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TIDBITS Episdoe 8: There's Somethin' Happenin' Here!
38 Plays3 months ago
Things are getting serious, even if we stubbornly refuse to. This week’s SPECIAL Tidbits takes on today’s weirdness by traveling back to some of America’s… less-celebrated historical moments — the kind that feel a little uncomfortably familiar right now. Gaz explores America’s attempt at a not-quite-super-soldier serum, Rob explains how his favorite US President wasn't always terrific, and Mike reveals something we probably all should’ve already known but somehow didn’t. It’s special, it’s political, it’s accidentally educational — it’s our Tidbit for King & Country.
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Transcript
Philosophical Musings and Intros
00:00:00
Speaker
Fire, sparkle, chemical through the at atmosphere here. And thinking that I'm thinking of thinking only makes me think a kink in a way that only goes to sight that Degard was right.
Special Tidbits Announcement
00:00:15
Speaker
Hey, guess what guys, it is another special episode. It's a special episode of Tidbits because we're going to something a little different today. feel like the tone you're starting with might not match the special episode. Hey, it's a very serious episode of Tidbits today. Gaz, I want to just check with you first because you are the most sensitive. Did we have enough time to chat before I started recording? Well, you and I did, but Mike didn't get to chat at all. And you brought up a bunch of subjects. Like, here's a bunch of big things. Anyway, starting the show. And nobody got to speak. I did. I told him a whole bunch of
Gaz's Voice and Improv Skills
00:00:50
Speaker
big things. And then i was like...
00:00:51
Speaker
Let's go. Mike, since we didn't get to check in with you, would you like to tell all the millions of listeners out there just some intimate stuff about your life? Yes, it's intimately very snowy out. I'm jealous. In my corner of the Tidbits Tower, it's like a frozen shell of ice has been on everything for the last like 10 days. It's cold in my region of the Tidbits Tower as well. It's surprising. It was 80 in my corner today. All right, that's enough weather corner. I got it. The listeners are going love this.
00:01:18
Speaker
Let's jump into the mailbag, guys. Are you doing mail without me? No, we didn't ask you to join us. What was the name again, Mike? Buttery Bubba Skypes. That might be a good place to start because I've had a couple people ask, is Gaz doing all those voices? And then I had a younger listener ask, do we plan it ahead of time? And I wanted do it. because
Blade Runner and Listener Contributions
00:01:40
Speaker
this is becoming one of my favorite elements of this show is we don't. Half the fun is that I learned many years ago, I did improv with Gaz and I learned that he's really great at it. ah He's great at voices. And so I'm just throwing him stuff willy nilly and he runs with this. And I think given the subject matter of today, here at the Tidbits Tower, I've hired a new employee. His name is Władyszaf Ponczek. He is the temporal archivist here at the Tidbit Tower. He's an eccentric time traveler from eighteenth century Poland. He's a bit baffled by modern technology, but he tries to blend in with absurd confidence. Władyszaf!
00:02:19
Speaker
Hey! What? Yes! How are you doing today? I'm always good and so are you! Yeah, yeah. Hey, what do you think of the internets, Vladyshev? I've seen it before, I'll see it again. There's keys on pianos and keys on computers. Open the door with that key, you cannot! That's good stuff. I guess that answers that. I also had listener who said that the funniest of us is Mike, which is wrong.
00:02:47
Speaker
But also this person was saying that Gaz and I tend to dominate and basically suggested that Mike should eat a snack before doing tidbits. So he has a little bit more energy. Oh, I'm too. of but well Now, ah hold on. Now, hold on. I said Mike's brilliance comes from understanding that brevity is the soul of wit. Yeah, we get to it.
00:03:06
Speaker
there was There are two submissions to the mailbag where i think I think the show is really catching on because people are submitting tidbits to tidbits. Right. Their own tidbits that I think they want on the show. For instance, we have a listener. This should
Humorous Listener Feedback
00:03:20
Speaker
be its own little section. Listener tidbits. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
00:03:25
Speaker
Tidbitter Lyle from afar had a story about Blade Runner. Now, I don't know if you guys know this, but Blade Runner was based on a novel by Philip K. Dick called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? And that was the title of the original movie.
00:03:38
Speaker
But it's a terrible title. It's a terrible title for a book. It's a terrible title for a movie. And while they were looking at the script, they were also looking at a script for a movie called Blade Runner. And they're like, this movie Blade Runner sucks, but this movie Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep are awesome, but it's got a terrible title. Let's just swap the titles. And that's how Blade Runner, that's how the main character became called the Blade Runner, which if you think about it- in original book, which I read, but so long ago, I don't remember, was Decker not called the Blade Runner? Was that not- no he was, I don't know what he was called. He was not called the Blade Runner.
00:04:10
Speaker
He was called- up I never knew that. And I love Blade Runner, so I'm embarrassed. So thank you. That's a good tidbit. And now I got a now i went kind of want to double check to make sure he wasn't called a Blade Runner in the book. We're not responsible for that tidbit.
