Some truly tragic. I mean, just unconscionably
tragic news to report to you from the progressive
media community today, as I know, many of
you have already heard, the host of The Michael
Brooks Show, Michael Brooks, has suddenly
passed away.
And yesterday, in the early afternoon, some
of the progressive hosts were in touch as
we started to learn of what had happened.
And initially, I just sort of assumed that
this was wrong. I was misinformed. But ultimately,
of course, the news was made public. And indeed,
Michael Brooks passed away suddenly. Michael
Brooks, I will tell you a little bit about
how I met Michael Brooks. But Michael had
been working for some years as a sort of co-host
and producer for Sam Cedar's majority report
had ultimately launched his own program. The
Michael Brooks Show, which was doing really
well. A regular guest on different programs
and someone that I've known for for nearly
a decade. And indeed, we learned in the afternoon
in a statement from the majority report. It
is with a heavy heart that we announced the
unexpected passing of Michael Brooks, a son,
brother, friend and true comrade. So many
due to a sudden medical condition. You can
check out the entire statement, which talks
about some of Michael's accomplishments and
essentially points out that the way to honor
Michael is to keep doing the activism work,
pointing out that his family will release
a statement in the near future about how they
plan to keep his work alive.
And it you know, I I spoke to so many other
progressive hosts yesterday. Many of us almost
exactly the same age as Michael and. It just
sort of like doesn't make sense. That's that
it's it's confusing. There's no real other
way to say it.
It it takes a while for it to even become
a reality. And I first met Michael about 10
years ago. I actually don't remember. This
was when I lived in Northampton, Massachusetts.
And so did Michael.
And I don't remember if it was a frequent
David Pakman show guest, Bill Cher, or another
friend of ours, Michael Kucik, who said, hey,
I know this guy, Michael Brooks. He's big
into politics. He does some writing.
He's interested in getting involved in what
you're doing. And I remember meeting with
Michael at this great cafe, The Roost in Northampton,
Massachusetts.
He had tea, of course, and typical Michael
Brooks fashion. I don't remember what I had,
but we talked for hours and we decided he
would come up to my studio and record some
clips. These clips are still on the David
Pakman show, YouTube channel if you go back
in the archives. And then eventually we got
to talking about opportunities. And he had
talked about, you know, I would move I don't
know, I'd look at New York.
And so I made an introduction. I said to Sam
Ceder, I know you're always sort of in the
mix looking for who are good people that might
be able to work with you.
This guy's done some clips with me, and I
think you might be interested in talking to
him. And of course, the rest is history. They
met Sam, hired Michael. Michael became a fixture
on the majority report and ultimately launched
his own program. And it is just such a loss
to the community. It's a loss in terms of
the person of Michael. It's a loss in terms
of the political perspective, which as many
people know, Michael and I are not exactly
aligned in terms of where on the left we are.
And that's OK. And the truth is, since I moved
out of New York, I've been much less in touch
with Michael. And obviously, you know, how
many how many millions of times as it happened
that you fall out of touch with someone and
then you lose the opportunity to get back
in touch with them, which is exactly what
what happened now in in a tragic sense, quite
frankly. So I don't know what what happens
now. I mean, it's sort of like this is news
that is only hours old. I've been in touch
with Kyle Kolinsky and our friends over at
Ring of Fire and of course, Sam and Benjamin
Dixon.
And I saw, you know, our friends and a Kasparian
and Namiki, Khan Stal of all who have said
things about this. And it it there's just
no real easy way to synthesize something so
sad and so unexpected other than to know that
Michael would want our activism to continue.
Michael would want all of us to keep trying
to push society in the right direction, because
if we lose, he never wanted anybody to lose
sight of that.
And whether you call it a big picture mentality
or a whole world mentality or whatever. And
I think the most the most relevant thing for
me from this horrible statement, because of
the tragic news that that it communicates,
is this line at the end about we will honor
Michael by treating all humans with respect
and dignity. I think that that is the really
important thing here where this is just bad.
I mean, listen, 20/20 has been pretty horrible
in a lot of ways.
The virus, so many people I know with personal
tragedy. Now we're adding this. It's it's
not been the best year so far. But I think
what we can all it's hard to be confident
in anything when something like this happens.
But what we can all be confident in is that
the right thing is always to advocate for
improving the world. And that's what Michael
sought to do through his program. That's what
my instinct is. We all seek to do with our
programs, will sometimes disagree about the
exact right way to do it. But the point is,
we're all in this together.
And at a more personal level, you know, the
importance of remaining in touch and together,
not just with individuals. And obviously,
you know, having lost touch with Michael over
the last couple of years, that's an individual
thing that I can say, but also the importance
of remaining together in the progressive community
and not missing the forest for the trees,
which sometimes happens. And if this has the
silver lining in the midst of just unspeakable,
shocking tragedy of reminding us of that and
that a lot of those day to day.
Agreements that we may have and conflicts
that we may have. They really mean nothing
in the end that they're they are essentially
meaningless in the end. And I think that that's
something that's very much on my mind as we
grieve the loss of of Michael Brooks, something
we'll certainly be talking more about in the
future.
