Lesley Abravanel, Robert Kesten: Pushing Back Against Fascism

Show Transcript

[00:00:00] Mark M. Bello: Hello and welcome. I'm your host, Mark Bello, my co-host Bob Gatty, and I are pleased to welcome two very special guests to the podcast today, Robert Kesten has worked globally promoting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and furthering democracy. His work has taken many forums, including writing and producing an award-winning documentary on the Holocaust and concentration camps in Poland.

[00:00:29] He worked on the Ghanaian Constitution, produced events leading to Ukrainian independence and events for AIDS day, and decriminalization of homosexuality in Ukraine, which was the first Soviet Republic to do he's currently the executive director of Stonewall National Museum Archives and Library. He is actively engaged in the LGBTQ plus community and committed to using history as a tool to make sense of the present and form a community response for today, tomorrow, and beyond. 

[00:01:04] Born and raised in New York, Leslie Abravanel has had an interesting journalistic career. She covered the celebrity scene in South Florida for the Miami Herald and many supermarket magazines. Those ones that you see when you go through the checkout line, which she claims she's done since the Kardashian, since the Kardashians were fetuses. 

[00:01:30] She also wrote about restaurants, nightlife, and travel for miami.com, the Daily Mail and other publications. After 2016 though, she took a major left turn and started using her platform to speak up about politics, especially after being blocked on Twitter by a certain one term, twice impeached former president who has recently been indicted.

[00:01:56] She parlayed that into her current position as managing editor for Occupied Democrats and Washington Press, two of the Internet's most followed left-leaning websites. She sometimes covers anti-Semitism in Palm Beach County for The Forward. When she's not fighting fascism, she collects hot sauces, raises, twins, and attempts to learn Swedish from her Stockholm born husband.

[00:02:21] I strongly recommend, as Bob said off air that you follow her Twitter page. What? What is it, Leslie?

[00:02:28] Lesliey Abravenel: It's my name Lesley Abravanel. 

[00:02:31] Mark M. Bello: Okay. That's A B R A V A N E L 

[00:02:36] Lesley Abravenel: Correct. It's L E S L E Y. 

[00:02:38] Mark M. Bello: All right. For the first time in history, only one teacher from the state of Florida. Is registered to attend the 10th annual SNEP Educator Symposium next week, April 13th, the 16th in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. One teacher, no administrators, no government employees. Unbelievable. Robert and Leslie, welcome to Justice Counts. Thanks for being here. 

[00:03:02] Robert Kesten: Thank you. 

[00:03:03] Bob Gatty: Hey, guys, I'm Bob Gatty, co-host with Mark on Justice Council and host of the Lean to the Left Podcast, where this will also stream.

[00:03:13] Happy to have both of you guys with us today. 

[00:03:16] Mark M. Bello: I'd like to start with Robert. Please tell us about the Stonewall Museum and Library, SNEP, and the symposium. As I just mentioned, there's only one Florida teacher registered this year, but this event is in Florida and SNEP was started 10 years ago in partnership with Broward County Schools in Florida.

[00:03:37] What the heck is going on? Then tell our audience what SNEP is and why only one teacher is registered to attend the event. 

[00:03:45] Robert Kesten: Wells. SNEP is the Stonewall National Education Project. It is, as you've said, in its 10th year. It was started with Broward County school district. So there were many more teachers from Broward and, surrounding districts at the time of its inception. And I believe there are probably two Florida teachers by now. 

[00:04:11] Mark M. Bello: Wow. Wow. It's a hundred percent improvement. 

[00:04:14] Robert Kesten: But one has asked to wear a full facial mask so that she cannot be identified. 

[00:04:22] Bob Gatty: Oh my God. 

[00:04:23] Robert Kesten: Cause she's very uncomfortable of what the repercussions might be. So it is a definitely a scary time to be a teacher in Florida.

[00:04:33] And as we've seen from Sarasota County, it's a dangerous time to be a member of the school board. Since a school board member on the Sarasota Board of Education has literally walked out of a meeting after being attacked incessantly meeting after meeting with no recourse from the chair of the board.

[00:04:58] So Florida is a tough state, becoming a more difficult state, and SNEP is a program for educators, for people interested in education who want schools to be inclusive, who want schools to be welcoming, and who want to make sure that every single child, regardless of who they are, gets an appropriate education that allows them to become productive members of society.

[00:05:29] Stonewall National Museum Archives and Library is one of the largest LGBTQ- plus organizations with a focus on collecting and sharing history and culture. Our library is probably the largest in the community. Our archives one of the largest, and our museum, although not large, is powerful in that we get to share and display the materials and collections that we have, giving people a rare opportunity to see just how integrated and integral this community is with the rest of America, with the rest of the world, and certainly here in South Florida.

[00:06:14] Bob Gatty: But these attacks in Florida are just outrageous. And I understand that these, type of attacks that are taking place on literature, arts, and music are spreading to other states. Can you guys tell us about that? 

[00:06:29] Robert Kesten: Just last week in Wisconsin, the principal, I believe was fired, or a teacher might have been fired simply because they wanted to do a song called Rainbow that was written by Dolly Parton or Miley Cyrus.

[00:06:46] And there's a recording of Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton doing this song about walking in rain with rain, walking in rainbow land. 

[00:06:53] Mark M. Bello: Where was this, Bob ? Where was this , Bob.? 

[00:06:55] Robert Kesten: Wisconsin. 

[00:06:56] Mark M. Bello: Wisconsin. Okay. Go ahead. 

[00:06:58] Robert Kesten: And the children were told that they can't do that song, so it was taken out of the concert.

[00:07:05] Bob Gatty: Walking in Rainbow Land, then it 

[00:07:07] Robert Kesten: Walking in Rainbow Land. But 

[00:07:10] Mark M. Bello: Dolly, 

[00:07:10] Parton and Ma and Miley Cyrus. Come on. 

