Episode Transcript
Welcome to a new season of the collective perspective podcast. As we dive into this season, we're focusing on the pivotal upcoming election widely considered as one of the most important of our lifetime. Join us on this journey. As we navigate through diverse perspectives, dissect key issues and explore the profound impact on our shared future, get ready for insightful discussions and thought provoking insights.
Welcome to the collective perspective podcast season three.
Hey everybody, welcome back to The Collector Perspective. Today, I have Mr. Jawad Mills with me. Hey, how you everyone doing? Our special guest is Dr. David Michael Jamison. Hi Jeff, thanks for having me. Dr. Jamison is an assistant professor of history at Edward Waters College. And this interview is in regards to experiences for the first Americans in 1776 against a tyrannical government and its comparison with today's society.
Thanks for being on. As far as historical content, last episode, last two episodes, we talked about the Second Amendment and its importance in our current society and throughout time, history of the United States. Let's start off getting to know Dr. Jameson a little bit better. Can you tell us about yourself, sir?
Sure. I'm from Queens, New York. Proudly, Cambria Heights. But I moved around quite a bit. I ended up going to UCLA where I got a bachelor's degree in English, cause I was going to be a writer. I was a reporter, a journalist for a little while. And then I
got into education, became a teacher and got an interest in history. Went back in my thirties and got a master's in history at Cal State LA. And I was encouraged to, uh, apply for a doctorate at Indiana university by my advisor there, which I did. I got a doctorate in African diaspora history, and I specialized in, um, a Caribbean slave resistance.
My family's from Guyana and I, I wrote my dissertation on a, a slave rebellion in Guyana, two slave rebellions in Guyana. And I have a wonderful group of friends. I have a wife and a daughter and a son and, um, yeah, it's nice. Happy to be here. Yeah. So, besides your family history, what inspired you to want to study African dysphoria?
I sort of got into it sideways. I was interested in studying the history of, of man, all mankind. And I found in history was sort of really broken up by these sort of continental groups. You kind of had to study one area. So, I chose Africa because it was the origin of man, and it was the origin of my, you know, myself, my racial group, my heritage.
And, and I, I didn't really answer all of the questions I wanted to know about the origin of man, but I did learn a lot about ancient Africa, the history of, of mankind, how we spread across the planet. So I found it very instructive in my work and very interesting. What we say, we're talking about the American Revolution.
How does that, how does black slavery play into that? Well, so one kind of interesting phenomenon in, in African diaspora history was in the 1500s, the Portuguese and the Spanish started circumnavigating Africa and engaged in the slave trade and When I was young, I had had the idea that with slavery was, was something that you read about in the Bible.
It was part of every culture. It was something that the Portuguese and the Spanish just did like every other group did. But when you become a slave historian, you realize. It's completely different. The introduction of capital and the competition that Europeans were having against each other completely changed why slavery was conducted, the degree to which it was conducted, the intensity and the groups that participated in it.
So much so that I Make the argument to my students that what happened after the 1500s, the transatlantic phenomenon, it should be a different word. It shouldn't be the same thing that we call slavery from the beginning of civilization, because slavery had always fulfilled a social purpose. It was, if you were poor, or if you were in debt, or if you were a widow, if you couldn't support yourself, if you were an outcast, you would often be left out.
sold into slavery, or sell yourself into slavery. Another group would then adopt you, uh, or own you. And you oftentimes could work your way, but in Africa, it was almost widespread. You could work yourself back into society. You would be adopted by that family that had bought you, and you would have their last 15, 20 years, it depended.
And your children would never be enslaved. Instead of welfare, instead of orphanages, instead of jails, they had slavery. And, and again, you're not working from sunup to sundown. You're not fulfilling the interests of capitalism, where if you increase your surplus and your product, then you compete against the other capitalist who's doing the same thing.
So you exploit the labor as much as you can. That wasn't happening in Africa, in Asia, in South America, ever. ever in the history of man, right? This new thing that went on, that is what led to the building the construction of America. That's what led to the beautiful development of the cities of Paris and London and Amsterdam.
You go over and you see those cities. They didn't just, they didn't look that way in the 1300s and the 1400s. They didn't look that way. Those cities were built by the exploitation of this labor force during this particular time on the West coast of Africa. So that's, that's an interesting phenomenon. And so you can't look at the revolutionary period.
You can't look at the construct, you can't look at the decision to have an America without fully putting into perspective that, that phenomenon. And, you know, remember it's only, again, if you look at the origin of mankind, it's just a kind of, A trick of fate and, and the, uh, shape of the earth that these people thought they were different anyway, because they all left from Africa, right?
