Left Face
Join Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson while they talk politics and community engagement.
Left Face
Empowering Veterans and Balancing Corporate Responsibility vs Public Safety
Discover how Syracuse University is making a difference for veterans as Adam and Dick share their journeys through the Veterans Program for Politics and Civic Engagement. With insights from a non-partisan curriculum and a diverse lineup of guest speakers, Adam brings to light the unique benefits and accessibility of these programs. This episode also uncovers the contrasting fundraising strategies between Democratic grassroots movements and the more centralized Republican tactics, providing a nuanced look at how these approaches influence political engagement and outreach.
We then shift focus to the financial machinery driving today's political campaigns, dissecting the transparent, decentralized funding of Democratic efforts versus the opaque, centralized support for Donald Trump. The episode scrutinizes recent legislative changes in states like Georgia and Montana, delving into their potential impact on election integrity and the broader implications for democracy. The critical analysis extends to the timing and execution of these reforms amidst ongoing election cycles, raising important questions about the future of political processes.
Lastly, we confront the pressing issue of America's failing infrastructure, using recent train car leaks in Ohio as a lens to explore broader systemic challenges. This segment draws parallels to the New Deal era, emphasizing the necessity of significant investment in infrastructure and the obstacles posed by privatized systems. We delve into the complex interplay of government policy, corporate responsibility, and public safety, calling for strategic governance and long-term planning. This episode serves as a compelling call to action for greater awareness and advocacy in tackling these urgent national issues.
www.EPCCPV.org or info@epccpv.org
Hello everyone, you are listening to Left Face. My name is Dick Wilkinson and I'm joined today with my co-host, Adam Gillard. Hey Adam, how's it going? Hey Dick, how you doing, buddy, I'm doing great, Excited to be back and have another episode with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we got some good topics to talk about today.
Speaker 1:So one thing that we're going to kick off with today is the programs that are associated with Syracuse University and how they are aligned with veteran needs and the folks that are transitioning out of the military, how they can access those resources and just what's out there. Adam and I are both alumni of these programs and we find ourselves making references and, you know, kind of giving people advice to look into them. So we're going to discuss our experiences with Syracuse and hopefully encourage any of our listeners to check it out and take advantage of these resources. So, Adam, let me start with you. You are currently enrolled in a program at Syracuse Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to make that correction.
Speaker 1:I'm not an alumni yet they could still kick me out Currently enrolled.
Speaker 2:Fair, I'm not an alumni yet they could still kick me out Currently enrolled, fair yeah, so we're about three weeks in right now and it's called the Veterans Program for Politics and Civic Engagement, so it's just really focused on any veteran that's interested in getting involved in the civics world and it's been really cool. Last week we had a, a tea party, like an old tea party candidate in there, running from you know another state, a state Senate city, I think it was. He was sitting in, but he was an old tea party candidate and then they had, you know, a more progressive like a Democrat.
Speaker 2:You know, so you hear the whole spectrum of folks talking and things like that, which is great to break out and actually not just hear, because it's not so much about policy, it's about the process to get into politics and things like that, and the process is obviously going to be pretty similar on both sides. That's true. Except it's way easier to raise money. As a Republican, I agree to raise money.
Speaker 1:as a Republican, I agree. You know the one one thing that I've told folks. I say you know easier, I don't know. Asking anybody for almost any amount of money is hard. But I do agree that the you know financial landscape is a little bit different in that the democratic side of the house, we pride ourselves on this grassroots aspect of fundraising and small dollar donors because it means that we're we got buy-in for more voters right, we like the population of donations right, whereas on the Republican side of the house it's a little bit different game. If you can find 10 people to max out their donation to you, that's the same as maybe a couple thousand people giving you small dollar donations, and so 10 phone calls versus a couple hundred, a couple thousand. There's a lot of opportunities to get more money with less time committed, I guess.
Speaker 2:Because then you can spend that time out in the communities and actually spreading your message. It's just what everybody's trying to do is get their message spread, so the less time you're on those, phone calls asking, asking for money. You know you're out there doing the other work.
Speaker 1:So in the program you mentioned that it's not, there's no partisan affiliation one way or the other. Out of my own curiosity I don't. In my cohort I did the same program for our listeners a couple of years ago, actually during the pandemic. So it was all remote but we did not have any third party affiliated folks. I was probably the closest to that. Is there anybody in your group right now that is just unaffiliated or affiliated with some kind of lesser known party or anything like that?
