Heidi Boghosian is an attorney, author, and co-host of Law and Disorder podcast and radio show. She joins Steve to discuss how the US surveillance state is a tool of class discipline and repression. From the Federalist Society pipeline to post-9/11 “safety” theater, both parties helped build a digital police state that criminalizes poverty, protest, and anyone messing with profits. And let’s not forget the copaganda about “crime” and “illegals” to keep folks scared while manufactured austerity produces the very crises the state then punishes. Classic ruling class two-step. 

Silicon Valley’s tech bros are kind of like bouncers. Thiel, Apple, Google et al. snort up our data, rig information flows (algorithms, anyone?) then lobby to block regulation.  The “nothing to hide” line is an ideological bait and switch. The killer is inside the house! 

There’s no easy fix. Heidi urges immediate digital self-defense – the OPSEC basics, privacy tools, scam awareness. Meanwhile the ruling class isn’t losing sleep over your “I voted” sticker. We should be thinking in terms of local organizing and building counter-hegemony. (Heidi references the Young Lords. Look ‘em up!) 

Heidi Boghosian is a New York-based attorney and activist. She's the author of "Spying on Democracy" (2013), "I Have Nothing To Hide" (2021), and "Cyber Citizens: Saving Democracy with Digital Literacy" (June 2025). 

Heidi is co-host of the radio show and podcast, Law and Disorder. Find her work at lawanddisorder.org and heidiboghosian.com

STEVE GRUMBINE:

All right, folks, this is Steve with Macro N Cheese. Another banger this week. I'm excited, very

2

STEVE GRUMBINE:

excited, because, you know, as we always talk about economics, and I know that gets some of

3

STEVE GRUMBINE:

you guys excited when we talk econ, because that's how we started and that's the main thrust.

4

STEVE GRUMBINE:

We talk about the things that are connected to it because there's nothing worse than trying to

5

STEVE GRUMBINE:

present ledgers to somebody who is getting pepper sprayed by a ICE agent out in the streets

6

STEVE GRUMBINE:

or somebody who is food insecure, trying to figure out how to get taken care of. And

7

STEVE GRUMBINE:

we're busy saying, "Well, actually the ledger says," right? So we sometimes stray, and we're going to

8

STEVE GRUMBINE:

stray today because unfortunately, we are living in a new world. We are living in a Peter

9

STEVE GRUMBINE:

Thiel world full of boogeymen and bad guys and people that are ne'er do goods and are

10

STEVE GRUMBINE:

part of the Antichrist and all the other things that come with being Peter Thiel. But we're

11

STEVE GRUMBINE:

also talking beyond AI. We're going to talk about internet responsibility and being a good cyber citizen,

12

STEVE GRUMBINE:

and we're going to be talking about that in the framework of the current scenarios that we're

13

STEVE GRUMBINE:

watching play out before our very eyes. And folks, there is something morbidly grotesque about the individual

14

STEVE GRUMBINE:

that says, "What are you worried about? I have nothing to hide?" And the absolute ridiculous nature

15

STEVE GRUMBINE:

of that belief system. We're going to bring it out and we're going to air it out

16

STEVE GRUMBINE:

and we're going to get to the bottom of why that's a foolish belief system. We're also

17

STEVE GRUMBINE:

going to talk a little bit about being a good, you know, cyber guy, understanding how to

18

STEVE GRUMBINE:

interpret the news and understanding how to pay attention to what's happening around you via the internet.

19

STEVE GRUMBINE:

And my guest is going to bring it all to us. My guest is Heidi Boghosian. And

20

STEVE GRUMBINE:

Heidi Boghosian is a New York based attorney and activist. She's the author of Spying on Democracy:

21

STEVE GRUMBINE:

22

STEVE GRUMBINE:

23

STEVE GRUMBINE:

24

STEVE GRUMBINE:

25

STEVE GRUMBINE:

we have much of a democracy, so this will be fun to talk about. Anyway, with that,

26

STEVE GRUMBINE:

let me bring on my guest, Heidi Boghosian. Thank you so much for joining me today.

27

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

It's so great to be with you. Thank you.

28

STEVE GRUMBINE:

Absolutely. I am so happy our friend [Project Censored staffer] Mischa Geracoulis put us together. And

29

STEVE GRUMBINE:

this comes at a very timely moment. Looking at the kinds of work that you've

30

STEVE GRUMBINE:

done, it has really made me think hard, you know, because we are an organization

31

STEVE GRUMBINE:

that is-we're not even biased. We are left leaning. We are, we're so left, we're

32

STEVE GRUMBINE:

falling off the side of the earth. You know, we are left. So we don't

33

STEVE GRUMBINE:

pull any punches there. The subject matter we talk about is directly in that space

34

STEVE GRUMBINE:

and with the current administration as it is, I hate to say this, but even

35

STEVE GRUMBINE:

looking at your books, you can tell this stuff didn't just start with Donald Trump.

36

STEVE GRUMBINE:

This stuff has been going on in a bipartisan way, in a way that our

37

STEVE GRUMBINE:

government has a goal. And that goal, it's not regular people's goals, it's somebody else's

38

STEVE GRUMBINE:

goals. And it's being pushed upon us. You know, even if we don't need it,

39

STEVE GRUMBINE:

even if we don't want it, they're bringing it to us. And one of the

40

STEVE GRUMBINE:

things that greatly concerns me, obviously, as an activist, as a person that's trying to

41

STEVE GRUMBINE:

get the word out about things that just ain't so that we're told are so

42

STEVE GRUMBINE:

through cultural hegemony. I am very concerned about the lies that are being pushed out

43

STEVE GRUMBINE:

on the internet by the official sources, unofficial sources. Their sidekicks that push this stuff

44

STEVE GRUMBINE:

out, that make us believe things that just ain't so, and we act as if

45

STEVE GRUMBINE:

they are so. And we live part of this lie out in the public space.

46

STEVE GRUMBINE:

We facilitate it. We promote it. We pass it on, and all the while we're

47

STEVE GRUMBINE:

helping facilitate manufactured consent for lies that keep us trapped and quite frankly have really

48

STEVE GRUMBINE:

in many ways destroyed whatever mirage of a democracy we had by being very fascist

49

STEVE GRUMBINE:

in nature. Your thoughts? Because this is clearly a subject that you have spent an

50

STEVE GRUMBINE:

incredible amount of time researching, writing about, and in your own radio program, talking about.

51

STEVE GRUMBINE:

Would you mind kicking us off with that?

52

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

Of course. I would like to talk about what you mentioned

53

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

in terms of this has been a long time coming because

54

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

conservatives in this country have really been smart about laying a

55

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

long-term plan. Go back several decades to the formation of the

56

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

Federalist Society, for example. Now the Federalist Society is responsible for

57

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

installing the very conservative members not only of our Supreme Court,

58

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

but in judicial positions around the country. And they've done that

59

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

by creating a big tent where they don't quibble about relatively

60

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

minor political differences among themselves. They have the goal of really

61

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

taking over the legal landscape, the political landscape of this country.

