James Faulk: This is "Headline Humboldt."

I'm James Faulk.

Thanks for joining us.

As we all say our final farewells to the year that was and look forward to 2022, we wanted to look back at some of the conversations we've had on the show this year and savor what's good.

We cover the gamut here on "Headline Humboldt" from basic city politics and recent arrests to the just-ended war in Afghanistan and whether humanity is alone in the universe.

Rather than focusing on a few tired subjects, our motivation here is simple curiosity and a desire to connect with other people while discussing issues that matter to all of us.

Take one more look at our best interviews from 2021 and know that we're always working to make 2022 even better for our viewers.

Frankie Myers: Right now we're seeing a catastrophic juvenile fish kill on the Yurok reservation.

We have staggering numbers of mortality for our juveniles that we're seeing in our rotary screw traps.

It's absolutely the worst-case scenario for our people to see our juveniles dying in such a way with no relief to come.

We know that we've already passed the point for fresh inflows.

We already have been told there's not adequate water supplies for dilution of flows.

James: We have a little bit of video tape of I think someone from the tribe going out and testing fish for the presence of, is it a bacteria or what is it exactly that they're catching?

Frankie: It is a virus and you'll see here in the film the Yurok tribe works with US Fish & Wildlife Service to help monitor fish conditions.

They go out every day and monitor what their catch is, collect samples from the fish, deliver it to our fish -- plant as well as report findings back to agency and travel-- when they're out, they take a multitude of samples.

Over the past two decades the Yurok tribe has spent millions of dollars developing a very robust scientific infrastructure, fisheries program, one of the largest fisheries programs in California, only to the state of California.

Our tribe members are dedicated scientific technicians who take great pride and care in doing their monitoring, as we see here, looking at river conditions every single day to try to provide the best available science to leaders to make good decisions.

Unfortunately, what we're seeing this year is what you're seeing on the screen: fish mortality, juvenile fish mortality.

Every season we see a low flow like this year, we start to see this happen.

You have, you know, additional debris coming down, along with low temperatures and high score counts of sea shasta really creates a habitat that's inhospitable for salmon, for juvenile baby chinook like you can see there.

This was from one of the days where the mortality rate was actually getting lower.

We had seen much higher catches from there.

And I think one thing that you need to be clear is how you see this video, the screw trap really only samples a small percentage of the river itself and so when you think about what a small percentage of the river we sample and the high amount of mortalities we're receiving, it's pretty catastrophic to families, as we're seeing here who depend on the river, who care for the river, who go to the river for their spiritual wellbeing and overall health.

To see these mortalities, it's devastating to us for two reasons.

One: we see--the amount of mortality rate we're seeing in such high numbers.

We also know that this doesn't end this year.

These fish were destined to return.

These fish were supposed to come back and feed our families.

We know that's not gonna happen.

We're seeing two connected catastrophes play out, one this year with our juvenile fish kill and in three years when those fish are supposed to return and they don't, we're gonna suffer a second time then as well.

James: One of the things that we've been talking about is that the state of California has just passed a little bit of a shot in the arm for the industry: $100 million towards the industry in attempts to mitigate what they say are falling prices and a flooded market, but they point to black marketeers.

But you have a little bit of a different perspective on that, right?

Can you tell us what you think the pressure's coming from?

Johnny Casali: Yeah, and personally, and I could be wrong, but you know, I feel like the majority of the problem is being actually created by the state regulators.

You know, by continuing to permit square footage for farmers in the state of California without it being federal legally, like, legalized, there's just nowhere for our product to be sold.

So, for example, this year we're expected to be able to have the ability to get rid of it, probably 5 million pounds in the state of California, through the legal channels, through retail shops, but really, what their expectations is, is that there are supposed to be 70 to 80 million pounds being produced.

So I'm just having a really hard time, and maybe because I'm naïve, understanding why they continue to permit farms moving forward without, you know, other avenues of distribution.

So when they're saying, you know, they're giving $100 million to fight, you know, illegal cannabis, illegal sales, illegal grows, you know, they're actually creating a problem themselves by continuing to permit farms at this current time.

