Ep. 21 - Politics with Danny Goldberg

[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to Synchronicity. This is episode 21. My guest today is Danny Goldberg. This is his second time on the show. It was on actually episode 17, so not that long ago. The episode clipped off at the end because the batteries in my recorder died, even though I prefaced that in that episode that I didn't think they would die, but they did. So I have Danny back on. And we picked up where we left off in our last conversation, which was politics. I personally have had a love-hate relationship with politics for most of my adult life. I actually protested at the Supreme Court in 2000 when George W. Bush won beat Al Gore with the hanging chads incident in Florida.

And I was really into politics, but shortly thereafter, I got actually pretty disillusioned when I headed off to college, thought the whole system was rigged, which it may or may not be. But I kind of didn't really pay attention to politics too much, but I gotta say, this election cycle has really kind of piqued my interest again. How could it not, right? There's a lot of stuff going on. And yes, it's kind of like a sporting event in this country, which is probably not the best way to approach politics in general, but at least people are paying attention. I don't know. Maybe that's not a great thing.

Maybe this all this rancor and the huge dichotomy and polarization of politics isn't very productive, but at least people are paying attention. So the podcast pretty much centers around politics totally. So if you're not a political person, you probably won't love this one, but I still encourage you to listen to it because I think it's interesting. And at the end there, we do, I do ask Danny, how he maintains some practical tips on his spiritual path and how this relates to politics and kind of the approach that some of us could be taking when engaging with the world. One of the things that this reminds me of is Rhonda.

He has a great saying, he has an article on Rhonda.org that basically, he says, have you ever noticed how many angry people there are at peace rallies? People screaming, peace, peace, peace. Yelling at people and the government because they want peace and the irony that's involved in that. And that's not just, he's not just highlighting a problem there for the sake of highlighting a problem. He says, listen, the best way, the best thing you can do is work on yourself and make sure that you're as clear as you can be before engaging with the world or a society or culture because that ultimately will make your message more effective.

People will hear you in a different way and you'll also be open and receptive to other opinions and perspectives. Like one of the dangers with politics is getting locked in and stubborn. And this happens on both sides, right wing, left wing. Everybody is always at the mercy of their own particular perspective. So it's really important to try to cultivate as many different perspectives as possible. You've heard me say this on the show before or if you haven't heard this show before, you're hearing me say it now. So that's like incredibly, it's very important, I think, to really be open-minded, especially when engaging with something as polarizing as politics.

So, oh, here's the thing. So we had a book giveaway this past week. FYI, let me back it up. This is a bonus episode. I wanted to get this out from Danny sooner rather than later. So there's actually gonna be another episode this week in a couple of days. Today is Tuesday, the 22nd. I'm also gonna be releasing one tomorrow. So that one is gonna be with Ben Kovacs. He works at Twitter. He founded something called Guardian Gym. He also has a marijuana accessories company called Meister. Very interesting episode. And that's gonna be coming out tomorrow. So you're getting a two for this week. But what I am gonna announce since it's already been decided is the winner of this week's book giveaway.

The book, in case you don't know, in case you don't know what I'm talking about, every week I'm giving away a brand new book. Something that I've read, something that I think other people would enjoy. That's gonna happen every single week. I'm not gonna start the contest in this episode. It'll start in the next one. So if you wanna find out what the book giveaway is, you'll have to listen to the next episode with Ben. But I am gonna announce the winner of this current book giveaway right now. So congratulations to Derek. I am finding out where you live. And I am going to be sending the book out to you today.

The book was The Supernatural by Whitley Stryber and Jeff Cripple, Cripple. Again, I still don't know how to say his name. And it's excellent. I've spoken about it before. The episode with Jeremy Johnson, episode 20 of Synchronicity. We talk about it quite a bit. And Derek, I hope you love the book. I really did. I breezed through it in a week. So yeah, if you want a chance to win or get, you know, be a recipient of a book giveaway, all you have to do is go to Synch Podcast. That's S-Y-N-C, podcast.com. Once again, I'm gonna assume you know how to spell podcast. And then on the right side, there's a sidebar there and it says, join the Synchronicity community.

