Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us for tonight's program. For those of you who I haven't met, I'm Heather Ferrell. I'm the curator and director of exhibition at Relentless City Arts. And I am delighted to introduce our guest tonight for the program, Dr. Pablo Boz, Abdullah Huzi, Niki Nibirini, and Paula Higa. Before I turn my time over to my colleagues, Dr. Kristen Dijkstra, I'd like to share a few more remarks about our exhibition and sponsors. Well, here now, Art and Migration brings together seven accomplished national and international artists whose work explores concepts of borders, movement, and migration. The exhibit aims to convey the complexity of migration as well as the fluidity of borders. And it's in the here and now. It's in the present moment. It's in the present place. There is an invitation to viewers to widen our perspective of these ideas beyond your statistics or mere media depictions. During our present moment of unprecedented migration and displacement, here now is a timely exhibit. And I feel, Ruth feels, untold histories and personal experiences through new expressive visual languages. And so my job tonight is to do thank yous, and I'd like to first thank my co-curator and curie now, Dr. Sarah Rogers, who is here tonight. Thank you, Dr. Sarah. She's the visiting assistant professor of history of art and architecture at Middlebury College, as well as former colleague of mine in Qatar, where we worked at the Montauk, the Arab Institute of Modern Art, as well as a Burlington City Arts Advisory Board member. Thought-provoking exhibitions such as here now would not be possible without community support. And I'd first like to thank our 2024 exhibition year sponsor, Massimo Bank, the Maslow Family Foundation, and the Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. And with that, I'd like to turn my time over to Dr. Kristen Dykstra to introduce tonight's moderator. Thank you. Can you all hear me well? Okay. Hello to those of you out on Zoom as well. We are here tonight in recognition of the fact that our local and regional cultures are vibrant, they're energetic, and they are continuously changing. One source for that renewal is the arrival of artists and thinkers who bridge experience of life elsewhere to our home spaces around the state of Vermont. This panel serves to draw out the ways in which the arts give us important and alternative perspectives on topics that may not get their due of another arena. Migration is a very rich historical phenomenon, and the arts help to unsettle the everyday rhetoric that reduces it to those talking points in the media, which are all too often reductive and dehumanizing. Here now, art and migration works in the opposite direction. It is nonconformist, and it is insistently human. We are also proud to be initiating our contributions to that 2024 National Endowment for the Arts grant with the exhibitions that you see here in the building tonight. This grant supports programming that allows teens in particular from our area to explore and create contemporary expressions of identity in the arts. The panel serves to expand the conversation in a different way, and it offers wide-ranging unexpected points of view on the topic of migration, spurring reflection that is essential for rich and democratic conversations. This panel is being recorded as well as shown on Zoom tonight, and with that it is my honor to introduce our panel's moderator. I had to cut him by a way down. Paolo Vos is professor of geography and geosciences and the director of global and regional studies at the University of Vermont. He is a migration scholar and an urban geographer whose work focuses on refugees and resettlement in North America and Europe, as well as on cities of the global south, the politics of food access, and environmental disciplines. Many of you might be interested in his surprisingly readable, although specialized book that was published in 2020 and titled Refugees in New Destinations and Small Cities, Resettlement in Vermont. Others will know Paolo from another perspective, which is through his service to organizations based in the city of Burlington and around the state of Vermont, whether you enjoy Paolo as a scholar creating interdisciplinary knowledge about our area as a community leader who helps to make things happen around our state. I am sure that you will also enjoy Paolo as our moderator. Thank you so much. So just to give you a little bit of a sense of the structure of the panel today, I'll give a brief overview and introduction to the panelists who have joined us here today. Each of them will present the short introduction to their own work, we'll have the panelists each. We'll then have a brief discussion amongst the panel and I've asked the audience members to hold their questions before we initiate that discussion. Oh, sorry. Okay, so let me give you a brief introduction to our panelists. So for this panel on Migration and Contemporary Cultures in Vermont, we are happy to welcome two members of the Global Collective, to Burlington City Months tonight. This collective was originally founded in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2014 by Omayed Sharifi and Kabir Mokamel. Both of the founders along with many other members of the collective now live outside Afghanistan. Our speakers tonight are currently based in southern Vermont. Today, the Global Website for Art Lords emphasizes a commitment to peace. Alongside this commitment, the group provides a statement about the value of art. Art opens up space for emotions without affiliation. It stimulates critical thought and helps people understand that war is a commonly shared experience and that only a common effort coming from within society can bring about peace in Afghanistan, in South Asia, and in the Middle East. We are honored to host Nagina Azimi and Abdullah Afizi in this panel, where we can hear more about their ways of bridging earlier experiences into the work they have been creating since they moved to Vermont. Each of them brings a specific point of view and their own individual relationships to art as well as activism into the ongoing collaborations that redefine art boards in the here and now. Artist and activist Nagina Azimi joined the Art Lords Collective in 2017 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Today, many members live outside the country and the collective has redefined itself more globally. Now, based in Vermont, Azimi holds a degree in law and brings a strong interest in human rights and social empowerment to discussions of public art. Abdullah Afizi is also an art, is an artivist with Art Lords, a group originally founded in Afghanistan and now existing in the Global Arts Collective. They are known for creating murals and painting dedicated to social justice, psychological awareness, and shape. Afizi is a curator at the non-profit arts organization, Epsilon Spires. He has collaborated and partnered with Brattleboro Museum and Arts Center and other institutions and businesses. He currently, Afizi currently lives in southern Vermont. Our third panelist is Paola Higa. One of the important features of here and now art and migration is its presentation of contemporary artists who synthesize cultural forms across multiple disciplines. Lydia Nakashima, for example, went through research as an ethnographer in her work as a visual artist with powerful results. Paola Higa brings dance, visual art, and poetry together in her installation, now showing on the ground level here at Burlington City Arts. Higa is a choreographer and movement artist who has been making dances, teaching, and performing between Brazil and the U.S. USA for more than 30 years. Her performance and video works explore feminism, discrimination, and the politics of movement. She creates these works at intersections between dancing and visual arts. As a performer, she danced in works by Mark Morris, Daniel Bernard, Romain, and Jennifer Monson, among others. Higa has received numerous grants and her recognitions include best screen dance in the Los Angeles International Film Festival, the genres and performances film festival in Aveiro, Portugal, Diorama International Film Festival in India, 2022 Nupu Fest in New York City, Imark in Brazil, the ARFF around International Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, and the Florence Dance on Screen Festival in Italy. Higa is assistant professor and resident choreographer for the School of the Arts Dance Program at the University of Vermont. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles, Vermont. So please join me in welcoming our panel and we will begin the presentations within a minute. I'm sorry. Good evening, everyone. Thank you, Pablo, for the introduction. My name is Nagina Azimi and I'm from Afghanistan and back in my home country, I have completed my bachelor degree and also I have a degree in Fine Arts and my art journey began with working with art lords, the organization, which was based in Kabul, Afghanistan, and now it's here in Virginia and was founded in 2014 by Omeh Cherifi and Kabir Makamel. And the main goal and the main purpose of creating mural painting in Kabul streets was to convert these blast walls into a piece of art and to make a space for others to address our social challenges and to create a relationship between people and also art. And because of the unsafe security situation in our country, there was one side that our country wanted to rebuild everything from the beginning and there was other side of the government which was the opposite side of the government, the Taliban, that now they're on power and wanted to damage everything that we wanted to rebuild. So our government came up with the idea of creating or building these long blast walls to at least minimize the damage of those terrorist attacks in our country. So these blast walls also had a very negative psychological impact in our daily routine and it completely looked like that we are living in a war zone in a city and it had a very bad psychological impact. So art lords realized the opportunity to convert these blast walls into visual experience also to a very good piece of art. So my journey with art lords starts in 2017 with this mural painting which was the female orchestra, Zohra Orchestra in Afghanistan and unfortunately after the Taliban took over the country all of these paintings and mural paintings were whitewashed by the Taliban and our main focus was to support our soldiers and also to bring colors in our city and the primary goal was to highlight the significant contribution of women in our society and in rebuilding the country and to emphasize their rule and their power in building and also their involvement in peace negotiations during that time that was happening between the government and the Taliban and we wanted them to be equally involved on those peace negotiations as you can see that we created lots of mural paintings in Kabul city and also in other provinces. Most of these paintings were also aimed to promote the message of peace and harmony between our people and these were the very icon or very symbol of art lords mural painting and also to paint the prominent faces of our country. This paint, it's not the mural painting but it's a very big canvas painting that we gifted to the United Nations and it's here now will be displayed in the United Nations for over 50 years and in this painting we wanted to paint the most valuable element of Afghanistan that were very valuable for us like the mountain, the culture, the costumes, the history and every side of our lives that were very valuable for us and upon arriving into our new community in Vermont so we not only brought ourselves but we also brought our art culture and skill so it signifies that being a refugee does not mean equate to receiving not giving back so we as a part of to adopt our new community to completely adopt it we brought our art and culture and we shared our art with the students in the school with our community member and also it exemplifies the beauty of respect the beauty of growth, shared growth and also the beauty of being together and acceptance in the process of adopting our new community. Thank you so much. Good evening ladies, gentlemen and everyone in between I hope you are fine Thank you Pablo for introducing me