00:04:22
Speaker
but You're right. I don't have to fact check that. All the other facts we're putting out there are scrutinized. Yeah. I don't have to fact check the mailbag tidbit. We got an anonymous submission that said the following. Dear Tidbits. I expect to hear more about how Google is absorbing all Fitbit accounts in 2026 and other Fitbit adjacent news and information.
00:04:42
Speaker
I think you should spend less time talking about Star Trek and more talking about what we're all here for, which is Fitbit
Serious Tidbits: Political Issues
00:04:50
Speaker
tidbits. i think I think the setup was worth the payoff on that. I thought so, too.
00:04:57
Speaker
i I would like to say I i was not aware Fitbit was still an operating thing. I just wanted to say that um I'm good at improv, too. Yeah. You know what you're really good at is timing. Yeah. I just didn't want that to to get forgotten. I'm good at it too. Gaz isn't the only good one. Well, I am very good at bluster. You're very good at like choosing your moments and actually being funny. I just throw like 30 things out there and if one of them sticks, hey, look what I did. Yes, and...
00:05:27
Speaker
the ah Do a character, Mike. Go. but You usually, to be fair, you usually give me a starting point. Give starting point. No, no, no. I'm not, no. Let's move on. Let's move on. Your name is Phineas Quill, who is the time traveler Voidysav Ponchek's companion. Go.
00:05:44
Speaker
Oh, but I'm like envious of him. Oh, Ponius. What a fun adventure we'll have! Come with me! o love how funny little sounds! You're like a puppy! like Wait a minute. You're supposed to be Polish from the 18th century, guys. remember you said that, but you also said ah other things.
00:06:02
Speaker
yeah I'm so glad we front-loaded the show with so much silliness since we decided to go a little serious with tidbits this week because that's going to be an awkward transition. So here goes. Let's get serious. We we were talking about how, you know, there' there's something happening in here. Something happening here. And what it is ain't exactly clear. There's a man with a gun over there. And I don't remember the rest of lyrics, but I know that they're politically relevant. I think we're all kind of disturbed by what's going on with a lot of stuff in our country with all this weird shit with ice. We have some friends in Minnesota that I was actually kind of concerned about until found out that they're fine.
00:06:38
Speaker
So I proposed we're going to put off regular tidbits. Mike, you don't get to do your Legend of Zelda tidbit this week. And we're going to have a political tidbit. Political tidbits. So here we go, guys. Political tidbits. Before we go to tell our tidbits, um you but you brought up Minnesota and Minneapolis.
00:06:56
Speaker
And while I am, well have been for the last 10 years horrified about the direction this country is going in, the people in Minneapolis are inspiring. They really are. It's amazing and it makes me feel like we're going to win. Shout out to St. Paul, Minneapolis. It's incredible. i think it's worth mentioning that former and maybe future tidbitter James, who has joined us in the past, another tidbits episode, is is out there. He's protesting with his family peacefully. And there's a lot of people out there doing that. And I find that really inspiring. You're right. I also find that inspiring. I'm not convinced that that means we're going to win this, but. Well, I think we're going to win. I hope you're right. I think we're going to go in the order of where you guys are on my screen. So that means Gaz goes first.
00:07:39
Speaker
Maybe we should first kind of what the plan was. And the plan was to find tidbits. Tidbits, of course, being storied pieces of trivia. Tidbits from history that echo kind of what's going
MKUltra and Mind Control Experiments
00:07:50
Speaker
on today. So maybe we can learn a little bit from history.
00:07:53
Speaker
Right? Sure. All right. Gaz, you're up. Okay. I initially thought of going for like a one-to-one kind of like what exact parallels, but then I was like, no, just our government doing things that are not good is basically what I went with. And so I started off a different path and I circled around and I came to basically land on Project MKUltra, which I think both of you have maybe heard of. It has a sound a name that sounds like the super soldier program, the big you know, Captain America or something. That's not what it is. The nomenclature of MK and Ultra actually have nothing really to do with it. MK was just like an internal designation and Ultra was just a codename they gave. but I'll get to what MPRE Ultra is in a minute. it It had a lot to do with mind control on American citizens and things like that by our own government, specifically the CIA. ah But it was preceded by Project Artichoke, which was very similar with the idea of using drugs, LSD, barbiturates, things like that to try to influence the minds of people to give them amnesia, to make them more pliable, to try to maybe create assassins that wouldn't remember what they did.