Some went to Europe, others crossed Asia. Some went all the way into North America and South America. But the ones that went into Europe, we had an ice age about 10, 000 years ago. We all sort of changed in our appearances. We all stayed in one area. So we didn't. Again, we weren't moving, so we adapted to our climate, the ice age recedes, we look completely different, we meet each other again, and we start calling each other slurs, right?
We think we're different, you know? But we, we had always been, we had always been the same. But this sort of, you know, Again, we don't know where we came from, so we start inventing ideas like polygenesis, that we evolved in different areas. And we make those things the excuse to treat ourselves poorly because of our, because of our differences.
So I think that's all pretty interesting, and that's sort of kept up the interest in the revolutionary period. I mean, you definitely struck my interest right there. Basically what I'm gathering is, is that obviously the United States was just an expansion of Europe colonization. And so using the slavery and capitalism, they used slavery as workforce.
So they're just basically food and board and got free labor basically out of that. There you go. That's that is pretty much the story. How profitable is that? Well, but then you have to construct Narratives to excuse what you're doing to these people, right? Right. So you have to Tell the people that are doing it.
These people need this type of instruction. They didn't have a history before they didn't have culture They are mentally inferior probably we don't know, you know, they're they're Their emotions probably don't develop the same way that we do. Again, you, you construct the plan. The, the, the idea is they're, these are new people.
They're not like us because we don't know that we came from the same origin. So you can invent dozens of myths about these people, the same way you did about giants and fairies. and unicorns. Europe was still rife with those sort of things, so you could construct mythologies about people, and people would buy it.
That's what was done during the slave trade, to excuse it to people who felt it was morally wrong. You made the people be less human. Those days and times, what I, the research I was finding is that the average life expectancy of a male was 25 years old. Would you say, what was the average life expectancy?
It depended on where you were and what slave industry, and again I'm talking about black males, white males it was a little, it was different, but for black males if you were working in. South Carolina in the rice industry, not 25, um, late thirties was, was life expectancy, maybe early forties, uh, the cotton industry a little bit, you know, a little bit older, maybe five or 10 years older.
sugar around, around the same, it depended on where you were in the type of work you were, you were, you were going through in the Caribbean, where I'm looking at again, a little bit, a little bit younger because it was, it was, it was fairly harsh, but there were less whites around. So you could navigate a, Longer life if you knew how to avoid the white gaze, but yeah, I would say a little bit older than 25 though I mean you you you don't want again.
That's a Those are prime years, right? If you work your labor force before and they're dead before They're 25. You're missing yourself of the ages of 25 to 33. That's a lot of production So you would want to keep them alive at least past those ages after that then it's you know I'm moving a little bit forward about the U.
S. Revolution against England. What were the key challenges that the first Americans faced against the British rule? Key challenges were, I would say the biggest is their sense of identity, their pride that they had with the knowledge that they were British citizens. And that was more important than any really kind of economic need.
Uh, that they had from connection to Britain. They had been economically self-sufficient for a while. So Britain had been coasting on a cultural heritage for about 150 years. You know, it's, look at 1619. They first came over, the revolution begins in the six 17. The revolution ideologically probably began the, the seven years war, right?
So the, the SE 1750s, that's a hundred, 140 years. Where people this generation by the 1770s had really none of them had ever been a lot of them had never been to England Their connection to England was just through the stories of their parents and grandparents. So, what the revolution was, parents and grandparents arguing with their kids about what the future of America should be, because their kids were like, we need to do this, we need to have our own thing.
I see myself more connected to the people in New Jersey and Virginia than I do to the people in England. So, why am I here? Still seeing myself as a British citizen because they're taxing us and treating us differently. They see us as a bank Essentially, they don't see us as really kind of other citizens when they come over here They kind of lord over us which the Europeans had habit of doing the British and the Spanish when they went over to South America They they would come over there with this attitude like we're from you know the mainland from the continent so you should treat us better and so that that latter generation was tired of it and Things sort of finally broke when that the spirit of that second generation overcame.
Complete opposite today, right? You don't really hear much from the youth as far as movements or, or am I wrong? Well, I don't know. I mean, they have Black Lives Matter and they have Me Too. And those two phenomenon, I think, are just as important as the Black Panthers and the first waves of feminists in the 1960s.
I mean, They're doing it. They're, that, that fire is still there. And the election of Donald Trump has radicalized. a whole swath of youth that wasn't so much before. Um, I think that's really interesting, the effect that he's had up. So the, the, the way that they interact so far as social media is different than the way my generation did.
