Bridging Divides and Fighting Authoritarianism (Hour 3)

You're listening to Civic Media.

You can tune into any of our live shows on any radio station across the state with the Civic Media app.

Find us in your phone's app store and listen anytime, anywhere.

Pacific Media Radio Network.

I'm Matt Rothschild co-hosting with Angela Lange as we have been all week.

Pat's on vacation and he'll be back soon and it's been a pleasure and honor to be able to be with you and you can join this conversation 855-752-4842 that's 855-75 Civic as we're broadcasting all across the Civic Media Radio Network.

We're trying to get Dave's iron on the show and we'll keep trying

to get him on and if he doesn't come on you can just call us up and you can get on the show and talk with me and Angela about what's on your mind.

Angela was great hearing there from Representative Francesca Hong and the amazing work she's doing in the legislature and it's a different kind of concept of legislating or of being a legislator because she has one.

of being an organizer.

And Christian Phelps, who we talked to earlier this week, also had the same conception of their role.

They're in the minority.

They recognize they're in the minority.

They recognize they can't get some very well-meaning pieces of legislation passed.

And yet they're still trying to raise the important issues of the day and represent people and the needs of the people of Wisconsin.

So that's what I admire about the work that they're both doing.

I think that came across very clear in Fran's analysis and kind of how she thinks about the work and building the work.

And I always tell people, because I'm like, you know, when you do this work a long time, you know a lot of elected officials.

I may not like every single elected official that I know and have a relationship with, but I tell people that it's always very clear as a...

Dang near a lifelong organizer at this point.

It's very clear who has Like a organizing perspective and organizing background and view their role through the lens of organizing And those are the ones that I love dearly and I get along with the most and it's always very obvious How people show up and I think one of many things I love about Francesca is that she leads with like such energy

and compassion.

And you can tell it's palpable, her love for her community, her people, but like all of Wisconsin and she just wants everyone to thrive, right?

She wants everyone to be heard and her and Christian and other folks and, you know, Darren and I could name a whole group of folks that is, I think, very clear.

through their passion.

And we talked about Congressman Mark Pocan and Senator Tammy Baldwin.

This is how we need to continue to show up, especially when people feel frustrated by politicians.

As Fran said, she was like, people have no reason to trust politicians right now.

How many elected officials do you hear say that and understand that point?

And I think her heart always lies with the people, which is why I think her and some of her colleagues stand out, especially in this particular moment.

And they're not afraid to let people know what their politics are.

That's one of the great things about them.

They're right up front, for instance, with the Economic Bill of Rights that you was talking about, or the fact that they formed a Democratic Socialist Caucus there.

They're not afraid to say, this is what we stand for.

This is what our constituents' needs are, and we're going to advocate for those constituents and their needs.

You can call us Democratic Socialists if you want.

Bernie Sanders is stood by that label his whole career hasn't heard

him

one bit.

And so you got to admire that.

You got to admire the courage of their convictions and the way that they're going about being a representative.

even though they're not the majority.

Because, you know, when Representative Hong was on the first time, I asked her once, I think maybe on the Civic Media Radio Network, why in the world are you gonna do that?

You're gonna be banging your head against the wall for, you know, every minute you're in that building.

But she and Representative Phelps have a different conception, which is so interesting to see in action, isn't it?

I would argue that her colleagues need to take a cue from how these representatives are showing up, their leadership, their compassion.

And I'm gonna go as far to say, and I don't know if some folks would disagree with me or not, I would also say that there are some Democrats that could take a cue from Reps, Phelps, and Hong.

And those are just two examples that we just had on this week.

But I think that there are some other folks in the dem caucuses that could really take a cue, because I'm seeing this split, this divide in the dem party versus the more moderate type folks and the socialists are progressives.

And it's really just about showing up for people.

I think some folks are frustrated at Democrats because they're not seeing that happen.