And then it'll be very clear about what you're joining. And just put in your email. And then you're automatically entered. And then I do a random drawing every week. And just by virtue of being a part of the community, you have an opportunity to win a book. So I thought that was pretty cool. I'd be into that. So I hope you guys are too. So back to Danny. This episode, you know, Danny is a really interesting guy. And I've spoken to him before about this in the previous episode. But he's someone who has really reached the upper echelons of his particular profession in the music business. But really still maintains a very practical, kind of spiritual context for his life, which I am consistently impressed by people who can do that.

Because it's easy to have a spiritual practice where you're all woo-woo and you're totally off in space. And you know, you're not really engaging with reality, consensus reality. That's kind of easy to do. I don't think it's a great thing to do. But it's easy to do. And I think there's a lore of kind of the new age movement that we have been experiencing for the past 20, 30 years, really since the '60s, that kind of lends itself to that, you know, everything is love and light. There's nothing else besides that. And well, that might be true. There are these other things that we have to deal with, like shadow aspects of ourselves and the culture and society, which are very manifest in politics.

So I really love speaking to Danny whenever I get a chance because I like to hear how someone who has kind of walked in the world in a very significant way still maintains kind of a spiritual perspective. So it's always fun talking to him. You know what? I'm not gonna babble anymore. Do I have anything else to say? Rate and review on iTunes, right? Rate and review on Stitcher. That's it. I don't got anything else to say outside of that. So I'm gonna start this episode. Don't forget, there's another episode tomorrow. And I got some really cool guests coming after that, which I think you guys are gonna love.

You know, as always, if you wanna get in touch, shoot me an email at Noah@sinkpodcast.com. And yes, I am still a part of mindpodnetwork.com. You will still find my episodes over there. I just have a new website for myself 'cause I thought it would be fun. So yeah, without further ado, here is Danny Goldberg, part two. (upbeat music)

Okay, so thank you again for coming on. I know we cut off my bad on the recording of the last one.

Your battery.

Yeah.

This is a battery-driven part two. Okay, I'm happy to be back.

Cool, thanks, Ed. So I wanted to pick up where we left off, which was politics. And specifically, we were talking about Scalia had just died and we were talking about some of the rancor that was coming out of that. And you left it with a very poignant statement that was basically like Ruth Bader Ginsburg knew him personally and she was able to kind of transcend the political stuff that was going on and said like she was a good friend of his and that it was a sad thing on humanity. And I thought-

And they disagreed on almost everything.

Right, everything, right.

And in her dissents, she was very clear and vivid and heard the sentence, you know, on things like Citizens United or Bush v. Gore. And a funny thing happened since then, you know, Nancy Reagan just thought.

Yeah.

And there's a piece on Huffington that Norman Lear wrote.

Yes, he got it.

That really deeply touched me. I know that he had this personal, you know, I know him over the years. I wouldn't say we're close, but I've been lucky enough to get to know him over several decades a certain amount. And one time he had told me how Ronald Reagan always answered his letters and that he had this long correspondence with Ronald Reagan and they agreed on literally nothing politically and certainly Norman I think is again, pretty vivid in his politics and what he stands for and it's very, very different from anything Reagan's did for politically, but that he managed this personal relationship with him and I get apparently from the piece he wrote with Nancy and he's 93 now, she was 94.

So these are elders in the literal sense of the word. And he, you know, he was saying how he wept twice once losing a friend and secondly, because so many of his other friends said, how could he be friends with somebody like that? You know, and that he missed the world where people could have those disagreements and still respect each other as human beings. So I think that's an important part of the conversation. And at the same time, I just think Ronald Reagan did tremendous damage to the country. I mean, I'm not somebody who ever admired him politically and I still don't, you know, but I do recognize that, you know, everybody's part of God, including Ronald Reagan, you know, and there's got to be a way of recognizing that.

