Dr. Stuart Jeanne Bramhall | Systemic Injustice, Targeted Harassment, & Expatriation

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00:51 Which means you'll unfortunately never hear my voice again. 1930s President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed the nation through a series of radio broadcast known as the fireside chats His aim was to reassure the common man that our society would recover from its troubled times. I'm Greg Carlwood These are the Higher Side Chats. Here we go again, higher side chatters from sunny San Diego I'm Greg Carlwood and it's no secret to anyone here that the big machine makes sure life is a difficult swim upstream for anyone not in the big club but your race gender sexuality politics or profession can determine the strength of the current you're fighting against It's not fair it's not right but it's also definitely not a competition that should cause us to fight over who has it worse

01:56 Instead, we should stand united against the machinations of the big machine and work to make the struggle easier for us all. Because anyone can easily find themselves in the crosshairs of a three-letter agency, corrupt law enforcement or shady politician if they see hear or speak out against the wrong thing and that's no way to live But we work our jobs, scroll our phones and watch our shows like we don't know exactly what's going on under our nose. And we quietly hope to stay just under the radar of anything that might want to single us out from the herd Well, this is a reality that today's guest Dr. Stuart Jean Bramhall an American psychiatrist knows all too well as her activism and assistance to the underprivileged in Seattle led to enough systematic harassment and intimidation over 15 years that she had little choice but to leave the country and start over as an expatriate in New Zealand in 2002

02:50 You can read about her story in her book, The Most Revolutionary Act Memoir of an American Refugee. But she also authored a few award-winning young adult novels and a guidebook for making the change she would love to see in the world entitled 21st Century Revolution which you can get for free on her website stewartbramhall.wordpress.com where she also writes and shares a lot of great content to help the rest of us read between the lines of the official story So let's get into it the expat activist do-gooder doctor and a true advocate for the underprivileged Stewart Jean Bramhall welcome to the higher side. Oh well thank you i really appreciate the chance to talk to you

03:31 Of course thanks for being here this is a real pleasure i actually learned about you while i was digging around to see if there was anything fishy about the backstory in the george floyd situation because it's hard to trust these things that come from the mainstream media and then ballooned levels that this did That is something you covered and then i read your memoir and got more familiar with your overall story and it's definitely a wild ride it's a good case study in how the system attacks people who try to make a difference so let's tell the listeners about that you are working as a psychiatrist in seattle where do you start this story what did the activism star. Well this was a long time ago it started in nineteen eighty six,

04:16 When I made a decision to support two African-American activists who had occupied an abandoned school that the city had promised them for an African American museum and There was a lot of conflict over an interstate branch that had basically destroyed the African American economy. They do this in a lot of cities, they come in and bulldoze homes to destroy African American businesses. These two activists had gotten involved in that conflict

04:54 controversy and because of that the mayor basically punish them by reading on this promise to give them a band in school for their museum so i was really really, concerned about is the primary motivation for starting the museum west basically too. Address the crack cocaine epidemic that was happening around that time i don't know what people are aware of the history of freeway pete he was guy work very closely with some of the c.i.a. contra and bringing, cocaine in it was basically from columbia but it transited through nicaragua and what would happen if the planes would fly to nicaragua with guns they come back with cocaine

05:45 they develop this method of making it really really cheap cuz normally cocaine was a white upper middle class drug but they developed a cheaper form that you could smoke. Yeah cost like a dollar cigarettes so anyway they started in los angeles and then freeway rick then introduce this crack cocaine to various mostly the bloods and the crepes were which were very is there was some important in seattle, add it was incredibly devastating to the african-american community and the primary reason for.

06:26 choosing those location was for their museum is to basically get rid of the record night riders they would be drug dealers who would go to a band in neighborhoods to sell crack cocaine at nine and so, there goes to create unemployment because the city had cheated them. As far as the wording contracts to black contractors when they destroyed all the businesses with three ways that promise them that they would, you know they wouldn't be awarded a number of contract after this freeway strip was completed and that didn't happen so there was a desperate need to replace this black employment that had been destroyed and they were also really keen on getting rid of these

07:15 drug dealers that were creating an epidemic of cocaine addiction in the black community. So when the mayor double crossed them, they decided to occupy the museum. They called it The Museum. It was the abandoned school. They converted it to the African American Heritage Museum and they gave art lessons to children so I felt this was something that I could support And i became a member of their support committee and then. Few months after i did that i started getting a whole lot of weird phone calls right right it is pretty wild the amount of harassment that you seem to get and u also send your memoir that as freud did you feel empty slots in your,

08:08 Schedule as a psychiatrist with low income families and patients that were around and through that practice you actually learned quite a bit about what the minority communities we're dealing with locally right. Yeah absolutely absolutely what were some of those insights you might have gotten well i got with mothers who are terrified of their kids getting caught up in gangs, and selling drugs i dealt with African-american veterans who had been there weren't exactly court martial but they were selected out for special treatment which is basically incarceration during the vietnam war because, they oppose the board and so they got like dishonorable discharges when they were not. Eligible for any kind of treatment through the b.a. and post traumatic stress disorder

