The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Crime, Guns and Castro

Episode Date: February 19, 2022

Frida Ghitis is a long-time world affairs columnist. She is a weekly contributor to CNN Opinion and World Politics Review and a contributing columnist for the Washington Post. In addition, she is an on-air analyst for CNN en Espanol, and provides her perspective across multiple television and radio outlets in the US and elsewhere in English and Spanish. Frida started her career at CNN, where she worked for almost 20 years as a unit manager, producer and correspondent. She has worked in more than 60 countries, in all corners of the world.  Frida is the author of The End of Revolution: a Changing World in the Age of Live Television.

Good evening, everybody. Welcome to Live from the Table here on Sirius XM Raw Dog. And wherever fine podcasts are distributed, I'm here tonight with basically nobody. My name is Noam Dwarman. That is so rude. I'm here with Perrielle Ashenbrand, our producer, who takes full responsibility for the lack of people here. But she doesn't take responsibility for it. She's somehow things happen to her.

Not by her. That sounds like. So but we have we do have a great guest from MSNBC tonight who's going to tell us why. The crime is increasing so much. In the country. So before she comes, Perry, all what's new in comedy news this week.

Wait. So first of all, what happened to me? Like I'm here. I, you asked me to get this gas. Wait, wait,

wait, wait. It took me a long time to get her because she's a pretty important person. So I got her. Your cohost went to Aruba and told me yesterday. No, no. He told just let Nicole, you were there. He told you last week. No, he didn't. I heard him. He said he's going to be in Aruba. It was always the plan to zoom him in. He told us yesterday. Yesterday, we had more than 24 hours.

He told us yesterday, 10 AM. We had whatever that is, 36 hours. So maybe you're saying I should have moved it. Of course. 33 hours. Yes.

Um, we could have moved it an hour earlier. And then also, we also like to have a comedian guest and, um, who's our guest this week, Perry. Me.

Okay. So that's fine, but it doesn't matter because I because I can carry the load. What's that David Tell joke that he does to Jeff Ross when they're doing bumping mics? He says, does your back hurt? I'm carrying the show. My back hurts from carrying the show.

But anyway, I miss Dan the show. My back hurts from carrying the show. But anyway, I miss I miss Dan so much. And I think people don't appreciate Dan. They're going to they're going to miss him in his absence today. Maybe the girls should talk about this because apparently there's a lot going on in Pete Davidson world between Kim Kardashian and Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. Yeah. And that's usually the time I change the channel. But apparently this is very important to people. Well, it's a huge story. I mean, huge story. It is a huge story because that's what people care about is nonsense like this instead of, you know, real topics like we're dig their heels into this fucking insane spectacle of this very public divorce. And Kanye West, who is posting nonstop on social media and people are saying it's really sort of harassing Kim and Kanye's crazy and he's hurt.

Yes, he is. I mean, the thing that really bothers me and I certainly don't condone harassing anyone ever. You always take her aside, but go ahead. No, I like her. I do. I like her. I think she's no I like her I do I like her I think she's really I mean I don't know her personally but

I think she's probably like really smart and you know what fascinates me about the story is that she has fake am I correct she has a lot of fake like she has butt implants and breast implants I don't know lip implants well if you look at pictures

of her I don't want to get sued now I don't. I don't know. Well, if you look at pictures of her, I don't get sued now. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I don't think you can get sued. I don't know what she does. And then, you know, she's like an Armenian white girl. It's just interesting to me. What is it like to be physical with a woman who has so much? Why you don't know, you've never been physical with a woman who has so much. Why you don't know you've never been physical with a woman who has had breast implants. I find that. I have actually,

I didn't like it. Why not? Because it was. Because part of the thrill of touching a woman's breasts is that you're touching a woman's breasts. Well, I don't know. I mean,

who cares if they have, I don't know. I mean, who cares if they have? I don't know. I mean, I've they feel I mean, they feel kind of cool breast implants. They feel like bags of saline. That's what they feel like. OK, well, putting that aside, I do not have breast implants, but and then butt implants. I don't know if that's true. I don't know. Kissing lip implants. I don't know if she has lip implants I don't know. Kissing lip implants. I don't know if she has lip implants. And I wish you look at this before. Nicole, is there like a good like before and after Kim Kardashian?

There must be some Kim Kardashian. Is it Kardashian or Kardashian? It's Kardashian. The thing is, is that some sort of translation from the Armenian is probably not quite Kardashian. OK, well, it doesn't matter. The thing is, is that I really, really, really take issue with the media sort of following this story

non-stop. Kanye's crazy. He's vying for attention. Let's post these stories with pictures peppered with pictures of them from when they were together. You don't believe in capitalism, but I do. The media is posting it because people are interested.

But it's disgusting. It really is. So why do you know so much about it? I have no idea this is going on. I swear to God, I'm not even playing a part here. I have no idea this is going on. The only thing I knew about this is that Pete Davidson is dating him Kardashian, which so like I see these things and I have no interest in reading about and I don't read about it.

And I and I change the channel, whatever it is. What are you reading about? Whatever is interesting to me. But what's interesting to you? Like like you're at the same time, like looking looking through the like the you know, you're covering your eyes, but looking through the crack. But no, I'm not. This is awful. I can't believe they they're showing and then you're looking at it

well and then you know all of it and you know like you know all of it you know what people are saying about it i can't believe the media is covering this it's like they're forcing me to to be this in the meantime i'm sure i could ask you like about what's the build back better program you're like you don't know no The media does report the things you kind of think they should be reporting. What's the Build Back Better program? I'm just saying, like, you have no... What is it? Do you know what it is?

No, I don't know what it is. You have no actual interest in the things which supposedly you think the media should be reporting on. If the media only reported on the things that you can posture and say they should be reporting on, you wouldn't even watch the media. You would turn it off. Well, I think it's part of my call.

Am I wrong? Yes, you're wrong. You're wrong. You would take your medicine and read the things you have no interest in. I don't think that I have no interest in. I mean, I think part of my job is to be like a breast of what's going on in my culture. Do it because you have integrity for your profession.

I do have integrity for my profession and I can still be critical of it. I don't, I mean, I don't like, but why be critical of it? Why not acknowledge, you know what? The drug dealer,

I'm not going to criticize the drug dealer because I keep calling him and buying the heroin. No, come on. I'm also up on, you know, lots of other things that I think really are important. I'm just saying, why would you criticize something that you that they're reporting on something which you obviously find interesting? Why? Why? Why are you pretending to be like above it all? You I don't think I find

it interesting. So you should be. No, I find it compelling. And I'm sorry. Compelling. You find it compelling. So don't criticize it. Well, why not? Why aren't you out to criticize it? I mean, why? It sounds elitist. If you find it compelling, then what do you then they be stupid.

They give it to you because you find it. No, they shouldn't be. But I don't like the hypocrisy. I don't like it either. That's what I'm complaining about. That's what. Oh, you don't like my hypocrisy. I don't like their hypocrisy. I don't like it either. That's what I'm complaining about. Oh, you don't like my hypocrisy? Of course. I don't like their hypocrisy. I don't think

I'm being hypocritical. Of course you don't. What's the build back better? That's just Biden's, you know, proposal that got shot down by the senator from West Virginia. You know his name. And anyway, do you know

his name? Of course I know his name. What's his do you know his name? Of course, I know his name. What's his name? Joe Manchin. But listen, the point is that that sounds really exciting. The point is, that's right. It's not exciting to you. What's interesting to you is Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. Is it Kardashian or Kardashian?