I think Rambas on his altar, who's Rambas pretty, as far as I know, politically liberal about everything and has been, you know, as long as he's been a public figure, you still have on his puja table, usually a Republican as well as a Democrat, just to try to, I didn't even say once that when his guru said love everybody, that one of the hardest things was for him to love Republicans.

Yeah, it was George Bush specifically.

Yeah, so, you know, it's one of those things, but it's hard to imagine how anything you get better with more anger, but boy, there's so much going on and it's really very, very upsetting at the same time.

Wow, speaking, oh, I'm getting feedback. Oh, there it goes. I'm gonna, this is gonna be a little awkward, but I'm gonna wait two seconds when you're done talking because it's picking up the echo, thinking you're still talking through your speakers. Do you have headphones?

I do have some headphones.

Yeah, cool, I think that'll solve it. You hear me?

Yes.

All right, perfect, perfect, perfect.

Is this better?

Yeah, there's gonna be no feedback. You know, my voice comes out of the computer and goes in through your speakers.

Okay, got 'em.

Cool, well, I'm gonna pick it up. You said there's so many troubling things going on in the world. Let's talk a little bit about Donald Trump and kind of what's going on with the Republican side. I mean, what's your take? What the fuck is going on?

I guess the real interesting thing to me is not Donald Trump so much as the people who love Donald Trump and what is it about him that they love and how did it come to pass that they would be responding to things that he's saying? 'Cause I think Donald Trump is mostly interested in winning. So, I mean, he may believe, he must believe some of what he's saying, but I suspect a lot of it is based on a pretty shrewd analysis of that part of the public that's so between talk radio and disparity of wealth and diminishing economic opportunities for majority of the country and the foreclosures and other things that the level of anger has just increased and the appeal of racism has increased to some of those folks.

I don't really know what to say about it. It's not been said, there's probably more blogs and articles and commentary about it than anything else in the political world these next few months. It's hard to think of something original to say except I don't think there's any way of processing what's happening without factoring racism into it and then you've gotta go deeper into a wire people racist and it has to do with historically people feeling being manipulated into thinking that the people of different races are their problem. Martin Luther King talked a lot about that where he was in jail once and he got to talking to the white prison guards and how they were going on about how at that time the big issue was racial integration in the south and he was in the southern jail and how it was so wrong and how everything he was saying was wrong.

He says, and then I started asking these brothers how much money they were earning and when I found out what they were earning I said, you ought to be out there marching with us and that they had been manipulated into substituting some racial pride for rationality about economics. That's, there's something to that I don't know what to say I hope and pray that Donald Trump doesn't become president I don't feel that'd be good for humanity or this country but I think that anybody else in public life including the people that I support need to dig much deeper to really understand the consequences of the status quo and how many people are feeling left out and scared and that there has to be a more significant level of changes than what we've seen the last five or six years even though I'm glad I voted for Obama twice and I'm glad I did give it who he ran against.

I, you know there's a level of intense need that I think is greater than the typical incremental so-called pragmatic Washingtonian things and then when you see this kind of anger it turns out that they're not all that pragmatic 'cause they've obviously lost touch with, you know the majority of the country between the two, the insurgencies and the two in the two parties but that said I still have a preference and my preference is personally my belief is that none of the Republicans would contribute to a healing as much as any of the Democrats would but I understand people who are frustrated with the Democrats I mean I've also been frustrated with them and then I understand, you know and then the Hillary people say yeah but you know it's easy to stamp your foot and wish that the world were different but the real world involves a lot of different sources of power that presidents are not kings and presidents just because you elect somebody to the US senator of the presidency doesn't give them automatic ability to fix things they're still in a world where banks and military and other countries and local and state governments have the power and so there's a sense of simplifying these presidential elections as if that's the binary choice it's gonna make things better or not better and even though I'm really mad at this president I've always voted for president and as long as I'm conscious and able to I always will it's just so naive and childish to think that that is the sole factor in determining what happens with government, you know

