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- [00:04]
JB Branch
Soy Gregorio Luque y estas escuchando cape efeca Noventa puntociete fma in Los Angeles. Noventa yocho puntosiete fma in Santa Barbara y por el mundo Wu, wu, wu. Ca peca punto hoy rege. I am Gregorio Luke, and you're listening to KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles, 98.7 FM, Santa Barbara and throughout the world. You can contact us at www.kpfk.org.
- [00:40]
Ralph Nader
This is Mumia Abu Jamal, and you're listening to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Enjoy. Stand up.
- [00:48]
Jesse Jackson
Stand up. You've been sitting way too long.
- [00:55]
Steve Scrovan
Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Scrovan, along with my co host, Davis Feldman. Hello, David. Hello, Steve. And our producer, the indomitable Hannah Feldman. Hello, Hannah.
- [01:07]
JB Branch
Hello, indomitable Steve.
- [01:09]
Steve Scrovan
Oh, no, I'm not looking for a return. Well, we have the real indomitable one, the man of the hour, Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph.
- [01:16]
Ralph Nader
Hello. Well, the show has its sadness, its terrifying aspects, as well as its optimistic incursions. Stay tuned.
- [01:26]
Steve Scrovan
Yes, Ralph. And first up, we return to the topic of artificial intelligence. This time we're going to focus on some of the facets of our lives being disrupted by AI education, law enforcement and human companionship, among others. To discuss how the tendrils of AI are creeping into our society and economy, we welcome JB Branch, who is the big tech accountability advocate for Public Citizens Congress Watch Division. He leads public citizens advocacy efforts on AI accountability, consumer data and privacy rights, tech product safety platform oversight, and how to protect children online. All this AI stuff is moving very fast, and JB Branch is here to help us catch up. Then we welcome in person someone you hear every week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, our corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhyber. He joins us today to talk about the latest issue of the Capitol Hill Citizen. Finally, we close with a tribute to the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Ralph is going to share some of his thoughts and memories of the late civil rights icon. But first, everywhere we turn, there's a new AI tentacle creeping up on us. How can we get a handle on it? David?
- [02:38]
Alan Minsky
JB Branch is the big tech accountability advocate for Public Citizens Congress Watch Division.
- [02:44]
Steve Scrovan
He leads public citizens advocacy efforts on
- [02:47]
Alan Minsky
artificial intelligence accountability, consumer data and privacy
- [02:52]
Steve Scrovan
rights, tech product safety platform oversight, and
- [02:56]
Alan Minsky
child online safety protections.
- [02:59]
Steve Scrovan
Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, JB Branch.
- [03:02]
JB Branch
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
- [03:05]
Ralph Nader
Welcome, J.B. we're going to start from scratch here. Sort of like a tutorial. Because a lot of people hear about AI, AI, AI and the descriptions are not fundamental. Often they assume we. Well, there's a basis of knowledge here. Let me start by saying there's nothing new about artificial intelligence. A thermostat is artificial intelligence. Automated machinery in factories, artificial intelligence. The original artificial intelligence is the corporation itself. It's called an artificial person. What we're talking about is generative artificial intelligence. That's where the risks, the dangers, the potential, the, the threat to the world comes from. Can you describe it?
- [03:49]
JB Branch
Yeah, well, thank you for the question. So artificial intelligence really refers to technology that is intended to simulate human intelligence. It does that by using vast amounts of data to basically run a statistical algorithm and come up with a probabilistic guess as to what someone wants as the answer. And so that's what general artificial intelligence is. When we're talking about generative artificial intelligence that is sort of taking it the next step. That is a large language model or a product that can create things really based on user prompts. So a user might say create an image of Pac man on a horse or might say write a love letter to my partner. And the generative artificial intelligence takes what it knows about the user and all the data that it has and creates a whole new response based on what the user was requesting.
- [04:57]
Ralph Nader
Given all this, the companies who are attaching their artificial intelligence to generative artificial intelligence becomes a double menace. And what we're seeing is, is a massive propaganda campaign, such as three advertisements on the super bowl recently trying to make artificial intelligence of the regenerative type nice and comfortable. Everything's going to come out very well, very positive. It's going to discover new medicines, it's going to make the economy more efficient. It's going to create all kinds of innovation. So there's a real one sided propaganda. And at Public Citizen you are looking at the dark side, you're looking at the unregulated side. You're looking at the costs that already are being imposed on, for example, jobs being replaced. So tell us about a sort of clueless Congress here. You know, they have these hearings and they ask these questions and they just get nothing done. Generative artificial intelligence is feared by conservatives, by liberals. There have been attempts at state legislatures to curb its impact on children, which we will get to in a moment. But Congress still hasn't passed much of anything at all. Give us a scene.
