Political Turmoil and Unlikely Alliances

Is the American judicial system being weaponized for political gain? That's the question we tackle as we dissect Donald Trump's fervent call for Hillary Clinton's indictment and the trial of Theresa. We scrutinize Trump's claims of political motivation behind the trial and its strategic timing during his presidential campaign. Join us as we evaluate the broader implications of prosecuting high-profile political figures, the actions of FBI Director Comey, and the potential fallout of a constitutional crisis involving a president under felony indictment. Our discussion also touches on Trump's recent Capitol Hill visit, his interactions with Speaker Mike Johnson, and the latest Supreme Court rulings that could shape the future of American politics.

Trump's quest to unify the Republican Party is the focus of our next chapter, where we delve into his high-impact meetings with House and Senate Republicans, including an unexpected appearance by Senator Mitt Romney. We also explore the intricate dynamics between Trump and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, and speculate on potential VP candidates that could change the game. The chapter wouldn't be complete without addressing the ripple effects of Hunter Biden's conviction on gun charges, Trump's 34 felony counts, and the influence of recent Republican primaries and special elections. This political rollercoaster has far-reaching consequences that could shape the GOP's future and their bid for control of the Senate.

Lastly, we navigate the turbulent waters of political polarization in the Supreme Court. Hear the starkly different perspectives from Justice Alito, who believes a definitive "win" is inevitable, and Chief Justice Roberts, who stresses the importance of elected officials in leading the nation's moral compass. We transition into a passionate debate on anti-war activism, comparing disruptive tactics with legislative promises from figures like Al Lowenstein and Senator Hart. Uncover the frustration with Congress's repeated failures to end the Vietnam War and the crucial role of individual moral responsibility in driving political change. Through this balanced lens, we aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of what actions truly serve the greater good of the republic.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 2:10

Theresa couldn't get a fair trial here. I've said that and no, you couldn't. I never saw a glimmer of a smile from the jury. It was a trial that everybody said shouldn't have been brought. Including Bragg didn't want to bring it. Nobody wanted to bring it until I decided to run and then was beating everybody by a lot and then was beating Biden by a lot in the polls. But you know, it's a very terrible thing. It's a terrible precedent for our country. Does that mean the next president does it to them? That's really the question. Terrible to throw the president's wife and the former secretary of state Think of it, the former secretary of state, but the president, the president's wife, in the jail. Wouldn't that be a terrible thing? But they want to do it. So you know, it's a terrible, terrible path that they're leading us to and it's very possible that it's going to have to happen to them For what she's done. They should lock her up. Hillary Clinton has to go to jail okay, she has to go to jail. They should lock her up. It's the street. Hillary Clinton has to go to jail okay, she has to go to jail. You should lock them up. Lock up the violence. Lock up Hillary.

Speaker 1: 3:23

There's also no doubt that FBI Director Comey and the great, great special agents of the FBI will be able to collect more than enough evidence to garner indictments against Hillary Clinton and her inner circle, despite her efforts to disparage them and to discredit them. If she were to win this election, it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis. In that situation, we could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment and, ultimately, a criminal trial. It would grind government to a halt, and it's been a crazy week this week. So let's get into this show, the Jerome McClain Show, independent media that will not reinforce tribalism. We have one planet. Nobody is leaving, and let us reason together.

Speaker 1: 4:51

So I started the show off in this particular way, where I wanted you to hear some of the commentary that the former president of the United States, one Donald, was pun intended, trumped up or whether it was legitimate. And because I have friends who are conservative, liberal and moderates, I've been doing my due diligence to get analysis from all sides of the aisle, and so what I've been trying to do is, uh, as well as stake my position, which was that, even if Donald Trump was guilty, that this was not good for the country, which I think has put me in the in the position of saying that a president should be above the law, which is the uncomfortable position that I guess that I am taking, for the greater good is what is the position that I that I think I actually put myself, the corner that I have painted myself in is what is the greater good for this republic? Now? The former president is on Capitol Hill today to rally the GOP troops and there are a few awkward dynamics at play. So Trump reportedly called uh Speaker Mike Johnson the Republican after his conviction, pleading for help. He apparently dropped in a lot of f-bombs during the conversation and the Supreme Court unanimously ruled to protect access to an abortion pill, and the FAA is testifying today on a Boeing and airline safety.