[00:07:14] Robert Kesten: You would think that who is more mainstream America than Dolly Parton? Yeah Dolly Land, she has a nonprofit that gives away free books to children all across this country.

[00:07:28] She's given millions of books. She, has a program to send anyone who works at Dollywood, even if they're part-time to finish their college education. This is someone who, people sh she gave 2 million dollars to to find a cure for Covid. This is someone who we should be emulating, not censoring.

[00:07:51] So it's, terribly frightening that these are the kinds of things that are happening not only in Florida and Texas and Mississippi, but in Wisconsin and New Jersey and elsewhere across this country. 

[00:08:06] Bob Gatty: That's incredible.

[00:08:07] Mark M. Bello: It, really is. And, the stated goal is to protect kids. And, what I don't understand is why do the same groups who seek to ban books also seek to permit assault rifles?

[00:08:21] Why is the Second Amendment sacrosanct? But the first, not so much. I wrote an op-ed in Washington Press recently called a book never killed six people, including three children in less than 15 seconds. They protect the guns, but they ban the books. What's going on? 

[00:08:37] Robert Kesten: They believe that they don't survive without their guns.

[00:08:42] And they believe that they, we challenge their system of leadership if we allow the books. So it's clearly more about power and the acquisition of power than it is about children and about the very notion of human rights. And it's shocking to me that as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it prepares to celebrate its 75th anniversary this December, that so few people know what those 30 articles say and how something that came out of World War II and the Holocaust to make sure those things never happen again, are so unknown by our society here at home and around the world. To give you an example of how unknown they are, a number of years ago I was at a meeting with one of the people who had been chiefs of staff to Colin Powell, both at the Pentagon and when he became Secretary of State.

[00:09:43] And I had asked them what they thought was the biggest danger to the United States insecurity, and without blinking, he said, it is definitely disenfranchised youth. And I said in dealing with disenfranchised Jews, have you ever thought about implementing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

[00:10:03] And he said actually, I've not read it. The Chief of staff of the Secretary of State. At that point had not read it. So I gave him the short, abbreviated version. And then he said I only see one major flaw. And I said, and what's that? And he said it would cost too little to implement. No member of Congress would ever vote for it and take the money that goes towards military and policing out of the budget.

[00:10:33] Mark M. Bello: Oh my god. 

[00:10:35] Bob Gatty: Hey. Hey, Leslie. Mark said in his intro that, you were banned from Twitter by Trump. How, is it that he. I don't understand. How did he ban you and why? I also heard that you were the managing editor for Occupy Democrats and Washington Press, two of the Internet's most followed left-leaning websites.

[00:11:04] So tell me what caused your Twitter ban and, tell us about your websites and your left- leaning advocacy. 

[00:11:12] Lesley Abravenel: First of all, hello. Thanks for having me. 

[00:11:15] Bob Gatty: You're welcome. 

[00:11:16] Lesley Abravenel: Thanks. So 2016 happened and I think everyone's lives changed. Yeah. Took a turn some way. Yeah. So I was still covering celebrity vapid information and gossip, and yet I could not reconcile doing that and staying silent on what was happening politically.

[00:11:35] Yeah. And especially in Florida, which has always been ground zero for insanity. But once Trump happened all hell broke loose. On the side of doing my job, my day job, I was screaming and ranting to Trump on Twitter, just responding to his ridiculous posts with facts and with collective shock and awe, yeah. And I guess after a while I hit him too hard and he just didn't like, or whoever was reading his tweets, they didn't like what I had to say. They didn't want people to see what I had to say because like I said, I was responding with facts. So he blocked me. He blocked me on Twitter. And then I was part of a class action lawsuit, which the Knight Foundation at Columbia University for Freedom of Speech represented me along with many other Twitter users.

[00:12:30] And he had to unblock me. Anyway, so for better or for worse, he unblocked me. That was 2016.

[00:12:38] Mark M. Bello: And be careful. Be careful what you wish for. Yeah, exactly. I was gonna say mazel tov, but I, but be careful what you wish for. I count being blocked by Trump, but 

[00:12:48] Bob Gatty: I know. No, I would say that's a badge of honor.

[00:12:53] Lesley Abravenel: It was, and it still is, but yeah. It just couldn't end on Twitter, it's just that, I wouldn't be silent if he wasn't watching what I was tweeting. I was tweeting to someone else. So all of my twittering activity that had nothing to do with celebrities in Miami seemed to gain a lot of traction to the dismay of my then employers at the Miami Herald, because even though I was covering entertainment, they did not like my political voice.

[00:13:22] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Okay. 

[00:13:23] Lesley Abravenel: That's how I am where I am today. Cause I've refused to back down and ok. I wouldn't be fine.

[00:13:29] Bob Gatty: I understand exactly where you are coming from cause when I moved to South Carolina, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina six years ago, almost seven years ago, Trump was calling the media the enemy of the people.

[00:13:46] And I spent my whole career as part of the media in some way or another, and it really ticked me off no end, so I started a blog site called Not Fake News, and called Trump out every damn day. And then I got a bunch of other people to join with me. Mark's one of them, and who, also writes for what is now called Lean to the Left.

[00:14:11] So it's hard to stay silent when this kind of stuff is going on to our country. 

[00:14:17] Lesley Abravenel: How can you sit back? I don't understand. I know people are afraid and people kept saying, be careful. Be careful. But you know what, if you sit back silent, then it happens and no one and, they get away with it. 

[00:14:27] Mark M. Bello: No question. Leslie. Think, about it. If you're encountering what you're encountering in Florida which has quite a few Democrats in it, think about Bob in South Carolina. You, gotta feel sorry for a guy like that. 

[00:14:42] Lesley Abravenel: I was telling, him I do.

[00:14:45] Mark M. Bello: That's why I throw him a bone every now and then. Oh, thanks. 

[00:14:48] Bob Gatty: Thanks, thanks. so much, dude. Appreciate it. 

[00:14:51] Lesliey Abravenel: But Mark, Mark, Florida has become a red cesspool also. 

