Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let
Speaker 2: you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode
Speaker 2: of the week that just happened is here in one
Speaker 2: convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to
Speaker 2: listen to in a long stretch if you want. If
Speaker 2: you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
Speaker 2: there's got to be nothing new here for you, but
Speaker 2: you can make your own decisions.
Speaker 3: Hello, and welcome to itapen here. This may be my
Speaker 3: final episode on Latin American onechism. That is, we've called Peru, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay,
Speaker 3: the many countries of Central America, the former countries of
Speaker 3: Grand Colombia, and the Spaanifoon Islands the Caribbean. Now we'll
Speaker 3: finally get into the big one, Mexico. And I say
Speaker 3: we because I'm here with Garrison Davis.
Speaker 4: Hello, is this has been it's got to be like
Speaker 4: a year long series now right.
Speaker 3: At this point, and yeah, it's going to go around
Speaker 3: for some time with breaks in between and everything.
Speaker 4: I'm very very excited.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to introduce myself real quick, I'm Andrew Sage. You
Speaker 3: can find me on YouTube, but androism and we should
Speaker 3: have check out the show notes for all the references,
Speaker 3: including a health capalities anarchism in Latin America, which was
Speaker 3: an indispensable resource for the entirety of this project. Without
Speaker 3: further Ado faminos, we have a lot to cover. Mexico
Speaker 3: is a massive and storied country, so I can only
Speaker 3: really give you a gist of its pre colonial and
Speaker 3: colonial history. For the necessary context, we have to start
Speaker 3: thousands of years before the name Mexico or Mexico even existed.
Speaker 3: Of course, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the land we
Speaker 3: now call Mexico is home to some of the world's
Speaker 3: most unique ancient civilizations whose came the Olmechs, often called
Speaker 3: the mother culture of meso America, known for their colossal
Speaker 3: stoneheads and influence on later cultures there with their dazzlin cities,
Speaker 3: mathematics and calendars, and eventually the Aztecs, who built the
Speaker 3: Grand Empire, settled onto nor Stitland, which is now Mexico City. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: we can't spend much time on this rich history. We
Speaker 3: must progress to the time of European contact. In fifteen nineteen,
Speaker 3: everything changed. Spanish Conquistra and nan Cortez arrived, and within
Speaker 3: just two years the mighty Aztec Empire fell disease. Alliances
Speaker 3: with native enemies of the Aztecs, technological advantages and brutal
Speaker 3: warfare aided the Spaniards overthrowing a civilization of millions. What
Speaker 3: followed was three centuries of colonial rule under New Spain,
Speaker 3: marked by extraction, Catholic conversion, and the mixing, often violently,
Speaker 3: of indigenous European and African peoples. By the early eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 3: the winds of independence were finally blowing. A Catholic priest
Speaker 3: named Miguel Hidalgo sparked the fight with a cry for
Speaker 3: freedom in eighteen ten. Specifically, he sought the end of
Speaker 3: rule by Spanish peninsulars, which are the people who came
Speaker 3: from Spain and ruled over Mexico. He called for the
Speaker 3: equality of races, and he called for the redistribution of land.
Speaker 3: As a hill capbility put it in anarchism in Latin miracle,
Speaker 3: hid Illgo proposed to abolish, even if by gentle and
Speaker 3: gradual means, what he called, in almost Prudonian terms, the
Speaker 3: horrible right of territorial property, perpetual hereditary and exclusive. This
Speaker 3: whole land topic is going to come up a lot
Speaker 3: in the history. By the way, you may be familiar
Speaker 3: with the phrase land and freedom, the aira liberdad that
Speaker 3: comes from Mexico. Anyway. It took more than a decade
Speaker 3: of war, but by eighteen twenty one Mexico had finally
Speaker 3: broken free from Spain. Freedom, though didn't mean stability. The
Speaker 3: nineteenth century saw emperors come and go, because there was
Speaker 3: actually a time when Mexico as a monarchy, Foreign invasions
Speaker 3: by the United States via the Manifest Destiny and Napoleon's
Speaker 3: France via monarchical Latin League, and internal power struggles. The
Speaker 3: Zapatec president Benito Juarez, who from eighteen sixty four to
Speaker 3: eighteen sixty seven had resisted foreign occupation by Napoleon's emperor
Speaker 3: Maximilian and fought for constitutional reform, sought to stabilize, secularize,
Speaker 3: and modernize the country. In the mid eighteen hundreds, figures
Speaker 3: like Quarez led a sweeping movement against the old powers
Speaker 3: of Mexico, the Catholic Church and the military, which had
Speaker 3: long dominated both land and politics. To the layers de reformer.
Speaker 3: They seized church property, secularized education and promised a new
Speaker 3: era of rights and equality. But there was a catch,
Speaker 3: because to weaken the Church, the liberals sold off its land,
Speaker 3: not to the peasants or indigenous communities who had worked
Speaker 3: on it for generations, but to wealthy buyers, the heroes.
Speaker 3: The communal lands of indigenous peoples were privatized under this
Speaker 3: liberal banner freedom and progress. They created a new class
Speaker 3: of landlords and pushed rural people deeper into poverty. Benito
Speaker 3: Juarez died, but his legacy lived on with those reforms
Speaker 3: to cement the separation of church and state, freedom of religion,
Speaker 3: the prohibition of forced labor, and so on. But following
Speaker 3: him came the Portfyriato, a thirty year long dictatorship under
Speaker 3: the mixed tech president Porfyrio Dias, who continued the modernization
Speaker 3: of the country but also deepened its long standing inequalities.
Speaker 3: Portforio Dias surrounded himself with intellectuals known as the scientificos
Speaker 3: They were positivists, as in adherents of the positivist school
Speaker 3: of philosophy, which advocated for rational planning and economic development
Speaker 3: as a path of social progress. His slogan was ban Opalo,
Speaker 3: the bread or the stick, and reflected the policy of
Speaker 3: rewarding compliance with prosperity while punishing dissent with severe consequences.
Speaker 3: The liberty order and progress equation sacrificed liberty as the
Speaker 3: Mexican people were expected to trade freedom for the benefits
Speaker 3: of these policies. Workers ended up facings low wages, long hours,
Speaker 3: and of course lacked rights, while estate laborers were landless
Speaker 3: and under the arbitrary rule of Mayo demos, education was
Speaker 3: largely restricted to elites. In major cities, groups like the
Speaker 3: Yaqi Indians were forcibly relocated as cheap labor to plantations. Governors,
Speaker 3: those supposedly elected, were effectively presidential appointees, monitored by Hipe's
Speaker 3: politicals who intervened the local affairs. The roulatis and elite
Speaker 3: constabulary maintained order but often disregarded due process, which fostered
Speaker 3: a whole reign of terror in the rural areas. Diaz's
Speaker 3: popularity eventually waned as prosperity was monopolized by a small,
Speaker 3: often foreign elite. This elite emulated European customs, which created
Speaker 3: a stark divide with the growing protis and middle classes.
Speaker 3: By the second half of the nineteenth century, Mexico was
Speaker 3: caught in a contradiction a state that promised emancipation through
Speaker 3: property rights, while this possessing the very people it claimed
Speaker 3: to free. The liberal project had failed them, and in
Speaker 3: its failure space opened for deeper critiques of property power
Speaker 3: and the state itself. A younger generation began questioning the system,
Speaker 3: and with this rise in criticism came rising repression, which
Speaker 3: set the stage for the Mexican Revolution of nineteen ten.
Speaker 4: This whole era of like the turn of the millennia
Speaker 4: and the start of the twentieth century has like so
Speaker 4: much of this same stuff happening all over the world.
Speaker 4: Like that's kind of one of the biggest trends that
Speaker 4: we've been able to see throughout your Latin American anarchism
Speaker 4: series is like how how much they all mirror each other,
Speaker 4: and like how much of like a global movements used
Speaker 4: to exist, like not like an organized fashion, but like
Speaker 4: there's like some like other force that is that is
Speaker 4: like a driving these like global trends of like revoltant revolution. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and like we see this a lot in like the yeah,
Speaker 4: like the nineteen ten to nineteen twenty time period. I
Speaker 4: mean even just in Latin America.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I also think, of course, it's really easy to
Speaker 3: notice these trends and notice these tides of history and retrospect.
Speaker 3: You know, when you submerged in it, it's just like,
Speaker 3: you know, all these conversations and stuff happening, for sure,
Speaker 3: all these events and stuff happening around you. But when
Speaker 3: you by looking in the past, you could say, oh wow,
Speaker 3: this is like a global pattern, you know. So I'm
Speaker 3: always curious to see like when we look back, I mean,
Speaker 3: the twenty ten is already over. The narratives around it
Speaker 3: are still formulated, right, We're still in the midst of
Speaker 3: the nineteen twenty in the nineteen twenties, the twenty twenties, say,
Speaker 3: you know, the nowseron it will still be development all now.
Speaker 3: But we're already halfway through, and I'm sure people have
Speaker 3: already seen suitent trends that are going to make for
Speaker 3: some excellent retrospective commentary.
Speaker 4: Definitely. Yeah, Like the past ten years we've seen this
Speaker 4: like global far right power grab and this like rebirth
Speaker 4: of right wing populism sweeping a whole bunch of neoliberal democracies,
Speaker 4: like like post nineties, post War on Terror, post end
Speaker 4: of history stuff where you see like the full extent
Speaker 4: of like the Clinton, Reagan Thatcher economics completely completely crumble
Speaker 4: with far right populism like taking taking over the reins
Speaker 4: of most popular consciousness. Yeah, to the point where even
Speaker 4: like the more like liberal parties are being quote unquote
Speaker 4: forced to adopt like similar rhetoric looking at like like
Speaker 4: like the Labor Party in the UK and hearing the States,
Speaker 4: how how much like the Democratic Party last year like
Speaker 4: completely caved on like far right populist talking points on
Speaker 4: immigration and stuff.
Speaker 3: Exactly. I think part of it as well is a
Speaker 3: failure to advance a positive, totally direction and a positive program.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, when we allow the tunes of discourse, the
Speaker 3: arena of discussion, to be dictated by the right, when
Speaker 3: we simply react to what they are saying, when we
Speaker 3: simply respond to their policies and their efforts, you know,
Speaker 3: we may slow down the progress of their goals, but ultimately,
Speaker 3: as long as we are engaged in dialogue with their goals,
Speaker 3: they are storely inching their goals closer and closer to reality.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that is certainly the trend that that I've been
Speaker 4: seeing the past ten years and I'm sure sure many
Speaker 4: people have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, the overturn windows pretty much entirely dictated
Speaker 3: by what they decide, you know. I think I've mentioned
Speaker 3: this before. The right to decided they wanted to talk
Speaker 3: about critical race theory, and then critical race theory became
Speaker 3: the center of conversation. The right decided they wanted it
Speaker 3: to target.
Speaker 4: DEI gender ideology.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, and then that becomes the whole thing, is
Speaker 3: that the center discussion. They are not putting forward the
Speaker 3: policies that are going to hoot pretty much everybody as
Speaker 3: the center of their policy. That's more like an a
Speaker 3: side when they give themselves, you know, salary raises and
Speaker 3: they cut taxes on the ridge. That's not the center
Speaker 3: of their political message. Center the polical messages, you know,
Speaker 3: various culture related issues that they can use s rority
Speaker 3: their base, but it's nothing that's actually benefiting people, you know.
Speaker 3: And instead of circumventing that, that effort to dictate the
Speaker 3: course of conversation, dictate our own conversations instead of what
Speaker 3: it's kind of following along the tail. But that's a
Speaker 3: bit outside the scope of of this a bit of
Speaker 3: a digression here. But before we get to the point
Speaker 3: of the Mexican Revolution, though, we should really take a
Speaker 3: look at the slow and steady development of radical ideas
Speaker 3: in Mexico during the nineteenth century. You see indigenous resistance
Speaker 3: persisted throughout Mexico's history through often quiet, revolved acts of
Speaker 3: non cooperation that would steadily ensure that Spain could never
Speaker 3: fully establish his dominion. Even after independence, the culdnal structure
Speaker 3: lived on in the hasciendas, the church, and the state,
Speaker 3: so the indigenous communities would continue to resist, sometimes in
Speaker 3: profoundly anti authoritarian ways by the nineteenth century. And this
Speaker 3: history is courtesy and hill capialtes anarchism in Latin America.
Speaker 3: As I mentioned in eighteen sixty one, a man arrived
Speaker 3: in Mexico with a very distinct name. He was Platino
Speaker 3: Constantino Rorocanati. He was a Greek immigrant radicalized by the
Speaker 3: revolutions in Europe and steeped in the works of Furia,
Speaker 3: who was a utopian socialist, and Prudon, who was an
Speaker 3: anarchist fust anarchist. He had fled the counter revolutionary tide
Speaker 3: crashing over the continent with a mission. Roccanati believed Mexico,
Speaker 3: with its long standing indigenous traditions of communal landholding and
Speaker 3: mutual aid was the perfect police to plant the seeds
Speaker 3: of a new utopian society. And in a lot of
Speaker 3: ways he was right, you know. He saw in the
Speaker 3: a Hero system, the indigenous Kuna Lantennire a living echo
Speaker 3: of the kind of society Utopians in Europe could only
Speaker 3: dream of. Where the liberally saw backwardness, Rota Kanati saw potential.
Speaker 3: His aim wasn't to civilize these communities, but to learn
Speaker 3: from them and help them protect their autoroity from the
Speaker 3: encroaging state through political philosophy and practice. He seemed to
Speaker 3: be a very interesting fellow by the way. I mean,
Speaker 3: he apparently spoke seven languages. He practiced medicine by day
Speaker 3: and philosophy by night. He was a Christian, but not
Speaker 3: anything like the Christians that dominated Mexico at the time, because,
Speaker 3: as anhil Capelt he puts it for him, the essence
Speaker 3: of Christianity is charity, that is love for all, as
Speaker 3: it is taught in the Gospels, and that essence is
Speaker 3: the moral foundation of socialism and revolution as well. Pure Christianity,
Speaker 3: he wrote, is the religion that will regenerate the world
Speaker 3: when people finally come to understand the power of its
Speaker 3: basic principles liberty, equality and fraternity. But it is Christianity
Speaker 3: without dogma like Saint Simon's, and without priesthood, liturgy or
Speaker 3: hierarchical organization, the model for which he finds in the
Speaker 3: life of Jesus and his earliest followers. Primitive Christianity is
Speaker 3: authentic Christianity, but has been entirely degraded by the Catholic
Speaker 3: and Protestant churches, and has nothing to do with so
Speaker 3: many sexs that call themselves Christian end quote. A few
Speaker 3: months after his arrival in eighteen sixty one, he published
Speaker 3: a socialist primary in Mexico that marked him as the
Speaker 3: first anarchist to put forward distinctly anarchist theory in the country.
Speaker 3: In the mid eighteen sixties, he formed a group called
Speaker 3: Lass Social the goal of spreading the ideas of mutualism,
Speaker 3: free association, anti capitalist cooperation through books, pamphlets, and education.
Speaker 3: Barukannati and his collaborators launched workers schools aimed the promoting literacy,
Speaker 3: political consciousness, and autonomy. Once at school was the Esquila
Speaker 3: de Rao idel Socialismo, the School of Lightning and socialism hell.
Speaker 3: Yet it combined moral instruction with a deep critique of
Speaker 3: the exploitative labor system. This was, you know, education as
Speaker 3: a rebellion, not just to read, but to recognize the
Speaker 3: exploitation and to imagine alternatives. Rudicnati thought of his socialism
Speaker 3: as the fullest expression of the French revolutionary motto of liberty,
Speaker 3: equality and fraternity, which no half measure like liberalism could
Speaker 3: ever reach. He recognized that the immediate objective must be quote,
Speaker 3: the extinction of poverty, the distribution and increase to the commonwealth,
Speaker 3: the abolition of prostitution, and the conservation of all our faculties,
Speaker 3: including the intellectual, physical, and moral ones, for the transformation
Speaker 3: of humanity through science, beauty and virtue end quote. One
Speaker 3: of those things was not like the others. I'm surely noticed.
Speaker 3: There was a standout inclusion there, but it makes sense
Speaker 3: considering his background. He also saw himself as a cosmopolitan,
Speaker 3: perhaps owing in part his unique circumstances as a man
Speaker 3: with a Greek father, Austrian mother, a French education, and
Speaker 3: Mexican who he said, quote, we are Cosmopolitans by nature,
Speaker 3: citizens of all nations, and contemporaries to all the Asias,
Speaker 3: the greatest and most heroic human actions belong equally to
Speaker 3: all end quote. In other words, our country is the
Speaker 3: entire world, and all men are brothers. He also wrote
Speaker 3: that the abolition of all governments in the nations, which
Speaker 3: frightens you and you consider impossible and absurd they have
Speaker 3: ever tried it, will usher in a totally new world
Speaker 3: of institutions, in which the peoples of the world will
Speaker 3: live in happiness end quote. Brouclati was a pacifist and
Speaker 3: his approached anarchism, which owed his original introduction of socialism
Speaker 3: being via Charles Furia, but eventually he came to the
Speaker 3: stand the need for a class struggle, as he said, quote,
Speaker 3: a social revolution in which many heroic victims will be
Speaker 3: sacrificed in the sacred altar to restore the justice denied
Speaker 3: it to the people end quote. His work attracted young radicals,
Speaker 3: many of whom would later play key roles in the
Speaker 3: development of Mexico's labor movement. Before he started Laso Ciel,
Speaker 3: he'd initiated the first Grupo Destudiante Socialistas, from which came
Speaker 3: figures such as Santiago Villanueva, who tried to organize the
Speaker 3: worker's movement Permeneghuillo, Filla, Vicinzio, and Francisco's Alacosta, a leader
Speaker 3: of rural masses. It's the core of this group that
Speaker 3: would help him to create Lasocil, which would educate and agitate,
Speaker 3: but also assist workers beyond mutual aid to an active
Speaker 3: class struggle posture in defense of the interests against bosses.
Speaker 3: So basically, he took these mutual aid societies and made
Speaker 3: sure that they didn't stay mutual aid societies, that they
Speaker 3: were radicalized into resistance societies. Because those sort of mutual
Speaker 3: aid associations were very common in Latin America at the time.
Speaker 3: You know, workers would create these little groups where they
Speaker 3: would try and support each other. But it's very easy
Speaker 3: to fall back on that and to assume, you know,
Speaker 3: that's all you have to do. Making sure that they
Speaker 3: have a radical posture, a revolutionary posture. It's important to
Speaker 3: ensure that they're not just rest in your laurels and
Speaker 3: expecting change to come to you, and indeed, they did
Speaker 3: not expect the change to come to them. In June
Speaker 3: eighteen sixty five, these resistant societies supported the first industrial
Speaker 3: strike in Mexico. Unfortunately, it was crushed by the leader
Speaker 3: of the country at the time, Emperor Maximilian, but it
Speaker 3: was his occupation and the economic harshness of it all
Speaker 3: that fermented the spread of anarchist ideas. Another stud on
Speaker 3: Talt of Rocannati school came Julio Chavez, a precursor to
Speaker 3: the more famous Emiliano Zapata and a fervent anarchist communist.
Speaker 3: He agitated for a peasant rebellion and engage in land expropriations,
Speaker 3: which grew in popularity wherever he was active, from the
Speaker 3: Cholco texokore John where he began to all the states
Speaker 3: of Quibbler and Morella as Coupleleetti recounts quote. The federal
Speaker 3: army finally moved against him and defeated and imprisoned. He
Speaker 3: was executed in eighteen sixty nine by order of President
Speaker 3: Benito Juarez. Before he died, Chavez cried out, long Live
Speaker 3: Socialism end quote. His manifesto, which was written a few
Speaker 3: months before he died, would help introduce more masses in
Speaker 3: the Mexican movement to the idea of class drugl and
Speaker 3: like a light bulb over one's head, it immediately it
Speaker 3: clear who was responsible for their suffering. Santiago vil and
Speaker 3: Weaver and a fellow student to Rocanati named Villa Vicenzio
Speaker 3: worked arduously to organize the artisans and workers in Mexico City,
Speaker 3: and they definitely had the cards stacked against them, but
Speaker 3: they helped to organize an industrial strike in a textile
Speaker 3: mill in eighteen sixty eight, and in eighteen sixty nine
Speaker 3: they established a Circulo Peraltario, and in eighteen seventy the
Speaker 3: Grand Seculio de Obreros de Mexico and in eighteen seventy
Speaker 3: one the newspaper Al Socialista. This is when the red
Speaker 3: and black so famously associated with anarchism came into the
Speaker 3: Mexican workers' movement. The eighteen seventies saw struggles between radical
Speaker 3: and moderate factions among workers, proletarian presses making a name
Speaker 3: for themselves, and the first convention of the General Workers
Speaker 3: Congress of the Mexican Republic in eighteen seventy six with
Speaker 3: a manifesto that indicated the crown influence of libertarian ideology
Speaker 3: in Mexico. Of course, there was a tension in that
Speaker 3: Congress between the socialists and the anarchists, but water is wet. Sadly,
Speaker 3: Mexico wasn't ready for revolution, or rather the ruling class wasn't.
Speaker 3: While Roadcinnati and others sold seeds among students and workers,
Speaker 3: the country was swinging toward reaction. As I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 3: with the rise of Porfilio Diaz in eighteen seventy six,
Speaker 3: any space for radical thought began to close. Diaz, the
Speaker 3: stronglan of Oneization, was obsessed with order and progress. He
Speaker 3: welcomed foreign capital, built railroads across the nation, and gutted
Speaker 3: the countryside to make room for exports, and he crushed dissent.
Speaker 3: While Roccarati avoided outright persecution thanks in partists foreign status
Speaker 3: and paspest leanings, the educational projects he inspired were dismantled
Speaker 3: or sidelined. The more confrontational elements of the ole anarchists
Speaker 3: current went underground. Those who spoke of abolishing property or
Speaker 3: questioned the Porphylian vision of modernity were met with jail, exile,
Speaker 3: or worse. Rocnati's allies, Alacosta, through his newspaper Like International,
Speaker 3: promoted a twelve point socialist agenda. Advocated on universal social republic,
Speaker 3: municipal autonomy, workers' rights, workers associations, wage abolition, and property equality.
Speaker 3: Despite Diaz's rise in eighteen seventy seven, he led a
Speaker 3: present uprising in Sierra Gorda and Planet the Lla Baranca,
Speaker 3: battling federal forces until eighteen eighty. Despite his defeat and
Speaker 3: imprisonment in eighteen eighty one, the rebellion persisted. Telacosta's ally,
Speaker 3: Colonel Albert to Santa Fe, introduced the Lays del Pueblo.
Speaker 3: Influenced by mcunan's ideas. Though not a purely anarchist manifesto,
Speaker 3: this document emphasized land distribution, national industry promotion, army suppression,
Speaker 3: and free education. Stafe argued that true Mexican independence depended
Speaker 3: on reclaimant stolen lands, a movement which, of course gained
Speaker 3: traction among the peasants. General Negrete supported Santa Fe's revolutionary efforts,
Speaker 3: just as he had backed Chavez, Lopez and Sarlacosta earlier.
Speaker 3: Satafe's resistance against Diaz's dictatorship was more radical than mayor
Speaker 3: electoral opposition. It aimed at transference sovereignty to local municipalities
Speaker 3: and land to peasant collectors. However, by the eighteen nineties,
Speaker 3: Diaz effectively suppressed most worker movements through bribery and repression.
