Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news round up. You're with Give the People What They Want. That's Zoe. That's Prashant. Coming to you every week from People's Dispatch and Globetrotter. Of course, terrible, terrible news almost every day from Palestine. Gaza in particular. But as we've said, not only Gaza. Some facts that I got which were disturbing to me. We know that the death toll has reached 18,000 people and that's appalling. And you know the problem with death tolls is as they rise, they feel more and more overwhelming. It's almost difficult to feel a connection to 18,000, 19,000, 20,000. But I got a number from the United Nations this week which startled me. It said that 1,550 families have lost multiple family members. That's disturbing. But here's the even more disturbing number. Before I tell you that number, it's worth saying that in previous Israeli sustained bombardments of Gaza, total death tolls were about 1,400, 1,500 and so on. Well, think about this. In this particular genocidal violence in Gaza, 320 families have lost more than 10 people per family. That means that in these 322 families alone, over 3,000 people died. That's twice the death toll in previous sustained bombardments by Israel on Gaza. In fact, now in the statistics, we're starting to see this abbreviation WCNSF. This is beginning to appear in the abbreviations Wounded Child No Surviving Families. This is the situation now in Gaza, 85% of the people displaced. The Israeli troops moving south on Saladin Road, gone through Khan Yunus, coming up to Rafa, clearing out people from one end to the other. I mean, this comes, friends, after the United States, of course vetoed a ceasefire resolution being the only one. Even the United Kingdom abstained from the Security Council. But then in the General Assembly, overwhelming majority of countries voted for a ceasefire. Interestingly, it was not so clear cut. Ukraine, when it came to the Cuba resolution, voted directly with the United States to maintain the embargo against Cuba with Israel at the time. In this resolution on a ceasefire, Ukraine actually abstained. That very interesting. A number of European countries voted for the ceasefire, because the United States leading a block of countries, including Micronesia, Nauru and so on, voted to continue the bombardment of the Palestinian people in Gaza. Horrendous, horrendous situation, no end in sight as such. Lots of talk about some sort of dial down of tension, including recently, even in Washington DC, the language suggests that the violence has been too much. Interesting Prashant and Zoe, I looked at a New York Times story that tried to justify the asymmetrical nature of the violence where the New York Times on the cover page had a story on proportionality of violence saying there's a difference between proportionality and asymmetry. Of course, there's asymmetric, you know, the maximum number Israel is claiming for dead has been 1200 and now Palestinians 18,000 and climbing, that's asymmetrical. But the New York Times arguing this is actually not necessarily disproportionate, because the Israelis are trying not to kill enough people, more people, they're trying to follow the rules of law. They're using as minimal, you know, so-called homeopathic violence against the Palestinian fortifications, and they cannot be blamed if this is a congested area and so on and so forth. So even at a time when the United States president has started to soften US support for Israel, however tepidly, however cynically, even he has said one or two things here and there.  It's not, you know, a problem of the laws of war Prashant. I mean, it's a really bad situation in Gaza. What are you seeing from the context of Delhi? How does it look? How does it look what's happening in Israel? Right, interesting, of course, also sad to note that the rhetoric that the United States has taken in many of these fora, we had a story about the World Health Organization executive board discussing the situation in Gaza. The US representative there said that the ceasefire would not only be unrealistic, but actually dangerous. So, you know, this is the line that the United States and its allies are taking in key fora across the world. It's important to note, I think that many of these UN bodies, many of these global aid bodies as well have been very strongly calling for ceasefire. You talked about the extent of the humanitarian crisis, some of the numbers from the latest report of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, for instance, are equally shocking. For instance, there is a bed occupancy rate of 274 percent. And when it comes to ICU beds, it's around 227 percent. And more than half of Gaza's population, for instance, has been displaced. They're living in overcrowded shelters and it's a complete disaster when it comes to health.  