Left Face
Join Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson while they talk politics and community engagement in Pikes Peak region.
Left Face
President Carter: Exploring Leadership, Faith, and Equality
This episode explores the recent violent attacks in Las Vegas and New Orleans, analyzing their potential connections to extremist behavior among veterans and the pressures facing today's society. We also reflect on Jimmy Carter’s impactful legacy and how it can inspire positive political engagement, urging listeners to get involved in their local communities.
• Dissecting the recent violence in Las Vegas and New Orleans
• Exploring potential connections between the attackers
• Discussing the mental health challenges faced by veterans
• Reflecting on Jimmy Carter's example of civic duty and service
• Examining the intersection of politics, religion, and societal tensions
• Calling for community engagement and political activism
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Hello everyone and welcome to Left Face. My name is Adam Gillard. I am your co-host, along with Dick Wilkinson. We are the Pikes Peak Region Veterans Political Podcast. Thanks for joining us today, Dick. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great man had a great break, refreshed and been paying attention to the news, so I'm ready to have a good conversation today, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, taking these breaks is always. Things happen so fast now. Taking these breaks is always things happen so fast now. If you're not doing it like every day or talking every day or every week, things just fly by. It's a new thing every day, very true, the first thing that we wanted to talk about today just happened recently 24 hours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the last couple of days, so still not a lot of information out there.
Speaker 1:People are kind of trying to put some pieces together that don't really fit together yet, but we're talking about the attacks in Las Vegas at the Trump Hotel with the Tesla bomb, the cyber truck there, and then the attack in New Orleans at the French Quarters by someone who was apparently carrying an ISIS flag, which is I saw some pictures of that. But they're both Army vets and people were drawing some conclusions because they were both stationed at the same base.
Speaker 2:Oh really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were stationed at the same base, but Army bases are huge, oh sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wouldn't connect those two dots.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a way early conclusion to jump to that. It's like a coordinated effort. Yeah, I wouldn't connect those dots.
Speaker 2:Uh, I'll say this it's you know adam, and and most of our listeners that are veterans will know this you meet somebody, you tell them you're in the army and then they say oh yeah, my nephew's in the army, you know him and it's like where's he stationed? Well, he went to training. Uh, you know, and they know where he went, to basic training at right, and you're like okay, like okay, where's?
Speaker 1:he at now.
Speaker 2:Oh, I really don't know.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, there's a million people on active duty, so unfortunately no, I've never met your nephew.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Sounds like a nice guy. Yeah, and actually I just got an alert that Populo said the New Orleans guy from the FBI said he attacked alone. He's alone. Oh he did. Yeah, he's alone. Oh, he did yeah. Yeah, I just really just changed that story, huh.
Speaker 2:Because they were saying that other bombs had been placed around the French quarter and that potentially had accomplices to do that. You know, put those things in place which again didn't make sense from the story, like what was going on with him. Where would these?
Speaker 1:other people and recruited. You know participants have. Where did they come into the picture? Yeah, didn't make sense. We're right at the beginning of it right now, so it's hard to really put the pieces together, but one piece that came out was that the Las Vegas guy was from Colorado Springs here.
Speaker 2:You just told me about that. I knew the truck came from Colorado, but I didn't realize the resident was here.
Speaker 1:I've been saying for a long time that, like this population here, very, you know, highly educated, well paid, they have a lot of disposable cash, they are well armed and they're getting pissed off and they're high stressed yeah like I see more and more hostility coming, you know, from this area and it's, it's really that's true?
Speaker 2:well, you sent me that thing back back a month or two ago about the silver shirts or the silver whatever. It's trying to bring back a hundred year old secret society, cross burners or something Right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's insane man.
Speaker 2:Somebody went through the trouble of printing that thing, you know what I'm saying Like somebody owns a computer and said we're going to leaflet the town with racist stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's nuts and we have a lot of still elections coming up that I think we need to get a lot more people involved.
