The Hypocrisy of Politics: An Eye-opening Discourse

1
0:00:01,268 --> 0:00:04,887
Speaker 1: It's really annoying to hear other podcasts that are like how are you Tell me about yourself?

2
0:00:05,201 --> 0:00:07,668
Speaker 1: And I'm just like he's a nice and easy thing.

3
0:00:08,640 --> 0:00:10,206
Speaker 1: So it's been mental.

4
0:00:11,021 --> 0:00:12,928
Speaker 1: Barry, thanks for coming on, I appreciate it.

5
0:00:13,320 --> 0:00:14,385
Speaker 1: Absolutely happy to do it.

6
0:00:16,586 --> 0:00:17,489
Speaker 1: I have been.

7
0:00:17,509 --> 0:00:20,964
Speaker 1: When you got in touch and said you wanted to go on the show, I did a little bit digging on him.

8
0:00:21,144 --> 0:00:21,807
Speaker 1: I did a little bit digging.

9
0:00:21,960 --> 0:00:23,707
Speaker 1: I did a little bit of that detective work on you, barry.

10
0:00:23,860 --> 0:00:25,045
Speaker 1: I love doing that with my guests.

11
0:00:25,065 --> 0:00:31,186
Speaker 1: Sometimes I feel as if I'm like some sort of inspector Cluso or something like that Scottish version of it.

12
0:00:31,206 --> 0:00:32,049
Speaker 2: Scottish version.

13
0:00:33,552 --> 0:00:34,460
Speaker 1: It just keeps me out of trouble.

14
0:00:34,942 --> 0:00:36,327
Speaker 1: That's one way of putting it.

15
0:00:38,284 --> 0:00:39,347
Speaker 1: But I did.

16
0:00:39,367 --> 0:00:40,349
Speaker 1: I tell you what I found.

17
0:00:40,370 --> 0:00:41,352
Speaker 1: A lot of stuff about you, barry.

18
0:00:41,902 --> 0:00:42,544
Speaker 1: What's going on with that?

19
0:00:44,522 --> 0:00:46,569
Speaker 2: I was a very shy little boy.

20
0:00:47,080 --> 0:00:50,891
Speaker 2: And then, no, I really was until I was about 10 years old.

21
0:00:51,560 --> 0:01:02,551
Speaker 2: And at 10 years old I bugged my parents to take me to a carnival in the nearby town when they had at the time what were unfortunately called freak shows.

22
0:01:03,040 --> 0:01:12,292
Speaker 2: And I really wanted to see a freak show and my parents said here's the money I think it was 75 cents but we're not going with you.

23
0:01:13,340 --> 0:01:32,408
Speaker 2: So I paid my money, I went in and for some inexplicable reason, a magician was there in between the freaks and he asked for a volunteer and for some strange reason I said I raised my hand.

24
0:01:32,749 --> 0:01:47,730
Speaker 2: I was 10 years old, I went up on stage and I realized that when he was doing these goofy magic tricks, pulling a quarter out of my ear, people thought it was great, I didn't have to do much of anything and I could be popular.

25
0:01:48,260 --> 0:01:57,465
Speaker 2: And that really was the way in which I started thinking maybe if I wasn't so shy, maybe people would like me more.

26
0:01:58,600 --> 0:02:01,309
Speaker 2: And it was a very important part of my life.

27
0:02:01,740 --> 0:02:14,388
Speaker 2: I found that a lot of people you meet early in life are the same people you meet again later in life, and if you're good to them or you learn something from them.

28
0:02:15,771 --> 0:02:17,634
Speaker 2: It carries on into your future.

29
0:02:18,388 --> 0:02:19,340
Speaker 2: That's an interesting concept.

30
0:02:19,440 --> 0:02:21,027
Speaker 1: Have you ever came across people like that?

31
0:02:21,220 --> 0:02:29,247
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen people later on down the road that are possibly horrible to you or really bad to you, and you just went?

32
0:02:29,267 --> 0:02:30,191
Speaker 1: What are you doing now, buddy?

33
0:02:30,371 --> 0:02:31,416
Speaker 1: What are you up to?

34
0:02:31,436 --> 0:02:31,938
Speaker 1: So that's the thing.

35
0:02:33,122 --> 0:02:36,271
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've actually gone to a couple of high school reunions.

36
0:02:36,360 --> 0:02:52,650
Speaker 2: I went to high school with 1100 other students a huge high school in Pennsylvania and when I'd go back there people would occasionally come up and go I hated what you were against the Vietnam War but you were right and I was wrong.

37
0:02:53,360 --> 0:03:07,347
Speaker 2: And then, most recently, there's an anti-abortion movement that's very strong in the United States and one of its leaders was a minister named Rob Schenck and I used to see him every time.

38
0:03:07,387 --> 0:03:08,672
Speaker 2: We were on television a lot.

39
0:03:08,760 --> 0:03:22,829
Speaker 2: He used to see him outside the Supreme Court building and he would always be on the opposite side anti-LGBTQ, anti-church state separation, anti-abortion and reproductive justice.

40
0:03:24,040 --> 0:03:47,886
Speaker 2: A few months ago I was interviewing him on a show a radio show, and people can go to BarryWLNcom and look at it and in it he apologizes for everything he did and he said that he should have listened to me 30 years ago, that I was mainly right and he was mainly wrong.

41
0:03:48,420 --> 0:03:58,185
Speaker 2: Now, it takes a big person to repudiate yourself after you've been a leader of a mass movement, a celebrity.

42
0:03:58,640 --> 0:04:05,493
Speaker 2: He lost a lot of his right-wing friends but he gained a lot of respect from a whole lot of people.

43
0:04:06,441 --> 0:04:08,848
Speaker 1: How come he changed his mind so much?

44
0:04:09,760 --> 0:04:10,985
Speaker 1: He went from one extreme to the other.

45
0:04:11,600 --> 0:04:13,025
Speaker 1: Was there something happened to make?

46
0:04:13,045 --> 0:04:13,687
Speaker 2: him change his mind.

47
0:04:14,740 --> 0:04:16,243
Speaker 2: He was once in prison.

48
0:04:16,904 --> 0:04:20,933
Speaker 2: He was in prison DC jail not really a prison.

49
0:04:20,953 --> 0:04:38,404
Speaker 2: The District of Columbia has this horrible jail and he was in the jail because of some anti-abortion protest he was doing and down the hall from him in another cell was an African-American woman who was she had three kids.

50
0:04:39,800 --> 0:04:47,585
Speaker 2: She was pregnant and she was screaming in the night about how she needed to get an abortion and he started talking to her.

51
0:04:49,780 --> 0:05:12,444
Speaker 2: Sometimes those initial connections are very important and they do have an astonishing effect on changing your mind, and I think that one probably led him to start to repudiate virtually all of his past positions and experiences.

52
0:05:13,280 --> 0:05:14,163
Speaker 2: That takes guts.

53
0:05:15,126 --> 0:05:15,508
Speaker 1: It does.

54
0:05:16,180 --> 0:05:17,224
Speaker 1: That's powerful though, isn't it?

55
0:05:18,000 --> 0:05:22,880
Speaker 1: It must have been really hard for him to change his complete belief system altogether.

56
0:05:23,983 --> 0:05:25,508
Speaker 1: To be fair you mentioned it as well.

57
0:05:25,548 --> 0:05:30,559
Speaker 1: He said he turned his back on it and he completely 180'd on the whole scenario.

58
0:05:30,760 --> 0:05:32,447
Speaker 1: So yeah, and he probably admits it.

59
0:05:33,141 --> 0:05:37,252
Speaker 1: Don't get many people in this world that can admit that as well, so fair play to them.

60
0:05:38,801 --> 0:05:45,213
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I was supposed to actually see him a couple days ago but he got COVID.

61
0:05:45,920 --> 0:05:51,548
Speaker 2: We're getting COVID again over here, so had to cancel the whole event.

62
0:05:53,223 --> 0:05:58,272
Speaker 2: But I moved to Massachusetts out of the District of Columbia about a year ago.

63
0:05:59,200 --> 0:06:02,806
Speaker 2: So I gained from leaving DC.

64
0:06:03,026 --> 0:06:05,270
Speaker 2: I gained two senators.

65
0:06:05,391 --> 0:06:07,354
Speaker 2: You know our upper house here.

66
0:06:07,960 --> 0:06:14,053
Speaker 2: Dc has no representation in the United States Senate and isn't likely to get one.

67
0:06:14,760 --> 0:06:24,591
Speaker 2: I gained a backyard, lovely backyard, which I didn't have in the District of Columbia, and I'm ten minute walk from three grandkids.

68
0:06:24,920 --> 0:06:28,269
Speaker 2: That's kind of a trifecta of reasons to get out of DC.

69
0:06:29,320 --> 0:06:33,251
Speaker 2: That and the fact that DC is such a weird place.