Thank you Kristen, thank you everyone for having us today in here Thank you for having us this chance this privilege to talk about these issues and these topics today My name is Abdullah Hafizi I'm one of the member of the art lords I live in Bradbrove Vermont It has been two years that I'm living in the USA and we have been continuing our journey creating arts and different levels individually and also publicly for the different organizations and also towns So as Nagina said that we work with the art lords creating a lot of murals on blast walls in Kabul city and also some other cities in Afghanistan but after the takeover of Taliban the terrorists and August 15, 2021 it was a nightmare this picture shows everything and this was a global image right after the takeover the city was a total dead city for every one of us but what happened to art lords and to the team we had to leave the country and it was hard for all of us a lot of civilians had to flee in a different situation but we were happy that we got a good chance that we left in a very safe way but we ended up finding ourselves in Albania, a country that we had just heard its name once in schools maybe in geography but that was still beautiful we were living a very shiny life but at the same time our families were back in Afghanistan and the people that how they were living so it was like a conflict inside our own mind like how can we live in a very sparky and glamorous way of life by the beach in a very 5 star hotel while the people are like not having fun like us so it was hard for us at the same time but we still continued making murals we did a mural this one to express our gratitude and thanks to the government and the people of Albania they are really hospitable people really nice and friendly people when we were there all of us, most of them they were resonating with us and they were telling us that it was the same thing during 90s during the civil war so it was nice, we felt home I myself felt in peace and freedom we did another mural in the center of Tirana, the capital of Albania and after that we found ourselves in USA in the USA we started our artwork with a very small mural this one Angel's Wings for Experience Good at Business it was nice and then we continued making murals if you can hold on a little bit this one is a very great artwork I will have the control, thank you we got connection with Bratabro Museum Art Center they found a way to bring other muralists and they had a very different medium which was Tape Art and we got together to find a way how can we collaborate so the guys I just forgot their name but they are at the end of they are standing at the end so they said like why not to recreate all those paintings so we did a quick wash back in Afghanistan with a new medium that sounds a great idea when we did it we did a lot of almost 17 murals in the town we created 17 murals we recreated but we added a lot of elements with tape and people loved it people were so sad that stick around for a long time so that was a thing and this was a new thing for all of us and it was fun the poetry that's written in there it's about humanity one of the poems of Maulana Jalaluddin Balchi also he is famous by the name of Rumi from 11th century he writes about humanity so this one was my favorite mural around those tape art murals at the same time while we were creating murals with a tape art group we had a chance to have a grant some amount of money from Vermont Folklife Center and this was they proposed us what can you guys do with this grant it can be for children, summer camp so we said we can do something like this we can bring 15 children from the Bratterborough community the American people and also 15 kids from the Afghan community and we will bring them we will teach them dance traditional dances we will teach them art, painting drawing yeah we also dance together we cooked food traditional foods we also served the food to the public we called their parents and it was fun it was a one week art camp and it was a blast for us and also for the kids and their families in the back we had a mural that's America and also a map of Afghanistan of the elements of values related to Afghanistan's culture that is like incorporated integrated with American flag and also the map right after that we got another opportunity to create mural in Bratterborough but this was more of creating or bringing beauty to the town which is the high street mural if you ever cross your path to Bratterborough don't miss this this is very beautiful high street mural and we had a collaboration with two local artists Daniel Chiachiou and Calvin Latourie they are amazing they are great artists and this is about Vermont this mural after that we got another one which was also still a recreation of our old mural from Kabul but a little change with a little addition to the background patrons but that is patron but not exactly it's a miniature Persian miniature from Afghanistan this is the full image we got another opportunity with partney international school where we co-created a lot of four murals students and we collaborated got our ideas together and made four murals with the kids this was another artwork with vital voices it's a non-profit organization who works for empowerment in Washington DC so this was a mural for women we had a privilege to see Clinton that time and she appreciated our artwork and thanks to her for that right after that we had another chance with counterpart international in DC they offered us a mural to create for them about women rising together and right after that we again partnered with vital voices for women empowerment and women's voices and peace and we are still continuing making artwork and murals back in Bratterborough and also outside of Bratterborough in Bennington soon in the future we have a lot of things a lot of murals to do thank you so much hi everyone first of all thank you so much BCA Pablo for having me here Kristen and I feel honored to be here with you too and represent my community so yes I'm Paula Higa I am choreographer scholar mother wife woman and the artistic director of my own dance company Paula Higa dance and yeah my artistic interest lies in exploring themes that emerge the intersection of dance and visual arts so my works are rooted in feminism and aim to shed light to discriminatory issues that persist in our society so through my work I seek to amplify the voices of underrepresented groups and engage my audience to reflect on social issues as power inequalities gender not power hierarchies gender inequalities and patriarchal structures that shape our world so based on these themes I created the Migrant Body Project which is a solo performance and a collaboration with visual artist Deborah Weisberg where I examine my skin and the second part is the film it's a screen dance which is now being exhibited here now created by Heather and Sarah and then I also create a live performance which is the live version of the film that premiered at the Eichmann family farm last spring it's a huge barn so based on this interest like I said I created these three projects so of course the Migrant Body you know inertia from my experience as being an immigrant in the state of Vermont so I started to face things that when I lived in Texas in Tennessee I did an experience like people asking me to can you repeat your accent understand my accent questioning about my skin color I'm not a white woman here but if I go back to the Brazil I am so I said this is interesting what about people who doesn't have this privilege like me of changing my ratio status so all these situations that I was exposed triggered me this critical question so who is not migrating who is not a migrant in this world so this scene for me represents a lot because for me birth is the first migration so if you think of the word migration is a movement that people are dislocating from one place to the other so I thought about the birth of okay so we are in this wet environment breathing water soundproof a little bit and suddenly they grab your head you have to breathe air you need to scream you need to learn how to speak so you are in a new environment so in a poetic way for me birth is our first migration and we all went through this process which make us equal and then I also have the image of the doors for me the fact that you leave your parents house to go to college is a form of migration the fact that you get married is a form of migration that you find another job or another house anyway we are always open doors and closing doors in our life so for me is migration too you know and then on the top of that I ask for the film I collaborate with international artists people from Canada, Brazil local the film was all made here in Vermont my dancers they are all locals and I also ask Mario Higa a professor at Middlebury College and my husband to write a poem that could in short words simplify this idea of this desire of you wanted to migrate but you can't so he came up with the yellow chrysanthemum which is a flower that is stuck with the roots in the soil but wants to go and explore to see other colors other shapes, other forms but the only way that this flower can migrate is through pollination so the film for me is something very special like I said because it was made with different parts of the world and yes we won some awards in Europe or North America, South America and if you have a chance please go to the grounds zero and see the film and yes I don't know that was fascinating thank you all for presenting some of your work I'm just going to ask a few questions to lead us off and then we'll turn to the audience as well Kristen in her introduction and Heather as well talked a little bit about the really reductive and politicized ways in which we tend to think about migration today and a lot of this kind of noise that surrounds the notion of what migration can be it really struck me as I looked at what you were presenting some of the ways in which you were responding to things that are going on around you and I wondered just to begin with if you can talk a little bit about who some of your audiences are when you started by showing the murals on the glass wall it actually made me think a little bit about the murals I see cities like Delfast when they were kind of playing in space we talked a little bit about the purpose of some of the murals that you made when you showed this range of new art that you created here in Vermont or in the U.S. or in Albania it seemed to speak to all sorts of different kinds of audiences that you are working in and I was wondering if you can talk a little bit about that and similarly, Paula in thinking about these different migration journeys that you described and the different places that you've also exhibited your work. I'm wondering if you can all of you talk a little bit about who you made this art for and also sorry, it's a really long question but a little bit about making this art for the outside world when you talked about these pieces that you've talked and pieces that you've had commissioned and art that you might make for your own community so can you talk a little bit about the audience that you're taking? So basically we are doing our artwork first for ourselves for our own people that they are back in our home country I mean we are here we have the whole freedom to talk to exercise our own basic rights but there are tons of our community member our people in our country that they are deprived from their very basic rights like going to school women's and girls cannot go to school and they have been deprived from their very fundamental rights so basically it's for us for our people and our audience is our new community here and also the whole other people that they can understand our mural paintings here it's completely different from Afghanistan but it's not that we have changed our aim or our goal our mission our mission is to advocate our mission is to raise our voices and those voices that they cannot be heard I mean our people so basically mostly our new people our new community here is our own audience for all of our mural paintings Actually this question has so many aspects in Afghanistan our murals we wanted to be heard recently I have found and I have like deeply truly understood how it really means to be