DENNIS LAMBERT, Green Party for President 2020

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DENNIS LAMBERT,  GREEN Party Candidate for POTUS (President of the United States)joins Jason remotely from Ohio, near West Virginia & Kentucky. Dennis shares his policy positions and explains what issues he is focusing his campaign on in this unusual electoral campaign without personal appearances because of the COVID19 pandemic.

Summary & Transcript

1. 1. 1. Interview with Dennis Lambert, 2020 Green Party Presidential Candidate

•        [00:00 → 01:23] Introduction and Context Setting
  Jason Schwartz introduces the show from Maui, noting the unique circumstances of the 2020 election season amid a global pandemic. He explains the show’s focus on values and introduces Dennis Lambert, a Green Party presidential candidate whom he met at a virtual Green Party convention in Hawaii. Dennis is introduced as a genuine candidate with a grassroots approach, setting the stage for an in-depth conversation about his political beliefs and platform.

• [01:23 → 05:31] Dennis Lambert’s Political Background and Party Affiliation
  Dennis shares his personal political journey, beginning as a registered Republican and military veteran, then shifting away due to disillusionment with Republican policies, especially under Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America. He explains how he felt the Republican Party’s focus on balanced budgets often came at the expense of social programs that support veterans and impoverished communities. After unsuccessfully reaching out to Democrats and Republicans post-college, Dennis found the Green Party to be responsive and aligned with his values. He emphasizes that although the Green Party is often perceived as very liberal, its principles—like decentralization of power and economic security—can resonate with a broader spectrum, including some Republican ideals like states’ rights. Dennis describes the Green Party’s “ten key values” including social justice, ecological sustainability, economic justice, and grassroots democracy, highlighting how these intersect with his own beliefs.

• [05:31 → 09:44] Core Platform: Renewable Infrastructure and Economic Justice
  Dennis details his signature initiative, the Renewable Infrastructure Investment Program, which he compares to a Green New Deal but with a focus on genuine community empowerment rather than reshuffling existing systems that benefit the wealthy. He stresses the need to invest in renewable energy, local agriculture, and transportation to create sustainable communities and jobs. Drawing on his upbringing in a poor family with a single mother who struggled to support her children despite education, Dennis highlights systemic inequalities in wages and social security benefits. He criticizes how social programs are often cut rather than funded through fair taxation of the wealthy and corporations. Dennis advocates redirecting funds from endless wars and corporate subsidies toward community-driven sustainable development.

• [09:44 → 14:37] Living in Rural Appalachia and Minimum Wage Advocacy
  Dennis talks about the challenges of living in rural Appalachia, including lack of internet access and infrastructure, which symbolically represents the disconnect many communities feel from political and
  economic power centers. He shares how he often has to drive miles for connectivity and basic services, underscoring the digital divide. On economic issues, he strongly supports a $25 minimum wage, arguing it is a reasonable figure that reflects inflation and the true cost of living. He notes that his proposals often receive little pushback from Trump supporters, indicating common ground beyond party lines. Dennis criticizes low wages and stagnating pay, explaining how labor unions have lost power and failed to secure wage increases for apprentices and workers alike. He connects this to broader economic policies and trade deals like NAFTA, which he contends have harmed American workers by encouraging corporations to outsource jobs to countries with much lower wages and poor labor conditions.

• [14:37 → 19:35] Political Philosophy and Fighting Corporate Influence
  Dennis reflects on the corruption and corporate influence that dominates U.S. politics, which he sees as a major barrier to meaningful change. He shares his personal ethics rooted in Boy Scouts and military service, focusing on the “greater good for the most people.” He wants to wrest political power away from corporations and return it to communities and citizens. Dennis encourages more people to run for office regardless of party affiliation to break the duopoly of Democrats and Republicans, both heavily influenced by corporate money. He recounts experiences running for state and congressional offices where his ideas influenced major party candidates, reinforcing his belief in grassroots impact. His candidacy aims to broaden the political conversation and push for systemic shifts toward equality and community empowerment.

• [19:35 → 26:41] Differences from Donald Trump and Vision for Government
  Dennis contrasts himself sharply with Donald Trump, emphasizing his working-class roots, intellectual and physical labor, and moral values. He would reject appointees who have corporate ties or racist, white supremacist beliefs, preferring experts with community-based experience in their fields (e.g., Bryan Stevenson for Department of Justice). Dennis stresses the importance of appointing leaders who understand and fight for the people, not corporations. He criticizes Trump’s combative and divisive style, lack of modesty, and disregard for empathy or compassion. Dennis values constructive criticism and multiple perspectives, including occasionally listening to conservative media to understand opposing views. He sees partisan rancor as a major problem that must be overcome through respect and dialogue.

• [26:41 → 33:57] Handling the COVID-19 Pandemic and Healthcare
  On the pandemic, Dennis advocates for universal healthcare and much broader availability of COVID-19 testing, criticizing the limited access in his tri-state rural area. He calls for loosening HIPAA restrictions to improve coordination among healthcare providers, enabling better patient treatment. Dennis also highlights the importance of addressing comorbidities and social determinants of health. Despite political frustrations, he expresses optimism that the American people will rise to meet challenges and develop empathy and cooperation during crises.

