conflict? Big picture the conflict and the subsequent
[00:01:53] Speaker B: ceasefire, man, there's a lot of thoughts and probably the first I would say would be it's, you know, this is a long standing tension that is, you know, we have these flare ups every few years and you know, just kind of the concern, and maybe my sadness, if I can say that this early in the show, is that I don't think anything is going to change from here like this ceasefire.
I think everyone's glad there's a ceasefire. No one likes constant conflict. But I don't see this as an answer to the overall issue or that somehow this is going to change the long term trajectory of continued conflict in that region and especially between these two factions, between the Israelis and the Palestinians and like you mentioned Hamas specifically. So, you know, I'm happy to see a ceasefire. I think that's definitely a good thing.
But I hold my breath, or, sorry I should say this, I wouldn't hold my breath to say, you know, to believe that somehow this is going to be the ceasefire of all ceasefires and they're never going to come back to the table with any conflict in the short period of time, like in the next few years, this isn't going to be an ongoing.
We're not going to have a gun
[00:03:11] Speaker A: fighting type of thing.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And. And that's the thing. I mean, that's why it's more like. And I know we'll get into the conversation today because I started getting actually more curious this time around and maybe just because of the heightened media attention now that we all have the Internet and social media and all that. So there's more chances to see this in our faces, that maybe when These conflicts happened 20 years ago and you only saw it on the evening news once a day or something. And so that's where it's in. Reading through it and the stuff we'll talk about today, I realize this is such a complex issue. I don't think it ever gets solved, unfortunately, until probably one side really just dominates and wipes the other side out. That's not something. That's not something I would like to see.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: But I think the nature of the fight seems to be one where there doesn't seem to be like it's hard to look at that and say, okay, well, there's a middle ground that, yeah,
[00:04:02] Speaker B: I think that it's so far into it and both sides feel so aggrieved by the other and there's so much heightened emotions.
And I think we're at the point where it's. It's too far down the rabbit hole to kind of come back and assign blame here or there because both sides have been kind of at each other so many ways and they both have, you know, arguments that make sense when you hear from either side type of thing.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: I'll tell you this, the thing actually it's similar what to me, what stood out actually was one that we were able to. And whether this is just the nature of the media now or whatever. But it seemed like we got more information on beyond just that there were rockets and bombs this time. Like historically, a lot of times, the media coverage of these things would tend to lend into the hot part of the conflict, but not give much context of what was going on and why now you still had to look for it because obviously the explosions sell and media is in the business of selling, which you and I have decried in the past that that's all they seem to be concerned about. But we don't hear much about foreign conflicts in general in America, you know, and so there's been a civil war for the past seven years in Yemen. We haven't heard that much about it.
You know, in Myanmar, there's things going on around the world all the time almost. And, you know, this. This is something that really captivated attention here in America. And it was beyond the coverage was available, beyond just, there's bombs going off, there's rockets going there, there's missiles and things like that and that there are these flashpoints that have been identified in terms of specific areas where the Palestinian people felt aggrieved and there were tensions that were rising. And then how Hamas kind of jumped into that, either to trying to justify themselves or to bring attention to themselves or whatever. Just see, we. I think we were able to see, and it was in media coverage in terms of these different parties that were acting and either in their own interests or with some other interest going. And I found that to be almost refreshing in a sense that, okay, wow, we actually got some coverage here. Again, it wasn't what was hitting you in the face, but. But we did get some coverage and we'll put some stuff in the show notes that was interesting as far as what's all unpacking, actually what's going on. And it wasn't just everybody look at it like this. This is the only legitimate way to look at it. And if you ask any questions on this, then you are a terrorist yourself or something like that. And obviously that's going to be, you know, that demagoguery is going to exist in certain places. But from a mainstream standpoint, that didn't seem to be what was dominating this.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: Yeah, and I did the same thing. I started looking a little bit deeper into it because I've learned to kind of ask the why. Okay, so why did Hamas started shooting rockets out of nowhere? It seems, you know, and us out
[00:06:59] Speaker A: of nowhere to us. I mean, obviously not out of nowhere if you live there.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, I'm just. But to your point about the, the way that the media has covered these things over time is just like. And it's like anything else, Right. It's like. It's like the conflicts we have here at home maybe in, you know, whether it be when things like the justice system is covered or gang fights or, you know, here in the United States, meaning we reported in our media culture like, oh, this just happened out of nowhere. And usually when you start looking deeper, you know, there's obviously a reason that a why that something, a catalyst kind of sparked something, an incident. And so I looked, and there's a neighborhood in Israel called Sheikh Jarrah, you know, in the Jerusalem, East Jerusalem area. And this was an area that was originally built by the Jordanian government in the 50s, but that Israel seized during the 1967 war. So that's my point. Like all this stuff goes back decades and it's not things that are just happened last week type of thing. And what happened is the Palestinians were protesting the imminent eviction of six Arab families from their homes by Israeli courts to make way for Jewish activists who claim ownership of the land. So it comes back to this idea of who has a right to be in Israel in certain parts of the areas of Jerusalem. And I think we'll talk about this too, because of the heightened awareness we all have that Jerusalem is such a holy area for the three major religions in the world.
