Speaker 1: You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2: Joining me in studio is none other than Nick Polyochini.
Speaker 2: What is up, my brother?
Speaker 3: What is up?
Speaker 4: Good sir? It's lovely to see you. Lovely to be
Speaker 4: seen as we're wrapping up February last week. Is crazy
Speaker 4: to think they were already.
Speaker 2: There already, even though it is a shorter month, right,
Speaker 2: it feels even shorter for some reason, maybe because January
Speaker 2: lasted seventy five days.
Speaker 4: You are correct, and February seems to have been the
Speaker 4: longest on record, even though we're going to be wrapping it.
Speaker 3: Up this week.
Speaker 4: So it's been busy, it's been good, and I want
Speaker 4: to take us to as always very akin to the
Speaker 4: old days with this week of a Nick Poliochanni. This
Speaker 4: Friday is something big that's happening, and you and I
Speaker 4: briefly talked about it just off air, and we kind
Speaker 4: of we sift to save it for the air kind
Speaker 4: of concept.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 4: So the thing I want to talk about is this
Speaker 4: Friday is going to be a nationwide economic blackout, and
Speaker 4: what that specifically means is that there is a boycott
Speaker 4: of all major companies that is being requested, meaning Amazon, Walmart, Target,
Speaker 4: Best Buy, McDonald's, Meta which would be Instagram and Facebook,
Speaker 4: Ford Motor Company, Chipotle, Coca Cola, which all of these
Speaker 4: are major brands that you can barely get around without
Speaker 4: doing anything.
Speaker 2: What is the reason for this economic boycott?
Speaker 3: They are trying to specifically make their I guess you
Speaker 3: would say people in general.
Speaker 4: So there's a group that has come together that's called
Speaker 4: the People's Union USA, and they organized boycotts traditionally before,
Speaker 4: but specifically looking at retailers because they're trying to send
Speaker 4: a message with everything that's been going on. And the
Speaker 4: thing that for me and I have gotten a lot
Speaker 4: of feedback from social media from a lot of listeners
Speaker 4: that KFI and elsewhere that it's specific it's a twenty
Speaker 4: four hour time period where you're being urged to refrain
Speaker 4: from spending money unnecessarily both online and in store with
Speaker 4: these particular large retailers, and it is trying to make
Speaker 4: the and it's a reference specifically to DEI with you know,
Speaker 4: with everything that's been going on since January twentieth until now,
Speaker 4: and so with that all being said, and it was
Speaker 4: funny because I was talking to twelve off air. I
Speaker 4: both actively and inactively or you know, passively. I haven't
Speaker 4: been a target since the twentieth I haven't been to Walmart.
Speaker 4: I have been Costco. But you know, we got you
Speaker 4: got to pick and choose your retailers. But this Friday
Speaker 4: is going to be the major And there's been small
Speaker 4: blackouts throughout from you know, the new presidency through now,
Speaker 4: but this is one that is really being pushed, especially
Speaker 4: by minority groups.
Speaker 2: Let me jump in there. Yeah, and I talk about
Speaker 2: protests and effective protest just about every day with every
Speaker 2: issue on this show. I'm going to be consistent. So
Speaker 2: let me just ask you what word answer, because that's
Speaker 2: going to predicate how I'm going to respond.
Speaker 3: Sounds great.
Speaker 2: Is this going to be done in the hopes of
Speaker 2: actually changing something or only creating awareness?
Speaker 3: It is at this point creating awareness.
Speaker 4: Specifically, the hope is to have an economic impact, to
Speaker 4: be able to have a blip on the radar.
Speaker 2: Let me jump in. Go ahead. You are not going
Speaker 2: to have any economic impact. And I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2: These major corporations measure their revenue in quarters, not a day.
Speaker 2: In other words, if they have a down Friday and
Speaker 2: everyone starts spending on Saturday. It's not going to make
Speaker 2: any different and it's not even going difference, and it's
Speaker 2: not even going to register. And I always use the
Speaker 2: Montgomery bus boycott of nineteen fifty five as a comparison point,
Speaker 2: which lasted three hundred and eighty one days and set
Speaker 2: off the modern civil rights movement. That's Rosa Parks. She
Speaker 2: refused to sit at the back of the bus, and
Speaker 2: the people in Montgomery, Alabama refused to use the bus
Speaker 2: lines for three hundred and eighty one days. That had
Speaker 2: an economic impact. Now, there was an old chain letter
Speaker 2: that would float around the nineteen nineties and early two
Speaker 2: thousands called the Big Gas Up because people were mad
Speaker 2: about remember gas price, and they said let's not buy
Speaker 2: gas for a single day. It did not change a
Speaker 2: damn thing. So I say, and I asked, respectfully, are
Speaker 2: you trying to create awareness? Are you're trying to create
Speaker 2: economic impact? Because one day it's not going to create
Speaker 2: any economic impact. What we have seen is people have
Speaker 2: really laid into target and not going to target over
Speaker 2: an extended period of time. That target is feeling it.