We went to rallies and got together and talked and stayed up late, smoked all night and went to. Diners and and sort of put the revolution together that way and they're doing it like this, you know, I'm speakeasy Yeah, right exactly, but they're doing it over their phones and So it looks a little sort of stranger and they are really conflict adverse, young people, like maniacally obsessively so they, the conflict is not like their jam at all.
So when it starts to come, they just kind of shut down and get quiet and get on their phone. The revolution looks different, but there's the, they maintain a, a culture of like policing each other and shaming each other when people say the n word inappropriately or someone wears dreadlocks who shouldn't be they say stuff, you know, and talk about them and try to shame them into a kind of a normalization which I think is also kind of scary in a way because I think it kind of crushes individuality but yeah, so I mean I wouldn't say that they're Not if it just looks different just taken from that the difference between when you start a revolution And when you guys were planning to to kind of campaign a narrative I think with the youth today it's more so perception than reality like it's it's more so a a mindset of acceptance from a social media perspective And as long as I look good or I look accepted or I look like I have the right Answers from perception from a social media perspective.
I'm fine My personal life is completely different from the person I am that I present from social media You guys had to actually walk the walk and talk the talk and it wasn't Like no, it wasn't a perception. It wasn't layers What you saw is what you got with you guys Okay, this is what I believe and I have to walk this out and they have the option to create this avatar That's what it is perception Yeah board warriors.
They have this ability to create this perception this persona And then when you go into personal lives, they don't walk that walk or talk that talk. That's right well Again, when you are building the revolution in the same social space you have to construct for yourself You Uh, social strategies, ways to deal with people interact and what to do in sort of case of when things go south or when things go the way that they do, you have to develop those social skills.
Absolutely. And if those social skills aren't sort of there, then. I don't want to say that they, that the avatar that they create online is not a part of themselves, but I will say that the lack of social skills amongst some, some of them, one distinction I'd like to make is that the, if we look at the ones who are at the forefront of any of these movements, they are better at these things, at dealing with society.
Again, the leaders of Black Lives Matter and the leaders of these other groups, they're fairly socially adept. They're fairly socially adept. So what we're looking at is the masses and how the masses interact and process what's happening. And unfortunately, I think that that's more, again, a result of a society of excess that we're in, a society of convenience.
It's just very easy to interact this way in our wealth, wealthy society, because we all have access to this technology. In a society that wasn't so wealthy, we might sort of be forced to. Take more rudimentary ways to interact. How did the early settlers organize themselves politically and militarily? So again, it was.
It was different in a few different places. What was interesting about the original political organization is that there were different variances between lower class rule and upper class rule. In colonies like Vermont and Pennsylvania, uh, you could almost say there were straight Marxist elements in the groups that were developing those, those constitutions.
They wanted the working class, the people to have as much representation as possible, and even upend the aristocratic mentality. that had come from Europe. If that's the way that you're thinking, then you're not truly American. So they, they, I started off talking about identity and the shift that people had to make.
There were a couple of vectors of this. The, there were always people who were ready to shrug off their British identity and make a new change. And again, those were dominated by the lower classes. There were also people who were much more reluctant to do so. And that was group was dominated by the upper classes that they had more sort of stake in that cultural heritage and during the revolution in America, loyalists and rebels or patriots, as they were called loyalists and patriots, there was always contestation.
It was never sort of everyone in America is against England. It was never like that. It was always battles between. Loyalists and Patriots and upper classes and lower classes. And so in some of these dates, they were trying to create a society that was a counterculture to European aristocratic thought.
Other states like Maryland and Massachusetts were more dominated by the elites and they had a political organization that was more towards the European model. Eventually, the elites sort of got together and erected the federal constitution that we have today in the, in the project of making America one thing, the kind of federalist, Project worked more than the Anti Federalist Project, where we'd all be like little separate societies.
What role did the pamphlets, newspapers, and letters play in their efforts? So, It's important to remember the Gutenberg Press had just been invented in England a hundred years before. Sixteen, oh I'm just gonna be off here, nineteen I'm guessing? Fourteen? No. But a hundred years before. Most people did not read.
Most people were illiterate. Especially the people whose circumstances found them in America. They weren't the reading type, so the way that you got information a lot of times was By pamphlets, uh, circulars, things that people had written, but you wouldn't read them yourself. You'd go to a tavern and hear the reader read them.
And that's where the revolution, again, was born, in these taverns. People, commoners, going to the taverns, hearing the people. Things like common sense being read and saying, yeah, you know, that makes a good point and drinking a beer with someone and saying, you know what we should do is blah, blah, blah. And so that's, that's literally the creation of the revolutionary spirit was in those taverns without that kind of rampant illiteracy where those people would be forced in the same space to develop revolutionary ideas, the revolution will look completely different.