- [06:19]
JB Branch
Yeah, well really what's happening is these AI companies are kind of taking a page out of the playbook of the social media days, when social media was brand new, they were trying to say that this technology is going to lead to people being more connected, it's going to lead to efficiencies, it's going to lead to just overall positives. And in fact, there were times where you had big tech CEOs who were saying that a lot of this money was going to trickle down. And you look down and you look up, and I'm not any richer because the Facebook stock is soaring or Microsoft's is soaring. What we're really seeing is the same thing that's happened with these large tech companies, which is that they promise the world, they offer back very little. And in fact, what they offer up is a series of harms. You're starting to see parental groups who are wising up to it after social media harms that have been unleashed on kids. Kids are now more depressed than previous generations. And now you have this automated AI which can really ramp things up 10 times, 100 times fold. There are promises that AI is going to help the economy. What we're seeing is that a lot of these tech CEOs are trying as hard as possible to ensure that these AI systems are replacing workers. So what's going to happen when those folks are laid off? Tech companies are laying off coders. But you also see this in stores with these sort of like automated checkout systems systems. Those are real jobs that people have that are going to be replaced by AI. Congress has been really bought into AI. They're buying into this idea that it's a race for the world, between us and China. So you have some congressional folks who believe that this is a race against China and that we need to harness this weapon. And then you have a lot of corporate money from these AI companies. You know, you just mentioned the super bowl ads, which cost a pretty penny, but they're dumping a lot of money into races, congressional races, to ensure that they're propping up candidates who align with this deregulatory scheme. And quite frankly, the American people want regulations because they saw what happened when social media was left unregulated. Can't trust these companies to regulate themselves. And you can't trust that they're going to hold their word to their promises. Because. Because we've seen all the harms that they've unleashed, including disinformation and harms on minors, like you alluded to earlier.
- [08:50]
Ralph Nader
Well, there's a recent article in the New York Times, February 12, titled, AI Companies Are Eating higher education. They're eating higher education and the reporter, Matthew Connolly, goes on to say, young people are quickly becoming so dependent on AI that they're losing ability to think for themselves. And. And rather than rallying resistance, academic administrators are aiding and abetting a hostile takeover of higher education. And the companies are pouring money into these universities, promising cash bonuses when students meet marketing goals, creating conflicts of interest, especially when these students who are paid are elected to positions in student government. This is news to me. I mean, I didn't know the penetration was so deep. Can you elaborate on this?
- [09:42]
JB Branch
Right. Well, part of this has to do with the business model that a lot of these companies bank on, which is basically trying to capture corner market. So what they try to do is they offer free services or free software in a variety of ways. In this example, it's students. What they're banking on is if we give you our AI system for free to the next class of graduating students, they're going to be dependent on our system, and they're going to use our system not just now, but moving forward. When they become adults and enter the workforce, they're going to feel most familiar with the system that they've used first. And there's actually a lot of research that supports this notion. You know, if you're an iPhone user and that was your first phone that you ever had, the likelihood is you're going to be an Apple user and an iPhone user, because it's what you feel most comfortable with. The problem with this in the educational system is that, you know, college is really supposed to be a time where metal sharpens metal. You're supposed to be really thinking for yourself for the first time, exploring your ideas and challenging one another organically. But what happens with AI is that students, they end up feeding their essay questions into the generative models, and it spits back what some folks are referring to as kind of AI slop. When we started talking earlier, you know, I mentioned that it's all statistics that these AI models are generating out. And what a lot of professors are finding is that if they ask a specific question to a class, those students are using AI. And those essays all start to seem very similar to one another. That's because the AI models are using statistics to create a probabilistic guess to determine what that professor means or wants when they ask that specific question. And it's really hard for these professors to call these students out. In fact, there was one professor who did what is referred to as the Trojan horse method in trying to determine if his students were cheating, which was that he asked A question on a Word document, but in really small font text that was invisible to the students. He had specific prompts and verbiage that was used. And the reason he did that was so that when students turned in their assignments, if any of those verbiages that were invisible to the naked eye came up, it could be read by an AI system. And what he found out was almost half of his class turned in papers that had nonsense that was completely unrelated to the prompt, which had to do with that Trojan horse sort of security method. It's a real problem.
- [12:27]
Ralph Nader
Well, the Times article JV says that research suggests the students using AI do not read as carefully when doing research and that they write with diminished accuracy and originality and they ask fewer questions. It's spreading everywhere. There's a preliminary study in England where doctors are using AI so frequently that their own skills are starting to atrophy. And I can see that with other professions as well. So back to Congress. What do you recommend? As the Technology Accountability Staffer, congresswatch, what do you recommend? Give us your ideal congressional legislation to deal with generative AI.
- [13:11]
JB Branch
Yeah, the dream. If Congress would listen to me. I think it starts off with treating AI just like any other industry. Why should it be any different from other industries? We have regulations that are in place. We have regulations on automotive industries, aviation. So we need regulations on AI. Some of those regulations would include ensuring that products are safe when they go to market. That's a pretty standard recommendation. We're seeing that some of these systems are going out to market. They're creating sexualized images of children, of women. That product should never go to market. There are other products that are encouraging teens to die by suicide or harm themselves or even drug usage. Again, there should be regulations testing these products before they go on to market. Another sort of common sense principle is if there are mass harms that are occurring, companies need to be fined and government regulators need to have a way to step in and intervene. We just saw this situation with Grok, Elon Musk's large language model that created 3 million deep fake pornography images of women and thousands of children. And while it was happening, it was allowed to stay on the market because there was no mechanism to take it off. And Google and Apple, we're still making it available to teens. If something like that is happening, the federal government should be able to intervene and pause it from being available to consumers. And there should be a massive fine coming to the way of Elon Musk and X.