Speaker 2:If anybody out there wants to get involved in, like city council, chamber of commerce elections, things like that, we need to start A bit of change in the social tide would be beneficial to address some of the concerns you're talking about for sure tide would be beneficial to address some of the concerns you're talking about for sure. Well, I guess that means that I mean I agree that no population is safe from having somebody going off the rails, but you're right that you have to add more stress, add more hardship, relationship issues, financial and medical issues in the veteran population and you increase the chances of somebody getting pushed, you know, to a bad situation or a bad mental state where they're willing to commit, you know, horrendous crimes. So you're right, we are in a, we just live in a population, unfortunately, that has a little bit more likelihood.
Speaker 1:My hot take on the Vegas attack is Go for it.
Speaker 2:I do so.
Speaker 1:I know nothing about this. This is me just having a microphone in front of my face and saying words. Right?
Speaker 2:There's nothing behind this, no credibility on it, nothing at all. This is yeah.
Speaker 1:I think the dude heard Elon say something about the H-1B and the visas that they're all fired up about. He could be a laid-off engineer. He just voted for Trump and now Trump comes out and says the same thing. We're like no, yeah, we need, because that was insulting what they said about Americans since the 90s.
Speaker 2:We need the top percentage of the team and, yeah, we're falling behind and we can't do it unless we bring people from all over the world.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and just in general, that Americans are kind of lazy when it comes to their education. Vivek, there, he even wanted people to go back to the asian tiger mom parenting, and you started talking about that. It's like, yeah, no man, like there's better ways to educate people than to scream at them and like just force them to do right, you know, yeah, yeah, so I think the guy got pissed off at what elon and trump are saying.
Speaker 2:President elon yeah, yeah, yeah and so yeah, he rented a truck off there. And at what Elon and Trump are saying. President Elon, yeah, shadow.
Speaker 1:President Musk yeah, he rented a truck off there and just wanted to make a political statement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the two items involved, if you will, the Trump Hotel and that which I'm sure is the nearest Trump property from Colorado Springs, right as far as the crow flies it's the one you can get to fastest. And the Cybertruck. Regardless of the guy's motivation, the story, the news stories are Cybertruck's, not a coincidence, right, like that was rented on purpose and that was used on purpose, right as a way to make a statement. Also, adding fireworks Nobody knows, you know everybody, that is, if you're smart enough to rent a truck and load it up with explosives, you know the fireworks are not going to kill anybody, they are for effect, right. I mean they are just to be uh, more uh to cause a bigger calamity in the area right.
Speaker 2:He didn't have anything in there that he thought would kill somebody and he knew that that building was going to withstand this very minimal bomb that he had made Right. I mean, when an entire truck packed full of fertilizer doesn't knock down a building Right, then this dude he didn't have any intentions of actually killing Very many people are blowing up a building Right.
Speaker 1:It was very much a political statement, for sure right, it was very much a political statement, for sure. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point, because you would think if you wanted to, you know, take it down or make a bash casualty, it wouldn't be an empty.
Speaker 2:No, this might have control of when it went off and this was a hasty situation that he I don't know why, you know, maybe it was purely suicidal situation he's like I'm just gonna make a bigger splash with this situation. Uh, I agree, though, that the I saw a sentiment online where it was somebody in the same position. You know, hey, I've been looking for work on LinkedIn, right, I've been applying for jobs for a year and can't get a job, and we're saying that we don't have enough talent in America to fill the tech sector, but you know, there's no shortage of. Every time you look on LinkedIn, which is where this stuff happens, it's nothing but one story after another. I've been off work for six months. I've been off work for 12 months. I've applied to a thousand different jobs. I've had 40 interviews and zero callbacks, but we need the top dude from India to come and take my job. That person could get really upset.
Speaker 2:Because they know their value and they know that they can walk away, whereas, like these people on these visas they get paid like dirt and then they can't walk away from the situations that they're in too Well because they have to leave the country Right, because they have to leave the country or find another sponsorship.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, twitter. When Elon took over Twitter, all of his folks left, except for the folks on their visas, because they would have to leave the country.
Speaker 2:Right, so they exploit that labor. Alphabet did the same thing. They put a barge off of California to where people weren't entering the United States. They were working near the United States and that way, people that couldn't get visas but that they wanted to hire, they put them on a barge and said we'll send you out there on our own little ferry and we'll go back and forth.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that that's crazy If you can't.