70
0:06:33,420 --> 0:06:35,548
Speaker 2: I spent most of my adult life there.

71
0:06:36,160 --> 0:06:37,426
Speaker 2: I did all kinds of things.

72
0:06:37,540 --> 0:06:49,622
Speaker 2: I met a whole lot of members of Congress and other political figures, but I really have been always most attracted to people on the edges, not the people in power.

73
0:06:50,800 --> 0:07:03,914
Speaker 2: You know I like Bill Clinton most of the time, but it's the people that are working against government injustices that I find most appealing.

74
0:07:04,600 --> 0:07:09,964
Speaker 2: Somebody asked me when I was doing a radio show with ultra conservative Pat Buchanan for a couple of years.

75
0:07:11,160 --> 0:07:23,493
Speaker 2: Pat said well, you know, why didn't you ever work for a president and I said kind of ingest, I never met one moral enough to meet my standards.

76
0:07:24,340 --> 0:07:29,136
Speaker 2: But the truth is it's that I'd much rather be on the out.

77
0:07:29,196 --> 0:07:42,310
Speaker 2: I'd much rather be helping the Vietnam veteran who was given an undesirable discharge from the military for doing something just to piss off his commanding officer.

78
0:07:43,160 --> 0:07:46,730
Speaker 2: And I did that and I worked with members of Congress a lot.

79
0:07:47,480 --> 0:08:03,747
Speaker 2: But it's very rare in the United States to find people who have a spine that's strong enough to go after the most unpopular issues, including amnesty, for those who did not want to go to Vietnam, who resisted it.

80
0:08:04,220 --> 0:08:09,282
Speaker 2: We got kind of a partial victory on that when Jimmy Carter was president of the United States.

81
0:08:10,240 --> 0:08:26,288
Speaker 2: And then in the second phase of my life I worked for the American Civil Liberties Union and this was at a time when the big issue facing the country, according to the Reagan people, was pornography.

82
0:08:26,760 --> 0:08:34,752
Speaker 2: That was going to destroy America, and so I really lobbied hard at the ACLU to be the guy that would follow them around the country.

83
0:08:35,822 --> 0:08:38,830
Speaker 2: They had an 11-member commission.

84
0:08:39,400 --> 0:08:40,786
Speaker 2: They went all over the country.

85
0:08:41,240 --> 0:08:54,907
Speaker 2: They seemed to think that if you found the most disgusting single piece of sexual material, that would justify suppressing all of it for everyone and I really annoyed the hell out of them.

86
0:08:55,420 --> 0:09:07,051
Speaker 2: The Washington Post, which is still a major newspaper in the United States, did a piece at the end of the commission's life and they asked what was the biggest problem you had?

87
0:09:07,400 --> 0:09:13,953
Speaker 2: And they said it was Barry Lynn, because he would ridicule us unmercifully.

88
0:09:15,322 --> 0:09:20,064
Speaker 2: And I did a speech about this in Indiana a couple of weeks ago and I said it's not that.

89
0:09:21,007 --> 0:09:28,366
Speaker 2: All I did was quote them and people said we can't believe a government body is actually doing this.

90
0:09:30,436 --> 0:09:40,518
Speaker 2: In the event, in both of those cases, the draft, which I really hate and some conservatives hate it and I used to work with them.

91
0:09:40,878 --> 0:09:49,340
Speaker 2: Their theory was if you don't like to pay taxes, you sure as hell aren't going to want them to take your son and put them in some war you've never heard of.

92
0:09:49,761 --> 0:09:52,387
Speaker 2: So it was an interesting combo.

93
0:09:53,516 --> 0:09:59,425
Speaker 2: They returned registration for the draft after Carter changed his mind.

94
0:09:59,525 --> 0:10:01,067
Speaker 2: President Carter changed his mind.

95
0:10:03,115 --> 0:10:15,421
Speaker 2: They only prosecuted 18 people for not registering during that period after the Vietnam War was over and I think a couple things were happening.

96
0:10:15,642 --> 0:10:20,975
Speaker 2: One is people just didn't take it seriously enough.

97
0:10:21,757 --> 0:10:23,181
Speaker 2: They thought it was crazy.

98
0:10:23,221 --> 0:10:39,320
Speaker 2: They thought that, and even the head of the draft system in the United States, who I used to fight with all the time two years ago, gave an address and said the whole registration system doesn't work.

99
0:10:39,741 --> 0:10:42,704
Speaker 2: It would be useless in the event of an emergency.

100
0:10:43,885 --> 0:11:01,602
Speaker 2: Repudiating again most of his beliefs in the past On the pornography front, there hasn't been a serious pornography prosecution in the United States for almost 20 years and there I think the other thing that's happened.

101
0:11:03,849 --> 0:11:05,955
Speaker 2: Porn everybody can watch it anywhere.

102
0:11:06,236 --> 0:11:08,423
Speaker 2: You can watch it on your phone, your television.

103
0:11:10,260 --> 0:11:10,842
Speaker 2: I wouldn't know that.

104
0:11:13,921 --> 0:11:17,568
Speaker 2: No, because I can tell you only like Spider-Man.

105
0:11:19,819 --> 0:11:21,423
Speaker 1: I've got a reputation here, by the way.

106
0:11:21,463 --> 0:11:24,810
Speaker 1: Can I say that I'm some sort of weaver that likes Spider-Man?

107
0:11:24,850 --> 0:11:26,197
Speaker 1: Now, absolutely.

108
0:11:29,400 --> 0:11:37,250
Speaker 2: But because people on these juries here they would get on the jury and then they'd want to seize everybody's.

109
0:11:38,836 --> 0:11:50,279
Speaker 2: If they sold one pornographic magazine or one videotape, then they want to seize all their assets, seize their house, seize their business, and I think the average person was going to wait a minute.

110
0:11:51,100 --> 0:11:54,003
Speaker 2: This is Debbie does Dallas 14.

111
0:11:54,163 --> 0:12:01,771
Speaker 2: I just saw Debbie does Dallas 13 while I was watching it with my husband or wife a couple of weeks ago.

112
0:12:02,296 --> 0:12:07,968
Speaker 2: You just can't convince people that it is the end of the world to see naked bodies.

113
0:12:07,975 --> 0:12:09,288
Speaker 2: Of course, not.

114
0:12:09,328 --> 0:12:09,955
Speaker 1: It's a good thing, it's fun.

115
0:12:11,517 --> 0:12:13,099
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.

116
0:12:14,381 --> 0:12:20,831
Speaker 2: I was following this commission, which is known here as the Ed Meese Commission.

117
0:12:21,597 --> 0:12:34,427
Speaker 2: Ed Meese was the Attorney General and he appointed a prosecutor a very rigorous prosecutor of sexually explicit material as the chairman.

118
0:12:35,168 --> 0:12:46,768
Speaker 2: And one day they went down to Houston, texas, and they were going on a field trip and governments here have to report everything that they're going to do, they have to give notice.

119
0:12:47,596 --> 0:13:09,490
Speaker 2: So I called a friend of mine who was a feminist non-fiction writer at a university in New York, who hated everything that these people were doing, and so the two of us went on a bus with all these commissioners and the last place was it was a really it was an ugly place.

120
0:13:10,235 --> 0:13:11,498
Speaker 2: I mean it was how ugly.

121
0:13:11,558 --> 0:13:17,469
Speaker 2: I mean it stank and water was running over the floor.

122
0:13:18,476 --> 0:13:20,702
Speaker 2: But I ended up in a buddy booth.

123
0:13:20,842 --> 0:13:32,323
Speaker 2: Now you wouldn't know what that is, but a buddy booth is, of course, where two or three people get together, watch a little porn loop, they put a quarter in or a token in, they watch five minutes.

124
0:13:34,676 --> 0:13:49,746
Speaker 2: So I'm in the buddy booth with Henry Hudson, the chairman, and Ellen Levine, a wonderful woman who was at the time the editor of Woman's Day Magazine and she was already souring on the stupid things they were doing.

125
0:13:50,396 --> 0:13:57,935
Speaker 2: So Henry Hudson says to me Barry, when you testified before our commission, you said all of these images contain messages.

126
0:13:58,836 --> 0:14:00,639
Speaker 2: What is the message here?

127
0:14:01,340 --> 0:14:02,382
Speaker 2: I thought for a second.

128
0:14:02,782 --> 0:14:03,423
Speaker 2: I looked at them.

129
0:14:03,463 --> 0:14:07,550
Speaker 2: I said Henry, try it, you might like it.

130
0:14:08,135 --> 0:14:12,586
Speaker 2: It was two gay men wearing green monster masks having sex.

131
0:14:13,896 --> 0:14:16,100
Speaker 2: But I mean, yeah, see, that's it.

132
0:14:16,942 --> 0:14:17,422
Speaker 2: And people go.