00:08:45
Speaker
um And that was directly copying what Nazis were doing. to the prisoners there, to the point where they were using mescaline and several of the same drugs, several of of the same tests. And we even got some Nazi scientists to come over here and work for us in the good old USA. So the Nazis were like, we're gonna experiment on people. And we said, great idea, we're gonna do that too, come help us. And so that became and Project Artichoke, which then developed in scope and got bigger and became MKUltra. which really started around 1953 and ran for about 20 years until 1973. And like I said, they they used a lot of different things. LSD was a big part of it. um They also experimented with certain viruses that could cause memory loss and things like that, because they were really just about wiping brains to either make people compliant, to make them forget actions they had taken. or the main thing, these were all like subsidiaries, but the main thing they wanted was like a perfect truth serum that would just sap somebody's will and make them do and say what they wanted while under the influence of it. um They never quite achieved that, but they just kept experimenting on people. Now, all of this is kind of horrifying, but the thing that really makes it horrifying is that they were just experimenting on U.S. citizens. Soldiers that were enlisted, housewives, people at parties, academics, students, just anybody, and without letting them know. They're just like, well, we have the Cold War and this is important, so we're just going do mad science inspired by Nazis, with Nazis, on American citizens. And they did this for about 20 years until finally it came to light and it was shut down. And the director of it destroyed most of the records. So there was a few records remaining and sworn testimony. And so it's kind of been pieced together. But when it was discovered that it was going to come to light, the cowardly were like, we'll destroy all of it. you know And a little bit more came out about 2000. There's a movie, The Manchurian Candidate, which is about somebody being brainwashed to try to assassinate the president. That is like an extreme kind of like caricature of what it is or was. And that was a small part of it. But really, it came down to wanting truth serum slash sapping people's will. Some credit the CIA with introducing LSD to the American public because, again, back during the Cold War, they heard the Russians were going to maybe be doing this or the Chinese. And so they bought up as much LSD as they could. And then they started using it in their experiments. And a lot of it came to America. And ironically, LSD isn't good at controlling people. And it's been suggested that they sort of inadvertently started this sort of drug culture during the counterculture movement in the 60s and 70s, which you know you could argue was that good or bad for politics on either side. you know But it's just horrible.
00:10:57
Speaker
It's just horrible. It started again, it was officially started in 53, but it started as early as the 40s. And theoretically, they were done in the 70s. But like, who knows? Who knows what they've done since then or are doing now? Because at the end of the day, it's it's people in power wanting
Nazi Influence and Personal Stories
00:11:10
Speaker
to contain power, wanting being fearful. You know, there was talk of the CIA maybe having a mole. And so they were like... We got to find the mole. And they were even dosing their own CIA agents, which is even more amazing because they don't even have loyalty within their own organization. And there's more and more that you could look up. But that's that's the basic of it is that for decades, our government in collusion with the Nazis tested drugs and and other honestly, other psychological warfare type things that I don't want to get into right now, but like other worse things on our own citizens without their knowledge. I like that we're doing this downer episode. Yeah. have question for you guys and you won't know the answer. Is LSD still around? I don't. I mean, it still exists in the world. Is it popular as a drug? I have no idea. Like, was it something that was like a limited supply of or like? No, it's chemically manufactured, I believe. But at the time when they were buying it maybe that's what you They were manufacturing it somewhere. And so undercover agents, not like the FBI went and bought it, but like undercover people went in as like drug dealers and bought every bit that they could find to get it off the market. Make sure that America had the monopoly on it, at least for a moment in time.
00:12:06
Speaker
In um the 1990s, when we were living in the shadow of the counterculture of the 1960s, LSD was a huge drug in like high schools. The person who I would give it to me was this guy I met at the hospital where I worked.
00:12:20
Speaker
But I don't think it's around anymore. Like, I don't like I i get the impression that that's not like um this is not what you're getting at. I know. But I don't think that the kids today are so into it. You'd be glad. I have no idea. But if if people wanted it, it could be manufactured. It's not like a plant that's gone extinct or something. not like helium where there's a it's a finite resource. Make sure you keep this in. I think there's like other synthetic hallucinogens that are easier and more more intense, I guess. And you know drugs is also kind of like whatever's popular. You know i mean? Everything you're saying, which which is true and creepy about our government doing creepy things, there is also a large portion of people who were fighting this, for instance. There were um experiments done by Nazis and there was large groups of people in America saying we should not learn from this knowledge. This was, you know, forbidden fruit. This was knowledge gained by experimenting, for instance, on people in the Holocaust. It's the equivalent of blood money just with knowledge instead of money. Yeah, essentially. And we should not have anything to do with it. And there was some success with curtailing some of the use of that knowledge. There were people in America who railed against the idea of utilizing Nazi scientists. And there's a lot of ah
FDR's Achievements and Japanese Internment
00:13:30
Speaker
worldwide, but certainly in America, you know, Nazi hunters that, you know, for decades after the Holocaust, they were hunting them down. There was a, there was a, when I lived in East Rutherford, New Jersey, there was a guy in my building who was taken away. Because they found out he had been a Nazi. I don't know if I knew that. Yeah, crazy, right?
00:13:50
Speaker
Mike has a Nazi story. Do you know that story about Gunther Wynn? No, I don't know about Gunther Wynn. He wasn't a Nazi. He was a soldier of the German army during World War II. So, likely a Nazi. Yeah. He probably had that uniform that we all know. Gaz and I, yeah, I believe visiting a college friend, it was something where it was like a place we don't normally go. Gaz and I were walking down the street. And as I recall, an old man started talking to us. I don't remember a lot of the content of what we discussed, although he did bring up quite quickly about the fact that he had been in the in the the German army during World War II. But he wasn't a Nazi or some words to that effect. don't know what means. I mean, could be fair, I don't know. But the main thing that, the reason I remember his name to this day is he didn't believe my teeth were real and to prove it, he stuck his hand in my mouth to pull on them. I was there, it happened. And you just, just kind of let him without biting him? respect my elders. but No, it was it was out of nowhere. like it's It's easy to say, but we were talking to I do remember he was also not being particularly nice because I, at the time, was slightly ah thinner than Mike. And he's like saying something like, oh, you should be thin like your friend here and like kind of insulting him. And then he then he's like, are your teeth real? And his hand was just in his mouth. It wasn't like, it's common, cannot.