Speaker 2: But if you say, for one day, we're not going
Speaker 2: to spend that any big box retailer or we're not
Speaker 2: going to buy over here, bye over there, But the
Speaker 2: next day we can go back to what we were
Speaker 2: doing before. It's not going to be felt. It's not
Speaker 2: going to make a difference, with exception of you might
Speaker 2: get some news coverage.
Speaker 4: Right and I think that's it. And again, like you've
Speaker 4: just specifically had, I mean, this is why I come here.
Speaker 4: The thing that I like being a part of later
Speaker 4: with mo Kelly is because I learn as well and
Speaker 4: being able to bring in topics like this and talk
Speaker 4: about them in it environment with somebody who is well
Speaker 4: versed in a lot of background information. It's really helpful
Speaker 4: because again it's going to hopefully bring awareness and obviously
Speaker 4: not economically affect those people that are there. I want
Speaker 4: to play and you said target specifically, and target is
Speaker 4: a very big situation.
Speaker 3: I guess you would say.
Speaker 4: I was trying to figure out before I came on
Speaker 4: the show tonight exactly how to present it because I
Speaker 4: know I'm going up against the big guns and it
Speaker 4: is always good to bring a little bit of I
Speaker 4: don't know background to it. There's a TikToker not to employ,
Speaker 4: you know, the social media platform that was shut down
Speaker 4: and then brought back by the Illustrious Current was shut down, Yeah,
Speaker 4: allegedly six hours something like that anyway.
Speaker 3: But Amber Haley Lord.
Speaker 4: Who is a advocate for healthcare and corporate ethic related
Speaker 4: issues on TikTok Robin, can you play that piece of
Speaker 4: audio for me please?
Speaker 2: Why is everyone going after Target so hard?
Speaker 5: A bunch of brands backed away from DEI and we
Speaker 5: all decided to boycott Target, Walmart, Amazon, and a slew
Speaker 5: of others. Saw this really great question where this person
Speaker 5: was asking, why is everyone going so.
Speaker 2: Hard about Target?
Speaker 5: I know exactly why, because I've been doing it too.
Speaker 5: I think a lot of people are more butt hurt
Speaker 5: about Target because Target tricked us for so long talking
Speaker 5: about inclusivity, supporting black brands, diversity, equity, LGBTQ, pride, stuff,
Speaker 5: all the things. Really were loud and proud about so
Speaker 5: many things for so many years, and it was our
Speaker 5: happy place. We felt good being there. We felt like,
Speaker 5: as far as capitalism goes and big box stores, that
Speaker 5: we could safely spend our money there and that they
Speaker 5: had a lot of great brands and they were supporting
Speaker 5: And then just at the slight sign of an issue.
Speaker 5: They just tucked tail and run. They're a big company
Speaker 5: with a lot of money and a lot of lawyers.
Speaker 5: Without a shadow of a doubt, they did not have
Speaker 5: to do this. They were scared, and they were scared
Speaker 5: of losing money, and now they're losing money, and I
Speaker 5: encourage you guys to keep boycotting them. One big move
Speaker 5: that we recently made because we were getting like our
Speaker 5: pet food, like doggy diapers and dog treats and cat
Speaker 5: treats and all those things there, We now solely get
Speaker 5: everything from Chewi and actually we put everything on auto ships.
Speaker 5: We don't have to make a trip to the store,
Speaker 5: and we're getting it for less money. And Chewy is
Speaker 5: a great company.
Speaker 2: So that's solved.