So again, if everyone had like cell phones and we're absorbing it individually, I don't. I don't know what the American Revolution would have looked like. I really can't fathom. Because it was, it was that sharing of a spirit. Maybe if either a social media influencer or avatar has enough charisma to get everyone involved on their phones, like everyone's sharing and, and connecting with each other and talking and a movement kind of evolves like that, I guess it could happen that way.
That's how it happened back in the 1700's. It's interesting. You see the similarities. You say there, it was an individual that came to the taverns and would inform everyone of whatever political narrative or whatever, what sway the influence of them to support a certain narrative and it's The exact same way today.
You've got people that do no homework, um, about any political influence or narrative here and they just go with it. Okay. It feels good to me because it secures my, my cultural or my, my, my financial position. So I'm going to support that. And they don't really go into the details of what actually is being, what they're, they're going to implement That the plans they have for our future.
They just know that it just fits them where they are right now Right except remember so the readers Were just they were just reading they weren't influence and this influencers necessarily, they would get paid a fee to read these things and then it would be people at the tables who would You know, in fact, what probably happened was that once the readers were done and got paid then the loudmouth started talking.
And those, that was the person that would start influencing people. Yeah, you know what, but blah blah blah, you know, so that person, again, the charismatic characters were always sort of still there getting people, uh, riled up. I would almost venture that today if they tried to do some type of political organization against the government that, that somebody would shut them down.
Hmm. And there are people watching How does African dysphoria history intersect with the colonial period in the fight against British tyranny? one thing that is Really interesting. In fact, I'm gonna drop a book I like to book for the readers out there if I can get the name blacks in the revolutionary period Charles quarrels wrote a book about The liberation of black consciousness during the revolutionary period, because during the revolutionary period, the King George, as many people know, made a very famous deal with African slaves, saying that if you rebel against your, your owners, then you then I'll give you freedom.
Thank you. And this is something that Thomas Jefferson railed against in his first version of the Declaration of Independence. He complained that King George would dare, would dare inflame the passions of these, of these people against us, their owners, ironically, even though Jefferson, who wrote that, was a slave owner himself.
So he, King George did that, and then, uh, a Governor in Virginia, a man named Lord Dunsmore made a famous proclamation saying any, any slaves who comes to the defense of the British government will be under the protection of the British government and again, will also be free. And he was really said he would, a lot of people in Virginia thought that he was going to arm them with the armory in Virginia.
So people were terrified by it. If you are black in America during the Revolutionary War, you have a choice, right? You have to sort of choice. Okay. America will probably win because we're here in America. And I, and I, you want to make sure that you are going to be safe when the Americans win. But if British, if Britain wins, then you have a whole nother sort of.
So a lot of blacks made the choice, okay, well I'm going to either, uh, I'm going to fight with the Americans and then the British will go eventually, and I might still be enslaved, but maybe I'll have a better station. But some blacks switched over and started fighting for the British, and they knew about the situation.
where the, they knew American strategies and lines and where resources were. So a lot of them took advantage of the situation to go for the side that they knew was going to benefit them. After the British lost, a lot of them were taken up to Canada. A few, there's a whole story about where the kind of black diaspora went after, uh, the, After the the revolutionary period, the ones that sided with the British, but I guess it's just important to know that when the revolution began It wasn't like all blacks in America just saw themselves as Americans They saw themselves as people who were going to try to take advantage of this rift in the superstructure to secure the best situation for themselves and their families.
We all studied history on a basic level. Obviously we, Juat and I, and most of our viewers did not advance as far as you did in U. S. history. Growing up, not by far, by leaps and bounds. What I find interesting is black slavery during the colonial periods is hardly ever spoken about. And it was such an impactful thing.
How did the ideas of race and slavery influence the action and ideologies of the revolutionaries? That's a pretty funny story. That's a pretty funny story. The colonial elites, whenever, very, very often, whenever they were trying to express how they felt to England about how they were being treated. They would say they were being treated like slaves.
They didn't want to be slaves to King George anymore. The tyranny of King George making them as if they were slaves And how dare he? We're not slaves. We own them But we're not them ourselves. So couching their grievances in this languaging Essentially defames themselves from being slave owners. They don't want to be connected to this person.
They couldn't that they're. Saying is a slave owner because they're slaves. So they're caught in a relationship They don't want to be in but they actually perpetuate it. Anyway, so that's that's extreme irony So they use the their own caste system to make the argument that Relationship is invalid in this political situation and what they should have instead is a society where all people are equal And you are born with the same chances as everyone else.