And so, yes, Republicans can take a cue, but I would also say that even some Democrats in the state, some of her own colleagues should be taking a cue of how folks are moving and uplifting these issues and centering people right now.

Yeah, and we need our elected officials, our Democrats, to be more outspoken.

We saw that with Representative Boken and Senator Baldwin going after RFK Jr.

yesterday, and we played part of that in the first hour and how refreshing it was to hear our own Congress people really putting it to them.

Yeah, we have models we have model, you know, this is what bothers me sometimes when people say all Politicians are horrible.

I love represent Francesca Hong.

I think she's doing a great job So when you say all politicians are horrible.

What are you really talking about?

I love the work that representative Mark Pokan does I love his outspokenness for instance on the issue of Gaza He's been

one of the

most outspoken Representatives in Congress on the atrocities that the Israeli government's been doing in Gaza and so

Yeah, I don't like those generalizations and I think they are kind of destructive of our of a democratic politics small d because once you say, you know all or once you agree with the generalization that all politicians are acts I mean, it's gonna, you know, there's gonna be so much cynicism about Politics period that we're not gonna make the change that we need to and we do have good representatives here in Wisconsin

And we interviewed two in the past couple of days, and we played excerpts from two other good representatives today in Congress.

So, yeah, that's just, of course, and as an old editor, I hate generalizations.

I hate categorical statements like all,

any

statement that starts with all things is gonna be, is almost guaranteed to be a falsehood and easily rebuttable.

And so why would you wanna say something that is so easily?

proven to be not true.

And so that's just, you know, it's kind of a sloppy way to talk or a sloppy way to write.

that we try to correct as editors or as people who are careful with language.

You can join the conversation, 855-752-4842.

Tony Zimmerman has joined the conversation through texting saying, did Senator Marklein have a nanny?

He didn't like growing up, so now he's gutting childcare for everyone.

And he also loved Representative Francesca Hong.

She just flat out called Republicans at the State House cowards, Tony Zimmerman says.

So you two can... More of

that.

Yeah, weigh in.

Yeah, I like the frankness about that.

And yeah, they're cowards because they don't want to buck Speaker Voss, King Voss as they call them in the Capitol.

And in part because of the campaign finance rewrite that they did themselves in 2015 to give

people who are in positions of authority in the capital to have more and more power from getting money from the super rich and the corporations and then they can just hold it over people's heads like a sword and make people jump when they say jump.

I mean it's always been clear that

Republicans, one, don't want to listen to anyone that is outside of their own agenda.

And I think Robin Boss is a shining example of that.

As we mentioned, right?

He is able to, he's effective in the fact that he's able to unite his party and anyone that even steps half a centimeter outside of the line, there is talk of a primary challenge or any type of retaliation.

And I say that, that's effective.

I don't like it.

but it's effective.

And it's clear that we, if there is this level of disregard for the will of the people, and I think we can say this on a broad level, like we need more folks to call it out.

I think that's also been a theme today with even Pastor Lanier of like, even interpersonally, those jokes, we can't let slide, those offensive comments, we can't let slide.

Republicans not listening to the will of the people should not also let that slide.

And I understand,

Especially you know under you know terrible gerrymandered maps it felt like you were hitting your head against a wall because you're like I'm organizing I have more people than they do

But because they had the maps drawn the way that they did, they didn't need to listen to that.

And I think at some point, and we're seeing it now, people are only going to accept certain things before people start to say, no, this is wrong.

And I think folks like Rep Hong being able to bring people together and have people not feel so alone, especially in rural communities as well, saying, hey, I hear you.

There are some folks in Milwaukee that feel similarly.

I think she's trying to bridge these divides and really bring that people power out because especially in this political landscape, it is very lonely, scary, and isolating if you are the only one challenging the status quo, knowing potentially the consequences of what could happen these days.

People basically kidnapped off the street.

But when you're building strength in numbers, and I learned this through union organizing, is that it's a lot harder to retaliate against 30, 40 people

all saying the same thing and you're outnumbered and I feel like that's something that she's also trying to do and I appreciate her being so candid and honest and we need more of that so the burden doesn't always constantly fall on her.

