Speaker 1: Pushkin. I think I am a journalist first and foremost,
Speaker 1: and I do have this desire to go to extreme places,
Speaker 1: Like I'm be honest about that, Like journalists are weird,
Speaker 1: Like we do run towards burning buildings. You know, it
Speaker 1: takes a certain kind of personality type to go into
Speaker 1: a war zone and to go into a disaster zone
Speaker 1: where everybody else is going in the opposite direction. That
Speaker 1: was Naomi Klein. I'm Sam Fragoso and this is Talk Easy.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Hey everyone, Today, our guest is journalist,
Speaker 1: climate change activist, and best selling author Naomi Klein. She
Speaker 1: is currently the Senior correspondent at The Intercept and the
Speaker 1: inaugural Glorious steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist
Speaker 1: Studies at Rutgers University. That was also for those counting
Speaker 1: my ninety seventh try at that sentence. You're likely familiar
Speaker 1: with her work in books, including New York Times bestsellers
Speaker 1: like No Logo and The Shock Doctrine The Rise of
Speaker 1: Disaster Capitalism. Her latest book from twenty nineteen is called
Speaker 1: On Fire, The Burning Case for a Green New Deal.
Speaker 1: As we continue making the show in the middle of
Speaker 1: a pandemic. We're going to have on guests who can
Speaker 1: speak to this moment, this crisis with expertise. If you
Speaker 1: like to stick with us, We'll be announcing our line
Speaker 1: up for the weeks ahead this Wednesday, April first, on Facebook, Instagram,
Speaker 1: and Twitter. You can follow us over at talk Easy Pod.
Speaker 1: I mention all this because I know we're all trying
Speaker 1: to build some structure in this precarious time. So everyone
Speaker 1: here at Talk Easy is doing their best to stay
Speaker 1: consistent and to make this show for you every Sunday morning.
Speaker 1: Today is Naomi Klein. She was born in Montreal, and
Speaker 1: she brings her uniquely journalistic and Canadian perspective to the
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen crisis. She is a tireless reporter who's been
Speaker 1: researching and writing about American politics and capitalism for the
Speaker 1: past twenty years. She's also traveled across the globe to
Speaker 1: speak on the climate crisis, which is not disconnected from
Speaker 1: what's playing out right now. This episode is unique for
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons, which we get into right at
Speaker 1: the top here. But before we do that, I just
Speaker 1: want to thank you for being here and making us
Speaker 1: part of your week. I really hope you are safe,
Speaker 1: sound and social distancing. Wherever you are, whoever you are,
Speaker 1: now here is Naomi Naoa mclein. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for being here and for doing this with me. How
Speaker 1: are you feeling right now? Well, I'm very happy to
Speaker 1: be doing it with you. Thank you for having me
Speaker 1: remotely am I am not super well. I have to
Speaker 1: admit I've been sick. We were supposed to do this
Speaker 1: last week, but I canceled because I thought I had
Speaker 1: a cold. But now I'm pretty sure it wasn't just
Speaker 1: a cold, because I found out that I was exposed
Speaker 1: to the coronavirus. Close colleague stayed over at my house
Speaker 1: twelve days ago and she became sick. And she lives
Speaker 1: in Canada, so when she got back to Canada, she
Speaker 1: got tested because Canada has a functioning healthcare system. And
Speaker 1: so we are assuming that actually we all, like everyone
Speaker 1: in my house, has it with varying degrees. My son
Speaker 1: doesn't have any symptoms. That my husband and I are
Speaker 1: both fighting off some strange virus and we're hoping it's
Speaker 1: just a mild case and that it doesn't get worse. Well,
Speaker 1: you are an absolute trooper for doing a podcast in
Speaker 1: this condition. If I was at all sick, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be taking calls from my parents, let alone a stranger.
Speaker 1: So I thank you truly for being here and talking
Speaker 1: with me, and I'm wishing you and your family speedy recovery.
Speaker 1: You know, as someone living with what may very well
Speaker 1: be the virus, what do you make of where our
Speaker 1: country is at with the COVID nineteen crisis. Oh, I
Speaker 1: don't feel like we have metabolized what this crisis means,
Speaker 1: and we don't know how this is going to play out.
Speaker 1: We are seeing more and more of these diseases that
Speaker 1: jump from animals to humans where we haven't developed any immunity,
Speaker 1: and we know that there's a relationship between the way
Speaker 1: we are treating the natural world. The fact that more
Speaker 1: and more wilderness is being destroyed to meet human needs
Speaker 1: is the reason why we are seeing these these new
Speaker 1: kinds of illnesses. It's interrelated with so many other crises,
Speaker 1: you know. One of the factors that we're learning about
Speaker 1: around these types of diseases in general as that you
Speaker 1: can't pry apart from so many other global crises, like,
Speaker 1: for instance, many people on this planet get their primary
Speaker 1: source of protein from fish, but because of overfishing, and
Speaker 1: because of coral bleaching, they aren't able to so they
Speaker 1: have to find other sources of protein, and that is
Speaker 1: what often pushes people into previously protected forests to find
Speaker 1: what's known as bush meat, and that carries diseases, new
Speaker 1: diseases into human population. So it's all interconnected. I think
Speaker 1: there are a lot of lessons to be learned from crises,
Speaker 1: if we're willing to learn them. I find myself thinking
Speaker 1: a lot about my time in Puerto Rico after her
Speaker 1: came Maria hit. I was there researching and also speaking
Speaker 1: about my work on disaster capitalism, and some Puerto Rican
Speaker 1: friends would talk a lot about Maria as an unveiling
Speaker 1: that it blew the lid off the whole island in
Speaker 1: this really literal way where all of these other crises
Speaker 1: that had been hidden away inside people's homes, inside people's
Speaker 1: private lives, all these crises that they were bearing in solitude,
Speaker 1: were suddenly revealed when the storm ripped through the island,
Speaker 1: and that were understood to be actually collective crises, like
Speaker 1: people saw the depths of their neighbor's poverty, and they
Speaker 1: saw how vulnerable their economy was built to be to
Speaker 1: be dependent on all of these imports that they no
Speaker 1: longer had, so all these things. So I kind of
Speaker 1: feel the same way about this crisis, that it is
Speaker 1: this unveiling that where we are all seeing how enmeshed
Speaker 1: our fates are. Like, that's one of the things that's
Speaker 1: being revealed. So I'm trying to learn as much as
Speaker 1: I can from what we are seeing, right, Like we're
Speaker 1: all seeing our dependence on people who maybe we don't
Speaker 1: appreciate enough, like nurses. I mean, I find myself thinking
Speaker 1: about how much I appreciate my son's teacher, because I'm
Speaker 1: suddenly finding myself being my son's teacher multiple times a day.
