Why Activism Matters: It’s the People, Not the Process with Sean Nestor

[0:00] Hey, this is Fish Stark with the American Humanist Association,

[0:03] and you’re listening to the 100th episode of the Glass City Humanist. This is a podcast about humanism from a humanist. Here’s your host, Douglas Berger. Welcome to our 100th episode, and our guest is Toledo activist, Sean Nestor. We talk about activism, discuss if Lucas County is really progressive, his work reviving the Toledo Free Press, and his belief that people are the most important part of any activism. Glass City Humanist is an outreach project of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie, building community through compassion and reason for a better tomorrow.

[0:43] Music.

[0:43] We’ll be right back. Hello, my name is Doug. I am the host of the Glass City Humanists, and I want to welcome you to our 100th episode. And there was much rejoicing. Yay! Oh, I want to thank everybody for being here and listening to this today. And if you’re a regular listener, I want to thank you for supporting the show for all these years. It’s been at times work and at times fun.

[1:35] And what I wanted to do is just take a few minutes here just to kind of mark this special occasion for the 100th episode. And I want to thank Fish Stark, the executive director of the American Humanist Association, for being our guest intro voiceover today.

[1:54] I’m very pleased that he was able to do that for me. I want to thank Sean Megley, who is a member of the group, Secular Humanist of Western Lake Erie. They were the ones that did the initial voiceovers, and I appreciate their contribution for this last five years. The first episode of Glass City Humanists was published on February the 5th, 2020. Now, if that means anything to people, that was the before times. That was right when we were getting news about this global pandemic called COVID-19 that was going around the world and had started arriving in the United States. And at the time, we didn’t know what it meant. We just knew that people would get sick, and there was a likelihood that if your immunizations were compromised or you had other things like diabetes or heart conditions or things like that, that you were more likely to not survive an infection.

[3:07] And it was a very scary time. But this particular episode, the first episode, was not during that scary time. It was during a very decent time. And it was the first guest was Matt McMahon, who at the time led the group Toledo Skeptics, which unfortunately didn’t seem to survive the pandemic. A lot of groups, that’s what happened to a lot of groups, both in Toledo and around the country, that once the pandemic set in and people didn’t want to go out and gather in people, a lot of groups struggled. My group, the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie, also struggled. But the reason I started this podcast in the first place was that.

[3:54] Mobility issues for me. I wanted to go everywhere, visit people, talk to people about humanism, talk about our group. You know, I wanted to walk in parades and do pop-ups and things like that. And because of my health issues, my mobility issues, I’m not able to do that as much as I wish I could do it. But I was long ago told that I had a face for radio and a very good voice. You know, one of my best jobs that I had in before I moved to Toledo was as a customer service representative for a pharmacy HMO. And they thought I had a good speaking voice and Clear and everything like that. And I’ve always wanted to do radio. I’ve always been interested in it.

[4:47] Just never got the chance. It just never came to me. But podcasting was something that I wanted to do. And I thought it would be a good way for us to, as a group, the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie, to reach out to not only people in Toledo, but around the country. Because I checked at the time and there really wasn’t any active podcasts that were mainly about humanism or secular humanism. I think there might be one or two now. There was plenty of atheist podcasts out there. And while I am an atheist, you know, I wanted to, because I’m a leader in a humanist group, I wanted to promote my group and humanism in general and try to get more people interested in it. And so that was my thinking in developing the podcast.

[5:39] Now, I had previous experience with podcasting in probably 10 years before 2020, 2009, 2010, when it was just getting started, when it was just getting big, podcasting was just coming on.

[5:58] I had come into some money and I ended up getting some things that I wanted to get for a long time and couldn’t really afford. Uh, one of them was a video camera with, uh, with a hard disk drive digital video camera, a little tiny one, little compact JVC and an audio board. And it was a Yamaha, a little mixing board with the knobs and, and you, and you plug in the microphone. I got the microphone and the cables and thought I’d give it a try. And I tried podcasting for a little bit as myself, as Doug Berger, and kind of just petered out because I was trying to do everything. I was trying to talk about current events and politics and entertainment and things like that. And it just was a mishmash of everything. And I just got tired of it and not knowing how to do it. So having that in the back of my head, I’m like thinking, you know, I want to really do a good job on this. So that’s why it’s about humanism. It’s about humanist values from a humanist. That is the focus of this podcast. It always has been the focus, even when we’ve kind of drifted into more politics because of the situation, world situation, but it’s always been about humanism and secular humanists.

[7:26] The other thing that I wanted to do was I wanted to interview leaders in the movement, like Fish Stark, the executive director. I’ve actually interviewed three executive directors at the AHA in the five years. I also have interviewed Nick Fish, who is the leader of American Atheists, very good leader. Kevin Bolling, who’s the Secular Student Alliance leader.

[7:56] Some people have been elusive. I’ve tried to set up interviews with the leader of Humanist International, which is the worldwide humanist organization, Andrew Copson. He wanted me to interview somebody in the United States, a member of their group from the United States, and I just never could get somebody to do it. They come up with this report, this free thought report every year and I wanted to interview somebody about it and never could work out.