09:07 I also started dealing with a lot of people who were low level informants you know it was never clear whether they work for the police or weather they worked for three letter agency, as you call them but i love them there where on disability and they just got paid no small additional amount every month you know for providing information i worked with one client Who live in a seattle housing authority and there was a drug ring their that she believe what's connected with the cia and they also had a kind of a burglary ring where by they would. When people die they would break into their apartments and steal your things. Resell them so i just i was exposed to a level of corruption that i just had no idea existed before i started seeing these low income patients,

10:07 And something you say your memoir that i think is just really important people don't hear enough but you say that. You realize that you couldn't help a lot of these people medically through your practice because the problems were situational and economic and i think so often people are like why am i depressed is it a chemical imbalance no it's because you hate your job you know you're always worried about your income, that's why you're depressing up hill isn't always gonna help that or really ever gonna help that. You know because i accepted medicaid and medicare you know a lot of my practice was just limited to prescribing medication for people but, i was really never able to help more than fifty percent of the people i treated for depression. Yeah it was really discouraging is really discouraging that psychotherapy just really is not fun then the insurance companies don't find any more either.

11:08 And so you were mentioning the harassment let's get into that a little bit you got some prank phone calls but how bad did this get how long did it last well the prank calls lasted until i left the country basically, i got the last one in two thousand and two. It didn't occur to me that they were paying phone calls, there would be wrong numbers. But what happened is some of the low income people I saw were experiencing harassment similar to me like i had one woman who was being harassed because she had gotten into a lesbian affair with the wife of an FBI agent and I think a lot of their harassment that occurs

11:54 Is not really political and sometimes it's just spiteful you know they do that for personal reasons right but she mentioned getting the same kind of calls, no that i was getting known until i had a conversation with her. I have no idea that it was harassment it would just be constant wrong numbers and asking for release strange people and making reference to discussions i had with patients in the office Which was concerning of course and. I've heard you talk about this a little bit in the past and give some examples of injustices that you saw any talked about a black banker who had been set up by a long term friend who ended being a federal agent but it's kind of archetypal that

12:47 Throughout the history of this country when black people get involved in banking or giving out loans and try to help their own community, the wagons tend to circle because cities don't like that sad as it is they tried to keep. Black people from getting an economic foothold in the center of the city and that kinda comes into play with the museum that they were trying to set up then all this kind of stuff but it's not unusual history for this country is it Well, at the time I didn't know it was usual. I mean...I really learned a lot! At the time I was experiencing-the only people I ran across who experienced similar phone harassment were African Americans and so they gave me a lot of support during this time and i also met a gay activist from ACT UP who was experiencing same kind of harassment but

13:43 My friends in the white community, they just thought I was paranoid. Yeah because they didn't believe that these kind of things happen but my experience has been since the Patriot Act was passed after 9-11 all those stuff they did to me that's legal now Right right it is a lot more widespread Well and then can break in without you knowing about it? I started experiencing people breaking in Taking stuff never anything really valuable but stealing newspaper articles and i had a medical file on someone who is that, you was a former member of hitler youth at it applied for social security benefits in the claim to be a us citizen. And i wasn't aware that the cia had brought a lot of not work from rose into the united states to work in this year and very pleasant federal government

14:45 So that was stolen i had people stalking me following me. I had people posing as patients that weren't really patient right and what would you say it would be the peak of the harassment what were some other worst or strangest things you experienced in this string of events well, i did have several attempts made on my life i had a car try to run me over go through red light and tried to run me over There were several accidents, you know. One of the clients I saw had told me about how they set you up for accidents and how to vary the route i used and not use the same route every day. I had someone break into my basement and there was let off some kind of chemical bomb it smelled like some kinda pesticide and that was really frightening

15:47 Wow it seems very difficult to navigate all that but i'm glad you're safe now and the part of your story that i found to be the scariest is the chain events that happened after you started to tell your own colleagues in your own psychiatrist about, the harassment tell us what happened there well they told me i had agreed to go to a psychiatric hospital or they were gonna report me and have my medical license canceled. I've heard you talk about this and mention that once you said there was a three letter agency after you thats like kind of a big red flag because it's something that. Maybe a lot of paranoid schizophrenic people say but yet it also does happen sometimes so very difficult thing to determine one from the other well as you know what then is the cat just would say things to me like,

16:41 Well, I participated in protests when I was in college and never had any harassment. And then immediately prior to my hospitalization we were engaged in a protest up at the University of Washington where the Black Student Union was protesting the firing of a very popular professor there and so we organized a sit-in and the police basically grabbed one of the leaders of the protest and started manhandling him, and trying to arrest him. And I kind of stood in the way between the police and the squad car so they weren't able to drag him out of the protest. Basically, I was told that I was psychotic—that that's why I participated in their protest."