Kardashian, as far as you know. But but I'm saying that there's just something that irks me about people walking around complaining about this stuff when they're lapping it up. Yeah. You're just trying to pretend like you're trying to salvage your self-respect. You love this shit. No, I don't. No, no, no, no.

I don't. I don't love it. I mean, you can. I mean, I'm watching the Tinder swindler right now. I don't love it. Have you seen that? Of course not. Why not?

No, if it's interesting, I would watch it. But I won't. I won't. I won't subscribe to a streaming service, spend two hours watching something that's on there and say, I can't believe they showed. It's like I feel this. That's exactly how I feel about the Tinder Swindler. But why are they giving this guy?

Because they look at their metrics and they say, you know what? Nobody's no integrity. Nobody's watching the documentary about orphans in Romania. Yeah, that's right. Nobody's watching the Ukraine stuff. They're watching Tinder Swindler. So that's why it's so silly, Perrielle. It's do you know what you are?

You need to take stock of yourself. Oh, you are ridiculous. Did you do you know what it's about? Nicole, stand up for a second. Just just blink once for you. That's twice for no. I'm not blinking at all. I'm never closing my eyes again.

Do you know what it's about? Tinder swindler? Yeah. Let me guess. It's about somebody on Tinder who's swindling. So how would you swindle on Tinder? You'd swindle by somehow, you know, doing something with the people you've,

somehow taking advantage of the people that you've matched with on Tinder. Yeah. He frauded. Defrauded. Defrauded. Well, he committed fraud. He defrauded these really innocent women out of like hundreds of thousands of dollars.

How did he do that? That's interesting. He. Oh, is it? He pretended to have relationships with them, these European women. And he I mean, it was really like a Bernie made up money. Yeah. So he would and he would take them on like these private planes and yachts and the finest restaurants in the most expensive hotel rooms. And he was funding all of these extremely extravagant, this extreme lifestyle with other people's money. And then he would say that he's in danger. He pretended to be the son of the biggest diamond dealer. Is he South African? So here's the kicker. He's Jewish.

Israeli. So Guy, my husband, goes, this is what I need right now. We need him to be Israeli. He goes, why couldn't he be Palestinian? I think he knows the answer to that. Is that Frida? Yes. Oh, amazing. Perfect timing. Well, OK, she can chime in. OK, look at that. We actually managed to have a conversation without Dan that you were mildly interested in. Hi, Frida. Hello. Hi, Frida. So who are we? I'm Frida and you are Noam. I'm Noam and that's Perrielle. I'm Perrielle. And she's going to give you an introduction. It's nice to see you in sort of person. Yeah. Nice to see you. Is that, is that your living room there? It's my office. Oh, that's a, that's a, that's a beautiful office.

I love the, I love that look. Go ahead. Thank you. Is it guidance? I want to make sure Gitas Gitas. Okay. Yeah. Frida Gitas is a CNN contributor, a world affairs columnist, CNN opinion, Washington Post contributing columnist and a World Politics Review columnist. And she's also a correspondent for 60 plus countries. Well, I'm not. I have worked from 60 plus countries. Yeah, but I'm not a correspondent there. OK, that's most of the countries. How many countries are there? Oh, there's about 200. There's a lot of places Okay. That's most of the countries. How many countries are there? Oh, there's about 200.

There's a lot of places left to go. There are 200 countries? Something like that, yeah. She has filed her dispatch from- You don't find that to be an amazing fact, 200? Well, it's incredible, but it gets even more interesting as you go on. She has filed her dispatch from places as diverse

as the Amazon jungle, Tibet, Moscow, Gaza, Kuwait, Sri Lanka, and has interviewed people from all walks of life, from Fidel Castro in Havana to Marxist guerrillas in the South African jungle.

South American. Excuse me. The South American jungle. Sorry, I misread that. Frida is the author of The End of Revolution, A Changing World in the Age of Live Television. You can follow her on Twitter at Frida Gitis. That's it?

G-H-I-T-I-S. Yeah, let me change my... So I was interested to invite you on the show because I read your article about crime and crime is such a hot issue now. But now that Perrielle just mentioned that you interviewed Fidel Castro, I would like to call an audible and ask you about that. What was that story? That sounds amazing. Oh, that's a long story. It was many years ago.

I was in Havana for CNN and there was going to be a meeting of Latin American countries there. So Castro had sent out word that, you know, they weren't going to be terribly repressive, that, you know, they were going to meet certain basic freedom standards. So the opposition, you know, the dissidents who are normally afraid to go out and speak out because they, or they're not afraid, you know, they have to really be careful when they do it. They saw that there was a chance to meet with the foreign press and make their case. So they sent out word that there was going to be a little event with the opposition. So I went there and before the scheduled time for the demonstration, the government had already set up these gigantic speakers and they were blaring

music that was really, really deafening. And they had hundreds of high school students out in the street dancing. And then suddenly, one man reached for his pocket and pulled out his ID. And he said, I am a citizen of Cuba. I have a right to speak. And the second he did that, the goons came over him and just pummeled him and stuffed him into a car that sped away. And that same thing happened several times. So there were these little little scuffles. And in the scuffle, the CNN camera was was broken. Somebody, you know, these these people who are not in uniform, who had come from the regime, started beating up the people who were trying to protest. So when he heard, and I reported that, so I got a call after I got back to the office that I was invited to a meeting with Fidel Castro at the National Palace. So I went and it was a small number of journalists and we watched the Fidel

show. He spoke, I can't remember exactly what time we started, maybe about 7 o'clock. We were there until about 2 o'clock in the morning. And Fidel just spoke and spoke and spoke and spoke. In Spanish? In Spanish. You speak Spanish? I speak Spanish, yeah. And every question brought out like a 30-minute answer.

And it was really a stream of lies. It was really astonishing to watch. Wow. I'm sorry, just because it's relevant to this, you're not supposed to ask this anymore, but what's your nationality? I'm American. I grew up in South America.

Grew up in South America. That's what I want. Yeah. So go ahead. You know, just we're not, oh, you're recording right now. This is not part of the podcast yet, right? Yeah, it is. It is.

Oh, okay. All right. Yeah. I thought we were chatting, but I guess that's the podcast is chatting. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, if it's anything you said that you don't, that you're not comfortable. No, no, no. It's fine.

It's fine. But it's just good to know. Yeah. So go ahead. So finish this. This is fascinating. So, you know, it was, you know, it was my first face to face experience with with really concerted, effective disinformation, because while while I was sitting there in that room with day, I had interviewed one of the young high school students. And I asked her, why are you guys here?

You know, what happened? Because there was supposed to be a demonstration and it was a school day. And I said, why are you guys at 11 o'clock in the morning dancing in the park in Havana? And she told me that they had been told that they had to do this because there was going to be an anti-revolutionary

act. So she told me the truth. While I was sitting there with Castro, suddenly he said, well, you know, I was, he said, I was very concerned to hear that the camera of CNN was damaged. So I wanted to know what happened. So let's hear from some of the people who were there. And in comes this girl into a room with cameras and Fidel Castro sitting. I mean, he's, he was such a gigantic figure in Cuba and she was terrified. And so he started questioning her. And so by then she had been coached, obviously. And she said that they had come because it was the anniversary of some, you know, it was some kind of a national holiday. And that's what they were celebrating, which is exactly the opposite. It was not what

she had told me. And then he, he said, you know, I was very concerned about what I heard reported on CNN. So I inquired. So he starts asking from a, one of the police people, and he handed him some, some folders. And he said, I wanted to know who were these people who were in fact arrested. So he starts reading these dossiers of the people who were taken away, who were really, you know, they were beaten and stuffed into the backseat of a car. And he starts reading their police file. I can't remember what that's called, but he starts showing, you know, this guy had stolen a bicycle before this guy's a well-known pickpocket. And he's, you know, they're claiming that all these people were arrested because they're criminals, because

they're common criminals. And I was there, I saw it, you know, these guys were saying, we want freedom in Cuba. I mean, I watched it. It was, you know, I was standing face to face with the guy and then somebody started punching him. And this interview that we did with Castro was being recorded on Cuban television. And it played on national television over and over and over during the next several days. And it became it became the new reality. I mean, the fact that I had seen it, that I had been there at the event that he was describing incorrectly, and that I knew the truth, and that I could see how it was impossible to convince people that what Castro was saying was a lie. It was impossible for the truth to win over against this lie, it was a very shocking thing for me to see.