62

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

So it started in terms of legal areas back with the

63

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

beginning of the Federalist Society. They mentored young law students. They

64

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

got them positions in government. They frame themselves as engaging in

65

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

debate with people whose viewpoints differ from theirs. But really they're

66

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

a well-organized, extremely well-funded entity that has been working on their

67

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

plan for decades. At the same time, we've seen think tanks

68

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

originally formed near the beginning of the 20th century to provide

69

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

information to leadership, government and otherwise on different policies and practices,

70

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

to give them the information they needed to set policy. But

71

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

they morphed, as your listeners I'm sure know, into now very

72

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

carefully constructed political, almost lobbyists. And I write about that in

73

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

my current book, how these mega think tanks, and I liken

74

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

them to sort of mega churches, which we've also seen on

75

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

the increase with ministries of thousands across the nation. They work

76

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

online, as many of the forces that I think are contributing

77

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

to our demise of democracy do. And they're really exercising out

78

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

undue influence that works along with lobbyists in various fields, including

79

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

Big Tech, which is a big problem for us now as

80

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

we've rapidly entered the digital age and laws have not kept

81

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

up with our use of electronic devices and internet connected devices

82

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

and misinformation and disinformation. So I think that we've seen under

83

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

the radar plans, we are now seeing them surface and we're

84

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

seeing how successful Republicans largely have been and really moving us

85

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

toward a more polarized society, one where anyone who looks different

86

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

or speaks differently, has different views, is called the enemy. And

87

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

I also think that what happened was after the attacks of

88

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

9/11, plans for a massive surveillance state which was already underway,

89

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

the government was able to use the specter of fear of

90

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

another terrorist attack to try to convince people in a big

91

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

public relations campaign kind of way, the so called "war on

92

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

terror," that we needed, for example, more surveillance to keep us

93

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

safe, that we can turn fellow citizens essentially into spies. We

94

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

see neighborhood apps, ring cameras, looking out for so called "suspicious

95

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

activities," making even our neighbors sometimes prospective enemies. So I think

96

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

that taking advantage of certain moments like 9/11 and even in

97

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

mass shootings on school campuses has opened up a whole new

98

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

industry, for example, and monitoring students, telling parents that we're watching

99

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

their emails. We're even having them show us cameras of their

100

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

rooms when they take remote exams. We've normalized over the last

101

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

couple of decades, a vast industry of surveillance apparatus. And by

102

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

normalizing this, I think that it lays the groundwork for even

103

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

more insidious infractions. For example, on our Bill of Rights.

104

STEVE GRUMBINE:

You know, when you say the Bill of Rights, a lot of these documents,

105

STEVE GRUMBINE:

and I consider the US Constitution part of this, are written by white slaveholding

106

STEVE GRUMBINE:

landowners and not the people out of doors, which it references. It has always

107

STEVE GRUMBINE:

been something I think most of us just took for granted. We went to

108

STEVE GRUMBINE:

elementary school, grade school, middle school, high school, whatever, college, hearing about these things,

109

STEVE GRUMBINE:

and have held on to them for dear life like they are our support

110

STEVE GRUMBINE:

blanket. But the more you dig in and the more you realize that these

111

STEVE GRUMBINE:

things were written by and for elites and for wealthy white landowners. Now, there's

112

STEVE GRUMBINE:

been a lot of struggles over time that have been fought, but you can

113

STEVE GRUMBINE:

see clearly, at least I think so anyway. Going back to even, like you

114

STEVE GRUMBINE:

said, the Mont Pelerin Society and the Federalist, the John Birch Society, you name

115

STEVE GRUMBINE:

it. Going back to the 60s, Milton Friedman era, this libertarian kind of strain

116

STEVE GRUMBINE:

of, I don't know, proto-fascism has been going on for quite a while, and

117

STEVE GRUMBINE:

they are rewriting the world in their image. And to your point earlier, it

118

STEVE GRUMBINE:

is the long game. How do you think these documents hold up under current

119

STEVE GRUMBINE:

environment that we live in? I mean, I think that we maybe thought really

120

STEVE GRUMBINE:

high and as long as we believed they were okay. But when push comes

121

STEVE GRUMBINE:

to shove, there's laws for us, the people, and then there is laws that

122

STEVE GRUMBINE:

aren't really holding the elites and they're meant for the little people. It's kind

123

STEVE GRUMBINE:

of like, I don't know, a bifurcated society.

124

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

Well, we've had decades fighting for civil rights, you know, grassroots

125

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

movements that have dramatically changed, I would now say temporarily, the

126

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

arc of how citizens are realizing that those documents were not

127

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

written for them. The sort of ordinary people, the non-elite. And

128

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

now what we're seeing, and I think many people would agree

129

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

that with the election of Barack Obama into the highest office

130

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

of the land, it became fertile territory for hate groups, white

131

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

supremacist and other extremist groups. There was a reaction, and I

132

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

think with the installation of Donald Trump as president, we've really

133

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

seen how he is abrogating the laws of the nation, even

134

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

refusing in certain instances to abide by the few Supreme Court

135

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

decisions that rule against his executive orders and other really regressive

136

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

policies. So public confidence in the Supreme Court is at an

137

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

all-time low, and rightfully so, because it's now a political arm

138

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

of government and not, as it should be, an independent part

139

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

of our democratic system. I think that anger, white nationalist, really,

140

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

hatred of an integrated and racially just society is now paving

141

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

the way for so quickly a series, and a continuing series

142

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

of actions by Trump militarizing our society, taking over cities in

143

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

unlawful ways by bringing in the National Guard and ICE officers,

144

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

who really have also normalized the use of violence against citizens.

145

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

146

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

Battle of Seattle, we witnessed the use of so-called "less lethal

147

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

munitions" against protesters. And for many of us, that was a

148

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

shocking public display of armed force against Americans and others lawfully

149

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

engaging in the right to protest and ask the government for

150

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

redress of wrongs. We've become a society so recently that has

151

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

turned to violence, and I think a recent poll from a

152

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

year or two ago even said that a majority of Americans

153

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

feel it is okay to use violence as a last resort

154

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

when you cannot resolve disputes. So we're seeing this with freedom

155

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

of the press and other fundamental rights enshrined in the Bill

156

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

of Rights that we took for granted. Often knowing, of course,

157

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

that over the years laws were applied unfairly to non-white groups

158

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

in this country and that those who could pay for a

159

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

vigorous high profile legal defense would prevail in court. So unfortunately,

160

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

we made some very wonderful gains in civil rights and other

161

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

areas of rights for individuals, the right for gay and LGBTQ+

162

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

persons to marry. But now we're seeing that all quickly taken

163

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

away, I think in a desperate attempt to bring us back

164

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

to what the so-called founding fathers may have written. Although I'm

165

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

not saying everything they wrote was necessarily unfair to everyone in

166

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

the country. I think there were good aspirations and some sensible

167

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

provisions. But I think that the backlash is coming harder than

168

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

we've seen before to taking back the rights we've given the

169

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

ordinary people.