heard and to be seen and to be valued through my failed relationships and so yeah experiences teaches us so that's how I learned yeah so we wanted to be heard back in Afghanistan we wanted to share these murals and also send these ideas or these messages to the Taliban specifically that what they were doing exactly and also to the government we are seeing you we have eyes we see everything the deal that you are doing with America with Qatar with the Taliban we are seeing you because you are betraying us so that was one part the other part that we were advocating for women women like there is still patriarchy in Afghanistan and that was the other part women empowerment to raise women's power and also for the children's right there are a lot of street children and they don't have food they don't have clothes to wear shoes so it has a lot of aspects coming back to USA we still wanted to be heard and continue our advocacy for social justice while we are still here we are more safe we can still raise our voices for the people back in Afghanistan and a lot of people can resonate with our mural artwork and the in Vermont or in Brattleboro our people the community they are the people who we want to share our murals and we want to be heard by them and the other part that I do murals sometimes on commission personally or individual paintings for myself is most specifically about the psychological issues that we have that's loneliness that's very on rise nowadays specifically with the Gen Z and the late Malinians like myself because we have been feeling isolating sometimes and why is this happening because in the Middle East or far Middle East Afghanistan or Central Asia we never felt like this because we had family, friends despite the fact that we do have friends in here but still there is a void and somehow my aim is to find a way where we can connect together back and share more empathy, more closeness these things because we are failing to gain these values back we are more on the superficial parts of the world more to the materialist part of this world so that's another part for my individual artwork for me it's kind of the same I think as an artist we are always creating first for ourselves and then it's a consequence if the world embraces our work, wow, great if not, great too so I also feel that in life what is my purpose here for me dance is bigger than the dance and this is what I want to leave when I migrate to another place so I hope that my work stays, that people will comment, that people will recycle the ideas and that a change will come that's interesting Paula, you also mentioned some of the unexpected aspects of doing this work here in Vermont having a different racial perceptions of race here so I'm curious for all three of you what are some of the challenges if any that you've experienced in trying to make this kind of greater practice here in Vermont are there any specific things that come to mind as being more difficult in making this art here in Vermont personally to me I really want to create a lot of art work but because we are migrated now here alone we don't have our families here and the families they don't have a chance to work in there so we work full time outside our field art and so that's a challenge that despite the fact that I want to create a lot of art and I can't because I have to send money back to my family so that's a big challenge someone who is really passionate about like he can die for art so that's the biggest challenge and yeah economic or financial thing is the first one and then also psychological issues that we get we can't focus sometimes like myself I wouldn't say we but myself focus is really important for art making or creativity I do lose my focus and yeah we do miss our families and the other challenges would be sometimes like we might not be able to create some political art work in a town that doesn't need like the high street mural if you guys remember the high street mural that wall was empty for years in there and a lot of artists had applied for town's grant to get that grant and do some mural on that but they more wanted political stuff which the government or the town municipality they didn't want something like that they wanted to give it to the youth and it was something like we got this chance and we had to create something for the beauty of the town so not a lot of places or communities or public would want something political as well because politics it sucks who likes I don't like politics so that's also a part of it could be so like I would like to create art that's more about love harmony empathy connections like these things I'm very emotional person so I'm on that part of I'm away from politics yeah thank you yeah for me you know I come from a country that is so misogynated you know so you see a palette of colors in Brazil and I wanted my cast my dancers to you know to be like my experience there so I had a hard time to find dancers that were not white so I remember attending the black experience not this year last year and I said oh so many black people here where are these people that I don't see on the streets you know and I connect to a dancer but when I explained the project and the cast I don't know perhaps she felt intimidated and she didn't join us and then I said oh my gosh I went to I think was Momix was at the and I said let me see if I can find more dancers only white people in the audience and I even told Mario say wow I thought segregation was over you know so all this you know lack of diversity in this state was challenging for me you know and this is something that I discussed with my dancers and but I said you know let's do our best and the work's there but definitely you know it was challenging yeah I agree and just to add because back in Afghanistan we never called ourselves like an artist but mostly we called ourselves an activist and our all mural painting were somehow connected to political issues that we were facing during that time and now that we are here it's been changed and when we are getting a commission we somehow our mind goes back to like advocacy and we want to paint this but there's like I mean most of the time we get a notice not political mural painting so it should be just the beauty I mean I agree it should be the beauty the harmony the peace but not every mural can include all those things so we have to be very accepted with very diverse paintings or activities or activism but here most of our works were very calm and very peace harmony connected with love and peace and somehow we are very happy we felt very good during Well let me ask you a little bit on that question of how we talk about more difficult subjects you know migration as we've said already is a very controversial subject I often feel teaching classes with students I wish I was just teaching I don't know a class about food and maybe that would be easier less politically charged so does migration also play a role in the kind of art that you do our lives obviously very central to what it is that you are what you're doing how do you talk about migration in this particular moment in the world where migration has such resonance both positive and negative for different kinds of people in what ways you talked a lot about all the different kinds of forms that migration might take do you also talk about migration in this much more political political way Well with my dancers we had a lot of discussions because there are Jewish there was a girl Jew and black dancer so a one that is transgender so I think that's a you know even this for a day this we discussed the transition of being a woman through now a man you know so this for us was a form also of migration anyway there was so many possibilities you know but I didn't want to also focus on the negative and political side because for me in particular I think that I learned so much when I immigrated you know I think that the fact that I learned a new language a new culture I think this is so rich you know and only when you migrate when you leave that experience you feel you know how important is this process of getting to know other places even if it's a tourist you know it's important and but yeah for me is this you know of course there are political you know perspective on that like for me even the sensing of belonging where do I belong do I belong in Brazil do I belong here I feel in the middle you know because everything that I left to there kept going so when you go back my nephew is not five years old anymore you know he's getting married and I don't know the family I lost all the teenagers hood of my nephews and my parents also you know didn't see my girls growing up so there is you know the good and the bad side and also in terms of for me for instance I am an American citizen now but once I heard a foreigner you know an immigrant saying I am an American citizen on paper and this is because that's how I feel because I was not here you know during the civil rights you know I was going to understand better what racism was when I came here remember Julian what is the name of the the choreographer with the black girl Camille A Brown Camille A Brown she came to Flynn and with this piece this choreography black girl and I said why is she talking about that you know I couldn't understand how you know racism was so strong and is in this country you know because my entire you know political background was from Brazil so anyway it's a learning thing you know I don't think there's going to be a change soon but like you said you know there's the good side and the bad side you know thank you do you find that there's this tension between the kinds of murals that you want to make between as you say kind of steering clear of more political topics here and asked to commission to paint versus the activism perhaps is the inspiration for some of the work we do face issues like that but it's been just two years we haven't had so much but yeah I do express myself by telling my stories like here we are sharing a lot of things today by writing I did some writing classes where I had so many classmates totally from Bravo Vermont I mean from Vermont I mean the white people it doesn't mean like in that sense I had a total different faces where I had the chance to tell the stories I shared a lot of stories from my childhood relatively from youth from now and a lot of poetry so that was also part of my life where I could share and the murals are the other one and here this is another example where we can share our stories and yeah migration I think it's it's consciously not acceptable for anyone but subconsciously for people who migrate it's like the only way for us it would be the only way for me to choose a path because I couldn't stay back in Afghanistan I have to go forward and make a better life but it's a fact migration is a fact we have to accept it and the way it is just move on be a better person in our life for the last question I'll ask you mentioned that some of the members of the Art Lords collective are here in Vermont but there are others I think you said in Virginia so what is the coordination or collaboration with other members of the collective now do you continue to partner with them in projects? we are still a member of Art Lords although our other colleagues they are still back in Afghanistan we were 53 employees and out of 53 employees maybe 5 of us are here some of us in Tennessee and our main office and our director who lives in Virginia so we have an office we have an office in Virginia and we are connected to each other I mean as I mentioned before that our mission is the same advocacy I mean until we are actively working together we as a 5 member of Art Lords here in Vermont and we have other members back in Canada and also in Europe countries and we have been working after what happened in Afghanistan after August 15, 2021 we never stopped our mission our activities starting from Albania that we spent 8 months there we painted two murals there and when we got here we like lots of mural painting and in partnership with other organization so we are we have our own job but we are self connected to each other and we are part of Art Lords wonderful, thank you with that let me open it up to the audience and we'll see if there are questions that you would like to ask is this on? it's on I will bring