Speaker 1: 6:44

So mostly, the former president is taking a rare trip to Capitol Hill today for his first public appearance to the area since the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. What Trump has planned is he met with the House Republicans this morning at Capitol Hill and now he's meeting with Senate Republicans at the National Republican Senate Committee. He's also meeting has a meeting scheduled with business leaders, including JPMorgan's and Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. So Trump's goals is to unify his splintered party to set a public policy agenda though it's unlikely to get to in the weeds and to rally the troops ahead of the Republican-nominated convention in July. Now, are any Senate Republicans skipping? The answer would be Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, susan Collins of Maine, mitt Romney of Utah said they have conflicts and cannot attend. All three voted to convict Trump in the 2021 impeachment. Todd Young of Indiana and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana are also up in the air.

Speaker 1: 8:00

Actually Romney will be there. The Hills Alexandra Bolton posted that Senator Mitt Romney is now heading to lunch with Trump at the NRSC because his flight to Palm Beach, which was supposed to take For an event, was cancelled due to heavy rain, and NBC's Frank Thorpe Posted that Romney says he doesn't plan to bring up January 6th. This is not a place For that. Factors that Play today in the meeting and, of course, the biggest one is going to be trump's conviction. This is trump's first meeting with congressional republicans. Uh, since he was convicted of 34 felony counts, falsified business records. Political is reporting that trump called speaker mike johnson after his conviction, pleading for help to overturn it. Politico's Rachel Bade noted that Trump dropped a lot of F-bombs during the call as he spoke with the soft-spoken and pious GOP leader, mike Johnson. The McConnell awkwardness is also going to be something that people are going to be looking out for, because this will be the first time Trump is in the same room as the Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky since 2020. Now the two had had beef since the January 6th attack on the Capitol, and Trump has hurled racist insults towards Mitch McConnell's wife. Mcconnell recently endorsed Trump, lowering the temperature of their feud, so today's meeting will be notable.

Speaker 1: 9:34

The VP race is also what people are going to be paying attention to. Several congressional Republicans have been floated as potential running mates for the former president, like Senator Marco Rubio from Florida the great state of Florida the amazing state of Florida, where I am from the great state of Florida, the greatest state in all of 50 states of Florida Tim Scott from South Carolina, tom Cotton from Arkansas, jd Vance from Ohio and Representative Ellis Stefanik of New York have been floated as the VP candidates. So the last time we spoke, there was a trial going on and now that trial has come To its end and that is the trial and I even talked about this a bit Of the president's Son, hunter Biden. So Hunter Biden has been convicted. Hunter Biden convicted.

Speaker 1: 10:47

Now it is too early to know how Hunter Biden's conviction on gun charges, which was on Tuesday, will color a political battle in which the presumptive Republican nominee a convicted felon angrily vows to uproot the judicial system and President Biden, agonizing about his son, pledges to defend that system. The younger Biden is not running for office, but his political target for the former President Trump and GOP allies, who claim without evidence that the president leads a Biden crime family and should be defeated in November. The president says he loves his son but won't grant him a pardon and respects the judicial process, argues he is a victim of the Justice Department's bias, even though the same Justice Department successfully prosecuted the president's son for purchasing a gun in 2018 and signing a form denying unlawful drug use. The younger Biden, who is likely to appeal Tuesday's verdict, faces a riskier federal trial in September in California on tax charges. A judge's sentence for the gun felonies could be handed down around the same time he arrives. It may mushroom into the headlines come this fall.

