Kucinich: “Iran Could Be the Graveyard of the American Empire”

Hi, this is Robert Shear with another edition of Sheer Intelligence, which uh he did for many years for KCRW and MPR, but NPR came under a lot of attack from the Trump administration and Um I'm well this to say I'm not there anymore, but You get this on a lot of outlets in Apple, Spotify and certainly SharePoost.

And uh so but I I I've known Dennis for a long time. I originally interviewed him, believe it or not, for Playboy magazine when he was the mayor of Cleveland, uh probably the greatest Mayor any city has ever had in terms of caring about where big power operated and where the the big banks got to run the city, big power companies and so forth.

But then it's also in Congress and his his storied r uh reputation in Congress for raising issues was really the peace congressman. He tried to have a war of peace. He was arguing for peace and as s as a result he was a witness to America's military Misadventures, tragedies, catastrophes. Uh for a very long time.

And so I can't think of anybody more important to get an assessment from in what I as a longtime journalist writing about war and peace, um I find the most fraught, most dangerous moment we've ever been in in terms of international relations and obviously what's going on now in this alliance with Israel to the change uh the uh talk about regime change is to

prevent them from picking anybody Israel doesn't like uh to run their country or they'll be killed. And if anybody speaks out in Israel, some members of Net Yahoo's cabinet have said off with their heads, even if they're Jewish citizens of Israel. So we we're in an an extreme time now, but I'm gonna let you give the assessment.

Am I overstating it or what? I agree with you, Bob. I I think we're um we're at an inflection point where uh the United States has reached a uh a terminus uh of its uh imperial ambitions, which of course have resulted in about eight hundred bases being around the world. And those bases were were not to protect other countries. Those bases were to use the military to further US economic interests and um and in some cases to control resources in other countries.

Uh that that's changing. The um uh the US dollar is no longer impregnable. the formation of BRICS, uh Bri uh Brazil, uh Russia, India, China, uh South Africa, uh with Iran and other countries joining. is is a sign that uh the US no longer can rule from a unipolar posture and as a as a matter of fact uh the dollar the primacy of the dollar i is is no longer uh the uh thirty eight point four trillion dollar debt

uh combined with the weakening in our treasuries. Uh we're we're seeing a a position where America's reaching the end of its road of uh of empire. And I think that uh Іран, і низкаїс мать би за гравярд орампає.

Why, the Trump people say it's all going swimmingly. Netanyahu uh who's taking Israel into this says this is his forty year ambition and this is gonna be a greater Israel. I mean one has envisions now. They I thought there was just Gaza they were gonna turn into a resort. It looks like they've got in mind uh, you know, the center of what was the Persian civilization and they're gonna add on probably the uh a large part of the Arab

Mid East. I mean it's it's just I I I don't think America's ever expressed openly And jointly with another country. as it has now with Israel, a plan for world conquest of the kind that we're seeing.

And but you're more experienced with that. You know the language of Congress, the language of legislation. And even some Democrats now seem to be getting the picture. I just read something uh Elizabeth Warren issue today and she just condemned it in no uncertain terms, so illegal and uh not justifiable and what have you.

Well, you know, f first of all, the um uh y you know, I'm glad that Senator Warren is taking that position and I'm glad that other members of Congress are are questioning what the um administration of Trump has done. But first of all, you know, let's look at this from a legal standpoint. Uh uh a a man who famously declared that he could shoot somebody at Fifth Avenue on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.

is uh is attacking a nation uh in violation of every international law and has uh committed you know, this is actually a war crime, several war crimes that have been committed. So uh in addition to violating the US Constitution, Article one, Section eight, which states very clearly that the ability to declare war rests in the Congress.

that a uh president cannot take this country to uh to war unless there's an imminent threat. There was no imminent threat. They can conjure up anything they want to post hoc, but the fact of the matter is that um the United States, uh whether it was singularly or at the behest of Israel, uh, went to war against another country. Even worse, in the middle of peace talks, okay?

So there's an element of treachery here in addition to that. So anything that comes out of the Trump administration is not to be believed.

Uh period. And and well we put a lot of uh faith in the spoken word. Uh we must now uh reject things that come out of the Trump administration because they lie. This is why this war is not going to end, because there is no ability, at least in the short term, because there is no ability for Iran to believe anything the United States has said. In addition to that.

uh Trump through an intermediary in in Italy and I have this on v a very good source through uh using uh Isra uh Italy as an intermediary tried to bring Iran back to talk about a ceasefire. Iran rejected it soundly and then Trump turned around and said that he rejected Iran's entreaty. I mean This this uh president is in a um is is in a very um Uh uh sharply Rococo insul insular world. and is not cannot get any advice that makes any sense. That's why you see all these contradictions between

The things that Hages says, that uh Rubio says and that Trump says. They don't have any concurrence, there's no agreement, they don't have a plan. This thing is a disaster, a triple canopied disaster.

