¶ Intro / Opening
Tay my osiy like you just let me in my way.
Welcome world to Blaze listeners and now watchers. As promised, I am doing video episodes, and as I stated previously, for those who do listen to my audio only episodes, I am primarily focusing on guest episodes and where those will be video because I just believe it's better to be able to see people's reactions for better context. You can see people's faces, et cetera. Welcome to Episode eighty and on today's episode, I have guest Evan Longen. Evan
Longen is a psychologist of forty five years. He used to have his private practice. He also taught psycho therapy and he's a published author. He wrote the book The Root of Evil, and in that book he discusses how it is possible that evil can creep into society without us even knowing it. And of course this discussion definitely goes in the direction of Trump. We discuss Trump as many consider him to be evil or hitler or a dictator, and so that discussion has had But then we shift
from domestic politics and talk about conflicts abroad. We talk about Israel, Gaza, and of course we discuss Russia and Ukraine. I really do hope you enjoy this episode. Evan's a very intelligent person, and this is a great episode to watch because in this episode you see that two people
that don't necessarily agree. I'm not a democrat of the left and Devan is definitely not of the right, but we were still able to come together, have a discussion and even offer solutions that work, I mean, just makes sense for everybody, for humans living on the planet in a way that we can coexist in respec back to each other. So, without further ado, here is Evan Longan.
¶ Evan Longin
So thank you for taking the time and coming onto the show. And as we just discussed earlier before I press record appropriate, giving what's going on in California, before we move on, I want to go ahead, and I mean the background that I see here on you had You were a psychologists before the private practice. Is this true? Yes? Okay? And you taught psychotherapy for over forty five years or so is that correct?
Yes?
Okay, awesome? And then you became an author that book The Root of Evil? And was that released in twenty twenty two or twenty twenty three.
Twenty twenty At the end of twenty twenty two.
So right on that cusp of transitioning into twenty three. Yes, and you're known for that. You sold a few copies for sure, and you do discuss it and the subjects in here. Now, I'm a politics and geopolitics show, but I do like to venture onto other areas.
Yeah.
That being said, I think a lot of what you wrote in what you study is very appropriate to what's going on today. I did want to ask you, though, before we dive into that. Excuse me while I turn this up, that that you mentioned something I'm reading here,
¶ Psycho Therapy can Fail Society
you your bio about how psychotherapy I believe, if I'm getting this correct, can fail society or it can lead Yes, okay.
Yeah, Yeah, That's how I got interested in this whole idea of the breakdown of institutions and the breakdown of the body politic because in my own field we failed people frequently.
Okay.
I originally was a fellow at the Nathan Ackerman Family Institute, where I studied post doc and family therapy, and one of the things we noted back then was that the person who's the identified patient may in fact be the person who is most likely to bring new perspective to the family, and over and over again in my career, I was given very difficult cases that were not responding to treatment, and they found that they weren't responding to
treatment because they were treating the wrong person. That the person that was the hospitalized or identified patient was not the problem. And I have a case that I talk about in my book that's the simplest one to understand. I get a call from a mother who tells me that her doctor, her pediatrician, had referred her family to me that her son had just been excluded from school after he went back to school and knocked out all the windows on the first floor of the school. This
is an eight year old boy. So I said to the mother, well, okay, I'm more than happy to see you. I want to see you tomorrow with your whole family and with the boy and we'll all talk about what's going on. And the first thing she says to me, no, no, no, no, no, you don't get it. My son is the problem. We don't need to come in. And I said, ah, well, you have to humor me, because this is how I work.
I like to see a family together, get a feel for what the dynamics are that are going on in the family, and if you want to bring your son in, I'm more than happy to see you. She said, well, I'm not coming in. I said, well, listen, then go back to your pediatrician and get a referral to someone else. She said, well, the doctor said you're the best around. I said, well, thank you, So if you want my help,
come in. So the next day she arrives her husband and herself and her son, but she didn't bring her daughter. And I said to her, where's your daughter? And she said, my daughter's not a problem. My son's the problem, and you've got to fix him. Well you see where this is going obviously, absolutely yea. So they all come into the office, the three of them, and I say to this son, would you do me a favor, Take your chair and bring it up next to me. I want
you to be my assistant therapist. And he goes really, and I said, yeah, I'd like you to help me. And the mother goes, when is this What are you doing? You're rewarding him for being a bad kid. I said, no, I'm getting him to participate and to feel safe and to join me in exploring what's going on in the family. Well, to make a long story short. Ultimately she's about to leave when the father says, I can't take it anymore. My wife was out cold on the floor when he
came home from school. She's drunk, she's out of control, and he, in his own way, went looking for help. I said, Wow, that's really impressive. Dead. So I've seen so much of that. I've seen where it's so easy to look at a situation and blame that person, and so often if that kid had been treated in a more traditional setting, he would have been in therapy forever with no progress.
Well because the mother would to mask her own actions and her own behavior. Yes, it's effective family units.
So those are the kinds of situations that's as blatant one as I can can share. One of the we worked with a team. We would have a team of people who sat in the room with me, and the family would sit with other members of my team being interviewed, and then the family would we would talk amongst ourselves
about the things we heard. In this one instance, a young man who had been in McLean's Hospitals, a famous say chiatric facility, and had been removed because he wasn't making progress, sat with us on our team, and the mother and the father and the sister were talking on the other side of the room, and after they finished talking, he looked at us and he said, holy cow, is it possible that I did the things I did because I knew my mother was so depressed and I needed
to do it to help the family? Is that? And this came spontaneously from this twelve year old boy. So again, over and over and over, I have been called into difficult situations that don't get better because that's treating the wrong situation, the wrong problem, right, That's how I got into this.