00:15:02
Speaker
It was just, they were in his mouth. That was Gaz's fig-toothed puddy friend. He's very weird. He's probably dead now. He's probably dead. Oh, almost definitely. That's what he gets for sticking his hand in my mouth. This is a bit of a tidbit within a tidbit. The DSM, the Diagnostic Psychological Manual Psychology, got rid of the term Asperger's a number of years ago. couple of neurological reasons to kind of just kind of classify all under autism. But the Really, the biggest reason was Asperger's himself was a Nazi scientist, and he came up with his theories and understanding of Asperger's working with children in the Holocaust. It took decades, but people were like, why are we giving this motherfucker anything? That was good. That was a good depressing tidbit, Kaz. It's good stuff. All right. Let's keep it rolling. The depressing train. Rob, go.
00:15:48
Speaker
Okay. So every U.S. s president is a mixed bag of good and bad, right? Like some lean more one way than the other. But even like George Washington, the indispensable man, George Washington, he had enslaved more than 300 people and he wasn't even particularly nice to his slaves, if that's even possible. Even Abraham Lincoln, the great emancipator, was known to bend the truth to be politically expedient. And some presidents are wildly extreme on both ends. Some great leaders do great things, but also awful ones. And that brings me to my all-time favorite president, which is FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He got us into, cleverly got us into, and also helped end World War II. He got us through the Great Depression kind of brilliantly. He regulated banks and markets. He gave us Social Security, the New Deal, labor protections. He was a great coalition builder, the fireside chats.
00:16:39
Speaker
He started
Parallels to Modern ICE Practices
00:16:40
Speaker
the precursor to the United Nations. um Eleanor Roosevelt was his first lady, and she was worthy of her own tidbit. She's pretty cool. And his resume is just extraordinary. However, 1942, and under FDR's direct authority... the United States forcibly removed about 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes and placed them in internment camps. and you guys are, I think, probably aware of the Japanese internment during during World War II. It was paranoid.
00:17:07
Speaker
it was fear-based. It was fear-mongering. And these people were surrounded by barbed wire, guarded by armed soldiers under constant surveillance and intimidation. Two-thirds of them were US citizens, some of whom had served in the armed forces. Families were generally kept together, but sometimes separated if there was some loyalty concerns, like loyalty to America concerns. Really, the worst part, I think, is a lot of these people, even after they left the Japanese internment, they had lost their homes. They lost their farms. They lost their shops. They lost their businesses. If they didn't sell them immediately before they went into the camps at like a really like reduced price because they were just like like a fire sale to get out. They lost all of that. They lost property, but they lost stability, generational wealth. They lost ah dignity. And they lost the trust in a country that had promised them equal protection under the law. I think it's worth mentioning that one of these Japanese Americans was five years old at the time. He remembers this vividly. He was scared at the armed guards. He was scared of the barbed wire, the guns in his face. His parents...
00:18:11
Speaker
Kind of a little bit like the movie Life is Beautiful. His parents tried to play it off like it's not a big deal. It's a fun adventure. Tried to make light of it so it wasn't as traumatizing to a five-year-old as it might. But as this five-year-old grew up, like he realized that his country had lied to him And that five-year-old boy was... George Takai of Star Trek fame.
00:18:32
Speaker
He was Sulu on the bridge of the Enterprise. He became Captain Sulu and was captain of the Excelsior. But what's kind of cool about George Takai is he's also like ah a huge civil rights advocate. He's funny, but um he speaks out a lot against fear-based politics. And he constantly makes the point that fear makes democracies dangerous to themselves. And I think that's really related to kind of what I wanted to kind of talk about or touch on or echo today because what's happening with ICE reminds me of that and and in many ways is is worse than that. You know, they weren't really separating families in the Japanese internment, which was awful unto itself.
Hope and Activism Amidst Challenges
00:19:10
Speaker
But there's a lot of family separations and children's and in in detention centers. Even just the numbers, I think conservative numbers kind of estimate that in the last year and a half, about 350,000 deportations have happened. And those numbers are unreliable. And there's some people that estimate it's in the millions. Detention center conditions are atrocious. Mass arrests disrupting whole communities. No due process, warrantless entries to buildings, Fourth Amendment violations, um deaths that we've seen live and on TV with people telling us not to believe our lying eyes. That's the most important proclamation. Crazy and and disturbing. And I do have some suggestions for all of us and our listeners at the end of Tidbits because it's a little... But George Takai, right? George Takai. didn't realize you it was going to be George Takai. I thought you were going to announce it was the inventor of the Fitbit. I can't remember his name, but there was also a U.S. senator who had been in the Japanese internments. and was I think that, Gaz, should give you a little hope. Sure. I mean, yeah, we could maybe turn it around, but I just feel like it has to get so dark work before we could come back, and then there's always this stain Darkest before the dawn. Here's a follow-up. How do you pronounce ah the Star Trek actor's name?