133
0:14:17,623 --> 0:14:18,704
Speaker 2: But you're a minister.

134
0:14:18,785 --> 0:14:21,830
Speaker 2: How can you be a minister and care about pornography?

135
0:14:22,296 --> 0:14:27,211
Speaker 2: It's because I can tell the difference between morality and legality.

136
0:14:28,516 --> 0:14:35,257
Speaker 2: Look, I saw more porn during that year that they were in effect than I've ever seen in my life.

137
0:14:37,515 --> 0:14:39,702
Speaker 2: But is some of it really ugly?

138
0:14:39,963 --> 0:14:43,121
Speaker 2: Yes, is some of it kind of a turn on?

139
0:14:43,703 --> 0:14:51,608
Speaker 2: Yes, I defy anyone, male or female, to say they've never seen porn that doesn't turn them on.

140
0:14:52,175 --> 0:14:55,306
Speaker 2: And I said that once on National Public Radio here.

141
0:14:55,768 --> 0:15:03,507
Speaker 2: And even one of my colleagues, another lawyer at the ACLU, came up to me and said I heard you on the news this morning.

142
0:15:04,015 --> 0:15:06,644
Speaker 2: Why did you say that some porn turns you on?

143
0:15:07,175 --> 0:15:12,183
Speaker 2: And I said because I am an honest man, because you have to be.

144
0:15:12,897 --> 0:15:13,439
Speaker 2: You have to be.

145
0:15:13,780 --> 0:15:14,443
Speaker 2: What are you going to do?

146
0:15:14,875 --> 0:15:15,738
Speaker 2: Lie about everything.

147
0:15:16,935 --> 0:15:19,038
Speaker 2: And then 25 years.

148
0:15:20,259 --> 0:15:41,246
Speaker 2: I spent a number of years at the ACLU and then had a somewhat unfortunate year and a half at Dartmouth University, dartmouth College, which is supposedly a great university here in America, but it's not Supposedly.

149
0:15:41,535 --> 0:15:43,081
Speaker 2: I could tell by your description of it.

150
0:15:44,559 --> 0:15:45,381
Speaker 1: I don't think it is.

151
0:15:46,916 --> 0:15:55,642
Speaker 2: And then I got offered this job with Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which is kind of a dream job I only take dream jobs.

152
0:15:56,415 --> 0:16:02,748
Speaker 2: This was to maintain a decent distance between religious institutions and government institutions.

153
0:16:03,255 --> 0:16:24,483
Speaker 2: At the time that I was there and I was there for 25 years it was people like the Reverend Jerry Falwell, the Reverend Pat Robertson and Phyllis Schlafly, the so-called well, she's not a feminist, but she thought she was and I would debate these people all the time.

154
0:16:25,115 --> 0:16:26,097
Speaker 2: And they remain.

155
0:16:27,399 --> 0:16:35,904
Speaker 2: All three of them are dead, but this movement remains the most dangerous current in American life still today.

156
0:16:36,715 --> 0:16:37,217
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so too.

157
0:16:38,415 --> 0:16:43,987
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just they believe in something called Christian nationalism.

158
0:16:44,475 --> 0:17:01,344
Speaker 2: This is the idea that there's a kind of special relationship between God and the United States, and then they believe that everything in the Bible that's mentioned as policy ought to be the law of the United States.

159
0:17:02,235 --> 0:17:03,659
Speaker 2: That's pretty dangerous stuff.

160
0:17:06,417 --> 0:17:17,742
Speaker 2: And they also believe that they are speaking and are directly being told by God what to do and what to say.

161
0:17:18,455 --> 0:17:29,095
Speaker 2: I'm a God believer, but I don't think he's talking to everybody about their political judgments and who they ought to vote for in the next election.

162
0:17:29,596 --> 0:17:30,479
Speaker 1: He's not got time, is he?

163
0:17:30,740 --> 0:17:31,161
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?

164
0:17:31,181 --> 0:17:35,983
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people in this world They've got time to sit down and have a chat with everyone.

165
0:17:36,003 --> 0:17:36,825
Speaker 2: Probably not.

166
0:17:38,136 --> 0:17:39,539
Speaker 2: It may be nice if you know.

167
0:17:40,401 --> 0:17:41,303
Speaker 2: Every once in a while.

168
0:17:41,503 --> 0:17:48,726
Speaker 2: I don't know if you get this, but you get these invitations like send $10.

169
0:17:49,075 --> 0:17:54,398
Speaker 2: You might win a telephone call from Donald Trump, you might, you know.

170
0:17:54,939 --> 0:18:06,701
Speaker 1: I'm sure maybe somebody gets those it's going to be like spend $10 and you get a telephone call from God and then you actually win, and then you get some random guy you just saw on the phone God.

171
0:18:06,722 --> 0:18:08,266
Speaker 2: This is the voice of God.

172
0:18:08,935 --> 0:18:11,343
Speaker 2: Good job God, Absolutely.

173
0:18:13,020 --> 0:18:14,407
Speaker 1: Somebody will probably believe it.

174
0:18:14,467 --> 0:18:15,472
Speaker 1: God is that you?

175
0:18:15,492 --> 0:18:16,014
Speaker 1: Oh my, that's amazing.

176
0:18:17,278 --> 0:18:19,925
Speaker 1: I've been talking to you for months and years and I've been praying for you.

177
0:18:21,015 --> 0:18:21,337
Speaker 2: And it didn't.

178
0:18:21,698 --> 0:18:22,401
Speaker 1: I've heard that.

179
0:18:22,595 --> 0:18:22,876
Speaker 2: I mean.

180
0:18:23,918 --> 0:18:31,515
Speaker 2: It would be less annoying, though, to get those than harangues from people trying to sell you something.

181
0:18:31,655 --> 0:18:32,718
Speaker 2: Do you think all?

182
0:18:32,778 --> 0:18:35,726
Speaker 1: these like sort of like Christian groups you mentioned before.

183
0:18:35,746 --> 0:18:40,286
Speaker 1: Do you think they're heavily involved in well everything really?

184
0:18:40,335 --> 0:18:42,222
Speaker 1: Do you think they've still got fingers and pies in there?

185
0:18:43,075 --> 0:18:45,380
Speaker 2: No, absolutely there's no question about it.

186
0:18:45,755 --> 0:19:01,809
Speaker 2: I mean, as we're about to do this discussion, we're trying to figure out in the House of Representatives who ought to be the speaker of the House, and the person that seems to be on the ascendancy is a guy named Jim Jordan.

187
0:19:02,075 --> 0:19:19,238
Speaker 2: He's been accused by many, many of the wrestlers that he coached at an Ohio University of missing the opportunity, deliberately not watching them being sexually assaulted by the physician for the team.

188
0:19:20,315 --> 0:19:21,939
Speaker 2: So now here's a guy you know.

189
0:19:21,959 --> 0:19:31,941
Speaker 2: I was talking to my son last night and he said well, wasn't there another speaker of the House who had a quit because he was himself involved in abuse of children?

190
0:19:32,977 --> 0:19:34,663
Speaker 2: A guy named Dennis Hastard.

191
0:19:35,375 --> 0:19:38,543
Speaker 2: I said yep, you got a good memory, jesus.

192
0:19:39,064 --> 0:19:39,866
Speaker 2: Hypocrisy.

193
0:19:40,275 --> 0:19:52,520
Speaker 2: You know, whatever you think about abortion, anything else, the one thing that the Bible is very clear about Don't be a hypocrite, do not be a hypocrite.

194
0:19:53,435 --> 0:19:59,741
Speaker 2: And if you're a hypocrite, that's a no-no, there's no question about that.

195
0:20:00,515 --> 0:20:20,021
Speaker 2: This other stuff think about it, come up with an idea and then try to make something out of it, but do not criticize people for these petty little things or these very serious things like choosing to have a child.

196
0:20:21,755 --> 0:20:22,379
Speaker 2: That's yours.

197
0:20:22,895 --> 0:20:29,618
Speaker 2: My father was a very conservative Republican until they started to get into the abortion question.

198
0:20:30,295 --> 0:20:35,226
Speaker 2: He said you know, I can't be a Republican anymore because this is a moral issue.

199
0:20:36,035 --> 0:20:43,153
Speaker 2: And that's what even the Baptist Church in the United States used to think, that it was a moral question Do you have an abortion?

200
0:20:43,295 --> 0:20:44,460
Speaker 2: Do not have an abortion.

201
0:20:45,175 --> 0:21:02,788
Speaker 2: And now it's become so politicized that it is the central issue dominating almost all of the election campaigns at every level here in the United States and everybody's split down the middle, but it gets violent at times as well, because it's very vocal.

202
0:21:03,095 --> 0:21:07,263
Speaker 1: Everyone's got their own opinion, but I tell you what they're not scared to share it either, are they?