Speaker 4: So I think the thing and that there's a lot
Speaker 4: of information that Amber put out there specifically, but I
Speaker 4: think that for me this is something and as we scroll,
Speaker 4: you know doom scroll, as it's very very popular, you
Speaker 4: are able to find things that align depending on what
Speaker 4: you like and what you click in social media. But
Speaker 4: it was interesting to come across this specifically because for me,
Speaker 4: and being so involved heavily with social media sets, it's
Speaker 4: on set. It is something that you know, and the
Speaker 4: jokes are always there with a meme, you know, the
Speaker 4: thirtieth of the month, it's this color and then it
Speaker 4: goes to a different color. For me with being a
Speaker 4: queer person, it is the rainbow that happens for June
Speaker 4: every year because that's that well, because that is LGBTQ
Speaker 4: History month. But it is always wild to me because
Speaker 4: the thing that for me that I've always pushed on
Speaker 4: the show period is supporting small business anyway and really
Speaker 4: leaning into that. But it was something that we had
Speaker 4: always had the Minnesota nice attitude with Target, and that
Speaker 4: was the brand that allegedly really had put themselves out
Speaker 4: there to be in support of minority groups and lean
Speaker 4: into AAPI and to black history and to LGBTQ. So
Speaker 4: the thing that I want to do is, you know,
Speaker 4: again add to the awareness of it. But as I
Speaker 4: always like to do, I like to bring things to
Speaker 4: the show. So how can you make yourself, you know,
Speaker 4: a part of it if you so choose, yes, go
Speaker 4: for me.
Speaker 2: It's real simple. It has to be more than a hashtag.
Speaker 2: It has to be more than a day, and it
Speaker 2: has to be about more than just awareness. It has
Speaker 2: to be about Hey, we're not going to shop at
Speaker 2: these businesses, and this is true of any protests to
Speaker 2: insert your cause does matter. We're not going to shop
Speaker 2: at these locations until correct dot dot and it's open ended.
Speaker 2: And then after a quarter of lost revenue, you may
Speaker 2: see businesses start changing their tune because ultimately they care
Speaker 2: about the American dollar and their bottom line more than
Speaker 2: anything in the world. They will sell Girl Scout cookies
Speaker 2: if that's what you're all asking for and demanded of them.
Speaker 2: But if you think that staying home per se one
Speaker 2: day is going to change their stance on any issue,
Speaker 2: absolutely not. It would never happen.
Speaker 3: Right, So let's look at how we can support other businesses.
Speaker 2: No, I'm saying, if you want to say we shouldn't
Speaker 2: shop here or there anymore and only shop small, which
Speaker 2: we hear on varying levels each year, correct by all means.
Speaker 2: But if you are sharing this with people, with them
Speaker 2: thinking that they're going to have an impact or there
Speaker 2: might be a change on the other side, I would
Speaker 2: not want you to lie to them, because I'm telling
Speaker 2: you it's not going to yield anything close to that
Speaker 2: type of result. We all know about quote unquote the
Speaker 2: fight regarding DBI. We all know that the different retailers
Speaker 2: that you mentioned have pulled back and that has left
Speaker 2: people feeling some kind of way. The only way that
Speaker 2: you're going to get them to change is to feel
Speaker 2: the same economic pressure which was placed upon them by
Speaker 2: the federal government. And if you can't meet that same
Speaker 2: level of pressure, and they've already had the meetings and
Speaker 2: they've already gained plan on how long they feel that
Speaker 2: people are going to be protesting or mad, and they
Speaker 2: feel that they can outlast you. And that's why they've
Speaker 2: made this decision at least for now, because they got
Speaker 2: to deal with the federal government for the next four years.
Speaker 2: Then they only have to deal with people screaming and
Speaker 2: shouting for the next four weeks.
Speaker 3: And that's right.
Speaker 4: And I think that's the thing specific to this, because
Speaker 4: if you take it even one step further, it's if
Speaker 4: we all need these retailers, there's no question about it. Then,
Speaker 4: as you said, trying to be able to do a
Speaker 4: long game on this, it's real hard not to go
Speaker 4: to Walmart and Target. It's real hard not to go
Speaker 4: and make because the convenience of our lives, right.
Speaker 2: You're not gonna go to Amazon. You're not gonna go
Speaker 2: to Target. But you're not gonna go to Amazon. Correct,
Speaker 2: you're not gonna go to Walmart.
Speaker 4: Well, and the best part is with Amazon because people
Speaker 4: never see it. That's the thing, because that gets delivered
Speaker 4: to your home, so you can feel real good about
Speaker 4: yourself because it's no one's ever seeing that, as opposed
Speaker 4: to I'm not going to walk into a Target or Walmart.
Speaker 4: So the idea is beyond what's coming on Friday, and
Speaker 4: if you so choose to participate in it, that's great,
Speaker 4: But it's how do you spend your money at these retailers?
Speaker 3: Is what I'm looking at.
