Keep on riding with it, says, we continue to broadcast the balance and defend the discourse from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. Welcome back to Civic Cipher. I'm your host, Rams' joh.
He is Ramsy's jah, I am q Ward. You are tuned in a Civic cipher once again.
Indeed you are.
And uh, it was very very nice to hear your voice just now because you seem very composed and I'm having a tough one this show, and normally or sometimes you know that's that's flip flop.
But you know you're think it's it's just a difference of our emotions always right, You are feeling sadness when your brother is feeling anger, and the way that those emotions come out is very very different. It's not composure that you're noticing. It's me trying not to flip over.
Okay, well, stick around because we have happier news to talk about President Kamala Harris. That's new and that gives me a little bit of hope. But before we get there, it's time to discuss Baba becoming a better ally Baba and Today's Babba sponsored by Friends of the Movement. You can sign up for the free voter while it from Fotmglobal dot com support black businesses and allied businesses as well as making impact with your spending. Again, that's Fotmglobal
dot Com Today. I'm asking you to watch your film Easy Work. You can find it on Facebook. No, sorry, you can find it on YouTube. It's called Where Olive Trees Weep. I'm going to share a blurb from their website. The film gives background into the current crisis in Israel Palestine and brings to light the lives of people we met on our twenty twenty two journey in the occupied West Bank. Their universally human stories speak of intergenerational pain, trauma,
and resilience. We hope they touch your hearts, stir compassion and understanding, and give rise to a pursuit for justice. But without justice, peace remains an empty slogan cine, it can be a powerful force for change. Our aim, beyond mere education is to truly move hearts and minds and inspire audiences to echo the calls for freedom, equality and
dignity that have gone unanswered for far too long. The film is our modest contribution towards the dream of an end of the occupation in Palestine, the attainment of equal rights and pair treatment for Palestinian people, and the spreading of healing for all intergenerational cycles of trauma in the region. You can find the film at where Olivetreesweep dot com. Again, you can find it on YouTube where Olive Trees Weep. And I want you to know I saw this film.
It is incredibly powerful, and I'm gonna spoil the ending for you, but I just feel like it's important because I really want you to watch it.
I really do.
OK.
The film was recorded in twenty twenty two, so it was before October seventh, and you get a chance to get a glimpse into the life of what it means to be Palestinian, and it's just magnificent. Again where Olive Trees Weep. I know that we have some some unfinished business with the first half of the show, but perhaps we will table that for a later discussion, or perhaps it will make its way into this conversation, but I
do want to give this moment it's proper due. President Harris has a has a little bit of a ring to it. I like that I know that you know this already, and you know based on our recording schedule and the way we air. This is news that has been celebrated, but around here we need to talk about this.
First. I'm going to start with.
Joe Biden's decision to step down, and then Q's going to jump in with Kamala Harris's announcement that you know, she sent us an email blast to folks. So we'll do this and then we'll lean into it. This from Joe Biden, my fellow Americans. Over the past three and a half years, we have made great progress as a nation. Today,
America has the strongest economy in the world. We've made historic investments in rebuilding our nation and lowering prescription drug costs for seniors, and in expanding affordable healthcare to a record number of Americans. We've provided critically needed care to a million veterans exposed to toxic substances, past the first gun safety law, and thirty years appointed the first African American woman to the Supreme Court, and passed the most
significant climate legislation in the history of the world. America has never been better positioned to lead than we are today. I know none of this can have been done without you, the American people. Together we overcame a once in a century pandemic and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We've protected and preserved our democracy, and we've revitalized and strengthened our alliances around the world. It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president.
And while it has been my intention to seek re election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term. For my part, my very first decision as the party nominee in twenty twenty was to pick Kamala Harris as my vice president and it's been the best decision I've made Today. I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the
nominee of our party this year. Democrats, it's time to come together and beat Trump. Fantastic good show. I was worried there was a lot of ego there. Father Time comes for all of us, uh and Father Time wins that battle one hundred percent of the time. And you know, for those of us that were we were in the media during twenty twenty that election, we had we had a whole show dedicated to, you know, Joe Biden after he won that election, and before he won, we had a couple.
Of shows leading up too. Yeah.
Absolutely, So we had a differ, diferent lens in a different perspective. We had to cover it, so we had to go deep in a lot of different areas. And Joe Biden was the candidate at the time that Democrats thought could beat Trump. We around here, we were fans
of Bernie's messaging, Bernie Sanders's messaging. But after the primaries, the powers that be decided that Joe Biden was more electable and appealed more to people in the middle, wasn't as polarizing as Bernie would have been, and could secure a win. And to their credit, perhaps they're right. They were right, you know, Joe Biden. Who's to say a Bernie would have won or not. I still believe in Bernie, but Joe Biden won. The thing is, people were excited
about Bernie Sanders. Before Bernie Sanders, people were excited about Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. And before then, people were excited about Barack Obama. Nobody was excited about Joe Biden. People were excited to get Trump out of office and that manage vote for People were hopeful.