[8:27] And also, I have not limited myself to free thought or woke stuff, as some people might call it, social justice issues. I actually did arrange an interview with a leading conservative here in the state of Ohio, Professor Lee Strang. He was a, I think he still is, a law professor at the University of Toledo. And he was somebody that the Toledo Blade always interviewed when something came up about the Constitution or about constitutional law. He was somebody always. But he has a dark side. He was anti-abortionist. Uh, he is, uh, got the state, got his friends in the state house to, to create these conservative think tanks in, at UT and Ohio State and Cleveland, I think, and Cleveland University and, uh, I think Cincinnati and things like that, because he claimed that the conservative viewpoint was, was, uh, ignored or censored, even though he didn’t have a problem. He had a job. So I arranged I wanted to talk to him about that and also about a paper or not a paper, but an essay that he wrote for a law journal where he made the claim that the First Amendment.

[9:54] You know, free speech, free exercise of religion, did not apply to atheists. And he had a whole argument about that. And I wanted to talk to him about it. And so that’s what I came at him with, with the angle and had a dossier on him. And I was going to ask him some other pointed questions too, just as a discussion. We were going to do it in a neutral site. It was not because he wanted to do it in person. And the day before we were to meet, he sent me an email saying he was going to cancel because he didn’t want it to be about him. That was the whole point. So I am open to interviewing people who are not humanists and are not progressive because I want to know why they feel that their ideas are any better than progressive or humanist ideals.

[10:52] You know, the way that I operate is, if you have an argument about something, and you can defend it, then let’s talk. I just don’t agree that anything that hurts other people needlessly is a valid position, but that’s just me. So anyway, so I just kind of wanted to do a few minutes here, look like about 10 minutes. I apologize. This is an extra long episode, trust me. Just some of my thoughts about this. I’ve had fun doing this. I really do want to continue. I intend to continue. Uh, some of the things is I want to interview more people. Um, so, you know, if you have any ideas or, or if you’re out there and you want to be on the show, uh, go to glasscityhumanist.show, the website and fill out a form, a contact form, and I’ll contact people. Um, it really is, it’s not terrible. You know, I’m not one of those gotcha people, you know. Now, I will say, if your viewpoints are opposite mine, you need to be able to defend your viewpoints, you know, without name-calling. That’s the only, that’s my only rule, is we’re not going to do any, we’re not going to exchange any name-calling.

[12:16] And so, like I said, I love doing the Glass City Humanists, so much so that I started a second podcast a few months later called Secular Left, because that’s my political persuasion. And that is where I talk about politics mostly, because Glass City Humanists is an extension of our group, the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie. I really try to not get too political, you know, because of our tax exemption and things like that. Unlike some of the local churches nearby, I might say, Northwest Baptist Church, I’m talking to you. Anyway, so I have a really great guest for the 100th episode, Sean Nestor. He is a local Toledo activist, longtime activist. He’s run political office. He’s been a treasure for political campaigns. He gave a presentation to our group, I think it was last year, about how to run for office. He’s been my go-to person for city politics because he really knows city politics. He knows the powers that be, the movers and the shakers.

[13:34] And he’s also started the radio station that our show appears on, W-A-K-T, Tuesday nights at seven. We have 30 minutes. Usually it’s a segment of one of the interviews. And he’s also resurrected, helped resurrect the Toledo Free Press, which was and still is an excellent alternative newspaper in the city of Toledo. So I hope you enjoyed this episode, the 100th episode of the Glass City Humanist, and I thank you for being here.

[14:10] Music.

[14:19] Okay. Our guest today is Sean Nestor. He is a local activist here in the Toledo area. Somebody that one of the first people that I actually got to know when I moved and relocated here to Toledo. He’s in the IT industry with a local company. And thank you for joining us today. Thanks for having me. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became an activist in Toledo?

[14:48] Long story uh i’ll try to keep it brief i mean um i’ve always lived in toledo i was born here grew up uh kind of near airport and burn intersection moved to point place when i was 14 went to whitner high school instead of tps and in high school is where i kind of developed the first political issue that i became passionate about which was my senior year in 2002 to 2003 when we were looking to invade iraq and i remember in my classes you know we studied the vietnam war and we even in one of my classes we watched a heavily edited version of platoon which was kind of a shell shock but you know you go through experiences like that you see how absolutely destructive war is and i couldn’t help but feel like we’re about to go head first into this war in iraq and i could tell everybody was upset about what happened in 9-11 and even the president and everybody was saying well this isn’t about 9-11 but that’s what everyone felt it was about and why it was okay to go invade a sovereign country and i had a lot of frustration because it’s not like i was that well read but i was paying attention i was reading news.

[16:07] Articles and i was talking about it in places like my humanities class and overwhelmingly everybody united to tell me i was stupid and and you know i didn’t understand it and i was unpatriotic and it made me feel really alone and that really hit deep i participated in some protests including going to washington dc to participate in a major protest uh february of 2023 i think a little before the war started bitter cold but we marched it was one of the largest marches and then we still invaded iraq and we had a lot of terrible things happening really after that i was very disillusioned george bush gets reelected and i just see man there’s so much folly and it was several years later that i got plugged into sort of getting active because i saw things getting worse and that was why i initially got disillusioned walked away from politics but then walking away didn’t seem to help anything they actually got worse so then i was like well maybe i should try to do something and so in my mid-20s um.

[17:18] Where it really started was I held support Ralph Nader for president in 2008, which probably would upset a lot of people. But Barack Obama, as charismatic as he was, I remember he spoke eloquently on the Senate floor about why the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was legalizing warrantless wiretapping, he spoke against it. But then when the vote came, he voted for it. And I felt like at that point, he wasn’t taking my key issues seriously. Which were issues related to warfare and civil liberties so i was you know looking into third party and independent politics more helped with ralph nader got plugged into some green party stuff through that and really where things took off for me was in 2011 when occupy toledo happened and quite a few people from a lot of different segments of politics and activism converged to do some stuff and i met a lot of people um kind of developed a social network of people that.

