 Thanks so much for joining us on Think Tech Hawaii. We're going to talk about the omitted part of the media and public communications and that is the public, the people. What's the message? What's the strategy for us? Who's listening to us and what should be part of that? And with us we have retired judge and author Sandra Sims, back from a wonderful trip to Africa and recent past chair of the American Bar Association section of dispute resolution and professor at Mitchell Hamlin School of Law, David Larson. So as part of the omitted left out part of the communications, the public. What do you want to hear that we haven't? Sandra? Well, we want to hear some compassion. We want to hear some empathy. Just an overall sense of recognizing that people have a lot of issues that need to be addressed. We need to see some courage on the part of some of our leaders to take a stance and to be committed to the purpose of the country, committed to democracy. We certainly don't see that. That's a start and I'll just start with that. I have some more thoughts, but we only have a half an hour. David, initial thoughts? Well, again, I'd like to hear some substance. You know, when I'm looking at our Congress these days, I'm seeing a lot of dialogue and I see a lot of argument. I'm not seeing a lot of substance. I read a really interesting article in Politico was about a year ago and it put forth the proposition that one reason why we're not getting any kind of substance out of Congress anymore is that they don't have to. They've come to the conclusion that we don't have to do it because we can look to the Supreme Court to make all the hard decisions. We don't have to try to do national legislation about abortion or about immigration because we'll just make the court do it. We'll just leave it to them. And we hear a lot about the administrative state and recall when President Obama was saying, well, if Congress doesn't do anything, I'll do it with the administrative agencies. So Congress says, well, great. Let the administrative agencies do the hard things with climate change and environmental pollution. We don't have to do it. We have to run for election in the House for every two years. We don't want to look bad. We don't make any bad decisions. So we just won't make any decisions. So one thing I'd like to see is to get back to the world where we have a Congress that says, okay, it's really three branches of government, not two. And we've really been abdicating our responsibility and pushing it off on the court system and leaving it to administrative agencies, although we're more than eager to complain about administrative agencies. The fact is we're not going to say this. We like them because they give us cover. I'd like to see Congress step up. That's a great insight. So rather than ask the generally unproductive question of how did we get from the days of Tip O'Neill and Bob Dole being able to work together with people on both sides of the aisle and bipartisan stuff to hear, what would it take for us to go back in that direction where people can actually communicate and work in a bipartisan manner, where common ground becomes the source and the ground route of communications? I don't know if I like the term going back, but I think we just need to move forward to a time where people can be conservative about the thoughts where they can agree without being disagreeable. I don't think that's just an open skill. I think it's a skill that's still here as people are still capable of doing it. But as David's pointed out, they don't have to. At least certainly on the Congress level, there's a thing that they don't have to. But you'll see that in many and a lot of local communities where people are having to make decisions that impact people's everyday lives, that's still occurring because they have to. They have to sit down and make those decisions that affect whether it's schools or garbage pickup or the basic issues. Those have to be done. And so people still know how to do it. It's just that we are inundated with symbols and people who are not doing it and who revel in their ability not to do it, who enjoy just standing there making up words and making up stuff and not doing anything at all, denigrating those that do. Like David pointed out, oftentimes administrative agencies is where stuff gets done. There's people there doing the work every day. And yet we have others who are supposedly in leadership who choose rather to denigrate those folks or to demonize those folks. And they would not be able to do the things that they want to do a little bit that they don't do. They would not be able to do that without those folks there. It's just so very, very critical to watch this. I mean, I've kind of almost given up on just stop watching it because it's just so it's so disgusting. It's just so disgusting to see that. But anyway, that's my thought on it. I don't even go back. I think we know how. We just don't see it. And we just tell people just don't do it. So, you've been a judge, you've been mediator, arbitrator. David, you've also been a teacher and mediator and arbitrator. If you get people in front of you who are behaving like that, what do you do to try and make the communication a productive process? Well, one thing you try to do is you try and point out what's in your interest. That's certainly kind of maintaining your position and keep bumping up against the wall. This