There you go, that we could get Trump out of office. I don't want to say excited, because I remember that I wasn't and I remember that a lot of people shared my fears, right because once at a time Trump announced himself as a potential candidate, and we collectively laughed because we felt he couldn't have been serious. And as we collectively laughed, he became the president. And the way that people just kind of assumed he would lose when he ran the first time, some people brought that same
energy back, cavalier apathetic approach back again. And I'm like, okay, so we're clearly not paying attention here, and we don't have a candidate that we're excited about on top of that. So I don't know if excitement is a word that we can use at any moment prior to those results being announced, And then it was more relieve.
Yeah, there you excite, but you know, to be fair, that's that. That's more or less how Joe Biden rows up in our minds and in a lot of voter's minds. Joe Biden was not polling well. I remember there were that people were speculating that he was going to drop out early on, and then when it ended up coming down to the wire, the Democratic establishment does what it did in twenty sixteen as well, and they says, hey, look it doesn't matter who has the support, we need somebody that can win the seat.
And that was their strategy.
So Joe Biden is now the president, Okay, And Joe Biden. The thing that stands out in my mind about Joe Biden. He's done a number of things. This is in no way a knock to Joe Biden. But the thing that Joe Biden represents in my mind is that he is the reason that we didn't have to see Donald Trump's face every day anymore. Right, So, of all the things that he did, that was the one that, on an emotional level, really changed so much and meant the most,
meant the most. Yeah, but we live in interesting times. Somehow, Donald Trump getting arrested and having his mug shot shown. This was the president his.
Mug shot like he was in jail, that legitimately arrested and a legitimately photographed. This was not some hurple that this was not some political scheme by the left. He did actual criminal be he did crimes, was actually convicted of said crimes, still on trial for others, so adjudicated in others.
So I mean, your your your point is well made. Instead of doing what that should have done. No, we don't elect criminals to office knowingly, right.
To any office, let alone the office.
But we don't do that knowingly, do we. But rather than that, yeah, just qualifying causing his supporters to turn away from it galvanized them. And then you know, him being liable for sexual assault and then him getting found guilty on thirty four felony counts, all these things galvanize being a.
Part of these Epstein documents that his base said they lamored for for them to be released when they thought that the names would be on the other side of the aisle. And then when his name is there repeatedly, it doesn't matter anymore.
And on top of that, forget everything that this guy did during his first term as president and campaigning.
This is just in the past two years.
He's doing since he's left off, show him more popular for them.
And that's the crazy thing. Now here's the other part of it. Joe Biden had a bad debate and a bad follow up interview. I will see that entirely right, But that didn't rally Trump's base. They were kind of that. They had already painted Joe Biden as kind of passed his prime and blah blah blah, So that's maybe what they expected. They expected Donald Trump to show up and be Donald Trump, which is exactly what happened. So nothing to see here in terms of what they were seeing.
Democrats were disappointed. Republicans were like, yeah, we told you, you know what I mean. But that assassination attempt didn't affect polling, didn't affect that the way that people thought it would. No, numbers are more or less the same as they always were, right, But that assassination attempt on Donald Trump, him getting shot in the ear, it was exciting. It made them feel like, we have to get this guy in the office. See they're try there's a plot
to kill it. The guy that shot him, by the way, was a registered Republican.
A registered Republican that votes Republican. That's important to say, because I saw the conspiracy theories that this guy donated one Democrats had him registered Republicans so that they can.
He was twenty years old.
This is a registered Republican, voted Republican tried to assassinate a man with a weapon that Democrats tried to make illegal that Republicans stood in the way of. And they are somehow still framing it as the fault.
Of Republicans, posed with pictures with those guns, like it's cool, Like I don't know why you want this murder, But beyond their glamorizing it, Democratic legislators and lawmakers tried to make that an illegal gun. Yeah, and Republican legislators and lawmakers stood in the way from making that happen. So to them, try to blame Democrats for what happened. You would think it was crazy, except it's the world we
live here. We are range times. But the fact of the matter is that to them Donald Trump seems somehow more exciting because he's a criminal to them, he's heroic to them.
Somehow.
It's a cult, man, it's a cult. They showed up with the band aids on their ears like they got shot in solidarity, Like this is weird, weirdo behavior.
Right.
So, because we need on the left side of the country a candidate that feels exciting, This is kind of the narrative I'm sure in closed door conversations for Democrats, because we need balance. You know, it's a political system. There's two parties and you need you know, if one
has this, the other needs that and that sort of thing. Right, So we have one on the one side, we need one on the other side, an exciting candidate, a candidate that gets people fired up, a candidate that breeds new blood into the voter base, new new oxygen into the voter base. And we have a black woman to the rescue. And if that's not the most poetic thing, I don't know. It is so cute. What does Kamala Harris have to say after Joe Biden says he's not seeking reelection.