Speaker 4: So I want to look at some small businesses that
Speaker 4: are because the point is we have people. You have
Speaker 4: people that you care about, as do I who work
Speaker 4: at these places that need the job. So this isn't
Speaker 4: saying you know, I understand we're all doing that walkout
Speaker 4: to make a point or try to feel good about ourselves,
Speaker 4: but how can we be smarter about spending those dollars?
Speaker 2: I have some thoughts about that. Sharing when we come back,
Speaker 2: please do.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2: Mo Kelly, Nick polo'chinny. We're live everywhere in the iHeartRadio
Speaker 2: app and we have a different sounding conversation tonight is
Speaker 2: Nick polo'channey is telling us about this economic boycott in
Speaker 2: the name of the DEI anti DEI stances taken on
Speaker 2: by Target and other Walmart, other big box retailers, and
Speaker 2: there's an economic boycott schedule for this Friday. I've taken
Speaker 2: this stance. It's not going to have an economic impact.
Speaker 2: And if you're trying to do anything beyond awareness, I
Speaker 2: think you're respectfully wasting everyone's time. Everyone's aware of it,
Speaker 2: but if they're not going to be pushed to the
Speaker 2: point they being the retailers pushed to the point that
Speaker 2: they would make a change, I don't know the purpose
Speaker 2: of it. And let me add one thing before I
Speaker 2: turn it back over to you, Nick. Sure, when you
Speaker 2: talk about awareness, part of that has to be an
Speaker 2: edge education process of the general public. And in terms
Speaker 2: of the DEI discussion, people for the most part, and
Speaker 2: I know people listening right now are misinformed as to
Speaker 2: what it is. Diversity, equity and inclusion is not affirmative action, correct,
Speaker 2: And I hear it again and again, and if you
Speaker 2: keep saying it, I'll tell you you're wrong every time
Speaker 2: you say it. Think of diversity, equity, inclusion as you
Speaker 2: will expand your reach and also where you are looking
Speaker 2: for qualified, equally qualified individuals. Let's say that you are pilots,
Speaker 2: and this is a real example. Let's say you're recruiting
Speaker 2: for pilots for American airlines. You would also have representatives
Speaker 2: which will go to the HBCUs, the historically black colleges
Speaker 2: and universities and recruit from those stem places and also
Speaker 2: invite them to test and become pilots. You're not choosing
Speaker 2: people of color, or who are women, or who are
Speaker 2: GBTQ on the status of them being checking those boxes
Speaker 2: and they're also underqualified or less qualified. That is a lie.
Speaker 2: So when I say to you, awareness, there has to
Speaker 2: be a component as far as educating people to what
Speaker 2: it is not it's just what you want.
Speaker 4: Right, And I think for that specific thing to take
Speaker 4: it even very close to home here at KFI. Last year,
Speaker 4: Steve Gregory, who used to work here myself, and Jacob
Speaker 4: Gonzales won an Edward R. More Award for the Regional
Speaker 4: and National, one of the most Illustrious Awards within Media.
Speaker 4: Congratulations once again, well thanks.
Speaker 3: Your thank you.
Speaker 4: But the point is we literally won in the category
Speaker 4: of DEI Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and it had to
Speaker 4: do with everything you've described of how educating people is
Speaker 4: and how what it involves outside of this box being checked,
Speaker 4: because it affects people at the end of the day,
Speaker 4: It affects lives at the end of the day, and
Speaker 4: you know, it affects livelihoods at the end of the day.
Speaker 4: So that's something that we have even done here specifically
Speaker 4: on KFI with a two hour special and a nine
Speaker 4: episode podcast series, and we're acknowledged for it.
Speaker 2: But unfortunately it has been distorted, it has been misused,
Speaker 2: it has been appropriated, has been used to malign people
Speaker 2: as a slur and pejorative. We see it whenever there's
Speaker 2: an airline almost incident or an actual incident, including today,
Speaker 2: and they say, oh, there's another DEI incident in the
Speaker 2: air today, making the assumption that not only the incident
Speaker 2: was because of someone other than a white cis male, correct,
Speaker 2: but because that someone was either a woman and that
Speaker 2: person was responsible for that incident and was lesser qualified
Speaker 2: and chosen instead of that white cis male, right.
Speaker 4: And the funnier part of that whole scenario is I
Speaker 4: am a white sin it's mail and I'm also queer,
Speaker 4: so I hit the DEI box. But there's you and
Speaker 4: I walk into a business, you see a white man
Speaker 4: and a black man. That's we've encountered it and specifically
Speaker 4: not to see my emails, right. And I think that
Speaker 4: it's in this moment that we have an opportunity again
Speaker 4: to educate and bring awareness to something.