[18:22] Were really passionate and caring i got exposed to a lot of new ideas through that and through the connections from that kind of spiraled into the activism that i undertook for probably the next 15 years so since that time i’ve stayed pretty active i’ve worked on dozens of issue campaigns political campaigns.

[18:49] Helped with various local non-profits um and kind of put myself a little too far into it meaning you know i i’ve spent the better part of the last decade and a half, so wrapped up in things that i’ve kind of neglected a lot of other things that are important like myself and my health and some of my friends and things like that so, So that’s kind of led to where I’m at today is just looking back as I’m about to turn 40 next week and going, how do I want to look at this going forward? So that’s kind of how things got started. I don’t know if that’s what you were looking for. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then you mentioned seeing a heavily edited version of Platoon. And that reminded me that I saw it the weekend it came out. Wow. I was in college, and I saw it in a theater with about half Vietnam veterans. Wow. And- What was their reaction like? It was very quiet. Yeah. It was very quiet, and I think some of them were crying. Some were crying. It wasn’t like that they all got mad about it. They just like-

[20:02] Wow they’re like that’s that’s how it was that’s what they kept saying that’s how it was and the psychological impact is something that i don’t think enough people recognize i think it’s kind of mainstream to recognize that ptsd happens in veterans but you can’t seem to ask that question why do they have ptsd and what what kind of conditions are we exposing our troops to that make them develop ptsd and maybe we should avoid those kind of circumstances and that’s really just our troops what what we do to other people it’s a whole other question and the psychological damage there but you know to me that’s always been beyond the physical conflict uh one of the greatest crises that we’re we’re hurting people emotionally in these just horrible horrible ways and platoon captured that which is why it stuck with me you know he edited out the cuss words which was very hard uh but you know everything else and he didn’t edit out the violence really wow so i was like because that’s like that’s what it was and you kind of have it, i’m like 16 years old and kind of getting my mind blown in class did they edit out the drug use.

[21:09] I can’t remember i they might have because i remember that you know the scene where you know, he goes with the other troops and gets high you know i can’t remember i i remember watching it outside of class yeah watch the unedited version because the edited version captured my attention so much but you know those things were you know that still sticks with me and it still stands as something that i just my conscience is so resolute on war being so much worse than anybody ever takes time to think about. And we’re a little frivolous with entering in the military conflict, in my opinion.

[21:45] Yeah. I don’t think it was for Iraq. It might’ve been for Afghanistan, but I created a meme that I put on social media. And the gist of it was that war is a failure of humanity. Yeah. That’s the way I feel about it too, is war is like when nothing else works and you’ve tried everything else, you know, that’s like, you don’t want to do that, but that’s what happens. It’s the failure, a failure to understand and, and, and try to resolve things and work things out. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s, you could see it as a macrocosm or a big picture view of the same issue with people. Um, you know, when things come to physical blows, I think you could look at that as a failure of an ability to understand and resolve a conflict in a meaningful way. And the tragic thing about war is that it always ends the same way eventually both sides have to sit down everybody has to go okay now that we’re all done killing each other how are we going to live on the same planet or sharing borders with each other whatever it always ends up that place so i think you know it’s always a noble thing to try to say can we hurry up to that part can we stop all the killing and just get right to the negotiation right right because how you know, the further you go into war the harder it is to get to that point and to have good conversations when the thing finally ends but it always ends it’s just a matter of you know.

[23:11] How good faith of a conversation you can have and how long it’s going to take to rebuild the bridges that were burnt in that process.

[23:20] Now, you did mention that you’ve done many things as an activist and you’ve formed groups, you’ve met the powers that be, you’ve gathered signatures. What type of activist work do you like doing the most?

[23:38] If you had your choice you know i’m gonna i’m gonna dodge that and then i’m gonna give you an answer so the dodge is this and it’s actually truthful like my my my first thought and my most honest answer is that the methods aren’t actually as important i like all of it i like non-profit work i like citizen initiative work i like electoral work um i like you know street activism I like all this stuff.

[24:07] But the actual, but those are just the forms it takes. The bigger attraction are the people you get to work with, honestly, because this is all tough work. Contrary to some beliefs, nobody really gets paid for this stuff.

[24:24] And so you end up meeting a lot of people who are just, they have integrity. I mean, they care. There’s something that they’re passionate about and they want to help. And you find something really beautiful in them as a result like you get to meet some of the coolest people because these are people who still stand for something who still believe in something who still care about other people that’s like the best part and so when i think about groups that i’ve worked with or causes i’ve worked on it’s less about the means or the mechanism it’s kind of the quality of people you get to be around and that’s always the groups i remember the fondest are the ones where you know people were there’s a great camaraderie there’s a great respect mutuality people pulled off difficult things facing obstacles and still came out fighting and sometimes oftentimes winning i mean it’s just the coolest thing to be able to do that and the people you do it with make it all worthwhile not because you know they’re fun people even though oftentimes they are but because they’re people that you feel like this is what makes life worthwhile this is what makes activism worthwhile this is what having a good country is worthwhile for because there are beautiful people doing incredible things all the time you don’t often hear about them but they’re out there and they’re doing the the unpraised work that keeps humanity going and i mean the real humanity that that.