Well you know but but uh when the the Us is an old argument that was made in defense of imperial force. And when the Pope and the Catholic Church criticized the war then the uh question was how many divisions does the Pope have? Right? You're probably familiar with that example. Yeah. And and uh what the Trump people and what Israel is now claiming, Israel has gone from being David to Goliath

openly. Israel makes no pretense any longer of being vulnerable, of being David, or accounting for anti Semitism in the world or the Holocaust. No. Israel now is an equal player with the United States in in that region, at least. saying we can reorder this whole region. This is new the Israel Empire. And as I read it, that's what Netanyahu was saying. This is going to be, you know, it's Noah, forget David.

And you know, this is Goliath now and then God is on our side. You know, it's not the same God evidently that Trump invokes when he said in the State of the Union we're a Christian nation. And as I understand anti Semitism it was people who asserted the primacy of Christianity over any other religion, uh or German culture over any other religion, but German w was also a Christian nation, uh, as the basis for anti Semitism and, you know.

Uh uh but uh i it seems to me right now uh an alliance that I don't think any Israeli leader prior to to Netanyahu would ever even ever suggest or believe could be sustainable, you know, uh after all, this was a country to protect A Jewish people supposedly from outside enemies not to conquer the world. This feeds the worst anti Semitic slander.

Right? This is but with friends like this, the the Jews don't need enemies. And I'm speaking as a Jewish person. But when you extrapolate from what you just described. And you look at what happened when um uh the United States and Israel conspired to kill uh the Ayatollah Khomeini. They provoked a religious war. How many legions does the Pope have? How many Shia Muslims are there in the world? In how many countries? I I mean this th there is such a a a paucity of analysis.

reflected in the movement that the United States has made in attacking Iran and in permitting the killing and e executing uh uh d the Ayatollah And without y you know, see this is uh there is a fault line that runs through American anal uh political analysis, and that is that uh we live in a consequence free environment. that there is no relation between cause and effect. And and when you come from that

uh sociological and psychologically demented position, you put the country our country at risk, Israel's at risk. Iran has uh uh has unified under this government because they killed the Aitolla. Uh there the opposition is i doesn't matter anymore. What matters is that Iran has been preparing for decades For this kind of an attack, the United States doesn't even understand the terrain of Iran.

This this loose talk about uh boots on the ground. Who's boots? Uh and and the but the religious element of this is something that needs to be explored, Bob, because uh We we have not only incited uh jihad But we you know, we may be on the base of a new holy war based on the killing of the Ayatollah. It is the dumbest thing.

that the United States has participated in in in recent history. And frankly, I see this as a calamity of great um uh significance when it comes to the US in the region, the US in the world, uh the economic effect, the pol the political, the moral calculus there. Any way you look at this is it's wrong, and anywhere you look at it, we lose. Yeah, and and by the way, it's a wrong that existed not to the extreme and I use the word extreme uh point of of Trump for which there are no limits.

What is a lesson we should have learned because we got into the Shiite uh crusade uh when we supported Saddam Hussein in his original bloody war against Iran. Stupidly, this is before our own Iraq war to ov the overthrew Saddam Hussein. We were his ally. Because he was to we got into a religious dispute in the Muslim world, right? We backed Saddam Hussein against Iran and the Iran beat uh Saddam Hussein and then we then overthrew Saddam Hussein and put people in power in in Iraq.

who are more sympathetic, many of them, to the Sur uh Shiite interpretation of Muslim than the Sunni, and also There's been peace developing partially through the Chinese initiative, but Saudi Arabia and the Emirates do a lot of business with Iran, as does China, as do other countries despite

or sanction. And so we went against the historic trend of the Sunni and Shiite maybe getting some understanding and some tolerance. I mean it it w you're right to point out. I mean the errors have always been there. They in the case of Iran, no commentator that I've seen on television ever brings up the fact

that we are responsible for the Ayatollah and the theology running Iran, you know,'cause I know I interviewed you know enough about my own work, but I interviewed Kermit Roosevelt, who was the CIA guy who at the behest of British intelligence, our own CIA, overthrew a guy named Mohammed Massay back in uh nineteen fifty three, uh uh because he was daring to try to have some control over their own oil as part of an anti colonial movement. The last secular leader

We then glorified the Shaw returning and then we yeah, in opposition to the Shaw we got the I told us. So we have been Meddling. There's nothing that has happened in modern Iran since World War II that we are not responsible for. We and the British. I I just want to point out to uh uh the viewers of this podcast that you know, I met Bob Sheer in uh nineteen seventy seven, late.

uh and he interviewed me in nineteen seventy eight but in seventy nine when the um uh when Iran uh overth overthrew the uh uh the government of the Shah Bob Shearer, I don't know if you you may not remember this, Bob, but you actually gave me an education about Mossadegh and about what happened in fifty three and about the role of the United States in overthrowing him, about the reasons for that.

