Latest / The People's News / 2025 in Review Part 2: Some Wins for We The People, Remembering a Good Man and President - TPN 1/4/26

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2025 in Review Part 2: Some Wins for We The People, Remembering a Good Man and President - TPN 1/4/26 · The People's News

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Speaker 1: It's the week of January fourth, twenty twenty six, and
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Speaker 1: this is what's on this special edition of the People's News.
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Speaker 1: Al Green remembers a great President, Jimmy Carter the United States,
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Speaker 1: and the world celebrates a new Pope. Katie Pride successful
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Speaker 1: in their fight. All that and more on the People's News.
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Speaker 1: I'm Steve Gallington. This is the People's News, and the
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Speaker 1: People's News starts now. We start off the suspision of
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Speaker 1: the People's News with a reading from Timothy Snyder's on Tyranny,
0:46
Speaker 1: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, which was published in
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Speaker 1: twenty seventeen and something I used as a guidebook to
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Speaker 1: get me through the first Donald Trump presidency. We're reading
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Speaker 1: number fourteen of the twenty Lessons, which is entire establish
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Speaker 1: a private life. Nastier rulers will use what they know
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Speaker 1: about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of
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Speaker 1: malware on a regular basis. Remember that email is skywriting.
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Speaker 1: Consider using alternative forms of the Internet or simply using
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Speaker 1: it less. Have personal exchanges in person for the same reason.
1:23
Speaker 1: Resolve any legal trouble. Tyrants seek the hook on which
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Speaker 1: to hang you. Try not to have hooks. What the
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Speaker 1: great political thinker Hannah Arent meant by totalitarianism was not
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Speaker 1: an all powerful state, but the erasure of the difference
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Speaker 1: between private and public life. We are free only in
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Speaker 1: so far as we exercise control over what people know
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Speaker 1: about us, and in what circumstances they come to know it.
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Speaker 1: During the campaign of twenty sixteen, we took a step
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Speaker 1: toward totalitarianism without even noticing it, by accepting as normal
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Speaker 1: the vile of electronic privacy. Whether it is done by
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Speaker 1: American or Russian intelligence agencies, or for that matter, by
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Speaker 1: any institution, the theft, discussion, or publication of personal communications
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Speaker 1: destroys a basic foundation of our rights. If we have
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Speaker 1: no control over who reads what and when, we have
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Speaker 1: no ability to act in the present or plan for
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Speaker 1: the future. Whoever can pierce your privacy can humiliate you
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Speaker 1: and disrupt your relationships at will. No one, except perhaps
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Speaker 1: a tyrant, has a private life that can survive public
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Speaker 1: exposure by hostile directive. The timed email bombs of the
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Speaker 1: twenty sixteen presidential campaign were also a powerful form of disinformation.
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Speaker 1: Words written in one situation make sense only in that context.
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Speaker 1: The very act of removing them from their historical moment
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Speaker 1: and dropping them in another is an act of falsification.
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Speaker 1: What is worse, when media followed the email by as
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Speaker 1: if they were news, they betrayed their own mission. Few
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Speaker 1: journalists made an effort to explain why people said or
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Speaker 1: wrote the things they did at the time. Meanwhile, in
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Speaker 1: transmitting privacy violations as news, the media allowed themselves to
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Speaker 1: be distracted from the actual events of the day. Rather
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Speaker 1: than reporting the violation of basic rights, our media generally
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Speaker 1: preferred to mindlessly indulge in the inherently salacious interest we
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Speaker 1: have in other people's affairs. Our appetite for the secret
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Speaker 1: thought arrant is dangerously political. Totalitarianism removes the difference between
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Speaker 1: private and public, not just to make individuals unfree, but
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Speaker 1: also to draw the whole society away from normal politics
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Speaker 1: and toward conspiracy theories. Rather than defending facts or generating interpretations,
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Speaker 1: we are seduced by the notion of hidden realities and
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Speaker 1: dark conspiracies that explain everything. As we learn from these
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Speaker 1: email bombs, this mechanism works even when it is revealed
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Speaker 1: it is of no interest. The revelation of what was
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Speaker 1: once confidential becomes the story itself. It is striking that
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Speaker 1: the news media are much worse at this than say,
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Speaker 1: fashion or sports reporters. Fashion reporters know that models are
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Speaker 1: taking off their clothes in the changing rooms, and sports
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Speaker 1: reporters know that their athletes shower in the locker room,
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Speaker 1: but neither allow private matters to supplant the public story
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Speaker 1: that they are supposed to be covering. When we take
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Speaker 1: an active interest in the matters of doubtful relevance at
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Speaker 1: moments that are chosen by tyrants and spooks, we participate
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Speaker 1: in the demolition of our own political order. To be sure,
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Speaker 1: we might feel that we are doing nothing more than
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Speaker 1: going along with everyone else. This is true, and it
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Speaker 1: is what aren't described as the devolution of society into
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Speaker 1: a mob. We can try to solve this problem individually
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Speaker 1: by securing our own computers. We can also try to
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Speaker 1: solve a collective by supporting, for example, organizations that are
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Speaker 1: concerned with human rights. That was an excerpt of the
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Speaker 1: book on Tyranny, Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by
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Speaker 1: Timothy Snyder. That was the thirty ninth President of the
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Speaker 1: United States, Jimmy Carter, speaking to the nation in July
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Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy nine. He died at the age of
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Speaker 1: one hundred on December twenty ninth, in his home at Plains, Georgia.
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Speaker 1: From negotiating the longest peace treaty between Israel and Egypt
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Speaker 1: to peace in the New Zimbabwe, he always chose peace
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Speaker 1: over war. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in two
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Speaker 1: thousand and two for this and his shining example of
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Speaker 1: what a decent man does after being president. We talked
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Speaker 1: to US Congressman Al Green from the ninth District of Houston,
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Speaker 1: Texas about the life of the thirty ninth President and
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Speaker 1: about the challenges of the upcoming Congress.
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Speaker 2: He was president who made a difference in the lives
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Speaker 2: of people across many spectrums. But I especially like him
6:06
Speaker 2: for what he did for those persons who live in
6:09
Speaker 2: the street sup life as opposed to the sweet sub life.
6:12
Speaker 2: For the people who needed homes.
6:14
Speaker 3: Uh.
6:14
Speaker 2: He devoted a lot of his life to building homes
6:17
Speaker 2: for people who were homeless and helping people who had
6:20
Speaker 2: no help. But for what he was offering when he
6:22
Speaker 2: was president, uh, he lived a hundred years, and I
6:26
Speaker 2: think that living a hundred years UH doesn't mean that
6:29
Speaker 2: you've done something great. It depends on how you use
6:33
Speaker 2: that a hundred years as to whether you've done something great.
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Speaker 2: He used his time efficaciously. He made a difference, and
6:42
Speaker 2: we will miss him. We will miss him notwithstanding the
6:45
Speaker 2: fact that he was a hundred years old. Uh. It's
6:47
Speaker 2: not how long one lives, but what one does with
6:50
Speaker 2: the times that God gives. And he used God's time
6:54
Speaker 2: quite well. Now having said that, he also uh was
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Speaker 2: there when we needed a means by which we could
7:02
Speaker 2: traverse from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. And
7:06
Speaker 2: he was there to help with the Panama Canal issue.
7:10
Speaker 2: He turned the canal over to Panama. But he did
7:14
Speaker 2: it in an effort to maintain peace. He was a peacemaker.
7:20
Speaker 2: He had the hostages that were held for forty four
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Speaker 2: days in Iran. He could have sent in troops and
7:31
Speaker 2: could have bombed, but he was a man of peace
7:34
Speaker 2: and they came home. But they came home the day
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Speaker 2: he was leaving the presidency. The I Tola didn't that intentionally.