203
0:21:07,504 --> 0:21:09,908
Speaker 1: No, they're not scared, especially the US.

204
0:21:10,395 --> 0:21:11,709
Speaker 1: Not like the US being quiet.

205
0:21:12,700 --> 0:21:13,654
Speaker 2: People in America being quiet.

206
0:21:13,895 --> 0:21:15,440
Speaker 1: They're the quietest people ever, aren't they?

207
0:21:16,463 --> 0:21:17,085
Speaker 1: Absolutely.

208
0:21:18,758 --> 0:21:21,424
Speaker 1: But every time you turn on the TV, I mean I'm across the pond in the UK.

209
0:21:23,035 --> 0:21:26,478
Speaker 1: We've got our own fucking issues over here anyway, but it is all the time.

210
0:21:26,498 --> 0:21:34,927
Speaker 1: When you see on the news over here, it's obviously about politics, and the abortion question is always coming up every couple of weeks.

211
0:21:35,135 --> 0:21:41,304
Speaker 1: It's an ongoing issue, so it must be horrendous trying to justify it.

212
0:21:41,324 --> 0:21:44,389
Speaker 1: But actually, can I get to a reasoning over there?

213
0:21:44,515 --> 0:21:45,339
Speaker 1: I mean, you live in there, don't you?

214
0:21:46,676 --> 0:21:47,477
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really.

215
0:21:49,020 --> 0:21:54,710
Speaker 2: You have to be careful if you're a careful person.

216
0:21:54,875 --> 0:21:58,806
Speaker 2: I stopped being a careful person when I was in college.

217
0:21:59,215 --> 0:22:14,463
Speaker 2: I mean, literally I went from this, you know, as I explained at the beginning this very shy, kind of ultra cautious person into somebody who said if you stand for something, you better speak it out, you better do it.

218
0:22:14,915 --> 0:22:23,983
Speaker 2: I had so many people that worked with me and organizations I worked for who would say I just I had this terrible experience.

219
0:22:24,515 --> 0:22:26,963
Speaker 2: Some congressman called me some bad name.

220
0:22:28,055 --> 0:22:29,315
Speaker 2: What do I do?

221
0:22:29,395 --> 0:22:31,944
Speaker 2: And you say never, ever, give up.

222
0:22:32,115 --> 0:22:33,211
Speaker 2: You cannot give up.

223
0:22:33,515 --> 0:22:35,403
Speaker 2: You can't give up on censorship.

224
0:22:35,515 --> 0:22:38,484
Speaker 2: You can't give up on trying to find a peaceful resolution.

225
0:22:39,015 --> 0:22:44,647
Speaker 2: You can't give up on keeping a decent distance between religion and government.

226
0:22:45,715 --> 0:22:53,580
Speaker 2: What are the standards by which you know I made my career and eventually wrote my book?

227
0:22:54,040 --> 0:22:56,004
Speaker 2: Paid to piss people off.

228
0:22:56,365 --> 0:22:57,707
Speaker 2: That's an interesting title.

229
0:22:57,768 --> 0:23:12,895
Speaker 2: you might say A high school student is a high school student came up to me at a party when we lived in suburban Washington.

230
0:23:13,580 --> 0:23:14,102
Speaker 2: He came up.

231
0:23:14,322 --> 0:23:16,168
Speaker 2: I met him before.

232
0:23:16,208 --> 0:23:20,382
Speaker 2: He said, mr Lin, I want to do what you do when I get out of school.

233
0:23:21,003 --> 0:23:23,270
Speaker 2: I said, connor, what do you think I do?

234
0:23:23,871 --> 0:23:28,162
Speaker 2: He said I think you get paid to piss people off.

235
0:23:30,186 --> 0:23:34,754
Speaker 2: And it became a wonderful title and I sent him the book and he's still a friend.

236
0:23:37,045 --> 0:23:38,148
Speaker 1: It's three books, is it?

237
0:23:38,188 --> 0:23:39,191
Speaker 1: You've got going on at the minute.

238
0:23:39,822 --> 0:23:40,867
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a trilogy.

239
0:23:40,928 --> 0:23:45,840
Speaker 2: I was going to call it the Fellowship of the Rings until somebody told me that some other guy had written that trilogy.

240
0:23:47,824 --> 0:23:49,568
Speaker 2: He always next to good ideas, doesn't he?

241
0:23:52,341 --> 0:23:59,221
Speaker 2: But it's three books one's about peace, one's about porn and censorship and one's about prayer.

242
0:23:59,542 --> 0:24:09,090
Speaker 2: Because I did work for 25 years at Americans United for Separation of Church and State and I turned it as kind of a sleepy organization.

243
0:24:09,110 --> 0:24:33,287
Speaker 2: I turned it into a much bigger and more significant organization and I retired a few years ago and the woman who's taken my place is doing a very good job, because so many of these issues now are at the cusp of LGBT issues, reproductive justice issues.

244
0:24:33,627 --> 0:24:41,069
Speaker 2: It's not just prayer in school and funding for religious schools with tax dollars.

245
0:24:41,129 --> 0:24:48,069
Speaker 2: Those were the mainstays when the organization was founded Same year I was born, 1948.

246
0:24:48,751 --> 0:24:49,652
Speaker 2: I'm an old guy.

247
0:24:50,280 --> 0:24:50,803
Speaker 1: Getting on a bit, mate.

248
0:24:50,823 --> 0:24:53,154
Speaker 1: Getting on a bit yeah looking good though.

249
0:24:53,580 --> 0:24:55,206
Speaker 2: Hey, thank you, that's what I wanted here.

250
0:24:55,346 --> 0:24:56,309
Speaker 2: That's why I said it.

251
0:24:57,382 --> 0:24:59,187
Speaker 1: He's fishing for it until you know what.

252
0:24:59,247 --> 0:25:01,945
Speaker 1: I saw it and I gave it to you, mate, because I'm like that.

253
0:25:02,005 --> 0:25:02,810
Speaker 1: I saw it straight away.

254
0:25:02,830 --> 0:25:04,520
Speaker 1: I love it.

255
0:25:04,620 --> 0:25:05,362
Speaker 2: The thing is as well.

256
0:25:05,382 --> 0:25:11,387
Speaker 1: When it comes down to this, you're talking about different avenues of politics over there now.

257
0:25:11,407 --> 0:25:18,255
Speaker 1: I don't know if you mentioned a video a couple of days ago with Trump and has new sort of I don't know.

258
0:25:18,295 --> 0:25:20,643
Speaker 1: Has things that he's going to do, has key points that he's going to do.

259
0:25:21,906 --> 0:25:24,312
Speaker 1: Can I change things up if he gets into power next year?

260
0:25:24,741 --> 0:25:27,027
Speaker 1: Do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing?

261
0:25:29,242 --> 0:25:29,482
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think.

262
0:25:29,502 --> 0:25:36,602
Speaker 2: My personal view is I hope Donald Trump is the nominee of the Republican Party, because I don't think.

263
0:25:37,103 --> 0:25:41,463
Speaker 2: I mean, I know some of these other people that are running and they're no better than he is.

264
0:25:41,503 --> 0:25:52,193
Speaker 2: They may be more polite, they may not speak so drastically, but their policies are the same they're going to be pro-war.

265
0:25:52,715 --> 0:26:34,111
Speaker 2: Not withstanding that, some of them now aren't really sure what we ought to be doing in Ukraine or even in Israel, but you know they, in the old days, when I first started to work as a lobbyist in Congress which is not a dirty word as long as you're lobbying for the right things people, democrats and Republicans because they stayed in Washington longer, they tended to move their families here and then their kids would go to the same elementary school and then they'd meet them there and they just couldn't be as hostile as these nitwits are now.

266
0:26:34,551 --> 0:26:35,633
Speaker 2: It's so brutal.

267
0:26:36,100 --> 0:26:50,633
Speaker 2: I mean, it really is brutal, and we're talking about people on the Supreme Court of the United States who are terrible, the terrible people, and I don't think they're terribly bright.

268
0:26:51,880 --> 0:27:08,849
Speaker 2: One of the people that Trump put in on the Supreme Court was he was accused of having attempted a rape of someone when he was in college, jesus Christ, yeah, they didn't care, they didn't care, they just they put him in.

269
0:27:09,550 --> 0:27:11,014
Speaker 2: But it's not just that.

270
0:27:11,100 --> 0:27:19,841
Speaker 2: It says I knew a hundred lawyers who were just as qualified as he was to be on the Supreme Court.

271
0:27:20,261 --> 0:27:23,968
Speaker 2: So it's not like, oh, this is the only hope we have.

272
0:27:24,709 --> 0:27:26,892
Speaker 2: He was just, he's just.

273
0:27:28,014 --> 0:27:33,981
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't, you know, I'm a member of the Supreme Court bar but I don't have to practice there anymore.

