 You're watching Life in the Law today. I'm delighted to have another think tech host on as guest, Carl Campania. We're going to talk about various aspects of the Women's March on Washington and the Women's March here in Oahu, which you attended. I'm delighted that you attended. My husband attended it as well. But first, I'm going to tell you my tale of woe, and I've told this story so many times. I was all set to go to Washington, and I flew out of Hawaii, and I was delayed and delayed and delayed, and the airlines totally messed up my historic weekend. I had a historic weekend plan, and I spent this dark weekend in New York City, instead of in Washington, which is where I wanted to be. But your wife, Sherry Campania, who is the state organizer, really, of the movement. She was officially the state coordinator for the March. She went, and I know she had a great time, so you can bring us information through her. Tell me a little bit about how is the march here. Over 2 million people all over the world participate in this march. It was a stunning success. It was very peaceful. Apparently, people were jammed. They couldn't walk. I mean, that people were so jammed together. 100,000 in New York and like 150,000 in L.A. is just amazing. So what was a while like? How many were here? Well, that's a good question, and everybody will have their take on it. It's hard to have a precise number. What I'll say is it seems to have averaged between 8,000 and 10,000 that people believe. That's the biggest march ever, I think. It's huge. It's huge. I was there, and it was a swarm, a sea of people. There were so many. It was just fascinating. I got pictures of them. Like, this picture doesn't come close to capturing all of it. It was just really an amazing thing to see and a wonderfully inspiring thing to be a part of. Right. After the dismay over the past few months, it just felt so good to participate, again, in a community action, an organized civil action. That's the antidote for the Trump blues, is to keep working. It is. In those moments, when you feel that something, to a certain extent, you could say has been taken away from you. It's not how that works, really, but when you felt something, and when you feel strongly about something and it doesn't happen, you feel a sense of loss. The very first thing you want to do is go do something about that. This gave everyone, for the past couple of months, a focus for all of that internal conflict. What's interesting about this march is that it was as big as many of the bigger marches from the 60s and the 70s, but it had a very truncated time to organize. Considering how short a time this march was organized, in two months, because it was really just the day after the election, that... It started slowly, for that matter, as well. I mean, it was a wonderful, you know, the woman from Maui. Shari Work. Is that her name? I wish I knew her name. Michael Galoia was just telling me her name, and I unfortunately, I don't remember her name. I apologize for that. But she started it with this one little idea that she wanted to post up, that she wanted to do this little march, and as Michael explained it, you know, she went to sleep that night with about 40 people saying, yeah, we agree, and we'll come join you. And when she woke up the next morning, there were 10,000 people saying, yes! And all of a sudden, so that happened really quickly. But actually then take it from this idea into an actual event. That was a slower process, because immediately everyone's like, well, what does this mean? So when you try to get, well, who's going to commit to and being involved? Who's going to, you know, we need sponsors to pay for things? How do we pull this together? Oh, it's always a tremendous organizational quagmire to put on even the smallest march, for the small, you know, for not even, you know, local marches. So I can only imagine what the vicissitudes of trying to put on a national march. It must, but everybody behaved heroically, spectacularly. Absolutely. I heard, if it's true or not, I heard that there was not even one arrest. No, yeah. I haven't heard of any arrests either. No. Yeah. When I'd been arrested the day before during the inauguration, I was really very worried when, you know, that the town was tense and the police were tense. But apparently, you know, it's funny, I always think about this, I think about the Vietnam War. And when you start bringing mothers in and mothers bring their kids in and grandmothers come in, you have a whole different, it's a whole different vibe, you know what I mean? You don't have that, it's a much more measured vibe, you know. So the people who attended create the reality of what goes on, you know. And the fact that women from kids, girls to, you know, senior citizens participated so strongly. And it wasn't only women and girls. No it wasn't. It was also the number of men who were there. You were there, my husband marched with his daughter here. Because it, because we are better as a people when we recognize and support each other. And anybody who's, and we don't