Speaker 2:You know we haven't really talked that personally, you know, with each other yet, okay, it's been a lot of, you know, representatives, like elected officials, coming in and talking to us right now. But you know, and the questions that are asked out there, I haven't heard any libertarian views. It's always been that people talk about like support from their party and stuff like that. Yeah, and if you're a third party like you don't, really I think you would have figured it out in the first couple of weeks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, their language around a few things would have just been different, and it gives it away.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Fair. Um, so you've got the visiting uh lecturers that come in. I know from my experience there was a lot of exposure to different levels of office, right, not just with the lecturers but all the people in the cohort. We had county commission to Congress, to school board, right. So do you have that kind of same mixed bag of what people are interested in?
Speaker 2:doing. Yeah, so far we've had state representatives, state senators, a mayor, so big city mayor, yeah, um. So yeah, we've, we've had kind of a that spectrum so far, um, and then some really interesting uh professors, like the Syracuse professors, I think, like they wake up thinking about this stuff.
Speaker 1:They do. You know what I?
Speaker 2:mean so. So, like, like it's funny Cause like just just hear, I made the, uh, the, the picture in my mind the other day of like Socrates sitting around the table like an amphitheater and just talking about things, and like I see these folks doing that. Where they're, they're they're just talking about, like what it means for our society, the choices that we're making and things like that on a deep level, you know, and the profound impacts and like they, they really look at these things at a different level and it's cool, esoteric.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, I agree, and I can actually picture a couple of the folks that I'm sure still part of the staff there. So maybe in the future we'll ask one of them to participate in the podcast. That'd be really great to hear about just their own experience of being a staff member and the exposure to all the cohorts. And of course, people go on to win races, right. So then there's this feedback loop of veterans coming back to help other veterans. I think that's one thing about the Syracuse program, that it's what makes it work right of all these different offerings. So we've been talking about the political one. I know there are other ones, though Syracuse for veterans have always been and this is what was eye-opening to me they've been kind of the leader for veteran training, especially around businesses or skills development. Have you had any exposure to any of those other programs at Syracuse?
Speaker 2:I haven't. This is my first exposure going through Syracuse and so far everything's been pretty great. One of the representatives gave us I'm going to try and quickly look up a note here common defense training, so commondefenseus is another political form of training and stuff like that we got from that Syracuse. You know so when you're going there you're getting so many other resources to spread. Have you done anything else there?
Speaker 1:I'm familiar with. There is another program and this is one that I think our listeners will be interested in. It's called onward to opportunity. So, oh, the number two and oh, you'll see it written in like a little kind of a scripted format.
Speaker 1:Um, the O2O is job training for folks that are transitioning, but also for, you know, military and their family members later on in life At any point in time afterwards. You've got that credential for a long time of being a veteran. You know the rest of your life, you've got that status. So being able to apply for programs there and not have to burn any of your GI bill cause these are short, little kind of certificate programs and usually you know you're not. It could be worth credits, but it's not degree forming, you know training. It's professional development training. Right now the big focus, of course, is the job market needs cybersecurity professionals or IT professionals. So Onward to Opportunity is a program that gets veterans and military members access to pipelines where they can get into those jobs and training along the way. So they have offices at different bases all around the United States. I looked up the page yesterday of where all the O2O locations are. There was probably 30 locations on that list. So there's no shortage of in-person um coordinators, like locally in the United.
Speaker 2:States yeah.
Speaker 1:So different military bases, um, there is one here at Fort Carson and that covers, of course, the whole region, right? So the Fort Carson office um open last year uh, I believe a little over a year ago and they provide training and direct services for, like, looking for jobs. And there's, of course, partners that come in from the other side and say okay, syracuse, you know, we, we trust that you're working with veterans and you have a great group of candidates. So if you're putting them through training, we want, we want access to that pipeline. So it serves both ends.
Speaker 2:I think something else you kind of jogged me on here is that this is no cost to me at all.