00:20:20
Speaker
George. His last name. George. Sulu. He plays Sulu on the bridge. No, the actor, not the character. Yeah, George. That's what said. His name is George. I could be mistaken. I know. I've been saying Takai, and it's Takai. I just realized that when he asked the question. I'm sorry. George, if you're listening, I feel like he deserves a little more respect on his name. That's all saying. He does. This whole tidbit was about, like, this guy, and I didn't even get his name right.
00:20:44
Speaker
My bad. It's George Takai, not George Takai. Yeah, go ahead, Mike. Oh, I don't actually have a follow-up. but i was following up on what Gaz was saying about his ah his hopelessness, which I share. I mean, i'm yeah I share all these things. I think this is all horrifying, and I don't think it's like at all like something that's like we're just going to easily get through. um But again, I just sort of, the way that people have behaved is just like,
00:21:06
Speaker
is the only thing that does give me And I agree with you. Seeing the people in Minneapolis is like the best thing I've seen in a long time. But I guess I just think of less the government doing horrible things because as we're establishing, that's not new. But what's new, at least in my consciousness, because of the way we're interconnected, is how many people that live next to me are like, hooray, government, kill those people. Hooray, government, do these horrible things and think we're the bad Americans somehow.
00:21:29
Speaker
And that's the part that's not going to go away, even if we correct policies. And even if we out certain politicians, there's a huge part of the population that are just pleasure just living in an alternate world. And yeah, like their hearts have been hardened. There's a guy has a Trump flag ah up the street for me. And I'm I mean, where I live in Monmouth County is a very Republican area, but it's not a lot of Trump flags in my particular town. But just one my neighbor has one. It's very hard for me to be rude to people, but I'm making myself do it. Yeah. How? How are you being rude Because he'll say hello to me. See, some Fox News grandpa. He'll be hey, neighbor. And I just won't look. And I'm being very, very rude about it. But doesn't know why. He just thinks you're a rude guy. Well, I'm waiting for one day for him to ask. And then i will then I will probably unload. And he will probably be like. So you're ignoring him until one day he's like, what? You don't say hello? And then you go, fuck you. tro um Well, I have to walk my dogs like this. Change the world, Mike. This is the way to change the world. be a little standoffish. That'll do it. I'll do it.
00:22:26
Speaker
This is how we get out of this. I'm not talking to that guy. Although actually, so just ah to continue on my train of thought of like yeah positivity, I've been mad at this guy, obviously, for the last year or more longer. But I feel actually within this last month that I'd be well within my rights to tell him to go fuck off. And I think actually the rest of the country would mostly agree with me. So I think that's what I want to say. But the polls seem to suggest that most Americans are like, this is crazy. This is too much. And the numbers have to be eking into some of Trump voters, if not some of like his MAGA base. I think there are always going to be people who are like rah-rah. Well, I guess this this is like, I might be getting these numbers wrong because something I looked into about like fascism and and Nazis and things like that. I'm getting these numbers a little wrong, but it was something like only like 3% of the population would actually actively participate in these authoritarian fascist regime. And
1992 NYC Police Riot and Modern Parallels
00:23:20
Speaker
then there'd be another small percentage, like five or seven that were actively resisting. And most of the rest were just bystander bystanders. Bystanders were letting it happen. yeah And then there's degrees within that, but it was the point was made that like a small percentage of the population can make this place horrible and everyone else just let it happen. And that's kind of what I see. I don't necessarily think everybody around me is evil, but I feel like I'm not doing enough. And I'm doing more than most of my neighbors. You know what i mean? And so. Well, that's that's why we're here, to reach out to the millions of tidbitters. It's going to change our fla change the world. yeah Mike, you want to do your tidbit? Sure. You all remember September 16th, 1992, correct? Yeah, for sure. I had eggs and bacon that morning. Yeah. I mean, and you all remember the riot that happened in New York City that day, right? No way. It's 1992? September 16th, 1992. You don't remember when Rudolph Giuliani led a riot into into City Hall in New York City? You don't recall this? I don't recall it either, but it happened. That is weird, considering we were all living in New Jersey at the time. We should remember this. I know. That's what's so baffling to me about it. mean, but I was like, the thing about our generation is that we were so tuned out and all up on our LSD and living in York.
00:24:28
Speaker
That I didn't know. i barely knew who was president when 1992. How old would I? would be 17 years old. But what happened was the mayor in New York City at that time was not Giuliani. It was David Dinkins. um He was the first African-American mayor of New York City. And it was at a point when and New York was coming out of what we think of like, you know, sleazy ah crime, high crime era in New York City. i mean, through the 1970s and 1980s, crime was starting to go down, but crime was still an issue. But police brutality was a thing that had often been, you know, something that definitely happened in the city. And there'd been lots of like moments of police killing people, abusing people, um, And, you know, throughout the history of New York, David Dinkins wanted to institute a citizens ah review panel, something with basically like a panel to like to deal with like civil rights violations, like committed by the police.