So I started thinking like this whole 11 days of serious conflict, I think over 200 people combined on both sides dead. You've got the infrastructure and certain parts of those areas flattened, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And basically the world stopping to watch this, right. And have opinions about it. And I thought it's amazing, out of 6 billion humans on the earth, you know, this court issue for six families got to this level. And like you said, all this stuff led to then Hamas firing rockets, which then led to Israel retaliating. And that's what I mean. Like once you get to the point of the rockets and the retaliation, you know, both sides make salient arguments that, you know, obviously if you're shooting rockets into a country, right, if Israel's receiving rocket incoming fire, they have a right to defend themselves.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: Well, you know, they're going to like.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: And you know, that's provoking them to do something like slap in the face, what you going to do type of thing.
[00:09:29] Speaker B: Yeah, Exactly. And I think like, you know, and obviously the Palestinians feel put upon and that, you know, that almost like what I'd say the Native Americans probably felt with the treaties that the Americans made, and then they kept expanding west and taking land and obviously agreements were made between the Palestinians and Israelis at some point. And I'm sure it's also a real thing for the Israelis. Their population's growing and all that. And so that's why I say what I said at the beginning of our show here is the things that are causing this constant conflict to flare up every few years are only going to continue. You know, populations expand, people are going to keep running into each other. And as long as there's these levels of distrust and between both sides, which are very real now, and they're so entrenched, you know, these, these emotions on each side I don't see this getting better.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: And I would say this, though. I think that one of the things that also should be addressed or at least referenced in our conversation is that the. The way this kind of unfolds, it's hard to escape that the actual citizenry, the people in charge, are kind of distinct from them in a sense. Like Hamas jumps in and starts shooting rockets. That's not the people being evicted, you know, that's not the people who were demonstrating peacefully over the people being evicted. Hamas jumps in and says, hey, we're going to. We're going to escalate this. But that wasn't some unified decision by all Palestinian people. Basically, that was Hamas, a group who, you know, that's. They're a private pro. They're a group that provokes. That's what they do. You know, that's part of their approach to politics. And then Israel, it. Now, granted, it's their elected government that's doing this, but it wasn't like the people who were doing the evicting, so to speak. The same people were out there saying, okay, we're going to hop in some jets and start, you know, shooting some missiles over here or whatever it is. And so it's the political bodies really, that don't have or haven't set up a way to meaningfully resolve these disputes, which actually is what's going on there, is that there's. Anytime you have more than one person, there's going to be disputes, there's going to be conflict. And so if you have a way that you can meaningfully resolve these disputes, or at least get to a place where both sides feel like they can live with a resolution. If you don't have a way to do that without violence, which they don't seem to have in place here, then the violence almost becomes an inevitability, because as you pointed out, the issues in terms of the proximity, the fact that both groups consider Jerusalem to be such a holy place for their religion and a place that they believe they have a claim into and that they're willing to go to the mat to defend that claim. For if they have no way to resolve these differences that are fair, that are legitimate, that people really believe, then the violence is going to keep happening. And Hamas, basically, that's like, oh, that's where we come in when it's time for violence, that's where we come in. But it's not like they're elected leadership of the Palestinian people. They're not the ones saying they're offering a solution. And their solution may be appealing to some, but I mean, hey, I mean, that's just a group jumping in and saying, hey, we have your interests in mind. Whether that's 100% true or not.
But the people then who get the blowback are actually the people. The people who, when they shoot rockets at. Well, when Israel responds, I should say they are hitting Palestinian people. They are hitting things that are used by the Palestinian people. Not necessarily Hamas. Hamas is a network of people running around in tunnels. So they're not the ones taking the brunt of the blowback. And then what they're shooting at, they're shooting at Israeli people. So it's the people getting taken in on the chin, basically. Because leadership doesn't have political systems set up in place to deal with these types of issues.
[00:13:21] Speaker B: Yeah, no, there's a few things to kind of unpack from what you said. One is when you're talking about leadership, you know, I took a look cause I wanted to see what was going on.
We know a lot more about Israel, I think, just from our media and our culture than we do about Palestine. So I know that Netanyahu was a prime minister and has been for, I think, nearly a decade.
But I said, okay, so who's on the Palestinian side leading it? And a gentleman named Mahmoud Abbas, who's 85 years old, or 83, and he's been the Palestinian president since 2005, basically, since Yasser Arafat died.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: Well, yeah. Of the Palestinian Authority.
There's no one body that controls all of the Palestinians, so to speak.
[00:14:00] Speaker B: Yeah, no, but he's.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: That segment is. Yeah, him.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: Well, I think they're the one that's kind of recognized, let's say, by the United nations and all that, as kind of the one to deal with when you're dealing with Palestine and that issue. So my point is that I was thinking, like, you know, what is this? You got a guy in his 80s that's only the second kind of major leader after the first one died, after he was already almost 90, meaning Yasser Arafat. And that's what I thought. Like, they don't, you know, unfortunately for the Palestinian people, to your point, they don't seem to be recycling new leadership, fresh blood that might come in with fresh ideas, maybe a new way to negotiate with Israel and deal or even
[00:14:36] Speaker A: have a role in picking it. Because remember now, this is another thing that you get when you start looking at, okay, what happened here?