Speaker 2: And I agree with you, and that's why I use
Speaker 2: this platform because I want to raise the caliber of
Speaker 2: the conversation absolutely, and part of that is disabusing people
Speaker 2: of their ignorant notions exactly. And when it comes to DEI,
Speaker 2: if you want to change the tenor and direction of
Speaker 2: that conversation, that it has to be more to me,
Speaker 2: I agree with you. It has to be more than
Speaker 2: we need to put pressure on Target and Walmart and
Speaker 2: Amazon to say we want this. There has to be
Speaker 2: a wider educational component so people understand not only what
Speaker 2: you're fighting for, but why you're fighting for it, and
Speaker 2: also why you're against it is actually not what you
Speaker 2: are against, in other words, what you think you're against
Speaker 2: is not even what it is. If I had a
Speaker 2: nickel for every time I had to explain the folks
Speaker 2: that you don't know what the frick you're talking about.
Speaker 4: And I think that's it, because we're giving gravity and
Speaker 4: air to something that doesn't get talked about specifically. And
Speaker 4: the challenge is we live in the fifteen second moment anymore.
Speaker 4: So wherever the algorithms of your social media take you,
Speaker 4: that's the lens within your only thing you're seeing. And
Speaker 4: that's what kills me because again, that is where I
Speaker 4: have spent a lot of my time, you know, when
Speaker 4: I was an iHeart an employee and supporting the brand
Speaker 4: here that I was able to really see how that
Speaker 4: curation through technology really changes the definition and really changes
Speaker 4: the perception of something.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you a quick question. Sure, break, we're
Speaker 2: going to carry this over to the next segment, but
Speaker 2: this I think is going to highlight what I mean
Speaker 2: after the economic boycott. In other words, there's Friday the
Speaker 2: twenty eighth, what happens on March first.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's again like we joked about it, but I say,
Speaker 4: that's my point and I think that's the hardest part.
Speaker 4: So again and we'll talk about this after the break,
Speaker 4: but it's how do you take your dollars and how
Speaker 4: do you better choose what you're doing, choose where you're
Speaker 4: spending them.
Speaker 2: Oh, I got an answer to that. It's very easy.
Speaker 2: That has to be mapped out before you have the economic.
Speaker 4: And you have to have done so much homework and research,
Speaker 4: and thankfully there's a good amount of that done.
Speaker 2: But it is because it's easier to just see the
Speaker 2: not dismissing or it. It's easy to say, oh, there's
Speaker 2: an economic boycott on Friday. Sure I won't buy anything
Speaker 2: on Friday. And they don't have to think about it
Speaker 2: beyond it, because in their mind they've actually accomplished something.
Speaker 2: They've done something. They put up a hashtager that they
Speaker 2: shared a post and they didn't spend any money at Amazon,
Speaker 2: and then they go home and feel like, see, I've
Speaker 2: contributed to the cause, when those mother fathers have not.
Speaker 2: They haven't done anything. They're lazy. If they actually studied
Speaker 2: civil rights movement, they would know that there's a commitment
Speaker 2: not only weeks, months, most likely years as in plural
Speaker 2: and then not only does a country change, but capitalism
Speaker 2: would change, and you have the desired result. But you
Speaker 2: know in this country, when the social media, they move
Speaker 2: on after a week or so. And my point to
Speaker 2: you is Saturday is going to come and people will
Speaker 2: have moved on because they will have thought they would
Speaker 2: have done something, and they would have not done anything.
Speaker 2: They would not have educated the masses, they will not
Speaker 2: have provided any really economic pressure on the entities that
Speaker 2: they want to pressure, and then nothing has been gained.
Speaker 2: And that's what frustrates me because you may as a
Speaker 2: group may be well intentioned, but it's poorly executed and
Speaker 2: poorly planned. Right, we'll have more just moment. It's Later
Speaker 2: with mo' kelly KFIM six forty were live everywhere the
Speaker 2: I Heeartradio app.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty KFI.
Speaker 2: Mister mo' kelly and Nick Caliochinni still as we're both
Speaker 2: live everywhere the iHeartRadio app. And we've had a very
Speaker 2: spirited conversation about the conversation surrounding DEI and how many
Speaker 2: businesses and retailers are responding to the pressure and the
Speaker 2: executive action of President Trump, and they've responded in different ways.