• [33:57 → 40:51] Political Division, One-Party Rule, and Economic Policy
  Dennis laments the extreme political division and the lack of unity in the U.S., questioning how the country can be brought back together. He notes that while Bernie Sanders briefly united some on left and right, the political system has pushed most candidates into narrow positions. He warns against one-party or totalitarian rule, advocating for a pluralistic democracy that respects diverse voices. Dennis proposes enforcing the Sherman Antitrust Act to break up monopolies and increase competition, especially in media and other key industries. He supports shifting from free trade to fair trade, ensuring that workers worldwide are paid fairly. He calls for ending endless wars, reducing the U.S. military footprint, and promoting peace and cooperation globally. He strongly supports removing white supremacists from office and promoting equality. Dennis also stresses the environmental damage caused by industrial agriculture, advocating for localized, sustainable farming and better education that includes practical skills and critical thinking.

• [40:51 → 47:56] Education, Future Planning, and Technology
  Dennis critiques the current education system for focusing on standardized testing rather than equipping students with practical skills and critical thinking necessary for solving future challenges. He advocates for hands-on learning, such as agricultural studies and construction skills, integrated with formal education. Dennis envisions greater use of electronic communication and online education platforms to democratize knowledge and offer participatory learning opportunities. He stresses the importance of planning for the future, something he feels the government has largely neglected since the space program era. He expresses hope that technology can help level the playing field economically and socially.

• [47:56 → 51:00] Closing Remarks: Call to Action and Hope for the Future
  Dennis concludes by urging people to vote and get involved in politics at all levels, emphasizing that democracy only works if citizens participate. He encourages those dissatisfied with current choices to become candidates themselves to shift power back to the people. He stresses that the Constitution begins with “We the People,” not corporations, and advocates for a fairer, more equitable society where everyone has opportunity. Dennis hopes for a future where cooperation and compassion replace division and conflict, imagining a peaceful America that defends itself but also collaborates globally. Jason echoes these sentiments, highlighting the importance of gentle politics, community engagement, and voting as foundational to positive change. Dennis’s website and social media handle are provided for viewers interested in learning more or supporting his campaign.

1. 1. 1. Key Insights and Takeaways

• Dennis Lambert brings a unique perspective as a former Republican, military veteran, and lifelong advocate for economic justice and environmental sustainability.
• His platform centers on decentralizing power, investing in renewable infrastructure, increasing minimum wage, and reducing corporate influence in government.
• He emphasizes community empowerment, local agriculture, fair trade, and ending endless wars.
• Dennis is critical of the current political duopoly, advocating for more grassroots candidates to reshape American politics.
• He strongly supports universal healthcare, improved pandemic response, and educational reform focused on practical skills and critical thinking.
• His approach is characterized by humility, openness to criticism, and a commitment to respect and unity across political divides.

1. 1. 1. Keywords

Green Party, Dennis Lambert, 2020 election, renewable infrastructure, economic justice, minimum wage, corporate influence, grassroots politics, universal healthcare, COVID-19 testing, antitrust enforcement, fair trade, educational reform, Appalachia, political division, community empowerment, decentralization, environmental sustainability.

1. 1. 1. FAQ

Q: Why did Dennis Lambert switch from Republican to Green Party?
A: He became disillusioned with Republican policies that cut social programs and negatively impacted veterans and poor communities, and found the Green Party aligned better with his values of social and economic justice.

Q: What are Dennis Lambert’s main campaign focuses?
A: Renewable infrastructure investment, economic justice including a $25 minimum wage, breaking up corporate monopolies, ending wars, universal healthcare, educational reform, and decentralization of power.

Q: How does Dennis Lambert differ from Donald Trump?
A: Dennis emphasizes humility, community experience, rejection of corporate and racist influences in government, and a collaborative leadership style, contrasting with Trump’s divisiveness and corporate ties.

Q: What is Dennis Lambert’s view on political participation?
A: He encourages everyone to vote and run for office, regardless of party, to break corporate control and revitalize democracy.

Q: How does Dennis Lambert address the pandemic?
A: He calls for universal healthcare, expanded testing availability, relaxed HIPAA restrictions for better care coordination, and more public health focus on comorbidities.

This structured summary covers the entire interview, capturing Dennis Lambert’s background, platform, political philosophy, and vision for America with timestamps for easy reference.