What do you think about someone like Bernie Sanders who is I mean listen I voted for Obama the first time around I didn't vote the second time I didn't vote for anyone I looking back I've come full circle I wasn't a huge Obama fan like four years in three years and I was like he promised all this dramatic change and look what's happened really not that much and then I look back after at his presidency and I see he's really implemented some pretty amazing things and some amazing things have happened under his watch some not amazing things too there's there's good and bad but I have kind of accepted that at least there was some change I heard it described as kind of like turning an aircraft carrier right you turn the wheel you turn the wheel you turn the wheel it doesn't move right away it's a really slow process it's an incremental positive change and that's kind of I think it might have been Obama who's using that when he was speaking to Mark Marin on a podcast and it was essentially I found it pretty interesting because like we like everything to be binary so the reason I asked about Bernie is I'm a Bernie supporter at this point I don't know that he's the panacea he's gonna change the world but I feel like he believes in what he's saying and he's been saying a similar thing for a very long period of time but I also hear from a lot of people that it's not realistic it's kind of the same pipe dream that we're gonna be fed that oh yeah it's all Wall Street's problem it's a very simplistic fix but I honestly don't know at this point I don't know that being more pragmatic and more moderate is the way to get things done or to me truthfully what I think he's tapping into Bernie is that this shit is really fucked up people can objectively see that all of these things he's saying are true corporations dominate everything banks and Wall Street dominate everything the corporate culture is really destroying whatever you view as the middle class but anyone who's not making a decent amount of money it's hard like I have people my age you know who I graduated college with who are really really struggling and they're talented they're skilled they want to work and there's nothing wrong with them except the jobs that they thought would be there or not and that's not all just to be clear in my opinion it's not all because of institutional things that are fucked up we're in a crazy transition period right the automation alone is eliminating jobs and you know just there's so many other factors here so what's your take on someone like Bernie who seems to be tapping into kind of knowing that we need some real big change and then kind of harping that I love Bernie I like him in the debates but I do find that he says pretty much the same thing all of the time even if I agree with that thing very much so what's your take on someone like him well there's a lot of things that you said firstly I'm planning on voting for Bernie and I've contributed to Bernie's campaign and two of the artists that I work with not that my artists and I always agree but it so happens to all my clients Steve Rowland, Jill Sobular, both public Bernie supporters and have done some things for him I candidly you know and some of the Bernie people will be upset with me for saying this but you know I feel you know it's the podcast that one virtue of this medium is to get to be honest and not overly diplomatic I think it's extremely unlikely that he's gonna actually get the nomination and I think that the reason for that has a lot to do with things that he just can't control but you know his whole career has been in Vermont which is overwhelmingly white and the electorate of the Democratic Party is much more racially diverse and there's just something about the way he communicates and comes across that doesn't seem to be moving enough people of color to create any trajectory that makes it seem likely that he's gonna get the nomination so we're speaking at that moment now we'll know more tomorrow there's a Michigan primary tonight which is actually pretty interesting

Yes, very interesting

Bell weather of that exact thing

So you know I am sort of in the category of people who first of all in terms of the values politically that he articulates the way to allocate money in a society, how he feels about foreign interventions his feeling for making certain types of colleges free his belief in Medicare for all I completely agree with all of those positions and it's thrilling to have somebody in the national conversation saying those things it's the last time anyone was saying those kinds of things at a national level was when Jesse Jackson was running for president and Bernie seems to be having a higher percentage of the overall votes than I remember Jesse Jackson ever having so I think it's an incredible so first of all I'm foreign because he speaks for my belief system and secondly I think it's incredibly important that whether he wins or he doesn't win that the size of his vote is a constant fact that people like Hillary Clinton and like Democrats in Congress have to take into consideration because they're always under so much pressure from business interests and the conventional wisdom of the media and so on so I mean I think he's making it a minimum and extraordinary and unique contribution to the political climate in the country and that that's going to reverberate for many many years to come and for the rest of our lives there are going to be people who came of age during the Bernie Sanders campaign and who were inspired by it and fell on to do important work like what happened with the McGovern campaign you know there were people including Bill Clinton came out of the McGovern campaign and Gary Hart and all sorts of other people

Hillary came out of the cold water then

Yeah, that's I don't really think the cold water

It doesn't matter if they're a criticism because she was like a teenager and if you're going to judge people by what they did as teenagers then I'm a speed freak.