Speaker 2:While you're waiting on your visa or if we have a problem, we'll move you to the barge. Wow, You'll be on our private little yacht Timeout barge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean they're working out there.
Speaker 2:It's just hey, why are you here? Well, I'm working for Google, so that was a couple of years back. So, yes, the tech sector is going to get what they want one way or the other. And I agree that Elon Musk, regardless of the benefit or harm that it might cause the United States, if it's good for Tesla, it's good for politics. As far as Musk is concerned, and that's it, bottom line, he cannot be an American patriot because he's from south africa, right, like that's why he can't be the president, right, you know. So, uh, does he love america? Can he love america? Could he be as patriotic as any other american? Yes, but can he be an american patriot? No, not really. That's an interesting thing.
Speaker 1:Um. So you know, with all you know the horrific stuff that we started this year with, you know we did have some other bad news. Jimmy Carter passed away last week. You know the nation is officially in mourning and you know we were talking a little bit before the show about just what a unique individual to be president you know what?
Speaker 1:I mean, like I don't think there's going to be anybody ever again like jimmy carter, somebody that that just kind of uh was a decent person, yeah, um, but but he had a big impact on you, uh, yeah, like, what do you remember about jimmy carter?
Speaker 2:well, uh, we'll full disclosure. Adam and I are old, but we're not that old, and jimmy carter, as a president, had basically no impact on our immediate lives, right?
Speaker 2:so I was born just uh right after he was uh done being president so with that, though, the image of jimmy carter has been present in our entire lives, right, and so the legacy that he took on the mantle of being a very active former president and using that platform to do more than just kind of go to the presidential library and host big speaking events. He did a lot more than that, and so, for me, the example of I don't know what a politician not not necessarily someone that's directly serving I think you're just so well served to look at jimmy carter as a good example of what anybody who wants to be in politics. If you're trying to look for the person to look up to, probably a good place to start, jimmy carter's probably a good place to start. Jimmy Carter's probably a good place to start.
Speaker 1:One of the really unique things about him is being a Democrat and a proud Protestant.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Right, that's something that we don't see anymore. Really Anything on the Democratic side. You really don't hear anything about religion.
Speaker 2:Very little. They try to skirt away from it just for inclusivity purposes and things like that Until and I'll get a little soapbox here, all you Democrats that are listening.
Speaker 1:Wag that finger. Here's the thing.
Speaker 2:When Reverend Warnock from Georgia ran for office to be a senator, oh him, being a reverend was the only thing that mattered. Right? When you need to put that shiny thing out there, we're going to polish it up and shine it. But do we really want to know about Reverend Warnock's religious convictions and how that might affect policy that he would vote on? No, we're not talking about that. He's got the title of respect of reverend, so we're going to promote that. But what inspires him to really be a reverend? That's out of bounds for the Democratic Party to talk about. I don't like that.
Speaker 1:I don't either, as you say that, because there's a lot of doctrine out there that speaks that Jesus has dominion over everything Personal, politics, business, whatever. So your preaching is going to have an impact on your politics.
Speaker 2:Somewhere it's hard to cleave those things apart. Absolutely Right.
Speaker 1:As somebody who's especially as a reverend somebody who's worn the cloth.
Speaker 2:For so long are you going to be able to take that cloth off and make a neutral decision and be secular in your vote, right, yeah, and that's something that I've had to think about a lot, uh, especially just even when I was, I thought, when I was running my campaign for state senate down in new mexico, I was like I'm so thankful these two issues are not hot right now. Right, and it was gun control and abortion, right, because, like those are sticky issues for me, right, I'm an army dude and a Christian. So there's these assumptions of where I fall on those two issues, just automatic assumptions, right. And so I was like I don't necessarily fit those assumptions very well and so I'm going to have to tiptoe through some of this campaign where I just hope that there's no big event that comes up. Man, that didn't work out.