Speaker 1: I appreciate the patience of the professionals who do this
Speaker 1: because we really aren't nearly as good at it. So
Speaker 1: maybe we will learn how enmeshed our fates are. That's
Speaker 1: maybe something we could learn. I think you're right. You know,
Speaker 1: the virus has exposed some larger systemic issues, especially within
Speaker 1: our healthcare system. And I know over the past week
Speaker 1: you've been talking about the potential rise of coronavirus capitalism
Speaker 1: or disaster capitalism. You wrote after a shocking event, war coup,
Speaker 1: terrorist attack, market crash, or natural disaster. The government exploits
Speaker 1: the public's disorientation, They suspend democracy, pushing through radical free
Speaker 1: market policies that enriched the one percent at the expense
Speaker 1: of the poor and middle class. Do you think that's
Speaker 1: where we're headed. I have been thinking about this for
Speaker 1: a couple of decades now, and I think my interest
Speaker 1: in it dates back to nine to eleven, and that
Speaker 1: having come at a time in my own political life
Speaker 1: where I had been very involved in social movements that
Speaker 1: were taking on corporate power and trying to challenge the
Speaker 1: way in which we had globalized our economies that was
Speaker 1: fueling this very rapid race to the bottom for labored
Speaker 1: standards and environmental standards. And so I was part of
Speaker 1: what used to be called the anti globalization movement. We
Speaker 1: always reject did that that description. But I had written
Speaker 1: this book called No Logo that came out in the
Speaker 1: year two thousand, when I was in my late twenties,
Speaker 1: and it was a book about this economic model and
Speaker 1: it's and all the people that had been sacrificed on
Speaker 1: its altar. And what happened when the September eleventh terrorist
Speaker 1: attacks took place, is that that whole conversation about the
Speaker 1: injustices of that economic system and how it was fueling
Speaker 1: inequality around the world, an environmental devastation around the world
Speaker 1: was just severed, was just shut down. I remember so
Speaker 1: vividly this phrase that would be used all the time,
Speaker 1: which was it would say, that's pre nine to eleven
Speaker 1: thinking right right if you and it was like this
Speaker 1: idea that there was like it was like a d
Speaker 1: and you know, before christ and after you know, it
Speaker 1: was like nothing you knew before this applies. Everything is new,
Speaker 1: And it was like this incredible indoctrination erasing our brains
Speaker 1: was what it felt like. Like nothing you knew before
Speaker 1: this event is at all applicable. Everything is new. If
Speaker 1: you try to talk about history, you are trying to
Speaker 1: justify it. If you try to talk about context, you're
Speaker 1: an apologist. Anything that you were doing before is no
Speaker 1: longer relevant. Somebody wants described it to me. It was
Speaker 1: as if somebody pressed a giant delete button on everything
Speaker 1: we were doing before. And so ever since living through that,
Speaker 1: I have thought about how elites use that state of shock.
Speaker 1: And nine to eleven was a huge shock. We had
Speaker 1: never seen anything like it in the United States, and
Speaker 1: we were trying to make sense of this new world,
Speaker 1: and we were doing what people do when they're trying
Speaker 1: to make sense of something like that which has come together,
Speaker 1: and try to provide narrative and context. You know, people
Speaker 1: were gathering in squares in New York City and just
Speaker 1: talking to their neighbors. And I remember Towards Bush going
Speaker 1: on television and saying, everybody should just go shopping, you
Speaker 1: know that, like, don't talk to each other's shop. You know,
Speaker 1: that's how we get out of this. And so that's
Speaker 1: what sort of set me on the path that led
Speaker 1: me to write the Shock Doctrine of really trying to
Speaker 1: understand this as a tactic that actually there are some
Speaker 1: pretty sinister players in our world who understand that in
Speaker 1: a moment where it feels like everything we knew in
Speaker 1: the past no longer applies, where the ground is shifting
Speaker 1: under our feet, and we are in one of those moments. Now,
Speaker 1: those are really profitable moments if you happen to be
Speaker 1: you know, a large corporation who has connections to the
Speaker 1: sitting president, and you might get yourself a sixty billion
Speaker 1: dollar bailout with no strings attached. And you could do
Speaker 1: it in the name of workers, and you could actually
Speaker 1: pocket most of it for your shareholders and you know,
Speaker 1: board members and executives, and you know, we could end
Speaker 1: up with the worst global recession because of it, and
Speaker 1: that's what happened in two thousand and eight. And the
Speaker 1: danger of that is that then those huge expenditures become
Speaker 1: the excuse to impose brutal economic austerity on the public,
Speaker 1: and it becomes the reason why you have to cut
Speaker 1: back social security or close down hospitals or close down schools.
Speaker 1: And you know, we got a dose of this in
Speaker 1: North America, but they got it a lot worse in
Speaker 1: Europe after the financial crisis. And you know, we probably
Speaker 1: remember the huge uprisings in southern Europe to try to
Speaker 1: stand up to this. But you know, once the money
Speaker 1: has gone out the door, it's really hard to get
Speaker 1: back control. I think what's also hard is that discussions
Speaker 1: around this subject about the dangers of capitalism is really
Speaker 1: challenging for some people. Lots of those folks are likely
Speaker 1: right leaning, but Democrats fall into this camp too, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, people who believe in the virtues of capitalism.
Speaker 1: So when you're presenting this data and these ideas, are
Speaker 1: you considering how your own political ideology may impact how
Speaker 1: an audience hears what you're trying to say. Well, I
Speaker 1: think you have institutions that are kind of hardwired to
Speaker 1: maximize profit. It isn't personal, it's not about saying that
Speaker 1: these are terrible people. Is that they are sort of
Speaker 1: bound to maximize their profit in order to fulfill their
Speaker 1: corporate charters, and so they do it. And I don't
Speaker 1: think that it is everybody who voted for Donald Trump
Speaker 1: who is responsible for this. I don't think that it
Speaker 1: is all people who are conservative who are responsible for this.