Speaker 3: While industrial workers and miners fared slightly better than the peasants,
Speaker 3: wages steadily declined after eighteen ninety eight. Rodocanati left Mexico
Speaker 3: in eighteen eighty six after giving for two decades of
Speaker 3: his life to the cause. But it's two decades of
Speaker 3: so and seeds would eventually flourish in the Mexican Revolution.
Speaker 3: What will be covering in the next episode. Thanks for
Speaker 3: tuning in, am Andra Sage. You can follow me on
Speaker 3: YouTube at Andrewism and patron dot com slash Saint Drew.
Speaker 3: Thanks again. This is it could happen here. All power
Speaker 3: to all the people. Please hello and welcome to it
Speaker 3: could happen here. I'm back with Yeason Davis.
Speaker 2: Hello, and I'm.
Speaker 3: Andress Sage or Andrewism on YouTube now. Previously we explored
Speaker 3: a lesser known chapter in Mexico's radical history before my
Speaker 3: Gone Before for the Revolution, when a Greek emigre named
Speaker 3: Plotino Rocanati arrived in the eighteen sixties, convinced that Mexico's
Speaker 3: indigenous communal traditions could form the basis for a new
Speaker 3: anarchist society. Through schools, pamphlets, and mutual aid societies. He
Speaker 3: helped sow the first seeds of anarchist thought on Mexican soil.
Speaker 3: Some of his students pushed even further and flirted with
Speaker 3: many bush and streams of anarchism. Even as Portfilio Diazis
Speaker 3: regime clamped down and anything that challenges dry for order
Speaker 3: and progress, Rocanati faded from view and many of his
Speaker 3: students that associates had to go underground for a time,
Speaker 3: but the ideas would live on like quiet sparks or
Speaker 3: waiting for the next revolt, and an actual volt would
Speaker 3: come in nineteen ten, when the Mexican Revolution erupted. By
Speaker 3: keeping in mind the contexts here, when we talk about revolutions,
Speaker 3: the focus tends to be on the flashpoints, the gunfire,
Speaker 3: the slogans, the major figures, and I will do a
Speaker 3: lot of focus on so of them figures throughout this history.
Speaker 3: We have to keep in mind the revolutions have roots
Speaker 3: that run deep, run deep below the surface. The revolutions
Speaker 3: are often shaped by decades or centuries of injustice, and
Speaker 3: Mexico's revolution was no exception because for over three decades
Speaker 3: for Fibio Diaz ruled Mexico with what was basically a
Speaker 3: velvet glove over an iron fist. He brought railroads in electrification,
Speaker 3: but also crave crave costs for the rural poor, the
Speaker 3: indigenous communities, and the working classes. By nineteen ten, thanks
Speaker 3: to his efforts, almost all the land in Mexico was
Speaker 3: in private hands. The rural port and our found themselves
Speaker 3: as peons and haciendas abot those that fled to the
Speaker 3: city for themselves, proletarianized, made to work at various industries
Speaker 3: for long hours, low pay, and little protection. Despite appearance
Speaker 3: stable and efficient and orderly, the system in Mexico was
Speaker 3: profoundly unjust, and yet many saw it as a model
Speaker 3: for progress in a region full of instability, a description
Speaker 3: that seems eerily familiar to the situation that's currently taking
Speaker 3: place in El Salvador. Beneath the Polish Venaier, tensions were
Speaker 3: breren workers were organizing journalists who were risking their lives.
Speaker 3: Teachers and lawyers, and even wealthy landowners began to murmur
Speaker 3: about the need for reform, and the countryside, those old
Speaker 3: communal memories refused to die. Even after the land was taken.
Speaker 3: The land was remembered by the term twentieth century, Giaz
Speaker 3: approached his eighties with no successor in sight, and the
Speaker 3: people were getting fedter, which brings us into the first
Speaker 3: phase of the Mexican Revolution. According to A. Hill Cappaletti,
Speaker 3: the author of Anarchism in Latin America and the main
Speaker 3: source of this episode, Francisco I. Madero wasn't quite a
Speaker 3: revolutionary in all honesty. He just wanted to tweet the
Speaker 3: status ko to keep a free market, but banned reelection
Speaker 3: of presidents came from money. He was an upper class intellectual,
Speaker 3: a believer in parliamentary democracy and in free markets. He
Speaker 3: read the Review spirit the religiously. It was a spiritualist journalism,
Speaker 3: and he believes in a kind of metaphysical liberalism where
Speaker 3: good governance and good intentions could stare history in the
Speaker 3: right direction. Madero's party, the Partido Democrata, was formed with
Speaker 3: a single claire goal, and in Porthio diazis decades long
Speaker 3: grip on power. But to more radical forces like Coricardo
Speaker 3: Flores Margonne and the Partido Liberal Mexicano or PLM, Madero's
Speaker 3: vision was nowhere near enough to get fooled by the name.
Speaker 3: By the way, the PM had some revolutionary credentials. It
Speaker 3: started off as a simple anti clerical, anti editatorial party,
Speaker 3: but perhaps with the influence of North American and Spanish
Speaker 3: immigrant anarchosynicalists, it eventually took on a libertarian character, guided
Speaker 3: also in part for the ideological evolution of Malgone himself.
Speaker 3: It was neither liberal nor truly a party in the end,
Speaker 3: but rather a truly revolutionary libertarian organization. We'll get back
Speaker 3: to Macgone's story in Osaka, but the point is where
Speaker 3: mcgone was calling for social revolution, landry distribution, and worker's
Speaker 3: control of production. Madero merely wanted electoral reform. He had
Speaker 3: no real program for agreerian justice and was quote generally
Speaker 3: indifferent to the problems of the Mexican masses, as Capeletti
Speaker 3: put it. Still, Madero's nineteen ten campaign electrified all of
Speaker 3: those who were unit for change, revolutionaries and reformists alike.
Speaker 3: His challenge Todas helped ignite a broader uprising that managed
Speaker 3: to bring Madero into power in nineteen eleven. Before we
Speaker 3: get into what happened during the Madero presidency, let's go
Speaker 3: back in time to follow Ricardo Flora's Macgone story. Macgon
Speaker 3: was Born in eighteen seventy three in the village of
Speaker 3: San Antonio, Iloxo Chi, then in Osaka, his roots straddled
Speaker 3: both indigenous and Mestizo heritage. As a law students in
Speaker 3: Mexico City, he found himself swept into the tide of
Speaker 3: anti government agitation. Before he even toned twenty, he was
Speaker 3: jailed for the first time. He joined the radical press
Speaker 3: in eighteen ninety three with El Democrat and anti Diaz people.
Speaker 3: The regime quickly snuffed out, but he wasn't deterred. In
Speaker 3: nineteen hundred he co founded Regeneracion, the publication that would
Speaker 3: become the voice of the Mexican left in the twentieth century.
Speaker 3: It was while behind bars, where he often found himself,
Speaker 3: that Macgone encountered the ideas that would shape his life's work.
Speaker 3: Thanks to the library of liberal landowner Camillo Ariaga, he
Speaker 3: read the writings of Kropotkin and Malichester, and through those
Speaker 3: texts crystallized his anarchist vision. Now, even though Magone's ideology
Speaker 3: incubated quietly in his early political life, it didn't stay
Speaker 3: buried for law as his conflicts of the diazre intensified. So
Speaker 3: truly the radicalism of his actions. He edited L Ejo
Speaker 3: del Aquisote, a satirical rag that earned him yet another
Speaker 3: stint in prison, and after his release of nineteen oh four,
Speaker 3: Magroun fled to Texas where he re launched Geracion with
Speaker 3: renewed purpose. By nineteen oh five, the paper helped spark
Speaker 3: the creation of the Patido Liberal and the Hicano or PLM, which,
Speaker 3: as I said, wasn't much of a political party as
Speaker 3: it was a radical organ though it did have some
Speaker 3: reformist demands mixed it. They were trying to soften their
Speaker 3: language at times to appeal to conservative sympathizers of reform.
Speaker 3: Away from the ADS, the PMS sought the abolition of
Speaker 3: the military tribunals, free secular education, workers rights at the
Speaker 3: eight hour workday minimum wage, and the expropriation of idle lands.
Speaker 3: In short, it went further than nineteen seventeen constitution that
Speaker 3: would come a decade later. I could be seen as
Speaker 3: the crystallization of many of the Mexican Revolution's most popular aims.
Speaker 3: Margon and the PLM established alliances across borders, particularly among
Speaker 3: the industrial workers of the world, but that put a
Speaker 3: target on Magone's back. For both Mexican and US authorities.
Speaker 3: You already know they can't be having solid darity like that.
Speaker 3: The Pinkertons rolled up, backed in part by Diaz himself,
Speaker 3: and they were on Magon's tail constantly, even ended up
Speaker 3: as far north as Canada just trying to escape their
Speaker 3: constant harassment. But despite the repression, the momentum could not
Speaker 3: be killed. Between nineteen or six and ninety oh eight,
Speaker 3: the PLM helped organize a string of strikes and uprisings.
Speaker 3: The most infamous was the canear Nea copper strike. Mexican
Speaker 3: miners were paid stop vation wages while their American counterparts
Speaker 3: earned double for the same work. When the miners struck
Speaker 3: for fair pay and better conditions, they were met with
Speaker 3: deadly force. The rebellion that followed so American rangers in
Speaker 3: Mexican troops massacre more than two hundred people thousands were jailed.
Speaker 3: Another uprising ignited in Rio Blanco, where textile workers already
Speaker 3: paid a pittance, organized with the leadership of Jose Nierra,
Speaker 3: a student of Magon. When negotiations failed and repression ramped up,
Speaker 3: the workers responded, not with another petition, both insurrection on
Speaker 3: January seventh, nineteen oh seven, they stormed the mill, freed prisoners,
Speaker 3: cut wires, and declared open rebellion. The state responded with
Speaker 3: a bloodbath. Entire families were dragged from their homes and executed.
Speaker 3: Another one of the uprisings was a peasant revolter, began
Speaker 3: in nineteen oh six in Akayukan and spread through Tuxtlas,
Speaker 3: Mine Titlan and Tavasco. It was crushed, of course, in
Speaker 3: nineteen oh eight and Viscas, though their plans had been
Speaker 3: leaked to the authorities, revolutionaries had a firefight with police
Speaker 3: and freed a town jail. Just two days later, in
Speaker 3: Las Vegas, other students of Magon were fighting for justice.
Speaker 3: Another set of gorillas of rose in Palomas, but they failed.
Speaker 3: Yet another insurrection happened in Via the lead Yucatan, and
Speaker 3: they suffered summary executions. And all those events, all those
Speaker 3: small revolutionary bands challenging the states, they failed, but they
Speaker 3: emboldened the dream of a different world with their will
Speaker 3: to act. Magone was jailed again in nineteen oh seven,
Speaker 3: but it wasn't over for him yet. And I really
Speaker 3: don't like to romanticize, you know, this idea of this uprisings,
Speaker 3: that they feel, but you know, they're still inspiring. We
Speaker 3: don't want to go too fun to that where you know,
Speaker 3: your self sacrifice for self sacrifice sake. But I think
Speaker 3: it's important to point out that there were multiple failed
Speaker 3: attempts before the successful uprising that ushered in the Mexican Revolution.
Speaker 3: It wasn't you know, a first time successful attempt, and
Speaker 3: by the time Malgon was at least from prison in
Speaker 3: nineteen ten, the revolution had already begun to burn across Mexico,
Speaker 3: and that is in part in thanks to the efforts
Speaker 3: of those uprisings. Even though those individual uprisings failed, the
Speaker 3: Catalan immigrant Amadeo Ferres pumped up this energy in nineteen
Speaker 3: eleven with El Tipograph for Mexicano, yet another newspaper with
Speaker 3: a fierce anarcho cynicalist spirit, meant to mobilize urban workers.
Speaker 3: At the same time, old anarchist typographers were not only
Speaker 3: printing their message, they were forming unions like the Union
Speaker 3: de Canteras Mexicanos. In mid nineteen twelve, Juan Francisco Moncaliano
Speaker 3: arrived from Qure and quickly rallied a diverse group of
Speaker 3: workers into Grupo LuSE set on establishing a progressive education platform,
Speaker 3: al Francisco Ferrer. By September nineteen twelve, these unions and
Speaker 3: Grupo Loos united to form La Cassa Delbrero, forging a
Speaker 3: distinctly anarcho synicalist identity. The organized lectures built libraries of
Speaker 3: classic anarchist works and launched a new bi weekly called Lucha,
Speaker 3: all while energizing a massive May Day rally in nineteen thirteen,
Speaker 3: where twenty eight thousand workers rallied. Like Margon, these radicals
Speaker 3: saw through the hollow promises of Madero's democracy. Voting for
Speaker 3: a new president wouldn't free the peasantry. The legislative seats
Speaker 3: wouldn't redistribute land. No congress, no matter how liberal, would
Speaker 3: ever voluntarily dismantle the system that fed it. For them,
Speaker 3: revolution was no less than put in land and production
Speaker 3: in the hands of the people. No bosses, no landlords,
Speaker 3: no masters, just workers organizing life on their own terms.
Speaker 3: Madero's revolution, if we could even be called that, had
Speaker 3: mobilized peasants, workers, and radicals. But that moderate phase was
Speaker 3: about to end because once seated as president, Madero leaned
Speaker 3: heavily on old elites. He really siphoned energy away from
Speaker 3: genuine social change. With that reformance to push that he
Speaker 3: was doing a move that sounds all through familiar, but
Speaker 3: there was refusals in oct meaningful change lost in his
Speaker 3: allies very quickly. Figures like Pasqual, Orosco and even Emiliano Zapata,
Speaker 3: who had initially supported the rebellion against Diaz, became dissillusion
Speaker 3: sowil Madero governed, the PLM continued its fight now against
Speaker 3: the emergent new regime in northern Mexico. PLM aligned forces
Speaker 3: initially rose alongside Madero's, but they did not make common
Speaker 3: cause with him. When strategic positions and hiwawa were lost
Speaker 3: with the middle class and Orosco sided with Madero, the
Speaker 3: Mogonists turned their attention elsewhere. The next target was Baja California.
Speaker 3: In early nineteen eleven. They began seasoned towns Mexicali, Los Alcodonis, Tecate,
Speaker 3: and finally Tijouanna, seeking to establish a libertarian society, a
Speaker 3: model for what they called a free America. But the
Speaker 3: backlash was swift. American, British and French businesses owned pretty
Speaker 3: much all of Baja California, landowners and newspaper mogules in California, USA,
Speaker 3: which were often the same people panicked and ended up
Speaker 3: smearing the mcgonists as secessionists trying to handle from Mexican
Speaker 3: land to the US. In truth, as mcgonn wrote in Regeneracion,
Speaker 3: does Baja California belong to Mexico. It does not, is
Speaker 3: under the control of foreign capital. Mexicans owned nothing of it.
Speaker 3: The PLM's campaign was not about taking Mexico apart. It
Speaker 3: was about reclaiming it from the hands of foreign elites.
Speaker 3: Nothing less than land and liberty, as Capelletti puts it. Quote.
Speaker 3: On the contrary, mcgone's goal was nothing other than a
Speaker 3: classless and stateless libertarian society that will provide the archetype
Speaker 3: and pointed departure for the Mexican and World revolutionia end quote.
Speaker 3: The downfall of the Baja California campaign came in the
Speaker 3: hands of bourgeois Champion Madero, backed to where the US
Speaker 3: government and capitalists. By mid nineteen eleven, the mcgonists uprising
Speaker 3: in Maja California had effectively been extinguished, yet the saga
Speaker 3: didn't end there. On the fourteenth of June and nineteen eleven,
Speaker 3: magone and three of US associates were arrested, tried in
Speaker 3: Los Angeles, and mcgone himself was sentenced to McNeil Island
Speaker 3: Prison in Washington, State of Faith. He endured until nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 3: which meant that macgone wouldn't be present in Mexico for
Speaker 3: the death of one of his biggest ops. Since Madero
Speaker 3: failed to gain the support of radicals or secure the
Speaker 3: loyalty of reactionaries, the conservative military overthrew and assassinated him
Speaker 3: in stolen Victoriano Huerta into power in nineteen twoty, and
Speaker 3: just like that, the so called moderate phase the Mexican
Speaker 3: Revolution ended in blood. Quiet's dictator ship tried to imact
Speaker 3: the clock to the Porphyrian Eraqueta ruled with military force
Speaker 3: and repressure, the usual stuff, persecuting labor organizers, shutting down
Speaker 3: radical spaces, deporting for an activists, jail and dissenters, murdering people.
Speaker 3: Crackdowns eventually hit La Cassa de Lobrero's publications and destroyed
Speaker 3: the anarchist library. But out of this repression emerged a
Speaker 3: new tactic. They basically said, you know, you could burn
Speaker 3: our books. That's fine, don't you have to do. We're
Speaker 3: not going to stop us from spreading our message. They
Speaker 3: established grassroots orators, the Tribuna Roha, who took the revolutionary
Speaker 3: message directly to the working classes, given speeches where they
Speaker 3: were at and sharing the message even without access to literature.
Speaker 3: By May nineteen fourteen, a new people in Antipascion Obrera
Speaker 3: was launched. Do it too felt praise the regime's brutality. Thankfully,
Speaker 3: the regime wouldn't last long because Ptor's power didn't go unchallenged.
Speaker 3: From the north, Venustiano Carranza and the Constitutionalists rose to
Speaker 3: oppose him, claiming to defend the Madero's legacy. From the south,
Speaker 3: Emiliano Zapata refused to EXI accept any government that ignore
Speaker 3: the demands of landless peasants, and throughout the country armed
Speaker 3: struggle reignited, which brings us to Emiliano Zapata himself. He
Speaker 3: was doing his own thing politically, but he was inspired
Speaker 3: in part for the anarchist supporters and Margon. His ideology
Speaker 3: was rooted in Nikalpui, the collective land systems of his
Speaker 3: condigous ancestors. He eventually adopted the slogan Tierra Ileritad and
Speaker 3: rallied behind the Plan de Ayala, demanding land redistribution and
Speaker 3: local self governance. He had little tolerance for political maneuverent
Speaker 3: He saw the false promises of figures like Cuerta and Kranza.
Speaker 3: For Zapata, revolutionist thought about elections or modernization. It was
Speaker 3: what given land back. That's really all he cared about.
Speaker 3: In contrast, as the wariotis Mario, there was Pancho Villa.
Speaker 3: He was a charismatic northern general and a populist who
Speaker 3: worked with and against Kranza. As Magon described him, Zapata
Speaker 3: delivered riches to their true owners, the poor via executes
Speaker 3: the proletarian who takes a piece of bread end coot.
Speaker 3: That both were opposed to Carranza. Their goals, strategies, and
Speaker 3: ethics were far apart. Like I said, mariotas warrior. Queta
Speaker 3: didn't last long. As I mentioned, he was ousted by
Speaker 3: nineteen fourteen, so just about a year of being in
Speaker 3: power and being a violent dictator. And after predator fell,
Speaker 3: Perustiano Caranza rose to fill the vacuue. Like I said,
Speaker 3: he claimed to be continuing Madero's legacy, and his vision
Speaker 3: of Mexico was just as top down. He wasn't exactly
Speaker 3: fond of anarchists or the radical left in general, but
Speaker 3: faced with pressure from these appatistas in the south and
Speaker 3: VI's forces in the north, he courted his lab organizations
Speaker 3: like Cassa de la Brero Mundial offer gestures of support,
Speaker 3: a few favorable labor reforms, and even physical space like
Speaker 3: giving them the Jesuit College Santa Brigida as headquarters. In return,
Speaker 3: Kranza hoped to build a loyal base of organized workers,
Speaker 3: integrate them into his constitutional army, and neutralize the more
Speaker 3: radical strains of revolution. And I'm sorry to say that
Speaker 3: it partially worked. He was able to buy off some
Speaker 3: of these workers. While this alliance gave La Casa de
Speaker 3: Lobrero's space to organize workers throughout the country and ramp
Speaker 3: up educational and prostatizing efforts, much like what would take
Speaker 3: place in Spain years later, the anarchists began to lose
Speaker 3: their anarchist roots from the collaboration. Instead of back in
Speaker 3: the battle. In February nineteen fifteen, Lacassa signed a pact
Speaker 3: with the Constitutionalist forces and created quote unquote Red battalions
Speaker 3: within Kranza's army. But although Lacassa expanded its influence and
Speaker 3: managed amount strikes among miners, teachers, drivers, bakers, oil workers,
Speaker 3: textile workers, carpenters, button makers, and barbers in nineteen fifteen,
Speaker 3: in response to the economic pressures of inflation and unemployment.
Speaker 3: By early nineteen sixteen, their government allies were cracking down
Speaker 3: on them. Not long after hiring the Red Battalions. They
Speaker 3: fired the Red Battalion, so they shut down La CASA's offices.
Speaker 3: They sent key figures to jail. In response, the worker's
Speaker 3: movement held a national congress in Veracruz, and out of
Speaker 3: this emerged a new labor federation built on anarchist syniclust principles,
Speaker 3: committed not to capturing power but to dismantle it, the
Speaker 3: Confederacion del Trabajo de Larion and Hicana. In May nineteen sixteen,
Speaker 3: a general strike erupted in protest of the imprisonment of
Speaker 3: La Caassa's leadership and to demand urgent economic relief. While
Speaker 3: the strike was an immediate success, its ease led many
Speaker 3: young militans to believe that change could come through a
Speaker 3: benevolent state, notably Luis Morones, who would later lead to
Speaker 3: Confederacion Nano Prera Mexicana was CROM signed agreements with Caranza's government.
Speaker 3: Matters intensified ten months later when a second strike broker
Speaker 3: due to lowpe. In response, Caranza ordered mounted police to
Speaker 3: break up assemblies and declared martial law. The strike was crushed,
Speaker 3: its committee suspended all activities, and one prominent leader was
Speaker 3: nearly executed before his sentence was finally commuted. La Cassa
Speaker 3: shut down and the strike failed, but the anarchists endured.