I am running to be President of the United States. It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve alongside our commander in chief, my friend, President Joe Biden, one of the finest public servants we will ever know, and I am honored to have his support and endorsement. I am eager to run on the record of what
Joe and I have accomplished together. We built our country back after our predecessor, predecessor left it in shambles, making historic progress and reducing prescription drug cross cost, upgrading our nation's infrastructure, fighting climate change, and more. We are stronger today because we took action together to invest in America's future. I am excited to continue to work toward our vision
for a better future for all. I am honored to have the President's endorsement, and my intention is to earn and win this nomination in the coming days as I hit the campaign trail to meet with Americans and lay out the choice in frontal voters in the fall, I cannot imagine two more starkly different visions of where we want our country to go. We can choose the dark path of Project twenty twenty five, with less freedom and more division, or we can choose to pull together and
do the work for the people. That was like a president to me. I do not want to pretend like this is not exciting. I do not want to pretend like the idea of President Kamala Harris from the Alpha chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority incorporated on the campus of Howard University in Washington, d C.
Shout out to the skiwez isn't.
Exciting and that should have been a super exciting moment. But let me tell you, guys, where my anxiety has come from since this announcement. Our lack of ability to unify the things that divide us in this country, show their faces and make their voices heard the loudest in moments like this, because immediately the group of people in this country that feel like a woman of any color
is unfit to lead, they have to speak up. And then black people who don't want people to think that they are just supporting her because she's black, have to then go the extreme opposite direction to show you all the reasons that they're not just so they don't get put in a box and want to consider themselves free thinkers, right contrarians with no real cause except for to be contrary. You know what you mean, Our gen zers, who by no fault of their own have been completely almost left
out of most messaging by both parties. Just a lack of ability to reach this generation of brand new voters who are looking for someone to be excited about.
Why would I go out and vote?
You know, and a different sector of that contrarian base that is not out to just show that we're not just supporting her because we're black, but the Democratic Party has done nothing to earn our votes, so we're going to support Donald Trump.
It's a leap, which is.
The one of all of those that shines the brightest red light to me. I can understand the first part of that thought being expressed. I have been let down. I have lived through unfulfilled promises. I have donated money and time and my voice and my endorsement and my support to this party as long as I've been old enough to vote, and they've done nothing specifically for me.
Can I give you a scenario please?
Okay.
I'm in Texas. I'm on my way to New York, Okay, and I'm going to take a train. Okay, the Red train is going to Los Angeles and the Blue train is broken. Which train am I going to get on? If I need to go to New York? Am I going to Los Angeles?
No? I don't need to get on the red trick.
It's a one way to Los Angeles by one way. Yeah, you know what. I'm trying to painting a new scenario.
I'm not going backwards.
It's important to state the choice that Rams has just laid out is intentionally binary. It is intentionally zero sum. One of the trains is set taking me further away from it is set for New York but broken. The other one's going to Los Angeles. That's where it's going.
Period.
You have to get to New York. We got to fix the Blue train.
And go to New York.
This is not even a it's not a hard problem. But I can the reason I know what's happening rams because I've had these conversations with people that I know and care about. They will find a way to have a conversation about that Los Angeles training. That's somehow better.
I'm going to New York.
Eh.
That one's not going to New York and the opposite.
Direction important to say. We have people that fix trains. People that know how to fix trains are present. It's not this is this train isn't doomed to be forever broken. We have the mechanics and the tools and the source is necessary to fix it.
It's been broken for a while.
We can all collectively pour into that and fix it. Instead, getting on the Los Angeles train is not the solution. However, that is the decision that some people have made. So we spoke about this before Black women immediately organized, mobilized collectively, and got together as soon as this was announced. By this time yesterday, they were already thirty thousand black women on a call together, raising money, organizing, showing their support.
Oh I remember that wasn't Yes, that was a few days ago.
I know what's today. Yeah, So whenever you guys are hearing us. Shortly after this announcement was made, black women organized and support Arian Simona the Fearless Fun posted one band one sound the famous quote from Doctor Lee in the movie drum Line. However, every black woman that saw that knew exactly what she meant, and they got on the same page together. So very very important because everyone
has a chance to do the right thing here. Yeah, and I know sometimes we're tired of being shouldered with the responsibility of doing the right thing, even when it doesn't feel good, even though we're not getting everything we want from it. However, we know the responsible, right thing to do, and I hope that we're about to do that.
I'd also like to direct you to some conversations that you and I have had at the Black Information Network, and you can just look up Black Information Network Daily Podcast because we do go into more detail about this Kamala Harris presidency. But for now we have to leave Civic Cipher right here. So as always, i'd like to thank you very much for tuning in. I have been your host Rams' job.
He is now and forever your host Rams' jah because without him there is no Civic Sipher. I have to say that to him sometimes because he'd be tripping as both of us, man I am, I can't do and if there's not both of us, it's a different show. I just gotta say that out.
That's fair.
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