[00:14:55] Mark M. Bello: Yeah. I understand. It's funny because DeSantis got in by the skin of his teeth. That, that that's, an interesting issue as well.

[00:15:07] He wasn't all that popular when he ran and, as a candidate, he was behind in the polls for almost the entire election. But anyway I'd, like to talk education for a second here in Delray Beach. As a nice Jewish boy, I belong to a small group here in my community that focuses on educating people about anti-Semitism. And as a small group, we struggle to find the right way to approach community outreach. And I argue with my community members about who we're talking to. But with regard to anti-Semitism and L G B T Q plus issues, which are near and dear to both of you, why do some people feel threatened by alternative lifestyles or non-Christian religions?

[00:16:05] And what can we do to educate those people who need education? What's happening here is we're having guests come and appear at our club, and they're basically preaching to an all Jewish audience who agrees with everything they say. My attitude is we ought to be outreaching to those people who don't say, what you did on Twitter, but I just wonder what your thoughts are about how we go about changing minds for people who refuse to have their minds changed. 

[00:16:39] Lesley Abravenel: You want, you're asking me. 

[00:16:41] Bob Gatty: That's a tough question.

[00:16:42] Mark M. Bello: either of you. 

[00:16:43] Bob Gatty: That's a tough question. 

[00:16:45] Lesley Abravenel: I'll say. I feel it's not impossible, but they don't want to hear the other side of it.

[00:16:51] They only know what they think they know. The marginalized communities have been stigmatized for centuries. The anti-Semitic tropes, the anti LGBTQ, the anti-black. It's the marginalized people that they're afraid of it. They don't want to learn about it. How, I don't know. I don't, I feel like I'm screaming into the ether too.

[00:17:13] Like you said, I'm writing, I'm preaching, I'm tweeting, screaming about antisemitism. Yet, like you said, we get it. We get. But when are they gonna look at it and realize with facts that something going it's wrong. What they know is not right. I, it's deprogramming. They need cult deprogramming. 

[00:17:32] Robert Kesten: It's, I think it's more complicated than that in the sense that the leaders of those movements often do not hold very strong feelings about Jews or gays or lesbians or blacks or anybody else.

[00:17:50] They're looking to create a power base, and what they're doing is using things that they can manipulate to scare the rank and file of people who are not necessarily well educated or, highly exposed to the world around them. And so it becomes very easy to use those kinds of things to make people frightened.

[00:18:14] And once they have people scared, they continue on that mission. And if something scares people less, they move away from that and go to something that scares people more. So it's no different when they come out against gays or lesbians or Jews, than it is when they say, you're gonna take our guns away.

[00:18:37] They find the kinds of things you're going to hurt our Christianity, you're going to do this, you're going to do that. They use those things as weapons, and what you're talking about is how do you get to the masses and break them from that chain of their faux leadership? Because it's those people who are looking for power and looking for money that use low-hanging fruit in order to corral people. And, it was so obvious Trump with his mastery, since you've been talking about him, while he was running, he was in one of those stadium rallies and he said, we love the uneducated. And that the cheer that came from that group shocked me only in the sense that they didn't even know they were being insulted.

[00:19:31] No. So how do you expect to make inroads, often with people who don't even know when their leader is insulting them and telling them you are all morons and I love you because you're morons and you follow me because you're morons. Education is our greatest tool in fighting hate and prejudice, and it's how we get access to the tools to educate and how we refine our system of communication so that people understand what we're saying. That's what the other side is so good at. Everyone who comes across the border is a rapist, a murderer, and a drug dealer. That's not hard to misunderstand.

[00:20:27] It doesn't have to be true, but it's very clear, right? When you say it the other way, it is much more difficult. These are mothers and children that are escaping terror. Why do they have to escape here? Or Muslims blew up the World Trade Center. We should be afraid of Muslims. Three or four Muslims blew up the World Trade Center, so why would you be afraid of a billion Muslims?

[00:20:57] That's the questions, but we don't have the easy tools and we don't use them well. So therefore, the other side has an unbelievable advantage, as Leslie said. And, they've had that advantage for millennia. 

[00:21:11] Lesliey Abravenel: And look at Fox News. They just busted them for lying to the people, to the morons, the poorly educated. What's going on with that? They're still on the air. Espousing conspiracy theories, anti-Semitic tropes, homophobia. I don't it's amazing. 

[00:21:27] Mark M. Bello: Where is the, even though they're admitted liars 

[00:21:31] Lesley Abravenel: exactly. How do you fix that? 

[00:21:34] Robert Kesten: The only way to fix it is really organizing masses amounts of people. And in this day and age, that is extraordinarily difficult.

[00:21:44] Mark M. Bello: Bob, that was my point though. If you know in our little group presenting, presenting a speaker like yourself to a, group of a hundred Jewish people at a community center they're gonna love you. What I want is for you to appear at a Southern Baptist church and, convince those people that, their feelings are ridiculous.

[00:22:12] Robert Kesten: It's, not even about convincing. It's about finding ways to get them to open up. And, that's one of the things that we used to, I'll give you an example. I gave a speech in Alexandria Egypt during the Arab Spring. 

[00:22:27] Mark M. Bello: There you go. 

[00:22:29] Robert Kesten: And there I was 

[00:22:31] Mark M. Bello: talk about hating Jews. 

[00:22:32] Robert Kesten: Yeah. And gays and every, and blacks. But after my speech, this woman came up to me and she said, could I give you a ride back to your hotel? And I said, sure. And we walk out to her car with her husband and her son and they all get in the car. And the first thing she does is she turns to me and said, If we have human rights in Egypt, would my Imam have to do same sex marriages?

[00:23:03] And I said, where did that come from? I didn't mention this in my presentation. She said, I must know. And I said, no, your imam would not have to do same sex marriages. Human rights doesn't mean forcing people to do things that they don't want to do. It means respecting people for who they are under the law.