Speaker 2:You know, those things are always popping up somewhere, yeah, and they're all recorded, yeah. And so you know there was no way to get through even just two or three months of campaigning without having to pick a side on those topics and get some, get a little bit of a voice behind your thoughts. So, absolutely, if you're a reverend or a Baptist minister or pastor or whatever, um, you know those things are going to impact the way you see the world and the way you vote eventually, and for me this is good, and this is great for listeners to understand a little bit more about. I grew up in Texas, I'm a Christian, I am an old white guy and so the assumption is I'd be a Republican. Right, and everybody, even people go. Go like, why don't you just go?
Speaker 2:they're waiting for you you know they have a party room just waiting for you, you know and I'm like no, and here's why I can't legislate my religious convictions and morals onto the electorate. That is not people that just walked out of my pews at church, right yeah, that's not the population of people that are all my neighbors right, not everybody there is going to come and worship the same way that I am. Yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 1:That's good. Actually, the American needs that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I can't be in a party that says we're going to pick up the Bible and just kind of highlight the laws that we think we want to pull out of here, but at the same time you bring up the word Sharia law and they lose their mind.
Speaker 1:They're like oh, terrorists, isis, you know Al Qaeda.
Speaker 2:But, man, I'll pick up my Bible and tell you why gay people shouldn't get married. That's just Christian Sharia law.
Speaker 1:One thing that I find kind of it'll be kind of comical is, you know, if we do get this white Christian nationalist state like historically white Christians haven't really gotten along with each other.
Speaker 2:It's already happening right now. Yeah, no shit.
Speaker 1:But like the whole 500-year-old feud between Protestants and Catholics, that hasn't been solved.
Speaker 2:People are still killing each other in Ireland over that right now that hasn't been solved.
Speaker 1:People are still killing each other in ireland over that right now. So like even with the whole white supremacy movement, like trying to get you know all color folks back to where they came from, it's like irish people are all white and they all kill each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, vikings that we're all so proud of, like raping and pillaging everywhere, like it's not.
Speaker 1:It's not gonna end up the way you think. It is like there's no utopic version with humanity involved here.
Speaker 2:There's not, but that sells.
Speaker 2:Man that sells, oh it does and it sells well, right, and that promised land, like you said of like this is what we're going to deliver Like as soon as we have the control of all the different parts of government. We're just going to unveil this new America, right? I've never been on board with that. I'm not okay with it. I know that that would oppress and harm people that are good citizens of the United States, period, and so I'm not here to tell them that, because my religious text says this is how you have to live your life, that I'm going to turn it into secular text and make you live this way or I'm going to put you in jail.
Speaker 2:So that's the reason why I've never been comfortable with the Republican side of politics is because for almost my entire life and we'll loop back to Jimmy Carter on this topic the Republican right has had a grip, an iron fist grip on the idea that if you're a Christian, basically you are a Republican. And that was born out of the early eighties when Pat Robertson and the 700 Club basically became an extension of the Republican Party and there was a lot of intermingling post 70s into the 80s, in the 70s, in Jimmy Carter's era. It was very. You know, people who are truly astute, religious people kind of don't care about politics, right, and yes, it impacts our lives, but we have this higher calling and then, I think, you know, in the eighties, it was clear that you can.
Speaker 2:Just as much as people are willing to donate to their church, they might be willing to donate to a politician that's representing their church's values, right, and I, you know, I guess from the historical hindsight, is 2020, that's where somebody like Jimmy Carter and the ability to be a progressive evangelical Christian fell apart. Right, it not just fell out of favor, it was rejected, I think, by the base of people who said we want this type of identity, we want to be seen as conservative, because all we can really point to is history having some semblance of the life and culture that we think we want to have. But that came at the cost of things like women having the right to vote, civil rights movements. You know, those things come at the cost of progress, right, right, all those crazy liberal ideas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those liberal ideas like interracial marriage.