And that's just my opinion.

James: Now what's interesting about that to me is that, so basically, pot is legal in California but it's grown in California so you have your own local market, right?

With the lack of distribution, you're talking about being able to send it to other states, other parts of the country where it's not currently legal.

Can you send it to places where it is currently legal, like Colorado or Oregon, or are you just limited to California?

Johnny: Right now, any product that's grown in California is limited to distribution in California.

You know, hopefully and I'm sure there's people fighting that fight that maybe we'll be able to grow across state lines to different states that are legal, but currently, right now, that's not a possibility for us and so we've really, you know, it's all about supply and demand and there's just so much supply now that the retail shops and, you know, with the retail shops being limited as far as permitting, there's--I'm not exactly sure how many retail shops, but we need a lot more retail shops to get permits in order for them to catch up with the amount of product that we're being--that's being produced in California right now.

David Cobb: Well, no, capitalism isn't dead but let me tell you, if we don't transfer out of it, it is going to kill us.

And I mean that sincerely, James, because capitalism is an economic system, right?

Like, some people say that capitalism is too hard to understand, but actually I can explain it in five--as five easy-to-understand characteristics.

Number one: the private ownership of the means of production.

Number two, that goods and services are produced as commodities, rather than for immediate use or need.

Number three, that those goods and services are always sold at a profit, in economic terms called profit maximization.

Number four, that labor itself is just one more commodity that's also bought and paid for at a profit.

And then number five: all of that is organized through market allocation.

Those five characteristics, James, will be what you'll read at Humboldt State University or College of the Redwoods or even if you've got a good civics class in high school, that's literally the characteristics as defined and agreed to by anyone.

James: So what's--I'm sorry.

David: Put all those together, it leads to unlimited growth on a finite planet.

Capitalism properly understood is commodifying Mother Earth faster than she can replenish herself.

It's literally the ideology of the cancer cell.

James: Okay, now, the conference that's coming up and other projects that you've been involved in, they are under the rubric of the solidarity economy.

Can you explain what that is for us, precisely?

David: I sure can and, again, just as capitalism has a definition, a solidarity economy has a definition.

And the characteristics or principles of the solidarity economy are, number one, that you have a democratic participation.

That is, any decision, including economics, that affect your life, you ought to be able to participate in.

Number two: a commitment to cooperation rather than competition.

Number three: equity across all dimensions: race, gender, sexual orientation.

Number four: a commitment to sustainability and regenerative nature, respecting the limits of Mother Earth, and number five, and this is important: pluralism.

That is to say, the recognition that there are many different approaches.

A solidarity economy is one that is not rigid and dogmatic.

It recognizes that we ought to be experimenting with a lot of different things and folks who come to the conference will get a chance to see a lot of the different experiments that are happening right here, right now, all across the world.

James: Now when we--before we hit air, we were talking about how the COVID-19, the pandemic, and a lot of what we've been through over the past four years, has changed, you know, the scope of what's possible.

I think you called it "Overton's window" and that it's over our heads right now.

Can you talk a little bit about the moment you think we're in and how pivotal that is.

David: Well, James, I do think that we're in a crucial moment in history, right?

Like, you know, there is a saying amongst historians that if you wanna understand today, study yesterday.

If you wanna know what's gonna happen tomorrow, study today.

And that's true 99% of the time.

But in certain moments, what historians call conjunctures, there is a massive shift and a change.

I believe that even before the COVID pandemic we were already emerging into a new historic moment, that there was gonna be some massive changes because the current system simply can't maintain itself.

Aaron Maté: Should we have gone to Iraq to fight ISIS?

James: No, no, Syria.

I'm sorry.

Aaron: Oh, sure, Syria.

No, what we should have done in Syria is stopped funding the dirty war which was diverting the Syrian Government's resources and made them very vulnerable to ISIS.

There's an incredible leaked phone call from John Kerry--sorry, a phone--a conversation with John Kerry where he met with some Syrian opposition activists and he said to them that the US was watching as Daesh, ISIS, was encroaching on Damascus, and there was a very real possibility that Daesh was gonna overthrow Assad and take over Damascus.