[00:23:24] So I said, you don't have to invite L G B T Q people to your house for dinner. You don't have to have them as friends. You just have to understand that they have as much rights to society venues as you do. And when you decide that you don't, then you can't complain that the rest of the world is mean to Muslims.

[00:23:48] Because you have opened that box. You are the one who have said that prejudice is okay. That hate is okay. Now, if you can live with that, then be as prejudice and hateful as you want to be. But if you want people to understand that people who follow Islam are complicated, unique individuals, then you have to open up your heart and allow other people in, at least under the rules of law.

[00:24:16] And she turned to me and she said, you know what? I can live with human rights. 

[00:24:20] Mark M. Bello: Makes sense to me. 

[00:24:21] Lesley Abravenel: So well done. 

[00:24:22] Robert Kesten: So that was three people in that car, aside from myself, that understood that what they're doing is making people oppose them rather than allowing for them to impose hate on others. And those are the kinds of conversations that we all have to have.

[00:24:42] A group of us, while a small group of us tried to get editorials into the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and other right-leaning publications, asking them to put their coverage of the L G B T Q community, the Jewish community, and other communities in context, stop using the derogatory, start using context, historical context.

[00:25:08] And we said that our archives, our library is happy to provide that contextual information where you present something that's happening at that moment, in that timeframe which gives a skew that is absolutely incorrect. Of course, they've ignored us so far. It doesn't mean that we'll stop, but it does mean that penetrating places where people have accrued power based on the existing system is not going to be easy.

[00:25:41] Please don't stop, Bob...

[00:25:43] Bob Gatty: yeah, that's for sure. I know that Jews represent roughly 2% of the US population. The MU Muslims are about 2%. L G B T Q is about 6%, 14% is black. These four groups combined are less than a fourth of the population, as 44% identify as white Christian. Now, there's some overlay between the L G B T Q community and other communities of course, but where are these numbers heading in the future?

[00:26:17] And are minorities any kind of real threat to white Christians? Or is all this just a bunch of nonsense meant to divide us? And what's the perception and what's, reality around here? 

[00:26:31] Robert Kesten: The truth of the matter is it's a power grab. Yeah. There are. Once again, these leaders, the Ted Cruzs, the Lindsey Grahams have a power base and are in power because of this perception that the Jews will replace us or that the gay, the LGBTQ community are groomers.

[00:26:59] That we're all out to get their children. It's all based on those stereotypes that were fostered in Czarist Russia. We use Christian children for Passover. We use your children today for our sex toys. Of course none of it is real. And if it was real, Everybody would be in prisons somewhere, but there's no evidence of any of this except for in the imaginations of people like the late Jerry Falwell and members of Congress who are trying desperately to convince white people, white Christians, white Christian males, that their way of life is under threat.

[00:27:42] Their power will be gone. These other people, these other, people will replace them and their homes and their schools and their jobs will be gone because these people are multiplying like rabbits and we want to take over the world. And, of course, it's lunacy, but none of this is based on, reality.

[00:28:08] It's all based on fear. So certain people, Donald Trump, others, can maintain power and maintaining power means maintaining wealth. And when you look at the population that controls the bulk of wealth, not only in America but around the world, it is no surprise that it is white Christian males that control the bulk of that wealth.

[00:28:31] And that's why it's not a surprise that white evangelical churches are spending millions and millions of dollars in Africa to get these African states to institute laws instituting the death penalty for their L G B T Q citizens. Uganda has done it. Kenya is contemplating doing it. Ghana, which was moving in the right direction, is now moving in the wrong direction.

[00:28:58] And so goes the sub-Saharan continent.

[00:29:03] Mark M. Bello: As if that's a choice, as if you choose to be gay.

[00:29:11] Lesley Abravenel: They think so. They think so. That's the propaganda. That's what they believe, but open up their closet, go into their closets, their huge walk-in closets. They're all hiding in because if you look at who the groomers are, they're not the drag queens.

[00:29:27] It's not the books that my kids are reading in school about racism. It's, we have a list and a massive list of g o p, pedophiles, groomers and convictions for child porn, sex trafficking, and the majority are of the Republican party at this point. That's a fact.

[00:29:45] Mark M. Bello: Let's, turn the page a little bit. Robert, I saw that you produced an award-winning documentary on learning about the Holocaust and concentration camps. Talk about denial but, be that as it may, I have a three part question about this. First, are you receiving Florida type pushback on Holocaust education in this country?

[00:30:08] Second, could you compare or contrast the current anti-Semitic and anti L G B T Q movements going on today to 1930s or forties, Eastern Europe? And third, how can citizens of goodwill and good faith turn this around? 

[00:30:28] Robert Kesten: Let's start with the third part. The only way you turn it around is by being very loud and calling it out when you see it.

[00:30:39] The power base is using the anti-Semitism and using the anti L G B T Q rhetoric as a way of dividing those two communities. And the black community. And they're doing it successfully. And I'll give you an example. There were scatterings of anti-Semitic materials in those plastic envelopes that were thrown on lawns in Sarasota and 

[00:31:08] Mark M. Bello: out of airplanes. 

[00:31:10] Robert Kesten: No people driving down the streets and throwing them could be on airplanes. And, within days, there was a rally in Sarasota that had members of the government, elected officials, the Jewish community rallying against hate.

[00:31:27] Now granted the rally wasn't that big. It was a few hundred people, but everybody was, oh, look at all these people who turned out.. It was interesting. It was interesting which politicians showed up, oh, we won't allow hate here. Then the next week, exactly a week later, a mile down the road, there was a rally against the don't say gay bill.

[00:31:55] None of those politicians were there. None of the organized Jewish community was there, but it also had a few hundred people making it look like a successful rally. Those groups should have been united at both rallies, and it should have been thousands of people that were out on the streets, not just a few hundred, but the politicians, the power brokers, maintain that separation, that if you cross that line, you jeopardize your own people.