And it made, I mean, I had been in places like this before, but this one came, was particularly close because I saw it be created over the space of hours. And it really rang with me. It echoed over the last several years that we saw this kind of gaslighting and disinformation come into the United States and this inability of the people who know the facts to counter the lies. So it was really, really a powerful experience.

What? So look, I know I read, what was the name of the book? Like 25 years ago, I read a little bit of a book called, I think it was called the American left had such a soft spot for Castro and continues to this day to have such a soft spot? Is it just charisma? What it's it's it's unimaginable. You know, it's a worthy cause. It's as worthy as any cause in the world. You know, the human yearning to make life better, especially for the poorest of the poor. And the communists of that era, the Marxist activists, the people like Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, they became icons of that dream. And it's very hard to give up on that dream. It's very, very hard to give up on that dream. He was seen as the flag bearer of a movement to lift the poor in a place, you know, there's something particularly obscene about poverty alongside great wealth. You know, poverty is awful, you know, extreme poverty is

terrible. But when you see it side by side with great wealth, it is particularly offensive. And I've seen that in Haiti, you know, in places, you know, it exists in many places. And Castro gave hope to the poor. The Cuban revolution, as so many other communist revolutions, started veering in the direction of oppression. And not only did it veer in the direction of oppression, it also failed in its main goal, which was to end poverty. That just didn't happen. Instead of making, there was an old joke in the Soviet Union that basically the punchline is that everybody became poor.

And that's what happened in Cuba. There is and there was more equality, but poverty didn't end. And as an economic system, it has failed. It has failed. So, you know, I actually wrote an article about this a few weeks ago in the Washington Post about Cuba. You know, when I was in Cuba once, I had a conversation with a high government official, and this was off the record. And it was a time when the Soviet Union, Russia was, the economy in Russia was coming apart. You know, the Soviet Union had collapsed, and they had done this, what they called shock therapy, to inject the market economy, capitalism, into Russia, and it was supposed to make,

you know, the economy prosper. And that didn't happen. Instead, it just completely unraveled. And I was talking to this guy in Cuba, and I said, what's going to happen in Cuba? We thought that the regime was going to fall. And he told me that what Cuba was going to do was going to be more like what China did. Instead of allowing the whole thing to unravel, instead of the party giving up power and letting the economy fall apart, what the Communist Party was going to do in China was keep control, but allow the economy to have much more of a market system so that prosperity would come even if the government,

even if the Communist Party was still in power. What has happened instead is that the poor Cubans have the worst of all worlds. They don't have a market system to lift the standard of living like the Chinese do. And they don't have any kind of freedoms. So they, they have the, no, no other communist part, communist country is still, you know, you have, I guess, North Korea, but other than that, there were, there were so many communist countries

during the Cold War, only, only Cuba is still trying to make communism work. It doesn't work, you know, and it's a, you know, it's a pity that there was no way to to help the people get out of poverty. So that's my my Cuban experience. And I have to confess that when I was younger, I, too, was cheering for Cuba. I was hoping that it would help that it would help people come out of out of that really awful poverty that I was seeing around me in South America. What why is it do you think that? Well, maybe I'm not even correct, but it seems to me that most Cuban Americans, at least the ones born in Cuba who came here, they support the embargo and the sanctions that we've had and tried to keep up. I think Obama lowered them for a while. I'm not sure where they are now, but they must also be aware of the suffering that these measures inflict on the Cuban citizens.

Why do you think they support these harsh measures, even though they know it causes suffering in Cuba? Well, they want the regime to fall. They want the regime to fall. I was talking to somebody in Cuba once, someone who was working with me. He was a driver. And he told me he had lots of family in Miami. And I said, oh, so they're helping you? And he said, no, my uncle, I think his father's brother, as I recall, lives in Miami. And he said that he refused to send any money to the family because he said it would help the regime. And that, you know, the overarching goal is for the regime to fall. Well, I think it's fantastic that you were able to tell that story because I find that very, very interesting. Were you were you ever frightened for your own safety when you were in that situation? Like, did it feel like they could possibly do something to you since ostensibly you were kind of exposing the very thing that he was trying to do?

You know, I didn't feel, you know, I was detained once briefly with my crew. We were filming something and the police came and took us, took us in just for a short time. But I never felt in danger. And, you know, CNN, you know, Ted, you remember Ted Turner was good friends. Ted Turner, the founder of CNN. Sure. And he interviewedro too on horseback or something right they were they had a personal friendship they went hunting together or something i can't remember but they were you know i i felt pretty safe that and you know cnn was the only uh major i think it was the only major american uh television station net network that had an office there at the time. It may have even been the only Western news organization.

I think the wire services, Reuters and AP had people there. But I don't think I never thought that they would do anything to me. And, you know, let me tell you another story on this topic. You mentioned that I was in the Amazon jungle, and I was. I was there in Peru. And I went to interview. This was at the time, I don't know if you remember the story of when the Marxist guerrillas took over the home of the residence of the Japanese ambassador. There was a great book, a novel that was written based on that called Bel Canto. It was a beautiful book.

It was an incredible thing. The guerrillas rented the house in this fancy neighborhood, the house behind the Japanese ambassador's house. They dug a tunnel. And on the night of the National Day of Peru, of Japan, when the Japanese ambassador invited all the foreign diplomatic corps in Peru and you know top officials everybody was there in their you know luxury you know and their best clothes and makeup and jewels that gorillas broke in busted in and

took everybody hostage oh my god it was an unbelievable story and we were there I was there for I think maybe two months or something and it was was a day, you know, we had, we rented the house on the other side and put our cameras up and the hostages were writing messages with lipstick. And it was an incredible thing. Amazon jungle to interview a retired member of that guerrilla group. It was called the MRTA. And he was somebody who had what they called the repentant ones. It was a program. The government had the Peruvian government had had a program to allow people an amnesty program. And this guy had a little chicken farm.

So this was the big killer guy. He had been the ruler of a big section of Peru. And now he was raising these little baby chickens. And I asked him, what happened? Why did you get out of the revolution business? And he told me he had fought all over Latin America. He was a member of the, he was a commander in the, they call it the America's Brigade of Marxism. And he said that the day he heard that the Berlin Wall had fallen, he said it was like the sky and the ground all crumbled at the same time. He said, I realized right there and then that if the Germans, that if Germany could not make communism work,

there was no way that even if we triumphed in Peru, there was no way we would be able to make it succeed here. And that day I realized this was a lost cause, which I thought it was a very, very interesting insight. And his comrades continued, but he got out of it. That is insane. You need to tell this stuff to AOC. I'm not sure she's interested in talking to me.