Speaker 2:right, you know everybody's things that we take for granted now that you know were verboten in in that mindset, and so politics and religion didn't mix well until the 80s. And then somewhere in the 80s politics and religion became much more intermingled and the idea that you could be a progressive christian was kind of thrown out the window, and that's how I've lived. A lot of my life is struggling with that and with Jimmy Carter. He grew up there was two small villages. One was basically the white village and one was the black village. Jimmy Carter's family and the property that they owned was in the black village, and so Jimmy Carter was the only white student at a school where there was was immersed in a situation that was basically didn't exist for most people right, he was in a segregated environment, but he was the outlier to that segregation I grew up in a very, very similar situation, right in east texas yeah
Speaker 2:the, the town is still, was still very voluntarily segregated. Uh, the the cultures were not mixed together. Uh, even though it was a small town, there was, you know, there's, there are black people, there are white people, and we just kind of are we're doing our own things, right, we're separate, yeah, even though it's the 80s, and we're all in the same place together, and so I understand. I know that I had some of the same experiences that jimmy carter had of like why are you friends with people that aren't white?
Speaker 1:you know, even as, even as a little kid like why do you want to spend time with? Them Even from grownups.
Speaker 2:you know we're asking me like, hey, you're acting weird and I didn't like that. That did not sit well with me because I'm just a little kid that wants to play with some other little kid you know, and that tone that just seeped into everything in that culture.
Speaker 2:The cultural tone is the same thing that Jimmy Carter grew up with. And so I, as I've said on this show before, you know, once I got into my teenage years and I realized, like man, I'm never going to assimilate to this culture, Uh, so staying here is not really gonna not going to work for me, you know. And, and thus began my life of service, of joining the army and finding a way out of that. It was a different really. For me, the army, just as much as needing a paycheck, was the attraction to be invited to the rest of the world, right To be invited to.
Speaker 1:That's a very poetic way to say that I love it though.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Cause I'm, you know, grew up in a, you know 80% white community. You know, very, very kind of segregated. The first time that know I was, you know, in somewhere else I had a black roommate. You know, like I was the minority in our group. Yeah, uh, blew my mind. Like you said, it opened up an entire new world of just thinking and experiences you know, because you talk with my friends, you know hearing their experiences growing up.
Speaker 1:You know, as you know, one guy was from new orleans and so like I went to his wedding and I was. You know, one guy was from New Orleans and so like I went to his wedding and I was, you know, the one white guy that walked into that church. Yeah, it was that kind of where everybody's kind of took a look and, you know, turn back around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I, I think, my inspiration from Jimmy Carter's legacy. Other than him, he was a short term politician. I respect that. He went state Senate one term as governor, one term as president, and then that was that. Right, like there's no, there's nowhere to go from there. Right, I'm down.
Speaker 1:Right Like.
Speaker 2:I've got a mission. If people want to listen to what I have to say, they're going to promote me into these right positions to do it, and if they don't, then I'm going to go back to doing what I'm doing. And that was. That's great. And then he did. You know, once he was done being president, he, he put in more work over those next 40 years of his life than he did in the previous 40 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wasn't an example for everybody. And if, if everybody just took a you know, a sliver of his dedication, the world would be a lot better, absolutely. When he was 95, he fell down at a job site, yep, and working for Habitat for Humanity, yeah. And showed up the next day, yep. He had Bloody bandaged, yep.
Speaker 2:I know and I told I was talking to my girlfriend about that one and I said that I knew who Jimmy Carter was and I knew I was inspired by him. But when do I feel driven to volunteer outside of just the military? What about giving back to my community is intrinsically inside of me. And then I saw Jimmy Carter do that and I was like that, whatever that is, that's what I've got. I don't have to define it, I don't have to put words on it. I just need to look at people like Jimmy Carter and continue to act like them. And if I can act like him, then I'm going to be able to achieve something great. And that was enough him. Then I'm gonna be able to achieve something great. Right, and that that was enough. Man. Just that example was enough and I'm thankful for it it's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's definitely such a unique character in American history. I think, it's nice that you know we'll be in the day of mourning on the inauguration day yeah yeah, yeah, that. I think I hope everybody just takes time to look at not just what they've heard, because you see a lot of people that hate them as a president when they don't know them.
Speaker 2:And who knows what policy happened Right.