Well, I know I hear you. I just remember my friends who are early Republicans in, you know, in high school. I don't know what they're doing now but I hear you.

So, but I think that if it was say it was really close and our votes really determined who was going to get the nomination you know, I do think there's a different conversation that's worth having. If it's just about who do I agree with where it's easy I agree with Bernie more, you know, if we really were going to determine who we're going to get the nomination I think there's an argument for Hillary. I'm not saying that I subscribe to this argument but I think it's an argument that one has to think about which is that it's obviously an unbelievably complicated, difficult job to be present in the United States.

I mean, we were talking before we started this podcast about our tiny organization and the complexities in even getting that correct. So, the President of the United States and to deal with these hundreds of thousands of employees, government agencies, laws, the Supreme Court,

States.

States of cities, all the other countries in the world and these non-governmental powers like the banks, Wall Street and the military could just name the ones that come off the top of the mind. It's an incredibly hard thing to do. And one thing that I think one can notice with the first couple of years of Obama's presidency and of Bill Clinton's presidency and of Jimmy Carter's presidency is the three Democrats that have had power since the '60s was that it took them a couple of years to figure out how it functioned and they all made some mistakes in the first couple of years that they wouldn't have made in the last couple of years.

And those, some of them were costly mistakes. I especially think in terms of the first couple of years of Barack Obama's presidency, in my opinion. And I think that that's one problem Hillary Clinton won't have.

Right.

She does know how it works because of having been married to Bill Clinton and been in the White House for eight years and clearly had a substantial amount of engagement and influence in that administration. And she would be the only person in recent history that would enter the White House on our side of the fence with that level of expertise. Now, if she has that expertise, but she's too beholden to interest that we don't like, that's obviously not a trade-off worth having. But I do think there's some value in having that knowledge and experience that has to be part of the equation in deciding who actually should be the president.

Then there's the other argument about who's more likely to be the Republican. And to me, that's almost like a jump ball. The Hillary argument is that she's been attacked for 25 years. So there's nothing the Republicans do that's gonna hurt her anymore. And she knows how to deal with all of their horrible attacks and that Bernie's never been through having a billion dollars spent to damage him so that she's a safer bet. And the Bernie argument is that she has negatives precisely, one might say, because of those 25 years worth of attacks, that he doesn't have. And then in the current polling, he fares better in the match-ups against any Republicans.

But the current polling doesn't necessarily reflect what would be happening in November after that billion dollars is spent. So to me, that's sort of a jump ball. You can make either argument. I think on policy, there's no question that Bernie is more progressive ideologically. But in terms of the experience, I don't think there's any question that she has more relevant experience.

There's no doubt.

I don't think that that's zero importance. 'Cause you can have the best intentions of the world, but if you don't know how the thing works, it's a real problem. So I think on that level, it's a much closer call than a lot of my Bernie friends want to admit it. But I am incredibly inspired and impressed by what Bernie has brought to the process. If he wins Michigan, it's a completely different dynamic and a different conversation. And if it really becomes close, I think all of us, including me, might rethink all this, but I don't think honestly that's gonna happen because I do think that there's a certain trajectory of the way different groups in the society are voting.

And I don't really see, although there are some young and brilliant African-Americans of great influence, like Michelle Alexander, who wrote this incredible book about incarceration and the drug war called The New Jim Crow and Tanya Hazy Coates and Ben Jealous, a former head of the NAACP in Cornell West, there certainly are some and Killer Mike. I don't know. It's actually a successful rapper, just a rapper. But there are definitely some African-Americans of real consequences that are for Bernie, but they're in the minority. And there's just no that I don't really see that changing because I do think he's disadvantaged by just not having had the old people of color very much in his career.

And that doesn't make him a bad person.

No, of course not.