I think that's what she was referencing when she said you know we've got to do this politics even though the fashions are at our doors and that was kind of a stark way of putting it and I wanted to ask her a little bit more on that because

You know, that's the situation we're in here in our democracy.

We had Jeff Mandela's law forward talking about it.

You and I have been talking about it all week.

I mean, this is the question before us, you know, is our democracy going to survive if Trump keeps going in the direction he's going, which is an authoritarian direction.

We talked about it with Jeff Mandela about whether Trump is going to completely ignore U.S.

Supreme Court rulings or other federal judge rulings.

And he's, to my mind, done it already.

And so, you know, we're rapidly going down that hill.

And yet you have, you know, Francesca Hong making the point that, you know, we've got to stand up and fight against the fascists at our door and work on telling people what a different agenda would be.

an agenda that actually would help people in their day to day.

I'm reminded of the comment that Bill Fletcher Jr.

made on our show with us earlier in the week that

Capitalism has failed people, and they're suffering in their day-to-day lives, but rather than having that economic situation improved, rather than looking at who is making out like bandits and running our economy that's making you not be able to pay rent or pay your insurance or pay your car insurance or whatever, they're blaming immigrants.

They're scapegoating

again, which

is just the traditional authoritarian fascist move, but that's the situation.

And that's why Francesca Hong's economic bill of rights is so important because

Here's a different way we can solve your problems.

Rather than scapegoating, we can actually address your day-to-day concerns so that you're gonna be able to have healthcare.

You're gonna be able to have childcare.

You're gonna have a decent living wage.

And that's what's gonna come out of this.

Are we gonna go in that direction with Francesca Hong and the Economic Bill of Rights?

Are we gonna continue to go down this steep hill with Donald Trump and authoritarianism?

Yeah, I mean and I think you know I could just keep really focusing about how like the people power right in all aspects What does that look like to come together to build to think inward but you know

Thinking about the hope that Pastor Lanier had kind of left us with is that we've been through things like this before as, you know, communities, you know, it's in our DNA in some ways, even though I maybe personally haven't experienced it before.

It's still something that I think is hopeful when we all come together.

And I like what he said, you know, we've been here before with less resources.

I mean, we have the ability to organize.

We have the ability to communicate.

We have

the ability to get together and express ourselves in ways that we didn't have before.

So that was the great message from Pastor Lanier.

And we'll be right back here on Mornings with Pat Tritlow.

I'm Matt Rothschild.

She's Angela Lang.

We're co-hosting the show.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.

Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.

Hey, welcome back to mornings with Pat Krightlow all across the Civic Media Radio Network.

I'm Matt Rothschild, host with Angela Lang.

And as promised, we do have Dave Zirin here as a guest.

Dave is the sports columnist for the Progressive in the Nation and runs the podcast Edge of Sports.

He is a tremendous political sports columnist, the best in the country.

He's been also leading the fight on social media against Trump and fascism, to my mind, really indispensable stuff.

Dave Zirin, welcome to the show.

Great to be here, and I come with very happy news.

I know these are incredibly difficult times, but I'm going to say something that I know is going to mean a lot to Matt.

I think, I don't know, I'm going to assume it's going to mean a lot to you, Angela, even though we're new friends.

And that's, I just finished the first draft of my first non-sports book.

And it's my 12th book and it is a biography of the historian Howard Zinn.

It's the first time I've ever stepped outside the sports realm to write a book.

And I'm only sharing that with you because I think the politics of Howard Zinn, the author of a People's History of the United States who passed away in 2010, who Trump.

does speeches about on the White House lawn as a symbol of everything that's wrong with our education system.

And of course, he talks about Howard like he's still alive.

The way, remember, he used to talk about Frederick Douglass.

He's doing great work.

I mean, we overestimate this man's intelligence and cunning at times.

I'm just going to say that.