17:41 And you kind of agree to this hospitalization because you thought it was i guess a formality of sorts are you thought once she got in they would clearly see that your fine you have a license you ever. You know your doctor psychiatry but that wasn't really the experience what's up well yeah immediately put me on really heavy doses and i think i need medication, they told me i had bipolar disorder and i just didn't know that i had bipolar disorder And that I'd had it my whole life. Yeah, yes i did write that down! I copied this from your book where It says even though you were a licensed doctor You had no say in your own treatment and you were told quote we're treating you for manic depressive illness it seems like you've been manic-depressive Your entire life and we're simply unaware of it and That sort of thing is so scary the arrogance Of certain doctors and just the whole

18:40 idea of taking your autonomy away diagnosing you with the magic phrase and then being able to pump you full of drugs that number you that hurt your ability even like rationalize your situation or get yourself out well i know actually no quite a bit about medication so basically they sent me for an e.g You know that's the electric set and separate grand. Can i see whether i had a neurologic problem in the new roller just told me i was having major side effects of medication i needed to change them, and so i got them to change need to just more sedating medication doesn't, doesn't cause the horrible muscle problems you know there is something called an aka seizure where u just feel this unbearable restlessness inside

19:33 I asked the doctor to change me to more sedating medication. So, i just slept most of the time you know and i was sleeping like 23 hours a day and finally i told him i didn't see how i could function on the outside if i slept 23 hours a day and he finally lowered my medication just because i was refusing a lot of doses in the medication but basically I can't figure out how to manipulate the situation just by not talking about the reasons i was in the hospital and doing anything that they would consider as being paranoid. And you're forming relationships with the nurses informing relationships with other patients,

20:19 So I think it was finally the nurses that realized that there was really nothing wrong with them and they pressured the doctors to release me. And how long did the hospitalization last? It was a little over three weeks, and then after i got out of the hospital, I had answering service when i was in the hospital and just got a lot of really unusual messages on my answering services. You know is my intention to start seeing patients almost immediately when When i was released because i was mostly seeing low income patients and i really couldn't afford to be off work that long so i was sitting there in the hospital making new appointments and scheduling new patients and, i got this call for a job interview i had with the clinic african american social worker rang me.

21:14 And we had some discussion at the time of the interview about all the sexual abuse that occurs in children's homes. You know, I didn't really know that much about it problem and the time except for what patients would tell me women who have their kids taken into foster care and they would disappear and he recommended that i see psychiatrist A former v.a psychiatrist who specialized in working with people who were being harassed by three letter agencies so when i got out of the hospital and all my medication down the toilet, add me an appointment to go see this psychologist and he knew exactly what i was referring to as far as problems that i was having and there wasn't agreement

22:13 He told my psychiatrist that i could start seeing patients immediately provided i didn't do psychotherapy that i just prescribed medication for them so i had a three month limit on my practice, that's why only see patients for medication. I started having some depression after i got out of the hospital so i went back on an antidepressant that i have been taking which i think Probably really aggravated my mental state cuz i had another psychiatrist tell me that sometimes the antidepressant can cause some. Mania in people and not sleeping but anyway i went back on that and then, in december my insurance ran out so i couldn't afford to see this a kind of store the psychologist anymore i mean i use up by deductible

23:07 So basically the psychologist wrote me a letter in january basically saying that i did much better off medication, you know and i should be released from treatment and this psychiatrist release me for treatment so i didn't have to be monitored anymore what i thought or what i didn't. Well i also had a question for you just about the psychiatric hospitals in general there are a lot of stories that they were cesspools for neglect and mistreatment And that's obviously true i've heard a lot of dark stories from those places but when they closed down they left really nowhere for these people to go and you can say it's obviously why we have such a bad homelessness problem in this country today, what are your thoughts on that on the closure of hospitals and really what should have been done maybe systemically. To replace the hospitals or just make them better well

24:09 It was basically John F. Kennedy who launched the community mental health movement in the 60s and he basically, because there were new anti-psychotic medications that worked very well for some people you know he was very much in favor of closing the mental hospitals and replacing it with community mental health and he felt was really important to have community Add federal funding for that because he was afraid if it was left for the states you know that could become a political issue and that would be the first thing that would be sacrifice you know if the state is dealing with tight budget, basically after kennedy was assassinated to federal funding for community mental health. Stop so it's been a program that has mostly been funded by medicaid so in other words

25:13 Medicaid will give a community mental health center grant to see certain number of patients and as long as they keep up their numbers, they can continue that grant. And the medicaid is a combination of federal and state program but beginning with Reagan then the federal government has made more cuts to what they provide the states for medicaid in it's not the kind of you know especially after you know several severe recessions that we had the dot com recession and then we have it two thousand eight recession states simply do not have the funding to keep medicaid going in that, when the only thing that supported community health basically since since the late nineteen seventies. Right into come back to your story and fast forward a little bit left the country in two thousand two i think a lot of people have