Speaker 2:So having the state representatives talking to us, the senators, reps, these high-profile mayors, things like that, getting access to people who have already walked this path, and they're being brutally honest, they're like, yeah, it's good. Yeah, and one's even like, yeah, I'm quitting Cause it's kind of BS, Like you know. So. So like you know, you'll hear the good, the bad and the ugly out of these folks. So like I think it's really kind of refreshing to be in a, a class where the goal isn't to just, you know, check a box and like, meet the rubric. You know, like normal classes, like in this class it's literally I was just sitting down and learning firsthand experience from people you know. So so far I really enjoy it, and then they're going to make us do stuff.
Speaker 1:There's still stuff to do.
Speaker 2:There's still stuff to do, so I just sit down and you have to record a stump speech. Yeah, that's the next big thing that I have to do.
Speaker 1:I remember doing mine. I just saw it a couple months ago For a frame of reference. There was a political consulting group that I had joined for a little bit of time to get consulting services $300 a week and that was a one-hour coaching session and then a one-hour group session. So there's two hours a week, so $150 an hour. Uh, and of course that was on a monthly bill that wasn't intended to last throughout your campaign or for a good, significant portion of your campaign. So you're talking 1200 bucks a month, which again in the consulting world is not that expensive. But if you're, the level of and quality of training here exceeds that and it's free. So yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's, that's cool having that reference. Yeah, so you know just something to to kind of put a little bit of placeholder on the value easily 1500 bucks a month worth of you know value there, if not more, uh, because you're getting more contact time and, honestly, people like you said that have been through it and are currently in office, so that that's more than 150 bucks an hour to get that kind of training.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's funny just hearing their their tones, because that, you know, it's a pretty relaxed setting because it's just, you know, 15, 20 vets I'm not sure how many people are logged on last night but uh, and so it's a pretty relaxed situation for for these folks and they can, you know, really speak freely and, like you know, it's fun to hear.
Speaker 2:They're not in front of cameras and in front of microphones, like as far as the public is listening to this they understand it's not a private conversation but it's not a media outlet, it's not somebody trying to, you know, have a gotcha moment.
Speaker 1:Yes, you know um, speaking of media outlets, you mentioned something earlier about, uh, something you got out of the class that was an exposure to how um, media campaigns and social media and politics kind of influence and work together. Uh, tell me a little bit more about that, like what'd you learn?
Speaker 2:there. So one of the things that they showed us was, uh, like a spider web graph, um, of both campaigns right now. Uh, you know, and the donations that they're receiving coming in. And you know, the democrat side had a bunch of you know big donations still, you know, but they had a bunch of nodes on this you know spider web connecting all these things, and it was, you know, the candidates themselves, like their you know political action committees and the super PACs, and then you know how it ties into some of the PACs run by some of the media personalities and things like that. And so it just kind of showed how you know nebulous, the Democratic side, where the money's coming from it, and I don't mean that in a negative way, I think. I think it's more clear when you have more people like this. Many people are given this much of this instead of having one big super pack, given everything you know Sure Cause.
Speaker 2:Then on the Republican side, it was pretty much, you know, donald Trump, his one major super pack, and then a few personalities and stuff like that around them, and it was very limited on the amount of funds that were going into the campaign from, uh, from, you know different sources, like you know major sources, uh. So so, yeah, it was just kind of an interesting insight to to see where the money's coming from and, like, um, how we're still having such a close race when it seems like there's a lot more support over what over overall, for you know the Harris Walls campaign, but we're still in a toss up right now. You know which is? It's strange no-transcript.
Speaker 1:Um, but I see the what you mean as far as clarity and transparency, that everyone's kind of raising their hand from the middle, you know, bottom to the middle to the top level, and saying this is, this is what we contributed. On the other side, you've got what is just kind of a shadow of where the money came from, right.
Speaker 1:You've got this one front that says this this is what we want, right. But you don't really know who we is behind that right and you don't have as much hand raising to say this is what I contributed to this yeah, yeah, because one of the names on you know trump's list was, uh, laura trump.
Speaker 2:Who's you know the co-chair? I don't know if she's still co-chair of the rnc. Yeah, she took over. She's still, is it? I mean, I don't know, but she's oh they have.
Speaker 1:well, both parties have a man-woman split, kind of thing, I believe. So chair, co-chair, is female, male oh, that's all it is.
Speaker 2:It's kind of a.