We're looking at the possibility of epidemics. You know, we're also in addition to the direct death toll that this kind of bombing is causing in addition to the direct injuries. We're also looking at, you know, more crisis that may be slightly hidden underneath the surface. We're talking about malnutrition. We're talking about the possibility of other epidemics due to bad living conditions. And it is here that you have the U.S. representative coming and saying that a ceasefire is not only unrealistic, but also dangerous. And I think that really kind of sort of poses a very important that really poses a question as to what is happening over here. We know that, of course, Bernie Sanders is also finally called for a ceasefire. And there has been, you know, one or two people changing their minds, maybe, but the global, the broad global media's perspective, whether it be in India, whether it be in the United States, in many countries in the north has sort of unquestioningly, unquestioningly pushed forward this notion of two notions. One of it being a war as though this is a battle between, you know, battle between two professional armies or something of that sort, which is really, you know, two months down the line, how they continue to do that is really a question. And two, like you said, the question that the possibility that this is somehow explicable in some way or the other, or justifiable in some way or the other, which has been the US line throughout in all these global bodies, that there is justification of self-defense. And despite the fact that here we have 153 countries opposing that line, despite that fact, this continues to be the rhetoric that is being pushed through. So throughout, I mean, I think, especially in international bodies time, again, what is interesting was this time the UNGA resolution, and more countries supporting it, of course, on the other hand, I think the condemnation of the US and Israeli position and both the US veto and the Security Council and the vote in the General Assembly has been far more stronger. You've seen far more protests take place across the world against it. And you do get the sense that definitely the time, you know, in some ways, as far as global pressure is concerned from the streets, even from other governments, there is some kind of a limit to how long the US can keep this kind of rhetoric up. Like you said, Biden's speech is one example of that. But I think it's very important. I think there is definitely that that space is shrinking because nearly two and a half, two months in one week down the line, definitely no longer that space anymore.  And we shall see where this goes. I must say that violence of this kind has been sustained in many places in the world for years. I will remember in the 1980s, Zoe, across Central America, whether it was El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, the sustained violence that the United States and its allies used against the population of Guatemala, century of violence on that country, massacre upon massacre of largely indigenous people. Now, of course, a different situation in Guatemala. You've got a government. Do you have a government or was there a coup? It's a good question. But on January 14th, what we're most likely going to see is the swearing in of a new government under Bernardo Arrevalo. This is despite serious, serious attempts by the prosecutor's office in Guatemala to undermine his victory, to undermine the legal status of his party. And the latest move, which is seen and really characterized by Arrevalo as kind of a desperate last attempt to carry out this coup, which again has really been attempted to take place for the past several months, is that this prosecutor's office ruled that there were irregularities in the supreme electoral tribunal and therefore the results of the last election are completely null. It's almost laughable. It really is almost laughable if it weren't so serious, these accusations. As I said, Bernardo Arrevalo won the elections in the second round in August. He had scored in the top two in the first round of the elections. And even before these elections, as we've been reporting on people's dispatch, there were attempts by the prosecutor's office, by different judicial bodies in the country to disqualify Moimet do Semia, which is his party. Other parties actually did not. Many other parties were actually barred from participating with varying degrees of irregularities, but we're talking left parties, we're talking centrist parties. There was a serious sort of trying to keep people out of this democratic process, but they were unable to bar Moimet do Semia from participating. Bernardo Arrevalo again wins the first round and immediately there are measures taken to undermine his party to declare it illegal to say that the legal representative does not count, to say that this party cannot contest. Constantly just casting doubt on this process, casting doubt on him. This is, of course, been met with mass protest by the Guatemalan people. And this latest attempt, which is probably the most serious, which is just to say outright these elections don't count, they cannot be valid, has been met with serious, serious resistance, both by Arrevalo and his party. The indigenous movement, which has been on the streets consistently to demand the respective democracy, but also international politicians and figures and bodies have really been rejecting this. I mean, this isn't a case where you see, like in many other Latin American countries, which we've covered, that the OAS is saying, oh yeah, this was electoral fraud and the right-wing candidate should win. It's so clear that that's not the case, that even Luis Almagro, the OAS, Joseph Bordel from the European Union, even the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala has really called on this rogue prosecutor's office to say, all right, enough, you're really actually threatening the basis of democracies, democratic structures. That's where we draw the line, because it's just so blatant. You know, he won these elections fair and square, the Guatemalan people gave their vote, cast their vote, and have been consistently defending their vote. So it's Bernardo Arrevalo, you know, days since the prosecutor's office declared, said that they're going to declare these results. No, we've seen that he has been defiant in the face of this and said, we are going to be sworn in on January 14th. This is, you know, a desperate attempt. But we've seen, again, politicians from across the