Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let
Speaker 1: you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode
Speaker 1: of the week that just happened is here in one
Speaker 1: convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to
Speaker 1: listen to in a long stretch if you want. If
Speaker 1: you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
Speaker 1: there's gotta be nothing new here for you, but you
Speaker 1: can make your own decisions. Greetings, this is it could
Speaker 1: happen here. I'm Garrison Davis, and this episode I will
Speaker 1: once again be talking about the Defend the Atlanta Force project.
Speaker 1: Last month I released two episodes totally like three hours
Speaker 1: in content, uh, discussing the movement from its inception up
Speaker 1: until the current state of affairs at time of recording,
Speaker 1: which was like early May. If you want background on
Speaker 1: this uh, really interesting and vital piece of resistance that's
Speaker 1: happening in Atlanta, Georgia, then I would recommend you at
Speaker 1: least attempts to check out the Juggernaut of Audio, which
Speaker 1: is that too part a long story short. There's this
Speaker 1: police training facility that the Atlanta Police Foundation and other
Speaker 1: corporate interests in the city are trying to build on
Speaker 1: one of the city's last remaining like massive swaths of
Speaker 1: of a continuous forested land. On an adjacent piece of
Speaker 1: forest at Land, a movie studio called Black Hall is
Speaker 1: trying to expand their sound stage onto a whole other
Speaker 1: section of the woods. The joint projects of the police
Speaker 1: training Facility dubbed Cops City and the Black Hall Studios
Speaker 1: sound stage expansion threatened hundreds of acres of the largest
Speaker 1: continuous piece of the Atlantic Forest, located in southwest in
Speaker 1: Decab County. The area is often referred to as the
Speaker 1: Lungs of Atlanta and produces a massive amount of tree
Speaker 1: canopy in the city and is a wonderful little ecological spot.
Speaker 1: I was lucky enough to visit in late April to
Speaker 1: help in putting together those those two episodes, and a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot a lot has happened since then.
Speaker 1: Coming off the success of getting Reeves Young to cease
Speaker 1: work on the Cops City project, I felt like there
Speaker 1: was this sense of renewed optimism regarding the potential of
Speaker 1: actually winning. On the other hand, in just during the
Speaker 1: week before the Week of Action, attempts by cops to
Speaker 1: enter the forest increased and there was talk of increasing
Speaker 1: crackdowns against the forest offenders by local law enforcement, who
Speaker 1: also announced that they called in the FBI to assist them,
Speaker 1: which leads us to the Week of Action. On the
Speaker 1: morning of May nine, which was a Monday, barely a
Speaker 1: day into the Week of Action, a bulldozer was brought
Speaker 1: into the Atlanta Forest. This is based on reporting by
Speaker 1: the Great Folks at the Atlanta Community Press and other
Speaker 1: on the ground reports from forced offenders hosted by the
Speaker 1: Defend the Atlanta Forest account and scenes dot no blogs.
Speaker 1: So around nine thirty a m Monday morning, people inhabiting
Speaker 1: the Wilani Forest woke up to the sounds of trees
Speaker 1: going down and metal machinery. A bulldozer marked with Dodd
Speaker 1: Drilling LLC, accompanied by to Decab County cops, had bulldozed
Speaker 1: a path through the forested Entrenchment Creek Park, directly adjacent
Speaker 1: to the old Atlanta Prison Farm. The park land is
Speaker 1: currently under threat by the Black Hall Studios sound stage development.
Speaker 1: The Dodd Drilling bulldozer destroyed a significant swath of forests,
Speaker 1: injuring plants and animals in its path. When people learned
Speaker 1: about this, around forty folks quickly mobilized and gathered around
Speaker 1: the bulldozer, confronting the project managers and the police officers
Speaker 1: on the scene. Those gathered showed it at the workers
Speaker 1: and cops to go home and declared that this is
Speaker 1: a public park. When the two Decab County police who
Speaker 1: were protecting the bulldozers were confronted, it was revealed that
Speaker 1: they were actually working as off duty uniformed private security,
Speaker 1: seemingly taking orders from the construction management. The management, who
Speaker 1: wore vests labeled Contour Engineering and Dot Phillips, claimed that
Speaker 1: they were not working for Black Hall Studios. Who who
Speaker 1: knows if that's true or who they might be working
Speaker 1: for that Georgia state law does permit off duty police
Speaker 1: officers to be hired, along with their uniforms, service weapons,
Speaker 1: and vehicles, by private companies for their own purposes. The
Speaker 1: police expressed that they were not aware that they were
Speaker 1: in a public park along with the bulldozer they were protecting,
Speaker 1: and faced with a confident group of responders intent on
Speaker 1: defending the forest from further destruction, police and the construction
Speaker 1: management quickly made the decision to retreat from the woods.
Speaker 1: The off duty cops had called in reinforcements from Decab County.
Speaker 1: Seven more Decab County Leah calls showed up, but by
Speaker 1: the time the extra police survived, workers were driving the
Speaker 1: bulldozers back into the parking lot. The police were persuaded
Speaker 1: to leave by the actions of intelligent people acting quickly
Speaker 1: and collectively in defense of the land. The force defenders
Speaker 1: then escorted the cops and the workers out of the
Speaker 1: park and made sure the destruction of the woods had
Speaker 1: truly ceased. Police scanners reported that vehicles transporting the bulldozer
Speaker 1: faced a brage of rocks and had their windshield smashed.
Speaker 1: Entrenchment Creek Park is still a public park and property
Speaker 1: of Decab County under a civil court injunction. The pending
Speaker 1: case prevents construction or clearing by Black Hall Studios. Later
Speaker 1: that same day, a group of around forty people marched
Speaker 1: to the home of Shepherd Long, the principle of Long Engineering,
Speaker 1: an engineering firm subcontracted to do surveying and other preconstruction
Speaker 1: work on the Atlanta Police Foundations Public Safety Training Center,
Speaker 1: which we called Cops City. The group rallied for about
Speaker 1: ten minutes outside Shepherd Lungs home and was demanding that
Speaker 1: Long Engineering sever its contract with the Coup City Project.
Speaker 1: One of the group members read aloud a statement directed
Speaker 1: to Shephard Lung, which I will play the audio of here.
Speaker 1: Atlanta is a city of forests with the most tree
Speaker 1: coverage of any urban city in America. If you continue
Speaker 1: to work with Brassfield and Gory, the entire city will
Speaker 1: experience worse floods, higher temperatures at small Field afternoons. You
Speaker 1: have the power to stop that. This proposed military training
Speaker 1: compound is in the nucleus of a culturally rich Black
Speaker 1: community full of churches, preschools, and community centers. Dozens of
Speaker 1: children and grandparents have lived there for years. If you
Speaker 1: continue to work with Brassfield and Gory, our streets and
Speaker 1: backyards when we filled of shootings, explosions, and here gas,
Speaker 1: where we want our children and neighbors to be able
Speaker 1: to breathe clean air and experience the vastness of the
Speaker 1: Atlanta for wris not to be victims of a domestic
Speaker 1: war zone. You have the power to stop that. We
Speaker 1: are here to fight for the future of our city,
Speaker 1: our children, our neighbors, and our planet. We all no
Speaker 1: ill will towards you personally. We just want you to
Speaker 1: make this one right decision. We no long Engineering has
Speaker 1: many other contracts with many other companies. We are only
Speaker 1: here to ask you to drop this one company, brass
Speaker 1: Field and Glory, until they dropped their contracts with the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Police Foundation. The group distributed flyers alerting neighbors to
Speaker 1: the work of Shepherd Long and what his company was
Speaker 1: doing in De capp County. After about ten minutes, the
Speaker 1: group quickly dispersed without incident. The next day, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of other events related to the Week of Action.
Speaker 1: There was a security culture workshop and activist primer about
Speaker 1: building a collective understanding of ways to keep us all
Speaker 1: safe from imprisonment the government repression. There was a night
Speaker 1: of hip hop and punk at a local radical venue
Speaker 1: that served as a benefit show for the Forest Defense,
Speaker 1: and other random events throughout the Week of Action included
Speaker 1: stuff like clothing swaps, bike rides through the forest, yoga
Speaker 1: in the park, plus daily breakfast and dinners, history talks,
Speaker 1: art parties, wood walks, skill shares, and a sick night
Speaker 1: rave along with you know, forest tours and much more. So.
Speaker 1: That's just two days of the Week of Action. Um
Speaker 1: the Monday and the Tuesday, when we get back from
Speaker 1: this ad break, I will get into what happened on
Speaker 1: Wednesday and then and then Thursday. You know, we're going
Speaker 1: to go through it linearly. Um, despite my criticisms of
Speaker 1: linear time, we will go through this in a linear
Speaker 1: fashion because that's how formatting this episode was easiest. Anyway,
Speaker 1: here's some ads and we are back talking about the
Speaker 1: Defending Atlanta Forest Week of Action. So, just after ten
Speaker 1: am on Wednesday, May eleven, to de Cab County Park
Speaker 1: Police entered the forest to inspect the path created by
Speaker 1: the bulldozer that previous Monday. As they were exiting the forest,
Speaker 1: forest offenders ambushed them by throwing rocks and bottles at
Speaker 1: their vehicles and smashing the cars windows. At noons like
Speaker 1: two hours later, a van marked law enforcement Department of
Speaker 1: Juvenile Justice pulled up into the parking lot of Entrenchmant
Speaker 1: Creek Park. It's worth noting that the area of Entrenchment
Speaker 1: Creek Park and the forested area on the Atlanta Prison
Speaker 1: Farm has like two child prisons on it. We talked
Speaker 1: more about those in the in the two part series
Speaker 1: from last month. But anyway, so this van marked Department
Speaker 1: of Juvenal Justice pulled up into the parking lot inside
Speaker 1: in Trenchmant Creek Park, But an hour later, the van
Speaker 1: was attacked suddenly by a brage of rocks and multiple
Speaker 1: tires were slashed. The van attempted to escape, but was
Speaker 1: left stranded in the parking lot until the cab police
Speaker 1: were able to escort it out. Police were nervously walking
Speaker 1: backwards in order to keep their eyes on the tree line,
Speaker 1: where they knew forced defenders would be watching them at
Speaker 1: every moment. Multiple police vehicles were damaged. Nobody was detained
Speaker 1: or arrested. Portions of that report came from scenes dot
Speaker 1: no blogs dot org. Earlier that same day, like early
Speaker 1: in the morning, around forty people visited the home of
Speaker 1: Keith Lanier Johnson Jr. In Kensaw, Georgia. Keith is the
Speaker 1: Eastern Regional president of Brassfield and Gory. Brassfield and Gory
Speaker 1: are the current general contractor on the Atlanta Police Foundations
Speaker 1: Cops City Project. Flyers were posted around the neighborhood, past
Speaker 1: the low barrier fencing around the gated community. An anonymous
Speaker 1: statement released online at scenes dot no blogs read quote
Speaker 1: now that Keith is no longer busy on the board
Speaker 1: of the Mount Perrin Christian School. It seems he is
Speaker 1: now managing the one hundred and forty two thou dollars
Speaker 1: of fines levied against his employer for safety and wage
Speaker 1: theft violations. He's also overseeing the destruction of grave sites,
Speaker 1: leveling of a vital tree canopy, and the militarization of
Speaker 1: the American Police Force. It is for those reasons that
Speaker 1: community members went to his home at six am. We
Speaker 1: hope that Keith is able to convince the two owners
Speaker 1: currently sitting comfortably back at home in Birmingham, that the
Speaker 1: current Atlanta Police Foundation contract is untenable and there is
Speaker 1: an urgent need to cancel it. It could turn out
Speaker 1: that Keith personally is carrying to brunt the pressure for
Speaker 1: his boss's decisions. Brassfield and Gory will eventually drop the
Speaker 1: Cop City project. Anonymous groups are developing new methods for
Speaker 1: disincentivizing the project. The next day, on May twelve, a
Speaker 1: tightly packed crowd around eight mask protesters converged on the
Speaker 1: Brassfield and Gory Atlanta office in broad daylight. People holding
Speaker 1: banners and launching fireworks arrived at the building, and force
Speaker 1: defenders covered the side of the office with stop Cops
Speaker 1: City graffiti and chanting will be back as they left.
Speaker 1: Unicorn Riot reported that five people were arrested following the
Speaker 1: action and booked on several charges, including some felonies. Charges
Speaker 1: were including riot and criminal damage to property and quote
Speaker 1: terroristic threats and acts. I know that some but possibly
Speaker 1: not all, people's charges got dropped, and the listed bond
Speaker 1: amount for some individuals was extremely high, getting up to
Speaker 1: around fifty dollars just for an individual. Nearing the end
Speaker 1: of the week of action, on Saturday May eleven, a
Speaker 1: march to Defend the Forest took the streets in East
Speaker 1: Atlanta Village, led by local preschoolers. There were some really
Speaker 1: nice signs and artwork done by kids. The Defend the
Speaker 1: Forest twitter account posted some beautiful photos of kids protests.
Speaker 1: Signs that says forest is life and love you trees stop,
Speaker 1: never cut down the trees aloged with very very good art.
Speaker 1: It was very very pleasant to see. A Few hours later,
Speaker 1: another march to Atlanta at the top Cops City drew
Speaker 1: around two hundred protesters. After about an hour of marching,
Speaker 1: the crowd returned to Freedom Park, where they were then
Speaker 1: attacked by police without warning. Dozens of cop cars pulled
Speaker 1: up and police helicopters loomed overhead. Armored cops were arresting
Speaker 1: people on the sidewalks for marching on the streets, for
Speaker 1: playing drums, or for just standing in the wrong place.
Speaker 1: Atlanta police and Georgia State Patrol officers assaulted, shoved, and
Speaker 1: tackled multiple people, deployed tasers, and threatened neighbors who filmed
Speaker 1: the arrests. One person violently arrested was taken to the
Speaker 1: hospital for treatment. To defend the forest twitter account posted
Speaker 1: quote at least seventeen arrests to night by Atlanta Police Department.
Speaker 1: Spirits high as the forest raves and the encampment grows
Speaker 1: outside the forest, men stand vigil at the jail, welcoming
Speaker 1: arrestees as they are released. We are strong together. The
Speaker 1: forest unites us. The cops cannot divide us. Atlanta police
Speaker 1: say that the march was in violation of pedestrian laws,
Speaker 1: which is why they charged and start of assaulting people
Speaker 1: on the sidewalk. And that wraps up some of the
Speaker 1: week of action stuff. I know there was a lot
Speaker 1: more things that happened, but trying to crime it all
Speaker 1: into a tight package was challenging. So that that was
Speaker 1: the general general week week of action vibes. But there
Speaker 1: is there's more. We still we still have like half
Speaker 1: the episode to go because a lot, a lot else
Speaker 1: has happened in in the days since then. In the
Speaker 1: early morning on Monday May sixteen, a week after the
Speaker 1: bulldozer descended on the forest, accompanied by off duty cops
Speaker 1: acting as security, a home associated with Dodd Drilling LLC.
Speaker 1: Was painted with slogans including Dodd Rilling, stay out, stop cops, city,
Speaker 1: and drop a p D. A message for the homeowner
Speaker 1: associated with Drilling was released, which you can read the
Speaker 1: full version of online at scenes dot no blog dot org.
Speaker 1: I'll read some portions of it here. Quote. Last Monday,
Speaker 1: a bulldozer with your logo forced its way into the
Speaker 1: Wolani Forest and left one hundred foot trail of destruction
Speaker 1: in its wake. Forced defenders responded quickly with rocks and rage,
Speaker 1: but some damage was already done. Despite having no permit,
Speaker 1: you allowed Atlanta Police to use your equipment to intimidate
Speaker 1: and injure the forest and its residents. Today, you know
Speaker 1: what it's like to have your space invaded. You came
Speaker 1: into our home, so we came to yours. Your private
Speaker 1: property is not as private as you may think. We
Speaker 1: demand that you stay out of the Wolani Forest and
Speaker 1: stop working with Atlanta Police and Cops City contractors. To
Speaker 1: all others who would support Cops City, it might have
Speaker 1: more costs than you anticipate, financial and other wise. Many
Speaker 1: creatures care deeply about this forest and are prepared to
Speaker 1: defend it. Any partner of the A p D or
Speaker 1: contractor for Cops City is our enemy and a potential target.
Speaker 1: The Wulani Forest is not dying, it is being killed,
Speaker 1: and those who are killing it have names and addresses.
Speaker 1: A list of local Atlanta evil doers is available at
Speaker 1: stop reeves young dot com. The next day, on Tuesday,
Speaker 1: May seventeenth, Atlanta police, backed by other state and federal
Speaker 1: law enforcement, including the CAB Police, Georgia State Patrol, the
Speaker 1: Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and the FBI, raided the South
Speaker 1: Atlanta Forest. The raid came just days after the Week
Speaker 1: of Action, which brought hundreds to the Atlanta Forest to
Speaker 1: participate in workshops, plant gardens, watch films, and protest at
Speaker 1: the homes of developers plotting the forests destruction. Shortly after
Speaker 1: the scheduled events ended, police gathered their forces to raid
Speaker 1: the forest encampment. Police started staging at around nine am
Speaker 1: on Tuesday and started coming in at around ten am.
Speaker 1: Force defenders started mobilizing and calling for support. Cops blocked
Speaker 1: off the roads leading to the forest access points and
Speaker 1: told drivers stuck at the blockade that quote were opening
Speaker 1: up the site for construction. Soon, cops started arresting protesters
Speaker 1: that gathered in Entrenchment Creek Park and towed any car
Speaker 1: on the streets outside of the park. Helicopter circled the forest,
Speaker 1: trying to track the movement of forest offenders under the
Speaker 1: cover of the tree canopy. Police near occupied trees were
Speaker 1: heard talking about quote flushing out people inside tree houses
Speaker 1: in the face of militant resistance. Police did manage to
Speaker 1: cut down trees and destroyed multiple treehouses, destroyed force defenders,
Speaker 1: personal belongings, and other protest infrastructure set up by the
Speaker 1: land defenders, all in an effort to allow contractors to
Speaker 1: begin development of the ninety million in dollar Cops City project.
Speaker 1: On Twitter, they defend the Atlanta Forest account posted quote
Speaker 1: reports that the Atlanta Police and Georgia State Patrol are
Speaker 1: chainsawing in an area of the old Atlanta prison farm
Speaker 1: where people have occupied trees to defend the forest. Dozens
Speaker 1: of forest defenders moving in groups all over the woods
Speaker 1: throughout the raid. No arrests inside the forest reported so far,
Speaker 1: only from the perimeter at the public park. Police seem
Speaker 1: unwilling to pursue people through the forest. Swat rifles trained
Speaker 1: on forest defenders occupying a treehouse to stop Cops City.
Speaker 1: The Defend the Forest twitter account also posted a video
Speaker 1: of a semitruck packed full of building supplies headed into
Speaker 1: the north boundary of the proposed Cops City site where
Speaker 1: police were raiding the forest defense occupation. I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: a little quote from Unicorn and Riot, who reported on
Speaker 1: the police raid. Quote. According to police, those committed to
Speaker 1: defending the forest put up a fight, pelting the officers
Speaker 1: with rocks, and what appeared to be a Molotov cocktail
Speaker 1: was deployed along a fence line. In the wake of
Speaker 1: the raid, a truck barricade constructed months ago to protect
Speaker 1: those occupying the forest from police incursions showed signs of
Speaker 1: having being set on fire. Flaming barricades are a common
Speaker 1: tactic used by protesters around the world. To push back
Speaker 1: against police unquote. Eventually, police let media enter a small
Speaker 1: contained area on the other side of the blockade. Police
Speaker 1: wanted to talk with the multiple press outlets that had
Speaker 1: gathered near the site in an attempt to gain control
Speaker 1: of the media narrative. Atlanta Police Deputy Chief sheer Bomb, Yes,
Speaker 1: that's how I'm pronouncing it. I've no idea has actually said,
Speaker 1: but I think it's sheer Bomb held an interview staged
Speaker 1: by the Public Affairs Office. Overall, the goal seemed to
Speaker 1: be to control the media narrative by painting police as
Speaker 1: the heroes and the protesters as a very small group
Speaker 1: of outside agitators. After getting the statement from police, most
Speaker 1: media left the scene. While the blockades were still up
Speaker 1: on both sides of the forest access road. Deputy Chief
Speaker 1: sheer Bomb said that police escorted contractors into the forest
Speaker 1: and preliminary work was being done. Police later specified that
Speaker 1: they were at this site to a company contractors tasked
Speaker 1: with removing some temporary illegal structures that were set up
Speaker 1: by protesters, and that quote no one was hurt. Media
Speaker 1: framed the raid and subsequent arrests as the police cracking
Speaker 1: down on a group of violent outside agitators cops giving
Speaker 1: statements like quote, we will not be deterred by the
Speaker 1: acts of a few that do not represent our community,
Speaker 1: and with local news covering the incident like quote several
Speaker 1: protesters who are arrested after they threw a molotov cocktail
Speaker 1: at police as officers raided a camp on the grounds
Speaker 1: of the planned Atlanta Police Departments training facility unquote, even
Speaker 1: though the arrests took place in a completely different section
Speaker 1: of the woods, where protesters were gathered openly in a
Speaker 1: public park and actually happened before the cocktail was thrown.
Speaker 1: Yet there was a lot of attempts to link the
Speaker 1: arrests to them altof cocktail. But you know, media media
Speaker 1: just do that, and they gobbled up the story of
Speaker 1: of the of the cocktail and of the outside agitators
Speaker 1: attacking Atlanta police and it's not representing our community. Eight
Speaker 1: people were arrested and faced charges ranging from criminal trespassing
Speaker 1: to police obstruction. Despite attempts by police to paint the
Speaker 1: movement as the work of quote outside agitators, while also
Speaker 1: working alongside of growing list of out of town law
Speaker 1: enforcement organizations, the movement to Oppose Cops City has been
Speaker 1: directly rooted within a broad localized opposition, whether that be
Speaker 1: with Atlanta based organizations fighting against gentrification, local chapters of
Speaker 1: climate change protest organizations, or just anonymous individuals that reside
Speaker 1: across Atlanta, or the indigenous people who have incestral connections
Speaker 1: to the land. And hours after the raid, there was
Speaker 1: a Atlanta community press conference put on at Entrenchment Creek Park,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to read a statement that somebody gave
Speaker 1: at the press conference. Quote, this is an attempt to
Speaker 1: demoralize a vibrant and diverse movement led by local community
Speaker 1: members against the replacement of the largest urban tree canopy
Speaker 1: in the United States with the largest police training compound
Speaker 1: in the United States. The police will attempt to depict
Speaker 1: this movement as a small group of hard line activists.