By the way, I did read a book about, the only thing I know about that part of the world is from the book I read called The River of Doubt. That's what, you ever read this book, The River of Doubt about Theodore Roosevelt? He did a trip through the Amazon and he actually named this river. The Portuguese name is different, but the River of Doubt. It's a great it's a great true historical novel, I guess.

I don't know what you call it. I've read, you know, I read his biography and I remember that incredible, crazy trip he took. Yes. He almost died. There's an amazing part of that book where Roosevelt is there with his son. His son's name is Kermit. I remember this. No way. And they and they and they're starving and they come upon somebody's cottage or, you know, hut or something like that. And there's food there and they won't eat the food because it wouldn't be right to take someone else's food. It's just kind of this. And you wonder, could this really be true? Did honor really have that kind of control over people at that time? But that's the way it's depicted in

the book that interesting and that they waited for the people to come home. And I think they shared the food. I could be filling in a false memory there, but, but it's, it's, I'd really recommend that book, the river of doubt. I can't remember the name of the person who wrote it. I'll look for that. Yeah. It is really amazing though. I spent a good deal of time in China and I went to Tibet and it was, it was really, I was in my twenties at the time. So, I mean,

it's really shocking to see the effect that communism has on the general public when you grow up in a place like America. I thought you were a communist. I'm far left wing. No, I I don't know. I don't think I'm a communist. But I remember that I was on the train in China and we had just figured out, I mean, we basically like scalped tickets to go to Tibet because we didn't want to buy like a government tour of it. In which case, like, you know, it's completely like falsified. And I was speaking to this woman who was a professor. I mean, I think she had a PhD. She was quite educated woman, probably at that point in her forties. And I told her that we were going to Tibet and I had family living in China. So I was

staying with them. I was there for about a month. And I said, we're so excited to go to Tibet. It's just so crazy how so many people have been killed there for the most minor infractions. And she said, nobody's ever been killed there. I mean, and it seems like she really believed that. So I, it's just insane.

Like to think that the government can have that much control over what people are thinking. She, she's, she hasn't been around much. I've been around quite a bit, actually. You know, I want to say something, you know, because we have been attacking communism. I want to say that oppression, repression, government brutality is just as vile when it comes from the extreme right. And in some respects, you might say it's even worse.

On the extreme left, at least, there was a claim that it was going to lift people up. I think extremism from either side, left or right, is vile. And I reject it on either extreme. It's odd for me to hear myself going on against the left without mentioning the right. I think they're both equally despicable. Agreed. Of course. The reason I believe, the reason you find yourself in that position is because nobody ever defends the authority, the Nazis or whatever it is, but because the and really, is there any difference between the Nazis and and Stalin or whatever it is? in this language that you're talking about of lifting people up and ending poverty and all this stuff, people romanticize it and they see something which isn't there that one is really different from the other. But I think you'd agree this is just, as Whoopi Goldberg said, this is man's inhumanity to man and power corrupting

and brutality finding an excuse. It's not just man's inhumanity to man and power corrupting and brutality finding an excuse it's it's not just man's inhumanity to man i i think it is it is power trying to to tighten is its grasp it's it is the powerful trying to perpetuate control uh and and that's you know that it's it's very it's not it's not the banality of evil it It's evil with a very, very specific purpose. Yeah, it's not random. It's about holding power. I like to needle my co-host Perrielle from time to time because she she was all into Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. Kim Kardashian banality of evil.

You know what that is? Yeah. What is that? Like me? It's just, you know, where the phrase comes from. No, I don't know where the phrase comes. Anyway. So where does it come from?

Hannah Arendt. That's. Oh, I know who Hannah Arendt is. So anyway, was that the title of one of her books? No, it's Eichmann in Jerusalem. It's right now. You're just showing off. Yeah.

So anyway, so I you came on our radar because you wrote an article about the America's crime wave. It's on CNN. Why does it say CNN, but it's an MSNBC address? That's very strange. Yeah, I don't know what that is. They pick it up and put it, but it's a CNN article. America's crime wave tests both parties. And I just want to preface it by saying. I know Giuliani is like a crazy person now.

But before he was Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde, whichever whichever was the normal one in that before he was Mr. Hyde, he was Dr. Jekyll and the Dr. Jekyll of Giuliani was a great mayor, wildly considered to be a great mayor of New York City. And I lived in New York in the 90s and everybody I knew was mugged. Close family members were assaulted, violently hurt. And Giuliani became mayor

and we saw crime basically disappears. And then I heard many social scientists say that although it looked like Giuliani's policies and later Bloomberg's policies were to be credited for that, it wasn't that at all. There were really other things, whether it was lead paint or birth rates or these free economics people said it was abortions, whatever it is. There were many other explanations that floated for why the crime had violent crime had basically disappeared in many in New York

and in many big cities. And then all of a sudden, and I and I and honestly, although it didn't feel right to me, I was open to that. I keep an open mind about things because correlation may not be causation. And then we have a new kind of error of police standing down and of old ideas about crime becoming popular again. And then sure enough, I see the crime wave going up again. And yet I'm being told, well, this is this is another coincidence, even though all the Giuliani policies are now abandoned and are in disfavor.

Just because the murder rate is coming up again, that has one is not to do with the other. And I'm beginning to find it hard to accept. I'm beginning to feel more and more that no, no, no. Unfortunately, granting all the things that are true about about police brutality and about police going too far and all of it. It does seem to me that when policing got stronger, crime went down and as policing has lost its confidence, crime is going up. Did you find different in your research? What I found is that the crime rate, the violent crime rate, went up with the pandemic. And what went up more than anything else is the homicide rate. It went up more than it had in a single year from 2019 to 2020. It went up, I think, 30 percent. And it was the largest increase in about, I don't know,

100 years, something like that. It was a huge increase. It's still lower than it was in the 70s and 80s, but the increase was very high. Something happened in 2020. Something happened in 2020. I want to let you speak, but it's lower in some places. But for instance, I think Philadelphia had a record homicide year. I think in some places it's even higher than it was. You know, urban areas have more violence just because there's a higher density of population. But so something happened. It wasn't what happened didn't happen in 2018 or 2019 or 2017.

It happened in 2020. It happened in the year the year from hell. You know, 2020 was just horrendous. It was we had the pandemic raging with with fear, you know, without a vaccine. We didn't know where it was going to go. We had we had this crazy president who was who seemed to be determined to not do the right thing unless he had no other choice. And we had the social justice protests, huge protests in the streets. We had the whole, you know, the whole Trump election machine with with their claims that there were going to be lies, his attacks on the police. And we had on the other side, the, you know, on the Democrat side, the claims of, you know, defund the police.

So attacks against the police, at least verbal attacks, mostly against the police. Mostly, not only. So there was a huge level of frustration, people staying home, businesses shuttered, jobs lost. It was a unique year. It was a unique year. So I don't think so. What happened was not just a change in the number of police and police are a huge factor in crime, but not the only factor. One of the biggest factors, you know, it's interesting because the pandemic didn't just happen in the United States. As we know, the pandemic struck the whole world. Only in the United States, the murder rate exploded during

the pandemic. What is the biggest difference between the United States and the rest of the developed world? Guns. Guns. So that is a huge factor. No other country has as many guns per capita as the United States, not even close, not even Yemen that's in the middle of a civil war, not even Iraq. No country has as many guns per capita as the United States by a huge margin, by a huge margin. So guns are a big piece of the puzzle, a big, big piece of the puzzle. They're not the only thing. And in this article, the point that I made is that the crime issue has been so politicized

that nobody seems to be looking for a solution. Well, that's not fair, but there are too many people who are just shouting slogans and soundbites instead of really looking for solutions. And that that is terrible for the United States. It's terrible for democracy around the world. And it's a beautifully wrapped up gift with a little boat on top for autocrats like like Putin and Xi Jinping in China who are claiming that democracy doesn't work. Well, I'm no fan of guns, but I don't follow it exactly because guns are guns are a constant in this equation. The guns were there in the 70s and the 80s and 90s, and they've been there all along. There's two or three hundred million. There's more guns than people in the country, even if they're sick, even if they never more.