The Palestinian Authority was supposed to have elections this year, and they canceled them because the leaders, they thought they were gonna lose. So they were like, oh, well, let's just not have the elections. Which. Sound familiar.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: They had their own January 6th insurrection in Palestine in West Gaza.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. They're like, no, no, no, we gotta cancel the election, Covid. We gotta cancel the election.
But that also. That further displaces the people from a role in the people that are making decisions on their behalf, because maybe Hamas gets elected, and then Hamas has to legitimize themselves if they get elected.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: Let me go back. Keep going on where you were going with it, because that's where I'm getting at. And this is why I hate to laugh in a serious conversation like this, but I do laugh because, again, this is where it also comes back to about looking at other people as people. Like, if we don't believe that other people are savages or something that are different than us, but they're human beings, and they're gonna react to the same kind of triggers and emotional stuff that we all do, then this is. It's reasonable to see. Like, you're saying, like, the first thing as you're saying it. I'm like, okay, I made the joke about the January 6th insurrection, but it goes back to things we've talked about. Meaning what you're saying the Palestinian leadership did is basically what we're seeing attempted to do here, which is the people may want different leadership in Palestine, but because they had an election coming up, and they probably had their own internal kind of, you know, intelligence gathering through polling and other stuff they can do there, they realize they're not popular, they might lose, and they decide they're going
[00:16:10] Speaker A: to cancel the current leadership of the Palestinian Authority.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: And so my point is, it's just like we're seeing around this country with certain states where it's like, okay, well, it didn't go our way, so we're just going to change the rules of the game to try and manipulate it that way. I mean, it's just funny that, you know, impulse. Correct. The whole thing that absolute powers corrupts absolutely or something, you know, that's saying that, you know, people in power want to remain in power. So I think that's where. When we get to, like we've talked about, too, in shows in the past, like, once you make it into the Marvel Cinematic Universe or Star wars, where it's all about the heroes and villains. Like, if you're on the Israeli side of things, you've got your heroes and villains. If you're on the Palestinian side, you've got your heroes and Villains. And then it kind of extrapolates out to the rest of the world, where now we're, let's say, us in America. You have these people with all these different opinions who have no real skin or understanding.
They don't have skin in that game, really, unless they're.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: They don't care to actually have much understanding because it's just a heroes and villains game.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: Correct? Yeah, exactly. And so. And so that's where it comes down to then, what you're saying is the breakdown of, like we talked about on shows about what's happening in our country a bit. Right. The breakdown of reason and why a country like us, we're fortunate that we have a constitution which is supposed to take. The goal is to take some of this tribalism out of these disputes so that you can debate them and come to a conclusion without firing rockets at each other. Now, for us, it's easier because we are one country generally, one culture. Even though we got our issues, I think it's much more difficult in this situation in Israel because of everything we've discussed.
Number one, they are two very different cultures, the Palestinians and Israelis. And even though they're within one nation of Israel, technically, they're kind of two nations in a sense. Then you've got the whole issue that we haven't touched on too much, but we know it's there, which is the historical context of the city of Jerusalem and the other sites in the area like Bethlehem and all that. And it's just there's so much.
That's why religion and those things.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: I mean, if we went down that path, we would never be done.
[00:18:11] Speaker B: I know, that's my point. Like, that's what.
[00:18:12] Speaker A: But I mean, think about it like this, though. But that actually that tie is important because the tie to religion actually takes you to the place where reason, tribalism, you know, reason can't govern there. And so. But I wanted to. Actually you touched on an interesting point. And you know, in terms of the. I thought that Bernie Sanders had some interesting comments as far as trying to take a more evenhanded approach and, you know, looking at these things from a human standpoint, not looking at these things from a heroes and villains standpoint necessarily. And what were your thoughts on what Bernie was saying on CBS's Face the Nation and America's role also in terms of how we should be viewing these conflicts and what we should be trying to accomplish if we're going to wade in to these things?
[00:18:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, Bernie's comments, I think, again, in the hyper polarized nature of this topic.
I didn't think his comments were, I just thought they were like, all right down the middle. He said, from my understanding, we should strive for peace on both sides, blah, blah. I know that he discussed the potential of holding up some aid to Israel in terms of arms sales.
And his question, I guess was that let's just be sure that these arms that we're selling them are not going to be used as a way to an UN humanitarian way. Now I guess if we could extrapolate that out to 30,000ft. If you're selling arms to anybody, the idea is they're probably going to be used in human way.
[00:19:41] Speaker A: They're not used as ornamentation around.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: Exactly. The bombs aren't being used for potted plants type of thing just to give
[00:19:48] Speaker A: some meat to the bones. One of the things Bernie said was you have, and this is a quote, so you have a very difficult situation. You have Hamas, a terrorist group, you have a right wing Israeli government. And the situation is getting worse. All I'm saying is that the United States of America has got to be leading the world in bringing people together, not simply supplying weapons to kill children in Gaza. So that's kind of like a scale out of the approach he was advocating. The kind of view that he was trying to take of this, which is almost a departure in a sense that historically the United States has taken a very pro Israel view on everything. Just saying, like in a heroes and villains view, whatever Israel does is okay and we'll support that and so forth. So to see Sanders try to nuance this a bit was just, it was different, you know, it was just different than what in our, from our leadership that we've seen, by and large.