And so if you if you go back to fifty three and you go and you watch the paramutations from Mossadegh to the Shah to to the Ayatollahs uh and to this war now against Iran, you're right. There the threat is the United States continuing tr uh continually trying to shape uh Iran in its own image. Why? In order to control the oil. Now I I want to go back to something. This is no lon it is no longer appropriate.

For to have an American imperium. We must take down the bases that we have around the world. There is no reason for it anymore. That we we have to, as a nation, begin to uh to see the world in a different way, not as more in camp. But as a world with potential for cooperation, not for for f for war, but for cooperation in the interests of all. But the people who are governing us right now do not have that capacity. It's very simple. They're very narrow. They're it's a society of grifters.

and they're interested only in how they can make money off of whatever move they make using our military. They're putting the lives of the men and women who serve at risk. This thing is wrong in every way, Bob. I'll tell you I have uh you know, I ha From the day that I got into Congress. I was I was trying to get the US out of Afghanistan. I led the effort against the uh I I I stopped I was instrumental in helping to stop the war.

uh in the Balkans, uh the attack on on um Serbia. I I I uh uh led the effort to defeat Senate joint resolution twenty one, which Clinton wanted to keep the war going and keep bombing Serbia.

uh led the effort against war in Iraq, led the effort against uh going into Libya, uh and on and on and on, and gave about a hundred and fifty speeches, Bob. uh in the c in the House of Representatives over a period of several years as to why the United States should not be attacking Iran.

the the US's uh level of analysis about Iran is is such simplistic and and and and so reductive that there is no real understanding of the Persian culture, there is no understanding of their technological advancement, there's no understanding of the culture of people who basically are fearless.

They don't live in a society where they're constantly uh being bandied about by forces trying to get them to fear things so they can be controlled. This is a society that the United States has misread uh to the point where frankly uh we're in a war that we cannot win and that the uh uh and that we don't have the resources even to effectively uh wage a war against Iran, which is wrong you know, which we never should have started.

Well I wanna ask you more about that because uh you know, the whole idea again. Everybody uh I I happen to be in Israel and Egypt at the end of the six day war. and uh I uh quite familiar with that. And that had a intoxicating and and toxic effect. on a lot of politics, uh You know, that somehow

You can go in, just wipe out these uh ignorant, poorly armed people and uh get away with it. And the fact is it created a trap. for Israel because they ended up occupying people in the eyes of the whole world. and destroyed any moral credibility they have right up to the present day and Iraq uh up to to killing a hundred fifty seven year olds, eight year old girls in a school

uh and now Israel's trading blame with the United States. So they must have done it because we wouldn't do it, blah blah blah. But I wanna get back to these bases which you have educated us about for all these years. These are not just military bases to make America safer. That's nonsense. Modern planes can fly, refuel, do everything.

The purpose of these bases, there are centers for CIA operations, intelligence gathering, overthrow governments. So right now, in these key Sunni Arab states, they know very well that America is already on their territory and with airplanes, with munitions and everything, and can in fact do what Trump has now done in Venezuela and is trying to do in Iran. Uh he used to be against regime change. My God, he's now uh made it a mass market.

you know, uh he'll he'll do it anywhere. That's the word that's gone out. I don't know why the Chinese are willing to talk to him. I'd really be surprised if Z ever was willing to visit the United States

uh, you know, y uh you'd be just be kidnapped, you know. Uh and and so the lesson is really You made this point. Why should anybody in the world negotiate with the United States? This doesn't mean anything. All they're doing is getting intelligence on where your leaders are so they can kill'em. you know, and and share it with with the government of Israel. But I think people don't understand the basis, you know, that we have an empire the likes of which the world never imagined, let alone had.

No one, not the Romans, not anyone, uh, ever imagined any such thing and the technology to be able to go into all of these places and and what that does It destroys globalization. Let me just put out a big theory here. Uh my view of this is that Trump and the people around him have given up on capitalism. That he came in with the idea that with the proper set of policies we could win.

a trade war. We could bring manufacturing back. We could make things here and not just in China, including iPhones and cars and everything else. That's really not working out. You know, it turns out we're better at war. By far and maybe it's the only thing we're really good at. We're also good at importing stuff from everywhere else. We're all you know, all the computers and iPhones and everything and the uh uh stuff for you know, faster internet. But the the real thing is, it seems to me

is we've given up on that New World order in which multinational capitalism, including its Chinese variation, they after all, have their billionaires, so does Russia, which gave up on communism. So we got these c capitalist competitors out there, whatever they call their system, whether they're in Brazil or South Africa or India. And Trump, I think, uh doesn't believe we can win that war, uh economic war. uh that capitalism American capitalism can really compete

And what he's done is returned to the old fashioned military, right? The one thing that works, the one thing we know how to do. I know that's a lot that I've just said, but I I I think it's a really important consideration. They're not uh uh opposed to the characterization that they're Rome. That they wanna be they wanna be Rome. You know, and then what you're suggesting is they're in the late stage of Rome. Maybe the Epstein

Scandals are evidence of that. We we're now in a period of decadence where maybe we can't do war as well as we did or maybe there's no war to be won militarily. It's an economic war and we're lousy at it.