isn't really helping you out. Try and take a bigger, longer-range perspective. You might have to step back. You might have to let go. You might have to talk a little bit about what you really want to happen here. You're coming in with a pretty strong position, and there's other ways to move forward other than advocating aggressively for your position. Maybe another way to do it is talk a little bit more about your interests and what you'd like to accomplish. So a little bit of reorientation is sometimes helpful. I think at Congress we need some reorientation. One problem, one I think systemic structural problem, is the way that campaign finance operates. You're running for a reaction every two years in the House. You've got to raise money or you want to raise money because now in the world of social media and digital information, you need resources to get your message out there. You're going to spend a lot of time prioritizing your fundraising, and you don't want to do or say anything that might alienate a possible donor. So again, the campaign finance system, I think, builds in the distance out of doing anything because you don't want to alienate anybody from whom you're going to get money, so therefore you don't do anything. So that's an area probably we need to think hard about how we might change our campaign finance rules. You know, that's a really important insight because rather than even being just over a year from major national elections, presidential elections, state elections, rather than speaking to the constituency, it's as if their audience was their donors. The people with the big money who want to throw it at things that are anti this or anti that. When we know that, a substantial majority of the American people would like women to be able to make the most important reproductive health decisions in their lives without political constraints for that. Would like to be able to have affordable health care and affordable medications that would like to be able to have education in which a relatively open exchange of information and ideas takes place. That's not what we're hearing and that's not even the audience that these people are speaking to. You know, I think we need to take some responsibility for that. I think all of us do that, you know, we're watching what people are doing. We need to call them out and say that, you know, when you're going to insist that we can't even do a short term budget agreement for, you know, the carers to the serious budget renegotiation that's got to happen, you can't even refund the government for a short period of time and all the damage that might do. What are you doing? You know, what are you doing for me? I think we need to get a little more outspoken and call our representatives out and ask them what are you doing for me? You know, I'm looking at this Jim Jordan subcommittee about the weaponization about the government and it's like, if I'm a constituent of Jim Jordan, I'm saying what in God's name are you doing for me? You know, this is purely political driven. It's ironic that you've got a committee about the weaponization, which is exactly what you're doing and you're candidate. Trump has explicitly said, you know, if you go after me, I'm going to go after you. That's just a warning of weaponization. So just stop that. You know, we've got opioid problems in Ohio. We've got all kinds of, you know, we've got plant closings. Do something about that. Don't spend time, you know, just politicizing the debate in a crazy subcommittee. I often think about him too in terms of what in order to stop that, should go look it up and what's happening in Ohio and how people are responding to that because I think he's not the only one, but he's certainly the one that's most visible at this point in terms of the use of the Congress as justice, hope it for posture and for whatever it is that he happens to be for or against at the moment. I don't know what his whole numbers look like in terms of how his constituency is following him, but that would be interesting to see. And I don't know, it's a little scary. Another piece of it jumped out to me that yours is a really good point about that, but I was following, when I found it, just kind of listening to the, you know, the UAW strike. It's like, it's starting to feel like this, the UA, this is the old UAW and it's back, the one that fights back. And you know, really is, you know, over the last few years, we've seen this sort of backing away from millions. I mean, there's sort of a disdain for the million workers and that's kind of this new leader that they have who's, you know, taking this kind of strategic approach to how they're doing their strike, made an interesting comment today or maybe been yesterday when candidate Trump indicated he was going to come to Detroit instead of going to the debates for the GOP. And the leader of the UAW, interesting, interesting... UAW United Auto Workers, yeah. UAW United Auto Workers, I should say that, yeah. Sean Fain, an interesting name to begin with. Pretty Irish, yeah. And made the comment that basic, basic is the effect, we don't need you. You're the one we're fighting against, the billionaires coming in and making these decisions and you're not, then are not concerned about the real working people, which is kind of like Donald Trump in your face. You come here, I guess they're coming after him on that point, because clearly