But there are more guns now than ever. But like I said, it's not the only factor. I think there are a lot of go ahead. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. There's more guns than ever, but not appreciably. There's not more access to guns than ever in the inner city. You can get a gun.

What is different is that the police seem to be demoralized. And, um, now again, don't take this to mean that I support or, or, or don't support anything, but is it stop and frisk was eliminated.

Stop and frisk took a lot of guns off the street. Uh, I've spoken to prosecutors who, who've told me that they kind of like thrown their hands up because. Because of the. The police are afraid to. Arrest people and. It doesn't seem to me that guns could be if guns are a constant and the pandemic is a constant, what isn't a constant between us versus other countries? Well, it was George Floyd. It was the defund the police. Other other other countries are not doing that. But other countries don't have guns like this.

You know, we had the guns in the 90s when crime disappeared. There are there are a lot more guns now. Their guns are handled differently. You know, guns have become such an iconic symbol of empowerment for people on the right. You know, the issue of gun ownership has been turned into a motivator and people, you know, people are allowed to carry guns. You know, here,, you know, I'm in Atlanta right now where you're allowed to take a gun to a bar and get drunk. You're allowed to take a gun to church. Yeah, but those aren't the guns being used in the crimes that we're seeing in Chicago when they have 40, 50, 60 shootings in a weekend. Those are not right wing gun owners. Those are illegal handguns. But these are guns. It's easier to carry a gun.

And I'm not going to say that guns are the only factor, even though I'm convinced that they are the biggest factor. I think there is a there's a sense of of disappointment with the system here, a sense of frustration because one side is claiming that that elections are stolen, you know, the deep state is doing these things. The other side is saying that the system is rigged, that everything is about, you know, about prejudice. So on both sides, there's a sense of frustration. I think the police piece of this is legitimate. I think there is a part of this, you know, the police officers are afraid to get involved in many cases. They don't want to they don't want to find themselves on the wrong side of a deadly case. I think that is a factor, but I don't think it's the only factor.

If guns are the important variable here, why did crime drop in the 90s through the 2000s, starting in the 90s and continue up through Bloomberg's term? Guns didn't. But I mean, you didn't have Bloomberg and Giuliani outside of New York City that the crime rate dropped all over the country. It wasn't just in New York. It dropped most, but didn't drop so much in Chicago. It doesn't seem like. But yeah, I'm not I don't know the details of Chicago, but the drop in crime was not just the New York phenomenon.

And in fact, you know, the crime rate is way lower right now, even after this big spike is way lower than it was in the 70s and 80s. And I'm not talking about New York. I'm talking about the whole country. But why but why did it drop? Because because it's important to have a theory about why it dropped. You can't you can't have a theory about why it's increasing without. Analyzing why it dropped. They're probably related, right? It's possible. I mean, I think that the climb is very specific.

It happened in one year. It wasn't a trend. The climb didn't just start gradually climbing over the years the way it declined. It just spiked. it went up like an omicron chart you know it was going up actually it was actually was i remember arguing on facebook with some people because the murder rates were ticking up in like 2017 and 2018 and my friends saying no no it's it's just noise i'm like well you don't you can't tell uh you can't tell a trend until you've given it time to show itself. Everything starts somewhere.

But in 2020- And then it really took off. But there's data like this guy Roland Fryer, this Harvard economist. Have you read his- 30%. 30% that went up in one year. 30%. I mean, that's huge.

No, that's not a trend. Something happened there. And we know, I mean, we were all here in 2020. It was the year from hell. It was awful. Many, many things went wrong. You know, and, you know, the society's attitude towards the police certainly is one of the things that happened that year.

And I'm sure it's a factor. You know, a lot of police officers quit. There are, you know, a lot of police officers wanted to stand back. A lot of police officers got in trouble when they intervened. So, you know, it's understandable that as human beings, they became more reluctant to get involved in some cases. So, you know, that's that's a factor. OK, but and then we'll we'll we'll leave it alone if you want. But there's three things that come to mind which are clear and would seem to be related to crime. And I'll say first is stop and frisk, which I was not a supporter of.

I thought stop and frisk was was I mean, Bloomberg actually said that he would arrest young black kids for marijuana crimes, even though they didn't care about the marijuana, just as an excuse to try to see if they had guns. And but but but just because I didn't support it doesn't mean I ever thought it wouldn't be effective at catching kids with guns. So they stopped that. They've also lowered bail, letting a lot of people go on bail that they didn't used to. And we've had the George Floyd thing where a lot of police are demoralized. It really would seem that those three things would add up to a spike in crime. But yet you attribute it to guns. So that's I mean, no, no, no, but no, don't don't don't twist my words here.

I didn't say I am attributing the whole thing to guns. I am not saying that I told you there are, there are, you know, huge sociological factors, psychological factors, you know, this was, there was, this was a year of enormous emotional stress for the entire country. It was a year of enormous economic stress for much of the country. It was a year of violence. It was a year of friction. It was a year of clashes. It was a year of polarization. It was a year of anger. It's not just the guns, but when you put all these things together and you put a lot of guns in the middle of that, it's not hard to predict what's going to happen. So it's, it's the whole thing. And, you know, more, more police, good policing lowers crime. I think that's not, that should not be

controversial. Apparently it is, but, but more policing is, is good at, at protecting people. Well, one of the things that you said in the article that I thought was really interesting was that, um, I believe you said that you had been living in Amsterdam and that one of the things that you noticed was that the police there always remains like exceptionally calm and try to diffuse the situation and take everything really down a notch. You were more articulate than that, but it is. And that sort of the opposite was true in the United States.

Is that accurate? Yes. You know, I, I've been spending part of the year in Amsterdam for, for a long time. And from the beginning, I was always shocked to see how police would react when, when people were, were harassing them, you know, when they, not just when they intervened in a conflict, but when people would come to them, you know, I thought, no, people don't respect the police here. I thought it was a problem. But then over the years, I came to realize that the police were lowering the temperature on every conflict. And I never saw it, you know, get out of control. I saw, I've seen some things happen there because there is a problem with some some gangs there to some drug trafficking and people trafficking gangs. But, you know, the murder rate in the Netherlands is 90 percent lower than in the United States, 90 percent lower per capita.