- [14:46]
Ralph Nader
Obviously you favor AI self identifying itself. Anytime there's an AI, it has to describe itself as AI, isn't that correct?
- [14:56]
JB Branch
Right. So that's another issue. A lot of times individuals are interacting with chatbots and they don't realize that it's AI. And so disclosures are incredibly important as well. Talking about the elections that are going to be coming up in 2026, we anticipate an explosion of AI used in political campaigning. Whenever that's happening, there needs to be disclosures, there needs to be ways to verify things because we're increasingly moving to this like post truth world where people can't distinguish fact from reality. And there have been a couple of times in Europe where pro Putin candidates have benefited from Russians injecting their elections with misinformation and disinformation that was AI generated. That's not something that President Trump is taking seriously. He's cutting funding to size A, but he also is helping with the spread of disinformation through AI generated images. So that's obviously a huge concern for us too.
- [15:57]
Ralph Nader
Well, given the history of spotty regulation or non regulation by regulatory agencies over the drug companies, the auto companies, the fossil fuel polluters, kb, do you really think that's going to do much other than pick off a few outrageous violators where thousands of more violators come in every day and there's no national barrier against this. It can come from anywhere in the world. Don't you think a more generic confrontation has to occur here? For example, the first trial on what artificial intelligence has done to teenagers and not to mention preteens, is occurring now in Los Angeles against the big Silicon Valley companies. And there are countries like Australia and others banning access to these systems by any youngster 16 or under. So what about the approach of prohibition here? Selective prohibition, age prohibition? Where are you on that?
- [17:02]
JB Branch
Right. So I think that bands have a place to play, particularly for teens, because many of these products have an emotive component to it. There have been several AI companions that have been released onto market, which are these products that basically try to replicate the feeling of a friend or a lover. And it has caused what some folks are referring to as AI psychosis, where people believe whatever these things are saying and they create unhealthy relationships with these products. So in those instances, a ban for teens in particular would be incredibly helpful. Problem is that as anyone who's been a kid can attest, kids find ways to get into things that they shouldn't have access to. And so the remedies that some of these companies have created are facial recognition or uploading your license onto their websites. And that opens up a whole other can of worms for other users in terms of privacy rights. But a ban would be for teens in particular would be a good first step because we've already seen the harms that have befallen kids through social media when these companies have said that they would regulate themselves.
- [18:15]
Ralph Nader
There's another article in the New York Times is even scarier. It's called to stay in her home. She let in an AI robot, basically 85 year old widow who is very active physically in her younger days, mountain climbering and so forth in her home. Loneliness. And an Israeli company is testing a robot in dozens of homes in the United States here to be the elderly person's roommate. And the real intriguing aspect of this long article is that the woman likes it. She's gotten very identified with Ellie Q now name of the robot. They talk constantly, intimately, friendly, comfortly, and they're bonding. So tell us about that one. This of course reflects the dissolution of the extended family, the presence of relatives with older people, as in early societies, for example, or in tribal societies. But this is pretty menacing because who's going to control Elliq? Elliq has a mind of its own. It's amazing what it anticipates in this article in terms of the life of this elderly woman. Tell us about what you would do there and what's coming.
- [19:34]
JB Branch
So a lot of these AI companies see a loneliness epidemic that is really happening across the globe and they're targeting different populations with AI companions. One of the most vulnerable populations are older adults who might be widowed, who might be living in a nursing facility or living alone. In this instance, LEQ is what's referred to as an AI companion that I talked about earlier, which are these products that are intended to be like a friend, that are intended to be sometimes like a lover, depending on the circumstances. And it's actually the exact opposite of social norming and socializing. What it's really doing is it's saying, let's have this person be so connected and so dependent with this robot that they don't actually want to go outside, that they don't want to actually call their child because the robot is going to replace the child. The thing that people need to understand with these products is that the sole intention of these products is to maximize user engagement. And so they're designed to maximize that engagement. And part of that includes telling users what they might want to hear. Part of that might include flirting with the user if that's going to maximize engagement with People, and it results in people disconnecting from their real social networks. It's incredibly concerning, particularly amongst older populations, because these companies like ellieq view nursing homes or the nursing shortages across the United States as an entryway for them to pitch their products. And the next sort of evolutionary step that they're going to be pursuing is connecting to a doctor and connecting to pharmacists and to a patient's drugs. And so it's collecting all of that incredibly important information and bundling it and providing it to a company that's going to use it to leverage products against the user as well.
- [21:42]
Ralph Nader
There is a school of thought that AI is too menacing, it's dangerous to the planet, to the human race, to the natural world, far outweigh any benefit. And again, you can still use artificial intelligence, but not the generative type. And so they want a global ban. They want to shut down the company in the Netherlands that builds the machine. It has a monopoly on it. And that's the only way out is what they see. It's like banning certain kinds of chemical and biological warfare materials under international treaty. That's not easy to do either. You see a way out.