Speaker 1: We are all neighbors of the forest. We are intelligent
Speaker 1: people who know that the future of the world is
Speaker 1: on fire, and who are determined to act and to
Speaker 1: defend what remains to sustain life in this city and
Speaker 1: on this planet. The city is only going to get hotter,
Speaker 1: wrench is only going to get more expensive. Food and
Speaker 1: gas prices are only rising. The city has no answers
Speaker 1: for this, except for a more militarized police force. You
Speaker 1: can't prop up a free society with violence alone. The
Speaker 1: next day, protesters from Saturday's Stop Cop City march had
Speaker 1: court and all of their charges were dropped. Atlanta police
Speaker 1: is just desperate to get a good boogeyman to blame
Speaker 1: any potential uprising on, and they're not being super successful
Speaker 1: and letting any of these charges stick. There was this
Speaker 1: really great point made by this person named Audi Khali
Speaker 1: and was going to quote from a thread they posted quote.
Speaker 1: Thirty seven arrests were made in relation to the decentralized
Speaker 1: Defend the Atlanta Force movement over the past weeks, mostly
Speaker 1: for made up jaywalking charges, but only twelve had their
Speaker 1: legal identities revealed to corporate media and right wing doctors.
Speaker 1: Why all twelve protesters who were docked these past couple
Speaker 1: of weeks were said to be from out of state.
Speaker 1: When journalists asked if other protesters had Georgia residences, answers
Speaker 1: were denied. The answer to why is simple. These twelve
Speaker 1: currently possessed out of state I das and appeared white passing.
Speaker 1: The other twenty four arrestees might not necessarily fit these categories.
Speaker 1: Noticed that right wing troll and you know, amitted the
Speaker 1: ages of the arrestees who are not in their twenties
Speaker 1: as well. This is yet another iteration of the outside
Speaker 1: educator and narrative and an attempt to delegitimize resistance while
Speaker 1: denying local agency unquote. Police are continuing to target stop
Speaker 1: copsy of protesters with extremely high bales. Just getting nine
Speaker 1: protesters released during one week cost over a hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: So please if you're able to consider donating to the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Solidarity Fund, there will will be links in the description.
Speaker 1: So that was the raid that took place a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago. Six tree houses were destroyed. And those tree
Speaker 1: houses weren't just like tree sets to defend the forest,
Speaker 1: as were also like people's homes like that that that's
Speaker 1: where people were living. Uh so six six of those
Speaker 1: were destroyed, multiple force defenders, personal belongings were stolen or
Speaker 1: are just dismantled and decimated by the cops. And overall
Speaker 1: the raid was pretty bad. I mean, it's it kind
Speaker 1: of it kind of sucked. We will talk about what
Speaker 1: has happened since the raid when we come back from
Speaker 1: a little at break all right, we are back after
Speaker 1: the raid. Officers from Atlanta Police Departments Zone three Field
Speaker 1: Investigations Team discussed using deadly force against protesters if they
Speaker 1: used molotov cocktails to defend themselves from a raid. According
Speaker 1: to scanner audio publicized by activists, listen closely for like
Speaker 1: thirty seconds to hear their conversation discussing deadly force. The
Speaker 1: good thing we didn't get out the damnal today. I
Speaker 1: don't do well with fire. Oh yeah, right, howld you
Speaker 1: deadly force encounter? Wait? Whatever doing with fire? That's why
Speaker 1: I brought it up. I was saying, as long as
Speaker 1: we're all that they paid the deadly fourth encounter, you liar,
Speaker 1: ro cop bails them at the road pure the treehouse
Speaker 1: they had up, they had cars like on it, people
Speaker 1: coming in a protest against copy. Sure, So I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna reread one little section in case it was hard
Speaker 1: to hear. Quote, I told you deadly force encounter. That's
Speaker 1: why I brought it up. As long as we're on
Speaker 1: the same page, I'm atop cocktail is the deadly force
Speaker 1: encounter unquote. So a deadly force encounter is a situation
Speaker 1: where officers are legally allowed to shoot to kill. Basically,
Speaker 1: what this scanner audio ins anuates is that police are
Speaker 1: preparing or thinking about just killing people when multov cocktails
Speaker 1: are deployed. So that's a thing. Also, it's a little
Speaker 1: interesting that police themselves referred to the project as cops City.
Speaker 1: But yeah, keeping track of scanner audio has been a
Speaker 1: big part of the not on the ground portion of
Speaker 1: the movement is being all to track police communications, police
Speaker 1: locations all using open source information, and tops are really
Speaker 1: scared and paranoid when it comes to stuff around the
Speaker 1: forest and just don't seem to be able to grasp
Speaker 1: the idea of a decentralized resistance movement that is capable
Speaker 1: of a diversity of tactics, including militant ones. There's this
Speaker 1: other scanner audio that was released displaying Atlanta police's ignorance, cowardice,
Speaker 1: and paranoia related to what they believe is a group
Speaker 1: dubbed Black Flag Atlanta. You guys gotta be carefully had
Speaker 1: a um to the cab jobs are sitting in the
Speaker 1: van and they they attacked the van or you know,
Speaker 1: knocking windows out with flatting attires and stuff. But they're
Speaker 1: supposed to be a group called a Black Flag Atlanta
Speaker 1: that are targeting police and they have an app and
Speaker 1: stuff back can monitor our vehicles and shows about patrol
Speaker 1: cars are sitting at with lab updates. You know, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, they could be dropping the fans pointing something
Speaker 1: or you know, sort of trap or damaged property and
Speaker 1: shout in the range you said, they gotta what's the
Speaker 1: name of that? I just pulled back around find it.
Speaker 1: But the group is called black Flag Atlanta, So the
Speaker 1: so called group that police refer to as black Flag
Speaker 1: Atlanta is likely just referring to a hobbyist website that
Speaker 1: simply collects on the ground reports and open source police
Speaker 1: scanner information. The website is an open resource for anyone
Speaker 1: to use. It's not a group of people. It's just
Speaker 1: a random online tool that lets you listen to scanner audio.
Speaker 1: The cops mentioned that they're afraid because of the actions
Speaker 1: of some anonymous individuals who surrounded a law enforcement vehicle
Speaker 1: and damaged it while officers were inside just sitting terrified,
Speaker 1: and then did the same to a juvenile detention facility.
Speaker 1: Van I discussed the details of that direct action earlier
Speaker 1: in this episode, when anonymous people through rocks and slash
Speaker 1: tires of those law enforcement vehicles. Quoting from an anonymous
Speaker 1: statement on scenes dot no blogs, quote, the cops believe
Speaker 1: that Black Flag Atlanta is a group that tracks and
Speaker 1: monitors cops and their locations around the forest and works
Speaker 1: to attack them. This is laughably wrong. Rather than understanding
Speaker 1: that our power comes from open source intelligence, horizontal organizing,
Speaker 1: and transparency, they have conjured up a shadowy organization that
Speaker 1: organizes hits on police officers and publishes their targets right beforehand. Unquote.
Speaker 1: Cops really just don't seem to have a clue on
Speaker 1: what's what's actually going on um or how any types
Speaker 1: of decentralized infrastructure works, or how movements are really operated.
Speaker 1: It is an interesting thing to see. But scared cops
Speaker 1: are also dangerous cops. As we just mentioned about them
Speaker 1: planning to use lethal force if there's a multip cocktail
Speaker 1: in the area right when cops are scared. That's not
Speaker 1: necessarily always a good thing. Um. It just you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of police training is based on being afraid
Speaker 1: and then using deadly force if you are afraid. So
Speaker 1: it's just a thing to think about. I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not making any like commentary here, I'm just saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: cops seem really scared, and that can be good. It
Speaker 1: also can be dangerous. I'm now going to talk a
Speaker 1: bit about solidarity actions, because you know, not everyone's able
Speaker 1: to go to Atlanta, even if even if they would
Speaker 1: like to go to Land and help help participate, some
Speaker 1: people just aren't able to. But that doesn't mean people
Speaker 1: are unable to assist in the movement. I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: a little quote from Unicorn riot quote. In recent weeks,
Speaker 1: autonomous attacks in solidarity with efforts to defend the Atlanta
Speaker 1: Forest have occurred throughout the country, according to a website
Speaker 1: that tracks such actions, One repeated target has been at
Speaker 1: Las Technical Consultants, the apparent company of Long and Airing,
Speaker 1: a subcontractor of the cop City project, which had its
Speaker 1: windows of its office smashed in Albany, New York, in Minneapolis, Minnesota,
Speaker 1: and it's building tag with the graffiti in Highland, Indiana.
Speaker 1: The website also received reports of attacks on Bank of America,
Speaker 1: which donates money to the police foundations across the country,
Speaker 1: including the Atlanta Police Foundation. Attacks were reported in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: Portland's Enemy Appolis unquote, and I'm going to just go
Speaker 1: through a list of solidarity actions that have happened in
Speaker 1: May and now up into June. Most of these were
Speaker 1: posted on scenes dot no blogs that seems to be
Speaker 1: the main site for anonymously posting communication or report backs.
Speaker 1: You can find guides to how to do so with
Speaker 1: more Internet security on websites like scenes and websites like
Speaker 1: Warrior up. So anyway, here's just a list of little
Speaker 1: communications that have been released related to solidarity actions that
Speaker 1: have taken place in the past month. Quote. On the
Speaker 1: evening of May to I smashed seven windows at the
Speaker 1: office building where the northeast offices of Atlas are located
Speaker 1: in Albany, New York. I also tagged Atlas stopped destroying
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Forest, destroying concience of acres of forest during
Speaker 1: the sixth greatest mass extinction of species. To build a
Speaker 1: police training facility following one of the largest anti police
Speaker 1: uprisings in decades is fucking disgusting with his vandalism. I
Speaker 1: urge Atlas to do the right thing and to drop
Speaker 1: any contracts with Brassfield and Gory and the Cops City Project.
Speaker 1: During the week of Action, the brass Field and Gory
Speaker 1: Corporate HQ in Birmingham, Alabama was targeted. According to a
Speaker 1: strongly worded anonymous statement published on scenes. The report back
Speaker 1: reads quote. On the morning of the thirteenth, the windows
Speaker 1: and glass doors to the brass Field and Gory Corporate
Speaker 1: HQ were smashed. The words drop cops city or else
Speaker 1: were spray painted on the windows. Paint was applied to
Speaker 1: the front sign. Let it serve as a warning to
Speaker 1: the executives at brass Field and Gory. We know where
Speaker 1: you work and we know where you sleep. Your houses
Speaker 1: could be next Keith Johnson Miller, George James Gory. You
Speaker 1: will drop this contract eventually. Why wait to see how
Speaker 1: far will go? In solidarity with a struggle in Atlanta unquote.
Speaker 1: And then just a few days ago, construction offices in
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania were hit. The community was short and sweet, just
Speaker 1: reads quote. Door windows smashed and building tagged at the
Speaker 1: northeast office of Atlas Technical Consultants at two one to
Speaker 1: six Fillmore Avenue in Erie, Pennsylvania. Stop cops City, defend
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Forest and forests everywhere. A few days ago,
Speaker 1: on May thirty one, there was a massive police mobilization
Speaker 1: involving helicopters and a road checkpoint around the Atlanta Forest
Speaker 1: at the proposed Cops City site. According to reports, Atlanta
Speaker 1: Police Department accompanied Long Engineering, who seemingly were surveying for
Speaker 1: a perimeter fence. No arrests were reported. Long Engineering, as
Speaker 1: we've stated, is owned by Atlas Technical Consultants, and it's
Speaker 1: currently being contracted by Brassfield and Gory, the Atlanta Police
Speaker 1: Foundation's general contractor. The stoft Reeves Young Campaign least a
Speaker 1: statement discussing the events of the past few days quote.
Speaker 1: On May thirty one and June one, Brassfield and Gory
Speaker 1: subcontractor Long Engineering entered the old Atlanta prison farm with
Speaker 1: chainsaws and heavy machinery. They are cutting down trees in
Speaker 1: order to build a fence around the zone. This is
Speaker 1: where the Police Foundation believes they will build the Cops
Speaker 1: City training compound. They hope to prevent the community from
Speaker 1: seeing what they are doing. Long Engineering, owned by a
Speaker 1: man named Shephard Long of ken Saw, Georgia, has already
Speaker 1: participated in destructive acts in the South River Forest. For this,
Speaker 1: they have become the object of a nationwide pressure campaign
Speaker 1: by activists and communities organizing to oppose police militarization and
Speaker 1: climate change. Long is a subsidy of Atlas Technical Consultants.
Speaker 1: If activists in community bers can convince brass Field and
Speaker 1: Gory to drop their contract with the Atlanta Police Foundation,
Speaker 1: the project could lose funding and fall apart. Brass Field
Speaker 1: and Gory uses many subcontractors to do their projects, including
Speaker 1: Atlas Technical Consultants subsidy Long Engineering. By encouraging Long Engineering
Speaker 1: to drop the contract with Brassfield and Gory, we encourage
Speaker 1: Brassfield and Gory to drop their contract with cops city.
Speaker 1: Climate collapse and police militarization are not abstract processes so
Speaker 1: that nobody can stop. They happen because of observable and
Speaker 1: preventable reasons. If you care about police brutality, if you
Speaker 1: want to stop climate change, this is your chance to
Speaker 1: do something unquote, and I do think there are a
Speaker 1: lot of signs that people actually can make actual impacts.
Speaker 1: At the last Community Stakeholder Advisory meeting, Atlanta Assistant Police
Speaker 1: Chief Darien schnear Bomb said that construction plans could be
Speaker 1: quote delayed or deferred because of the actions of a
Speaker 1: very few unquote, and said that this is why police
Speaker 1: agencies are working to quote addressed criminal protests very quickly
Speaker 1: so it doesn't get into that realm unquote. And on
Speaker 1: the day I record this, which is June second. Earlier
Speaker 1: this morning, to police chased Force defenders into the woods
Speaker 1: near a work site and found a camp. Ten Force
Speaker 1: defenders confronted and surrounded a bulldozer that was in the woods,
Speaker 1: resulting in a work stoppage. On a communicate released online
Speaker 1: at scenes read quote work stopped today Thursday, June second,
Speaker 1: as a group of ten Force defenders confronted a bulldozer
Speaker 1: in the forest just west of the Duvy today forcet.
Speaker 1: Defenders launched rocks and fireworks, yelling get the funk out
Speaker 1: of the woods. As the machine was attacked. Four to
Speaker 1: five workers, likely with long engineering, hid behind the bulldozer
Speaker 1: while one Atlanta Police officer stood idly with his hands
Speaker 1: on his hips. Force defenders retreated into the woods. How polling,
Speaker 1: no arrests were made. We call upon anyone who wants
Speaker 1: to defend the forest and stop cops city to support
Speaker 1: the struggle by sewing chaos along the perimeter. Plan a
Speaker 1: slow moving car caravan on Constitution Road, or a rally
Speaker 1: at the juvie workers and pigs. We repeat, stay the
Speaker 1: funk out of the woods unquote. And also today a
Speaker 1: new timeline was released detailing the construction plans for a
Speaker 1: cops City. The Atlanta Police Foundation plans to begin cutting
Speaker 1: down massive swaths of trees in about two weeks. The
Speaker 1: clearing is planned for nearly of the four hundred acre property,
Speaker 1: so defour stations seems to be just two weeks away
Speaker 1: now based on the full site plans that are viewable online.
Speaker 1: I will link the plans in the show notes along
Speaker 1: with the Stop Reeves Young campaign, which details ways to assist,
Speaker 1: like calling campaigns and random stuff that is maybe more
Speaker 1: possible from afar. But the sty Copsdy project is going
Speaker 1: to continue all throughout the summer and seems to have
Speaker 1: no sign of cooling down. It is only it is
Speaker 1: only heating up as the summer gets hotter, so well
Speaker 1: the stuff in the forest in more ways than one,
Speaker 1: But anyway, that doesn't for us. Today. You can check
Speaker 1: out stop Reeves Young dot com for the calling campaign
Speaker 1: and for the list of quote evildoers that are working
Speaker 1: to DeForest sections of the Atlanta South River Forest. You
Speaker 1: can go to scenes dot no blogs dot org to
Speaker 1: read communicates and report backs, and I'll put links for
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Solidarity Fund in the description as well. See
Speaker 1: you on the other side. Welcome to it could happen here.
Speaker 1: It's the show with things fall apart and we put
Speaker 1: them back together again and there may may not be
Speaker 1: enormously allowed lawnmowers in the background. Yeah, this is this
Speaker 1: is This is a podcast also about abolishing lawns, although
Speaker 1: I guess I guess not to today. It's only about
Speaker 1: abolishing lawns because I'm extume we know it about neighbors.
Speaker 1: But we can we can do an anti lne episode
Speaker 1: in the near future. Yeah, one day, one day, but
Speaker 1: but it is on on. On a more serious note,
Speaker 1: is I have Garrison with me, and I have Tanya
Speaker 1: with me, who is an abortion clinic escort and has
Speaker 1: been doing this for a very very long time. Tanya,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us, Thank you for having me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm really excited to talk with you about this because, um,
Speaker 1: this is well, this is something we've been wanting to
Speaker 1: do for a while because I think not enough people
Speaker 1: know what this is. So I guess I guess the
Speaker 1: first thing is is, Yeah, can you explain to people
Speaker 1: who aren't familiar with this what clinic escorting is. Absolutely so.
Speaker 1: There are a number of volunteer clinic escorts across the
Speaker 1: country and many are they're they're not necessarily organized nationwide,
Speaker 1: but many metro areas do have organizations where you can
Speaker 1: volunteer to be a clinical score. And what that means
Speaker 1: is that you are essentially someone who goes to a
Speaker 1: clinic that performs abortion services and you stand outside that
Speaker 1: clinic and you help the patients get into the clinic,
Speaker 1: uh hopefully free of harassment from protesters outside, and just
Speaker 1: ensure that protesters don't block access to the clinic and
Speaker 1: that the patients are able to get inside you know,
Speaker 1: know where they're going and get insanely Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: seems like that it seems like a really hard job
Speaker 1: in a couple of ways. But both of the sense
Speaker 1: that like there's a bunch of extremely angry and very
Speaker 1: weird people with really signs and very sincerely held beliefs
Speaker 1: on in a different uh side where they they do
Speaker 1: want to stop people from going and convince them not
Speaker 1: to go in um, you know, and it is interesting
Speaker 1: as as a clinic escort, you know, you're you're really
Speaker 1: you don't have an opinion, Like I don't have an
Speaker 1: opinion on whether someone goes in, someone can go in,
Speaker 1: someone cannot go in. It's not you know, where the
Speaker 1: people who do the clinic escorting are there because we
Speaker 1: believe that women and their partners should have a choice
Speaker 1: about what to do. And so if a woman chooses
Speaker 1: that she doesn't want to go into the clinic, you know,
Speaker 1: that's fine by me. I'm just there to ensure that
Speaker 1: she has the choice to go into the clinic um
Speaker 1: and and get whatever services she needs, whether it's uh,
Speaker 1: whether it's crenatal care or contraception or abortion services. So um,
Speaker 1: it's it's fascinating because yeah, there are a lot of people.
Speaker 1: You know, the protesters on the other side can really
Speaker 1: run the gamuts. Some of them, um, are very angry
Speaker 1: and have very interesting signs, but some of them, you know,
Speaker 1: you they also range to those who are just standing
Speaker 1: there saying the Rosary, walking up and down, and the
Speaker 1: carrying crucifixes. And you know, if it was just people
Speaker 1: saying the Rosary and then going coming saying the Rosary
Speaker 1: and going, I probably wouldn't do what I do because
Speaker 1: that's neither here nor there from me. It's the people
Speaker 1: who are you know, they will try to get in
Speaker 1: the window of a car when a car pulls up
Speaker 1: if if they happen to have the windows down and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, get in the like put their heads in
Speaker 1: the car to try to talk to the people or
Speaker 1: hand them literature. Um And I've seen some of the
Speaker 1: literature that you know, people have shared with us after
Speaker 1: it's been given to them, you know, and it's a
Speaker 1: lot of it is full of misinformation, um and and
Speaker 1: kind of also you know, as someone who was raised Catholic.
Speaker 1: Uh and and it's coming from people many many of
Speaker 1: the people who are protesting are Catholic. It's very emotionally
Speaker 1: manipulative and not actual information on some of them. I
Speaker 1: remember seeing one once around Christmas time that was like
Speaker 1: a whole cartoon about how excited Mary was to be
Speaker 1: Jesus mom and uh and and how therefore that means
Speaker 1: that you should not have your pregnancy terminated because you
Speaker 1: should be more like Mary and be excited too. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty fascinated. Yeah, And I guess that's another thing that
Speaker 1: that I was wondering about to what extent, like so
Speaker 1: Obviously there's a physical component of this, right is okay,
Speaker 1: trying to make sure that people aren't physically interfering. Um,
Speaker 1: how much of it also is sort of like providing
Speaker 1: emotional support to the to the people you're with, sure,
Speaker 1: because it's really stressful it can be. I mean, the
Speaker 1: clinic where I'm an escort is has a little bit
Speaker 1: of a perimeter where uh, there's there's a parking lot
Speaker 1: and between the people where they can actually protest out
Speaker 1: on the sidewalk which is public property obviously and the
Speaker 1: actual entrance to the clinic. Um. But there are people
Speaker 1: who come in off a public transport to and not
Speaker 1: necessarily aren't necessarily coming in a car where they can
Speaker 1: get sort of beyond where the protesters are um to
Speaker 1: the clinic. And so I actually have a vivid memory.
Speaker 1: I've been doing this for sixteen years, and I have
Speaker 1: a vivid memory of a woman who came off the bus.