Yeah, that's common in the medical industry in general. I mean, yes, yeah, that's unfortunate. So with that that being said, is that that is how why you got into doing what you're doing and why you chose to get on the path of researching. And in your book you do give you your opinions on how evil can easily sneak into society.
¶ How Evil Sneaks Into Society - Binary Thinking
Now does this tie into that? Do you think?
Yeah? Again, what I started to see in situations in the families that work with. And by the way, I also back back around nineteen twenty ten that era. For five years I was in the Middle East, working with Palestinian and Israeli children, bringing them together to talk with each other and to learn about each other and to collaborate. So my experience went from being a psychotherapist to working
in issues in the community. But what I saw over and over again was one binary thinking us versus them in the case of the Middle East, Israelis versus Palestinians. In today's California, the weight majority versus minority immigrants, they're seen as different, they're seen as other. The second thing is power over behavior, where the psychiatrist or the teacher or the politician uses power to control situations that should come about in a more collaborative discussion between people. The
third piece is the control of information. Today, today a blatant thing happened. I don't know if you saw. Senator Padilla was tackled when he was trying to ask questions of the Secretary of Homeland Security.
I did not see that today. Yet he was.
Thrown to the ground, he was handcuffed, And the story that MAGA is putting out is that they didn't know who he was, he didn't identify himself. Well, you can watch the TV reporting of this, so you can see he's going I'm Senator Padilla, I mean said and throwing him to the ground. So again there's a distortion of information. Information is corrupted, we don't get the truth. And the final the final piece that I found was people come up with simplistic solutions to complex problems.
Yeah, they do.
So instead of they're saying, Okay, this is going to require some thought. We're going to have to work together. Both sides have to come together and collaborate to come up with a solution. Unfortunately, in all the instances that I put in my book of Evil, in the community, in the college, in psychotherapy, we come up with simplistic solutions. This kid broke the windows. He needs to be the patient.
It's it's too often a simplistic approach to something that requires more in depth discussion and collaboration.
Well, because punishment's not treating the cause right or the root of why they behave that way right. So that all being said, it's in society, I mean, we'll just dive into because we're already talking about things that are
¶ Acceptance of Evil - The Trump Administration
going on. Obviously, Trump administration repolarizing figure. Some people approve, some people don't, but regardless of some people see him as a dictator, fascist, evil person. Fine, so let's talk about how or if you can explain rather because you're the expert in this is from your viewpoint, How does evil creep in? How does it get accepted to society? And how do these cults get formed where people are just willingly, just blindly following the leader. How does this happen?
How does it happen? I just got back from Europe. I was in Germany in Austria, and I was struck by what a wonderful culture, historic culture, the German Austrian culture has been over generations. How was it possible that people joined with Adolf Hitler in this horrendous movement that was so inhuman, so evil, so dastardly. I don't know whether the were to you.
That is the prime example of evil sneaking in and become acceptable, right.
And being accepted. My senses, you need people to be frightened, You need people to feel like they're not being heard. I didn't spend enough time in my book talking about that. The reason why Hitler took hold is the people of Germany felt like they were mistreated after World War One. They were poor, they were hungry, they wanted more opportunity, and Hitler was giving them a sense of the power, sense of being heard. Trump is doing exactly the same thing.
Trump listened to people who were feeling left out, feeling like to peopleeople who felt like they weren't given the same opportunities as others. Unfortunately, those people are not being represented by Trump. He is not making it any easier for them to buy eggs, He's not making it any easier for them to have access. In fact, his whole political economic strategy is he's going to give more money to the rich and then ultimately that's going to seep
down to the poor people. So again they they they think he's he is speaking to their hurt and their anger and their receptive to it. That's how it happens, I think.
I mean, he can't argue against that. That is that is usually how most any leader who gets elected, though it comes into power regardless. I mean, you're you're trying to play it to people's sympathies, right, That's usually what But.
¶ Trump and Hitler - The Real Problem
The problem the problem with with Trump, with Hitler, with other meglomaniacs is that they really uh don't offer solutions that will make the situation any better. They offer false solutions that ultimately create more problems.
It's interesting do you think some of some of because he is an interesting person to talk about. I mean, he's never never had a president like this ever, and it's it. I I will I will say that I don't agree with how he acts in public, Like he's not presidential, you know, and and the and the thing that that he does, Like why are we airing out
grievances on social media? For example, that whole spat between him and Elon Musk and whoever wants to speak up against him, Like that's, let's kind of closed door conversation, right, you work that out, You keep that, you keep that out of the public. In my opinion, do you feel Trump though, at times where he does have success, do you think it's intentional or just accidental? Like things just kind of half hal hazardly come together and he just claims the win.
Look, Unfortunately, in each of these situations that I think evil comes about, the person is not open to collaboration. The person is not open to being in a discussion that brings together multiple ideas and then work out as best a solution as you can. Trump, unfortunately, besides being vulgar and crass, doesn't respect. He speaks badly about anybody who disagrees with him. He calls them communist, he calls
them we he calls them all kinds of names. But he doesn't say, Okay, I want to talk with them, let's sit down and talk about what's the best way to go forward. And that was my sense when I
¶ Israel vs Palestine - Communication Breakdown
was in Middle East. Those people never understood that both sides had reasonable claims to their position.
Okay, it wasn't that.
The Israelis were correct or that the Palestinians were correct. They both had legitimate claims that needed to be listened to, and unfortunately the powers that be continue to vilify the other.
Side right right, Well that's not uncommon though. You know, each side things they're right, each side things that they're owed, whatever it is they believe is old to them. That situation like that, that's that goes back a very long ways, it really does. I don't I don't know if we're ever going to come to a solution on as far
as that goes, I would hope. So, I mean, I don't think that the Palestinian people themselves need to be caught in the middle between what's allegedly happening between Hamas and you know, Israel. But it's it's just it's just sad that I think that those people have to go through this and they're they're the ones being stuck in the middle between the two fighting, and they're being used, you know, they're being used not just as shields but absolutely both they are.