operate, most of us try to not operate from a position of fear or feeling that they are threatened. And nor should we. And unfortunately, sometimes that ends up being, I think some of how things are done. But that's, you know, it was the women's march, but it was about human rights. That's right, women's rights are human rights. It's a civil rights issue. And you know what I love about you, and the same thing about my husband, that I know that you are very, how supportive you are, Sherry, and you have somebody, you know, you're married to that person and they're running around and you don't see them. You see them, you know, high and bi and everybody's overbooked and everybody. And to, to, for a guy to really support a woman like that, it's, it's, it's just delightful. So, you know, it's a, it's a, you know. What I'll say is it goes both ways. It sure goes both ways, but, but you know what, it, not, I should not, not that it need not go both ways. It often does not go both ways. It often does not. And it's much more acceptable women standing behind men than men, you know, standing behind women, you know, people just are not used to it. To say acceptable is, is another, I think, problem. It's, it's people to believe that, that is more acceptable that the women stand behind or to the side. It's part of the problem. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I, I think that for, for me, I know that I have three older sisters. I was raised by a stay-at-home mom. So I had a very strong female, I guess, connection. Right. Right. Through that. Right. A lot of my great friends over the years have been females, where I've connected with them in different ways. Obviously you connect with your male friends, you connect with your female friends. Well, because of my sisters and because of my mother, my respect, my appreciation, my, my inner belief of just, of justice and equality and just there, it wasn't a question and it was always confusing to me whenever anybody would suggest otherwise. I would just always come from that perspective. It's like, okay, well, who are you? Not what are you? Who are you? What are you about? You're interested in justice and equality and, you know, movers, shapers, you know. The, uh, justice and equality, that, you know what? Not everybody's interested in it. People are interested in a lot more material things than those things. It's true. And I, I will say, that's a good question. That goes back a long way. It really started, I was, I was raised, I was raised Catholic. I made my confirmation for when I was 12 years old. And I was taught a lot of things through that. And as you and I were talking before, the most important lesson that I took away was compassion and care for one another. And I think that that has been the center point, I think, of everything that I, that I have been engaged with. Why I do it is because it comes from that sense of, okay, well, how are we caring for one another? Right, identification with the other person, right? Exactly. So I, so I would say that that's actually where I think it comes from. And then, you know, you add in, you know, the superhero of this, that and the other movies that you see and all of a sudden you get this sense of all that. Well, once you start participating, and I think some of the young activists who had never marched before found this out, that, uh, it's a, it's really addictive. It's, cause everybody's a little trepidation about going to Washington. And I, I, I've marched on Washington tons of times. And, uh, I said, oh, you'll have so much fun. It's fun. What, once you get in it, providing nothing goes wrong in the weather really isn't bad. And I mean, things can go wrong, but, but at the heart of it, if it's going well, it's, it's, it's the most, most fun you can have. Cause you're, you're doing, you're, you have a whole zeitgeist of the whole community surrounding you. Absolutely true. And energizing. Absolutely true. And what I have noticed and what I have learned in over the past several years being involved, being an advocate, I'm a policy advocate. I get involved in issues and I try to bring the issues into a conversation. And if I can bring them into the legislature, that's what I try to do. And, and the reason that, well, not the reason, but how that happened was I, I got the idea. It's like, well, you know what? I like this idea. This seems interesting. Uh, let's go participate. And I didn't know what that meant at first. I started to participate. I started to be involved. But what it really, where it started from was I was asked, because I was working on renewable energy project. And as a result of that, I would, you know, you get involved in how the tax credits are this and you get involved in how these things work. So the policy side comes up. Oh, well, the reason for this is because of this tax credit, which was this policy and oh, the clean energy initiative and okay. So I started to, okay. I see how that works. So I started to be involved and learn that side of it. And then I was asked if I would help write a resolution. They