Speaker 1:Even when you're going into the Iran-Contra, and how he didn't handle that well. But then 10, 20 years later we learned that there were some backdoor dealings with the incoming administration that slowed down that process. So he was handcuffed by our own country on some things. So I just hope everybody takes a look at him and just learns about him.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, and I'd like to punctuate the statement on for us as Democrats that are still carrying the torches here, look at Jimmy Carter's staunch example of treating everyone as an equal treating. You know, he had the ability, or he would have been given the permission, to treat his wife a little bit differently, not that he thought women were less, but that religious aspect of right. Being from Georgia, being a wealthy man from Georgia, that was a military hero, like he could have kind of been a bit put himself above his wife, right, and said I'm more important than you and culturally people would have said that was expected. Even he never did that and he made sure everyone respected his wife as a, an advisor, not as just the woman who follows him around. Right, he gave her a seat at the table and he made sure everybody else did as well. That's one example. And then, outside of that, just the way that he treated he regarded everyone, regardless of their economic background, their education or their skin color, as genuinely equal, valuable citizens.
Speaker 2:There were no qualifiers, there were no categories in his mind, right, and I think if we today, as Democrats, if we can pick up some of that, the genuineness of believing that someone is worthy because they are. They just are not because they've been downtrodden or there's some systemic problem or they need to get promoted because social equity x, y and z none of that matters if we're actually taking the mindset that everybody is equal, capable and can be respected. Yeah, let's do that, man. It sounds like it should be really easy, right? Well, let's follow jimmy carter's example of how to do it, right yeah, and that goes, you know, from top down.
Speaker 1:Whenever you have somebody that's you know in charge of you, if it's a woman, person of color, whatever, if they're in charge of you for a reason, you just need to shut up and listen and you know, kind of not not fall in line but, but you know, be productive members with them and not try to sabotage them, and I think that happens a lot.
Speaker 1:but but you're right, like, when we make these hires and we get these people in these positions, it's because they they earned it and they deserve to be there. And you know, it's not a. There's no DEI hires at these levels, like they're. They're qualified candidates who earned this position.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like yep, and and I think, uh, I guess Jimmy Carter was the Carter had the most women on staff in his cabinet and extended staff that had ever happened and that was a reflection of the time in America. But it was also a reflection of, again, that genuineness that I'm not promoting these people so I can get some kind of title as the most diverse president. I'm promoting these people because I've seen them do good work and it doesn't matter to me that they're women or men, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:I want the most talented person to give me advice.
Speaker 1:He didn't have a binder full of women going through and selecting them? No, exactly.
Speaker 2:And he definitely wasn't fumbling through who his wife was in a deposition going. I think that's my wife.
Speaker 1:Nah, he knew.
Speaker 2:He never mistook. So you know that's the kind of example I want to follow is the guy who can pick his wife out of a lineup.
Speaker 1:That's a little bar, but hey, for presidents. You know we got to set standards somewhere right.
Speaker 2:So thanks everybody for listening today. We want to start off 2025 with a little bit of promotional push. We are present on Blue Sky so you can look up Left Face. We are on any kind of podcasting platform that you could think of. We distribute through one platform and then it sends it out to everybody else. So do us a favor In 2025, help us to grow our listenership a little bit so that we can get some more, you know, just participation and thought put into the politics here in Colorado Springs, as Adam mentioned earlier, if we want to inspire people to run on the Democratic side of the ticket, then we kind of need to gain their attention and help them understand what's going on in the party and in our communities. So please help us to promote the program so that we can, you know, continue to promote the party and just recruit the people that really want to show up and make a difference. Adam, do you have information on our Blue Sky account?
Speaker 1:The official name is LeftFaceCO at the BlueSkysocial there. So yeah, just look up LeftFaceCO and you'll find us out there. Like you said, do the whole liking following thing. Make sure you tell your friends and reach out to us if you have any questions, you want any inputs on the show. We're here to listen to you too.
Speaker 2:But share a link. Really, that's the easiest way to do it, you know, is just drop a link in your own social media feed and say, hey, I listen to this, and if you're local or not, I find that a lot of people we're covering topics that are going to be interesting to folks all over the place, so please feel free to share and help us grow our listenership here in 2025.