[00:32:28] If you cross that line, you'll lose the political class. If you cross that line, you lose the economic class. And we have to find a way to override that. Are there similarities between the 1930s and the 1920s and the 18 hundreds? And the hate that has gone on before? Of course there are similarities.

[00:32:50] Book banning, calling people, groomers, calling people money hungry, calling people lazy. All of those kinds of things are the same. The words don't change, it's just the distribution systems that change now. It's so easy and so fast in order to do that. But the language is the same. By pushing for the death penalty in Africa, by pushing for the death penalty in parts of Asia, certainly in the Middle East, white Christians are goading their believers in this country to start to think that maybe that's an option. So how far away are we from those kinds of things? We don't know because good people who do nothing allow bad things to happen. And that's exactly what we're starting to see because people are scared and when people are scared, they close their windows and close their doors and leave the streets available to the enemy. It's just like everyone should have an American flag. Why? Because when we allow the enemy, and I use that term loosely to take control of patriotic symbols, then those patriotic symbols are used to fight against you.

[00:34:11] We're the ones with the American flag. We love our country. We're the ones who are waving those flags. Not you. You people don't love America cuz you don't have a flag waving in your yard. If we all had the flag would become an object that no longer carries the weight of those pickup trucks driving down the street, making people intimidated.

[00:34:35] But because we see that as a them and us kind of thing, we don't all have American flags waving and that is a problem. So we can take away those problems by participating in being patriotic. We don't have to believe patriotism is the same. I believe patriotism is welcoming and curiosity and people who love education, they may not.

[00:35:04] But the fact is that I can still be patriotic. And I can still show that. And that's one way to start breaking down that monopoly that has been usurped by people who are on the extreme right. The other thing is to stop calling them Republicans. Republicans, as I recall, used to believe in the constitution.

[00:35:27] These people don't believe in the constitution and they don't believe in the rule of law. They're not, they're right wing extremists, and they should be called what they are. We shouldn't allow them credibility by calling them one of the two political parties. So our use of words, our use of language is so unbelievably important that we have to break the cycles.

[00:35:51] And we only break the cycles with information, knowledge, and action. And those are the three things that will make the biggest difference. And just to give you an example, Here in my office are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 American flags. And I keep one in my car. So that if I'm at a rally or at a protest, I can always bring it out and remind people we are all Americans and you cannot take that away from me no matter how hard you try.

[00:36:23] And I can be all the minorities and all the marginalized people that you hate, but I still believe in this constitution and I have a right to follow the laws of this land and be respected by them. 

[00:36:36] Bob Gatty: Amen. I love that. I've got this neighbor who insists on putting, he has an American flag up all the time in front of his house, but he also has on the other side of his front door a rotating series of anti flags-- don't tread on me, for example. Or a picture of a AR 15 with an X on it and it says, come and get it. It's just incredible to me. 

[00:37:12] Robert Kesten: But just imagine what your neighbor would think if you put an American flag outside your door and next to it an L G B T pride flag.

[00:37:20] You know what that's a good idea. I think so too with the Black Lives Matter flag and changed it with two can play the same game. 

[00:37:29] Bob Gatty: And I love that idea. I think I'll do that. 

[00:37:32] Lesley Abravenel: I put those flags up at my house, all of them, and I got my HOA threatened me with fines.

[00:37:37] You can only have the American flag. No other flag is allowed. Okay. I have it in my window now. Black Lives Matter. Trans Lives Matter. It's in my own house, so they can't say a word, but Florida. Florida, yeah. 

[00:37:52] Bob Gatty: My HOA would probably do the same thing because it's all right wing nut cases here. But anyway, 

[00:37:58] Robert Kesten: anyway.

[00:37:59] But you could always take your HOA to court if you wanted to. If they're allowing his flags, then they have to allow your flags. 

[00:38:07] Mark M. Bello: That would be great. 

[00:38:08] Bob Gatty: Mark, do you practice law in South Carolina? You can be my lawyer. Yeah. 

[00:38:15] Mark M. Bello: Don't practice law. I don't practice law anywhere anymore. 

[00:38:17] Bob Gatty: I know you don't. Hey what, advice do you guys have for kids who are struggling with these issues and, feel bullied or out of place in school, in their, or in their community? 

[00:38:31] Lesley Abravenel: I could start with this one. I have 12 year old twins. I have a boy and a girl, and I teach them everything about everyone. So while they know that I'm rabidly against right wing, domestic terrorist extremists, they know that.

[00:38:48] They also know that we are appreciative and understanding of everyone for the most part, minus those who threaten us. But I tell them they have problems. It's just education. I make my kids read books at home cuz they're in Florida public school. So you never know what they can and can't learn anymore.

[00:39:07] But it's just, I think it's so cliche, but it does start in the home because there are children, my kids are in school with who are doing Heil Hitler. Where do you learn that? They're 12. 

[00:39:20] Bob Gatty: They're doing Heil Hitler? 

[00:39:21] Lesley Abravenel: Yep. Yep. In stickers on their phones. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I'm on the phone with the principal often I say, I don't know what's going on there, but this is, I'm telling you, this is Florida.

[00:39:34] So to arm my children, I arm them with knowledge, information, and hopefully empathy. It's not easy though. It's so hard. It is so hard right now to raise children in this climate. But I'm happy to say that my children know about marginalized communities and they understand they have empathy. It's all we can do is teach them and try.

[00:39:59] Mark M. Bello: Leslie, I'm what you call a snowbird, so I'm not in Florida all the time. Yeah. But, until DeSantis came along Rick Scott was not a, good guy, obviously, but I, didn't notice it. I didn't notice this kind of stuff until Trump came along and, DeSantis came along. In only four years they've, turned Florida into a fascist country, a fascist state rather. How did this, happen so quickly? 

[00:40:30] Lesley Abravenel: So fast, but it, wasn't overnight. Cause 20 plus years of GOP majority in Florida has led to this. We were very happy here. I moved here permanently after I went to college at University of Miami during the glory days of the, of this whole state.