just wanted me to give the bullet points of things that could be pointed to for, you know, renewable energy, solar integration. It's like, well, all right. Well, here's some of the things that I picked up. Stuff that you've been thinking about. Exactly. Stuff that I think about stuff I've been reading about, conversations I've had with, you know, state energy office and you name it. So I put it in and I said, well, I hope this helps. And they said, that's extraordinary. So they took that and they put it. And I was like, well, great. I'm glad that was useful. They put it into a resolution and this was on the Big Island. This was at the time chair of the Big Island, Dominic Yagong. Okay. He put it into the resolution. It got put in front of the city council on the Big Island. That resolution passed 90 nothing. Wow. That resolution got turned to the PUC and the PUC went, okay, great. And they turned to the utility and the utility went, okay, fine. We were requesting 100% penetration into each circuit with this resolution. They were currently at that time giving us 50%. So we were asking for the other 50%. Within a month of that resolution passing, the utility went, okay, okay, okay. And they gave us half of what we asked for, like that. They need you in Washington. We're in the wrong place. Well, what I felt in that moment was, wow, I, in average citizen who votes that doesn't engage in this stuff just helped impact local policy. It's very powerful. It was. And that's the snowball. That's where the snowball began for me to say, oh, wow, there are other issues. And hey, how about I go get engaged with the Democratic Party? Cause I lean Democrat. Well, I found out how much of a Democrat I was. And how about I get involved in these issues and those issues and learn more about the process and the power from that. Yes, it's something that gets into you. It makes you want to do more when you realize how you can impact and shape. And that's been, my story is, I'm just an average person like everybody else. I have my job. I do my thing. I take care of my kids. I love my wife. I do everything I can. And I have an opportunity. Some call it a duty, but I have an opportunity to say, hey, how about this? A privilege. I think it's a privilege, frankly. I don't want to call it a privilege because it's not only for me. Well, for me, it's a privilege to serve. You know, talk about Catholicism. It's a privilege to serve others. It's a privilege to care for people that are less fortunate than you. So we're going to talk about this a little more. We're going to take a quick break and then we'll talk about the future of the movement, where we see it going. Going big places. Hi, I'm Tim Appichella. I'm the host for Moving Hawaii Forward. And this show is dedicated to transportation and traffic issues in Oahu. We are all frustrated by sitting in our cars in bumper to bumper traffic. And this show is dedicated to talking with folks that not only we can define the problem, but we hopefully can come to the table with some solutions. So I invite you to join me every Tuesday at 12 noon and let's move Hawaii forward. Hi, I'm Donna Blanchard. I'm the host of Center Stage, which is on Wednesdays at two o'clock here on Think Tech. On Center Stage, I talk with artists about not only what they do and how they do it, but the meat of the conversation for me is why they do it, why we go through this. A lot of us are not making our livings doing this. And a lot of us would do this with our last dying breath if we had that choice. And that's what I love to talk to people about. I hope you enjoy watching it. And I hope you get inspired because there's an artist inside G2. Join us on Center Stage at two o'clock on Wednesdays. Bye. Hi, you're watching Life in the Law, which airs Wednesdays from one to 130 on Think Tech, Hawaii. I'm lucky today to have Carl Campania, a co-host in the sense that he also hosts the show. And now movers, shakers, and reformers, and directly before my show. So I'd urge you to look, check out his show as well. We have a sympatico political beliefs, I think. So we were just talking about how movements are built on just anonymous individuals finding out that they can do something. It's stunning when you learn that. When you realize engagement is as simple as you engaging. Right, just do something, do something, yeah. And from little seeds, big trees grow. So I know you were speaking to Michael G. Yeah. Earlier, and what has he seen in the movement going this? Is there a, because we have to keep the pressure up. Yes, we do. There's a lot of plans in the making from a number of directions. But this whole movement was able to pull together a lot of people. And yes, the waking of the sleeping giant. So the whole key from this point, and the conversation started, as I have overheard, the conversation started about what to do next before the march happened. Right, when we went to the seeds of Martin Luther King Day, seeds of peace training. That was like the main issue on our lips because we knew that Washington would be a go and I knew