Speaker 1: She got down off the bus at the bus stop, like,
Speaker 1: and the protesters really got up in her face. And
Speaker 1: one of them in particular was a guy who is
Speaker 1: I'm not a small person, I'm about five ten and
Speaker 1: and and pretty decent size, but he's definitely over six
Speaker 1: ft tall, and he was just like looming over her,
Speaker 1: and I had to physically insert myself in between her
Speaker 1: and him and say, Hey, you want to go to
Speaker 1: the clinic, this is how you get there. You don't
Speaker 1: have to listen to these people. If you want to
Speaker 1: talk to them, you can, but you know you don't
Speaker 1: have to, and you know, and and really, you know,
Speaker 1: they're in such a fragile moment, most of them. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: that that particular individual had come to find out wasn't
Speaker 1: even coming for termination services. She was coming to get
Speaker 1: an ultrasound. She was having twins, and it was the
Speaker 1: lowest cost place that she could go to actually find
Speaker 1: an ultrasound to make sure that her twins were okay,
Speaker 1: um and so. And she even came out afterwards with
Speaker 1: the ultrasound and like shoved it in the guy's face
Speaker 1: and was like, you know, you know, go take a
Speaker 1: flying leap, but um so, But yeah, I mean, part
Speaker 1: of it is just showing that there are people who
Speaker 1: believe that you have the right to make the choice
Speaker 1: you're making, and that we're not judging you. We're not here,
Speaker 1: you know. I think a lot of women in the
Speaker 1: position of who feel that the need to terminate a pregnancy,
Speaker 1: they feel very judged. It's it's it's society is very
Speaker 1: judgment Bault And I think you know, being there, we
Speaker 1: have so many people who come up to us UM
Speaker 1: and just say, hey, thanks for being just thanks for
Speaker 1: being right. It's it's just helpful to know that someone
Speaker 1: is here, uh, and and and and believes that I
Speaker 1: have the right to make this decision and that I'm
Speaker 1: the best person to make this decision about me and
Speaker 1: my body and my family. UM is really it's it
Speaker 1: makes it that much, it makes it better. And and
Speaker 1: people will come up and tell the most personal stories
Speaker 1: as well. We've had someone who came up to me
Speaker 1: once and said, hey, no, ten years ago, my wife
Speaker 1: was pregnant UM and we had been trying for so
Speaker 1: long to have a baby, and we found out that
Speaker 1: there was this massive, you know, genetic defect that was
Speaker 1: not really compatible with life, and we had we had
Speaker 1: we faced the tough decision about do we go ahead
Speaker 1: and terminate this pregnancy and and try to start again
Speaker 1: and have it and and and get pregnant again, or
Speaker 1: do we carry this to term knowing that this child
Speaker 1: isn't going to live um for very long and that individual, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and his wife and decided to to terminate
Speaker 1: the existing pregnancy, knowing that the baby wasn't going to live.
Speaker 1: And he said, and uh, when we went to actually
Speaker 1: have the abortion, we had to run the gauntlet of
Speaker 1: all of those people outside, all those people like this
Speaker 1: telling us how we were killing our baby. Um, I
Speaker 1: wanted baby. You know that we were killing our child
Speaker 1: and we were murderers and all of that. And so
Speaker 1: he was just like, just thank you for being here,
Speaker 1: thank you for being here and showing because you don't
Speaker 1: know what what's going on in the lives of all
Speaker 1: of these people who are coming in here and they
Speaker 1: don't know all what's going on. And so and he said,
Speaker 1: I really wish we had had someone like you know,
Speaker 1: you standing here to let us know that it was okay,
Speaker 1: you know, at the end that moment of time to
Speaker 1: to to do this. So, yeah, it's it's interesting people
Speaker 1: will tell very very personal stories. The next thing I
Speaker 1: was wondering is about how how this has changed over time.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, you've you've been in this for like
Speaker 1: longer than I've been, like very seriously a conscious person.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so so I'm wondering what has it been like,
Speaker 1: how how has this changed over the past sort of
Speaker 1: like a decade and a half, And has there been
Speaker 1: a change like very very recently as in in in
Speaker 1: the sort of like as as Row looks like it's
Speaker 1: dying and what do you think that's going to mean
Speaker 1: going forward for this? Yeah? Um, so yes it has
Speaker 1: changed over time. Um, and and yes it has changed
Speaker 1: very recently as well. Um, what I what I can say.
Speaker 1: You know, when I first started doing this, it was
Speaker 1: really just kind of you know, the same hand and
Speaker 1: and it still is the same handful of usual suspects
Speaker 1: who show up at least at the clinic I escort
Speaker 1: at um. But it was really it was it was
Speaker 1: a small handful. And uh, it was the same people
Speaker 1: every week, week week, week after week after week. And um,
Speaker 1: you know on the clinic sport side, you know, we're volunteers,
Speaker 1: so you know, we need people to come and be
Speaker 1: sort of energized, and so you know, we have a
Speaker 1: cadre of people who have been doing it. Yes, I've
Speaker 1: been doing it for sixteen years. But there's a woman
Speaker 1: that I I a sport with. There are several women
Speaker 1: that I sport with who've been doing it decades longer
Speaker 1: than I, right, and yeah, I mean really amazing, really
Speaker 1: amazing women and who probably have even more interesting stories
Speaker 1: than I do. But you know, in the you know,
Speaker 1: we and we would see after after something happened, like
Speaker 1: when George Tiller was murdered, we had an influx of
Speaker 1: volunteers who came, people who were angry and said, you know,
Speaker 1: I was so upset and I realized I needed to
Speaker 1: do something about it. Um. So periodically there have been
Speaker 1: you know, obviously, you know, the murder of George Schiller
Speaker 1: was a tragedy, but we've had things like that that
Speaker 1: have energized people and brought them in two actually doing
Speaker 1: clinic escorting. UM. And there's been a little bit of
Speaker 1: a pickup recently in the number of escorts, but it's
Speaker 1: nothing like the pickup that I think I've seen in
Speaker 1: terms of antis anders. And it's you know, and it's
Speaker 1: important because you know, if you really believe that people
Speaker 1: should have the right to bodily autonomy and the right
Speaker 1: to make this choice, UM, that that requires people to
Speaker 1: actually make it happen for them, and there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people trying to make it not happen. And
Speaker 1: I actually I was actually esporting, um because the clinic esports,
Speaker 1: uh they you know, we actually change off, we have
Speaker 1: a schedule. We don't all go every week at least
Speaker 1: at the clinic where I am, because you know, we
Speaker 1: also want to have our own lives and not just
Speaker 1: be standing at this clinic every every weekend. Um. But
Speaker 1: I was esporting the weekend after Ruth bader Ginsberg died
Speaker 1: and I was standing by myself kind of it went
Speaker 1: end well, another person went and just I think picked
Speaker 1: up a sign or took a bathroom right or something,
Speaker 1: and one of the newer anties um stood across from
Speaker 1: me and yelled at me that Ruth bader Ginsburg was
Speaker 1: was burning in hell now and that if I didn't repent,
Speaker 1: you know, that the same thing would happen to me,
Speaker 1: and that that's just how plan that, you know, people
Speaker 1: who believe in in killing babies, uh just are going
Speaker 1: to rotten hell for eternity. And and so that was
Speaker 1: an interesting you know, and it was the first time.
Speaker 1: Most of the time they don't really try to engage
Speaker 1: us in conversation, but it was the first time someone
Speaker 1: was really just saying super super like sort of inflammatory
Speaker 1: stuff to me as an personally, as an escort, we
Speaker 1: certainly had heard, you know, they'll they'll say things to
Speaker 1: patients where they say, you know, don't go in there,
Speaker 1: it's not safe, you're good mom to your baby, and
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, which is also you know, obviously
Speaker 1: incredibly emotional views to women going through uh, you know
Speaker 1: what they're going through when they feel that they have
Speaker 1: no better choice than determinate pregnancy. UM. But uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: the actual sort of the vitriol towards towards the escorts
Speaker 1: is a little is increasing UM. And I would say
Speaker 1: around the time Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, we also have
Speaker 1: seen an enormous uptick in the number of protesters outside
Speaker 1: the clinic um each each week, as well as the
Speaker 1: length of time that they will stay. UM. They actually
Speaker 1: about doubled the length of time that they should stay UM.
Speaker 1: And so you know, it's it's been a challenge. It's
Speaker 1: been a challenge for us on the escorting side to
Speaker 1: actually cover the ships because you know, we are again
Speaker 1: we're all volunteers who have lives and want to live
Speaker 1: our lives. You know, we're women who are mothers, grandmothers,
Speaker 1: Uh men, who are you know, father's grandfathers who just
Speaker 1: you know, want want to do something good and help out. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, more and more of the time, Uh,
Speaker 1: we were having to stay later, come earlier, stay later,
Speaker 1: to ensure that there's someone there, that there's a there's
Speaker 1: there's a friendly or at least protective president. Uh. For
Speaker 1: the women coming into the have they gotten like have
Speaker 1: they gotten more violent? Um? You know, like I said,
Speaker 1: there's actually so for us. It's where we are in
Speaker 1: kind of the clinic where I work, are in kind
Speaker 1: of a privileged position, so to speak. And that where
Speaker 1: they are stationed, you know, out on the sidewalk is
Speaker 1: uh is far enough away. Um, you know, across a
Speaker 1: parking lot from from the clinic that you know that
Speaker 1: the physical altered you know, interactions are are relatively rare. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know that that wouldn't really be better
Speaker 1: A question? Better place to a clinic escort? Who's on
Speaker 1: a clinic at a clinic where you know, the entrance
Speaker 1: to the clinic is right on a public I'd walk
Speaker 1: right where I think you know, they definitely do have
Speaker 1: significantly more physical interactions. UM. I guess it's hard to say,
Speaker 1: it depends on how you define that is it there
Speaker 1: For a long time. The one of the signs outside
Speaker 1: the clinic was a photo of of the doctor who
Speaker 1: provided the termination services, um, a photo of him and
Speaker 1: his name, and it said retire this person you know
Speaker 1: his name and the retire abortionist and then his name um.
Speaker 1: And that that showed up, I think, as I vaguely
Speaker 1: recall around the time George Schiller was was murdered. UM,
Speaker 1: So what does that mean? Right? So that's that's violent
Speaker 1: in and of itself. It's it's it's an a suggestion
Speaker 1: there of UM. You know, I won't pretend that it's not.
Speaker 1: You know, it doesn't sometimes go through my head like
Speaker 1: you know, because there are clinic esports who have been murdered. Um.
Speaker 1: And and so it doesn't. It sometimes does go through
Speaker 1: my head, especially like you know, certain times of year
Speaker 1: when we're bundled up and it's cold. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: someone could come up behind me and I you know,
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily always hear them or see them. Um. And
Speaker 1: so it is, it's you know, there's definitely always an
Speaker 1: undercurrent in a feeling of you know, something could escalate.
Speaker 1: We're fortunate at my clinic that it It hasn't too
Speaker 1: much recently, but we you know, I would say, you know, again,
Speaker 1: as Roe is dying, you know, they're getting more bold. Um.
Speaker 1: They're not supposed to trespass, they're not supposed to come
Speaker 1: on into the parking lot. Um. And yet there are
Speaker 1: some who are really trying to test that boundary now
Speaker 1: who will go to their car not in the clinic
Speaker 1: parking lot, and then as they leave, drive into the
Speaker 1: parking lot and around the by the clinic just to
Speaker 1: sort of um, intimidate people and and and to can
Speaker 1: make the escorts concerned because obviously, you know, when we're
Speaker 1: on foot, it's very hard to get physically between them
Speaker 1: and something when they're when they're driving, um. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's there's definitely an escalation in that front, and
Speaker 1: and an escalation in in the rhetoric. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: there are more I would say, kind of pointed signs,
Speaker 1: uh that that are used to try to intimidate the
Speaker 1: women into not going into the clinic. There was actually
Speaker 1: there's a sign that had been used for for that
Speaker 1: actually has been used for a little bit longer, but
Speaker 1: it basically it had the names of two women who,
Speaker 1: according to the antis uh had died under the care
Speaker 1: of the services of the doctor at our clinic, which
Speaker 1: in the end, when I actually did my own research,
Speaker 1: wasn't true. One one just very unfortunately had an allergic
Speaker 1: reaction to the anesthetic, which is not something you know
Speaker 1: unless you've been under anesthesia, and uh the other and
Speaker 1: and it wasn't and neither of them wasn't actually the
Speaker 1: provider at at our clinic who was performing the service
Speaker 1: at the time. Uh, those individuals died, but it said,
Speaker 1: you know, dead, and it had these two women's names,
Speaker 1: um and a hundred and fifty thousand babies and um,
Speaker 1: which is a little bit inflammatory. And then it and
Speaker 1: also misleading when you think about it, because you know,
Speaker 1: the maternal more totality rate in the United States is
Speaker 1: like over twenty three women for a hundred thousands. So
Speaker 1: I was like, well, even if this is accurate, even
Speaker 1: if this sign was accurate, which is not, you know,
Speaker 1: two women out of a hundred and fifty that's way
Speaker 1: safer than actually for pregnancy UM. And you know, so
Speaker 1: it's those kinds of things. It's it's the mind games.
Speaker 1: And you know, as someone who uh, you know has
Speaker 1: seen this for a while, Like you know, to me,
Speaker 1: the mind game is part of the violence, even though
Speaker 1: it's not physical. It's it's really you know, trying to
Speaker 1: to make people feel ashamed and feel that they shouldn't
Speaker 1: come out. And I think that you know, as as
Speaker 1: we're looking at Robe possibly being overturned, you know, you're
Speaker 1: suddenly seeing all of these people coming out of the woodwork.
Speaker 1: Because you know, so many women in this country actually
Speaker 1: do abort a pregnancy at some point in time, do
Speaker 1: terminate a pregnancy, and yet it's not something anyone talks
Speaker 1: about because it's it's still because of the dialogue in
Speaker 1: this country, and because of the way it is portrayed.
Speaker 1: It is something that most people, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be public about, not just because of the
Speaker 1: politics of it, but because you know, there are people
Speaker 1: who are made to feel ashamed and as opposed to
Speaker 1: you know this, This was the right choice for me
Speaker 1: at this point in time. Um, And maybe under different
Speaker 1: circumstances it might have been a different choice. UM. But yeah,
Speaker 1: So I think it's hard to say whether violence has increased, um,
Speaker 1: because it's always had that undercurrent. I mean ever since
Speaker 1: I've started, ever since I started doing. One of the
Speaker 1: things that we've talked to a few other people, we
Speaker 1: talked to someone who was doing security for sort of
Speaker 1: security plans for clinics, and one of the things they
Speaker 1: were talking about was like a shift in the kinds
Speaker 1: of people who were getting involved in these clinics. And
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, in these clinic protests, like I wonder, have
Speaker 1: have you have you seen like I don't know, they
Speaker 1: were talking about, like there's been some specifically fascist groups
Speaker 1: getting involved, and I was wondering if like the kinds
Speaker 1: of people who've you've seen have been like that, or like,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of the new people who are
Speaker 1: getting involved, are they closer to like the kinds of
Speaker 1: people you usually see see outside these clinics. So that's
Speaker 1: actually an interesting point that I hadn't I hadn't thought
Speaker 1: too much about. But I think, you know, the previously,
Speaker 1: you know, when I first started doing this, it tended
Speaker 1: to be kind of your older Catholic uh folks who
Speaker 1: are you know, coming and saying the rosary, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: standing there with the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
Speaker 1: like in front of the clinic and um and and
Speaker 1: you know, some could be pushy. Um, but I think
Speaker 1: it is accurate to say there is actually a younger
Speaker 1: element of anti abortion protester or anti choice really because
Speaker 1: in the end it's really about the choice, not and
Speaker 1: and so I think, yes, I'm seeing younger and younger people.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting that you mentioned that because a lot
Speaker 1: of them are men. Uh, they're young, almost almost entirely white.
Speaker 1: There is a few a handful of people of color,
Speaker 1: but um, they they tend to come very very rarely. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, the it's interesting, So it was largely
Speaker 1: older white men and women previously, and now I would
Speaker 1: say there are many more younger men getting involved, a
Speaker 1: few women. But when for most of the young and
Speaker 1: when I say young, I would say, you know, well,
Speaker 1: while for the for the clinic I'm at, I would
Speaker 1: say anyone under probably the age of forty. But you know, also, um,
Speaker 1: you know, really when when you know, even under the
Speaker 1: age of thirty or twenty five, it's with the exception
Speaker 1: of one, it's met it is it is white men. Um.
Speaker 1: And uh, yeah, so that's that's interesting. I hadn't It's
Speaker 1: quite possible. Um, certainly there are some that but you know,
Speaker 1: we as clinic escorts are not actually engaging these individuals
Speaker 1: and conversation. That's not something that you know, we have
Speaker 1: to sign pledges that were you know, at least for
Speaker 1: the for the organization that we volunteer with, that we're
Speaker 1: not going to engage in conversation with them. That we're not,
Speaker 1: you know, because no one you know, and I guess
Speaker 1: this is sort of the whole point of your podcast.
Speaker 1: No one is going to change each other's minds on
Speaker 1: this issue, right um, and you know over over the
Speaker 1: parking lot, uh and and one uh, you know sort
Speaker 1: of interaction. So we actually we we don't and we
Speaker 1: actively don't because we we just you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: not worth it. We're there. The point of being there
Speaker 1: is not to try to get to know the other
Speaker 1: the the anti choice demonstrators, it's not to try to
Speaker 1: you know, change their minds. It's just to ensure that
Speaker 1: the women who have made their decision are able to
Speaker 1: freely access the health care services that they have made
Speaker 1: the decision access. Yeah, that makes a lot of that.
Speaker 1: That's definitely seems like the like, it definitely seems like
Speaker 1: the best strategy for this. It seems like something that
Speaker 1: like other people could learn from as like a tactic
Speaker 1: to deal with this kind of stuff, because yeah, and
Speaker 1: engaging with those people. It doesn't I have limited experience
Speaker 1: with this, but they showed up to my well, okay,
Speaker 1: show up to my high school, but then they also
Speaker 1: show up to my college, and we just like that
Speaker 1: they were trying to like get in use footage, and
Speaker 1: so we wound up just like sitting down in front
Speaker 1: of the like just sitting down in front of their
Speaker 1: signs so people couldn't see them, and then just like
Speaker 1: refusing to talk to them, And that I think worked
Speaker 1: a lot better than like, I don't know a lot
Speaker 1: of the other stuff that I've seen, because yeah, like
Speaker 1: definitely right, like yeah, like you're not gonna those people,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, like just there's no way you're gonna change
Speaker 1: the mind of like someone if you's holding a sign there.
Speaker 1: And I guess that's also another thing that that that
Speaker 1: it's interesting about this, which is yeah, like it's like
Speaker 1: your your emphasis on it's not about the audiological debate
Speaker 1: as much as it is, like it's not about like
Speaker 1: you going to confront these people. It's about making sure
Speaker 1: that the people who need these services are safe and
Speaker 1: are able to do it, and that that seems like
Speaker 1: a very powerful way to sort of like bypass this,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, bypass is weird like discourse circuit
Speaker 1: that everyone gets in. Yeah, I mean I think you
Speaker 1: know what I what I can tell you. I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: I would love to sleep in on my Saturday mornings.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't like to to get up and
Speaker 1: give up, you know, you know, two to four hours
Speaker 1: of my Saturday um, you know, in the freezing rain
Speaker 1: or the you know wind and cold auran a really
Speaker 1: hot some more day and and get up out of
Speaker 1: bed to do that. But you know, on you know,
Speaker 1: there are cold winter mornings and I'm like, oh gosh,
Speaker 1: it's it's early. I'm that that alarms awfully early and
Speaker 1: it's really cold outside. But I always just in my mind,
Speaker 1: the thing that I tell myself is you never know
Speaker 1: who's coming in today, who just needs to see you
Speaker 1: and just needs to see someone there too. You know,
Speaker 1: whether it's to give her the directions because she's so
Speaker 1: distraught after having to drive or walk by a number
Speaker 1: of protesters telling her how she's you know, going to
Speaker 1: regret her decision and how she's a terrible human being
Speaker 1: and she's a killer, and she's at this, she's a slut,
Speaker 1: she's a whole earld whatever, you know, whatever the message
Speaker 1: that someone in that um situation gets by walking past
Speaker 1: those protesters, um, you know, I never know who needs
Speaker 1: to just see me there, and whether it's that she
Speaker 1: just needs directions because she's so distraught after going through,
Speaker 1: you know, running that gauntlet, that she's kind of lost
Speaker 1: her bearings and she's Okay, which door do I need
Speaker 1: to go in? How do I do this? Or actually
Speaker 1: just needs to see you know, a friendly face or
Speaker 1: you know, have someone tell her that it's okay to
Speaker 1: not listen to what they have to say to her. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's okay to not internalize that, which you know, UM,
Speaker 1: I think it is probably very very hard when you're
Speaker 1: already in a somewhat emotionally frauds because how could how
Speaker 1: could people who want to start escorting what what would
Speaker 1: be the best way that they could go about doing that?
Speaker 1: Or learning more information about how to do it and
Speaker 1: the different places that that allow it and well not
Speaker 1: not allowed, but like the different places where different groups
Speaker 1: that help facilitate uh this type of work. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there there isn't necessarily that I'm
Speaker 1: aware of one sort of national site, but I think, UM,
Speaker 1: a lot of individual sort of local providers have clinic escorts. UM.
Speaker 1: I know that if you most like most, if not many,
Speaker 1: Planned parenthoods will have um, you know, a clinic escort program.
Speaker 1: And so I think you know, sometimes your best that
Speaker 1: maybe just to google you know, clinic escort in my
Speaker 1: area or contact a provider in your area to say, hey,
Speaker 1: how do I get involved? Um, because you know, at
Speaker 1: least in my area where I where I live, there
Speaker 1: is one that sort of covers the area, but it
Speaker 1: is by no means nationwide, and there definitely are sort
Speaker 1: of localized groups that do it. So I think it
Speaker 1: may be just a matter of reaching, you know, googling
Speaker 1: the clinic escorts or reaching out to your local Planned
Speaker 1: parenthood or if there's another abortion provider in your community
Speaker 1: that isn't planned PARENTO, because there are still many that
Speaker 1: are not in parented uh that you know they may
Speaker 1: And I guess my other thing is so for people
Speaker 1: who for whatever reason can't to escorting but want to
Speaker 1: help support, I mean it basically people who want to
Speaker 1: support the providers and the people who need these services,
Speaker 1: UM is like, yeah, what what would you recommend that
Speaker 1: they do? So there are also similarly to to those
Speaker 1: those groups, there's UM there's abortion funds throughout the country
Speaker 1: UM that whether you know, many of them are you know,
Speaker 1: sort of dedicated to individual areas, like local areas, but
Speaker 1: you can look up the abortion fund in your area
Speaker 1: and that is a you know, an organization that will
Speaker 1: actually take donations from from individuals who want to help
Speaker 1: UM and provide sir, you know, provide financial support to
Speaker 1: women who are seeking abortion, whether they it's because they
Speaker 1: have to travel out of state, uh or to somewhere
Speaker 1: even within their state but not where they live in
Speaker 1: order to to actually obtain an abortion UM. And you know,
Speaker 1: because many women who are are seeking seeking termination services,
Speaker 1: they can't always pay for them, you know, especially if
Speaker 1: they're publicly insured. You know, a lot of public insurance,
Speaker 1: you know, federal dollars cannot be spent on abortion services,
Speaker 1: and so they can also help pay for the abortion
Speaker 1: for those individuals, if you It's it's a little bit
Speaker 1: um tougher now that we're in you know, sort of
Speaker 1: in the midst of coronavirus pandemic. There are some organizations
Speaker 1: that also if you live in an area that where
Speaker 1: there are providers and there are people potentially traveling from
Speaker 1: out of state, especially if you're in an area where
Speaker 1: there is a provider who provides um, you know what
Speaker 1: they call, you know, later term services for people who
Speaker 1: you know, find out that there's a major genetic abnormality
Speaker 1: along far into the pregnancy or whatever and they need
Speaker 1: to term their pregnancy. UM, you know, there are organizations
Speaker 1: that will actually help you volunteer to house them or
Speaker 1: provide even transportation services to and from appointments if if
Speaker 1: you so choose. But then you know, there's also all
Speaker 1: of the sort of national if if you're looking to
Speaker 1: kind of get more you know, involved at the sort
Speaker 1: of overarching national legal level. UM. Certainly there are a
Speaker 1: number of organizations, whether it's you know, the Planned Parenthood
Speaker 1: Federation or may Rail or any of those organizations that
Speaker 1: you could certainly don't to as well. Yeah, we will,
Speaker 1: we will will put some of the links in in
Speaker 1: theset description. And I'm sure that there are many things
Speaker 1: I forgot, but those are the ones that jump to
Speaker 1: mind right now. People listening to this, please like go
Speaker 1: help in whatever way you can, because like, if like
Speaker 1: if a wition services continue to be a thing where
Speaker 1: them existing is a small number of volunteers, they're not
Speaker 1: going to So yeah, please please do that. Yeah, Tanya, Tanya,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you so much for joining us, Thank
Speaker 1: you for having me. Yeah. Yeah, this has been Make
Speaker 1: it happen here. Uh yeah, it's happening here. Do the
Speaker 1: things that you can do to make sure it doesn't.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it could happen here. It being a podcast
Speaker 1: hosted by myself, Christopher Wong and the minute It's inimitable, Amena,
Speaker 1: but blah blah blah blah blah, and Andrew, Andrew High,
Speaker 1: you're in charge. Thank you. Thank I almost stuck that landing.