00:25:20
Speaker
David Dinkins wanted to institute a citizen review board to oversee civil rights violations committed by the police. ah The police did not like that. And the Patrolman's beloved Benevolent Association organized a rally on September 16th, 1992 to protest David Dinkins trying to install this ah citizen review board. And Rudolph Giuliani, who had lost to David Dinkins in the prior election, came out to gin up the cops, get them all angry, blame David Dinkins, and basically get everybody all fired up, much like what happened on January 6th of 2021. Because history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme. Giuliani got on the mic. He got all the... There were 10,000 cops. Yeah. Came down to City Hall. 300 were there to like protect and like sort of, ah you know, keep the peace. And the other, I guess, 9,700 drinking.
00:26:16
Speaker
wet drinking at all the bars that surround City Hall. So like it started off as a rally, ah but then it became a violent riot where they broke through the barricades and said, we're taking City Hall. And they burst into City Hall and they then they took over the Brooklyn Bridge. We beat up reporters. They beat up like passersby. These all the cops doing this. What? Stop it.
00:26:38
Speaker
the li had a riot on september sixteen ninety ninety two and giuliani was there because he was
00:26:57
Speaker
So all of this was happening, we were in high school. We were in high school. We didn't even know. It was important to not care about things at that point in our lives. That was part of it. Well, yeah, all these poor Staten Islanders, they voted to secede from New York City. So that's why Giuliani won that election, because that ballot measure. But then New York State refused to actually certify it or whatever. So it obviously didn't happen. It's wild too that like, aside from the idea that cops rioting, they're not rioting because like one of their own was hurt or someone said, hey, let's have some oversight to make sure you're doing your job correctly. And they're like, we'll burn this place to the ground. Like, that's scary. Well, my last, my one little tidbit is a bit a question to you, Rob. Okay. because the group that organized it was called the Policeman's Benevolent Patrolman Association, something along those lines. Yeah, I see where this is going. And my question slash tidbit to the audience is, as far as I recall, about four years after the cops rioted, you went to work for them, didn't you? It didn't exactly work for them. It was the worst job of my life. I was in college and trying to pay for college at Rutgers, and I worked for a telemarketing group. And we were raising money for the Policemen's Benevolent Association, which is different, apparently, because the words are slightly different. So it's different group. But what was creepy about it, and the reason I quit after watching Braveheart one night, Braveheart inspired me to quit this job because I found out that day before watching Braveheart that only 10% of the money we were raising was actually going to the Policemen's Benevolent Association.
00:28:28
Speaker
So we were talking these like little old ladies into giving us $300, 30 of which was going to the actual- Where'd the rest The company. I don't know. Not my pockets. I was like being paid pittance. It was going to produce t-shirts that said, hang David Dinkins. Oh. It was so awful because I'd be like talking to little old lady and she'd be like, oh, I'm so lonely. And they'd be like, and they'd be listening because they come around to this and they'd like, hang up, hang up. She's not going to, she's not going to give money. She's not going to, you're wasting your time. Hang up. You got to get to the next call. It was a racket. But then I watched Braveheart and I realized freedom and I quit. Also, my tidbit is... What?
00:29:05
Speaker
If it is, I just did a control F on the article about this riot. It was the Policemen's Benevolent Association. So the shit is that Rob did work for the organization that organized the riot of 1992. That's not. I have real liberal friends.
00:29:19
Speaker
web but but bit to i have real liberal bread I work for Michael Moore. To end my piece, it's just that we all live in this society. We swim in it like fish. And it takes some effort to see what society we're in, right? Like it takes a little effort to understand like the real like the realities of power and like how it's structured in our country. And like,
Societal Roles and Personal Anecdotes
00:29:40
Speaker
so when you're, you know, a 19 year old Rutgers student, you you know, getting live little old ladies to to give their money.