[25:51] Makes life worthwhile so that’s the best part now to actually answer the question i think toward where you’re going honestly i kind of miss citizen initiative work i’ve done four citizens initiatives two of them were charter amendments and two were statutory ordinances all around the city toledo all passed with landslide margins of victory and i’m proud of all of them um i could probably pump out one of those a year if i had interested people who had a good legislative issue to take forward, um but that’s kind of what it takes i mean that it there’s really something cool about looking up the toledo municipal code and seeing a law on the books and you’re like i helped write that thing i saw it before people voted on it and now it’s enshrined in law and i know it’s helping people I know it’s making a difference. I know it’s changing things, even if it’s in a slow, subtle way. And, uh, so I love citizens initiative work. I wish more people looked into that as an option. It’s a lot more accessible than you think. And, uh, man, I’ve just, I could think of stuff that would be cool, but I just, you need a crew to do it. You can’t do it solo. You just can’t. And that’s the biggest thing missing is that crew of people who are like, let’s spend a year or two making this happen.

[27:09] Now, Toledo in general, and I’m making a general statement, is considered a blue city and has voted for some progressive ideas, like you mentioned, giving rights to Lake Erie and Democracy Day. What is your honest assessment of Toledo and Lucas County in general? It’s interesting because…

[27:37] So I sat down and had coffee with somebody who’s an elected official here in Toledo. And of course, they’re a Democrat because that’s where most of our politicians are. And they told me, feeling that it was in confidence, Toledo’s really not that progressive city. We’re very conservative. And I said, I disagree. And we had a difference of views. And they were an elected official. So they had, I think their perspective was skewed based on the power players they were used to working with. Some of the bigger unions, the corporations and the real estate lobby, they’re kind of used to that. I think coming from a perspective of working more on a grassroots level, I see a very different side to Toledo.

[28:27] And the best example I can give as to why I think I may have a little more merit than that politician did. When we did the sensible marijuana ordinance in 2015 which decriminalized marijuana in amounts 200 grams or less to a fifth degree minor misdemeanor it also did a few other things like eliminated a section in the slido municipal code dealing with paraphernalia it also attempted to take fifth take all felonies and reduce them to fifth degree felonies the smallest you could get but at the time attorney general dewine now our governor sued the city and did get a court order saying you can’t do that piece fortunately that did not nullify the whole thing because we had something called a severance clause in our language that said if any piece of this is found to be illegal the rest of it stays it’s a very important thing when you do initiatives have your severance clause but we did this initiative we collected signatures um did not have any real support from any local elected officials or political major political parties and um.

[29:38] That passed with 70% approval, so that was overwhelmingly supported by the voters. However, if you don’t know, the citizens’ initiative process in Toledo has this interesting step, where if you get enough signatures turned in, Toledo City Council gets a crack at it. They get to vote on it. And if they’re like, you know what, the citizens have spoken just by circulating, we think this is good enough, we’re just going to pass it as it. They have that option. They can also vote it down, in which case it goes to a public vote. And they actually have a third option where they can modify the language and pass a modified version but then there’s also this rule that says if the people who submitted it don’t like that then they could turn in so many i mean it’s funny like you learn all these rules sledo city council voted against the sensible marijuana ordinance 11 to 1 and the only person who voted yes for it was theresa gabriel who was an independent and is actually a registered republican she was involved with the NAACP, so is. She was the only supporter. Not a single Democrat voted in favor of it. They stayed away from it like a 10-foot pole.

[30:45] And at that time, we were already seeing places like Colorado legalize marijuana. This was sort of at the early stages of jurisdictions are passing marijuana legalization or decriminalization laws. And there wasn’t a single democrat that would touch it um at the time the mayor paula hicks hudson somebody talked to her and she said oh ohio is already decriminalized this doesn’t matter and after that law passed several over 40 cities around ohio passed it including a copycat version of it including cleveland columbus cincinnati and dayton so what our local politicians dismissed as stupid or they didn’t want to do it was so popular that it passed all over the state it was a and i’m proud of that but i feel like i keep seeing things that say the population is far more progressive far more liberal far more left-leaning than any of the politicians getting credit for because if you know if you’re always staring at the gutter everything looks bad if you’re always staring at the you know gerrymandered general assembly you go oh no ohio is so red it’s so republican it’s so conservative but what happened when we did the um.

[32:00] Initiative to legalize abortion a couple of years ago. Everybody assumed it would get trashed. That passed. And I think that spoke to, especially with issue campaigns, people are on board way more than a lot of our elected officials give credit for. So how would I describe Toledo? How would I describe Lucas County? I think it has a strong undercurrent that is consistently untapped and undervalued both by politicians and frankly by organizers too because a lot of non-profit based political groups kind of get in bed with the politicians and adopt their worldview which is very cynical which says ohio’s lost it’s you know whatever they’re not looking out at the actual voters and realizing there’s a ton of people waiting for something to get behind if somebody takes the time and effort to build something for them to go to. So, um, I could go further on that subject, but I’ll just leave it at that. Yeah. And, and I agree with you. Um, you know, scientific polls have been done in other places that, that more people are for progressive ideas than the media and the politicians give them credit for. And if you just give them that issue to vote on, they’ll approve it or they’ll pass it or whatever it is.

[33:26] Yeah, I mean, the Ralph Nader folks would describe these as majoritarian issues. There’s a lot of issues that routinely pull above 50%, including single-payer health care, that are just issues waiting for somebody to get behind a serious effort in support of them.