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Speaker 2: But he was a peacemaker. And because he was a peacemaker,
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Speaker 2: and because he tended to give the people who were
7:51
Speaker 2: taken for granted attention, people criticized. It seems that if
7:57
Speaker 2: you want to be a great president. In the eyes
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Speaker 2: of some peace, you've got to be a bully or
8:02
Speaker 2: you've got to start a war. There are people who
8:05
Speaker 2: make their livings off of the wars that we fight,
8:09
Speaker 2: and the bombs that we buy, and the ships that
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Speaker 2: we build, the planes that we fly, the bombers. So
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Speaker 2: I'm I'm proud to know that there was a peacemaker
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Speaker 2: in the White House, and his tenure, I hope would
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Speaker 2: be remembered as one of a person who did all
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Speaker 2: that he could to be of help to those who
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Speaker 2: were helpless and tried to maintain global peace and did
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Speaker 2: a pretty good job of it, in my opinion.
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Speaker 4: He did a job of actually making the country more
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Speaker 4: diverse as far as electing, putting judges and other other
8:45
Speaker 4: you know, replacements of independent and administration.
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Speaker 2: That's right, more black judges and female judges than anyone
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Speaker 2: else that time. And also and the young ambassador to
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Speaker 2: the UN. It was unthinkable to do something like that,
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Speaker 2: but he did. He entertained African Americans at the White House.
9:14
Speaker 2: We didn't get to go to the White House that often,
9:17
Speaker 2: but he opened the doors to the White House so
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Speaker 2: that African Americans could come in and could be heard
9:25
Speaker 2: He's an interesting history in that he should have been
9:28
Speaker 2: a segregationist given where he was born and at the
9:31
Speaker 2: time he was born. But there's something that happens to
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Speaker 2: some people that causes them to see the world differently.
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Speaker 2: And I think his association at a young age the
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Speaker 2: persons of African ancestry changed what could have been a
9:46
Speaker 2: different course for his life, and he pursued a course
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Speaker 2: of an integrationists of a person who saw justice for
9:55
Speaker 2: the Palestinians to the extent that many labeled him and
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Speaker 2: anti semi, but it didn't stop him and didn't deter
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Speaker 2: him from pushing forward to be of help to the Palestinians.
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Speaker 2: He's the first person I heard say that the settlements
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Speaker 2: were an impediment to peace. Very few people will say
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Speaker 2: that that the impediments that the settlements are impediment to peace.
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Speaker 2: And when he was asked a question, well, why don't
10:21
Speaker 2: you stop sending money to Israel if you see what
10:26
Speaker 2: they're doing is an impediment to peace, and he said,
10:31
Speaker 2: no congress person's gonna vote for that. At that time, MM,
10:34
Speaker 2: no congress person's gonna vote to do that because they're
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Speaker 2: afraid of what would happen to them if they cast
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Speaker 2: that vote, and there are still some residue of that
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Speaker 2: mentality that he spoke of a person's being concerned about
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Speaker 2: themselves and their political careers so that they will not
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Speaker 2: vote against money to go to the war that has
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Speaker 2: taken the lives of babies. We have to we have
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Speaker 2: to respect the lives of all babies. You can't decide
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Speaker 2: that it was wrong to kill Israeli babies and then
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Speaker 2: kill Palestinian babies. All babies deserve the same right to life.
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Speaker 2: Because he was an early voice to to say things
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Speaker 2: of that type and to talk about how the Palestinians
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Speaker 2: were being ill treated, I think that history is going
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Speaker 2: to be very kind to it. Already is being kind
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Speaker 2: to it. Notwithstanding what many of them have said about
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Speaker 2: him not being tough enough. Well, he had peace, and
11:35
Speaker 2: he brought a degree of dignity to the presidency that
11:40
Speaker 2: we have lost. We've now reached a point where presidents
11:47
Speaker 2: use a level of profanity and public discourse that I
11:53
Speaker 2: had seen before the current president elected. He has a
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Speaker 2: been inaugurated yet, but I never saw it before. And
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Speaker 2: what he's doing now is changing not only the presidency,
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Speaker 2: he's also and I'm talking about the President elect. He's
12:16
Speaker 2: also called the American people to lose faith in the
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Speaker 2: judicial system, a system that will find a man guilty,
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Speaker 2: tried by jury thirty four felonies and then decide that
12:38
Speaker 2: he should not pay one dime as a fine and
12:41
Speaker 2: serve no time. I've never heard of it being done before.
12:47
Speaker 2: I'm a lawyer and I was a judge. This is
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Speaker 2: the first time I've ever heard of such a thing.
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Speaker 2: Haven And for the Supreme Court to say that he
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Speaker 2: is now.
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Speaker 5: Above the law when he holds public office, to with
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Speaker 5: the presidency, that's that's remarkable that we've reached this point.
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Speaker 2: But this is what this one person has done to
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Speaker 2: this country, and harder when you juxtapose him to Carter,
13:12
Speaker 2: you can see the difference between dignity and respect and
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Speaker 2: a lack of both, and dignity and respect and Carter
13:21
Speaker 2: and a lack of that. And the president elected. One
13:25
Speaker 2: thing I remember was one in me.
13:29
Speaker 4: The Three Mile Island was going on and the people
13:33
Speaker 4: that work there were trying to tell him how to
13:37
Speaker 4: what a nuclear plan is all about, not knowing that
13:42
Speaker 4: he has a nuclear background, and he told him like, well,
13:46
Speaker 4: you're wrong, and that's not the way this works. And
13:49
Speaker 4: I remember him doing that and he was very extremely smart. Well,
13:53
Speaker 4: he was smart. But here's what I've noticed about history.
13:58
Speaker 4: They're always smart people. There were people who were smarter
14:03
Speaker 4: than doctor King. Doctor King was a brilliant man. He
14:06
Speaker 4: was a great orator. There were other great orators.
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Speaker 2: But the thing that set him doctor King and President
14:13
Speaker 2: Carter aside from the others, elevated them above the others
14:19
Speaker 2: was courage. You see, you can have knowledge, but if
14:23
Speaker 2: you don't have the courage to use that knowledge, then
14:28
Speaker 2: you're just a part of the many. But it's the
14:32
Speaker 2: person who sees the wrong and says that's wrong, that's
14:37
Speaker 2: the person that will be elevated above the masses. And
14:43
Speaker 2: they were. They were people who was saying see wrong
14:46
Speaker 2: and say it's just that's just wrong. They both were.
14:51
Speaker 2: Doctor King was lost his life because he pointed out
14:54
Speaker 2: wrong and injustice. Some say because of being their wrong,
14:57
Speaker 2: but it was it was his his believe that the
15:00
Speaker 2: time is always right to do that which is right.
15:04
Speaker 2: Those are his words paraphrase. But that's it, and it's courage.
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Speaker 2: It serves you a purpose if you're brilliant and you
15:13
Speaker 2: know that things are wrong. But it doesn't serve the
15:17
Speaker 2: people who are wrong any great purpose for you to
15:20
Speaker 2: have that knowledge and do nothing about it. And he
15:23
Speaker 2: was willing to do things of both of them, par
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Speaker 2: and King, who're both willing to make sacrifices. He did
15:31
Speaker 2: not have his second term because he preferred peace over
15:37
Speaker 2: the power to literally annihilate alone if he chose, we
15:42
Speaker 2: had the power to do it, but he wanted peace,
15:45
Speaker 2: and he wanted all of the hostages to be returned.
15:48
Speaker 2: And I think history is going to be kind to
15:50
Speaker 2: him for the way he conducted himself well in office.