But it's just to say that I think the kind of political grounded optimism.

that Howard Zinn represented.

He wasn't a pie-in-the-sky guy.

He looked at the facts.

But his starting point was always not who was in the White House, as he liked to say.

It's not who's sitting in the White House, it's who's sitting in.

Now, it's not to say that he thought who was in the White House was irrelevant.

But his starting point for understanding the world was always struggle, was always how are people organizing themselves and what is the potential?

of that kind of organization because he saw gold dust in every march in every sit-in in every demonstration he knew that not everyone would lead to a mass movement but he also knew that that's how mass movements start so I just wanted to share that with you all because these are very difficult times I'm not saying the good news is that I wrote a book that would be very sad but I am saying that

there are politics out there that we can turn to even in the most difficult times that I do think show a path out of this morass.

Dave's iron thanks and congratulations on getting that first draft done I've written a couple books myself books are hard to write they're long and arduous and you know I like instant gratification that's why I used to like

writing op-eds, which I could do in about an hour and a half.

My book

is a whole

different ball-o-axe.

And Howard Zinn is a

really important voice to lift up.

Of course, as you mentioned, Trump wants Howard Zinn in a people's history of the United States banned from every college and high school in the country.

The great sin of Howard Zinn, and I say this as someone who's married to a high school history teacher, the great sin of Howard in the eyes of these folks is that young people

young people who are alienated from history, young people who do not like school, young people love Howard's Inn.

And

you hear this from teacher after teacher, whether they're left wing, right wing.

I've spoke to right wing teachers who were like, yeah, this is the only thing I can get my kids to read

because

it captures people.

And if there's one thing that this government, this regime,

wants more than anything.

It's historical ignorance.

And I don't have to preach chapter and verse to your listeners about this from the books being taken out of the libraries to the attacks on higher education.

To what is and isn't being allowed to read you can read books about the nazi party in our libraries You can read mine conf but don't try to read about rosa parks i mean The it's it's the educational equivalent of letting all the africaners into the country While you hold off on people who are Not uh, i don't know white supremacists i mean it's it's part of an agenda of accepting what?

In the past, we would have found unacceptable and trying to normalize a whole period of history that we thought we had gotten over.

And the only way you can really do that is by making people ignorant of the history itself, ignorant of injustice, ignorant that every good thing that we, and by we, I mean working people, black, white, brown, the good things that we have in this country had to be fought for.

And that's exactly what they don't want us to know or think about or generalize from.

So in that regard, it was an honor to write the book.

The hope is that people will read it.

I know big shock because I do think that there is a politic there that we desperately need right now.

And what Trump is doing with education, I just want to alert.

the listener, that the term you're going to hear is patriotic education.

That is the term they use.

We need patriotic education.

But what they mean by patriotic education is a literal whitewashing of our history.

And we can't let them sneak that phrase into the

lexicon or down our throats for that matter or down our kids throats in high school and college.

We need people to be

able

to access Howard's Inn and a People's History of the United States and a whole bunch of other, you know, radical pro-democracy literature in history and politics that is out there to be studied and learned from.

Very well put.

Absolutely.

Malcolm X said that there is no

Area of study more rewarding or more important than that of history and when you think of the denigration of history In partly because you know, they don't do it in standardized tests history is not a part of that and so some of that is people have to understand that the teaching to the test mentality in too many public schools really has a nefarious underpinning about

Issues like IQ and racial bias and frankly eugenics are even people please understand I'm not a conspiracy theory on this the creators of the SAT for example IQ tests Very influenced by eugenics.

So then represent the counter to that.

I'll just leave it there

Please hang on after the break.

We'd love to have you on for a few more minutes Dave's iron is with us on mornings with Pat Crite low on the civic media radio network We'll be right back

Hey, welcome back to Mornings with Pat Crite Low, all across the Civic Media Radio Network.

I'm Matt Rothschild joined by Angela Lange.