[00:20:43] Speaker B: But that's why this, that's why I, you know, this is a hand grenade, this topic for any politician. Because I mean, what he said, I mean is, is, is, is accurate on its face in terms of we would like to not have arms as the United States that we sell hurt any children in any country. Right. But then what you pointed to earlier is also reality, which is you got Hamas using tunnels that are under buildings, you know, residential buildings and all that to smuggle rockets to the hospitals. Yeah. To the border of Gaza or Israel to fire the rockets over. So at some point, you know, Israel is going to have to say, okay, well if these rockets are coming over, we need to, you know, go bomb the places they're at.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: But hold on, that understates it. It's not. At some point they're firing the rockets to get Israel to fire back.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: No, I know, but that's.
[00:21:31] Speaker A: That's why it's a provocation. That's how.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: Yeah, that's why it's a tough thing because, like, Bernie is saying something that we would like to aspire to, which is we would like to not have any munitions that are produced by the United States to hurt innocent people. But then that's the ugly side of this conflicts, which is, you know, when the, when the folks who are attacking and provoking you are doing it from, you know, the same thing happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. I remember when the Taliban would occupy a hospital or a mosque and the United States would have to make a choice, like, you know, do we go get these guys who've been killing our guys and shooting at us and disrupting this whole community, or do we not so that it doesn't appear that we're hurting innocent people or desecrating religious sites? And that's why there's no good answer here. And it's. And that's why I said one side is probably going to end up wiping out the other side to just make this stop, because it's just untenable, I think, to assume that this can continue forever without leading to that end.
[00:22:31] Speaker A: Well, let me add in, I think that you were really onto something with the whole comparison to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and so forth, or just any type of superhero type of story, because it does appear to me, though, that we do, like a lot of these issues are framed in a way to satisfy a need for many, not all, but a need for many to have a defined good guy and a defined bad guy in all of these situations. And so I think sometimes, like, we see labels applied and you and I will be like, well, why. Why did they call this person that? Or why did they call this person that? You know, calling somebody a Marxist or something like that. And it's like, well, but this isn't even about economics. Why are they talking about somebody being a Marxist? And. But what it is basically, is that's being. That's signaling to. To whoever's looking for, who should I like, who should I not like in this situation? People use labels that have been defined as negative to then cast others as negative. And so even here, though Bernie Sanders brings out, now he's using. We've talked about Bernie actually, in shows in the past that he's one of the last people, apparently, that uses these labels, truthfully, that, you know, he's the guy that calls himself a socialist because he's Saying, well, if you look at the way that I think that fire department should be funded by tax, and that makes it a socialist fire department or a socialist police department. And it's like, well, dude, man, nobody's looking at the word socialist like that when you're saying that. Like, so you're the last guy who's true to the labels, but he uses labels. He's throwing words out like that some in the Israeli government are racist and stuff like that, which is going to cause some friction because a lot of people think it's more of an offense to be called a racist than it is to be a racist. So Bernie also is pushing an envelope, so to speak, of, let's look at this from a human, from a humanity standpoint. But if you're looking at it from a humanity standpoint, that's almost in conflict with the heroes and villains approach, which is more pleasing to a lot of people just to be able to look at things and simplify it in that way. And so while I think that Sanders, his effort to do this, I commend it in the sense that you don't have to agree with what he's saying, but. But that he's trying to, as a leader, as part of our elected leadership, he's trying to expand our view of, okay, we cannot fall victim to this simplistic mindset. Like, we need to look at what's going on. And then, like he said, all I'm saying, quote, all I'm saying is the United States of America has got to be leading the world in bringing people together.
And that as an aim.
I thought that was a very, very, very strong, powerful, and commendable mission statement. If that's what we're trying to do, I think that that at least leads us in a direction where we can handle some of these nuance issues. And maybe the solution, so to speak, like I insinuated before, is that you have a political system that can deal with this stuff. Because if you don't have a political system that can deal with this stuff, one that has legitimacy to all sides, if you don't have that, if you take apart the political system, if you undermine the political system that is set up to make these decisions or to allow these decisions to be made, then you are walking into a situation where violence will be used to resolve these things. And so in our country, we see people actually trying to take apart the political system or undermine faith in the political system that's already in place. In this case, though, what we have is this political system has not been put in place in the first place that can deal with these grievances, that can deal with these issues that come up. So I don't think that somebody needs to be wiped out necessarily, but a political system. And so that may be what the United States of America needs to be trying to do is get people to the table and get people to, to whether that's each party on their own side first and then bringing them together. Because part of the issue we have here is that on each side there are different factions that aren't really aligned with one another and that aren't, that are kind of pulling away from each other. We see, we, like you pointed out with the, the Palestinians earlier between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, but being able to bring together and forge some type of political structures that could allow these issues to be, these grievances to be aired and acted on.