15:54
Speaker 2: One thing I was going to.
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Speaker 4: Go into is like, how are you going to deal
15:57
Speaker 4: with this next administration that's coming in and going you know,
16:03
Speaker 4: some of the bills that they are already talking about passing,
16:06
Speaker 4: and especially dealing with immigration and dealing with diversity, especially
16:11
Speaker 4: you know, defunding you know hbc U schools.
16:15
Speaker 2: Well, the first thing I'm gonna do is remind people
16:19
Speaker 2: of why Democrats are not going to be inaugurated and
16:27
Speaker 2: augurated on the twentieth. We're gonna have a Republican president
16:32
Speaker 2: and vice president and the president will be inaugurated, stand
16:36
Speaker 2: before the Chief Justice, Supreme Court. President, let them become president.
16:40
Speaker 2: I don't want to explain why when we don't have
16:42
Speaker 2: Democrats assuming that position. And here was wine first. We
16:48
Speaker 2: right now we said black men didn't vote as they
16:52
Speaker 2: should have. We have blamed people of color, that Tino's
16:57
Speaker 2: minorities generally speaking. Well, I want to defend them because
17:04
Speaker 2: I know what happened. I was there. We had the House,
17:08
Speaker 2: the Senate, and the presidency. Democrats the House, the Senate
17:12
Speaker 2: and the presidency. We have the trifecta. We had promised
17:18
Speaker 2: that if you give us the opportunity that means the
17:21
Speaker 2: House is center of the residency, we will pass the
17:25
Speaker 2: pro Act. That pro act was for labor to allow
17:31
Speaker 2: labor to organize without having to get the permission of industry.
17:36
Speaker 2: They said, we're going to pass the pro Act protecting
17:40
Speaker 2: our right to organize. Is what it is, pro pr
17:43
Speaker 2: protecting right to organize. We didn't. We told people in
17:51
Speaker 2: the minority community, especially the African American men, give us
17:58
Speaker 2: the opportunity and we'll pass George Floyd Justice and police,
18:03
Speaker 2: deal with no knocked laws, deal with all all sorts
18:08
Speaker 2: of levels of police brutality, including the chokehold. We didn't
18:14
Speaker 2: do it. We didn't pass it. We said that, give
18:17
Speaker 2: us the House of Senate and the Presidency, and we
18:21
Speaker 2: will raise the minimum wage. Minimum wages seven dollars and
18:24
Speaker 2: twenty five cents an hour. The medium wage for a
18:29
Speaker 2: CEO in this country is sixteen point five million dollars.
18:33
Speaker 2: Sixteen point three million dollars. Excuse me, sixteen point three
18:36
Speaker 2: million dollars. That is over one thousand times for a
18:41
Speaker 2: minimum wage worker makes in a year, over one thousand
18:45
Speaker 2: times CEO. People were looking to see us raise the
18:50
Speaker 2: minimum wage. We didn't do it. We said that if
18:59
Speaker 2: you do this for the LGBTQ community, what passed the quality?
19:06
Speaker 2: We didn't do it. Why he comes to question didn't
19:11
Speaker 2: we do it? To his credit, Senator Schumer brought John
19:17
Speaker 2: Lewis Vodenizac to the floor of the Senate and he
19:23
Speaker 2: confronted cloture. Cloture requires you to have sixty votes before
19:29
Speaker 2: you can pass something with fifty one votes. That's the
19:33
Speaker 2: rule of the Senate. But there's a way around that rule.
19:38
Speaker 2: Republicans got around that rule when they wanted to appoint
19:42
Speaker 2: a justice to the Supreme Court and used fifty one votes.
19:46
Speaker 2: And here's what they did. When the person presiding called
19:52
Speaker 2: for the vote. Mister McConnell said, he moved that this
19:59
Speaker 2: would be passed fifty one votes, not sixty, not cloture,
20:04
Speaker 2: and the presiding person overruled it. And then he said,
20:08
Speaker 2: I appeal the ruling of the chair. Out of these
20:11
Speaker 2: exact words, I'm simplifying, I appeal the ruling of the
20:14
Speaker 2: chair of the presiding officer. You can appeal, and if
20:19
Speaker 2: you get the most votes in the appeal, then what
20:21
Speaker 2: you want prevails. So if he gets the most votes,
20:25
Speaker 2: instead of using sixty to pass it, you would use
20:28
Speaker 2: fifty one. Okay, here's the catch, the thing that makes
20:34
Speaker 2: the difference. To prevail with that motion that he made,
20:39
Speaker 2: you only have to have fifty one votes. You don't
20:42
Speaker 2: have to have sixty to defeat the sixty vote grow
20:46
Speaker 2: you only need fifty one. We had fifty Democratic Senators
20:52
Speaker 2: and we had one Vice President who said she would
20:56
Speaker 2: vote for the John Does Voting Rights Act. The year
21:00
Speaker 2: had the opportunity. Two Democratic senators chose not to vote
21:07
Speaker 2: with the Democrats. When the Republicans brought up the judge
21:12
Speaker 2: for the Supreme Court, all of them more than fifty
21:16
Speaker 2: voted for that person to become a Supreme Court Justice,
21:22
Speaker 2: and they defeated the sixty vote rule. So when the
21:25
Speaker 2: Senate wants to do it, the Senate can get around
21:28
Speaker 2: that sixty vote rule. But they didn't choose to get
21:31
Speaker 2: around it for the Voting Rights Act, and they wouldn't
21:34
Speaker 2: have done it for any of these others as well.
21:37
Speaker 2: So two senators really stood in the way. If you
21:40
Speaker 2: get to the root cause of the root cause, you're
21:42
Speaker 2: getting too those two senators who stood in the way.
21:45
Speaker 2: When John Lewis Voting Rights Actor was brought to the floor,
21:48
Speaker 2: forty eight Democrats voted for it. Two senators Democrats voted
21:52
Speaker 2: against it, and then that prevented the Vice President from
21:56
Speaker 2: coming in and becoming the fifty first vote. If they
22:01
Speaker 2: had voted with the Democratic Party, she would have been
22:06
Speaker 2: able meeting Vice President Kamala Harris where they have been
22:10
Speaker 2: able to campaign and say I passed the Voting Right Sack.
22:14
Speaker 2: I was the deciding vote of the Voting Right Sack.
22:17
Speaker 2: She would have been the deciding vote on all those
22:18
Speaker 2: bills that I call your attention. I was the deciding
22:20
Speaker 2: vote on George Floyd Justice and Policing. I was a
22:23
Speaker 2: deciding vote for the pro Act. I was deciding vote
22:26
Speaker 2: to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. She
22:31
Speaker 2: couldn't say those things, and as a result, a lot
22:35
Speaker 2: of people lost their enthusiasm. They were not as enthusiastic
22:39
Speaker 2: about their race as they could have been had those
22:41
Speaker 2: things passed. But I don't get mad at them. You
22:46
Speaker 2: can only hear something for so long before at some
22:51
Speaker 2: point it no longer excites you if it doesn't happen.
22:54
Speaker 2: So they've been hearing for years, we're gonna do these things,
22:57
Speaker 2: and then we get the opportunity, President Dedency, Senate, House
23:01
Speaker 2: of Representatives, and we don't do it. I g I
23:04
Speaker 2: can see how people could lose their enthusiasm. I voted,
23:07
Speaker 2: but I can see how other people could lose their
23:10
Speaker 2: enthusiasm and not be as excited about it. There are
23:12
Speaker 2: people now who have concluded, yes, I was excited when
23:17
Speaker 2: President Obama won. It was a great day. But I've
23:21
Speaker 2: I've had more than one person say to me, now,
23:25
Speaker 2: electing people of color means that we're giving somebody a job.
