Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Hello, welcome to the Call It Like I See it podcast. I'm James Keys, and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to take a look at some of the recent conversations people have been having about the 1972 book the Limits to Growth and consider what its prediction, a 50 year old prediction at this point of an impending collapse of civilization due to our culture's unsustainable approach to growth looks like as we stand 50 years out from when it was published. And later on, we're going to discuss the seemingly forgotten southbound underground railroad, southbound one that went south, which was used by enslaved Americans in the 1800s to escape to freedom in Mexico.
Joining me today is a man who is a product of his environment and who also creates products from his environment. Tunde Ogonlana. Tunde, are you ready to show the people your Ogonlana motivation?
[00:01:15] Speaker A: Yes, sir.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: All right. All right, now we're recording this. On July 18, 2022 and 50 years ago, the Club of Rome, an international organization of intellectuals, which I know sounds incredibly exciting, published a book called the Limits to Growth. Now, this book was popular, it sold millions of copies, but it was also very controversial and probably those two being related and civic in part because it warned that one, it ran a bunch of simulations with like primitive computer models and stuff like this. And it ran a bunch of simulations and in most of the simulations that it ran, it would see a collapse in civilization in the near future, like in the mid 21st century or thereabouts, due to things like our forever increasing population, our forever increasing use of finite natural resources and forever increasing pollution on the planet. And recently people, or recently people have been looking back at something like this 50 years later and there's been, you know, they found that there's a lot to consider as far as where the report may have been on to something and where it may have missed the mark.
So to get us started, Tunde, what are your thoughts on the conversations many are having now about the limits to growth and on its 50 year anniversary and what do you think of its predictions 50 years out? Are we at risk of a collapse of civilization here?
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Man, you're throwing a lot at me in that intro when you said that I create products for my environment. I guess for this talk we got to hope that they're sustainable products, right?
[00:02:51] Speaker B: Yes, we do. Yes, we do.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: No, I. It's interesting because I remember we had a show where we were talking about the environment in the last year or two years ago, and you made a comment it was a quick smart ass comment or I think you were like I said something about, you know, well, you know, we're not going to be okay or something or the Earth's going to be hurting. And he stopped me and you're like, well the Earth's going to be okay no matter what happens. It's just. Will humans be able to survive in the, you know, the conditions that the Earth's in? Yeah, I think that's, I thought about your joke there as, as, as you were asking me that question. You know, this is the 50th anniversary of the release of that book and you know, clearly the trajectory of things is that there's more pollution in our environment primarily due to a huge, huge increase in the population. More than doubled since 1972. I think we had maybe around three to three and a half billion people in 1972 and we're rough estimates are somewhere around eight and a half billion today. So as, and this is where I say this not in a sinister way, right? And it's not a conspiratorial thing. It's just that the way that we organize our large societies in this global situation, that's why I'm not picking on just one country is we, we have embraced a consumption style of economic activity. So the, if you just like the.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: It'S like the prevailing approach, so to speak. Like there, there's been a lot of different approaches throughout the history of man, but like the prevailing approach that is kind of accepted in large parts of the world and you know, and it has a disproportionate impact in the places that it's been accepted is very consumption based and just the book is called the Limits to Growth and the kind of prevailing approach is all about unrestrained growth.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: Yeah, and that's what I'm saying because that's why I say, I don't mean to say this in a sinister or a conspiratorial way. Like there's the guys in the smoke filled rooms making all these plans and it's because I think there's always kind of various sides of an argument, right? And there's people that don't care about this stuff and they'll argue with you why it's not important and there's people that think that this is the only thing we should be worrying about as a society right now. And why it's the, you know, you have to pay attention to this, right? And then there's everyone else in between. And so my point is saying that all of those Sides of those arguments will have some sort of, you know, some people on these sides will think of it as, you know, good and evil, black or white, like, you know.