26:14 Expatriating on the back of their mind but were held back by a fear of the unknown what would you say that experience was like and why did she is new zealand, well i chose new zealand because it was easiest place for me to get credentialed. Because im bored certified by the american board of psychiatry neurology and so. New zealand because they have a shortage of specialist health professionals They allowed me to get the equivalent of board certification here just by practicing in a community mental health setting for one year under supervision and then doing like a detailed. Application with the royal australian new zealand colleges psychiatrist so i knew that would be really easy path where is to go anywhere else they make you

27:15 repeat your training or in the uk they make you pay like five hundred pounds to have your credentials evaluated so yeah i just thought that it would be really easy to continue to support myself here so that's why i came here. Pat least resistance and was scary leaving the american bubble at first, No it was wonderful. I really learned a lot more about the united states after moving here, it didn't occur to me before i came here that i lived in the military empire. I don't know why is just that that was not the politics i was interested in sometimes we can see the forest for the trees like us but i'm

28:06 there's something really wonderful about living in a country where, there is no new zealand exceptionalism i didn't really understand americans. Exceptionalism and new zealand you know we have lots of money to spend on social services you have an international health service have you know fairly generous welfare benefits for low income people simply because We aren't forced to spend all of our taxes on supporting a military. It had never occurred to me that all these thousand plus military bases that the United States has around the world, it had never occurred to me they're actually militarily occupying those countries. That never occurred to me when I lived in the United States and there's no pressure here to be the best

29:06 the best of science the best at this is just a very relaxing laid back place compared to what i'm used to in united states and you also wrote a little bit about its electoral system based on proportional representation which is i think something we could use because a big part of our issue as the two party system or, you know that wings are the one bird system but. What can you tell us about that proportional representation and just the way the new zealand government function that you think that americans might be interested in hearing. Well we have what's called a mixed member proportional system so when u go to the polls, we don't use computers to vote here it's all paper ballots so it can't be hacked

29:56 And the people from the parties come in and they scrutinize the voting process, they scrutinized the vote counting process at all levels so that we don't have any of the election fraud that they're having in the United States. So you get two votes on your ballot, you get to vote for the person you want to represent your district and you get a vote for the party you wanted it represent you So up until recently i was really active in the green party which at one point had fourteen mps and the parliament, what's your league you know gave them a fairly strong voice and what happened.

30:39 In terms of legislation cuz neither the two major parties we have a conservative party and what's called the labor party neither of them actually ever get some majority votes they always get a minority so they have to make some kind of agreement with the minor parties in order to pass legislation. That seems like a great safeguard against total capture and corruption and appealing to the interest of. Rogue groups you know fringe groups that might have specific needs or desires that just aren't expressed in the major parties well let's try it out i don't think that we're wrong,

31:22 you know there are political problems in new zealand basically was captured by this whole neoliberal economic model, no that came about under reagan and thatcher and they actually used. It was enacted here in new zealand first it was called roger nomics and it would use the kind of a laboratory to see how neoliberal reforms work so at the moment we deal with this situation which Neither of the major political parties represents a working class which creates a really difficult situation and it means we often have elections in which i'm fairly large percent of the people don't vote here, is only about thirty thirty five percent voted nowhere near as large as what happens united states.

32:16 Another thing i thought was interesting that you wrote about in your memoir that you learned when you move to new zealand is, you learn a little bit about the country's difficult relationship with the international monetary fund and obviously that is. A thing that we hear about a lot with other countries having to deal with what did u learn about the international monetary fund well it I don't think we actually borrowed money from the international monetary fund but we do get warnings if, government gets in power that spends too much money on social programs then they international monetary fund well. Is she a negative bulletin about us paying too much for social program. They act a lot of control over the countries that you take their loans down there they do

33:14 Right now what i'm most invested in is reforming the way money is created we have a really strong movement. New zealand to end the ability of private banks to create money right now that's where between ninety seven and ninety eight percent of the money in the world comes from this one banks great money They basically do it out of thin air so if you go to the bank and get a mortgage that money doesn't really exist the bank just punches buttons on a, i'm not computer in the money comes into existence so here is new zealand we have something called the social credit party that has been campaigning for decades.