23:30
Speaker 2: They don't see the change that they're looking for. They
23:34
Speaker 2: see a person getting a job m but they don't
23:36
Speaker 2: see when of the wage being raised. They don't see
23:40
Speaker 2: justice in policing So my point is I understand why
23:47
Speaker 2: we didn't have the two Democrats there, the Vice president
23:50
Speaker 2: and the President Kamala Harris as president. And I also
23:56
Speaker 2: understand that what we were saying before the election still prevails.
24:04
Speaker 2: Nothing has changed for me. That is still my agenda.
24:09
Speaker 2: What I have called to your attention in terms of
24:12
Speaker 2: these bills, those bills are still my agenda. I'm still
24:16
Speaker 2: gonna be fighting to pass something to do something about
24:20
Speaker 2: people who take the lives with impunity of black men.
24:25
Speaker 2: And we see it happening. It's caught on camera. Now, yeah,
24:30
Speaker 2: it happens. So I'm still gonna be fighting. I'm gonna
24:32
Speaker 2: still fight to have a living wage seven twenty five
24:35
Speaker 2: cents an hours an insult in the richest country in
24:38
Speaker 2: the world. But you've got to see EO that makes
24:40
Speaker 2: sixteen point three the average don't make a lot more,
24:42
Speaker 2: so make less. But we we we have to maintain
24:47
Speaker 2: our agenda. So I'm gonna still stay with that agenda.
24:50
Speaker 2: And I'm still gonna say that the person that was
24:54
Speaker 2: elected is unfit to be president, unfit to vote, liberty
25:00
Speaker 2: and justice fallow, unfit to promote government of the people
25:05
Speaker 2: by the people for the people, unfit to say that
25:10
Speaker 2: all persons are created equal and endowed by the Creator
25:12
Speaker 2: with certain inabilmentable rights, among them lack liberty in the
25:15
Speaker 2: pursuit of habitings. He is unfit. So I'm just not
25:18
Speaker 2: going back off. If nobody else does, I would become
25:22
Speaker 2: the resistance of one and continue to fight. People don't
25:27
Speaker 2: expect me to always win, but they do expect me
25:31
Speaker 2: to always fight.
25:33
Speaker 1: That was US Congressman Al Green from the ninth Congressional District,
25:37
Speaker 1: speaking on the life of the late President Jimmy Carter. Hi,
25:42
Speaker 1: this is Steve Gallington, producer and host of The People's News.
25:46
Speaker 1: The People's News is people powered news. We are free
25:49
Speaker 1: to report the unvarnished and unspun truth and challenge the
25:53
Speaker 1: status quo of corporate propaganda and social media advertising disguised
25:58
Speaker 1: as real news. Shiny new one hour episodes of The
26:02
Speaker 1: People's News drop each Sunday on The People's News Podcast.
26:08
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. The world has a new Pope, Pope
26:13
Speaker 1: Leo the fourteenth. He is from Chicago and is the
26:16
Speaker 1: first American pope an ally of the late Head of
26:20
Speaker 1: the Vatican. The sixty nine year old Chicago native was
26:23
Speaker 1: made a cardinal in twenty twenty three by Pope Francis,
26:27
Speaker 1: and previously oversaw the largest archdiocese in North America. His
26:31
Speaker 1: ministry in Peru and possession of Peruvian citizenship will enable
26:35
Speaker 1: him to engage with the Spanish speaking world, where nearly
26:39
Speaker 1: forty percent of the world's Catholics reside. We talked to
26:42
Speaker 1: Rice University sociologist and religious scholar Craig Considine.
26:47
Speaker 3: We have a new pope and he is from the
26:50
Speaker 3: United States, which we were talking earlier, and I didn't
26:55
Speaker 3: think I didn't think a pope from the United States
26:58
Speaker 3: would get it. A lot of people were thinking of
27:01
Speaker 3: Philippine or African pope, but that didn't go our way.
27:06
Speaker 6: It did not. We have our first American Pope, our
27:09
Speaker 6: second pope from the Americas, obviously Francis being the first
27:15
Speaker 6: from Argentina. Our new pope also has a lot of
27:19
Speaker 6: experience in the Spanish speaking world in Peru, and I
27:23
Speaker 6: think that was one of the big reasons why he
27:26
Speaker 6: got it, because about forty percent of all the Catholics
27:29
Speaker 6: in the world are from Spanish speaking countries, so I
27:33
Speaker 6: think being an American didn't hurt him, and I don't
27:37
Speaker 6: think it necessarily helped him either. And perhaps that's one
27:40
Speaker 6: of the beauties of the conclave that they're really going
27:44
Speaker 6: to character and conduct and merit over any other type
27:50
Speaker 6: of national affiliation. And we also know that our new
27:55
Speaker 6: pope was a relative newcomer to the Vatican. Pope Francis
28:01
Speaker 6: put him into the College of Cardinals just two years ago.
28:06
Speaker 6: But in the College of Cardinals and in the Vatican,
28:09
Speaker 6: he had a very important position as the Prefect of
28:12
Speaker 6: the Dicastroy of Bishops, which is basically the bureaucratic leg
28:18
Speaker 6: of the Vatican that appoints bishops around the world. So
28:24
Speaker 6: that's a very significant position that he was in. And
28:30
Speaker 6: I think also we had eighty two of the one
28:34
Speaker 6: hundred and thirty three cardinals that voted in the conclave
28:38
Speaker 6: being appointed by Francis, so eighty two. And you can
28:43
Speaker 6: bet that a lot of these new cardinals from the
28:47
Speaker 6: periphery of the Church, from countries like Mongolia and Haiti
28:51
Speaker 6: and even Sweden knew who Cardinal Prevost was because of
28:55
Speaker 6: his position, So very interesting pick certainly surprised a lot
29:02
Speaker 6: of people, and perhaps Americans more than anything. Then.
29:06
Speaker 3: His background is you know, in social justice issues, is
29:13
Speaker 3: also important at this time, and I think I was
29:16
Speaker 3: thinking in other shows on our station, we're talking about it.
29:19
Speaker 3: Just now he has a he has a It was
29:23
Speaker 3: kind of a a balancing act of Americans. People look
29:28
Speaker 3: at America and they look at the US presidency versus
29:31
Speaker 3: now we look at the pope and what he does
29:33
Speaker 3: and in his issues that he's he's strived for in
29:37
Speaker 3: the past. Is that something that that that maybe got
29:42
Speaker 3: a play in his favor.