Speaker 1: I was so still not sucking it up. Are you
Speaker 1: guys proud the way there being consistent and I consisted,
Speaker 1: I mean that you funked it up again, I'm proud. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have tried to say inimitable. That was that
Speaker 1: that was always going to be a disaster. Yeah, it was,
Speaker 1: it was. It was. It was like one of those
Speaker 1: gymnastics landings where it's like they landed and then both
Speaker 1: your feet go in the ground and they jump and
Speaker 1: they fall. Yeah, it's very impressive stuff like that. When yeah,
Speaker 1: well all right, Andrew, what do you? What do you?
Speaker 1: What do you? What do you? What do you? What
Speaker 1: do you? What do you got for us today? Right?
Speaker 1: So for this UM, this this episode's topic. UM. The
Speaker 1: story begins with reddittun god, that's not a great sign. Well,
Speaker 1: reddits and Twitter? Yeah, the the two horsemen UM and
Speaker 1: the discourse that occurred on those sites. Uh a while
Speaker 1: ago UM, particularly related to like infrastructure and infrastructure under
Speaker 1: anarchis right. I mean, we all know the basic principles
Speaker 1: a society UM related to autonomy allow people to define
Speaker 1: themselves and organize themselves on their own terms. UM horizontalism.
Speaker 1: You know, people able to organize so that no one
Speaker 1: dominates anyone else and no one exercises power UM move others.
Speaker 1: Mutual aid, so the people able to help one another voluntarily,
Speaker 1: their bonds of solidarity and networks of generosity that keep
Speaker 1: the social fabric together. You know. Free association allows people
Speaker 1: to cooperate with who they want to and how they
Speaker 1: see fit and also converously you know, refuse and disassociate
Speaker 1: when needs to be. Yeah, that's a key one that
Speaker 1: people don't emphasize it. Yeah, the free disassociation to not
Speaker 1: be associated it with certain people. Yeah yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: because you can't freely associate. If you don't have the
Speaker 1: option to freely disassociate, it's like running into a cage
Speaker 1: and then you can't exit. Everyone should be able to
Speaker 1: move freely as well. Can emphasize which is I think
Speaker 1: one of the things that radicalized me most was, um,
Speaker 1: the existence of borders, because to me, at least, like
Speaker 1: when you're born, you know, you have this spawn point,
Speaker 1: and it seems absurd to me that your spawn point
Speaker 1: should have so much control over you know, the outcome
Speaker 1: of your life, you know, what rights and stuff you enjoy,
Speaker 1: and where you can and can't go freely because none
Speaker 1: of us have a choice in that matter. You know,
Speaker 1: we can't exactly choose our parents or choose or you know,
Speaker 1: neighborhood or where we grew up whatever. And of course,
Speaker 1: borders of the national kind of the only ones. And
Speaker 1: I guess suppose you know, um you also put as
Speaker 1: bort as related to gender and race and citizenship, and
Speaker 1: well that's relates to borders. But yeah, and so how
Speaker 1: anarchists proposed we get to this society is first and
Speaker 1: foremost the people liberating themselves. The concept of self liberation.
Speaker 1: So people and not even speaking just in terms of workers,
Speaker 1: you know, speaking in terms of gender and sexual minorities,
Speaker 1: speaking to terms of racial groups, um, speaking in terms
Speaker 1: of disabled people. You know, they must be at the
Speaker 1: forefront of their own liberation. Freedom cannot be given, it
Speaker 1: has to be taken. And so through direct action, which
Speaker 1: is when we directly act, without the middle channels of
Speaker 1: authorities representatives, we make those changes for ourselves, and through
Speaker 1: other methods we pursue the world that we wish to
Speaker 1: live in, which is the whole prefigurative process of building
Speaker 1: a new in the shell of the old. And so
Speaker 1: I think part of the issue when it comes to
Speaker 1: discussions of anarchism and infrastructure and supply lines and all
Speaker 1: these different things, is that, um, I think people have
Speaker 1: this misconception. There's this real strange idea of what an
Speaker 1: anarchist revolution looks like. Um, where you know, we flip
Speaker 1: a switch just overnight and boom anarchist society. We have
Speaker 1: nothing in place, We have no organizations or systems or
Speaker 1: networks in places, just boom, staff of fingers and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden we are all living under anarchy. But
Speaker 1: in reality, um, you know, as Kirpotkin expressed, there's no
Speaker 1: fallacy as harmful as the fallacy the One day revolution.
Speaker 1: Obviously there's going to be a transition. UM. In fact,
Speaker 1: a lot of people like to define anarchism as an
Speaker 1: ongoing process moving food and food towards the ideal of anarchy. UM.
Speaker 1: The whole idea is not whether or not there will
Speaker 1: be a transitional society or kind of transition that will be.
Speaker 1: And so in this period of transition is when we
Speaker 1: would be engaging in the different forms of social experimentation
Speaker 1: to UM manifest you know, anarchist principles in every facet
Speaker 1: of life. And of course this is a process will
Speaker 1: involved engaging with local conditions and UM local people and
Speaker 1: allowing those communities, those individuals to the two in for themselves,
Speaker 1: what structures and systems are put in place. Part of
Speaker 1: the struggle is going to involve mirroring the society that
Speaker 1: we wish to create. So for our final goal is
Speaker 1: you know, communistic and archistic society. That our methods must
Speaker 1: be communistic kind as an artistic as possible, basic you know,
Speaker 1: duality of means and ends. So when we speak of
Speaker 1: supply lines, when we speak of infrastructure, the reality is
Speaker 1: that existing infrastructure is not going to disippay overnight. Were
Speaker 1: are starting from complete scratch. This isn't a new you know,
Speaker 1: minecraft world that we have to go and punch some
Speaker 1: trees and start society all over again. Revolution is destructive,
Speaker 1: but it's also constructive and transformative. So I mean, we're
Speaker 1: not going to get rid of all experts and all expertise.
Speaker 1: We're not going to be floundering to figure out how
Speaker 1: to make penicillin. You know, people in all fields and
Speaker 1: all industries and all layers and all um you know
Speaker 1: backgrounds are going to be involved in the process, you know,
Speaker 1: adapting their work places, adapting the industries towards sustainable and
Speaker 1: anarchic ends. And it's a process that is going on
Speaker 1: now and will continue because if you know, we look
Speaker 1: at at revolution as a combination of I think Eric
Speaker 1: Ollen right, he had in his book Envisioning Real Real
Speaker 1: Utopias three basic concepts of transformation. You had ruptural transformation,
Speaker 1: interstitial transformation, and symbiotic transformation. And so interstitial revolution is
Speaker 1: basically the idea. Um It's basically a mirror of you know,
Speaker 1: prefigurative politics as a theoretical means of societal transformation through
Speaker 1: progressively and strategically enlarging spaces of social empowerment and ruptural
Speaker 1: transformation is of course, I guess, the dichotomy between the
Speaker 1: insurrectionists and everybody else, you know, where you have these
Speaker 1: moments of social outposts, these moments of rupture, where social
Speaker 1: forms and social developments you know, undertaken and we sort
Speaker 1: of figure out how we are, or rather we directly
Speaker 1: fight back against you know, the systems are in place.
Speaker 1: I think rupture is one of the more exciting forms.
Speaker 1: It's a kind of form of revolution that people tend
Speaker 1: to think of when they think of the tomb revolution,
Speaker 1: this idea of you know, all these this is this
Speaker 1: massive people that's crowd of people storming the bastille or whatever. Um.
Speaker 1: But the real work of transformission is the stuff that occurs,
Speaker 1: you know, prior to and post those moments of rupture. Well,
Speaker 1: I I one of the terms I tend to like
Speaker 1: that I've been thinking and reading about a lot is
Speaker 1: is shatter zones. And these are this is like the
Speaker 1: post rupture, right, These are the areas where state power
Speaker 1: kind of collapses, or at least pieces of state power collapse,
Speaker 1: and it's you know, the the shatter zones were kind
Speaker 1: of you you see, the state retreat in the wake
Speaker 1: of a rupture are where very terrible things tend to happen,
Speaker 1: but they are also these zones of possibility. You know.
Speaker 1: It's the places. It's the kind of place where you
Speaker 1: you can get an ethnic cleansing, and it's the kind
Speaker 1: of place where you can get um rojava, you know,
Speaker 1: like it's it's there. They're these kind of zones of
Speaker 1: possibility in the wake of of rupture, and I think
Speaker 1: that's you know, a lot of the a lot of
Speaker 1: the revolutionary kind of um imagery focuses on on the rupture,
Speaker 1: but the future is decided in the shatter zones, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think what people miss as well is the
Speaker 1: stuff that builds up to those you know, shatter zoons,
Speaker 1: which is that their organizations, their affinity groups, their networks
Speaker 1: and structures in place that are able to support those zoons,
Speaker 1: that are able to you know, when those ruptures are
Speaker 1: could support the people taking part in those fights and
Speaker 1: expand you know, those zoons of possibilities. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: This is the kind of thing where like if you're
Speaker 1: looking at what what causes the difference between you know,
Speaker 1: these disastrous, uh like disasters that happened kind of in
Speaker 1: the wake of a rupture, horrible crimes against humanity, and
Speaker 1: situations where something better gets built. Like again to use
Speaker 1: the example of Rajava. The reason why that happened there
Speaker 1: and why isis didn't win in that terrain is that
Speaker 1: groups of activists had been organizing in a variety of
Speaker 1: ways for years in that area, and so when the
Speaker 1: state collapsed, there were armed groups, and those armed groups
Speaker 1: were supported by farming cooperatives and groups of people who
Speaker 1: had been organizing to provide supplies to each other and
Speaker 1: um like community organizations like focused on social like development
Speaker 1: and aid like there was. It's it's yeah, there's an
Speaker 1: exactly exactly and that's that's what when you know, things
Speaker 1: fall down and you could catch Yeah. And I think
Speaker 1: that's also because there's another way this can go to
Speaker 1: where it's like you get a lot of moments where
Speaker 1: you know, like like May sixty eight in France looks
Speaker 1: like this right where like like the like the prime
Speaker 1: minister at the present, I forget what deal was at
Speaker 1: that time. But that's like you like literally like the
Speaker 1: country's leaders are flying out of the country on helicopters
Speaker 1: because I think everything is going to collapse and then
Speaker 1: it just sort of doesn't. And I think one of
Speaker 1: one of the ways you get you get this period
Speaker 1: that looks like rupture but then everything sort of closes
Speaker 1: back up in on itself is if those networks aren't
Speaker 1: strong enough and you don't have some kind of sufficient
Speaker 1: level of organization, like there there isn't there isn't anything.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like you have these moments where the
Speaker 1: state is discredited but there's nothing to replace it, and
Speaker 1: then the and the sort of void, the void isn't
Speaker 1: strong enough to just sort of like have the state
Speaker 1: collapsed entirely. And so what you guys at this moment
Speaker 1: where it looks like everything is going to change and
Speaker 1: then nothing happens. And I think that's also a product
Speaker 1: of essentially the same thing. It's just depending on the
Speaker 1: strength of the state, you can get very different sort
Speaker 1: of outcomes from these moments where sometimes it's able to
Speaker 1: restabilize it self, sometimes it isn't. Right, Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think we kind of saw that in a way with
Speaker 1: protests where you had this massive, massive rupture, probably the
Speaker 1: largest one of the largest American history. Um yeah, people
Speaker 1: in the streets and cities all over the country. Um
Speaker 1: it's what's the vast majority of them were just peaceful marches,
Speaker 1: but you also did have some like serious movements of rupture,
Speaker 1: like in Minneapolis and stuff. And I mean look at us,
Speaker 1: you know, two years later, and while they are you know,
Speaker 1: more community organizations, I think they're more people who are
Speaker 1: a bit more conscious, with more whale who are you know,
Speaker 1: radicalized and expanded their knowledge through that rupture, things basically
Speaker 1: went back to the way they were in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways and other ways, you know, police budgets were
Speaker 1: just increased. I think there was a current with the
Speaker 1: analogy but I'll just go to the analogy of like
Speaker 1: a hydro, where you know, the state, whatever it's attacked
Speaker 1: and stuff, it's able to just restore itself, just able
Speaker 1: to recover itself and able to like adapt to those
Speaker 1: sorts of attacks. I remember reading in Tone of Everything
Speaker 1: where the David's were talking about how the state they're
Speaker 1: using the example the American state. They were saying, you know,
Speaker 1: the American state of right is completely different in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways from the American state of the two
Speaker 1: thous you know, because the the state and statecraft is
Speaker 1: constantly evolving, constantly expanding, constantly responding to you know, the
Speaker 1: conditions that they face. We saw what happened in the
Speaker 1: twentieth century, you know, the different movements that I could
Speaker 1: in that time, the state was able to respond to
Speaker 1: those movements and adjust itself accordingly. And so obviously when
Speaker 1: we have these ruptures, we have these you know, moments
Speaker 1: of struggle, and obviously the times in between where we
Speaker 1: are prefiguring um robust systems and alternative institutions that can
Speaker 1: support people those moments of rupture. Um. Part of that
Speaker 1: isn't going to involve you know, defense, and the sue
Speaker 1: is not, oh, well, how you defend revolution? Christ to
Speaker 1: want to defend revolution, They don't know how to defend revolution.
Speaker 1: But rather part of defending it is defending it from
Speaker 1: people's attempts to seize power from the masses, from the
Speaker 1: working class. Two you know, cipher and that energy and
Speaker 1: use it for the ends of smaller group, smaller class
Speaker 1: of you know, whether it being partties or whatever the
Speaker 1: case may be. Yeah, there's something there I think you're
Speaker 1: going back to like thinking about borders and freedom of movement,
Speaker 1: because if you look at like both the USSR and
Speaker 1: China do this very quickly, which is that, okay, so
Speaker 1: you you you you have the communist revolution, okay, and
Speaker 1: theoretically class and power, and then like the first thing
Speaker 1: they do is set up in turn of border controls
Speaker 1: and these like like I mean in China that they're
Speaker 1: technically like the the prohibition on movement is like technically over,
Speaker 1: but the like the household registration system still exists, and
Speaker 1: it's still determines whether you where you can get benefits
Speaker 1: and how you get benefits and whether you can live
Speaker 1: in a say and like what like how what's so
Speaker 1: security you can access? Can you buy houses? Things like that,
Speaker 1: like that kind of stuff. If if you're not if
Speaker 1: if what you're doing is just putting a group of
Speaker 1: people in power and not actually putting you know, like
Speaker 1: if you want to talk about it in class terms, right,
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, either the actual working class governs itself,
Speaker 1: like the class in the entirety collectively makes decisions, or
Speaker 1: you've just created to do like buacrat class. And if
Speaker 1: you wind up with a new baruracract classes like yeah,
Speaker 1: immediately look at what happens. It's like, oh, hey, a
Speaker 1: bunch of people have now decided that, like you can't
Speaker 1: leave your home province because you don't have the right registration.
Speaker 1: And it's like okay. It's like that kind of reminds
Speaker 1: me what you were saying about, you know, if all
Speaker 1: the looking classes was met with the steam reminds you
Speaker 1: of the video I was watching last night actually from
Speaker 1: this Youtuba Anak Daniel Brian Um and he was talking
Speaker 1: about I believe how the state is necessarily um exclusive.
Speaker 1: If everybody holds power, then the state necessarily um must
Speaker 1: be wiped out, must be wipe to it. If not,
Speaker 1: it's going to try to reclaim its monopoly on power,
Speaker 1: it's monopoly on violence. UM. It cannot exist without people
Speaker 1: under it, you know. And so as you know, we
Speaker 1: are engaging in this as we are you know, organizing strikes,
Speaker 1: creating networks of activists, creating assemblies UM, creating you know,
Speaker 1: self financed schools and social centers and co operatives and
Speaker 1: all these different forms of infrastructure that can weather and
Speaker 1: exists under capitalism, but serve as prefigurations of all potential
Speaker 1: beyond capitalism. And so I guess the pivot um back
Speaker 1: to the topic I was speaking of in the beginning
Speaker 1: with regard to infrastructure. You know, all of history books
Speaker 1: and stuff, general history books tend to speak of the government,
Speaker 1: centralized government, states and souff arising all do they need
Speaker 1: to build and maintain like these big infrastructure projects. They
Speaker 1: tend to use example of irrigation. It's taken for granted,
Speaker 1: you know, staken as a given that bureaucracies and such
Speaker 1: were necessary for organizing these large populations, and that while
Speaker 1: you know, the Galter and principles may thrive in a
Speaker 1: small scale, they just cannot scale up when populations get
Speaker 1: any bigger than like a small band of people. But
Speaker 1: what we do know is that complex rural irrigation systems
Speaker 1: and the Galter and urban decision making systems have occuld
Speaker 1: in you know, human history, that our answers were able
Speaker 1: to organize those those institutions without the state, without a
Speaker 1: centralized body, with a h with with cosive you know, authority.
Speaker 1: There's also like this implicit assumption, you know, when people
Speaker 1: make these assolutions, that societies must necessarily grow and endlessly grew,
Speaker 1: and that we cannot choose to limit our scale in
Speaker 1: any way to avoid centralization, to enhance eqalitarianism. You know,
Speaker 1: we can't skeeal ourselves down to more manageable levels a
Speaker 1: d growth um. And as we've see, that's just not true.
Speaker 1: You know, we are capable of making those shifts. You know,
Speaker 1: large scale projects like irrigation or or you know, supply
Speaker 1: lines and stuff. They do require coordination, but coordination is
Speaker 1: not synonymous with the state. Coordination is not synonymous with hierarchy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's something that's interest It's interesting to me the
Speaker 1: way people, like how badly people think about that because
Speaker 1: like even even even in terms of sort of like
Speaker 1: im berking tal is trade right, like that kind of
Speaker 1: like long range coordination, long range like moving goods across
Speaker 1: the world has like it's but mostly not been states
Speaker 1: doing that. Like it's you know, and you can talk
Speaker 1: about like, okay, whatever, it's like it's however, you sort
Speaker 1: of want to think about the market mechanisms here, but like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like people have been people, people have been moving stuff
Speaker 1: from one side of the world to the other, like
Speaker 1: essentially without the state having anything to do with it
Speaker 1: for like as long as there have been people exactly.
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the things that frustrates me
Speaker 1: most about the discourse about like any kind of post capitalism,
Speaker 1: is this um this purposefully. I think in a lot
Speaker 1: of cases like malignant ly um inaccurate um attitude that
Speaker 1: like the idea of people like exchanging goods and services
Speaker 1: is fundamentally capitalist. That the idea of people like organizing
Speaker 1: that the that like a factory right is something that
Speaker 1: has to be has to be either organized under capitalist
Speaker 1: models or under state socialist models exactly as if people
Speaker 1: haven't done it in other ways. Right, this is not theoretical.
Speaker 1: We're not like trying to pose it like, well maybe
Speaker 1: it could work this way. It's like, no, motherfucker's have
Speaker 1: done this. Yeah, we have practical examples even, Yeah, because
Speaker 1: stuff like the mon Dragon Corporation and whatnot, Like it's
Speaker 1: not um, it's like it's this is not like theoretical
Speaker 1: stuff that we're talking about. I was thinking more long
Speaker 1: lines of what happened in Argentina. Yeah, yeah, you don't
Speaker 1: something going back as you know, like the CNT get
Speaker 1: into Yeah yeah, yeah, like that's something. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I think part of what's happening there is.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, like people have run factories in other ways,
Speaker 1: and every single time they try to do it, every
Speaker 1: other political faction on Earth sets out, set aside all
Speaker 1: their political which just goes and tries to kill them,
Speaker 1: and it's like this is not that's that's true. That's true.
Speaker 1: I'm also reminded of the fact that you know part
Speaker 1: of what happened and probably assue that you know, it
Speaker 1: could in Argentina and as I could elsewhere. Um is
Speaker 1: this concept that I think Michael albert Um talks about
Speaker 1: a lot, this idea how they coordinates a class and
Speaker 1: the issues that arise out of that sort of coordinates
Speaker 1: a class, And so I think part of that sort
Speaker 1: of organization is going to involve confronting that, you know,
Speaker 1: we tend to think of it in terms of, you know,
Speaker 1: the capitalist ownership and getting rid of the capitalist but
Speaker 1: there's you know, a lot more play than than just
Speaker 1: just the capitalist kind of the firm is the firm.
Speaker 1: I think it's also like this sort of assumption that
Speaker 1: people aren't capable of like taking any kind of you know,
Speaker 1: I think there's this kind of way to submition that
Speaker 1: people aren't capable of taking initiative that people aren't capable
Speaker 1: of of, you know, um, seeing the needs around them
Speaker 1: and organizing to fulfill them. So when people end up,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to do these scultures and stuff with
Speaker 1: archists like oh well, how are you going to do
Speaker 1: with garbage? It's like people don't like garbage around them,
Speaker 1: you know, which is why we have a sanitation system,
Speaker 1: which is why we have corbage disposal systems in place.