you a microphone if you would like to ask a question of our panelists so just flag me down if you'd like to ask one thanks how has work that you've seen since migrating influenced your own art practices here in Vermont with that conversation work in both ways I love that question it's a sky and art difference the art what I have seen in the USA so far because I've been to so many museums in Boston in New York and here Mass Mocha the ginormous one yeah, it is a big one so what I saw, what I experienced different artworks from what we had been doing back because it's east and west so I should accept that but it really changed my perspective of art what I've been thinking what I've been imagining in my mind and how can I bring that back with the medium so what I was doing is very classic what I heard from my teacher Jenny Dunning in creative writing she said it's more of still like a classic so I was thinking how can I make my art more modern, more contemporary and creative going to these different places, visiting these places really influenced me to pivot and change the way that I was thinking previously and blend both of them in a way that I can create a totally different thing yeah, thank you well for me was wonderful because here in this state I was introduced to experimental dance and I'm very fortunate to have colleagues at U of M at the dance program who are daring, who are political who are activists so for me it's a learning experience and also I think the political story of this country thinks that I was not aware when I was in Brazil because Brazil is all about carnivals we love to party but and I was even talking to my husband about that I said how can we change traditions I said well we imagine if there is no more carnival in Brazil I said don't say that because this is part of who we are so for me I started to see dance through other lands not just commercial or technical but as an act of political act of expressing voices and I'm grateful for this experience that this state which is here, Julian was an inspiration for me and Tina and yeah I'm going to stop laughing and pointing fingers we always talking about that we are very fortunate that we ended up in Vermont a very artistic state and we have very good connection with other local artists in Brattleboro and we have been inspired by their artworks basically our artwork it is graffiti artworks but also watching other artists and their modern art and how they are collaborating with other different types of arts really inspired us and that's why we call ourselves very lucky people that all five of us ended up in here, Vermont if I may I'd like to interject a question myself this may come back around to the topic of migration but it occurred to me that also a feature that you all have in common is you have a lot of experience with collaboration and collaboration is a very current topic as well and so I'd like to ask each of you is there a moment you remember that you feel that you learned something about collaboration what advice would you give to young artists who want to learn how to be good collaborators or want to work with other people you have so many different kinds of collaboration that you've done thank you for the such a great question because this is again something that I really love it collaboration I would do individual artwork more about what is happening inside my brain but collaboration is something that's something jointly we do work together but the advice that I would give to the young generation or the new Gen Z or all the other upcoming generations that in collaboration you will bring out something amazing and unimaginable because it's bringing so many ideas together so many imaginations together it becomes something totally different while individual artwork is still good it's different but collaboration is different as well and what I would say lesson to each other listening is a very important part of collaboration and teamwork working together just create something out of what you hear from each other for me it's the same I think that when you are collaborating you have to be open to different voices and opinions and ideas and when I collaborate like in this film I was the director I invited a local filmmaker because I'm not a filmmaker to be my co-director so we were sharing opinions and ideas and I think if you are close stuck with your own ideas there's no progress because every person in the group is special they do have something to offer and so even if you are directing in a position where there's more power I think it's important for you to listen and again enjoy the process because the results you don't know but the process for me is the most important thing this entire film took me two years to come with the idea and the plot and the poem if it's your husband it's okay to say things because Mario was like no Mario I didn't like this poem but anyway we work together but if it's my husband I have the right to pick on him but anyway I think that is this be open to the process listen because no one has the truth on yourself something like that yeah the same and we are in process of learning so let's be open to any ideas or any insight from other people or other artists it adds more value to your artwork and the result would be outstanding also like to see if we have a question coming in from zoom audience I think we do should I bring you the mic back there so Jennifer asked she runs a resettlement program in Norfolk, Virginia and goes back and forth to Brattle Borough working with SIT slash ECDC and is curious where the art lords are located based in Virginia and she's doing her PhD research on conflict migration and would love to connect with everyone from the VA to our art lord community if possible our director and the office located in Virginia and Ashburn Virginia we have our website art lords both in Facebook and in Instagram and also you can Google it and you will find our address there so it's basically Ashburn Virginia and if you want to meet us we are here Brattle Borough please feel free to flag me down if you would like to ask a question we have a little bit of time left yes I'm going to make three statements I want to know what you have to say about them they're about politics I'm going to say painting a mural in Brattle Borough Montt is a political act telling your story is a political act in collaboration with the political act what do you think of that I mean as I said earlier that I stay away from politics because that's the only reason that I'm here today in the USA apart from my family and a lot of friends that are like found their ways into different cities and a lot of people like me exactly from different countries Middle East Latin America or Asian countries so I stay away but I do have the guts to face these kind of words or sentences from those kind of people where I can answer them in a very better way that this is a reality we have to accept it today if you're in the USA you're also your ancestors world they were migrated they migrated to the USA you're not here originally from East America and this is the reality yeah you people were born in here and so you're from America but your ancestors are exactly from Europe or from other countries so we have to have that acceptance otherwise there will be more diversion more differences differences will create more tension more and more so where we will lead to that so we need to be have a radical acceptance that psychologists say we need to have radical acceptance so that really helps when you have that feeling of acceptance it calms your inner person really down and makes you a better human being thank you well I agree political arts is political and life is political so yes I am a political artist and yes I'm a devotee for some respect you know and it's life you know what I mean how can you separate politics from the arts some again I think that's the people who have different opinions but no in my work no I'm trying to make a statement you know yes definitely this political act while I'm sitting here talking with you all and my my own sister and brothers back in Afghanistan they cannot do the same thing that I'm doing now here it is a political act and as I mentioned that maybe our mural paintings are different our presentation and goal is still the same and it's political and as you mentioned that we are here to make a statement and I've been working with students in a school and I've been giving them presentation about my country my culture it is a political act and presenting Persian words on the wall of a school it's a political act so it is I cannot say something I mean I do think that it's a political act absolutely but I think it's a very particular kind of political act that you can do in Bridalberg of Vermont or in Vermont in ways that we are in the midst of the dumbest cultural war that I could imagine in this country really, really ridiculous kinds of ostrich over what it means to have Persian words painted in a school and that's the challenge that I think we continue to grapple what does it mean to even talk about the tradition in not using words that are incredibly difficult but I think that that is so I'm always amazed by the courage that people demonstrated making this kind of performing what this means we have time for one final question and you get the last question so here it comes thank you for giving me the last question it needs to be a good one I wanted to thank you for sharing your story and your work and I think it's really important to talk about this topic and issue especially in Burlington, Vermont where the diversity is not very much so my question is I'm really excited for your future plan so I wanted to ask if you have unlimited funding and time and space what would you make of I wish I mean that would be a blessing in the sky I would I would devote my whole life even if I reincarnate I will still do it because I really love all parts of art performing arts visual arts all of them I love dance I do dance I write I paint I draw so all those parts are amazing I do like films movies I'm very obsessed with Hollywood the same as childhood that was a part that I already know about the USA a lot but most of them were not true oh yeah back to your question I would devote my whole life my each second to art I will create as much art as I can I wouldn't like compare myself but Van Gogh he died very early but he created so much art that still is there and people are monetizing his artwork today yeah well for me I see screen dance as a form to promote my work a little bit more to distribute my work a little bit more than if I bring dancers to tour because it requires funding but since you said unlimited I think I would take my dancers to perform around the world but for me definitely I would like to continue this examination on what we are doing in this world what we are going to leave here and I also I think about the solar eclipse I think about this is a time for us to stop instead of that's okay but make yourself a reflection in this time that we are all there in this collective moment in the dark what's the meaning of darkness how can we go to situations that are horrible but come out stronger you know so I want to continue this you know fight for like I said on the represented groups which now I am part because if I go back to Brazil I have my white privilege you know but now that I'm here in the United States of America and I am in the BIPOC community I am a different person you know and I feel that I need to continue to advocate for those who are in situations like me or even worse because when I am immigrated I came in a privileged position because my husband came to earn his PhD and we were never illegal here we were never refugees but I was treated like one so for me this you know shed light on the on my artistic goals you know so it was important for me to go into the dark and come out stronger niche unlimited funds like oh my god I wish instead of unlimited fund there would be power so it would definitely change or my upcoming planning but for unlimited fund I would maybe building art school or just to serve it to education that everyone could access to that without any limitation regardless of race color region country so they could have access to that so to wrap up I have to refer back to your final