29:43
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think so. What we know of him, as
29:47
Speaker 6: you mentioned him being Leo uh Leo connected to Leo
29:52
Speaker 6: the thirteenth, and Leo the thirteenth was also understood to
29:57
Speaker 6: be like the people's Pope, the pope on the side
30:00
Speaker 6: of the workers, and he really initiated the social teachings
30:06
Speaker 6: of the Catholic Church. So I think what we're going
30:09
Speaker 6: to see with Pope Leo the fourteenth is a continuation
30:14
Speaker 6: of Francis's emphasis on social justice. I think we're also
30:19
Speaker 6: going to see a continuation of Francis's work with the
30:23
Speaker 6: environment and with immigration and with interfaith dialogue. But this pope,
30:31
Speaker 6: I think, is not going to be as progressive as
30:34
Speaker 6: Francis was when it comes to some social and cultural issues,
30:38
Speaker 6: so same sex marriage, LGBTQ issues, the ordination of women,
30:43
Speaker 6: the treatment of divorced people within the church. I think
30:47
Speaker 6: our new Pope is going to take a much more
30:51
Speaker 6: moderate approach there, So I think most American Catholics might
30:57
Speaker 6: like that. The younger generation may not, They may want
31:00
Speaker 6: someone more like Pope Francis, But I think Leo will
31:05
Speaker 6: be attractive to a lot of American Catholics if he
31:09
Speaker 6: can kind of toe the line on some of these
31:12
Speaker 6: social and cultural issues. Now, it's also important to note
31:16
Speaker 6: yesterday I went through Cardinal Prevost's x account, and he
31:21
Speaker 6: had recently in February, I believe, retweeted some posts and
31:26
Speaker 6: articles that were highly critical of the Trump administration and
31:30
Speaker 6: particularly JD. Vance and their position on immigration. So what
31:35
Speaker 6: we're going to see with this new Pope is likely
31:39
Speaker 6: someone who would be critical of countries that take a
31:45
Speaker 6: more draconian, if you want to call it, that approach
31:48
Speaker 6: to immigration. So it's going to be very interesting to
31:51
Speaker 6: see the type of relationship that he builds, if he
31:55
Speaker 6: builds one at all, with President Trump. Obviously, right now
31:58
Speaker 6: everything is off to a good start. President Trump said,
32:02
Speaker 6: this is great, he's an American, but This is something
32:06
Speaker 6: I think that we all need to pay close attention
32:09
Speaker 6: to what kind of relationship might they have because these
32:12
Speaker 6: are arguably two of the most important people, the most
32:15
Speaker 6: powerful people in the world.
32:18
Speaker 3: Does this expand now people? You know, even though the
32:22
Speaker 3: Pope represents the Catholic Church, you think this lady expand
32:28
Speaker 3: the people that looking for the church for answers, or
32:35
Speaker 3: maybe the expand pe the membership of the Catholic Church.
32:38
Speaker 6: I think. So one thing to note here that's important
32:42
Speaker 6: is that Popelia the fourteenth is also an Augustinian and
32:47
Speaker 6: Augustinian's part of their kind of ethos is missionary work.
32:52
Speaker 6: They're big into missionary work, and we know that our
32:56
Speaker 6: new pope did a dozen years missionary work in Peru.
33:01
Speaker 6: So I think we're going to see a continuation of this,
33:05
Speaker 6: this kind of outreach to the periphery, speaking to the poor,
33:10
Speaker 6: speaking about things that are unfolding around us. So I
33:15
Speaker 6: think we'll see a continuation of much of what Francis
33:17
Speaker 6: did in terms of reaching out to the periphery and
33:20
Speaker 6: trying to make the church a bigger tent.
33:23
Speaker 3: If that makes sense, Yeah, it does, it does. What
33:28
Speaker 3: what what happens now as far as you know what
33:34
Speaker 3: you see as a future of the Catholic Church, you know, which, yeah,
33:40
Speaker 3: you know, we were looking at the diversity level and
33:44
Speaker 3: trying to expanding the diversity of the Catholic Church in
33:47
Speaker 3: a hierarchy. Does this change anything.
33:54
Speaker 6: Well, one thing we do know about the Church at
33:58
Speaker 6: the moment, at least with the conflict, it was the
34:00
Speaker 6: most diverse conclave ever. It was the most non European
34:07
Speaker 6: enclaves ever as well. I don't know if you watched
34:11
Speaker 6: them taking their oath in the Sistine Chapel, and it
34:14
Speaker 6: was quite remarkable, you know, every cardinal comes up and
34:17
Speaker 6: says their oath, and just to see the diversity and
34:20
Speaker 6: all the different languages and accents. It's a true represent
34:25
Speaker 6: representation of the Church. So we do see the Church
34:28
Speaker 6: expanding outward and making sure that those periphery communities have
34:34
Speaker 6: a little bit more representation in the spaces of power
34:39
Speaker 6: in the Vatican itself, because that's obviously the hub of
34:43
Speaker 6: the dynamics. I do think one thing that the next
34:48
Speaker 6: pope has to tackle is the waning Catholic identity of Europe.
34:55
Speaker 6: So we know historically, obviously this has been the epicenter
34:58
Speaker 6: of Christendom really not just the Catholic Church. Europe has,
35:04
Speaker 6: you know, centuries of history linked to Christianity, but we
35:10
Speaker 6: see over in Europe a waning of the faith, and
35:14
Speaker 6: I think that that may have hurt some of the
35:18
Speaker 6: European cardinals in the conclaves. I think perhaps the cardinals
35:24
Speaker 6: thought it might be a good idea to have someone
35:28
Speaker 6: in a from a country with let's just refer to
35:32
Speaker 6: it as like a stronger Catholic presence. So the numbers
35:37
Speaker 6: in America are quite interesting to talk about the future
35:39
Speaker 6: of like the American Catholic Church. There's a lot of
35:43
Speaker 6: different types of numbers out there. Some are saying that
35:46
Speaker 6: the faith is kind of waning and securarization is coming,
35:50
Speaker 6: but there have been some interesting polls and studies done
35:54
Speaker 6: recently that shows that the faith is actually growing among
35:58
Speaker 6: the youth. We're seeing a lot the American young American
36:02
Speaker 6: converts to Catholicism, and I think one of the reasons
36:05
Speaker 6: why that may have happened is because Pope Francis, I think,
36:09
Speaker 6: deliberately spoke on issues that young people, particularly Americans, care
36:14
Speaker 6: a lot about. A lot of these social and cultural
36:16
Speaker 6: issues that we previously discussed. There's something I didn't the
36:21
Speaker 6: first time I've heard that that the Catholic church exactly growing. Yeah,
36:26
Speaker 6: it depends like like kind of what you're looking at,
36:29
Speaker 6: like it it is growing in certain in certain segments.
36:35
Speaker 6: But then we also have to like consider like what
36:38
Speaker 6: what is growing Like is this just like people who
36:41
Speaker 6: identify as Catholic or are we seeing people who are
36:46
Speaker 6: more interests in their commitment to their faith? You know,
36:49
Speaker 6: So like when we're talking about growing, is it just
36:51
Speaker 6: numbers or is it like impact? Is it involvement.
36:56
Speaker 1: As reported by the People's News, the third annual Katie
37:00
Speaker 1: Pride celebrations were temporarily put on hold because Typhoon Texas
37:05
Speaker 1: Water Park suddenly canceled the event at their venue. Thanks
37:10
Speaker 1: to Harris County Commissioner Leslie Brionez, another venue was set
37:14
Speaker 1: up and the Katie Pride celebrations went off without a hitch. Now,
37:19
Speaker 1: two of the members of the Katie School Board have
37:22
Speaker 1: voiced their displeasure on Facebook about gays being in their community.
37:29
Speaker 1: Katie ISD board trustees Morgan Calhoun and Mary Allen Queza
37:34
Speaker 1: violated the Katie ISD Board Code of Ethics policy. Katie
37:38
Speaker 1: Pride staged to sit in this past Monday, demanding that
37:41
Speaker 1: they be sanctioned. We talked with Amber Rose, who was
37:45
Speaker 1: president of Katie Pride.
37:48
Speaker 7: Sure, So Katie Pride occurred on Saturday, October eighteenth, and
37:54
Speaker 7: we have been We were in a contract with Typhoon
37:56
Speaker 7: Texas water Park in Katie since April of twenty twenty five,
38:00
Speaker 7: and they were aware.
38:01
Speaker 3: Of our event.