274
0:27:34,362 --> 0:27:38,491
Speaker 2: But these, he's just let me be polite a slime bucket.

275
0:27:38,812 --> 0:27:39,072
Speaker 1: Is he?

276
0:27:39,841 --> 0:27:42,792
Speaker 1: Is he a sort of person that can really be manipulated easily?

277
0:27:42,832 --> 0:27:51,486
Speaker 1: And he's got, he's like under the cusp of the people who, yeah, what it be, what stuff done, if that makes sense, if these like corruption and all that sort of stuff.

278
0:27:52,080 --> 0:27:52,581
Speaker 2: No, it does.

279
0:27:52,601 --> 0:28:13,694
Speaker 2: And in fact Rob Shank, who I mentioned once, he kind of gave up his radical right credentials actually testified to the House Judiciary Committee about how he was involved personally in trying to hook up major Republican donors with Supreme Court justices.

280
0:28:14,120 --> 0:28:20,389
Speaker 2: He get them together and he's repudiated that and he, so he.

281
0:28:21,031 --> 0:28:24,055
Speaker 2: He is a guy that I don't know.

282
0:28:24,280 --> 0:28:25,489
Speaker 2: Maybe he'd come on your show.

283
0:28:25,791 --> 0:28:26,960
Speaker 2: He's an interesting fellow.

284
0:28:27,702 --> 0:28:29,087
Speaker 1: Get one set up, I'll have him one.

285
0:28:29,860 --> 0:28:30,603
Speaker 1: You grow them.

286
0:28:30,623 --> 0:28:31,085
Speaker 1: That's some fun.

287
0:28:31,820 --> 0:28:37,772
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think you'd like him because he, he is a changed man.

288
0:28:38,133 --> 0:28:43,637
Speaker 2: Oh, really, yeah, I mean, he's the guy who said he wished he had listened to me 30 years ago.

289
0:28:43,677 --> 0:28:44,239
Speaker 2: Oh, is that the same?

290
0:28:44,259 --> 0:28:58,473
Speaker 2: Guy yeah same guy but I mean and to be very public and to talk about this outlandish connections that he would make between Republican high dollar donors and sitting Supreme Court justices.

291
0:28:59,661 --> 0:29:06,154
Speaker 2: It's absolute disgrace because the Supreme Court the last voice on anything.

292
0:29:08,739 --> 0:29:13,448
Speaker 2: It's not a very good voice, it's just the politics everywhere.

293
0:29:13,709 --> 0:29:25,945
Speaker 1: It's just even the, even the UK here so corrupt, so many people doing things for hidden agendas, you know, making things here for like, for their own personal gain, you know.

294
0:29:26,005 --> 0:29:29,033
Speaker 1: I mean, we're fucking politics here.

295
0:29:29,053 --> 0:29:31,791
Speaker 1: Our government's run by a bunch of dickheads.

296
0:29:31,851 --> 0:29:33,178
Speaker 1: Really, let's be quite honest with you.

297
0:29:33,198 --> 0:29:33,620
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.

298
0:29:33,841 --> 0:29:38,060
Speaker 1: And this is why I love podcasting, because you can say stuff and nobody's going to censor you.

299
0:29:38,301 --> 0:29:41,890
Speaker 1: So you can say the pricks and dickheads and nobody's, and it's amazing.

300
0:29:43,982 --> 0:29:44,803
Speaker 2: So I love podcasting.

301
0:29:44,863 --> 0:29:46,987
Speaker 2: I mean, podcasting is a great invention.

302
0:29:47,328 --> 0:30:11,405
Speaker 2: I did one for about a year, but unlike this, this is a wonderful way to do it, this platform that you're using but I had lots of problems and then people would get the time differences mixed up and then there were, at the time, 800,000 of them, and a lot of them, shall we say, aren't as quite as interesting as yours.

303
0:30:13,524 --> 0:30:14,265
Speaker 1: Oh, don't don't.

304
0:30:14,285 --> 0:30:16,750
Speaker 1: You're starting to get compliments.

305
0:30:16,770 --> 0:30:17,732
Speaker 1: We'll get you everywhere bar.

306
0:30:17,752 --> 0:30:18,133
Speaker 1: You know that.

307
0:30:18,680 --> 0:30:20,566
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

308
0:30:21,560 --> 0:30:22,764
Speaker 2: So I always like movies.

309
0:30:23,185 --> 0:30:24,870
Speaker 2: I've seen every Spider-Man movie.

310
0:30:25,842 --> 0:30:26,905
Speaker 1: I'm a big Marvel fan.

311
0:30:27,046 --> 0:30:29,542
Speaker 2: I should probably tell from back in the day, that's supposed to be.

312
0:30:29,562 --> 0:30:31,267
Speaker 1: I don't know, guys, if you've listened to this.

313
0:30:31,669 --> 0:30:32,944
Speaker 1: My big Marvel posts behind me.

314
0:30:32,964 --> 0:30:36,079
Speaker 1: Spider-man should be up in the wall, but it fell down, it fell down.

315
0:30:36,320 --> 0:30:38,729
Speaker 1: Yeah because it's, it's, it's.

316
0:30:39,532 --> 0:30:43,606
Speaker 1: You know these sticky things, you don't mess your wall up, so I'm not gonna hammer nails into the wall.

317
0:30:43,626 --> 0:30:43,767
Speaker 2: Right.

318
0:30:45,080 --> 0:30:46,895
Speaker 1: So I thought to myself I don't want it because I just cannot be bothered.

319
0:30:46,936 --> 0:30:48,042
Speaker 1: Painting it all over, it doesn't look.

320
0:30:48,102 --> 0:30:49,367
Speaker 1: I don't like the patchiness of it.

321
0:30:50,100 --> 0:30:51,987
Speaker 1: So I thought to myself there must be a different way.

322
0:30:52,420 --> 0:30:54,847
Speaker 1: So I found these little sticky things that you can get.

323
0:30:54,968 --> 0:30:59,788
Speaker 1: You can stick to the back, you can put it on the wall perfect, but it has to be flush.

324
0:31:00,270 --> 0:31:06,190
Speaker 1: And then I didn't realise that it's above the radiator and wood, when it gets hot, likes to bend a little bit, doesn't it?

325
0:31:06,450 --> 0:31:08,161
Speaker 1: It does so.

326
0:31:08,181 --> 0:31:11,534
Speaker 1: Now the back of it is a shape of a U and it doesn't like setting up.

327
0:31:11,635 --> 0:31:14,286
Speaker 1: So there's a bit of useless random shit there for you.

328
0:31:14,326 --> 0:31:16,451
Speaker 1: But my background and white doesn't look great.

329
0:31:17,100 --> 0:31:19,222
Speaker 2: Well, that's good, yeah, it's.

330
0:31:20,005 --> 0:31:26,143
Speaker 2: I had a when we moved to Massachusetts from Washington, you know, to gain all the things I mentioned.

331
0:31:27,045 --> 0:31:40,648
Speaker 2: We had somebody come in and hook up I think you can see something like it but a bookcase and I have a lot of movie books and art books, really heavy books, and they put up the shelves.

332
0:31:41,269 --> 0:31:54,962
Speaker 2: And they didn't put them up very well and one Sunday I was so proud of myself putting all these books up and then I heard everything fell out and we have these little grandkids that often came over.

333
0:31:55,311 --> 0:32:06,101
Speaker 2: It really would have hurt them because it hundreds and hundreds of pounds of really big books, but they came and fixed it for nothing.

334
0:32:06,631 --> 0:32:07,594
Speaker 1: Of course it did.

335
0:32:07,675 --> 0:32:08,959
Speaker 1: I'm not one of these sort of people, see.

336
0:32:09,019 --> 0:32:10,975
Speaker 1: I'm like I'm a stubborn bastard, buddy.

337
0:32:10,995 --> 0:32:13,041
Speaker 1: I don't know if you understand me or that I'm a stubborn bastard.

338
0:32:13,230 --> 0:32:17,092
Speaker 1: If I get flat packed something that needs to be assembled, I'm like no, I can do that.

339
0:32:17,112 --> 0:32:18,556
Speaker 1: And it says it has to be four men.

340
0:32:18,817 --> 0:32:21,614
Speaker 1: No, I can do that myself On my own.

341
0:32:21,815 --> 0:32:25,754
Speaker 1: I'm balancing the shelving unit on top of my head, trying to do this.

342
0:32:27,038 --> 0:32:29,494
Speaker 1: Honestly, if somebody could video it it'd be hilarious.

343
0:32:29,514 --> 0:32:30,798
Speaker 1: It would just be literally a.

344
0:32:31,311 --> 0:32:32,018
Speaker 1: You could put it on YouTube.

345
0:32:32,038 --> 0:32:32,987
Speaker 1: You'd get millions of views.