question there which I'm really struck by because I asked that exact question to Edward James almost about 15 years ago and if you're not Edward James almost big in the Chicano movement and very important in Mexican-American culture also was on Battlestar Galactica that Edward James almost and he got very excited because we were like oh if you didn't have to think about money and you know in film what would you make and he said I would do work with indigenous peoples of the Americas and he had a really beautiful answer I would like to tie that around to the shows in this building do not overlook Teresa Baker from Plains Tribes she's in the migration show and so migration mobility deep histories of presence but also movement are in Teresa Baker's work and then our other show right now up in the building is Margaret Jacobs and an enrolled member of the Aquasas New Mohawk tribe and we welcome you to see that room it's directly across from where you are sitting right now and Margaret although she's not technically in the migration show pairs very very beautifully with some of the issues that we were actually talking about tonight I will end again thanking everybody for coming here tonight thank you to all of our amazing panelists and to our moderator to everybody who donated money to make this happen thank you so much and lastly if you do not mind we have evaluations on the floor under a lot of your seats or if there aren't enough we have some more in the hall if you would kindly fill those out we would be so grateful because that also helps us to get more funding to continue to do these and Sarah Jane would like me to add oh yes and we will we are actually going to keep the the building open a little extra particularly downstairs we welcome you to join us for the next half hour to just chat and relax and also go see some of that artwork including Teresa Baker and the other members of this panel I am not sure I don't think we have the ground level tonight open still is that correct is Paul show open it is okay so yes you can see the work of our exhibiting artist who is part of this panel discussion tonight so thank you all very much and we hope to see you downstairs


Welcome to economics and beyond. I'm Rob Johnson, president of the Institute for New Economic Thinking. I'm here today with Zachary Carter Senior reporter at the Huffington Post covers Washington economic policy the White House and Who is the author of? An exciting new book the price of peace money democracy and the life of John Maynard Keynes Zach thanks for joining me. Thanks so much for having me Rob Well, you've been a pillar of Insight and how do I say bearing witness to all the machinations and craziness and Ideas and turbulence related to this American political economy for many years. So you've been a good friend of Institute for New Economic Thinking not so much in catering to us But just being a voice and a beacon who's out there that I'm inspired to read and to Suggest to others. Well, thank you, Robert. You're my best was that Let's talk maybe right now. We're near the end of May 2020 and this pandemic COVID-19 has just rolled through and Let us say the conventional wisdom doesn't feel well anchored any longer There's a great deal of emotion and anxiety about what the future pretends And I'm curious just kind of wide open. What are you seeing? What frightens you what inspires you? And what do you what what would be your call to action to our listeners? Well, I'll be honest, you know, I'm a In-veterate optimist. It's one of the things I like about about Keynes when I read him somebody who lived through periods of immense of people and almost constant crisis He never he never lost his faith in the belief that tomorrow could be better than today But I don't like a lot of what I see around us today. I I see a Country in the United States that has become so deeply unequal economically that it appears to me to be politically bordering on ungovernable The type of social breakdown that we've been witnessing even before the election of Donald Trump and and the outbreak of this pandemic things like The the upheaval in Ferguson, Missouri the Freddie Gray riots That the fact that life expectancy declined in the United States for the last two years that it was measured because of deaths of despair predominantly among Lower-income white men things like opioid overdoses and alcoholism to me suggests that we have a society in which working people have become decoupled from the interests the governing interests of of the political system and that that to me seems very you know, just morally troubling on its face, but also Politically politically unstable. I don't see how we get through major crises like like this pandemic Without a great deal more of people We really are living in different societies, you know that the decline in life expectancy that's happened over the last two years is Is not a broad-based decline Wealthy people are living longer than they've ever lived in the United States so the society is really breaking into at least two different kinds of Social universities, maybe maybe more depending on how you pursue the divisions among among race and class But certainly there's a there's a sort of breakaway wealth group at the very top which has unique access to the political system and the unique ability to See its interests implemented in public policy while the vast majority of people in the country are simply not taken seriously by that system and I think I Think that is that is very troubling what I do think is promising is that in the Democratic Party primary in 2020 even though the progressive wing of the of the party ultimately was was trumped by Joe Biden who represented very openly the sort of more moderate cautious. We might call them centrist wing of the party The those ideas that the belief that That that bold and ambitious action is necessary in order to avert the kinds of Disasters that we see unfolding in in our communities every day Or is necessary that idea seemed to be I think Something that Democrats accepted. I think they were just a little bit too afraid to embrace them in in this particular election So so you see things that you see pulling data on on something like Medicare for all It's it does very well among Democrats. It actually does pretty well among Republicans too The idea that there needs to be some sort of systemic change in the United States in order to fix these problems that we Can't just sort of muddle through that muddling through will actually lead us straight into disaster I think is has become sort of the conventional wisdom among the general public even if it's not the conventional wisdom Among the political class and now it's there's a huge gap there and finding a way to make that Conventional wisdom for normal people become the conventional wisdom for people in power is quite difficult But it means that the case is not hopeless and if there's anything Any lesson from the life of John Maynard Keynes? it's that things can always get worse, but they can always get better and and you have to you have to cling to those Those pop those glimmers of hope Because because you don't really have any other choice Ultimately tomorrow is coming whether you like it or not and you can either try to make it better Or or you can bear your head at the sand and I think Keynes was somebody who was always trying to seize the moment in In the most ambitious way possible Well, you and I are mutual friends of of Guy Saperstein and his gang and I remember Carol Avedon had a Offering on the listserv that we we both explore About a gentleman named Stuart Zekman who used to be a musical artist and He was describing his disaffection towards the centrist Democrats in a podcast and He had Cited an anonymous article. I think Ben Smith had written About a Democratic leader saying well, you know the Democratic Party can't go to that progressive place anymore because the population Doesn't believe in government. It's not Lyndon Johnson. It's not Franklin Roosevelt at this juncture but what Zekman did Was he went in the aftermath of reading that article to look at the Gallup polls and What he found was that most Democrats did as Was surface reported Have great skepticism about governance But what he also found is the reason they were skeptical is they thought that government had been captured By powerful corporate interests and wealthy oligarchs. This is 2011. This is in the shadows of the bailout During the Obama years as the Republicans were taking over the House the Senate and eventually the White House so I say I guess that notion of Confidence in Expertise governance or what we might call a crisis of representation has built building for quite some time And it's not a secret, you know, I think I think the Democratic Party leadership ignores that That that sense among people at its own peril There's sort of a weird disconnect in American politics today where There are very well established views that are extremely mainstream About about how the world works and what's going right and what's going wrong And and they're they're shared by people on the left and the right and and in the center I think but within the Democratic Party establishment, there's You know the people who actually lead the party day-to-day people like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer There there is a consensus that Democrats Don't get things wrong and that everything is It is is the fault of Donald Trump and has sort of the problems in our society sprang to life in January 2017 And have just accelerated from there and I think You know, it's hard to argue that Donald Trump hasn't made things much much worse I mean, we're living through this pandemic, which is you know, it's a biological problem But it's essentially a political problem other countries that have implemented better responses to this virus are not suffering the kind of economic damage the kind of human damage that that that we are suffering but I think the election of Trump himself and is a reflection of the the political and social despair that people feel about about their ability to To to even you know, get attention from people in Washington And I think that's been reflected in the way that the coronavirus You know rescue or bailout packages. However, you want to describe them have been have been negotiated. There was a very quick package that was that was Approved in late March that provided trillions of dollars in funding for corporate America with essentially no strings attached and You know not not nothing for working people. There was an expansion of unemployment insurance of $600 a week Which is you know, it's real money for people, especially if you lose your job no one's gonna turn down an extra 600 bucks a week, but It was not an attempt to look at the world and say, okay Given that we have a you know, a sort of once in a generation Maybe once in a century crisis on our hands How do we make sure that this that this society does not come apart? Because of this crisis what who are the people we want to protect most there was sort of a Instinctive turn to a handful of policies that people put in place in the you know the 1980s or the 1990s that okay Well, we want to boost unemployment insurance So it's not a bad idea But but why are we letting people get laid off in the first place? There's no guarantee that when this crisis is over these companies that have laid these people off are gonna hire them back The fact that unemployment is gonna go is already clearly over 20% probably going to 25% very soon There was an opportunity to say let's not Let these people have their job relationships with their employers be be severed there wasn't and if you weren't gonna do that There was an opportunity to say okay Let's create a new social safety net that ensures that if people do have that job relationships severed They they're in a condition where they can they can access the basic elements of a good life indefinitely Not just for two or three months the way that it's it's It's been implemented under under that package and now of course You know we're entering what Democrats are calling phase four, but it's you know It's just essentially an attempt to do over that that botched response. I think in March and we'll see what happens, but We still don't see big ideas on the table.  