region as well, Gabriel Bordic, many others say that they support him, that they're rejecting this coup as well. So I think that it's really not going to go forward. But I think what you're saying about this legacy of undermining of democracy, of coups, of violence, the Guatemalan people are fighting very hard to recover this small semblance of democracy that they have from, of course, after decades of corrupt officials, officials who are handing over the mineral and natural resources over to multinational corporations. There have been many fierce battles between indigenous communities fighting for the protection of their land for access to basic rights and services. Interestingly enough, the former Guatemalan government, I think Jimmy Morales moved the Guatemalan embassy in Israel to Jerusalem right after the US did. So interesting connections there. And I think we're going to see in the next couple of weeks how this shakes out. But I think we're most likely going to see a progressive government sworn in in Guatemala. A progressive government sworn in in Guatemala. That's true. We'll see if indeed that is the case. This is also a situation where Gabriel Bordic doesn't always have the best judgment when it comes to the region. Here it seems to be is on the right side of history. We shall see your with give the people what they want coming to you from people's dispatch, indispensable source for your understanding of the world with Prashant and Zoe the co editors. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. You know, I've been doing a series for actually quite a number of years now about developments in the Sahel region visited a number of the different minds in the area. There was a new report out Prashant called blood gold rather malicious report that suggested the Wagner group of Russia was there, you know, laundering the gold smuggled out of the Sahel region. At the same time, the Burkin Abbey or Burkina Faso's government put in an interesting new law on mining around the same time as Burkina Faso and others have been trying to normalize relations in their region. What's been happening in this area West Africa, the Sahel, what are the high level discussions going on. You mentioned Burkina Faso it's President Ibrahim Traware has actually said that the alliance of Sahel states, which was initially conceived as a military alliance, but it also moved towards an economic alliance as well and that's actually a very interesting sign for what is to come in the coming days and weeks but we have a story on board on by colleague Tanupri on this on eco was talking to the jail. And it's a very interesting moment we know that the coup happened in July or in July towards the end of July and it's been many months of eco was basically various West African countries often led by Nigeria the key players trying to somehow make the coup go away so to speak, you know, whatever way possible they tried sanctions of course very brutal sanctions will come to that those haven't worked and now the body has decided to sort of very magnanimously initiate talks to ensure a transition is what which is what they call it this has happened in the past with Mali also for instance. So eco was now having a commission to initiate talks with the military with the rulers in with the rulers in the country and what this means basically is there is a de facto acceptance finally by eco was of what was popularly and popularly acclaimed and widely acclaimed in Niger when it took place that the fact that Mohammed Bazoom the ex president was extremely popular and the military rulers who took over and put forward an agenda, which included the French forces giving was actually a very popular decision as far as you know they were extremely popular so eco was forced to accept it at this point of time and it's also important to note that even as the Niger government is negotiating or discussing the possibility of a transition with eco was like I said this alliance of Sahil states. The alliance of Sahil states is actually strengthening its cooperation and which is why it brings our statement is important. All the leaders I think of these countries of these countries we have Mali we have work in a fast we have Niger all of them sort of recognizing that defensive alliances of course the first pillar or the first step as far as this alliance is concerned but over time it also has to become a commercial alliance it also has to have there has to be some concept of integration also that is part of it which is why there have been these discussions there have been discussions around the question of the CFA Frank as well a lot of controversy around that especially the role of France. So it will be very interesting to see what happens in the coming weeks with this AES will they be in some senses be able to I wouldn't say replicate but will they something in a follow up panel path to what their predecessors in the 60s and 70s were able to do. Will they be able to chart a course where the aspirations of the people are to some extent met where they're able to resist imperialism in all its forms we know that the US still has soldiers in the US it's very important to know that but not only in terms of resisting of course the imperialism or resisting is US influence but also in some senses being able to tap into each other's strengths for the economically I think that really is the challenge. It's going to be a very persistent problem in the Sahel region a lot is a lot at stake Prashant mentioned earlier gold and so on really rich part of the world uranium gold other rare earth minerals very very rich area confounded for these new governments how to make a path forward you know how to