And what I'm saying is if you just listen to what I said, In 50 years you go from three and a half billion humans to eight and a half billion in a consumption style situation, it's gonna just naturally create more pollution and trash and all that kind of stuff around the earth. And that's why I'm not even gonna get to anything like climate change or anything like that. I'm just talking about straight pollution at this point.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: But I still think you can tie climate change to pollution like climate change.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: I'm just making the point that, not even to get into that conversation at this point, if we just stuck it on pollution, it's understandable that when you more than double the amount of humans and we're in a society that consumes things, that there's going to be a byproduct which is called trash and pollutants and other things. I mean, let me take a simple.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: Thing, let me take a step back because I think the way they set this up actually I think allows it to scale relatively easily. Easily because they looked at five variables. Population, food production, industrial production, natural resources and like particularly consuming the natural resources from a usable to an unusable state. And then pollution. And I think if you use those more as headings as opposed to like those are like the top line. And then there's a lot, a lot of different things that factor in under population and population growth. There's a lot of different things that factor in under food production and then pollution. Like in this case, like they didn't specifically contemplate climate change. But if climate change is driven in large part by emissions, which are a form of pollution, then it's something. And also I guess it also comes into food production where the cows are producing, you know, greenhouse gases or whatever, like that type. That's one of the. I would look at that as one of the effects of these five variables. Like that's. And that's how the world would change, so to speak. Like if you have a pandemic that doesn't, that's not accounted for expressly on one of these five variables. But I would say it fits in under several of them where it's because of the population, it's because potentially of the food production, if we're having. And disease jumping from animals to people and so forth. And so. And in pollution, you know, it could be, you Know, people's immune systems may be weaker or something like that. And so I think actually the design from that standpoint allows this to stand up over time a little bit. And then if you look to the conclusion, it becomes very concerning because it's like, okay, well, the overall premise being is probably not that controversial. Like, hey, if we're going to use things up and continually increase our footprint on a planet of a X amount of size, then at a certain point we're going to run up against the limits of the size planet for our footprint. And so, and I think at its core that's really what it's talking about. Whether you get into the predictions of what it specifically said, how it's going to happen or anything like that, it's kind of for show. But to me the biggest, like the, just the fundamental thing is saying, okay, well it's consuming and things are being consumed and we have X amount, you know, and it may be, we may have more and we do have more of certain things than they thought they had then and we have better at extracting them or things like that, but it's still finite. Nobody's saying that this stuff is infinite. You know, like we're just going to keep pulling stuff out and it'll just keep magically reappearing. So to me, that actually like on a, on just a higher level, looking at what they did, it actually you could consider almost a little boring. It's like, oh yeah, you have X amount of oil, you're eventually going to run out if you keep using more and more of it. Duh, you know what I'm saying? So that, but that I, I like to look at it at that more abstract level, at least to start. But go ahead. I don't want to break.
[00:09:02] Speaker A: I think that it's, it's, it's interesting because in, when we think about these things, it's always in. I mean, I shouldn't say always. A lot of times it's this either or you either got to be for this or for that. And a lot of things unfortunately have become political. Right? And in our country, I don't know about other nations, but the topic of the environment and protecting the environment is now political.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: So let me, let me actually say one other thing with that because actually we say political, but I think that's more of a shorthand because things can be political and not be something that people are unwilling to look at any alternative. I think the problem is that it's become part of people's political identity. It's Become part of people's identity in that they are defining themselves by these stances. And it's like, well, there's. If it's part of your identity, then if somebody says that's a bad idea, they're attacking your identity. They're attacking how you identify yourself. And so it leaves the realm of discussion even because you're just. You might as well be insulting someone like, hey, we should pollute less. Is like insulting somebody who's made part of their identity that we shouldn't care about this kind of stuff, but go ahead.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's where in our society we see it, the disconnect between. You know, I would say there's a lot of outdoorsmen who really love the outdoors.
They generally support the idea of conservation, but then their politics lead them to support people that will not make this a priority to keep those areas clean. And so it's just an interesting. Like you're saying, values conversation. But not to digress too far off this one, the reason I bring that up is because that's what makes this very difficult to attack. If you look at. Let's just go there then, for this conversation, which is, as the United States, we're the world's largest economy.
We also have the world's largest output of pollution.
The thing is that if we look at it that way, I think it's about. We have 5% of the world's population, but have about 25% of the world's fossil fuel emissions. And I hear excuses as to why we shouldn't really put any serious effort into clean air and all that. I know that there is effort in that, but meaning more effort is because of countries like China.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: It shouldn't stand in the way of growth.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: Yeah, well, no, just this idea of competition. Well, China and India are going to keep doing coal and this and that. The point I have is, first of all, leadership's important, so someone needs to step up and be the leader. And the world's biggest economy should be able to do that. And the second thing is, all right, so what? They still produce so much less pollutants than we do because of the size of our economy. So that stuff does matter, but it's an excuse.
[00:11:55] Speaker B: To me and to your point about the leadership piece, if we're the best, let's show everybody that it's doable.
It's really kind of a punk way to look at it. Like, oh, well, they're still gonna be doing it if we stop, it's like, hold up. We say we're the big boy on the. Then let's show everybody else that you can do this.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: That would be like abdicating the space race in the early 60s because the Russians already got Sputnik up there.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: So if Kennedy was like, well, I was in a meeting and they told me that we could go to the moon by the end of the year. But why should we do it? The Russians already beat us to this.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: They already beat us. Let's just put our hands in our pockets and do that.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: But my point is saying that. Because the problem that I also realized, too, is again, when I say that not all this stuff is sinister. Like, I'm a big railer against plastic, for example. As much as I gotta recognize that I use a bunch of plastic in my life. And I think I was joking with you on a conversation privately about how now when I buy my tea bags, right, that they're individually wrapped in plastic for some reason. Not even like just the boxes wrapped in plastic. Each tea bag is in plastic. So I gotta take it out of the plant and throw the plastic out. Never gonna be used again, and end up somewhere in a landfill.