Speaker 3: By mid nineteen seventeen, new groups like Loose and several
Speaker 3: local cassas had reappeared throughout the country. However, internal debates
Speaker 3: culminated in the October nineteen seventeen National Workers Congress, where
Speaker 3: reformist forces led by Luis Moronees properly marginalized the anarchists,
Speaker 3: set in the stage for the rise of the CROM
Speaker 3: and a more moderate pro management approach aligned with of
Speaker 3: All People the American Federation of Labor the AFL. Caranza's
Speaker 3: crowning achievement came in that same year with the signing
Speaker 3: of the Constitution of nineteen seventeen on People. It was
Speaker 3: progressive land reform, limited churish power, labor protections. But to
Speaker 3: many revolutionaries, including Magon, this wasn't the revolution fulfilled. Far
Speaker 3: from it. It was a revolution managed their wireless dreams
Speaker 3: trimmed down to a policy. Even its better reforms were
Speaker 3: hardly enforced. But with the Constitution of nineteen seventeen, Cranzer
Speaker 3: could still claim legitimacy, he could claim progress, and he
Speaker 3: could claim that the revolution was over. But what happened
Speaker 3: to the revolutionaries. Zapata was still fighting for land in
Speaker 3: the South, but Caranza would assassinate him in By nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 3: Magone was in prison in the USA, denouncing the betrayal
Speaker 3: from behind bars. Workers were still struggling for real power
Speaker 3: in their work places, and the vast majority of rural
Speaker 3: Mexicans remained poor, dispossessed, and dissillusion In case you're wondering
Speaker 3: what happened to Macgone in nineteen sixteen, he was jail
Speaker 3: in the US until a group of exiled anarchists led
Speaker 3: by Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman paid his bond. That
Speaker 3: that feels like a cameo or crossover episode of some kind, right,
Speaker 3: And then in nineteen seventeen, the year of the new Constitution,
Speaker 3: he was back in jail again for speaking out against
Speaker 3: the First World War and calling for a social revolutionary
Speaker 3: war instead. He was sentenced to twenty years and his
Speaker 3: health deteriorated steadily. He wasn't a fan of care anzer
Speaker 3: at Tall. He called him a strike breaker, an assassin,
Speaker 3: and a wolf in sheep's clothing. When a Karanza's government
Speaker 3: offered him a pension, he said, quote all money obtained
Speaker 3: by the stage represents the sweat, the anguish, and sacrifice
Speaker 3: of workers. If this money came directly from workers, I
Speaker 3: would gladly and even proudly accept it because they are
Speaker 3: my brothers. But when it comes to the invention of
Speaker 3: the state, after being compelled from the people the money,
Speaker 3: you would only burn my hands and fill my heart
Speaker 3: with remorse. End quote. So long story short, he didn't
Speaker 3: accept the money. When the US said they might let
Speaker 3: him go if he said sorry and petitioned for a pardon,
Speaker 3: he said, in many words, hell no. Among his more
Speaker 3: beautiful words, he said, quote repentance. I have not exploited
Speaker 3: the sweat, anguish, fatigue, and labor of others. I have
Speaker 3: not oppressed a single soul. I have nothing to repent
Speaker 3: for my life has been lived without my having acquired
Speaker 3: any wealth, power or glory, when I could have gotten
Speaker 3: these three things very easily, But I do not regret it.
Speaker 3: Wealth power and GLORI are only one by trampling others' rights.
Speaker 3: My conscience is at peace, for it knows that under
Speaker 3: my convict's garb beats an honest heart. So he died
Speaker 3: in his jail cell in nineteen twenty two, possibly assassinated. Zapata,
Speaker 3: like I said, was assassinated by Cranzer in nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 3: and Kranz himself was assassinated in nineteen twenty in case
Speaker 3: who were keeping truck, both of Magone's major ops. He
Speaker 3: ended up outliving right. He outlived Madero and then he
Speaker 3: outlived Caranzer, but he still died in jail, which is,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of tragic. But Kranza's successor, Alvaro Obregon,
Speaker 3: was both friendly with reformists in the crom and not
Speaker 3: as hostile to the anarchists as Caranza, which gave the
Speaker 3: anarchists an opportunity to regroup. Strikes built up across the
Speaker 3: country miners, oil workers, textile workers, dock workers, and more.
Speaker 3: Some sixty five thousand workers in July nineteen twenty alone.
Speaker 3: Out of this momentum came the Ferracion Communista del Proletariado
Speaker 3: Mexicano or FCPR. It was an ideologically mixed group but
Speaker 3: leaned in an arctic direction and starkly contrasted itself with
Speaker 3: the reformist ways the CROM and the international ally the AFL.
Speaker 3: The FCPM went on testa wish the Confederacieneral de Tabajadores
Speaker 3: or CGT in nineteen twenty one as a direct challenge
Speaker 3: to CROM. They were fully declaring their independence from state
Speaker 3: and party. Their focus was on class struggle. The Mexican
Speaker 3: government flew to his socialist language from time to time,
Speaker 3: but the anarchists saw through the charade. They called out
Speaker 3: that so called socialist light government's deportation of anarchists and socialists.
Speaker 3: They even called Maroney the guy who started ZROM, Mexico's Mussolini.
Speaker 3: It's an interesting insult. The CGT is still against the
Speaker 3: Moscow backed Third International and instead allied with councilists like
Speaker 3: Rosa Luxembourg and Anton Panacoec. They also formed a specifically
Speaker 3: anarchist section within the group, meant to play the same
Speaker 3: role played by the FAI for the Spanish CGT. The
Speaker 3: Mexican CGT backed strikes, including in nineteen twenty one when
Speaker 3: they backed a real workers' strike against US companies, and
Speaker 3: in nineteen twenty two they expelled the CGT leaders who
Speaker 3: had fluted with electoral politics, reiterating their anti party stance.
Speaker 3: They would not allow themselves to be retaken and capitulated
Speaker 3: to reformist aims. That same year, media protests turned into
Speaker 3: confrontations when right wing thugs kill the demonstrator's child in
Speaker 3: front of the US consolate, and they didn't stop there.
Speaker 3: Anarchists in the CGT helped organize tenant strikes in Mexico
Speaker 3: City and Vera Cruz. They led general strikes and textile
Speaker 3: mills and rallied against steed violence. They protested in solidarity
Speaker 3: with international struggles from Spain to Boston, from the murder
Speaker 3: of Salvador Sigwi to the gelin of Saco and Vencetti.
Speaker 3: They also to deal with efforts to defame them through misinformation,
Speaker 3: such as the accusation that they were embeztling workers' funds.
Speaker 3: Throughout the early nineteen twenties you had some new libertarian
Speaker 3: publications jumping out. You had Verberrojo, you had Lahu, my dad, Sachiitario,
Speaker 3: Tierra Libre, Alba, Anakika, and so on. And by nineteen
Speaker 3: twenty four, under President Kayas, who followed the assassinated Obrigon,
Speaker 3: the tides began to shift. Cays was more hostile to
Speaker 3: the anarchists than Abrigon and openly favored CRON. He gave
Speaker 3: Moronees a cabinet post past lawst undermined CGT organizing and
Speaker 3: escalated repression. The CGT held its ground, organizing general strikes,
Speaker 3: occupying textile mills, confronting the police, expanded into the countryside
Speaker 3: all their usual stuff. They fought for short term relief
Speaker 3: and long term revolution. By nineteen twenty six, CGT had
Speaker 3: grown into a federation of one hundred and fifty seven
Speaker 3: affiliated groups, unions, syndicates, occurring communities all included. And yet
Speaker 3: by the late nineteen twenties things started to free. The
Speaker 3: CROM was declining due to the attachments to a government
Speaker 3: that was no longer conciliatory to their political ambitions, and
Speaker 3: the CGT couldn't capitalize on that decline of the CROM.
Speaker 3: The government sought to marginalize them entirely. Thousands of former
Speaker 3: CROM members joined the CGT, while the CGT itself began
Speaker 3: to make some slides toward concession and reformer zone. And
Speaker 3: so it reached a point where they were calling themselves anarchists.
Speaker 3: But the anarchism was nowhere never and yet anarchism didn't die.
Speaker 3: It morphed, it migrated, and it regrouped. After the fall
Speaker 3: of Spain in nineteen thirty nine, exiled members the CNT
Speaker 3: and FAI arrived in Mexico, reinvigorating the scene for a time.
Speaker 3: They published Tierai Libertad, built new organizations, and kept the
Speaker 3: memory and the fight alive. A few anarchists and impulses managed
Speaker 3: to english within the Mexican Communist Party into the early
Speaker 3: nineteen thirties as well. At least according to Kirkschaffer, President
Speaker 3: Cais ended up founding what became the Institutional Revolutionary Party,
Speaker 3: a contradiction if I ever heard it, And they basically
Speaker 3: ran the show in Mexico for seventy one years straight,
Speaker 3: from nineteen twenty nine to two thousand. They administered co
Speaker 3: created the conditions. They were both the NEOs apatisms. In
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety four, they are anarchists, as they have been
Speaker 3: very clear to state, but maybe they'll get a two
Speaker 3: part in the future going into their history in more depth.
Speaker 3: The history of anarchism in Mexico has been quite the story,
Speaker 3: I must say, and with that we've reached the end
Speaker 3: of that classical history. Its modern history is still being written,
Speaker 3: still being told. But this is the end of our
Speaker 3: exploration for now, not as of Mexico's anarchist history, but
Speaker 3: of this entire series of anarchism in Latin America. I
Speaker 3: joked about baking an episode about Quebec's anarchism scene, but
Speaker 3: that may remain a joke for now. We've justur neyed
Speaker 3: a very long way together, from the Andes to Buenos Aires,
Speaker 3: to Montevideo to South Battlo all over. We've seen how
Speaker 3: long before the name anarchism arrived in Latin America's shows
Speaker 3: people who resisting hierarchy through indigenous forms of autonomy, African
Speaker 3: maroon communities, and peasant traditions of land sharing and reciprocity.
Speaker 3: We saw how these anarchic and anarchist instincts met new
Speaker 3: ideas genuinely and intentionally anarchist ideas coming from prudin Bacunin
Speaker 3: and Kropotkin brought over in pamphlets and in the minds
Speaker 3: of exiles and immigrants in Mexico, those forces took on
Speaker 3: a revolutionary scale. Roda Kanati planted the seed, Macgone amplified
Speaker 3: its voice. The workers, the peasants, the students, they all
Speaker 3: gave it their all, their fire, And even when that
Speaker 3: fire was smothered by reformists, by nationalists, by reactionaries, by capitalists,
Speaker 3: by the bullets and the bribe, it never truly went out.
Speaker 3: Across the Americas, these movements rarely one in the traditional sense.
Speaker 3: They were often betrayed, suppressed, and erased from history. But
Speaker 3: although anarchy was not achieved, anarchists and the anarchist idea
Speaker 3: will survive. Anarchist thought is radically resilient, and it never
Speaker 3: really disappears, and usually just goes underground or into the margins,
Speaker 3: or into new forms, from student collectives to feminist organizations
Speaker 3: to squads to ecological struggles, inspiring movements that aren't necessarily anarchists,
Speaker 3: but lean in a direction that questions some of the
Speaker 3: familiar patterns of authority. Thank you for walking this journey
Speaker 3: with me. I've been Andrew Saige You can find me
Speaker 3: on YouTube at Andrewism. Support the work over our patreon
Speaker 3: dot com slash change threw. All sources, citations and further
Speaker 3: reading can be found in the show notes. This has
Speaker 3: been It could happen here. All power to all the people. Peace.
Speaker 6: Welcome to the war update and update about war. I'm
Speaker 6: your host Miya Wong with the is is James and Robert.
Speaker 5: War never changes, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, except for Yeah, I mean all the time changes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, except for all the changes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think it's a line from the film.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean the most important part doesn't change, which
Speaker 2: is most things in proper place at right time, right.
Speaker 2: That's that's that's what determines war winning. But the things
Speaker 2: that matter are what change.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah. Also what doesn't change not great fun for
Speaker 5: the most part, and non enjoyable way to spend your time.
Speaker 2: Not enjoyable except for for the chunk of people who
Speaker 2: tend to make most of the calls.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, enjoyable a lot. Yeah, enjoyable. You're an old
Speaker 5: guy in a big house.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So we're gonna be talking about three wars. Yeah, I
Speaker 6: think we're going to. We're gonna lead off with the
Speaker 6: India Pakistan war, and then we're gonna do the other
Speaker 6: two wars in some order you want to do you
Speaker 6: want to announce the other two wars.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're gonna talk about the end of the of
Speaker 5: the armed conflict between the PKK and the Turkey State
Speaker 5: maybe mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll be talking about Yemen a little bit.
Speaker 8: Yeah, man, Yeah, let's let's Oh god, let's do this. Okay,
Speaker 8: So good news missed that. Look, we do have good news,
Speaker 8: which is that we have not all died in the
Speaker 8: nuclear fires. I know there are some of you for
Speaker 8: whom you were very disappointed, but we're all still here
Speaker 8: for better or for worse, I mean for better. Like
Speaker 8: I'm very glad we didn't all die in nuclear fire. Yeah,
Speaker 8: so let's let's let's talk about the recent war between
Speaker 8: India and Pakistan. Lasted about four days, so all right. Well,
Speaker 8: we talked about this a little bit before. The very
Speaker 8: basic sort of elements of this conflict. We talked about
Speaker 8: partition on the show before when India sort of gained
Speaker 8: independence from the British ere it split into Indian Pakistan.
Speaker 8: Millions died, horrific sort of conflict, people killing each other
Speaker 8: like mass migrations across the borders.
Speaker 6: Very very very unstable set of borders get set up
Speaker 6: that change a bunch of times. And one of the
Speaker 6: aspects of this sort of whole thing is that Kashmir
Speaker 6: was supposed to be this independent state and then through
Speaker 6: an extremely convluted process that I am again once again
Speaker 6: pushing off to another episode with like actual good experts
Speaker 6: on this, because this is a very very convoluted thing.
Speaker 6: But the short version of it basically is that this
Speaker 6: series is sort of escalating conflicts, end ends basically in
Speaker 6: a short war and then kasher being split into between
Speaker 6: India and Pakistan, where like about a third roughly of
Speaker 6: Kashmir ends up under Pakistani control and then about two
Speaker 6: thirds ends up under Indian control. Now there's an agreement
Speaker 6: signed by sort of Kashmir's ruler at the time to
Speaker 6: let India like annex like two thirds of Kashmir or
Speaker 6: so the actual dividing line basically ends up being like
Speaker 6: where the armies stopped. You know, it changes over the years.
Speaker 6: But the important thing here, right is that Kashmir is
Speaker 6: supposed to have had an independence referendum, right that was like, yeah,
Speaker 6: the deal now in a move that is, like Genny Winey,
Speaker 6: even more stunning than the ship that, like Indonesia pulled
Speaker 6: in West Papua so ins Papua. Right, like Indonesia pulls
Speaker 6: a like fake independence referendum here, they've never even done that, Like,
Speaker 6: they never pretended to have the referendum, and.
Speaker 4: They're supposed to have.
Speaker 5: It's like a sub assad level attempt at democracy, you know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Yeah, they're just like nope, each ship like you're
Speaker 6: you're you're basically a colony now now as part of
Speaker 6: this deal, right, Kashmir God a pretty substantial amount of autonomy.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna read there. There's actually there's a very good
Speaker 6: Jacobin one of the rare good Jacobin articles, which usually
Speaker 6: tend to be the ones written like not by the
Speaker 6: American Jocobin writers.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm freelancer who made fifty US dollars for writings. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and that's their right to goun up.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this is written by Irish k And I'm going
Speaker 6: to quote here from this article. Quote central to the
Speaker 6: instrument of a session. It's the document that the ruler
Speaker 6: of Kashmir signed is sort of Likedhan Kashmir ver to India.
Speaker 6: Quote which the constitutional provision of Article three seventy, which
Speaker 6: assured the Kashmiri people autonomy over all matters besides those
Speaker 6: pretending to defense, external affairs, and communications. The article was
Speaker 6: supposed to be temporary and provisional because there was a
Speaker 6: promise of a referendum by which the people of Kashmir
Speaker 6: would decide their own political fate to remain part of India,
Speaker 6: to join up with Pakistan, or become an independent state.
Speaker 6: But as you've already mentioned, this has never happened. I mean,
Speaker 6: they didn't even do a sham one. It just literally
Speaker 6: didn't ever happen. And India has just been imposing its
Speaker 6: rule in Kashmir ever since. And I mean it's also
Speaker 6: worth pointing out that Pakistan has also been imposing its
Speaker 6: rule on like it's part of Kashmir. But the Indian
Speaker 6: occupation has become increasingly brutal basically since its starting, it's
Speaker 6: just continued to get worse and worse, and it is
Speaker 6: sort of a full blown military occupation, right there's just
Speaker 6: like a bunch of fucking Indian troops in the street.
Speaker 6: And as it becomes clear that India is like never
Speaker 6: going to let Kashmir be free or just even let
Speaker 6: the Kashmi people decide what they want. Milton struggles en
Speaker 6: sews and as Kate points out, it's originally spearheaded by
Speaker 6: the secular Jamu Kashmir Liberation Front, and this group has
Speaker 6: just sort of wiped out because it wanted an independent Kashmir.
Speaker 6: And this was convenient to neither the Indian or the
Speaker 6: Pakistani government because Pakistan and Pakistan talks about this a
Speaker 6: lot internactually, like one of their sort of international political
Speaker 6: things is like, yeah, we want free Kashmir. But it's like, no,
Speaker 6: you don't. You want Kashmir to be part of Pakistan.
Speaker 6: And that is not the same thing is it being free?
Speaker 4: Like very clear.
Speaker 6: About this, yeah, and so and so Pakistan's engagement towards
Speaker 6: Kashmir has always been about this, right, It's always been
Speaker 6: about making sure that there wouldn't be any kind of
Speaker 6: sort of independent Kashmir. And so both India and Pakistan
Speaker 6: crush this sort of secular Kashmiri independence group that have
Speaker 6: been spearheading a lot of this, and over time Pakistan is.
Speaker 4: Sort of through it.
Speaker 6: There are a complicated series of things has sorted a
Speaker 6: lot of control over a lot of these groups or
Speaker 6: has intelligence relations with them. Is SI kind of notoriously
Speaker 6: works with militant groups like the I. S I is
Speaker 6: the group in Afghanistan that like really full on did
Speaker 6: the thing that everyone thinks that the US and the
Speaker 6: Saudi sort of did in in terms of like funding
Speaker 6: the worst parts of Lujahadeen, like that was really mostly
Speaker 6: Pakistani intelligence. Yeah, So, like they have a lot of
Speaker 6: relations with a bunch of people who absolutely fucking suck,
Speaker 6: and they've you know, sort of used a lot of
Speaker 6: these a lot of these groups as like a way
Speaker 6: to sort of poke a stick in India and also
Speaker 6: you know, like attempt to obtain their sort of like
Speaker 6: domestic political goals of like weakening India for the real
Speaker 6: sort of internal stability, which we'll come back to later, well,
Speaker 6: the interior's ability of like military of the power of
Speaker 6: the military in Pakistan, and also like taking the rest
Speaker 6: of Kashmir. Yeah, and so this has caused a really
Speaker 6: horrific conflict in which the people of Kashmir have suffered
Speaker 6: a bunch of horrible shit. In twenty nineteen, that autonomy,
Speaker 6: you know again that the autonomy that was the carrot
Speaker 6: in order to like join in order in exchange for
Speaker 6: cashmer joining India, right, and I supposedly getting this referendum,
Speaker 6: like the like the carrot was supposed to be that
Speaker 6: they're supposed to have an unbelievable amount of internal autonomy.
Speaker 6: And in twenty nineteen, it had been being eroted for
Speaker 6: a long time, but in twenty nineteen, India is just
Speaker 6: like each hit fuck you, it's gone, now have fun.
Speaker 6: And this causes a bunch of protests, It causes Milton
Speaker 6: Group attacks, it causes a genuinely astonishing crackdown. I mean,
Speaker 6: like they they turned off the phones in the internet
Speaker 6: in Cashmir. The Indian government just like did this and
Speaker 6: it became unbelievably difficult to get any information out. They
Speaker 6: arrested unbelievable numbers of people. There are I mean just
Speaker 6: absolutely horrifying accounts of the ship that Indian security forces
Speaker 6: were doing to people. You know what I mean, Like
Speaker 6: this is this is this is a colonial occupation, right,
Speaker 6: The things that happened in the colonial occupation. They fucking
Speaker 6: torture people, they kill people, they like they rape people.
Speaker 6: It's it's really fucked And during this as as more
Speaker 6: sort of like militant attacks rupt like in India, does
Speaker 6: the first version of its well not the first version,
Speaker 6: but it does. It does like it launches a series
Speaker 6: of attacks on southern Pakistan and this is kind of
Speaker 6: you know, there were escalations of it a couple of
Speaker 6: years ago, but you know, the sort of big deal
Speaker 6: this time was insurgents and it's we have a group
Speaker 6: that claimed responsibility for it. It's still I don't know,
Speaker 6: it's still unclear the extent to which packs INNY government
Speaker 6: was actually involved. There's the whole thing with this. But
Speaker 6: a bunch a bunch of sort of insurgents killed like
Speaker 6: twenty five Hindu tourists in a KASHMIRII tourist town and
Speaker 6: it's really fucking horrifying. This immediately causes this just unhinged
Speaker 6: wave of Indi nationalism, like you do for sort of
Speaker 6: nationalism in India. We talked last time about all of
Speaker 6: these Indian government officials like literally talking about quote in
Speaker 6: Israel style final solution to Kashmir. So a bunch of
Speaker 6: very very horrific shit is happening. Yeah, and then India
Speaker 6: decides that it's going to start launching attacks across the border.
Speaker 6: There's like the immediate small arms fire, there's missile strikes,
Speaker 6: there's drone attack, and then as this sort of escalates,
Speaker 6: India launches attacks on three Pakistani air bases and again
Speaker 6: like they hit an air base that is in the
Speaker 6: city where Pakistan's Army General headquarters is, which is a
Speaker 6: kind of provocation that has not happened since like the
Speaker 6: last time these two countries were just straight up at war.
Speaker 6: And you know, like that could have killed us all.
Speaker 6: It didn't, but it absolutely could have, and it was
Speaker 6: also just horrifying for it. And it's worth pointing this
Speaker 6: out right. The people who are getting killed on both
Speaker 6: sides of the border here, like ur Kashmiri's right, because
Speaker 6: like their home has been occupied by these two powers.
Speaker 6: When when India and Pakistan go to war, the people
Speaker 6: who die on both sides are ar kashmiris right, who
Speaker 6: are being killed by two states who decided, fuck you,
Speaker 6: we get to control your fate, We get to be
Speaker 6: the people who fucking occupy your land and then claim
Speaker 6: to be the people who represent you. And you know,
Speaker 6: the civilian toll of this is fucking horrifying. There's a
Speaker 6: bunch of a bunch of civilians are killed. People spend
Speaker 6: a huge amount of time cowering in these like horrifying
Speaker 6: overcrowded bunkers. There's a good sort of BBC report on
Speaker 6: this of like there's so many people packed into bunkers
Speaker 6: that like you can't even like walk. Everyone's just like
Speaker 6: pressed against each other. And three days later you come
Speaker 6: out of your bunker and your fucking house is gone.
Speaker 6: And those are the people who survived, right. It's it's
Speaker 6: just horrifying, and eventually there's a ceasefire. Everyone is now
Speaker 6: saying different things about the ceasefire. The Indian government is
Speaker 6: trying to downplay the US's role in the ceasefire. The
Speaker 6: Pakistani government has been talking about how a whole bunch
Speaker 6: of places were involved, including like Iran and Turkey to
Speaker 6: some extent, or Turkey more than I Ran. It seems
Speaker 6: like the US, the UK, and Saudi Arabia all played
Speaker 6: a role in sort of mediating it that we can
Speaker 6: sort of confirm. The US seems to have played the
Speaker 6: law just roll, which I guess I don't know. Like
Speaker 6: Marco Rubio was like, we should probably not have a
Speaker 6: war between to nuclear powers, which okay, I'm glad that
Speaker 6: like he's finally found a thing a level that he
Speaker 6: won't stoop to which is we all die in nuclear war.
Speaker 5: I mean, like I would rather Maka Rubio was not
Speaker 5: the Secretary of State. But like of the people who
Speaker 5: could be under Trump administration, he's not as bad as
Speaker 5: some of the other folks.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean it's like he we are fully in
Speaker 6: Like which of Hitler's generals would you prefer to be
Speaker 6: in charge of this territory?
Speaker 4: All these people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't need it. We don't need a debate
Speaker 2: raml right now. What we do need to do is
Speaker 2: throw to ads the Irwin Rommel of the podcast industry.