To me, that's the biggest fall apart here is that because there's nothing set up that people can use to deal with these issues, then the people end up paying with their lives with inhumane conditions because then violence happens and the violence ends up affecting the people more than anything.
[00:27:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, look, this is where you're going to get glass half empty tuned in.
[00:27:12] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's a sad day today.
No, because this is just, I mean, a couple things. One is like you said about the example of our ability to deal with certain things in our country. Well, that's the difference is we're one country. So as much as we have conflict, there is some sort of, you know, deep seated, I guess, feeling of Americans at least maintain some sort of cohesiveness as a unit. I mean, let's, let's say hopefully going forward.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: Fingers crossed.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: But. Yeah, but, but here you really have, what you have here is a hodgepodge of groups that were kind of just mashed together over time for different reasons. And that's the thing, that's, that's kind of sad about this whole thing is both the kind of, the kind of Jewish Israelis and the Arabs that occupied that area. That's what I mean. They were pawns in the, in the game of someone else. Meaning, you know, it's, it's, I've kind of thought of this. Well, you know, World War II, take away the Japanese, right. And the whole thing in the Pacific, but the European theater was all caused by the, was all caused by the, the Germans and the Nazis and what they did in general.
And the solution for that was let's go take this group of People who were basically the ones marginalized and oppressed and move them to a whole nother part of the world. And so that we can just start a con, you know, not start, but so there'll be conflict over there. Because we don't care. We just don't want to.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: It's a conflict over there. So there's not conflict.
[00:28:36] Speaker B: It's not our problem. And that's why it's funny how you kick the can down the road, in a sense, because then let's fast forward to just the last decade, right? Then we have the conflict in the Middle east and then you have this migration of the Arabs back into Europe, like into, you know what I mean? And that caused a whole unrest there.
And so it's just. That's why it's all. It's all people and it's all bs. But I know we want to wrap. One of the things I wanted to point out was just something you said which stuck out to me. I never thought of this before when you said about Hamas and how you've got Palestinian, like everyday people, they might not have supported sending in rockets to Israel, more so because they might be smart enough to understand that Israel will retaliate and it ain't going to be pretty.
But Hamas.
[00:29:22] Speaker A: But you keep saying that as if rockets weren't intended to make Israel retaliate.
[00:29:27] Speaker B: No, no.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: But I'm saying Hamas knew that. Hamas just didn't care. To your point, the Palestinian citizenry might have made a different calculation.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. Is there? Well, that's why I'm bringing it up. Go ahead. It reminds me of some of the stuff we've seen here in the last year. And I'm going to say I'm not making a false equivalency, but I will say the both sides thing here as an example.
You've got issues that people are passionate about in this country and let's say on the right and left. And what you made me feel like is Hamas is an interesting avatar for things like the Proud Boys or Antifa, meaning there's a lot of people on either sides of our arguments here in the United States that will go in the street and protest peacefully. And they want to have a message out. They want to be heard, whether it's the BLM folks from, you know, about the social injustice or maybe some of the people on the right that feel like their country's going away from them and all that. They'll show up in the street and they're not going to do violence, but then you've got the small factions that end up throwing the rockets over to be provocative. Right. And then knowing that there's going to be a strong retaliation and that the media may report it a certain way and it muddies the water.
It muddies the water from the narrative that those who are genuine about wanting to bring a solution have. And so that's my point of saying. It reminded me, as you said, that I was like, you know, there's obviously Palestinians in the occupied territories that I'm sure see this as a bad move to throw rockets. Over to your point about the, you know, it's only going to cause retaliation and all that. And we'd like to try and handle this differently. And that's why it was interesting when we're talking about their own political issues where their own leadership won't let them have elections because, you know, maybe somebody does want to try a little bit of different level of diplomacy, and that's not welcome by some. And that's what I mean by like, and I'll pick on the proud boys faction here, is that there may be others on the right who want a different level of diplomacy and goes back to our conversation about like a Liz Cheney type, but they're getting drowned out by the more aggressive factions who want to start the fireworks. So that's all. That's all. My, my point was.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: No, no, I get it, man. Well, tell me this and I guess I'll jump in briefly and then let you respond.
It was an interesting point to me as well that we saw Palestinians invoke some of the blm, some of the Black Lives Matter type of language or just phrases, slogans, things like that, and kind of approach.
Now, again, not Hamas, not that segment, you know, like you said, minor smaller segment who are on the violent end, but there's also a large nonviolent segment as well that wants justice. And they were trying to adopt and use and hat tip to the Black Lives Matter movement. And there's been some reciprocal push towards, again, not Hamas, you know, but the nonviolent aspect. And so there was an interesting BLM tie in from that standpoint, which I can see from the standpoint of human dignity. I think that to analyze this issue, to view this issue, you have to be able to separate out the extremist actor from the ordinary regular citizenry, from the bulk of the people. And that goes in America and in the Middle east. In the Palestinian areas, there are extremists and there are a few, but they are the loudest Oftentimes they are the. Because their tactics are more extreme, they get more attention.
But to understand issues, oftentimes the extremists are really the noise in many cases. Now the extremists sometimes are empowered. As I've noted before, when a system doesn't set up a way for the non extremists to actually influence what's going on, that empowers the extremists.