It's just part of reality. You know, I remember when Howard Dean was running for president, I was in those days more important in the music business and presidential candidates would sometimes come and see me. And so David Silver, I called David and said, "David, come over. "How are Deans coming over? "Let's meet together." And so he came by the office and he was against the war in Iraq. And I was so against the war in Iraq. I still am against the war in Iraq and I have a lot of admiration for people who are against it. And he was running against John Kerry and John Edwards who had both voted for the war in Iraq.

And so man, I want to support this guy who's the anti-war guy. But on the other hand, so he comes in to the office and I said, "Listen, I really admire you "on your position in Iraq." And it's a big, big deal to me. I said, "In terms of really doing things, "publicly like fundraisers or anything, "I have to admit to you, I'm a little bit conflicted "because I'm a New Yorker and Al Sharpton is also running." And he looked at me and he said something along the lines, "Well, as if Al Sharpton was just so not important "and not considering." And David and I talked about it afterwards 'cause he's from Vermont.

He didn't have any idea that Al Sharpton actually--

He meant something to people.

Did mean a lot. And he meant a lot in terms of the, that he was inheriting some of the responsibility in the national conversation that Jesse Jackson had done, but was from New York. I mean, I ended up, I think, contributing to both of the campaigns. But what I got out of it was even this guy, it was obviously a brilliant guy. I mean, I really, really admire Howardin. And I think he's done a lot of other smart things besides being against the war in Iraq. And I really thought he was a very good chairman of the Democratic Party and so forth. But he had obviously just been dealing with white people his whole career.

'Cause he was from Vermont, which is 95%.

Sounds gonna say like 90%.

White.

So that's at this advantage that Bernie has that I don't think he's likely to fix in the next six weeks. But we'll see, we'll find out. But I admire both of them. I'm voting for Bernie. I'm so grateful that he's running. I think that the Clinton people who get upset with Bernie should just thank God that Elizabeth Warren didn't run. 'Cause I think if anything, she would have done even better. But the fact is, Hillary Clinton does have experience that's unique and we're never gonna get anyone who's gonna be just like me or just like you politically. Anybody, you know, I think Tim Leary said that anybody who wants to be president should be disqualified from running for the office.

I could not agree. I mean, you have to be like kind of insane, right?

You have to be kind of insane. So they're all insane. And we're dealing about the same people. And that's just the world we live in. Anyway, I'm just back. Like you're hopefully something that has to put people listening to this thing.

No, no, no. It's incredibly, I mean, what came up actually would struck me in what you were speaking about. So many great points in there. And I hadn't thought of actually a very persuasive argument for Hillary in terms of the experience that I didn't think about that at all. Truthfully, I kind of go off my gut when I watch people talk and try to get an intuition of what they believe. And that is not usually, it's not always the best way of determining things. It can be a component of it. But what particularly struck me though, about what you said is the issue of race came up a bunch. And I know one of your favorite people is Martin Luther King.

And so, to me, I'm also very interested. When you mentioned the Vermont thing, Howard Dean, Bernie Sanders, I've been lucky enough in my relationships growing up that I've known a lot of black people, a lot of Latino people, a lot of Asian people. I've had a multicultural friend group and social group. So I hear people from the South Bronx perspective on the politics. They don't give a fuck about politics there. They can't worry about it in most people there. That's not even something that's on their things. When they look at it, they may be just voting for some other reason that we can't comprehend.

So to me, what I'm interested in is, how do we kind of get people together? Like you mentioned a lot of the black people there, like Killer Mike and some other people who are really kind of taking up the stand and saying, well, this actually, Bernie is at least speaking to what matters to us, whether we recognize it or not. So like, how do we, I would like to see something more representative. Like we just had a black president, we're having a black president, right? Maybe we'll have a woman president next, but just a black president or potentially a woman president doesn't actually mean that our cultural, we've changed in any way, right?

I mean, I see it's slowly, but I mean, that's a, it's at a very important point you're making, like the minority vote, and we call it minority vote, which I think is funny, but the vote isn't gonna be there for Bernie, right? We've seen it not be there. Michigan, like you said tonight, could be a bellwether and it could be a totally different thing, but I think you're right.