deal with the problems of their people. Meanwhile another genius seems to have entered into high political life in Argentina inherited I must say it's not his fault inherited 142% inflation rate he didn't create that but he now is doing things. Zoe that suggests that he believes in the J curve you know for those who don't know Milton Friedman and by the way Millay named his dog after Milton Friedman Milton Friedman was a great advocate of the J curve. When you do strong austerity things get really bad, but then like in the J they eventually go up now interesting Zoe you know that the long arm of the J is longer than the short arm of the recovery. But I don't want to teach Millay how to write the letter J in English what's going on with this new genius president of Argentina. Well the day did come that Javier Millay was sworn in as president and he has acted quickly his economy minister Luis Caputo essentially announced about 10 measures on TV it's being nicknamed the chainsaw measures because Javier Millay famously you know appeared in his his campaign rallies with the chainsaw saying I'm going to attack the political cast I'm going to cut back all of that. And essentially, I mean I guess it depends how he defines political cast but in any way that I think he was previously defining it which is that you know these establishment politicians, the alleged kind of corrupt and many years in office politicians none of these measures in any way address any of those people none of the ruling class, none of established political power, economic power in the country. You know it's a series of economic measures which really hit the working class, we're talking about measures to that say you cannot renew labor contracts for state workers that are less than a year old so we're, you know if you're a new worker if you're a young worker just graduated from university got a job in a ministry and some sort of state public office, you're not going to get a contract, suspending all new public works. There will be no more public works projects so fixing bridges, you know, all sorts of vital infrastructure projects are suspended, and there will be no more licenses, reducing subsidies on energy and transportation, and Argentina is extremely cheap. This is maintained to be affordable and cheap actually throughout the economic crisis and it's one of, I mean it's really the backbone the public transportation system for example in Buenos Aires millions of people use it. You know it's famously there's this city of Sonoma, which is the central part of the city and then millions, over 10 million people live in the areas outside of Buenos Aires and the conurbano. You know they use public transportation every single day to get their jobs, they will no longer have the transportation subsidies, which means that they know, even when they're making miserable wages even when there's crazy transportation, currency devaluation, they will be able to take public transportation, not for long. And finally, I mean there's many other measures that were announced but I think one of the most severe ones and you're probably talking referring to this VJ is the currency devaluation to make the official exchange rate 800 pesos to $1. Again, the, for anyone who's been to Argentina in the last year you know that the it's extremely extremely dynamic every single day exchange rates different. You have what they call the blue market where there's one exchange rate the official exchange rates a different one. There are many other. You know, nuances and how money is exchanged and what the actual rates mean, but clearly the devout the right out of the bat devaluation to 800 pesos is going to severely impact the working class. This will benefit the, you know, export sectors that deal with transactions and dollars, but we're going to see I think this will be accompanied by inflation. You already said 120% inflation that he's inheriting this is not going to. I mean it might drive it's going to push people into poverty. Sure they won't be able to buy anything and they will be struggling to survive so yeah maybe perhaps inflation will maybe go down but we're also going to see way more people in poverty where 40% of the population is already living under the poverty line so it's, there's no attacking of the ruling class in these measures this is purely working hitting the working class where it hurts. And at his inauguration was the Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who then flew to Washington DC, where he met with US President Joseph Biden members of the US government, asking for more military aid for Ukraine. Of course, didn't seem to get satisfaction so Mr Zelensky did what all intelligent people do is he just went and sat with the arms company executives and praised them and told them how they were great and and said to them, make sure to thank the workers for getting the arms to Ukraine Ukraine in a position where Mr Zelensky's government unable to actually win back territory taken by the Russians, the Donbas region, Mario Paul, and of course Crimea. I mean the Russians have got what they came to do which is hold these three areas. There's really no room for a ceasefire in Ukraine. But meanwhile, in Kingston, Jamaica, you know, there was an important discussion this week, where the president of Venezuela, Nicholas Maduro, sat across the table from the president of Guyana Irfan Ali, and they pledged that the disagreement over this very interesting tract of land that lies in the border region between Venezuela and Guyana, SAKO region, they decided that, as Mr Maduro put it, that Latin America should remain a zone of peace. Now, this has been an issue of great concern across