And it's going to be merit that's going to determine how high you rise in life. Unless you're a slave. I was going to say, what a concept. So as they're, as they're, as they're constructing this, this new government, revolutionary government never seen before. They were still wrestling with the, uh, boatloads of money that were still coming to their ports because of slavery.
They were where they were in the ability to raise the money and the military, uh, military, um, expenditures that they did because of slavery. But the political structure of slavery was odious to them. So, and again, it's really important to remember we're in the 1770s now. So this is about 200, 300 years of this new form of transatlantic exploitive slavery, all based on production and surplus, right?
Where the labor is given no compensation for their work and no hope of ever leaving that. that world. That's the type of slavery they said they don't want to be a part of, that they themselves had enriched themselves on, on, uh, the perpetuation of. So that, that was really the kind of role of slavery in the revolution.
It gave them the language to determine what they didn't want to be a part of while they used that institution itself to give them the power to break free from the country that they were. Saying that they should no longer be a part of. So was that essentially a perception? Which what was? Socially, culturally or socially, was that a perception they perpetuated?
It was a political argument that they needed to say to get what they wanted. Just like how politicians do. Wow. You know what I'm saying? Just like how they do to this very day. At the border and they'd say all the, they give all these open promises and they can't really fulfill that. And it's just a bunch of just trying to persuade you to vote for them.
Because this is how I think. It doesn't mean that I'll perform the action after the fact. This is how I think, so vote for me because I think this way. Or I may be financing. The whatever perception I'm trying to give you that's wrong, but it, I'll perpetuate this narrative that it's, I couldn't believe this.
Good Lord. This is incredible. That's, and that's, that's, I guess you say the political. Wow. Wow. The political game. The people that can do it best, they get the most votes. Yeah, it's just, it's just crazy how propaganda has been such a part of human history. And we don't even know that. But, you know, the new term for propaganda these days, well, ever since Edward Bernays, is, uh, he, uh, coined the phrase public relations and public relations is exactly that it's it only means propaganda but just in a different term that's why critical thinking and critical reading is so such an important um skill to have in our society these days because the propagandists the public relations experts are Incredibly savvy and they can put a worm into your brain and you don't even know that it's there and you're and then it's Coming out of your mouth and you don't even know You didn't even know that it was there.
So we have to be able to know the information that comes into our into our minds what's valid and what's not valid. We have to be able to develop the tools to be able to distinguish. And honestly, sir, that's what we're trying to do with this podcast is, is have it as a tool for people to hear real people talking.
I, Juad and I, and our other host Travis, we don't have any other agenda except to unite the people. Let us know that we all just want the same thing and it basically comes down to love and peace Amen, and the right to the truth to lay the truth the raw truth on the table and okay, you make your decision But here's the actual truth and you work from whatever you whatever whatever position you work from work from there but here's the truth, but you're breaking away from again a fundamental tenet of some who believe now that we're not really ready to handle the truth and The truth can make us, can awaken us to new modes of thought that aren't necessarily patriotic, right?
Um, what if we're still not as patriotic when we hear the truth? What then? It's not giving us credit that we can still want to believe in love and want to make our country better if we hear the truth. People, a lot of, some people just don't have that. I think the truth individualizes us, but at the same time it brings value to the actual person.
It says, okay, you're not a number, and this is not just a group, this is a collective of people that matter on all levels. Um, uh, from, from a, from a, uh, financial, from a cultural perspective, we all matter. And that truth shows everyone that it forces us to see the value of whoever and whatever position they are in life.
I would say even more modern day slavery, sex and human trafficking. We did a couple episodes on that. And the fact that it is still happening, even till today. On a, on a worser scale, I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure the women were raped, um, in the slavery period, but not, they weren't all just sex workers. Well, so I, I will, um, I will kind of stop you there and say that slavery has always been sex trafficking.
Always. Okay. In fact, before the transatlantic slave trade, the majority of the slaves in Africa that were being traded and in Europe, the Slavs, where we get the term in Asia, were women. That since, for two reasons. Since the incentive of developing a surplus of product was not, was not there, you didn't need as many big strong brawny men cutting and slicing and creating product.
And those big strong brawny men were more likely to run away or escape or fight you. Women, not so much, especially women with children. They're going to do what they need to do to survive. So women, they were just easier, better slaves. And The majority of women were farmers. For most of human history, women engaged in farming while men did what?
You both know. What were men, what were women doing while, uh, what were men doing while the women were farming? Probably hunting. Hunting. Hunting and fishing. So, women were, when you are a, someone who wants to buy a worker and you have land, women are always the ones that you want to get because they're better at agriculture.