I recognize also the importance of some of that stuff when you have these huge populations, because of what we just went through, let's say, with COVID right, The sterilization is important.
Being able to transport food and make sure it doesn't get bacteria and all that's important. So in some way, we are, by expanding our population so much, it almost creates a need to have more of this plastic and some of that stuff, too. So we're in a bit of a cycle of that. It is unsustainable.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Well, I think that's by design, though. I mean, like, once you keep expanding the population, that's growth. That's more consumers. That's more like things that you need to move around or things you gotta deliver places and so forth. So I think that goes hand in hand. That's why, for example, population, industrial production are two of the variables they look at. And then it ultimately results in the pollution and I guess the natural resources, because you're getting the plastic is coming from, you know, petrochemicals type of stuff. But I think my initial reaction, though, to both the book and then kind of how people are going back and look at it, though, is just looking at how I think it had, like, a religious feel to it. Like, it kind of like you. And not in the sense. Obviously, this is intellectuals doing it. They're not trying to come at it from a faith standpoint, but Just it seems like the way that when you're trying to get people's attention on a large scale, there's just certain triggers that everybody's going to pull. And one of them is like collapse of society or Armageddon or things like that. It seems to be a sure way to try to get people's attention because the way they discuss collapse of civilization or the way it's kind of presented is I think it lacks a little context because and I mentioned to you this before we even got on today was just like change is always inevitable. And so society as it exists now is, you can view something as a collapse or you can view it as a, as progress, so to speak. Like there was an agrarian kind of society that existed for thousands of years. And you can argue that that collapsed with the Industrial revolution. Like it just, we didn't go back to that. Like it wasn't going to be people spread out by and large and growing their own food and stuff like that. Like it was a collapse of that societal organization structure. And then the Industrial revolution, kind of what was created by that really collapsed in large part in our lifetimes and just before in the last, like let's say 60 years, which is greater than our lifespan. But just in general, you and I, but in general, like where you have all these factory jobs and all these people that show up and pull levers and stuff or whatever, unskilled labor, making good decent money and things like that, that collapsed and automation and all the stuff with tech and stuff. And so we don't look at those as collapses necessarily because what replaced them was something that was arguably now it may, you know, like on scale, if we look at this on 100 or 200 or 500 year scale, it may not have been. Been better, but it felt at least in the time better or a better conduit for growth if that's going to be our religion, so to speak, from economic standpoint. And so to me, I think the implied thing here is that it's going to change for the worse. And I think that's, you know, they're using the term collapse and like the draconian doomsday type of thing. But it's possible that the change could force us. And that's where ultimately where I get to the change that will create will force us to do better. Because that's the other thing is that ultimately the problem here is that, that they seem to be pointing to is that we're not even trying to do better. Like we're kind of content on this path of just more, more, more, more, more.
[00:16:52] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I think, you know, history has shown that, look, people don't like change and people usually don't change until they're forced to. And that's what my concern is, is like we've been railing it the last couple weeks actually random on random shows about things like the southwest United States going through extreme drought conditions, the drying up of Lake Mead. You know, people aren't paying attention to it, but when it comes to, yeah.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: That seems like a really big deal.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: Yeah, when the Hoover Dam stops producing electricity, they're going to pay attention and it's going to be really painful at that point instead of us having the foresight of infrastructure planning. And again, this is, I'm going beyond even things like climate change with this comment because if you think about it, the Hoover dam is almost 100 years old. Climate change isn't, I mean, meaning human influence. Part of climate change isn't the only reason why you have droughts and why lakes dry up. And we talked about, you know, recently that Lake Chad in Africa having dried up over, you know, a thousand years ago. So the point is, is that at some point the Hoover Dam might dry up anyway, just because if there's no such thing as human induced climate change just because of the way the earth might have, you know, patterns might have changed. So we should be constantly thinking about what would happen if, and like I said on a previous show about one simple answer. Because we already have the technology to move large amounts, millions of gallons a day of liquid through big pipelines that stretch thousands of miles. Because we do it all the time in this world with oil. We had the Keystone pipeline, which is the big one that everyone has heard about over recent years. We have the Nord Stream 2 in Europe. That's the thing between Russia and the Germans with the gas and the oil pipelines. So if you can run, I would say combustible liquids through pipes over thousands of miles safely, then why can't we run water from the Gulf of Mexico, from the Pacific Ocean into this, this, this, this, this, this lake to fill it back up? However, you're not going to do it in time now because no one started building it yet. They should have been thinking about this 10 years ago. And that's what I'm saying is whether.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: That'S the solution or whether it's something else. But your point being that nobody's trying to like, hey, this thing's 100 years old. Are we just assuming it' go forever?