- [22:20]
JB Branch
Well, that's the interesting thing about my job. It's been playing whack a mole because as you said, every day it is exciting, accelerating, and there's new harms that are evolving constantly. I think the issue here is that a variety of nations see military and economic incentives with AI. And so I don't think a global ban is likely. I think once you start seeing mass job displacement, revolutions essentially occur when people can't feed themselves and can't feed their families. And these companies are so blinded by corporate greed that they, I think, foolishly are rushing towards this world in which they displace as many people as possible from jobs. And what happens when all those folks become incredibly upset because they can't care for themselves or care for their families? So I think, unfortunately, with other mass technologies that have come out, it's going to take a seismic event for people to really organize and wise up that this is going to be as harmful
- [23:25]
Ralph Nader
as it is like an autonomous weapon attacking a country or attacking a region completely out of control. Well, let's focus very clearly on this. We've been talking with JB Branch, a big tech accountability advocate for public citizens, Congress Watch Division, the conveyor here, the deliverer of the generative AI and all its perils and risks. It's the corporation, it's the corporate entity. And so the focus has got to be on the corporate entity. I know a lot of individuals can deliver it, but no one has the mass marketing dominance that these small number of giant corporations that we often call Silicon Valley companies are able to engage the public in. So maybe you should increase your strategy in Congress to begin focusing on conditioning government procurement on certain corporate behavior in order to deter misuse of generative artificial intelligence, criminal penalties, much more serious, taking away state charters from corporations who engaged in this and just focus on the delivery institution because artificial intelligence is just a tool. Now these hundreds of data centers, giant data centers are being built or proposed, are provoking huge resistance by neighbors, by people in the area, bad effect on water, noise. They don't hire many people to begin with. They take over valuable land. My guess is they're going to be a lot of empty data centers in five or 10 years. As you get more bankruptcies, the industry gets shaken out and more efficient use of data collection is introduced, as well as other things that seem to be on the horizon to cut the wild expansion by these corporations of these white elephants. What's your response?
- [25:25]
JB Branch
I think that we're in the midst of a data center explosion. And to your point, there's going to be a question as to how useful those will be down the road, especially if we're in midst of a data center bubble. I think I saw a statistic the other day that 40% of construction that is going on in the United States right now is data center specific. Elon Musk is looking at building data centers in outer space and low orbit satellites. So I think it's something that we need to continue monitoring. The Trump administration is tearing up local ordinances and viewing this as a national emergency, as a national infrastructure, as a way to bypass local regulations. And consumers need to be aware their electricity bills are going to be skyrocketing. We're already starting to see that in states like Virginia and Indiana where they've expanded data centers because those companies are not paying their fair share, the taxpayers are subsidizing those companies. And we're actually in the midst of one of the largest mass wealth transfers from taxpayers to these large companies as they're building out these data centers.
- [26:35]
Ralph Nader
Are any citizens using environmental impact statement litigation?
- [26:40]
JB Branch
So that's actually a really fascinating question. There is litigation that's going on to try to uncover the usage like water usage of these data centers or pollutions, because what these data centers do is they enter into non disclosure agreements with the local communities. And so there's no way for the local communities to know how Much water is being used, what the chemicals are being used. But these folks are seeing symptoms crop up. And it's kind of reminiscent of fracking that happened in Appalachia and across the US where these companies came in, they had communities sign non disclosure agreements and you had kids waking up with bloody noses and nausea and workers started having cancer and water systems were polluted. It's the same playbook. We're seeing it all over again. And so yes, there is litigation trying to get at these non disclosures and determine what the real environmental impact of these data centers are.
- [27:40]
Ralph Nader
And of course, Trump is the big enabler of artificial intelligence. He doesn't have much real intelligence, so he's giving him the go ahead. He's restraining the government from doing much about it. And the corporations are sending him millions of dollars for his ballroom at the White House. And the big arch corruption is all over the place here out of the Trump dump in Washington. So we're going to ask our listeners to suggest new names to replace artificial intelligence. We want new names to replace the emergence of, of corporate driven giant robots. Who knows, the corporate robots may turn on the corporate CEOs for all we know. If they get out of control, they may have other ideas. We're going into a very, very brave new world to cite Eldridges Huxley's book in the 1930s, listeners. So we want to hear from you, we want to hear your suggestions and JB tell our listeners how they can contact your website, stay in touch with Public citizens Congress watch and continue an interaction, getting information and feeding it back to you. Give the website slowly, twice.
- [28:59]
JB Branch
Right. So yeah, I would encourage your listeners follow Public Citizen. You could go to our website, www.citizen.org. that's www. And I'm our big Tech Accountability advocate. There's a landing page there for Big Tech Accountability where you can follow all our work on AI data centers and corporate tech accountability and they can tell
- [29:31]
Ralph Nader
you what's going on back home that you may not know about. Regarding Data center X, Y and Z. Right.
- [29:37]
JB Branch
We have a phone line. You could always call in and let us know what's going on in your backyard to keep us abreast of what's happening in your neck of the woods.
- [29:46]
Ralph Nader
Any new reports you're putting out in the coming months?
- [29:49]
JB Branch
Well, I actually will be having an AI handbook that's going to be coming out for regulators that'll include the different trust systems that need to be in place, different regulations and laws that should be put in place to hold these companies accountable. My colleague Rick Claypool just came out with a report on AI companions on their harms on teens. So if you have a teen in your life who you care about, grandchild, child, I would recommend folks to read that as well to stay up on the different harms that kids are being exposed to through AI chatbots.