170

STEVE GRUMBINE:

I agree in large part. One of the things that jumps to mind is we saw

171

STEVE GRUMBINE:

a moment where we thought, "Hey, maybe we're going to have universal health care. Hey, maybe

172

STEVE GRUMBINE:

we're going to have a Green New Deal. Maybe we're going to have student debt elimination,

173

STEVE GRUMBINE:

maybe..." you know, on and on and on. "Maybe we'll have a federal job guarantee so

174

STEVE GRUMBINE:

people are never left out in the cold during these ebbs and flows of a recession"

175

STEVE GRUMBINE:

or whatever, in these manufactured austerity moments create conditions. They create conditions that create outcomes. And

176

STEVE GRUMBINE:

those conditions tend to be wherever austerity is, you have increased immiseration. You have increased poverty.

177

STEVE GRUMBINE:

You have increased crime. Because what do people do when they're desperate and hungry? They do

178

STEVE GRUMBINE:

whatever they have to do to survive. And so when you create the conditions to ratchet

179

STEVE GRUMBINE:

up that kind of fascistic tendencies, those kind of, you know, "tough on crime," and "We're

180

STEVE GRUMBINE:

going after the bad guys," and you know, on paper it sounds good. It's like, of

181

STEVE GRUMBINE:

course you don't want a rapist living down the street or, you know, you don't want

182

STEVE GRUMBINE:

to let your kids get kidnapped and sent to some prison camp somewhere. You don't want

183

STEVE GRUMBINE:

the horrible things that they paint out there. I mean, it makes sense, we want the

184

STEVE GRUMBINE:

guy selling the poison fentanyl to the children taken off the streets. But what they don't

185

STEVE GRUMBINE:

do is they don't explain how they create the conditions that allow those things to happen.

186

STEVE GRUMBINE:

It's almost like a setup for harsh penalties and set up for mass surveillance and set

187

STEVE GRUMBINE:

up for tough on crime. And "Hey, we're just doing this for your good. This is

188

STEVE GRUMBINE:

not us doing it because we're mean. We're doing this because we're here to protect you.

189

STEVE GRUMBINE:

We're the government and we're here to make it work for you." And you know, I'm

190

STEVE GRUMBINE:

a big G kind of guy. I believe in big government. I believe in we the

191

STEVE GRUMBINE:

people kind of approaches to things, but they don't tell the story, they don't tell the

192

STEVE GRUMBINE:

full story. So all these kind of, you know, "We're going to round up the immigrants

193

STEVE GRUMBINE:

and we're going to kick them out of the country because they've been raping our women.

194

STEVE GRUMBINE:

They've been doing this, that and the other" and all these litany of things that if

195

STEVE GRUMBINE:

you just read it on its face, you're like, "Oh my God, it's horrible. Of course

196

STEVE GRUMBINE:

you've got to take action." And then reality is that it's not real or it's blown

197

STEVE GRUMBINE:

out of proportion or it is strategic for the purposes of some other thing that you

198

STEVE GRUMBINE:

don't see something you don't see coming, like a surveillance state, like jackbooted military thugs that

199

STEVE GRUMBINE:

are yanking people out of their apartment complex at 3 o'clock in the morning, their children,

200

STEVE GRUMBINE:

et cetera, all in the name of "getting those illegals out of the country." These things

201

STEVE GRUMBINE:

build on each other. That long game that you were talking about, can you talk to

202

STEVE GRUMBINE:

me a little bit about the bait-and-switch of what they propose that they're fighting and the

203

STEVE GRUMBINE:

conditions by which they set it up so that those conditions become, you know, yeah, of

204

STEVE GRUMBINE:

course they're happening. Of course, poor people in given area that have been starved out and

205

STEVE GRUMBINE:

welfare taken from them or support structures taken from them are now floundering. What did you

206

STEVE GRUMBINE:

expect? You expect it to go great and swimmingly? I don't know. What are your thoughts

207

STEVE GRUMBINE:

on that?

208

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

So many thoughts as you were speaking, because I recall during

209

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

the Nixon administration, the campaign, as you were alluding to, about

210

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

having safer streets and that ads that were on television, the

211

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

public service ads, would show a dark night in Chicago, for

212

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

example, and a woman, a white woman holding her bag closely

213

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

to her chest, walking down the street with an African American

214

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

man half a block away. The ominous messages of, you know,

215

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

it's sort of like, "Do you know where your children were?"

216

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

campaign. Really ratcheting up the fear, especially in large urban centers

217

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

and portraying, and this is, I think, critical to this whole

218

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

propaganda formula. You have to have an enemy. So at that

219

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

time, inner-city Black Americans were the enemy. And we've come to

220

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

see the war on drugs, the war on so-called crime have

221

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

led to the US having the largest penal system in the

222

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

world, which, you know, years ago was supposed to rehabilitate, now

223

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

is purely punitive and really segmenting large parts of our communities

224

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

to being behind bars or under supervision. I mean, all these

225

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

campaigns have failed. The war on drugs is an abysmal failure,

226

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

but ruined so many lives and continues to do so. That

227

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

alone shows a thinking person how the government isn't genuine. I

228

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

mean, they may take a certain moral panic and notice how

229

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

they always enforce certain laws after a high profile killing, often

230

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

of a young white child or a kidnapping. [Yeah] But we

231

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

don't see those hidden consequences of how it's devastating large parts

232

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

of our fellow community members, people we know. And I think

233

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

now the beauty of the Trump administration is that he gets

234

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

how the use of humor and how sort of social media

235

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

can be used to tap into some of those basic fears

236

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

that Americans have, be it economic or otherwise, how things are

237

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

going to affect their pocketbooks saying, you know, allowing this government

238

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

shutdown to go on and pretending that it's vilifying Democrats. And

239

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

what I'm concerned about is during 9/11, we saw so many

240

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

communities of colors being vilified as potential terrorists. Now we're seeing

241

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

it on an even larger level: Democrats, liberals.  I mean, I

242

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

run a small foundation that gives grants to activist organizations that

243

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

are doing things that according to the current government's logic might

244

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

fit into their rubric of anti-American activity, you know, supporting Palestinian

245

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

rights, environmental rights, all of the things that are now being

246

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

labeled as a threat to democracy. So he's done a brilliant

247

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

job in terms of public relations and really normalizing fantasy as

248

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

some kind of new reality in his book.

249

STEVE GRUMBINE:

250

STEVE GRUMBINE:

they sometimes fit and I try to go light on them. But this is one

251

STEVE GRUMBINE:

of those ones where you can see the kids standing over the parents as they're

252

STEVE GRUMBINE:

sleeping, going up. Thought crime. And I'm watching this with how, "Hey, you laughed at

253

STEVE GRUMBINE:

Charlie Kirk." Thought crime. "Hey, you raised up George Floyd. He's a criminal." Thought crime.