And Kerry said that the US thought that they could manage this because they thought that if--with ISIS growing stronger--these are his words--that Assad would negotiate, Assad would negotiate his exit from government.

So, basically, the US was leveraging the surge of ISIS and willing to risk ISIS taking over Damascus to enact their regime change policy in Syria.

That's how cynical it was.

So, we don't need to go to Syria to fight ISIS.

We could have just left Syria alone to let--to fight it itself and stop funding other sectarian militias that were--that Syria had to fight and actually, Syria lost to.

The reason Syria lost to Idlib in northern Syria which Al-Qaeda controls right now is because of American anti-tank missiles.

That was the decisive factor.

There's an article in Foreign Policy that says that the rebels are gaining ground because of two things: suicide bombings and American anti-tank missiles.

So that was how cynical our policy was.

We were willing to let ISIS grow in Syria and let Al-Qaeda grow in Syria if it put Assad in a bad position.

And the result for the people of Syria has been disastrous because, look, anyone who claims that they--anyone who cheers the rebels, so-called rebels in Syria, should ask themselves, or should answer, "Would you wanna live under Al-Qaeda or Jaysh al-Islam or ISIS?"

I mean, it's not even a question.

Not a single person would ever wanna live under these people, so how can we speak to 'em--how can we say that we should impose them on Syrians?

James: Yeah, I mean, we're running short on time and, of course, I have--because this is a fascinating conversation, but it seems like your specialty is going into sort of these geopolitical situations and pulling the thread of what, you know, the narrative is versus what the realities on the ground are.

And it seems like there's a lot of material that the American public seems to miss.

If you could advise people on their media diets and how they should try to inform themselves and do it better, where would you have people turn?

Aaron: Well, it's very hard and it depends what your interest is and I, you know--my general advice is just, you know, think critically.

Don't trust anyone's word.

Verify things for yourself.

Understand that every state system has a propaganda system in which the media will often act in service of the dominant state power, whether you're in Syria or whether you're in the US.

So think independently.

Check your sources.

Don't accept evidence-free claims.

Look for actual evidence and, you know, the biggest lesson I could think of for that was Russiagate when we constantly heard all these outlandish claims about Trump being a Russian puppet and Russia brainwashing Americans with their sophisticated bots and social media memes, but when you look at the actual evidence, you saw I think what a scam this was.

So in terms of an outlet, I mean, I--my outlet is called the Gray Zone.

We're very attentive to foreign policy.

But--and I'm a big believer in alternative media.

Sara Kazimi: What I like to request from my Afghans, I don't know if any of 'em are watching your network, is in this situation what we can do is calm down because if we all go to the airport and we all want to flee the country, which I understand there is a lot of uncertainty at the time.

As a woman, you cannot go to work, you cannot--because that's what they said, that men should come to work, but woman, we do not want them, to stay home.

So I understand it's a lot of uncertainty time but they have to be patient and understand that right now we are as a country, we were put in this situation without our consent and the reason I say that is because we have lack of education, that we did not understand what the agreements between US and the Taliban were.

And that they have enough woman when they were doing the peace talk, did the woman fight for the woman right.

When I read their agreement which is available to everybody online, if you look at the agreement which easily you can google, a lot of the rights are not written about a woman being able to work.

Myself, I'm a businesswoman, I'm a philanthropist.

If I wanna be in ground, do I have that right?

Will they allow me and give me the freedom for me to educate the next kids, build a school, build a road?

Anything that helps the community.

'Cause right now, as you mentioned earlier, the economy's collapsing.

All our neighbors are closed doors.

The trade sector is not moving.

We have sanction on the banking sector.

So people even who--yes, go ahead.

James: A lot of the talent and expertise might be trying to flee the country right now, and so, long-term, I think we mentioned this in a previous conversation over the phone, that if, you know, the talent center or the talent core or the educated elite, you know, largely evacuate, what's that leave for the Afghan nation long-term to redevelop, you know?

Sara: Exactly.