But mostly what you see is the police diffusing conflict. When the police walk into a fight, the fight ends slowly, gradually. And people aren't armed usually when they're fighting. There's a difference between two people coming to blows with their fists. Yeah, both of those things seem to be enormous factors. I don't. I think there's big differences between the problems we have and some of these other countries have, when you read about the heartbreaking stuff that goes on Chicago and,

and the just total disregard for life and for children's lives. I don't know. Do you see that? Do you see that in Amsterdam? I don't, I don't know that you you see that? Do you see that in Amsterdam? I don't know that you do. I'll tell you what I see. If you look at the statistics, the statistics show that when there are more guns,

more people die. And when there are more guns, more suicides succeed. When there are more guns, the Republicans, right now in Georgia, they're pushing something called constitutional carry, which is basically getting rid of of gun permits. Anybody can have a gun. That's kind of where the direction of it. You know, this every study has shown that more, you know, the claim of the people who are protecting gun rights is that people deserve because there's so much violence and so much crime, we all have a right to defend ourselves. The facts are that, you know, the

statistics show that when you have more guns, you have more deaths you have in states where there are more guns, there are higher, higher murder rates. Sure. I mean, it's just common sense. Yeah. It's just obvious, right? I mean, yeah. I mean, every once in a while, a crime is stopped by someone with a gun. It's so rare. It's so rare. Usually what happens with guns is that people get hurt rather than the opposite. Well, I'm no supporter of guns, but nobody needs guns except for like nobody should have guns. There's no reason. No, I don't. I don't agree with that. Well, I do. Well, if I were if I were living alone or I was a woman living alone in a bad neighborhood and I would absolutely want a firearm to protect myself. Well, isn't this statistic that most of the time that people like citizens who have guns get them used against themselves? Isn't that like hasn't that been like quite well

documented that if I don't know that that's true, but I, well, all I'm saying is that wanting to protect yourself when it's rational to want to protect yourself in an environment where that, that is dangerous. I couldn't tell somebody that's unreasonable to just let it happen. I have a feeling that more people shoot the wrong person when they own a gun for self-protection than people shoot intruders. I think that's much more common, using the gun on the wrong person. How often do we hear about children that find guns? Parents who shoot their children because they heard the noise. It happens so much. It happens so much. It's so, you know, it sounds really great to have a gun to protect yourself, but it ends up not working. So, no, I don't think it sounds great. I think it

sounds terrible. I don't I think that for the most part, like they're really citizens do not need guns. And if you look at countries, as you mentioned, where they don't exist, like it's people don't die for them. OK, well, instead of instead of guns, no, instead of guns and just to make your point to to concede a big point to you, instead of more guns, it would be good to have more police so that when somebody is getting into your house, you can you can get somebody to to help you really, really fast or more candy. Yeah, they're also I'm trying to I'm trying to bring it up on my Internet is not working here for some reason. This is just it's be oh, I know why, because I'm using my hotspot on my phone because we're low budget here and our wifi is it doesn't work. But when, um, there was an article in a five 38.com and it, okay, I'm putting it on and it showed gun violence by community.

And unfortunately our, our gun violence is really a, I think, 20 to 1 or something like that, or I'm sorry, 12 to 1 in the inner cities. Many of these are places where guns are easy to buy, have only a slightly higher rate of gun violence and homicide than places like Canada with high gun control. I'll bring it up for you. I think I'm getting it now. And this is a tragedy. It's just it's just a national tragedy. And I I suspect that it's not easily just controllable. By saying we need to get rid of guns because you can't get rid of anything that people want. You can't get rid of drugs. You can't get rid of anything that there's a market for. They did a really good job of getting rid of guns in Australia after they had the after they had a mass shooting in the United States. By the way, it's it years since the children were killed in, what's the name of the

town that's slipping my mind right now? Parkland? No, no, 10 years ago, the little kids that just got that judgment against the gunman. Yeah, wasn't it Parkland? Newtown. Newtown. In Newtown. Since then, there have been thousands, literally thousands of mass shootings it's sick there were i count 2 500 mass shootings as of like a year ago another thing also the shootings are a huge are a part of it man no other country in the world has mass shootings you know i had a friend of mine the other day said there is a mass shooting down the street from me.

Why isn't anybody reporting it? And he said, you know what? It's not news anymore. That is such an outrage. That is such an outrage. But the mass shootings were a tiny part of the overall murder. So there are a sign of what's happening in this country. There is no other country in the world where people routinely get shot at in schools and in, you know, in shopping malls. Here, it doesn't even make the news anymore.

Yeah, I totally agree with you. It's a scandal. And it's a failure of government that nobody's able to do anything about it, that it's become completely politicized. And, you know, on the on the Republican side, all they do is try to bring more guns on the local level. You know, small police departments, even mayors are trying to do something about it. But on a national level, it's become it's it's it's it's an embarrassment. I completely agree with you. I think it's psychotic, actually.

And if I may, in the little bit of reading that I've done since we got on, it seems like that would be a good example of the banality of evil. All right. Which actually is the title of Hannah Arendt's book. All right. Anyway, I can't I'm embarrassed, but I can't bring up this this article. What are you looking? I will send it to you, Frida, when we. What are you looking for?

Oh, here it is. So there's an article here, and this is about the tragedy of the gun violence on black America. And it is it is a national tragedy, a national shame. Homicide. This is five thirty eight dot com. Black Americans are killed at 12 times the rate of people in other developed countries. You could read this. So. Homicide deaths per 100,000. United States, Black America is the highest

in the world on this list. 19.4 Black Americans killed per 100,000 people. The next on this list is Lithuania with 6.9, from 19.4 to 6.9. And then United States overall is 5.2. It's actually about seven right now. What year is that from? This is 2010 to 12. Yeah. Okay.

It's gone up. Yeah. It went up, you know, last year. Okay. I'm sure it all ticked up. So the 19.4 is probably higher as well. It says United States white, which I take when I say white, I take to mean these states like Texas or whatever it is that have, you know, people can go into a store and buy a gun is two point five homicides per hundred thousand. And Canada is, if I remember correctly, is one point five. Per one hundred thousand. Yeah. So so so Canada. So listen to that. Canada is less than

a quarter of the United States. Right now, this is per capita. Yeah. Per capita. We're talking per capita here. Yeah. Yeah. One point. So so so so in Canada, one point five out of 100,000 people die in gun deaths in America among the white, you know, Republicans, basically two point five. One more out of 100,000, a tiny number. No, no, no, it's not a tiny number. It's twice as many people dying. I mean, it's it's a it's a lot of people. Well, twice as many of a small number.

No, it's not. It's twice as many out of 300 million people. I mean, it's it's not a small number. Well, OK, you know, you're looking at. Hold on. But then but then from from there to when you go to the United States to the black community, it goes to basically 20. So. Everybody has the same access to guns.

So something is going on terribly, terribly beyond the guns is all I'm saying that we need to to figure out. Yeah. And it and it but I wonder at some point if by not facing this problem head on. That we are. Not being fully humane to the people who are dying in this country, in other words, if we're not going to examine the cultural problem, whatever is going on in certain communities and just say, well, it's gone, so it's not it's not, you know, there's nothing we can do about it. We just got to get rid of the guns. It's a lot of people are dying. A lot of children are dying. I think the only way to stop it is police. As you said, police.

It's not what we're saying. No, it's, you know, nobody's saying, or at least I'm not saying that it's guns. Oh, we have to get rid of the guns. I didn't say that. I said, there are a lot of other things. And I said, more police would help. I think a different kind of police training would help. I think another thing, one of the ideas that's being implemented and discussed and implemented that I think is very, very useful is to have some kind of a mental health component to 911 calls. I think that'll be very, very helpful. I think the whole correction system, the way people are put in prison in this country for minor crimes and creating hardened criminals

is a huge part of the problem too. But I do think that guns are a big part of the problem. And you're looking at your statistics. I have another monitor here full of statistics. One of the things I'm looking at here is this chart. This is a map of the United States, and it shows how states with tighter gun control laws have fewer gun-related deaths. That's the headline here. States with tighter gun control laws have fewer gun-related deaths. I mean, guns are a part of the problem and denying it is just as cool when New York and Illinois have such high death rates. No guns, no states. What are the states with the highest deaths by firearm? Louisiana. New York is high, but it's not.