- [30:29]
Ralph Nader
Well, thank you very much, JV Branch of Public Citizen. To be continued, obviously. But I hope our listeners have been sufficiently agitated to start mobilizing, first for their self protection and that of their children, shielding them, and second, for broader control over this emerging monster robotic world of giant corporations who want to get rid of workers and just make ever more profits for their infinite greed. Thank you very much, jb.
- [31:03]
JB Branch
Thank you for having me.
- [31:04]
Steve Scrovan
Again, we've been speaking with JB Branch. We will link to his work@ralphnaderradiohour.com Stand up.
- [31:10]
Jesse Jackson
Stand up.
- [31:12]
Steve Scrovan
Every week we hear from our corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhyber. When he's not reporting a corporate crime, he's editing the Capitol Hill Citizen. DAVID Russell Mokhyber is no stranger to our listeners.
- [31:23]
Alan Minsky
He's also the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter and the Capitol Hill Citizen. He also founded singlepayeraction.org and is editor of the website Morgan County, USA. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Russell Mokhyber, thank you.
- [31:42]
Steve Scrovan
Hi, Russell, welcome indeed, as Ralph always says. And you are the editor of the Capitol Hill Citizen. Tell us exactly what is the Capitol Hill Citizen? What's its mission?
- [31:54]
Russell Mokhyber
It's a relatively new newspaper founded by Ralph Nader to cover Congress and to empower the citizens back home to do something about it. I see our philosophy along a couple lines. One is it's not left right, it's top down. We consider both political parties corrupt to the core, but there's a rising tide of activism against both parties, against the institutional parties. And so, for example, in the current issue, we bristle against those who are what we call negativo. We're very positivo. So while we're living in very difficult times, there's a rising tide of activism challenging members of Congress, both current members in Congress, as citizen activists and also as candidates. So in the current issue, on page 33, we have an article titled Dump the Depression and populists of all stripes are running for Congress. And we have a short profile of 10 of them, including Kat Abu Ghazala, who's running for Jan Schakowski seat in Illinois. Just today we hear that Alexis Goldstein, who was a former member of the CFPB Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and was fired, is running for Congress in Maryland. Anthony Aguilar is a Green Party candidate in North Carolina. Cori Bush, who was defeated by AIPAC money last time around, running again in Missouri. Across the country, this real resurgence of independents, Green Party candidates, Democrats, Republicans, even Thomas Massie is facing a slew of Trump generated AIPAC money to defeat him in Kentucky. And we're so what we're seeing is this up down resurgence from the bottom populace of all stripes rising up against the technocratic billionaires who've brought us to this state.
- [33:57]
Steve Scrovan
Very good. And I noticed you also featured Graham Platner, who's running for Senate in Maine against Susan Collins.
- [34:03]
Russell Mokhyber
Well, he's one of the ten. We have a long two page article by one of our readers who's a vet who, who lives in Maine. And Platner is a veteran and there's a number of veterans across the country running for Congress. He's got a very good chance of taking Susan Collins seat in the US Senate. Very exciting race up there in Maine. So, yes, we're tracking at the congressional level these young candidates who are challenging the corporate mainstream.
- [34:36]
Steve Scrovan
Well, Platner himself has a bit of a controversial background. Can you talk a little bit about that?
- [34:42]
Russell Mokhyber
Well, what our correspondent in Maine writes about is some of the statements Platner made as a military officer, some of the things he did as a military officer, and the divide between what he calls the woke left and the populist vets who are fighting for Platner to win the seat in Maine. So there is some controversy there, but he's overcoming it. And it looks like he's on track to become the new US Senator. The other fascinating one, which I profile on the back page under the title Jesus Help Me, is a couple candidates who are running as Christian candidates, overtly Christian candidates. Most notable in the news is James Talarico, who is odds on favorite to win the U.S. senate seat in Texas.
- [35:34]
Alan Minsky
And the nomination or the seat?
- [35:37]
Russell Mokhyber
Both the nomination and the seat. So if you look at polling, if you look at the polling there, you see that it's still very close, but he's, he's favored to win the nomination in the primary and there are some polls showing him favored to win the election either against the ultra conservative current Attorney General Ken Paxton or against the Republican incumbent John Cornyn. And just recently, I think last night there was a controversy where Colbert wanted to interview him live on his show. And he was told by cbs, which we profile also in this paper as basically Israeli State television now. So Colbert was apparently prohibited from interviewing him because of new FCC rules on equal time. And, and he put up the interview with Talarico on the website. And it just created like this huge controversy and drove millions of dollars into Talarico's campaign as a result. Millions of people saw that interview. I've not seen it yet.
- [36:47]
Steve Scrovan
Apparently the FCC has not enforced that rule yet because they were going to take talk shows off as an exception, but they hadn't done that yet. So this is merely CBS complying in advance and worried, owned by Paramount. They're trying to curry favor with Trump for their potential competitive merger with Time Warner. So they didn't even have to come down with that law. They just, CBS did it in advance.
- [37:16]
Alan Minsky
Yeah.