So looking at this just from a humanity standpoint though, if the goal is human dignity, then yeah, I do see the tie in or the overlap between what BLM has been pushing for treat us with human dignity versus what the Palestinian, the nonviolent Palestinian movement that exists saying, hey, like don't beat us in the streets, don't, you know, do, don't treat us poorly because of Hamas or whatever the justification is, because you want to take over this neighborhood or whatever it is. And so one thing I would point out with that though is that contrary to what people may be led to believe, like in right wing media, like there is no present day, there is no real substantial Hamas equivalent in Black Lives Matter, you know, like now there have been groups in the past that use rhetoric like, like that and that may have wanted to or try to, to go about that in a more violent approach, but ultimately the non violent approach is what took hold. If you go back to the civil rights movement and that has demonstrated to be effective in bringing change. Now it's not necessarily bringing change on the time frame that people want or a time frame that is reasonable in many instances, but, but it has brought change. We're in a different country now than we were in 1950, and that actually is a credit to the American system. Again, I keep saying if the political system allows for change, allows for grievances to be aired and addressed without violence, that keeps down violence. If you want to get rid of the violence, you need to have a political system that allows for nonviolent stuff to be effective. And obviously if the cause is one related to human dignity, for sure.
So that was kind of my take on that tie in with the Black Lives Matter. I mean, again, I don't think it's 100% equal because there's noise everywhere. But the push for human dignity to treat people as human beings is one that you can find all over the world. And so you put a name to it here, put a name to it there, or something like that, but it's going to be where you find humans. You're going to find cruelty and you're going to find people pushing against it for dignity.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: No, you're right. And that brings me to a couple of examples. I was thinking, I wrote down here, as you said that because again, people might say, okay, what's he talking about?
And this human dignity stuff and all that. And you're right, it reminds me of that term also that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. And as I get older, I realize that that term is very true because it's just the lens you're looking at someone from. So I thought of, you know, when I learned that Ho Chi Minh, who led the North Vietnamese, he actually revered our founding fathers in the United States because he looked at his plight against the French colonists.
He used George Washington, Thomas Jefferson's, their writings as inspiration because he looked at throwing off the French the way that we threw off the British.
Then you've got examples, like you said, about the nonviolent movements, Martin Luther King revering Gandhi and taking the example that Gandhi had set in the 40s dealing with the British to deal with the Americans a generation later in terms of the oppression that was felt at that time. And then I was even thinking, the modern times, we talk about a lot of these from a certain lens of struggle. But I thought about in the last decade or two, the American conservative right finding comfort with the far right in Russia and other Eastern and even some Western European countries because, you know, they feel, for whatever reason, that they culturally are aligned with each other at this point in time.
So I can see the media making a big deal about BLM and maybe the Palestinians finding some common area.
But I think, like you're saying that's more for ratings and to try and.
[00:37:31] Speaker A: Just because they want to equate the Palestinians with Hamas like that in the media, it's more of a compelling story if Hamas is not the Proud Boys, but rather if Hamas is all of the Palestinians, essentially. And so therefore, then you can justify denying them human dignity. Because it's like, you guys are.
You guys are terrorists.
[00:37:54] Speaker B: You know, you guys, the example I gave you about domestically, right? Like, that's the same thing that happens here when we talk about the justice system and all these police things that have happened the last few years, which is then people who don't want to get into nuance and don't want to learn the whys, right? They'll say the same thing. Oh, well, there was protests in the street and BLM and Antifa, they're all just destroying stuff. And that's why, you know, none of this, you know, none of this is justified. And all these, the protests and all that. And that's why, that's. I mean, it's funny that I guess we're. We're. We're unpacking why both sides may have seen some solidarity and solidarity in this recent moment, because both sides have.
[00:38:36] Speaker A: And both sides. What do you mean?
[00:38:37] Speaker B: Meaning the Palestinian activists, not Hamas and the BLM folks. Right.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:38:44] Speaker B: And not. And not maybe the more aggressive militant people on the BLM side. The people that want to just bring justice to, you know, and human dignity to certain groups.
And I think that for those who don't want to believe in that or that want to find reasons to disparage each side of that equation, they'll then tie in those who might be peaceful in Palestine with a Hamas, and they might.
[00:39:09] Speaker A: Yeah, you make the 1 represent the 99 because you want to dismiss the 99.
[00:39:15] Speaker B: And that's what I'm saying. So that's why. It's just, you know, that's why I make the point about Martin Luther King and Gandhi or Ho Chi Minh and the Founding Father, meaning others have found inspiration in the past from people before them that took on causes of freedom and these type of crusades. It's just that depending on what side of the fence you're on, when it happens, you either look at them as a terrorist or the freedom fighter, depending on.