[00:19:06] Speaker A: Exactly.
And that's what I'm saying is like, and that's what I think that is one of my concerns is that we are so self centered as individuals naturally by the way, we're wired number one. So I'm not pointing fingers, I fall into that category myself. But number two, because of our ecosystems and the way that we become so compartmentalized, we're all staring at these little screens, whether it's our phone, our iPad or the TV that has us all roped into this world of stress and BS that we think is so important. And so, and that's what I joke about, right? Think about it. We talked recently. The new study that came out 80% of the year end tested in the United States has traces of Roundup, the cancerous Roundup weed killer, the poison. Because even if you're eating organic food, they still use the same pesticides on those in the farm. So you can't not have this stuff in your system no matter how much you're trying to avoid this stuff.
[00:20:05] Speaker B: I mean 20% of the people don't. But I mean I don't think, I think the organic food allows you to avoid it. But nobody eat. Like if you go out to eat that's not organic and then you do have the cross contamination when it goes up into the air.
[00:20:17] Speaker A: My point James, is saying that that seems to be pretty important stuff. But we had most of this country, you know, in the last two years focus on having nanobots and 5G somehow injected in a vaccine. That's all I'm saying is that people's focus of what they feel is important don't seem to be the things that actually are important to the greater survival of our system and ourselves. And that's to me a concern.
[00:20:44] Speaker B: Well it should be a concern in the sense that this is what stood out to me actually in reading kind of things just in this sphere is we tend to like to swim upstream like and we don't tend to try to create living conditions that are at least anymore. I'm sure people did this, you know, a thousand, two thousand years ago, but right now like we're fine living by the millions in deserts and places where there may not be access to real, to really to fresh water unless you bring it thousands of miles or hundreds of miles and so forth. And all of those types of things, we don't give much thought to it. And all those types of things. Like if you're talking about a collapse, if you're talking about a major change, that's the kind of thing where I could See, us having that type of approach to living is something that people would have, that would change, that would collapse. Like, hey, we can't just live in large numbers. At least you have a couple of people that can maybe do it on their own, but in large numbers. We can't just live in places that, where people really can't survive that easily. And so right now we're so divorced from whether or not the areas that we're trying to inhabit are relatively habitable. And so it creates so much strain to move things around. You got to bring, move, move food or water. I mean, you're going to move food a little bit because people like variety. But. And that may even be the kind of convenience that is no longer available as much if we have the quote, unquote collapse or some kind of a change, like change is going to happen. Like the what? Again, going back to the fundamental point here, the way we're doing things is going on a path that is not even really meant to prevail. You know, like, it's not. It's something that you go basically, until we're basically in a car and we filled up the tank and then we're just going to drive until the tank runs out, you know, and then after the tank runs out, we'll just figure out what to do next. At least the trajectory we're on now. Now things like this are like, hey, maybe we should try to figure out what to do, or maybe we could figure out something, the tank runs out so we don't get stranded, stuck, and then have to figure out something once the tank runs out.
[00:22:53] Speaker A: And Louise.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: Well, let me say people just don't seem to work like that. Like, people seem to need the hard stop in order to move on. And I'll say the only difference you could see, if you wanted to look at this more positively, it has to be either environmental conditions that will change, which is kind of like what they're talking about. Like the environment will no longer support us in the way that we're trying to live. Or it could be market conditions now. Market conditions. What brought about the industrial revolution wasn't the environment changing. It was the market conditions. It was, there was a, it was money making to go that direction, you know, or same thing with the tech revolution. So if you want to do that, you'd have to do it from a regulatory standpoint and you'd have to make it so that it was made monetary sense from a regulatory standpoint to do things that were more sustainable. And that's the kind of thing, like you said, based on what people are focused on, we don't have the will to do stuff like that at this time, at least.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: And I was going to joke and say, you got me thinking of Thelma and Louise, that famous scene at the end where they're driving off the cliff. And I'm just wondering, like, we're like them and hoping that the gas runs out before we get to the cliff. But I get the feeling there'll be enough inertia that the car is still going to just go off.