00:29:48
Speaker
I was more concerned about how my bicycle had been stolen outside the telemarketing building. and how we need to learn the problem i'm trying to get at yeah do have a point I want to make that I think is a positive one. First of all, New York has in the past couple decades made some real strides to be better with their policemen. And I think they have shown that. Related to New York, Mamdani getting elected, that is very hopeful to me too. I hope it goes well, but like the promise of what he should be bringing is inspired and amazing. And the fact hope so too. I will believe it when he- Right, well, I'm cautious- rhetoric is great. Yeah, I'm cautiously optimistic. The other thing I wanted to ask, Mike, is in that 1992 riot, were like ordinary citizens hurt? Were these just cops fighting, like getting drunk and hitting themselves? Were they angry about- You need to say- Six of them beat up one citizen who had either stepped on a foot or like bumped into them or something like that. An altercation occurred, but only two cops out of the 10,000 were disciplined and it wasn't like any sort of like... It's almost like they need some sort civilian review board to make it... I believe actually it did end up happening, that review board. So it has happened. I don't think all cops are bad, but I think they're all, as we all are to some degree, participants in a bad system. And I think even the most well-meaning good cop is going to get caught up in bad policy and bad decision-making. And most importantly, You always hear when something happens, well, it's one bad apple. One bad apple, the rest of that is spoils the bunch or spoils the barrel. It's not one bad apple, don't worry about it. It's like, no, that wrecks everything because even if it's literally one bad cop out of 100, the other 99 didn't do anything. Now they're morally compromised. Yeah, you're right. And like taking that to to our main point here, the way to counteract that is number one, training and number two, background checks, both of which are not being done thoroughly enough with ICE. I mean, ICE gets like a couple weeks of training and they're given a gun and a badge. Cops have to train forever to become. Agreed. And beyond that, whatever their actual authority is, they exceed it constantly. And while legally they don't have that authority, the higher ups in their chain of command all the way up to the president are like, it's fine. They could do that. So whether or not legally they can do it, effectively they can because no one's going to bring charges. And then when police want to investigate, they're told they can't look at it. We're going to handle this internally. And then who knows what happened? Going back to the cop thing. I think cops are a gray area.
00:32:08
Speaker
It's nuanced. There can be good people trying to good do good things. There can be bad people. There can be people caught up in a bad system. I think if you're an ICE agent, you're a piece of shit, period. There's no good ICE agent. They made a joke about this on Saturday Night Live, but a lot of ICE agents are people who the cops were like, no, we're not going to hire you. You're not yeah fit for this job. And then they got hired by ICE. My impression is that a lot of them were like members of various neo-Nazi groups. although Proud Boys and things like that. I thought it was Proud Boys, but no, the Proud Boys have come out against what ICE has been doing. The Proud Boys are like, we don't want any of our members to be part of ICE. I think, again, this is a sign that like things can get better.
00:32:42
Speaker
The Proud Boys are against what ICE is now. okay They think we need stronger immigration policies, but not this. They want to protect. I mean, I haven't heard any of this, so I'll just take your word for it. But I guess they're more pro-constitution than they are. Black checkers! They agree with me. They just shook their heads, yep, and gave me a thumbs up.
00:32:59
Speaker
y'all did all 12 of them great like a jury uh i wanted to talk a bit uh about what we could do about it because that's that's kind of how this conversation started we were we were talking about oh i'm sorry you're not done you said it three times anyway so the end of my tidbit is the modern day police were formed out of uh slave catcher patrols but okay
Call to Civic Action
00:33:20
Speaker
so move on How is that connected to anything you've said the entire show? It wasn't in 1992. No, that was in the 1800s or don't know. I don't know when that happened. That's true about the police. It wasn't my tidbit. I just wanted to get in there.
00:33:32
Speaker
With all this cop apologism coming out of Rob, I got to put that out there. All right. So what can we do, Rob? What can we do? What can we do? Well, I want to start with a quote. You guys know that I've been on a Mark Twain kick. So I wanted to start with, I think, one of the best Mark Twain quotes, which is the following. Politicians and diapers must be changed often and for the same reason. Yep. So what I'm saying there is ah vote.
00:33:55
Speaker
Vote locally, vote federally, vote. Go to vote.gov. It's so simple. Vote.gov. And when you go to vote.gov, you will find when the elections are, who is running, what they stand for, what their voting record is. That i should drive what you're doing. And vote for people who, you know, want to change this. Voting in primaries is also important. What do you guys think? and I mean, I agree with everything you're saying. I've been voting in every election I could vote in for years. um I think that is good. i I think also, I mean, go to a protest, don't go to protest. I have mixed feelings about that. I've been to several.