he would be going into, you know, kind of whatever he thinks he's doing with regard to union work, but clearly this is not a playground that he may be welcomed in anymore. Well, you know, I raised the possibility of people being a little more aggressive in terms of pushing back and making their representatives being more accountable. Well, I think one place people are pushing back is in the labor movement, you know, kind of a renaissance for labor unions and, you know, you can go from Chipotle to Starbucks to places that never had unions and people are saying that, you know, this pay inequity between CEO and upper level management and workers has just been growing and growing over the past few decades. And, you know, now we can see those numbers and it's not two times what I make. Now, it's a couple hundred times what I make. The differences are jaw dropping. So one situation where I think people are pushing back and we're seeing it with the United Auto Workers Strike but we're seeing a lot of other places is we're saying that, you know, this disparity is so far out of hand that, you know, we're going to take, we're going to take it into our own hands and we're going to, we're going to make you pay attention to us and we're going to go in strike. Yeah. Yeah. And give Joe Biden a speech credit. That phrase, record profit should generate record wages. That's points right to the economic and power disparity. And the connection should be made. I don't care if you're rural, white, evangelical, older and male, you're still underpaid and underserved. Exactly. You have neither the economic resources nor the political influencer resources nor the educational access, nor the healthcare affordability access that the people who are favored by the people that you're identifying with are serving at your expense. Yeah. Dennis, back to that voting against your own best interests and that's kind of what's happening. But I agree with you, David, is you're seeing this really resurgence of the labor movement on a number of levels. I mean, before I think people were sort of lulled into thinking that things were so bad that we had to make these sacrifices and we had to make these concessions and we had to give up so many of the rights and things that the unions and stuff that Biden said for. I mean, just like even with the rider strike, I mean, the first time there was a rider strike with that spawn, that spawned these reality shows where you didn't need to necessarily have the rights. And it's like, wait a minute, what did we just do here? And now you're now saying, wait a minute, it wasn't about the reality. You guys are still making, as you said, a hundred times more than what we're doing. We're still producing. So no, we've got to take this stance. So now people are really realizing, wait a minute, we got duped into thinking that we were making this valuable sacrifice for the good of the country, for the good of the economy, and we got screwed. Yeah. I think that disparity between CEO and workers is really fueling some of this activity. I think going on strike is hard. The UAW strike fund is going to be able to pay you $500 a week. Well, that's good. It's certainly better than nothing, but still, you got a family of $400 or $500 a week. It's not enough. So it's going to be hard when you go on strike. So what's going to keep you out there? Well, one thing is kind of this emotional aspect of it, that $28 million. It's GMC only $28 million last year. Now, how can one person justify taking away that much money when I'm on a two-tiered payment system where my wages are lower because I joined the game work for the company after 2007 when there's two-tiered wage system came in. I don't get any profit sharing. My contributions to my retirement plan are much lower than everybody else. I think that when you see that number, that stark number of $28 million, you look at your own situation, that gives you kind of the emotional incentive to go forward. It's like, I just can't take this anymore. I don't want to take this anymore. Yeah, absolutely. And we didn't see that before when we were hearing during the times that you were making these kind of concessions where all these, the economy is going, we're going the wrong way. We need you to make this sacrifice. We can't make it without you doing this. We didn't have the disclosure about what these wages were about. We didn't, when I was saying that I wasn't in there, but for those that have been working, that information wasn't always available. They didn't have it. They could just buy some form of poverty and expect that with the threat being that we're going to lay off people, which they did. We're going to lay you off or we're going to close this plan. And then people say, oh, we're sorry, we'll take whatever you give us. Social media creates a lot of problems. That's what Sandra is saying. But as Son was saying, sometimes it's very valuable in terms of organizing people in all kinds of different ways, all kinds of different protests, but just an information sharing. It can be extremely valuable and can keep people up to date. Again, if you're out on a strike and if you're just home not working, wonder what's going on, and you get an offer to come back to work across that picket line, and you really had very little communication, you might be tempted to do that because your family's hungry. Whatever money you're getting wasn't nearly