Again, that's the problem. The problem is that's to me, has all the makings of evil. Us versus them, power over behavior. I'm stronger than you, so.
I'll fuck you up, right, Yeah.
Simplistic solutions out below the hell out of Gaza and the Hamas.
Will disappear, right, which is not the right place not tell the.
Truth about the political realities that are governing why these people are behaving this way, the powers are behaving this way.
¶ Netanyahu's Political Agenda
Nettan Yahoo has all kinds of political agenda that have nothing to do with Hamas, and yet that will be his his calling card. I'm going to save israelis from Hamas.
So what do you think So what is his actual political okay, example of his political agenda outside of He's going to save Israel from Hamas? What what do you think it is he wants to achieve?
He wants to maintain power.
Well, yeah, right, he.
Is in cahoots with the ultra Orthodox and he needs their support. He has been much like Trump, he has been indicted on a number of crimes that he does not want to sit before the court. In fact, he's trying to change the nature of the court. Right, So those other agenda are part of what are driving him to do what he does.
Okay, And so how do you feel about the sudden thinning out or pulling out of you know, our embassies in the Middle East? Right now?
Is it?
Is it? Basically you think the US or Trump saying, Hey, I had nothing to do with this. Now, who's doing whatever he's going to do. We can't stop them, we can't control them. He's not listening. The reports are there is a verge of well, they're on the verge of attacking Iran for example, Yes, which is what the hot topic is, which is a bad thing. Regardless, Yes, what
¶ Trump Underestimates The Middle East
do you think the move was there?
Then?
As far as Trump administrations concerned, Trump.
Thought he had an easy solution to the situation in the Middle East. He thought he had an easy solution to the Russian Ukraine war. Right, Neither one of those things are turning out to be easy solutions and require a lot more in depth analysis and discussion than he understood. Now he sees that Netta Yahoo is as crazy as he is, and that Neta Yahoo can't be dealt with in a way that he anticipated Netta Yahoo would be.
And it scares him to think that all of a sudden, the Middle East is going to blow up into a major conflagration.
I mean, they were always in the verge since the beginning of time, it seems as well. So let's talk
¶ Is The U.S. Really to Blame for Russia / Ukraine
about that Ukraine piece then, So does the world really seem you know, both the world blames the US for that situation for whatever reason? Do you think that Trump is really the blame for this situation? And is it solely fall.
Name for which situation? I mean, he certainly wasn't Ukraine Russia? Yeah, I think the one to blame. There is another egomaniac named Putin, right, and Putin was determined to make a greater Soviet Union again, Yeah, and he's thought he again misread simplistic solution to a complex problem. He misread the situation in the Ukraine that they would be easy marks for him to march in and him take over a part of their territory. So again it starts, I think
with Putin. Unfortunately, again, Trump, being who he is and his his sense that he has this charisma that can make other people bend to his ways. Thought that Putin would come around and he would come up with an alliance and they would solve the Russian Ukraine problem, just like he did with Netanyahu. Unfortunately, he's dealing with people who are much the same as he is. And then you got guys like Erdawan and Turkey and Orebon and Hungry, all these people that he aligns himself with that are
also of the same ilk. So I mean, think about the simplistic solutions that he's coming up with while he's alienating NATO, our historic allies, making like they have robbing us. That's such misinformation. Again, it's so interesting. Have you been in Europe recently?
No, I have not.
¶ Europe vs U.S. - America on The Decline
Europe is so far ahead of us in their lifestyle. They have buses that don't give off missions. They have lights when you go into the room to go on and off. They have escalators at the airport that shut down if there's nobody running on them. They have streets that are paved. We are becoming a third world country. He's telling everybody we're the greatest country in the world. My eyes tell me that you go to a place like Spain or France. They live so much healthier lifestyles.
They take breaks in the middle of the day, they don't work the number of hours we work. They get all these benefits that he calls the socialist conspiracy. They get their they get their medicine paid for, they get their education paid for, they get their home googling and paid for it for their children. And we're talking about them like they're crazy people. We aren't getting the facts out there for us to listen to.
¶ Hatred for Trump - Fueling America's Division
Yeah, but our situation has gone This is years in the making. This isn't specific to any Republican or Democratic president regardless. It's been going on for quite some time.
But it's been taken to an extreme.
Well, it has because people tend to not like Trump. And you know, call it what you will, but you know, when everybody is doing everything they can to focus the messaging on Trump. Bad, Hey, Trump, he's going to be the scapegoat of everything.
Now.
He's not perfect. I've already admitted that, and he does do some stupid things. I mean, we can't. I'm not gonna sit here and pat him on the back all day because I can't. You know, we can't deny. It's like I scratch my head constantly, like what are you doing? You know? Sometimes I'm like, okay, you got something, but then you got a question what was that accidental?
To?
Just was it really planned? I have no idea. He's definitely going to be studied for years, I believe. Now,
¶ Truth Behind Russia vs Ukraine
as far as Ukraine goes, let's talk about that, because that whole thing started way back in fact during the Obama administration. Everybody turned their back when Russia took over the Crimean it was annexed. Nobody stepped in to help Ukraine at that point. Here we go fast forward. Russia's trying to do it again because, as you said, Putin wants to reunite the old USSR. That's always been his goal. He's never hit it. He's said it many, many, many times.