Speaker 1:I think both major parties have a requirement for that Interesting, so it could be. I think that maybe that there's a co-chair kind of situation there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but she's already come out and said like all money is going to Trump, yes, you. She's already come out and said like all money's going to Trump, yes, you know what I mean. So yeah, well.
Speaker 1:I think you know I'll put on. I'm going to do the devil advocate thing for just a second. What I hear, the flip side to that is Trump and the apparatus around him have the ability to control the message. They have the ability to kind of push the gas or pump the brakes on the messaging, and that that's actually a position of strength for them is that where you know that they don't have to, um, interact with as many stakeholders, um, and that they get to kind of just, you know, push the issue where they want to you know, because I mean, I've been hearing like I think today he doesn't even have anything on the schedule.
Speaker 1:Okay, like any swing states or something, and you would think every day from now through November would be you know two stops at least.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, yeah, Getting somewhere. And you know he's not really campaigning in the swing states.
Speaker 1:Jd Vance doesn't get a whole lot of turnout at his events and we see some of the Some vanity stops for Trump going back to New York when everybody this week said there's nothing for him there in that district or anything.
Speaker 2:So it's a vanity. Stop right. Yeah, he didn't even have a trial going on, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I mean just what was the point?
Speaker 2:right, those people, they showed up to that.
Speaker 1:We're already going to vote for him. And he did not have any opportunity to court swing voters or, you know, take swing or whatever out of it. It was just. It was purely a base appearance and the election is not. That's not where the phase that they're in right now.
Speaker 2:So you know kind of, you know tucking the Syracuse thing away. Yeah, we'll probably keep coming back to it frequently yeah, but, but have you been? No, this is actually a great transition, but but have you been reading, hearing about the laws that are being changed in, like Georgia, to like hand count votes? Yes, things like that.
Speaker 1:I think my bigger observation if I back out another 10,000 feet is that there's multiple states that have had legislative attempts to change the way that political activity happens right, whether it's voting, whether it's certifying vote, whether it's how the secretary of state what about Montana sending out absentee voters without Harris' name on it?
Speaker 2:Oh really, I didn't even know about that. Yeah, wow, see, I mean it's the yes, there's name on it, oh really.
Speaker 1:I didn't even know about that. Yeah, Wow, See, I mean it's the yes. There's been a lot. I'm surprised by the amount of legal wrangling and legislative attempts to change things that have happened within this presidential cycle. So that's just my first observation and so close, Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know so close to it too, because and there was a a that was a lot of the grief that folks had in the 2020 election was that laws were being changed on the fly. It seemed like to some folks and I don't know all the details and things like that but like, but that was a lot of the grief was that people were changing laws on the fly and and either side of the partisan argument would clearly have a concern there either way right.
Speaker 1:I I mean it's it's. If it's going to impact the process, then that's unfair to somebody to do that close to an election time of precedents, where county here, state there, we're flipping things around or changing things about voting laws. That stuff is in play most of the time, but to me, my statement is just that I'm surprised that there's been as much activity with as much vigor in the last year around changing voting access and the way that counts are happening.
Speaker 2:For.
Speaker 1:Georgia specifically access and the way that count the counts are happening for Georgia specifically, the intention seems very obvious to not want to count the vote on the day of and not just not publish the results. Right, I mean that that seems to be the desire in this whole process is to give, to remove transparency, it feels like. For instead of like, hey, we're just going to do this the way we've always done it, and because counting is counting and it's not that hard, right, it's like we need to add more layers, right, the argument for the proponents of it are these extra layers, increased transparency. I mean, okay, fair, if more eyes see the process, then there's more chances for verification. But if you need to verify it in time, but that's the thing. The legal side of it is, this is your requirement for certification, right, and that's what they're trying to change, and I don't understand the motivation for it. It doesn't make sense to me.
Speaker 2:I thought I heard somewhere in there that if they're counting and they need to submit their slate of electors and they're not done yet, they can kind of just submit something. So I think there's more to this law. People need to see the kind of the details.
Speaker 1:Because the hand counting sounds like.
Speaker 2:It sounds brilliant when you're talking like a local school board election, but like this is like large, large scale and there's not enough volunteers going around. You know like to do this hand counting and enough judges and all that stuff. So yeah, it seems like another kind of blatant attempt to confuse, confuse and delay.