34:07 Can the ability of private banks to create money and have our central bank which is there was a bank in new zealand to have them create money fortunately. Our central bank is part of the government it isn't private like that federal reserve is right so they've done that before nineteen thirty six day created money, that issue directly into the economy to help me get out of the great depression and right now We had a lockdown here for COVID-19 and it basically crashed our economy. So the government is talking about borrowing all this money from, our banks are mostly controlled by Australia, borrowing all this money from Australian banks to fund the COVID-19 recovery and we're putting a lot of pressure on the government that they should have the central bank

35:11 Spend the money directly into the economy can there's no need to borrow all of this money and what happened before is when this is allowed to happen. They say oh well we have this enormous debt so now you have to have a steady we have to cut our social spending, Well now that you've been there for 18 years, how have you processed what you've seen happen in America over these eighteen years? Do you feel like ya got out just in time are you alarmed at what you've seen. How do you feel about the trajectory of this country since you left? Well it seems kinda crazy to me actually yeah I did get out just in time

35:59 Yeah it's really been an interesting time because the whole social media thing started while i was here, you know facebook started in 2010. So I'm aware that there is a lot of information on the internet to help people understand what government is really doing and... ...I am not sure if its getting the kind of traction it needs in the right places You know as far as i can see what passes for the left in the united states has totally abandoned working class and so what that means is that it's really easy for the right wing to organize these, these phony populist campaigns that appeal to the working class i mean and thats basically what hitler did in germany was he basically

37:05 shut down the left wing put them in camps whatever and then, deliver the message that he was gonna solve the problems that working people were struggling with. I guess it makes me really angry you know to see these organizations that are supposedly liberal and progressive really only catering to the interests of the middle class So i guess that's mostly my reaction to what i see going on right now. Right and the subject of expatriating what sort of advice would you have for someone who might be, or in racing america frustrated with what they see around here thinking about making a similar change but maybe just a little bit hesitant to pull the trigger cuz the unknown is scary what sort of advice would you have for people in that mindset

38:02 You know i think that it might be good to do it gradually depending on what your economic situation is no it's possible to get a short contract in many fields, in new zealand we work closely with something called volunteers abroad. So there's a number of voluntary agencies that you can work for, that they provide housing and food and a small stipend. And that just would give you a chance to see what it is like living in the country to see if it would suit you so thats what I would recommend

38:46 Great advice it is weird how even though we have all this access to information the american bubble is quite tight and sure part of it is, geographical in nature but we just don't know a lot about the alternatives outside our own space it seems i read a statistic recently that only forty percent of americans have passports. That doesn't surprise me. And let's talk a little bit about current events maybe and some of the things you've covered on your blog, either written by you or other articles that you shared? It seems like you two were a bit skeptical of the coronavirus situation or at least the response to it and these snowball effects that response is having economically right? Yeah for what I see there is a growing number of doctors

39:39 that agree with me, that historically when we've been dealing with an epidemic we have quarantined the sick and the vulnerable. And this is the first time in history that we've ever quarantined everyone. I don't really understand why that happened you know? I suspect there are political reasons for that And I don't think that they've been disclosed why that decision was made, that we should lock down like that. But it's been really devastating for New Zealand. We had very few cases here in New Zealand. The government made some initial mistakes the Minister of Health told them to close the borders and they allowed two major events to happen one called WOMAD which happens where i live in New Plymouth you know in which

40:47 Thousands of people coming from all over the world and then there was a some kind of agricultural conference in queenstown that they allowed to happen in the prime minister did not follow his advice what happened is we started having a lot of cases we started having. Community transmission so they went immediately tell lockdown which is really besides causing problems for the economy, it's caused a lot of unnecessary deaths for other conditions like they totally during the lockdown which is essential lasted two months. They had like four hundred, i'm not sorry that's from cancer due to their big project four hundred and seven yes from cancer do too

41:39 and their failure to do cancer screening due to that two months. And I have a friend who's presently going through chemotherapy because he wasn't able to get appropriate screening for his cancer. They've also, the frontline responders are saying there has been an increase in suicides in New Zealand because of the lockdown. We have no way of knowing how many preventable deaths that have happened Because of heart attacks, you know which can be treated now by putting a stint in or enzyme treatment. People just didn't go to the emergency room they were really discouraged from doing so I got an email from my GP you know just saying i would not be seen that i could put my name and have a video appointment if i wanted So we only had 21 deaths from the coronavirus

42:43 The number of deaths that are expected from potentially treatable conditions is really considerable. I don't think i want to ask you about was some research that you wrote about in your book that she did back during the aids epidemic where you were looking into a cheap drug that had promising results called tag am at because that situation seems to have parallels. What we're seeing with coven nineteen and hydro chloroquine potentially i dont know what are your thoughts on that it was the deal with the researcher doing on that age dr yeah i did

43:19 And open study it was a double blind study i back in nineteen eighty six there was no treatment for. Aids other than easy tea which is extremely toxic and would shut down your bone marrow so people were really terrified to take it so, i saw people in my practice for something that was called aids related complex And that's where they had symptoms of frequent colds and swollen lymph nodes, and fungus growing on their fingers. And fungus candida in their mouth. And so I put them on a trial of Tagamet. The people I saw actually improved with it. I reported this to Project Inform which was a group in San Francisco that was looking at alternative

44:14 aids treatments and they picked up on it and they reported at one of the montreal a conference in the late eighties and is my understanding that act uphill to protest in front of smith klein. To pressure them to do study on tagging which i understand that they did in aids related complex interesting why was it that you thought that drug might work well Somebody had written a letter to one of the medical journals about tagging it, targeting an H2 receptor. That's a drug at the time that was used in treating ulcers and it's the H2 receptor on the T4 cell that's apparently affected by the HIV virus. And I paid somebody to do a literature search for me. I didn't have a computer at the time so she got all the articles