38:02
Speaker 7: Actually, for two years in a row they've hosted Pride
38:04
Speaker 7: in the water park for us. So we were really
38:07
Speaker 7: excited to expand our partnership beyond just like a one
38:10
Speaker 7: day event. And as so, the team of Katie Pride
38:15
Speaker 7: Board of directors had been planning to have our celebration
38:18
Speaker 7: there on Saturday, October eighteenth, and seventy two hours or
38:25
Speaker 7: a little bit less than seventy two hours, there had
38:27
Speaker 7: been some back and forth questions and stuff. It basically
38:32
Speaker 7: less than seventy two hours before they decided to cancel
38:34
Speaker 7: our contract. And to give context on that, so, there
38:39
Speaker 7: are some social media warriors, it's the best way I
38:43
Speaker 7: could describe them. They picked up on our event because
38:46
Speaker 7: we were promoting it. It was really out there and
38:48
Speaker 7: we were having a drag story hour and there was
38:51
Speaker 7: a drag king and a drag Queen performing, and then
38:54
Speaker 7: we were partnering with First Christian Church Katie to have
38:57
Speaker 7: a transparent closet fashion show, which we have done at
39:00
Speaker 7: past two prize because this was our third prize celebration.
39:03
Speaker 7: And so some of these social media warriors picked up
39:05
Speaker 7: on those things. And these are the individuals that historically
39:09
Speaker 7: are the ones around here who anything that has to
39:13
Speaker 7: do with the LGBTQ community. They love to put out
39:17
Speaker 7: misinformation and kind of spread panic, if that's the best
39:21
Speaker 7: word for it. And so this started, and that happened,
39:24
Speaker 7: and they dug through profiles of our King and Queen
39:29
Speaker 7: and posted pictures and just put out a lot of misinformation.
39:33
Speaker 7: And then on top of that, there were two KTISD
39:35
Speaker 7: school board members, Morgan Calhoun and Mary l and Crusella
39:39
Speaker 7: also made post on their personal pages denouncing what we
39:43
Speaker 7: were doing. Some really hateful things that were said. And
39:47
Speaker 7: even though it was their public excuse me, their personal
39:50
Speaker 7: Facebook page for anyone, in my opinion, as an elected official,
39:55
Speaker 7: that line gets really muddy between personal and professional when
39:58
Speaker 7: you're known in the community. And so they put out
40:00
Speaker 7: a bunch of stuff and had followers, and then on
40:02
Speaker 7: top of that, the publisher of Katie Magazine. I guess
40:07
Speaker 7: thought it was okay to put the phone numbers of
40:09
Speaker 7: two of the three owners of Typhoon Texas their personal
40:13
Speaker 7: cell phone numbers, and there was a lot of encouragement
40:16
Speaker 7: like call Typeoon Texas, email type in Texas, show up
40:18
Speaker 7: at Typhoon Texas and tell them you're unhappy. And this
40:23
Speaker 7: is not the case. And so, to make a very
40:25
Speaker 7: long story short, Typing Texas decided to cancel our contract
40:31
Speaker 7: after they're saying security concerns for their staff and for
40:35
Speaker 7: their venue. The Katie Police, because it's in the city
40:39
Speaker 7: of Katie jurisdiction, went on to state in the record
40:43
Speaker 7: with k SO you Knews that there were no threats
40:46
Speaker 7: reported to them and they would have been the jurisdiction
40:48
Speaker 7: and there were no credible threats, and so they chose
40:52
Speaker 7: to cancel out of I guess an abundance of caution.
40:58
Speaker 7: I know there weren't any credible security threats. We take
41:01
Speaker 7: safety as the utmost important and if we would have
41:03
Speaker 7: heard anything or solid anything, we would have reported it
41:06
Speaker 7: to law enforcement. And so they canceled our contract fully,
41:11
Speaker 7: and it was basically twenty four hours before our kickoff party.
41:15
Speaker 7: And then about seventy two hours or less than seventy
41:18
Speaker 7: two hours before our events.
41:20
Speaker 3: So sorry about this, but it was not a fear.
41:26
Speaker 3: It was out of their own pocketbooks, because it seemed
41:28
Speaker 3: like they were putting pressure on them to well, if
41:31
Speaker 3: we don't cancel this, we won't, we won't, we won't
41:34
Speaker 3: do business with you and on other affairs. And that's
41:38
Speaker 3: my first that's my first thought. On that second of while,
41:42
Speaker 3: what does the school board have to say about this?
41:44
Speaker 3: And why is the school board involved with this in
41:45
Speaker 3: the first place?
41:47
Speaker 7: Yeah, on both of those, Yeah, what the you know
41:50
Speaker 7: the reasons Siphon Texas chose to cancel. Ultimately we all
41:55
Speaker 7: can speculate about. I know what they said to us
41:58
Speaker 7: in a phone call and in an email. It was
42:00
Speaker 7: out of safety concerns. And what was being pushed was
42:04
Speaker 7: Typhoon Texas is a family This is not from Typeon Texas,
42:07
Speaker 7: but from all the social media warriors that Typhoon Texas
42:10
Speaker 7: is a family friendly establishment and hosting Pride and having
42:14
Speaker 7: Drag Story Hour and fashion show, that the information being
42:19
Speaker 7: put out was wrong, and that drag Groom's kids, you know,
42:23
Speaker 7: all the mishte that is out there who knows ultimately
42:28
Speaker 7: what every reason they canceled, but they've made that decision
42:30
Speaker 7: even though there were no credible security threats. And it's
42:33
Speaker 7: interesting you bring up the school board because that's a
42:35
Speaker 7: big question to us too, Like the school board, and
42:38
Speaker 7: this was done on their personal social media pages. I
42:41
Speaker 7: want to make sure that's clear. But as I said,
42:43
Speaker 7: I believe when someone is an elected official and they
42:46
Speaker 7: hold a position of power, they sit in a place
42:49
Speaker 7: of privilege. And so even though the comments they were
42:52
Speaker 7: making were on their personal social media pages, they still
42:56
Speaker 7: have influence and they still hold power. So when these
43:01
Speaker 7: individuals chose to do that, I believe they knew exactly
43:04
Speaker 7: what they were doing, and they were doing it on
43:06
Speaker 7: their personal page because it lets them circumvent some of
43:09
Speaker 7: the rules and regulations around, you know, using their elected
43:13
Speaker 7: positions page. And so it's interesting because actually this past
43:17
Speaker 7: Monday at the KDISD school Board meeting, there were a
43:20
Speaker 7: number of speakers. It was not an agenda item, so
43:24
Speaker 7: there wasn't a lot and speakers were limited the amount
43:27
Speaker 7: of speakers, but there were speakers that spoke up on
43:29
Speaker 7: both sides there. We had plenty of people who support
43:32
Speaker 7: Katie Pride who spoke up, who attended the event and
43:36
Speaker 7: kind of denounced with these two elected KADID board members did.
43:41
Speaker 7: And then of course there were individuals community members that
43:44
Speaker 7: are on the opposite side who supported what these two
43:46
Speaker 7: boards members did. Ultimately, the individuals that support Katie Pride
43:52
Speaker 7: or asking is that the in naming that they violated
43:56
Speaker 7: their code of ethics. And so we've asked us that
44:00
Speaker 7: the board and the President of the Board, lance redmend
44:03
Speaker 7: that they really consider centering these two board of trustees.
44:06
Speaker 7: That doesn't mean they get kicked off the board. It
44:09
Speaker 7: just means it goes on public records that what they
44:11
Speaker 7: did was wrong. Because I believe in holding people accountable
44:16
Speaker 7: and mean, they're leaders in our school system and so
44:19
Speaker 7: we expect students to have a certain decorum and behavior.