Yeah, the last polls, I mean, look, we're gonna, by the time this podcast is up, the listeners are gonna know the result of it, as we speak, she's been five points or so ahead in the polls, which is close enough for him to over, but most of the time, the polls seem to be pretty accurate so far on the primaries, the caucuses, there's harder for them to measure. I don't know, you know, it's just the real lesson to me is, you know, there's a gladiator-type thing about these elections, the debates and the TV coverage of the primaries and the pundits and the rallies, you know, and there's a sense that it's kind of like a sports event or a Super Bowl where there's the playoffs and then there's the championship and then there's a champion and end, but the reality is that it's not a sports event.

Right.

It's not a win or a loser.

It's a country.

It's thousands of individual subtle things that either get better or don't get better and, you know, the details matter and, but it's just not all gonna happen in one silver bullet magic moment that's gonna make us all get along together.

It's thousands of small things that we do.

And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, this is where politics sort of meets spirituality, you know, where it's really what tone of voice you use when you disagree with somebody matters. And, you know, understanding that sometimes taking a smaller part of what you want is better. I know Ted Kennedy, who is one of my great heroes, regretted for the rest of his life that he blocked a healthcare plan that Richard Nixon put forward because it wasn't good enough. And in retrospect, he realized that had he supported it, you know, millions of people would have had better life even though millions more wouldn't have, you know, and, you know, those are tough calls to make.

When do you compromise and when don't you? And I think people of high morals, intelligence and goodwill could come to different conclusions on some of those issues. And then there are other situations where people are just flat out corrupted by intimidation or money. But, but I don't think every disagreement is the result of corruption. So, you know, I think everything matters. I think public interest work matters. I think volunteer work matters. I think how you treat people matters. I think how you run your business matters. Your office of voluntary things employers can do that they don't have to do by law that matter.

I think local elections matter a lot and it's just part of what's wrong with the way the media covers politics is this excessive focus on the presidency and a much, much, much less focus on all of these other offices and even congressional races when the reality is that in the American system power is fragmented and all these things matter and who the state assemblyman matters. And the truth of the matter is, I don't know who my state assemblyman is. I'm not proud of it. I actually don't know. That's, and I'm supposedly a person who reads their blogs and books and is engaged and is considered an activist.

And right now as I sit here, I can't remember the name of my state assemblyman. So, you know, I think there's all the, the reality is it's sort of a holistic, you gotta make choices in presidential elections. I'm all for people voting. I'm not for people not voting. And I'm for people voting for somebody who has a chance of winning. I'm not a big fan of quixotic third parties that have no chance 'cause I think they have unintended consequences. But I think that really elections are not, you know, once affirming that and affirming be a good citizen, be involved if you can afford to make a contribution, but it's crazy to think that that's the main thing.

The main thing is every second of your life and how you deal with every little thing that comes up. And the millions and millions of those things either push a society collectively in one direction or the other.

That's right. So, I was thinking my question was gonna be, is how do you kind of inject spirituality into politics? Is it something that would even be done? And I think what you're saying is, is actually the essence of it is the way to kinda, and Ramdas is so great at this too. He talks about if you go to a peace rally, you ever notice how angry everyone is. They're all screaming. - I know.

I love it, that's one of my favorite things ever. And it's true, it's because whatever you bring to the situation, you're playing out your own stuff just as much as whatever you're doing on the big stage. So, I think that's incredibly poignant, and I'm glad that you brought that up because it does, I know, we've been talking politics, right? And that maybe seems pretty unrelated to spiritual practice, but to me, they're one and the same. There's nothing that's not-- - I mean, it seems like at this moment in time in the American story of people of our culture and generation, not that you and I are the same generation, but we have a lot of connections culturally.

That it seems to me like a big priority is to try to have respect for people you disagree with. And that doesn't only mean people on the right, it also means people on the left, there's no disagreements more vicious than among different people. - It's crazy, it's crazy.