enough. But if you're getting those updates every day and you know what's happening, that really can sustain you. So yeah, as Sander was pointing out, the fact that this is available and now people have that information is very helpful. And that's a really important point because there's a direct close connection between that disparity, that concentration of wealth and power, and the behavior that we're seeing in a completely dysfunction, national and in many cases state leadership as well. The national is worse in many respects. I mean, that's behavior none of us would ever tolerate in our iterations, our courtrooms, our homes, and anywhere else. I mean, that wouldn't be acceptable behavior. But when you get someone like Merrick Garland, who should have been on the US Supreme Court, except for these kinds of manipulations and gains for political purposes, who is the top attorney in the nation, he's the head of the Department of Justice. And not once during his hours of testimony do any of Jim Jordan's troops mention or ask about what initiatives is a DOG taking to reduce gun violence, to reduce street crime, to reduce the major problems that everyday real people Americans are impacted by and concerned about. Instead, they're attacking him in very personal, offensive ways without factual backup for it in a completely unproductive session. So what can be offered? What would you offer as an alternative message and communication that would reach people, reach out to people where they live? You know, one thing I think we probably have not done a good job of doing is kind of being very explicit about what the future holds if we continue down these paths to actually kind of paint the picture of what happens when, if you elect Donald Trump, who says that he's going to consolidate authority in the presidency, that he's going to make the Department of Justice attorney, his own attorney, that it's all going to be under his control that can be more efficient that way. And we won't waste money, we won't waste time. I think we need to do a better job of being very explicit about explaining what the consequences are if we follow these paths, because I'm not sure we've done a great job of doing that. There's a lot of people who just think, ah, you know, I like it, stick it to the man and, you know, rabble rouser and v-rebels, and they don't really think about the consequences. And I don't think we've done a great job of explaining that. Or else we've done a really good job of giving them a platform and the, you know, the platform to espouse those views and not challenge them. And that's, that's the serving. I just like to say that the deer and the smear garland, it should have been about other things. If you're going to follow the, you know, if you're going to call the attorney general, you need to be talking about, you know, what they're doing in the office rather than spending time the way it was spent. And that is, but honestly, it's kind of disgusting and insulting. Um, but then people don't understand and more responsive to, you know, he, he did it to him. He, he, he told him, and that doesn't get you anything, you know, no, I mean, I'm, I'm looking at, um, this, the Georgia case. I mean, I'm not sure. Well, in the DC case as well, the kinds of things that are being said and done by Donald Trump defendant, would not be tolerated by any other criminal defendant in any court, anywhere in the country. And people are thinking, oh, yeah, it's okay to, you know, call out the prosecutor and have a, you know, because, and I, and I think the more we do that, the more that sort of thing is, is, is, you know, is, is, I don't know, put it, put it out so that people think that's okay to do, because I think some people think it is, you're going to be beginning to also see this tearing away at the, well, you're starting with Attorney General, Mayor Garland, but it's just going to sweep through the entire, you know, the hard justice system. You know how, why don't you want to think about that, what, what, what it could look like in some of our courts if we allow, if that sort of thing is deemed to be okay because you're running for office. Yeah, media is responsible for, and they're, unfortunately, they're fueling some of this, because, you know, they're a business too, and they wanted ratings, and they want people to follow them, and they want people to watch, they want to sensationalize. So whatever you say about Donald Trump, you know, he can, he's kind of sensational to watch, and never quite know what he's going to say or do, and so the media follows him, and then Kristen Wilker did that, I don't know if you saw any of that interview, it wasn't an interview, I don't know what that was, but she would ask a question, and Donald Trump would just go on some rant and say all kinds of misrepresentations and exaggerations and lies, and then go to some other related question, it was like, it was a terrible interview. It's like, why are you giving the forum, giving him this forum and giving him this opportunity to make these misrepresentations to save these lives? I was painful, but at least I wanted to see what was happening, but I'm so, but I watch it, I'm worried, people are at home listening to it, and the problem is some of them are nodding their heads and thinking, yeah, yeah, that's, that's true, that's what's happening. Yeah, go get her, go get her, yeah. So it's like, oh