Transcript

00:00

[Music] hello everyone this is Jason Schwartz from the neutral zone Maui neutral zone comm we’re a show here on Maui and we talked to people about values and it’s election season here in 2020 and if I was outside you’d see me wearing a mask because we’re also in the middle of a a global pandemic those are words I never thought I’d be saying again you know we talk about something that you happen but we’re right in the middle of it but we also in the middle of election season and on occasion I

00:48

have an opportunity to speak to candidates who are running for elected office and I went to a Green Party convention here in Hawaii virtual online and there there were a few candidates that were running for president of the United States and one of them when I was listening stuck out to me and I thought to start by giving him an opportunity to be sitting here with me and you and and you’ll see him on the screen his name is Dennis Lambert Aloha Dennis welcome to our show hello Jason thank you for inviting me my

01:23

pleasure now when I say Green Party I imagine most people the United States know the name Green Party Green Party has been around in 1992 actually here in Hawaii we started the Green Party have you’ve been in the Green Party a long time as well I’ve been in a green party here in Ohio since 2010 my political experience is slightly different from a lot of the Green Party people I come from being a Republican a lot of my family is strong Democrats and of course being a young person you want to rebell against your

01:59

family so two things that I did that disappointed my father was joining the military and becoming a registered Republican but within about four or five years of registering and voting Republican that I really woke up with Newt Gingrich contract with America they did a lot of different things that actually hurt veterans like myself and a lot of other veterans as well as really impacting the impoverished communities with that deal with them where the course of a balanced budget and they usually did it by taking away

02:33

from social programs like Social Security or the food assistance program so at that point I decided I could no longer be a Republican that was around 95 96 and I floated around being independent until 2010 when I was graduating from college with my bachelor’s I reached out to the Democrats and Republicans and said hey I’m a graduate college and I want to do something to make a positive impact in my community neither one of them got back to me so I said well this is supposed to be a democracy so let’s

03:04

reach out to all these other parties so I reached out to the Communists the the Constitution party the libertarians and the greens and the greens are the only ones that got back to me it said we really need people to run all those different parties you mentioned are very different than their doctrines I imagine even if the greens hadn’t gotten back to you how do your values when you put a green party platform next to a Republican party platform maybe you can identify similarities and differences

03:44

what when I ran and when I looked at the green pillars when I first they were just starting Green Party in America and it was like we can have green ideas but if were a political party we need to have candidates you know it’s a while also jumped into the fray here and actually in 1990 what was it for I signed up to run for mayor and then I switched horses in the middle of voting because I didn’t want to be like a Ross Perot and be a spoiler if you will and then mayoral race here but it’s the

04:19

pillars it was the the ideas that really grabbed me right give me a hit of that because I’d like to think that although you identify with a green party name I can imagine that a lot of Republicans and Democrats and independents might hear what you’re standing for and say wow that’s me I believe in that too and that’s what I’d like to see give us an idea a little maybe your background and what you believing in and why you’d run for president that’s a big thing well I I have to agree with you and

04:56

that’s one thing I keep pushing the Green Party a lot of times they just get disaffected Democrats joining them but really I have told them with our Tinky values especially when we focus on Economic Security for communities as well as decentralization of power sending the power of the government back to the communities that’s really stomping that the libertarian the Republicans can really sink their teeth into but unfortunately I seem to be fighting an uphill battle when it comes with Green Party they just want to

05:31

continue going after what they consider you know easy targets Democrats like the Bernie Bros and that sort of thing where as I see the ten pinky values I can’t I don’t have them right off the top of my head this one social justice is one of the the grassroots justice and grassroots government ecological sustainability economic justice you know those that when you’re talking about that you know who would think that something as called decentralization of power which I always thought was more

06:05

Republican you know states rights versus federal rights would marry up with Green who most people think is very very liberal but when you look at the doctrines you find out I used to say we’re not left or right we’re just sensible and right I haven’t really been too much involved in the nitty-gritty of party platform but the idea of economic sustainability and sharing though if you will having more opportunity for the common man to have a decency in their life the the system has not really been focus there and like you

06:44

say if they want to balance the budget it seems that many of the social programs get a instead of a quote maybe taxing the rich making something happen at a corporate level do you have any specific things that that are really are important to you that you’d like to focus on to share well I’ve I’ve been really busy working on my renewable infrastructure investment program which is one part of my platform and it is it’s my version of the green new deal you know I don’t believe in a new deal of any type

07:22

because it’s basically reshuffling the deck to deal out the same cards to the people who are already winning so the disadvantaged know I grew up poor I’m one of five children raised by a single mother and until she went back to college her only way to support us was we were working as a waitress and waitress wages have not gone up and Reagan was president you know it’s still 219 on the federal level to 19 or tipped salaries and right now my mother is living with me and it would be impossible for her to

07:59

be able to support herself if she wasn’t living with me she’s only making about four hundred five hundred dollars a month through social security even though I said you know she went back to college she graduated with a bachelor’s degree about two months after I got my associates but really the opportunities for her to be able to use that degree in a meaningful and financially rewarding way was not available in communities where she was living so for the 10 15 years after she graduated

08:33

started collecting or Social Security she really couldn’t build up enough money to go into Social Security for the way the system is organized for her to be able to support herself being that you know Social Security is based on our wages we don’t see any economic benefit especially when there’s a cap on how much people can can get from their Social Security that they paid into for 30 40 50 years or more it just doesn’t seem fair to me and for me America is all about being a fair and