44:22
Speaker 7: And what students post on their social media page is
44:25
Speaker 7: if it could impact the schools, sometimes, if it's elevated enough,
44:29
Speaker 7: could become an issue. And I believe the same thing
44:31
Speaker 7: should happen for school board members. We heard you know
44:36
Speaker 7: you have dealers. Go to Google. You can google how
44:39
Speaker 7: teachers all across the nation, but in Texas are under
44:43
Speaker 7: investigation or things being looked at because of the incident
44:49
Speaker 7: that happened with Charlie Kirk, and people put their personal
44:52
Speaker 7: opinions on their personal page, but you have teachers losing
44:55
Speaker 7: their job, and so it's for us. It's interesting that
44:57
Speaker 7: we want to hold teachers accountable for what they put
45:00
Speaker 7: on their personal pages, but elected board officials should be
45:04
Speaker 7: held to the same expectations.
45:07
Speaker 3: When I first heard Katie Pride, I was I had
45:10
Speaker 3: a question mark because I was like, Wow, Katie's known
45:13
Speaker 3: for not not really known for any type of l
45:17
Speaker 3: g p t Q solidarity so to speak. How hard
45:23
Speaker 3: is it? Because I heard they were they were trying
45:26
Speaker 3: to get a club out that way, So how hard
45:30
Speaker 3: is it being part of that community in a in
45:33
Speaker 3: a in a community that has been really i would
45:36
Speaker 3: say conservative, but yeah, really conservative on a lot of
45:41
Speaker 3: a lot of things.
45:43
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, you know, Katie has it.
45:47
Speaker 3: Uh, if you find the.
45:48
Speaker 7: Right community in Katie, I mean, we're clear, we're here
45:51
Speaker 7: and we're not going anywhere. You just have to find,
45:53
Speaker 7: you know, your community. And that's something Katie Pride is
45:56
Speaker 7: really trying to do, is to create visible spaces that
45:59
Speaker 7: those individuals that are members of the LGBTQ plus community
46:02
Speaker 7: and their allies can come to a place and be
46:05
Speaker 7: engaged in different things and feel supported and celebrated for
46:09
Speaker 7: who they are, and so it can be challenging, Katie.
46:13
Speaker 7: Pride is definitely founded and sustain on the back of
46:17
Speaker 7: small business. We've had now three Pride celebrations, because I'll
46:22
Speaker 7: get to that in a minute, but we are three
46:24
Speaker 7: Pride celebrations have all been on the back of small
46:26
Speaker 7: business and local sponsors, which is great. It really shows
46:30
Speaker 7: the support in the community. So we appreciate that and
46:35
Speaker 7: we celebrate that. And to your point about like getting
46:38
Speaker 7: a club started, so schools not being allowed to have
46:42
Speaker 7: GSA's or Gay Straight Alliance or gender and sexuality club
46:46
Speaker 7: because every school would call it something different. That has
46:48
Speaker 7: changed because of Senate Built twelve in the state of Texas,
46:52
Speaker 7: so across the board in the state of Texas, regardless
46:55
Speaker 7: if you're in Houston, you're an El Paso, you're in
46:57
Speaker 7: a really rural town, it doesn't matter. It is now
47:01
Speaker 7: a violation of law and could impact the school's funding
47:04
Speaker 7: if they allow those student organizations to exist. So that's
47:08
Speaker 7: why that is not happening because of things that have
47:13
Speaker 7: been passed in the Texas legislature.
47:17
Speaker 3: It seems I'll add to that, it seems like it's
47:20
Speaker 3: getting harder for young trans or young gay and lesbian
47:30
Speaker 3: students to go to school without getting harassed, and if
47:33
Speaker 3: they do, if they do say something about it, it's
47:37
Speaker 3: more on the point of being ignored like it was
47:41
Speaker 3: in the past.
47:43
Speaker 7: Yes, definitely, the climate in what we live in in general.
47:47
Speaker 7: I think if you're a part of the LGBTQ community
47:49
Speaker 7: or an ally, you recognize the the barriers that are
47:53
Speaker 7: being put up in front of us to try to
47:55
Speaker 7: marginalize us more than we've ever been, almost to the
47:59
Speaker 7: point of maybe thinking the individuals that are leading these
48:02
Speaker 7: charges think, if we do this, then you know, we
48:05
Speaker 7: just won't exist anymore. And I know member myself and
48:09
Speaker 7: members of the community, and historically we know with pride,
48:13
Speaker 7: we're not going to back down. You know, maybe we
48:15
Speaker 7: take a couple steps back, but that doesn't mean we
48:17
Speaker 7: give up and we back down. We keep fighting for
48:19
Speaker 7: it and it is going to be hard. And even
48:21
Speaker 7: most recently taking away the rainbow crosswalks and not students
48:27
Speaker 7: not being allowed to have GSAs in school, which school
48:29
Speaker 7: used to be the place where you found community, you
48:33
Speaker 7: found support, because maybe you didn't have it at home.
48:36
Speaker 7: School used to be the place where, like some of
48:39
Speaker 7: the kids that mentors were from school, and they create
48:41
Speaker 7: relationships and they really help them develop as young adults.
48:45
Speaker 7: And so many things have happened over the past couple
48:47
Speaker 7: of years that I believe that I'm not saying those
48:50
Speaker 7: relationships don't exist in that mentoring, but I believe it's
48:53
Speaker 7: becoming harder and harder, not just for students, but for teachers.
48:57
Speaker 7: You know, we think about the students and they can't
48:59
Speaker 7: do these things. I also feel for those educators who
49:03
Speaker 7: really believe in education and that's where their heart is
49:05
Speaker 7: because they had such a life changing experience, and even
49:08
Speaker 7: their hands are tied that they support the LGBTQ plus community,
49:13
Speaker 7: you know, they support all students, and their hands are
49:15
Speaker 7: tied because if they choose to do something or say
49:18
Speaker 7: something they're not supposed to do, and at this point,
49:20
Speaker 7: calls use someone, allow someone to say their pronouns, or
49:24
Speaker 7: use someone's name that's not their name on their birth certificate,
49:27
Speaker 7: like allowing a student to go by their preferred names,
49:29
Speaker 7: their jobs at risk. So this is impacting our students,
49:33
Speaker 7: but it's also impacting our educators and education in general.
49:37
Speaker 7: Across the nation and especially in Texas, teachers are leaving
49:41
Speaker 7: in such high rates because there's so much work, there's
49:44
Speaker 7: so many expectations, there's not the pay, there's not the
49:48
Speaker 7: support that's there. So all of these things that's happening
49:50
Speaker 7: in Texas and in our federal government are impacting our
49:53
Speaker 7: students for sure, but it's also impacting the teachers, the principles,
49:59
Speaker 7: the administrative, especially those that are supportive of the community,
50:02
Speaker 7: because I know they want to do more and they
50:05
Speaker 7: actually can't for fear of risk of losing their job,
50:08
Speaker 7: which is their livelihood, and how that would impact their family.
50:12
Speaker 3: Can you tell me people how to get in touch
50:14
Speaker 3: with your organization if they want to get involved, and
50:17
Speaker 3: also what's the next step that you guys are planning,
50:21
Speaker 3: what's up? What's up next for Katie Pride? Sure, so the.
50:25
Speaker 7: Best there's a couple of ways to get in touch
50:27
Speaker 7: with us. If you were on social media, you can
50:29
Speaker 7: find us that Katie Pride LGBPQ. Also katipride dot org
50:35
Speaker 7: is our website or simply info at ktipride dot org.
50:38
Speaker 7: So any of those ways we do respond to messages
50:40
Speaker 7: on social media. Those are the best ways to get
50:44
Speaker 7: a hold of us. And I do want to say
50:46
Speaker 7: something that I realized I was a myth at saying
50:48
Speaker 7: previously you asked me about the kat Pride celebration on
50:51
Speaker 7: October eighteenth. So it's canceled or Typhoon Texas canceled our venue,
50:55
Speaker 7: but our event still went on. We still hosted our
50:58
Speaker 7: kickoff party on October six and that's because First Christian
51:01
Speaker 7: Church Katie, who was a big supporter of the LGBTQ community.