Speaker 1:And what we found from I mean let's go ahead and just relate it back to the delay tactic is the legal tactic for the Republican Party and Donald Trump right now.
Speaker 2:It has been for years, I mean years and years, right.
Speaker 1:The more time we can draw something out, the more chances we have to interject and make something happen. We have to interject and make something happen. If things just go click, click, click, as they are prescribed, well, then we may end up on the wrong end of it, right, and so we don't want that. We have to manipulate the process and delay, delay, delay, delay. And I mean I don't care how much you do or don't like Trump.
Speaker 2:You cannot argue with that being the legal tactic of the Trump enterprise.
Speaker 1:That's it, you know. Litigate, litigate, litigate, delay, delay, delay, until the other side gives up and walks away. You can pour money into that fire indefinitely, and they will run out of money or run out of motivation, one or the other, and that's been the tactic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for since the seventies, like, like that's like a known like. He is hated on the East coast but by the contractors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so now we're just seeing that be played out in his sphere of influence in policy instead of business. Right, and I think that's what you see in Georgia is just, we've got to create an opportunity for a delay tactic If there's if it comes down to needing a split vote, tie almost situation. We got to have one place that's sympathetic, that we can start turning screws after things that should already be done. Right, like we got to have one out. We got to have one lever, at least one, right, yeah, and that that's what I think that Georgia wrangling is is we've built one lever to pull If things end up not going our way or not going the way we think we want. This is how we're going to deal with it. Not going our way or not going the way we think we want, this is how we're going to deal with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that telegraphing of how they're going to deal with things has also been a pretty clear tactic. What have you heard, like when you know, just, not just with this, but I'm saying since from 2016 on you know of, like, hey, if this happens, this is what I'm going to do, and everybody says that sounds crazy. Right, you know, and then that's not what he means. Yeah, no, no, like they're telling you yeah, and so that's what I'm saying is that they've built this lever in front of us. It's not hidden, and they're essentially telling us, when this thing hits the fan, we're going to pull this lever. So watch, watch us build this right, like I mean, that's that's what it is.
Speaker 2:Do you think that factors into him not campaigning as much right now? Do you think he's already kind of given up and like? This is his plan A?
Speaker 1:I don't think so. No, I do think he's almost 80 and tired.
Speaker 2:But he golfs a lot still man.
Speaker 1:I mean, so that's chill right. Not really man, I've been out there, I sweat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know been out there.
Speaker 1:I sweat, yeah, I know. I mean, yes, you're outside. I guess the dude likes being outside, but um, I still think you know he's got. He's got a driver driving his golf cart around. You know what I'm saying. He's off the golf cart for 30 seconds at a time. They drive him to 10 feet from the ball.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying and I would imagine he's got a bulletproof ac golf cart at this point, yeah, and he probably gets to drop his ball, like I do a lot, lot of time. Yeah, I'm out in the secret service ball drop. Yeah, we're going.
Speaker 1:We're going to a hole ahead so we can pick out the spots where you're going to your ball's going to show up, right? So, anyways, I don't think it's anything to do with strategy. You know that's another one, don't? No-transcript? Good luck, so well, speaking of that, um, you know we we've got another thing. You mentioned that there's some activity that happens in ohio, so we're going to use that as the segue where JD Vance is a senator from Ohio.
Speaker 1:Donald Trump talks about making America great again by rebuilding infrastructure. We're going to have beautiful roads and beautiful airports and everything's going to be perfect and nice and shiny. And what he saw in North Korea, probably you know he wants to build that in America, and so the you know the situation that we have. The reality is we've got crumbling infrastructure. It's not beautiful and bright and shiny. I don't think that has anything to do with America being great again, but I think that it's time for an investment, very significant investment. Most of this stuff was built back during the new deal, right, right, and built with American labor to increase the value of all the services and things that we can do with all these resources around us Right and to give people jobs and skills and trades and stuff like that, Right you know it was like a perfect solution to the shitty dust bowl.