We've been co-hosting all week and enjoying it more than we should have probably.

Phone number 855-752-4842 for your calls or texts.

And we have Dave Zyron with us for just a few more minutes.

He's the sports columnist at The Nation and The Progressive and runs the podcast Edge of Sports.

Dave, you just wrote something for the nation about Pete Rose.

Talk to us about that.

Yeah, Pete Rose, who passed away in August at age 83, has been taken off the Major League Baseball disciplinary list, which sounds a lot like Animal House's double secret probation.

And he is now eligible, the all-time hit leader in Major League Baseball history.

He is eligible for

The Hall of Fame.

Now, this is something that I've been writing about for decades, because I've been of the belief of, well, of course he belongs in the Hall of Fame.

He may be a miscreant.

He may have a horrible, like, revolting personal life, but he may have gambled on baseball, but he is the hit leader.

And if we're really going to go over the moral failings of everybody in the Hall of Fame, there are a couple of Ku Klux Klaners you might want to kick out of there too.

So that has always been my perspective.

But there's such a thing as doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.

And let's be clear right now.

We have to be clear about this.

No matter whether we think Pete Rose in the abstract deserves to be in the Hall of Fame or not, we need to be clear about a couple of things.

The first is...

is that Pete Rose primarily is being put in the hall of fame after his death because he now serves in death as a symbol for what major league baseball wants.

And that's the whole scale takeover of the legal gambling industry of baseball.

And anybody who's watched a game knows exactly what I'm talking about.

They're in six different partnerships with different

now legalized gambling corporations, and they see this as their way to replace an aging fan base with young people, because they do have an aging fan base.

But instead of trying to figure it out by, say, funding youth baseball programs in our cities, instead, what they're doing is investing time, energy, and funds in building partnerships with these gambling corporations.

They want

Young people to grow up to be bookies not grow up to be major league baseball players They see the future Around this kind of activity now the problem with this is that it is utterly morally bereft if anybody who's read the study Knows as I have read the studies is that young people can't handle gambling forget about the financial risks We're talking frontal lobe of the brain

We're talking decision-making.

We're talking impulse control.

The gambling hotlines since the legalization took place a few years back and the apps exploded.

The gambling hotlines are just exploding with young people who are in desperate straits.

And Major League Baseball, that used to be their one ironclad principle.

No gambling on the games.

Why are they dispensing with this principle?

One reason, of course, as I said, is gambling.

It's also because Donald Trump lobbied for it.

And we need to look at that in this context as well.

Because Pete Rose, I'm just going to say it right now, is a sexual criminal.

I mean, the evidence of Pete Rose and statutory rape is all over the place.

It was something he denied.

And let me just tell you, his denial was saying, no, she just turned 16.

And that's what I always kept my eye on as to the age of consent in Ohio.

So, you know, we're talking about, he's making this excuse about relationships when he was in his like 30s.

So this is not a good person, but guess what?

Donald Trump is also an alleged statutory rapist.

And there is this thing about Trump, and we've seen this over and over again, where he wants both opponents and fellow Republicans.

to wallow in his own moral degeneracy.

Because what that does is it then makes them complicit in that degeneracy.

And then once you are complicit, you have no choice but to defend him and be on his side because it's about defending yourself.

It's an old trick.

You know the expression, if you roll around in the mud with the pig, guess what?

You're both muddy.

And so when you have a situation,

Like Mike Johnson yesterday being asked what he thinks about the Qatari jet and him saying, oh, I'm gonna stay in my lane.

That's that's why I was his line I'm gonna stay in my lane comment on it.

It's like hello the issue of a movements, forgive my pronunciation is actually the issue of the Congress.

So what he's doing is actually renouncing

his oversight over whether or not the president can receive a $400 million jet from a government that's utterly hostile to democracy and the rights of marginalized people across the board.

But they have money.

Ooh, do they have money?

So this is the problem in which we live, the Pete Rose thing.

