Richard Herb and Manish Mishra-Marzetti

00:02 Nice to. Nice to meet you, Richard and Manish.

00:06 I was going to ask how to pronounce that so I don't screw that up. So, Manish.

00:09 Okay, thank you for asking. So if we go through the conversation roadmap, the first question I'm supposed to ask you and then you me, why did you want to do this interview today?

00:22 Well, I just. For some reason, recently, I've really been interested in trying to figure out how other people think and why they think. So that's what interested me last year, and I haven't done anything for a year. And they sent me an email and said, you have three or four possibilities here. So I said, hey, let's jump back into this. So that's my main reason the world is getting so screwed up right now that I just feel the more people that talk and understand each other and figure out what the other person is thinking. I've given up judging a long time ago. I just want to understand why someone thinks the way they do and then maybe come up with some solutions. So that's where I'm at. So why did you want to do the interview today?

01:02 Thank you for asking. Similarish reasons. I feel there's too many people in our nation are not talking to one another. And not only that, they have no interest in trying to talk with one another or they feel it's too scary, it's too uncertain of things. So it was coming from understanding that about where our nation is at. It's like, well, somebody's got to try and you got to start somewhere so we can start with each other. Why not?

01:30 That's right.

01:30 Good. Then I think our next task is to read each other's bios out loud. You read mine and I read yours. And then we ask each other what we'd like to know more of. More about. I can start with yours because I have it pulled up.

01:46 Go ahead.

01:47 So, Richard, what's the name of your hometown? Bukiri.

01:50 Bucyrus.

01:52 Bucyrus. Yes. Richard from Busyrus, ohio, who identifies as a male man and republican, understands himself as pretty far on the conservative side. Interests include family history, although I was adopted reading, studying. A lifelong learner, love of all the sciences and the bio. While I've lived in a small town my whole life, I've traveled quite a bit, first as a salesman throughout the mid Atlantic and later throughout the US and Canada. My wife and I have taken several cruises out of the country. I've been married now for 45 years with both my sons deceased. One died at birth, and the other of a drug overdose at age 37. I now am a part time business coach and I recently became an ordained pastor in charge of small groups at our church. Politics is a passion and your descriptive indicators are political, veteran or from a military family, an animal lover, religious and spiritual and creative. The questions I would ask, what type of sales were you engaged in?

03:02 Manufacturing of jewelry. And we manufactured and went direct to small independent jewelry stores across the United States. So I did that for about 25 years. I would get in my car Monday morning and drive and 1000 miles roughly. I had a big territory come back home Friday night, did that for, I think I did 40 trips a year. So that gave me twelve weeks at home, basically on and off. But it was fun. It gave me a lot of time for driving and thinking and studying. And every night I would take a box of books with me and in the motel room and I think about five or 06:00 whenever I got there, I would crack the books, turn the tv on for background noise. And so I've had probably 20,000 hours of just that independent study. So I enjoyed that though. And then I went into selling for still in the jewelry industry, software for jewelry stores, to run their store, to help them make decisions on what to buy and all that. So that's where I got into Canada. The owner was from New Zealand, he lived in Australia and he had an office in Vegas. So that was my sales career.

04:13 You mentioned you're active in your church and your congregation. If you don't mind me asking, what denomination or type of congregation?

04:22 It's an independent Baptist. Okay, so that's about as conservative. Well, not about as conservative. There's a few more to the right of us, but we're pretty far to the right. But it's a local church here. I've been attending it for 20 some years and just, I think three years ago I got ordained roughly three or four years ago. But yeah, that's been interesting. Now obviously that bio was last year. I'm 68 now, so I still have a couple of business coaching clients I work with. And then I'm pastoring part time too, so that keeps me busy.

04:57 Thank you for sharing that.

04:59 You're welcome.

05:00 Over to you.

05:01 Okay, thank, read your, I think I read your bio here. Let me see if I can read it here. I'm the eldest son of immigrants from India, raised in a jewish neighborhood in Pittsburgh. I currently live in the midwest and am an openly gay, liberal progressive religious leader with a husband and two adopted kids. Prior to entering the ministry, I was a diplomat working with the US government. I am idealistic and strive to make a positive impact with my life. I describe myself as parent, political, active in my community, animal lover, religious, spiritual, and shy. Interesting. When I first read that, I wrote down obviously eight things that were interesting off of that. I don't know if you want to go through them now. Sure, yeah. I'll mention all eight, then we can go back.

05:50 And so you have an idea of.