254

STEVE GRUMBINE:

On and on and on. But while you were talking, and this is gonna... I'm

255

STEVE GRUMBINE:

dating myself, so forgive me, I'm an old Dude, I'm 56. I look back and

256

STEVE GRUMBINE:

I say to myself, I remember when Paul Tsongas was running against [former POTUS} George

257

STEVE GRUMBINE:

H.W. Bush and the old Willie Horton thing came out. And you talk about a

258

STEVE GRUMBINE:

real... like I was a young man, you know, we were dealing with all kinds

259

STEVE GRUMBINE:

of stuff. And that was the first time I had actually as a, I don't

260

STEVE GRUMBINE:

know, 18, 19, 20, 21 year-old, whatever I was at the time, man didn't have

261

STEVE GRUMBINE:

the tools to weed through the propaganda, didn't have the tools to understand or the

262

STEVE GRUMBINE:

class awareness or the, the systemic racism awareness or any of the things that they're

263

STEVE GRUMBINE:

trying to put the kibosh on us talking about because 'It's woke." Right? But you

264

STEVE GRUMBINE:

look back and you think about nothing has been more identitarian than that kind of

265

STEVE GRUMBINE:

conservative logic. And I don't want to just paint it out at Republicans, I really

266

STEVE GRUMBINE:

don't. Because Bill Clinton went to a mentally handicapped man's execution to prove he was

267

STEVE GRUMBINE:

tough on crime. So we're not going to cut anybody any breaks here. They've been

268

STEVE GRUMBINE:

complicit across the board. I think it's been kind of a universal oligarch, trait-driven thing

269

STEVE GRUMBINE:

that we're going to use this as a means of ratcheting up control. Ratcheting up.

270

STEVE GRUMBINE:

There's a crisis of hegemony going on. "We need to make it more and more

271

STEVE GRUMBINE:

and more constrictive on the regular person so that they don't get uppity and think

272

STEVE GRUMBINE:

that they're free and, you know, but we'll sell it as we're protecting freedom while

273

STEVE GRUMBINE:

simultaneously ripping away freedom." I don't know if you remember the Willie Horton stuff, that

274

STEVE GRUMBINE:

left an impact on me at the time, but I was completely lacking in analysis.

275

STEVE GRUMBINE:

I didn't have any kind of worldview other than, "Yeah, what are they doing? Soft

276

STEVE GRUMBINE:

on crime, liberals, screw them, blah, blah, blah." You know, do you remember the Willie

277

STEVE GRUMBINE:

Horton moment?

278

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

Of course I do. And I must agree. You know, Bill

279

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

Clinton enacted some very restrictive laws, especially regarding prisoners' rights to

280

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

281

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

you made me think of one of my favorite examples of

282

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

a television ad. And this was Apple's Super Bowl ad. It

283

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

only ran once. It won many awards. They were competing against

284

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

IBM and they wanted to sort of position Apple as the

285

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

"non-corporate entity." So they had sort of a Big Brother figure

286

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

speaking on a large screen and then a woman with a

287

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

sledgehammer coming to smash that screen. And "Apple's different we're for,

288

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

you know, independent thinkers." And then you look at what's happened

289

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

now in terms of Apple, Macintosh, the other Big Tech companies

290

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

who now monetize our personal data, exercise monopolies, squash small competition,

291

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

and really, in addition to commodifying our private information and profiting

292

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

enormously from it invading our privacy, totally taking over, really, some

293

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

of our virtual identities, you look back and you wonder, wow,

294

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

was that ad naive? Was it something we should have? You

295

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

know, it appealed to people and it got so many lifelong

296

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

Apple users. And now we have Google in the classroom, technology

297

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

really taking over some of the essential functions of our lives.

298

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

And I'm not knocking technology because it's been incredibly opening and

299

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

great at sort of democratizing certain kinds of communication, but we're

300

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

seeing the downsides of that right now as AI escalates so

301

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

quickly. And one of the things people may not be aware

302

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

of is that how Congress and our lawmakers have no... we

303

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

don't even have a national privacy law. And now with everything

304

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

done digitally, we don't have sensible and adequate laws to keep

305

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

up with the fast rush of technology. So I think in

306

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

that respect, the government and its partner, big business, Big Tech,

307

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

have us exactly where they want. We're malleable. We're still uninformed

308

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

about how data aggregators work. Some people are paying attention, but

309

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

it has to happen on a mass level.

310

STEVE GRUMBINE:

Well, it's funny you say that. I have been doing a lot of study on

311

STEVE GRUMBINE:

things like [Italian communist Antonio] Gramsci's cultural hegemony lately. It's really become super important to

312

STEVE GRUMBINE:

me. But you also see the algorithmic use. I mean, how do you manufacture consent?

313

STEVE GRUMBINE:

By ensuring that the algorithms are rigged, by ensuring that people can't see one another,

314

STEVE GRUMBINE:

that people that you want to follow you don't see, and people you don't want

315

STEVE GRUMBINE:

to follow, all you do is see, the well-placed ads. This is going to sound

316

STEVE GRUMBINE:

insane, but I was on a call, personal call, over my lunch break at work.

317

STEVE GRUMBINE:

And when I came back to work, I was talking about router bits for woodworking.

318

STEVE GRUMBINE:

And when I came back from lunch, I guess I was sitting near my computer.

319

STEVE GRUMBINE:

All of a sudden on my computer screen was an ad for router bits on

320

STEVE GRUMBINE:

my work computer. I was like, "What in the world is it listening to me?

321

STEVE GRUMBINE:

Did it hear me?" And I mean, I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist

322

STEVE GRUMBINE:

here, but they're listening. They're checking your clicks.  They're checking where you go, who you

323

STEVE GRUMBINE:

talk to, you know. You got people like Larry Ellison flat out saying, "You citizens will

324

STEVE GRUMBINE:

behave because we will be watching you." And the guy just bought TikTok and owns

325

STEVE GRUMBINE:

Oracle. And then of course you've got lunatic fringe with Peter Thiel who is ready to

326

STEVE GRUMBINE:

fight the Antichrist. And you know, God forbid any of us look like that sweaty

327

STEVE GRUMBINE:

wax figure. Anybody that doesn't look, sound, act like him is in the crosshairs. I

328

STEVE GRUMBINE:

mean, we're talking about a guy who sells AI technology to allow drone strikes on

329

STEVE GRUMBINE:

children in Gaza, for God's sake. We're not talking about good people here, but these

330

STEVE GRUMBINE:

are the people that are controlling the technical apparatus that is observing us and watching

331

STEVE GRUMBINE:

us and controlling us and socially enforcing cultural hegemony through these electronic means. What are

332

STEVE GRUMBINE:

your thoughts on that?

333

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

Well, so many thoughts. First of all,

334

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

lobbyists for companies promoting artificial intelligence are

335

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

spending millions and millions of dollars to

336

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

really leave their imprint and fight against,

337

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

for example, the Algorithmic Accountability Act, which

338

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

339

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

repeatedly reintroduced. Keep stalling. Each cycle, OpenAI

340

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

in this year increased its lobbying by

341

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

nearly 50% over the same period last

342

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

year, spending 1.2 million in those six

343

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

months. I think that when you have

344

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

the interest of the ultra-wealthy few, really

345

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

dictating how we craft safeguards, as we

346

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

mentioned earlier, it's very clear who's running

347

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

the country and who's essentially, in subtle

348

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

and not so subtle ways, really dictating

349

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

our choices, be they political or mundane.