He's getting older. There's a legacy issue for him. He's getting older. He's been in power for a long time. I think it's now or never for him. Now. I call this a Cold World War III, because reality is China is involved. They have troops there, although they're claiming they're not involved in the war. They have North Korean troops there, and Iran has been sending technology and drones and other things to support this war as well. Everybody
else has done nothing. Let's just be quite honest. Europe hasn't done anything. Ker Starmer talks loud, mccron talks loud. Nobody does it thing. The United Kingdom signed one hundred year agreement with Ukraine way before the incident happened in the White House between Zelensky and Trump. By the way, signed in January twenty twenty five, where they committed to build up their economic trade okay using by the way
UK trade partners and trade channels. They were gonna bulsh their business, help them with their minerals, and protect them. A one hundred year agreement that was signed January twenty twenty five. Nothing has happened. Nothing outside of maybe sending a little bit of money, maybe they get a little bit of munitions. Even Kris Starmer said, hey, we're gonna We're gonna go ahead and we're gonna ramp everything up.
We're gonna put boots on the ground. Hasn't happened. Nobody's putting boots on the ground, it doesn't matter who it is. Yet the US is blamed for the whole thing because we're seeing as the superpower what's stopping Europe. Poland is on the ready. Poland has been very very much on the ready and protecting their border and ready to go.
But the reality is nobody wants a nuclear war. Nobody wants to admit that they No one's really coming out and say that that's the only reason they're letting putin. Do you know doing anything he does? Now you take that into account that China at anytime they're saying they don't support this, but yet they're sending troops and then they're playing games over there in Taiwan. So this situation is bad regardless if Europe steps in. If you're up
steps in, China might say, cool, here's our opportunity. While everybody's focused over here in the US might have to go and help their allies. They're going to move in on Taiwan. Right, So, while the US gets the blame and Trump gets a blame, this thing was debacled. This was a mess since Obama. Nothing happened under the Biden administration. Either, nobody wanted to step foot, everybody talk loud, nobody did anything. I personally think it's time to pull our heads out
of our ass. Trump needs to go in and we need to do something because we also have an agreement with the Ukraine. Are we really going to be protecting them? Is the UK going to protect them? Or is everybody just going to posture and try to win brownie points, you know in the media by saying, Hey, I'm speaking tough to Putin. Putin don't give a damn. Putin can care less. He's already called everybody's bluff. So what's the next step. We could point the finger who's the blame? But who step?
I don't want to talk about who's the blame?
No, I know I've said, but everyone's doing that right now. So I'm saying, like, who's going to stay? We need a solution, We need a solution.
This goes back, This goes back to the fall of the Russian Empire. Yes, yes, we made some very tactical errors in closing in on Russia with NATO. I think I.
Don't disagree with that. By the way, I think I think that was a bad move. It really was.
It was a bad move, And I think what we created going way back, so we're going back into the twentieth century. That Uh, lots of errors have been made, a lot of simplistic solutions to complex problems. I'm not here to blame Trump for having caused this. What I do concern myself with is when he says things like the Ukraine attacked Russia, that those kinds of misinformation are problematic.
And I agree with you, I do.
I think that's wrong, and I'm agreeing with you too. I mean, it's very scary because if we back Russia into a position where they feel they have to strike out with nuclear weapons, we'll have a horrendous situation. So we don't want to do that. But it's very important I think for the United States to stand with its allies and say we we will confront this together, not to blame them, not to distort this as we have
no problem with Russia. We do the Russian The Russian situation is problematic for us and for them, And and I keep coming back to this. The solutions are collaborative, The solutions are discussion. The solutions are looking at both sides of an issue. Russia needs protection, Russia needs to know that NATO is not going to infringe upon them, right, Russia needs to know that they're going to have us access to selling their goods again and building back their economy.
¶ Ukraine / Russia - Solutions vs Blame
There needs to be people coming together, collaborating in a sensible dialogue instead of us against them, whoever them is.
You're spot on there, because everybody wants to be everyone wants to take credit at this point, right, the UK wants to be the one to say, look, solution I have, We're the hero. France, same thing. Obviously Trump's doing the same thing. It's it's a it's a really dire situation because the people that are suffering, the people in the Ukraine period, Zelensky cannot win this war. He can't on his own. Like I said, everybody's sending munitions and money,
but that's not going to win it. It's going to have to be numbers, bodies, boots, period. That's the only thing that's going to work. But people don't realize that.
I'm concerned if you start sending boots in exescalate exactly. That's that's that's the crux of it, right, agree. So again, I you're very knowledgeable about this, George, But my sense is both sides have reasonable positions that need to be heard.
No, agreed, agreed, and I was I was going to echo what you said earlier about Rump.
Was the success in this last election because he heard the voices of people who were in pain that the Democrats were talking about all kinds of what's the word for it, social issues? Should transgender people play sports rather than talk about the price of eggs, rather than talk about the fact that people are feeling cut off and they don't have access. Again, is this country cannot operate without immigrants, even illegal immigrants. What's happening? What's happening in
my own community. I was sitting in the diner the other day in Salem, Massachusetts, and the waitress said to me, you know what's happened. None of the Hispanic people come here anymore. They're all frightened. They're all frightened. They're going to get rounded up. There used to be all these workers at home Depot who would line up there every morning to help tractors and landscapers and all kinds off. They don't come there anymore because they're afraid they're going
to be targeted and arrested. We need these people. No, there aren't poor people who want to do what the
¶ Immigration Enforcement - Solutions vs Hate
day laborers do who are illegal eminents our country. Will you guys out in California will have no more avocados if you don't have those people.
Yeah, well, our avocados were pretty much given away to Mexico as it was as far as an industry. It started in California and now we import it all from Mexico. So here's that with avocados. I don't disagree with your statements. This is a tricky situation because I think that we need to enforce policies to protect our sovereignty in our borders. But we shouldn't be targeting everybody who looks like an illegal immigrant. You know, you have to you have to do your research.
In that's right. If and he he Trump said he was going to go after those people who were criminals.
Yes that was what he said.
Yes, that's what he said. But he's not doing that. He's going into places like the home depot and rounding up everybody who's brown.