346
0:32:33,511 --> 0:32:42,977
Speaker 1: Many times it nearly get launched out the window and I know I'm living a one story apartment here with the balcony, the door was open ready for that to get launched.

347
0:32:43,037 --> 0:32:47,700
Speaker 1: It was gonna go oh geez, but then I realised it was too heavy to pick up and launch it myself.

348
0:32:47,730 --> 0:32:48,412
Speaker 1: But you're the pain.

349
0:32:48,894 --> 0:32:50,932
Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely.

350
0:32:50,952 --> 0:32:52,918
Speaker 2: Yeah, I gave up the.

351
0:32:54,230 --> 0:33:01,982
Speaker 2: We're having a porch put on out here and I have not volunteered to be of help.

352
0:33:02,630 --> 0:33:03,453
Speaker 2: I said you should get it.

353
0:33:04,055 --> 0:33:05,720
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's easier for someone else to do it.

354
0:33:06,171 --> 0:33:06,753
Speaker 2: Absolutely.

355
0:33:06,914 --> 0:33:07,959
Speaker 2: Maybe cheaper too.

356
0:33:08,522 --> 0:33:17,175
Speaker 2: You don't get hit on the head with hundreds of pounds of books, but no, so yeah, so my life has been very, I find it very interesting.

357
0:33:17,215 --> 0:33:18,559
Speaker 2: A lot of people bought the book.

358
0:33:19,110 --> 0:33:23,274
Speaker 2: I should tell people how they can get it, the easiest way to get it.

359
0:33:25,280 --> 0:33:25,962
Speaker 2: I don't know if you have.

360
0:33:26,110 --> 0:33:27,635
Speaker 2: Do you have Bitly over there?

361
0:33:27,836 --> 0:33:28,378
Speaker 1: It's a bitly.

362
0:33:29,410 --> 0:33:48,639
Speaker 2: So it's a bitly and then so it's BIT period L-Y slash Barry Lynn book and then you can get it directly from the publisher and you don't have to buy it for an even more expensive price At places like Amazon.

363
0:33:48,980 --> 0:33:50,532
Speaker 2: Bastards they are.

364
0:33:50,713 --> 0:33:51,575
Speaker 2: They're so terrible.

365
0:33:51,916 --> 0:34:08,080
Speaker 2: I mean I didn't realize how bad they were until I was on some radio shows with some of the people that are trying to organize at Amazon and the anti-worker sentiment at Amazon is absolutely horrible.

366
0:34:08,863 --> 0:34:16,058
Speaker 1: I used to know somebody who used to work in the warehouse yeah, and one of the warehouses and they actually they get timed.

367
0:34:16,680 --> 0:34:27,279
Speaker 1: How long it takes them to go for like a toilet break, yes, and if they're longer than like two or three minutes, they get literally like they get a strike against the name and if you get three strikes you're out and it's just like what?

368
0:34:27,670 --> 0:34:28,394
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that'd be fun.

369
0:34:28,716 --> 0:34:29,440
Speaker 1: I can't lie to you.

370
0:34:29,540 --> 0:34:30,687
Speaker 1: I eat a lot of shit.

371
0:34:30,707 --> 0:34:32,193
Speaker 1: I eat a lot of processed stuff.

372
0:34:32,213 --> 0:34:34,339
Speaker 1: Some days A lot of McDonald's A lot of that.

373
0:34:34,950 --> 0:34:40,856
Speaker 1: Doesn't agree with my gut, really that well, so halfway through the day, it starts to, you're gonna run.

374
0:34:40,937 --> 0:34:44,336
Speaker 1: You know it starts to things, it's not nice down there.

375
0:34:44,356 --> 0:34:45,238
Speaker 2: They want to leave.

376
0:34:46,631 --> 0:34:50,181
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's time for them to go, and a very quick pace as well.

377
0:34:50,651 --> 0:34:53,367
Speaker 1: Exactly, I'm not gonna spend three minutes.

378
0:34:53,387 --> 0:34:54,511
Speaker 1: That's a good 20 minute.

379
0:34:54,552 --> 0:34:55,754
Speaker 1: That's a good 20 minute.

380
0:34:55,814 --> 0:34:57,919
Speaker 1: Of course, I'd be sacked in the first day, barry.

381
0:35:00,210 --> 0:35:03,118
Speaker 2: Yeah Well, there was a movie called Nomadland.

382
0:35:03,359 --> 0:35:04,381
Speaker 2: It was a book and it.

383
0:35:04,830 --> 0:35:10,714
Speaker 2: The book was a little more honest, but the movie just makes it look like all these people in America.

384
0:35:11,055 --> 0:35:22,382
Speaker 2: They're traveling from one place to another, they're in their RVs, they stop and they get seasonal work, particularly around the holidays in December, and everything is great.

385
0:35:22,970 --> 0:35:23,692
Speaker 2: But it's not.

386
0:35:23,772 --> 0:35:25,877
Speaker 2: I mean, it was a total phony.

387
0:35:25,977 --> 0:35:30,373
Speaker 2: Nobody that I know who has worked at Amazon thinks well of it.

388
0:35:30,433 --> 0:35:33,461
Speaker 2: They just want to know how they can get the hell out of it.

389
0:35:35,254 --> 0:35:37,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a few lawsuits going on over here because of it.

390
0:35:38,030 --> 0:35:41,760
Speaker 1: I feel like workers' compensations and tributes and all that sort of stuff.

391
0:35:42,531 --> 0:35:45,930
Speaker 1: The government are actually starting to take notice of everything that's going on.

392
0:35:46,070 --> 0:35:48,656
Speaker 1: So that's an on-going thing because they can.

393
0:35:48,777 --> 0:35:55,109
Speaker 1: They're that big, they can just elongate it and just drag it out, and drag it out for as long as it takes they don't care.

394
0:35:55,470 --> 0:36:04,782
Speaker 2: No, the Federal Trade Commission and Agency in the United States has just filed a lawsuit, an antitrust lawsuit, against Amazon.

395
0:36:05,450 --> 0:36:06,713
Speaker 2: But they do little things.

396
0:36:06,793 --> 0:36:30,510
Speaker 2: I mean if they like you to publish a book with them, you know, or with one of the only four or five major publishers left in the United States, and they don't like independent presses like the one, this Blue Cedar Press, that published my three books, and they don't treat you right If they make a mistake in the characterization.

397
0:36:30,650 --> 0:36:48,602
Speaker 2: I got a lot of pretty heavy hitter people who, in advance of the book coming out, you know, had looked at it and wrote nice things about it, but several of them they misspelled the name and so you write them, could you correct this name?

398
0:36:50,854 --> 0:36:53,350
Speaker 2: And they never get back to you and they never correct it.

399
0:36:54,131 --> 0:37:10,693
Speaker 2: But I consider in my life a very privileged one because I here I am 75, had been very shy, had wonderful opportunities, but wonderful opportunities because I actually wanted to help the people.

400
0:37:11,214 --> 0:37:28,773
Speaker 2: It was not just an issue, you know, when somebody says they're going to fire me because I have an LGBTQ character in a book at my school and I'm putting it in the library, it hurts me.

401
0:37:29,494 --> 0:37:34,748
Speaker 2: It hurts me and I think the people that get into pure politics.

402
0:37:35,309 --> 0:37:41,081
Speaker 2: They're not as interested in the people as outsiders are People who want to call.

403
0:37:41,382 --> 0:37:49,464
Speaker 2: Whether you're a Democrat or Republican, call you out when you do the wrong thing, and that's the way the world ought to work.

404
0:37:49,930 --> 0:37:56,831
Speaker 2: People ought to call out government officials, even if they're theoretically, you're in the same party.

405
0:37:58,055 --> 0:38:00,824
Speaker 2: If you do the wrong thing, you have to be called out.

406
0:38:01,305 --> 0:38:05,058
Speaker 1: Exactly, and the more people do speak up, the hurt mentality.

407
0:38:05,138 --> 0:38:08,730
Speaker 1: One person can't do much, but more people do, the more change will happen.

408
0:38:08,750 --> 0:38:09,271
Speaker 2: Absolutely.

409
0:38:09,450 --> 0:38:12,410
Speaker 2: You can't do very much by yourself.

410
0:38:12,590 --> 0:38:26,330
Speaker 2: You have to have a movement behind you, you have to get people connected to what you're doing and you can't take credit for everything.

411
0:38:26,390 --> 0:38:40,893
Speaker 2: I mean, I was kind of embarrassed in parts of the book because it sounds like I did everything and in some cases I did.

412
0:38:40,973 --> 0:38:55,875
Speaker 2: But in most cases you need a movement of people behind you, you need to form coalitions and if you can get an occasional conservative on your side, if it's basically a liberal issue, go for it, do it.

413
0:38:55,975 --> 0:39:00,123
Speaker 2: Do it unapologetically, because that's the way you make change.