That's right. And I I think that militarism has uh uh ha is reaching its limitations. uh in in its uh ability to uh to frustrate the the impulse that people have towards unity globally. You know, we we we during our lifetimes we've seen a a change in communications where, you know, with devices like this, we can call somebody anywhere in the world, uh, and communicate almost instantaneously.

uh our ability to move around uh physically uh has been enhanced through technology. We can fly anywhere in the world pretty much within a day be anywhere. Um the um However, The desire for aggression, the desire for control. uh has uh i is is hitting is is hitting up again. the technologies that have encu encouraged communication and as a result have helped to build a sense of freedom among people. Um and and I think that where Trump is in trouble is the suppression of freedom at home.

where he's in trouble globally. is the attempt to suppress not assist, but to suppress freedom in other countries, the freedom for people to determine whatever kind of government they want. It's not like our kind of government, whatever it is. And capitalism, you know, you talked about Uh um You know, the economic uh uh impact here. I mean uh the fact is that Trump has has encouraged predatory capitalism. Uh

He has uh permitted monopolization. He's created a tax system that's accelerated wealth to the top. He's moved towards um uh creating a budget which in twenty twenty seven will effectively result in about eight about seventy seven percent to even eighty percent of discretionary spending going for the military. They've renamed the Department of Defense and it's kind of a truth and advertising move to Department of War. Uh there's a war consciousness that's coming out of that administration.

It is infecting the world and the world isn't buying it. It is not buying it. Uh the world can't afford more war. Uh and and Trump and his minions are are aimed at taking a path of uh greater control at a time where it's being resisted. People just aren't gonna buy this, Bob. And and Iran has the capacity to defend itself. We're great when we can attack

a country uh that doesn't have the ability to defend itself. Iraq Iraq had one percent of the spending on on defense w that uh the United States had uh Venezuela had no ability to defend itself. Iran does. And and Trump um uh has uh brought within his presidency a uh a a tone of a bully. And people resent that. And if you if you add, you know, you put one thing on top of another, you put the

the uh America's limitations at home economically. You put the American overreach globally, you put the military spending, which is not uh labor intensive, it is capital intensive. And what you have is a Leviathan that's an empt that's empty. That that what is the purpose of it? There's you know, this uh we're we're now at a point in human history where the United States. uh is uh is finding out that uh we no longer can control the world. And the attempt to do so

is r is retrograde right now. It does it's not gonna go anywhere. They're not going to overthrow the Ayatollah. It it's not going to happen. They're not going to install a leader in Iran. It is like magical thinking and uh demented thinking. And you know, th these are people that that in in a in a ju in a in a society which in a in a g government which had a workable Congress, which had a Congress with the ability to stand up whatever the partisan position is.

This is an administration which would not survive. Uh uh it because it has uh it's gone beyond the bounds of legitimacy and morality. So let me, Dennis, uh if you can take a a little more time uh with me here, because I think we're really on to something. Uh I I think the uh the disbelief in capitalism. I still believe there's a lot of life left in a properly Adam Smith's respected competitive international economic order based on a basically free and open market and open trade. Okay?

Uh but that by the way, a free and open market. was uh being questioned at the time of the American Revolution, two hundred and fifty years ago, after all the crown, the English crown, was all in controlling markets, controlling trade, controlling everything, and they wanted the colonies to fit in to that pattern. And really you can argue the American Revolution was made by these uppity people here and and what became the United States.

saying no, we don't have to abide by the rules of the British Crown or the French King or what have you, uh we we're a new world and we'll make uh vital capitalism here and find our own markets and as George Washington said in his farewell address, we will shun violence. No one ever brings up George Washington's farewell address. He said, Yes, we should pursue contact with the whole world.

Through gentle means. Gentle means. Trade, commerce. Well, Trump is right now tearing up the whole rule book about trade, because after all, he knows China gets a lot of oil from Iraq. But he's not uh yeah, and now what what is the lesson to China? Boy, it's a good deal that we uh it's a good thing that we have this deal with Russia.

Zee is now looking like the smartest guy in the world that he made his deal with Putin. Imagine Z the leader of communist China. We used to make a big deal about that label. makes a deal with anti communist Putin, the guy who ended in effect any kind'cause you know, there was still a communist party trying to have power after Gorbachev. And nonetheless, what did he do? He secured oil.

from a neighbor that they had tension with Reverend. He's also securing better Zias, better relations with India. uh shunning war over border issues and getting trade stable. So yes, th the China will be hurt in the short run by not getting oil and natural gas from uh Iran, but They have this safety valve now of of uh this huge country next to an underpopulated huge country with tremendous resources. Okay. I wanna bring up two examples of what I'm talking about here with you.

to try to f focus this a little bit different. I think it's the key issue. Right now, AI is this big thing coming on. And it is powerful. It is powerful and that's why people are spending so much money. It will eliminate a lot of jobs and so forth. It hopefully will create new opportunities. Better child care. People will have to work shorter weeks, uh or so forth. You can even do mining now.