Speaker 6: Okay, so there are a few things about this conflict
Speaker 6: that are very, very bad. One is that India has
Speaker 6: demonstrated the capacity to launch attacks against Pakistan that don't
Speaker 6: involve them mobilizing their ground troops, which takes forever. It
Speaker 6: is hard. That's really fucking bad. It's also bad that
Speaker 6: again they fucking hit like the air base next to
Speaker 6: Pakistan General Army General Headquarters, which means if they try
Speaker 6: to do another attack, they're gonna have to hit a
Speaker 6: bigger target. And they apparently it seems like the Indian
Speaker 6: government has sort of concluded that they can do this
Speaker 6: now it's also very bad that like most of the
Speaker 6: like domestic Indian left supported this, including CPIM, the comediest
Speaker 6: party of India Marxists, which is like the sort of
Speaker 6: social democratic technically Maoist party that is supposed to be
Speaker 6: like the left in India, like back the attacks, and
Speaker 6: they've always had a fucking terrible line on Kashmir. So
Speaker 6: it's also we're mentioning a little bit. There's been a
Speaker 6: lot of reporting about India. You know, Modia isn't making
Speaker 6: a bunch of noise about trying to just straight up
Speaker 6: cut off Pakistan's access to water, which is very scary. Yeah,
Speaker 6: it's worth noting. Kay talks about this in that Jocobin piece.
Speaker 6: Case argument basically is that like they don't actually have
Speaker 6: the infrastructure to do this, which is good because I
Speaker 6: mean that would be a genocide. Like if they just
Speaker 6: knocked out all back Then's access to water for agricultural
Speaker 6: purposes and for drinking purposes, it'd be really bad. But
Speaker 6: here's what I'm going to read this quote. Under the
Speaker 6: treaty regulations, India is required to share hydrological data that
Speaker 6: is essential for planning to deal with floods and or
Speaker 6: drought dream monsoon seasons. Denying Pakistan access to this data
Speaker 6: would have a damaging impact. Moreover, because of the limited
Speaker 6: storage capacity, India can change the timing of water flow,
Speaker 6: which is crucial for many crops during sewing seasons. So
Speaker 6: there is still a lot of damage they can do.
Speaker 6: They can't straight up do like a genocide, but they
Speaker 6: can do a lot of damage. And while both sides
Speaker 6: have backed off of like direct military conflict, India still
Speaker 6: is committed to every single thing they can do to
Speaker 6: fuck with Pakistan, which affects just like the people Pakistan.
Speaker 6: This has also been plit very good for Modi because
Speaker 6: alternationalism has been bolstering the sort of like Pakistani military
Speaker 6: government because there are alternationalists feed off of this, and
Speaker 6: it's once again really fucking bad for the people of Kashmir,
Speaker 6: who are the ones getting killed on both sides of
Speaker 6: the border. Yep, war is bad. Free Kashmir hate this.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, speaking of war being bad, let's talk about
Speaker 2: what's going on in Yemen. So if you remember from
Speaker 2: the last quarter or so of the Biden administration, after
Speaker 2: Israel launched their were prisal attacks to October seventh on Gaza,
Speaker 2: the Huthis, which is a depending on your stance, either
Speaker 2: the legitimate government of Yemen or a rebel group in Yemen.
Speaker 2: You know, the International community stance is a rebel group.
Speaker 2: The Houthis stance is different. Started launching a series of
Speaker 2: missile attacks, both aimed at Israel and aimed at shipping
Speaker 2: in the Gulf of Aden, right in order to disrupt
Speaker 2: because the significant amount of the world's trade goes through there.
Speaker 2: And this took a number of forms. They have ballistic missiles,
Speaker 2: some of them are indigenous, by which I mean made
Speaker 2: by the who. These oftentimes using stocks that were captured
Speaker 2: from the military and government of Yemen previously. You know
Speaker 2: that they supplanted in a lot of areas and other
Speaker 2: times using missiles that were given to them by Iran. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: So it's a mix of tactics. They have also used
Speaker 2: drones and they have also landed troops in order to
Speaker 2: capture bulk freighters, including one called the Galaxy Leader and
Speaker 2: I think twenty twenty three that was full of cars
Speaker 2: and their claim was that it was a British vessel,
Speaker 2: and obviously the Brits had been helping to arm and
Speaker 2: support Israel. The vessel was actually registered in Lebanon. However,
Speaker 2: whenever we get to discussions about like whose vessel is,
Speaker 2: who's none of that. None of what is registered matters.
Speaker 2: Vessels are registered all over the place for a variety
Speaker 2: of nothing. It's always nonsense. That means nothing. I'm masha,
Speaker 2: and nothing in the entire world matters less to the
Speaker 2: reality of a situation than where the vessel is registered.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that justifies or does it with the
Speaker 2: houthis that, I'm just saying it does not matter where
Speaker 2: the vessel is registered. Yeah, yeah, the ship was owned
Speaker 2: by a Lebanon based company, But also given the nature
Speaker 2: of capitals, it doesn't all matter all that much. Now.
Speaker 2: What also doesn't matter is that in January of this year,
Speaker 2: the Hoothi's freed the captain of that ship and they
Speaker 2: made an announcement that they would limit further attacks to
Speaker 2: vessels flagged deed as Israeli or owned by Israeli individuals
Speaker 2: or entities. Right now, that also doesn't mean a lot,
Speaker 2: right because the nature of international trade means that there
Speaker 2: are a lot of you know, you could basically argue,
Speaker 2: if you're the houthis, well, this is owned by a
Speaker 2: multinational corporation who owns companies in Israel or who has
Speaker 2: heavy investments in companies in Israel. Therefore, right, as a result,
Speaker 2: you know, the Hoothi's continued doing the hoothy stuff, and
Speaker 2: Trump saw them as kind of a convenient target, a
Speaker 2: convenient place to flex's military muscles. And there were some
Speaker 2: people within the United States defense establishment that considered that
Speaker 2: extremely convenient too, right, And this is largely due to
Speaker 2: the fact that Biden prescribed a very limited campaign against
Speaker 2: the Huthies. Now this does not mean inexpensive or insignificant.
Speaker 2: We kept at least one aircraft carrier carrying out strikes
Speaker 2: in Yemen for like a year or so, which is
Speaker 2: kind of the first combat duty that an aircraft carrier
Speaker 2: has had in quite some time. That was really like
Speaker 2: active taking incoming fire, not incoming fire that ever really
Speaker 2: threatened the carrier itself. But that's sort of beside the point.
Speaker 2: And there were people within the US military establishment who
Speaker 2: were consistently frustrated with the Biden administration that they were
Speaker 2: not letting them operate at a high enough tempo, right,
Speaker 2: And kind of the number one guy advocating for this
Speaker 2: side of events was General Michael E. Carilla, who is
Speaker 2: the head of Central Command or syentcom right, and his
Speaker 2: attitude had been we need a much more aggressive, high
Speaker 2: tempo campaign he pitched the Trump administration when they came in.
Speaker 2: I think it's like an eight to ten month long
Speaker 2: campaign where initially they would degrade who their anti air asset.
Speaker 2: So first we go in there and we use our
Speaker 2: air power to establish air what's called air supremacy.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Air superiority means that you have better quality air support,
Speaker 2: but also your shit can get knocked down. Air supremacy
Speaker 2: means you have complete control of the skies. Right. The
Speaker 2: US military is fairly used to having air supremacy if
Speaker 2: you look at, like, for example, our combat in Iraq
Speaker 2: and Afghanistan, when it came to like height, like fighter
Speaker 2: aircraft helicopters would get shot down from time to time
Speaker 2: obviously and have accidents. We weren't losing F eighteens in Afghanistan, right,
Speaker 2: like they weren't getting knocked out of the fucking sky
Speaker 2: by the Taliban. We had air supremacy in Ukraine. Depending
Speaker 2: on what part of the battlespace you're talking about, either
Speaker 2: things have been more or less at a standstill, or
Speaker 2: Russia has had air superiority but not supremacy, right because
Speaker 2: Ukraine has very solid modern anti aircraft defenses and it
Speaker 2: has been able to exact a toll. We will talk
Speaker 2: to a greater extent about what's been happening with India
Speaker 2: and Pakistan. It is exceedingly unclear at the moment who
Speaker 2: got the better of the engagement. Did any of those
Speaker 2: Chinese anti aircraft missiles actually knock out aircraft? Did any
Speaker 2: India lose any aircraft? Did Pakistan down an aircraft? We
Speaker 2: actually like everyone's making different claims right now, and I
Speaker 2: don't have objective evidence right other than that we can
Speaker 2: we know that things that there's at least evidence of,
Speaker 2: at least one case what looks like refkage of a
Speaker 2: rough fall, and in at least one case there's what
Speaker 2: looks like a knocked down Chinese anti aircraft missile. I'm
Speaker 2: spacing on the exact name right now, but again, that
Speaker 2: doesn't mean anything about how they actually affair in the battlespace,
Speaker 2: right So anyway, Yeah, this motherfucker he had a syncom.
Speaker 2: Michael Lee Corilla was like, I've got this plan. We
Speaker 2: need a much more force we're going to knock out
Speaker 2: their anti air defenses, and then we're going to basically
Speaker 2: carry out a modified version of what is real carried
Speaker 2: out against Hamas and has belat right, where we start
Speaker 2: targeting and killing the leadership Cadro once we've knocked out
Speaker 2: their defenses, and he estimated that would take about a
Speaker 2: little under a year, right, but the better part of
Speaker 2: a year. And the Trump administration said, you can have
Speaker 2: your higher tempo war, but you've got to show results
Speaker 2: in about a month. Right, In about a month, the
Speaker 2: US military carrid out about eleven hundred strikes they killed.
Speaker 2: They say hundreds of hoo thy fighters, destroyed quite a
Speaker 2: bit of weapons and equipment. Very unclear how many fighters
Speaker 2: they killed, certainly hundreds of people. Were those all hoothy fighters?
Speaker 2: How many weapons and equipment were destroyed? I don't have
Speaker 2: access to that sort of data, and I'm not entirely
Speaker 2: confident that anyone in the US military has a much
Speaker 2: better idea. Certainly a little bit more data, but also
Speaker 2: they get that shit wrong all the fucking time.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: It's also like it's worth noting, right when they're talking
Speaker 6: about like casualty numbers, the Huthis are not a small
Speaker 6: rebel group like now they control the capital of Yemen, right,
Speaker 6: Like this is like the government, right yeah, they have not.
Speaker 2: A peer state in terms of the US and that
Speaker 2: they do not have the manufacturing base and capacity, but
Speaker 2: they are equivalent to a small state actor, right yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: And so and so what you're bombing them, right like
Speaker 6: you're you're just you're blowing smoking creators and apartment buildings.
Speaker 2: And the Hoothies are so experienced with getting bombed. They've
Speaker 2: been bombed by a lot of people before. None of
Speaker 2: this is new to them, right, yeah. So in the
Speaker 2: first thirty days, while they you know, the US has
Speaker 2: made a lot, has made a lot of claims about
Speaker 2: how many people they killed and the level of degradation
Speaker 2: of Hoothy capacity, the Houthis have done some damage to
Speaker 2: US capacity. They have shot down sevens at this point,
Speaker 2: at least seven m Q nine Reaper drones, which are
Speaker 2: thirty million dollars each. And in addition, now four f
Speaker 2: eighteen jets have been lost not probably yeah, probably just
Speaker 2: to fuck ups that are a result of the tempo
Speaker 2: of activity. Right. These all tend to be craft that
Speaker 2: are landing and don't get caught by the catapult system
Speaker 2: that they've got on these aircraft carriers or otherwise wind
Speaker 2: up in the Red Sea. Right, there is some suspicion
Speaker 2: and debate is to like, is there any sort of
Speaker 2: like internal treason going on here? Is somebody on the
Speaker 2: aircraft carrier making these fuck ups happen. This is being investigated,
Speaker 2: I believe, although there's no confirmation about like what exactly
Speaker 2: has gone down. It's weird to lose this many FA
Speaker 2: eighteen super hornets and a very short period of time.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I will say my understanding of it. Also, is
Speaker 6: it the everything that's going on here is that this
Speaker 6: aircraft carrier has been out past the point it should
Speaker 6: have been refitted. Yes, like so extraordinarily.
Speaker 2: And it's also not weird that people fuck up when
Speaker 2: they are carrying out operations at a tempo they never
Speaker 2: have before, Right, And there's a very good chance that
Speaker 2: it's nothing more than that the more you fly, the
Speaker 2: more accidents are going to happen.
Speaker 5: Right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Period.
Speaker 6: Also I want to say, I want to say, imagined
Speaker 6: you were like the deck office.
Speaker 2: Oh man, that poor motherfucker, that motherfucker's getting fucked Like yeah,
Speaker 2: like the.
Speaker 6: First one goes over, right, and then the second one
Speaker 6: huh goes yeah, And now it's happening right now you've
Speaker 6: probably been you're out of the job.
Speaker 2: And that first guy's kind of lucky because when the
Speaker 2: next two fall off, at least maybe that's less pressure
Speaker 2: on you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Like imagine like you're the deck officer of the
Speaker 6: fourth Yeah. Yeah, Jesus.
Speaker 2: God, that's gotta suck. So in about thirty days, the
Speaker 2: US military had burned more than a billion dollars on
Speaker 2: this operation, right at which point Trump and people around
Speaker 2: him were like, oh fuck, we can't keep this ship up.
Speaker 2: We can't maintain this tempo of operations. There were warnings
Speaker 2: given forin the Defense Department that we have used so
Speaker 2: many of our most advanced munitions that if China makes
Speaker 2: a move on Taiwan, we're not sure we have the
Speaker 2: reserves necessary right these munitions. When we talk a lot
Speaker 2: about the capacity of US firepower, people talk about shit
Speaker 2: like in twenty eighteen, how we like a There was
Speaker 2: this Arqaita guy who had been responsible for the attack
Speaker 2: on the US coal twenty something years ago.
Speaker 5: Yeah, a long gas time ago.
Speaker 2: Who used a cell phone he shouldn't have used briefly
Speaker 2: and then turned it off, and we were able to
Speaker 2: get visual confirmation of where he was from the cell
Speaker 2: phone signal and knock his ass out with a drone. Right,
Speaker 2: And we do have incredible capacity potentially to make unbelievably
Speaker 2: precise strikes. However, that capacity is reliant both upon a
Speaker 2: functional network of human intelligence, a functional network of operators
Speaker 2: of aircraft and drones who are not completely burnt out
Speaker 2: by the tempo of operations, and access to incredibly advanced munitions,
Speaker 2: which we do not have an inexhaustible capacity, and are
Speaker 2: reliant upon an international supply chain to continue to manufacture, right,
Speaker 2: and all of that has been endangered by the tempo
Speaker 2: of this campaign. And ultimately there's a great New York
Speaker 2: Times report on this that's just absolutely damning to the
Speaker 2: military that came out as called why Trump suddenly declared
Speaker 2: victory over the Hoothy militia, that declared that after all
Speaker 2: of this, the best we can say is perhaps a
Speaker 2: modest degradation of Hoothy capacities that they can easily recover
Speaker 2: from given enough time, which they're going to get because
Speaker 2: Trump both declared victory and stated that the Hoothies had
Speaker 2: yet again agreed to stop striking shipping in the Red Sea,
Speaker 2: and he was like, this is a win. We made
Speaker 2: a deal with him, big deal maker, Donald Trump made
Speaker 2: a deal. Now, if you look at what the Houthi said,
Speaker 2: all they said is we're going to stop striking Israeli shipping, which,
Speaker 2: if you'll recall, is what they had said in January.
Speaker 2: So did we win Now? Did the Hoothies win? Not yet,
Speaker 2: but they're you know, they didn't lose. And again, if
Speaker 2: you understand your insurgent warfare, you win by just not
Speaker 2: losing for long enough.
Speaker 5: Right. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Well, and it's also worth it's worth mentioning too when
Speaker 6: you're talking about the global supply chain part of this. Right,
Speaker 6: on the one hand, like the US has done an
Speaker 6: extraordinary amount to try to make sure that as much
Speaker 6: as the supply chain as they can is in the US.
Speaker 6: On the other hand, it still requires a bunch chef
Speaker 6: mother places, including a bunch of rare earth metals that
Speaker 6: the US gets from China. Now you may be noting
Speaker 6: we are currently fighting a trade war with China. A
Speaker 6: bunch of the our li strategic planning is about stopping
Speaker 6: a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. So and we've just expended
Speaker 6: a shit ton of our stack pilot shots that we
Speaker 6: can only replace by using shit we get from China.
Speaker 6: So absolute, just gedious brain shit that that that's happening
Speaker 6: here right now at the highest levels of the highest
Speaker 6: levels of the regime.
Speaker 5: Memma has a lot of rare earth metals, but we
Speaker 5: have China is currently a lot closer to securing those
Speaker 5: than the United States.
Speaker 8: Is.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's not great.
Speaker 2: Well that's all I got. That's the who is. Let's
Speaker 2: have another ad break real quick here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, let's do that.
Speaker 2: Let's do that.
Speaker 5: Let's have an ad break. Lovely, what a nice advertising
Speaker 5: break we are. Now that I know many of you
Speaker 5: have been asking me about what is happening in Kurdistan,
Speaker 5: So I'm going to try my best to very briefly
Speaker 5: explain that in the last segment of this show. So,
Speaker 5: the PKK right, the PKK being the branch of the
Speaker 5: Kurdish Freedom Movement that has operated in Turkey as Turkey
Speaker 5: or Northern Kurdistan, and mostly since the mid twenty teens,
Speaker 5: has been based in a Rack or Southern Kurdistan. Right,
Speaker 5: it convened its twelfth Congress in the second week of May,
Speaker 5: and it decided to disband itself late down its arms.
Speaker 5: And I think the phrasing it used was to cease
Speaker 5: armed activities under the PKK name, which is a way
Speaker 5: of saying things more broadly. It did genuinely seem to
Speaker 5: indicate a commitment to like this sort of ballot not
Speaker 5: the bullet approach. And I'm going to quote kind of
Speaker 5: extensively here from the statement that the PKK released, and
Speaker 5: then from other statements from like people Genial Bick, the
Speaker 5: leader one of the co chairs of the KCK, the KSEK,
Speaker 5: if you're not familiar, it's a Curdistan Communities Union that
Speaker 5: is a group that allows the different areas of the
Speaker 5: Kurdish Freedom movement, all of which are inspired by the
Speaker 5: political thought of ab Aujerlan, to sort of come together
Speaker 5: and discuss their paradigm, their goals, their methodologies. I guess.
Speaker 5: So I want to read from the PKK statement to
Speaker 5: begin with quote the process initiated by Leader Abdullah or
Speaker 5: Janan statement of February twenty seventh, and further shaped by
Speaker 5: his extensive work and multi dimensional perspectives, culminated in the
Speaker 5: successful convening of our Twelfth Party Congress between May fifth
Speaker 5: and May the seventh. Despite ongoing clashes, aerial and ground attacks,
Speaker 5: continued siege of our regions and the KDP embargo, our
Speaker 5: Congress was held securely under challenging conditions due to security concerns.
Speaker 5: It was conducted simultaneously in two different locations, with a
Speaker 5: participation of two hundred and thirty two delegates in total.
Speaker 5: The PKK twelfth Congress discussed leadership, martyrs, veterans, the organizational
Speaker 5: structure of the PKK and armed struggle, and democratic society building,
Speaker 5: culminating in the historic decisions marking the beginning of a
Speaker 5: new era for a freedom movement. It's a very long statement,
Speaker 5: as tends to be the style of statements from the
Speaker 5: Curdish Freedom movement. It talks a lot about Abdullah ja
Speaker 5: Lene as tends to be the style of statement from
Speaker 5: the Kurdish freedom movement. I've have linked itin the shown
Speaker 5: as if you'd like to read all of it, you know,
Speaker 5: and encourage you too, you're interested in this sort of thing.
Speaker 5: They talk a lot about the democratic nation concept and
Speaker 5: the idea that occurs in Turks of coxisted in Turkey
Speaker 5: for a long time, I thought this part was of interest,
Speaker 5: and going to quote again here, the decision of our
Speaker 5: Congress to dissolve the PKK and end the method of
Speaker 5: armed struggle offers a strong basis for a lasting piece
Speaker 5: and a democratic solution. Implementing these decisions requires that leader
Speaker 5: Appo Appo. It's the evocative form of the Kurdish word
Speaker 5: for paternal uncle, but in this in this instance, it's
Speaker 5: referring to abdulah Jaalan, right, that's his nickname. Leader Appo,
Speaker 5: Lead and guide the process that has right to democratic
Speaker 5: politics be recognized and that solid, comprehensive legal guarantees be established.
Speaker 5: At this stage, it is essential that the Grand National
Speaker 5: Assembly of Turkey plays its role with historical responsibility. So
Speaker 5: a couple of things that are of note there. One
Speaker 5: is that they're talking about this this transition towards democracy
Speaker 5: or a brotherhood of nations. So talk about somewhere else, right,
Speaker 5: brotherhood of people's it's occurring under the leadership and direction
Speaker 5: of Abdulla Ujerlan. If you are not familiar with Abdullah Ousjerlan,
Speaker 5: you can listen to Roberts theories. So the women's wards
Speaker 5: are the great job of explaining a lot of the
Speaker 5: stuff that we won't have time to get into today.
Speaker 5: Very briefly, Appo has been in Imrali and various other
Speaker 5: Turkish prisons since nineteen ninety nine. For long periods of
Speaker 5: that time, no one was able to see him. He
Speaker 5: was held completely in communicado. At times there were hundreds
Speaker 5: of troops guiding only him on this Turkish prison island.
Speaker 5: That is no longer the case. Right. He made this
Speaker 5: statement on the twenty seventh of February, and since then
Speaker 5: the Kurdish Freedom Movement has had access to Ouscherlan. Right.
Speaker 5: He actually made another statement on the eighteenth of May
Speaker 5: where he said, I quote, a new contract is needed
Speaker 5: based on the law of brotherhood. What we are doing
Speaker 5: represents a major paradigm shift. The nature of the Turkish
Speaker 5: Kurdish relationship is fundamentally different. What has been broken in
Speaker 5: the bond of brotherhood. It seems like through the DEM
Speaker 5: Party right, which is a left leaning party in Turkey,
Speaker 5: which has supported the Kurdish cause and for a long
Speaker 5: time has served as like the interlocutor between Turkey and
Speaker 5: the Kurdish Freedom movement. Through the DEM Party, they have
Speaker 5: access to Ouserland and they're able relatively frequently. It seems
Speaker 5: like these dem party officials to go to him rally
Speaker 5: and talk to him, and so they're talking about his
Speaker 5: leadership continuing through this democratic transition. Right. For the Curdish
Speaker 5: Freedom Movement, Jimil Bikes Jimil Bike again is the co
Speaker 5: chair of the ksey K and institutions within the Kurdish
Speaker 5: Freedom Movement. There's a co chair system, right, which means
Speaker 5: so that a man and a woman share the chairmanship
Speaker 5: of an institution such that they triarchal structures aren't replicated
Speaker 5: in the movement. That's the goal of the co chair system.
Speaker 5: He has a two part interview in A and F
Speaker 5: which I've linked again in the notes. He talked about
Speaker 5: how like the first role of the PKK, of the movement,
Speaker 5: even before it was called the PKK, was to quote
Speaker 5: unquote reveal the Kurdish quote unquote Kurdish question, right, That's
Speaker 5: how they refer to it. Other times I talk about
Speaker 5: her Kurdish people were on their knees and like under
Speaker 5: the leadership of Augiland they stood up. They talk about
Speaker 5: also how matt Arrarat Turkey has a plaque apparently where
Speaker 5: it says like here is buried the imaginary Kurdish nation,
Speaker 5: and like the Kurdish nation is certainly not buried anymore.