45:17 of the studies that have been done using tagging in a viral infection and i wrote to the company, find out what studies they had done. They gave me the run around but last i heard somebody in thailand did not study on it and i'm not sure what the outcome was. I think right now the triple viral therapy is so cheap you know everywhere than i think The drug company has no incentive to do any more research on Tagamet because the patent is expired. So there's no way they're going to fund the research

45:57 That's seems to be exactly the issue with the coven nineteen thing is there has been a couple drugs that seem to show promise their doctors who have treated them what these cheap drugs that also have had their patents expire and they've seen great results yet i'm told that, these situations are suppressed because of course. The players involved would rather have an expensive vaccine yeah thats true There is a risk of using hydrochloric when people in mediterranean or african-american origin they need to be tested for gpd6 deficiency because otherwise it can cause something called himalaya so it's not totally benign drug and certain people so they need to be tested first before they take care

46:50 And since your field is in psychiatry how do you think the corona virus thing has affected the mental state of people that are largely learning about this through their television. Well it's i think people are really terrifying, i think that the object of this whole covid nineteen thing was really to terrify them. I know here and new zealand like eighty percent people just go along with the lockdown You know they don't question that i don't challenge it the prime minister was wanting to extend a bit longer but we haven't had any. Any new cases in two weeks and fortunately there's been a lot of pressure from me, the opposition party which is our conservatives and also from my party that's in the coalition government right now so i think that

47:49 We're gonna go down to level one on monday which only keeps the borders closed and bands really large public event but i think people are getting really fed up with it right now. i agree and that's the conversation i've been having with gas is it seems like these protests this giant movement to tap in, it is overdue because minorities definitely have been treated unfairly and the police have been militarized and there does need to be a public reaction from this but the timeliness of it it seems almost serve the same purposes of.

48:26 People should be inside get scared there's a big angry mom outside your door and as soon as businesses started to grumble about not being able to open now they're putting boards up over the windows because they are afraid of letters weather it's justified or not depends on i guess exactly where you are in new york city understand that but i've seen a lot of random businesses around me whether really isn't a threat of that but that paranoia it does grab you if you watch a little bit too much cable news yeah well I know I've seen the number of articles I think Caitlin Johnstone she's this Australian blogger she was the first to point out that a lot of people breaking windows and stuff were undercover police they've been caught on camera doing that right yes I've seen that

49:20 Yeah, we had the same problem with the anti-WTO protests in Seattle in 1999. Informants would be breaking windows and the uniformed police would just absolutely disappear and let them do it Right go and tell pro and really just so many examples in this long history of infiltrating peaceful, end purposeful protests and demonstrations there's no way you can control every individual anyway but it's also near impossible to have a movement that's immune from agents getting into it something we always have to factor. Ryan what we have a few of them here in new zealand but where is it

50:05 We only have a population of fifty five thousand so i haven't noticed that problem locally but it is the problem when i get involved with national organization you have to be very careful about what you say. i also like this section as were kinda getting to the end of the road here let's talk solutions because you have this section, the basics of sustainability organizing you say sustainability related work can be broken down into concrete achievable steps which also lends to its appeal.

50:43 In the transition towns movement, organizers have found it easiest to begin with food water and energy security in part because they are the most critical to human survival. However, the bioregional economic networks established as a first step in addressing food water and energy security can be used to prepare for breakdowns in other systems For 99.9% of human existence, people have relied on a bioregional economic model in which they source food and other life essentials from within 100 mile radius and it's only in the last seventy years that we become totally dependent on national and multinational corporations to meet these same needs. The mere process of recreating these bioregional networks is very helpful in learning to shift our thinking away from our total dependence on corporate products and services

51:35 And that is just very well said and i really agree that should be our top priority on here in the conversation more and more it sucks at this corona virus situation put us into a position where there's. Potential for major meat shortages in this country we haven't seen him yet but were constantly being worn out the whispers are out there and how do we establish this network you described in this book years ago we be a lot more secure today so i think that's really well said is there anything more you would say about sustainability organizing that you've learned over the years or advice for people who are thinking about this now but maybe have yet to act why did what no one really exciting thing. That's been happening in united states and covered nineteen is the establishment of mutual aid networks, when i would encourage people to find out just

52:32 put in their search engine you know mutual aid networks and get involved. Is it looks to me that the current system is very chaotic right now and where i kind of a tipping point and i think that what are you doing network does this people look after each other in terms of food and shopping and medications and supporting them with red stripes but i think, you know the stronger we can make them mutual aid networks The better the chances will be that we can rebuild something when this, I think this is a house of cards now to be honest. When this house of card collapse if we have strong mutual aid networks then we'll be able to rebuild something new