Men develop their warrior skills by hunting and fishing. You don't want that as a slave owner. And you could have sex with women. So that just made them a better option. So that so during the transatlantic slave trade, that was always a thing as well. But you also wanted men because men could produce more and.
They were stronger and that sort of thing, but sexual slavery was always happening and men who were sexual slaves, who that is something that isn't ever talked about. But again, for every sexual orientation that's ever been, it happened back then as well. So men were used as sexual slaves, women were used as sexual slaves.
The trafficking is mostly for prostitution. You could also, you know, say that the circumstances that people who migrate for labor, the circumstances that they migrate under, the circumstances that they're put under, sometimes I can see it being forced. I guess I, I could see the argument to be made that, that, that is labor trafficking in a way because of sort of circumstances.
Yeah, there are parallels. There are parallels between I think them that time. Do you see any parallels between the struggles in 1770s and the current political social movements in the u. s. The political struggles in the u. s Now I think are our best characterized and some Historians don't like this, but there's a a narrative out there a body of literature talking about culture wars the culture wars are are Fought by on the conservative side, a group called the Neoconservatives, who believed that some of the changes made in American social policy in the 1960s took things a little too far and that America that seized.
itself without racial boundaries, without economic boundaries, but sees all people as completely equal is more democratic. And so our two political parties have really, in my opinion, sort of glommed onto opposing sides of this perspective. And the people who agree with the social and policy changes made during the 1960s are on one side, And represented by the Democratic Party and the people who disagree with them and wish that oh, here's my my My analogy for the the group the Republicans have adopted the people who appreciated the TV show Happy Days which I really You don't appreciate you don't really sort of get that that Happy Days was made in the 1970s It's about the 1950s, completely skipping over the 1960s.
Like those were happy days. Right? That's, that's the, that's the make America great again ethos, but with Donald Trump glommed onto. So. perfectly, I think that there's people who believe that if we, if things were back like then when the Fonz was around, America would be great again. And right, right. What was happening in the 1770s was, I don't think there was a kind of a, a longing for, uh, for, for nostalgia for a time where things were better, really.
It was a, a connection to a culture and a heritage that gave them. a status and a sense of importance. And they didn't want to let go of that. Many people didn't want to let go of that. America was, was nothing. But in England, there were courts and histories and arist crests that meant something. And, I see there the kind of generational shift was between those who were interested in and brave enough to create a new heritage and those who wanted to hang on to a culture, a culture that they might, yeah, a culture, I think that gave them a better sense of who they are.
Man, I never thought of the happy days concept. The day I thought of it, I was like, Oh, I was watching the show and I was like, Oh, this show was made in the seventies. They completely skipped. The Civil Rights Movement. That's what made us all happy. Nobody was complaining. Except, I mean, we were complaining, but it just wasn't on the news.
Mm hmm. Man, yes. In speaking modern government in tyranny today when you and I were talking before the podcast we were talking about tyrannical and you had Something to say about tyranny and whether we're in a tyrannical government these days Uh, what are the characteristics of a tyrannical government and do you believe the U.
S. is currently exhibiting those traits? Sure. A tyrannical government is a government who, a government that loses its belief, its confidence in the ability of the masses to make good decisions. When, if you don't think that the masses are either educated or cultured enough to make the decisions that you think are best for the country, then that's when tyranny enters the picture because you start to construct ways that other people can make those decisions.
People that think the same way that you do and that becomes smaller and smaller groups of people. So as I think as we were talking about, I was. Saying that that's what happened in the old Greek city states, uh, in the 700s and 600s BC, maybe earlier. Oh, see, Greek historians are gonna kill me now. A thousand maybe BC?
But, you know, Athens and Sparta and, you know. Those, what was happening there was people really loved their city state, but the masses who they didn't think were cultured were a lot of times voting for things that they would consider to be out of their passions. The masses were voting for passionate things rather than things were the rational.
And so you start taking away the power of the masses to have influence on the government. So yes, that's absolutely what's happening. today, except the perpetrators of tyranny today are using, it's, the masses are, are, the masses seem to be in support of the tyranny. They, they seem to be in support of the idea of taking the power of choice away from people they don't agree with.
And even if it's taking that choice from them, if it goes to someone that they trust in. Then they seem to be okay with it. So, that's a problem. I would say that's kind of where the divide is, right? Between Americans is those that believe the government, trust the government, will do whatever the government wants.
And, hey, if it benefits me, then I'll go with it. And then the other mass is saying no. This is wrong. We need to fight. We need to stop this. Right. That's the, again, I made sort of a joking reference to it either, but that's the, um, contradiction in the, in the woke narrative, because the, the idea is with certain groups, if I'm, if I'm, if I don't know about certain things, or if I'm not reacting against certain things, and I just sort of trust the government, then.