[33:46] And I think it’s disappointing and it’s part of why we have the tension we have in politics today because we have a party that is just openly hostile to a lot of people and we have another party that kind of says I’m with you but for whatever reason we’re not gonna do the thing that everybody wants us to do and that leads to a lot of distrust it leads to a lot of cynicism And I think that’s collectively has led us to a very nihilistic place in politics. And that’s a dangerous place. And we’re seeing the results of that.

[34:25] I think I’ll, I’ll just go ahead and say, I think a lot of it is the corruption of money in our political system, because sure, most people want single payer healthcare, but my buddies that are cutting big checks to me and my friends in Congress and on the state level are making, are letting me know that they don’t want that to happen and they’re more important. So while the rhetoric is there that the people have the power and one party uses that language a little more than the other, I think most people see through to the cynical reality that, well, it’s really money driving the show, not what people want. And when we talk about a democracy movement or the restoration of democracy, I think we have to understand that it can’t just be a return to the status quo that was there before Trump. It’s got to go back to a point where, People’s votes, people’s interests matter, and it’s not just what the moneyed interests want, regardless of who that moneyed interest is and whether that’s a good billionaire or a bad billionaire. I think people want a government that’s representative, and that comes from listening to what people want and paying attention and taking those polls seriously. And I’m just a believer that if you have problems where politicians are not responding to your needs, other avenues like citizens initiatives.

[35:46] Referendums, recalls are incredibly powerful tools to show the politicians what you really want and to start reshaping the politics of the day. Because at the end of the day, all politicians will follow what gives them their careers. And if you make it a condition that to have your career, you better listen to these polls, they will do it. But you have to have the courage to kind of be unforgiving to the politicians, which people struggle with. And I’m not saying you got to burn down their tool shed.

[36:19] I’m just saying that you can’t be afraid to, there’s kind of like a celebrity culture worship like a celebrity worship culture around a lot of politicians like you know yeah you know marcy captor’s done some questionable things in the last year or two especially around things like immigration and um you know censoring al green upset a lot of people but there’s a lot of people who won’t permit a single bad word to be uttered about marcy captor because part of it is they just have an emotional attachment to her that prevents them from seeing her as somebody to be held accountable and the other half is of course the fear the rightful fear a lot of people have that well she’s better than the alternative but i think there’s kind of an overton window shifting thing that happens that it’s like well okay if you keep accepting at least they’re not as bad as the other side then you kind of let things keep sliding more and more to the right i think there’s a way to hold people accountable.

[37:18] And really be firm and not give into celebrity culture without becoming you know a bomb throwing you know somebody doing violent threats but you get talked about like you are one of those people, if you just like look i’m not happy with what these people i don’t care what position they hold i have to stand firm to this issue or these beliefs and that’s kind of hard to take you know you’re going to face a lot of criticism which i have over my time i faced a lot of criticism I’ve had a lot of people defriend me. I’ve had a lot of people talk trash about me because they thought I was a dupe or a Russian bot or, you know, I was like some sort of sleeper agent for the other side, but I’m like, I’m just trying to be consistent with my values and call it where it lands.

[38:04] And I think that’s another thing that people kind of miss in politics. It’s not, you know, democracy isn’t just about representing things. It’s about representing values and staying consistent to them. And there are times when it makes sense to take a loss in the short term if it builds a stronger movement in the long run that allows really good things to happen. That’s a tough calculus to do, but more people need to be sitting down and talking to each other and doing that. Well, I can tell you, I can be honest that there’s been times I have not agreed with you on certain political issues. I would hope that there are. I mean, I think it’s a bad sign if somebody never disagrees with me or anybody, because at that point, that’s where it’s like, maybe there’s a celebrity worship culture around me. And I don’t want that because that’s not helpful to anybody. Yeah, I think my line for you to cross, for me to move you to Siberia would be if you irrationally came up with your views. And I know you don’t. You study things, you read books, you study the issue, you know, you come at your views in a sincere and rational manner. And I appreciate that, even if I don’t agree with your conclusions.

[39:20] And I think more people need to do that. Yeah, no, I think that’s the healthy way to do it civically. I mean, I think the reality is politics is a fascinating field at its best because it is, you do need to be rational, but you also need to appreciate the emotional, the irrational to some extent.

[39:40] Humanity gets expressed in values and beliefs and politics in a lot of ways is that. I think part of our problem is we lean way too heavily on that right now there’s not enough rational interjection yeah but i do think there is a balance i don’t think it’s like i don’t think a government can function if it’s completely rational because you miss a lot of important things about why we do things but finding that balance between what’s rational and what’s kind of an emotional thing is extremely hard which is why you have to have a strong civic culture that understands that duality and that balance and we just don’t have that we don’t have the civic culture so people end up kind of going to one extreme or the other they’re either like these ultra rational people who can rationalize anything bad because it somehow works in a utilitarian sense or they’re just and i think this is most people they’re taking very emotional views one way or the other they love this politician and anything they say is going to be great or they just hate this politician. So anything they say is awful, even if it’s actually a really good idea, it’s just vibes and feelings which have a place. But when it’s the only thing going on, that’s a disaster, buddy.

[40:55] And as a palate cleanser, what has been one thing, or maybe there was more than one thing that has made you tear your hair out when working on the issues that you’ve worked on over the years. What’s really bugged you sometimes. That’s the palate cleanser? Yeah, that’s the palate cleanser. Boy, I mean.