Speaker 1: But I do believe that we have an economic system
Speaker 1: that is incredibly dangerous and is create becoming more unequal
Speaker 1: with every one of these shocks. You know, I come
Speaker 1: to these conclusions from not ideology, but honestly reporting, like
Speaker 1: I started just as a journalist and going to disaster
Speaker 1: zones and doing this reporting you everywhere, from going to
Speaker 1: Iraq under occupation to being in New Orleans when it
Speaker 1: was still underwater after Hurricane Katrina and hearing with my
Speaker 1: own ears real estate developers saying, you know, this is
Speaker 1: an opportunity for us to get rid of public housing.
Speaker 1: And you have condominiums instead, and so it's not a conspiracy.
Speaker 1: It's just what actually happens in these moments of shock
Speaker 1: and what The reason why I don't despair and why
Speaker 1: I do think that dialogue is important and for people
Speaker 1: to understand what happens when we are confused and we
Speaker 1: are in shock and we're searching to understand the world,
Speaker 1: is that the more we understand this tactic, the more
Speaker 1: we can resist it. Most people don't want this. On
Speaker 1: the right or the left, they do not want this.
Speaker 1: Most people want to take care of their neighbors. They're
Speaker 1: worried about their families. They have a healthy suspicion of
Speaker 1: large corporations. They're not interested in making Jeff Bezos richer
Speaker 1: from this. They want the economy to get back up
Speaker 1: and running, and they need to have better options on
Speaker 1: the table than they have right now than just writing
Speaker 1: a blank check. We should learn from what this country
Speaker 1: did to fight the Great Depression and the dust Bowl.
Speaker 1: There's incredible history to draw on, both inspiration and important
Speaker 1: mistakes that were made. People who were left out of
Speaker 1: those programs ways that they failed. But that's a really
Speaker 1: rich history to learn from, and so I think it's
Speaker 1: important to surface that and have these discussions look at
Speaker 1: ways in which that ideological divide was bridged in the
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties and the nineteen forties, during the Great Depression,
Speaker 1: and during the war effort, when this country did some
Speaker 1: amazing things. So I don't see it through a left
Speaker 1: right lens in that way. I want to go back
Speaker 1: to something you just said. You're in New Orleans the
Speaker 1: aftermath of Katrina, and you hear this corporate power player
Speaker 1: talking about how now is an opportunity to eliminate public housing.
Speaker 1: My first response to that idea is, how could you
Speaker 1: possibly do this to people when tragedy strikes? How could
Speaker 1: you exploit human life? I think my response is not
Speaker 1: an uncommon one. But if we take a step back,
Speaker 1: it seems the fabric of capitalism, as you've described it
Speaker 1: does not allow for morality, for someone to do the
Speaker 1: right thing. So I'm curious, do you think there is
Speaker 1: a way for us to integrate any kind of moral
Speaker 1: compass into capitalism. Part of it is that you do
Speaker 1: see these kind of glimpses of every dystopian movie you've
Speaker 1: ever seen. You know, super rich, you know, protecting themselves
Speaker 1: with private security and all the worst of the vigilanteism
Speaker 1: and profity. Hearing that you also see just amazing acts
Speaker 1: of humanity. Right. The disasters bring out the best and
Speaker 1: the worst in people in my experience, right, and for
Speaker 1: majority of people, they bring up the best. Right people.
Speaker 1: When people see suffering, they want to help, whether it
Speaker 1: is in their own communities or whether it is you know,
Speaker 1: seeing footage of the Haiti earthquake on their television sets.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is where we see billions of dollars
Speaker 1: being raised in aid, all kinds of fundraising. People just
Speaker 1: want to help. But the tactic that I'm describing, I
Speaker 1: think the reason why it is so horrific and why
Speaker 1: people do have that reaction of just like that's wrong. Why,
Speaker 1: you know, how could you be taking advantage of people
Speaker 1: in this moment of shock and weakness, when their whole
Speaker 1: city has been evacuated to try to push your economic
Speaker 1: agenda is is that it goes against what they personally
Speaker 1: feel in that moment, which is how can I help? Right?
Speaker 1: And so we need structures I think that allow people
Speaker 1: to be their best selves. And your question of you know,
Speaker 1: can we change capitalism to let that happen? I mean
Speaker 1: I think we need to have at the minimum, a
Speaker 1: much more mixed economy, which means that some large parts
Speaker 1: of what we do as humans are considered too important
Speaker 1: to be left to capitalism. I mentioned that, I know,
Speaker 1: I'm from Canada, I grew up in Canada. I live
Speaker 1: in the States now. But it's a really striking difference
Speaker 1: as somebody who's who's experienced both systems to live in
Speaker 1: a country where they have just said, look, healthcare is
Speaker 1: just too basic to be left to the market. So
Speaker 1: we are just going to take the profit motive out
Speaker 1: of healthcare. You can still have great doctors, you can
Speaker 1: choose whatever doctor you know want to see, unlike all
Speaker 1: the propaganda that we get, but we're just going to
Speaker 1: take the profit motive out of it. And I think
Speaker 1: that if we are going to cope with the kinds
Speaker 1: of the kinds of shocks that we've already locked in
Speaker 1: because we have been in denial about just how bad
Speaker 1: things have gotten, particularly environmentally, we are going to have
Speaker 1: to kind of put in a floor for people where
Speaker 1: we say, you know what, healthcare is going to be
Speaker 1: a given. Everybody's going to have healthcare, and we're not
Speaker 1: going to leave it to capitalism. We're not going to
Speaker 1: build in a profit motive for healthcare, and we are
Speaker 1: going to say that everybody has a right to housing,
Speaker 1: and we're going to say that everybody has a right
Speaker 1: to education, and we're going to make public universities free,
Speaker 1: and we're not going to have people graduate with debt.
Speaker 1: And there can still be in markets, there can still
Speaker 1: be things that are bought and sold, and there can
Speaker 1: still be money to be made in that economy, but
Speaker 1: there will be large parts of it if we want
Speaker 1: to have a humane system that we are going to say,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, that's just too important. And when it comes
Speaker 1: to the climate crisis, because we have delayed and delayed
Speaker 1: and allowed the crisis to get worse and worse and worse,
Speaker 1: I don't believe there is a way to move to
Speaker 1: a hundred percent renewable economy as quickly as we need
Speaker 1: to if we're going to over truly catastrophic warming. And
Speaker 1: I think California understands that better than most parts of
Speaker 1: the country because of the fire season just extending more
Speaker 1: and more and people have this growing sense of urgency
Speaker 1: about that. The transition itself, I don't think it can
Speaker 1: be left to the market. So that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: there's no role for capitalism. It doesn't mean there's no
Speaker 1: role for markets, but it does mean there's going to
Speaker 1: have to be a much more robust public sector and
Speaker 1: a more robust nonprofit sector in general, So not everything
Speaker 1: controlled by the government, but more community ownership, more cooperative ownership.