[00:40:49] I settled here in 1994 and lived very happily ignoring, unfortunately, to my dismay at the end. Now. I didn't pay attention to politics in Florida. It was what it was. Only until, and that's also, it's part of my fault that this happened. We allowed this to happen by being complacent. The sun, the fun, the taxes, whatever it was. Great. It was going well for us. So did we care that much that Republicans were in charge? Eh, I didn't. I'm Generation X. We did not care. 2016 happened, Trump happened. We knew Rick Scott wasn't great. We knew Jeb Bush was whatever eh, but nothing compares to what is going on now because I think it was a build up all of our complacency, complicity, and Trump led to where we are today.

[00:41:44] Robert Kesten: I would suggest for anyone who hasn't read it, read Democracy in Chains. That gives you literally the roadmap to not only Florida, but the Right movement in the United States. It's been in the planning stages for decades many, decades. It was thought out, it was planned, and it is now being executed.

[00:42:08] And this book just walks you through the paperwork that exists and how they've moved into universities, how they've moved into classrooms, how they've moved into school boards. All very methodical. And there is nothing like it on the other side of the political spectrum. And they do not, as I said, believe in the constitution.

[00:42:31] They do not believe in the rule of law. They believe in placing their people into authoritative positions so that they will be protected in and out all the way to the glory of taking over the United States and emulating the dictatorships that exist in other parts of the world where democracy is considered a failure.

[00:42:55] Mark M. Bello: There is, there certainly is a playbook. Gerrymandering is part of that as well, right? 

[00:43:00] Robert Kesten: Absolutely. But it's all there. It, it's called Democracy in Chains. Brilliant book. A little frightening because now when I read it, it was before, and so you didn't necessarily see how it would play out.

[00:43:16] But now you're literally reading something that was for there, there was tremendous forethought and now you're watch it play out and there is no easy solution to stopping it. 

[00:43:29] Mark M. Bello: I did a little inter internet research to prepare for this podcast, and I found out that Robert once ran for the state Senate New York, and he did so because the son asked him this question, how can you ask someone to do something that you won't do yourself?

[00:43:45] And that little question all by itself caused you to run for state Senate. Is that correct? Do you wanna tell the story? I Wanna lighten this up a little bit. 

[00:43:58] Robert Kesten: I was looking for a c candidate to challenge our current state senator. And had meetings with people and was going to be very involved in that race.

[00:44:12] And my son who has mental illness and so is always concerned about who is in office and what's going to happen to people who are in need of services, said you fight for my services all the time. How could you ask someone else to do something that you're not willing to do yourself? So I said, okay, so I will run.

[00:44:35] And because I was clearly outside the political leadership and not in support of either party in terms of the way things were run in New York State, it became very clear, very fast that Andrew Cuomo, who was then governor. Was highly opposed to my running for office. And as I lined up one Democratic committee after the next, and one group of supporters after the next, he started literally going out and soliciting candidates to run against me.

[00:45:15] And giving major contributions to the political parties the county, city offices, the democratic clubs that had already endorsed me, asking them to take the endorsements back. And so I complained to the Board of Elections, the State Board of Elections, and they said, you do understand we're all appointed by the governor.

[00:45:44] So in this election we can do nothing. And So they asked me, they offered me the, Cuomo office offered me jobs and to, leave the campaign. And I said, you don't really understand why I'm doing this, do you? 

[00:46:04] Bob Gatty: And they offered you jobs. Did you already have a job? 

[00:46:06] Robert Kesten: Yes. They offered me, employment and they told me how much they would pay me.

[00:46:12] And I said, you seem to miss the point. 

[00:46:16] Mark M. Bello: What was so different between his platform and yours? 

[00:46:20] Robert Kesten: I said that you're not electing leaders, you're electing representatives. And it is very important that you voice your issues because I'm not running to represent myself. I'm running to actually represent the people that would be hiring me.

[00:46:36] And I need to know what you're thinking and how you're thinking it. And we have to do away with a system that doesn't allow anybody else in the room. New York had a very closed system that the majority leader of the New York State Senate, the Speaker of the Assembly, and the governor would get together and decide the budget, and then they would present the budget to the legislature and ask for a vote.

[00:47:03] I said, that's clearly not democratic. If I was elected, I would ask them to break down the walls and let everybody see those negotiations. I did that a lot. I talked about the insider trading that went on. I talked about how much money New York legislators at that point in time could make as much money outside the legislature as they wanted by having another job.

[00:47:34] And in some cases there were constrictions on what they could do, but they could make a fortune. So you had. The speaker of the Assembly, who was a lawyer who could be making millions of dollars. And you had to know that in some way, shape, or form, some of those people were paying those feess because he was one of the most powerful people in the state.

[00:47:58] The same thing. The governor had a huge slush fund that he acquired for campaigning. That money was then divvied up to other candidates and whatnot. All unethical if not even illegal. And so I campaigned against all of those things and asked the people to remember that in our system of government, it is we, the people, not we, the elected officials, not we, the people who are appointed to office, but we, the people have to decide what is important and what priorities we want set.

[00:48:38] And so he came after me with guns blazing. 

[00:48:42] Bob Gatty: What and what happened? What was the outcome?

[00:48:45] Robert Kesten: The outcome was my primary opponent won the primary and then won the general election because he had the full support of the governor. Although my primary opponent, who now serves in the state senate also said that he had no special relationship with Andrew Cuomo, except for when he and I met, he said, I will only run if I have the full support of the governor. But we did that in the privacy of his home and then on the campaign trail. He completely denied that conversation ever took place. 

[00:49:18] Mark M. Bello: Is taping a a two-party conversation in legal in New York? 

[00:49:22] Robert Kesten: No, it is not, without permission.

[00:49:26] Bob Gatty: Hey, Robert, I read you have connections with both Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Tell us about that.

[00:49:36] Robert Kesten: My only connection to Martin Luther King, Jr. Was that when he was assassinated and I realized how segregated the part of New York that I lived in was I organized the elementary school kids in my grade and class.