Speaker 5: Right like it, it's very active. Kurds are very politically
Speaker 5: empowered in two of the four countries where Kurds live,
Speaker 5: right Like in Turkey they are to a lesser extent,
Speaker 5: but they're still present. No one could deny their presence.
Speaker 5: In Iran, it's still, i guess more difficult the time
Speaker 5: for the Kurdish freedom movement, Biack said. Within our initial
Speaker 5: paradigm and our first manifesto, the Kurdish identity, the Kurdish
Speaker 5: people and Kurdish society were formed. A society in love
Speaker 5: with freedom was formed. People emerged that would fight for
Speaker 5: freedom under any circumstances. On this basis, we are now
Speaker 5: developing a new paradigm, a second manifesto. This paradigm, this
Speaker 5: manifesto aimed to resolve not only the Kurdish question, but
Speaker 5: also the issues of the peoples of the Middle East
Speaker 5: and humanity as a whole. Rabert Apple, rayber Smith's leader,
Speaker 5: Rabert Apple is no longer leading only the Kurdish people.
Speaker 5: He's leading all peoples in humanity. Yeah it's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: it's yeah. This is the sort of rhetoric we can
Speaker 5: expect from the case k right, Like they're very dedicated
Speaker 5: to Julan as a leader. Yes, yes, and you know,
Speaker 5: Robert and I have both been trus Java.
Speaker 2: I've heard a lot of no life without our leader's
Speaker 2: speeches and seeing a lot of a lot of those
Speaker 2: posters as well.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, Like you can't really go into a space
Speaker 5: you'll see other Like it's not just Oserlan, right, you're
Speaker 5: going to see a wind I can, and you're going
Speaker 5: to see it's not like just a guy with a mustache.
Speaker 5: You're going to see women idolized in the movement too.
Speaker 5: But auscher Land to the greatest extent is like their
Speaker 5: dear leader figure. You can see his face all over Rashava,
Speaker 5: and they're very dedicated to Oucherlen's leadership. And like this
Speaker 5: change in structure does not change that, or this change
Speaker 5: in approach has not changed that. In fact, it underlines that, right,
Speaker 5: Like from the letter that Ocherlean wrote and he wrote
Speaker 5: letters to different parts of the Kurdish Freedom movement came
Speaker 5: this change, right, So it's still at the instruction of Ochelin,
Speaker 5: albeit with the consent of these delegates who went to
Speaker 5: this PKK Congress right and voted. I've reached out to
Speaker 5: the k CK to ask for a comment on like
Speaker 5: exactly what this means in terms of like most of
Speaker 5: the KCK, as I said, are in the mountains of
Speaker 5: southern Kurdistan now, and they have fought Turkey there for years. Right,
Speaker 5: We've covered that on this podcast North in Iraq, Southern Kerdistan,
Speaker 5: however you wish to call it, like Turkey has been bombing.
Speaker 5: They were bombing it last time I was there. I'm
Speaker 5: sure they were bombing it last time Robert was there.
Speaker 5: They've been bombing it ever since. And the villages that
Speaker 5: have really suffered as a result. Right, people have lost
Speaker 5: their theildren, they've lost their lands, they've often had their
Speaker 5: crops burned right by these bombs. So I'm interested to
Speaker 5: know that will the idea of the Kurdish Freedom Movement
Speaker 5: leaving the mountains there is I mean, it would be
Speaker 5: a hell of a site they've been in, they've been
Speaker 5: in those mountains for a long time. But I don't
Speaker 5: know what this means for the Kurdish Freedom Movement in
Speaker 5: Southern Kurdistan. But I've asked. I don't know if this
Speaker 5: means that they will attempt like a straight up electoral strategy, right,
Speaker 5: or when Ogerland's asking for new contract, right, like a
Speaker 5: new social contract. That's how in Rajaba they literally have
Speaker 5: a social contract.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 5: The social contract is generally like a theoretical construct in
Speaker 5: most like neoliberal democracies, the idea that you and the
Speaker 5: state enter into an agreement whereby you give up some
Speaker 5: freedom and you lose some danger and the state gives
Speaker 5: you some safety and it takes some of your freedom.
Speaker 5: In raja but the social contract is a real thing, right,
Speaker 5: Like it's a thing that is formed in consultation with society.
Speaker 5: So when when we see Appo asking a bandon new contract,
Speaker 5: does that mean that they will engage like on the
Speaker 5: basis of a new Turkish constitution. I don't know. I
Speaker 5: don't think any of us have answers to these questions,
Speaker 5: and I imagine that they don't either, write like they
Speaker 5: have decided to pursue this strategy of peace. They've decided
Speaker 5: that through their armed conflict they were able to prove
Speaker 5: that they exist. And that's a phrase that specifically people
Speaker 5: have said to me in the Kurdish Freedom movement, like
Speaker 5: we had to pick up arms to prove that we exist.
Speaker 5: And now that there's no denying their existence, they can
Speaker 5: use different methods, right like they put down their weapons
Speaker 5: and talk and established with Turkey how to coexist, having
Speaker 5: established that they exist through the armed struggle. So for them,
Speaker 5: this is like they're celebrating it, right. They'll draw the
Speaker 5: analogy very often to like Shinfein in Ireland. That's one
Speaker 5: that you're here pretty often, and that this is their
Speaker 5: Good Friday. Now. In the Good Friday Agreement, Britainer released
Speaker 5: people from prison. Number of very highly cherished, very highly
Speaker 5: respected members of the Kurdish Freedom movement are still in prison.
Speaker 5: Of course, Oderlan being the most sort of widely loved
Speaker 5: and respected member of the Kurdish Freedom movement. I don't
Speaker 5: think we're seeing Osderlan come out of prison. I don't
Speaker 5: think there's a world in which Turkey would let that happen.
Speaker 5: But maybe we will see some other people released. Maybe
Speaker 5: we will see those people. I don't enter into electoral politics.
Speaker 5: Some of them have been in the struggle for fifty
Speaker 5: plus years, right, like fifty years living in the mountains
Speaker 5: and constantly being worried about being bombed. So it'll be
Speaker 5: fascinating to see how this This has been a long
Speaker 5: and bloody conflict. It has been going for longer, but
Speaker 5: any of us have been alive. If the friends are happy,
Speaker 5: then I'm.
Speaker 4: Happy for them, right, And if peace is.
Speaker 5: What they want and they can get away to continue,
Speaker 5: like General Bick says, like the people in love with freedom,
Speaker 5: Like if they can keep their freedom and they can
Speaker 5: do it without war, then I'm happy for them because,
Speaker 5: like I've talked to a lot of Kurdish parents who
Speaker 5: have buried their children.
Speaker 2: God Almighty been to too many of the graveyards and
Speaker 2: northern Syria.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, there's little white graveyards with little children's faces.
Speaker 5: Like that will stay with me forever.
Speaker 2: Whatever stops that, you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Like if one of the things that kind of
Speaker 5: struck me when I was in Rajaba last time is
Speaker 5: that like death just falls from the night sky sometimes, yeah,
Speaker 5: and maybe maybe it's your baby, maybe it's you, maybe
Speaker 5: it's your grandma, And it's a pretty horrible way to live.
Speaker 5: And going through that for your freedom is something very brave.
Speaker 5: And they have endured some of the worst conflict on
Speaker 5: the planet in the last few decades, right, They've fought
Speaker 5: some of the worst fucking people on the planet on
Speaker 5: one and if there is a way that the people
Speaker 5: of Kurdistan can enjoy peace, I want that for them
Speaker 5: because they've been at war for a very long time. Yep,
Speaker 5: Hi everyone, it's James, and which is adding this pick
Speaker 5: up to the episode. I was able to get some
Speaker 5: questions answered on behalf of the Kurdish Freedim movement, and
Speaker 5: I would just like to share those answers with you.
Speaker 5: So I asked Ifvojulan was able to address the Congress.
Speaker 5: I'd prieviously been told he was. This is a response.
Speaker 5: Throughout the more than twenty six years that Kurdish People's
Speaker 5: Leader Abdula Ogelan has been held hostage in the prison
Speaker 5: island of him Rally, he has always found ways to
Speaker 5: convey his messages and perspectives to the Congress of the
Speaker 5: PKK that has taken place. So it was again regarding
Speaker 5: the twelfth Congress of the pKa, which convened from May
Speaker 5: the fifth to May the seventh in the Free Mountains
Speaker 5: of Kurdistan. He was able to forward his ideas and
Speaker 5: analysis via the various delegations that have visited him throughout
Speaker 5: the last few months, I asked about Ojulan's call for
Speaker 5: a new social contract and they told me Turkish People's
Speaker 5: Leader ab Dela Ojulan's calls and the historic initiative that
Speaker 5: he has taken do not imply that the Turkish State
Speaker 5: has adopted the same attitude or that the state has
Speaker 5: changed its approach. Kurdish People's Leader ab de la Aujulin
Speaker 5: is not simply hoping for a change of mentality in
Speaker 5: the state, but it's moving forward developing his project and
Speaker 5: thereby pulling the state along with him. What he is
Speaker 5: currently primarily concerned with is a redefining and reconstruction of
Speaker 5: the historical alliance of the Kurdish and Turkish people, which
Speaker 5: has been derailed during the past century. A long term
Speaker 5: democratic solution to the Kurdish question necessitates a recognition of
Speaker 5: the role of the Kurds in the establishment and development
Speaker 5: of the republic. Relations between the peoples must be brought
Speaker 5: back to the historical routes, so division cannot be realized Unilatterally,
Speaker 5: it lays in the nature of the way the struggle
Speaker 5: at the Kurdish People's Leader ab Del Ajulan and the
Speaker 5: p that when they want to achieve a solution to
Speaker 5: a specific issue, they initially create through struggle the necessary
Speaker 5: conditions and contexts for it. What Abdul Ojiland does is
Speaker 5: to set the context and to encourage all related circles
Speaker 5: in Turkey to take upon their responsibility for our lasting peace.
Speaker 5: And then I wanted to ask about the people who
Speaker 5: are incarcerated and like the steps that they needed from
Speaker 5: the Turkish state in order for this peace process to continue.
Speaker 5: And this is what they said. A historic initiative was
Speaker 5: taken by Curdish People's Leader Abdula Aujilan and the PKK.
Speaker 5: First of all, there was the publication of the quote
Speaker 5: call for Peace and democratic Society and quote on February
Speaker 5: twenty sevenths. Then there was a declaration of the unilateral
Speaker 5: ceasefire on March first, and now there was the twelve
Speaker 5: PKK Congress May fifth to seventh was a decision to
Speaker 5: dissolve the PKK. All of those steps were unilateral steps
Speaker 5: that were not the result of negotiations with the state.
Speaker 5: So far, no official negotiations to take a place, and
Speaker 5: the original verbal agreements have been reached. The steps taken
Speaker 5: were only assign goodwill and expression of seriousness about peace.
Speaker 5: Now it is upon the Turkish state to answer to
Speaker 5: this initiative and take the first practical legal steps. So far,
Speaker 5: all we have seen is empty rhetoric. For the process
Speaker 5: to actually unfold, Kurdish People's leader Abdullah Oujelan must first
Speaker 5: of all, regain his physical freedom, and the conditions for
Speaker 5: him to work freely, healthily and securely must be guaranteed
Speaker 5: so that he can fulfill his role as a chief
Speaker 5: negotiator of the Kurdish people. Also, the constitutional reforms that
Speaker 5: grant the basic rights of the Kurds and recognize him
Speaker 5: as one of the primary constituents of a republic must
Speaker 5: take place now. These are the first necessary steps. From
Speaker 5: there a peace process can unfold. If you're wondering about Rajava,
Speaker 5: just to finish up, Muslumabdi made a statement a Slumubdi,
Speaker 5: leader of the Syrian Democratic Forces Right, sometimes called General
Speaker 5: muslium Hova Muslum depends who depends what side of things
Speaker 5: you're on, I guess. Muslum Abdi made a statement congratulating
Speaker 5: the PKKA, saying he hoped to all parties supported the
Speaker 5: peace process. The SDF is still in clashes with remnants
Speaker 5: of the so called Islamic State and increasingly with Sunnis
Speaker 5: within the Syrian Revolution who are growing disheartened with what
Speaker 5: they see as al Shara's moderate turn right, the Damascus
Speaker 5: government being to lib for some of these Sunni groups,
Speaker 5: and so isis the Islamic State, whatever you want to
Speaker 5: call it. Dash is using that as a chance to
Speaker 5: recruit people, and that is why we are seeing ongoing fighting.
Speaker 5: I literally I saw that they were they were burying
Speaker 5: one of their SDF fighters in Kamishlow today.
Speaker 4: Ye.
Speaker 5: So unfortunately for the people who a fra Java, the
Speaker 5: killing and dying continues, which, yes, it's sad, yes, yeah,
Speaker 5: I want peace for my friends there and in Burma.
Speaker 5: Like yeah, despite the fact that Robert and I get
Speaker 5: paid to go to wars sometimes, it doesn't mean we
Speaker 5: don't want a friends to live in peace. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I would like there to not be any more to
Speaker 2: go to.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that would be great.
Speaker 2: I'll find something else to do. Yeah, fuck it, I'll
Speaker 2: go run with the bulls again. I went White Rotter
Speaker 2: rafting yesterday. It was nice. I could just do more
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, no o, well climb yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: All right, everybody We're done for the day. Go hopefully
Speaker 2: not live in a war zone. But if you do,
Speaker 2: hopefully that stops so peace.
Speaker 4: Welcome to it could happen here show about things falling apart,
Speaker 4: and today the thing falling apart is the Galactic Empire.
Speaker 4: This is episode four of our four part series talking
Speaker 4: about the politics of and Or Season two. And Or
Speaker 4: has sadly come to a close. This will be our
Speaker 4: final discussion episode talking about and season two episodes ten, eleven,
Speaker 4: and twelve. I'm Garrison Davis. I'm joined by Robert and
Speaker 4: Mio Wong. What a what a exhilarating For four weeks
Speaker 4: this has been.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna miss it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we're we're getting relief from the horrors to live
Speaker 6: the horrors in another universe.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, it's sucks now that that we have to just
Speaker 4: do all this stuff, except like the eight years in
Speaker 4: the past version, because the level in which they've advanced
Speaker 4: here is far beyond certainly the US's revolutionary potential.
Speaker 2: Alas Yes, tragic.
Speaker 6: Hey, if anyone wants to be our mom mofbud taken applications,
Speaker 6: you you you could, you can be the good liberal.
Speaker 4: You can be it.
Speaker 2: Oh Man I'll take a fucking Kraeger at this point.
Speaker 4: So I think we're gonna do these episodes a little
Speaker 4: bit differently. I'm not going to do a whole synopsis
Speaker 4: for each of these episodes, since for these last three
Speaker 4: the show has mostly a shwed plot for emotional and
Speaker 4: character beats, So instead, I want to quickly go over
Speaker 4: each of those character points and then we can discuss
Speaker 4: those in detail, and most of our discussion will probably
Speaker 4: be around episode ten. Make it stop, yep. Let's start
Speaker 4: at the beginning Lonnie's last meeting.
Speaker 10: Ah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So the ICP double agent Lonnie Young calls Luthen
Speaker 4: to an emergency meeting to give him one final batch
Speaker 4: of intel after burning his cover. It's really shocking and
Speaker 4: worrying when we see Luthen and Lonnie meeting in public.
Speaker 4: That that that already lets you know like, oh, this
Speaker 4: is like this is the end. This is stuff is
Speaker 4: like the most jover it's ever been for Lonnie.
Speaker 2: There's a great line they got one of the strongest
Speaker 2: reactions with the folks I was watching it with when
Speaker 2: Luthan's about to head out and he's talking with Claya
Speaker 2: and she's like, don't do this.
Speaker 1: Meeting.
Speaker 4: If it doesn't look perfect, we don't engage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Luthen responds, I think we've used up all
Speaker 2: the perfect.
Speaker 4: If you're stuff all the perfect.
Speaker 2: It's this, it's this really good. There's some very impressive
Speaker 2: like face acting from Scar's guard here where you you
Speaker 2: see he's There's so much he wants to say to
Speaker 2: this person, who, as we'll discuss, is essentially his daughter.
Speaker 2: But ultimately all that happens is she says, Tucky Shirtan.
Speaker 4: It's insane.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So he meets with Lonnie. Lonnie needs like assurances for
Speaker 4: like him and his family's safety. Luthen tells them that
Speaker 4: they'll be able to flee to Yavin together. Sure, sure, buddy. Yeah. So,
Speaker 4: by accessing Deadro's computer files, Lonnie learns that the Emperor's
Speaker 4: new energy project, the Calcite mining on Gorman the kyber
Speaker 4: On Jetta are actually part of a massive super weapon.
Speaker 4: Luthn is warned that Dedra and the ISB are preparing
Speaker 4: for a raid on corus On and he may be
Speaker 4: the target. Luthen ends up killing Lonnie to tie up
Speaker 4: loose ends and passes off the information to Claya to
Speaker 4: relay it to the Rebel Alliance while he goes to
Speaker 4: thermite their computer hard drive, saying yeah, he quotes, I'll
Speaker 4: do the burn again. It's it's it's jover like our
Speaker 4: our shop, our little home, our little base of operations
Speaker 4: in Coruscant. Yeah, is getting destroyed. This is this is
Speaker 4: truly the end of an era.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 4: Luthin either knows or has like decided that he has
Speaker 4: run out of time, and the only way to be
Speaker 4: sure that the information safely reaches the Alliance is to
Speaker 4: give the ISB a distraction, and that distraction is himself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again it's very consistent. He's clearly trying to
Speaker 2: buy time for Claya to escape, right like, that's that's
Speaker 2: part part of his purpose here. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 2: he's also just done, you know, totally, he's done. He's
Speaker 2: tired and he doesn't have it in him to run anymore.
Speaker 4: And that's kind of what he discusses in this next section,
Speaker 4: which is such an efficient piece of screenwriting. When Dedra
Speaker 4: arrives at Luthern's gallery, Yeah, you can you can only
Speaker 4: hide in play insight for so long, and that time
Speaker 4: has come. As as dead Roel arrives, Lusen says, here
Speaker 4: you are at last, uh huh. Every line in their exchange,
Speaker 4: like but before before she lets him know, like hey,
Speaker 4: I know you are, Like but like every line leading
Speaker 4: up to that is a double entendre, like like every
Speaker 4: single exchange they have is actually communicating something else and
Speaker 4: it's wild. Forgery is the sad curse of antiquities. At
Speaker 4: the moment, only two pieces of questionable providence in the gallery.
Speaker 4: Yea insane stuff.
Speaker 2: It's great, it's insane writing, and it's it's perfect that
Speaker 2: like she keeps trying to like get some sort of
Speaker 2: acknowledgment that she's one. That's all she wants out of
Speaker 2: this is for him to basically she's actually kind of
Speaker 2: desperate for him to say you did good, kid, you
Speaker 2: cos it's crazy and all he does is through shade at.
Speaker 4: Her, like shit, sucker, villions.
Speaker 2: Arelready gone, you dip shit fascist, like you fucking failed
Speaker 2: to fl like referring to him elf.
Speaker 4: And in some ways her as like as an antiquity,
Speaker 4: like like like you said, like he is tired, he
Speaker 4: is done. He is he's kind of a relic for
Speaker 4: the current era of the rebellions.
Speaker 2: And you don't know it yet, but so are you.
Speaker 4: Yes, and so is so is her. Only two pieces
Speaker 4: of questionable providence are in the gallery. Amazing. So Luthen
Speaker 4: hands Dedra a ceremonial dagger. She asks if it's real.
Speaker 4: He smiles and remarks, we still don't know. And it's like,
Speaker 4: it's amazing. I get every single line. It's it's it's
Speaker 4: it's like this screenwriter's play with us just amazing. I
Speaker 4: think Tom Bisseol and Tony Gilroy uh for these episodes.
Speaker 4: Just phenomenal. Dedra. Now I'm nervous, Luthed, you've come all
Speaker 4: this way. And then she unveils this, this artifact that
Speaker 4: she is brought to Luthen for evaluation. She says, it's
Speaker 4: a little damaged perhaps, but I'd say it's held its value,
Speaker 4: as she looks Luthen up and down again, same thing again,
Speaker 4: singing very efficient. Luthen is a little damage, but he
Speaker 4: has held his value. And Dedra reveals the vintage Imperial
Speaker 4: StarPath unit that first brought Luthen's operation under Dedra's eye.
Speaker 4: And now that like both of them have their cards
Speaker 4: like displayed on the table, they get to exchange a
Speaker 4: little bit more clearly without having to use these like
Speaker 4: coded coded phrases like they were before, and they had
Speaker 4: this fascinating back and forth. She talks about how Luthan's
Speaker 4: been hiding in the shelter of imperial peace and quiet
Speaker 4: and just wants to burn the galaxy down, and Luthan
Speaker 4: gets gets to poke at her for how he's been
Speaker 4: aware of her this entire time and she's only learned
Speaker 4: who he is. Quote, I've known you all along. Hardly
Speaker 4: seems fair. She says, you disgusted me everything you stand for,
Speaker 4: and he says, do you know why freedom scares you?
Speaker 4: This is what Dedra's last arc is like really about,
Speaker 4: and it eventually, you know, paradoxically leads to leads to
Speaker 4: her fate.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 4: I think probably the best line in this little exchange
Speaker 4: is Luthan telling Deadrea, quote, you're too late. The rebellion
Speaker 4: isn't here anymore. It's flown away. It's everywhere. Now there's
Speaker 4: a whole galaxy out there waiting to disgust you.
Speaker 2: Great light. Yeah again, it's' he's this whole time, he's
Speaker 2: been like increasingly cooking her like.
Speaker 4: And also cooking his hard drive by time that's his
Speaker 4: heart drive burns up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's just it's just some great
Speaker 2: some great stuff and the Dedro we get some great
Speaker 2: face acting. Oh yeah from what is it? Denise is
Speaker 2: her name? Right?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Gow I think where you just see in a second,
Speaker 2: she sees the smoke and then Luthan collapses because he
Speaker 2: has stabbed himself in the heart, which is also like
Speaker 2: it serves as another kind of rappost to every argument
Speaker 2: that she's been making, like it's his ultimate counter to
Speaker 2: her claims that like you're fundamentally selfish, You're just doing
Speaker 2: this for yourself and your own you know, desire chaos.
Speaker 2: He's like, no, bitch, I'm gonna stab myself in the heart,
Speaker 2: Like you don't know what commitment is.
Speaker 5: It's great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he uses this, uses this ceremonial dagger that he
Speaker 4: that he earlier hands to Dedra and stabs himself so
Speaker 4: that the Empire will be able to torture and try
Speaker 4: to extract information from him about the rebellion.
Speaker 6: But you gotta have some explosives, like you can't be
Speaker 6: relying on staggering yourself with me dagger.
Speaker 4: This is this is like a screenwriting thing, like det
Speaker 4: has to get out of this. They have to they
Speaker 4: have to access the computer later. Come on, I think
Speaker 4: I think this is this is very like poetically written. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, it's it's beautiful. I like like the romance
Speaker 4: of it. Yeah, but man, Dedra fucked up so bad here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fundamentally ruins absolutely her entire life.
Speaker 4: The emotion's really got the better of her. She really
Speaker 4: wanted to like like win one over on on access
Speaker 4: to like validate herself and her obsession. This we like
Speaker 4: Cyril does, and it fucking bites her in the ass.