But anyway, no, it's, it's, it's because as you're talking, it makes me think. Because what I'm thinking of is I shared this with you that the news piece I saw recently in the last week about the unfortunate thing with, you know, Susan, they were showing in Sudan, the country suffering a big drought, but because of the war in Ukraine and the inability to export the grain, that they're having more people starve to death than normal because they, they rely on the UN United nations grain, you know, food grain program.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:30] Speaker A: And long story short, of course it's sad watching these moms buried their babies and all that, but it's kind of to your point, right? Like, number one, and this is going to maybe sound crueler than I intended, should people even be living, should human beings be living in that, those regions of the world anymore, like, that are straight arid deserts, like, yeah, like, should we. And now this.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: And it does sound bad, by the way. Like you're saying, like, oh, well, you know, this is ancestral and stuff like that. But it's like, well, I mean, that's, that's road to hoe, man.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Well, that's what I'm saying. We'd have to bring up another way of accepting how we deal with ourselves as humans. Because think about it. The idea of forced migration, when you look back historically, has never gone well, never been received well. Right. Like no group has been for, like, think about the Trail of Tears or any of these stories we hear about forced people.
[00:25:17] Speaker B: Even voluntary migration is usually met with a bunch of resistance when people get to a new spot.
[00:25:22] Speaker A: Exactly. So we got to say, okay, so what do you do? Do you force these people out of there for the better of humanity, or do you let them sit there and just die? So those are all questions that we could all, you know, pine on. Right.
[00:25:33] Speaker B: But again, or you could open, say, oh, you'll open up your doors and let them come to you. But then you got half of your people in your country trying to, you know, make their life miserable. So it's like. No, I know.
[00:25:42] Speaker A: That's what I mean. It's like I always joke and say Europeans were so anti Semitic that after the Second World War, they couldn't even find one little piece of land in Europe for the European Jews. They had to get them totally out of the continent and send them to the Middle east, which created another, you know, 60, 70 years of problems now between the Arabs and the Israelis. So you're right, 100%, that there's no easy way to deal with stuff like moving large blocks of people. And what I'm getting at, too, is what I just said about Ukraine and Russia and the grain. One of the things that I think the recent pandemic has taught us is one of the areas of risk that I don't know if it was in the study or not, but for, like the collapse of us, of our civilization, if you want to be that dramatic about it could be something like what we're seeing kind of now, right?
30% of the world's grain production of wheat comes from two countries.
And then meaning Russia and Ukraine. But then Russia is the number one exporter of fertilizer in the world.
So Russia specifically, in choosing to do this, and I say that very specifically, they weren't attacked. Ukraine didn't go under their borders with tanks. So by choosing to do this and behaving this way, they have also chosen to be a world disruptor because they're disrupting the energy markets in their continent and then offshoot across the world. But more importantly, they're disrupting the global food supply in two ways. One is by not allowing grain to get exported and by holding it for themselves. Number two is, and also to be even fair to them, by having a war, we know the same amount of harvest isn't coming out of Ukraine this year. Then the second thing is when you think about the exporting of food, you think about fertilizer and the sanctions. So a lot of countries now can't buy the Russian fertilizer because of the sanctions. So they're also. Even people producing food domestically in their own countries aren't going to yield as much of a harvest as they otherwise would have. And it's because one country made a decision. So that I think is also the risk for civilization.
As we are more coupled together, these big nation states making choices can also inadvertently, or maybe they're doing it on purpose, really negatively affect society. Because I think what we've seen is the minute people don't eat, you get unrest, known to get the political unrest. You build the environment, like we've talked in recent shows, for authoritarians and strongmen. When you get enough of those, you most likely will have that breakdown in the global society.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: Well, you most likely have more conflict than you'll have.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: It becomes a cycle to the breakdown.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: And I mean. Yeah, like that's. I mean, you saw, like. Yeah, the interconnectedness. You know, we saw that with the pandemic, the COVID pandemic, where, you know, like it goes from one place, one village in one country to the entire world, you know, in a matter, in a very short time period. And so that anything that happens in one place, if, you know, depending on the nature of it, can affect us all. And that's what it comes down to ultimately, is it's difficult to get people on the same page until, like you said, something forces everyone to get on the same page. And so I think a lot of the warning here and a lot of what this is about is, hey, is there. Can we as a society move in a direction before the tank hits empty? And it forces us to then do something else, walk, or whatever it's going to be, or before something happens and our current way of being collapses, and then we got to pick up the pieces and do something else with it, with whatever conditions are left. And honestly, it doesn't seem like in the way that our world operates now and the way things have been historically, it doesn't seem like that's something we're overly equipped to be able to do. And that's difficult for me to say, but it's just. It seems to be like we need again, market conditions or environmental conditions. Excuse me. And the. What our politicians, just like you said, they're not. Our politicians aren't in office right now trying to figure out what to do at Lake Mead or to look at the Hoover Dam and try to come up with the nas. Not what they're. They're busy doing other stuff, you know, that apparently entertains us, you know, but it's not that great for us over the long term. And that's a great point.
