Transcript

(Opener) Lately, it seems more times than not, you see posts online about how great communism is. New York City voters fell for it. That all these things you need will be free. They fell for the lie.

“Free” is communism’s biggest lie. And here’s the biggest tell of that biggest lie: no communist leader lives under a bridge like the people who live under communism do. No communist leader has given up their wealth, their mansion — and sometimes even just one of their mansions to people who don’t have homes. So much for equality and equal results.

If people are getting paid then nothing is free.

Capitalism is the freest economic system in the world. By definition, it needs to be. If people don’t have the freedom to open businesses, to pursue their dreams, To benefit from their own ideas and hard work — capitalism fails.

And despite having that freedom here in America to go out there and make our dreams, to chase that American dream of success, those freedoms are slipping away — Not through armed rebellion and revolution — its more subtle. Because the very system designed to create those freedoms also allows the freedom to make bad decisions but it has a lot to do with our so-called education system, Where teachers paid by capitalism have the freedom of speech to tell kid s how evil capitalism and America are. Lies and disinformation they would not be able to say about communism if they lived under communism.

And then kids who come up through that system and then go on to lead misguided lives based on misinformation and try to spread “the good news” about communism. Thankfully not everyone is fooled.

There’s a line that gets repeated a lot in political conversation these days. You’ve no doubt heard it — that America is sleepwalking toward socialism. Or that maybe we’ve already arrived. Most people who talk about Communism — for or against it — are speaking from theory — from a textbook or a news segment or something they saw on social media — who might intellectually realize what’s happening and they’re right. But today’s guest is speaking from something else entirely: from memory. From having lived it.

Michael Astalis is a successful business owner and property developer in Southern California — los angeles in particular. We got to know Michael bec he also owns a radio stations, KFIR, one of the stations on which I Spy Radio airs. He’s an American success story in the truest sense. But he wasn’t born here. He was born in Romania — when it was still behind the Iron Curtain — and grew up there, including living his last 5 years there under one of the most brutal communist dictators of the 20th century, Nicolae Chow shesh koo.

Here’s something that changed this conversation: when we first booked Michael, it was our understanding he had come here as a young boy — that communism was just a childhood memory for him. We were wrong. He didn’t leave Romania until age 21, after attending 3 years at a Romanian university. He saw communism, he lived it, as an adult, a young man trying to set out in life. That’s a very different lens than a child’s.

As a result, we’re splitting Michael’s story across two shows. Today — Romania. What that system actually looked like from the inside — the secret police, the ration lines, the forbidden radio broadcasts. And what it wasa like to escape that and come to America. Then, in two weeks, we’ll bring Michael back to talk about California — a state that, in his words and experience, is looking more familiar than it should.

Michael, welcome to I Spy Radio!