350

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

And yeah, every time I have a conversation with someone, in a few hours I

351

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

get a pop-up ad, as you said. And I also almost got duped by an

352

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

AI clone. I had a, an email from someone claiming to be a Yale law

353

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

student who wanted part -time work. So we hopped on a zoom and I thought

354

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

something was off, but his face and mannerisms looked real. And then I realized after

355

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

when he started hitting me up for money that I was duped and, boy did

356

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

I feel stupid. But every day friends email or text me and like, do you

357

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

think this is a fake? And I'm like, yeah, it has all the hallmarks, and

358

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

I try to bullet point a few things to look for, but we are definitely

359

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

and you referenced I have nothing to hide argument. If I could just mention briefly

360

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

why that is so flawed. Because it wrongly equates privacy with concealing wrongdoing.

361

STEVE GRUMBINE:

Amen.

362

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

So ignores privacy's true purpose as a right that we have to

363

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

control our personal information and totally disregards how data can be used

364

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

in ways that are not only illegal, but harmful. Because privacy isn't

365

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

just about hiding bad things. It's about keeping our autonomy and protecting

366

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

sensitive or personal information like our medical records or our political beliefs,

367

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

if we don't want to share those. 

368

STEVE GRUMBINE:

It's really powerful, I mean, people want to remain anonymous in this world and go

369

STEVE GRUMBINE:

through life and do their thing. And all laws that are on the books that

370

STEVE GRUMBINE:

we believe defend us, like the Fourth Amendment, you know, people, "Ah, my First Amendment

371

STEVE GRUMBINE:

rights." Your First Amendment is not from the private sector, it's from the government. And

372

STEVE GRUMBINE:

so by the government allowing the private sector to do a lot of its policing

373

STEVE GRUMBINE:

for them and then making those records available to law enforcement, they can do a

374

STEVE GRUMBINE:

whole host of damage to you just for having a contrary opinion. I think it's

375

STEVE GRUMBINE:

important to kind of look at how we can protect ourselves, if at all. I

376

STEVE GRUMBINE:

think to myself, you know, what do we do if we're at a protest and

377

STEVE GRUMBINE:

a camera picks up our identity there and we haven't done anything? Maybe we're just

378

STEVE GRUMBINE:

standing there, maybe we're cheering and using our First Amendment rights, whatever. But ultimately you're

379

STEVE GRUMBINE:

caught on a camera, a crime occurred at the event, and now all of a

380

STEVE GRUMBINE:

sudden you're in the crosshairs and can be detained due to the Insurrection Act or

381

STEVE GRUMBINE:

the, these, some of these anti-, you know, spying acts or anti, I mean they've

382

STEVE GRUMBINE:

got a million of these things. Each time an event occurs, they create a new

383

STEVE GRUMBINE:

law to make it harder on us. And then of course, it's wielded in the

384

STEVE GRUMBINE:

way that the people that crafted it the time appear to not want. But I

385

STEVE GRUMBINE:

not so sure that they're that stupid. I think that they know it will be

386

STEVE GRUMBINE:

exploited later by whoever or however. But that said, I mean, how do we protect

387

STEVE GRUMBINE:

ourselves in this? What does some citizen hygiene look like in terms of protecting ourselves

388

STEVE GRUMBINE:

from AI, protecting ourself from a surveilling government? I mean, do we have any protections?

389

STEVE GRUMBINE:

I'll be honest with you, I don't know what they are. I don't think we're

390

STEVE GRUMBINE:

voting our way out of this. And I'm very, very concerned.

391

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

Wow, what a question. I think the first answer would be that

392

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

people say, do we have any privacy anymore? And citing everything you

393

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

just said, many are inclined to say, "It's too late.  It's out

394

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

of our hands". Now that's exactly what our government and corporations want

395

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

us to think. And so this is an area that I refuse

396

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

to be defeatist about because they say regarding First Amendment rights, if

397

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

you don't use them, you lose them. And obviously it's getting more

398

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

frightening to exercise our rights because we've seen in very visible, you

399

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

know, news clips and firsthand videos the violence that the state inflicts

400

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

on people just wanting to take to the streets peacefully to practice

401

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

those rights. And I'd look back when we had a lot of

402

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

403

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

National Conventions, because I attended a lot of big protests at national

404

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

special security events. We saw the panoply of lethal weapons being used.

405

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

406

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

because people were then carrying personal surveillance devices in our pockets, as

407

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

you alluded to more recently. In terms of how they're tracking everything

408

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

we do and listening and using geolocation data. I think that the

409

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

first advice is do not give up hope. And you can take

410

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

baby steps. Look, everyone can do something. Everyone should know by now

411

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

because you can go on any website and find out tips about

412

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

practicing good hygiene, which those are the everyday digital safety practices that

413

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

reduce our vulnerability to cyber threats like hacking, phishing, surveillance. Use strong

414

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

passwords for each account. Don't use the same one over multiple platforms.

415

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

Use multifactor authentication. That's easy to do. And also easy to do

416

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

is update all your devices and apps. And I always say don't

417

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

use too many apps unless you definitely get them from trusted sources

418

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

like the company itself. But update with latest security patches. Install strong

419

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

protective ransomware search software. Regularly backup important data and Signal is easy

420

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

and great to use for sensitive communications. But use your privacy settings

421

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

on social media and browsers to limit your data tracking. The Electronic

422

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

Frontier Foundation has a wonderful platform called Privacy Badger. I have it

423

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

installed on my laptop and when I look at it, it shows

424

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

the number of times someone had wanted to track me, but they

425

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

blocked it. Which is fun. I mean, a lot of these basic

426

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

habits can be fun. Partner up with a friend and share what

427

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

you're doing. Read up about things. And I'm sure that everyone listening

428

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

has had their personally identifiable information hacked in one of the companies

429

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

that they have interacted with, including Equifax or the other data entities

430

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

that collect everything about us. And when that's hacked. And you can

431

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

also go to a site online, Have I Been Pwnd? P-W-N-D, which

432

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

is great. You can put in a password. It tells you how

433

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

many times it's appeared on the dark web. So I would make

434

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

the first steps fun. Just enact a couple of new things and

435

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

then read up about the most current phishing attempts. Because every state

436

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

is getting hit, individuals are hit every day. Just start to be

437

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

savvy, but do it in a way that isn't overly burdensome or

438

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

daunting for you.