Yeah, they're casting two wide of a net on this. I mean, I believe, I believe you and I may be in agreement on this. They should just go out for the people with the criminal records. That are obviously not legal but have a criminal background. They need to be addressed period. The way this law even works, so even if you have a green card, by the way, if you commit a crime, you are still eligible to be deported. You're not safe in that either until that
you actually become a citizens. As far as you said, with the legal workers that will do the work in the fields, we do need them now at that point though, if they did this legally, they're not illegal. They do get a visa in which they are allotted a certain amount of time to stay here and work under a legal status.
We are in total agreement. Yeah, there needs to be laws that are reasonable, that can be enforced absolutely, and we can't just have porous boilers where anybody can cross over and do that. Again, it requires people working together to sensibly work out and collaborate together to make regulations and rules that work and that are in the best interest of everyone.
Agreed. We need to do better, period. You know, we need to do better. It wouldn't look so drastic if we didn't let it get to this point. It's the problem I'm having with the way Trump has hand this. Like I said, I agree with trying to clean up the mess. But he's he's taking a hammer and just hitting. It's like playing whackamle on whatever. Right, he's bringing down a hammer instead of using you know, the term kid clubs, like, you know, hey, let's be gentle about this. Let's let's
try to approach this amicably. Because what gets me is
¶ Families Separated - Law Enforcement vs Feelings
this when you have a family and you're just taking the mother away after being here ten to twenty five years. And now I'll just put this out there, and you might disagree with me, doesn't matter how long you've been here. If you committed the crime of coming over illegally, it's going to catch up to you eventually. Just as if I robbed a bank, got away with her for twenty years and all of a sudden the FBI finds out where I am and knocks on my door. That's serving justice.
But in this case, with a family, do you think, and I think this, by the way, should you not take that situation differently? Should you not say, okay, look, there's a family here. She's already this mother or this dad has children, been here for ten fifteen years. Maybe negotiate to work out a program with them that they can take steps to make them legal or give them
an extension, say all right, here's what's going on. We need you to do this, and we'll let you stay here for six months, for example, to get everything straight. How do you feel about that as a solution to those problems.
George, I'm impressed that you're a sensible man. I try to be, and that, of course, there has to be sensible mechanisms for evaluating a situation. You have a situation where you have a family where that the children are a fact Americans, We're born here and the parents came in here illegally. We need to come up with ways of saying, okay, it's in the family's best interest, in the community's best interests to give those people a mechanism
for becoming citizens. It's much like we talked about dreamers at one point, so that they had mechanisms for becoming citizens. We can't do things with a hammer, we can't do things with broad us in they statements that anybody who was not born here has to be eliminated. We need to think about what are the effects on families, on the community, on industries. That requires us all sitting down, people like you and me, talking about reasonable solutions.
Yeah, No, you're you're correct. I mean, you're correct.
I'm with you.
I got my moments. Let's put that I'm never always correct. I mean I never always get it right. Believe me. It's too hard. It's too hard to be uh, you know,
¶ Living in the Grey - Nothing is Black and White
to to have a definite answer these things, as you said, because you know, there's a lot of gray area that's always ignored. It's not a black it's nothing black and white. You know, everybody lives in the gray. We gotta admit that. Nobody nobody looks it that way, at least right now with everything going on. It's just black white done. No, there's a big gray area that everybody lives in period. Yes, not being as.
Again that that requires sensibility. You know, I was going to say this before. Sure was a philosopher named Levi Strauss. Do you know of him?
I heard the name. I don't know the work.
He taught at the University of Chicago. Uh. He was
a Holocaust victim in Germany. Many. He escaped from Germany and taught philosophy at the University of Chicago, and many of his students were the neo cons who worked in the Bush won a Bush to administration and Strauss said it's in the best interests of the community to lie to them if they can't understand the issues, make up excuses such as weapons of mass destruction, make up those situations, and that will give you access to taking care of the people in the way that they should be taken
care of. Unfortunately, I think Leo Strauss made a terrible error. You know, Plato, Plato in the Republic, many many generations ago, said that philosophers should be king. Unfortunately, nobody listens to them. They're the first ones to know there's a problem, but the last one to have any impact. So Strauss said, well,
¶ Societal Control Through Lies
I'm not going to wait for Plato's solution to teach the people. We got to do it and protect people. Unfortunately, that's too often what is happening now in our country.
That's been yeah for a while, right, that's the playbook.
Tell people what they can understand, even if it's not the truth, and come up with solutions that they can buy into. And that's not just one side of the other. That's not taking responsibility for saying I don't have a solution that you'll buy into. Let's sit and I'm gonna keep saying this Let's come up with dialogue, Let's come up with consensus. Let's come up with mechanisms that bring
people to listen to one another. You and I don't agree about everything, but we agree about enough that we can sit down and we can talk, and we could look for common reality. So it goes forward.
¶ Meeting in The Middle for Better Solutions
I think I think the opposition of opinion is how you come to a solution in the middle. I mean, if you can't hear each other out, you're never going to come up with a solution. You're just going to continue to be segregated right, left, whatever. You know, it's just ridiculous if you can't sit down and talk about these issues, deal with your own emotions, angers, whatever it is. You have to be able to sit down, check that shit at the door, and just talk about the issues.
I'll ask you, Evan, what's your view on this? Great, I'll take it in. I'll give you mine same thing, and then in our minds we're calculating I don't agree with that, but he made a point here. And then bring those back together and we say, all right, here's here's what we have. We got we got kind of an outline we can start with, and we just hash it out right. That's the way it should That's.
What I'm promulgating. That's my thesis. Let's sit down, let's hear each other, Let's understand what g need, what I need. Let's come up with a solution. You know, there was a time when when Congress worked that way for various other reasons. You know, I'll give you something for your farmers, you give me something for my industrial people, will bother us solutions together.