So now everybody who celebrates Pete Rose and they're doing a celebration in Cincinnati,

Well, then you become complicit to who this person is.

And everybody gets to be a degenerate together, and then nobody has the moral high ground to ever criticize Trump.

That's his strategy anyway.

A lot of people are pushing back against Rose because of, you know, this is, you know, maybe it is the right thing for him being in the hall.

It's utterly, utterly for the wrong reasons.

And that's the part of it that we actually need to address.

Dave, we're speaking with Dave Ziren.

You know, Trump is enuring us to degeneracy, to corruption.

I read something earlier this morning on the air from Ruth Ben-Ghiat talking about corruption is a central element of authoritarianism.

You know,

it's a way to corrupt people into obeying with you and then just to, you know, take the whole thing down with you and that's what Trump is doing.

And so just briefly, I only have about a minute or two left with you, Dave.

Talk about the resistance.

You've mentioned it briefly.

I want you to expand a little on

it.

Well, I mean, I can only speak, and I think everybody, frankly, should have this approach, is I can only speak about what's 10 feet in front of my face with authority.

And I think if all of us were looking for ways to resist the administration, not by looking at global dynamics, not by looking at

the great political fights that are facing this country.

But looking at the way those fights, whether it's around Palestine or healthcare or education, is to look 10 feet in front of our face, try to find who is organizing in our community, in the community where you live, and practice solidarity with those people.

I think it's so easy to be overwhelmed, and of course, we know that that's part of their strategy.

You flood the zone with crisis.

people don't know where to start.

Quick example, talking to my neighbor and she was out doing an ice watch trying to see like when, because ice has been coming into our community.

And so she was alerting people, immigrant organizations when ice was coming in.

She said, you should come with me.

I said, oh, but it's the one year anniversary since the encampments.

were violently removed from the universities, so there's going to be a rally about that.

So I'm going to that.

And she said to me, oh, I'm so upset I can't be there.

I feel like such like I'm not doing my part.

And I said to her, you're about to go out and spy on ice.

You're doing your part.

But I think sometimes people can feel that way, that because there's so much, you actually feel inadequate to the tasks.

And that's just human.

And frankly, it's the human, it's the best human part of us.

And I would just argue that people got to look in front of their face, see what's there and work on that and then see what you can work from that.

Because otherwise I fear that we get caught in analysis paralysis.

Dave's iron.

Great advice.

Thanks for being our guest.

We all need to do our part where we are.

Do your part where you're at.

Join a group that's standing up to Trump's authoritarianism, whether it's attacking immigrants or whether it's education policy, whatever it is, stand up to it.

We need everyone to stand up.

Dave Siren, thanks so much, my friend.

Thank you.

And just real quick, media blackouts aside, I promise you, there is activism happening in your area because it is happening everywhere right now.

You got to find it.

because the media, not y'all, but we know what I'm talking about.

The corporate media is not going to do that job for you.

They're not a movement job placement organization.

Yeah, we'll try to be

all.

Yeah, we try on civic media to alert people to protests that are going on in the state right here.

So take care, Dave.

We'll be in touch.

Thank

you.

Great.

Great to meet you,

Angela.

You too.

Now we're joined by Nick Ramos, who is the executive director of the Wisconsin democracy campaign full disclosure.

I used to have that job.

Nick Ramos.

Thanks for joining us.

Good

morning.

Good morning to you.

It's a great day, man.

It's great to Angela.

You guys doing,

you know, best as we can, hanging out, talking to you.

Nick, it's a big day for you in the Wisconsin democracy campaign.

Let our listeners know.

Yeah.

Well.

It's a big day because the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign turns 30 today, which 30 years ago, my God, 1995, what a time to be alive.

I mean, we had Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on TV, anyways.

So at all seriousness, gang, I mean, to watch any organization be able to celebrate

10 years, 20 years, 30 years of existence.

It really is a testament to the work product but also the people that believe in the thing.

And like in 30 years we've had four executive directors and it's crazy to think that on this call we have two of them sitting here right now.