New York is actually not one of the higher ones. Maybe New York City. What's the highest? Well, New York was very low for a while, but now they seem to be coming back. OK, this one is this one. This is actually 2007. But the point here is that the states that that gun control actually lowers deaths. That's the point. And just and just like you're saying that it's that it's cruel to the people who are dying to ignore all these other factors. It's equally cruel to ignore the fact that guns are a part of the problem.

Yeah, I do want to make another point. And I guess we can end. But I always do have trouble with just describing things in percentages because when something has a very low number, for instance, when the positivity rate for testing COVID is 0.1 and then it goes to 0.3, it's a 300% increase. And when the positivity rate is 10% and it goes to 20%, it's only a 200% increase. But obviously going from 10 to 20% is way more serious than going from 0.1 to 0.3. When you have something

which is one out of 100,000, you can't even increase it less than 100%. I mean, it's one person out of 100,000. As soon as there's two people, now it's a 100% increase. So it becomes very, like I noticed in becomes very, like,

I noticed in your article, like Montana went up to 80 increased by 84%, but that might've just been three extra murders. It's very, it's, it's absolute numbers. You need to be mentioned when the numbers are very low. Okay. So, so because we're talking about numbers and we're talking about the deaths in the United States in the year 2020, 45,000 gun deaths, 45,000 human beings died from gun violence in 2020, 45,000. And that was 30% more than the than the year before. It's a huge number. So that means that it went up from about 35,000 to 40, roughly from 30, 35,000 to 45,000. That is a lot of people. That is a lot, a lot of people. And, you know, when you talk about people dying, I always think, I always think that every, every person who dies is 10 lives that are devastated.

You know, you know, you have parents and close friends and children and siblings and relatives. So it's a huge problem. It's a huge, huge problem. And there's something interesting. It hadn't occurred to me until just now, but it's something that would probably interest you, which is that at the same time, and I agree with you, at the same time, we're acknowledging that guns need to be controlled. We have a movement on the left, which is simultaneously calling for gun control, but then not wanting to incarcerate armed robbers unless they pull the trigger. And that seems like madness to me, if you're really serious about guns. I agree. I think crime needs to be punished. I think that's important. And I think it's a major component of bringing down the crime rate. I agree with you on that.

But I also think that what you said before is really important also, that the prison system is creating more problems than it's solving. I don't believe that. There has to be a more logical, smarter way to deal with criminals so that they don't become better at being criminals every time they get caught. Yeah, you want it to be rehabilitative

in nature, don't you? As much as possible. Can you rehabilitate people? I don't know. Nobody knows. Of course you can. I mean, not everyone, but of course you can rehabilitate people. That's crazy. bad. So I'd said on this show before that when I hear about what happens in prison, you could convince me that sending anybody to prison is cruel and unusual punishment. Yeah. But that is not the same thing as me saying, and it's making things worse.

That's a whole nother step. So I can be against stop and frisk. And when I saw the statistics that especially under the Bloomberg administration, which were much worse than under Giuliani, say, you know what? No community can live humiliated this way day to day. And we should be able to find that acceptable. It's just too much to ask that number of innocent law abiding black people to be pulled over and frisked. I get that. That is not the same thing as saying, and by the way, it doesn't stop crime.

And, and what's painful about this, because it's very difficult to talk about this head on. It could be true that you can't really make a dent in crime without stopping frisk and stopping frisk is unacceptable. Like those, those things can all be true at the same time. We could and stop and frisk is unacceptable. Like those those things can all be true at the same time. We could say stop and frisk is unacceptable. And by the way, it's the only thing that works. And therefore, what are we left with? Something very unpleasant, which is

we may have to have this level of crime and get used to it. No, I don't think so. I think that there has to be another. I mean, I mean, I think that maybe it's a little bit of everything, right? That there's not some like magic button. I mean, you can press, but there are certain things that are just obvious. Wouldn't it be so easy if we could just say, oh, it's just it's the prisons which are actually responsible for all the people who are going to prison. And if we could just clean up the prisons, nobody would need to go to prison anymore. But no, I mean, you keep doing that. You keep saying whenever we mentioned one thing, you keep saying that by itself isn't going to fix

it. You know, I was welcome to my life. I was referring to Perrielle, not to you. Yeah. But Perrielle is also not saying that the prisons are the only problem. Yeah, she is. I absolutely and I absolutely know that's not what you're saying. Just be very clear. I don't mean to be doing that. I don't mean to be miscasting your words. And I don't think for a second that's what you're even trying to say. Just my words. I'm sure there's a name for that in debate, in the academics of debate. There is a name for that. But but but I know her very well.

No, no, no. Don't do that. And I know how deep her thinking is on these matters. No, this is what I'll tell you what is Perrielle is not good at contemplating that hard truths might exist and there may be no easy answer. Or Perrielle just is good at that, but she just doesn't agree with you. Maybe this is the other option. Yes, thank you. I personally think the other option. Yes. Thank you. I personally think that prisons are horrible and inhumane. I think. And they're particularly that

way in the United States. Correct. I mean, more than than in many other developed countries. Yeah, I meant the United States. The notion that somebody should have to fear being anally raped in a prison at a time when we have all the technology in the world that ought to be able to stop it is just reprehensible. It makes me so fucking angry when I think about it, that it happens in this country because I understand some problems are hard, but that could be stopped. I remember the first time I heard the joke about don't drop the soap in prison. And I realized that it's such a common occurrence here. It's it's treated as if as if it were a normal thing for people to be raped in prison. You're right. I'm with you 100 percent. It's horrifying.

And they could stop it. And they and the notion that you could do something like take drugs and find yourself in prison and then traumatized for the rest of your life. And so it's just, so basically you agree with what I said. Yes, but I, but the jump I won't make is to say that if we could just stop that, we would solve our crime problem. I didn't say that or that,

or that we would even make it or that this is causing in some significant way, the crime problem. I said that prisons should be rehabilitative in nature. I don't know if there's any evidence. Well, there actually is. That you can actually rehabilitate people. Did.

I don't know. In my life, the people that I've known who have. No, I mean, have you ever, do you know anyone who is a recovering addict? Have you ever met anyone who's in recovery? Yeah, I was just about to mention that. Go ahead, say what you wanted to say. Well, I mean, that's one huge group of the prison population where there's the potential for rehabilitation.

Well, when I say that people can be rehabilitated, I don't mean to say that people who get older and have suffered their consequences for what they've done might not stop doing it. What I'm saying is I don't know if there's any magic system of processing minds in such a way like Clockwork Orange or something where they where you where they stop. I think people, as they get older, we know commit fewer crimes, become less violent, and they learn from their mistakes, hopefully. Yeah, but I mean, just, you know, what percentage of the people

who are in prison today have an addiction problem? Exactly. If you could offer those people a good drug and alcohol treatment program, I think you'd probably cut the criminal population in the country significantly.

It's not a magic. It's not a magic formula. It's not going to rehabilitate everyone. Just before you say it, it's not going to end the homicides in the United States. It's not going to solve all the problems of the inner city or the outer city or the medium city. I think it would help. Can you come on this show every week with me? Where are you located? Right now I'm in Atlanta.

I'm in Atlanta part of the time in Amsterdam part of the time. And I, I get, I move around a lot. Yeah. I come to New York sometime. I love to go to the cellar. So yes, come visit us. Please do come talk some sense to Perry L. It is a daunting problem. It scares me as a business owner. When I heard the district attorney here, he seems to have recanted. But who knows how, you know, what he really believes when I hear him talking about not punishing armed robbery in a serious way.