Because of the fear, so let's say myself, I'm here in US right now and my team are not able to work because the majority are woman.

What option would give me?

My only option will become as to flee my people, right?

So the sooner they can come because right now, no one knows what's going to happen and if everyone flees the country who will build this nation?

James: Let's start with the field of ufology, as they call it, as a whole.

I mean, for a long time it was considered to be the realm of crackpots and conspiracy theorists.

In recent years, however, with the Senate Committee Task Force demanding reports from across the government on the UAP phenomenon, those perceptions have changed.

Why do you think that is?

Jeremy Corbell: Oh, I think it's really clear why the kind of public perception has changed on the UFO topic because there is an increased frequency, people have better cameras, our military has better sensor systems.

The destigmatization of the UFO, what's, you know, commonly referred to now as the UAP topic, is simply because of the overwhelming evidence that we don't know everything and that there are things in the sky that fly with impunity in our restricted airspace and it's not just military but it's also civilians.

There's an uptick in sightings.

How can you deny something that has been with humanity since the beginning of recorded human history?

That's a hubris beyond comprehension.

So the short version, James, why I think we're seeing people take this seriously, is 'cause it's a serious issue and it's right in front of people's eyes.

James: Yeah, I mean, it seems like there--this incident in particular that you have the photo of, I mean, that's a very recent event happened, I think, in 2019, if I'm not mistaken.

And it shows Navy vessels and there were several that were buzzed by UAPs or what some folks are calling drones.

Can you describe the situation as we take a look at that video?

Jeremy: Yeah, sure.

Let's really distinguish this idea that these are "drones."

Like, I've talked to the people that did the classification for this, like, on the ships.

Why would you call these "drones"?

So let's back up one second.

My--yeah, so my mentor in journalism, George Knapp, he released three new UAP, unidentified aerial phenomenon, photos that were shot out of an FA-18 fighter pilot cockpit from the WSO, or the "wizzo", the Weapon Systems Operator.

So George Knapp released these three images.

Two days later, bombshell, I dropped six images contained in two slides that were part of a classified briefing, yet these slides were unclassified.

So that's six more images.

Then I released the video, the green video that everybody's seeing all over the media now, which is night vision, filmed from the USS Russell where the USS Russell was swarmed by what was identified as drones in the paperwork but we should talk about that.

Why was it identified as drones?

What does that mean?

How did they create that designation?

But understand, as well, we'd just unloaded this huge data dump on the public about UFOs and it was immediately confirmed by the Pentagon to be shot by Navy and part of the investigation of the UAP, unidentified aerial phenomenon, task force.

This isn't like your brother who shoots something through night vision in the backyard and says, "Hey, man, I got something cool."

This was official military footage used in a classified briefing, although this was unclassified what I released.

So the quality of evidence that I'm releasing is something that I'm hoping everybody, 'cause I gave the dates and everything now.

I'm hoping that people go and they try to find out the truth.

I don't know the truth.

It's unidentified.

That's what our Navy, our Office of Navy Intelligence, is saying, our Pentagon, our CIA, our FBI.

So if there's an Internet warrior that things they got it figured out from a little bit of 19 seconds I released, oh, sorry, buddy, here we go.

Let's get into what these things might actually be.

Jared Huffman: Well, there's no other way to describe it.

This was a violent insurrection that stormed the Capitol at the encouragement of the president of the United States, among others.

It had been building up for several days.

It took some violent turns that I think many of us were hoping could be avoided, but they did crash through barriers and breached the Capitol, really defiled the Capitol over a period of several hours and it was quite a surreal experience.

James: To some extent, I mean, watching it from afar, obviously, on TV, it was horrifying to watch.

I imagine being there was infinitely worse.

But in some sense, it was almost like this was the moment I knew was coming.

That there had been all this time spent riling up people and lying to them about the outcome of the election and stuff, and that, for once I was, like, "Well, maybe now people will take it seriously."

Jared: Well, I would agree, yeah.

It was simultaneously shocking and surreal and yet, at the same time, everything that we've seen coming for so long.