That's that's good but But it's not going to save us from a depression and it's not going to lift us out of a depression And I think the idea that we're going to bounce back from this very quickly I think is a deep misunderstanding of human psychology I think we're we're going to be dealing with the after-effects of this disaster For years if not decades to come people are going to remember this and it's going to resonate through our political system In ways that many of us simply cannot expect right now Now I sense that you're right in one of the things That for instance my research director Tom Ferguson works on is the is the Tremendously important role of money in politics. So whether you call yourself Democrat or Republican Or whether you think you're the least worst The responsiveness to Concentrated wealth and big corporate interests Is the precondition for survival? And I know your peer at pro-publica Jesse Isinger's just put out reports where he should talks about how The consequences of the bailout is all kinds of small businesses are going out of business Unemployment at the level that you just described And at the same time most of the private equity firms that were leveraged to the Hill are Up 40 to 60 percent in their stock price So there's a whole lot of Which am I called? Distributional ramifications from the structure of this bailout, and I do think Perhaps after This dreadful experience is behind us people will go back and scrutinize that and I'm fearful in one respect that that will deepen despair and I've used on this podcast the analogy Franklin Roosevelt with the new deal escaped the depression and Confidence faith and gratitude towards governance went up. So by the time he was ready for war preparation For World War two. He had a lot of trust and license What I see now in Washington And it's this started with the bailouts of 2009 and the what Joe Stiglitz calls when the polluters got paid I See a despondency to you party occupy Wall Street, and it just keeps moving and Then this recent episode I I'm concerned That people Will be what you might call susceptible to despair and potentially authoritarian rule Because they have no faith That the process we call our democracy can be at all representative broadly representative and responsive and and How would I say if we poisoned? The people's belief in our Republic We're in a very dangerous place And you know, I think John Maynard Keynes really spent his life worrying about that exact problem. I think the Conversion of Keynes into a sort of deficit therapist the guy who said You know the guy who you learn about an econ 101 courses who says you got to spend money in a recession in order to get out of the doldrums Has has sort of robbed a lot of his thought of this political and moral Content. He was somebody who was absolutely terrified of the march of authoritarian governments in In areas of upheaval. He said he could see that after World War one There was an intense energy for right-wing authoritarian politics that were that was was growing not only In in Germany, but but around the world and we forget this before you know when FDR took took office in 1932 there was a very very significant right-wing fascist movement in the United States that FDR was working very Coagulately consciously to put down so the idea that when when you enter a state of dysfunction that the state will lose its legitimacy and people will will feel a sort of thirst for a demagogue and And a dictator is something that you know, I don't think that's even unique to Keynesian thought I just think he's one of the one of the people who was able to put that idea into a particularly powerful and emotionally compelling set of terms over the course of his career and Ultimately his economics everything that he's working on from 1919 until his death in 1946 Is is aimed at averting this rise of authoritarian politics and and I just I don't think That our politicians have the same sense of urgency about this or the same recognition that about what is happening and it's it's a remarkable thing for me to say because Democrats are going around saying every day that Donald Trump is a is a dangerous authoritarian who's in cahoots with international authoritarians And I think they're right about that but they they do not seem to be governing as if that were the case and And they do not seem to have ideas about how to deal with The slide toward authoritarianism that I think is happening in among the American pop public They make they made you know, it only takes one spark, right? They could they could change their minds tomorrow and and we could start seeing some great legislation and And turn things around I think the pandemic is certainly not good for Donald Trump's reelection prospects But I would not rule out the prospect of him being reelected so I I think There's this sort of weird moment which I would be I think would resonate very deeply with John Maynard Keynes where there's the world is obviously dissolving into chaos and crisis and yet the leaders are looking around and saying well why don't we why don't we have some refundable tax credits for job training and These these are just not the solutions that that are it's like they've been indoctrinated in a set of thinking that That makes them incapable. Yeah, it's not that they're evil people They just don't literally don't know how to grasp the world that they're living in and yet They're the people we have to turn to for solutions Yeah, well There's a senior fellow currently at Inet Jeffrey man who's from British Columbia and he wrote a book on Keynes called in the long run were all dead Great, and the I agree in the last chapter. It's called revolution after revolution and in that chapter what I what I really admired Was that Jeff had started? the book With a skepticism about Keynesian policy and to just paraphrase counter-cyclical macro stabilization Has its place in mitigating unemployment or Keeping the economy on the rails But Jeff was worried that within what you might call the micro political economy structure the corruption and the rot would never be rooted out Because the depth of despair would be anesthetized by counter-cyclical How do I say support for the economy and so you'd trail along Through the debt years and through the decades and the society would never face that intensity of Crisis which would make it repair itself but in the last chapter Jeff says And this is after the election of Trump. I believe late 2016 early 2017 he was finishing the manuscript and What Jeff says is I thought about it and maybe I had too idealistic of view And I'm using my own phrase here of Democracy small d democracy is a corrective thing and maybe what happens in that deep Despair that I thought would be the catalyst to a reaction Is that the wisdom of crowds becomes the madness of crowds? And as he was seeing what was unfolding he's Canadian, but he was watching the United States He openly admits that he changed his mind and That Cain's sensitivity to what you might call the continuity of social fabric and The deformity of democracy that prolonged despair could bring to the surface Did that that it was by far the better alternative to engage in that stabilization and I know your your book is so sensitive to Cain's it's kind of in my reading through it the the briefing Or the what I would call the the briefing we get about Cain's at different points in time is outside of That hydraulic Cain zianism that mechanical Cain zianism that's associated with the my alma mater MIT and you know the Samuelson solo crowd and It it just it feels to me like he's a much more Vital Spiritual artistic creative and times frustrated person from reading your work and and I think that's just I mean you and Robert Skidelski are really sharing What a great man looked and felt like You know, I have a ton of respect for for both Jeff van and Robert Skidelski I've never met Jeff, but I I talked with Robert or his lordship, I should say over the course of Writing this book and I think there is There is a sense in which John Maynard Cain's Has more in common with contemporary poets than he has with contemporary economists Cain's in or otherwise. He's somebody who thinks about society's problems in this very holistic social and moral way And the mathematics of his economics are I won't say they're an afterthought because of course he majored in and In mathematics at Cambridge. That's what he studies as an undergraduate There wasn't the economics program at Cambridge was just getting started when he was at Cambridge to the turn of the 20th century But he's somebody who is concerned about the great problems of his day and in his day the great problems are Are our war and depression? So he's she's trying to come up with ways to solve these problems that don't involve violence because he's essentially a pacifist Which is you know a remarkable thing for somebody who? Was that the chief of British War Finance during two World Wars to be but I think it's still the case that he was a sincere pacifist. He did not believe in violence or war and he He believed that economic policy was it was sort of an extension of diplomacy was it was a way of creating Offered the opportunity to create social harmony both at home and abroad and And this makes him a deeply optimistic person because he thinks that if we just get it right on the way resources Are are acquired and distributed that war and Deprivation can be cured that the idea of poverty and frankly the idea of serious inequality He's not an egalitarian because he ultimately thinks that if you if people are well enough on if they can have the elements of a Good life then then who cares about serious inequality? But but they need to be they'd have the elements of a good life available to them But he believes that these are things that that are within the capacity of the political system to solve as as early as the 1930s which is Frankly a remarkable thing Because the 1930s the world is mired in the worst oppression that anyone has ever understood or or or or certainly been able to recollect It's not totally clear even they've been able to measure economic deprivation in this way before So I think if Keynes were around today, you know, he he would be talking about Dealing with the pandemic because because it's obviously a medical and and and healthcare emergency But he'd be thinking about the big problems in the world He wouldn't be talking about deficits and dollars and and and and debt and and accounting Standards he would be thinking about what do we do about climate change? What do we do about inequality? What do we do about declining life expectancy?  