Waiting For a Tipping Point

and tornadoes and the like. And you know, today I Jonathan is back on the show, and I ask him towards the end of our interview about his thoughts, and we're going to have a longer conversation about it next week.

But you know, I ended my interview with Jonathan by saying that we always find ourselves looking for a tipping point moment, looking for a moment where people really see what is happening right, and that decisions are made based on the vileness right, like one of the reasons during the height of the Civil rights movement to video and to put on television the brutality that surrounded segregation and the Jim Crow era. Those images began to change people's

hearts and minds. You know, when you're seeing children be brutalized, people be brutalized with fire hoses, and the pressure and the beatings and the humiliation and the degradation and all of those things, it began to change the course of history. Similarly, I wonder what will happen following the purposeful killing because what we know and what Joseandreas said recently in his ap ed that if you have not read, I encourage you all to read Let People Eat, because it is

heartbreaking and honest about food being used as a weapon. Right, and I think that the world has had enough of giving Netanyahu and the if the benefit of the doubt. Thirty two thousand plus people are dead, more than half of them being children. People are being starved to death, medicine being denied, and now this is one in a series of aid workers who have been killed. And Netniyahu's response is just so fucking depraved when he says, well,

you know, that's what happens in war. No, actually, that isn't what happens in war, because there are rules of engagement for a fucking reason. Absolutely, war is heinous. But as I listen to an analyst recently, on cable news, say, but we're not supposed to be dealing with a dictator or a head of a terrorist organization. This is the president of a supposed democracy where you are supposed to follow rules and regulations about how you engage. But that's

not what's happening. So why do we keep giving this motherfucker the benefit of the doubt when we know that his heart is calloused, as is the hearts of the people that are inside of that cannesse it. So when you start to see, as they don't show on regular news, thousands of people emptying into the streets in Israel demanding his fucking resignation because they don't want this, because what he he is doing is honestly shifting the world's view

on this country, and that's never a good thing. You know what jose Andres says towards the end of his let people Eat up ed in the New York Times, is this that really just got me? The peoples of the Mediterranean and Middle East, regardless of ethnicity and religion, share a culture that values food as a powerful statement of humanity and hospitality, of our shared hope for a better tomorrow. There's a reason at this special time of year.

Christians make Easter eggs. Muslims eat an egg at if Tar dinners, and an egg sits on the Sator plate. This symbol of life and hope reborn in spring extends across religions and cultures. I have been a stranger at Sator dinners. I have heard the ancient Passover stories about being a stranger in the land of Egypt, the commandment to remember with a feast before you, that the children of Israel were once slaves. It is not a sign of weakness to feed strangers, It is a sign of strength.

The people of Israel need to remember, at this darkest hour what strength truly looks like. I leave that with you all today because I think, in this moment of great darkness that we are all experiencing in this country, in Gaza, in Israel, in the Congo, in Ukraine, around the world, in the nations, that we don't lift up to a spotlight, that we are being fed a false image, an idea of what strength and power looks like. And because people find themselves so desperate, they are consuming it,

knowing that it will never fill them. When it is darkest, we must choose the light and be the light. Coming up next, my conversation with our friend, our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel. Folks, I am so excited to welcome back our world traveler, doctor Jonathan Metzel, who has been on the road selling his new book and having a conversation, starting conversations about what we've become his new book, which is out now. If you guys have not gotten it yet,

you need to get this book and be in conversation. Jonathan, welcome back. Tell us how the tour has been. How, you know, because you're out there talking to real Americans, not like me, because you know, according to corporate media, I'm not a real American. But you're out there talking to real Americans. So what have you been hearing?

really to be let into some incredible conversations. I was in Pittsburgh yesterday and we had a morning kind of roundtable with gun violence prevention groups from across Pittsburgh. People were there who were working with people who were It was really interesting working with in gun violence prevention in Pittsburgh, working with people who are just being incarcerated and we're

just getting kind of let out. And they were saying that, like people were going into into prison thinking that like the gun situation was one thing, and then then when they come out ten years later, it's just so much worse than when they went in because there's so many more guns, and the pandemicum funded everything, and there's so much more polarization, and so really talking to people on the ground about this stuff, about what it means, it's just,

you know, it's the honor of writing a book like this and so on doing that. I'll be in Louisville next week, in Seattle and a couple of other stops. So really, I mean, to me, that's the great part of spending five or six years working on a project is then you get to actually talk about what it means in the real world.

so many different perspectives that are of value. And I think, you know, unfortunately in this country, we're just going to continue talking about guns because they don't ever seem to be going anywhere, and the problem seems to continue to get worse. And you know, I'm from Long Island, New York, and where I have grown up, I've told you, out east on Long Island in Suffolk County has become incredibly red.