[00:49:53] And we, my mother took me to a place nearby, a different community, however, that was a black community. And she had me meet with this woman who ran a nonprofit there. Her name was Ruth Ransom, it was called the Open Door Center. And she explained to me how their community lived and the struggles that they had right next door to a community that I lived in that didn't even know that community existed.

[00:50:23] And so I said what can we do to help? And she said that a number of kids really need to get away for the summer. Could you help us raise money to send a dozen, two dozen, three dozen kids to summer camp? That's the best thing that you could do as one child to another. And so we set up a carnival and went out to raise money.

[00:50:48] And so I went store to store and I was thrown outta stores. 

[00:50:54] Mark M. Bello: How old were you? How old were you? 

[00:50:56] Robert Kesten: Eight 10. 

[00:50:58] Bob Gatty: Wow. He was thrown outta stores 

[00:51:00] Robert Kesten: I was called an N-Lover and told to leave and never come back. And we ended up raising, I think around $10,000, which back in 1968 was an awful lot of money.

[00:51:12] And we sent lots of kids to camp and it changed the way I looked at the world. And just before that Bobby Kennedy, and I think it was 1966, was running for the United States Senate from New York and. In those days, women would go to the beauty parlor and they would sit under hair dryers and they would be in there for hours.

[00:51:37] And my mother took me as this little kid when she was going to the hairdresser, and of course I got really bored. And so I was looking out into the parking lot. This was a strip mall and in this parking lot, they were putting up a stage and I looked at the stage and then they put up bunting and then they said, Kennedy for Senate.

[00:51:59] And because I was so little, I could squeeze right through the crowd. And there he was standing on this stage giving his speech and he bent over and he said, Hey, you. And he put his hand out and I shook his hand. And I knew who he was because of the assassination of his brother. Even though I was young, I, the assassination of John Kennedy stays with me always.

[00:52:23] It's not something I could ever forget. So I knew who he was and I remember running back into the salon and saying to my mother, I'm never washing this hand. I'm never washing this hand. And of course he won and became the United States Senator from New York and, did some amazing work in the short time he was there.

[00:52:44] And then two years later threw his hat in the ring to run for president and I was a hundred percent behind him as a little kid which meant nothing. And then was completely devastated when he was assassinated. 

[00:52:57] Bob Gatty: Absolutely. 

[00:52:58] Mark M. Bello: Have you washed your hand 

[00:53:00] Robert Kesten: A few times. Okay. All right. But I saved the skin. So then I, 

[00:53:06] Bob Gatty: Hey, you know what, I also heard that Robert, that you were a performer and that you were in like five films.

[00:53:13] Is that true? 

[00:53:15] Robert Kesten: That is true. I also had a nightclub act in Beverly Hills. 

[00:53:18] Bob Gatty: Holy mackeral.. 

[00:53:19] Robert Kesten: But I was never in one of Leslie's columns. 

[00:53:22] Lesley Abravenel: Yeah. No, but no one sent me any tips on you? 

[00:53:25] Mark M. Bello: We have to fix that today, Leslie. 

[00:53:27] Bob Gatty: Yeah, that's right. 

[00:53:29] Mark M. Bello: I heard that you played a lawyer in one of these films. Did you like being a lawyer?

[00:53:34] Talk to me. 

[00:53:35] Robert Kesten: Did I like being a lawyer? Yeah. It was fun to be an a, a lawyer in a movie versus a lawyer in real life. But yeah, no acting is great fun. I'm still a member of the union. I have to at some point get to Miami and go meet my union representatives. Alright. But. Yeah, that was a, career a long time ago before I started doing all of this, but I figured if Ronald Reagan could keep his union card while he was in the White House, I can certainly keep my union card doing whatever it is that I'm doing.

[00:54:12] Mark M. Bello: Absolutely. I wanna do a little rapid fire q and a about what you've advocated for. Can you tell us what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is, please? 

[00:54:22] Robert Kesten: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as I said, was in response by the world to World War II and the Holocaust, putting human dignity at the number one spot on the agenda as the way to fight hate and, deception.

[00:54:38] It's not something that's respected, but we are doing working on a program now that on December 10th, we will give out an award to someone globally who is the personification of what human rights is all about. And we'll do a three day conference. We're hoping to engage some universities and communities from around the world to come to South Florida, because if we can move the needle here, we can move it anywhere.

[00:55:05] Mark M. Bello: Yeah. Really walking in someone else's shoes to be able to truly understand human rights is a quote I noted that you've used in the past. Can you talk to me about that? 

[00:55:17] Robert Kesten: Yes. My mentor not only was a human rights activist, but also an artist, and she made these, they're two of them.

[00:55:27] These are casts made from Eleanor Roosevelt shoes. So I have a pair of Eleanor Roosevelt shoes. I used to keep them in my car, so they were with me wherever I went. Now that I'm in this office, I have them in the office. But the idea was that wherever I would go, I would take them out.

[00:55:45] And I would say, you only know when you've walked in someone else's shoes. Otherwise, it's just your imagination. And the reality is that until we know what someone else went through and how they got to where they are, it's misinformation. And that is the most dangerous kind of information there is. So we always, before we voice our opinions or our views of who it is that is the other, we should always first walk in their shoes.

[00:56:17] Mark M. Bello: That quote, every single story gets told. We're talking, we're going far beyond L G B T Q, right? 

[00:56:23] Robert Kesten: Yes. But the, reality is that history is everybody's story. And when we separate out the yarns or the threads of the people we don't like, or the people we don't want to hear, it's no longer history. It's just made up.

[00:56:39] So if I take out the black threads, if I take out the women's threads, if I take out the Greeks threads, that's not history. That's a story that I want to tell. But that's not the history of my community, the world or anything else. Everybody's story goes into the tapestry of history. And in order to get accuracy in history, we have to understand that everything is interconnected and interrelated.

