Good morning, peeps, and welcome to Lokate up Daily with Me your Girl Daniel Moody pre recording from the home Bunker, Folks, on today's show, I am always happy when I get to welcome back our friend or in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzil. And Jonathan and I have been doing a lot of freestyle conversations, just kind of getting into how we're feeling about the current moment and what is unfolding
and the best ways to move forward. And so as I open up today's show, you know, for the last months, I have made a commitment to really do some deep excavation work on my own wounds, which we all have, and getting to a place of healing only comes from right recognizing that you have wounds to heal and also
recognizing where in fact those wounds originate from. Why do I say this to you, because as I continue to watch and read and consume the devastation, the death, the tragedy of injustice that is unfolding in Israel and Palestine,
the thousands of children that are being slaughtered. Sure that just happened to the sole Palestinian American serving in Congress, Representative Rashida Tali the twenty two Democrats who turned their backs on her and decided to turn off her mic to say that she is not worthy of being heard. I've been trying to understand the source of so much pain in Palestine and in Israel, in the United States, around the globe, and what I am coming to really understand is that we are, in so many ways just
a bunch of walking wounds. We're the walking woond did capitalism, greed, extraction, misogyny, racism. It's like death by a million cuts. Capitalism doesn't even allow us the time and the space and the focus to be able to tend to any of those wounds. Because if you stop being productive right, if you take a pause, if you try and find the time to focus on you, then you're labeled as lazy. You're told
that you are selfish. We have ingested so many fucking lies, which is why people are screaming out right now, nation
by nation, city by city, town by town. We are so wounded and so filled with grief and rage because of the persistent and consistent violence, physical, mental, spiritual violence that we've been forced to endure and told that that hardship, those hardships will they make you stronger, and if you, for some reason live at the intersection of multiple marginalized groups and you can ascend, well, then that is a
failure of yours alone, not the system. We have been fed so many lies that we believe right now that war and death will somehow bring us to a place of peace. And what Jonathan and I discussed today, and what he ends with saying, is that we need to keep having conversations even when they are hard. I mean that on a global level, as it pertains to nations actually speaking. I mean that on a personal level, as we come upon a season of Thanksgiving. We're not everyone
has fun memories. Not everyone's families are welcoming, our loving, our tender. I realize now that the more that we ignore our individual wounds and the collective pain and trauma that we've experienced and continue to experience, the more damage heartbreak, death, destruction, despair, and hopelessness we will see. I know that we feel hopeless right now. I know that each and every single one of us is shedding tears on a regular basis.
Because we just.
Don't know what to do. And what I am trying to do with my own self care is heal my wounds, redirect my energy so that I don't add to the pain that is already existing in the world. Because what we need is more healed people who can move themselves out of marinating in the misery of the current moment that we are existing in. Because the thing is, folks, that if we do not tend to our own wounds, we will never get to a place where we can
imagine outside of current suffering something different. We've been war and violence since the birth of this nation, since the birth of this goddamn world. Told that there are necessary evils and there is necessary violence. Taking life is never necessary. Folks will say, well, what about Hitler? What about this person?
What?
I would rather we create systems of true and actual and needed and necessary reform than just killing people or locking them up and throwing away the key, making them experience such dehumanization. And then we wonder why recidivism in this country is so fucking high. We refuse to teach the basics of empathy, of compassion, of justice, of liberation for us individually and collectively, and we have to ask ourselves, folks.
And I posted this on my Instagram, which was a video with Angela Davis ask the questions, who benefits from our ignorance, who benefits from our pain, who benefits from our hopelessness, who benefits from our exhaustion? Because when we ask those questions, when we begin to excavate that truth, then we really do begin to have our eyes wide open and tap into a consciousness level that is necessary
for through real, deep, sustainable liberation for all people. I want us to think bigger, to dream bigger, to have a practice of healing ourselves so that we can project that healing out into the world because it is so desperately needed. Coming up next, my conversation with our friend, our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel. Friends, you know that whenever I have the opportunity to talk with our friend or in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, I am always, always,
always thrilled. Jonathan. It has been a week since we've spoken. A lot, a lot has happened and continues to happen and unfold in this country and across the Middle East around the globe. I actually would like for change, call me crazy, to start with something good today, which is up, which is we had by at the time of this recording. Friends, we just went through the twenty twenty three election cycle that had multiple state races that, as many have said,
would be a bell weather for twenty twenty four. Now, if you've been listening to me, you know that I have been talking about the polls, and they are not looking favorable right now for Joe Biden. Polls twelve months out are kind of like your horoscope. You look at them for some context, but they don't give you everything that you need. However, the election with Ohio certifying enshrining abortion, Kentucky governor resoundedly Democrat winning re election UH first black
woman mayor, even though folks say that she's problematic. We will see UH in Philadelphia. Virginia turned blue in the state legislator. I just want to get your reactions, Jonathan, to you know, we often we spend a lot of time talking about really tough issues, really tough feelings and emotions. Get your reactions to how people showed up in Ohio, in Kentucky, in Pennsylvania, in Virginia and what you what that? What that signals for you?