Speaker 2: Some companies like Apple, for example, have pushed back. Some
Speaker 2: companies such as Walmart and Target have given in correct,
Speaker 2: And you have told us tonight about a proposed economic
Speaker 2: boycott across the country. Regarding those retailers who have which
Speaker 2: have given in, I push back on the idea that
Speaker 2: it's going to create the type of awareness and impact
Speaker 2: that you might have hoped for. I thought something would
Speaker 2: have something else would have been more impactful and more educational,
Speaker 2: and I was using history as a guy.
Speaker 3: Does that a fair representation?
Speaker 4: I think it's a perfect You've definitely brought us in,
Speaker 4: you know, if you want to reset us right back
Speaker 4: to where we were. And I think that's the reason
Speaker 4: I bring something like this to later with mo Kelly,
Speaker 4: because we can have that spirited conversation and with the
Speaker 4: knowledge and background and experience to really take a dive
Speaker 4: into it. Because it is one of those scenarios that
Speaker 4: I've already talked about. People will participate in it for
Speaker 4: the awareness component of it and to feel good about it.
Speaker 4: But as you said on Saturday, the very next day,
Speaker 4: it'll be two hundred dollars to spend at Target. Yeah,
Speaker 4: because it will be right back to it. And I
Speaker 4: think the funnier thing. Even to add to it, Target
Speaker 4: their shareholders push back on the company itself and said,
Speaker 4: we didn't want this. So if you go to Target
Speaker 4: dot com or you go to their social media, you're
Speaker 4: seeing Black History Month stuff. Now, you saw API Month
Speaker 4: stuff back last month. You've got things that are coming
Speaker 4: up for a Women's History month, You've got things that
Speaker 4: are being already on the website for LGBTQ Pride Month.
Speaker 4: So if nothing happened now, granted that is a representation
Speaker 4: of okay, we're coming back to it, but also something
Speaker 4: is you know, we have that idea of a brand
Speaker 4: like Target, who is the Minnesota nice of the big
Speaker 4: box retailers who really leaned into it. So the bigger
Speaker 4: question that you and I were starting to talk about
Speaker 4: and we stopped is give me, in your experience or
Speaker 4: your insights kind of what would be a better use
Speaker 4: of the time or better approach I guess for it,
Speaker 4: because obviously, like you specifically have laid out, it needs time,
Speaker 4: it needs education, it needs a lot more than one day. Obviously,
Speaker 4: even if we're just talking about the awareness component, removing
Speaker 4: the economic impact, which obviously you've already discussed specifically saying
Speaker 4: it has quarters involved and that's how businesses look at
Speaker 4: all that, and that makes perfect sense. But what is
Speaker 4: something that could be done or something that would be
Speaker 4: a better approach.
Speaker 2: All movements need to be able to have a person
Speaker 2: or a group of people who can effectively communicate on
Speaker 2: behalf of those masses coming out of the Montgomery bus boycott.
Speaker 2: I use that as an example. That's when doctor King
Speaker 2: moved to the front of the civil rights movement and
Speaker 2: then became one of the lead mouthpieces, if you will,
Speaker 2: to express the fact that this is what's going on
Speaker 2: in America, this is what needs to be changed, this
Speaker 2: is why we're going about it this way to bring
Speaker 2: about the desired change. So people could not only see
Speaker 2: what was going on. In other words, he'll be able
Speaker 2: to provide context for why people were refusing to use
Speaker 2: the Montgomery bus line system. This economic boycott is going
Speaker 2: to come and go, and there won't be a cohesive
Speaker 2: voice or message around it. I know. I've seen it
Speaker 2: far too many times with Occupy Wall Street, with the
Speaker 2: pea hats, with the Trump protests in twenty sixteen, with BLM.
Speaker 2: It happens every single year. There isn't a centralized messaging
Speaker 2: source and people who've been agreed upon to be able
Speaker 2: to speak on behalf of the movement and provide context
Speaker 2: and edge so people understand, hey, this is what DEI
Speaker 2: is not, and this is what DEI is. And also
Speaker 2: this is how DEI has either moved the country forward
Speaker 2: or added something to it in a way that you
Speaker 2: did not know. And I was using an example of
Speaker 2: the late astronaut Ronald McNair and how NASA was specifically
Speaker 2: looking in communities they had not looked before. Originally, NASA
Speaker 2: was a military installation and they're only looking for pilots
Speaker 2: and military veterans and what have you. And then in
Speaker 2: the early nine late nineteen sixties, early nineteen seventies they
Speaker 2: started was basically the forerunner of DEI. And that's when
Speaker 2: you saw female astronauts, That's when you saw black astronauts,
Speaker 2: and you saw different people representative of different communities and
Speaker 2: different disciplines becoming astronauts. There has to be someone who
Speaker 2: can articulate the benefits of an inclusive society and not
Speaker 2: just in an employment context, historical context, and then you
Speaker 2: can have a robust conversation about where it fits and
Speaker 2: where it does not fit within our society, and what
Speaker 2: is being proposed does none of that when there are
Speaker 2: plenty of historical examples of how that's been done and
Speaker 2: been done effectively.