- [37:16]
Russell Mokhyber
And then, I mean, so that's one thing that we're looking at is populist down instead of left. Right. The other that we're looking at is sort of man against the machine. And we run a front page article by our correspondent Linda Gunter about the metastasization of the artificial intelligence tech companies and the threat they posed not only to all of humanity, but to the earth. So what they're doing is to power artificial intelligence is they're building these giant data centers all across the country which are threatening communities, which are threatening water supplies, which are driving up electricity rates. And it was just, I just saw a recent poll out of Politico yesterday saying the majority of Americans would prefer to live next to a highway than to a data center. So there's real populist opposition to it. Here in West Virginia, where I live, there's a left right coalition fighting a data center in one of the most beautiful parts of West Virginia. And it's happening all over the country. And billions of dollars of data center investments have been defeated by this populist uprising. And Senator Bernie Sanders is calling for a moratorium on data centers until we get something like the Office of Technology Assessment back to do a review about what the impact artificial intelligence is going to have on taking jobs, on taking our humanity, on destroying the earth. So that's one way, the other is the idea. I mean, we're all addicted to our phones, we're all addicted to technology. We're constantly asking AI, what's the answer to this? What's the answer to that? All along the line. So it's really a remarkable tool, but we're being sucked into a degree that I think very few of us understand what the impacts are going to be. And like, for example, I think one of the things the hope of the Capital Citizen, it will grow with the movement against the Machine. And we'll move back to getting our information from newspapers, from print. I know I was listening to Chris Hedges the other day and he's written about this, about how we're moving away from a print based society into something that we can't recognize. And the fear is real because when you look on the Internet now, you really can't tell what's real and what's not, especially with some of these AI generated videos. So I often ask, you know, my wife and I will be looking at news feeds and especially on, you know, when the Epstein files were released. And you cannot tell basically whether it's AI generated or not. And it's becoming problematic. And this is reflected in our readers. You know, we, we got a call from one of our readers in Avon, Connecticut. Her name's, and she's a big fan of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Her name is Marianne Stunkle. And we started a profile, Meet a Citizen Reader. This is on page four of the current issue where we profile Marian. And she was a very simple lifestyle. She's, I believe, in her 80s, she was a very simple lifestyle. She walks to the grocery store. She takes something called Dial a Ride, which is for seniors and disabled people. In Avon, she didn't want to have a phone and her son insisted she have a phone for safety reasons. And she reads the Capital Citizen and she loves it. And she expresses in this interview why she thinks a newspaper is important. The other is reflecting. This is an interview we did with Anya Shiffrin, who's a professor at Columbia. And another one of our readers pointed out that when she was at Reed College she did her thesis on something called PM Newspaper. PM Newspaper is a model for the Capitol Hill Citizen. It was a newspaper that was published from 1940 to 1948. It was a daily, it had 150,000 circulation. And it was an anti fascist paper that challenged corporate power back in the New Deal era. And it was a, was a real progressive model of newspapers for the rest of the country. But very few people. I mean, my experience is that very few people know that it existed and know a history of it. So we interviewed Anya about the history of PM Newspaper, what it meant to the country and the possibility of bringing back that kind of paper.
- [41:49]
Steve Scrovan
That's great. Russell, I wanted to talk to you specifically about an article that you wrote and it's called Wall of Carnage. And it's Gazans, olive trees and moss killed and destroyed undercounted and ignored. And you quote a former Obama speechwriter named Sarah Hurwitz. And I want to play for you. We pulled the clip from a speech she was making.
- [42:11]
Russell Mokhyber
So you have TikTok just smashing our young people's brains all day long with video of carnage in Gaza. And this is why so many, many of us can't have a sane conversation with younger Jews because anything that we try to say to them, they are hearing it through this wall of carnage.
- [42:27]
JB Branch
So I want to give data and
- [42:29]
Russell Mokhyber
information and facts and arguments, and they are just seeing in their minds carnage, and I sound obscene.
- [42:35]
Steve Scrovan
That would seem to be a good promotion for tech because the scenes of carnage they're seeing are people on their phones because they're not allowing international journalists into Gaza. But tell us about that quote and your article that features it.
- [42:52]
Russell Mokhyber
Well, Sarah Hurwitz said that she wanted to give data, information and facts. And on this, page 15 of the current issue, we present facts, information and data that she doesn't want to hear about. So she wants to give data, information and facts justifying the genocide, but she doesn't want to talk about the effects and impact of the genocide, which would be something that probably very few newspapers in the United States have reported on. I would say we couldn't find it. Let's put it this way, the following facts. One is, and this is something Ralph has written about in the past, issues of the Citizen, the consensus now is that while IDF is now agreeing with the Hamas figure of 70 some thousand dead from violent attacks in Gaza by Israel, the consensus among public health officials around the world is that it more like hundreds of thousands of dead.
- [43:47]
Steve Scrovan
Thank you so much for joining us. To be continued.
- [43:51]
Russell Mokhyber
Thank you. Steve.
- [43:52]
Ralph Nader
Stand up.
- [43:53]
Jesse Jackson
Stand up.
- [43:55]
Steve Scrovan
All right, so this week, civil rights icon Jesse Jackson passed away at the age of 84. Ralph, what are your thoughts about the life and work of Jesse Jackson?
- [44:05]
Ralph Nader
Well, Jesse Jackson was one of a kind, no doubt.