Speaker 1: But you know, under this system, because everything is all
Speaker 1: the costs of you know, our consumption and stuff are
Speaker 1: externalized and hidden, people don't have to think about the
Speaker 1: ways that you know, our actions are affecting our local
Speaker 1: um you know ecosystem. You know, we see that we
Speaker 1: pay other countries to or at least one like I
Speaker 1: say a week um, the US, the USPS, other countries.
Speaker 1: I mean, we have a problem and in turned out
Speaker 1: as well, where all of our waste um just gets
Speaker 1: dumped like right next amount groove and there's a community
Speaker 1: right opposite the highway where the dump is located, and
Speaker 1: you know they burnt garbage day and it's like the
Speaker 1: bunt garbage is like a constant smell of boont garbage
Speaker 1: around that community and it's of course the most impoverished
Speaker 1: community in the country, and it's it's a whole thing. Um,
Speaker 1: But I digress. You know, when we aren't able to
Speaker 1: just you know, externalize the costs of you know, how
Speaker 1: we live, communities are able to you know, notice how
Speaker 1: to you know, who notice the problem and figure out
Speaker 1: who used to handle it, you know, whether it be
Speaker 1: um small rewards people who volunteer to you know, deal
Speaker 1: with trash um or you know, just there's people who
Speaker 1: enjoy doing that as well, you know, UM and the
Speaker 1: same goes for other undesirable jobs or you know, people
Speaker 1: have decided to go on like a routating basis. And
Speaker 1: the reality is, you know, we don't have to like
Speaker 1: define our lives around a career, so you know, a
Speaker 1: person doesn't have to be entirely like a garbage collector.
Speaker 1: On top of that, you know, as we scale down
Speaker 1: the mount of garbage we produce, that task would become
Speaker 1: you know, less and less necessary. Yeah, so you know
Speaker 1: what waste infrastructure people are able to take care of that.
Speaker 1: You know, we can't externalize those sorts of issues. UM
Speaker 1: with food infrastructure, you know, we're able to like for example,
Speaker 1: in in the title Hills region of what is now Kenya.
Speaker 1: You know, people were able to create these complex irrigation
Speaker 1: systems that you know, lasted hundreds of years before you know,
Speaker 1: colonial states moved in and ended these agricultural practices. You know,
Speaker 1: the back then, you know, the households would share the
Speaker 1: day to day means and the uns of that irrigation infrastructure.
Speaker 1: You know, everyone will take care of the part of
Speaker 1: the infrastructure that was closest where they lived. And you know,
Speaker 1: as it was commons, people enjoyed it in common, people
Speaker 1: maintained it in common, people benefited in common. People will
Speaker 1: also come together um periodically for like major repairs. And
Speaker 1: it was a form of collective, socially motivated rule work
Speaker 1: that we see in many other you know, essentialized societies.
Speaker 1: And often he had um conversations where I often read about,
Speaker 1: you know, these different societies and even on the capitalism
Speaker 1: you have communities that you know, when someone needs somewhere
Speaker 1: to live, the whole community gets together and helps them
Speaker 1: build their house. And when someone else needs somewhere to live,
Speaker 1: you know, everyone gets together and builds their houps and
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. You know, people already doing
Speaker 1: this in parts of the world. These systems already in
Speaker 1: place in parts of the world, these sort of reciprocal
Speaker 1: networks of of of support UM. And I mean whether
Speaker 1: you're talking transportation or power, or communications, or housing or
Speaker 1: food or healthcare, there's a precedent set. You know. These
Speaker 1: presidents may have certain flows, but we could study them,
Speaker 1: we can learn from them, and we could establish something better.
Speaker 1: You know. For example, like as we mentioned earlier in
Speaker 1: Anarchists Spain, Right and Felt. During the Spanish Civil War,
Speaker 1: Barcelona's Medical Syndicate, which is organized largely by anarchists, managed
Speaker 1: eighteen hospitals, six of which they had created, seventeen sanatoriums,
Speaker 1: twenty two clinics, six psychiatric established ones, three nurseries, and
Speaker 1: one motility hospital. Whenever they had a request, the syndicate
Speaker 1: would send doctors to places in need, because medicine was
Speaker 1: considered to be in suis of the community, not the
Speaker 1: other way around. You know. Funds these clinics would come
Speaker 1: from the contributions of like local municipalities, and this syndicate
Speaker 1: UM had a health workers union that included eight thousand
Speaker 1: health workers dying, operated three six health centers and distributed
Speaker 1: through Catalonia and fried Health get to everyone in the region.
Speaker 1: And these syndicates would send delegates you know, um to
Speaker 1: Barcelona and they would be able to deal with common
Speaker 1: problems and implement common plans. But every department was both
Speaker 1: autonomous but also not isolated, so they supported one another
Speaker 1: where needs to be and under the CNT. You know,
Speaker 1: we also see like lands being taken by peasants syndicates um,
Speaker 1: who would organized properties and allow equal community to take
Speaker 1: care of you know, their land and their animals and
Speaker 1: you know, their crops as needs be. Yeah, there were
Speaker 1: something I've been the more I've read about it, the
Speaker 1: more impressed I've been with the way that I guess
Speaker 1: you would call it like the like the anarchists in
Speaker 1: Spain like did basically did a universal healthcare program in
Speaker 1: one year in the middle of the civil war, and
Speaker 1: like you know, and like the I think the other
Speaker 1: thing about it that that was important is it like
Speaker 1: they were able to, like they had this whole program
Speaker 1: that was about like sending like sending doctors into the
Speaker 1: countryside to get to like into committees that have never
Speaker 1: actually had regular access to medical care before. And they're
Speaker 1: able to do this extremely quickly and had a system
Speaker 1: the benefits of which are like enormously better than like
Speaker 1: basically like if you can go find I'm forgetting the exactly,
Speaker 1: but like you can go find like their their their
Speaker 1: policy for like how much time off you can get
Speaker 1: for like an injury and stuff, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can take you can get like six months, eight
Speaker 1: months off at like full pay, like people family will
Speaker 1: be provided for. Like they had. They had all of
Speaker 1: this just like incredible, like health care infrastructure. They they're
Speaker 1: able to set up like really really fast. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because they also had you know, these regional federations of
Speaker 1: different collectives and they were able to basically you know,
Speaker 1: distributes surplus goods and distribute as you said, healthcare, and
Speaker 1: you know, basically pool infrastructure so that everybody are the
Speaker 1: pool resources so that everybody was able to benefit. You know,
Speaker 1: they often pool resources for things where you know areas
Speaker 1: well unevenly developed, you know, so that you know, more
Speaker 1: um developed regions able to help other regions improve their infrastructure,
Speaker 1: you know, build roads and canals and hospitals as this.
Speaker 1: When I read about you know, what happened Cantonia, I'm
Speaker 1: not seeing they were perfect they definitely had a lot
Speaker 1: of issues when I read what what happened there, you know,
Speaker 1: in the midst of a civil war, Um, the possibilities
Speaker 1: that room present and what could have potentially happened further along, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's very inspiring. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think it goes back to the sort of the the
Speaker 1: point we've been we've been talking about, which is that
Speaker 1: like the capacity to provide care for people, the capacity
Speaker 1: to do stuff like this exists in our society, right.
Speaker 1: It's not something that has to be just sort of
Speaker 1: just like completely manufactured from the ground up. It's just
Speaker 1: that the capacity is not being used to actually like
Speaker 1: give to the benefits of people what they need. Is like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: it's not a it's it's it's it's less like a
Speaker 1: process of just completely reconstructing the society and more a
Speaker 1: process of like, hey, why don't we use the resources
Speaker 1: we already have to do the things that are like
Speaker 1: actually useful. And people for some reason think that likes
Speaker 1: being true if you don't have a state, and it's
Speaker 1: like no, like the state disappearing to every single doctor
Speaker 1: suddenly vanishes from the face of the earth, Like yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean every single salentation we suddenly disappears every
Speaker 1: single construction we because suddenly disappears every single like every
Speaker 1: every teach us and disappears every Yeah. Yeah, like I said,
Speaker 1: we're not starts and from like a new Minecraft food
Speaker 1: you know, you not to go and kill the end
Speaker 1: of dragon and all that. But um, I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess that's a that's a good place to wrap up. Basically,
Speaker 1: we have these possibilities we always have, UM and in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, the state and you know, capitalism
Speaker 1: and all these other um manifestations of hierarchy holding us back.
Speaker 1: They're preventing us from reaching all full creative the full
Speaker 1: unleashing of our creative potential as people. Yeah, we should
Speaker 1: do that instead of this. Yeah, we should do this
Speaker 1: instead of that, you know, rather, we should do that
Speaker 1: instead of this. Yeah. Well, Andrew, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Where can where can people follow you? I believe I
Speaker 1: believe you just put out a new a new video
Speaker 1: this week if I'm remembering correctly. Yes, I don't know
Speaker 1: if they will hear this episode before my next video
Speaker 1: is out, um, but um you can find me on
Speaker 1: YouTube dot com slash Andrewism and you can find me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at under school saying true. Awesome. Alright, well
Speaker 1: go start a hospital. Lookt hi everybody, Wow, you served
Speaker 1: Jesus Sharne. Oh, I thought that's what Sophie said I
Speaker 1: should do. I should I know you did that. You
Speaker 1: did the right thing. I'm the one being an asshole here. Okay,
Speaker 1: well this is Sharine. This is also what can happen here.
Speaker 1: It's a podcast that happens every day that I am
Speaker 1: now on. Um, what is it about again? It's about
Speaker 1: everything happening here. Yes, it's about everything happening here. And
Speaker 1: this week's episode is about my neighbor Dave, who appears
Speaker 1: to be gardening. No, that's not what this show is about.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. No, society is crumbling and how maybe we
Speaker 1: could put it back to here? There it is? That's what. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what. That's what is Wantinginess is going to take
Speaker 1: lead today. But we also have Christopher Long, Robert Evans,
Speaker 1: and it is me Sophie. Yes, that's good to see that.
Speaker 1: This is what I'm going to keep in mind next
Speaker 1: time if I ever have to do this again. Like
Speaker 1: what in trowing this show means? But it is a
Speaker 1: daily show so I have a lot of opportunities to
Speaker 1: get this right. Um yeah. I wanted to do something
Speaker 1: a little different today. So hopefully the listeners are okay
Speaker 1: with it, be easy on me well, and if they're not,
Speaker 1: we will simply club them into submission. Um yeah, Well
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Um. I live for violence. That is
Speaker 1: why we've spent half of our years podcasting budget on
Speaker 1: she ailes Um. But I wanted to take a couple
Speaker 1: episodes to talk about something very important that I don't
Speaker 1: think it's not a lot like enough news coverage, and
Speaker 1: I want to talk about Palestine, and this first episode
Speaker 1: I wanted to focus on how bias these coverages as
Speaker 1: far as depicting what's happening in Palestine in Israel. So
Speaker 1: that's what we're gonna talk about today. So are you ready?
Speaker 1: Are you all strapped in? I'm gonna start talking at
Speaker 1: you guys for a long time. Oh yeah, okay. At
Speaker 1: the height of the war between the Israeli military and
Speaker 1: Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, New York Times ran
Speaker 1: an article headlined Israel says that Hamas uses children's shields,
Speaker 1: reviving debate. It was a reference to the hundreds of
Speaker 1: Palestinian civilians who have been killed in the Israeli attacks
Speaker 1: by that point in the war, and there was no
Speaker 1: question about who had killed them, yet the language shifted
Speaker 1: the subject to a debate about who was really responsible.
Speaker 1: A few weeks earlier, after an Israeli air strike had
Speaker 1: killed several Palestinian soccer fans, the Times ran another absurd
Speaker 1: title titled Missile at beachside Gaza Cafe finds patrons poised
Speaker 1: for the World Cup, and they later found the poise
Speaker 1: just sitting there. It's amazing people talk about the exonerative
Speaker 1: case in like journalism, and it it appears to apply
Speaker 1: to the Israeli military and American cops. Yes, exactly, um
Speaker 1: And they did later ament this title because they had
Speaker 1: like a widespread like backlash and discussed that was expressed
Speaker 1: on social media. It only changed after that. But the
Speaker 1: whole point is that headlines matter, and it's the first
Speaker 1: and sometimes only exposure the general public has two world events,
Speaker 1: and especially like now, I believe that in our current time,
Speaker 1: the words at the top of that page or like
Speaker 1: sometimes the only words that show up in a hyperlink
Speaker 1: are more important the articles themselves, because sometimes it's all
Speaker 1: people see before they keep on scrolling UM, and in
Speaker 1: the case of Israel and Palestine, UH, inappropriate, misleading and
Speaker 1: biased headlines like those that appeared in The New York
Speaker 1: Times that I just mentioned have been all too common,
Speaker 1: accepted and treated as accurate reporting and quote unquote journalism. UH.
Speaker 1: In twenty and nineteen, there was a study titled fifty
Speaker 1: Years of Occupation that was published by four one six Labs,
Speaker 1: which is a research and data data analytics firm based
Speaker 1: in Canada. This firm analyzed nearly a hundred thousand news
Speaker 1: headlines about the conflict and the American press over the
Speaker 1: past five decades and found that the Israeli point of
Speaker 1: view surprise surprise, was featured much more prominently than the
Speaker 1: Palestinian one, and that references to Palestinians experiences of being
Speaker 1: refugees or living under occupation that word especially, that has
Speaker 1: steadily declined over time. So one of the studies authors,
Speaker 1: Ohi sahre He, told The Intercept that the findings demonstrate
Speaker 1: a persistent bias and coverage of the Israeli Palestinian issue,
Speaker 1: one where Israeli narratives are privileged and where despite the
Speaker 1: continued entrenchment of the occupation. The very topics remain to
Speaker 1: the Palestinians day today, reality have disappeared. It calls to
Speaker 1: attention the need to more critically evaluate the scope of
Speaker 1: coverage of the Israeli occupation and recognize that readers are getting,
Speaker 1: at best, a heavily filtered rendering of the issue. So
Speaker 1: this study analyzed fifty years of news headlines on the
Speaker 1: Israeli Palestine conflict. I put that in quotes, I feel
Speaker 1: like conflict is suggested equal. Uh, also like understating it. Yes, come, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very Uh, it's understating what's that. Actually it's happening,
Speaker 1: and it just depicts a a somehow neutral playing field.
Speaker 1: But it's not. But the study analyzed fifty years of
Speaker 1: headlines from five major American publications, The Chicago Tribune, the
Speaker 1: l A Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post,
Speaker 1: and the Wall Street Journal. It employed this thing called
Speaker 1: natural language processing or n lp UM, and these techniques
Speaker 1: are used to analyze massive databases of headlines published over
Speaker 1: this period. NLP is a big data analysis approach used
Speaker 1: to identify statistical trends and patterns and large caches of text.
Speaker 1: In this case, researchers analyzed nearly a hundred thousand headlines
Speaker 1: and identified dozens of frequently recurring terms and word sequences
Speaker 1: and stories about Israel and Palestine. While studies of media
Speaker 1: coverage Israel and Palestine have been conducted before, this one
Speaker 1: by the four one six Labs analysis is the largest
Speaker 1: and most comprehensive look at headline coverage since the occupation
Speaker 1: began in and they're finding show a clear slant towards
Speaker 1: the Israeli perspective. Headlines like the one that I mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier from New York Times about civilian deaths in Gaza
Speaker 1: that used the term Israel says where two and a
Speaker 1: half times more likely to appear than headlines citing Palestinian equivalents.
Speaker 1: Headlines centering Israel were published four times more than those
Speaker 1: centering Palestinians, and words connoting violence such as terror appeared
Speaker 1: three times more than the word occupation. And since nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven, that's the year that the Israeli military took
Speaker 1: control of the West Bank, there has been an eighty
Speaker 1: five percent overall decrease in the mention of the term
Speaker 1: occupation and headlines about Israel, despite the fact that the
Speaker 1: Israeli militaries occupation of the Palestine territory has in fact
Speaker 1: intensified over this time, and the mention of the term
Speaker 1: Palestinian refugees, meanwhile has declined a massive And while this
Speaker 1: is maybe subtle from the outside, it's just a consistent
Speaker 1: disproportion of article headlines which by default gives a greater
Speaker 1: airtime to one side and avoid certain key issues, and
Speaker 1: this obviously can impact public perception. Yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: very noticeable ones you realize what the biases looking, especially
Speaker 1: on like social media and stuff. When you see just
Speaker 1: just the headline of an article, it's it's it's obvious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's just I don't know, Like what you have
Speaker 1: is a a conflict where one side is treated like
Speaker 1: a military force and the other side is treated like um,
Speaker 1: almost like weather like. That's that's almost how they write
Speaker 1: about when the Israeli military does something, it's like like
Speaker 1: like a thunderstorm came in right, like it's nobody's fault.
Speaker 1: This is just what happened, you know, like the palaceine
Speaker 1: that you know, the Hamas or whatever, that's like a
Speaker 1: military force, and so we talk about them the way
Speaker 1: that we talk about you know, a military force carrying
Speaker 1: out a strike or something. But but the Israeli military
Speaker 1: is like it's like with a weather right, like there's
Speaker 1: nothing to be there's no blame to go around. It
Speaker 1: just rained, you know. Yeah, and also like legitimizes Israel
Speaker 1: and like the legitimizes any kind of force that Palestine
Speaker 1: exerts because it's like shown in this like yeah, like
Speaker 1: a militant terrorist lens um when I was just acting
Speaker 1: in self defense. It's interesting because the US media actually
Speaker 1: does a better job of discussing the US military as
Speaker 1: if it actually can be like guilty of crimes, Like
Speaker 1: the New York Times in particular has done some like
Speaker 1: not that there's not still problems with it, but they
Speaker 1: it's like there's there's something unique about the way they
Speaker 1: write about Israel that I guess not quite unique, because
Speaker 1: they do often write about police in a similar way,
Speaker 1: but it's it's very peculiar that it's like, I don't know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's definitely a lot of crossover with US police and
Speaker 1: Israel and more ways than one. Yes, they trained them
Speaker 1: first of all, but also just like the way and
Speaker 1: I'll talk more about this later, but the fact that
Speaker 1: there are so many videos like blatantly showing like brutal
Speaker 1: acts against like humanity or like just brutalism in Britain
Speaker 1: in general, and like they still get away with it.
Speaker 1: It just shows that they know there's no punishment, they
Speaker 1: know that there's a certain amount of immunity because they
Speaker 1: have big brother America to always fucking get their back.
Speaker 1: But yeah, despite this ongoing American involvement, the total volume
Speaker 1: of US media coverage about the conflict has been in
Speaker 1: an overall decline since the Oslo Peace Accords. This was
Speaker 1: a negotiate agreement between the then Palestine leader Yasser Arafat
Speaker 1: and then Israeli Prime Minister yet Daike Raban, and it
Speaker 1: was intended to establish conditions for peace in the region.
Speaker 1: The decline and use coverage says little about the conditions
Speaker 1: on the ground because they didn't get better. But the
Speaker 1: hopes that were briefly raised by this Oslo piece accord
Speaker 1: effectively died. After an Israeli extremists assassin, they had Rabine
Speaker 1: and a new hardline Israeli leader, Benjamin and Yahoo. He
Speaker 1: took power and since then, the Israeli military their occupation
Speaker 1: of the West Bank, has only expanded, with new settlements
Speaker 1: eating away at the remaining areas of Palestinian control, even
Speaker 1: while global media attention has declined. And it's not just
Speaker 1: American media that shows a clear bias that favors Israel.
Speaker 1: British media coverage on the violence and Palestine is also
Speaker 1: very biased against Palestinians, which in turn skews public perception internationally.
Speaker 1: The Muslim Council of Britain's Center for Media Marketing, the CFMM,
Speaker 1: published a forty four page report that was titled media
Speaker 1: Reporting on Palestine one. And this report came after two
Speaker 1: weeks of violence in which Israeli police cracked down on
Speaker 1: protests against the eminent evictions of Palestinians and the occupied
Speaker 1: East Jerusalem neighborhood of Schecha. This report came after two
Speaker 1: weeks of violence in which Israeli police cracked down on
Speaker 1: protests against the eminent eviction of Palestinians and the Occupi
Speaker 1: hid East Jerusalem neighborhood of schechtered off and the subsequently
Speaker 1: attacked Palestine you worshippers and at the Luxe Mosque, and
Speaker 1: that wounded hundreds. I don't know if you guys remember,
Speaker 1: but in one last year there was a lot of
Speaker 1: violence occurring in Palestine. There was more coverage than usual,
Speaker 1: especially covering Schechtera, and obviously news headlines didn't always come
Speaker 1: out in an even handed way. But the brutal escalation
Speaker 1: of violence that followed as rockets were fired from Gaza
Speaker 1: and Israeli air strikes on the besieged enclave, it killed
Speaker 1: at least two hundred and forty eight Palestinians, including sixty
Speaker 1: six children. The occupied West Bank in East Jerusalem, twenty
Speaker 1: nine Palestinians were killed, and the rockets fired from Gaza
Speaker 1: killed twelve people in Israel. The CFMM stated that between
Speaker 1: May seven and um that's twenty when a ceasefire was announced,
Speaker 1: there were sixty two thousand, four hundred online print articles
Speaker 1: in nearly eight thousand television broadcast reporting on the events,
Speaker 1: and this report found that the narrative was extremely unbalanced
Speaker 1: due to quote skewed language, misleading headlines, and problematic framing.
Speaker 1: Razwanna Hamid, the director of CFMM and the co author
Speaker 1: of this report, told The Middle East I that the
Speaker 1: overwhelming amount of complaints that was received by the maunchoring
Speaker 1: organization about the biased media coverage in Britain um covering
Speaker 1: the events in Palestine. It aligned with the analysis and
Speaker 1: evidence that this is all skewed and it makes sense
Speaker 1: to get defensive when being rightfully called out, um just
Speaker 1: to kind of talk a little bit about sex really quick.