Speaker 4: Now to piggyback on that specifically, because you've given a
Speaker 4: lot of context to history, and that makes and hopefully
Speaker 4: we would like to learn from history, and it seems
Speaker 4: that doesn't that's not the case. But what does it
Speaker 4: look like now? Because I'm we have an individual leading
Speaker 4: our country who has been incredibly polarizing to a certain topic,
Speaker 4: who has brought in other people that are polarizing to
Speaker 4: a topic. What does it look like for us in
Speaker 4: the fifteen second attention span now? Because historically you were
Speaker 4: able to have that one epic polarizing voice or maybe
Speaker 4: two or three, and the way that news traveled and
Speaker 4: communication traveled it was one thing. So how how do
Speaker 4: we in the modern era approach this? What does that
Speaker 4: look like? Here's the uncomfortable truth.
Speaker 2: I'm always going to tell you when anyone else the
Speaker 2: trees when I talk about the civil rights movement, it
Speaker 2: was not a month or a year. I used this
Speaker 2: Montgomery bus boycott as an example of something which was effective,
Speaker 2: but it did not bring about the ultimate desired result,
Speaker 2: bring about the ending of segregation. The signing of the
Speaker 2: Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act the Montgomery
Speaker 2: bus boycott was nineteen fifty five. The signing of the
Speaker 2: Civil Rights Act was nineteen sixty four, that's nine years later.
Speaker 2: The Voting Rights Act in nineteen sixty five, and the
Speaker 2: Fairhousing Act of nineteen sixty eight, which and the totality
Speaker 2: of those acts change society. But people want it right here,
Speaker 2: right now, in this instant, going back to the fifteen
Speaker 2: second news cycle and also the social media cycle where
Speaker 2: we just move on, where people are not actually committed
Speaker 2: to something. The modern day civil rights movement started actually
Speaker 2: in the late nineteen fifties during the Eisenhower administration, with
Speaker 2: the first Civil Rights Act that most people have forgotten
Speaker 2: and you're talking about, you know, the arc of justice
Speaker 2: is long, the ar moral arc is long, and it
Speaker 2: bends towards justice. Well, that arc is really really long,
Speaker 2: and it lasted from like nineteen fifty five to nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty nine. If we're going to fundamentally change America, it's
Speaker 2: not going to be overnight. It's not going to be
Speaker 2: one boycott on Friday. It's not even going to be
Speaker 2: a successive boycotts over the course of the year. It's
Speaker 2: going to be an ongoing process with a specific legislative end.
Speaker 2: Legislative there has to be a legislative in or otherwise
Speaker 2: it's going to be willy nilly and people going to
Speaker 2: do whatever they want, and then people are going to
Speaker 2: fall back into their own silos and then choose to
Speaker 2: do whatever is politically or financially expedient to serve their
Speaker 2: own personal, financial and political interests.
Speaker 3: I'm marinating over all that.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, I don't have any good news, no no, no,
Speaker 4: But I say because I think that's the hardest part,
Speaker 4: and that's kind of the world that we're in right now,
Speaker 4: is it's people. And granted, sadly going back to the
Speaker 4: fifteen seconds, people want the quick fix, and that is
Speaker 4: not going to happen yep, raising awareness the second that
Speaker 4: it happens. If we're just going to remove all the
Speaker 4: things the second that we move into it, and once
Speaker 4: you start clicking away from it on social media, not
Speaker 4: only is the attention span gone, but the algorithm is
Speaker 4: now moving it completely to a different world. So how
Speaker 4: people are consuming the information and how people are consuming
Speaker 4: that context.