Latin America, great concern, because the concern came as a consequence of the fact that there was a feeling that after the December 3rd referendum in Venezuela that this may escalate towards some kind of armed conflict. In fact, the very day after the referendum, when I was sitting in Caracas, got news that a helicopter, Guyane's Defense Force helicopter had come down. And there was some fear that, you know, this might escalate very quickly. A lot of Latin American countries came together and they said, listen, please de-escalate. It was a very good thing that the presidents of Guyana and of Venezuela met, had this face-to-face discussion and then decided, let's dial back the tension. It's important for people to understand that in some senses, this is lesser conflict between Guyana and Venezuela and more an issue being pushed by ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil 2017, sorry, in 2008-9 was basically shown the door by the government of Venezuela because they had a new hydrocarbons bill that ExxonMobil was unwilling to come under. It was unwilling to follow the new law. So they were basically removed from Venezuela. They took Venezuela to court for hundreds of billions of dollars in compensation. The international arbitration gave them one-tenth of that. And very soon thereafter, ExxonMobil escalated a claim that it earlier made on the Esikimo region and said, okay, we've discovered oil here. We're going to develop it and it's part of Guyana. I mean, in many ways, this has been ExxonMobil's fight. The United States has taken advantage of it, created military exercises with the very small Guyanese defense force and so on. It's a good thing that they came to the table. And I hope that this piece, you know, project that has opened up is going to bear some fruit. It's a very opposite of what has happened in Ukraine where the peace agenda was set aside, very different from what is taking place in Gaza, where violence is leading the way. It's very unlikely that you'll see even Irfan Ali go to Washington to talk to arms dealers. Very unlikely, of course, that Mr. Maduro is going to take that road. Looks like they want to find a solution that will benefit both countries. You always give the people what they want brought to you from People's Dispatch. That's Zoe and Prashant. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. See you next week.


How do we include children? Do we use them to carry candles or make cute comments during a children's message or sing solos at Christmas time? Those ideas are okay, but kids aren't just props for our worship environment. How do we include children in ways that allow them to express their worship authentically? Some children may be inspired by the opportunity to walk that solemn walk of an acolyte, but many would feel more comfortable if they were asked to run and jump. Church, when do we get to the running and the jumping part?


Tonight I'm Krishna on the volu tonight. We're shaking things up We have a special hour-long episode about the future of the Republican Party. The view from DC is simple The party is themed and that theme is Trump. We saw that this week with Liz Cheney's demotion from Republican leadership But the view from DC is also limited almost 75 million people voted for former President Trump in 2020 And not a lot of them live in Washington. So truly understanding the future requires a road trip That's why Michael Moynihan went to Texas, which like a Republican buffet has every possible type of conservative And he went with open ears But a critical eye to understand how voters feel about where we've been and where we're going They want us to apologize for being prideful about being American. I'm proud to be an American I'm proud to have my dad do that flag. If you don't hug a flag, you are not a real president. Pride is a big thing That side of pride is good to me. I think it's good to be proud. Do you have a pride parade? No Any criticisms of pride? Can I just stop for a second and say he based his support for the president of the United States on Whether or not he thinks the candidate is proud to be an American That's just bravo that logic right there. I mean it you can't argue against that logic Nothing Four years four years. I don't think I ever came against single thing. I don't think so. Oh dear. I've got cultish, isn't it? It's not cultish. I have the things I disagree with there are things that you know, he's human So maybe we don't see eye-eye on all the things but the common Core thing that he was running on I believed in is there anything you've changed your mind about in the past four years Any belief that you've had that you change your mind about yes I think it's much more swampy than it was initially thought it was gonna be swampy And I think a lot of it came from his side as party You're kind of saying in a way that the Republicans were actually worse than you thought they were Yeah, they should have jumped on the Trump train and they did it and I think it's gonna affect Hang on you're saying that it's more swampy now after Trump left the White House So he said he was gonna drain the swamp.  This is a cult. It's gonna affect them in the midterms coming up And I think it's gonna affect some of them on reelection in 2024. I hope it does. I hope they get voted out But is the Trump train running out of steam? I Don't think so. I'm still pumped for him whatever Compacity he can do to make it keep his decision. I'm going period. I'm behind it a hundred percent I don't know what that vision is It's had we don't either people don't need her but there's agreement there quiet going to work and watching see what happens To see what President Trump is gonna do next and I hope he understands that we're watching we're waiting It's not over God is in control. He is not done with Donald Trump. Do you believe you lost now? I believe that the elections were absolutely rigged.  