Speaker 1: This report cited several examples of media referring to the
Speaker 1: situation and sea which the situation was Palestinians being forcibly
Speaker 1: removed from their homes. Um. They called this an eviction
Speaker 1: or a real estate dispute, which implies a legal basis
Speaker 1: for these forced displacements, when in reality it was a viola,
Speaker 1: a violation of international law. So that's minimizing it to
Speaker 1: an extreme. UM. It also found that fifty of broadcast
Speaker 1: media clips between May seven and May t referred to
Speaker 1: quote unquote evictions or similar terms to describe illegal sentiment
Speaker 1: plans in Schechterra, And that also kind of just conflates
Speaker 1: that this is there's nothing you can do. This is
Speaker 1: like a legal dispute, not your problem, you know, like
Speaker 1: let them let the mess be over there, and we're
Speaker 1: just sitting here all pretty In America, they make it
Speaker 1: seem like it's like, oh, landlord, thing, this is like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's also this this way in which the actual
Speaker 1: thing that is happening is a bunch of people are
Speaker 1: showing up with guns and stealing people's houses, and this
Speaker 1: is getting treated as like, oh, this is like this
Speaker 1: is you know this, this is some kind of sort
Speaker 1: of like it's like a rental dispute. It's like it
Speaker 1: shurts into this this like completely bloodless legal thing, and
Speaker 1: then you know, you look at what's actually happening and
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, they're stealing people's houses at gunpoints. They
Speaker 1: are like blowing up children with high explosives. It's just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's definitely not presented an accurate way. And especially if
Speaker 1: you don't know what's actually happening, like you do, and
Speaker 1: you just see these like random headlines and whatever, you
Speaker 1: don't think it's anything but what it is what they're
Speaker 1: telling you, Like, why would you deep dive any further
Speaker 1: if you're not affected by it? You know. Um. And
Speaker 1: one of the one of the things I noticed, like
Speaker 1: when I was reading some of the coverage that this
Speaker 1: is like the the reporters would like go try to
Speaker 1: find some kind of legal basis for this, and they'd
Speaker 1: start like they these like like five paragraph long things
Speaker 1: about like weird legal stuff from like nineteen three, like
Speaker 1: this has nothing to do with what's happening, Like this
Speaker 1: is you've taken you've taken the Yeah, yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: like they've they've they've taken the exonerative case from from
Speaker 1: the title and then gone and just done exonerative journalism. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I do have to say that is we are. We
Speaker 1: keep using the term exonerative case. Somebody came up with that,
Speaker 1: and I keep forgetting who it was. But it's a
Speaker 1: one of the better, one of the better developments and
Speaker 1: discussing the way the media talks about Palestine. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh yeah, I I just hate the word. I
Speaker 1: hate that even the word journalism has like it's not
Speaker 1: I don't even like calling this journalism, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I don't like that New York Times doesn't
Speaker 1: use anything anything, but it is what it is. That's
Speaker 1: what we got well and it's you know, as is
Speaker 1: always the frustration with the New York Times. They have
Speaker 1: also done some really good journalism on fucked up ship
Speaker 1: done by like on them. I think it was the
Speaker 1: New York Times. We did one of the articles on
Speaker 1: Sharene's murder, but that I know that was seen in
Speaker 1: I think this Time did a really good article. Ye
Speaker 1: a really good And it's like all of these, like
Speaker 1: these problems are systemic. All of these news agencies have
Speaker 1: people who do care and who have been over there
Speaker 1: and know how fucked up things are. So it's not
Speaker 1: like there aren't people within the system trying to wrench it.
Speaker 1: It's just like a sign of kind of how powerful,
Speaker 1: um the fucking how much a ner ship there is
Speaker 1: built up in Israel's favor here, I guess, but maybe
Speaker 1: that's maybe that's too exonerative for what's actually happening. I
Speaker 1: think it's also like I'll get into this a little
Speaker 1: bit later, but New York Times, for example, it's like
Speaker 1: there are some writers that are clearly had to clearly
Speaker 1: have a bias in favor of Israel, whether it's like
Speaker 1: they've described themselves as being like right wing or whatever. Obviously,
Speaker 1: so it's like it's there's no, there's not even an
Speaker 1: option for balanced journalism if you're giving someone that kind
Speaker 1: of voice, and there I mean even if you are, uh,
Speaker 1: if you have an opinion, you would think as a journalist,
Speaker 1: you would understand what journalism means when it comes to
Speaker 1: like reporting accurate and fair information. But I think bias
Speaker 1: always wins. Yeah, well because not like if you're even
Speaker 1: if you're like because I think, honestly, if you know
Speaker 1: what's going on there, if you've actually spent time in
Speaker 1: the area and not just like hung out with the
Speaker 1: Israeli military, Uh, the honest take is a tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of sympathy for the Palestinian cause and Palestinian people. Um.
Speaker 1: But even so, if you're an honest journalist, you're going
Speaker 1: to try to be carefully like you do have to
Speaker 1: report on stuff like you know, missile strikes. But because
Speaker 1: you've got that side, and then you've got the people
Speaker 1: who are overwhelmingly in Israel's corner and refused to report
Speaker 1: on the other side of things, the coverage de facto
Speaker 1: is always going to tilt towards Israel because the side
Speaker 1: that would be kind of reflexively and purely on kind
Speaker 1: of the Palestinian side just has no visibility here. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: I I don't know like what you do with that,
Speaker 1: because this is again a broader as with all these things,
Speaker 1: is your broader problems in media. Um. But yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what else is a broader problem in media. It
Speaker 1: is the fact. It is the fact that me that
Speaker 1: that news and journalism is heavily advertising supported, which leads
Speaker 1: to deep amounts of bias UH in journalism and and
Speaker 1: also problematic graphic seeking behaviors in a wide variety of
Speaker 1: things that are careening us all towards an unsurvivable outcome.
Speaker 1: And we're back. Hopefully that was um and if not,
Speaker 1: well it is what you get. But I want to
Speaker 1: bring up something about ahead. No, I just was apologizing
Speaker 1: for calling the audience motherfucker's never alze for that. Never
Speaker 1: apologize for go to hell, you sons of bitches. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. Yeah, thank you so much. Also be
Speaker 1: nice to me. But I want to bring up something
Speaker 1: that I hear all the time as far as like
Speaker 1: people that have been to Israel UM on birthright. I
Speaker 1: want to say that birthright does not count unless you
Speaker 1: have like critical thinking and you understand how biased that
Speaker 1: trip even is and the fact that like you don't
Speaker 1: even have to be from that land to go back there. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Palestinians are not allowed to even step foot in that land.
Speaker 1: So that's another episode entirely. I won't get into it,
Speaker 1: but it does really make me mad. And I'll stop
Speaker 1: there before I rage talk any further. But um, let's
Speaker 1: go back to Israeli violence and police. So with regards
Speaker 1: to the violence at the ax A Mosque, it resulted
Speaker 1: in hundreds of Palestinians being wounded. And the report, uh,
Speaker 1: the British report that we're talking about, documented widespread instances
Speaker 1: of media outlets using terms like clashes, conflict, scuffles and skirmishes,
Speaker 1: which kind of applies equal blame, which is obviously not
Speaker 1: true because one side is armed in swat gear um.
Speaker 1: And it also cited several news reports speaking of an
Speaker 1: into fada, which it said played into fearmongering and framing
Speaker 1: Palestinians as violent aggressors. I want to point out that
Speaker 1: the word into fathera is just an Arabic word that
Speaker 1: means rebellion or uprising and or a resistance, a resistance movement.
Speaker 1: It's a key concept in contemporary Arabic usage. It refers
Speaker 1: to a legitimate uprising against a pre usion. And I
Speaker 1: feel like, like so many Arabic words, it's been skewed
Speaker 1: into something to fear, like even the words allaho akbud,
Speaker 1: which literally just means like thank you God or like
Speaker 1: dear God. You know what I mean, Like, I think
Speaker 1: the fact that those words are invoked in fear like
Speaker 1: it's really breaks my heart to hear like my native
Speaker 1: language being used to incite fear. Like trust me, I've
Speaker 1: been on airports in my parents who have gotten really
Speaker 1: strange looks just for speaking in Arabic. So again another episode.
Speaker 1: I keep getting distracted. There are so many things that
Speaker 1: make me bad. But um, I just wanted to bring
Speaker 1: up that if you're free afraid of the word and defaulta,
Speaker 1: don't be because that's also public media skewing your brain.
Speaker 1: Don't believe it. And um I mean the director of
Speaker 1: this organization and the co author of this report. She
Speaker 1: said that as far as language is concerned, terms like
Speaker 1: evictions max they mask the illegal force removals and expulsion
Speaker 1: of Palace Indians from their homes, references to conflict and clashes.
Speaker 1: They try to equalize what's what's in effect a battle
Speaker 1: between David and Goliath. And it also, as I said earlier,
Speaker 1: masking ethnic cleansing as rental disagreements is absurd, but it's uh.
Speaker 1: It also like implies that there's like a legal basis
Speaker 1: for everything. Um, but it's all surprising at this point,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like clashes also, isn't. It's just anytime
Speaker 1: you see a writer using the word clashes, it like
Speaker 1: clashes is just like is it's it's just a coward tense.
Speaker 1: It's clashes. Yeah, Clashes is what you say when you
Speaker 1: are incredibly desperate not to at any point talk about
Speaker 1: who started the violence as happening and why, because clashes,
Speaker 1: let's just righte it off. Okay, there's two people, Funny,
Speaker 1: I mean a clashes fight, like if you're just if
Speaker 1: you're discussing like Ukrainian and Russian troops like fighting in
Speaker 1: a village, Like, yeah, you can call that a clash.
Speaker 1: Both sides showed up with tanks and and weaponry to
Speaker 1: like fight a war. And if you're talking about the
Speaker 1: band the clash, you can talk about the clash. But
Speaker 1: otherwise maybe don't use the term clash. Yeah, if you're
Speaker 1: talking unless you're talking about someone who's not dressed well
Speaker 1: or who's dressed really well, one of the two, I
Speaker 1: forget what. No, but you're right, I think, especially if
Speaker 1: you're talking about literal an army coming to an unarmed
Speaker 1: family's home and kicking them out. That's not a fucking
Speaker 1: clash that is, yeah, yeah, Or like you're tear gassing
Speaker 1: someone in a mosque and it's like, this is not
Speaker 1: not a clash, No, this is a chemical weapons attack.
Speaker 1: Like what, Yeah, it's a chemical weapons attack on a
Speaker 1: house of warship, which is what what we in the
Speaker 1: biz call not cool. What's really ironic, too, is that
Speaker 1: that mosque and that region, like that point in particular,
Speaker 1: is sacred to Muslims, Jewish people, and Christians alike. So
Speaker 1: the fact that they're desecrating it at all in any
Speaker 1: way is really ironic to me because it's they don't
Speaker 1: care about anything. Um. But another area of concerns surrounding
Speaker 1: this reporting on Jerusalem was an over emphasis on religion.
Speaker 1: That's a good segue. Look at that, an accidental segue.
Speaker 1: I'll take it. It's pronounced s okay. The report found
Speaker 1: that nearly two thirds of nine nearly two thirds of
Speaker 1: ninety clips in this timeframe referred to Palestinians religion, in
Speaker 1: some cases explicitly just saying that they're Muslim. One I
Speaker 1: TV report from a tent reference sirens, which prompted quote
Speaker 1: Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall to flee and run
Speaker 1: for cover, and Palestinians using the quote third holies Sitan
Speaker 1: Islam as a base to throw stones at Israeli police.
Speaker 1: And while religious significance may be important to know at times,
Speaker 1: journalists I believe should avoid implying this religious motivation unless
Speaker 1: it's necessary, because it portrays the history of Israel versus
Speaker 1: Palestine as anything other than settler colonialism. If it's a
Speaker 1: religious dispute, then it's just like a far away, a
Speaker 1: decades centuries long fight that there's nothing we can do about.
Speaker 1: Our hands are in the air. But really it's really simple,
Speaker 1: it's just settler colonialism. And skewing as anything kind of
Speaker 1: any kind of religious conflict is very purposeful to get
Speaker 1: people not to care and get people not to think
Speaker 1: that there's a solution. And as I said, not only
Speaker 1: that's this false religious narrative, it ignores the existence of
Speaker 1: persecution also of Palestinian Christians, because not not all Palestinians
Speaker 1: are Muslim, There are Palestinian Christians UM and Palestinian Jews,
Speaker 1: but it ignores their existence and of their in their
Speaker 1: persecution by Israel. And it further is a narrative that
Speaker 1: there is a centuries long religious war that is too complex.
Speaker 1: That word is always used in this conflict. Conflict Again,
Speaker 1: I hate that word, but it's always used to describe
Speaker 1: what's happening is too complex to talk about or understand,
Speaker 1: when instead it's opposite. It's the opposite. It's simple. It's
Speaker 1: an oppressor, and there's an oppressed. Israel is an apartheid
Speaker 1: state that had has been ethnic cleansing Palestinians and stealing
Speaker 1: their land ever since it was established. Uh. And i'd
Speaker 1: even say that war and conflict, it's not a fair fight.
Speaker 1: It's not an even word. And we've been witnessing a
Speaker 1: genocide that has been occurring in Israel since it was established.
Speaker 1: And it's like there's a clearer pressor and a clearer pressed.
Speaker 1: Any kind of wording that implies otherwise is a lie.
Speaker 1: Let's go on to Gaza for a moment, and the
Speaker 1: headlines that describe what's happening in Gaza. There are multiple
Speaker 1: examples of problematic language and framing regarding violence in Gaza.
Speaker 1: An article in the Sun on May twelve one was
Speaker 1: titled fifteen kids mass occurred in Israel Hamas conflict as
Speaker 1: an and Yahoo warns we will inflict blows you couldn't
Speaker 1: dream of. This headline failed to mention that fourteen and
Speaker 1: the fifteen children were that were killed or Palestinians, because
Speaker 1: reading it, it implies that those children, all Israeli and
Speaker 1: Palestinians are monsters. That's not the case. Um. And then
Speaker 1: on the seventeenth of May, i Knews reported that forty
Speaker 1: two Palestinians died over the weekend. They died over the
Speaker 1: weeks from heart failure, Like fuck you, um it failed
Speaker 1: to mention is that all of those deaths were Palestinians
Speaker 1: in Gaza that were killed. Because died does not give
Speaker 1: the same impression as murder. If you swap out the
Speaker 1: truthful word at any of these headlines, it makes a
Speaker 1: huge difference for people that only see these headlines, like
Speaker 1: forty two Palestinians died is not the same as forty
Speaker 1: two Palestinians were murdered. There's a huge into like connotation
Speaker 1: difference for the people that just read something and move on,
Speaker 1: and popular headlines tell us time and time again, just
Speaker 1: like this, that Palestinians have died, while stating that Israeli's
Speaker 1: on the other hand were killed. Israelis don't die, they're
Speaker 1: always killed. Palestinians they always died, though they're never killed.
Speaker 1: There's a huge misproportion of those two words being used
Speaker 1: for those sides. Christopher brought up earlier about like passive
Speaker 1: voice in journalism and saying Palestinians died. It's another example
Speaker 1: of that. And biased media outlets use this passive voice
Speaker 1: and they avoid specifying in its headlines who was killed
Speaker 1: and who was responsible if it portrays Israel as the aggressor.
Speaker 1: The use of passive voice that d emphasizes or hides
Speaker 1: those perpetrating such negative action on Palestinians, and this has
Speaker 1: the rhetorical effect of minimizing the responsibility of Israeli aggressors
Speaker 1: and and causing Palestinians suffering. A lot of headlines also
Speaker 1: refer to the Israeli military while referring to Palestinian groups
Speaker 1: as militants or Slamists, which implies differences in legitimacy. Like
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, there are also headlines describing Israeli air
Speaker 1: strikes of having come quote after Hamas rocket attacks, but
Speaker 1: this ignores that the violence from Israeli settlers and police
Speaker 1: in Jerusalem preceded those rocket attacks. It's like starting in
Speaker 1: the middle of a fight where you punched themselves to fence,
Speaker 1: and that's where the argo starts. Like you punch someone,
Speaker 1: not the person that punched you first. Maybe that's a
Speaker 1: bad example, but it's just think of it that way.
Speaker 1: You're starting in the middle of a timeline versus the beginning.
Speaker 1: And Hamide told the Middle East Ie that the media
Speaker 1: narrative a racist history, context and legitimacy of the Palestinian
Speaker 1: cause by presenting Palestinians as the aggressors and Israel as
Speaker 1: acting in self defense when it is quite the opposite.
Speaker 1: And I can't talk about Palestine or Israel without mentioning
Speaker 1: the anti semitism claims that a lot of people bring
Speaker 1: up every time you mentioned Palestine. Other instances of skewed
Speaker 1: media coverage, they included articles that conflated pro Palestinian activism
Speaker 1: with anti Semitism. There was an article in the Telegraph
Speaker 1: that said that demonstrators in London that were in support
Speaker 1: of ha Mass were therefore anti Semitic because the group
Speaker 1: was committed to the ilimination of Jews, which is not correct.
Speaker 1: I don't agree obviously with everything that Hamas does is
Speaker 1: but you have to keep in mind that no one
Speaker 1: else is fighting for Palestinians, and desperate times desperate measures,
Speaker 1: and there's no there's never a reason to excuse any
Speaker 1: kind of murder if any anyone that's unarmed or innocent,
Speaker 1: but against David and Goliath, which what choices Palestine have
Speaker 1: if no one in the international community is coming to
Speaker 1: the rescue and h and every everyone who anyone who
Speaker 1: supports any military action anywhere supports the kind of collateral
Speaker 1: damage that Hamas does. They just supported under different circumstances
Speaker 1: and with different weapons systems. Doesn't make it okay to
Speaker 1: fire rockets blindly into a city, but the United States
Speaker 1: Air Force fires way more rockets just as blindly into
Speaker 1: way more cities. Um, It's like, yeah, war is horrible,
Speaker 1: it's fucked up in bad. It doesn't say anything about
Speaker 1: the broader cause, Like sure, certainly you can have you know,
Speaker 1: whatever the moral there's moral condemnation to be had for
Speaker 1: military leaders with Hamas as there is for the military
Speaker 1: leaders with any militant force, and for you know, some
Speaker 1: of the soldiers doing some of those things. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, it says nothing about the
Speaker 1: overall righteousness of the cause, because there's not a discrepancy
Speaker 1: in the willingness to accept civilian casualties between Hamas and Israel. Um,
Speaker 1: they're both very willing to accept civilian casualties in pursuit
Speaker 1: of their goals. So you have to set that aside
Speaker 1: when you're trying to determine what is what is happening
Speaker 1: here and where is righteousness? And I think righteousness overall
Speaker 1: lies on the side being ethnically cleansed. M hmm, yeah,
Speaker 1: very well said. I think it's a good place to
Speaker 1: take an ad break. And you know who also condones
Speaker 1: heavy civilian casualties in pursuit of their goals, the good people.
Speaker 1: But that works too. That does also work. Honestly, has
Speaker 1: gotten a lot more people killed than Hamas right to
Speaker 1: be to be fair, they may have gotten more people
Speaker 1: killed than the Israeli military has cost a lot of
Speaker 1: blood shed over the years. Nikes. Anyway, here's our sponsors it. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back, Um before the break, we're talking about pro
Speaker 1: Palestinian activism being complated with anti Semitism, and I want
Speaker 1: to bring up this um quote from a Daily Mail
Speaker 1: column commentator Richard little John stated that anti Semitism like
Speaker 1: COVID comes in waves. This is the Palestinian variant. Excuse me, Wow,
Speaker 1: Sometimes I just have to like read that and really
Speaker 1: just remember what planet I'm on. But this research also
Speaker 1: mentions examples of insufficient challenge to views and broadcast interviews.
Speaker 1: This included a Sky News interview with to Zippi Hotel
Speaker 1: Levy Hotel Velli, the Israeli Ambassador to the UK, failing
Speaker 1: to sufficiently answer or be challenged on questions about ethnic
Speaker 1: cleansing and check. She has previously described herself as a
Speaker 1: religious right winger and has referred to the displacement of
Speaker 1: seven and fifty tho Palestinians No listen. She describes it
Speaker 1: as a quote strong and popular Arab Live. This is
Speaker 1: the Israeli Ambassador to the UK. And it's like there's
Speaker 1: a lot that's frustrating here. One is that, like you
Speaker 1: do have to take some care when you particularly when
Speaker 1: you talk about the media complicity and like pushing the
Speaker 1: Israeli narrative and all of the different things like a
Speaker 1: pack that like fund us politicians and whatnot, because like
Speaker 1: it is, you do have to be careful to not
Speaker 1: like vierendos conspiracy territory, and I have to be careful
Speaker 1: with the sources that you pick, because since a lot
Speaker 1: of mainstream news doesn't cover it, you find some of
Speaker 1: this written about by people who are definitely not the
Speaker 1: folks you want to have on your side. But that
Speaker 1: doesn't make talking about this anti semitic. It just means
Speaker 1: that the entire discourse is poisoned because of the way
Speaker 1: the Internet functions. Yeah and yeah, no, good point. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to expand because I will restated in a
Speaker 1: worse way. But um, that quote just really baffles my mind,
Speaker 1: especially because this person has a lot of power as
Speaker 1: an ambassador, but she has also been accused of holding
Speaker 1: racist and Islamophobic views and has expressed support for the
Speaker 1: annexation of the entire illegally occupied West Bank. Yeah. Really
Speaker 1: great stuff there something No, it seems like nobody's calling
Speaker 1: that racist though you don't, like, like like you think about
Speaker 1: the reaction to like to like, hey, yeah, we're like
Speaker 1: we want to literally take over all of this landing,
Speaker 1: Like you can compare that to the reaction to like
Speaker 1: someone saying from the river to the sea, which like
Speaker 1: everyone immediately loses their minds and it's just like ya,
Speaker 1: this is the ambassador saying this stuff and nothing happens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really unsettling. And having someone like that in power,
Speaker 1: as I will mention later with than Yahoo. Uh, someone
Speaker 1: that is so right wing or uh can extremist. It's
Speaker 1: just like um, it encourages people like that, that that
Speaker 1: in the in the population, encourages that kind of leases
Speaker 1: them to like expand just like Donald Trump did, Just
Speaker 1: like Donald Trump did with his fan base or fan base,
Speaker 1: his base. But here. Yeah. The British report that I'm
Speaker 1: mentioning are also reported that Palestinians were regularly asked to
Speaker 1: answer for the actions of Hamas and recommended that spokespeople
Speaker 1: for the group should instead be given a platform to
Speaker 1: respond to allegations. Meanwhile, you don't see like random Israeli's
Speaker 1: being asked to answer for murders committed by the ideas.