05:51 What I picked out of there? Obviously, immigrant, indian, jewish, neighborhood, religious leader, openly gay, two adopted kids, because I was adopted, so I'm interested in adoptions. Diplomat, the US government, and idealistic. I mean, that just covers. Wow, that's pretty amazing. Now what you said, let me go back here. Okay, so you were born here in the United States?

06:16 I was. My parents immigrated in the late 60s, so I was born and raised in the US in Pittsburgh.

06:22 Okay, Pittsburgh, yeah. And so this is probably a crazy question, but what's it like to be indian? I don't know what you consider yourself again? Identity. Yeah.

06:31 Indian Indian or Indian American? What was interesting growing up in the. In the US? I'm 52. That was the first big wave of people coming from the indian subcontinent to the US. There were small numbers of folks before the late 60s, but it was late 60s on that we got more people from that part of the world. So I was being raised as a child at a time where folks were not generally that aware yet that they're folks from the indian subcontinent here in the US. So I would get asked a lot as a kid into my teen years, where are you from? And what's interesting about that? And, of course, at home, my parents did, I guess immigrant families go in multiple directions. One is highly assimilating and the other is holding onto the culture very tightly. Mine held onto the culture very tightly. So they would affirm at home, too, that, yeah, our roots are indian, we're from India. But getting asked that question a lot, I started to assume as a kid that I'm not from the United States because everybody asks so often, where are you from? So it was like, oh, I guess I'm from here. Even though I was born and raised here, this was the only country. Those were some aspects of growing up indian at a time when there weren't that many indian, indian Americans here yet.

07:53 Have you gone back to India and visited relatives?

07:56 Yes. Growing up, we used to go every year to year and a half. We traveled quite frequently. I spent my last year of high school, my 12th grade year, I was in New Delhi, and I graduated from an international school there. And in fact, I leave next week. I'll be there for a month.

08:14 Okay. Yeah. That fascinates me in schooling. I don't remember ever studying anything about India or indian history. I mean, it's mean. Of course, you can't cover everything in four years of high school, but I know nothing at all about the just. I guess the closest I know is from Indiana Jones movies, which I'm sure is way off, but little sick version.

08:37 Of a little bit made up.

08:39 Yeah. I do know that it's gigantic place, and there's a lot of subcultures there. It's not one culture.

08:47 Hundreds of languages and hundreds of cultures, though there are some similarities.

08:52 Yeah. And I find it interesting how they've managed to stay sort of neutral in the political world. I guess that's my take. I don't know if that's true or not.

09:02 Well, the government today is considered populist, and you could say hindu. They identify strongly with Hinduism. Okay, so that's a bit different than earlier decades, when the government over there has been a bit more secularly oriented. So the rise of religious identity politics is something that's increased over the past 15 to 20 years there.

09:30 And that's probably not good. Or is it good?

09:33 You're asking a personal opinion, then? I would just. I probably identify more with the secular version of politics. The challenge with religious, at least definitely in the indian context, the challenge with religiously identified politics there is that are things like, there's very large numbers of folks who identify as Muslim. In fact, outside of Indonesia, the second largest muslim population is India, more than any country in the. And then there's large numbers of Buddhists. There's a large number of people who identify as Jain or Sikh. So it is a very pluralistic nation, the same way the United States is fairly pluralistic these days. And that means something that you have to govern in a certain way. Honors and respects that herb are very divergent needs in those communities. And so if you have a government that is strongly identifying with one, that feels great for the folks who are in that majority, but that may be more challenging for the folks who are not in that majority.

10:39 Yeah, you may not realize, or maybe you do, but true independent Baptists are very separation of church and state.

10:47 Oh, I didn't know that.

10:50 Just keep the government out of politics, out of religion, and vice versa. So they technically would be for a secular. I know you hear a lot of God and country and all that, but believe it or not, it's keep them separate like the first amendment.

11:03 And you know what's fascinating, actually, if you don't mind, a little aside, I was just explaining this to a friend. In the past week or two weeks, traditional Hinduism, actually, the most ancient forms of Hinduism, actually had a bit of disdain about politics. It was considered a lesser calling than the spiritual calling. And so in very traditional Hinduism, those who identify as priests or religious leaders, they actually are revered more than the political class. So, I mean, Hinduism has had this idea, too, that the sphere of politics and civics is completely separate from religion. It's not alien to Hinduism.

11:45 Right. Of course. Obviously, the next question is, what's it like being raised in a jewish neighborhood?