It's going to be one of the Trumps. Well, I would like to see his Trump run for the House of Representatives from Florida in 2022 Republicans can take over Congress That'd be hilarious speaker at the house and then he can then peach Harris and Biden and get him thrown out and then he becomes oppressed and again Convoluted thing I've ever heard in my life. You don't see a Republican party without I cannot see The rooftop Republicans is a group of MAGA faithful who meet weekly at a Mexican restaurant in College Station, Texas The focus of this group is to is to Concentrate on working from the school board up to the presidency in bringing true conservatism to bear You imagine if these people like infiltrate the school boards and whatnot just Both coasts look at us as a bunch of backwards Creighton and we're not He's a retired judge There's various other people around here who are educated intelligent There's a lot of places that a lot of things and we're tired of being laughed at you look at the stuff It comes out a couple of you don't see a central white family or even a minor mixed family There's three queers two lesbians 13 Martians Wait, I don't understand the criticism here that he's making. He's just mad because there's more representation for Marginalized groups and historically Non-visible groups is that really what he's mad about is that not a snowflakey thing to be upset over? Who cares who thinks about that Like think about this if you're watching television and you just discovered this brand new show do you ever think okay? There's like there's two white people on the screen. One of them is a woman.   It's weird, you know He's talking about how well we're not we're not dumb.   I don't need it You know, I have plenty of black friends and gay friends. So I don't want to see them. Yeah, get them away from me I it doesn't make any sense to me. Well, I should say it does make sense But I'm not gonna jump to any conclusions about this individual yet But I think he's kind of like telling on himself in a way, right? Yeah, Sam says these people are too far gone I agree with that like if you're offended because of diversity on Television you're not a serious person who cares about that Who cares like it's good to see more gay people on TV. It is it's good to see a range of people on TV I think that diversity on television representation Paves the way for greater understanding of individuals and sometimes the narratives are a little bit bad and stereotypical But I mean you can point to certain television shows and how the cultural impact that had actually did make more people Accepted by society glee with gay people for example You know and to a degree Orange is the new black with trans people because they had a prominent trans character. So What he says here, this is such a weird and bizarre thing It doesn't make any sense to me You're offended and you're condescended to because you see a lot of diversity Let me do a little experiment here Give me a sentence how you feel the media views you they think we can't think for ourselves And we need to be told what to do Making money off of being condescending to you We're the competition and they have to shut us down through any means possible To promote their agenda. What is their agenda? Do you think? They just talked about how smart they were They just talked about how they don't need to be condescended to and you know They look down on them and then when asked well, what is their agenda? They say communism. I want to kill myself In Roblox not liberalism not social democracy Just another word for communism and that's what's taking over that part of the world Define communism like I hope he asks them to define communism.  Is there listen? Is there a single communist in the mainstream media in America? On MSNBC Fox News CNN can anyone think of a single prominent communist in the United States of America. I Can't think of any None come to mind But this is their agenda guys is communism They use all of these buzzwords that they have no understanding of and it's just Embarrassing But they're not embarrassed at all like liberalism in the sense of like Kennedy style liberalism versus Swedish style social democracy versus Soviet style communism I mean you but manifesto with what they're doing. It's the same the communist manifesto. Okay, correct. Is that a pretty uniform view here?  And when he and I talk about issues and really Dive down into them. We agree on almost everything you do Concern about the elitists versus the people you see the enemy is the same thing What is it that politically divides you and your son? I think that he's listening more to mainstream media Believing the narrative that we are racist, you know, you're talking about Bernie Sanders. We're talking about unions We're talking about Trump You know, what is it about him and it's it all boils down to me the people they don't want to be dismissed And they want a say so in what's going on on the union. I just have to point out the irony here She has these conversations with her liberal son about how elites are the issue So she's kind of like circling around the main issue here, right? It's capitalism. It's the oligarchs It's wealth being hoarded at the top by the top one tenth of one percent, but yet she supports Donald Trump Donald Trump is literally part of the issue He's rich. He's an oligarch, but yet she doesn't like elites It's just really frustrating to me and that's not to say that, you know You shouldn't support a good leftist candidate, you know, if someone emerges who's rich who's a class traitor I mean FDR was basically a class traitor, but what she's saying Like she's not supporting someone who's a class traitor She's supporting Donald Trump who very much was not a class traitor He was in favor of trickle down economics where him and his buddies get lots and lots of tax cuts And in fact after he passed his 2017 tax bill, what was the first thing that he did?  