[00:30:07] Speaker A: No, because entertainment's a form of consumption. So it's a great point you make, actually. They are actually more focused on the lights and the cameras and getting us to consume them, I guess. Right. In a sense.
[00:30:20] Speaker B: Well, what it is, I mean, it's really because there is something to that. Like, in order to get, to make things happen, you first have to have attention. But what ends up happening, and this is really the Downfall that we see is that instead of people saying, okay, well, I'm going to get the attention, and then try to do something with the attention that's positive, it becomes for many, not all, but it comes for many, just a perpetual, let me just get the attention. Let me just get the attention. Let me just get the attention. And it never gets to the next step of, okay, now that I have the attention, let me try to tell you about something that's important, or let's try to do something important.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: But you know what? I'll say, that's it. Just to finish with the audience, this is back when it wasn't as political, because a year after this report, in 1973, an administration in the United States headed by a man named Richard Nixon, actually created the Environmental Protection Agency. The epa.
[00:31:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:14] Speaker A: And so, you know, there was a time in this country when protecting the environment from pollution was bipartisan.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: Well, it just wasn't part of not protecting the environment wasn't part of many people's political identity. And so, yeah, that wasn't a concession as much from that standpoint. But, yeah, it's a good point. So the other topic we wanted to get to today was something that you and I were both something we were not aware of, and that is that there was now it's quote unquote, underground railroad, because we talk about underground railroad, we're speaking of something in particular. But there was a pathway for enslaved African Americans or enslaved Americans in the south to get to freedom by going South. Now, it wasn't as prominent, it's not as well known, and it's only recently really being uncovered and learning the extent of it. And so what were you shocked to learn about this history of enslaved Americans in the South? That they had an option, I guess, if you're Texas, Louisiana, in that area, you could try to get to Mexico. And then Mexico was cool with this and was like, yeah, no slavery here.
[00:32:23] Speaker A: Yeah. I say shocked was an understatement.
And just in a good way. Like, I was shocked at many things.
[00:32:31] Speaker B: Right.
[00:32:31] Speaker A: It was shocked that I'd never heard of this. And I thought I, you know, do a lot of research and reading over my lifetime, and at 44 years old, I got a lighter with something new.
So that. That was interesting to learn. Then it was very interesting to learn the history of the Mexican government and how they viewed slavery.
[00:32:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:53] Speaker A: And then more interesting that the whole Mexican American War appears to be seeded by the dispute between the United States and Mexico over the state of what they call Tejas spelled T E J A S which we call Texas, which was a northern state of Mexico and we annexed it. And I looked at it.
[00:33:21] Speaker B: They revolted, I guess officially, they revolted first.
[00:33:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: And then, like, the next year, then we. The Mexican American War happens. Yeah.
[00:33:29] Speaker A: And so it's just, you know, and I know we'll get into this conversation. This is what really amazed me. I don't want to use the word shock because that sounds a little more negative. It was amazing in a. When you, like, find something new amazing, you know, like, wow, this is cool information.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: Fascinating meaning.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: Yeah, fascinating. Thank you, sir.
Sum it up into one word is no. But what was fascinating was, again, under this backdrop that we have in our current American political culture and the culture wars and this wokeism and this, you know, talking about, well, you know, no CRT in the classroom. And I don't want to have my kids learn about history that could make them feel bad. And I'm looking at this like, this is just fascinating. This is not only cool to learn it, it's not about embarrassing anyone or putting anyone to shame. I never understood when people say that about anything historical, but it's also about better understanding how this country was formed, in a sense, because how do you not talk? I mean, it's like black Americans and the descendants of African slaves are the constant elephant in the room in American discourse about its history, because so many Americans don't want to discuss any of that stuff. But yet when you read this information and you learn it, it's another example of how much slavery influenced the geographic makeup of this country.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:55] Speaker A: Meaning Texas might still be a northern Mexican state if it wasn't for slavery. And so let's explain some of that in this conversation. But that's what really fascinates me is fast forwarding to now, not the history I read, but why so many Americans just shut down and want to refuse to have these conversations. And that gets me thinking of the need to maintain a certain narrative once you have a culture of supremacy. And so that, to me, is the more fascinating thing of what I got out of reading all this stuff.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I mean, I agree with you just from the standpoint of, like, fascinating is the word. Like, because, yeah, you're learning about something like this. And anytime that you have these. These lost histories where it's something of note like this, it's just. It's fascinating. It's. It's. If you care about history, if you care to learn about that stuff, because that is. I've always wondered about that. Like, man, you know, like people down all the way Louisiana, you know, Texas, like they're not making it to, to. To the north. North, like that's a long way away, you know, like that. And so were they that different existence, but that there at least was an option. There was a place where there would be hope. And the piece that actually that stood out the most to me, similar to you, was how hostile Mexico was to slavery, you know, and when they got their independence, it was like, nah, nah, that is not going here. How they would, you know, if slaves escaped there, they would repel to the extent they could. People coming to go get them.