it was gonna be tremendous. I could just tell by the level of excitement and interest. So yeah, we already did start discussing that, yeah. Exactly, so now, getting everybody energized the way that we have, and having so many people, I say we, I'm happy to be a part of it. But having so many people energized and activated and ready to be engaged, ready to do the next thing. The key is to not let that wane, not let that fall away. So making sure that everybody is getting connected, getting their emails in, getting their phone numbers in, making sure that they are hearing about what's going on, making sure that they are aware of the meeting that's coming up to talk about this or the Facebook page that's talking about that and making sure that we continue to hear from each other and talk about, oh, we're gonna meet about this, oh, we're gonna have an event here, we're gonna do this, and staying engaged and having that planned. But you know what I have to say, I think the way the events are going to unfold in Washington, particularly with the Supreme Court nominee, I think it will incite many people to stay engaged. I think people are gonna be very surprised at how things go and are going and things we took for granted, things that we thought were long ago settled are gonna be revisited. That we're seeing that already. We're seeing already with just the executive orders that the current president is already laying out the rolling back of piece by piece everything is being put in place. And how far will it go? Will all regulations be rolled back? So therefore we're gonna go back to soot-filled air from the environment? You know, I think if they could, they would. I look at the head of the EPA. I mean, I think that the administration must feel, oh, we won the lottery, so we're gonna take our capital and spend it like mad. It's not just the administration. It's the entire Republican Party. They found themselves with a bag full of toys that they didn't expect to have. And now they're like, oh, I don't know what to do next. We can do everything. So now they're about to try to do everything. And they really have about 18 months to do it. Right, right. We should definitely discuss that and let the audience know probably the most significant thing people can do to get involved is to support candidates in the next election cycle who'll promote our agendas, the kinds of things we wanna see done, women's rights, voting reform, those kinds of things because it's gonna be so that it's gonna be really impossible to vote. I mean, if the Republicans have their way, they'll make it really hard, really, really hard to vote. Exactly, exactly. That's kind of a fundamental issue. And by the way, it's not just running for city council or running for state house or state senate or U.S. It's not just those seats. It's also getting involved in the agencies and the departments that work within the state, within the city because those seats in those positions, some of them are just jobs. Some of them are appointed positions. Those are the people who actually administer and engage from the policy side what it then means. Right, right. So how would you recommend getting involved at that level? Do you know, I mean... Well, there are, you can go to the websites. The state has websites, the city and county has websites that you can go to where you see the jobs that are available. A lot of that stuff though, if the appointed positions, it comes down to having the criteria, understanding what the criteria is for what they're looking for and having the background that can fill that criteria and then making your case for it. Unfortunately, sometimes it seems to be a lot of the same people because, well, they've already been doing it. Well, yeah, and that's why, yeah, I definitely always urge people that are not experienced to step up or as my husband says, lean in. My husband's fond of telling me to lean in just to drive me crazy. That was a movement from a couple years ago. And that's one thing I liked about this march is a whole new group of people giving input, running things. So you need to refresh those faces. You need to refresh those positions. Otherwise, new ideas don't begin to, don't burble to the surface and you have the same old people who, you know... Nothing changes then. And Hawaii, I think, is also a little bit, it likes things to remain the same. No one likes change. Change is uncomfortable for most people. But, yeah, it's a potential problem when you have the same people. You can't put the same people in year after year after year and expect a different outcome. Right, right, right. Unless you think everything is fine, or maybe some people do, but clearly they didn't think it was fine when they voted for Trump. Well, yeah, I mean, a lot of people definitely didn't think it was fine. But I have a feeling maybe those people are gonna, if healthcare is taken away and certain other things that entitlements, or whatever you want to, title the wrong word, diminish, I think people are gonna really start questioning what they bargained for. I