53:20 Very well said they use that problem reaction solution against us so often that i think it's time that we employ that same situation cuz we definitely have seen this crisis, happen around us and how vulnerable we are and i hope people do get motivated to build their own solutions going forward so that there less susceptible to the big machine in the future. I think the US economy was going down before the COVID-19 started. Yeah, from everything that it was going down and to look at this from a real panoramic perspective...I think what's happening right now is just a distraction The rats are leaving the ship and they're trying to take all their loot with them That's basically what i see happening

54:15 We really need to really focus on rebuilding right now. Yes i am right there with you and is there anything to say about the psychology of those who just don't want to believe the system is this corrupt or that their are, lies in operations being run on us do you have any advice on how to reach them more effectively from a psychological perspective cuz a lot of us. Are losing our relationships with friends and family because we just can't get him to see things the way we see them Well i think you know i've been involved in some climate change work as well so it's, you have to pretend your talking to a climate denier. So when you talk to the client and are you just listen you just listened to them and find out what they are concerned about if people talk long enough you can find out what they are concerned about. And i think that's how you reach out to them wow that is very wise like that great advice

55:15 Man this is been a lot of fun very insightful i'm glad we could highlight your story i think people will find it all the sort of stuff we can talk about a lot around here and i'm sorry that the big machine has been so rough on you before we go do remind people about your work that they can support or where they could follow up on this are keep tabs on the stuff that she got going on your writing and sharing that kind of. So probably best my website www.stuartgenebrahmhall.com is the best way to keep up Very cool, and of course you got the books out there anything else in the works? I'm pretty much a full-time activist right now don't have time to write any books Dedicated to the cause i like it awesome well thanks again You are a true champion of the people do take care okay you too bye

56:15 Alright, alright, alright. How about it? I definitely left this interview with good feelings Big thanks to Dr. Bramhall for taking the time This was an interview that manifested in a fairly weird way and I was far less sure of what we would get than i usually am. Because, I haven't heard her give that many interviews she's got some older interviews posted on our website but the links are mostly defunct or broken and they're at least five or six years old anyway What started as i mentioned because i wanted to talk to someone who had investigated at least some degree. That there's a deeper story to the george floyd situation is this some wag the dog style media manipulation, you know not that it didn't happen but is there something else going on that were not going to be told

57:08 And you know me, I'm always gonna be looking for some counter narrative and there's always at least one you can find. And i'll admit that some are strong and some are pretty flimsy but I'm going to be looking for that that's kind of what this show is about And one of my big problems in this case is that many of the investigators or social commentators that are looking for a deeper angle to the George Floyd situation are doing it in a somewhat slimy tone. There's a hint of, well, a police officer wouldn't just kill someone like that there's got to be more to it he was a bad guy he was on drugs he was having a heart attack he did porn

57:49 You know this sort of stuff as if any of that would even come close to justify what it looks like happened on that tape so. I see a lot of gross motivations for looking at alternative narratives in this case but do not jive with my own motivation, and i want to be very careful to select the right person if we're gonna go into that and the more i got into doctor bram halls life and writings the more i found that i thought would make a useful show Lifelong activist fighting for disenfranchised communities, lending her own expertise to help people who typically wouldn't have access to that and thus getting a serious window into how those communities are manipulated. The challenges they face she was met with systematic harassment for going out of our lane and helping these people

58:42 She was ultimately driven to expatriate i thought that was a very useful layer right now because i am hearing that conversation being had more and more. Also she's written extensively about the solution being community building decentralization and sustainability through a bio regional economic model So I found a lot there to round out the show that would be somewhat topical but also peppered with insights about true systematic injustice that might not be on our radar typically. Hope you enjoyed it and feel compelled to reach out to her, she seems like someone who's been put through the ringer didn't let it break her and hasn't been appreciated like I think she should

59:27 I've got a long list of potential guests and i love getting those big names and all that but in between also like highlighting the story of someone who did the right thing. And face this system is wrath for it never really gotta time in spotlight as small as ours is nice to put her in so check out blog if you liked it, i would like her to know that people were listening today we can It was nice to hear her talking about being liberal in New Zealand versus the United States as well. Not having to sign off on every bullet point, not having to toe the party line, being able to have different opinions on subject A B and C and not be shunned by other liberals Again that's the woke virus, the circular firing squad it's why many people who don't consider themselves conservative feel very left out in the cold

1:00:22 So that was very refreshing for me but as i got into a lot of these other aspects of what i can talk to her about. A deeper analysis of the george floyd situation specifically felt a bit less important and most did come out in the plus show partly because, That's just the way it happened partly because it's a bit too hot of a topic to just be floating around out there and partly because I think its something that you should bring up only after, you've talked about the systematic traps laid for low income people dark skinned people whatever you wanna say.