I mean is that it's kind of a two degree I finally hear a little bit of dissent here. Yeah, I would say dissent. He spends money freely and I'm okay with that on the things that matter so defense spending Infrastructure border control border security and and getting rid of the things that that are there are sudden sounds So that's what animates you It's okay when trump blows up the deficit because he's spending things Spending money on things that matter first of all joe biden Opted for a bigger defense budget than donald trump. Are they gonna jump ship and support joe biden?  Even if you thought that it mattered like are you perfectly fine with 60 percent of our discretionary budget? Going to the military Is that justifiable in any way shape or form when we have people sleeping on the streets in america?  This is not a political ideology. It's just a cult Yeah, it's anger and it's fear as mr. Anderson says that's exactly what it is Now smaller government less spending lower taxes Do you think that there's but you don't like smaller governments?  You believe in the biggest government imaginable Likelihood Of getting a sort of across the board kind of trump You know congress of republicans. Yes, so this is just the beginning of the battle Who are the elites that need to be knocked off? I Okay How do they hate mitch mcconnell because mitch mcconnell was basically the errand boy for donald trump I'm assuming that they liked mitch mcconnell so long as he was doing what donald trump wanted But the second that mitch mcconnell turned on this whole election narrative um the second mitch mcconnell said actually the uh The winners are joe biden and kamala Harris like that day is when Mitch mcconnell was trending on twitter. I think that's probably the turning point for them But it's like mitch mcconnell is your guy based on what you said What little you said that I could deduce from your weird incoherent worldview somebody finally named a democrat schumer Those are all republicans anyone who's been out there for more than 10 years is corrupt Sometimes you've got to draw that line in the sand the republican league had never drawn that line We keep going over the democrats keep going left Now's the time that we wish They talk about democrats being communists or they being communists I guess applying that to the media and democratic party elites and elites more broadly speaking I mean jesus christ if half the things that they thought about the democratic party were true The country would be in such better shape than it is right now. I swear to god People need to stand up for our constitution. We're losing our rights So you don't see it. What rights are we losing because we are losing rights. She's correct Can she cite a single right that we're losing? A single one is she gonna cite How the patriot act has basically gutted the fourth amendment Is she gonna cite how bds laws restrict our first amendment rights to protest? Voting rights are being stripped away I mean, yeah, we're losing our rights but She's like a lot of americans that just like say things like I support freedom and small government But she doesn't actually know what that means. Like if you pressed her on this, she would have no idea What rights we're losing any room for compromising So, um, yeah, basically it's about what I expected I've watched so many of these videos with uh, trump supporters And they all say the same thing Which is not much. It's a lot of words It's a lot of virtue signaling buzzwords such as communism the media elites But there's never A coherent ideology like the lowest common denominator For all these people. It's just donald trump. That's the one link that ties all of them together But they don't actually ground their political ideology in any coherent School of thought it's so weird. It's reactionary.   Who is it? Um, the the phd guy He's really upset because now when you turn on the television, you don't just see white people anymore And that's so bad like he's so triggered by that He he wants it to go back to a time when you turn on the tv and you just see white people Hey, buddy newsflash, you're what like 75 85 years old 95 years old possibly 120 years old Uh, you don't have much time left and you still most of the time See white people on tv. Is it really that bad? Like what are you watching to where you see all of these people of color and lgbtq? Plus people what channel are you watching? I'd like to watch that channel. Certainly. It's improved I think that most people will admit that but you still see mostly white people on television. I think overall Generally speaking so for as long as you're going to be alive Things aren't going to change that much. I mean your generation is making sure we don't change Anything at least when it comes to climate change when it comes to trans rights So because of you things won't change. So you've won you've gotten what you wanted I mean these people they support the economic agenda of the republican party hence why they vote for them And so they won we live in a late-stage capitalist society They got the dystopian world that they wanted We don't have socialism We barely have social democracy in the united states and whatever we have It's always