439

STEVE GRUMBINE:

I appreciate that. You know, in my day job, we have a lot of

440

STEVE GRUMBINE:

phishing education that we have to go through and tailgating for physical security and

441

STEVE GRUMBINE:

other types of spoofing, and you name it. I mean, there's a number of

442

STEVE GRUMBINE:

spearing attacks, text messages, you name it. They always get you with that urgent

443

STEVE GRUMBINE:

request, "Quick do this or quick do that or hey, five minutes from now,

444

STEVE GRUMBINE:

if you don't do this, you're going to lose your house or whatever" and

445

STEVE GRUMBINE:

some unsuspecting person goes ahead and clicks on it and voila, they're done. And

446

STEVE GRUMBINE:

there is no government guardrails because the government is in bed with these tech

447

STEVE GRUMBINE:

companies. The tech bros are large and in charge. I mean, they have a

448

STEVE GRUMBINE:

seat at the table, whereas Main Street does not. And even the things they're

449

STEVE GRUMBINE:

trying to do with crypto and stablecoins and all these other things, they come

450

STEVE GRUMBINE:

off on one hand as if they're trying to do us all a favor

451

STEVE GRUMBINE:

and while simultaneously locking us in deeper and deeper and deeper. I am curious,

452

STEVE GRUMBINE:

as we're watching, for example, activists that are protesting in Chicago, or we're watching

453

STEVE GRUMBINE:

activists that show up in New York City in your backyard, there's lots and

454

STEVE GRUMBINE:

lots and lots of protests that go on and how these kinds of things...

455

STEVE GRUMBINE:

And I don't think this is conspiratorial. I mean, it is a conspiracy, but

456

STEVE GRUMBINE:

I don't think it's like a conspiracy theory. I think it's a proven mode

457

STEVE GRUMBINE:

of operation where these private firms work hand in glove with the government and

458

STEVE GRUMBINE:

they use a backdoor approach to violating all of the constitutional rights you have.

459

STEVE GRUMBINE:

Because the only constitutional rights you have are really protection from the government, not

460

STEVE GRUMBINE:

protection from a private entity doing private things. Because that right there is the

461

STEVE GRUMBINE:

hat tip to, you know, the wealthy white landowners from the original documents. How

462

STEVE GRUMBINE:

do you manage that? I mean, to me, quite frankly, Heidi, it feels like

463

STEVE GRUMBINE:

we are assuming good things in entities that are not doing good things. We're

464

STEVE GRUMBINE:

assuming good intentions from entities that don't have good intentions, or we believe that

465

STEVE GRUMBINE:

they've just been captured, when in reality we're just finally seeing their true essence.

466

STEVE GRUMBINE:

And I know that you probably have a much more favorable opinion than I

467

STEVE GRUMBINE:

do on this stuff, but I'm interested in hearing your well-researched thoughts.

468

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

Oh, I'm completely in agreement with you. Look, years before the attacks of

469

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

9/11, business was coming up with surveillance and security devices to sell. I

470

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

think that 9/11 is when they really took off. But corporations, you know,

471

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

I used to say, well, they were partnering with government. Well, I really

472

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

don't think there's a line of demarcation there. They're operating really as a

473

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

twin terror in terms of exercising control over everyone through monitoring, through these

474

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

catchily named slogans, the war on whatever. So I have shifted how I

475

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

look at things, especially since my most recent, almost falling for a con,

476

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

in that my default is no longer trust. My default is suspicion now.

477

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

 I don't think that's defeatist because I do want to sort of emphasize

478

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

that I think we have to fight with all our might against this

479

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

hydra of evil forces. We still have neighbors, friends, we have communities. And

480

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

I think it's important to act locally. What you spoke about at the

481

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

beginning describes when one goes to a protest now, if people still want

482

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

to, because it's terrorizing, we're bombarded with images of violence by police against

483

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

citizens. First you have to make a decision how you want to get

484

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

involved. And there are many ways. If you don't want to take to

485

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

the streets to protest, donate money to a favorite group that is doing

486

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

something to fight this. There are so many wonderful digital rights organizations that

487

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

are keeping tracks of laws telling us which are good laws, bad laws.

488

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

They'll make it easy by signing onto a form to send to your

489

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

elected officials. That's one way to get involved. Letter writing, writing, op eds,

490

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

talking to your neighbors, forming little coalitions if you don't like something you're

491

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

seeing. But I think importantly, if you do go into the streets, you

492

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

know, make clever signs, have an exit route, be really aware of what's

493

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

happening around you. So often people go to events and they're focused on

494

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

marching and they're not looking at the lineup of cops at the next

495

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

corner, hiding on the side street, which we see in Manhattan all the

496

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

time. Personal safety comes first. But this is a time to make our

497

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

voices heard. Because for years I've been saying we're at a critical point.

498

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

I mean, right now things are beyond what we might have imagined years

499

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

ago. So this really is a time to take action. Just find the

500

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

level of action that's comfortable and safe for you, but always maybe push

501

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

a little more outside your comfort zone.

502

STEVE GRUMBINE:

I'm going to say something and I'm going to regret it. I am going

503

STEVE GRUMBINE:

to regret it, I'm sure. But I am a voracious reader.  And one of

504

STEVE GRUMBINE:

the things that I read recently was Che Guevara's Guerrilla Warfare book, which is

505

STEVE GRUMBINE:

a staple of leftist circles going back a long time. But it's also a

506

STEVE GRUMBINE:

staple for West Point and green berets and everybody else as a counterinsurgency to

507

STEVE GRUMBINE:

understanding the way rebels operate. But when you think about operating, you know, to

508

STEVE GRUMBINE:

change the system, the system was built with self-reinforcing guardrails. You've got superdelegates within

509

STEVE GRUMBINE:

the primary process. In fact, the Democratic Party fought successfully in federal court in

510

STEVE GRUMBINE:

Florida, or it's just thrown out, that they have no responsibility whatsoever to voters

511

STEVE GRUMBINE:

to honor the outcomes of primaries, much less to conduct a primary, much less

512

STEVE GRUMBINE:

to direct funds for said candidate to said candidate through their van system and

513

STEVE GRUMBINE:

everything else their, their vote blue, check blue, whatever it's called anymore. And these

514

STEVE GRUMBINE:

were some of my first awakenings in this getting away from being what I

515

STEVE GRUMBINE:

call a normie to being a bit of an aware human being, surviving in

516

STEVE GRUMBINE:

this world and trying to make heads or tails of it. But that I

517

STEVE GRUMBINE:

found was rather frightening. The fact that because they are a private corporation, they

518

STEVE GRUMBINE:

have no responsibility whatsoever. Their bylaws are their bylaws. They're not legally bound by

519

STEVE GRUMBINE:

those bylaws and they can change them and choose to ignore them. They can

520

STEVE GRUMBINE:

do whatever they want. But yet that is presented to us as our pathway

521

STEVE GRUMBINE:

to change. And reality is that trying to get a mass movement of people

522

STEVE GRUMBINE:

together to stand for anything is a real challenge within this system because we

523

STEVE GRUMBINE:

have all been kind of led to believe, you know, get out the vote.

524

STEVE GRUMBINE:

We got the "I voted" sticker on our forehead, on and on and on.