man, so yeah, so it's troubling that now the media is also, you know, they're driven by an audience, they want to have an audience, you know, every day, it's like, this is on the news every single day, aren't there other things we need to talk about? Yeah, like, you know, the gun violence is certainly a biggie. I mean, just instance that we're seeing that the comfort that people have with, you know, with having guns so readily available, and you're hearing now more about these shootings that never should have occurred, if people didn't just happen to have a gun, you know, just recently, the one where the guy's out directing cars away from the front of this house because of deer crossing, and a guy in a car behind thinks that he's doing something and pulls out the gun and shoots him, he's dead, he's shot in front of him on his lawn. Well, having, I mean, I'm not against people having guns, I'm not, but I mean, this notion that you can just, you know, walk around and carry it in your, you know, in your pocket, just in case, you know, something happens that you might need it or, you know, someone comes to your door and you don't know who it is, you could just shoot them. Yeah, I think, you know, I, you know, I talk about taking responsibility, you know, I think we can't let things be normalized. You know, it's pretty easy to be passive and events like you're describing are happening so frequently every day. I can't watch the news any day without seeing somebody getting murdered by a weapon, you know, and to the degree that we allow that to become normalized to think that, oh, okay, you know, it didn't happen in my neighborhood. That's, that's really frightening. And so we need to be aware of what's happening, that this wasn't always what was happening. It doesn't have to be this way. And we need to push back. How do we do that? Well, how do we, because we remind people that this isn't the way it needed to be, that you certainly are entitled to defend yourself and to spend your, you know, your family and your property and stuff. But how do we, how do we get that across? I'm, I'm getting a little worried. You know, I think I go back to what I was saying earlier that I mean, people get to be, get to go to Washington and, you know, get treated like mini royalty as governmental representatives and members of Congress and the Senate. I think we, we have to call them out, you know, and say that these are the issues that concern us. You know, violence and, and the level of violent crimes and the use of guns is something that has changed my life. You know, I think about whether or not they would attend a mass gathering, a concert or a game or something in ways I never did before. Because there's a possibility now that something really bad is going to happen. And, and we want to return to a world where we didn't have to have that, that reflection. And you have the power in your hands to do something about it. And you can actually implement some gun, gun legislation and restrictions that can be helpful to us. So, so do it or we're not going to, we're not going to send you back to Washington. And in our last minute or two, I think the point that both of you have really emphasized and really needs to be front and center. And neither the media nor the political leaders have done that is accountability. It is the consequence of responsibility. Your responsibility has progressed to a point where it's actually harmful. There are people who are responsible for causing that harm. And there are people who are responsible for preventing and apprehending those who cause the harm. Maybe a focus on we are going to prioritize accountability for both the causing of harm and for the elimination of protections against it. And that being healthcare, safety, education, all of those things. Yeah. And I'm back to, as you expressed those, those perspectives, I'm back to the view that the, the, the group that's most capable of doing that are the younger folks who are vastly more impacted by these things now than any of us everyone who see that. And really don't want to have to live and continue to live in a society that does not value life in that way. So, and it's, I think that's, I still think that's going to happen. I still think that's really, really happening. Certainly. I guess, you know, in closing, I just want to remind people that we have some control over what is a normal life and what's a normal world. So, so we don't have to sit back and just accept things as a developing and let the normal happen around us. That it can be something as simple as you don't have to be out in the street protesting because that's not who you are, which you're comfortable doing. It can just be a letter of phone call that you're representative to let them know what you believe. So there's all kinds of levels of involvement and there may be levels with which you're uncomfortable that that doesn't mean you, you don't have to do that you shouldn't do anything. So maybe that's the question for voters. Absolutely. When you vote, can you have the courage to vote for those who you really believe will take the most responsibility to protect the things, the values that are most important to you and your family and your community? Think Tech Hawaii. Thanks so much for joining us. Judge Sandra Sims, Professor David Larson, thanks so much for your time, your insights, your perspective. Aloha. Thank you. Take care.