without people being in the caves of mines digging for coal and everything. You can mechanize a lot of stuff. You can use robots and everything. But it requires management to see that your own people don't get hurt, that they benefited and not just your billionaires. That's the main political task now everywhere in the world. In China they talk about the need for common prosperity. In Russia they know they went too crazy with their

cartel capitalism, you know, uh uh after the fall of communism. So the big challenge for the world is how do you effectively control this latest uh technological revolution and to benefit your own people so they don't get unhappy and rise up and kill the elite and so the billionaires can somehow coexist with the others. But the the real issue here Is w what can you make? And so can you just hold up your little your iPhone there for a minute?

Okay. Yes. Okay. I uh uh if that were your laptop oh you can put that down. If that were your laptop, if that were almost anything you're using technology Everybody would assume it was not made in the United States. Everywhere. And you if you're teaching at a university, all of the laptops in front of you and all the things people are taught. Okay, all of the clothes they're waiting early here and so are made elsewhere. Now, you know, w w we used to be pretty good at this kinda stuff, okay?

And and so but let me take another example. I can't take a train from San Francisco to Los Angeles. All right, even though two governors of the state, uh Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown for four terms promised us we would have a high speed train. We don't even have a regular train that we have to stop in Bakersville or get a bus or do that and it takes you forever. Okay? In China Right. They have perfected and not only for China but for Africa, for uh Latin America, all over the world.

They're building these high speed trains that are effectively competitive with air traffic, where ordinary people on their big holidays can take their family and go see relatives a thousand miles away that they only had heard of before, okay? So if you think of what you the if you think of the opium wars

and what uh the West brought to China, right? We brought gunpowder, we brought this. Now China comes back with high speed rail, uh it comes back with a better internet, it comes back with solar power. Right. So Saudi Arabia is even having the Chinese create solar power for them in their deserts and so forth,'cause Saudi Arabia knows uh fossil fuel i is dated and too costly. So the uh thing as I see in this moment is that Trump came in with a vision of making capitalism work again.

Making capitalism great again, American capitalism great again. And he actually had the conceit that since he could build some good hotels and golf courses, that he could get life back in it. But it's not happening. And one reason it's not happening is you're not willing to pay your workers enough.

You're not you've destroyed the unions that used to allow a auto worker to make a decent wage. You know all about that'cause you were connected with unions in the Midwest, you know? So we've lost the ability to make manufacturing on a high level attractive to American workers'cause you gotta pay them more and you gotta give them better benefits. and so forth. We don't want to do that, okay?

So what you really have a and I I I you know, people don't wanna hear this, it sounds crazy. You really have the best capitalists now in the world are people who don't call themselves capitalists. Including in India. Or they call themselves nationalists or they are the old Gandhian national the other party. Wherever they are in the world, if they're in South Africa, they're old revolutionaries against racism. But everywhere in the world, Brazil

Doesn't matter whether the left or the right is in power in Brazil, they're gonna more effectively grow soybeans than we do. You know, they're gonna figure it out. So this multipolar world is basically involving a s explosion of what one could have in old fashioned terms called responsible capitalism. Maybe even Adam Smith's capitalism, maybe even the invisible hand.

where no one controls the market and where there's competition between nations and for most favored nation, what can you make? Not that well, you got political power on the gun, but that you're good at making stuff. And I don't hardly ever hear this referred to. But if you know anything about economic history, this is always the struggle. Where the United States has uh uh made a a fundamental error in its uh uh relationship to the world.

is when we pass the um Uh agreements relating to NAFTA, the general agreement on uh tariff and trade, the Uruguay round. the uh China trade without regard to the effect on our own capacity to make things. Steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping, those industries uh have uh have been seriously damaged in the United States by a series of trade agreements and with millions of jobs. that created a middle class that of uh you know where 70% of the economy has been consumers.

uh you've seen a knock on effect and a drag on on the economy, actually less economic activity on on on a on a le on a community level. So America uh while changing its economic model to global, uh did it did so not to enhance the wealth of this country. but to be able to further the ambitions of multinational capital. And it no longer became about America. Boeing came into my office when I was a congressman.

and asked me to vote for China Trade. But what they didn't know that I knew is that they had already made a deal with China that if China trade happened, that they would give China the prototypes of their of the new aircraft. I I mean this is the kind of thing that went on. So a m so there was no real dedication to America as a nation. America just became a platform for accelerating the wealth of uh of elites. And I you know, we're right now at a point where

uh uh where our our economy is split for between the the you know those who have uh uh the very wealthy and those who are not. And the intensification of the acceleration of wealth upwards is creating conditions where people cannot afford health care, they can't afford decent housing, they can't afford to send their kids to college. Uh it there's a transformation that's taken place in the American economy.