09:07

providing economic opportunity to everybody who is here Gaja so so my renewable infrastructure investment program really focuses on on not only the environmental issues that we’re facing but empowering the communities to create renewable resources for themselves either through energy generation transportation or agricultural uses really providing a direct support to the community direct benefit to the community and instead of spending millions billions trillions of dollars on supporting endless wars and

09:44

subsidies for corporations are already billions of dollars in their bank accounts and an agriculture that does not benefit the community we need to really look at investing back into our communities to rebuild not only these smaller communities to be stronger to help them gain employment so that they are a sustainable community yeah you have I’m just hearing something go by out here now in this Xoom world I can see you’re out out in nature all kinds of noises we’re not in the studio like

10:22

we might otherwise be yeah that’s a disadvantage I have in the community where I live I live deep in rural Appalachia southern Ohio my house is 12 miles from the river and we don’t have internet where I live there’s no cell phone signal and no company except for a satellite company is willing to come out and set up a service for us that is going to cost me 70 80 dollars a month and then they’ll throttle limit the amount of service that I actually get to use while I’m out there and if we were

10:54

to do something like this on satellite radio or satellite internet it would not be able to stream at all you would see me jumping around every few seconds and it’s just it’s not worth the money because I pay less for a cell phone building I do for Internet and I just drive 12 miles into town I’m parked out behind the grocery store that is just in the town and Here I am how are things out there I mean when I think of where you’re talking I have a friend in West Virginia which is probably a stone’s throw from you right

11:28

absolutely yeah some kind of spring you know that name bringing now there’s all kinds of Springs in what in West Virginia there’s White Sulphur Springs where I lived sofa is he’s making a machine HHO which is hydroxy hydrogen which the Chinese found you know helps reduce inflammation so people don’t have to use this ventilator and it’s actually been curing people helping their lungs so they can breathe in this present day and age it’s kind of spotlighting you know are really important health issue so he

12:13

lives there and he I guess you’d call that the middle of Trump country yet would you get into politics when you have conversations as people though where do you agree and disagree with him I mean I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump voters could easily joke for you couldn’t they when I’ve approached people about another part of my platform the $25 an hour minimum wage especially if they were Trump supporters or Republicans I get no blowback whatsoever because I say you know $25 an hour

12:46

minimum wage because that’s a respectable wage it meets with inflation since a minimum wage well it’s actually slightly higher than inflation but it’s lower than with financial bonuses and paid to Wall Street as well as the CEOs and executives are getting but really I get very little blowback from people about that I mean these sue intellectual armchair economics professors that say well you have to deal with inflation if you’re going to pay people $25 an hour minimum wage but I look at the world

13:20

that we’re living in now and when I grew up you can buy a candy bar for 25 cents now it’s a buck 50 for a candy bar you can’t tell me that inflation is going to really really be it’s affected that much by an increase in minimum wage especially when we’ve created more millionaires and billionaires than small businesses in the past few decades but economically you know this is a very depressed area federal minimum wage is the minimum for Kentucky and West Virginia fortunately Ohio did have enough common

13:56

sense to raise their minimum wage and tie it to inflation but it’s still under $9 an hour here but it’s at least a little bit more livable those numbers I know we get those kind of numbers and out here in Hawaii where our cost of living is high I know it’s I still find that employers will pay as little as they can and I think distribution of wealth has to be an almost enforced by having higher base wages or if we don’t do that it doesn’t really force an employer and yet passed on to the consumer in some

14:37

ways but I just think things are really shifted you have any ideas or feelings about remember the NAFTA the North American trade agreements what do you have to say about trade and manufacturing well like I said I was I’ve been a political geek since about 4th grade I was the owner to school in West Virginia and Elementary and I was the only kid in my entire school that voted for Jesse Jackson III think that a lot of the a lot of the solutions lay in the the wisdom not only of the people how we achieve those by empowering the

15:25

people that are in the communities I’ve lost track to what he was talking about now because I’ve said too much about dynamics banana the NAFTA deal I did read that when that came out and I was opposed to it because I saw that a lot of the benefits that were written in Natha actually went to the corporations for example one example I believe if I remember correctly minimum wage in Mexico was somewhere around five hundred six dollars a day and then when we assign the contract NAFTA deal American

16:03

corporations that move their businesses out of their communities and you know basically robbed the workforce moved it down to Mexico they were allowed to pay their workers of dollar sixty five $2.00 sixty-nine a day so not only will we bankrupting the workers in America we were making it harder for the people in Mexico to be able to support their families through these jobs that we were taking from American sending down there well the reason I brought up NAFTA was just use it as an example because in

16:37

this age twenty twenty you know we hear about now and we need masks so we need anything that because of the trade agreements we made where jobs went to Canada and jobs went to Mexico and America stopped being self-sufficient creator of product right now we are users of product but we’re not making as much and and to gear up America again we hear Trump talking about that I don’t like his style of how he delivers it but I think most people would understand that we need to be creating things here

17:18

how do we base a budget and that base our lives when everything is controlled by outside of our area of control in our economy and we’re getting flooded with goods and American jobs can’t compete because there are people all around the world making products and selling it to us cheaper so the manufacturer is a same out or the whoever how can we pay higher wages when we’re competing with a global market so when you become president let me say it this way it’s a long shot I’m sure you can