Speaker 1: Not just sort of saying capitalism this for us, because
Speaker 1: I think that's become magical thinking at this stage in history. Well,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of our understanding of these ideas
Speaker 1: has to do with their branding. It's about how policy
Speaker 1: and politicians are presented to us, which reminds me of
Speaker 1: this article you wrote in twenty ten for The Guardian
Speaker 1: about how corporate branding has taken over American politics. In
Speaker 1: this piece, you wrote the following of then President Barack Obama.
Speaker 1: A preference for symbols over substance and an unwillingness to
Speaker 1: stick to a morally clear, if unpopular course is where
Speaker 1: Obama decisively parts ways with the transformative political movements from
Speaker 1: which he has borrowed so much. The pop art posters
Speaker 1: from Jay, his Cadence, from Martin Luther King, his Yes
Speaker 1: Weekend slogan from the Migrant Workers see Obama in sharp
Speaker 1: contrast not just the social movements, but to transformative presidents
Speaker 1: such as FDR follows the logic of marketing, create an
Speaker 1: appealing canvas on which all are invited to project their
Speaker 1: deepest desires, but stay vague enough not to lose anyone
Speaker 1: but the committed wing nuts. I wanted to quote your
Speaker 1: criticism of Obama here in case anyone listening thinks you
Speaker 1: may not be even handed in your assessments. So with
Speaker 1: this in mind, how would you describe the brand of
Speaker 1: President Trump? Oh? My god, you know, I think part
Speaker 1: of the trouble with Trump is that he is so
Speaker 1: egregious that, you know, everybody looks amazing compared to Trump,
Speaker 1: and obviously, compared to Trump, Obama is an absolute saint.
Speaker 1: But I do worry that if things have gotten so bad,
Speaker 1: there is like sort of a retroactive erasure of critical
Speaker 1: thinking about the Obama years. And I think it's worth
Speaker 1: remembering that, you know, there were some there were some
Speaker 1: very important criticisms of Obama, and we need to learn
Speaker 1: from them. We need to learn from them for the
Speaker 1: next time the Democrats are in power. And I do
Speaker 1: worry that that we've forgotten some of those lessons, right,
Speaker 1: I'm part of the climate movement, and we had to
Speaker 1: fight Obama really hard on the Keystone XEL pipeline, on
Speaker 1: the Dakota Access pipeline and Standing Rock. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: we we eventually won, but we shouldn't have had to
Speaker 1: fight as hard as we fought. And you know, of
Speaker 1: course the Dreamers had to fight like hell, and Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter did as well, and there was some huge
Speaker 1: social movements that emerged to take on the Obama administration.
Speaker 1: Now in some ways that speaks well of them, in
Speaker 1: the sense that, you know, I think we don't see
Speaker 1: those kinds of mass protests because during the Trump era,
Speaker 1: people understand that nobody's listening, you know, like that it's
Speaker 1: not it's not possible to influence this administration. You have
Speaker 1: to find other leavers of power, and maybe that will
Speaker 1: be a state governments, the city governments, or maybe it'll
Speaker 1: be taking on corporations for investing in fossil fuels. But
Speaker 1: having a big climate protest in Washington doesn't make a
Speaker 1: whole lot of sense. So the significance of Trump, I
Speaker 1: mean the passage that you described, I was describing President
Speaker 1: Obama's electoral campaign using the tools of branding in order
Speaker 1: to sell Obama as a politician. But Obama at that
Speaker 1: point was not himself a brand, right. I mean, he
Speaker 1: didn't have a line of products that he was selling.
Speaker 1: He was just running for office and he had written
Speaker 1: some books, but that was you know, that does not
Speaker 1: a superbrand make. You could argue that now the Obamas
Speaker 1: are a superbrand, but that is a separate issue. Trump
Speaker 1: is the first superbrand, the first branded human to become
Speaker 1: a president right using his brand ended platform. And this
Speaker 1: is I think significant to understand because I think it's
Speaker 1: something that Michael Bloomberg didn't understand when he ran for president.
Speaker 1: He sort of took Trump literally when Trump says that,
Speaker 1: you know, he was running as a successful businessman and
Speaker 1: he would run the country like a business. That was
Speaker 1: his pitch. And so Michael Bloomberg was like, well, I'm
Speaker 1: a more successful businessman and you're a lousy businessman, and
Speaker 1: I'm richer than you, and I'm going to be president.
Speaker 1: And that didn't go very well. And I think that
Speaker 1: that's because Michael Bloomberg fundamentally failed to understand that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump was successful not because he was a businessman, but
Speaker 1: because he was a brand. Because he was a celebrity
Speaker 1: brand because he had had what thirteen seasons of The Apprentice,
Speaker 1: because he had a line of Trump Stakes and Trump
Speaker 1: Water and Trump University and decades of building his individual brand. Right,
Speaker 1: he didn't become president because he's a successful businessman. He's
Speaker 1: not a successful business smith. He became president because he's
Speaker 1: a successful brand. And he is a successful brand, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: And what his brand is, the big idea that he's
Speaker 1: been selling all of these years is a simple one.
Speaker 1: It's I'm the rich guy. I'm the boss who is
Speaker 1: so rich he gets to do whatever he wants to
Speaker 1: whomever he wants. That is the fantasy that he was
Speaker 1: selling on The Apprentice, being the big boss and the
Speaker 1: shining gold tower who gets to fire and grab and
Speaker 1: do whatever he wants. And the problem with that as
Speaker 1: a brand identity, when it succeeds in becoming president, is
Speaker 1: that it is kind of uniquely immune to shame. And
Speaker 1: you know, as I mentioned earlier, the kind of pressure
Speaker 1: that one would hope to be able to exert over
Speaker 1: an elected politician, because the whole point of Trump's brand
Speaker 1: is that he does whatever he wants and he gets
Speaker 1: away with it. So it's very hard to catch him out.
Speaker 1: If you catch him in corruption, that's just Trump being Trump, right,
Speaker 1: catch him lying, that's just Trump being Trump. Anything he does,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, at least he is who he seems
Speaker 1: to be. And Trump's supporters are always saying that, right,
Speaker 1: well he is who he's not fake, So who he
Speaker 1: seems to be as a liar and somebody who does
Speaker 1: whatever it takes to advance himself, And that is what
Speaker 1: he's doing. So how do you catch somebody like that out?