11:51 Oh, yeah. That was fascinating. There are sections of Pittsburgh that are very historic jewish communities. One is called squirrel Hill. That's where I grew up. I thought until fifth grade that the entire country, that the whole United States, everybody was. I recall fifth grade social studies class where the teacher was talking about jewish folk being a minority. And actually, I raised my hand because I was so confused about that. I said, everybody's jewish. What are you talking about? That jewish folk are a minority? And the social studies teacher had to explain to me, no, actually, most of the people in the United States identify as christian, and jewish folk are a very small percentage of the national population, et cetera. But anyway, I managed to get through fifth grade without knowing difference.

12:41 Wow.

12:43 Now I go back these days, and Squirrel Hill is quite different than the squirrel hill I grew up with. But we're talking about, again, back in the. It was still a very traditional jewish neighborhood.

12:55 Yeah. Part of my territory for my work was Pennsylvania, so I was in Pittsburgh quite a bit, but I don't know if I was in squirrel hell particularly. But that leads me to number four, the religious leader.

13:09 Yeah.

13:10 Talk about that for a moment, since we have that in common.

13:13 Yeah. So I'm unitarian universalist, while independent Baptist, you identified might be on the right end of the religious spectrum. Unitarian universalism is as far left as you can get on that spectrum and still have something that has organization to it. There are religious groups even further left than us, but they're usually, like, house churches or very small independent communities. But we have a national and even an international organization to us. So there's a fair amount of structure, and we're on the left. We organize around ethical principles. So one of the things we do is there are folks of all kinds of different religious backgrounds in our movement, including also no particular religious background. So we have folks like, I grew up hindu and identify as unitarian universalist. We don't have any concept of conversion, so you're not required to convert. You can honor whatever it is you come with and add on unitarian universalism as an additional identity. And usually what that means is we're agreeing to the broad ethical concepts of trying to strive to live in a certain way and honoring each other, the dignity of each person, the interdependence of all creation, these kinds of things. So we have folks who are Muslim who identify as Muslim, and they're unitarian universalist, hindu, buddhist, christian, jewish, muslim, all of those. And folks who identify as humanistic and even atheist and unitarian and universalist. Actually, what I often say is our only agreed upon religious text is life experience. We don't agree on any one scripture, all of us together, but some of us may follow the jewish scripture, others may follow the christian scripture. I have obviously studied hindu and buddhist text in a lot of detail. Yeah, that's a little bit of a flavor of who we are.

15:13 That's interesting. How do you have orderly services or however you do that, if all that you just change, or. That fascinates me? It's hard enough planning for my services.

15:26 Yes, that's a great question. That's a great question. And I imagine there may be things that are in common with what you have to do. It's just the scale is a little different. So in the same way that you, within your independent baptist tradition, you probably have some spread of where people are within independent baptism, you probably have to visit different spots on that continuum to keep everybody together and satisfied. So this Sunday you're going to speak about this, and then you're going to hop in a different place in that continuum of what is independent Baptist. Right. And you're going to tap into different styles of worship or styles of knowing or relating to the holy and the sacred probably as well. You might have a more meditative service or a more song based service occasionally, or different ways of relating. So we have to do all of that. But the continuum is much larger for us because it includes folks of all different backgrounds and folks of no particular religious background. What that might look like in practice is maybe we're drawing on buddhist principles or practices in one Sunday service. Christmas is coming up in the week ahead. We may be drawing on christian principles and practice in the week ahead. We may then intentionally do something very different. We may honor the jewish tradition or the Muslim New Year or the hindu holiday, including also. Then you have to do the comma, comma, comma, multiple commas.

16:52 Sure.

16:53 Drawing on science, drawing on literature, drawing on human, which are often humanistic sources. So the work for me is actually holding all of that together. That is like a huge part of the work is just holding together communities, a community that is so broad and so diverse. And in reality, what I'll often say to my folks is, when it comes to social values, or you could even say civic and political values, we probably 85 90% agree with one another on most things, which is far greater than the average or probably even you and I might agree on social and civic matters, but it feels hard. Even though we mostly agree with one another, it feels hard to at times hold us together and remind us to get out of our particularities or specifics, to be committed to something greater.

17:50 I'm just curious how an atheist would come and first off want to come and how they would interact. I can see agnosticism, agnostics but not atheists would be a little tough.

18:01 Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, those folks who are atheistically or agnostically oriented are probably also humanistically oriented. So while if they weren't, why you don't need a community, right. It's the humanistic orientation that reminds us that self growth, self cultivation is important, but not in and of itself. For itself, yes, in and of for itself. It's good that I learn and grow, but as I learn and grow, I'm able to be of greater service to others in community. I can help community grow and expand. So that humanism is very core for the folks who might identify as agnostic or atheistic especially. But it's a strong thread throughout unitarian universalism, that humanistic belief.