[41:24] Let me take a second to think on that. Because there’s a lot of things that are frustrating when you do this work. I think one of the things that makes me tear my hair out that just came to mind is.

[41:41] I will say if you are online a lot and you kind of are on social media or like Facebook or Twitter, you kind of get a certain sense of who the activists are.

[41:55] Because there are people that are very vocal and share a lot of means and, you know, argue with people and that can skew your view of what’s actually happening in your area. Because I think a lot of the real work does not take place on social media and there’s a wide world of activity that gets ignored because it’s not on social media. I think there’s people in organizations that look like they’re doing a lot because they’re active on social media but in real life it’s like pulling teeth to get them to go anywhere do anything and so i think there’s like a disconnect between you know what you see in the digital world versus kind of the real world and i think that’s been really tough to overcome uh part of why i’m like pulling back from things is to try to focus more on the real world and be on social media less if at all um just because i found it’s really not been there’s the cons have outweighed the pros for a while and they just keep growing and one of the big cons is i think there’s an elusive an illusion about where the real activism lies and it’s not making saucy statements on facebook it’s not in you know talking about how much this hurts your heart the real work has to take place.

[43:12] In person in real life meeting with other people doing difficult things and i think social media becomes a trap where you know people feel like they’re doing stuff because they’re spending a lot of time and energy doing social media stuff but you got to get out there in the real world you absolutely have to you just have to and that’s what kind of makes me tear my hair out because i think it’s social media is ultimately a distraction i’m not saying you got to abstain from it, but when you use it as a substitute for meaningful action, which a lot of people do maybe without realizing it, um, you end up treading a lot, you know, you’re, you’re just running in circles and you got to get directed. You got to move in and get some stuff done. Yeah. I know there’s some elected people that, uh, work in the state house in Columbus that do a lot of typing on Twitter, or I’m sorry, X.

[44:08] And they’re saying stuff that they would not say in public. You know, their transphobia and the racism and the bigotry is on full display. And I’m like, why are you posting that stuff on a public feed like that? Because that’s where their fans are. That’s, you know, that’s the red meat that they give them.

[44:32] Yeah, no, I think that’s, it’s that. And I’ll say too, it’s, it’s, it’s easy to say inflammatory things when you’re not around other people in real life who might react. Uh josh williams uh representative in our area recently you know there’s a video of it but he said some really some of his usual inflammatory stuff in front of a panel and he got booed and shouted down i mean as he should have frankly because that’s part of politics i know some people disagree i know they clutch their pearls when they hear about politicians being treated.

[45:04] Poorly and regardless of what they stand for but i’m like no this is not you know just oh if you don’t like them vote them out these people have serious power and there’s a long tradition going back centuries and centuries of when you grant and delegate power to these people and they make terrible decisions including decisions that actively hurt you i mean there was a time when you would go burn down their house or you know store their their house or throw them in the garbage bin i mean you would take people the fact that politicians knew that their lives could be threatened sometimes kept them kind of honest and when you’re just in a bunker in your you know guarded you know gated community and you’re just firing off inflammatory stuff on twitter or whatever i mean it just fans the fires of division and hatred because most of the time you’re just making up crises that don’t exist using your stature to be like i see it but you don’t do You’re just tweeting on your toilet or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, I get that. You know, in that particular instance with Representative Williams, it was obvious that he had been in his bubble far too long. And he was just repeating stuff that’s been debunked for decades.

[46:18] And, and you just, and it was just shocking to me, but that’s par for the course is he doesn’t talk to anybody. He really doesn’t. He doesn’t talk to the, the people of the, that, that his bills affect. You know, I, I, I bet you anything. He has never talked to a transgender person ever. Right. And, and the bigger question to me is he can get away with it. How, there are a lot of politicians who never go out in public, never do a town hall. And they still coast on reelection because of gerrymandering and other factors that keep things from being truly competitive so you know you’re kind of seeing a trend here too i’ve seen a lot of videos all across the country of town halls where politicians are getting shouted down and interrupted and people are tired with the decorum of the civility while these people are just repeating talking points that are hurtful hateful untrue ignorant and using it to justify just completely heinous actions on behalf of what is supposedly a representative government so i actually am a big fan of holding politicians accountable i know like what’s going on among me there’s a lot of ins and outs in that but in general i will say i’m i love that a lot of citizens came together and you know exercised their right to do initiatives and referendums and recalls again there’s a lot of ins and outs and there’s some nuance there i’m not saying and they’re totally in the right. Right. Yeah. I do feel too. Yeah. But there’s a wake up call. Cause I do think.

[47:47] The councilman in mommy did get comfortable with the very specific style of politics where they’re like nobody ever really does anything so nobody ever shows up yeah yeah so when a really serious issue like this thing came up with like how are we going to find the money to take care of this water issue let’s just pass it on to the to the homeowners they’ll figure it out what are they going to do i’m i’m not up for election for another few years and they found out if you do something that’s dramatic enough, they can, people can do initiatives, they can do recalls and they can get really mad at you. And I’m not justifying every, you know, ounce of harassment that’s, that’s gone their way. But I do think that to me is a practical wake up call that I can cite now. When I talk to a politician in say Toledo, who feels a little too smug that they don’t have to listen to people. I can say, well, you know, there’s a track record, not too far from here of people actually holding their politicians accountable. You could get recalled. You could get people really mad. So maybe take that into account before you make decisions, especially on controversial subjects. Cause I think it’s very easy to be complacent as a politician. I’ve met a lot of complacent politicians.