If slaves got into enslaved people, excuse me, got into Mexico and so that aspect of it. But to answer your question, I mean that the term I think that you can incorporate there as well is identity and how people identify themselves and their heritage and so forth. And people want to be in their quote unquote story.
Not everybody, but there are a lot of people who want to be unambiguously the hero who was on the right side at all times. And it's the same thing you see with like the Confederacy, like where there's this effort to redeem the Confederacy.
And despite what the leaders of the Confederacy said when they seceded, say, oh, well, they didn't really mean that stuff or just don't look at that. Don't look at what the leaders of Confederacy said. It was actually about this. And just to try to maintain for their own identity sake and how they want to look at themselves or whatever, to distance it from whatever. What they would look at is something that they don't want to tie to them because if you listen to the story the way it's told, in many respects, they were the villains. The Confederacy was the villains and they were doing, you know, things. And so I think there's that mindset and where it really becomes unfortunate is that it ends up resulting in us. Like we flatten history. We. It's all reductive. And it's like you don't get to learn about so many of the contours and things that are happening that like you said, can really enlighten as far as how things develop. Like there's absent this, there isn't much good explanation on how Mexico Tejas ends up becoming Texas. And there because it's worth. People start wanting to die over this, wanting to fight. It's not really well explained generally, but now it's like, oh, really? Oh, they were, they were. There was beef over this. You know.
[00:38:13] Speaker A: I definitely want to give a few examples for the audience to take away, and then I agree with you. That's what I was going to say is what I realized in reading this is because, you know, I guess enough people in our country have still the supremacy mentality and don't feel that the history of certain groups is worthy of even mention, which means that they must not think that these people are worthy of the similar status, you know, of inclusion and being seen as Americans. I mean, it's to the point where I can't deny that fact of saying that. Like, I used to not talk this bluntly, but it is what it is at this point.
[00:38:48] Speaker B: Well, as I said it before, like, basically the fight for one narrative and only one narrative. Like, there can't be, like, there's all these different perspectives, but say, look, we're only going to have one narrative. And it's like, well, no, I mean, if you have all these different perspectives, you're going to have more than one narrative. If you have. Well, just, just for example, if you have three witnesses to a guy driving and getting in an accident, they're not all going to have the same. They have three different perspectives. They're not all going to say the same thing. We do this in our courts. Like, different witnesses seeing things from different angles and seeing things from different time periods and so forth. They see different things. And so it's almost inevitable that you're going to have different narratives when you have different perspectives. And it's a fight basically to crowd out every other perspective, every other narrative, and only mainline and acknowledge one narrative, which is, you know, it's unfortunate, to put it mildly.
[00:39:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Now, and part of it is, you know, you know, they're. And I guess, to finish my thought, what I was saying was just that, you know, it's also about culture of us today and how you view your country. Right. Like, I look at these stories as just another beautiful example of just, you know, just the fits and starts to get where we are. And it's like I was thinking, it's fascinating. Like, first of all, when I read it, I was thinking, like, matter of fact, like, well, of course it makes sense that black people, slaves, would try and escape any direction they could. So obviously, if you're in Louisiana or Texas, you're not going to Canada or somewhere like that because it's far. The Mexican border is right there. So you would. It makes sense to think that a lot of people did. Then you learned that thousands of slaves did it over a few decades between, I think, 1830 and 1860 primarily. And then you learn that the Spaniards granted them citizenship, especially if they converted the Catholicism and all that. And then you learn how many, most of them learned Spanish and just assimilated and had families in Mexico and just assimilated into the Mexican diaspora. So it's even just curious to think, wow, there's all these descendants of African American slaves in kind of the northern Mexico region. That's just interesting. Right. And it ties the two kind of cultures and countries together. But I'll read a quick quote here to show the level of, you know, the, the tension just says, just from the article that we're citing, it gives a few examples. And now it says, months later, the Mexican army posted a sizable force and two artillery pieces on the Rio Grande to prevent a group of 200 Texans from crossing the border to seize runaway slaves. And where it comes out in the history, just to. And I'll paraphrase a bit here, is, you know, in 1693, King Charles of Spain decreed that all fugitive slaves will be free in Florida.
And so by 1750, the Spanish had made that whole all Spanish colonies basically was free of slavery. So that's why it was. By the early 1800s, the Mexican government was already on this mode of we're not going to have slaves here.