Meanwhile, we've waged war, which is part and parcel of this uh decline. Uh we've waged war and have spent trillions of dollars put it on a credit card and weakened our economy while we enriched the defense contractors. Ever we you know, every single not every single, but many of the economic decisions that are made.

have worked out to the detriment of the American people. So I you know, w we need to go back to to manufacturing. It'll take a long time to get there. W we need to uh we need to look at our monetary system which has uh been atomized in many ways in terms of uh of the private sector, the financialization of the economy is part and parcel of the loss of jobs.

And i it's all about pyramiding wealth. And they forgot about Main Street. So y you know, the government shouldn't be uh uh should be in a position of being able to uh issue uh uh money debt free. Our economy depends on debt right now.

It it wasn't always that way. You go back to nineteen uh thirteen, the creation of Federal Reserve, the banks took over the economy. They created an income tax simultaneously to help further their enrichment. This is madness. We we have been a hundred and and uh fifteen years or fourteen years of uh uh of of feeding a system that is designed to

crush the economic aspirations of most Americans and any chance they had to get a better life, we've we've took that we've taken that away too. We are in a crisis here at home and that we would be looking abroad Ignoring the uh many wise people revol involved in the founding of this country said beware foreign entanglements, don't go abroad looking for monsters to slay. We ignored all that. We've gone abroad. We're slaying monsters. But hey, uh the uh uh the blowback on that.

uh is beyond anything that most Americans can imagine. We ha we will experience severe consequences for this war on Iran. And they are not you know, they d it's we're not even at the beginning of of those consequences. You know, you've been a consistent voice in the Congress uh on this point that was uh the dangers. of a fake patriotism, the dangers of militarization, the dangers of of seeing America through the prism of military power.

uh not just the prism, the prism also. Uh and the fascination with it. And even right now, What is Trump trumpeting about? He's got the Venezuelan oil. supposedly by some standard the biggest oil deposit in the in the world. He's about to grab Iran, you know, maybe under Israeli development. If you want to talk about a religious war nightmare

of biblical proportions. If Israel gets up gets up controlling the petroleum uh of the Middle East, right, to the expense of of Muslim people primarily and others. uh you're feeding one of the worst tropes of anti Semitism my God, uh you y y i i it's unc unbelievable insult to the Jewish people. Unbelievable a denial of of all.

N not of uh our own uh secular history, or biblical history. I mean all the cautions uh uh uh about f coming out of the Judeo Christian ethic that w that we're supposed to care about. But i in in his farewell address again

what George Washington'cause we are coming up the summer to the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, uh, and and Trump is gonna make a big deal about it. In fact he w probably wants to get his White House ballroom in shape maybe to celebrate it, you know, and have a big uh uh uh colonial dance there. Yeah, the drapes that he ought to be working about is the drapes of of the flag over the coffins of the soldiers who are the Middle East.

But but uh but George Washington he ex explicitly I don't know why this is not quoted more often, warned about the impostures of pretended patriotism. I I i is such a clear warning. The impostures of pretended patriotism. That is what we are witnessing now. Anyone who disagrees with Donald Trump and and and his you know and his Israel's position, whether they're in Israel or here.

They're they're off with their heads. That's what one of the leaders in Israel said. Off with their heads. He's talking about his own citizens, including Jewish citizens who dare to speak out uh against it. And I think we we have to mark This moment because Really, w and I I get back to this abandonment of capitalism and the free world and how it was defined. Uh they don't give a rat's ass about the free market.

You know, I mean otherwise if you believed in global trade If you believed in in comparative advantage, let each country do what it's best at. uh, you know, any of them. You know, Cain's uh you know, originally uh Adam Smith It was all let trade flow. And in fact the charge against the in the American Revolution against the British Empire is it didn't want trade to foe. It wanted to dictate to the colonies what to do. It didn't allow the natural

course of things, as Washington would have put it, the natural course of things. And here you have Trump. who looks at it, he's a gambler. He looks at the hand and he says, Uh oh, those order jobs are not coming back. Uh uh. He does never think to himself, Maybe if they were paying fifty bucks an hour

You know, and people can actually think about maybe, you know, getting ahead. Maybe uh smart people who are good at school would then say, Oh, I'll go into that industry a and you know, and get some reward rather than have uh non union shots, but no, he's not thinking anywhere like that. And the fact is, uh I think in terms of his legacy

He's doing the same thing that Netanyahu did in Israel. Netanyahu did not respond to any of the challenges in Israeli society about how it treats the other how it treats an uh our our population that they grabbed and have controlled ever since the a a preemptive war, another preemptive war, the six day war. And instead they're gonna say, Okay, this is the hand I got. And Trump is looking and he says, Hey

We got this and you know, Hillary Clinton actually said something like that when she defended the whole Libya business and the overthrow of that government, uh Gaddafi. She said to the military, Well, why do we have all these weapons if we're not prepared to use them? You know, that was Hillary Clinton.