It was not incredibly red when I was when I was growing up, And you know, I see more pickup trucks and I with you know, gun paraphernalia on the back of it than I ever did my entire life of growing up. And so there is this sense of fear that I have in certain in certain areas that I didn't before like and that's coming as being you know, a black woman going to a school that was you know, and living in neighborhoods that were like ninety six and

ninety seven percent white. But it is this greater relationship, I guess, Jonathan, is a question. There seems to be a deeper relationship almost that is being forged between people and their guns, particularly the new groups of people who were not quote unquote traditional gun owners that now see, well, if everybody else has one, I need to have one too.

like George Floyd or something like that. After October seventh, Jewish Americans were targeted saying the world is going to turn on you and you don't want it. You need to be armed. And so basically it's this politics of fear that then puts guns into that place. What I heard from some of these, like people who were working with what's the word for people who were incarcerated and then just got out newly unincarcerated. I'm not quite sure.

many more things. And so in a way, guns become on one hand, guns become they've become like your form of self protection when the world's going to shit, and it's it's hard because, as I've been saying for like months here, then the argument of let's all put our name in a government database and trust each other and common sense public health, it's just not a convincing argument

for people. And so I do worry that like Trump is really speaking to this fear, and Biden isn't like Trump is saying, like everybody needs a gun because the world is terrifying, and I'm creating the.

their guns and come back. So because anybody can buy a gun in a lot of these states, and so and there's this this whole funnel of like guns that started out as quote unquote legal guns that then become illegal guns. And the other thing, of course is like many mass shooters are legal gun owners. But the thing is like Republicans now use this thing of like crime. They're trying to like hang this around the neck of the Democrats as if like crime is something that's all

about policing. But really the gun market is creating so much crime, and it's just like crazy because they're creating the problem that then they I mean, the Democrats, as you know from my book, are more than more than to blame for a lot of this stuff. But in this particular issue, I'll give an example. Yesterday in Tennessee, there was a bill passed by a great Democratic state legislator that was trying to ban what are called straw purchases, which is like the most obvious thing in the world.

People go buy guns at a gun show, they come out, they come outside, and then then they give them or sell them to people who are not allowed to have guns. And there's a lot of data that shows that these straw purchases, those guns then lead to a lot of crimes. So the Democrats tried to like regulate straw purchases, which we do like in Alabama, and Florida and every blue state, and the Republicans here blocked it. So they're literally like blocking the bills that are going to then allow guns

to then become quote unquote illegal guns. And so this whole idea of like the legal versus illegal gun is just to me, it's I don't want to say it's a red herring, but it's like a problem that the Republicans are creating and then trying to have the Democrats own it by then saying you're loose on crime.

to make this Joe Biden's problem. It's like, no, you create the conditions, you create the healthscape, and then you say, oh, but I have this solution, and the solution happens to be this one man that is going to make all of your nightmares, you know, into fairy tales, right, Like, that's what it is that they're you know that they're creating, because it's a it's obscene, right Like, if you are supposedly about law and order and you're saying, oh, well,

only people that have you know, the legal ability to have guns should have access to guns, then why wouldn't you go ahead and vote for a measure that makes it difficult for people who are not supposed to have guns to have guns because you don't actually care who has a gun because you think everyone should have a gun, right, And then you'll create the conditions that escalate violence, that then get people into a whipped up frenzy of fear that then they believe that this one person can come

in and save them.

to social nonsense, every single thing is MONTI. So it's also like what I write about in What We've Become is how first you scare black Americans into buying guns, then you use the representation of black Americans with guns to then sell more guns to white Americans, and so it becomes this vicious cycle where the people who are supporting that fascist dictator are also gaining monetarily by like pitting each other against each other tribally and all these ways.