525

STEVE GRUMBINE:

But in reality, until you get to the actual national elections or whatever, and

526

STEVE GRUMBINE:

even those have been proven by Gillens and Page's Princeton study that public opinion has

527

STEVE GRUMBINE:

approximately 0.0% impact on legislation. Like you feel it in your heart, you're like,

528

STEVE GRUMBINE:

"yeah, it just doesn't measure up right." But now you've got empirical evidence, you've

529

STEVE GRUMBINE:

got evidence that it's rigged, that it's not real, that we are living in,

530

STEVE GRUMBINE:

I hate to say a simulation, but we are living in a kind of

531

STEVE GRUMBINE:

a World Wrestling Federation style society now where we all go along because we're

532

STEVE GRUMBINE:

afraid not to. We're afraid not to go along, to get along. Because once

533

STEVE GRUMBINE:

you scratch past the veneer of the world they're trying to cultivate and you

534

STEVE GRUMBINE:

start seeing the diseased, toxic underbelly of this, it's kind of impossible to put

535

STEVE GRUMBINE:

the lead back in the pencil. You know, it's a rough, rough world. So

536

STEVE GRUMBINE:

people guard themselves from seeing these things to protect their psyche to, I don't

537

STEVE GRUMBINE:

know, whatever. Because beliefs, not facts, but beliefs, are a stronger, more compelling system

538

STEVE GRUMBINE:

to function in than actually knowing the truth. The truth is scary. It's like,

539

STEVE GRUMBINE:

"Oh my God, what happens if I acknowledge this? If I acknowledge this, what

540

STEVE GRUMBINE:

does that do to my belief system? Am I going to be dealing with

541

STEVE GRUMBINE:

more pain and suffering? Am I going to struggle more now that I've accepted

542

STEVE GRUMBINE:

the truth? What does this mean to me?" How would you advise somebody to

543

STEVE GRUMBINE:

think about that? I mean, the things I'm saying, they may not be pretty,

544

STEVE GRUMBINE:

but I've done my homework, they're real. What do you think about that? People's

545

STEVE GRUMBINE:

ability to process information when in fact their belief system depends on them not

546

STEVE GRUMBINE:

believing and not changing to stay where they are because of fear.

547

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

This is a real problem. I was thinking when you began addressing

548

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

this, about a group of students in Rhode Island who felt they

549

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

were not getting proper or adequate civics education in their school, their

550

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

high school. So they sued the school district and said they were

551

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

entitled to learn the basics of civics, rights and responsibilities of citizens.

552

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

And they reached a settlement in which the school district agreed to

553

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

reinstate certain civics classes. They are monitoring this on a regular basis.

554

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

I think they're giving out a civics award once a year. I

555

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

love examples like that because in addition to everyone that you're sort

556

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

of addressing, backed by statistics. There are those who are willing to

557

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

do something creative, to effect some kind of change, largely on a

558

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

local level. So it's, you know, easier to take on a local

559

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

deficit by being creative, pairing up with a nonprofit organization or an

560

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

advocacy group that can help, as they did in this case, bring

561

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

the lawsuit. I mean, some people have an instinct. They get angry

562

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

when they see an injustice, and they immediately step into some kind

563

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

of action. I've got to say, we're at the point where we

564

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

need more people to acknowledge the potentially harmful or uncomfortable repercussions of

565

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

taking a stand and doing something. But there are so many creative

566

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

ways. We need to start using our minds. Pair up with other

567

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

people, brainstorm with ideas of how you can do something, no matter

568

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

how small.

569

STEVE GRUMBINE:

Agreed.

570

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

Fighting a local injustice to take back our rights, whatever they were.

571

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

But I still think that people respond to other people's stories, and

572

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

we need to share those stories, fight for what's right. And you

573

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

know what I hate? All the mom-and-pop shops that were put out

574

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

of business in my neighborhood by big corporate.

575

STEVE GRUMBINE:

Walmart.

576

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

Yeah. Target, all of those.

577

STEVE GRUMBINE:

Yep.

578

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

So I support all the local little ones. I try not to

579

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

use Amazon. You know, you support your independent businesses, get involved in

580

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

your schools, other institutions to just get your voice out, however you

581

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

do that. But people can no longer sit by and be fearful.

582

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

And honestly, this whole surveillance apparatus is designed to make us censor

583

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

our behavior and our speech, to check ourselves so we don't stand

584

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

out. And I'm saying it's time to stand out, people.

585

STEVE GRUMBINE:

I'm with you. You know, one of the things that you said that I want

586

STEVE GRUMBINE:

to make sure that I'm clear on here is while I may not believe that

587

STEVE GRUMBINE:

we can vote our way out of this, I do believe in the people. I

588

STEVE GRUMBINE:

do believe that we can use tactics. We don't have to be one for one.

589

STEVE GRUMBINE:

That's why I brought up the Guerrilla Warfare book, is that even though I've never

590

STEVE GRUMBINE:

owned a gun in my life, I would never advocate for violence. You know, I

591

STEVE GRUMBINE:

mean, like, that's not my M.O. at all. But I want to be crystal clear.

592

STEVE GRUMBINE:

There are tactics, there are lessons to be learned from mass organizing strategies and understanding

593

STEVE GRUMBINE:

the current material conditions we face today. I think a dialectical perspective on how we

594

STEVE GRUMBINE:

got here might be the most important awakening. It's not good enough to be educated.

595

STEVE GRUMBINE:

You have to have an awakening. And unfortunately, most people's awakenings come when something horrible

596

STEVE GRUMBINE:

has happened to them, when they have a child that gets hurt, you know, they

597

STEVE GRUMBINE:

have a spouse that gets killed, they have a home that is seized, they have

598

STEVE GRUMBINE:

a car that is destroyed or their career is ruined, whatever. Then they have their

599

STEVE GRUMBINE:

awakening. It'd be nice if we could let people learn vicariously and have an awakening

600

STEVE GRUMBINE:

based on someone else's world as opposed to having to experience it themselves. But the

601

STEVE GRUMBINE:

fact is that voting is simply not enough. I don't really think it does anything.

602

STEVE GRUMBINE:

But on the same hand, I'm not here to tell you don't do it. I'm

603

STEVE GRUMBINE:

here to tell you that I don't think that's where the change happens. I think

604

STEVE GRUMBINE:

taking action, direct action, organizing really, truly, honestly, having a sober understanding of the forces

605

STEVE GRUMBINE:

that are against you and not Pollyanna-ing the political parties and making excuses for the

606

STEVE GRUMBINE:

destruction of Gaza. Because "...what do you want, Trump?" No. You stand for the right

607

STEVE GRUMBINE:

no matter what, period. You stand for the correct thing. Period. And when it comes

608

STEVE GRUMBINE:

to making a stand, the kind of change you need to see, that we need

609

STEVE GRUMBINE:

to see, I don't believe just happens at the ballot box. I think it really

610

STEVE GRUMBINE:

requires us to mentally, spiritually and emotionally embrace that we're in a war whether we

611

STEVE GRUMBINE:

asked for it or not. This is not business as usual. This is not a

612

STEVE GRUMBINE:

day in the life. This is a new reality that is an old reality that

613

STEVE GRUMBINE:

we're just finally... It's kind of like you're going into the Wizard of Oz and

614

STEVE GRUMBINE:

you finally get into the great Emerald Castle or whatever, and you pull back the

615

STEVE GRUMBINE:

curtain and there's this little elf pulling the stuff. We are finally seeing behind the

616

STEVE GRUMBINE:

curtain a little bit. And we've had moments during COVID where we got to see

617

STEVE GRUMBINE:

behind it. We had moments during the TikTok live streaming of a genocide in Gaza

618

STEVE GRUMBINE:

where we got to have a look. We've had peeks behind the curtain multiple different

619

STEVE GRUMBINE:

times. Little things like the ability to conjure up enough money to keep us staying

620

STEVE GRUMBINE:

at home and closing businesses down during the pandemic. And guess what? We didn't go

621

STEVE GRUMBINE:

broke because the country creates its own money. Stop believing that the country is broke.