[00:57:08] Mark M. Bello: What I've always said is, tell the truth, not the sugar coated version of the truth, but the truth. But anyway the other interesting thing you've said in the past And, this goes for white Christians as much as anybody else, is that L G B T Q is the only community that represents a piece of every other community?

[00:57:32] Robert Kesten: It is. It is the only community that has representation everywhere, and there's no way you can deny it. People try. But there are Russian gays, there are Iranian gays, there are blacks and Jews and Christians. There are people from Norway. There are school teachers and policemen, there are politicians, there are mothers and fathers.

[00:57:56] There are grandparents. Every single group on the planet has someone that fits into the L G B T Q community. And my guess is that by the end of this century, we will have all 26 letters of the alphabet and everyone will be in there some way or another. I love it. 

[00:58:16] Bob Gatty: Leslie we were talking a little while ago about Ron DeSantis you call him Governor White Power on your Twitter feed, which caused me to immediately sign up for your Twitter feed.

[00:58:32] Mark M. Bello: Me too. Me too. 

[00:58:36] Lesley Abravenel: Give credit though. Joy Reid from MSNBC used it first, so it's not mine. I have many names, but that was Joyce, but I 

[00:58:42] Bob Gatty: know. Ok. Alright. Alright. How do you really feel about the guy? That's what I want to know. 

[00:58:49] Lesley Abravenel: I seriously never thought I would loathe someone more than Trump. I did not think it was possible.

[00:58:55] Yeah, I didn't, and I didn't wanna hate anyone. Listen, no, I don't hate I I, I just don't understand. I just don't, I don't get it. I, this is rock bottoms basement right now. That's ron DeSantis. 

[00:59:09] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Okay. 

[00:59:11] Mark M. Bello: You're a self-proclaimed wordsmith, which I believe is a dying art in America, especially with all this book banning.

[00:59:17] But my, to Bob's question, my three favorite quotes on your Twitter page are DeSantis taking credit for people moving to Florida as if it's because of his policies rather than the weather or the, or tourist easing the tax burden. Two, that Florida's a law and order state when it advocates for open carry.

[00:59:39] And three, and the number one quote on David Letterman's top 10 list that Florida is number one in education. Oh, unless you want to quote, unless quote, you wanna say, you want to say gay, talk about slavery, the Holocaust, or any other dark period in history. What did you do with yourself before DeSantis became governor?

[01:00:02] Lesley Abravenel: I wrote about the Kardashians. 

[01:00:04] Robert Kesten: I wrote another dark part of American history. 

[01:00:07] Bob Gatty: Yeah, that's what I say. I, 

[01:00:09] Lesley Abravenel: life was fun. When life was fun. We wrote about nonsense that I followed people around, like Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. It was vapid.. It was fun. Oh my God, it's terrible. Everything negative is Florida. Florida, And he thinks it's the best thing ever. And this is why everyone's moving here. Florida is an oxymoron, emphasis on moron. 

[01:00:31] Bob Gatty: How did you transition from being a gossip columnist to politics? They're writing about politics and, all this stuff? 

[01:00:40] Lesley Abravenel: You know what? I, never realized that 

[01:00:42] Mark M. Bello: You got, she got pissed. She got pissed off. I'm guessing.

[01:00:44] Lesley Abravenel: I did. I always had a big mouth for my mother would say, you have a big mouth for the wrong thing. So once. This all happened in 2016. I woke up, I had an epiphany. I said, hold on a minute. I don't care about the Kardashians, I don't care about Jennifer Lopez. What the hell is going on?

[01:01:04] How did this happen? I covered Trump as a celebrity. I had been to mar-a-Lago at parties, but never crossing my mind was politics and that he would ever be president. I just, the evolution has been an interesting one, I must say. I pivoted. I pivoted. I couldn't keep my mouth shut on this. 

[01:01:22] Mark M. Bello: Last question for either one of you or both of you. You guys, I'm sure have been following the legal challenges to the don't case, don't say Gay law in Florida. I understand there's a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law. Do you know where it stands and what's going on with overturning some of these draconian new laws in Florida that restrict our First Amendment rights?

[01:01:50] Robert Kesten: The reality is that the federal law, I think the federal suit, I think is more focused on the don't say don't be woke, bill. More than the don't say gay bill. Part of the don't say gay bill. At least some of them have already been thrown out of court. So people are refiling and looking at different ways that they can go about that.

[01:02:11] The woke stuff has been thrown out in one federal court. It's appealing into another court. There are many, cases many, issues like in everything in America. You can keep things tied up in court forever. And the worst is yet to come if DeSantis really does decide to run for president. Right now, he is not doing his so well in the polls.

[01:02:35] He's falling rather than rising. I think some of what he's done is backfiring, but it still remains to be seen. As you pointed out, mark, the redistricting is what has made Florida this way. It's not representative of the people of all of Florida. I think that we see that now with the effort to take money away from Visit Florida, which is the visitors bureau and put it into rural communities where their votes are certain and where those communities have less population, but giving them more power and more prestige is one way to secure votes.

[01:03:19] And so there's so many things that are going on that something has to give. And it may be that he peaked too soon and so we'll see. But it also depends on how much information can be put out there, how many good people will stand up and stop being afraid. Teachers are gonna have to stand up, administrators are gonna have to stand up.

[01:03:44] Librarians are gonna have to stand up and the families that support them will have to stand up. 

[01:03:52] Lesley Abravenel: I'll tell you something. I was part of another lawsuit against Ron DeSantis. I joined a group of parents when he decided to throw out the mask mandates from schools. We won our lawsuit. We won the lawsuit against Ron DeSantis.

[01:04:06] The judge ruled in our favor. What happened, Ron DeSantis' lackey is that he has in Tallahassee found a way to appeal our win. So Ron got his way. So I don't trust him with the law. I trust nothing about him here. I hope Federal can do something else and 

[01:04:23] Robert Kesten: fix this. 

[01:04:25] Mark M. Bello: Thanks for being here, both of you. I, we appreciate it. Thank you.