1:01:00 That stuff should be highlighted first before you talk about how that energy that's been there for a long time, it's very justified how its been used in this situation. As always if you want to hear twice as much THC get a plus membership and hear the second hour of all the shows I do In todays we talked about little stories like meat packing factories using prison labor in the coronavirus wake more techniques that the system uses to trap low-income families in poverty, New Zealand's anti-vax activism. Of course a deeper look at that George Floyd situation and some of the work that she's done investigating fluoride map and the menopause industry interesting enough so a lot of great stuff packed in there

1:01:54 But i also wanted to mention this we've got this defund the police movement going on from a tactical perspective it's the perfect phrase because its so vague, it means different things to different people and causes more division cuz everyone has their opinion on what it mean you can't even talk about something if people aren't on the same page about its meaning. Like instead of you said demilitarize the police or re-communicate the police bring them back into the community. Who would argue with that? But it's another think tank slogan aimed at creating a deeper divide, obviously I have massive problems with the police. I've been told to get out of the car get on my knees while several police had their guns drawn at me and my friends one of us was crying not me we did nothing wrong at all

1:02:50 They made a bet that they could pull over five teenagers at midnight and find someone drunk or find the little weed, just find something but when they went for it they realized we were all sober. And we had nothing on us and we were just driving from one house to another so what was all said and done they just go oh well you match the description of someone who robbed place No apology, no anything. So I'm no stranger to how aggressive and arrogant police can be regardless of skin color just because i've always presented myself as kind of a counterculture person whether it's punk rock bumper stickers when i was 16 or the higher side chats rap i have now

1:03:40 I am positioned in a way and which police look at me with the skeptical i granted that's a choice i can't change my skin color but i could definitely wear polos and get his act more haircut if i wanted to. But whatever. The point is that now I'm starting to hear that in retaliation to being overworked and underappreciated and all these protests, some police organizations are trying to put together a mass strike which is technically illegal, I understand the police are not allowed to strike but they're working around that by calling it the blue flu

1:04:21 wink wink a mass sick out on july fourth i hear something like that and i start to get concerned. With just how close we are to the purge day or period of time for. Announce lawlessness can the masses in our current state actually fight that temptation enough for love to override fear i'm not so sure, Anyway i like the lot of what our guest said today we talked about a lot of important stuff without getting too political and we tried to talk about a lot of this without, hey the sky is falling kind of framing so i don't want to do that now. Be awake be ready i hope you had a good time in higher side news we got a joint session coming up on the twenty fifth seven pm pacific i'd love to hear about what your seeing out there

1:05:19 Maybe it'll be like the last joint session where current events barely came up at all maybe everyone's fatigued about that would rather talk about bigfoot in the mothman who knows. We got one more THC episode for the month and i think you are going to love it, i'm very psyched about it very much looking forward sharing with you guys And before I go, I also got an email from someone who said they bought a few items off the website for her boyfriend. Which orders are very backed up right now by the way sorry about that! I am just one client of many for this big company now They do print on a lot of great stuff so we have way more options than we ever had but because of this virus thing and everything going on they're just very backed-up But all that stuff's coming...I promise

1:06:10 But anyway, she said that they've been listeners for a long time. Their nine year anniversary is coming up and she got him some merch for it! And so I'm happy...I'm sure he will be happy and a very Happy Anniversary to OTM from me and On That Mess Girl Thanks for the support and sticking with me for so long. I hope THC remains part of that glue that keeps you together for the long haul And with that, stay safe out there guys. Don't get swept up in any of the various currents rushing through the world right now and take the advice of many of our guests recently and focus on building a world we want to see rather than just standing around watching the old one crumble Love you guys I've done my part Your move systematic scale tippers outrage injectors and crowd controllers your fucking move Oh no

1:07:13 You see, the world isn't random it's attached to puppet strings Control over everything The 9-to-5 is trying to steal ya Now don't that job seem silly? Hello can you hear me Or should I play back recordings from some spying agency? Wish we were younger and free. I'll be thankful when it's all exposed, a vast conspiracy There's such a difference between us And the Denver child

1:08:11 Hollow from the highest high They're calling out a thousand cries They'll tell you the story Of everything that's been done Then they'll call out deception From the web that's been spawned Hello from the higher side The earth is hollow I will tell you about something that no one else will Have you heard about her? Have you heard about the real since long ago? No, they're cartoons

1:09:11 It's so typical of me to talk about the stuff I'm sorry that's good and well Did you ever hear the argument That nothing really happens, it's no secret And that the best is plumb? It's doubling your time Hello from the higher side They're calling out a thousand crimes They'll tell you something The elite have done And they'll call out deception From the web that's been spawned Hello from the higher side

1:10:09 Challenging your path And I'll tell you something That the battle's begun But we can't fight it with violence The mind's where it's won At the war, at the war Follow from a higher side

1:11:00 They're calling out a thousand crowds And they'll tell you, what the elite have done And they'll call out the exception of the web that's been spun From the higher side Challenging your paradigm and they'll tell you But we can't fight it with violence The mind's where it's run, that's the problem