17:54

agree you know running in the green party for president and they’re all welcome to be here on the show but you stood out to me because you were you seemed very genuine you’re not a polished politician you’re a genuine human being who’s putting out ideas and thinks I want to say thinks on a grassroots things on a logical basis as a person rather than someone with special interest you don’t have special interest except it seems like the people no no I I spoke a bit about at that

18:36

Green Party meeting about how I developed my own code of conduct through my activities and the Boy Scouts and then my later service in the military but all of it has really been focused on what is the greater good for the most amount of people and I think that’s I mean that’s what America is supposed to be that’s what the United States of America is supposed to stand for and that’s I mean that’s wholly in my heart I have no ulterior motives other than to get more power back to the people and

19:07

wrestle it away from corporations who have been dominating our our politics for at least 40 years and I think you know this is one of the reasons why I’m trying to encourage as many people to run whether they run as green or not I don’t care I want to see more people running for office because it doesn’t matter if you vote for Democrat or Republican you can guarantee that whoever that democrat or republican is they’re endorsed and sponsored by corporate money and we need to get away

19:35

from corporations deciding our faith you know our biggest fear when we created the country was that the government was going to overreach because the government had so much power but as we’ve evolved and and invested so much time and energy to developing corporations and economic system that benefits those corporations we’ve lost sight of the people the cogs of those wheels that make the economics actually move I’ve talked to also a lot about you know tie this in with the $25 an hour

20:10

minimum age when my father was a plumbing plumber in the Union and he asked me after he started his own business to join the plumbing union I used to work with him when I was a kid go out go out to work with him and help him laid a pipe or glue pieces together before he died he started the business with his brother and they asked me to join the Union and at the time I was making sixteen seventeen dollars now are working at a TV station and I said well dad with the apprentice pay he said fourteen dollars an hour I said I don’t

20:44

want to take a pay cut he said well I want you to take over the business and I said doing you know that’s just not something I’m really interested in right now especially since I make it so much money a few years ago I looked into it about going back in maybe getting in my apprenticeship you still have that documentation to be able to do that in a professional manner apprentices are still starting out almost 20 years later at $14 an hour and because Labor stopped fighting for increases in minimum wage

21:14

their wages aren’t increasing so they’re getting left behind just as much as the person who’s putting fries in the basket at McDonald’s yeah it is odd what’s happened but it you know again it’s like you just said the no one was fighting for them to give them a an increasing share as things were going up here with inflation what made you decide to run for president I mean you could have run for a different office that’s a big move and so when someone’s running for

21:47

president they usually have something that stirred you to make that kind of move by the way audience on radio you may not see this is Dennis Lambert who’s a candidate here in 2020 Green candidate for president United States give me that one Dennis you know what drives you what drove you to run for this office and what are you looking to do that made you feel you wanted to run for president I ran as I said in 2010 for the Ohio State House for the Green Party to help them maintain their ballot status and

22:28

I’ve run for Congress a couple times since but the thing that really got me to what the run for president was to try to encourage more people to run for president somebody from a background such as myself who grew up or we haven’t had a poor president since Abraham Lincoln and ulysses s grant the rest of them have come from money or the millionaires if not prior to that they’re definitely become millionaires in office and and beyond so I want to encourage every person to run for office

22:59

but why I ran for president I could be doing that if I were to run for the State House again but I saw when I ran in 2010 the the only debate I was allowed to attend was through the League of Women Voters and when I was talking about my platform at that meeting not even before the end of that meeting both the Democrats and the Republicans started echoing my talking points and at the end of that meeting a young Republican came up to me and said boy we’d like to have you run as a Republican next time you run I didn’t

23:33

run as a Republican and then in 2014 when I ran for Congress I was at a meeting in Marietta Ohio broadcast on c-span another debate and once again I influenced both the Democrats Republican there started using my talking points and at the end of that meeting the Democrat who used to be the chair of the democratic organization and that Callie came up to me and said boy we’d love to have you run as a Democrat so I know that I might not get a lot of reach but I can change a lot of the conversation

24:09

with my platform and hopefully I can provide some influence not only to the presidential candidates put to any other candidate who’s running and any other position down the line and this is what I really encouraged the Green Party to run every every election every time every office because that’s the only way that we’re going to generate enough political power to overturn the to party power system that exists and strangles this the economic and social advancement that we really need to help

24:40

create equal society all right let me this is a sort of an interesting question to me what makes you different for example if I was gonna admit what’s different then you then say our president Donald Trump anything jump right out of it I mean when you become president well I can tell one thing right off the bat the difference between myself and Donald Trump is I never inherited millions of dollars and I actually labor with my hands though I don’t know I also have a lot of intellectual capacity to work with my

25:23

mind as well I think the biggest difference from me and Donald Trump is I would not appoint anybody to my cabinet or any other position in government that is either racist and white supremacist or worked in in the corporation field in which they’d be placed such as sonny Perdue it and head of Department of Education I would never do something like that I would rather appoint a professor who spent 20 or 30 years studying soil in his community and has actually worked with farmers on our hands-on basis I would I would like to