Speaker 1: 12:07

Now the election's years overlay of partisans' weaponization of law and consequences is startling, but it has been decades in the making. It puts the Constitution to a test and its favorite Trump campaign theme it ensnared. The Biden family ensures the Attorney General and federal prosecutors contribute to the public erosion of trust in the Supreme Court. Alarming is the word the constitutionalized First Law and Tribe used last month when he was asked by the Washington Post about attacks on the court combined with larger broadsides against elections. They're always symptoms of an increasingly deep disease, a disease of social and political order, and they can easily pave the path to a dictatorship Tribe, warned With courtrooms and verdicts.

Speaker 1: 13:01

As the backdrop, republican candidates were endorsed by Trump won primaries in South Carolina. Maineace, who was attacked by the former president, defeated fellow Republican Catherine Templeton in a contest seen as a proxy fight between Trump's wing of the GOP and establishment conservatives by the party's voters in a special election won by a Republican might nonetheless be an encouraging sign ahead of November's Senate battle in which incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown seeks his re-election. So, in Tuesday's primaries, featuring a couple of closer than expected racists puts Trump's endorsement power to the test as he heads toward a rematch in Biden. And under the radar, special election in ohio turned out to be the biggest shocker of the night. The race was triggered following the former rep bill johnson's decision to resign in january, with the winner serving the remainder of his term.

Speaker 1: 14:53

But the gop senate, uh, uh, the general. The gop state senator michael rulin only defeated democratic nominee michael k Kirkpatrick by about nine points, based on the latest votes counts, with more than 95 percent of people reporting. That is roughly 20 percent over performance for the Democratic candidate from what was expected for the district. In Nevada, retired Army Captain Sam Brown is projected to win the Senate GOP primary to take on Senator Jakey Rosen, the Democrat from Nevada. This fall, brown had already been endorsed by Senate Republicans' campaign arm before he notched the endorsement from Trump just hours after the former president made a weekend appearance in the Silver State. Now this is going to be very interesting because I have heard a lot of people who are claiming that they are going to do for you know everybody, but not the presidents, because there's been very interesting, very interesting reporting that shows that almost 70 percent of Democrats and Republicans do not want a rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Right back with more on the Darrell McClain Show.

Speaker 2: 16:23

Secret recordings of Supreme Court justices at an exclusive gala in Washington. More pressure for ethics. Alito appeared sympathetic to the idea that Americans need to return our country to a place of godliness and observe the nation as one of fundamental differences that can't be compromised. Alito's wife was also recorded at the event vowing revenge against people who raised a controversy over politically charged flags. The Alitos flew at their homes. The Hill White House reporter Brett Samuels joins us to discuss. Brett Democrats have been talking a lot lately about reigning in the court. What can they actually do?

Speaker 3: 16:59

Well, the question, I guess, is how far are they willing to go to reign in the court and to pursue ethics reform around the Supreme Court? Certainly, as you mentioned, these recordings of Justice Alito and of his wife have just added fuel to this already raging fire around Justice Alito's conduct and around this flag controversy where they flew this Stop the Steal flag after the 2020 election. But the question is whether Democrats, in particular in the Senate, are willing to subpoena Chief Justice Roberts in this case, whether they feel like that might be going too far, whether they're willing to use that for leverage. Otherwise, they may look at funding measures, but certainly the ball is in Democrats' court as far as how far they're willing to go here and what steps they're willing to take, or if they're worried about any kind of backlash here.

Speaker 1: 17:48

So what ended up happening is that there's a secret recording and this was published on Monday and this recording showed the Supreme Court's Chief Justice, john Roberts, and Justice Samuel Alito's thoughts on politics and the court, with Alito's predicting no easy solution to the country's political polarization delitos. Predicting no easy solution to the country's political polarization quote. One side or the other is going to win, he said in a private conversation the supreme court historical society annual dinner on june the 3rd. The remarks were recorded by a progressive filmmaker by the name of lauren windsor, who attended the event as a member of the society under her real name Now, though, she posed as a conservative to elicit answers from the justices. The recordings were published by the Rolling Stone and Windsor's activist site, the Undercurrent. Alito appeared to embrace his role as a partisan, which liberals have accused him of being, despite the nominally non-partisan nature of the court. Now, again posing as a conservative, windsor told Alito she couldn't see herself getting along with liberals in the way that needs to happen for the polarization to end, adding that the court should be about winning. Quote. I think you're probably right. He responded On one side or the other, one side or the other is going to win. I don't know. I mean, there can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully, but it's difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that he later agreed with her sentiment that people must fight to return our country to a place of godlessness. Roberts, however, pushed back on the same sentiment when winder engaged him on similar topics. The chief justice denied that the current court is especially political, politically polarized, and he brushed off our idea that the us is inherently christian. Quote would you want me to be in charge of putting the nation on a more of a moral path? Roberts, asked Windsor after being pressed for his thoughts that's for the people we elect, that's not for lawyers are in guiding framing for the country's ideology, pointing to the perspective of his Jewish and Muslim friends. The chief justice is considered to be the most moderate of the court's five right-wing justices, while Alito is one of the most outspoken conservatives. Both were nominated by then george w bush.