Speaker 1:Right, you know, and now we had don't really have that paradigm in place anymore, though. Either the infrastructure itself has been privatized, which I'm not against, but it needs to be held to the same standard. If it is privatized for public safety yeah, that has started to take place in a lot of places in America, but we've got a couple of recent incidents in Ohio is poor infrastructure maintenance, privatized resources are creating public hazards. There's really no other way to say it but public hazards. So, I guess, what's the most recent story about a spillage or an issue that happened in Ohio, and what was the pointer towards any kind of infrastructure policy, or is there a big red flag there? What do you think, adam?
Speaker 2:So yeah, we just had another train car leak in Ohio and this is the second one in like a month where it's just it overheats, something happens and the safety valves fail and it's spraying this pungent gas into the air. Sure, and like that, that's what the residents like responded with. They said that they just smelled something pungent and called the fire department and they went and responded.
Speaker 1:So like that's going to be scary.
Speaker 2:Terrifying.
Speaker 1:You're in your home or outside of your house and you smell what you know. What is this? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, and you smell what, you know, what is this? Yeah, yeah, I mean, I've been in buildings where we would get that, uh, gas smell and stuff like that. I've had to evacuate a few buildings, you know right, failed valves, you know they burp the line. Sometimes it's just a gas, like a cloud of gas that just like goes across the base that you breathe in, right and so and that's, you know, regular natural gas, which isn't great for you, but like we also know what that is when we smell it.
Speaker 1:Right, we're like okay, we know what that is, but I know what danger I'm in A fresh pungent smell. Like you don't want that rolling in your window.
Speaker 2:And like. So these folks have been dealing with that and I mean we talked about earlier. There's four incidents, probably in Ohio that you know we can recall in the last recall in the last 10, 15 years here. So they've been dealing with it for a while and we're at that point now where, yes, we have the crumbling infrastructure, the train tracks you'll see some pictures of them where they're just crazy, they're just wavy.
Speaker 1:You can't believe. The trains are running on them. Right, Right, exactly. This is defunct, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know. So that's one big picture of it. But we also have to look back at the companies whose train cars these are. There has to be some sort of NDI like non-destructive inspection, so like you can see the welds and cracks and things like that done on these cars to ensure that, like these valves aren't going to fail on us like that Um cause, even like in in the the power world, you know, we'll go by and take like clear pictures of uh, uh circuit panels just to look at the temperature and then if you see something glowing, you're like, oh, we need to fix that Right, something it's, it's potentially going to fail.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, so like you need this oversight, and but again, I mean JD Vance is a Senator from Ohio who probably doesn't agree with government oversight you know, so like how do we get folks to understand that, Like some of this government oversight is needed, Like like we can't have you know bureaucracy tying everything up, obviously, like it's kind of gross how some things happen, but at the end of the day, these are the things that we need government for? How do we get that message out?
Speaker 1:I think I hear the, if we take it to the political science kind of base level, we're talking about public safety versus either profit or even just sort of the function of government to maintain this public safety.
Speaker 2:Right, or I'm more on the responsibility of the corporations to see their profits and use some of that towards public safety. Okay, you know what I mean. Not so much that the government has to. The government shouldn't have to force them to Well, that's yes, that's one, yeah. Right, we have, we should, the government should be enforcing standards, but at the same point, like companies know about these things, like these aren't new things, they'll ride something failing until it fails because the cleanup is only two million dollars.
Speaker 1:It's a fraction.
Speaker 2:Right Versus the long-term maintenance.
Speaker 1:There's also something that, if I bring my libertarian mindset to the argument, there's this thing that you'll see as a meme or people will write sometimes about famous people walk into a bar and they all drink some absinthe, but the absinthe is tainted and so they all die, right, and that's because in a libertarian utopia there's no rules or regulations around. You know bars, and so there's like 10 year old Albert Einstein drinks, absence and dies, and we have no none of his findings Right.
Speaker 1:You know, like, okay, but my, my libertarian answer to that is, yeah, okay, that one, that situation could happen, but the either the bar that's selling that product will become unpopular after enough people die there, or the company that made that product, their brand name, will become unpopular. And you say, but it took 10 people dying for that to happen. And it's like, well, yeah, that actually happens in our economic churn in plenty of other ways. Right, yeah, but I expect that the social will around buying that product or using that service would go away, and so there's a natural consequence for selling tainted liquor is that you go out of business. So you have the natural motivation to sell safe products, right, or to provide safe services. But when we're talking about infrastructure, we're talking about mass transportation, mass goods, mm-hmm. Those companies almost cannot face a brand destruction like BNSF. They're not going anywhere.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1:It's not possible to shut down Santa Fe Rail Lines. They're not going to go out of business.