We don't do that anymore, No, they don't. It's either
¶ The American People Come Last
this or nothing. Yes, especially how they pack everything with all this pork and try to sneakers in with these five thousand pages. They know nobody's going to read. Who has time for that? It's like, hey, we released a support here's Thursday. We're voting on a Friday. Who has time for that? Like this, it's ridiculous, you know. And it's always a one sided issue, always always one sided, and it's very ridiculous because it does leave a lot of people out, the needs of the actual people. That's
what I'm getting tired of in America right now. I don't care who the president is, by the way, the reality is this country has not been looking out for its people. They've been playing on emotions. It's it's like you said earlier. I don't know if I'm correct on this, but it's kind of an example of what you're talking about earlier with Levi Strauss for example. Is that power over behavior? Right to me? I look at it from
like a business owner. Okay, the government is playing a sigh up and they have an amazing marketing team, and they know how to pull on your emotions, pull on your heartstrings, to direct you where they want you to go. They're playing they're playing chess with us. Basically, that's exactly what they're doing. You know, we're the ponds, yes, and
¶ Evan Asks "How I Became a Podcaster"
unfortunately we keep playing into their hand, they keep segreging. I don't know, just kind of just.
Kind of happened. Well, your sensibility.
I started with my brother, so he's been he's been a podcaster for probably nine eight nine years now, and I started on his show a little bit here and there. And I've always been into politics, philosophy, everything. I'm not as educated as you and it by the way, I can't just call people's names out in quotes, but you know, I do like I do like it, and I've been interest in politics for a very long time.
Now.
The reason I got into this is because I hear a lot of people talk. I hear these shows, I hear these talking heads that are just reading whatever script on is a teleprompter, and I hear a lot of these other podcasters, and I'm like, they don't know what they're talking about, or if they do make a point. I just got the I just got to a position in my life where I said, you know what, I
have nothing to lose. Why don't I get on the mic and see if I can make a difference or at least vent or say what's on the top off the top of my head. But I'll admit I say some outlanda shit sometimes I know that I'll say something and later on go you know, probably should kind of reel that one back a little because we do this in real time.
I like your sensibility. I hope that that you get heard by lots of people because you're making sense.
I appreciate that, Thank you. But the problem with doing this, Evan is we respond in real time, right. And I've
¶ Right Today Wrong Tomorrow - responding in Real Time
said this before with other people, and I've had YouTubers, I've speaked to people in the Intel community people in the military. Like I've had very various guests and people I connect with since i've been doing this, and you're always right today, wrong tomorrow. You can't keep up with the news cycle. You can't keep up with what's happening, you know, And we live in a world of sound bites and clips, you know, we always get just a
snippet of the actual information. Right everything's on social media. You never see the full video clip. You just see that one moment where they see the white guy being racist, for example, or the brown guy getting arrested. I'm not going to say whether those particular situations are right wrong, But we don't see the we don't get the whole context of what's happening, and people just eat it up, and they're conditioning us, just as you said, they're conditioning
us with this. It's a tool, you know.
¶ Cultural Change - From Vietnam War Era to Today
I go back a long way. I was a medic during the Vietnam War. I decided when I got out of the army, I was going to go to graduate school in psychology and do good. And some of the things that I worked on turned into such disasters. For example, I was part of a class action suit that took adolescents and children off adult psychiatric units so that they were being treated back in the nineteen sixties and seventies amongst adult crazies, and it was totally inappropriate. Then I
was part of an action to close down mental hospitals. Well, we had a daily census in Massachusetts between thirty and fifty thousand patients in psychiatric hospital state hospitals back in that era. You know where they are now?
No, they're homeless.
Yeah, well it's the same number of people in Massachusetts who are on the streets.
I was since you brought that up. I've had that opinion because I've I've known people who are in various organizations that would serve the homeless community. Yes, and I hate to say this, but the truth of the matter is exactly what you said. Most of these people have been abandoned by the state, the government. They're no longer getting funded, they're not getting their medication, not getting care, and they're left out in the cult to figure it out.
They can't rejoint society because they're not they're not capable of it. Yeah, it's it's not that they're not smart. For example, what it was just they lacked social skills or whatever it is that will allow them to.
They're truly sick people. And the fact is we, in doing our do gooding, close the mental hospitals. Well it's not by chance. That's the same number of people that today are on the street.
What okay, let's get back to that. What was behind closing that? What was behind closing the mental hospitals? Did they claim it was financial? Was it like? What?
No? They claimed that the people weren't being treated adequately, they weren't being treated humanly. Really well, again in retrospect, they were being treated more humanely in the mental hospital than they are today on the street sleeping in their fecings. So again, we thought we were getting them to a place where they could be treated within the community and cared for by the community. Community it didn't want them. So you know, we tried to set up halfway houses.
Somebody wanted one in their neighborhood, not mine neighborhood. I don't want to be part of a solution.
¶ Mental Health Abandonment and The rise of Homelessness
There's I mean, you know, because this is what you did. I don't. But from what I've read and what I've seen documentaries and whatnot, not an expert, but the mental hospitals were definitely an issue when psychology was in its infant stages, when it was very experimental. Still they're trying to figure that out. But it did get to a point where they got a handle on the abuse. But yet even after that it did get better, but they still decided this isn't good enough. Put these people out
on the street. That's just crazy.
I've worked with Yako Sekoa, for example, who's in Finland and back in the Scandinavian countries. The community works together to treat the people in the community who are sick. They pitch in, they all have roles. Small homogeneous communities that care for their own. Our communities are too diverse. There people don't care about what's happening down the street. It's unfortunate. Churches no longer. When I first started doing psychotherapy,
I spoke at every church in my town. They all called me in to talk about how they can work together to do things in their own community. But people don't go to church anymore.