Wonderful? Well, let me give you my menu and you tell me which one of these things resonate. Because I have a number of different thoughts which are I think synergistic and I agree with you. It was a great night. And so I would say a couple of things. Number one, of course, is that the Dobbs decision continues to be a total loser for Republicans and supporting people's right to make decisions about their bodies about abortion and reproductive rights.
But also like we've got this new guy Johnson who's the Speaker of the House, who's talking about again birth control pills and IVF and stuff like that. And so number one is I think moving toward just leaning into continually the importance of people to have the freedom to make decisions about their own intimate bodily decisions is a
huge winner for Democrats. So number one, I would just say, I don't know what Republicans are thinking, but to continue to double down the way you know Youngin did yesterday, and even in cases of like rape and incest, there were that case somewhere where like a ten year old kid right was raped and and and so you know, it's it's just, uh, it's just like it's just it's just unbelievable to me that that's the platform where people
It's just not where people are at right now. And so Number one is I just am proud to be part of a party that is that is allowing people to make that choice and is standing up for I think was such a great injustice, which is a right that was enshrined and then taken away. I still think that that resonates. So that's number one. Number two is that ultimately, if you're a Democrat, we have much more strength in alliance, we have much more strength in working together.
We disagree about many fundamental issues, but ultimately we are stronger together and we can find, I think hopefully compromise positions that work for the majority of people. And I think that is also a message, is that Democrats are better off working together, even though we have so many
different different agendas under our tent. And actually I'm preparing I'm rushing to the airport after we speak to give a talk about that point tomorrow as a matter of fact, because I really do believe that that, especially if you're on the side of health, justice and equity and all these other issues, that I think we're better off working together, which I think that is a point. Number three is
that we ran really strong candidates. So this is where there's a little bit of anxiety is that we wrote we ran really strong candidates. I mean, as I've talked about a zillion times on this show, Andy Basheer is as soon to be national leader. He's truly a leader. I've watched his leadership really with admiration. Right, he's the state right next to ours. But they're so sporting medicaid
expansion in red state Kentucky. And what I was saying before was that during the worst moments of the pandemic and after the murder of George Floyd, Basher was pushing legislation in Kentucky that would give health insurance to one hundred percent of black residents in the state, which was just an incredibly brave and counterintuitive position at that time. Basically saying were looking at health inequity in the face, and we're doing is we're going to correct that, not
just emotionally. We're not going to kneel down with kn't take cloths and stuff. We're going to address that structurally, right, We're going to actually change some of the structural and bounces. So while a lot of people were signaling their support for Black Lives Matter and stuff like that, Basher actually was trying to write structural, structural inequities and also a smart move during the pandemic when you want people to have health insurance so that they don't go around spreading
COVID everywhere. And so in a way, I just think the Democrats also really just fielded much stronger candidates, and not just more compelling candidates, but centrist candidates that could speak to a lot of different people, not radical, extreme candidates.
And I think that to that point, and I always love when you bring up the Kentake clock and the kneeling. It's like I always want to put I always want to put it out of my mind, and you always find a way, no, like at least every every six months or so, to like remind me that that happened. But you know, it was a moment. O, God, it was a moment. But but I think, I think to
that point it also is a reminder. And I want to bring up something that I saw that Rick Santorum said, you know very much Republicans are all about saying the quiet parts out loud, which is first that again, Donald Trump continues to be on a losing streak all of the candidates that he backs that he holds up lose. Rick Santorum said, this is exactly why we can't rely on voting right, Like he said in a post on the broke Down Twitter platform that he basically is saying
it is these issues. He said first of all about abortion, calling abortion a sexy issue, which was just so far out of his mind to say, and then said that this is why people shouldn't be allowed to vote, because
this is what they don't want. Right in Ohio, in these places where people are given the opportunity and they see very clearly what these people are trying to come in to do to their lives and then they make the decision to show up and vote, right, Republicans are saying, yeah, we don't want that, we don't want that because they know that there isn't a thing that they are running on and offering that the majority of Americans want, right.
I mean, you know, it's funny thinking about centorium, Like what happens to conservative commentators who spent time on liberal networks, right, Like you would think having spent all that time on CNN, for example, you know, or like number Meghan Kelly on MSNBC, Like you know, they go back and they become like they have to prove their chops by being like more radical.
To the worst of the worst.