So it becomes this manipulation that then creates almost like a classic arms race, you know, where the gun seller is selling guns to both sides and so.

that's that's happening. We're we're being what was that, you know, these these fake stocks, Like we're just being manipulated by these algorithms right into you know, that's like this trump This truth social is like a perfect metaphor for the way the gun economy works also, which is they scare the shit out of people to raise the stocks and stuff like that.

that clip. And then the response from you know, was a white journalist, was you know, well, what do you what do you mean? And she's like, when it's no longer useful for you, you will stop using it, like plain and simple. That's it's something, you know. And so I think that for Republicans in a lot of ways, it's you know, that question around white fear, right, because it's not white rage, it's also white coupled with white fear.

They will stop using it when it's no longer, When fear is no longer their number one marketing tool for white America.

part of what fuels the fear. But it's also just like we know more about people, how people think, how people act right, how how easily people are manipulated, and so you think that the good people would be able to use that information the same way that the bad do. But I just don't ever think that that is the case.

and nuanced. And you know the fact that Elon muscoone's Twitter and that somebody is gonna they're gonna do some funny stuff to TikTok like the way we So it's we know more. But also the forces were against that are trying to divide us to create this dystopia are also far more, far more advanced, and so in a way we have to up our game in so many ways.

the New York Times. And really it's talking about the ways in which food should not be used as a weapon. Right that you know, he stated, And I just want to give you this like piece, he said quote. Their work was based on the simple belief that food is a universal human right. It is not conditional on being good or bad, rich or poor, left or right. We do not ask what religion you beloe to. We just

ask how many meals do you need? And he says this towards the end, which is that israelis, in their heart of hearts, know that food is not a weapon of war. Israel is better than the way this war is being waged. It is better than blocking food and medicine to civilians. It is better than killing aid workers who are who had coordinated their movements with the Israeli

defense forces. What I just want to get your reactions to this again, in a long line of thirty two thousand plus Palestinians being killed, you know, aid workers, humanitarian workers who are doing their best to stop a net Nyahu created famine. What are your thoughts on where we find ourselves right now.

And so you know, as you know, I mean, this is a much longer conversation, Like I've been working in this part of the world for a long time. I refused and I know I refuse to believe that Nittanyah, who is a metonym of Israel, you know what I mean, Like, I know so many people in Israel who are mortified about all of this, who didn't want, even after October seventh,

the invasion to happen in the first place. They said, like there's no winning for us other than mobilizing the world in a diplomatic way, a more targeted way, that there's no good answer to like penalizing the entire population. But then I also know that there are all these bigger geopolitical forces right that you know, Iran is I mean, there's so many other forces at play here. So I guess the question right now is what will the killing of these seven humanitarian workers, what will it come to

symbolize in the coming weeks and months and years. In other words, is this the moment because it's also the same week where you know, there was an attack on the Iranian embassy and things like that, is this the beginning of a larger expansion of the war. I don't mean just this intact, I mean just more so, I guess the question for me is like this volatile moment

right now. I mean, as I've said all along, my position is I think we should be working also with the Israeli left who have been trying to topple Nadana out for quite some time. And I don't even get me started about this, like this is the poll pot, as I said, the first week of our era in a way, and so just straight up, of course it's unconscionable. But I also think that we're at a really dangerous moment right now.

horrible crime leads to de escalation. That's my hope. But I also I am not super optimistic that that's going to happen. And yeah, of course I agree, I agree about food and I mean, if anybody should know that it's Israel that you know. But I guess the other part of this, of course, is there are still the hostages and trying to save their lives and get them out and what are the weapons to turn people on ams? But all this thing, but I mean, it's more than I can talk about.

changing the narrative? Is this going to be? You know, we're I just feel like we're always waiting or on the edge of a tipping point that we don't necessarily ever see, uh to you know, to to it's to its frurish, And so I was I was curious to your thoughts.

what I can find out myself. So we'll see what happens. But you know, I'll be reporting from on the ground if that's possible. As you know, I've been doing work with a group of Israeli and Palestinian doctors and also a feminist Israeli Palestinian feminist group that that have been doing a lot of work on trying to let me talk about a thankless job they're trying. Their their point is to get all the guns out of Israeli occupied territories.

That's that's what they've been doing. I mean, there are people on the ground there who do like incredibly brave work, So I want to go support them if I can.