18:47 So it's a lot of involved with community. Then people want to associate with a smaller group. Of course, I'm in charge of the small groups in my area, so I can understand that a little bit.

18:58 Okay, so I think the next question to ask is, who's been the most influential person in your life, and what did they teach you?

19:09 That's a good question. I don't think any of us can narrow that down to one person. Yeah, that's sort of crazy. I have an interesting love hate relationship with my father in law from the standpoint of he was the owner of the company I worked for for 25 years. So I don't know if you are aware of working in a family business or within laws. I appreciate him, but at times I just was so mad at him at times too. So I learned probably most of what I learned from him, but he taught me. You mentioned shy, I see on your tagline down there. Believe it or not, I'm not an extrovert. Even though I did sales and ministry right now, I really enjoy, as my bio said, being alone and studying and reading and figuring those things out. So I think he drew out of me a little bit more of the extrovert that I needed for sales, so forth. Of course, I like a lot of my teachers. In my first interview, I had a civics teacher in high school. The only teacher, this is going to sound bad. The only teacher in the whole high school that prepared me for college, that taught me how to read and study and write papers and all that. So that's probably my biggest influence. That's probably what they taught me. Now, are we going back and back in this, or are we going to do you later here?

20:38 I guess you asked me the same question.

20:40 Okay, sure. What? The most influential person in your life and what they teach you?

20:44 Yeah, same as you. I'd say there are many. I think by the time you reach mid age and beyond, it's not one person alone, but probably many who've influenced you, but the one that really comes to mind today. And I guess I'll offer this as a way of honoring him as well. One of my spiritual teachers is an indigenous Lakota shaman and very much helps lead ceremonies and offers teaching, guidance, wisdom grounded in those traditions, in the Lakota tradition. And somebody who's been in my life over 15 years, and the amount of growth that he's helped foster in me is pretty profound and deep. He is fairly no nonsense, and he'll kick you in the pants. And if you're stuck and you're not looking at the stuckness with enough commitment, which I appreciate, because I guess I could probably be stubborn. So having somebody hold me totally accountable and not letting go has been helpful. And I think the biggest thing he's helped me look at fear in really deep ways. And I think actually, even I'd say it's probably relevant to the conversation you and I are having that in work settings and situations, there have been times that I've been afraid of, like I might offend somebody, think of the breadth of diversity that I'm trying to help hold together. I might offend somebody. I might hurt somebody's feelings. And I think one of the things I've come to understand is, yeah, any of us as human, you probably will. And then what? Do you have the courage to not be afraid of making a mistake? Do you have the courage to try and do the repair work, to try and learn and do better. And so I've learned you can't let fear hold you back. He's helped me understand that you can't let fear hold you back. You have to stay grounded in love, keep trying your best, even though we try our best. Yeah. You're going to make mistakes and then come back to that love and commitment. Do the healing work, do the repair work, do the growth work. So he's been a very significant influence in my life.

22:55 Good. Well, I'll ask you the next question because I can't wait to hear about this. Briefly describe your own words, your personal political values. Although I looked at where you've placed yourself on the continuum, you're not far left, I don't think, from what I saw in there, and I wouldn't place myself far right, and I don't even know if I'd identify as Republican anymore because I'm sort of disgusted with the party there, too. But go ahead.

23:22 Yeah, far left. I think our politics here in the United States are insufficient to be other political systems in other countries. To my feeling, they're better ways of trying to live into the values that I think we're a very diverse country, and to only give our people, like, two basic options is unfortunate given the breadth of diversity that we have in our own nation. But anyway, given that it works the way that it works in our country, I'm on the end of, I grew up in our nation as a religious minority, as an ethnic minority in a community that also saw itself as a minority. So it has mattered to me a lot that I care for and that the values I hold take into account and care for those who may feel unrepresented, unseen, unvalued, unheard in our processes and in our systems. For me, what we in the US call politically liberal pays a bit more attention to some of those needs than other descriptive forms of politics that we have in the US. And again, I think the whole thing is limited. I wish we had more being political and being able to describe who we are. But that's a piece of it, that I've known what it's been like to be marginalized and sidelined and feeling unvalued, unseen, unheard. And I care about that not just for myself, but for others who might feel that way. And that contributes to my sense of liberalism. Liberalism from the place of inclusion. Are we really engaging in participatory and inclusive processes? But inclusion means everybody. It doesn't mean including some and then excluding some others, which is why I felt like we should be able to have this kind of conversation as I am.