26:02

see more people who actually fought for the rights of people in the Department of Justice somebody like Bryan Stevenson would be my ideal person to be the head of the Department of Justice I would like to see somebody who has actually been in HUD housing to be head of Housing and Human Services we need to actually fill these positions with experts that are not corporate funded but have not only the knowledge and skills to do the job but also have the hands-on experience with the people to understand the impact on the grand scale

26:41

of what it’s going to do down on to the lower levels right now we’re facing some pretty significant things in the United States this pandemic for COBIT 19 and any immediate differences on what you would do now or I don’t want to say when this began we’re right now here we are any things that you would do differently now right now other than having a universal healthcare system which would take quite a while to ramp up really we need to have a lot more availability of testing I’ve only been able to find one place in

27:23

my community which is you know the tri-state area which includes Kentucky West Virginia and Ohio there’s only one place two places actually and in my entire community that we can actually go and get tested that I’m aware of so the only way that we are actually going to prevent the increased spread of this is to have that that that testing on demand and constantly retesting the people who have already been tested because that infection may not show up in that first test and honestly I’d rather have a

27:59

false negative than a false positive on a lot of these tests and unfortunately there’s there’s been more false positives than false negatives not only that but you know we we’re starting to see a lot more the personal protective equipment going to the hospitals we need to be sharing a lot more information I’ve realized that through my work as a social worker with with veterans for a while that the HIPAA is not necessarily a good thing it prevents a lot of doctors from communicating with each

28:35

other what issues that their patients are facing and it prevents the the adequate treatment for a lot of these people so we need to loosen the restrictions of HIPPA and make health care a human right that way we are addressing the needs of all the people and there’s I mean there’s a lot of stuff to unpack there well especially the comorbidities and that are affecting the people a lot more like obesity diabetes smokers the age of the people who are contracting is a lot of things that are contributing to that

29:09

but I I am optimistic in that there’s a lot of organizations especially nonprofits that are concentrating their efforts and research into developing a solution to this when Trump got elected one of my Marine friends who’s a Democrat said you know Dennis what do you think about Trump getting elected I said you know generally it’s when we’re faced with our greatest challenges that is when our country rises to meet that challenge and actually starts doing the things that that we were meant to do

29:44

doing the right things and taking care of the people so the fight the evil connotations that we hear about the Trump administration I still have a lot of optimism that the people are going to see things for the way they are and react in a way that is more embracing of their fellow man wow that’s I’m hearing that I’m trying to put it into specific situations the news is filled with prejudice and with things that are way out of whack that you know you know I’m a dreamer in fact you know I always

30:32

thinking for that man will be better I am a bitter concern now I mean we are fighting each other just horribly I mean our if I was going to say what’s different than you then Trump someone that leads by showing that they are too macho to wear a mask that insults everybody around because maybe you think you’re stronger than dirt but the people around would like to be protected from you not you you know you are who you are I just there’s too much of that going on and I watch that happening socially in

31:14

situations out there again I’m I think one of the big differences between myself and Donald Trump also his modesty I don’t think he has any modesty or compassion in his heart whatsoever and I I don’t like bragging about myself but you know there are certain accomplishments that I’ve done that I’m very proud of and it’s not an ego thing it’s something more about I’ve done something that I’ve seen in my community that needed to be done and I I did it either that or I accomplish certain

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goals that I set for myself and you know I don’t get I don’t feel good just by people praising me I feel better when people are criticizing me telling me what I need to change or what I’m thinking wrong I like having a lot of different opinions thrown at me as well so I’m unlike a lot of my opponents i watch Fox News occasionally to understand the other side god I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh a lot more than I do now so I do occasionally will listen to him to understand you know there’s there’s a

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certain point where I can’t stand it but I want to hear what he’s talking about so I can understand what their issues are and how I can address them through my own lives when you say you can’t stand it what can’t you stand I I I can think of things but I did I’m trying to give the people a little more color and better understanding your nature and that’s why I think it’s decoding what he’s actually talking about one of the things that I really found offensive when I was listening to him on a regular

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basis was that he would talk about this bill or that bill and how the Democrats pushed it through and it’s going to cost this many jobs and it’s going to do this much economic harm when I started first questioning that I would start to look at what those bills actually said and half the time the sponsors were Republicans and they were still even though the Republicans were in control the House and the Senate they were still blaming the Democrats for these bills getting passed and really I think that

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was the genesis of a lot of this partisan ranker that we’re seeing and that started just thirty years ago and really we have to look at what unites just instead of what divides us you know we we may agree on a lot of things but we also have different approaches on how we’re going to solve those problems but we have to have respect for those people with differing opinions because their opinions are based on their experiences and maybe they haven’t had the same experiences as you have but you have to