He's not He's not a working-class Joe He wants to preserve the nice things that he likes about living in the Bloomsbury neighborhood of London It's turn of the century So that means you know being able to drink champagne while a great artist gives you a haircut That means that means hanging out with Virginia Woolf and talking about books. It means E. M. Forster You know giving you drafts of his book before it's published It's thinking about art and letters and ideas all the time And he does not want that lifestyle to be jeopardized by political unrest And and he believes that if we do not find some way to democratize That way of living that he enjoyed at the turn of the century Then then there will be a political upheaval That will that will take those away and the upper-class will will brew the day reap the whirlwind whatever You know metaphor you want it you want to pick? It will ultimately become In it will become impossible people to enjoy the kind of lifestyle that he enjoyed at that point in time But as he gets older Particularly by the end of World War two. He just does not believe in economic scarcity He thinks that we have we have the ability to feed everybody to clothe everybody to house everybody And the trick is is is how to make sure that everyone actually is clothed and fed and housed And and make sure that they they're not only Not only their their subsistence needs are met but their their ability to enjoy Life is uh is guaranteed and he feels like if people have that They're not going to revolt they're going to feel tied to each other. They're going to feel bound to each other in a Political way and democracy will be able to do its work But if you deprive people of this and you have some people who are To borrow a phrase from george orwell more equal than others In the democratic system and you are going to sell a great deal of discontent And I think I think is what we're seeing today one one of the things I sense From reading you were your work is that here is canes with all of his artistic friends what I'll call an a be a bohemian elite rather than an establishment elite and his freedom of imagination to depart from What I'll call the conventional wisdom or the reinforcement of that people cite is his general theory which before it was hydrolyzed and and I would say people like paul davidson have illuminated that side the the radical uncertainty the Lack of what am I called continuity of structure and all kinds of things but but you have this man who's It's almost like He walks his own walk to his own drummer And Where does that come from? Well, that ability not to conform Sure. First, let me say that paul davidson is a real unsung hero in the history of kanesian thought because paul davidson a lot of the ideas in my book are are elaborations on the ideas that paul davidson has been writing about since the 1970s and And paul is a really He's just a very important thinker In this history who who never has fully I think been appreciated or awarded for the work that he's done He's been marginalized by the economics profession because his ideas frankly just didn't fit the needs of of the Has it to say has it to say corporate establishment because I think it's really more of a more of the Financialization of the economy that took place over the 80s and 90s. It's not just that it's corporate Is that it became financialized Um, and and so the economics profession just didn't didn't reward people like paul And I think it's really important to give someone like paul has do At at this moment where I think I think the kanesian ideas that that paul Had had teased out were are are are more ascended I think for kanes himself there is There is a certain sort of middle-class rebellious spirit to him. Uh, I I Perhaps i'm just projecting on to him. But uh, you know, I grew up in the the suburbs of northern virginia And I played in punk rock bands. I was not you know, a son of deprivation or poverty I you know, I I didn't have drug addict friends in urban new york or something but I I played in punk rock bands because I I sort of identified with people who were um Trying to change the system in some way and I think kanes has a certain similarity There was no punk rock at the turn of the 20th century But you know, he he grows up. He goes to eaton which is one of the You know most elite and prestigious british boarding schools and then he becomes you know a very illustrious student at cambridge university at kinks college and I think that experience for him It allows him to understand his own uh I think privilege is a word that's thrown a lot thrown around a lot today in progressive politics, but it's it's sort of It makes him feel like The world is something that he can change. He has the ability to um to shape it to his to his will which is sort of an arrogance of youth and of uh And and of a certain position in society that you get So he's convinced that he can make the world a better place and that the world will listen to him from a very early age Uh, but he is then disappointed deeply disappointed by his attempts to do that particularly during world war one and and afterwards so uh, he has just immense confidence in himself as a result of his social position um But he also is surrounded by artists all the time and these are people in bloomsbury who are who are critics of the The existing social orders of people like lytton strachey and virginia wolf who think that The social order of the early 20th century is is kind of rotten and corrupt. They think that it is uh it's stuffy and restrictive and and it's It prevents free expression and good ideas and what bloomsbury ends up doing is Is ultimately I think celebrating a particularly elite Way of a way of life, but it does so by rebelling against elite privilege against Against elite norms and and it makes canes somebody who is capable of understanding I think much of much more of the sort of social Continuum than most people can he can understand Working people and he can understand the elite at the same time and it makes his thought I think much more compelling than it would be otherwise and I since there that I'm always reminded of my good friend who is died last year William grider who Often talked and I've mentioned it in several of these podcasts about his faith in young people And he basically Attributed it, you know, you know I guess it's a blog post on a blog he founded in 2009 To the fact that young people have fresh eyes They see what is wrong But they haven't been conditioned as to what is feasible or that which Will cost them in reputation among the powerful And so he felt that the impetus to change Came from those young eyes Well, canes lived into his 60s and I sensed he had he had young eyes from wire to wire Absolutely, and I think that's something that is almost as important as his It's at least as important as his sort of congenital optimism And and is related to it. You know, he always identified with the next generation Even when he was writing the general theory in in 1936. He said, you know, I don't really expect To persuade all of the the economists who have come of age thinking about the about economics this particular way Now that I have offered this revolution My real hope is with the next generation and in even in in the late 1930s early 1940s He's there's a really funny interview with him for a British magazine where he says, uh, you know I don't really like the communists the young communists. I mean, I think their ideas are a little bit silly But but our hope for the future lies in their political maturity He's still saying they've got to get over this communism thing But but but in their maturity, they're going to be really something special And they're there's so much more promising than what he said he calls the old Jossers Um, I've never seen the word Josser used in any other context. So I don't know if that is uh, is a particularly nasty slur or something I hope I'm not uh Throwing about some terrible British insults from the the you know the before time but um He he has a deep faith in young people and their capacity to understand And believe in the future In a way that he thinks that his generation has just become so numbed to Dysfunction and despair that they can't imagine a world in which in which Things actually work in which people are taking care of in which tomorrow is in fact better than than today And I think that that resonates to me certainly Uh in in our present day. I I feel like It is Very clear in our politics. We have a we have a sort of gerontocracy problem where uh, not not everybody who's You know over a certain age is uh, is is an enemy to progress But uh, but there are people who have just become inculcated to a certain way of doing um doing politics and making policy Which you know in their defense is the way that it has been done throughout their lifetimes But which clearly has led us Into a situation that is disastrous that anybody who is looking at the world today with fresh eyes Is going to say this is not a good state of affairs We need to do things differently And and the people who have who have been making policy over this this period in time It's not that they're incapable of reflection It's just that they don't know what else to do. They've been uh, they've been sort of conditioned in this way And I I I have a great deal of sympathy for these people. You know when I worked as a um as a banking reporter for a company called snl financial, which is now part of Standard and poor's global intelligence Um, you know, I was constantly surrounded by people talking about the uh, the sort of perspective of the financial industry on Uh on the world and so when the bailouts happen the financial crisis happened in 2008 Um, you know, I was always sort of one of the more liberal or or lefty people in the in the In the news room, but I I had a basic set of assumptions about what was possible And what could happen that changed when I left that institution I don't mean to insult that institution I think was it was a very good place to work and they're very good to me And I learned a great deal there, but but when I left and started working for huff post Uh, the basic political assumptions at huff post were totally different And and the the the the scope of possibilities what seemed like a reasonable thing was very different Um, I think this happens to people in all sorts of institutions They you know, they go off to law school and learn a certain way of thinking and this is just how it is And I think it happens in particular within the economics profession And I think canes would have been very very frustrated By the way thinking within the economics profession has ossified into this kind of Mathematical straightjacket. He did not want economists. He didn't think of economists the way we think of economists today. He He talked about them in these these poetic terms as people who were sort of like Like great enlightenment thinkers, you know, he thought the ideal economist was somebody like Isaac Newton or David Hume He did not think the ideal economist was Was somebody who was exceptionally skilled with econometric models Um, he wanted economists to be sort of social thinkers, not just uh, mathematicians and I think the mathematician of the profession over the last couple of decades Which has been enabled frankly by people who call themselves canesians people like like, uh, you know, paul sandbillson and robert solo Um, who you also were very great economists to be clear, uh, you know, I I think he would He would have been very Very disturbed by that turn in the profession and and the influence that it has had on the course of our politics Yeah, I um, I mean you look at today and the challenge before us And you see things like his collection of articles essays in persuasion Economic possibilities for our grandchildren. There was he was just imaginatively going fishing In a way that people Just aren't doing I I've been reading a book recently By a gentleman whose name is william It's derisiewicz Yale it's called excellent sheep The miseducation of the american elite And it's about this kind of sterile technocratic pretend value-free Way of sea and in your book that comes to the surface over and over and over and and in canes writing there is this What you might call moral reflection about what is a good life? What are our goals? Where where are we heading? My colleague at inet lin paramore just put out a wonderful article with a man named jeffrey spear on John ruskin and unto the last and and it's there are people Eugene megeher's book What's it called? something mammon it's I'll remember it, but All of these books are about this kind of what I'll call Mindset almost religious lockdown On Imagination and humanism as if you're a a romantic fool or if you're you're Coward if you actually explore what matters to human kind You know, I think with canes the two Well, I think there are three works that people should read from canes that are not the general theory to get a spirit of his To get the spirit of his his thought there's the economic consequences of the piece which is his critique of the treaty of versi that ended world war one in 1919 And then I think there's a book called essays in persuasion, which I think is now volume nine of the 30 volume seven collective writings that came to university press has available And then there's a book called essays in biography Which I think is volume 10 and his essays on people like Isaac Newton I think are just they have a sort of magical quality to them. You can just tell that that is That is the stuff that just really captivates him that captures his imagination and makes him makes him take flight and And this idea that the economist is this Is this very Narrow technical mathematical thinker is something that develops Over the course of the 20th century and becomes it becomes concretized sort of set in stone In the lit the latter half of the 20th century even when people like john keth gallbraith are are studying economics in the 1920s 1930s The economics world if you're going to get an economics phc, you're sort of a weirdo.  