00:34:28
Speaker
i think where i I think if you're in Minnesota, it makes a difference. I think where I am, it's just a bunch of us being like, hey, we don't like what's going on over there. But I don't know that it's helping anybody, really. If you're in a position where you do see something happening and you feel safe, film it. Make sure you document it. get Because we've seen people spin lines. Get murdered for doing that. Yeah. Well, no, but I'm saying be safe. I don't want people getting killed, but we've seen people got killed. And the only reason anyone's admitting anything maybe had gone wrong was because like three people filmed. 100%. You know, so any way you can safely document things going on, do it. also want to say calling representatives. If you go to votesmart.org, votesmart.org, you will know when major votes are coming up, particularly ones regarding how we're spending money and what money we're giving to ICE. When votes are happening, yeah the amount of calls senators and congressmen receive in and around that time. When they're voting on a thing. When they're voting. within Oh, I see. Thank you for clarification. Yes. I think supporting watchdog groups like the ACLU, the ACLU, hardcore right members try to demonize, but they do amazing work to protect minority groups and people who don't have a lot of political power. And I think they're great. And I've given money to them and I will
00:35:40
Speaker
would continue to the national great and If don't have money, you can volunteer to a lot of these places. If you have special skills, great. If you don't, they just need people to do grunt work. um I, like Rob, often don't have the time to do that, so I will donate money. But if again, and and when I was younger and didn't have money, I'd be more likely to volunteer Yeah, and I think it's worth noting that it was lawsuits, not speeches, that forced the change in the Japanese internment. So the ACLU and the National Immigration Law Center, that's what they do. They you know bring this stuff to courts and and oftentimes with real measurable impact. um Supporting journalism. i mean, this kind of goes towards what Gaz is saying a little bit with documenting, but the people who document best are trained journalists. So um subscribing to a news organization that you trust, that hires accredited journalists and not just people who just act like journalists. I think that's important. You know, showing up locally, I need to do that more. I kind of feel like you do, Gaz. Sometimes I don't know that protests have any impact. But other times, like i look at these protests in in Minnesota and I'm inspired Absolutely. I'm not saying protests don't matter. I'm saying for me personally, the ones that I've gone to kind of just made it kind of made me feel better that, oh, there's other people here that feel like me, but I don't know if we were helping. And then, you know, talking about it plainly without hysteria, I think that's what made Martin Luther King so powerful is that, you know, he was calm, cool and collected when he was talking about stuff and it makes people hear it more. What do you think, Mike? How do we fix this? Well, i don't know. I mean, all these things worry me and I have the same, everything you said is I agree with all of it. um I will say ah again, to sort of like my perspective on having hope while being clear eyed about what we're actually facing. So in theory, I'm a writer for children. I feel like there was a lot more pressure of this past year like to like be very quiet about what's happening in the world like um and in terms of the industry because like you don't want to like not get your books published. You don't want to like not get invited to schools, things like that. There was a lot of pressure to sort of go along with it. This like pretense that this fascism is like popular now. I think that's done.
00:37:52
Speaker
I think we're 100% done with that now. And I just think we're getting back to the part where people are standing up for like what's right. And even though I agree with you guys, I have the same thing. I've gone to some protests and it's like, well, what is this really doing? But like, it does do something, right? Because it it's just like more people like recognizing that they're out there and they exist and like, you know. I'm sure you guys agree. I definitely feel like our institutions failed us a lot.
00:38:14
Speaker
Like with the sort of rolling over for this this government. so But it's the people who have not. So once again.
Closing with Humor and Hope
00:38:20
Speaker
And also tidbits will not roll over. Tidbits will not roll over. i mean, we're kind of safe and insulated here in the tidbits tower all the way in the Arctic. But um but we're concerned about what's happening there in America. You know, we're concerned. Oh, is tidbits tower not in America? No, tidbits tower is in, I don't know. It's our private island. I thought it was like in the Arctic, like, you know, the Fortress of Solitude kind of thing. That's what I was going for in my mind. So we're illegal aliens there then, because we don't have a right to be in the country. We're not citizens there. Yeah, we we might, Ice might invade the Tidakins. Like Superman. I think i think if Ice invades You're Superman, Mike Sky Gardner, and I'm the Flash. I did go to trivia once, and they asked, where is Superman's Fortress of Solitude? yeah And I said, the North Pole.
00:39:10
Speaker
I've been so upset with myself ever since. It's like, you know, that sort of nerd, like I knew the answer, but it just came out the North Pole and the woman running the trivia was like, he's not Santa Claus. but That's amazing that she had to give you commentary on that. I remember I was at Trivia once and the the answer I knew was Neil Armstrong, but all I could think of was Louis Armstrong, which is a different dude. I do think Vois de Sof Polnchek should really worry about ice. And I wonder if maybe our temporal archivist is safe here at the Tidbits Tower. What do you think? Impervious, I say. impervious to everything in the tidbits tower. There's a convolution, you see. There's the Arctic, and it's also 80 degrees, and we're all illegal, which means none of us are illegal. Yes?
00:39:55
Speaker
Like Eastern European at the beginning, but now he's British again? I don't know. I don't what a Polish accent sounds like. All right, guys. I guess that's it. I think we've done our bit for King and Country, and we're going to vote. We've done our tidbit. We've done our tidbit for King and Country. Well, that brings me to my tidbit.
00:40:14
Speaker
All right, guys, this was a lot of fun. Not the right word. This was a lot of talking. This is a lot of. as I don't think we should vote. I think we have the vote from last time. Mike's got his assignment. This doesn't feel appropriate to have a silly vote. Oh, I thought you were going to. thought you were like telling the people don't go and vote.
00:40:29
Speaker
And I was like, that's the whole point. That's the whole point. We're not going to vote because Mike still has to do a Legend Zelda tidbit, but mine was the best. And I would not vote for you because I never except for that one time in Proofy.
00:40:42
Speaker
That's because you're my arch nemesis. And people notice there are tidbitters out there who have noticed. They think they know. What's that? They think they know. They only see the tidbit of the iceberg.
00:40:52
Speaker
All hanging it up now. All right, bye, guys. Good question for you, Rob. What? Who said I was the funniest? Who is that? Okay.
00:41:02
Speaker
Singing songs and a carry inside Mostly say hooray for our side It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound?
00:41:15
Speaker
Everybody look what's going on