But, you know, we've just been trying to do all the great work and coalition and with the grassroots folks across Wisconsin around money and politics around, you know, trying to end partisan gerrymandering once and for all to actually have a government that works for the people instead of, you know, the most wealthiest amongst us.

And so we get to celebrate 30 years of highs, 30 years of lows, but

really thinking about how we can celebrate another 30 year birthday and 60 years.

And so we're just doing everything we can to show all the love to the supporters, but all the great work that we've been able to do together as one.

And so I'm so excited.

And where is the event happening?

What time?

So we are going to be at the prestigious Eastside Club in Madison and I say that you know sarcastically but like Eastside Club does have some history and the music there is bumping and we wanted it to be in a place that felt comfortable because this is gonna be you know you see all these gallows that happen and the

Non-profit world or like in like the voting rights base and no shade on any of that stuff But like gala's can feel kind of stuffy tight, but so this is more about like the people's gala.

It's about coming as you are It's about just wanting to be in community with folks and so we're gonna be kicking that that puppy off tonight I believe at six o'clock

Um, and so we, I think we're a capacity gig, but you know, we're not going to turn away people.

If you show up like, you know, you are more than welcome to be in community with all of us, but it's going to be happening crowd.

And we got some civic media folks.

I believe Dan Schaefer is going to be co-hosting.

We also, we have Kristen Brie, um, you know, a staple and a just delight to be around here in Wisconsin.

And so a lot of fun and a lot of things you haven't seen from this organization.

Shout out to Dan.

Yeah, yeah, it's great.

Dan Schaffer is gonna be there and Kristen's a real treat as well.

Angela Lange and I are gonna be there.

Oh my god.

Yeah, it's gonna be a fun little party.

So that's the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign celebrating 30 years.

It's done more than I think any other organization in the state to fight for campaign finance reform and to ban gerrymandering.

Nick Ramos, congratulations and we'll be seeing you later tonight.

I can't wait to see you guys.

Yes, congrats.

We'll be right back on the morning to the Pat Crite low.

I've got a poem and a bird song for you.

You're listening to civic media.

Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

Welcome back to Mornings with Pat Trilow, across the Civic Media Radio Network.

I'm Matt Rothschild.

Angela Lang and I have been hosting the Pat Tritlow show for the last four days, really enjoying the opportunity to do this.

I want to thank Pat for allowing us to do it and the other folks at Civic Media having confidence in our ability to carry it off.

I hope we've carried it off.

It's been quite a week, Angela.

It has, and I'm just so grateful to be able to, one, share this experience with you because we always have a good time, but, you know, also be able to have a platform to dig into some of these issues and just

deeply, deeply honored for the folks at Civic Media.

And I said this to Jane, I was like, it's a big responsibility to feel that you're entrusting us with your show for a few days.

And I don't take that lightly.

And I think, you know, all of the listeners and looking forward to the next time.

Yeah, likewise, me too.

I want to thank all our guests we've had on this week, but especially the guests today and in this packed morning that we had Pastor Lanier and Jeff Mandel and Representative Francesca Hong and Dave Zyron and Nick Ramos.

It was great listening to all of them.

They all had great things to offer.

Well, I want to thank Greg Bach and Sam Davison, our great producers who've helped us along and terrific always working with you, Angela.

kind of do it without you.

So every time I get a call, I give you a call.

And it's, it's just great fun to be able to work with you.

It's kind of an it seems so easy and natural as a pairing.

You know, in the last segment of every show, I tried to bring some beauty through a bird song and poetry.

So yesterday, I was describing a red eyed virial and the hunt I had for it up north and

Bark Point one day when I was looking for this bird at the top of the trees that would never move and finally I found it was singing this beautiful song and Sam's gonna play that song for us right now.

Isn't

that great?

It just goes on and on too.

I feel like at one point I heard tweet tweet.

Yeah it's just 30 seconds and it's one of the most notable songs in the summer because birds sing in the springtime.