Speaker 2:The company that was making this chemical that got sprayed over Ohio. Here. It's a chemical made in the manufacturing process for plastics. It's something about it's made. It's a chemical made in the manufacturing process for plastics, it's something in that process, but it's like three or four. You know general, you know orders. Yeah steps away from the Tide box that you buy at the store. You know what I mean. So, like that company is, or like all these major companies, are shielded yeah, from that separation?
Speaker 1:so for sure, because the chemical company that's selling this one obscure product yeah, the chemical company's name and even if you did, how would you choose not to buy their products? Right, that that's the point this is a public service to some degree. Uh, moving things around on rail is just required to make society work. People don't realize how much much is or how close it is to populations.
Speaker 1:right, With the risk that we're talking about here. With hazmat, the maps are drawn and the understanding is there of where the risk is at. I'm not saying that we're blind to it, but the people, the public, that are exposed to those risks are blind to it. They don't know how close they are to hazardous material at any given time. Uh, Eastern seaboard man, there's rail lines just in zig, zigzagging in and out of everything right, Industrial and residential. I rode the train up and down on the East side and I realized just how much I'm like flying behind people's backyards, just looking in their yard.
Speaker 2:So I uh, my hometown. It was right on the river and we would. We had draw bridges so, like you could like be, you know, 30 minutes late for work every day because you get hit by a drawbridge. Then we had trains too, and if you could stop by a train, you'd be like an hour late for work. Oh wow, because, like they would like stop and go backwards you know picking up and dropping cars?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like, oh my God, it was such a nightmare Like so, like you always had an excuse for being late for work, which was nice Sure.
Speaker 1:But the bottom line there is that we are talking about needing policy to protect the public interest that the public is not very aware of. Yeah, so that's the challenge, and that's where their Department of Transportation and the EPA and various executive agencies get involved in the mix. What do we? What do we meet you, you and I think about. Where's the disconnect? Do you have any ideas around that? I have an idea, just with my federal government experience.
Speaker 2:Are you saying the disconnect between?
Speaker 1:the public interest and I'm not. I don't want to necessarily say the boogeyman of profit in corporations is the problem. I'm saying where's the public interest? Where's the disconnect in policy? Why does the government have four different agencies that could all be responsive to this one issue that we're talking about? But, for whatever reason, instead of having four watchdogs solving the problem, we basically have four agencies that can't achieve success.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're just kind of pointing the finger at each other. When these things happen, they kind of look at each other. Well, that shit, that could be part of the big problem right there. It's just like having too much bureaucracy around the around. Things could be, you know like? Who do you put your finger on to solve these things?
Speaker 1:It should be from the public interest side. How do we hold the government accountable? You, you know if we, if we just want to start there, because that's where we, we do have influence is vote and you know absolutely what party is in charge means what values are going to get brought into this conversation. If we can't choose not to buy polystyrene from you know some random company, the Indian, you know chemical company, Right, we don't have that choice as a consumer or on the public interest side, but we do have the influence of saying this bureaucracy is potentially causing public interest harm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:For my take on it. I think it is the maybe not so much just like finger pointing of hey, that that wasn't my fault, or you know, we, we inspected that last year. That's what you usually get is oh, we, we did inspect, right, right, that last year. That's what you usually get is oh, we, we did inspect it, right. And the one part that we care about, which was the width of the rail lines, that was all in within spec, right, yeah. So we've done our part for the public interest. We made sure that the rail lines themselves were fine, right.
Speaker 1:And then the next organization says well, you know, it's on the company to turn in certificates for their train cars and we inspect those certificates. Well, that's where the public trust met the conflict of interest with the company. And so the government organization wasn't really doing anything wrong. But their policy left a gap where there's a conflict of interest. Right, and I'm not saying that the corporation is acting out of greed. But if you, what I understand as a government contractor is, if you don't tell me I have to do it, if it requires money, I might not do it.