Speaker 1: It's always very one sided. There was also another study
Speaker 1: that was conducted by M I T titled The New
Speaker 1: York Times Distores the Palestinian Struggle. It was written by
Speaker 1: Holly M. Jackson and it was tracking changes in news
Speaker 1: coverage bias UH, showing how anti Palestinian bias has persisted
Speaker 1: in The Times coverage by analyzing its articles during the
Speaker 1: Fur and Second Palestinian into Father's, both periods in which
Speaker 1: Israeli violence far exceeded that committed by Palestinians. Deploying machine
Speaker 1: learning methods to analyze over thirty three thousand articles, Jackson
Speaker 1: focused on bias and the language of The Times reporting
Speaker 1: through two linguistic features. First was to identify with their
Speaker 1: actions by Israeli and Palestinian groups were being described in
Speaker 1: the active and passive voice, and the second was to
Speaker 1: classify the objectivity and tone of the language used. And
Speaker 1: this content analysis conducted across sixteen thousand articles during the
Speaker 1: first and fifather, which was from nine to sepend nine,
Speaker 1: it revealed some revealing results. Nearly of these articles reference
Speaker 1: Israeli's while only forty percent reference Palestinians, and about twelve
Speaker 1: percent all references to Palestinians used violent language, as opposed
Speaker 1: to only five point nine percent for Israeli's Palestinians. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: We're referred to in the passive voice nearly sixteen percent
Speaker 1: of the time, while the passive voice was used only
Speaker 1: about six percent of the time to describe Asraeli's and
Speaker 1: like I know this is just like all numbers and percentages,
Speaker 1: because we obviously know how bias it is. But I
Speaker 1: think it's helpful to like scientifically mathematically see that this
Speaker 1: is like actually accurate and there's not just like us
Speaker 1: talking about it. This is actually true. So I do
Speaker 1: believe these studies are very important in showing people that
Speaker 1: might be uh, I don't know, um, skeptical, that this
Speaker 1: is actually the reality. And then Jackson also highlighted that
Speaker 1: during this period, the Times stable of reporters were filled
Speaker 1: with those, know, those with those with no prejudices, like
Speaker 1: Thomas L. Freedman and Joel who framed their articles by
Speaker 1: elevating Israeli perspectives alongside blatant anti Palestinian sentiment. So, like
Speaker 1: we said, they're giving platforms of people with really clear biases. Um. Yeah. Oh.
Speaker 1: Also Tom Tomas Friedman uh famously super fucking ish on
Speaker 1: the Iraq War. Uh and also very famously said when
Speaker 1: he was trying to rally support for the Iraq War
Speaker 1: that the Iraq War was about telling Muslims to quote
Speaker 1: suck on this good guy Tom Friedman, real cool, dude, unbiased.
Speaker 1: They gave this man a pulitzer. I think they gave
Speaker 1: him multiple I I would give him a pulitzer very
Speaker 1: quickly and thrown overhand. Yeah. Uh, that makes me sick.
Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing that. I'm glad I know that.
Speaker 1: Now it's cool. He doesn't talk about that anymore. Shut
Speaker 1: the absolute funk up. I mean, realizing that was the
Speaker 1: Iraq War and now he's he's still obviously given a
Speaker 1: platform talking about Palestine. There's no there's no repercussion or
Speaker 1: even like red flags about this kind of language because
Speaker 1: it's accepted and it's very really normalized. Um it sucks, Yes,
Speaker 1: Um headlines served aid for bias, drudge up editorials like
Speaker 1: quote Israel and Arab neighbors must bend a little no
Speaker 1: more Palestine and quote and Israel has controlled little of Palestine.
Speaker 1: So they're really clearly trying Jesus to frame this an
Speaker 1: incorrect way as if is if Israel's Arab neighbors haven't
Speaker 1: basically just abandoned Palestine by this point, right, like it
Speaker 1: has been pretty much like even the like fucking idiot
Speaker 1: tankies talk about how like Assad supports them, but he
Speaker 1: put them into fucking camps. He's like arrested and tortured
Speaker 1: and killed Palestinian activist it like it like you know.
Speaker 1: One of the thing none of these people ever want
Speaker 1: you to do is google Google what have al Asad
Speaker 1: was sucking doing? And uh, why why why he didn't
Speaker 1: bring in the air force at a a certain very
Speaker 1: critical moment that al Asad famed buddy of Henry Kay
Speaker 1: my friend. Yeah, everyone's friends. Everybody's friends. That's what makes
Speaker 1: politics fun. Yeah. Additionally, there are a systematic attempt to
Speaker 1: highlight petty disputes between Palestinian groups or contradictions in their
Speaker 1: leader strategy to frame Palestinians as a rational or disorganized um.
Speaker 1: And I will say that there has been significant changes
Speaker 1: in US media coverage of a conflict, especially in the
Speaker 1: last couple of years, and this is driven in part
Speaker 1: by popular pressure coming from social media. UM. There are
Speaker 1: also signs that Israel is becoming a part as an
Speaker 1: issue that divides liberals and conservatives in the US, with
Speaker 1: polls showing that growing numbers of Americans would like their
Speaker 1: government to take a more even handed stance on the conflict. However,
Speaker 1: hardline supporters of the Israeli government have seemingly shifted their
Speaker 1: approach from winning quote hearts and minds to punishing opponents.
Speaker 1: They've published blacklists of Palestinian activists, they've censored public figures
Speaker 1: that are vocal about the conflict, they've speared them as
Speaker 1: anti Semitics, and they've advocated for laws to restrict boycotts
Speaker 1: of his really goods. I want to just take a
Speaker 1: really quick sidebar to mention that boycotting works. I'll lose
Speaker 1: another episode probably one day about the BDS movement. But
Speaker 1: BDS stands for boycott investment in sanctions and it works
Speaker 1: to end international support for Israel's oppression of Palestinians UM
Speaker 1: and pressure Israel to comply with international law UM just
Speaker 1: by boycotting products and companies that are either based in
Speaker 1: Israel or have products from Israel. And it works because
Speaker 1: Israel doesn't like it, and I think that's fair, Like
Speaker 1: that's telling enough that if Israel's has a problem with
Speaker 1: boycotting ship, you should keep doing it. And it's now
Speaker 1: a vibrant global movement made up it's made up of unions,
Speaker 1: academic associations, churches, and grassroots movements across the world. B
Speaker 1: d S launch in two thousand and five, and it
Speaker 1: has a major impact and effectively challenging international support for
Speaker 1: Israeli apartheid and settler colonialism. So that's my sidebar about
Speaker 1: b DS. But nonetheless, people that have followed the US
Speaker 1: debate on the quote quote conflict for decades say that
Speaker 1: there are serious tectonic changes occurring at the level of
Speaker 1: the American public, both in media and in popular sentiment.
Speaker 1: Phyllis Bennie, the director of the New Internationalism Project at
Speaker 1: the Institute for Policy Studies, a DC based progressive think tank, said,
Speaker 1: although news coverage is not even handed and is still
Speaker 1: generally skewed towards the Israeli perspective, there has been a
Speaker 1: massive shift over the past five years and how this
Speaker 1: issue is both reported and discussed in the United States.
Speaker 1: We are seeing a shift in the types of stories
Speaker 1: that are being covered by major outlets, as well as
Speaker 1: the stances that public figures are willing to take. There
Speaker 1: are still huge problems, but things are changing. The discourse
Speaker 1: on Israel Palestine is nothing like it was in decades past,
Speaker 1: which is very true and for me personally, seeing the
Speaker 1: public discords change firsthand has been very surreal, uh and amazing,
Speaker 1: but really surreal because I think a lot of Palestinians
Speaker 1: and Palestinian supporters never thought it would happen um seeing
Speaker 1: public figures talk so actively about being pro Palestine, and
Speaker 1: even though this occupation, this problem seems insurmountable, outing these
Speaker 1: quote unquote journalists and news outlets is extremely important. Because
Speaker 1: of public opinion and pressure is strong enough, things have
Speaker 1: to change. And the proof of this is seeing the
Speaker 1: headline that I mentioned at the very top, where The
Speaker 1: Times changed their headline because of widespread discussed express on
Speaker 1: social media and speaking up and sharing the truth on
Speaker 1: social media is extremely important, especially if you aren't Palestinian,
Speaker 1: and especially if you live somewhere that is skewing all
Speaker 1: these news headlines against Palestinians. There's nothing else but your
Speaker 1: voice left and Palestinian voices have been and are continuing
Speaker 1: to be silenced. And this is not simply Palestinian issue.
Speaker 1: It's a human issue that calls for humans to stand
Speaker 1: up when they are witnessing extreme injustice take place and
Speaker 1: boycotting works or else Israel wouldn't be so afraid of it.
Speaker 1: Choosing to remain silent is choosing the side of the oppressor.
Speaker 1: You've heard it before, It's true, uh, and I am
Speaker 1: hopeful with the chains that we've seen the last few
Speaker 1: years with public figures using their platforms to speak out
Speaker 1: and depend Palestine. I think it's honestly the best use
Speaker 1: of their platform and I respect them for that. Uh
Speaker 1: And I know that, like the concept of celebrity is
Speaker 1: ridiculous and stupid, but I think if you have the
Speaker 1: platform and you have millions of people watching you, using
Speaker 1: your voice in a way to support people that are
Speaker 1: in danger and like stand up for the oppressed is
Speaker 1: the one of the only things you should do. And
Speaker 1: people that I respect this includes Bella Hadid, Susan Sarandon,
Speaker 1: Nightie Portman, Selena Gomez, Dualipa The Weekend, just to name
Speaker 1: a few. These people are huge names, they have millions
Speaker 1: of people watching them, and they're not afraid to speak up,
Speaker 1: especially Bella Hadid recently, like every other story she posts
Speaker 1: on Instagram is about these really occupation um which I
Speaker 1: really respect. I really respect that she has take in
Speaker 1: such a clear stance and utilizing their platform. It does
Speaker 1: make a difference in public perception because fans that follow
Speaker 1: her might not follow news or anything else. It's there's
Speaker 1: just a lot of crossover that I think is really valuable,
Speaker 1: and ultimately, I think using your voice is the only
Speaker 1: right thing to do and any alternative or silence is
Speaker 1: simply cowardice. And that's my time. That's what I got today.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, thank you Sharne. Um. This was pretty
Speaker 1: bleak but important, and um I tried to uplift at
Speaker 1: the very end, all of you go go okay, oh oh,
Speaker 1: don't ever do it again. Nope, it could be How
Speaker 1: are we opening a show? We're going to distance? Sharine
Speaker 1: going the distance? Hello for speed. Hello, this is Sharene
Speaker 1: and I'm talking to you from It can happen here? Oh,
Speaker 1: it could happen here. Isn't that a podcast? Yeah? Robert,
Speaker 1: you're correct. Do you want to tell everybody what that is? Okay,
Speaker 1: jortya today is Robert Evans, Sophie and Chris and Garrison. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be running the show today for those
Speaker 1: of you but didn't like yesterday. Too bad. Yeah, motherfucker's
Speaker 1: die and go to hell. I'm sorry at much that
Speaker 1: was a little much death threats. It was more of
Speaker 1: a promise. Okay, Okay, I do want to take over today. Uh.
Speaker 1: I wanted I wanted to focus an episode on Sharin
Speaker 1: a blue acklet who was a Palestinate American journalist who
Speaker 1: worked as a reporter for Aldo Zeerra for twenty five years. UH.
Speaker 1: She was one of the most prominent names across the
Speaker 1: Middle East for her decades of reporting on the Israeli
Speaker 1: occupied Palestinian territories. And she was killed last month. And
Speaker 1: you might have heard of it, you might have not.
Speaker 1: But I think her death deserves some more attention. And
Speaker 1: I also think it reflects a bigger issue. Um, let's
Speaker 1: just jump right in. She was killed by Israeli soldiers
Speaker 1: on May eleven. UM. And although Israel commits these kinds
Speaker 1: of like vile crimes against humanity and against Palestinians virtually
Speaker 1: every day, including but not limited to murder, torture, imprisonment, harassment,
Speaker 1: force displacement aka ethnic cleansing, um, Israel gets away with
Speaker 1: its crimes every time. And last episode we talked about
Speaker 1: how the media enforces a blameless view of Israel and
Speaker 1: how that's an element to all the passes it was eaves.
Speaker 1: And even though I'm going to focus mostly on one
Speaker 1: woman's death in this episode, like I said, she represents
Speaker 1: something so much more. And while I wish I can
Speaker 1: give every victim of Israel an entire episode. I would
Speaker 1: take a million episodes. Um. So here we are Palestinians
Speaker 1: live in a constant state of trauma, and there's no
Speaker 1: time to grieve. They're dead, and even when they do grieve,
Speaker 1: it becomes a target for the I d F, which
Speaker 1: I'll get into later, but I want to tell you
Speaker 1: for now how Sharne was killed. For a while, there
Speaker 1: was only one video, which should be more than enough,
Speaker 1: but I digress. There's only one video in the beginning
Speaker 1: that seemed to prove that Sharne was targeted and assassinated
Speaker 1: despite wearing a press vest. She had been standing with
Speaker 1: a group of journalists near the entrance of the Agenda
Speaker 1: refugee camp, where the journalists were there to cover uh
Speaker 1: in Israeli raid. While the footage does not show of
Speaker 1: being killed, eye witnesses told CNN that they believe Israeli
Speaker 1: forces on the same street deliberately fired on the reporters
Speaker 1: in a targeted attack. All of the journalists were wearing
Speaker 1: protective blue vest and um they identified themselves as a
Speaker 1: member of the news media to the Israelis that were
Speaker 1: across the street. So this video This first video was
Speaker 1: filmed by al Jazi or a cameraman Meschi Banura, and
Speaker 1: it shows that round six thirty am on May eleventh
Speaker 1: and Genin, multiple shots are fired. The cameraman filming the
Speaker 1: scene scrambles backwards to take cover behind a low concrete wall.
Speaker 1: The man cries out in Arabic Sharine injured, Sharine, ambulance.
Speaker 1: When the camera finally pans around the corner, you see
Speaker 1: Sharine lying motionless on the ground, face down, and another
Speaker 1: Palestine reporter shaped the Handsha She She crouches down beside
Speaker 1: her and uses a tree chunk for cover. She reaches
Speaker 1: out and tries to get her colleague. The gunshots continue
Speaker 1: and there's no response. Both women are wearing helmets and
Speaker 1: blue protective vests. Mark Press and in the moments that followed,
Speaker 1: there's a man in a white shirt that makes several
Speaker 1: attempts to move a Buckle's body Uh and is forced
Speaker 1: to repeatedly back away by gunfire, and after a few
Speaker 1: very long minutes, he manages to drag her body from
Speaker 1: the street. One of the reporters, Hanaisia. She told CNN
Speaker 1: that we stood in front of the Israeli military vehicles
Speaker 1: for about five to ten minutes before we made moves
Speaker 1: to ensure that they saw us. This is a habit
Speaker 1: of ours as journalists. We move as a group and
Speaker 1: we stay in front of them so they know we
Speaker 1: are journalists, and then we start moving. So this is
Speaker 1: like they do this cautious approach every time towards when
Speaker 1: they're in the midst of the Israeli military so they
Speaker 1: can be safe. And she says that I didn't think
Speaker 1: they were trying to kill us. On the day of
Speaker 1: the shooting, is really military spokesperson Ran Katchov told Army
Speaker 1: Radio that Abu Akla had been filming and working for
Speaker 1: a media outlet amidst armed Palestinians. He said, they're armed
Speaker 1: with cameras, if you'll permit me to say so. According
Speaker 1: to the Times of Israel, the Israeli military says it
Speaker 1: is not clear who fired the fatal shot, and in
Speaker 1: a preliminary inquiry, the army said that there was a
Speaker 1: possibility that she was either hit by an indiscriminate Palestinian
Speaker 1: gunfire or by Israeli sniper positioned about two ds away
Speaker 1: that was in an exchange with a Palestinian gunmen, So
Speaker 1: no blame to the Israelis at all. The i d
Speaker 1: F said that on May nineteenth had not yet decided
Speaker 1: whether to pursue a criminal investigation into her death. On
Speaker 1: May three, the Israeli military's top lawyer, Major General Yafat
Speaker 1: tomd you you're a shelm me. I'm sorry, I probably
Speaker 1: saying that wrong, but he said in a speech that
Speaker 1: under the military's policy, a criminal investigation is not automatically
Speaker 1: launched if a person is killed in quote the midst
Speaker 1: of an active combat zone, unless there is credible and
Speaker 1: immediate suspicion of a criminal offense. A lot of US
Speaker 1: lawmakers and UH, the U N and international community have
Speaker 1: called for an independent probe, which hasn't really met anything
Speaker 1: because it's not happening. An investigation by CNN. Uh, it
Speaker 1: offers a lot of new evidence and UH, it's an
Speaker 1: investigation that really respect. The article is really well done.
Speaker 1: It will be in the sources whenever that comes out whatever.
Speaker 1: But this report, this investigation included two videos of the
Speaker 1: scene of the shooting. Uh. There was no active combat
Speaker 1: nor any Palestinian militants near Abo the moment that led
Speaker 1: up to her death, and the videos are Crow crob
Speaker 1: raided by testimony from eight eyewitnesses, an audio forensic analysts,
Speaker 1: and an explosive weapons expert that suggests that she was
Speaker 1: shot dead in a targeted attack by Israeli forces. A
Speaker 1: lot of the footage shows a calm scene before the
Speaker 1: reporters came under fire in the outskirts of the jen
Speaker 1: And refugee camp. The other journalists and three local residents
Speaker 1: said that it had been a normal morning in Jenin.
Speaker 1: It's home to about three forty five thousand people, eleven
Speaker 1: thousand and four hundred of whom live in the refugee camp.
Speaker 1: Many this morning were on their way to work or school,
Speaker 1: and the street was relatively quiet it. Sharienabu Klea was
Speaker 1: a veteran journalist. She's a household name across the Arab
Speaker 1: world for her coverage of Israel and Palestine and Israel's
Speaker 1: occupation of the Palestinian territories. She arrived in Jenna to
Speaker 1: report on the raid uh. She was an icon. She's
Speaker 1: really loved, or was really loved and admired by the
Speaker 1: entire Arab world. It's weird to use past tense. It's
Speaker 1: really sad for me. But when she arrived there but
Speaker 1: a dozen or so men, some dressed in sweats or
Speaker 1: flip flops, They had gathered to watch Abu Klea and
Speaker 1: her colleagues at work. They were milling around, chatting, some
Speaker 1: smoking cigarettes, and others were filming the scene on their phones.
Speaker 1: In one sixteen minute cell phone video, the man filming
Speaker 1: walks towards the spot where journalists had gathered, zooming in
Speaker 1: on the Israeli armored vehicles that were parked in the
Speaker 1: distance that they could see, and he says, look at
Speaker 1: the snipers. This is before anything had happened. And a
Speaker 1: teenager in this video that he peers tentatively over the
Speaker 1: street and he shouts, don't kid around. Do you think
Speaker 1: it's a joke. We don't want to die, We want
Speaker 1: to live. The person that recorded the sixteen minute video
Speaker 1: Salim Awad. He's a twenty seven year old jedd And
Speaker 1: Camp refugee resident who filmed the video and told CNN
Speaker 1: that there were no armed Palestinians or any clashes of
Speaker 1: any kind in the area and he hadn't expected there
Speaker 1: to be gunfire at all given the presence of journalists nearby.
Speaker 1: He said that there was no conflict or confrontations at all.
Speaker 1: We were about ten guys give or take, walking around,
Speaker 1: laughing and joking with journalists. We were not afraid of anything.
Speaker 1: We didn't expect anything would happen because when we saw
Speaker 1: journalists around, we thought it would be a safe area. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the situation changed rapidly, and he said that the shooting
Speaker 1: broke out about seven minutes after he arrived at the scene,
Speaker 1: and his video captures this, and he also captures the
Speaker 1: moments that the shots were fired at the four journalists.
Speaker 1: And the four journalists by the way uh Abuka that
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, another Palestinian journalist Jahil Sadi, and then
Speaker 1: the L Jazeera producer Ali Elsa Maudi, who was injured
Speaker 1: in the gunfire. But these four journalists, they walked towards
Speaker 1: the Israeli vehicles. They showed them that their pressed in
Speaker 1: the footage, as the gunfire starts, can be seen turning
Speaker 1: away from the barrage, and then the footage shows a
Speaker 1: direct line of sight towards the Israeli convoy. He said,
Speaker 1: we saw around four or five military vehicles on that
Speaker 1: street with rifles sticking out of them, and one of
Speaker 1: them shot Sharine. We were standing right there. We saw it.
Speaker 1: When we tried to approach her, they shot at us.
Speaker 1: I tried to cross the street to help, but I couldn't.
Speaker 1: He added that he saw a bullet strike a lackland
Speaker 1: then gap between her helmet and her protectivest right by
Speaker 1: her ear. Another sixteen year old he was among the
Speaker 1: group of men and boys on the street, told CNN
Speaker 1: that they were no shots fired, no stone throwing, nothing
Speaker 1: when she was shot. And he said that journalists had
Speaker 1: told them to not follow them as they walked towards
Speaker 1: these really forces to identify themselves, so they so he
Speaker 1: stayed back, and then when gunfire broke out, he ducked
Speaker 1: behind a car in the road and he watched the
Speaker 1: moment that Shrine was killed, and he shared his video
Speaker 1: with CNN that was filmed at six thirty six am,
Speaker 1: just after the journalist left the scene too for the hospital,
Speaker 1: and it showed the five Israeli army vehicles driving slowly
Speaker 1: past the spot where Sharne was killed before leaving the camp.
Speaker 1: CNN reviewed a total of eleven videos showing the scene
Speaker 1: and the Israeli military convoy from different angles, before, during,
Speaker 1: and after a was killed. Eyewitnesses who were filming when
Speaker 1: the journalist was shot, were also in the line of fire,
Speaker 1: and they pulled back when the gunfire started, so it
Speaker 1: doesn't capture the exact moment that she was hit with
Speaker 1: the bullet, which I think is the little amount of
Speaker 1: sliver of space that Israel needs to be like. It
Speaker 1: wasn't us, but obviously it was our multiple witnesses. There
Speaker 1: multiple videos that show it. Um. But regardless, there wasn't
Speaker 1: a clash, there wasn't any Palestinian gunfire. The idea for
Speaker 1: shooting directly at the journalists and they assassinated Sharine. A. Buachl,
Speaker 1: a senior is really security official, flatly denied to CNN
Speaker 1: on May eighth that has really troops killed her intentionally.
Speaker 1: The officials spoke under the condition of anonymity to discuss
Speaker 1: details about an investigation that remains formally open. UH. The
Speaker 1: officials said, in no way would the I d F
Speaker 1: ever target a civilian, especially a member of the press.
Speaker 1: An I d F soldier would never fire at M
Speaker 1: sixteen on automatic. They shoot bullet by bullet. Uh. This
Speaker 1: is in contrast with israel assertion that Palestinian militants were
Speaker 1: firing recklessly and indiscriminately while its soldiers conducted the raid.