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understand you know what that other person is thinking where they’re coming from and and respect that but not be disrespectful in the argument and unfortunately I mean that really upsets me that that we have so much partisan rancor that so damn the Democrats are damned the Republicans that you know they’re the reason why everything’s gone bad so what happens when we’re under one-party rule that means that everything you want is accomplished what happens then what happens when the

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totally and totalitarian rule is in effect and we only have one party in control what happens then well you know I guess that we’re not in that situation but I keep thinking that what I’m watching the leadership is dividing and dividing and that I can’t imagine how to bring America back together again I thought to myself that Bernie Sanders attracted people on the left and the right a lot of people kind of warmed to his program but and yet there he is out of the picture totally and we’re faced

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with what seemed like on different sides of sort of the same coin I don’t really sense a huge difference between I mean in specifics and doctrine yes but I never really know what Trump feels I mean that may sound funny but I keep hearing him talk and then he switches from here to here here doesn’t really show us why he just it proclaims it like a king and Biden is also very very careful in what he says and that it doesn’t say really specific these guys aren’t getting specific you

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have anything specific I mean when you become president you have a like a top three things that you want to do or I hope I’m asking in a fair way I’m saying okay now you’re looking to do this what are some of the real meat what are the things that you would like to see that make you so different week recognize you’re more gentle and I want to say you’re open to hearing but everyone’s position give us some specifics of what you might do as if you were in that office or in an office like that aside

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from my platform of the universal healthcare Medicare for all here we are right now and we’ve got a country that is economically buried okay everyone knows that the value of the dollar is going out the window we keep printing money as if it actually had value and so the real value of our dollars going down international currencies of trying to replace the dollar as a global standard and and we’re being marginalized by our non involvement with other people at a in in cooperative levels for the environment

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we’re not there we’re using our bravado I you know I’m just trying to get a feeling here you are now where you’re now president what about what are some of the things that you would see doing quickly and where you know I’m trying to look for some direction change or a thing that you would do to help make things better or would propose economic policy I think enforcing the sherman antitrust Act would definitely be a big step to providing a democratization of our money and actually providing benefit to the

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people breaking up a lot of these big businesses I think would actually increase the competition especially when it comes to communication we only have three or five major corporations who control all of our media so really we don’t have any competition on a lot of different levels economically so not only enforcing the sherman antitrust act that’s moving away from what they call free trade and working more towards fair trade where we’re actually respecting the work from people overseas and making

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sure that you know while we’re paying six seven dollars for a cup of coffee there is an equivalent amount being sent down to the person in Madagascar that’s growing the coffee or wherever it is so that they have the opportunity to expand their businesses provide more benefit to their communities I definitely would want to shrink our military footprint so I I’m going to end all wars an actively wage piece we certainly do not have to look at everybody as our enemy in the world we can I mean United States is

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definitely a melting pot where other than the people who were here prior to the white man settling we’re a nation of people who are immigrants we came from all sorts of different other places and that we’re here now so we have to respect the diversity of our community as well as our planet and that means taking a non adversarial role against every other country 186 countries in the nation or in the world we can’t be an adversary and can’t fight all of these people at the same time we’re currently

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fighting seven different Wars five of them are of Obama’s making and he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize which is absolutely insane to me but or anything more vital more economic benefits said I’ve put out a press release not too long ago about eliminating white supremacists and race from office get all of them out of out of office you know they say one rotten apple spoils the bunch well let’s let’s get rid of a whole bunch and start all over again because we don’t need our money space on our institution that is

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all about equality for everybody supporting people who don’t believe in equality for everyone I don’t think of anything right off the top of my head other than those major things but clearly I mean also diversifying our economy too and this is part of my Renewable infrastructure investment program diversifying our economy to be more localized so that agriculture is more supported on a local basis instead of having Capo’s and large feed blocks where I know that’s not much of an issue

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for why but you’re in Ohio we have a lot of pig lagoons where we have hundreds of thousands of pigs being grown in one area and they have to deal with the mess of it and it’s just they have giant ponds of pig feces and urine sitting out in the open and when the land floods that goes into our streams and I think the numbers that I have for 2010 was about 80% of Ohio gets their fresh drinking water from this rivers and streams it’s closer to 95 percent of them who are on the river so we really

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need to take care of our natural resources to be able to sustain ourselves not not only in the immediate future but we need to plan for our generations and this is one of the things that I found particularly upsetting about our government is that we don’t plan for the future the only time our government has ever had a long-term plan for anything was the space program we had 10 years to plan to go to the moon and after that we decided you know there wasn’t really worth it anymore so we are our society’s

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not really planned for geared to plan for the future sure we have stood schools but we’re not really teaching us kids critical thinking to actually develop solutions for the future we’re just teaching them to pass a test and and really we need to turn that around as far as education goes we need to actually enrich the education provide agricultural studies classes for kids so they’re growing their own food for their lunch programs or that they’re building the the tables that they’ll be sitting

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at for lunch or maybe they’re putting the new wiring the building for electricity or internet or building something with their hands so that they have a skill beyond just the  critical thinking and and avoid the situation where we are where they’re just teaching to a test and giving limited information it this is one of the biggest things I’ve been disappointed in my own educational experience and why it took me ten years to go back to school to get my bachelor’s degrees I just I felt self