Speaker 2: Here your more challenge, here's the dirty little secret, and
Speaker 2: we won't have to let it go after this. Of course,
Speaker 2: those who are in power, those who who maybe the oligarchs,
Speaker 2: the Elon Musk of the world, the Mark Zuckerberg's, the
Speaker 2: Jeff Bezos, they know that they can outlast you. They
Speaker 2: know that they have the power through executive actions, through
Speaker 2: corporate structure. They have power. And those who have power
Speaker 2: are not going to willingly relinquish it. And they also
Speaker 2: know that you will give up after two weeks or on
Speaker 2: this case, one fricking one day.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Later with mog Kelly on demand from
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2: And before we go, I do have a final thought
Speaker 2: for tonight, and it kind of ties into something we
Speaker 2: were talking about a little bit earlier. If you're old
Speaker 2: enough to remember the Reagan administration, one of the most
Speaker 2: quoted phrases of the administration and the president for that matter,
Speaker 2: Ronald Reagan, he'd say trust, but verify, and that was
Speaker 2: in regard to nuclear disarmament talks. What some people seem
Speaker 2: to forget or maybe don't even know, is that phrase
Speaker 2: originally was a Russian proverb yes, a Russian proverb. In fact,
Speaker 2: the phrase became internationally known in English after Suzanne Massey,
Speaker 2: a scholar of Russian history, taught it to then President
Speaker 2: Ronald Reagan. And there's a lot of wisdom in that phrase,
Speaker 2: regardless of its origins. I know the irony is thick
Speaker 2: given the politics of today, but there's a lot of wisdo.
Speaker 3: Them in it?
Speaker 2: In a world with towing scams and short term rental scams,
Speaker 2: Nigerian prints, email scams, and just garden variety fraud, it's
Speaker 2: understandable to not believe in a lot of things. Believe me,
Speaker 2: I get it. We put our trust into a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff that we just can't control. Every intersection we
Speaker 2: drive through, we trust the stoplights for performing is designed
Speaker 2: and not in opposition of one another. We trust when
Speaker 2: we get on airplanes that they have had their necessary maintenance,
Speaker 2: the pilots are sober with adequate sleep, and the air
Speaker 2: traffic controllers are competent, and you know, hopefully not overworked
Speaker 2: on that day or understaffed. And most of those things
Speaker 2: we cannot verify. But there are some things we actually
Speaker 2: can verify. We can verify if there's actual fraud and
Speaker 2: waste in our federal government. You know, forensic audits happen
Speaker 2: every damn day in this country, in every industry. It's
Speaker 2: not new, it ain't special. You don't need computer programmers
Speaker 2: to find fraud. You just need maybe some good accountants,
Speaker 2: trained accountants. That's sufficient, because every forensic audit actually produces
Speaker 2: a report at the end. That's the verification component. And
Speaker 2: then subsequent to that you make cuts, you make changes,
Speaker 2: you fire people, all that kind of stuff. You don't
Speaker 2: make the cuts and not produce a report and not
Speaker 2: produce the proof of the fraud. We shouldn't trust with
Speaker 2: no verification, right, right, We don't have to take someone's
Speaker 2: word for it, right regardless whomever is president, especially not
Speaker 2: an unelected private citizen and unconfirmed by the Senate, and
Speaker 2: that same person has no oversight. If Joe Biden brought
Speaker 2: in George Soros to do what Elon Musk is doing,
Speaker 2: you would likely raise holy hell, and rightfully so rightfully so,
Speaker 2: I happen to believe that if you're going to fire
Speaker 2: thousands of people, no exaggeration, thousands of people, there should
Speaker 2: be an actual preceding report and proof of fraud prior
Speaker 2: to giving out pink slips before you got entire agencies
Speaker 2: and departments, we as the American people, or at the minimum,
Speaker 2: at the minimum, the elected Congress or confirmed cabinet should
Speaker 2: be able to verify any claim of fraud. I shouldn't
Speaker 2: just have to take your word for it. I shouldn't
Speaker 2: otherwise you end up firing nuclear workers. You shouldn't have oop,
Speaker 2: so sorry, please come back to work. Or you send
Speaker 2: out ill advised emails asking people to tell you what
Speaker 2: they did this past week and justify their jobs, which
Speaker 2: actually is an admission you had absolutely zero idea what
Speaker 2: the employees and agencies did in the first place, or
Speaker 2: like today you have twenty one of your own employees
Speaker 2: quit because there's a lack of cohesion and competence in
Speaker 2: this endeavor. Here's the bottom line. There is no legitimate
Speaker 2: reason to trust what DOGE is doing, not as long
Speaker 2: as we're intentionally being shielded from verifying any of it.
Speaker 2: For KF I am six forty. I'm o' kelly.
Speaker 3: Untangling the mess until it makes sense. KI and the
Speaker 3: KOST HD two
Speaker 2: Los Angeles, Orange County live everywhere on the radio