[48:55] Uh, I’ve also met some great ones though, too, is the other half and people don’t like to talk about that, but actually some politicians do a really good job and they should be lifted up for that. They should also be torn down when they do a bad job i’m actually writing up kind of a summary of my perspective on wade capsicavage’s time as mayor and actually there’s a i know a lot of people don’t like him and there’s i have a lot of things personally that i know about i’m going to tell that are reasons to be upset but like any politician who’s actually doing their job he’s actually done a lot of good stuff too and i’m going to talk about that as well we’ll leave it up to people to decide which ones they think way out the other, but, um, it’s just, you gotta be able to call people on the carpet when they do bad, as well as praise them when they do good. If you do both, I think you’re doing a good balancing act. Well, and that’s the thing is politicians work for the elect electorate. You know, they, they, they should answer to the electorate and not just every couple of years or however often they have votes. It should be all the time.

[50:04] Yeah, and just to play devil’s advocate a little bit, part of why i think there are politicians who start off idealistic and really want to represent the people but when they’ve got an issue that they know helps a lot of people and they can’t find people to like in the public to help them um they become cynical and they go nobody plugs in nobody pays attention so why should i i mean there is a give and take uh because people assume that once somebody’s elected they can kind of tune out until the next election but the reality is if you want to see a good piece of legislation passed, politicians who may face opposition from other politicians need public support to help defray that and to overcome it. And if people aren’t paying attention and aren’t writing letters to the editor, aren’t showing up to public hearings, aren’t engaging with the civic process, it leads to that kind of lazy complacency. People need to understand this is a give and take. Citizens and politicians both have their problems. Too many citizens aren’t paying attention until things get bad and then everybody sucks and we throw the bums out. But then who are you replacing them with? Probably worse bums because you’re not paying attention enough.

[51:22] So citizens need to be more engaged. But on the other hand, politicians need to do a better job of listening to citizens, including really taking it seriously when citizen groups form and when they take real issues to those politicians. And I think if you can do both of those things, our civic process can start to heal. But it takes humility on both of those sides. And it takes kind of leveling our game up, both on the politician side and on the citizen side. Yeah. And I would add to that too, is the politicians need to do a better job of communication. Specifically, I know this just is specific to Toledo, but having a council meeting at like four o’clock in the afternoon is dumb.

[52:03] Having committee meetings at noon or whenever they were. Come on. If you want civic engagement, you’ve got to have it available when the majority of people are going to be available. And that’s at night. Yeah. And that’s been an issue here in Toledo for decades, the timing of these meetings. And I think it speaks to that Toledo City Council and the Lucas County Commissioners are used to thinking of their political careers as kind of a nine to five that they can hang up when they go home. Now in practice there are some really good politicians that here that don’t do that they are answering constituent calls and emails and going to other important meetings in the evenings but you’re absolutely right that’s an issue i support moving the the meetings to a later time the problem is oh that eats into my my dinner time and my family time i get it but guess what, um working people can’t go to a meeting in the middle of the day you’re excluding a huge class a huge group of people when you do that. So, but part of that’s by design, you know, especially when you have a rule that you can’t make any comments during the regular meeting.

[53:15] No public comments during the regular meeting. You have to do the comments during the committee hearings, but those are in the middle of the day. Yeah. And there is a, an exception to that. It’s when council allows there to be public comment, which, you know, is usually used for like, we want to line up some, some choice speakers. Right. But yeah, I mean, and I’m of two minds because I do think if you open everything up to public comment, you do get essentially one or two, you can get one or two radical guys who just filibuster and keep the meeting from going. I kind of see the value in that, keeping it to the public hearings. That said, the public hearings, whenever they are, if they’re in a committee, do them in the evenings, make them accessible. And I think having other opportunities to engage with the public beyond the council meeting where votes happen is important. And the city’s been doing better about that. I will say under the Kapsikavich administration, they seem to have finally figured out websites and social media and scheduling public meetings and getting them out and getting people to attend. They’re doing a better job than previous administrations have. So that deserves credit. But I think it’s always an evolving process. And engagement with the public is very hard. You’re right. Politicians do need to take that seriously and take that onus to figure out it’s not happening, figure out how to do it better.

[54:38] For more information about the topics in this episode, including links used, please visit the episode page at glasscityhumanist.show.

[54:53] You recently, well, it’s not been recently, last couple of year or two, you’ve worked with a group to help bring back the Toledo Free Press as a working alternative press in the city. Was that always the plan is to bring it back as a going newspaper? No, um, I can tell you, and I’ve told other people this, so I think it’s fair to share publicly in my head. That was the idea.

[55:21] Uh, but honestly, when I first met with Tom pounds in, I think 2018 or 19, you know, I was like, I was thinking of it already because of my own practical experience, knowing how things work. It’s like walk before you can run and my interest at the time legitimately was i just want to see the coverage of those 10 years of the free press online without a paywall for people to access, because as an activist and an organizer and just somebody who’s civically engaged i know how priceless it is to have access to news articles that actually cover stuff that’s going on, and i use that all the time and i wanted that stuff online that was my first goal at the archives And Tom met with me, didn’t really know me from Adam, but we built a relationship. We got the archives back on. And when the archives came up and we had a really nice WordPress site for it that looked good, it’s like, well, that led naturally to the question of, what would it take? And then that was some more conversation with Tom. First thing we did was do some legal consulting. We started looking out the lay of the land. Eventually we built a subcommittee through a nonprofit I already had that was already doing some media work, played on a great media education, which you and I both know pretty well. And really it just, it did evolve naturally. And I never brought the idea up to Tom. I waited. It was kind of like inception. You got, you got to make people think it’s their idea.