James: I heard your interview on JPR and there was--you were talking about hoping that Donald Trump would be convicted or basically charged with sedition.

How--I mean, given the realities that we live in politically, how realistic is that and how would you see that moving forward if it were to happen?

Jared: Well, you know, it's not as simple as a member of Congress, you know, charging a president with a crime.

It doesn't work that way and, you know, often my followers on social media and other--elsewhere will just say, "Do something," you know, "charge him with a crime."

And it's not that simple.

A federal crime requires a federal law enforcement official to investigate and charge the crime.

And as we know, this Justice Department believes you can't do that to a sitting president.

So I think what needs to happen is when President Trump leaves office in two weeks, the new Justice Department, probably led by Merrick Garland, needs to take a good independent look at the crimes that have been committed by this man.

They need to do it without fear or favor.

We're not a country that simply retaliates against political opponents, and so, you know, there must be a measure of apolitical motivation, professionalism for this, but nobody gets a pass and, if anything, what we were seeing in the last 24 hours is that Donald Trump has just blown through any lines of deference that would ordinarily be owed a former president of the United States.

all: I am strong.

I am indigenous.

female: It is the official opening of the Baduwa't Festival, which was formerly the Mad River Festival, but we've been working with the Wiyot tribe.

Elizabeth Colón Nelson: The passion for creating space for more Wiyot words is so important to the tribe.

And we realized, wait, our festival, our annual festival, is using not the original name of the river, but the colonized--the one we all know.

And so we asked the tribe, we said, "Hey, if we changed the name of the festival, would that align with you all, with your mission to see more Wiyot words in your territory?"

And they were just emphatically, "Yes, let's do it."

So, coming out of COVID, we just knew we had to do things differently.

And so, this is that opportunity.

So, it's the Baduwa't Festival.

We usually start the festival with a big kick-off, with a big show.

But we're doing it--we're just coming together as a community, right, this year?

So instead of hearing from us, we'll be hearing from indigenous voices, local leaders and creative artists.

Ted Hernandez will be joining us, Virgil Moorehead of Two Feathers, Willard Carlson of Ah-Pah, and then, of course, the Two Feathers youth will be sharing poems and song that they created and drumming.

James: Humboldt County has sort of developed a reputation over the years, recently, I mean, well, there's a reputation 150 years ago as well, and it was a very bleak and deadly reputation.

But recently, there's been some moves made, I think, on--in Humboldt County that have sort of--the world's heard about, like, you know, the island returning to the tribe and now, you know, the last portion of it was donated by--or not donated, but given back, by the City of Eureka.

What do you think that says about our community and potentially the healing that may be ongoing?

Do you feel like that's happening?

Elizabeth: I'm not part of the Wiyot tribe so it's difficult for me to speak on that, but as a member of the community, for me, that's hope, right?

That's--that is, as an artist, like, that's my desire is that we're part of adaptive change, that we recognize when harm happens and we, as--that we get to be part of growth and expansion and healing.

This, not only as a community member, but as an artist, as an arts organization, like, that feels like yes, to me.

And I mean, it's interesting that you shared Tuluwat Island.

One of the youth here in our--in the workshop that we've been working on, just talking about who we are, just finding power in our story, that's been--this whole process is our voice, our story, our power.

And one of the young women shared that she is a direct descendant from one of the survivors of the massacre at Tuluwat Island.

Yeah, and so it's this beautiful--she's gonna be able to meet Michelle Hernandez who'll be here tonight, also showing her film, "Duke," being part of a community, being an artist, and sharing what we know, sharing what we're learning, and learning and making new connections and, I don't know, I just--that feels like if we're gonna regather together after COVID, like, let's really do it in a way that embraces our humanity.

James: Talk a little bit about the importance, to your mind, of you know, sort of giving a platform for voices to be heard that oftentimes haven't been heard or-- Elizabeth: I'm lucky to be alive at this time where voices, black, indigenous, people of color, people in the global majority, those voices, those stories, that we're making space for a larger diversity of what our experiences are in this world.

James: That's all our time for this evening.

I guess we'll see you next year, so stay tuned.

Stay informed.

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