414
0:39:00,844 --> 0:39:15,628
Speaker 2: And I don't know if you're familiar with some of these people, like Pat Buchanan, who ran for president in the United States, oliver North, who of course got caught up in the Iran-Contra scandal.

415
0:39:16,210 --> 0:39:21,079
Speaker 2: But these are people you know, they're friends of mine and I did a lot of media with them.

416
0:39:21,721 --> 0:39:32,011
Speaker 2: I worked with Pat Buchanan for about a year and a half every day on radio, with Oliver North every Friday on his radio show.

417
0:39:32,872 --> 0:39:42,414
Speaker 2: And you also find sometimes that people have strange views that you don't find consistent with what you assume they do.

418
0:39:45,058 --> 0:39:59,433
Speaker 2: Oliver North is one of the few people who's actually systematically pro-life, so he is against abortion but he hates the death penalty which we still impose in the United States.

419
0:40:00,014 --> 0:40:05,644
Speaker 2: It's coming back and most people, oh, they want to protect fetuses.

420
0:40:05,970 --> 0:40:16,357
Speaker 2: When it comes to some guy who may or may not even have committed a murder, oh well, you know, we don't want to put him in jail for 25 years.

421
0:40:16,417 --> 0:40:18,642
Speaker 2: It costs too much, let's execute him.

422
0:40:18,882 --> 0:40:22,017
Speaker 2: He's a rush to judgment on killing people.

423
0:40:22,699 --> 0:40:23,943
Speaker 2: It's just, it's appalling.

424
0:40:24,023 --> 0:40:24,966
Speaker 2: I mean really.

425
0:40:25,327 --> 0:40:26,730
Speaker 2: But North is one of those people.

426
0:40:27,191 --> 0:40:29,314
Speaker 2: I used to call him up occasionally.

427
0:40:32,198 --> 0:40:43,604
Speaker 2: He was the third most significant Republican fundraiser, so governors would take his calls and they wouldn't take a call from me, but they'd take him from him.

428
0:40:44,250 --> 0:40:49,421
Speaker 2: When I found out he was against the death penalty under any circumstance, I'd call him up.

429
0:40:49,862 --> 0:40:52,334
Speaker 2: I'd say you know there's going to be an execution.

430
0:40:53,056 --> 0:40:57,073
Speaker 2: As a governor, a Republican governor, would you mind calling him up?

431
0:40:57,775 --> 0:40:59,059
Speaker 2: And he would do that.

432
0:40:59,861 --> 0:41:02,610
Speaker 1: It's good to have people in high places sometimes, isn't it?

433
0:41:05,735 --> 0:41:13,535
Speaker 2: It is, and right before the book came out, I was talking to both the same week to North Oliver North and to Ron Kovic.

434
0:41:14,777 --> 0:41:16,600
Speaker 2: Ron Kovic is a peace activist.

435
0:41:17,462 --> 0:41:27,464
Speaker 2: He was the subject of the Tom Cruz movie, born on the 4th of July, and he's as far to the left as you can possibly get.

436
0:41:28,210 --> 0:41:32,339
Speaker 2: But I just found it interesting because I do consider both of them friends.

437
0:41:32,900 --> 0:41:37,178
Speaker 2: I mean as in would you go to their funerals and I would?

438
0:41:37,639 --> 0:41:40,708
Speaker 2: I would, yeah, but you know you can't.

439
0:41:40,909 --> 0:41:41,530
Speaker 2: That can't be.

440
0:41:41,571 --> 0:41:45,559
Speaker 2: Your goal is not to just form these phony alliances.

441
0:41:46,180 --> 0:41:47,783
Speaker 2: That's what political hacks do.

442
0:41:48,250 --> 0:41:53,747
Speaker 2: You have to find people who care enough to actually do the hard work of helping you.

443
0:41:54,329 --> 0:41:59,941
Speaker 2: If it's one of those issues, they agree with you about and most people just give up.

444
0:42:00,001 --> 0:42:04,256
Speaker 2: They don't know how to do that, but they want to do it.

445
0:42:04,797 --> 0:42:07,543
Speaker 1: So what's next in the life and body what you've got?

446
0:42:07,563 --> 0:42:09,331
Speaker 1: You've got any sequels of the books coming up.

447
0:42:09,351 --> 0:42:10,512
Speaker 1: Can you get anything on the paper?

448
0:42:12,693 --> 0:42:13,174
Speaker 2: I'm, I'm.

449
0:42:14,655 --> 0:42:24,577
Speaker 2: We might do a second edition of these books because they have been selling reasonably well Without you know much.

450
0:42:25,339 --> 0:42:40,548
Speaker 2: I mean, my advertising is exclusively on podcasts, on my mailing lists, on radio shows that I still do, and so I don't have any imminent plan to do more than maybe add a few stories.

451
0:42:40,895 --> 0:42:45,627
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a story about Kirk Douglas that didn't make it into the book.

452
0:42:46,095 --> 0:42:47,321
Speaker 2: Do you know who Kirk Douglas is?

453
0:42:47,916 --> 0:42:50,764
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, big, massive, famous, hot big much, yeah.

454
0:42:51,395 --> 0:42:52,536
Speaker 2: So I was in.

455
0:42:53,598 --> 0:43:02,930
Speaker 2: I was in NBC on one of those late night shows and the have makeup, everybody has makeup.

456
0:43:03,837 --> 0:43:12,368
Speaker 2: I'm in my makeup room, kirk Douglas walks in and he says where is that guy that is against draft registration?

457
0:43:13,155 --> 0:43:16,505
Speaker 2: And as soon as he asked the question, here I am.

458
0:43:17,255 --> 0:43:22,899
Speaker 2: And then they brought TV cameras in because I think they honestly felt he was going to punch me in the face.

459
0:43:23,501 --> 0:43:31,944
Speaker 2: Seriously, he didn't, but he made these comments during his segment of the late night show that they had to apologize for at the end.

460
0:43:35,381 --> 0:43:37,504
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm saying that that's a good thing to think in.

461
0:43:37,545 --> 0:43:38,907
Speaker 1: Punch the face by Kirk Douglas.

462
0:43:39,248 --> 0:43:39,829
Speaker 2: It could have been.

463
0:43:40,275 --> 0:43:41,328
Speaker 2: I mean, I almost wish he'd done it.

464
0:43:41,955 --> 0:43:45,005
Speaker 2: But you know, but they, I mean he.

465
0:43:45,085 --> 0:43:52,005
Speaker 2: Clearly he calmed down when the cameras came in because I guess he just wanted to be known as Spartacus forever.

466
0:43:56,020 --> 0:44:01,529
Speaker 1: But yeah, so you get to see the new second edition of the books and you got some more stories coming out.

467
0:44:01,549 --> 0:44:02,150
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.

468
0:44:03,537 --> 0:44:08,868
Speaker 2: And you know I still do, as I said, I do a lot of podcasts.

469
0:44:09,035 --> 0:44:10,602
Speaker 2: This is this is more fun.

470
0:44:11,136 --> 0:44:16,329
Speaker 2: I'm not just doing this to butter you up, but this is more fun than some of them are.

471
0:44:16,810 --> 0:44:17,532
Speaker 1: But I do them.

472
0:44:17,572 --> 0:44:18,173
Speaker 1: Do you know?

473
0:44:18,213 --> 0:44:21,220
Speaker 1: What I've seen, I've mentioned, I've seen this is with this podcast.

474
0:44:21,281 --> 0:44:24,328
Speaker 1: I'd say it's a conversation, it's a chat, it's a nice and chill atmosphere.

475
0:44:25,058 --> 0:44:32,742
Speaker 1: And I've seen a lot of people been doing like these, sort of like an interviews with people and getting people guests on and speaking, and oh my God, it's so robotic.

476
0:44:33,698 --> 0:44:38,860
Speaker 1: It's like question answer, question answer and I'm like let the conversation go.

477
0:44:38,881 --> 0:44:41,427
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, Just let it go naturally and it's so much easier.

478
0:44:41,975 --> 0:44:43,600
Speaker 1: It's so easy to listen to that way as well.

479
0:44:44,463 --> 0:44:44,743
Speaker 1: Yeah.

480
0:44:45,635 --> 0:44:46,557
Speaker 2: It's.

481
0:44:46,577 --> 0:44:56,781
Speaker 2: I mean, when you listen to the average member of Congress here in the United States, they can't answer any questions, Even the simplest one.

482
0:44:57,135 --> 0:44:58,179
Speaker 2: Who are you going to vote for?

483
0:44:58,259 --> 0:44:58,881
Speaker 2: For a speaker?

484
0:44:59,555 --> 0:45:02,204
Speaker 2: Well, you'll know when I cast my vote.

485
0:45:02,857 --> 0:45:03,961
Speaker 1: You know that would be.

486
0:45:04,596 --> 0:45:04,977
Speaker 2: Politics.