My life will be fine. I just have to believe in them and other people want to help hold them accountable. And so what's the best Way for democracy forward after what legal and peaceful methods of resistance Are available to citizens today that weren't available before? To the revolutionaries. What's interesting about that question is that the revolutionaries actually wrote the laws Which gave them peaceful and legal methods to resist because they didn't exist before when you're a subject of The king there is no peaceful and legal method.
There's no resistance. He's the king His will is literally mandated from God. Not only is there no resistance, there is no repression. There is no, there is, when you have a king, there is no authoritarianism, right? There's no dictatorship. You can't say, you can't accuse your king of any of those things because his will is literally law.
Which is ironic, not like here, where the presence are above the law, this concept of the presence above the law, that was always a fallacy, but King's word literally, their word was the law, because God was telling them so. At that time, if you organized or a protest, or you started speaking poorly about them, and you were either beaten, or assassinated, or killed, that was a fallacy.
just the way of things. So what America was, was writing laws saying I can peaceably protest, I can, I can get together, I can take these methods and resist. They didn't have any protections in their framework of their fight against England. They created a protection so that now in America you could have, you could do it.
So we have all the things they created, which, you know, is a, is a great thing about America. And so now the only thing that we wrestle with is that we have 50 different law enforcement agencies in America with no federal rules or oversight into how they protect or don't protect our right to peaceably protest or gather or anything.
So in some states and in some contexts, it's safe to do that. In other contexts, it's not, or some states achieve more. equitability at different stages in other states than other states. That's kind of the, what happens when you have sort of state run law enforcement, which I think is best, but we have to be aware that we're not all going to kind of reach our Our perfect manifestation of law enforcement at the same time.
Preventing any type of tyranny, what measures can be taken to prevent the rise of a tyrannical government in the U. S.? Or have we already made those measures? The best way to, I think, prevent a tyrannical government is through education and the The support, financial support of education. Again, different states are really good with that.
Jacksonville had a poor history with public support of education in the past, but it's gotten much better because Jacksonville wants to be a city of tomorrow. Also, the promotion in the education system of skills, that are applicable to the modern world, like financial literacy and critical thinking.
Those things should be in our education. I mean, math and science and history and English, they're great. But we need a kind of new classes in our schools. We need to teach our young people and give them the skills that they're going to need to fight against the forces of tyranny. Because the forces of tyranny have so many outlets of communication now and ways to interact with people that I think that's key.
I would say those tyrannical forces are today's version of evil. But they don't see themselves as that, do they? So who's to say? I mean, they are, in their respects, trying to protect something that is evil. sacred to them. Now, the methods that they take to achieve those goals, if it's, if they knowingly harm people and knowingly lie and deceive, and they continue to make excuses for that action, that's up to them and God, but I don't think they see themselves as evil.
I don't know. What steps can individuals take today to promote and protect democratic values? Democracy wasn't even mentioned in the Constitution, but if that is your Your objective, you know, maintaining democratic values. I think you have to really kind of learn again what democratic values are Learn and appreciate the distinctions between different levels of democracy.
Are you for full representative democracy? Do you want every person to have the do you want every person participating in every vote? Do you do you want? At what level do you want representatives to go and voice your your beliefs and opinions and concerns? Do you believe that the federal government has more say over your life and should have more say than your, than your state government?
That's always been the big, I think, tension in American democracy is the, is the tension between your local and the federal model. The, the federal model is hinged on this idea that we need one sort of. rule of, of law and land in one military to protect all of us rather than lots of different little groups who are going to do it a little bit of a different way.
But we haven't really completely worked out which one we believe in more, I guess. Yeah. Understanding and knowing the different nuances of democracy, I think are the best way to protect. I didn't add this to the outline, but I, I firmly believe we're not in a democracy. We're in a corporateocracy. Can you speak on that a little bit?
Tell me about this term of corporatocracy. Corporatocracy is basically corporations that make government influences and decisions based off of capital. So the only difference between that and democracy would be if the demos, the people did not exist. Support and believe in the corporate lifestyle. I'm I'm asking you Do you think most Americans believe in and support the corporate?
ethos and The effects that corporations have because that's all the people that work for corporations and all the people that buy products from corporations Which is a lot of Americans which I mean, maybe that's the D most right you if you Buy all the stuff and you live in the conveniences of the corporatocracy, then how are you distinguishable from it?