They give their spring song for mating purposes and territory purposes.

This bird will sing all summer long.

I mean, it's just a crazy thing.

And it's a hard bird to see.

It's not the most beautiful bird in the whole world, but it's got a really beautiful song.

That's the red-eyed Vario.

You can see it all over Wisconsin, really, and that's all over the state, but especially up north.

So keep your eye out for that.

And then as far as poetry, I was thinking of which poem to end with.

And then I remembered the conversation we had yesterday with Brittany Merlowe, the prize-winning meteorologist of civic media, who warns us that there may be hail today.

Hail could be the size of a tennis ball even in some places, which is frightening, and it'll do damage to your windshield, do damage to your windows, do damage to your roof.

So I stumbled upon a poem called Hale Stones by Seamus Haney, the great Irish poet who died a few years ago, who was famous for the line.

Every once in every lifetime, a tidal wave of justice rises up and open history rhyme, which

is

just a great stands of their hope and history rhyme.

I want each of us to think of when has hope and history rhymed in our lifetime.

Maybe when Nelson Mandela came out of jail, maybe when Barack Obama was arrested, when Barack Obama became president.

Maybe whole there is a crazy slip.

Maybe when

I felt a little bit that way when Tammy won the first time.

Yeah.

You know, these were kind of historical events, but hope and history rhyme.

They're not rhyming right now.

They're clanging.

So, but there are times and this is, you know, Pastor Linear reminded us there are times, you know, when things get better.

So here's the first couple of stanzas of a poem called Hailstones by Seamus Haney.

My cheek was hit and hit.

sudden hailstones pelted and bounced on the road.

When it cleared again, something whipped and knowledgeable had withdrawn and left me there with my chances.

I made a small hard ball of burning water running from my hand, just as I make this now out of the melt of the real thing, smarting into its absence.

I just love that.

I love Seamus Haney.

And you know,

It raises the question, what are the things that get us through really difficult periods?

And for me, it's poetry.

For me, it's birds.

For me, it's my wife Jean and our friends.

And for me, it's also participating in protests like Dave's Irons said.

I went to a couple.

anti-Trump protests, immigrant rights protests.

I know there are great protests going on right now in Milwaukee in support of Judge Dugan.

He's right.

We need to join these efforts wherever we are or join an effort that your religious group may be doing to help out immigrants in your community or help out child care centers, for instance.

You know, we need to demand of our elected officials that we get the help that we need, but the way we get the help that we need is through a collective action, through protest in the streets.

That's what

Howard Zinn taught us, and Dave Sartons just coming out with a book on Howard Zinn.

And I know, Angelo, that's what you've been doing as an organizer your whole adult life here.

I mean, we really need to do the activism, because it's the activism that's going to save our democracy.

Angelo, what's your last thought here?

I think, yeah, what I'll say too is that, you know,

hand-in-hand with activism is the education.

And I think sometimes people are like, I don't know how to get active or I don't know much about the issue.

That's okay.

We all didn't come into this movement having the views that we hold now.

Everyone starts somewhere.

Just take that time to dig deep, to educate yourself, to talk to folks that are directly impacted by these issues and get different perspectives.

So I think now is the time for all of us to be a little uncomfortable, to grow and to learn.

And then we can show up as well too.

And we can do more education too here on Civic Media.

And you can get that.

And entertainment coming up next with Matt and Aaron Ayer.

You got Jane Matt and Aaron, the great Greg Bach.

So stay tuned for that.

And thanks again for allowing Angela and me to be with you these last four mornings.

It's been our pleasure, our privilege.

Thank you.

The national news cycle never stops, but it can be hard to find news about your local community.

Civic Media is dedicated to providing quality local and state news coverage across Wisconsin.

With the Civic Media app, you can get notifications about local stories that matter to you and your community.

Find the free Civic Media app in your phone's app store and choose notifications from the menu to tell us what kind of news you want to hear about.