25:26 Yeah, I have a follow up question that I agree with that 100%. So how do you take people out of the margins and put them in where they should be?

25:36 That's what I'm trying to understand.

25:37 Yeah. What is the far right doing to prevent that? Or what would the left, whatever we label, would want to do to help that process?

25:48 You're asking really good questions, and they're tough ones. Richard, I think on my end of the political spectrum for a while, there was this notion that, okay, put those marginal voices front and center because they have been kind of on the edges and we're not really paying attention. There is some value to being able to take a perspective that isn't dominant and to really be present to it deeply. I think that putting it at the center, which that was a frame or a lens for a while, it began to be interpreted by some, I think, as to the exclusion of everything else. And that doesn't work either, because we need everybody. We need to find ways to, I don't know if in this nation we'll ever be able to bring everybody along on anything, but you need ways to build coalitions, right? And you can't build a coalition by saying only some. We're only paying attention to certain needs and certain perspectives and voices, and we're not to others. So I think that part of that work of building coalitions does require us to look at how are we looking at the needs, experiences of those who might be least among us or marginalized among us, and then doing coalition building work of like, okay, then how do we build a coalition that includes other needs and perspectives?

27:14 Right. Can you think. Give me an example of at least one need that has been avoided or not seen or needs to be?

27:23 Okay, yeah, I'm from Pittsburgh. It's historically a working class, blue collar town. Right. And I grew up in the. When the manufacturing industry went bust in, the government came in and promised all kinds of retraining opportunities. They were going to retool the economy, blah, blah, blah. So what actually happened in Pittsburgh is that, yeah, they created tax incentives and whatnot for companies to establish themselves and retool the economy through the migration of new industries. It was actually high tech and medical care became the new industries in Pittsburgh. But guess what? They didn't do a lick to help bring all those people who lost manufacturing sector jobs. There was no retraining. There was no effort to help folks like oriental, the new economy that was developing. And so what basically happened is folks who were earning pretty good, manufacturing sector salaries shifted into low income service industries. The example everybody uses is, like, walmart style jobs. But it's not just that, right? There's one example, and that's actually, you could say that that story that I just spoke about is a dominant story about poorer folk who might identify as, you know, we could have a similar. It may be a different story, but arrive at a similar understanding around the needs and circumstances of black folk in Pittsburgh. We have one of the most historic and largest black populations in the whole country. And the economic marginalization there is also, by the way, I was trained undergrad as an economist. The first goes to is economic examples. But the black population of Pittsburgh has struggled historically. We want. Folks won't feel that there's fairness until inclusion, unless they're seeing equity. Like, they can live a good life, they can live a decent life. And that doesn't mean living the life of a billionaire or a millionaire, but, like, just trying to eke out a decent existence without having to work three or four jobs and never taking time off. Right. Which is not an insignificant part of folks, our working class folks in our country are having to do that, and it's unfortunate.

29:46 Yeah, that's hard to fix. I guess if we could get full employment with good jobs for everybody, that would help the situation. But I have to throw out the term, since you mentioned that indirectly. The word wokeism is a big word right now. What's your definition of that, and what's your feeling about that?

30:05 Well, does it matter? I mean, I think on one hand, it's become a trope to react against.

30:11 Oh, it is.

30:13 I don't use the term, and I don't know that it has value at the present moment at all, actually, I think rather than worrying about what it means and what our reactions are to it, I think a conversation like we were just having prior, I'm sure you care about working poor folk just as much as I might, right? Sure. I would hope we would be able to work across political lines to figure out what that means and what that looks like. Well, actually, let me ask you. I guess I should ask you.

30:47 Go ahead.

30:50 Yes. Could you describe your personal political values in your own words?

30:56 That's a good question, too, because at this point, I don't know if I can. I think my only solid thing I'm working on now is that I agree with all. I don't like overly large government programs. I like things done more at a local community level, a little lower with the people. I like the public and private sector combination type things to get things done. I don't think I'm a globalist anymore. The United States has been throwing its weight around the last 50 years that I can remember and I think that's coming to an end a little bit here. So I'm sort of up. And again, I don't identify, I'm registered republican, but I'm pretty unhappy. Both parties are, I think right now sort of more self interest than helping the public. I don't know what we can do about that. It's hard to get good people in government. And again, I don't know. That's why it's fascinating to find out that you worked in the government for a while. You were a us employee then.

32:12 I was, I was with the US State Department.