Yeah, So you know, it's it's interesting that we're talking about him, but I would just say no, I mean, I study guns, right, so there's a lot of models for that, right that that gun in gun reform, eighty five percent of people support background checks and red flag laws and all that stuff. But they figured out a way to like make that irrelevant. By I mean, there's something very anti democratic that's been going on in a
lot of these issues for a very long time. And that's why, for example, appealing for abortion, it wasn't remember and appeal to voters. It was a way to take over the courts and the Supreme Court. And so Republicans are really good at understanding how power works and then appealing to power, not necessarily winning popular opinion. Democrats now are pushing back by showing the power of grassroots popular opinion.
We ain't heard the last of this debate. I'll tell you that, you know, twenty four less in some ways compelling candidates, unfortunately, I think. But also this debate between power and populism is so important in presidential elections because You're not just voting for a popular vote, You're voting for the electoral college. And so this is just the beginning of, I think a very intense cycle for a
lot of us. And so I of course disagree with what terms said, but I also would just say there's a method behind it that's going to be more important in twenty four than it is now.
Quick question, last question before you go, and thank you for giving us time today, because I know that you're in a rush, which is, how are you seeing in terms of the polls, in terms of what is happening and what is transpiring in the Middle East with Israel and Palestine countries beginning to come out and declare that they are ending their relationship, they are pausing their relationship, and what is picking up on TikTok that I posted earlier in the week is this idea, this hashtag genocide
Joe and this feeling of people saying I'm not voting for him, and I match that again with what we just saw right take place that Democrats were able to do in these right states. What do you think about how people are feeling about Joe Biden, the allegiance to Israel, and what is taking place in Gaza, and how that is going to show up either be the thing that gets people to the polls or not.
I can just give you two anecdotal examples from my own life. You know, again, I'm a Jewish American. I've spent a lot of time in Israel. I've spent a lot of time working on Middle East issues. I have spent a lot of time working for Israel Palestine physicians for human rights. And I've spent a lot of time protesting against the Nitan Yahoo government, which in some ways kind of puts Trump to shame in certain ways in
terms of what it is. But I also believe personally, I'm just giving my personal answer that I support Israel as as a Jewish homeland right, and I've for me that has enabled my social justice work. It's enabled the work I've done because, as you know, my family escaped the Holocaust. The people who didn't were murdered in Europe. But the fact that there was a place for them to go when everybody turned on them is kind of what Israel represents for me, which is what we've talked
about here, and I stand by that. And I would also say, ironically, I'm not exactly answering your question quite yet, that I've done a lot of DEI work in Israel. I have a lot of what I've learned about social justice work is work I've done with colleagues in Israel and Palestine working on questions. I was just there last year working on a question of medical racism against Spadi communities. And so it's not like I mean, I think initially
there was what happened. What's happening is horror, is a horror. I've called Nitan Yahoo the pole pod of our generation on this show. Does that mean we're going to explode everything or that we're going to keep working toward the alliances that we've been working toward before. I would just say that what happened, the horror of the Hamas crimes and then the horror of indiscriminate bombing of civilians has
been almost too much for us to bear in certain ways. Again, I can just say in my life that there was a period of walking around in shock. I mean, for me, it was is the Holocaust happening again? But also how is this situation empowering the very leader who I think
is horrific in so many ways? And I have a lot of students and colleagues who are deeply involved in the I don't even think there are two sides for me, But you know, I've grad students from Gaza who are here at Vanderbilt, and we honestly couldn't talk for the first couple of weeks, and some over the past week we've started working together and talking and thinking again. I've re established my connections with my protest colleagues in the
Middle East. I'm leaving right now to give a talk to the DEI Summit, a major DEI summit, where I'm talking about the importance of alliance, and so I'm hoping that after really honestly the deep existential PTSD level trauma that we've gone through, we can start to think about a way out of this that is respectful for multiple positions, that's not as extreme. I mean, I know, I understand what's happening is so extreme right now, but I would just say that it felt like a life or death
struggle between allies a while ago. And now I'm hopeful, at least in the way things stand now, that we can take this terrible moment and if it leads to a two state solution and out of power and some kind of lasting solution. Nothing, nothing, nothing in the world makes the death that we've seen on either side worth it. This is murder, honestly. But I would just say that at least in my life, and hopefully in the talk we'll give tomorrow, we can talk about it next week.
I just think that that this again is another issue where we're stronger with alliance, And I would just say right now, I mean, right now, who knows what the choice will be next year. Right now, the choice is between Joe Biden and somebody who potentially is going to make this a lot worse for communities of color and other people, And so I don't know.
My friend, Jonathan Mepsel, thank you so much, Thank you so much. Good luck at the summit, and I look forward to talking to you next week about it and hearing how it goes. So I appreciate you always making the time for us. That is it for me today, dear friends on woke f as always power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.