Speaker 1: 20:53

Windsor told the the hill that she felt justified to record those at the meeting because the court is shrouded in secrecy and they're refusing to submit to any accountability in the face of overwhelming evidence of a serious ethics and breaches. So let me go ahead and just give you my opinion on this matter. I don't think that Justice Alito said anything inappropriate. I don't think Justice Alito said anything that is disqualifying. I don't think Justice Alito should be in the business of constantly recusing himself from cases. Now, that may be a controversial opinion, but that's just the one that I hold.

Speaker 1: 21:45

I think that a lot of times, because we have a secularized thinking of the way that we view a lot of things, we think that the court also has that same view and we like to believe that, because justice has the notion of being blind, that when people sit on the bench, that they have to somehow take away their own antidotal experiences when it comes to life. And I don't think that it is fair to always ask that of a human being who is, at the end of the day, a human being, and to be able to have the Supreme Court that has several justices. I don't think it is appropriate and are fair to try to make the justices all think in the way we would think. I think the court stands because you're getting a different perspective from every justice and because I believe in this country. I think and this may be idealism, but I think that there is a justice for every type of person in the country. I have no problem whatsoever with somebody trying to approach a question with an ontological starting point of a Christian worldview. What I think would be a problem if the Christian worldview was the only one being considered in this secular society. And if you look at the makeup of the court, I think the court rings as fair, because the Christian perspective is not the only one being considered. Sometimes the secularists are going to win, Sometimes the Christians are going to win, and that is just the nature of the country.

Speaker 1: 23:53

We all know we have friends that are Muslim, we have friends that are Christian, we have friends that are non-believers, we have friends who identify as spiritualists. I don't think that it is always the position we should take, that our view should be overarching and that no other view should have a place in a pluralistic society. I think Alito is a decent, god-fearing man. I think he respects jurisprudence. God-fearing man, I think he respects jurisprudence. I also think that he has a political belief, that we should allow him to have the same political beliefs that me and you are privy to have, and so that's my opinion on this matter, in the words that we used to say back in the 2000s I think this was a nothing burger Just because you take a job in the government does not mean you have to leave your faith at the door.

Speaker 1: 25:06

Has anybody ever told you you were over-opinionated? How about this one? You can talk about everything you'd like, but don't talk about religion, don't talk about faith, don't talk about politics. My name is Derral McLean, host of Derral McLean's show, and I want to introduce you to a show called Over-Opinionated with my friend from Southwest Virginia, josh Scott. Josh has always been told he has been over-opinionated. He always tried to hold back these opinions, but he tried to back them up when he had to say something with facts and logic. Since he's grown up in many ways, he had to change a lot of his views and his opinions, as a lot of people should. He's not a millionaire from Fox News or CNN. He's just a work, hardworking, blue collar type of guy. Give Josh Scott a shot at Overopinionated with Josh Scott. You can find him on patreoncom slash, overopinionated at 679. You can also check him out on Twitter at NRV, underscore guy 79. Overopinionated with Josh Scott.