think that that's true. However, there's a lot to look at. We saw the report the last couple of days that one of the executive orders was to allow the North Dakota Pipeline, the Keystone Pipeline to go again. I put up a Facebook post about that and said, you know what, the Sierra Club is calling for action because this is not acceptable from an environmental perspective. My post was, I agree 100% with the Sierra Club. However, most people aren't going to care and don't care. And the reason they don't care is it doesn't put food on their table, it doesn't pay their bills. Right, because Trump said that all the piping should be made in the United States. Right, but that's the next step. So to finish my post, I said unless that pipeline does put food on their table and pay their bills, in which case they like it. Right. So and then add to that what you just said. Yes, he wants all of the steel to be from US manufacturing. Well, that means we're going to have new jobs. Well, it's what he promised he would do. Well, that would actually do that. It would create some new jobs. It would in some ways perhaps revitalize a bit of that industry. What that's gonna cost, we don't know. But one of the things that they will do that another executive order was pointing out is that we're going to slow down and or stop the regulatory process. They're actually putting in a hurdle or not a hurdle, they're putting in a go around to circumvent. What they're saying is if there's a new regulation, you have 70 days in which to show us how it's gonna work. And if you don't get it to us in 70 days, it's we're gonna go right around it. Wow, that's incredibly restrictive. That's been put in place. So that's what the executive order was. If you have a regulation, you have 70 days to prove it. And if you don't, we're gonna go right around it. So that's all new regulations. Now that just opens the door for saying, okay, great. What regulations that they've already said they're going to reduce, are they gonna reduce? So will we be going back to the 1880s with our air quality? Well, you know, I think we have been, with certainly like in labor, if you grew up as I did in the 70s and 80s when I first began working, and it was everyone had healthcare, everyone had paid days off, everybody had permanent jobs. There was no gig economy. So that's been dismantled and that's sort of been pushed back to the 19th century. The rights of workers have been pushed back dramatically since the 1970s. They are trying over and over again the right to work laws in many states, all of these things that do everything in their power to either cut out, eliminate the unions, they would like to eliminate the minimum wage. How is this helping people? And this is the thing, all of these policies that they're talking about, all of these executive orders that he's putting out and everything that they appear to be ramping up for, we'll see, looks like people will be making less money, they will have no healthcare or very little or how expensive it'll be as a whole with their question, I don't know, but they won't have access to it, especially if they start repealing the pre-existing conditions. Okay, so we're gonna have, and then based on the education thing that's gonna happen with Betsy DeVos, what is that gonna mean? You know, I funny, you should mention Betsy DeVos, I think she's not gonna make it. I think that they're not gonna allow her through. I think she's such a bad candidate. And I think in a weird sort of way there's gonna be discrimination against her because she's a woman and I think it's gonna flip. I think she's very unappealing. I don't, I think she's unappealing because of her position on vouchers and what she has done in Michigan on policy. And no other way, the fact that she's a woman to me is irrelevant. I know, but I think that her, I just think that Congress is gonna find her type of power a little bit unpalatable. We'll see, what we've heard for years is the Republican Party wants a voucher system. They, what we heard Trump say recently is the Department of Education is a wash in funds. Right. A wash in cash. Right, right. Okay, so then, okay, what I'll say is the amount of money that exists in the Hawaii Department of Education very little of it gets into the classroom. Right. Okay, well, if we're looking at it from that perspective, how do we make education better by putting more money in the classroom which includes the teachers? Right, I'm gonna, I love this conversation because my mother's a teacher and I think teachers really should be earning, I'm twice what they're earning probably, if not more. Right, exactly. And I'm an attorney and sometimes I shake my head and I say, there's something wrong in this society. But I want to thank you for coming on. Thank you for giving me your perspective. It's totally great and thanks for marching and thanks Sherry for everything she's done and hopefully Sherry will be on the show and tell us directly about what she saw and where we're going, where we're going. Absolutely. Okay, thanks for coming on. Thank you. Okay.