And so th that's what Trump did. He looked at the hand and he says, Hey, those jobs are not coming back during my second term. I'm not gonna have much to show for this. I really can't bully the Chinese. I've tried But they're pretty independent now and they tell me to you know, okay, they'll sell make deals elsewhere in the world. It's a multinational world. All the things you said before, we don't control all the action. In fact the dollar is no longer so strong. They can find other ways

of trading and they don't have to have us. They ignore ignore our sanctions. That's where Iran was important. They could ignore our sanctions. And so what he looks, he looks at this and he says, you know what? Let's do the one thing we're good at. Blowing people up. blowing up buildings. At least then you create jobs for new buildings to be built, you know? Uh that's the sickness I think. And the reason I'm I don't I know you don't have to hear this from me because this is your message.

in Congress, how many years was it you were in Congress? Sixteen. Sixteen. And for sixteen years and I know I l what I was actually in you know, up there in the press gallery listening to you uh uh probably about twenty five times. uh you know, when you gave some major speeches on this subject or spoke out on these subjects, or uh I trust me, I have great humility in in raising these points that you know m better than I do. Uh c concede you that. But sometimes we Mesh.

The clarity of the moment was This is so extreme now, and I'm putting it in a particular way. It is a war on capitalism, on trade, on commerce, on rational economic behavior. The world was slipping out of our control. And we're gonna now blow it up.

Rather than to try to figure out how can we be better performers, how can we make better stuff? How can we bring those Apple jobs? And I'll say one last thing, maybe we could wrap this up. I'll let you have the last statement. I did hear Gavin Newsom speak last night here in Los Angeles. And he made a very interesting point about high tech. 'Cause he has always favored high tech and California has the fourth largest economy in the world in the world now.

Uh and that was a high tech had a lot to do with it. Now high tech kisses the ring of Trump. High tech he pointed us all out. High tech They're all lined up and they're all talking about they'll take their jobs elsewhere, lots of luck, and they'll do it elsewhere. But the fact is those jobs are already elsewhere. the you know, they grab the money in Cupertino but they don't make the iPhone in Compertino or anywhere in California. And so what's really at stake now, right, is a betrayal.

by n uh our leading technicians, the Silicon Valley that was supposed to be so enlightened. Who would know better than Elon Musk about the vitality of the Chinese community? economy when he makes more than half of his Teslas there, you know, uh or Apple. And yet they kissed the ring and they're supporting military jingoism and conquest, the exact strongest, most effective enemy Of capitalism.

And I'll give you the remaining time, take as long as you want, but but it seems to me this is the crisis of our time. You know, uh we've had a betrayal. of what really worked in America by the people who were the stewards of it, right? L let me uh let me address uh a few of the things that you said, Bob, and thanks so much for

uh for this opportunity to uh to talk with you. You know, you can talk about uh being humble and I think that all of us who who approach a moment like this um Faced with uh the potential of World War Three. uh need to be humble about our uh uh uh assessment of the uh uh of the potential of our nation uh to go in any direction. but need to be insistent on our constitutional rights to be able to guide our government and to have our government really represent the people.

Uh y you know, you talked about um y you know, I think of this in terms of the consciousness of the country. Y you know, uh a a war a bellicose war consciousness that you quoted uh Smotrich of Israel on. Uh is something that runs globally and this idea of off at their heads, right?

Um but counter to that is y you know, it's funny it's very funny because if you look at that quote, Lewis Carroll in uh his writings talks about the uh you know, the royalties saying off of their head and uh compelling a an army of cards to to march on Alice. And to destroy her. But as Louis Carroll writes, uh Alice suddenly grew to her full size, and she reached out her hand and swept uh the cards away, saying, Who cares for you? You're nothing but a pack of cards.

And it is the realization that Alice had of coming to her her her full power of her humanity as well as her own personal strength. Uh that is instructive at this moment because other nations are aware of their power too, to resist this off-of-the-heads mentality. Uh When you talk about technology, two things come to mind. Uh Marshall McLuhan years ago wrote about the uh the dangers of technology where uh technology becomes a saddle uh upon mankind which is a horse.

And in inverting the relationship between technology being a tool or technology or we becoming tools of technology. Uh this is something that Alfred North Whitehead uh the philosopher warned of as well. He said the greatest technological advancements uh uh occur and uh uh and all but dis that that they all but destroy the societies in which they occur.

Because we we lose control of these um of these technologies. And technology is uh our inability to control technology is a problem because the the basis of these computers is Boolean algebra, which is basically X's and O and it's X's and O's and it's linear, okay? We we exist in a world which is not just quantitative, but it's qualitative as well. The h the thinking is not linear only, it's holistic. It's multi-dimensional.

And we've reached uh we've fallen too much in love with technology and haven't explored enough the possibility of human intelligence, let alone artificial intelligence. We're calling artificial, but what about human intelligence? The thing that artificial intelligence cannot do is to uh is to be able to mediate uh not mediate, is to be able to uh approach human consciousness.