Speaker 1: In Genin, there's a security consultant and British Army veteran
Speaker 1: Cobb Smith uh. He told CNN that he believed Doubly
Speaker 1: was killed in discrete shots, not by a burst of
Speaker 1: automatic gunfire, and to reach the conclusion, he looked at
Speaker 1: imagery obtained by CNN that showed markings that the bullets
Speaker 1: left behind on the tree where she had fallen and
Speaker 1: her other colleague was taken cover. He told CNN that
Speaker 1: the number of strike marks on the tree where Sharine
Speaker 1: was standing proves this wasn't a random shot. She was
Speaker 1: targeted at two. He said that there was no chance
Speaker 1: that the random firing would result in the three or
Speaker 1: four shots hitting such a light or such a tight configuration.
Speaker 1: From the strike marks on the tree, it appears that
Speaker 1: the shots, one of which hit Sharine, came from down
Speaker 1: the street from the direction of the I d F troops.
Speaker 1: The relatively tight grouping of the rounds indicate Sharine was
Speaker 1: intentionally targeted with aim shots and not the victim of
Speaker 1: a random or stray fire. This tree is now referred
Speaker 1: to in Jenin as the Journalist Tree and has become
Speaker 1: a makeshift shrine to ebo Auklet with photographs of the
Speaker 1: beloved reporter taped to the trunk and Palestinian hafia scarves
Speaker 1: the checkered, not checkered, but like the black and white
Speaker 1: scarves that you probably see Palestine and protests UH draped
Speaker 1: on the branches. She was lugged by very many and
Speaker 1: the entirety of Palestine, everyone who supports its liberation, have
Speaker 1: been grieving for this like insurmountable loss. Uh. And to
Speaker 1: look this discussion back into yesterday's extreme media bias episode
Speaker 1: where the media favors Israel. Here are a few headlines
Speaker 1: that describe her murder. The New York Times said, Sharine
Speaker 1: abu akly, trailblazing Palestinian journalists dies at fifty one. She
Speaker 1: dies from what heart failure disease? Like and I will
Speaker 1: I will, I will bet you. And this is not
Speaker 1: to let the the the New the New York Times
Speaker 1: off the hook, but I will bet you the fact
Speaker 1: that the title even acknowledged her death that much was
Speaker 1: the result of a tremendous battle behind the scenes, for sure,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, yeah, it's which they wouldn't do for anybody else, right,
Speaker 1: Like they would, they would fucking immediately call out, like
Speaker 1: the Russian military or even the U. S Military if
Speaker 1: it had killed an American journalist, which I'm not saying that.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's you know, I'm going to bring
Speaker 1: that up right now than if she was Palestinian. No,
Speaker 1: I'm going to bring that up right now. Brent Renaud,
Speaker 1: he's an American journalist that was killed in Ukraine. There
Speaker 1: were two headlines that were that for articles. His headline
Speaker 1: read an American journalist killed in Ukraine. Hers said a
Speaker 1: Palestinian journalist dies at fifty one. Keep in mind, Sharine
Speaker 1: is a it's a Palestinian American. Not that it fucking matters,
Speaker 1: but these are both American journalists and they were killed
Speaker 1: working on their assignment. It matters to highlight the hypocrisy,
Speaker 1: not because one nationality of journalist is less worthy of
Speaker 1: being killed than another. I mean even it's even frustrating
Speaker 1: that their their value of life is even greater because
Speaker 1: they're a quote unquote journalist. Yes, there's a lot that's
Speaker 1: frustrating about it. They can killed dozens of like Palestinian
Speaker 1: people and it doesn't matter, But one quote unquote American
Speaker 1: journalist eyes, and now it's a big story, which like
Speaker 1: it's horrible, it would be. They're not not downplay how
Speaker 1: bad it is. But I am really uncomfortable with how
Speaker 1: much emphasis we put on like Americans. And then of
Speaker 1: course just like someone being a journalist as opposed to
Speaker 1: just like people who are like worshiping or killing people
Speaker 1: in the street, right, who are just regular Palestinians. And
Speaker 1: that's that's a whole other aspect. You know, war zone,
Speaker 1: the only like ethically, really the only division should be
Speaker 1: between soldiers, people under arms and civilians who are not
Speaker 1: right um, and it should always be seen as like
Speaker 1: a tragedy and a mistake worthy of like some sort
Speaker 1: of restitution or vengeance when civilians are killed by soldiers
Speaker 1: in a war zone like that would be ideal. But
Speaker 1: also you know the world, that's what it is. But no,
Speaker 1: I second everything you guys said. And I'm looking at
Speaker 1: tweet from Amon Martin Dean. He's an Egyptian board journalist
Speaker 1: that's based in New York and he works for NBC MSNBC.
Speaker 1: But he tweeted this contrast these headlines of right Renaud,
Speaker 1: an American journalist killed in Ukraine, and Sharina Buccoli, a
Speaker 1: Palestinian journalists dying at fifty one. Like, first of all, everything,
Speaker 1: you guys, just it's it's repetitive at this point to
Speaker 1: keep talking about it. But they've stripped her of her
Speaker 1: American identity. Her Palestinian identity erases um the importance that
Speaker 1: her death has for some reason, because she's not seen
Speaker 1: that as an American journalist, even though she is. And again,
Speaker 1: the concept of that being important is ludicrous to begin with.
Speaker 1: But that's the world. It's still a way to do
Speaker 1: it's still in their minds. It's still a way to
Speaker 1: dehumanize them, which is like gross on a whole other level.
Speaker 1: But it's it's it's yeah, there's there's so many ways
Speaker 1: that it's horrible that it's hard to even like cover head. Yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: I agree. And now it's time for a break. And
Speaker 1: I don't have a great segue, like this is a
Speaker 1: hard one to you know, who will X the break?
Speaker 1: We're back. I want to talk about her funeral now,
Speaker 1: Sharne's funeral. Just to bring up one last headline, I'll
Speaker 1: get into a half at the funeral. But the BBC
Speaker 1: News said that Sharine abu Akle violence at Al Jazeera
Speaker 1: reporter's funeral in Jerusalem. Side note, Even saying that she's
Speaker 1: an El Jazeera reporter versus just like an American journalist
Speaker 1: is another way to dehumanize her because Al Jazeera is
Speaker 1: seen as like this scary Arabic organization. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're brown people, is what they're trying to say exactly.
Speaker 1: And the real headline that should have been shared is
Speaker 1: that Israeli forces were attacking and beating Palestinian mortars at
Speaker 1: her funeral. Let's talk about that. The Friday following her death, May,
Speaker 1: a funeral procession was held for Sharine in Jerusalem, but
Speaker 1: her funeral role was marred by another burst of violence
Speaker 1: early that afternoon, as thousands of people masked East Jerusalem
Speaker 1: for one of the largest Palestinian funerals in recent memory.
Speaker 1: A mob of Israeli riot police assaulted a group of
Speaker 1: mourners that were carrying the casket containing her body, uh
Speaker 1: and they almost dropped the casket because of the attack.
Speaker 1: There are videos of this and it was streamed live
Speaker 1: at one point, and it shows Idea soldiers clearly attacking
Speaker 1: people holding up a coffin, a coffin holding the body
Speaker 1: of someone Palestine loved, um, and they're just attempting to mourn.
Speaker 1: And even this is deemed punishable by Israel. I want
Speaker 1: to bring up that it was live and then all
Speaker 1: these videos are shown because there's just so many videos
Speaker 1: of a blatant blame like blatant attacks by Israeli's and uh,
Speaker 1: the Israeli military, and that that's not enough to condemn anything. Um.
Speaker 1: And there were no weapon, there was no provoking on
Speaker 1: any of any kind on the side of Palestinians. And again,
Speaker 1: like we have thousands of videos like this and the
Speaker 1: idea of clearly beating and at times killing Palestinians and
Speaker 1: nothing happens. Um. It's like similar to me of videos
Speaker 1: of police brutality in the US. Uh. They both keep
Speaker 1: doing it because they know they can't keep they won't
Speaker 1: be punished. Um. If this is what they duan camera,
Speaker 1: you can only imagine what they do off camera and
Speaker 1: when it's not being captured. Uh. In a separate episode,
Speaker 1: I'm sure I can bring up the crossover of Israel
Speaker 1: and US police because Israel trains US police um, and
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of connection there, But I digress. Um.
Speaker 1: It's just really horrifying if they know that this is
Speaker 1: all being captured, it doesn't stop them. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: And this assault occurred outside a hospital in East Jerusalem,
Speaker 1: where her body had been kept since another memorial happened
Speaker 1: the day before on Thursday, where hundreds had gathered to
Speaker 1: witness the start of her funeral cortage. Tensions arose between
Speaker 1: Palestinians and these really police officers after Palestinians began waving
Speaker 1: Palestinian flags. Things escalated after the police refused to allow
Speaker 1: mourners to take the coffin on their shoulders to the church,
Speaker 1: and then they began beating anyone in sight. The Israeli
Speaker 1: police later said that they had intervened because the mourners
Speaker 1: who wanted to carry the coffin by foot to the
Speaker 1: funeral had refused to put it in a hearse, which
Speaker 1: is an arrangement the police said had previously been agreed
Speaker 1: upon by her family. This obviously is address cause for
Speaker 1: starting to beat people um, which is absurd. It's so
Speaker 1: absurd because it's just like a traditional mourning. It's they're
Speaker 1: they're carrying this loved one on their backs, and the
Speaker 1: fact that she was almost dropped is like horrifying to me, Um,
Speaker 1: But regardless, there was this standoff between mourners and the
Speaker 1: police who refused to let them leave with the coffin
Speaker 1: from the hospital or like in the in the direction
Speaker 1: from the hospital to the church. And keep in mind
Speaker 1: again this is the standoff is really unbalanced. One side
Speaker 1: of it is as heavily armed and wearing helmets and
Speaker 1: swat gear, and the other side is holding a fucking coffin.
Speaker 1: And mourning officers swung their batons and they kicked and
Speaker 1: beat the men carrying the coffin, forcing them backward. They
Speaker 1: knocked over one man who had backed into the group
Speaker 1: that was carrying the coffin, and then they proceeded to
Speaker 1: kick him as he was lying on the ground. This
Speaker 1: is caught on video. Uh and I don't understand how
Speaker 1: anyone could possibly defend or gloss over why this happened.
Speaker 1: And as they were being hit, the coffin carriers briefly
Speaker 1: lost control, as I said, of one end of the coffin,
Speaker 1: which sagged suddenly to the ground. Um and mourners through
Speaker 1: projectiles in response, included what appeared to be a stick
Speaker 1: it officers through what appeared to be a stun a
Speaker 1: stunt in smoke grenades in response, so super warranted on
Speaker 1: their on their side. Um, but this occasion that was
Speaker 1: intended to be a moment of Catharsis had instead descended
Speaker 1: into chaos, and it just compounds the indignity the pain
Speaker 1: that too many Palestinians Abu Akli's death had embodied. And
Speaker 1: let's quickly fast forward to Sunday May twenty nine, where
Speaker 1: about seventy thousand Israelis marched through the Old City occupied
Speaker 1: East Jerusalem, waving Israeli flags, emphasizing that they, in their eyes,
Speaker 1: were the true rulers of Jerusalem. They were celebrating Jerusalem Day,
Speaker 1: which is an Israeli holiday that marks the capture of
Speaker 1: the Old City in nine seven seven also marks the
Speaker 1: occupation and the subsequent annexation of East Jerusalem, and Palestinians
Speaker 1: see this event, which passes through the heart of the
Speaker 1: Muslim center, as a provocation. Last year, the parade helped
Speaker 1: trigger an eleven day war with Goza militants. This doesn't
Speaker 1: stop the Paradian papping again, and this year it attracted
Speaker 1: one of the largest crowds on record. Palestinians old and
Speaker 1: young were attacked while Israeli forces watched on. Some marchers
Speaker 1: sprayed pepper spray at Palestinians and journalists. In one video
Speaker 1: shared on social media, a young Jewish man kicked and
Speaker 1: sprayed an older Palestinian woman in the face, sending her
Speaker 1: crumbling to the ground. Police fired rubber bullets, um and
Speaker 1: use clubs and pepper spray to disperse Palestinian protesters from
Speaker 1: the area, and all this time Palestinians were forced to
Speaker 1: listen as ultra nationalist Jews chanted anti Palestinian and Islamophobic
Speaker 1: chants such as death to Arabs and Muhammad is dead. Um.
Speaker 1: Groups of Orthodox Jewish youths gathered outside Damascus Gate, waving flags,
Speaker 1: singing religious and nationalistic songs. The crowds, who were overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: young Orthodox Jewish men, were shouting the Jewish nation lives
Speaker 1: before entering the Muslim quarter, one large group chanted death
Speaker 1: to Arabs and mayor village bird, which is a reference
Speaker 1: of the ethnic cleansing and the start of the occupation
Speaker 1: that occurred in and it's one of their very common chants.
Speaker 1: A lot of Zionists that parade through. These are the
Speaker 1: two most popular chance, if you want to call them that.
Speaker 1: Another chance, accompanied by boisterous dancing and the sound of drums.
Speaker 1: Included a Jew is a soul, an Arab is the
Speaker 1: son of a whore, and Shofayatte is on fire. And
Speaker 1: this is a disgusting chant. I mean, they're all disgusting,
Speaker 1: but this one, Shiffayatta is on fire. It celebrates the
Speaker 1: murder of fifteen year old Palestinian teenager in Muhammad Abuhadir
Speaker 1: by Israeli settlers in Jerusalem. And this child was kidnapped
Speaker 1: by Israeli settlers, tortured, forced to drink gasoline, and burned alive.
Speaker 1: So that's what they're celebrating when they're saying Shayata is
Speaker 1: on fire, and there's this tragedy is the focus of
Speaker 1: a miniseries that HBO did in twenty nineteen, which is
Speaker 1: pretty good and I recommend watching. It's called Our Boys, Um,
Speaker 1: and it was created by collaboration of both Israeli filmmakers
Speaker 1: and Palestinian filmmakers, so I respected their approach to this
Speaker 1: and I highly recommend watching it if you have the
Speaker 1: stemach for it. I cried a lot, but it's really good, um. Regardless,
Speaker 1: settlers were also chanting Sharin is a whore and Sharine
Speaker 1: is dead. So not only was her funeral this huge,
Speaker 1: like this huge portrayal of disrespect and in humanity, but
Speaker 1: this is the sentiment of these ultra nationalist Jewish protesters.
Speaker 1: They are happy she's dead. That's why she was targeted
Speaker 1: by the idea of probably they recognized her as a
Speaker 1: threat and this icon in the eyes of the Palestinians.
Speaker 1: Prime Minister and of Tally Bennett issued a statement instructing
Speaker 1: police to show quote no tolerance towards the racist groups.
Speaker 1: He described them as a minority that came to set
Speaker 1: the area on fire and vowed to prosecute violent extremists,
Speaker 1: which never happens and hasn't happened. An article in the
Speaker 1: Israeli daily Jerusalem Post that interviewed some of the Israelis
Speaker 1: participating in the march reflected a fervent nationalist mentality that
Speaker 1: interchanged the words Arabs and terrorists without a second thought.
Speaker 1: According to this article, most of the marchers are quote
Speaker 1: not driven by hate for Palestinians, but rather a love
Speaker 1: for Israel and the constant fear that it might not
Speaker 1: exist forever. Yeah, it would suck to feel like your
Speaker 1: home is not going to be around forever. Yeah, exactly. Yes, Uh,
Speaker 1: the irony is definitely lost on them. It's definitely the
Speaker 1: yes um. But the director of the Palestinian Forum for
Speaker 1: Israeli Studies, j Does Anim, she said that the political
Speaker 1: views of Israelis who attended the march are absolutely not
Speaker 1: a fringe element of Israeli society. She says, demographically speaking,
Speaker 1: they are from the religious settler class. They transformed from
Speaker 1: being a marginal group to an essential part within Israeli
Speaker 1: society and the Jewish body as a whole. And I
Speaker 1: mentioned this briefly. I don't know if it was this
Speaker 1: episode of going before, but former Prime Minister Benjamin and
Speaker 1: Yah who's twelve year rule bolstered the presence of this
Speaker 1: class into the mainstream, this very right wing mental be
Speaker 1: where their figureheads held top positions in state institutions and
Speaker 1: in various governments. Regardless the current Prime Minister Tally Bennett,
Speaker 1: he used to be the Minister of the Settlement Council,
Speaker 1: and that should speak volumes about the change and in
Speaker 1: the heart of Israeli society. This mentality is really encouraged.
Speaker 1: And Klanem went on to say the Israeli government is
Speaker 1: getting more religious and giving more powers to the ultra
Speaker 1: orthodox factions and to the ultra religious and ultra nationalists,
Speaker 1: the extreme settlers. It is a continuous shift for the
Speaker 1: whole society to be on the right of the political spectrum,
Speaker 1: the fanatical religious and the settler right. And before I
Speaker 1: continue you further, let's take a second break, because I
Speaker 1: can rage for a long time. I don't have a
Speaker 1: segue again, Robert, it's not this is the break, I know,
Speaker 1: but Sophie still has to believe it because you said it.
Speaker 1: So my goal has been a conflience. We did it
Speaker 1: to get or we did it. Okay, we're back. Wow,
Speaker 1: that wasn't that a fun ad? Okay, let's go back
Speaker 1: to we were talking about right extremism being like bolstered
Speaker 1: in Israeli society. Ole Renoi is an Israeli political activist
Speaker 1: and journalist, and they agreed and described this annual event
Speaker 1: as a congratuatory, mainstream is Israeli event, and she said
Speaker 1: the marchers are not the minority, not in numbers, not
Speaker 1: in ideology, and not in their political status. So regardless
Speaker 1: of what the Prime Minister says, it's not a fringe
Speaker 1: element at all. She goes on to say that maybe
Speaker 1: many Israelis do not like to see photos of an
Speaker 1: old Palestinian woman being beaten up by a kid, but
Speaker 1: the march itself is a huge Israeli celebration. It's not
Speaker 1: something on the political periphery anymore. I also want to
Speaker 1: quickly mention that as I was writing this, another Palestinian
Speaker 1: journalist was killed by the IDEA F last week. Thirty
Speaker 1: one year old lefran I made uh what Esna was
Speaker 1: shot in the chest. Um at the autub refugee camp
Speaker 1: and the occupied West Bank, Israel said that she tried
Speaker 1: to attack a soldier with a knife. In a statement,
Speaker 1: these really armies, said, an assailant armed with a knife
Speaker 1: advanced toward an I d F soldier who was conducting
Speaker 1: routine security activity. However, witnesses told Al Jazira that in
Speaker 1: their view, she posed little threat to the soldiers. She
Speaker 1: had just started a new job at a radio station
Speaker 1: three days prior to being killed. She was leaving her
Speaker 1: home on the way to work, according to eyewitnesses, and
Speaker 1: doctors at the hospital said the bullet she was shot
Speaker 1: with pierced her heart. Um and local and international rights
Speaker 1: groups have condemned what they call Israel's excessive use of
Speaker 1: force and their shoot to kill policy against Palestinians, including
Speaker 1: suspected assailants and the occupied West Bank and got the strip. Um.
Speaker 1: Senior Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Bennett, have encouraged the
Speaker 1: use of legal force and given orders to shoot Palestinians
Speaker 1: who did not post an eminent threat. These other orders
Speaker 1: to shoot Palestinians even if they don't pose a eminent threat.
Speaker 1: The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Speaker 1: Rights noted that in the reports, Israeli forces quote often
Speaker 1: use firearms against Palestinians on mere suspicion or as a
Speaker 1: precautionary measure in violation of international standards. Um. And yeah, surprise, surprise.
Speaker 1: Her funeral was also attacked by these really occupation, just
Speaker 1: like Sharnes was. Um. They beat the mourners and uh,
Speaker 1: nothing nothing changed in the the several days that followed
Speaker 1: that funeral. It happened again because they knew they could
Speaker 1: happen again. There was no punishment for the first round. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's all I got for today. Um, I do,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so much more to talk about, but
Speaker 1: just they'll take a lifetime and maybe I'll chip out
Speaker 1: it away over time. I do want to plug a
Speaker 1: film that I really love called Gaza Fights for Freedom.
Speaker 1: It's a twenty nineteen documentary. It's on YouTube for free,
Speaker 1: and it's by Abby Martin and it's filmed by Caraman
Speaker 1: on the ground and Gaza, and it really shows the
Speaker 1: imbalance that takes place, especially in that region. I know
Speaker 1: we didn't cover Gaza that much in this episode, but
Speaker 1: just like Shrine's death, that reflects the larger issue and
Speaker 1: the just blatant genocide and ethic cleansing that's happening. So
Speaker 1: I would really recommend that if you want to learn more. Again,
Speaker 1: just like our boys the mini series, it's really hard
Speaker 1: to watch um, at least for me, UM and another.
Speaker 1: I mean, the reason I mentioned I wanted to describe
Speaker 1: the video Shreen's death earlier is because I haven't seen
Speaker 1: it and I don't want to see it. Like I
Speaker 1: it really triggers me when I see like a photo
Speaker 1: of and I mean anybody like I don't want to
Speaker 1: sensationalize their death. UM, but I do want you guys
Speaker 1: to know about it and to understand that it's important. UM.
Speaker 1: That's my shoe. I have. I have seen it, and
Speaker 1: just as a general rule of someone who's worked in
Speaker 1: those conditions, she's very obviously not in a situation which
Speaker 1: it makes sense that she would have gotten on a
Speaker 1: cross fire between a gunfight like obviously this has been documented,
Speaker 1: but it was pretty obvious from the beginning that this
Speaker 1: was not like two sides shooting at each other and
Speaker 1: someone getting caught up in the middle. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's depressing. I guess I didn't end this one with
Speaker 1: any kind of uplifting anything, But I just encourage everyone
Speaker 1: who's interested or who doesn't know uh and who wants
Speaker 1: to know more to just get your information from Palestinians.
Speaker 1: Um spread awareness of social media because Palestinian voices are
Speaker 1: usually silenced, and it really makes a difference when people
Speaker 1: speak up, because that's the only way things change, just
Speaker 1: the only way articles change their headlines. That's the only
Speaker 1: way anything even pivots in the right direction. But this
Speaker 1: is the end. Should I say goodbye now? Goodbye? Now? Okay,
Speaker 1: thank you, but no, I appreciate the listeners of today
Speaker 1: and yesterday's episodes. It means a lot to me. You know,
Speaker 1: I'll see you when I see you. Bye bye. Bye,
Speaker 1: now Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every
Speaker 1: week from now until the heat death of the universe.
Speaker 1: It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: cool zone media dot com, or check us out on
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Speaker 1: listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could
Speaker 1: Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone media dot com
Speaker 1: slash sources. Thanks for listening.