The Oh, This is hell. live from Lake Capitalism, where property has more rights than people.

This is hell. Religion can be found on the slaughterhouse floor across the United States among

capitalism's refugees. And no, that is not a line from some long lost draft of howl or naked lunch.

People who have fled their homeland, fearing for their lives, have taken arduous, dangerous journeys

to relocate in places like rural Iowa where they seek a better life for themselves and their families and children.

Yes, of course they do face racism, But the stereotype we have of thoroughly unwelcoming small towns and communities

dominated by white people, according to today's guest, is exaggerated.

The United States is currently experiencing a reconsideration of race and the legacy of racism.

And it's apparently happening in rural America's former farming communities that were struggling for their various survival. During the 1980s, states like Iowa opened their arms to

refugees fleeing the horror of war and frightening levels of violence.

Bringing refugees to your community was a politically popular

policy that resonated with religious organizations advocating to help those, help those out who

are in desperate need, no matter who they are, or where they're from.

When those same refugees arrived, they found work alongside poor rural whites in the meat packing

industry which flourished as local small farms were eaten up by big agricultural concerns.

These refugees and rural whites would then find themselves next to each other

at churches, temples, or mosques celebrating their faith.

With that kind of contact rural communities have been far more open to refugee presence than

you might imagine.

The positive economic impact and the work ethic brought by refugees, have saved some small towns and injected back into

communities something native Iowans recognize in themselves and their family histories of a work ethic.

Today we'll be discussing agriculture, meat packing, race, religion,

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