It scares the hell out of me. Well, I'm going to show off a little bit just because you did. Have you have you read Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault, the very important French philosopher and professor? What do you think? I think that if you're going to talk shit that to me that you should read it. And he talks about and this is going back. I think he wrote this in the 80s. It's an incredibly famous and important book on the prison system in America

that it is, I mean, it's a torture chamber. Let me just add, because just so you know, it informs my thinking. I don't know anybody who was murdered. I don't know anybody who was shot. But I knew people

who had the shit kicked out of them. Their head slammed against the pavement, but I knew people who had the shit kicked out of them, their heads slammed against the pavement, violently traumatized for life in various ways that had nothing to do with guns. Well, it's a good thing. And they're alive, aren't they? They're alive. And I'm saying, yeah, if there had been guns during those, those encounters, they, you would have gone to their funeral probably.

Maybe they would have shot them. But what I'm saying is that the frequency that we seem to have people who are ready to do such things is a social problem that also needs to be talked about. Something is going on in this country. And that's right. If you give that type of person a gun, then you're asking for murders. But that's not quite the same thing as saying the problem is guns. It's more like saying this guy has a problem. So keep the guns away from. No, but we're saying guns is one of the

problems. Nobody's saying that it's just guns. It's one factor. I'm just saying, if you know that I'm a crazy person, I do. You don't let me get behind the wheel of a car because, you know, I'll kill somebody with it. That's not the same thing as saying cars are the problem. I know it's very close to the cliche. Guns don't kill people. People do. But there is some truth to that. And depending on politics and partisanship, it becomes very difficult to talk about that without somebody trying to pigeonhole you as, oh, you're just some right wing guy. Oh, you're just some left wing guy. The truth is the truth is elusive here. The truth is elusive. And that's why I really wish we knew better. You think we would, you think social scientists would know, but we don't know. Why did crime drop like a stone? We really need to have a theory about that that we all agreed on, because why don't we do that again?

Whatever it was, can we do it again? If we knew what it was, we could try to do it again. If we can't agree on what it was, we can't get rid of lead paint again. Lead paint is already gone. So, you know, and, and it's tough to talk about because we're at a terrible time in our, in our national discourse where it's very difficult to talk about anything, especially something which touches on racial matters and, and other matters like that. So anyway, you've been a fantastic guest.

It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. I hope it was your pleasure. I hope you'd come and do it again. And I hope you will come visit us in New York. Yes. And that's it. Very nice to meet you.

And, you know, just to finish on that, what I think is a relatively positive note, you know, that the murder rate went up 30 percent in 2020. It went up only five percent last year. So maybe it's leveling off. Maybe we'll start going down. Yeah, let's hope. Let's hope. It's very scary now in New York.

You know, and some of that is just alarmism. It's you know, the numbers are much lower than they used to be. Yeah, but it's it's it's nerve wracking to see people thrown in front of trains and stuff like that. This is well beyond gun violence. OK. Frida, very nice to meet you. Thank you so much. Bye, Pariel.

Bye, Frida. Good night, everybody. Good night. I'll let her go and then we'll just say good night. Nicole, you're going to disconnect her. She can just hang up. Oh, you can hang up. I'm hanging up. Goodbye. Bye. Oh, Perry. Oh, what do you think, Nicole? I thought she was great. Super interesting. Yeah, she's she's a nice she's nice. Good vibe, right? Good, good vibes from her. You can always

tell somebody with good vibes no matter what side of the aisle they are and what their ideology is. There is a big difference between people with good vibes and people without them. Did you think I had good vibes when we first met? Yes, I did. It's so hard for you to say that. No, no, I did. But it bothers me that you just go hook, line and sinker on these is, you know, panacea like thing. Oh, you agreed with what I said. No, I don't. You literally articulated the exact fucking thing that I said. And you agreed with me. Nobody said that that's the only thing. I mean, I don't understand like in what context saying that if prisons were rehabilitative, that would be helpful is even like a controversial thing to say.

Guns are dangerous in the hand of somebody in a rage. Guns are dangerous in the hands of somebody who is careless at accidental death. Guns are dangerous in the hands of somebody who is careless accidental death. Guns are dangerous in the hands of the mentally ill. OK, so you don't like that. I said that I don't think anybody should have guns. No, but guns are especially dangerous in the hands of people who were inclined to shoot people. OK, but and we have a lot of people in this country who are ready and willing to shoot each other.

I don't disagree with that, though. And you think they can be rehabilitated? I think some of them can. And I think that that should be the focus of the prison system. I think it should also be to keep people safe. I think that people who commit violent crimes do need to be separated from society. But I also think that that's a little bit out of style these days. OK, well, maybe so. But that maybe that is out of style. I hope it's not. But I also think that I

think the gun laws in this country are terrible. I think that the fact that you can walk into a place like Walmart and buy a gun is terrifying. I think that the fact that you can be mentally ill and buy a gun and completely unstable is terrifying. And I think that the inner city violence is terrifying also. Yeah, well, OK. But I also think I could say anything and you would disagree with me. Listen, I was I am I am worried that we're going to find I'm worried about it, that the only way to control violent crime. Is going to be. Moving back in the direction from whence we've come. I hope not.

I hope not also. Why don't we end on a positive note? I'm worried about that because that's not a good alternative. What we were doing was not, should not, I mean, some people couldn't care less about it, but I'm not one of those people. I think we took a real toll on populations in this country and in this city in that heavy-handed enforcement that we were into. And I think that heavy-handed enforcement might have saved, at the same time, a lot of lives. And we're going to have to choose.

We might have to choose where to draw that line. And those very, very tough choices to make very tough choices to make. Anyway. But, you know, I like that you think about these things deeply. Well,

I had a vodka before the show started. Anyway, Nicole, what'd you think? It was awesome. I had a great time over here. She always says the same thing. Anyway, Nicole, what'd you think? It was awesome. I had a great time over here. She always says the same thing. What would you do about crime, Nicole?

What would I personally do about crime? I don't know. I'm really scared. Like, have you seen that story about this guy following that woman into her apartment? Yes. I can't stop thinking about it and I'm terrified. I know, me too.

Was that Kim Kardashian? It was right next to the Kanye and Kim story. What's what's the story? She's like a 35 year old woman who was heading home after a night out and like got out of her cab, went inside and a guy followed her inside into her apartment. OK, but wait, you're leaving out like the most important details, Nicole, that he's homeless and mentally ill and that he was out on bail on Mr. Court date for a violent crime. And she was also Asian. And she said that and people were saying that it's, you know, race based.

Of course, you can any any victim of any crime. That's not a white person. It has to be race based. An Asian person could never just be mugged or killed like like a human. It has to be because of their race. They say this without. Well, they said that. Listen, I'm just reporting. I know. But they say they say this all the time without any. Empirical reason to say it. Well, I think the more upsetting thing or not, it could be is that he should have been in jail. Like he had no business being out on the street.

He had committed a violent crime and he had missed a court date. And if they hadn't let him go. This is this is the thing I didn't I should have said the freedom. I'm really hungry. I meant to say the freedom. We did. But it's an important point. We have way more gun violence in this country than they have in the rest of the world.

Yeah. We have made way more non-gun violence. Is that true? Absolutely. It's true. We have way more assaults. We have we have way more crime. But you also do have this thing of criminalized drugs or should not be criminalized. Drugs, drug incarcerations have fallen like a stone over the last 10 years. I don't know. I don't know. I know you don't know. That's one thing we can all agree on.

Ariel doesn't know. Okay. Bye, everybody. Good night. Oh, wait. You can email us at... Email us at podcast at comedysour.com. Bye.