I studied philosophy as an undergraduate too. So, you know, I I like these weirdos, but but it was a realm of creativity and experimentation rather than a realm of Let's say of orthodoxy that the orthodoxy about Economic policymaking came from government and from the financial sector, but economists themselves were sort of Freewheeling types are certainly more freewheeling types than the type of people you encounter at a American business school today. So Keynes liked that but he liked that milieu. He thought that was he thought that was cool He was a philosopher who was good at math and there aren't that many of those people. So economics was Was a great place for him But he he was concerned With societies hanging together. He was not concerned with making sure that equations balanced just so And you know, he wouldn't ignore numbers today But he would ask what what the numbers were for You know, I don't think he'd be afraid of the the deficits That countries around the world have been accruing in order to fight the coronavirus pandemic, for instance But I think he'd be very concerned about The policies that those deficits represent. So, you know during world war two He wrote a very good piece called how to pay for the war What's sort of about how to pay for the war? But it was actually really concerned with what economic distribution would look like after the war How do we finance this war in such a way that when it is over The richest people in society don't simply become richer As a result of this conflict So if you just sold bonds government bonds and the investor class would would reap all of the benefits from From that debt accumulation up for the war and working people would get nothing He was able to sort of process multiple social problems at the same time through the same Policy mechanism and he was also willing to change his mind if it didn't work out He didn't say, you know, well, this is this is just how the world is. This is the policy that I I prescribed we have to stick to it by hooker by crook. He would he would change his mind and I think that flexibility On on technical policy questions is something that is very admirable But he was not flexible about his vision for society He really never loses sight of this idea that everybody can be part of Bloomsbury And that that is the world that you want to you want to fight for And I frankly find it a very difficult vision to argue with Who doesn't want to go to the museum every day? Who doesn't want to have their hair cut by virginia wolf While drinking champagne that sounds wonderful to me Yeah for everybody it should be but yes Well, I I I mispronounced The book I was referring to was the enchantments of mammon how capitalism became the religion of modernity by Eugene Macarra her And what what I see at some level Is this What do I call illusion of free markets as Bernard Harcourt called it in his famous title This this mechanical deference, it's what Charles kindleberg called Something like I can't remember what it is. He had a word or a phrase like a fallacy of concreteness That people are acting like they can Stabilize society by pretending that the economy is just a machine And I don't I don't quite know You know, I'm very fond of the philosopher john dewey and charles sanders pierce and those pragmatists Oh, yeah played around with the notion of uncertainty and I remember What was the name the quest for certainty was the name of dewey's book But it illuminated all of the Horrid side effects that are analogous to following a demagogue Because you want to believe until such time That their charade is unmasked And I I've got a quote that I I use Very often now Because I think we are in transition. I think A particular religion has failed And we've got to kind of sail out into the fog together And this gentleman rc zaner at oxford university He said loss of faith in a given religion does not by any means imply the eradication of the religious instinct It really means it merely means that the instinct temporarily repressed will seek an object elsewhere What I'm hopeful about in zack. I I'm this is really a question I'm hopeful That the pain and the tragedy Of this pandemic Will propel us To see better what matters and define a less icy mechanical fascination with material consumption and How do you say redefine what the good life is? You know, I think I think the key is for the young The the young are Are the people who are looking to the future with a sense of of sort of Optimism by necessity They're going to inherit this world whatever it is whether they like it or not And so they have to think about it as a place that can be better than what we're living in now because this is Clearly intolerable And I think young people are capable Of of establishing The political conditions that enable a better world to come to fruition and frankly, I don't think that You know, I have a very dim view of the people who are in power in both republican and the democratic party at the moment, but I don't think that those people are Are riding the zeitgeist. I don't think that that is the trajectory of Of human thought and of human action. I think I think I think the kids have it right and I spend a lot of time you know talking at universities with younger people and and This is this is a really terrific Younger generation that's coming up. I'm a millennial and 37 years old And so I'm past the point where I get to claim You know the the advantages of youth I I'm I'm pretty pretty well into middle age at this point But I got to tell you young people in on college campuses In high schools who are thinking about these ideas They are ready to do something bigger and better than what our generations have done And and I think they can do it. I I genuinely think they can because I don't have any choice Yeah, either they're gonna do it or we're going to see mass death Well, I hope you're right and and zack. I would you may be 37 years old. That looks like youth to me, but uh Standing here is 63, but I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you to go back to an old song All right, if you're if you're feeling old my back pages by bob dillon I was so much older than i'm younger than that now In this book that you've written You're rising to the occasion It's it's almost a beautiful coincidence because I know you didn't see the pandemic coming when you wrote the book But what we need are beacons What we need are models of the way forward a way of mind of what greatness and vision constitute And you painted a beautiful portrait Of a fascinating man and so I think I think You've got young eyes And uh, and I think I think you're a big contributor Well to the to the world that we need and to the To the pathway forward because you both I I read this quote From muriel ruchizer about there's kind of two types of traditions There's the people like melville who point out what's wrong and there's the people like wall whitman who teach us how to dream And you do both of those things beautifully Oh, well, that is a very high compliment. I don't know if anyone's ever compared me to wall whitman and Herman melville before rob But I don't take it Now you you're in that framework and uh, and in this book I know like I mentioned our friends with guy saperstein and all the group Uh, they were just overjoyed our mutual friend rjs cow Got you on for a podcast right away and he was effusive and your Your reviews reviews are deservedly strong and enthusiastic And that's true even within all the establishment media right now So you've you've tickled our fancy And you've rung our bell And I want to thank you for being here with me today And making a difference. All right. Thanks so much rob. I really appreciate your time You know, we'll we'll talk again before too many months pass about the time your book tours are over And though they they may all be electronic for a bit of time, but uh, I'm sure we I'm sure My audience will want to see us come back and compare notes in the not too distant future I'm sure I'll be able to rank another book out of this so we can talk about that if if not for that all right Take care. Thanks. Bye. Bye And check out more from the institute for new economic thinking at inet economics.org


Hello everyone, Basil Chapman. This is the first day of the week, of the last week of 2020 to December, the 27th Monday. And what are we looking at? We're looking at the Dow up 202 points. That is really important. If it goes above $36,189, that starts with XC. Why do I mention that? Because the S&P is at an all-time high. S&P is now at 4768, absolutely fantastic. All-time high. Leg D in the daily chart of the in-championage methodology. Now what's really going to be quite important this week is how does the QQQs act? How does the semiconductor act? Well, the QQQs up 5.37 and 4.02.29. Really nice. Over all the left side, the recovery highs that remain, trying to tackle the 4.871 all-time high. Yep, it looks like it could do it. And if it does that and goes to 4.09, I have to consider the weekly chart as really a leg C and we should have further highs. But certainly the S&P monthly has gone to a leg B and that says, you can't get a peak D in the chapmary methodology, the fourth highest peak, until 2020, the first quarter of 2020. Let's go to the IWM, which is the Russell 2000. The Russell 2000 now has turned around, was down. Now it's up a $1.41 and 223.44. It's being carried up. It's bumping up against the 50-period moving average resistance. And it's kind of lagging badly, but it is trying to play catch up. Gold is now up $1.05 in 18.13. Just kind of stuck in this range. If it starts to trade in the 18.20s, I'd say that's much, much better action. And it needs to do that two out of three sessions. And it says, ah, finally, I'm rid of that 1800 level. That can be support. It was resistance. Next thing we're looking at here is crude oil. Crude oil is looking not bad. Oh, not bad. It's now very good up to at 75.81. Bitcoin has had a bit of a rally at up $4.55 and $51,015. It's trying to make a little cup formation to turn around. And the TLT, that's going to be important, up $0.25 and $1.4877 says, you know what? Rates are not an issue right now. They haven't broken out. They haven't broken down. It just kind of stuck in a range. So with that said, the VIX index, which is a volatility index, which is a measure of fear, is down at the 18.24 area. And that just suggests down in the 18s, in the 17s says, buying is going to keep coming in. A sudden spike to the upside into the 20. I'd even say it needs to get to the 21s to say, whoops, now we're back to being very cautious. But at this particular point, things are looking much, much better. I'm going to hand you over to Larry Bissevento coming up. Great programming. I don't know if the Tiger Dollars are still up. They were up up until the weekend. If they are, check it out.


And in Kogi, a chieftain of the All Progressive Congress, Kingsley Fowle has warned politicians against playing the ethnic cards ahead of the state's governorship election. In an interview with Newsman in Lokoja, Fowle said the Yahya Bello administration has built a formidable legacy that would be difficult for anyone to beat in the state. He assured the people that the era of ethnic and religious bigotry would never rise We have been able to defeat ethnic politics in the history of our state. That's one of the legacies of Allaji Yahya Bello. And we cannot allow the resurrection of ethnic bigotry, ethnic division in our politics. What we are going for is competence, capacity, consolidation on the gains of the new direction government of Allaji Yahya Bello. And in Allaji, Usman Ododo, we would find this. So that is why all of us, whether you are from the west, from the east or from the center, those who believe in consolidating on the achievement of Allaji Yahya Bello, those who want to see many more reference hospitals, those who want to see the growth and development of cost tech, those who want to see the development of many schools like the GYB Modest Schools and all of that. We encapsulate it into the new direction blueprint that we belong to. And that is why taking Kogi forward, we have to be very faithful to this very blueprint.