I remember doing the Occupy period, and I was a fan of a lot of Occupy Wall Street went down there, I mean, the rage was always for these left wing establishment people who wanna co-op the movement, and then the left wing people would say, "Oh, these people, they have no respect for real life," and I think the biggest single thing, besides voting and making moral choices, is to try to be. And I'm speaking to myself, 'cause I get very self-righteous about whatever the moment is, and I just really tend to think people who disagree or not, is smart or not as good. And that's just not okay. It doesn't get any good result, but to somehow find the place of recognizing people's humanity that one disagrees with, and some shared space, even while maintaining to your ideals and positions, I think that does create a better end result, and not that I'm into compromising on a lot of things, the way, you know, I'm not one of those people that believe the middle of the road is always the place to be.

I'm a left winger on almost every issue. But I do think that we have to stop dehumanizing people we disagree with, and that's something that we on the left do just as much as people on the right do, in my observation. - Everyone. I mean, I think I see it from the, there's no position that kind of guards protects against that. So, what are some practical tips that you use in your life to kind of cultivate? Like, you're aware, you said you're aware that this is, there's a way to open-mindedly disagree with someone. So how do you kind of cultivate that in yourself?

I'm trying, listen, I'm struggling with it. Recently, it's the last month or two, I've been at dinners where I get into these sort of arguments with people, and then afterwards, I just feel terrible. So I say to myself, you know, if my goal is to make the world better, then how can an argument that makes me feel terrible and creates a bad vibe be a good thing? I mean, the main thing to me is to just try to, you know, the whole thing, you know, think before I speak, take a deep breath, try to tune in at a deeper level before expressing an opinion, make sure that is the opinion really, do I have to really express every single opinion I have to everybody all the time?

I mean,

I ask myself.

You know, or is there, you know, my teacher Hilda used to say, to try to say things that are true kind and helpful, and she would say there are a lot of things that are true kids, she called all of her students, kids, there are a lot of things that are true kids that aren't necessarily kind or helpful. You know, so, you know,

That's a great, that's something to aspire to anyway.

That's great right there though. I mean, that's a good kind of parameter for whether you should be saying something or not. And I mean, I see this, I see it all the time, just, you know, on the web, social media, Facebook.

At least two out of three.

That's what I was thinking when you were saying it.

At least get two out of three, right?

That's what I was thinking when you were saying, it's like two out of three seems like it would probably be good enough for this day and age at this point. In the Kali Yuga, we can take two out of three of those sets, I love that. All right, listen, I'm gonna clip it here because I like that this was kind of centered around politics. I am very much into it. I've recently had a resurgence of really getting into it. I'm going to an event for Bernie Sanders fundraiser. That's a club music thing that I'm seeing fields merge that I never thought would. I'm excited about it. I also like you. I don't think Bernie is gonna be the nominee.

I don't.

I'm so inspired by, I think he's handled himself brilliantly. I think he's expanded the progressive world in a way that really no one has done in recent memory. And if he surprises us, we'll have to do another podcast to talk about it. But even what he's already accomplished is very significant. But there's a very good chance that we're gonna be in a different conversation in a month or so. And if that's the case, I'm definitely gonna be for Hillary over any of the Republicans. We can talk about it then too. Thanks, Danny.

All right.

Really, I love these conversations.

Oh, it's so nice for you to include me in your podcast. To be continued.

Cool. Thanks.

Bye. (upbeat music)

Well, if you like politics, I hope you like that episode. If you like politics and you didn't like that episode, well then just tell me why, right? I didn't say, "Oh, I didn't like that." No, that was no good. But I think you should have, if you're saying to this point of the show. As a reminder, there will be a podcast coming out tomorrow, which is March 23rd. That one's gonna be with Ben Kovacs. I'll also be announcing this week's book giveaway. It's a very cool book. I just finished it. It's awesome. You're not gonna know what it is until I tell you tomorrow. But yeah, stay tuned and thank you as always for listening.

I really, really, really appreciate it. All right.