No. Let me ask this, why do you think people don't care? Though? When it comes to the people on the streets and the homeless, like everyone, it's.
Not me, it's them. It's us versus them. I'm not that.
Problem understood, I get that, but what caused that? I remember a time where people were more generous, and then I think it was sometime in the nineties, it just kind of flipped, like all of a sudden, people just stopped caring. Yes, you know, they weren't giving them a dollar for example, or buying people food. I'm gonna say this because I've experienced this myself, and I know this from inside information with people who work in the missions
and whatnot. There are literally people who gave up on society. Not just sick, but they just don't want to deal with anything and they find that living on the street suits them better. That's not the majority, by the way, but those people are there. Yeah, And I think that people stopped caring because they realized, you know, with all the stories coming out and they themselves just being scammed.
Like even in my town, I we would see the same person pulled the same scam over and over for two three years, always pregnant, always just got dropped off at the bus. One year I recognized here and realized, Hey, weren't you just saying this like last year? Yeah, you're still pregnant with the same baby. And I think those unfortunate circumstances, those unfortunate examples, by the way, is what
led people to stop caring. They just feel like, I'm not making a difference, and these people were just trying to take advantage of me.
¶ Me First Attitude vs Community
When I went to school back in I started college in nineteen sixty four and I went through to get my doctorate. Back then, all the smart people that I knew were going into professions like psychology or medicine, nursing, education, law. They all had a mission to make the community better. Sometime after the Vietnam War, sometime around the time of Ronald Reagan, the ethos changed to I'm going to make money. I'm going to be a successful business person. The smart
people went to either business school or engineering. Yeah, and they know longer had a vested interest in making the community better. They came to the notion that they're going to make their own lives better. And I think that has persisted. I know with even my grandchildren saying to me, I have a grandson that graduated high school last week and he's going to go to the business school at Boston College. And I said, why are you doing that. He said, what I mean, why am I doing that?
He said, I'm really smart. I'm going to be really successful. I'm going to make a lot of money. I said, but you know what, you are so smart, you are so capable of making the world a better place. Why aren't you thinking in those terms? He said? Come on, Granddad, come on, Grandpa, you're you're you're talking like those those hippies of the that you grew up with.
I don't I mean now that you say it, I mean, I do see that there's been less interest in professions that actually serve the community or even consider the humanitarian effort right. And even the arts is on the decline, I believe.
Yeah, even the arts.
It's it's sad. And yes, the eighties was the age of business, you know, the power suit, the power tie of the whole deal. It was all about more and more money, you know, so when stock market just it was just crazy. Yeah, you may, I think you're onto something there, you know. Definitely was a me first attitude that really that really started went from.
A community concern to me first.
Yeah, absolutely, it was a me first attitude. Let's let's get back to California a bit and it's not just California. I mean there there was a big organized protest on June fourteenth, Trump's birthday or the Army's birthday. However you want to look at that, you know what? Good? Let
¶ ICE Riots and California vs Trump
me ask you this, what are your what are your thoughts of what happened in California? Though, I mean we did discuss some of it already, but the fighting, infighting between the governor, you know, Newsom, Karen Bass, the lack of response. Again, I'm not this isn't This isn't me saying right versus left, Trump versus whatever. This is literally pointing out I believe the error and the lack of response to a situation. What do you think the reasoning
was behind that? Aside aside from political theater? Why did Karen Bass not respond with the police and it didn't have to be in a violent way, just to control, just have a presence. And why did Governor Newsom not respond either? What's your thoughts on that?
Well? I don't know if I'm the right person to respond to that, but sure you are. I thought they did respond, Okay, I thought that they were concerned that and this is I'm concerned about it in my own community. I'm joining an action committee to protect immigrants. That you can't have ice come into your community and rip people out of their homes.
We at their jobs. Yeah, we discussed. Agree.
I think that it was a huge provocation on the part of the federal government to start mobilizing. We had a situation a couple of weeks ago in Nantucket with around that up forty four people who worked in hotels and restaurants in Nantucket and put them in a boat and took them away. They had no due process. So I think their first concern was that you can't you can't go into a community and do this without people
being offended, without people being put in danger. And my sense is that there has been a response on the part of California government. There was enough police that were that kept it contained. There was some bad apples, but they mostly contained to a small area. The provocation provocators. So I think Trump came in with his guys, escalating the crisis to something that was way beyond what we really was called for. The National Guard, the Marines.
The marine should never be deployed on us Soilian citizens period, that's not what they do.
¶ National Guard Controversy - Presidential Rights
What they do and the same thing what are the National Guard doing? Two thousand National guardsmen are protecting the federal buildings. Come on, the police have to do this, And.
That's a bit much, honestly. But the lack of response I was referring to was, Yes, the police were there, but they did not get deployed until Trump said he was going to send the National Guard. Yeah, and even Newsom refused to send in the National Guard. Now, I agree with you that I don't think there was a need for it. There's more more than enough law enforcement
out there to handle the situation. It really is. Was a National Guard needed, I don't believe in this situation, But yet they were called in nineteen ninety two during the Rodden King riots. There were many examples of when the National Guard was called to control riots and protests that just got out of hand. Yes, the response to the National Guard being sent and taking over of the
president is a lawful order. And actually, if you go to the National Guard's website even says it right there it can be called by any time by any governor and the president of the United States. So I'm just going to put that out there because that is fact. But was it needed. No, I don't think so.
Again, I'm not saying it's illegal. I'm saying it was provocative today that the FBI handcuffed through Senator Padilla.
To the girl. I got to look at that. That's that's crazy.
It's all over the news today and and handcuffed him. That's that's not that's not how you treat people. If you treat a United States senator that way, how is the little guy who works at the local.