32:14 I was a know you. And again, let me state this out front. I'm not for our ex president, so we don't have to worry about that. But he did strike a nerve with the populism about the deep state type thing. So I don't understand. I think I know what he means by that and what all that means. But I think what he was saying was a lot of the professional government workers maybe had a more leftist leaning than a rightist leaning. I don't know if that's true or not. And whether or not that matters, I don't know. But that's one thing that I don't know if we ever can work on that together. That's hard. So I don't know if that answered your question, but go ahead.

32:59 No, I appreciate your sharing and I can share a thought on that. But I was curious about something you mentioned. We were talking about the struggles of the working poor, which includes white folk who are struggling and working poor, black folk who are struggling and working poor and others. Right. Other identities or races that may be so impacted. So what I'm curious about is you don't see a role for the government in something like that. Isn't it always true that business is going to do what's in business's interest to do? And I don't know that business is interested in solving the problem of poverty or income inequality in our country.

33:44 You're right, not as much. But I live in a small town. I think our population is 10,000 here maybe, but we're a county seat. We have maybe 30,000, 40,000 in the county, which is not a whole lot. We have some programs here that help people get back on their feet, help people find a job, help people get to work and all that. And I really am not sure how much of that is funded federally or state or locally on that. But I guess you've heard that. Speaking of tropes, the hand up, not the hand out. I mean, that's basically my philosophy, having worked hard all my life. And that's the other problem with the small town. There's a lot of drug use here and a lot of people that don't want to work or can't find a job. So that makes me a little jaded toward the whole process. But I know there are people out there that need jobs, and you can't live off of two or three minimum wage jobs. I know it's totally impossible. So I don't know if that answers your question, but it does.

34:44 I think what I worry about is a lot of these, like, okay, job placement programs. They're placements in the types of jobs we currently have, which lead to those folks who are struggling already. Struggling, having to do two, three jobs, maybe sometimes even four. And one can understand, I'm not condoning this, but one can understand why folks turn to alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, pot, whatever it might be. When you're feeling like you're trying everything you can do, you're working so hard and you're just spinning in a hamster wheel that wanting to find some relief from the hamster wheel, you can understand why people turn, alcohol, marijuana, et cetera, for a sense of relief. So I wonder and worry whether the structures we currently have in place are actually addressing the problems that are.

35:46 Well, I know, again, going back to my hometown, there are very few jobs here. Okay. That's why our population is falling. We were well over 50,000 at one time. It's a county in our city, and the young kids don't stay here. They graduate and go to Columbus or Michigan or somewhere else.

36:06 Okay.

36:07 But, yeah, I agree with you. I just have found that, again, another trope, a lot of waste. If you start the money too high and bring it mean, the more direct help with less waste seems a little more. I've seen more success from that, but I agree. So that's where the wind and solar power stuff going on now. Are people actually being trained to do that now? I mean, that's what was supposed to go to. I mean, is it happening? I don't know.

36:41 Oh, you're asking. What do you think?

36:43 Yeah. I don't know either, because, I mean, those are supposedly better paid jobs, right? I mean, they would be.

36:50 Well, I do know in my local area, I don't know how that industry is set up. So I don't want to get into something I know nothing about. I do know that it is a booming industry in southeast Michigan, and it is creating, like, installation type jobs, people who are installers of solar panels and that kind of thing, which is a blue collar type of thing. And I know the transportation money that was approved, like, two years ago or whatever, there's a lot of road work and bridge work that's been happening in Michigan. So our roads and bridges definitely are getting better, but there, too, is that like a temporary thing? And what happens once monies are used? Do folks not have jobs on the other side of that? Yeah, I think our political and economic system definitely has limits to it, and I think that that's where folks like you and I wind up having different opinions around what to do about the.

37:51 Yeah, I think we both want the same outcome. It's just how do we go about it? And what always worries me is people rush into things without worrying about the unintended side effects. Yeah, we see those too often. But I guess doing something then correcting is a lot better than doing nothing. So I guess I would fall on that side.

38:12 Go ahead. You asked about working for the government. So I was at the federal level, not state or local, although I have friends in Pennsylvania who work at the local level or state level, and I hear it's similar ish. In my experience, you do get folks of a variety of personal political perspectives. In the federal bureaucracy, there was this very strong sense of not wearing it too openly because you recognize that administrations change. And particularly folks who've been in government careers upward of ten or 15 years, they definitely had worked for different political administrations. And if you were too open about supporting one party or the other, it could be a problem in your career advancement that when the party that you don't identify with is in, you may not move forward. And that could be four or eight years of your career that are held up because you've been too open and too forthright about what your political leanings are. So the training was back, and I've been out of government service for almost 20 years, but back when I was doing it, this was. Oh, my gosh. The ethos was, don't wear it too strongly on your sleeve. And if you do, then know that you might wind up paying a price for that at some point in time. The joke. How would we. There was a joke about this. Oh, yeah. Always think about the future Senate confirmation hearing and whether or not you would be able to get the bipartisan support you might need at a future Senate confirmation hearing. That's good. So, in your diplomatic career, were you.