That, that is the democracy. We, we won't be distinct from the corporatocracy till we stop living in and amongst the fruits of it. And that, that for me, people are more concerned about their economical benefits of the corporateocracy and, and the security it provides for someone. And we, even if you stand up against it, you're literally contradicting yourself because of the benefits it provides for security in society.
It's an all hold tablet. Just saying, right? It makes our life easy. So, to summarize the key points we discussed, African dysphoria, challenges that our forefathers faced, how we communicated as Americans, how we united together, I think those are all key things, uh, that make us what we are today. Without that experience, I, I have a, it's well known that history repeats itself.
And even the bad things. And there are forces that are trying to erase history. I guess that would be kind of like, what do you think about those entities that are trying to erase history and why do they have to erase it? Yes. I mean, you know, like you said, I think one of the things we've. Uncovered is that history is pretty messy and it's not a clear story for everything that was happening there are other people that were fighting against it and When when you tell a story of history like that, you don't have a clear story of good and bad guys you know, you have a story complicated history of people and I think that for many people, particularly politicians, I'll put them out there.
Good guy, bad guy narratives are really sort of easy and good to sort of work and get out there that we're just going to go against these people. But it takes away from our humanity and the fact that we change and we're dynamic and we all share more than, especially American people. We all share more as a culture than, than anything that divides us.
So. And hopefully we can learn from our history that things weren't all neat and tidy and that we were complicated people back then as well. And that means that now when we, we don't have to put each other in boxes today either. We don't have to say that this person is just lost, but we can say that they have been hearing this story.
Viewpoint for a while and now they're making a change and and now we're you know, we're brothers again like you said, you know love and peace, but as long as I think as we are into the demonization of the other side and What I think is the absolute absolute absolute most important aspect of it are desperate desperate Absolute absolute obsession with winning.
We, we want to beat them so bad at some point. There are some, I'll say both liberals and conservatives, that are so obsessed with the other side being humiliated. It doesn't matter if they die making it happen. And you'll never see anyone as your brother or sister until you get over that shallow dependency on winning.
I see myself in the middle. I see that the forefathers had said united we stand divided we fall I firmly believe in that because if we do divide and people want us to divide then we will fall. Thank you Yeah, I I appreciate that if you don't mind since we're at the end if I could put a shameless plug Yeah of my youtube video divided we fall race in the census.
How ironic which yeah Yeah, which which is a study of ken pruitt's book that argues sort of our racial categories Have been used by forces to exploit us from the very beginning. The belief that race is a real thing that separates us is, is going to be the end of our, I mean, could be the end of our democracy.
I don't know. But it doesn't have to be, as long as we make a change. What are your final thoughts? Yeah, well, I'll just continue with what I was saying right then. That if we do not arm ourselves with the ability to see when we are being manipulated, by forces that just want our vote or just want something from us.
We can't be afraid to know things. We can't be afraid to learn to know about things. We can't be a, we can't see, be so attached to, for instance, our economic identities or our racial identities. So attached to those things, so attached to those things that we disregard the humanity of other people in front of us.
Um, I think if, if anything is. about American history has taught us is that if you want to create a world of freedom and peace, you can just do it. Even if there's no other world like that in the world, you can just do it. They just did it. And so we have the same will and we're all, all of us, most of the mass majority of Americans are more educated than those people were.
We know way more than they do. We can create whatever we want to, if we just have to have the bravery. To do it and we can't worry about beating the other people to do it. I think it really comes down to two words Manipulation or persuasion. Mm hmm. They're so closely related but the intent is really Really what it is.
And so in today's society, you have to determine are you being manipulated or being persuaded with that? I would like to thank you. Dr. Jameson for coming on the show. This has been amazing Every episode we have it enlightens our lives. It educates us. It makes us stronger human beings and It arms us with knowledge and I admire you having a career in teaching Teaching is a, I don't want to say a dying art, but there's people that take advantage of it with 10 years and and there's people that don't and that really care and really want to educate their, their students and, and make a difference in their lives because being educated is definitely a freedom.
Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Okay, everybody. That's a episode 37 of the Collective Perspective podcast. We thank you for listening. Definitely check out Dr. Jamieson's video on YouTube divided. We fall race in the census, and then you can check if you want to see any of my.
Things I've written. You can look at my website, www. davidmichaeljameson. com. Thank you, sir. All right. Thank you, sir. Okay. Absolutely. Welcome to a new season of the collective perspective podcast. As we dive into this season, we're focusing on the pivotal upcoming election widely considered as one of the most important of our lifetime.
Join us on this journey as we navigate through diverse perspectives, dissect key issues, and explore the profound impact on our shared future. Get ready for insightful discussions and thought provoking insights. Welcome to the Collective Perspective Podcast Season 3.