How is it going to feel feel again, it'll be truated. Absolutely. So, I didn't see it. I didn't see the reports. You. I don't know why I did. This wasn't on my radar. It's what I do is it's crazy. So so what were the circumstances? Like he was doing nothing other than hey, I'm going to question you on what you're doing and what's happening. That was it.
Yeah. Christy Nome, the Secretary of Homeland Security, was speaking and talking about how the Democrats failed society. Los Angeles would have been burnt down if it wasn't for their response, and he walked up and said, I want to ask you some questions, and they they man handled him, they threw him down.
They yeah, that's that's not right.
That's again, it's not right out of hand.
¶ Trump is un-Presidential
And that's the problem right now with the Trump administration at this moment, they had an opportunity to do the right thing. The actions like this does not work in a favor. That's just this just supports what people are saying about him being authoritarian, tyrannical. It's not a good look period.
No.
I yeah, I got to look at that. That that is just crazy that they treated U Patia that way. And you know, even even in the Trump admint like my brother's very admin, we're not we're conservative. But even he always says on his show is like, I'm conservative, but I didn't vote for Trump. That's what he always says. He goes. I don't agree with how he handles himself. I don't think he's presidential. I don't think he's presidential either. And the reality is I like some of the stuff
he does. But I mean, like I told you, eur last crushed my head on a lot, like I don't think this is the way, you know, I really don't.
Again my senses, you need to see people as you see yourself, agreed. I mean that says ultimate golden rule, right, Tree deficis as you would have them treat you absolutely what will need to have a view of the world that I am not better or different than you are. We both have interests, we both have to take care of each other.
Oh, I absolutely agree with you. I was going to
¶ Trump - Promises Made and Promises Broken
say something about the Trump administration and that The other thing that stood out is the fumbling of many things that were promised that haven't been delivered. You know, we're still looking at Epstein files that are allegedly now there's no video, there's no evidence. Even though they have like a ten plus year investigation regarding Epstein, suddenly nothing exists, nothing's viable, we can't release anything. There's nothing there, which is ridiculous. And then they give the binders to a
bunch of social media influencers. You know what kind of move was that that there's a lot of stupidity. I think that is not winning winning the people over. It really isn't. He has some people in his administration that should not be in the positions they're in. The one thing that was surprising to me is he does have some people that were from the Democrat Party that came over. But you know those people such as you know RF K. Junior and whatnot. Don't feel that they're part of that
party anymore. But still some of his administration. Even he himself, by the way, is not necessarily a true conservative. I don't know where he is. I don't even know where he sits.
I mean, where did he come up with this tariff idea? I mean it comes from Navarro. Navarro is not a credible economist, and he hires Navarro to make this tariff policy for him. Where does he come off? And picking Hexa as the Secretary of Defense agreed these guys have no credibility.
¶ Tariffs - Intentions vs Reality 01:06:56 - U.S. Economy Truth
I I might argue with you in that the whole terrif idea. I understand what he was trying to do. I'm not saying it was the right thing to do in modern times, Okay, but you know, we were a tariff nation. This is fact. We did make our money on teriffs. But there was also a different world back then. It was not as interwoven as it is now. You know, of course.
I mean, you can't make an airplane with parts just from the United States.
Not not gonna happen.
It's a world economy. It's such a myopic response against simplistic.
I think Trump's approach was literally, it's a tit for tat right, Hey, you're charging me two hundred percent. We've done nothing about it. Well, hell, I'm going to charge you two hundred percent now. Yeah. Over the countries he did that with it's a zero, right.
Who sell vanilla? And and and agreed. Of course they buy more than them, We buy from them.
Right, stupid. But it's it's a to me, it's a race to zero because it's it's meant, it's meant the intention, I could, I could read right through it. I understand the intention. Oh, this will get people to focus on domestic production, things made here in the USA. Yeah, but we're not set up for that yet. Like I said earlier, he uses a hammer without giving you know, a defined, guided step of how to get there. You can't just
say we're gonna turn it off. Now. I can see this being a ten year plan, maybe even a fifteen year plan, but it can't be a tomorrow plan. And it's just hurting everybody in regards to what everybody says. Look, inflation might be dolistic, yeah, exactly.
Plistic solution to complex problems.
Agreed, and inflation may be down, But then the economy itself is not doing so good right now. You know, it really isn't even in my industry. It's like it's it's almost like they just suck the air out of it. It's it feels almost like pandemic level business right now, back in the COVID times for a lot of people in my industry and a lot of industries. It's it's not my industry too.
I mean you as well again. Medicine and psychology, the whole ancillary medical field is being run by large corporations that are making money at the expense of the people who need a benefit from these services. Yeah, it's we need to rethink things.
How is how is it to go?
Unfortunately?
Ah, I've enjoyed our talk. I was just going to get into the insurance part of it. But that's the fine. No, I appreciate your time. Tell everybody about your book, where they can get it and how they can find you.
Yeah, it's on all the major outlets. Amazon, you can get on it. Most bookstores you can order it through their catalogs. I hope people who liked what I've had to say and the ideas that I've expressed will go out and buy the book. I think it's particularly relevant to today's community.
No, it is, and I'd love to pick this up again because it sounds like you and I have a lot to talk about.
Yeah, I'd love to talk with you more. Georgia. I think you're being sensible. It's nice to see sensible people who are not being driven by some alternative philosophy.
I appreciate that, and same for you. I mean, it's all about what you said. We need to come to the table, we need to discuss these issues, and we need to live in reality. I mean, we need to be realistic about it, but.
We also need to listen.
Absolutely, we didn't listen to each other. I agree, absolutely. Thank you Evan, and thank you George again.
It's a pleasure.
I'm sure we'll talk again, all right, I'd okay, sir, all right, as usual, Thanks for sticking around and either listening or watching or both, and please like subscribe to share the show, and as always, have a great day days your content, feel attention.
Deviltemption stands on my