And that's what began the migration of the fugitive slaves to Mexico, which who was on their heels because slaves were assets, the people that owned them that didn't want to lose the value of losing the slave to run across the border. And that's where the tensions arose between the Mexicans and the Americans was that when the Americans tried to cross the Rio Grande, they will get stopped by the Mexican military. Then what happened is when Texas seceded Mexico in that battle. Oh, no, hold on, sorry.
Texas was a northern state of Mexico while it was still part of that country. But what they did is they allowed American settlers to settle in the eastern part of Texas.
[00:42:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:51] Speaker A: And what those American settlers did was brought their slaves. And that's what created a lot of tension because then the Mexican government said, okay, well, you can have those slaves, but in Mexico they're going to be free after 10 years.
[00:43:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:04] Speaker A: And there's no slavery in the womb. This is what got me thinking about our current abortion debate, that the Mexican government said, you can't have a human being born into slavery. And so of course, if you're an American slave owner, you're not going to like that. Because if you just brought 100 slaves over hearing that, they're all going to be free in 10 years. Plus their kids aren't property of yours. Again, this was economics for those guys.
[00:43:28] Speaker B: The jig is up pretty quickly.
[00:43:30] Speaker A: So that's what then led to in the 1843-1846, the Mexican American War.
[00:43:36] Speaker B: Well, that Texas pursuing its independence against Mexico is related to Mexico's position on slavery, which is not a stretch considering that the Southern states, you know, 15 years later, tried to secede from the United States because it was concerned about its position on slavery.
That gives a lot of context.
[00:44:01] Speaker A: But, you know, it's a good point you made because there's another area of the article or quote, it says American diplomats kept pressuring their Mexican counterparts to sign extradition treaties which would return runaway slaves to their owners. But Mexico flatly refused in 1850, 1851, 1853 and 1857.
So to your point, by 1861, there was no more request because we had a civil war over this same topic, right. That so many people don't want to discuss as a major part of our history then. But the second thing it made me realize is it's just natural that this happens. We go back to the first part when we talked about just how society is structured, right? Think about it. It makes sense. The planner class were the wealthiest people in this country at that time. They owned the bulk of the assets. Mississippi was the wealthiest state until the Civil War. So the, the idea that, that these planners, you know, these slave owners were lobbying like they do now. They were lobbying their congressmen, their politicians, and those guys are probably hammering, going to the diplomat in Mexico, sending them a cable or, or a letter saying, hey man, we need you to get these slaves back. Because these guys over here, we need to get reelected. This is the same game.
[00:45:13] Speaker B: It's the same game as Missouri compromise. It's the same game like, remember the Fugitive Slave act in the United States, where it used to be slaves could get. Just get north of the Mason Dixon line. They were okay, but no, they lobbied and they got the fugitive Slave the act passed and they had to return slaves. So then slaves had to go all the way to Canada. So, I mean, this drove a lot of our politics for a really long time. And I mean, in many ways, a lot of these same sentiments, you could argue, drive politics to this day.
[00:45:39] Speaker A: But, but of course, we're not. We shouldn't talk about it. It's not part of America.
[00:45:42] Speaker B: But that's, that's the crazy part of why the push to not learn it, you know, because it played such a role. Like, if this Wasn't something that people fought a freaking war about then. Maybe it's like, yeah, it's not that important, but it's like this is almost the defining issue of the entire nation, Both in the 18. In the 1800s and in the 1900s. And then, I mean, you know, who knows when we look back at the 2000s, at the 21st century, what we'll think when we look at it at the whole hundred years, all the things that have happened, like, thus far, this has kind of been our defining issue, you know, internally. So it's just.
[00:46:19] Speaker A: You're right. Two years ago, we were having big debates in this country about taking down confederate monuments. Yeah. 150 years after that war ended and they lost.
[00:46:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:29] Speaker A: And so you're right, it's a huge part of our culture which we refuse to address as an nation collectively. And that's why we're going to continue to be, you know, you know, having these fits and starts about it. So. Yeah, but you know what I say, this is the beauty of it all and the truth kind of setting you free type of thing is. Think about it. The more pushback to this stuff in the last few years has only brought more of this in for the light. I mean, when we talked about Juneteenth this year on that show, we both acknowledge. I mean, that we didn't grow up hearing about this. Right.
[00:47:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:00] Speaker A: This is all stuff we've learned recently. So the more they try and push back, it seems like the more information just comes out. So it's just very interesting.
[00:47:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:07] Speaker A: So I guess they should keep pushing back that.
I'll settle on that. We can go. Yeah.
[00:47:13] Speaker B: So, no, I think we can wrap it up from there, man. But we appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call It Like I See It. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review us, tell us what you think, share it with a friend. Until next time. I'm James Keys.
[00:47:24] Speaker A: I'm Tuna Egwana.
[00:47:25] Speaker B: All right, we'll talk to you next time.
I.