487
0:45:05,037 --> 0:45:09,162
Speaker 2: I'd say when I was a host of radio shows I would.

488
0:45:10,466 --> 0:45:14,799
Speaker 2: If somebody gave that answer, I would never have them back on.

489
0:45:15,376 --> 0:45:22,143
Speaker 2: I want people who actually have something to say, who believe in something and who are not afraid to tell me what they believe.

490
0:45:23,535 --> 0:45:38,429
Speaker 2: Man, the media, I wish I could say that it was great, it was improving, but all those networks I used to be on it's pretty pathetic now.

491
0:45:38,629 --> 0:45:39,552
Speaker 2: I mean it really is.

492
0:45:39,893 --> 0:45:40,495
Speaker 1: Yeah that's right.

493
0:45:40,555 --> 0:45:52,784
Speaker 1: The thing is Cross it hopefully gets better and people actually can stand up for the witch-right and all that sort of stuff and tell these like corrupt nobodies to fuck off In a nice way, in a nice way.

494
0:45:53,124 --> 0:45:57,101
Speaker 2: In a nice way, it's the other thing.

495
0:45:57,643 --> 0:45:58,925
Speaker 2: You know I'm a big movie fan.

496
0:45:58,985 --> 0:46:03,265
Speaker 2: I told you that and they opened a movie theater.

497
0:46:03,335 --> 0:46:10,083
Speaker 2: I just moved to Massachusetts about a year ago and they opened a movie theater here.

498
0:46:10,645 --> 0:46:15,802
Speaker 2: That is absolutely the best theater I've ever been in in the United States.

499
0:46:17,137 --> 0:46:17,880
Speaker 2: It's wonderful.

500
0:46:18,435 --> 0:46:20,239
Speaker 2: It's one of these showcase cinemas.

501
0:46:20,299 --> 0:46:39,365
Speaker 2: I don't know if they are across the pond or not, but it's just beautiful, luxurious seats, a kind of wall between you and the people in front of you so you can't see them, and that's good.

502
0:46:40,028 --> 0:46:41,337
Speaker 2: So if they want to play, they're comfy seats.

503
0:46:41,357 --> 0:46:42,922
Speaker 1: You've got the vibrating ones as well.

504
0:46:43,183 --> 0:46:46,562
Speaker 1: Oh no, the witch-right service and all that sort of stuff coming to you.

505
0:46:48,115 --> 0:46:48,416
Speaker 2: I did.

506
0:46:48,496 --> 0:46:55,165
Speaker 2: My wife and I did go to see a movie at one of those theaters and she will never go back.

507
0:46:55,596 --> 0:46:56,439
Speaker 2: I will never go back.

508
0:46:56,715 --> 0:47:05,642
Speaker 2: But it wasn't in sync so that there'd be like water coming at you no water on the screen, it's just spraying you in the face.

509
0:47:06,197 --> 0:47:06,518
Speaker 2: Why do you?

510
0:47:06,559 --> 0:47:07,000
Speaker 1: want that.

511
0:47:07,515 --> 0:47:08,197
Speaker 2: And rocking.

512
0:47:08,257 --> 0:47:14,142
Speaker 2: It didn't rock in conjunction with anything going on in the film, it just would random rock.

513
0:47:14,815 --> 0:47:18,792
Speaker 2: So we ended up sitting in the aisle for the movie.

514
0:47:20,300 --> 0:47:22,915
Speaker 1: Feeling sick, drenched, drenched.

515
0:47:23,497 --> 0:47:25,303
Speaker 1: Here, everywhere because the wind has been hitting you.

516
0:47:25,655 --> 0:47:26,940
Speaker 1: The wind has been hitting you.

517
0:47:27,976 --> 0:47:28,939
Speaker 1: It's been up by a cinema.

518
0:47:30,856 --> 0:47:52,699
Speaker 2: But yeah, and the other thing I recommend to people who are interested in activism is work with the people and don't expect everybody to do the things you want them to do without being paid for it.

519
0:47:53,595 --> 0:48:00,683
Speaker 2: One of the things in the last couple of years we did at Americans United for Separation Church and State was had concerts.

520
0:48:00,915 --> 0:48:11,726
Speaker 2: The first year we had a concert in every state on the same weekend and it was very difficult to do that.

521
0:48:11,935 --> 0:48:24,227
Speaker 2: I got a wonderful singer-songwriter named Katie Curtis, who kind of is highly respected in the singer-songwriter community, to kind of help make this howl happen.

522
0:48:26,197 --> 0:48:28,863
Speaker 2: It ended with Russell Brand.

523
0:48:31,275 --> 0:48:39,939
Speaker 2: Russell came and Sarah Silverman, another comic genius, and a couple of singers and was in Los Angeles.

524
0:48:42,355 --> 0:48:47,825
Speaker 2: And one of the things I did was I'd call.

525
0:48:47,845 --> 0:48:49,949
Speaker 2: If it was a big venue, you'd call them.

526
0:48:50,035 --> 0:48:53,019
Speaker 2: I'd call them and I'd go how the ticket's going?

527
0:48:53,815 --> 0:49:00,100
Speaker 2: And I called this place in Los Angeles and they said we have some thousand dollar meet and greet tickets left.

528
0:49:00,975 --> 0:49:02,980
Speaker 2: And I thought man, that's all they have left.

529
0:49:03,080 --> 0:49:08,724
Speaker 2: Thousand dollar meet and greets, and that means all the twenty five dollar seats and a hundred.

530
0:49:09,515 --> 0:49:10,201
Speaker 2: Everything's been sold.

531
0:49:11,035 --> 0:49:19,607
Speaker 2: When I got there that day I went to the box office I said I'm the guy that's kind of producing this and how the ticket's going.

532
0:49:20,395 --> 0:49:22,322
Speaker 2: She goes oh, we got a lot of tickets.

533
0:49:22,915 --> 0:49:24,100
Speaker 2: I said you have a lot of tickets.

534
0:49:24,595 --> 0:49:28,246
Speaker 2: When I called, he said they only had a thousand dollar meet and greets.

535
0:49:28,435 --> 0:49:36,363
Speaker 2: Then I called a couple of my friends in Los Angeles and they said, yeah, we wanted to go, but we can't afford a thousand dollars.

536
0:49:36,696 --> 0:49:54,906
Speaker 2: I said I don't blame you, but yeah, so I don't know what went wrong with it, but it was a very weird evening, I must say, and Russell's in kind of problematic place now, but I don't know what the truth is.

537
0:49:57,998 --> 0:50:04,838
Speaker 2: He takes a lot of things very seriously and that's what I liked about him and I was very happy, I was willing.

538
0:50:05,415 --> 0:50:07,181
Speaker 2: I think he did it for nothing actually.

539
0:50:08,595 --> 0:50:09,941
Speaker 2: But you can't ask people to do.

540
0:50:10,075 --> 0:50:13,044
Speaker 2: You can't ask somebody to give up a play in a major city.

541
0:50:13,595 --> 0:50:23,579
Speaker 2: If somebody's going to play in London, for example, you can't say, oh well, just do this for me, I'm saving puppy dogs, just do it for nothing.

542
0:50:23,875 --> 0:50:27,144
Speaker 2: You can't do that because they got other things to do.

543
0:50:27,715 --> 0:50:33,618
Speaker 2: They got one chance at a big show in a big theater in a London or a New York City or Washington DC.

544
0:50:35,635 --> 0:50:38,984
Speaker 2: You got to work it out with them and everybody wins.

545
0:50:40,035 --> 0:50:41,179
Speaker 2: Too many people just go.

546
0:50:41,259 --> 0:50:42,784
Speaker 2: Well, we're not going to pay them.

547
0:50:43,415 --> 0:50:45,402
Speaker 2: They should want to do this because they're on our side.

548
0:50:46,478 --> 0:50:47,361
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got to eat too.

549
0:50:52,345 --> 0:50:57,335
Speaker 1: On that note, barry, I think we'll wrap it up there, but it has been an absolute pleasure to have you on, though.

550
0:50:57,776 --> 0:50:58,961
Speaker 1: It's been great to chat to you.

551
0:51:00,075 --> 0:51:01,942
Speaker 2: Thank you, I've really enjoyed it as well.

552
0:51:02,355 --> 0:51:03,417
Speaker 2: I just say, guys, listen.

553
0:51:03,557 --> 0:51:07,503
Speaker 1: Obviously we'll put the link for Barry's books underneath in the description.

554
0:51:07,804 --> 0:51:11,890
Speaker 1: Go and pick them up, have a look at them, read them, share them to your friends and tell everyone about them.

555
0:51:12,055 --> 0:51:12,997
Speaker 1: I'm sure you'll enjoy them.

556
0:51:13,698 --> 0:51:17,244
Speaker 1: You got it, thank you.