Speaker 1: It makes him a uniquely difficult person to run against.
Speaker 1: And it's very, very important for people to understand this.
Speaker 1: What I was struck by, both in your answer just
Speaker 1: now and in all of your writing is a kind
Speaker 1: of boundless passion and energy you have forgiving a shit.
Speaker 1: I just want to go back a little bit. In
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six, your grandfather, whose name was Philip, got
Speaker 1: a job as an animator for Disney. He worked on
Speaker 1: Fantasia and Snow White and Pinocchio. He was a political man,
Speaker 1: but he mostly kept his politics to himself until bonuses
Speaker 1: that were promised for snow White failed to materialize. That
Speaker 1: was in the spring of nineteen forty one, and in response,
Speaker 1: Fill up. Your grandfather led a strike on behalf of
Speaker 1: the union to demonstrate He, along with your grandmother Anne,
Speaker 1: lived in a tent across the street from the studio,
Speaker 1: cooking over an open fire and manning the picket line.
Speaker 1: Now that we're about eighty years removed from this moment,
Speaker 1: do you think that's where your passion and activism comes from.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting to hear all of those details. My god,
Speaker 1: my grandfather had a big influence on me because he
Speaker 1: was fired for leading that strike. For helping to lead
Speaker 1: that strike, he was never able to work as an
Speaker 1: animator again. He did a little bit of animation work
Speaker 1: under a pseudonym because it was blacklisted. He worked in
Speaker 1: the shipyards during the war, and he was always he
Speaker 1: continued to be an artist. In some ways, it freed
Speaker 1: him to do his own art. He made sculptures his
Speaker 1: whole life. He had a workshop in the basement of
Speaker 1: the house he built himself. My grandparents were kind of
Speaker 1: back to the Landers, and he loved Disney, I mean,
Speaker 1: not the man. He did not love the man. And
Speaker 1: maybe this comes back to this question that we were
Speaker 1: talking about earlier, about polarization and good guys and bad guys.
Speaker 1: But he really loathed the company and the way they
Speaker 1: had treated him and what it had done to his life.
Speaker 1: But he still loved the films. He was proud of
Speaker 1: his work. You know, he didn't see at all as evil,
Speaker 1: and he just wanted it to be fair. So I
Speaker 1: think one of the things I learned from him is like,
Speaker 1: if you want to be a critic, like you have
Speaker 1: to make room for people's complexity and for people for
Speaker 1: the fact that we are all we have these contradictions,
Speaker 1: Like we're drawn to this shiny world, we want the things.
Speaker 1: We feel bad that the people who made the things
Speaker 1: weren't treated well. We're pulled in lots of different directions.
Speaker 1: And if all you do is shake your finger at
Speaker 1: people and just make them feel bad, they are just
Speaker 1: going to run in the opposite direction because none of
Speaker 1: us function that way. We are all filled with contradictions. Well,
Speaker 1: let's get into the contradictions of you as a teenager.
Speaker 1: Both of your parents who were politically inclined. Your mother
Speaker 1: was a filmmaker, your father worked in medicine. You were
Speaker 1: by described in the New York Or back in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight. You found your mother's feminism repellent part
Speaker 1: of your appeal as a teenager. You describe yourself as
Speaker 1: an impeccable liar and rarely got caught. Our fights were
Speaker 1: less about actual transgressions than about my silence, my sullenness, and,
Speaker 1: as my dad was always fond of putting it, my
Speaker 1: refusal to be part of this family. So walk me through.
Speaker 1: What were you like as a teenager? Anti political and
Speaker 1: anti feminist at all? I mean, I wouldn't say that
Speaker 1: I was anti feminist, but I didn't. Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: like the culture. I mean I had a very acute
Speaker 1: sense of fairness as a kid. I think there was
Speaker 1: a real clash between my family culture and the culture
Speaker 1: that I was in Meshton. I mean, I grew I
Speaker 1: was a child of the eighties, and so you know,
Speaker 1: here's my family trying to kind of continue this culture
Speaker 1: that they were a part of in the sixties and seventies.
Speaker 1: But it's the eighties and it's over. And you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't get sent to alternative school. I went to
Speaker 1: mainstream school. And the clash between the values of my
Speaker 1: family and the values of the broader culture were just
Speaker 1: so intense. And I think my parents were just like
Speaker 1: a lot of people who had come through the sixties,
Speaker 1: and you know, we were living in Canada because my
Speaker 1: father was a war resister, didn't want to go to Vietnam.
Speaker 1: You know, our whole family was split up over this,
Speaker 1: and I think for a lot of people who had
Speaker 1: been who had come through that and made real sacrifices
Speaker 1: because of it, the eighties came as a pretty rude
Speaker 1: shock and they were mad. I think my parents were
Speaker 1: really angry in the eighties, and I can understand why
Speaker 1: in retrospect, But for me as a teenager, which I
Speaker 1: just felt judge, like I was saying before about how
Speaker 1: you can't you have to have room for people's complexity.
Speaker 1: You have to you have to understand that that desire exists,
Speaker 1: and that this whole architecture of consumer capitalism is built
Speaker 1: to evoke our desires and insecurities, and that they are
Speaker 1: beautiful esthetics that are part of it, and that if
Speaker 1: all you do is make people feel bad and judged,
Speaker 1: they will do what I did as a kid, which
Speaker 1: is just run in the opposite direction. So I think
Speaker 1: it informed how I write, Like when I wrote No Logo,
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff about how I was drawn
Speaker 1: to the clothes that I now understood were made under
Speaker 1: these slave like conditions, and you know, visiting those factories
Speaker 1: in Indonesia and the Philippines. Like, I didn't write it
Speaker 1: like the kind of writing that I was reading, which
Speaker 1: was just like holding itself apart and wagging its finger.
Speaker 1: I wrote it as someone who wore the clothes, who
Speaker 1: wanted wanted the clothes, like like I wrote it. I
Speaker 1: tried not to put myself above it, and I continue
Speaker 1: to try to do that, and I hope that people still,
Speaker 1: you know, understand that about me because when I wrote,
Speaker 1: when I wrote no logo like that, it was part confessional,
Speaker 1: you know. I called it like part mallrat confessionals, you know,
Speaker 1: because I I didn't want it. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: make people feel the way I felt, which was just
Speaker 1: sort of judged. Because I don't think we change when
Speaker 1: we feel that way, and I actually don't think we
Speaker 1: change just when we get information that's something that we're
Speaker 1: a part of is harmful. I think we change when
Speaker 1: we see real alternatives that we can be a part
Speaker 1: of that are also appealing. Your mother said about your childhood,
Speaker 1: we were always fighting something. There were always people who
Speaker 1: were the bad guy. You're talking about moments of transformative change,
Speaker 1: which don't come as often as perhaps we want them to.