40:06 In the United States or elsewhere?

40:10 When you're in the diplomatic corps, you do serve overseas. In fact, the assumption is the bulk of your career will be overseas and the smaller amount of it will be Washington based. So I was in the Persian Gulf. I was in a country called Oman for a couple of years. After that, I was in Finland. Then I was back in DC, and I did some work with the United nations in Geneva. And, yeah, that was the better part of a decade. And then I left to go to seminary.

40:35 Wow, that sounds like an interesting time in your life. It was, yeah. I see. Listed here idealistic. Oh, definitely. So give me the definition of that. In your view, what does it mean that you are idealistic? I mean, that's rare nowadays.

40:53 Yeah. Well, I hope it's not.

40:57 Well, I hope so, too.

40:59 I'm slightly idealistic. Okay. Yeah. Here's a great example. The conversation we've been having about economic inequality and the working poor, we can do better.

41:12 Oh, yeah.

41:13 I absolutely believe we human beings can do better. I would say that is idealistic, because my firm commitment and my knowledge that we could do better runs up against the reality of the rigidity of the political structures and economic structures that we have created. They have a life of their own. While I know for a fact that we as human beings could create better, fairer, more equal social structures, economic structures, et cetera, I know that doing so is almost impossibly difficult because of the rigidity of the systems we already have in place.

41:55 Yeah. So I would ask on that, too. Add to that and ask, where do you fall on the scale of capitalism, socialism, that area. And I'm not asking that from a bad point of view because I have a lot of friends. This sounds bad. That are the democratic socialist persuasion, and that's where they are very idealistic. They think sooner or later we're going to get this thing figured out and it's going to work. It hasn't worked yet, so I enjoy listening to their ideas. Since your background is economics also.

42:31 Yeah. Well, I went to Georgetown, and that's where I studied international affairs and economics. I didn't know this. I went to Georgetown because of its strong international affairs program. The economics department at that time, I don't know about today, was one of the most conservative in the country. And so I graduated from that program, fully indoctrinated that free market or bust, and the free market will solve everything. And I was in that mindset for the years during my government career, those years working for the government. Prior to that, I had probably having grown up in an indian american household. India in the 70s was a socialist democracy. So I probably grew up with a bit more of a socialist democracy mindset towards, I'd say mid career, towards the latter third of my state department. Know, I lived in Finland, which is also a socialist. You know, some of that hardcore capitalism and free market or bust philosophy started to break down again as I lived in northern Europe. And I could see the benefit that the tools of the state can genuinely be used for everyone's benefit. Now, the reality is, can you actually construct and maintain that type of structure? Sure. If your country's 5 million, which is what, the population of New York City, I guess. Yeah, maybe. If that's the entire country and your entire country is the population of New York City, maybe you can create these utopian, government led equality and all that. But we're talking, what, 350,000,000, 340,000,000 right now.

44:15 Yeah.

44:16 Different. And the level of diversity is different. And actually, today, I lived in Finland 25 years ago. Today, what's happening in Finland? I mean, they have parliamentary democracy, but their parliamentary democracy, I'd say, is stretched with the diversity that even they as 5 million plus people are trying to hold together. So the problem that we have is replicated, I'd say, globally right now, the scales are just different. Yeah. I think this was part of my idealism. I used to believe. I don't know that I still do, but I absolutely used to believe that the structures of government could be used not just for the common good, but for the greater good. It makes me sad. I'm almost choked up saying this to you, Richard. I'm deeply sad that I don't know that that's true. And if I'm really honest with myself, I don't know that it was ever true. I think that I grew up as a kid in an immigrant household, and I bought hook, line, and sinker into an american mythos which told us how amazing we are, including our form of government, and that we could tackle any problem, solve anything that came our way, and that encouraged me to be in the government. I got to see some good parts of that, some not so great parts of that, and I've probably grown more and more disillusioned with national government ever since.

45:44 Let me ask you one more political question.

45:46 Sure.

45:46 How would you solve the border problem right now?