622

STEVE GRUMBINE:

The country is a creator of its currency. So we have to really, really, in

623

STEVE GRUMBINE:

my opinion, ratchet up our direct action, ratchet up our organizing. Otherwise, people are just

624

STEVE GRUMBINE:

going to go stand in line, get an "I Voted" sticker on their forehead, brag

625

STEVE GRUMBINE:

at brunch that they went and voted for... you know, John Fetterman, who is now

626

STEVE GRUMBINE:

saying Donald Trump should be given the Peace Prize. What did that get you right?

627

STEVE GRUMBINE:

"Oh, gosh, aren't I happy I voted for John Fetterman?" You know, these are things

628

STEVE GRUMBINE:

that I think that if people stop hero worshiping, stop celebrating rich people, stop glamorizing

629

STEVE GRUMBINE:

the elite and start realizing that there is a real class war going on right

630

STEVE GRUMBINE:

now and that these surveillance tactics are a tool of oligarchy. They're a tool of

631

STEVE GRUMBINE:

that elite suppression of our rights and of our lives. I think then we have

632

STEVE GRUMBINE:

a chance. But the more we glamorize, like, fake things. We put our hope in

633

STEVE GRUMBINE:

false gods, false idols, false outcomes based on false tactics that are sold to us

634

STEVE GRUMBINE:

just to manufacture consent and keep us engaged in the lie. You know, I think

635

STEVE GRUMBINE:

of the Truman Show where Jim Carrey was living his life and everybody else knew

636

STEVE GRUMBINE:

it was a lie about him, and he just bounced around. He finally figured out,

637

STEVE GRUMBINE:

"Oh, my God, it's a lie." You know, it's kind of like a Westworld moment,

638

STEVE GRUMBINE:

if you remember that. This feels very much like a moment where we need to

639

STEVE GRUMBINE:

get very sober very fast, have very frank and honest conversations with one another, and

640

STEVE GRUMBINE:

work together. Vote to your heart's content. Vote twice on Sunday. Whatever it is you

641

STEVE GRUMBINE:

want to do with your voting habits, do your thing. But in order for the

642

STEVE GRUMBINE:

change to happen, I believe that it takes place through community impact and through direct

643

STEVE GRUMBINE:

action and through organizing. Your thoughts as we check out here.

644

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

What a wonderful way to end, because I love direct action. My

645

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

organization supports it with money. I love grassroots organizing. The grassroots organizing

646

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

is behind some of the most significant movements in this country that

647

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

have fought for social change to benefit the rights of all and

648

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

for equality. I'm going to mention quickly a book that a friend

649

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

of mine wrote called The Young Lords: A Radical History. The Young

650

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

Lords were a political group in New York and Chicago, often compared

651

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

to the Black Panthers as the Puerto Rican counterpart. They engaged in

652

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

colorful, clever street actions and made enormous reforms in New York City

653

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

in how healthcare access to economically disadvantaged communities was improved. They had

654

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

a garbage offensive action when their neighborhoods weren't having garbage pickups. I

655

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

think that we have to be creative. We have to be fearless

656

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

as best we can. And we have to realize we are the

657

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

ones who rightfully dictate our country's trajectory. And we have to be

658

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

vocal, and that means going beyond our comfort zone and fighting for

659

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

the values that so many of us were brought up to think

660

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

this country stands for. We haven't seen those practiced in many years,

661

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

but I think that everyone taking some kind of action, being clever,

662

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

bringing humor, being willing to work on an issue that isn't as

663

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

polarizing as some of the big ones we know about now, but

664

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

things that will improve your local community and then sharing word about

665

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

them that with photos and clever mottos. It's time to step up,

666

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

people.

667

STEVE GRUMBINE:

I love it. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Heidi, where can we find more of your work and tell us a little bit about your radio program.

668

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

I am a co-host for 20 years now of lawanddisorder.org. It's

669

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

a civil liberties radio show that airs every week and on

670

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

about 140 stations around the country and its podcast. My website

671

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

is just heidiboghosian.com and I try to keep that updated.

672

STEVE GRUMBINE:

Well, we are going to be putting your books on our bookshelf@realprogressives.org and I hope between our relationship

673

STEVE GRUMBINE:

with Project Censored and your own grassroots network, that we're able to get this podcast out far and

674

STEVE GRUMBINE:

wide. Because I think there's some really important information that we were able to cover today. I'm sure

675

STEVE GRUMBINE:

somebody's gonna say, "hey, you forgot about this." And you know what? Maybe we'll have you back on

676

STEVE GRUMBINE:

another time so we can find out what those things we missed were and we can cover them

677

STEVE GRUMBINE:

next time. You are a great guest. I really appreciate you joining me today, Heidi.

678

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:

Thank you so much.

679

STEVE GRUMBINE:

All right, folks, my name is Steve Grumbine. I am the host of

680

STEVE GRUMBINE:

Macro N Cheese and the founder of this nonprofit, Real Progressives. We survive

681

STEVE GRUMBINE:

on your donations, not somebody else's donations. Because don't believe the hype. They

682

STEVE GRUMBINE:

didn't donate. We're surviving on your donations. So if you believe the content

683

STEVE GRUMBINE:

that we produce is valuable, that we're working hard as volunteers trying to

684

STEVE GRUMBINE:

produce this information for you to help keep you in the know, your

685

STEVE GRUMBINE:

donations are going to help us with that process. We really need your

686

STEVE GRUMBINE:

help. You can go to our website, realprogressives.org there's a dropdown menu. Please

687

STEVE GRUMBINE:

select donate. Or you can go to our patreon@patreon.com/realprogressives or you can go

688

STEVE GRUMBINE:

to our Substack, realprogressives.substack.com and become a monthly donor there as well. Folks,

689

STEVE GRUMBINE:

it's that time of year, so if you become a donor, these are

690

STEVE GRUMBINE:

tax deductible. I hate to ask you for the purpose of tax deduction,

691

STEVE GRUMBINE:

but my goodness, we need the money. We need the help. So with

692

STEVE GRUMBINE:

that, on behalf of my guest, Heidi Boghosian, myself, Steve Grumbine, the podcast

693

STEVE GRUMBINE:

Macro N Cheese and the nonprofit Real Progressives, we are out of here.