Speaker 6: It destroys the empires, the entire empire.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I like that they they had her simultaneously.
Speaker 2: She's both right and that if she had been listened to,
Speaker 2: she could have stopped the rebel victory. But also she
Speaker 2: fundamentally like destroys the Death Star as a result of
Speaker 2: her insistence on being right.
Speaker 6: It fits into that old Marxist category of objectively revolutionary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just by like.
Speaker 4: How she fucked this up specifically, and.
Speaker 6: Yeah, get to well, you know, I think we've talked
Speaker 6: about how how like the Death Star plans got stolen
Speaker 6: like from her fucking art, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Or like the the the learning of the Death Star
Speaker 4: existence through the hard.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, sorry, said yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they
Speaker 8: don't have the plans yet.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So Lutheran's transferred to the hospital, and then we
Speaker 4: get a flashback with Luthin as an early Imperial Army
Speaker 4: sergeant involved in a massacre on Claya's home planet. We
Speaker 4: see him like like huddled over in his ship with
Speaker 4: a flask, repeating the words make.
Speaker 2: It, make it stop, make it stop.
Speaker 4: As like sounds of like carnage and destruction go on
Speaker 4: in the background.
Speaker 2: What's what's interesting to me is, yeah, they have You're
Speaker 2: basically just hearing what's happening outside. He's in an Imperial
Speaker 2: Army uniform, and you're hearing like radio chatter, and it's
Speaker 2: radio chatter that could have come from like any war
Speaker 2: of the last twenty years. Like it's very much modern
Speaker 2: radio call. It's it sounds like a lot of the
Speaker 2: shit you heard and like the Collateral Murder video, like
Speaker 2: some of the stuff that got leaked by Chelsea Manning
Speaker 2: where people are like, yeah, hit every everything on that
Speaker 2: hill dies, you know, anything past this this point in
Speaker 2: this like line of buildings, anyone you see on the
Speaker 2: heat scope, kill them, Like it's that kind of stuff, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: And it's it's it's very much like it's very non
Speaker 2: st Our Wars chatter.
Speaker 4: You know, he's he's like horrified at like what he's doing.
Speaker 4: He's trying to findst to cope with it.
Speaker 2: He's drinking out of a flask and yeah, just like
Speaker 2: repeatedly repeating to himself, make it stop.
Speaker 4: Just this like very short scene like recontextualizes a whole
Speaker 4: bunch of things about Luthern's character, Yes, including his behavior
Speaker 4: on Ferrex during during the riot, where he like doesn't
Speaker 4: get involved and instead looks on from a distance with
Speaker 4: like a very like a very blank expression. And like
Speaker 4: when I first saw that episode, to me, it felt
Speaker 4: like Luthen was like first confronted with like the fatality
Speaker 4: that he's dealing with, like like confronted with like the
Speaker 4: consequences for actually engaging in revolution because he's always been
Speaker 4: kind of in the shadows. He's been more of this
Speaker 4: like orchestrator. He doesn't see like that like the tactile
Speaker 4: death that accompanies his actions. It's like that's how I
Speaker 4: first saw that scene, and now this has been fully
Speaker 4: recontextualized as like Eric's is like a PTSD moment for him,
Speaker 4: Like this is that's that's not the first time he's
Speaker 4: seeing combat.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is.
Speaker 4: This is it changes the way you can now look
Speaker 4: back at that scene, which is very very cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's also interesting to think that he's putting
Speaker 2: himself in the perspective as much as anything of the
Speaker 2: imperials doing the massacre. Yes, yeah, as opposed to the
Speaker 2: civilian victims of the massacre. I read an interview with
Speaker 2: Tony where apparently because they did not have Lutheran's backstory
Speaker 2: set up in season one, like they didn't fully know
Speaker 2: where he was going to go and.
Speaker 4: Have a single one nail Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it was apparently Scarsguard who was like, don't
Speaker 2: have him be another person who's pissed, like who just
Speaker 2: hates the Empire because it took everything from him, like like.
Speaker 4: A normal revenge story where like the Empire like tells
Speaker 4: his family so that he becomes an insurgent.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, and I really I think it's beautiful that, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: his backstory is that, no, he was made complicit. Like however,
Speaker 2: whatever got him into the army in the first place,
Speaker 2: maybe just conscription. He may not have even had a
Speaker 2: choice to join, but the Empire forces him to do,
Speaker 2: like puts him in a position and he's it's as
Speaker 2: much discussed with himself that he goes along with it
Speaker 2: as far as he does. And you get in those
Speaker 2: lines that he's just repeating him to himself over and
Speaker 2: over again as he like make it Like that's his
Speaker 2: whole motivation, right, Like that's the next twenty years of
Speaker 2: his life. Are him trying to make it stop?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the title of the episode. Yeah, well we'll
Speaker 4: talk more about that and his motivation at the end
Speaker 4: when we discuss kind of Claya, speaking of which, in
Speaker 4: this flashback, it is shot from the perspective of Claya
Speaker 4: hiding in like a cubby on on this ship. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and Luthen named I think Layer Lar which is Lair.
Speaker 2: He is Sergeant Lair is original name. Well, we don't
Speaker 2: know what his first was, but he just reverses it.
Speaker 9: Yeah, which no, no, but like this is this is
Speaker 9: this is also like poetic, right, this is this is
Speaker 9: this is this is Star Wars poeoetry, right, it's like
Speaker 9: poetry at rhymes popseek wise.
Speaker 4: Don't do that.
Speaker 2: I just I just got to put this in there.
Speaker 2: Don't do that.
Speaker 4: Do better. But Sergeant Layer finds Claya as like a
Speaker 4: six year old hiding hiding on this ship. We then
Speaker 4: go back to the present as Claya infiltrates a space
Speaker 4: hospital to get to Luthen. Intercut with flashbacks showing how
Speaker 4: Luthen used his military experience to train Claya in insurgent warfare.
Speaker 4: So here we see like Luthen being kept alive in
Speaker 4: this Corroiscant hospital for later interrogation, and then suddenly Dedra
Speaker 4: is arrested in the hospital by an ISB. Marshall for
Speaker 4: at first unclear reasons which we will get into later.
Speaker 4: The ICP has found Lonnie's body, so there's a dead
Speaker 4: yes B agent in Cororriscant. They've heard of how Dedra
Speaker 4: did this raid without authorization without notifying the agent now
Speaker 4: in charge of the Axis investigation, and then she's taken
Speaker 4: into custody. In these flashbacks, we see Luthen and Clia
Speaker 4: going town to town pawning historical artifacts while he teaches
Speaker 4: young Claya insurgent warfare. One of the most devastating exchanges
Speaker 4: is when Luthen describes Claia as his daughter to a
Speaker 4: shopkeeper to help like negotiate a price, and afterwards Claya asks,
Speaker 4: am I your daughter now? He replies when it's useful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's and then he and then he says, I'm Luthen,
Speaker 2: you're Clia. Like that's all we need to know right now,
Speaker 2: that that's.
Speaker 4: Who we are now.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Claia says, like, I'll have to think about that, and
Speaker 4: Luthen says, sometimes it's not up to us.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Another exchange happens after Claio watches this like Imperial firing
Speaker 4: line kill a batch of kids who are allegedly suspected
Speaker 4: of shooting a stormtrooper. I think it probably could have
Speaker 4: actually been Luthen, It's unclear, and it essentially just demonstrates
Speaker 4: like collective punishment, right, And Claiya gets very upset at
Speaker 4: watching this massacre and runs off to Luthen and also,
Speaker 4: like interestingly, like when Luthen knows that this is going
Speaker 4: to happen, he like chooses to like not watch. He's like,
Speaker 4: we don't need to be here, we can we can,
Speaker 4: we can just leave, but but Claia chooses to stay
Speaker 4: and watch and then runs back to him, and he
Speaker 4: he tells her we fight to win. That means we
Speaker 4: lose and lose and lose and lose until we're ready.
Speaker 4: All you know now is how much you hate you
Speaker 4: bank that you hide, that you keep it alive until
Speaker 4: you know what to do with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I love both that. He's he's attempting to
Speaker 2: give her as much like agency as he can within
Speaker 2: this situation where he's also like crafting her into a person.
Speaker 2: And so like, if she decides she wants to go
Speaker 2: see this massacre, He'll let her do it. Like he's
Speaker 2: not going to he's not going to try to make her.
Speaker 2: But if that's what she wants, he's not going to
Speaker 2: stop her. And then when she's seeing what she needs
Speaker 2: to see, he's going to give her the best advice
Speaker 2: that he can give her. There's another line coming where's
Speaker 2: she asks if he's scared, and he's like, only about
Speaker 2: what I'm doing to you, right that like you, But
Speaker 2: he is still deeply he feels deeply compromised by this
Speaker 2: position he's put himself in with this only other person
Speaker 2: that he really can trust.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: They do their first like large scale direct action together. Yeah,
Speaker 4: on the Emperor's home planet of Naboo. He teaches her
Speaker 4: how to blend into the surroundings as they remote debt
Speaker 4: night and explosive planted on a bridge, while in the present,
Speaker 4: Clia disguises herself as a nurse to disappear into the
Speaker 4: hospital where Luthern's being held, and blows up the hospital
Speaker 4: parking lot as a distraction to get to Lutheran. These
Speaker 4: two things mirror each other. It's like poetry at rhymes.
Speaker 4: Clia says to Luthin, you're afraid, He says, I'm only
Speaker 4: afraid of what I'm doing to you, as he hands
Speaker 4: this child a detonator. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Man, she's not willing to she can't make herself use
Speaker 2: it yet.
Speaker 4: I mean, I feel like she was almost willing to
Speaker 4: psych herself up. Luth and actually took it away and
Speaker 4: had himself do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But that scene by itself where he's like telling her
Speaker 4: not to like look at it, to make sure you're
Speaker 4: like looking at me, only turn after everyone else has turned.
Speaker 4: Very fun stuff happening in Star Wars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's it's great, Like the whole the decision
Speaker 2: he made he makes here is like, like you see
Speaker 2: a lot about their relationship and again this like how
Speaker 2: deeply compromised he feels by it. Of both, like I
Speaker 2: have to get this person ready for what's necessary. And
Speaker 2: also I have to protect her from like the worst
Speaker 2: things that we're going to have to do together. Like,
Speaker 2: he does want to remain primarily the one complicit, so
Speaker 2: I think in part because he does believe, I mean fundamentally,
Speaker 2: that's the core of his character. He does believe she
Speaker 2: has a future outside.
Speaker 4: Totally is That's the entire point of what he's doing. Yeah,
Speaker 4: do you know what else is necessary, Robert.
Speaker 2: For us to throw to ads because otherwise we can't
Speaker 2: keep this moveable feast on the road.
Speaker 4: Okay, we are back back in the present day on Corussant.
Speaker 4: Claia finally reaches Luthen in his hospital room, and I guess,
Speaker 4: like leading up to this, to this moment, it's unclear
Speaker 4: if she's going to try to like rescue him, like
Speaker 4: like extract him, and no, there's no time for that.
Speaker 4: She takes him off life support and lets him die.
Speaker 4: There is no escape for his character. Yeah, Like Luthen
Speaker 4: never gets to see that sunrise, but he did everything
Speaker 4: he could to give the rebellion the best chance, and
Speaker 4: Claia gets to finish and like live out what he started.
Speaker 4: He wants to give Claia that sunrise and like this
Speaker 4: this relates to his core motivation as a character. He's
Speaker 4: not getting revenge against the Empire for killing his family
Speaker 4: or something like that kind of cliched stories is not
Speaker 4: what they're doing here. Instead, this is all all about Clia. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's about how he's like found Claya and both of
Speaker 4: them are broken by what he has done. So then
Speaker 4: he spends the rest of his life building the rebellion
Speaker 4: for Claia so that she can live on and she
Speaker 4: can beat the Empire. And that's the entire point of him.
Speaker 4: Like that, that is what's driving him. He is like
Speaker 4: the most selfless character. Tony in an interview said, quote,
Speaker 4: there are only a certain number of reasons that you
Speaker 4: can change your life, and one of them is just
Speaker 4: absolute self discussed. So we found a way for him
Speaker 4: to have a belly full of it at the right moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I love that that, Like, that's his whole
Speaker 2: motivation ultimately is like undoing the only part of what
Speaker 2: he was involved in that he can undo, which is
Speaker 2: saving this person. And like saving this person involved destroying
Speaker 2: the thing that took her life away from her.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the entire apparatus of the Empire yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 4: think we're kind of wrapped up with this episode here,
Speaker 4: but like the Clay hospital like infiltration sequence is superb,
Speaker 4: so good, like one one person doing all of this
Speaker 4: stuff to the absolute befuddlement of like the Imperial Troopers.
Speaker 4: She's really embodying the line from Rogue one, make ten
Speaker 4: men feel like a hundred Yeah, and yeah, she's able
Speaker 4: to infiltrate this hospital, like she's working with a team
Speaker 4: of like ten people and it's and it's just her
Speaker 4: shout out to the Granny alien in the elevator, very
Speaker 4: very great little comment.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but unlessly either have anything else to say about
Speaker 4: episode ten.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I like this. This is obviously like
Speaker 2: my favorite episode of this particular batch.
Speaker 4: Maybe the best in the whole series. Like this is
Speaker 4: absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2: I love the Luthen and Claya moments. I love seeing
Speaker 2: like how at the same time this like hint when
Speaker 2: you're seeing them kind of haggle over the price of
Speaker 2: this antiquity that they've got that like, Okay, So Clay
Speaker 2: always had this degree of like cunning and this ability
Speaker 2: to kind of like recognize what's going on, which probably
Speaker 2: hows you survived in the first place. Right, she's she
Speaker 2: was always someone who saw more than other people, which.
Speaker 4: She's the girl's Yeah.
Speaker 2: And at the same time, you get this piece of
Speaker 2: Luthan like there must have been like whatever he was
Speaker 2: before he joined the military, it was somebody who had
Speaker 2: this kind of deep knowledge of antiquities and probably this
Speaker 2: desire to make something of his life other than what
Speaker 2: became of it and all that he's got left of
Speaker 2: it is like utilizing that real piece of himself to
Speaker 2: make a fake person, right, Like that's which is such
Speaker 2: an interesting character beat for him, that like this, this
Speaker 2: thing that is probably closest to the real Luthan, the
Speaker 2: one that existed before his military service, before the Empire
Speaker 2: ruined him, is completely remade in the service of making
Speaker 2: himself into something he's not.
Speaker 6: So when I first saw this, I was really worried
Speaker 6: because I think one of those interesting parts about Clay
Speaker 6: as a character is that she is the only person
Speaker 6: that Luthen trusts absolutely right, She's the only person that
Speaker 6: he She's fully as an equal. She's the only one
Speaker 6: who has all the information that he has. And you know,
Speaker 6: I was like kind of worried that it was Okay, Well,
Speaker 6: now she's effectively his daughter, and it's like, no, it's
Speaker 6: actually like she is still the only person like even
Speaker 6: though Luthen has been sort of raising her is like
Speaker 6: he's been trying to raise her as an equal as
Speaker 6: much as much as he possibly can. I think that's
Speaker 6: a really really yeah, sort of fascinating like way for
Speaker 6: this thing to have gone.
Speaker 4: Like the actress of Claiya has said, like, like from
Speaker 4: Claya's perspective, like she doesn't really fully see Luthen like
Speaker 4: as her father figure because like inherently like he was
Speaker 4: like involved in the actual killing of like of her family,
Speaker 4: like she she is she has found a way to
Speaker 4: kind of love him through that. But it's it's not
Speaker 4: like it's not like that that like immediate familial love
Speaker 4: like it's it's it's it's a different rationalization that she
Speaker 4: can still like give him like a final kiss on
Speaker 4: his deathbed and like does like does care for him,
Speaker 4: but like it's so much more like complicated and murky
Speaker 4: and like like roped in with politics and roped in
Speaker 4: with Yeah.
Speaker 2: But here's here's the thing what I'll say about that,
Speaker 2: And and this is kind of my favorite part of
Speaker 2: that is I can see how she would be like
Speaker 2: this feeling I have towards him, like isn't like what
Speaker 2: someone would feel towards a father. But also she doesn't
Speaker 2: really know how people feel about their parents because she
Speaker 2: didn't get to have them very long.
Speaker 4: Keep people can't feel like that can feel about their father.
Speaker 2: Feeling both this deep sense of love and disgust towards
Speaker 2: your parents isn't normal experience, and she just doesn't writ
Speaker 2: I think maybe there's a degree in which she doesn't
Speaker 2: even really realize how how.
Speaker 5: Common that is because of.
Speaker 4: No, that's a good point. That's a good point. Yeah,
Speaker 4: all right. Episode eleven, who else knows? Krenick and Dedra
Speaker 4: queen out together? Hell yeah, look at look at them?
Speaker 4: Go so tetris in this interrogation chamber and Credit grills
Speaker 4: her about how this piece of information good, so good,
Speaker 4: how this piece of information has escaped containment and Dedra's
Speaker 4: Dedra's face strote this whole scene, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: She comes into it. You can tell she thinks I'm
Speaker 2: gonna get out of this. I'm gonna talk my way
Speaker 2: out of this. Yeah, surely I will sort this all out.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, Once she realized this that this is actually about
Speaker 4: like the leakage of like the death Star plans and
Speaker 4: not just a simple raid on a rebel like weapons dealer.
Speaker 4: She realizes the kind of gravity of her situation. She
Speaker 4: she complains about how like he's been forced like scavenge
Speaker 4: for information because there's not like an efficient, efficient intel
Speaker 4: sharing operation across different imperial branches. H and Credit says
Speaker 4: to her, if you're not a rebel spy, you missed
Speaker 4: your calling, which is the biggest insult you could say.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, this destroys her. Yeah, like this is
Speaker 4: the this is the same mistake that like Cyril makes. Right,
Speaker 4: they're trying to like to like do this like try
Speaker 4: hard stuff.
Speaker 2: You think initiative is rewarded here exactly. Yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: you follow orders. You do not take your own initiative.
Speaker 2: You are not your own person. You follow what you're
Speaker 2: told to do. You don't take things into your own hands.
Speaker 2: This is how the whole system crumbles. Yeah, it's phenomenal.
Speaker 4: How like she is so much like you know, like
Speaker 4: it's especially in Cyril's eyes, right, she is like everything
Speaker 4: that he wanted to be but like couldn't and yet
Speaker 4: she has all the same flaws as him. They're both
Speaker 4: children trying to like grab and sees their spot like
Speaker 4: in the in the imperial world, and they can never
Speaker 4: escape the logic of children. Yeah, it's phenomenal. So so yeah,
Speaker 4: basically because because she was sent memos accidentally, she was
Speaker 4: accidentally added to HOO THEPC small group. Uh, she had
Speaker 4: she had information on the desk that she shouldn't have
Speaker 4: that she sorted that she stored on her computer that
Speaker 4: then Lonnie was able to access with like a stolen
Speaker 4: code cylinder, and this is why she's detained.
Speaker 2: And I love to that. Lonnie makes a statement that
Speaker 2: like he didn't tell Luthen he had this because he's like, well,
Speaker 2: you would have made me use it? Well, yeah, I did,
Speaker 2: super cool, And there's this yeah, like Lonnie has gotten
Speaker 2: very good at this, like he was right to not
Speaker 2: tell his boss.
Speaker 4: Sometimes you share and sometimes you don't. And yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 4: like the idea of him holding onto this code cylinder
Speaker 4: this this whole year, knowing that you can only use
Speaker 4: this once before you're kind of found out, and then
Speaker 4: like waiting until he's heard chatter that like Luthin's gonna
Speaker 4: get raided, uses the cylinder, then discovers all these other files.
Speaker 4: It it shows how like important Luthin's operation is. Like
Speaker 4: this is I think what these last episodes are really
Speaker 4: about is kind of like, yeah, the redemption of Luthen
Speaker 4: in the eyes of the other rebel agents. So so yes,
Speaker 4: Dedra is completely fucked and it's hilarious and Ben Mendel
Speaker 4: is trancing around the scene.
Speaker 2: He's having such a good time.
Speaker 4: It's so good.
Speaker 6: This is like it's like this and and the thing
Speaker 6: where he's going cow kite.
Speaker 4: Episode, he's so good.
Speaker 6: It's only his two best Like yeah, it's also just
Speaker 6: really like god, they didn't let him cook a and
Speaker 6: or like oh it's him written like.
Speaker 4: You know, oh yeah, but.
Speaker 6: It's like it's like like these it's like you mean
Speaker 6: about this series is you've been getting to watch yeah, sorry, yeah,
Speaker 6: Rogue one. Yeah, it's like you've been getting to watch
Speaker 6: these people who have just been playing like kind of
Speaker 6: generic Star Wars characters and you get to watch.
Speaker 4: Them cook and it is a thing of beauty. The
Speaker 4: real freak gets to be let out because they're all freaks.
Speaker 2: There's that glorious moment when she realizes how fucked she
Speaker 2: is when he puts his finger on.
Speaker 4: Her hand.
Speaker 2: Like she's just an odd she's there for him to
Speaker 2: act off. She's right, she's a button.
Speaker 4: We can push you when, we can push you when
Speaker 4: we desire to. But you know, you don't go off
Speaker 4: by yourself. It's phenomena.
Speaker 2: And he's turning her off.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he has this line where he's like, you think
Speaker 6: I would come here for the death of an ISB clerk,
Speaker 6: Say say.
Speaker 4: The word it's phenomenal. Yees, say the word death star. Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, he turns her off and is like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we'll get it. We'll get by without you somehow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, hopefully, hopefully we'll be able to get by without you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's so funny because like he is just
Speaker 2: he is nuking her. There's nothing left after this. And
Speaker 2: also they can't say actually, actually he's dead in like two.
Speaker 4: Days, Target literate his ass with.
Speaker 2: The bargain's about to be sick dust and everyone else. Yes,
Speaker 2: everyone's a button.
Speaker 4: And it's crazy how much of like the is B
Speaker 4: gets totally wiped out, like the week of the Death
Speaker 4: Stars destruction like this shows like the real decline of
Speaker 4: the Empires. It's like this, like administrative, bureaucratic state that's
Speaker 4: been running the real day to day operations gets completely
Speaker 4: wiped out. And now these two like scith lunatics have
Speaker 4: to personally run everything themselves and they can't do it.
Speaker 4: They just can't. They were they were relying on all
Speaker 4: of like the republic holdovers that actually knew how to
Speaker 4: like run like run a state.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these guys like Laren and whatnot who were like
Speaker 2: harm job yes yeah yeah, oh part of gas and
Speaker 2: they all get iced out.
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, I mean, and this is this is a
Speaker 6: dynamic that I think, like because like everyone you were
Speaker 6: trained from birth in the US to know the like
Speaker 6: the revolution of ours a children.
Speaker 4: Thing, and the Empire ever talks about this.
Speaker 6: Just like no, the liquida should rate for these.
Speaker 4: People is astonishing.
Speaker 6: They also all like turn through these people, and it's
Speaker 6: like you can you can watch like Vader doing this
Speaker 6: to people. We're like Vader, Like Vader just keeps fucking
Speaker 6: killing his officers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, on his Superstar Destroyer all the time.
Speaker 2: Well, and and what we what we see throughout and
Speaker 2: Or is rebels fuck up all the time. They fail
Speaker 2: all the time. We see moments of failure from Luthen,
Speaker 2: we see them from Cassi in we see them from
Speaker 2: Draven and they guys at Indoor bail Mon Mathma. They
Speaker 2: all fuck up, and then they get the chance to
Speaker 2: learn from their mistakes and get better, which is ultimately
Speaker 2: why they win.