- [44:08]
Jesse Jackson
Throughout this campaign, I've tried to offer leadership to the Democratic Party and the nation. If in my high moments I have done some good, offered some service, shared some light, healed some wounds, rekindled some hope, stirred some warmth of apathy and indifference, or in any way along the way help somebody, then this campaign has not been in vain. For friends who loved and cared for me, and for a God who spared me, and for a family who understood, I'm eternally grateful. If in my low moments in word, deed or attitude, through some error of temper, taste or tone, I have caused anyone discomfort, created pain, or revived someone's fears that was not my truest self. If there were occasions when my grape turned into a raisin and my jaw bear lost its resonance, please forgive me. Charge it to my head and not to my heart. I am my head, so limited in its finitude. My heart which is boundless in its love for the human family. I am not a perfect servant. I am a perfect public servant, doing my best against the odds as I develop and serve. Be patient. God is not finished with me yet. This campaign has taught me much that leaders must be tough enough to fight, tender enough to cry pride, human enough to make mistakes, humble enough to admit them, strong enough to absorb the pain, and resilient enough to bounce back and keep on moving.
- [46:31]
Steve Scrovan
Hi, this is Steve Scrovan, co host of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. And we're cutting away from our main program because KPFK is in fund drive right now, and KPFK has got a special place in our hearts. Don't Ralph Nader Radio Hour, because KPFK is our home station. It all started here 12 years ago with Ralph, when David Feldman and I and Alan Minsky sat in a studio at KPFK and interviewed Ralph in January, I believe, 2014, doing an alternate State of the Union. And then after that phone call, the three of us looked at each other and said, you know what? We should do this every week. This guy knows a lot of stuff. And 624 shows later, we were still at it, still going strong, and still happy to be at kpfk. And with me right now is our executive producer who was then the program director at kpfk, Alan Minsky. Hi, Alan. Hey, Steve.
- [47:24]
Alan Minsky
Yeah, no, it's absolutely an honor to work with Ralph Nader. I mean, in many respects, I. I pinch myself and. And, you know, it's astonishing to me that I get to, you know, still, you know, help out on this radio program that, you know, to this day provides as much insight into American society and how political power and economic power operate in our society and institutional power. There's certainly week in, week out, is no show that provides more insight. And, you know, one of the things that we're going to talk about today, or we're about to hear from is, is somebody who, across my adulthood, really was one of the just incredible icons of American progressivism in American politics and a beacon, just like Ralph Nader, but in a different way. And that was, of course, the great American who died this past week, Jesse Jackson. And I also have recently, more recently, actually got to work with Jesse Jackson when I was much younger. I got to support Jesse Jackson, you know, when I was a kid. In fact, that happened while I was at that college that you and I both attended in different years. His 84 run and then in 88, you know, really captured the imagination of the public and, and really laid the groundwork for of course, Barack Obama's run later. But it would really just, it just anchored the whole sense of it of a vibrant left still in the 1980s in the Reagan era. And we're going to offer up as a thank you gift to honor Jesse Jackson to is a great way to support the Pacifica radio station KPFK here in Los Angeles, the Pacifica Radio Archives Jesse Jackson collection. And it includes talks and speeches and interviews with him from across his career, as well as two of the most celebrated speeches in the history of American political oratory, his 1988 convention speech. And we're going to go play from the 1984 convention speech. And we're going to do that in particular because I was honored actually in the summer of 2024 to attend an event at Rainbow Push in Chicago with Reverend Jackson as they played back the 1984 speech. Because it was, it was, it's 2024, so it was 40 year anniversary of the speech, I think it was that very day. And, and boy, it was the most amazing thing to be in the room with Reverend Jackson to hear the speech and the 88 speech, you know, perhaps more famous because he did very well in the 88 primaries and came a close second to Michael Dukakis winning primaries. He wasn't expected to win. It was a fantastic grassroots progressive movement, the 88 Jackson campaign. But the 84 speech, I mean imagine this at a Democratic convention. So Steve Scrob and everybody out there, this is going to be a 100 thank you gift for the Pacifica Radio Archives Jesse Jackson Collection at 8189-8557-3581-8985. KPFK and Steve, let's go to the words of the great Jesse Jackson. The summer of 1984. Hit it.
- [50:19]
Jesse Jackson
The south is the poorest region in our nation and therefore the least took him serve. In his appeal to the South, Mr. Reagan is trying to substitute flags and prayer cloths for food and clothing and education, health care and housing. Mr. Reagan would I ask us to pray and I believe in prayer. I've come this way by the power of prayer. But then we must watch false prophecy. He cuts intergenerance to the poor, cut breakfast programs from children, cut lunch programs from Children cut job training from children and then say to an empty table, let us pray. Apparently, he is not familiar with the structure of a prayer. You thank the Lord for the food that you're about to receive, not the food that just left. I think think that we should pray. But don't pray for the food that left. Pray for the man that took the food to leave. We need a change. We need a change. In Mobile, Under Mr. Reagan, the misery index has risen for the poor, the beige index has risen for everybody. Under this administration, we've lost the lives of our boys in Central America, in Honduras, in Grenada, in Lebanon, a nuclear standoff in Europe. Under this administration, one third of our children believe they will die in a nuclear war. The danger index is increasing in this world. All the talk about the defense against Russia, the Russian submarines are closer and their missiles are more accurate. We live in a world of night, more miserable, and the world more dangerous. While Reaganomics and Reaganism is talked about often, so often we miss the real meaning. Reaganism has a spirit spirit. Reaganomics represent the real economic facts of life. In 1980, Mr. George Bush, a man with reasonable access to Mr. Reagan, did an analysis and Mr. Reagan's economic plan. Mr. George Bush concluded that Reagan's plan was voodoo economics. He was right. Right.