45:50 I don't know. If you do this in your church. I've led border ministry trips. We have an organized set up for that in our national denomination. And you can do learning trips to the border service trips if you want to do that. But I've taken multiple groups down to the border to learn about it. Because when you're not actually living near the border, it's easy to think it's somebody else's problem. And it's not just somebody else's problem, it's our collective problem. It's our national border. Yeah, we have a crisis. And I think for folks who don't like to say that, and it's often folks who might identify as liberal or progressive, I think we need to get comfortable saying that there is a crisis at our southern border now. The reasons and causes for it, I think are also worth examination. It's not that people are just randomly showing up in droves now versus 20 years ago. The numbers were less. I mean, there is a climate impact happening in Central America. The farming seasons have been disruptive. Folks who were farmers can't live off their land anymore. They're desperate. They don't know what to do. And some of those countries have political instability. So you look at Venezuela or Honduras, which have had a lot of political, you know, there's multiple reasons why this is happening. Those reasons are worth paying attention to. Can we try to keep some of those folks in their own country by working internationally to help those countries do a little bit of a better job? I think trying, but I also think we're moving into a time where less and less of that is going to be possible. But since you've asked, I'd be curious to hear from you too. Richard, what's your take on our problems?

47:42 I don't have any answers for that. I'm just starting to investigate that. I do know though that there probably is a maximum limit, monetarily wise, how many people the country can afford to take care of and get in. Now if all the immigrants would, and you mentioned this early, whether to integrate or keep their own culture, if all the immigrants would assimilate some of the culture and if they could find work, it might be fine. The cities are starting to get upset with all the. I don't know what to do. I mean, both parties are blaming the other. But let me back up for 1 second. Your scientific claim shocked me there a little bit about the. I thought most of climate change was affecting the northern hemispheres and south, not the central. It's affecting Central America.

48:36 Yeah, it's worth looking. I agree. Their agricultural patterns have been highly disrupted. So folks who had been farmers in Central America or southern Mexico, they're not able to farm in the ways that they were 20 years ago, 15 years ago. So there's a disruption of life and an economic desperation that is fueling a lot of those migrants.

49:03 Is that temperature or participation or rain?

49:07 The rainy season used to be the summer. They're not getting the types of rain that they used to get in the summer. So drier climate leading to crop failures.

49:17 Okay, yeah. I wasn't aware of that. Okay.

49:21 We'Re almost out of time. Does this automatically stop? I guess it does.

49:27 I don't know if it does or not. It may not. We'll see.

49:30 Is there anything you learned that surprised you?

49:37 I wouldn't say surprised me. I just enjoy talking to other people and learning what again? Their life experiences. I don't think you said anything at all that took me completely by. At all you. For someone living in Michigan, you seem fairly so. By the way, I didn't do this on purpose, but I have my Michigan colors on today, my blue here.

50:02 They you for that.

50:03 That was an accident. But no, I didn't know. And the other question was, was I who you expected me to be? I had no idea. But to me, if I met you anywhere else, like in this, you seem 100% fairly normal. So you're not one of those wackos on the far left? I wasn't worried about that. I know probably none of them would sign up to do this. So how about you? Did you learn anything from me?

50:34 Yeah, I would say I had hoped that this kind of conversation is possible. It's upfront that we would have political differences or disagreements and being able to navigate that with mutual respect. I respect that. I don't feel a need to change your belief system or who you are. And I didn't feel you had any kind of presumption or need for that on my end. And I think when people are able to recognize that that is true, that I'm not trying to change you, you're not trying to change me. We're just having a conversation. I think a lot's possible, more than would be if we weren't talking. I think we even narrowed in on several things that we both care that our that are primary beliefs or core beliefs. That if we had maybe a half a day or a whole weekend to continue puzzling out, we might even arrive at some interesting experiments or things to try in local community that aren't being tried. I think that gives me a sense of hope and possibility that these types of conversations are worth having. I hope more people will have, and I hope more people will try.

51:56 And I think you'll find no matter who you talk with, you can probably find 50% to 80% common ground, I think, of anybody we all want to live and breathe and eat and all that. A lot of common stuff that we haven't. So, yeah, I agree. I enjoy this, and it was a good conversation.

52:16 Yeah. Thank you for it, Richard.

52:17 Oh, thank you. And I'll let you get back to whatever you're doing now. You sound like a busy guy since you had an appointment before this rest of my day, I'm done.

52:25 All right, take care. Very nice to meet you.

52:27 Thanks, Vanessa.

52:28 Bye bye.

52:29 It's nice meeting you. Talk to you later, hopefully.

52:32 Take care.

52:32 Bye bye.

52:36 All right.