Speaker 1: But in your case, it seemed that your moment of
Speaker 1: pivoting came in December of nineteen eighty nine, and even
Speaker 1: a little before that. You're referring to my mother's stroke
Speaker 1: when I was seventeen. My mother, who is a documentary filmmaker,
Speaker 1: retired now, but she she was she was forty six
Speaker 1: years old and very much active and in her prime,
Speaker 1: and suddenly had a stroke and then another stroke, a
Speaker 1: catastrophic stroke, and it turned out she'd had a brain
Speaker 1: tumor in her brain stem made of blood vessels that
Speaker 1: that bled. She'd had her whole life and didn't know,
Speaker 1: and it was a catastrophic stroke, like she lost everything,
Speaker 1: including breathing. She was on a respirator, she had no movement,
Speaker 1: and eventually she had life saving surgery and she's been
Speaker 1: able to recover a great deal, but though she's always
Speaker 1: been in a wheelchair since then. And it was a
Speaker 1: moment obviously much more so for her than for me,
Speaker 1: but for our whole family, where it was one of
Speaker 1: those vertical moments where everything that you thought you had
Speaker 1: and understood just changes instantly. And I think that my
Speaker 1: analysis around around moments of shock as moments of that
Speaker 1: bring out the worst and the best. You know. When
Speaker 1: I wrote The Shock Doctrine, I talked a lot about
Speaker 1: regression during moments of crisis because that was something that
Speaker 1: I had noticed after nine to eleven, that we as
Speaker 1: a culture had become childlike and there was this sort
Speaker 1: of fetish for strong men, like remember when everyone liked
Speaker 1: Rudy Giuliani and it was like, Rudy, take care of us.
Speaker 1: It's a strong man in charge, you know. And I
Speaker 1: mean people were like feeling that way about Dick Cheney,
Speaker 1: and it really wasn't healthy, you know, Like it is
Speaker 1: good to have clear leadership in those moments, but it
Speaker 1: isn't good to become a child and let let these
Speaker 1: sort of paternal figures have way too much power. And
Speaker 1: so I think that my experience with my mother's stroke
Speaker 1: and the fact that for me as a as a kid,
Speaker 1: because I was a teenager when it happened, it did
Speaker 1: force me to grow up really quickly. I know that
Speaker 1: it had that effect, and it was instant, like okay,
Speaker 1: like stop fucking around, like you now have to be
Speaker 1: the adult and you have to take care of your mother.
Speaker 1: It taught me a really important lesson about how crisis
Speaker 1: can either lead to a regression. I certainly had moments
Speaker 1: when I wanted to regress and fall apart, but it
Speaker 1: also can lead to these moments where you actually the
Speaker 1: opposite happens and you grow up really fast and you
Speaker 1: actually kind of become better in crisis. And so all
Speaker 1: of my interest in shocks and crisis, I think is
Speaker 1: about trying to figure out, like, how do we grow
Speaker 1: up instead of regress? Because I understand both impulses. Do
Speaker 1: you think that comes from a sink or swim mentality?
Speaker 1: Is it something like primal within you that makes you
Speaker 1: want to progress in that moment where others may feel defeated. Look,
Speaker 1: I think that the survival instinct is powerful in everyone
Speaker 1: you know, Like don't you want to survive? Like don't
Speaker 1: you want our planet to thrive? Like aren't you horrified
Speaker 1: when you see like Australia on fire and Paradise, California
Speaker 1: burned to the ground? Like I mean, I believe this
Speaker 1: is universal, And I just think that there's some alchemy
Speaker 1: where we need to like access the part of ourselves
Speaker 1: that I that is in everyone. We have surviving. There
Speaker 1: is nothing more powerful than our survival instinct. And when
Speaker 1: I hear like people surprised that I have it, I
Speaker 1: want to know what's going on with you? There's yours.
Speaker 1: What I'm mainly getting at is something both human and journalistic.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm thinking about your life and your work
Speaker 1: in a context you know I'm thinking about. In two
Speaker 1: thousand and two, you and your partner decided to move
Speaker 1: to Argentina to make a documentary called The Take. It's
Speaker 1: a film about a group of laid off workers who
Speaker 1: broke into their shutter factory and started it up again
Speaker 1: as a collective. In this time of turmoil. There were protests.
Speaker 1: The protest turned violent, there were shootoffs between police and citizens.
Speaker 1: Your partner, he said to your crew, just be safe.
Speaker 1: It's not the time to die. And you said, if
Speaker 1: something is happening and we're the only ones witnessing it,
Speaker 1: we have a responsibility to posterity. What I'm asking about
Speaker 1: is where that responsibility in you comes from. Huh, It's interesting.
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about that for a long time. I mean,
Speaker 1: we went to Argentina after the economy there went into crisis.
Speaker 1: They went through five presidents in three weeks, and the
Speaker 1: whole economy shut down. The banks were closed, and and
Speaker 1: I am like, I think, I am a journalist first
Speaker 1: and foremost, and I do have this desire to go
Speaker 1: to extreme places, Like I'm be honest about that, Like
Speaker 1: journalists are weird, Like we do run towards burning buildings.
Speaker 1: You know, it takes a certain kind of personality type
Speaker 1: to go into a war zone and to go into
Speaker 1: a disaster zone where everybody else is going in the
Speaker 1: opposite direction. So I don't know that I can answer
Speaker 1: like why I have that, but I do have it.
Speaker 1: And so what you're describing is like you know, when
Speaker 1: you are in the moment and the and and things
Speaker 1: start going really wrong and the police are opening fire
Speaker 1: on protesters, which is the situation that you're describing, and
Speaker 1: you have a camera. You know, everybody who works as
Speaker 1: a journalist or as a documentary filmmaker, we're all doing
Speaker 1: that sometimes. And my husband and I have always had
Speaker 1: a slightly different relationship to risk on this, and to
Speaker 1: be honest with you, mine has changed, you know, since
Speaker 1: I became a mom. I became a mother late I
Speaker 1: had my son when I was forty two, and I
Speaker 1: knew when I made that decision that it was going
Speaker 1: to impact this kind of work, because I do think
Speaker 1: that when you are not a parent, it's a simpler
Speaker 1: decision to make a decision to take on unnecessary risks,
Speaker 1: right like maybe bigger picture necessary, right like societally necessary,
Speaker 1: but once but for your life, an unnecessary risk. And
Speaker 1: in the seven years that I've been a parent, I
Speaker 1: haven't done that level of danger reporting. You've tempered it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, which isn't to say that I don't take
Speaker 1: some risks, but I don't take the same kind of risk.