51:05
Speaker 7: And Katie stepped up and said you could have your
51:07
Speaker 7: kickoff party at our location, which was great. So in
51:09
Speaker 7: less than twenty four hours we still had our kickoff party.
51:11
Speaker 7: It was a great success. And then immediately after our event,
51:16
Speaker 7: our contract was canceled. We used contacts because Katie Pride
51:21
Speaker 7: is a member of the LGBT the Greater Houston LGBT
51:24
Speaker 7: Chamber of Commerce, and we used some contacts and we
51:27
Speaker 7: got in touch with people from Leslie Briona's office, So
51:30
Speaker 7: Precinct four and Leslie Commissioner Leslie Briona's and Precinct four
51:34
Speaker 7: stepped up and said, yes, whatever you need, you can
51:36
Speaker 7: use and so we worked with them to look at
51:39
Speaker 7: what options were available, and Katy Pride still happened on
51:42
Speaker 7: October eighteenth as planned. We just had to move locations.
51:45
Speaker 7: We were out at the Bear Creek Rodeo Arena, which
51:47
Speaker 7: was off of Highway six, just south of Clay Road,
51:50
Speaker 7: and it was great. So many people were happy, they
51:54
Speaker 7: loved the location. We got a lot of feedback of
51:56
Speaker 7: you wouldn't have known what has happened in the past
51:58
Speaker 7: seventy two hours. It was it was they if they
52:03
Speaker 7: wouldn't have seen everything in the media about it, they
52:06
Speaker 7: wouldn't have known that like our venue had gotten canceled
52:08
Speaker 7: or anything like that. So a big shout out and
52:11
Speaker 7: support to Commissioner Brionas from Precinct four because it is
52:15
Speaker 7: because of her and her staff, and I believe that's
52:18
Speaker 7: a testament to the leadership that she impoors them with,
52:21
Speaker 7: but also how she chooses the lead and the expectation
52:24
Speaker 7: she has for them. They stepped up and we're super
52:28
Speaker 7: supportive and we now have a great relationship with them.
52:32
Speaker 7: And actually you mentioned what was coming up, and on
52:34
Speaker 7: November twentieth, Katie Pride will be holding a Transgender Day
52:37
Speaker 7: of Remembrance remembrance moment at Mary Joe Peckham Park, which
52:43
Speaker 7: is a commissioner of Briona's Precinct four Park at six
52:46
Speaker 7: pm and it'll just be, you know, a smaller event
52:49
Speaker 7: just to kind of honor those individuals that have from
52:53
Speaker 7: the trans community that have lost their lives to violence
52:55
Speaker 7: over the past year and so we are happy to
52:58
Speaker 7: be able to partner with Precinct four for them as
53:00
Speaker 7: well in that support that is there and the future
53:04
Speaker 7: for Katie Pride. You know, we try to do events sometimes,
53:07
Speaker 7: we do quarterly socials every month. We do a coffee
53:12
Speaker 7: meetup at Coffee Fellows in Katie off of the Grand
53:15
Speaker 7: Parkway on the second Friday of every month from eight
53:18
Speaker 7: am to ten am. So we just try to be
53:21
Speaker 7: out in the community and in spaces that we want
53:24
Speaker 7: to be present to show like the queer community is
53:27
Speaker 7: in Katie. We're not going anywhere. And for me, I
53:30
Speaker 7: want to make sure those individuals who live in the
53:32
Speaker 7: Katie West Houston Cypress area that you're a part of
53:36
Speaker 7: Katie Pride, come out, participate in those things that you
53:39
Speaker 7: are comfortable in and know that we want you there.
53:42
Speaker 7: You're a valued part of our community and we love
53:45
Speaker 7: to have you get engaged with any of our events
53:47
Speaker 7: that are happened.
53:48
Speaker 1: That was Amber Rose with Katie Pride. You can find
53:51
Speaker 1: more on their website Katipride All put Together dot org.
53:57
Speaker 1: We end this week of the People's News with the
53:59
Speaker 1: reader from Timothy Snyder's on Tyranny Twenty Lessons from the
54:04
Speaker 1: Twentieth Century, which was published in twenty seventeen and something
54:08
Speaker 1: I used as a guidebook to get me through the
54:10
Speaker 1: first Donald Trump presidency. Today we're reading number fifteen of
54:15
Speaker 1: the twenty lessons. Contribute to good causes. Be active in
54:20
Speaker 1: organizations political or not that express your own view of life.
54:25
Speaker 1: Pick a charity or two and set up auto pay.
54:28
Speaker 1: Then you will have made a free choice that supports
54:30
Speaker 1: civil society and helps others to do good. It is
54:35
Speaker 1: gratifying to know that, whatever the course of events, you
54:38
Speaker 1: are helping others to do good. Many of us can
54:41
Speaker 1: afford to support some part of the vast network of
54:44
Speaker 1: charities that one of our former presidents called a thousand
54:48
Speaker 1: points of light. Those points of light are best seen
54:51
Speaker 1: like stars at dusk against the darkening sky. When Americans
54:56
Speaker 1: think of freedom, we usually imagine a contest between the
54:59
Speaker 1: loan individual and a powerful government. We tend to conclude
55:03
Speaker 1: that the individual should be empowered and the government kept
55:06
Speaker 1: at bay. This is all well and good, but one
55:10
Speaker 1: element of freedom is the choice of associates, and one
55:13
Speaker 1: defense of freedom is the activity of groups to sustain
55:17
Speaker 1: their members. This is why we should engage in activities
55:20
Speaker 1: that are of interest to us, our friends, and our families.
55:24
Speaker 1: These need not be expressly political. Lachlav Hovel, the Czech
55:29
Speaker 1: dissonent thinker, gave the example of brewing good beer. Insofar
55:33
Speaker 1: as we take pride in these activities and come to
55:36
Speaker 1: know others who do so as well, we are creating
55:39
Speaker 1: civil society. Sharing as an undertaking teaches us that we
55:44
Speaker 1: can trust people beyond a narrow circle of friends and families,
55:48
Speaker 1: and helps us to recognize authorities from whom we can learn.
55:52
Speaker 1: The capacity for trust and learning can make life seem
55:56
Speaker 1: less chaotic and mysterious, and democratic politics more and attractive.
56:03
Speaker 1: The anti communist distance of Eastern Europe, facing a situation
56:06
Speaker 1: more extreme than ours, recognized the seemingly non political activity
56:11
Speaker 1: of civil society as an expression and a safeguard of freedom.
56:16
Speaker 1: They were right. In the twentieth century, all the major
56:19
Speaker 1: enemies of freedom were hostile to non governmental organizations, charities
56:24
Speaker 1: and the like. Communists required all such groups to be
56:28
Speaker 1: officially registered and transformed them into institutions of control. Fascists
56:34
Speaker 1: created what they called corporatist systems, in which every human
56:38
Speaker 1: activity had its proper place subordinated to a party state.
56:43
Speaker 1: Today's authoritarians in India, Turkey, and Russia are also highly
56:47
Speaker 1: allergic to the idea of free associations and non governmental organizations.
56:54
Speaker 1: That was an excerpt of the book on Tyranny, Twenty
56:57
Speaker 1: Lessons from the Twentieth Century by timisthe Snyder. The People's
57:03
Speaker 1: News is a production of Steve Gallington and Richard Hannah,
57:06
Speaker 1: and is protected by copyright laws. All the information broadcast
57:11
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Speaker 1: permission to use copyrighted material, email Steve Gallington at Steve
57:54
Speaker 1: at gallington dot com. Thank you,