Speaker 1: 26:23

What he is this soft-spoken guy telling you the truth. So, after I just basically talked about the court and whatever, I'm going to stick to them because they made a decision that I don't agree with, and that is the Supreme Court on today, which is Thursday, tossed out a lower court's ruling ordering Starbucks to reinstate a Memphis-based employee terminated amid a unionization drive. The decision makes it more difficult to immediately block alleged labor practices that are deemed unfair, as they are litigated in a sometimes years-long administrative process, while Justice Katonji Brown Jackson partially dissented. Now this case arose from the Memphis Seven Now, that was seven Starbucks employees who were terminated from the coffee giant in 2020 during the unionization effort. They had publicly posted a letter addressed to the company's CEO and sat down in the store with a television news crew to discuss organizing efforts. Starbucks said it lawfully terminated the employees for breaking the company's policy the day of the television interview, including by going behind the counter while off duty and unlocking a door to allow unauthorized personnel to enter the store.

Speaker 1: 28:26

Lower courts had split on the standards from when the issues the so-called injunctions, which can force the companies to reinstate employees, keeping facilities open and pause corporate policy changes as the national labor relations board the nlrb process complaints against them. The supreme court's ruling rejects a more lenient test leveraged from requiring starbucks to reinstate seven employees, instead demanding courts use a more stringent four-factor test applied in other contexts. Nothing in uh section 10 j displays the presumption that those traditional principles govern. Thomas wrote in his majority opinion, who therefore conclude that district courts must use traditional for protests when evaluating the board's request for a preliminary injunction under 10J. The NLRB only seeks the temporary injunctions in a handful of cases each year, but the ruling now raises the bar for the burden that must be cleared when going to the courts to seek an order. Jackson agreed the lower ruling should be wiped. Order Jackson agreed the lower rulings should be wiped, but dissented in part and said that the majority was ignoring the choice Congress has made when establishing the NLRB. I am low to bless this agreement on judicial power where Congress has so plain limited the discretion of the courts and where it is so clearly intends for the expert agency, as it is clear, to make the preliminary determinations about the both merits and the process. Jackson wrote in a statement.

Speaker 1: 30:17

Starbucks union called the supreme court's ruling egregious. Working people have so few tools to protect and defend themselves when their employees break the law, when their employers break the law. That makes today's ruling by the Supreme Court particularly egregious. It underscores how the economy is rigged against working people all the way up to the Supreme Court, said Lynn Fox, president of Workers United, which represents United Starbucks workers at hundreds of stores. The NLRB declined to comment on the Supreme Court's ruling, but in April its general counsel said that the differences between the tests and the terminology is not substantive and that the board has been successful using either. Starbucks said in a statement it would continue to work toward reaching and ratify contract among the ruling. So I agree with the sentiments of the union who have said and I think this is true that working people have so few tools to protect and defend themselves when their employees break the law and I think that this ruling, as they said, make it particularly difficult to continue to do so.

Speaker 1: 31:46

I think it's very um interesting that you have a donald trump running as a populist on the right who says the system is rigged and a lot of people believe him, and you have the longest serving socialist in the United States, a congressman and a senator and a mayor, bernie Sanders, who says the system is rigged and people on the left believe him. My question is what are we going to do about this thing? What are we going to do about it? You cannot have this amount of sentiment and dissatisfaction for the way the rules are applied. It is back to the same question that I asked a long time ago Is this country now the rich and the rest of us a poverty manifesto? Right back with our blast from the intellectual past, and we will see you on the next episode but it takes your action.

Speaker 4: 32:57

I agree with the seriousness, but it's going to take political effort, effective political effort within the law thank you, mr Fisher.

Speaker 5: 33:05

Now we turn to Mr Kunstler for his rebuttal argument in support of massive civil disobedience.

Speaker 6: 33:09

MR. I wish Tip O'Neill had been here so we could cross-examine him on that statement, but since he is not, I would like to, before calling my rebuttal witness, indicate that we are going to try to prove through this witness that civil disobedience is not what the others have said, but is a viable political tactic and a non-violent tactic, and to do that I would like to call Howard Zinn to the stand.

Speaker 5: 33:38

Welcome to the advocacy, Professor Zinn. Thank you, Professor.