Speaker 1: I would describe Trump being elected in twenty sixteen as
Speaker 1: a burning building moment. Someone not I will. And two
Speaker 1: days after he is elected, you have to give a
Speaker 1: speech I believe in Australia, and you have a quote
Speaker 1: here that I think is a bit timely for right
Speaker 1: now in regards to Trump winning, you said, we cannot
Speaker 1: play My crisis is more urgent than your crisis. War,
Speaker 1: Trump's climate, climate, Trump's class, class, Trump's gender, gender, Trump's race.
Speaker 1: That trumping game, my friends, is how you end up
Speaker 1: with a Trump. Either. We fight for a future in
Speaker 1: which everyone belongs starting with those being most battered by
Speaker 1: injustice and exclusion today, or we will keep losing and
Speaker 1: there is no time for that. That was four years go,
Speaker 1: just about three and a half years ago. How do
Speaker 1: you think we have done and how do you think
Speaker 1: we are going to do in the future. I think
Speaker 1: the past few years under Trump, there have been some
Speaker 1: really remarkable attempts to get out of our individual silos
Speaker 1: and identity boxes and not a race difference, but find
Speaker 1: common ground across difference and try to build something like
Speaker 1: a coherent political agenda and a vision of the future
Speaker 1: that is appealing enough that we could have a multiracial,
Speaker 1: cross generational, broad based movement that was powerful enough to
Speaker 1: win the And I think the point of what I
Speaker 1: was saying there is like there's a lot of power
Speaker 1: on the progressive side of the spectrum, but there is
Speaker 1: also a lot of division, and so I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of There are a lot of examples that
Speaker 1: I can point to where I see a lot of progress,
Speaker 1: including the vision of a Green New Deal that has
Speaker 1: been articulated by people like Alexandriacasco Cortez and fought for
Speaker 1: by grassroots, youth based movements like Sunrise. I've spent a
Speaker 1: lot of the past three four months now really deeply
Speaker 1: immersed in the Sanders campaign. I've never been involved in
Speaker 1: a presidential campaign before. I supported Bernie Sanders in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: but that consisted of writing an article about it for
Speaker 1: the nation. I mean, I wasn't out there campaigning or
Speaker 1: anything like that. And as somebody who's you know, identified
Speaker 1: as you know, even though I'm identified as an author,
Speaker 1: I feel like a journalist, and so I've always felt like,
Speaker 1: is it really my role to get involved in campaigns
Speaker 1: like that? But I think because Trump is such a threat,
Speaker 1: I made a decision this time around to do more
Speaker 1: than just write an article, and I formally endorsed Bernie Sanders.
Speaker 1: I spoke at multiple rallies. I introduced him, and at
Speaker 1: a couple of rallies, I went to New Hampshire and
Speaker 1: Iowa twice and Nevada and Texas and worked as a
Speaker 1: volunteer for the campaign. And it felt amazing. I have
Speaker 1: to tell you, it felt better than anything I've ever
Speaker 1: been involved in in my political life. It was beautiful
Speaker 1: and beautiful because it was I had so many conversations
Speaker 1: with friends who told me like I can't support Bernie
Speaker 1: because I don't like the Bernie bros. On Twitter and
Speaker 1: they're so obnoxious, and I'm just like, please, just come
Speaker 1: to an event. You will see that it is the
Speaker 1: exact opposite of everything you're seeing online. In person. It
Speaker 1: is such a feminist campaign. It's overwhelmingly women who are speaking.
Speaker 1: It is so diverse. This slogan, not me Us, which
Speaker 1: is the slogan of the campaign, has become this phrase
Speaker 1: that has taken on a life of its own and
Speaker 1: is no longer just about Bernie. It's now about people
Speaker 1: kind of escaping the meanness of our time, like the
Speaker 1: not me, me, me me, like that is late capitalism,
Speaker 1: but actually trying to find an US beyond just the
Speaker 1: constant hyper individualism. And it was amazing. And I'll tell you,
Speaker 1: like I mean, answering that question of where we're at,
Speaker 1: it's hard for me because I was in Nevada when
Speaker 1: we won that caucus so decisively and felt like just
Speaker 1: a kind of political joy and just raw joy that
Speaker 1: I have never experienced politically, Just the pride of all
Speaker 1: of these young Latino kids who had organized their communities
Speaker 1: in incredible ways, who had organized uber drivers and taxi
Speaker 1: drivers and casino workers and a hotel workers, and they
Speaker 1: won that thing, and they really, we really thought that
Speaker 1: we were going to win the primary. Okay, here's something
Speaker 1: that may be positive and that you I think believe in.
Speaker 1: We started this podcast talking about the comparisons between two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight and twenty twenty eight between the housing
Speaker 1: meltdown and the coronavirus, and we listed all the negative things.
Speaker 1: You know, they suspend democracy, they pushed through free market politics.
Speaker 1: The market crashes, they exploit that even more regular people
Speaker 1: pay the price of any bailout that happens. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't always go this way. And something you've been talking
Speaker 1: about is how the Great Depression turned into of the
Speaker 1: New Deal. Do you feel any hope that we could
Speaker 1: have a similar turn. I have to have that hope,
Speaker 1: and I do believe that people are seeing that this
Speaker 1: system is failing, it's crashing, and it's now asking so
Speaker 1: much of people just to prop it up. You know, like,
Speaker 1: maybe it's okay if we just let all the old
Speaker 1: people die so that we can get the stock market
Speaker 1: going again. And that's just not okay. And you know,
Speaker 1: we've sort of had this slogan on the left like
Speaker 1: people before profits, but it's kind of never felt so literal,
Speaker 1: and I think it's never been laid so bare for
Speaker 1: so many people. And so I, you know, I think
Speaker 1: what we can't have come up against most in this
Speaker 1: electoral cycle, this primary, is this idea that maybe we
Speaker 1: can just have like a brief return to the pre
Speaker 1: Trump normal, that there can just be a kind of
Speaker 1: a gentle turning back of the clock and we can
Speaker 1: all rest for a bit and recover. And I get
Speaker 1: the appeal of that, Like God, people are exhausted, people
Speaker 1: are traumatized by this president and by what these years
Speaker 1: have been. But unfortunately, I think it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1: And so I think what FDR was able to do
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen thirties and when he first ran,
Speaker 1: would say to people like, we can get through this crisis,
Speaker 1: but we really are going to have to move forward.