W our th our thoughts are real, our s words are real, our actions are real, and if we give up that ability to machines, we've lost it. Uh and this is really a a an inflection point in human history where we have to decide if we're um if if we're machines or if we're human beings, flesh and blood.

who have the capacity to go beyond anything that uh machines can't create in our awareness. So, you know, I I um Uh you know, I I think that uh we we have to be very concerned here about diminishing what it means to be a human being. And about finding uh what the poet called that instinct within us that reaches and towers. That is transcendent.

that enables us to be more than we are and better than we are, that enables us to connect and reach towards the stars that uh Browning talked about in his poem Andrea Del Sarto. We really have a c a possibility here of of creating a new world. And and the tension that exists, this dynamic tension between the way things are and the way things could be, is the point at which we have to intervene and change the outcome. Lots of luck. And I say that not being cynical, but the

The p what's happening now is nothing to do with the old argument of Luddites against technology or smashing the machine or so forth. What is happening now and I'm agreeing with you. What is happening now is basically the pill people uh uh the little the billionaire class, which is rooted in Silicon Valley and its successes, have lost their original certainly their rhetoric, but in their tensions, even uh intentions, even if you think of them in terms of a libertarian mould.

They actually embraced the notion of individual freedom that technology would enhance. We in fact Google search that we'll learn more. We can check things out. I even believe in IT to this degree, as an advance of say uh what we learned through the computer. We can go without going to libraries, we can get original material, we can compare things, you can write legal briefs, but you're making the key point.

We've totally in the process demolished the agency of humans. This is the terrible message that's come out of Silicon Valley. These people who are all too human, sometimes in a awful way, nonetheless had a real sense of individuality. of personality, of libertarian, you know, whether it's uh uh Van Niet Mises or, you know, uh uh you know Ayn Rand or something, they had a real strong sense that the individual mattered. However, it was a charade.

You know, it was a a way of saying, I want your privacy, I want your uh uh consumer dollar, I want to manipulate you, so tell me all your secrets, share everything. But the reality is the reality is that Silicon Valley and I thought this was an interesting thing you came up with that Gavin Newsom speech'cause we're here feeling it in California. The heroes of California are now the enemy. They don't care about the ordinary people. They're the billionaire class.

They just wanna have bigger gated communities which their own estate. Or maybe they'll go to the moon if they can't find a safe sanctuary somewhere else. They have no loyalty to the state or the country. uh they they will just go where power is. And it's interesting the Jeffrey Epstein thing is kind of a a a an opening into their culture.

It's mine, it's my pleasure, it's my joy, and I'm gonna bend the world so that I can take it all, I can consume it all, I can have it all, and these other people, they're expendable. And in the end, it's a philosophy that actually says we can even kill them all. Well, you know, Bob, uh this is probably a good point to wrap this up because what you have put your finger on in terms of the relationship between Epstein's uh workings and and uh with and for And of the elite.

is uh uh is a profoundly uh amoral, anti-human, um uh philosophy which devolves into child rape, child murder, cannibalism, war. It's all the same to them, and you know, as long as it doesn't uh bother them personally. Uh we're at a moment when things are so challenging and and so searing to our our awareness. It's a moment of transformative possibility. А рефуз тобі дowн.

by uh by people who uh have uh have devolved and have not uh and and do not understand that the survival of of all species ought to be the principal work, what Thomas Berry called our great work is to our greatest work is to protect and and engage in the survival of the natural world. the natural world. So thank you, Bob, for this chance. When we had an earlier crackdown on immigrants.

And they were arresting people near airports and so forth. Silicon Valley rose up because Silicon Valley is built on immigration. It's built on people coming from India or China, elsewhere in the world. It's built on openness to trade. They were Sergei Brennan and others even went to the San Francisco airport to

c a call for open borders and open contact with the rest of the world. Now they are blindly supporting a president that denies the very ha energy of immigration and openness and contact with the world that made Silicon Valley possible. made it possible. They're closing down the universities.

They're preventing students from being free on thinking about it. They're preventing people from coming in and out of the country. And in in the pursuit of narrow greed, they are like the British Tea Company. They're saying, okay, the king wants this, the king wants that. We'll give it to them because we're interested in our quarterly profit.

We're interested in our retirement and the rest of the world can just go destroy itself and somehow my heirs and who cares about my heirs. I'll I'll be gone or if not my body will have been preserved and some other civilization will come back to life. and they have these nutty fantasies about that. So we're in the hands of very sick people right now.

from the president on down. And it's it is sobering. I don't want to thank you for taking this time, but you know what? It's an interesting discussion for me. So even if we're the only two people have it, I kinda like to do this on a weekly basis. Think about it. Uh, but we could try to do it because it's really s w we really should mark this moment as clearly as we possibly can and see if we can avoid the disaster that I'm predicting here, okay?

So maybe next week we'll try it again or I you know what? Be it'd be a perfect. Huh? It would be a privilege. Oh, so that's a yes. Okay, Dennis, thank you. I remember when I first met you I had to beg for interview time and you were the mayor. Take care. See you next week then.