[00:39:38] Speaker A: And the level of nuance that you care to look at it with as well. You know, like, if you want to look at it in a way where you want to disregard or dismiss the effort, the underlying effort, then you will want to conflate the underlying effort with the people who go too far. And so that's kind of just allows people to deal with these issues in a way that makes them feel comfortable. And so. But ultimately, if we choose, if we want to do better, we oftentimes will have to look at issues in ways that aren't just easy to digest and aren't just comfortable. So, you know, we could take a look at this and kind of unpack those things. I mean, ultimately, as you said, this is. These are fraught issues. These are difficult conversations. You're trying to parse out things from afar and figure out ultimately who's justified here, who's not justified there, and then really where a solution could happen, which in this case is just very difficult. Anything we found that is based in religion and differences in religion, we have 6,000 years of human history showing us that that's just going to be very difficult to manage. You know, and if not more, I mean, I'm talking recorded history at that. So I think we can move on to the next topic though, which is one that was. Is going to be difficult for me to discuss.
I was actually reading about this as I was trying to eat the other day and it made it difficult for me to eat, you know, which is
[00:41:03] Speaker B: like, oh man, then I'm going to
[00:41:04] Speaker A: have trouble in the future. But there's been a lot of writing lately and motion.
The essentially it's known that the production of meat, particularly beef, but there are other animal production or the other production of animals that causes environmental problems as well. But production of beef is very taxing on the environment.
And so the question being, well, you know, we're used to eating beef, we're used to eating chicken and stuff like that. But if this stuff is messing up the environment or us doing it in a way that allows everybody to eat so much of it is so is very bad for the environment going to make the earth as less habitable. You know, that obviously would be a problem.
Then we need to figure out other stuff. And so there's people plant based things and all that. But a solution that people are proposing and this isn't new, but just on a wide scale would be to eat insects. And if there's all these edible insects that we can eat and it gives us plenty of protein and everything like that. And like I said, this is just difficult.
I haven't got past the yuck factor yet. I mean intellectually I can get it like, oh, okay, yeah, there's bugs everywhere. Bugs hatch and grow very quickly and then, you know, they reach maturity very quickly and they, you know, their life cycle's so short and so quick, but ugh, I don't know that I can get excited about this. Maybe this is something that's like a generational thing. Like we'll just. Eventually generations will have to start teaching their young ones to eat it and then, you know, it'll just become second nature. But I don't know, I just have a hard time with it. I feel like I'm getting a little bit of a cold sweat right now as we're talking. So today you take it, man. What are you thinking about eating insects?
[00:42:40] Speaker B: Man, I am definitely. This reminds me of like the people that like the gas guzzling, loud trucks and they, they don't want to switch to electric.
I feel like that guy now.
Because you're right. I mean when you said generational and all that, I.
[00:42:57] Speaker A: You're right.
[00:42:57] Speaker B: I'm thinking Everything you said is. Is accurate. And it's interesting to even think about it. Right. Intellectually, I mean, this is the emotional pull. Right. Intellectually, we understand that everything that we're reading in these articles about how there's protein in insects that, you know, the way that we deal with everything from the deforestation to make more room, you know, make more land out there available for cattle grazing, which messes up our, you know, the oxygen and the ability to suck up CO2 because you got less trees and what they're doing in the. In clearing land in the rainforest in the Amazon for more cattle in Brazil. You know, the amount of methane gas coming out of the cow's backsides when there's millions of cows out there, that's worse than CO2. All that stuff I understand electrically, but just like you said, the yuck factor, I just can't even bug.
[00:43:51] Speaker A: I haven't got past it yet.
[00:43:52] Speaker B: But it's interesting.
[00:43:54] Speaker A: I'll try eventually.
[00:43:56] Speaker B: Yeah. No, I learned a lot, though, in meeting up for this.
It was interesting to me to learn that there's 2 billion people out of the 8 billion plus we have that eat insects regularly. Like, that's part of their daily kind of situation. Yeah.
[00:44:09] Speaker A: Like, the eating meat like we do is a relatively new phenomenon. Like, people didn't eat meat like that throughout history. Like it was a luxury, more or less, to eat meat. You know, it's something that you do it like your Sunday Best type of thing or, you know, more or less. But it would be a lot of plants, a lot of indigenous tribes that eat vegetables being a staple. But it's just like, we didn't grow up like that.
So it's hard.
[00:44:35] Speaker B: Nah, it's just it like, just learning, you know, One cow produces 500 pounds of beef. And at the rate that Americans eat beef, they're saying that it would take eight and a half years for one person to eat one cow. And I'm thinking, man, that seems like a long time because I feel like 500 pounds of meat. I think we. Each of us consumes that in less than eight and a half years, but.
[00:44:56] Speaker A: Well, they're not talking about that. If it was Tunde, Ogon, Lana. Yeah, it might only take.
[00:45:00] Speaker B: I'll get through that in about a year.
And, you know, about 15% of all global greenhouse gas emissions come from livestock.
And then the amount of fresh water that is kind of used to just produce one pound of meat between the washing and the feeding. And so just like, you just realize that when we talk about eating meat Again, and me included, we just think about the hamburger that's going in your mouth, but you don't think about the whole supply chain and everything it takes to get there. The deforestation, the fresh water usage, you know, the. The methane gas for so to speak. And it's just like, wow, okay, so this.
[00:45:38] Speaker A: And then.