Speaker 6: 33:42

Zinn. Howard Zinn is an historian, an old friend of mine, I believe, a client somewhere along the way, and he's been involved in civil disobedience both in the South and against the war in Vietnam. Professor Zinn, why civil disobedience today? Why not wait for what our adversary witnesses have said, the normal processes of government to catch?

Speaker 7: 34:09

up with the war in Vietnam? Why do you call him Al and me Professor Zin?

Speaker 6: 34:13

You're a client.

Speaker 7: 34:16

I was listening to the Congressman, the former Congressman, the present Congressman, the Senator, the listening to Congressman O'Neill, and they all talk as if the political process were a quite simple one, and that is that if everybody would just be nice and talk nice to your congressman, write him letters, write letters to the newspaper, sign petitions that the war in Vietnam would end, the bombers would be brought home, the GIs would be brought home and the power-hungry American military establishment would lose its hunger. That's not the way things have happened in this war and that's not the way things have happened in history. Throughout American history the political leaders have always exhorted the American people to be nice and quiet and leave things to them. But when very serious evils confronted the American people, they had to go beyond the congressmen and the senators and they had to commit civil disobedience. And they had even to break the law.

Speaker 7: 35:22

And the abolitionists had to do it. And right here in Boston they had to violate federal law by trying to bring a slave away from the federal marshals. They had to commit civil disobedience. The labor movement had to do this. They had to violate the law. They had to disrupt things. They had to do all sorts of impolite things. They had the sit-ins of sit-down strikes of 1936 and 37, and only this finally brought that modicum of justice that the labor movement demanded and the civil rights movement of 64 and 65, until blacks went out into the streets and made a commotion.

Speaker 6: 36:14

They did not do it on the basis of some polite discourse, if I can interrupt you for a minute because I want to get before we run out of time. I want to get to one point. Both Al Lowenstein, senator Hart and Tip O'Neill have made promises to us tonight. They've said if we wait and don't disrupt Congress and don't get people excited and irritated, then they will end the war in Vietnam by December. According to Mr O'Neill by some other date. Why not wait and make them live up to the promissory note? They've made the date?

Speaker 7: 36:44

Why not wait and make them live up to the promissory note they've made? We have had promissory notes from Congress for six years. For six years, Congress has promised to preserve our lives, our liberties, and have promised to defend the Constitution of the United States, which is an oath that they took. For six years, Congress violated that oath, as the President violated that oath by carrying on and acceding to a constitutional law. Mr O'Neill, who exhorts us to quietude and obeisance to law, voted for every single military appropriation bill. Of 21 military appropriation bills brought up before Congress between 1965 and 1970, he voted for every single one of them.

Speaker 7: 37:28

Now I don't think we can depend on Congress and the American political system. You know, we have been brought up to believe that the American political system works beautifully. It is democratic, Congress represents us, the president is elected, he represents us Doesn't work that way. Democracy depends on people speaking out and, in times of great crisis, on people creating a commotion. Garrison once said, when they accused him of breaking the law, of disrupting things, of antagonizing people, he said slavery, sir, will not be overthrown without excitement. All right, Mr Zinn, A tremendous excitement. Thank you, Mr Zinn. Good time.

Speaker 4: 38:15

When Garrison made that statement, as quoted by you in your book, he said we do not have public opinion on our side, so we must act Today on the issue in Vietnam. We have public opinion on our side, so we must act Today on the issue in Vietnam. We have public opinion. Just who is this organized disruptive tactic designed to influence?

Speaker 7: 38:32

The organized disruptive tactic that you keep describing as disruptive.

Speaker 7: 38:37

That's what you're talking about is designed to make people think. Who is designed to make people think? You know? It's designed to make the public think. It's designed to represent to the public the seriousness of the war. Now, if bombs were falling on Boston tonight, if they were falling on Cambridge, if they were falling all around us and if children were dying all around us, and this was being decided by people and these planes were being sent out by people sitting in City Hall and somebody said let's get everybody together and march on City Hall and stop this, what would you say? Well, how is this actually going to work? Will the members of the city council be perhaps offended by this? What I'm getting at is that there's something in your comprehension of what is going on in Vietnam which is lacking?