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education was was the best opportunity for me to learn more and I have hope that our electronic communication systems are going to be able to provide that not only are they providing that now through YouTube and a lot of other sites but in the future I see us having upper our higher education online some participatory on hands art but a lot of the stuff that we need to learn or can learn and come from qualified sources and delivered to us electronically okay I’m guessing we’re we’re getting close

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to an hour’s time um let’s now say I’m giving you a time for a summary and you take as much time as you need here I’ve given you a platform dennis lambert running for president what do you want to say to people i would like to tell people to get out the vote I mean that’s I’ve always told the people in the Green Party and it’s been my own experience every time that I was run that I’ve gotten people who don’t normally vote who weren’t going to vote in that

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election to come out and vote even if they just voted for me now this is one of the greatest things about a democracy is that you have a choice and happens in our government and unfortunately too many people I mean 45 percent to 50 50 percent of the people who are eligible to vote don’t turn out the vote and it’s not always that they don’t have the opportunity it’s just sometimes there are just not people there for them to vote for so if you’re in that situation that you don’t want to

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vote and you don’t have anybody to vote for I encourage you to be that person for people to vote for I don’t care if you run as a Democrat or a Republican or Green I just want to see more people running and tried to wrestle to our power back and put it back in the hands of the people where it belongs because the Constitution says we the people not we the corporations I believe a lot of what my platform says and my websites at WWDC 2014 all my social media is the same deal photos 2020 com what I really

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need let’s say that one more time DL P ot u.s. 2020 com oh yeah yeah that’s my website and besides the things that are listed there we really need to take responsibility for our future no the only reason to have children is because you have hope for the future so let’s actually put something in the hands of our children so that they can actually have a future whether it be actual tangible thing that such as health care or just the the concept of hope or a future where they can think

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about about what direction they want to take their lives in now I have the opportunities to to start a business that won’t go straight on there from health care costs or regular over-regulation we really need to come together and honestly I think after this kovin thing passes and we start looking at how we’re really truly going to open up we need to look at how is it going to be equitable for everyone not just for those few who are at the levers of control so the American citizen got bought out for

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$1,200 in that carers bill over four trillion dollars went to corporation benefits and most of that didn’t go to small businesses despite what was create what it was created for you know most that money actually went to yo big companies like CVS or Shake Shack or some of these other big corporations uh I forget exactly the name of the fella but one of Trump supporters ended up benefiting about 56 million from the carriers Act so we need to shift from maintaining this idea of an economy that

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that is supposed to benefit everybody but really it only benefits Wall Street it doesn’t benefit Main Street and it doesn’t benefit the people in my community where I live like I said it’s rural Appalachia you know fashion and music comes about six to six months to a year after it hits everywhere else in the United States but with is like the electronic systems that we have an electronic communications we can actually change that and make a more level playing field for everybody so that’s my really my hope for the future

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is that we take the power back from corporations and that the people are really truly taken care of from that point on well Dennis I want to thank you for being here on my show and here in Hawaii you know we’re a we have specific issues and things I don’t see any reason that people out here they sound like the people where you are there is there really a smaller community even though Hawaii is a state like it decentralized agriculture decentralized power which again you could be Republican and say that and

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hope but green and the fact that you really feel that people need to be getting involved and getting themselves out there and voting and if you don’t like what you see running and and being involved if you can half an hour a week watching a TV showed and you could spend half an hour a week organizing in your community to make it better either by running in elections or supporting somebody who you truly believe it is interested in supporting the community and helping the people not you well Dennis it’s been a pleasure

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having you here and if there’s anything we can do to be helpful to you you’re always welcome to call back you always welcome to jump on the air here with us oh I’d love to come to ye you know I I went to basic training with a fellow named Fong who immigrated from Taiwan to to Hawaii and unfortunately he had flat feet and had an honorable discharge for that so Jacky Fong if you’re out there brother yeah good to see you hopefully I’d get out there to Hawaii and see you sometime

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yeah well thank everyone for listening and watching this and I want to echo that same thing if you don’t vote you’re not going to be able to be able to really give your vote to be able to shift the power of the people that are in offices and if you don’t see them maybe it’s too late to run this time but I’m really hoping that all of us will come together and make this country the great country that it is together and maybe we can be part of a plan to get toward peace I really like that notion a

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lot you know Department of Defense we only defend ourselves because we are in need of defending ourselves I guess why can’t we all work together and help each other and bring down the walls and not put up and create walls I don’t mean it literally I’m talking about you know a little bit more cooperation and caring for our fellow man a lot of people believe it but let’s let’s see that happen through the more gentle politics where we talk about issues and find that we can do to how

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to everybody and as I said if you can’t see the change be the change that’s right well thank you Dennis thank you for joining us here and thank all of you people for joining us here if you’d like to see this again go to Maui neutral zone comm and watch it again it’s gonna be posted on YouTube as well Thank You Dennis and thank you everyone for joining us have a wonderful day law [Music]