Speaker 4: And that privilege is never an extended no to the Empire.
Speaker 2: Even if you're really good, you're going to make some
Speaker 2: mistakes and the first time you do, Darth Vader chokes
Speaker 2: you to death, and so the Empire never gets better.
Speaker 6: It's just because this was a point in the old
Speaker 6: Canyon where like one of the one of the arguments
Speaker 6: of like why the rebels won the war was like
Speaker 6: X wings have shields, yeah, and tie fighters don't, and
Speaker 6: you could so you can make a mistake in an
Speaker 6: X wing, but if you make say a tie fighter,
Speaker 6: just doe. So the rebel pilots end up being better
Speaker 6: than the imperial ones because they survive. And there's there's
Speaker 6: this other like there are lots of these interesting parallels too,
Speaker 6: where like the death of the Administrative State was also
Speaker 6: sort of an old canon thing where it's like, so
Speaker 6: the way it plays out in the old canon's like
Speaker 6: at endor and this like is the thing that you
Speaker 6: canon too, I guess but like all of the best
Speaker 6: officers are trying to get promoted up the ladder, and
Speaker 6: so they're all on the Emperor the Emperor Superstar Destroyer. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and when that thing goes down, it's like yeah, it
Speaker 6: like and this is this is partially just a thing
Speaker 6: that also about like how imperial administration works is how
Speaker 6: centralized it is, is that they have single points of failure.
Speaker 4: And this is for example, Haberdijia fell.
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, they put.
Speaker 4: Up and it's like we don't have a state.
Speaker 6: Anymore because everything's so centralized and it being so centralized
Speaker 6: and everyone being so essential, and also you killing all
Speaker 6: these people because your organization doesn't tolerate a failure. It
Speaker 6: just it creates these discscading failure points where you knock
Speaker 6: out a couple of people on it and suddenly it's
Speaker 6: like everything's destroyed.
Speaker 4: I do want to return to the point of kind
Speaker 4: of how fastiss in like eth the zone at the end,
Speaker 4: because Tony has some quotes on that. I'm just gonna
Speaker 4: speed run through these next few kind of points here.
Speaker 4: The ice be tracks Klay's movements via hospital security cameras,
Speaker 4: even though she tries to avoid an evade detection. She
Speaker 4: is basically stuck on Corussant and starts hiding out in
Speaker 4: the old safe house, broadcasting an emergency pulse code to
Speaker 4: her comrades on Yavin. Meanwhile, a divorced Cassian and Melchie
Speaker 4: get drunk and start bullying their autistic robot friend while
Speaker 4: playing poker.
Speaker 6: So good, it's so funny cases, Hey, I know, oh,
Speaker 6: I know, I'm well aware. I am the sober autistic
Speaker 6: girl in every one of these things.
Speaker 2: Well, and they understand the most important thing about television
Speaker 2: sci fi, which is a robot awkwardly playing poker with
Speaker 2: a human friend.
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 4: Data K TWOSO holding hid me and.
Speaker 2: I love the K two s O is also constantly
Speaker 2: being like, you guys are drinking a lot, like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2: When they're about to go on this last mission, Cassian
Speaker 2: isnically drunk driving. Yeah, he is one and a half
Speaker 2: shot away from blacking out. It's time to pilot a spacecraft.
Speaker 7: Most most realistic insertions like no one will be this
Speaker 7: drunk again until like no, like many many years later
Speaker 7: in this galaxy, until like there's until like civil war generals, Yeah,
Speaker 7: are finding each other's next time, and we'll be this drunk.
Speaker 2: Ulyssie Simpson Grant is the last person to be as
Speaker 2: drunk as Cassian and or was in this scene.
Speaker 4: Woman's old like Luthen radio goes off with an as
Speaker 4: West message. She takes it to Cassian, who then yeah,
Speaker 4: drunk drives there, you way off Yavin.
Speaker 2: And let's let's have a shout out to our man
Speaker 2: Draven here. Who is he? He's kind of he's kind
Speaker 2: of he's kind of based like I love. I love
Speaker 2: that they managed to both make him be. He has
Speaker 2: to be the foil to Cassian because Cassian does not
Speaker 2: want this chain of command bullshit. He's so sympathetic, but
Speaker 2: he's not wrong, and he's not a dick. He's like, look, man,
Speaker 2: I've got like four hundred other freighters. I'm worried about
Speaker 2: right now, those shipments of rifles that I that I
Speaker 2: have to keep. I have to keep all of this
Speaker 2: in my head. I can't write any of it down.
Speaker 2: I haven't slept in days. I ate nothing, but Tom's like,
Speaker 2: I can't even drink hot coffee because otherwise my fucking
Speaker 2: ulcers light on fire. I don't even remember when I
Speaker 2: hate solid food. My ibs has ibs. Can you please
Speaker 2: stop taking off in the middle of the night.
Speaker 4: It's so funny that the thing Cassian does at the
Speaker 4: end of Rogue one, it's just like a regular currents
Speaker 4: on the face he's doing this, but no, like like
Speaker 4: consistently Draven, even even if he gets pissed off, the
Speaker 4: Cassian consistently has his backstill, which is I think, really
Speaker 4: really yes.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Krenik realizes how fucked they are and tries to get
Speaker 4: the entire ice B immobilized to locate Claia as she
Speaker 4: is probably in possession of the death Star intel quote.
Speaker 4: There will be no horizon to the scope of your inquiry.
Speaker 4: And this is where we have some of the most
Speaker 4: interesting stuff from Partigas and how he views like rebellions
Speaker 4: and revolutions as a disease. And this relates to some
Speaker 4: of his lines from season one where he describes the
Speaker 4: ISP as quote unquote healthcare providers. We treat sickness, We
Speaker 4: identify symptoms, We locate germs, whether they arise from within
Speaker 4: or have come from the outside. The longer we wait
Speaker 4: to identify a disorder, the harder it is to treat
Speaker 4: the disease unquote. And then when the ice P decides
Speaker 4: on what grounds they are looking to apprehend Clia Partogras
Speaker 4: proclaims that quote she's diseased. She escaped the hospital with
Speaker 4: infectious condition that threatens everyone with whom she may come
Speaker 4: into contact.
Speaker 6: I'm so glad they did this because this is such
Speaker 6: a core part of the ideology of fascism, right of
Speaker 6: seeing seeing that the body is a nation and there
Speaker 6: being these sort of like parasitic infections that are inside
Speaker 6: the nation that are like undermining it. That's that's like
Speaker 6: just the core of fascism. And you're just getting You're
Speaker 6: just getting to watch like the people in the middle
Speaker 6: of the Empire just literally trying to do the thing
Speaker 6: and in the most literal way possible, right Like they're
Speaker 6: just they're just coming out and saying what the ideology
Speaker 6: is and how it works.
Speaker 4: And I it may it may.
Speaker 6: Still be a level of metaphor that is slightly too
Speaker 6: high for the average Star Wars viewer, but they are
Speaker 6: just telling you the politics.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Now, while stuck in an ic be holding cell with
Speaker 4: with with an unbuttoned collar, the detra is crashing out
Speaker 4: and you can tell because the caller is unbuttoned, but
Speaker 4: somehow she is still able to give the ISB a
Speaker 4: lead to track Claya through her use of obscure radio signals. Yeah,
Speaker 4: one of the cool parts here is an Imperial radio
Speaker 4: technician is impressed at Lusen's radio setup and can and
Speaker 4: can't help but be excited when like learning how it works.
Speaker 4: But they say that Luthan targeted the storage files and
Speaker 4: the radio signal library when he burned the console, but
Speaker 4: still they were able to track Claya's pulsecode to a
Speaker 4: nearby apartment on Coruscant, and in preparation for the raid
Speaker 4: on the safe house, the ice Peed jams calms around
Speaker 4: the area right as Cassian, Melchi and K two arrive
Speaker 4: to extract Claia. As Cassie gets into the apartment and
Speaker 4: finds not Luthan but Claia and then tries to plead
Speaker 4: with her to come to Yavin. He also like kind
Speaker 4: of lambass Luthen for not coming to Yavin sooner because
Speaker 4: he couldn't swallow his pride, and Claia says, quote, thank
Speaker 4: the Galaxy, he didn't. He stayed for this that people
Speaker 4: in Yavin have to know what they're up against. Think,
Speaker 4: thank the Galaxy. He did it so good. All right,
Speaker 4: let's go on break and then we'll return to discuss
Speaker 4: the final episode. Okay, we are back. Episode twelve. Jetta
Speaker 4: kiber urso so Cass is trying to convince Clia to leave,
Speaker 4: like right now, right this very second, please dear clot
Speaker 4: come with me, and Claya is still like kind of
Speaker 4: pissed up with the whole situation, like Gavin after all
Speaker 4: these years, what a bitter ending. Cass tries to argue
Speaker 4: that if she comes, she's helping to keep Luthan alive,
Speaker 4: which she calls big words the Imperial Swat Team importantly
Speaker 4: not stormtroopers. Instead, these goofy s swat guys surround the
Speaker 4: apartment trying to locate Claya. As the ISB locates Cass, Claya,
Speaker 4: and Melchi, they throw a stun grenade, which, this is
Speaker 4: very interesting to me, does not really affect Cass and
Speaker 4: Melchie as much like Claya gets knocked out, but the
Speaker 4: Narkina five prison shocks conditioned Melchi and Cass against the
Speaker 4: sun grenade. Yeah, which is again phenomenal.
Speaker 2: It's so good and I think just generally like Claya
Speaker 2: has again Luthen has protected her from a lot of
Speaker 2: like the direct she doesn't have CTE. Right, if Cassie
Speaker 2: and had lived another thirty years, like his fucking brain
Speaker 2: would have been melting because he's been around too many
Speaker 2: goddamn explosions and he's been electrocute and the same things
Speaker 2: to a melchie, right, they just barely feel it.
Speaker 4: But to be fair, it's not like she hasn't blown
Speaker 4: up a bunch of things.
Speaker 6: She's had a distance from a distance, we just watch
Speaker 6: her liquidate an entire Imperial Security compliment to go kill Luthen.
Speaker 4: Like, it's not like she hasn't done this.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, But she's raised by an old soldier who
Speaker 2: does the responsible thing that you do if you have
Speaker 2: the experience, which is you tell the younger people, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: use your ear pro for no, give further back. I
Speaker 2: know you don't think you need to be, but get
Speaker 2: further back, like my ears ring all the time. Don't
Speaker 2: fucking take risks. I also kind of what I wonder
Speaker 2: if maybe there's a level of protection from the stand
Speaker 2: grad age you get again when you are still right
Speaker 2: on the edge of a blackout.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's compelling. So as K two just completely
Speaker 4: demolishes this Imperial team. Uh, the the i SB calls
Speaker 4: for backup, but everyone is spread too thin because they're
Speaker 4: searching for the emergency disease warrant from partagraphs.
Speaker 6: So good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Claya does get to Yavin, and here we see
Speaker 4: a lot more of like the tricky aspects of Yavin politics.
Speaker 4: Saw is kind of getting impossible to deal with. He
Speaker 4: is haffing way too much fuel.
Speaker 2: He's huffing an amount of fuel. I don't know if I'm
Speaker 2: gonna say it's too much, but I do. His insistence
Speaker 2: where they're dude, we know you're we know you're on
Speaker 2: Jetta's we know no idea, you.
Speaker 4: Don't know where I am?
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 4: Yeah's trying to argue with him about about how they're
Speaker 4: trying to get to the bottom of like the Imperial
Speaker 4: kiper minding on Jetta and they're like, we know you're
Speaker 4: on Jetta, and he tries to deny it. You don't
Speaker 4: know where I am? Yes, we do.
Speaker 6: There's also this great thing at the end of that
Speaker 6: where Moths like, we're just trying to help you. And
Speaker 6: then and Saw just cuss the line and I think
Speaker 6: it's Draven. Whatever the the Rebel intelligence. Ghoul in the
Speaker 6: room cuts the line and Moss was kind of just
Speaker 6: going like uh, and he goes, oh, no, we've absolutely.
Speaker 4: Been sending spies into his group, and.
Speaker 2: She's been We've been bugging him. He's He's absolutely right.
Speaker 6: It's something I think it's interesting about because, like it
Speaker 6: in Rogue one, Saw is like seems like such an
Speaker 6: unbelievably paranoid asshole.
Speaker 4: It's like, no, like the.
Speaker 6: Rebels really have been like trying to the rebels and
Speaker 6: the Empire really have been trying to infiltrate his group
Speaker 6: for like so fucking long that he's completely lost his
Speaker 6: mind from just like the paranoia.
Speaker 2: Also, he is canonically again a forty six.
Speaker 4: Puffing all that fuel really does rapid age you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's not great for you.
Speaker 4: So then we have, I guess the most frustrating part
Speaker 4: of the episode, Like good but frustrating to watch with
Speaker 4: this this this Rebel spokes Council meeting about Luthen and
Speaker 4: the Death Star intel. Oh my god, are these people annoying?
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, what pieces of shit? These people, These people
Speaker 4: who have like done basically nothing. Yeah, they're senators, Who's like,
Speaker 4: who who have who have defected to Yavin, and they
Speaker 4: don't know the cost of things that that they're actually
Speaker 4: dealing in. Bail says that that Luthen stayed on Corussants
Speaker 4: too long and again no, no Luthen state for this
Speaker 4: piece of information.
Speaker 5: M hm.
Speaker 4: And and Mon's getting kind of increasingly frustrated as everyone's
Speaker 4: kind of like bad talking Luthen. Again. We we We've
Speaker 4: been very clear on the show about Lusen as a
Speaker 4: complicated character with some people more pro Luthin than others.
Speaker 4: But and And a man like Mon herself, has a
Speaker 4: lot of reservations about Luthen, but yeah, she also knows
Speaker 4: is like her directly and everyone else are only here
Speaker 4: in part because of what he's done. And that's not
Speaker 4: saying he was right about every single thing, but he
Speaker 4: he but that still is true, right like he this
Speaker 4: is he is still very important to this. And everyone's
Speaker 4: being quite dismissive of Cassian and and and the intel
Speaker 4: from Luthen and Cassian kind of gets you know, put
Speaker 4: into put into confinement, and and gets dismissed and requests
Speaker 4: to visit Claya in the hospital. And this is where
Speaker 4: Mon finally speaks up and immediately grants him permission because
Speaker 4: like she's she she knows all these people, like like
Speaker 4: the she's and she's the only one on on this
Speaker 4: little council that like knows all of these people and
Speaker 4: knows like how much they have sacrificed. Yeah, but still
Speaker 4: like mon Mon is still like a good operator here.
Speaker 4: And she asked her cousin Vell to like talk with
Speaker 4: cassiean and like suss out how real this death Star
Speaker 4: intel is. When Belle does this, she doesn't try to
Speaker 4: do it like covertly. She likes talks to Cassie ad
Speaker 4: very like flatly, being like hey, like mom, set me
Speaker 4: here to try to figure out if if this is legit?
Speaker 4: Is is this legit? And they discuss the intel. Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: Claia gets up from like her like medical medical bay
Speaker 4: and starts walking around Yavin in the rain and like,
Speaker 4: oh my god, somebody please hug her, like someone like
Speaker 4: do something like she should not be left alone, like
Speaker 4: she's had one of the one of the most traumatic
Speaker 4: days of her life. Someone like take care of her.
Speaker 4: And Bell runs into Claia and like Vell and Clay
Speaker 4: have had like kind of a kind of like a
Speaker 4: dicey relationship, but like in this moment we see like
Speaker 4: just the importance of like sheer solidarity and Vell like
Speaker 4: cares for her, gets her to like cover, gives her
Speaker 4: like a place to sleep, and it's a really touching scene.
Speaker 6: And I want to talk about this moment a little
Speaker 6: bit because I think it's an interesting character thing with
Speaker 6: Claia here, where Claya, who had this entire show, is
Speaker 6: the only character who has to put together the entire time. Yeah,
Speaker 6: Like even partigast At like the very end starts to
Speaker 6: sort of crack, right, Claia is the one character who,
Speaker 6: like when everyone is falling apart around her, when Andre
Speaker 6: is falling apart, when when like even when Luthen is
Speaker 6: falling apart, Clay, Clay is always on it, fuck you
Speaker 6: pulling myself together. You have to hold this together. Yeah,
Speaker 6: And it's like her and you have this bot like
Speaker 6: her task. This is when she's finally is able to break. Yeah,
Speaker 6: she's been holding in so much. Yeah yeah, yeah, Like
Speaker 6: one her task is finally over and so she can
Speaker 6: like let herself fall apart. And two it's like a
Speaker 6: thing that could finally actually drive her to fall apart
Speaker 6: is the fact that she just had to fucking to
Speaker 6: kill Luthan kill the person who raised her. Yeah, she
Speaker 6: had to fucking kill Lutheran and then get out. And
Speaker 6: you can see this thing where that I think is
Speaker 6: like very familiar to a lot of people were like
Speaker 6: she's been. And she also has to hold all this
Speaker 6: information in her head because if she forgets any of
Speaker 6: the information that she's been told by Lutheran, the rebellion
Speaker 6: is doomed. And and and when Ander like first meets
Speaker 6: her on Corrusons, she's just like spilling it out, springing
Speaker 6: it out. She's out jumble of words. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 6: like and it's and it's a thing where like she's
Speaker 6: she's finally reached the point where it's like she has
Speaker 6: one last thing to do and she can fall apart,
Speaker 6: and then she can finally, instead of having to be
Speaker 6: the one who's caring for literally everyone and holding literally
Speaker 6: everyone else together, she can finally like.
Speaker 2: Rest.
Speaker 6: And she doesn't know how to do that because she's
Speaker 6: always had to be the one who's holding everything together
Speaker 6: this entire time.
Speaker 4: I do love the moment when Lutherin first gives her
Speaker 4: the information and he like forces her to like repeat
Speaker 4: it back to him, like make make sure you can
Speaker 4: you can express it to me. And then she does
Speaker 4: the same thing to Cassian, and Cassian like doesn't like
Speaker 4: Cassian doesn't repeat it back to her. And but yeah,
Speaker 4: like like that small like you know, like like you
Speaker 4: have to have like a ritual, you have to have
Speaker 4: like you have you have have like a protocol to
Speaker 4: make sure you actually like to make sure that I
Speaker 4: know you actually have this information, you need to like
Speaker 4: express it back to me. Yeah, it's it's just a
Speaker 4: nice little short moment. In the next morning, we see
Speaker 4: Cassian taking care of Bix's plants. Good for him. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And then this is when cass and Vell talk and
Speaker 4: they say that they're gonna drink to luthen Justice once,
Speaker 4: which again Cassiean's drinking right in the morning, good time.
Speaker 2: As soon as you like he does every day.
Speaker 4: Yes, But but they say, like we can't toast them
Speaker 4: all like Lieutenant Gornmic Santa Feryx, Marva Gorman, the El Donnis.
Speaker 4: And one one short little tidbit here Vell talks about
Speaker 4: how there's people falsely claiming that they were part of
Speaker 4: the El Donnie crew, which is the most accurate thing
Speaker 4: I have ever seen, where.
Speaker 2: They're like everybody keeps taking credit for this, and she's like, man,
Speaker 2: if someone did that in front of me there and.
Speaker 4: I killed him. Yeah, I was like, they're the only
Speaker 4: two people from the old Donnie Raids still still live,
Speaker 4: and like, yeah, like the idea that we're getting like
Speaker 4: rebel stolen valors, but very realistic, you know. I actually
Speaker 4: I actually punched Richard Spencer as like as like a
Speaker 4: fourteen year old.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very weird, pretty cool. Yeah.
Speaker 4: We then start hearing Nemeck's manifesto playing, and it's unclear
Speaker 4: that if there's playing it like for the show, but
Speaker 4: then we yeah, but then we realized that it's partographs
Speaker 4: listening in the Imperial Security Bureaus briefing room, and it's
Speaker 4: it's a really wonderful thing to return to. Yeah, and
Speaker 4: one of protographs is like you know, Underlings walks up
Speaker 4: to him and says like it just keeps spreading, doesn't it,
Speaker 4: And he says it's been hard to contain again, using
Speaker 4: this like a disease like rhetoric. He then asks for
Speaker 4: a moment to collect himself and then shoots himself in
Speaker 4: the head. This is one of the most fascinating parts
Speaker 4: of the show, like like knowing like the kind of
Speaker 4: the tear that he's going to face for like for failing,
Speaker 4: while also being confronted with like how much of his
Speaker 4: work for the Empire has been worth it? Like it's
Speaker 4: it's not his emotions here are not clearly laid out
Speaker 4: to you, because it's more interesting for you to think
Speaker 4: about them yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I've seen everything from like, oh, he realizes
Speaker 2: he was wrong to he realizes like the Empire is
Speaker 2: the disease or just he realizes the disease got out
Speaker 2: of control, like more than they had realized.
Speaker 4: But either the punishment he could be facing from the
Speaker 4: Empires not worth it like he is he is he's
Speaker 4: a career man. And why would he be sent to
Speaker 4: Narkina five? Like he is not going to El Salvador. Finally,
Speaker 4: Cassian is sent to meet a source on Kafring. That's
Speaker 4: that's one of the guys infiltrating saws operation to learn
Speaker 4: the location of Gala Urso, the designer at the Death Star.
Speaker 4: And we have this final montage across all of our characters.
Speaker 4: We have Man and Vell having breakfast with the grunts.
Speaker 4: You have divorced Parrin flying flying around on Coruscant. You
Speaker 4: have Dedra in a Narkina prison, and Claya gets to
Speaker 4: see the life of the rebellion, Saws at Jedda, Kredit
Speaker 4: is at the death Star be too, Emo has a
Speaker 4: new friend, and Bix is holding a baby watching the sunrise.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 4: So I want to talk mostly about Bix here, but
Speaker 4: first I think mon eating with the rebel troops is
Speaker 4: like very cool to have her just like with the
Speaker 4: regular people. She's not like with like bail and like
Speaker 4: not like like often like a special like counselor's room.
Speaker 4: She's like like just with everyone. We'll also talk a
Speaker 4: little bit about Claya here as well, but I think
Speaker 4: I think I want to just do Bix to start,
Speaker 4: if that's okay, sure, sure, yeah, yeah yeah. So Tony
Speaker 4: has talked a lot about this ending scene and about
Speaker 4: how he wanted to end with a sense of hope
Speaker 4: and like the hope for like life beyond you know,
Speaker 4: the empire, like like life beyond imperial oppression, and and
Speaker 4: Bix with the babies was to like symbolize this, and
Speaker 4: Bix is literally like looking at the sunrise right like
Speaker 4: the and this this metaphor of the sunrise has been
Speaker 4: something for Luthin, how he's never gonna get you actually
Speaker 4: get to see like life beyond the Empire, and he
Speaker 4: knows that he sacrificed that. It also calls into calls
Speaker 4: into view a Cassian dying at like the false sunrise
Speaker 4: of the Death Star. And I've seen I guess some
Speaker 4: people upset about Bicks just you know, being like off
Speaker 4: planet with a baby and feeling this is a kind
Speaker 4: of like relegating her character. And I think that there's
Speaker 4: a lot of things going on here. This show goes
Speaker 4: so so like way way beyond like simple politics of
Speaker 4: like representation and like voc casting right, which can often
Speaker 4: end up feeling like shallow boxes to check, because this
Speaker 4: show actually like depicts things like carceral injustice, manufactured consent
Speaker 4: for genocide, how structural patriarchy drives imperial oppression. Like the
Speaker 4: depth of the political mechanisms the show is tackling, I
Speaker 4: think is so much more worthwhile, and it's it's not
Speaker 4: immune to criticism for those reasons. But I think that
Speaker 4: aspect can be overlooked oddly. I think it'd we kind
Speaker 4: of like take for granted, like how good the show
Speaker 4: is at so many aspects, so many aspects of politics,
Speaker 4: and like this show specifically has women and in so
Speaker 4: many different roles beyond like the you know pop feminist
Speaker 4: girl boss Badass, which has been linked to Star Wars
Speaker 4: through Lea Ahsoka and to a lesser extent like Ray
Speaker 4: and Jim, and this trobe is itself kind of low
Speaker 4: key misogynistic. But in and Or, we have mon Mathma,
Speaker 4: we have Vel, we have Sinto, we have Claya, we
Speaker 4: have Dedro, we have Marvel, we have Bix, And I
Speaker 4: think motherhood is something that characters should be allowed to embrace.