Speaker 5: 39:37

No, I believe.

Speaker 4: 39:38

No, that is, I'm sorry.

Speaker 7: 39:41

No, what is lacking? Is some understanding of how serious this all is.

Speaker 4: 39:46

It is exactly what Mr Zinn believed me. My belief in the seriousness is why I think that dropping bombs on Cambridge, like dropping bombs on Hanoi, is not a way of producing effective political action. We're dropping bombs every day in Vietnam, I know and you seem to think that the same strategy at home is the one to pursue.

Speaker 7: 40:01

I'm disagreeing with that, the same strategy. Yes, I'm not suggesting dropping bombs.

Speaker 4: 40:04

The United States is wrecking havoc in Hanoi and you favor wrecking havoc in Washington?

Speaker 5: 40:10

Are you equating? I don't think he's talking about dropping bombs.

Speaker 4: 40:14

No, he is talking about disrupting you believe that physical disruption is going to produce a sensible political result, or physical disruption elsewhere does not. We're disagreeing on the consequences of that and also on the cost Tell me what should those who are watching this program perhaps they're in the American Legion members, perhaps they want the president to fight on to military victory what, according to your philosophy, should they do in May?

Speaker 7: 40:39

Go down to Washington. I can't tell the people who want military victory.

Speaker 4: 40:42

You are saying act according to your conscience, will you?

Speaker 7: 40:44

let me answer the question. I can't tell the people who want military victory, which is now a minority of the American people, what to do, but that great majority of the American people who now are opposed to the war should do everything that they are impelled by their conscience to do. And you need to recognize that some people are impelled by their conscience to do. And you need to recognize that some people are impelled by their conscience to write to their congressmen. And other people are compelled by their conscience to go to Washington and to say to the people in the government offices stop, work, disobey, because the violence of our time is caused by obedience. Now let me just finish my point. What we are trying to do in Washington is not to tell everybody in the country to do exactly what we're doing. What we're trying to do in Washington is to tell people in the country that they need, in their own way, to disobey the government in every GIs, to disobey the call to war, young people to disobey the draft induction.

Speaker 4: 41:45

That's what we need. We've had examples of that George Wallace, Governor Faubus, others disobeying the law.

Speaker 7: 41:51

They would do that in any case.

Speaker 4: 41:53

They would do that in any case, they aren't stimulated by us. It's not our action that brings their action. Do you believe that might will be right? Do you believe?

Speaker 7: 42:02

are you confident? This is not might. We're talking about non-violent action Are you equating what we're doing in Washington with what?

Speaker 4: 42:08

is happening every day in Vietnam. I'm equating I am this is right against might. No, the if you right is to act within the law.

Speaker 7: 42:16

No right is not only to act within the law, no right is to act according to conscience Right An individual act of conscience to break an unjust law, as in many of the cases you're talking about.

Speaker 4: 42:27

I will refuse to obey a law to return a fugitive slave because of slavery. That individual act, the individual strikes of the students over Cambodia, which was I will not go to class, that is different than organized action. A group of us are going to get together and physically stop the government. The slogan of the May demonstration is if the government doesn't stop the war, we will stop the government. We will take the law into our hands and, whatever the consequences, we will impose those. That is the prescription which others have followed In the Weimar Republic. Hitler followed that.

Speaker 5: 42:58

A short response from Professor Zinn, and then we're going to have to close it.

Speaker 7: 43:02

A very short response. This is not the Weimar Republic. This is the United States in 1971.

Speaker 5: 43:10

It's a good time to end with Professor Zinn and I'm afraid I'm going to have to Thank you very, very much for your testimony. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 43:20

They will constantly say you are disturbing the peace, but they are lying. You are not disturbing the peace, they are upset because you are disturbing the war. This was a quote from the late World War II veteran Howard Zinn. World War II veteran Howard Zinn the violence of our time is caused by obedience, not by disobedience. As much changed. See you on the next episode.