[00:45:39] Speaker B: And then also the health effects. Because there is something to be said that we've been exporting our unhealthy culture of, with and relationship with food to the rest of the world. I mean, I remember when I lived in Australia in the 90s, literally, you'd be in a big city like Sydney with millions of people, you would not see one obese person. I remember going back in 2006 and I started seeing people that were just obese. And then when I went back in 2015, it was more. And then. But what did I see more of is I saw a bunch of American fast food chains and franchises and all that. So what happened is we're exporting the fried food and the burgers and all that, and the rest of the world's health is declining. I don't want to blame us. Like, it's all big bad America's fault. But it's this idea that the way that we consume meat, whether beef or poultry in the world, and the. And the need to rapidly grow the food through hormones, the way that we
[00:46:39] Speaker A: produce it and then consume it, I think. Yeah.
[00:46:41] Speaker B: And then the antibiotics is unhealthy. So, I mean, insects can be. That's what it was. Interesting reading it. It's gross. I mean, totally gross to think about for us. But when you think about it, they were saying, like, the way you grow insects, that's what they were saying. Like you pack chickens and cows together, that's a lot of health issues and the diseases spread and all that. They were saying that insects thrive when you pack them together.
[00:47:03] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what they like.
[00:47:04] Speaker B: Yeah. So the idea of, you know, and they were shown as kind of cool, like almost like a library, but of bugs, like, it's trays that, you know, that you could have, like an office building and basically you could house billions of insects in there and just constantly be growing them to have them, you know, culled for food. And then they were even talking about using the waste.
They had some name for it, but the, but the droplets and the, you know, the excrement of the bugs, that has its own usage. It can be used for fertilizer and other things. And I was just like, this is interesting. So you're Right. I think it's something that'll probably need to happen for sustainability reasons. And if we're going to have, you know, get to 10, 15 billion humans, I'm sure that, you know, we can't produce enough meat or there won't be enough land to produce all that meat and all that. But to your point is gross and you know, definitely.
[00:47:55] Speaker A: Well, let me throw something at you.
[00:47:56] Speaker B: I'll die with a burger in my hand.
[00:47:59] Speaker A: Well, let me throw something at you because this is uncomfortable for me. I've had this thought for a few years, but I don't give it. I don't let it go too far in my brain, but I want to at least say it out loud.
Do you look at bugs on land as analogous to shellfish in the ocean? Because I always wonder that, like, are shellfish an equivalent to bugs in the sense you got an exoskeleton and then the material inside and so forth.
And if that's the case, would insects become more appetizing if you can kind of conceive them in that way, you know? Now granted, I don't know if you're eating a grasshopper, I don't know if that's the same as eating a soft shell crab, but just, you know, like, because I love shellfish, you know, So
[00:48:46] Speaker B: I don't know if that may help you out here, bro. Yeah, I know. I'm gonna help you out. First of all, you think way too much.
That's the first thing I just realized with my friend here. You got way too much time on your hands. Just realize that now. Yeah, I gotta call your wife, dude. You got way too much time. Time with your hands. We got it. We got to get you doing some more chores around the house or something.
And so, and, and so. But no, I mean, you're right. Is it, is it nice crab or, or you know, getting some nice king crab legs or nice lobster, the same as a grasshopper and all that? No. So let me just answer that.
So that's it? That's all you got to know.
[00:49:25] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you for, for clearing that up
[00:49:28] Speaker B: so we don't have to go too much further.
All right. All right. I'm not gonna wanna dip that grasshopper in butter.
I will enjoy the lobster tail, you know.
[00:49:37] Speaker A: No, I appreciate your certainty, man. You made me feel a lot better. Now I know I can, at least
[00:49:42] Speaker B: in this generation, ask my grandkids. One day maybe they'll tell you something different. But like I said, I will be the guy driving the 10 cylinder Humvee. Protesting the electric vehicle market as relates to this topic.
[00:49:56] Speaker A: He's gonna show up at the protest with burger in hand?
[00:49:58] Speaker B: Yeah, big time.
[00:50:00] Speaker A: All right, well, no, I think we could close it up from there, man. But no, I mean, you know what?
[00:50:04] Speaker B: If I want to be a good guy, if I want to be a good guy, I'll show up with, like, a meatless burger. How about that? I'll make that compromise, but it'll just be made of, like, beans and shit.
[00:50:13] Speaker A: Hey, man, no half stepping, man.
[00:50:15] Speaker B: No, yeah, it won't be insects. It'll be, like, beans and, you know, some sprouts and stuff like that, so.
[00:50:21] Speaker A: Well, no, close this one on that, though, man. Like I said, I will rest. I will sleep easier tonight. Now that you've cleared up for me that I should not make that analogy in my head anymore. That it's. It's false, it's wrong, it's no good. So I appreciate that. Your. Your services are very much appreciated, you know, but it's definitely interesting thought and, you know, like, these are the kind of conversations we have to have with ourselves and, you know, with societies just as we continue to grow, you know, we got problems that are going to keep coming up that we'll have to solve. And, you know, that's just part of life. I mean, that's. That's how you are in the household. That's how you are in a society. You're in a village, in a society, whatever. So we appreciate everybody for joining us, and until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:51:02] Speaker B: I'm Tunde Online.
[00:51:03] Speaker A: All right, subscribe, rate, review, and we'll talk to you next.