Speaker 1: We have to go somewhere we haven't been before. We
Speaker 1: have to tell new stories, we need new institutions. It
Speaker 1: isn't going to be a reversion to the past. It
Speaker 1: is going to be a leap to somewhere we haven't
Speaker 1: been before. And he helped people access their courage and
Speaker 1: actually their deeper desire for something better than just that
Speaker 1: reversion to the past, and he spoke to people's whole selves,
Speaker 1: you know, not just their economic selves, but their spiritual selves, right,
Speaker 1: that he understood that the depression was not just the
Speaker 1: state of the economy, but actually the state of people's
Speaker 1: mental health, and that they were depressed and scared, and
Speaker 1: that we had to revive people. Right. So that's my hope,
Speaker 1: is that we can find that part of ourselves, and
Speaker 1: that we can listen to people who are trying to
Speaker 1: speak to that part of ourselves and just trying to
Speaker 1: get somewhere that's really safe, not some mythical version of
Speaker 1: the past that wasn't actually safe for huge numbers of people.
Speaker 1: I know you don't believe in utopias. I've read that
Speaker 1: in every article about you. If you had it your way,
Speaker 1: we run an election in twenty twenty, regardless of who
Speaker 1: is the president. Let's not making about the president. Let's
Speaker 1: make it about ideas. Here, what would you like to
Speaker 1: see in the next four years. I'd like to see
Speaker 1: a collective purpose, a sense of collective purpose, because I
Speaker 1: think what is destroying us, maybe more than anything else,
Speaker 1: is just the extent to which we really feel like
Speaker 1: we are on our own in every way, and that's
Speaker 1: why we see people responding to crisis through these hyper
Speaker 1: individualistic acts of hoarding, right because we don't believe anybody
Speaker 1: like we don't believe we can do this together. And
Speaker 1: so I think what I want more than anything else
Speaker 1: is is like some kind of shift where we are
Speaker 1: doing something together. And you know, I believe that that
Speaker 1: something should be a green new deal, a way of
Speaker 1: building a fair economy that is not at war with
Speaker 1: life on this planet, that is about safeguarding a habitable
Speaker 1: future for all of us and our kids. And I
Speaker 1: think that that sense of collective purpose could also break
Speaker 1: through this debilitating polarization as well. Before we go, my
Speaker 1: last question is not a political one, but as a
Speaker 1: mother and partner and person who may very well be
Speaker 1: infected with this disease, has it made you reevaluate your
Speaker 1: own personal beliefs but you find valuable or where you
Speaker 1: find purpose. I feel like there's a call to slow down,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to listen to that, and I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get to a different speed. And you know, we
Speaker 1: live in a culture that's just everybody's just driven, driven, driven,
Speaker 1: all the time. And I mean, I still believe in
Speaker 1: more than ever in the need for deep social change,
Speaker 1: but I don't believe that I have to personally drive
Speaker 1: it in that kind of way. Like I'm trying to
Speaker 1: live with more balance in terms of needing to be
Speaker 1: there for my son and needing to do things that
Speaker 1: I as a woman have never done before, like bake bread,
Speaker 1: which I actually in the middle of right now, and
Speaker 1: it's at a very very sensitive time and the first
Speaker 1: loaf that I tried did not rise at all, and
Speaker 1: so if I don't go very soon, we're going to
Speaker 1: be dealing with a serious situation. But like the idea
Speaker 1: that I would be baking bread is such an absurdity
Speaker 1: if you knew me. But I want to come out
Speaker 1: of this with new skills and new balance, And I
Speaker 1: also just want to push back against the ways in
Speaker 1: which this is pushing us to just think in terms
Speaker 1: of our nuclear family, because even though we are maybe
Speaker 1: isolated in our nuclear homes, we the really deeper story
Speaker 1: here is a story of interconnection of our porousness, our
Speaker 1: literal porousness to each other. So yeah, well, I hope
Speaker 1: your bread turns out well. For one and Moreover, I
Speaker 1: wish you a full recovery than you, your family, good health,
Speaker 1: and truly thank you so much for doing this with me,
Speaker 1: especially right now. It was such a pleasure. No mclein,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, And that's our show. I'm happy
Speaker 1: to report that Naomi has turned a corner and is
Speaker 1: feeling better. Her bread, for those wondering, also turned out
Speaker 1: all right. I want to give a special thanks this
Speaker 1: week to Abbe Lewis and Jackie Joyner. To learn more
Speaker 1: about Naomi Klin and her work, you can visit our
Speaker 1: show notes at www dot talk easypod dot com. You
Speaker 1: can also purchase any number of her books on her
Speaker 1: site at Naomi clin dot org. If you enjoyed today's episode,
Speaker 1: I imagine our talks with other writers may be of
Speaker 1: interest to you. Gloria Steinem Morgan Parker, Malcolm Gladwell, Wesley Morris,
Speaker 1: Patricia Lockwood, Jelani Cobb, and many many more. You can
Speaker 1: find all of those on our website, Spotify, Google Podcast,
Speaker 1: Apple Music, Stitcher, wherever you may be listening. For updates
Speaker 1: on our show, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook,
Speaker 1: and Instagram. At talk easypod. You can also join our
Speaker 1: email list. By dropping us a line at Talk easypod
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. This show is made possible each
Speaker 1: week by our incredible team. Our executive producer is Janick
Speaker 1: so Bravo. Our associate producer is Nicky Spina. Illustrations by
Speaker 1: Christian Chanoy, graphics by Ian Jones, music by Dylan Peck
Speaker 1: and Jin Sang. Our editors are Andre Lynn and kat Owen.
Speaker 1: Our social media is by Deja Washington. Our engineer is
Speaker 1: Tim Moore, and we tape out of York, recording here
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, California. And finally, the show is produced
Speaker 1: by Caroline Reebuck. I'm San Fragoso. Thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to Talk Easy. We'll be back next Sunday with betto
Speaker 1: or Rourke. Until then, have a good week here