Oct 19, 2026

Flock cameras, sold as a way to catch criminals, look to Manuela Callini like something she has seen before. She was born in communist Romania in 1986 and was not quite four when Nicolae Ceausescu fell, old enough to remember standing in line before dawn with her father for one kind of milk, and being sent home when the shop ran out. The youngest voice in the Surviving Communism series tells Jenny Beth Martin what the regime did to her family: the collectivization that took her mother's family land, livestock, equipment, and even clothes, leaving nine children one pair of rubber boots to share for the walk to school; the state that chose her father's job, his city, and his apartment; hands inspected on white handkerchiefs at daycare; and a Christmas Day trial of under an hour that ended the dictator himself. Then the conversation turns to America, where Callini has lived since 2013 and now works in grassroots activism in Arizona. Flock and Axon cameras sold as safety, free things that make you the property of the state, a younger generation that never shows up to a legislative district meeting: she says it is the pattern she grew up in, and it always arrives dressed as safety, fairness, equality, and compassion. Where to look first: law enforcement and the courts. Guest: Manuela Callini, born in communist Romania, in the United States since 2013, now in grassroots activism with EZAZ in Arizona. Learn more at teapartypatriots.org and jennybethshow.com.

Read Full Show Notes →