under threat to be privatized. So they won So what more do they want? Well, what little progress we've made that's too much for them Seeing people of color on television That's a bridge too far because they like seeing white people on television That's literally the totality of their Their politics that's basically it It's racism And this isn't the traditional racism of like Oh, well, I think that you know Non-white people are inferior. This is the racism of Um, I'm the victim. I'm being oppressed Uh The equality that I see Basically spells doom for me, you know people getting Equal rights me not being at the tippy top of the social hierarchy. That feels like oppression to me I don't want to be Equal to my peers. I want to be above my peers and that's That's basically it. So I don't know what else to say. I think that this speaks for itself um, these people Their entire world view What they base their politics on is incoherent And I think that that's obvious


Well, access to information in Bangladesh has always been a very hassle-ridden process. Let's say you want to apply for a passport or any other document, birth registration, driving license. What would usually happen is a citizen from rural areas, typically, would have to actually go through a lot of hoops, would ask a neighbor or a friend or maybe travel to government offices, which are actually far from where he or she usually lives. And it's a long process. Sometimes it's expensive. And obviously, it's a big waste of time and money. Sometimes they actually have to pay what is called speed money in Bangladesh just to get information on government services. This national portal, which took about three years to build, about 70,000 people involved in the process, civil servants, and digital entrepreneurs at different levels who actually provided content. Now it has about 2 million pieces of content from 42,000 offices of the government. So it brings the entire government under one virtual umbrella. And the benefit from the citizen side is that the hassle that I talked about is almost removed. Because this portal now houses, as I said, not only information from about 42,000 offices of the government, but also about 400 critical service delivery information, where to go, how much to pay, what happens if you don't get the information or the service within the stipulated time, who do you complain to. So all that information is very detailed out in this portal. And we have actually done some calculation. Today, we are seeing it was launched last year on the International Civil Service Day in June 23 of 2014. So it's been approximately 11 months or so. And the number of hits has been growing on the portal. And today, we are seeing about 2 million hits every day, on every single day. So people are gravitating towards it. Number of hits actually went up 10 times in the last 11 months. And this is saving tremendous cost, tremendous time, and tremendous hassle on behalf of millions of citizens of Bangladesh. The target group is basically everybody. The entire population is about 160 million, about 70% of it lives in the rural areas. And those are the ones that are most benefiting the most from this portal, because they had to travel the longest distances, pay the largest amount of money. Even being the poorest, the information access was most costly and most time-consuming for that target group. So I would say that the biggest target group is the 70% underserved rural population. And also in the urban areas, we have urban poverty. Still about 24% of the population is under the poverty line. So that's another target group. What we developed is 5,000 digital centers across the country in rural local government institutions and some urban local government institutions as well. Where two digital entrepreneurs are actually serving people with information and government services. So that has been the largest service decentralization effort. And we won a WISIS award last year for those 5,000 centers. This portal, coupled with those 5,000 centers, have done a revolution in the lives of common citizens in the rural areas mostly. Well, it's gratifying, obviously. I think the recognition that this prize brings to us is testament to the hard work that has gone into building this portal. As I said, 70,000 civil servants and entrepreneurs actually worked together for about three years to populate content into this portal. And they keep it up to date almost on a daily basis. It's just a regular update mechanism that happens. So this WISIS prize, and when it was announced yesterday, there was this big celebration across the country. Think about the 70,000 people and millions of people who actually benefit from this portal. The 70,000 people building it, millions of people consuming the information that actually comes on this portal. So there's this big celebration. The Prime Minister was very happy. We had a press conference just after it was announced here within minutes after this at the Prime Minister's office. And it's being broadcast on TV, plastered on newspapers, front headlines. So this is a big thing for Bangladesh. So the recognition is important. The other thing is also, coming to WISIS allows us to network with a lot of other countries who are doing similar things. Many are far ahead of where Bangladesh is. Many are probably in a position where Bangladesh could offer some insights and experiences. So this networking for growing South-South cooperation and possibly triangular cooperation is also very useful. So winning a WISIS prize, being here as a winner, being able to network with other countries in similar or close situations, I think, is a very important participation for all of us.