- [53:26]
Steve Scrovan
Okay. That was Jesse Jackson, 1984. Allan was talking about his brush with Jesse Jackson. I actually had one back in 2008 myself when as part of the Writers Guild of America, we were on strike and Jesse Jackson came and visited our picket lines and gave us a real boost with his, his gravitas and his celebrity there. And I, I got to get my picture taken with him along with my colleagues Phil Rosenthal, Patricia Heaton and Ray Romano. So that's. Somebody just recently posted that on Facebook to remind me of that. That was quite an honor.
- [54:03]
Alan Minsky
Right now, we are honoring Reverend Jackson. And this is the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. And you can pledge support to KPFK radio and the Ralph Nader Radio Hour by calling 818-985-5-7358. And our featured thank you gift this hour, if you want to pick up a thank you gift is just $100 pledge for the Pacifica Radio Archives Jesse Jackson Collection. And again, the oratory is phenomenal. One time in 2000, I was at an event at USC with Reverend Jackson. He arrived late. It was to support the striking janitors at the University of Southern California. And I have to say, obviously, working at KPFK over the years and being in Los Angeles and doing the work I do and national political activism. I know a lot of, you know, famous people. I know even real life rock stars. I don't think I've ever, any rock show or anything I've ever done been in a room where the person entered and just exuded charisma more than Jesse Jackson did at that day at usc. To this day, again, no person I have ever been in the presence of was more magnetically charismatic than Jackson was at that moment. To me, he really had that and just really an Olympian figure in American political history. And I think people have lost sight of that and how compelling and how much energy he brought to so many things across the country, even after his presidential campaigns. So for a $100 thank you give, pick up the Pacifica Radio Archives Jesse Jackson collection. Now let's go for one more clip from his 1984 Democratic National Convention speech. And this is just so fiery. It's so astonishing, folks. And, and pick up the whole collection for a 100 pledge at 8189-8557-3581-8985. KPFK. When you pledge support to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, we will send you this as a thanking gift to Jesse Jackson Collection from the Pacifica Radio archives. And now once again, Reverend Jackson, again, having just run his first national presidential campaign, speaking at the Democratic convention in 1984.
- [56:01]
Jesse Jackson
Use love to motivate you and obligate you to serve the human family. Young America. Dream. Choose the human race over the nuclear race. Bury the weapons and don't burn the people. Dream. Dream of a new value system. Teachers who teach for life and not just for a living teach because they can't help it. Dream of lawyers more concerned about justice than a judgeship. Dream of doctors more concerned concern about public health than personal wealth.
- [56:58]
Steve Scrovan
Dream.
- [57:04]
Jesse Jackson
Of preachers and priests who will prophesy and not just profiteer. Preach and dream. Our time has come. Our time has come. Suffering breeds character. Character breeds faith. In the end, faith will not disappoint. Our time has come. Our faith, hopes and dreams will prevail. Our time has come. Weeping has endured for a night, but now joy cometh in the morning. Our time has come. No grave can hold our body down. Our time has come. No lie can live forever. Our time has come. We must leave racial battleground and come to economic common ground and moral higher ground. America. Our time has come. We've come from this grave grace to amazing grace. Our time has come. Give me your tithe, Give me your poor, your hollow masters who yearn to breathe free and come November, there will be a change, because our time has come. Thank you and God bless.
- [58:29]
JB Branch
You.
- [58:36]
Steve Scrovan
Can learn so much by revisiting the work of Jesse Jackson, right, Alan?
- [58:40]
Alan Minsky
Oh, absolutely. And again, you'll get the entire Pacifica Radio Archives Jesse Jackson collection for a 100 pledge to KPFK and the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. It'll be your thank you gift. 100 pledge at 8189-8557-3581-8985. Kpfk. And folks, pledge whatever you can can afford. A hundred dollars for the thank you gift that we're featuring this hour. You know, just pledge at the 25 level or $10 level or $50 level. The numbers 818-985-5735. And if you can pledge more, hey, you know, pledge at the 500 level and get five of these collections and share them with people across the country because this is historic material and a great way to honor the great Reverend Jesse Jackson as we just celebrate his life, his contributions, his brilliance, much as we celebrate every week here on KPFK the fact of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Call 818-985-5735. Pledge support to KPFK and the Ralph Nader Radio are honored to be with you too, Mr. Scrubin.
- [59:42]
Steve Scrovan
Likewise, Mr. Minsky.
- [59:51]
Russell Mokhyber
This is Chuck Foster.
- [59:52]
Ralph Nader
I host Reggae Central every Sunday afternoon right here on KPFK at 2 o' clock where you'll hear ska, rocksteady, roots, dub and dancehall every Sunday afternoon at 2.