[56:50] No, but I had a feeling it might go there. And when Tom expressed interest, I took him up on it. And then we talked, and then I think it’s grown. To me, it’s a case of I had the idea for the first time seven, eight years ago. And it took years and years of very slowly walking it, building the relationship, getting the archives, having the conversations, exploring the groundwork, finding a nonprofit home, building a committee, raising the money. I mean, this took years. and it’s actually one of the cool i i think it’s one of the coolest things i’ve been able to do and i’m just grateful that tom was open to the idea and it’s been a great partner he’s been honest and uh straightforward throughout i think we’ve built a great team um the staff there is just phenomenal and you know we’re still shaping i mean we’re still really in our first year of operation we haven’t really been back full year yet um but the talent you know going back to the thing i said earlier when you asked me what my favorite type of activism is to do i said it’s really more about the people um the people i’m working with them let’s go free press both on the board and the staff are just incredible and they give me energy every time i work with them because i just see so much talent so much integrity so much potential and we’re continuing to shape that refine that we’ve been getting a lot of good feedback from people which i love um but um.

[58:16] Yeah it wasn’t always the idea maybe to me it was always a possibility but i never got too invested in it until i saw that tom and other people took an interest as well so that’s when it really became real i i have a lot of ideas twinkling in the back of my mind but i also have experienced enough to know you know you can’t just go out in the world say we’re going to do this you gotta happen to meet other people who were already thinking about that stuff in some for him and then saying, well, what if we did it this way? Well, what about it this way? And then you shape it into something.

[58:51] That’s when it becomes real for me. All right. Well, as we wrap up tonight, or I shouldn’t say tonight, don’t want to, as we wrap up this interview, what motivates you to keep being an activist and fighting those fights? What gets you up out of bed in the morning to do that? Honestly i think a long time ago that division stopped existing for me and i think that’s something that’s a point that a lot of people cross over into uh where they just you know.

[59:24] Activist for some people is an identity that they can like you know i do my activist stuff they put on the hat they go to the meeting but then when they walk out they take the hat off it’s not their identity or it’s for me a lot of things can be described as activists but it’s just at a certain point that’s how you work you’re like this is how we interact with the world this is how you have to interact with the world because as long as there’s governments there’s going to be bs there’s going to be stuff where things are wrong doesn’t matter where you are or when you are in human history and if you ignore that process awful awful things will happen to you and or the people you care about so you may not be interested in politics but politics are interested in you and when you internalize that you realize that this is just life you know um i i go through phases of being burnt out or or stepping back and i’m kind.

[1:00:22] Of in at the beginning of a phase i’m going to take a little bit of time off working more in the background but the reality is i can never walk away from this because it’s not an abstract thing that you can walk away from i realize it’s in everything around me the the world that i walk around is influenced by the political decisions of other people and i may as well do my part to contribute when i can how i can and i’ve always tried to sharpen that axe and get better at that but i think that’s just the thing it’s like you can get discouraged it doesn’t mean your responsibility stops you can get hopeless which i have been many times it doesn’t mean that the responsibility still isn’t there and i think that’s what it is it’s just the reality that.

[1:01:08] What we do politically and civically is a responsibility. It’s not something you can opt into. We all opted into it when we were born. We can’t opt out of it. You can delude yourself into thinking it’s a thing you can turn on or off or choose to participate in. But when you choose not to participate, you’re still participating. You’re just doing a really bad job of it by basically not showing up. And that’s when you, when you figure that out and you get that worldview, you realize, I mean, you can never stop. And I never, I never will. I know other people feel the same. Well, Sean, I really appreciate you joining us today. And I really appreciate taking the time, talk to us about being an activist.

[1:01:50] Like I said, you know, one of the, you were one of the first people that I wanted to meet when I got here to Toledo because I had heard such good things about you. So I must’ve been listening to the right people and, and, and you have benefited, uh, the greater Toledo area in immense ways. And we all appreciate you. Thank you, Doug. And let me just say, I appreciate you. I appreciate your podcast. I appreciate secular humanists of Western Lake Erie. Uh, that’s a great example of one of the civic groups that goes out there and does stuff. And you may not always be on the headlines of the news, but I know you’re back there writing great letters to the editor. Doug you’re one of my favorite letter to the editor guys um you’re doing great work too and i think we all have to have if i could just leave on this note i think one of the best things we can do right now at this point in history is to look around at who’s doing stuff lift each other up man um i’ve i’ve just i’ve gotten a lot done by always taking time to thank people for the fact they are participating when a lot of people aren’t and doug you and everybody in secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie are doing a great job of being active and engaged in the civic process. It’s an honor to be on the show tonight. Thank you for having me.

[1:03:06] Music. For more information about the topics in this episode, please visit the episode page at glasscityhumanist.show. Glass City Humanist is an outreach of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie. Sholee can be reached at humanistswle.org. Glass City Humanist is hosted, written, and produced by Douglas Berger, and he’s solely responsible for the content. Our theme music is Glass City Jam, composed using the Amplify Studio. See you next time.

[1:03:08] Thank you for listening.

[1:03:51] Music.