Speaker 1:If it doesn't require money and it's a policy or administrative change like, let's get on board, we can do that. But if it's something where every single unit I produce or every single service I provide there's a cost overhead, we've got to change policy to make that happen right or change the contract, and when you start changing contracts, that can be months-long processes that can really slow things down. Um true uh, I think this is something that you know the problem.
Speaker 1:We're talking about is a multi-year uh shift that requires all three of those moving parts to do something. You know, the public interest, the government and the corporations.
Speaker 2:But you need strategic vision for that yes. You know and you know when we turn over our administrations. You know every four to eight years. Like you know, these are projects that are 20 years, 30 years. You know how do we get you know strategic vision into our government that's so polarized.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't. Leaking train cars is not going to make the cut this cycle or in the next four years. It's just not right. We're going to have more accidents, we're going to have more finger pointing or just issues that don't get solved finger pointing, or you know, just issues that don't get solved. So, uh, we'll, I think we'll leave it on that really sad note, that gloomy note, that policy can't solve everything.
Speaker 2:We've mentioned it before too. It's like when we get, you know, democrats into office and we try to have these, you know we have big term plans and they take a while for results to be seen from, whereas like tax cuts, like you can see that pretty quickly Correct, it's an easy solution. But actually having like long-term plans and, you know, having people vote for people and not like immediately turn on them, is it's we're not in that age anymore. No, so like yeah, it just baffles me, like like how quickly we have to get things done. Because you know, I hear a lot of talk about like term limits in Congress and, uh, like, some people will say like six years and like no man like if that's short in the government, it's like no man.
Speaker 1:That's real short.
Speaker 2:Like you can't get shit done in six years yeah.
Speaker 1:You're going to get maybe two budget cycles in six years where you were effective and and then you're on the way out the door right. Those first two or three you're not going to have the effectiveness that you need to really get anything done for your constituents Right. And then, once you finally established yourself within a couple of committees and have the right kind of finger on the scale somewhere you've got two you know rounds of funding and to really get what you need going and then pass the torch.
Speaker 2:Well and to what so much of your time is spent fundraising and campaigning anyways, right, so like I mean yes, six years would is nothing on the congress side.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's like three years of office time basically still a junior congress person at the six-year mark.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you're told to sit down in the corner still.
Speaker 1:But that's not. It's not all doom and gloom. It's just the reason we have this podcast is to bring emphasis to these topics, where it's not going to be the top headline banner of the day, but it is for the people where the stuff got spilled in their yard and their livestock or their children are at risk, right? So, uh, being able to remind everybody, from the top to the bottom, from the VP that's a Senator, you know, candidate right now, that's saying, hey, I want, I want to change things for the better in America. Well, start in your own backyard, make sure that you know your citizens and your constituents are safe, and then let's see what what you could do for the rest of America.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah Well, and like you mentioned too, we had that private, you know run you know, have a train fall off that. So like, yeah, on the private side too, you know these things need to be looked at.
Speaker 1:So for sure.
Speaker 2:Keep our eyes open yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks, adam, for having this conversation with us today. It was really great to talk about Syracuse and kind of what it's done for both of us personally, but also to encourage our listeners to look up Syracuse and get involved with some of those programs, because it's free and you know it makes you better at what you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the quality cost ratio.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's excellent Off the charts, yeah thanks for turning me on to that.
Speaker 2:It's been real fun, you know, just sitting down and listening to other people that are trying to get involved in things and see on a national level, you know kind of how people are spread out, so it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Yep, and I hope we didn't create some kind of jinx where there's going to be some terrible, you know chemical spill into Lake Erie tomorrow or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the universe has a way of working itself out, right, right.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks everybody for listening to Left Faced and we will see you next time.
Speaker 2:All right, take care, as always. Thank you for joining us here on Left Face. We are proudly sponsored by Native Roots Cannabis Company, colorado's leading locally grown and owned dispensary chain. Native Roots is a huge supporter of ours and a huge supporter of our local communities and businesses. They have 20 locations in Colorado and four here in Colorado Springs, and Native Roots is ready to educate and serve medicinal and recreational patients alike. Thank you for listening to the Left Face Podcast. Please check us out on the web at epccpvorg and sign up for our newsletter. Feel free to drop us a line at info at epccpvorg and sign up for our newsletter. Feel free to drop us a line at info at epccpvorg. No-transcript.