Speaker 4: And like motherhoods always had a very tricky relationship with
Speaker 4: Star Wars because of Padme, But like, being a mom
Speaker 4: is not the issue with Bix's character. No, you can
Speaker 4: still critique how she was relegated to becoming like the
Speaker 4: punching bag for the show, but being a mother is
Speaker 4: like not bad. There's a quote from the Palestinian militant
Speaker 4: Leila Khalid like revolution must mean life, also every aspect
Speaker 4: of life, and she specifically referenced motherhood. And like Bix
Speaker 4: is a fighter, she is a survivor. She fights her
Speaker 4: way out of depression and PTSD, and she does spend
Speaker 4: years in age and revolutionary action, and yes, it may
Speaker 4: it may have been nice to see more of that
Speaker 4: revolutionary action on screen. We do see some it might
Speaker 4: have been nice, but this is also write a limited
Speaker 4: series show with a ton of characters, like four hundred
Speaker 4: speaking roles, and yeah, that is not been afforded to everybody,
Speaker 4: and that can be unfortunate. But I think I understand
Speaker 4: what's going on with this character, and I do not
Speaker 4: think the problem is the baby itself. I think that's
Speaker 4: actually fine, and her deciding after years of fighting to
Speaker 4: take like a few years off to have a baby
Speaker 4: should be viewed as a choice that like she's like
Speaker 4: allowed to make. I guess.
Speaker 2: I also think there's there's something like there's a lot
Speaker 2: of agency in the choice to like I'm done, but
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna make that decision for this other person
Speaker 2: for Cassian. Yeah yeah, but I don't know like it
Speaker 2: scanned to me. I do like thinking that in this
Speaker 2: last scene is where like watching these last bits of
Speaker 2: all our characters, you know, not only people have pointed
Speaker 2: out is Cassie and going to be dead in like
Speaker 2: two days, along with Ben Mendelssohn and shortly thereafter grandmav Tarkin,
Speaker 2: but like all the other stuff that's canonically going down,
Speaker 2: like right right as fucking Clea sees that first sunrise,
Speaker 2: Like you have to imagine Han Solo somewhere is doing
Speaker 2: a line off of like a space prostitute in some
Speaker 2: sleazy bar. It's like four am in the morning where
Speaker 2: he is. He hasn't slept in days. You know, Luke
Speaker 2: Skywalker is looking at his on uncle being like, well,
Speaker 2: they're never going to be lit on fire, obviously. Just
Speaker 2: beautiful to.
Speaker 4: Kind of reiterate on the point about how like fascism
Speaker 4: that also eats its own is something that Tony has
Speaker 4: discussed before, specifically in relation to like Cyril and Dedra
Speaker 4: and protographs.
Speaker 10: Right.
Speaker 4: Tony says, like quote, fascism doesn't just take down the oppressed,
Speaker 4: It doesn't just come for the people trying to control.
Speaker 4: It inevitably destroys the people who have worked the hardest
Speaker 4: to build it. And that's been true all through history
Speaker 4: as well. In a different interview, he says, the empire
Speaker 4: is just shattering, fragment and grabbing, destroyed and taking, and
Speaker 4: then the people that are doing it on the imperial
Speaker 4: side are all isolated. They think they're part of something,
Speaker 4: but really they're not. Look at what happens to Dedra,
Speaker 4: Look at what happens to Potographs, Look what happens to
Speaker 4: Cyril Karn he tries to believe in the dream. It's
Speaker 4: the carelessness and the cruelty and the lack of empathy.
Speaker 4: That's what I'm pitching. Even in this little final montage,
Speaker 4: we have this brief shot of Parin, which is interesting.
Speaker 4: That's man Mathma's a strange husband, I guess. And Tony
Speaker 4: has discussed paren as well, and during like the wedding scene,
Speaker 4: we learned that that as a kid, like while he
Speaker 4: was in school, he was kind of a a quote
Speaker 4: unquote political fire brand, and he has sacrificed that a
Speaker 4: little bit. Tony says, quote there are a lot of
Speaker 4: sacrifices in this show, all variety of sacrifices. He's made
Speaker 4: his sacrifice for hedonism. He doesn't look happy in that
Speaker 4: car unquote. Now I do like the little wrap up
Speaker 4: we have we have on parents' character there.
Speaker 2: Although I also love if you'll notice he's with the
Speaker 2: wife of the Golden daughter off too. It's that you
Speaker 2: have to assume has gotten purged at this point because
Speaker 2: they realized that he had been funneling funds to the rebellion.
Speaker 2: But I I do like we even get that this
Speaker 2: is this is the only little private rebellion that he
Speaker 2: can manage right now as he's he's fucking this guy's wife.
Speaker 4: Everyone has, Everyone has their own rebellion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh man.
Speaker 4: I guess I finally, I at least for me, I
Speaker 4: guess part of me wanted to see more of like
Speaker 4: the development of Yaffin as like how like revolutionary celles
Speaker 4: come together. And Tony has addressed this as well, quote
Speaker 4: Yavin makes me nervous if you want to know the truth.
Speaker 4: There's things about Yevin that make me nervous, and the
Speaker 4: logic about Yavin that makes me nervous. Even within the
Speaker 4: Star Wars cannon, the security there and how some people
Speaker 4: know about it but the ice Bea doesn't know about it.
Speaker 4: And there's some places where you don't want to poke
Speaker 4: to aggressively because you don't really want to get into
Speaker 4: the undercarriage. That was a place where I didn't really
Speaker 4: want to get into the undercarriage very much. That's that
Speaker 4: is that is understandable. And then finally on Clay and
Speaker 4: Luthen and specifically like Clia's last look there, like in
Speaker 4: the morning after her walk in the rain, after all
Speaker 4: of this, you know, frustration between like Luthen and Yavin.
Speaker 4: Tony says, quote Cleia and Luthen are over amplifying the
Speaker 4: distrust and hate in the same way that some of
Speaker 4: the people on the Alliance are over ramping the disagreement.
Speaker 4: I think one of my favorite moments in that montage
Speaker 4: at the end is when clay A wakes up the
Speaker 4: next morning after her night in the rain, and she
Speaker 4: looks out and sees that there's people running and people
Speaker 4: caring supplies, and she's seen how big Yavin is. And
Speaker 4: there's this mona Lisa's smile that she has that's almost
Speaker 4: beginning to take pleasure in some sense of ownership of
Speaker 4: what she's helped create. She realizes how much of a contributor,
Speaker 4: how much of an investor, she and Luthen are in Yavin.
Speaker 4: She's watching the people there and just a little moment
Speaker 4: of pride comes on her face that she warms up
Speaker 4: just a little bit and begins to take ownership of
Speaker 4: the rebellion. That's everything to me, unquote.
Speaker 6: There's something I love about Yavin. Well, you get to
Speaker 6: see sort of the beauty of it and the beauty
Speaker 6: of what's going to destroy the empire where it's like
Speaker 6: you keep just seeing like people who survived all of
Speaker 6: this shit and make it to yav And like Meshi
Speaker 6: is like the other survivor of the Narkina FIV like
Speaker 6: prison break, right, and he's like one of the people
Speaker 6: going on with the indoor the what's the what's the
Speaker 6: what's the other rebellion twinks name the kid throw the
Speaker 6: kitty through the brit Yeah, Willman, Willman's French resistance girlfriend makes.
Speaker 4: It there, and like all of these like and you.
Speaker 6: Get this this little microcosmos, like all of these people
Speaker 6: who are like the survivors of all of these imperial
Speaker 6: sort of like horrors like have gathered in this place
Speaker 6: and it's like these are the people who are going
Speaker 6: to destroy the empire. And I think something really beautiful
Speaker 6: about that. And then I also think there's a really
Speaker 6: interesting thing in in the Yavun politics we do see,
Speaker 6: which is that like you know, so like I get
Speaker 6: I am notoriously the shows like luth and hater. I'm
Speaker 6: not really a hater of Luthen. I just I just
Speaker 6: don't want the most annoying people in the world to
Speaker 6: try to replicate him in real life. But also like
Speaker 6: the central rebel command is a shit show. It's complete disasterate.
Speaker 6: They're like top down hierarchical command from that council. Those
Speaker 6: people at every every single instance of this attempt to
Speaker 6: lose the boar, Right, they're too pissed off at Luthan
Speaker 6: to like listen to the information that he literally fucking
Speaker 6: died to give them, right, Like this entire operation a
Speaker 6: bit about giving them the information to destroy the super
Speaker 6: weapon that will destroy the empire, and they don't want
Speaker 6: to listen to it. They like in Rogue one, like
Speaker 6: that council tries to surrender, like they literally vote to
Speaker 6: be like yeah, sorry, we can't fight the Empire.
Speaker 4: They're too strong.
Speaker 6: And then like the rebel military defects and this is
Speaker 6: not the fact, like they say disrection, they go right,
Speaker 6: they rebel Yeah, they go rogue and they and they're
Speaker 6: the ones you do this. And I think it's this
Speaker 6: interesting thing here. As much as Gilray doesn't want to
Speaker 6: like touch Yavin that much, there's this there's an interesting
Speaker 6: political dynamic of like yeah, okay, so like we finally
Speaker 6: developed this sort of like centralized political force capable of
Speaker 6: bring all these things together, and they're useless. They are
Speaker 6: worse than useless. They they they nearly destroy the rebellion
Speaker 6: that they had been sort of like trying to together
Speaker 6: on multiple occasions. And they're only stopped by doing that
Speaker 6: by these sort of like unhinged gorilla like people who
Speaker 6: are completely out of control and like these like rogue
Speaker 6: operator people who.
Speaker 2: Are fundamentally like the the inheritors to Luthan's legacy, right,
Speaker 2: like which is Cassie in Yeah.
Speaker 6: By the actual rebels, not the fucking senators. And I
Speaker 6: think that's like a because I've been I've been seeing
Speaker 6: there's been I've been seeing some small attempts to like
Speaker 6: recuperate mon Mathma from this.
Speaker 4: It's like, no, Matha's the only senator who backs the.
Speaker 6: Like go for it, like we're we're carrying out this
Speaker 6: ray to see the desk star plants, like she's the
Speaker 6: only one, right, And I think there's this is this
Speaker 6: is like the fund the actual fundamental break here is
Speaker 6: between these people. Is it's like when when when the
Speaker 6: chips are down, are you willing to fight? And most
Speaker 6: of the sort of like like liberal sort of like
Speaker 6: defecting noble leadership isn't except for Mathma, and she should.
Speaker 6: And so it's like I want to go down fighting,
Speaker 6: and that's.
Speaker 2: The fundament I'm gonna go down swinging. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: And that's the fundamental difference between like someone who politically
Speaker 6: I don't like, like the Marquis Lafayet, like that motherfucker
Speaker 6: went down swinging like he. That man, at every single
Speaker 6: point of his life was always funding an insurrection, was
Speaker 6: always like I will take let's.
Speaker 2: They're a punch. Let's they're a punch. Yeah.
Speaker 6: And then and it's like you can compare that to
Speaker 6: like the German liberals or like like the liberals who
Speaker 6: when Pinochet like takes power, were like, yeah, when when
Speaker 6: Pinochet called them all to like report to like have
Speaker 6: meetings with the government, they all went, yeah, we're gonna
Speaker 6: go report to like talk to the secret police, and
Speaker 6: they all got like killed, right, And that's the different
Speaker 6: between those those two things, and that I think is
Speaker 6: a really really is a crucial political distinction to draw
Speaker 6: out is like it's not even necessarily like your class background,
Speaker 6: it's not even necessarily like what your politics are because
Speaker 6: a lot of these people believe the same things. It's
Speaker 6: like when when the chips come down, will you fight
Speaker 6: or will you try to surrender?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 6: And that's the thing I think, I don't know like that,
Speaker 6: that's to me, the best part of and Or is
Speaker 6: like that. And I think that's the part of it
Speaker 6: that's like being set up in this episode that I love.
Speaker 4: The very last thing I'll say, because this has gone
Speaker 4: on wait for quite a while, I'm sorry, is like
Speaker 4: I was talking with a friend after we watch these episodes,
Speaker 4: and we were talking about how this show really, in
Speaker 4: the end is a call for internationalism. Planets are stand
Speaker 4: ins for different countries and different cities, right, and like
Speaker 4: they aren't doing the full revolution on Correscant, like the
Speaker 4: Center for Imperial Power right the Imperial Core. There is
Speaker 4: some organization happening there, right, Like there is people based
Speaker 4: out of there. There's networking, right, like Luten's intel shop
Speaker 4: is there. But most of like the physical arm struggle
Speaker 4: is on other planets. The first base for the Alliance
Speaker 4: is built on the aff and four, but the rebellion
Speaker 4: isn't initially like overthrowing the Empire on Correscant, though through
Speaker 4: their interplanetary efforts, the whole galaxy gets liberated and the
Speaker 4: seat of power can be seized. And that's sort of
Speaker 4: like galaxy wide cooperation mirroring like a worldwide cooperation that
Speaker 4: we have like really like lost in the past past
Speaker 4: few decades. Yeah, I think is one of I think
Speaker 4: one of the points that that should be taken away
Speaker 4: from from and or here.
Speaker 2: Yep, all right, well I think that's our episode.
Speaker 10: Yep, bye everybody.
Speaker 4: This is it could happen here Executive Disorder, our weekly
Speaker 4: newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world,
Speaker 4: and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today
Speaker 4: I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Stout, and Sophie Lichterman.
Speaker 4: This episode, we are covering the week of May fifteen
Speaker 4: to May twenty. First, Joe Biden has prostate cancer. There's
Speaker 4: anti natalist terrorism, and the DHS is maybe gonna do
Speaker 4: a reality TV show. Probably not, but it's a bad plan.
Speaker 4: How are we doing this week?
Speaker 1: That was a trifector from hell?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so bad.
Speaker 4: This one's so bad.
Speaker 6: It's really I have to do the laughing like right here,
Speaker 6: because good lord, like, oh many many of these weeks
Speaker 6: are bad.
Speaker 4: This one's particularly bad.
Speaker 1: I don't know DHS reality show.
Speaker 4: We'll get to that at the at the ending segment. Sure, Hey,
Speaker 4: this is Gear from the Future cutting in. We recorded
Speaker 4: this a few hours before some pretty major news the
Speaker 4: shooting of two Israeli embassy staff in DC. We will
Speaker 4: be talking about this in next week's Executive Disorder, as
Speaker 4: well as the new budget bill, which targets trans healthcare.
Speaker 4: Now back to the episode. I think let's start with,
Speaker 4: you know, a brief acknowledgment of Joe Biden's prostate cancer.
Speaker 4: What was Jill doing to him? Oh?
Speaker 5: By god, Garrison, you could have said that start at
Speaker 5: the bottom, man, you didn't.
Speaker 4: I'm allowed to say that because I'm the most gay
Speaker 4: guy coded person on the podcast, which is saying something
Speaker 4: so so yes then and now, because we live in
Speaker 4: a truly sick world. Scott Adams couldn't even let.
Speaker 1: He could, He couldn't let him have his moment.
Speaker 4: He couldn't even let Joe Biden have his moment. This
Speaker 4: anti Biden hatred has transcended so far that Scott Adams
Speaker 4: couldn't even let Biden have his moment, and announced the
Speaker 4: same day that Scott Adams has the exact same type
Speaker 4: of prostate cancer. So to two down, Biden down, Dilbert down,
Speaker 4: Big week for prostate cancer and bloy.
Speaker 1: How do you have people been weird about it on
Speaker 1: the internet.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm not going to get into how long he
Speaker 4: maybe has known he's had it. He's he's had skin
Speaker 4: cancer moved before. I think that ship has mostly sailed.
Speaker 4: I think our opinions on Biden are pretty are pretty well,
Speaker 4: pretty well documented. Yeah, so I don't think we can
Speaker 4: dedicate much more, much more time to this.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 6: The one important note that I will say is if
Speaker 6: you have a prostate get check for prostate cancer. Yeah, like, yeah,
Speaker 6: get the screening.
Speaker 4: It's good, it'll help.
Speaker 5: You unless you are over seventy five, in which case
Speaker 5: I think most people don't get screened for it right
Speaker 5: because it's slow gross.
Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure Biden's over seventy five.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's why somewhat I thought it was somewhat remarkable
Speaker 5: part of the issue there.
Speaker 1: I mean, all I can say is about once a
Speaker 1: month I think about how at the DNC those thank
Speaker 1: you Joe Chance lasted four seconds.
Speaker 4: I have actually been thinking about the thank you Joe
Speaker 4: Chance for a lot of this time yes week. Frankly,
Speaker 4: you had to be there. Yeah, it's one of the
Speaker 4: most it's one of the most horrifying, horrifying things. Hm
Speaker 4: as they let this like very clearly dying old man
Speaker 4: out to pasture, because like you know, kinds are diagnosis
Speaker 4: very clear, he was in some degree of decline. We
Speaker 4: don't need to retread this. This is this is pretty
Speaker 4: well known. But no, I have been thinking about how
Speaker 4: that whole auditorium broke out and chanting thank you Joe
Speaker 4: for like nearly five.
Speaker 1: Minutes, and then the following the rest of the week
Speaker 1: not a single mention it.
Speaker 4: Was done that day. It was wild anyways, So yeah,
Speaker 4: ri Ip Dilbert, I guess let's move on to anti
Speaker 4: natalist terrorism. So I've learned this week that people don't
Speaker 4: know what anti natalism is, which, as someone who grew
Speaker 4: up in Portland, is kind of surprising to me because
Speaker 4: there was some very very prominent, like anti needalist protesters
Speaker 4: who had set up downtown outside of Powell's books pretty frequently,
Speaker 4: and we kind of all grew accustomed to them, and honestly,
Speaker 4: I'm a little bit sympathetic to their arguments. I understand
Speaker 4: where they're coming from. Anti natalism is to belief that
Speaker 4: procreation is unethical. This could be based on the idea
Speaker 4: that there's been like this rapid increase in human population,
Speaker 4: which is done extensive damage to the planet, or that's
Speaker 4: simply being born is inherently a non consensual act, especially
Speaker 4: being born into a world with high levels of suffering.
Speaker 4: So these people opt to do not have children. As
Speaker 4: this ethical standpoint, everyone's entitled to their own choice. You
Speaker 4: don't need to agree with it, but whatever. Now, Interestingly,
Speaker 4: this past weekend there was a quote unquote active terrorism
Speaker 4: that has been linked to anti natalist philosophy. I'm just
Speaker 4: talking about this as it is an instance of kind
Speaker 4: of the brain ratification of this entire society and the
Speaker 4: reditification of terrorism, combined with this growing sense of like
Speaker 4: nihilism driving violent extremist actions. No one was killed except
Speaker 4: for the perpetrator alleged for perpetrator in this incident, but
Speaker 4: I still think this is worth talking about as it
Speaker 4: can be seen as in a sequence of weird terrorism.
Speaker 4: This is something that Roberts can be working on on
Speaker 4: for a piece later later down the line. Right, this
Speaker 4: is not the first car bomb this year. We had
Speaker 4: the Tesla Tesla cyber truck explosion earlier, which was similarly
Speaker 4: kind of a weird, a weird incident. Yeah, that one was.
Speaker 6: I think that one, I think was the official inauguration
Speaker 6: of the years of lead paint which were perpetually living
Speaker 6: in now.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, I mean the gas leak heear if you will, Yeah,
Speaker 4: so yes. On Saturday May seventeenth, the car bomb went
Speaker 4: off outside a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California, killing
Speaker 4: the suspect, twenty five year old man named Guy Edwards Barkas.
Speaker 4: The FBI is calling this a quote unquote intentional act
Speaker 4: of terrorism. The clinic was closed when the explosion happened.
Speaker 4: The building was severely damaged, but no embryos were harmed.
Speaker 4: Investigators believe that the suspect attempted to live stream the bombing,
Speaker 4: with a website being found online that appeared to be
Speaker 4: in connection to the incident, where the suspect describes himself
Speaker 4: as a quot unquote pro mortalist.
Speaker 5: Slightly slightly different from man.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 4: It is more of an affirmative version of anti natalism,
Speaker 4: where you want to actually take concrete steps to like
Speaker 4: decrease the population of the planet, not necessarily in a
Speaker 4: way that's like promoting like the mass killing of individuals.
Speaker 4: He says, quote understand, your death is already guarantee, and
Speaker 4: you can thank your parents for that one. All a
Speaker 4: pro mortalist is saying is let's make it happen sooner
Speaker 4: rather than later to prevent your future suffering and more importantly,
Speaker 4: the suffering your existence will cause to all other sentient beings.
Speaker 4: That's his definition of a promortalist. It can be linked
Speaker 4: to other philosophies that encourage like self harm and ending
Speaker 4: your own life as a conscious choice. On this website,
Speaker 4: he discussed his goal of quote sterilizing this planet of
Speaker 4: the disease of life unquote great and declared the need
Speaker 4: for a quote unquote war against pro lifers. His website
Speaker 4: also highlights other philosophies such as negative utilitarianism, ethlism, abolitionist veganism. Quote. Basically,
Speaker 4: philosophies that have realized religion is are worded that there
Speaker 4: is objective value in the universe and it lies in
Speaker 4: the harm being experienced by sentient beings. So although it
Speaker 4: may seem quote unquote dark, it's the polar opposite of
Speaker 4: nonsense like nihilism unquote. Negative utilitarianism is something that comes
Speaker 4: up a few times on his site as well. This
Speaker 4: is the viewpoint that instead of positive utilitarianism where we
Speaker 4: try to maximize, you know, human pleasure, this is trying
Speaker 4: to minimize suffering, human suffering and like the suffering tied
Speaker 4: to existence and the like aggurate suffering as well as
Speaker 4: if you if there's more people and there's going to
Speaker 4: be more suffering, so you should both make choices in
Speaker 4: your own life that that may that may limit your suffering,
Speaker 4: but also make sure that you don't reproduce, because then
Speaker 4: even more suffering will happen because of your actions through
Speaker 4: your children.
Speaker 6: This is the most bare is shit I've ever heard
Speaker 6: of my entire goddamn very West Coast.
Speaker 5: This is yeah, like twenty nine Palms is not It's
Speaker 5: not the West Coast.
Speaker 4: Like a lot of this is in conversation with like
Speaker 4: the rationalist subculture rationalist it's like it offers different solutions.
Speaker 6: These these people shouldn't be allowed to use computers for
Speaker 6: like fifty years, Like just a band on California using computers.
Speaker 4: This is all like deeply online stuff like these are
Speaker 4: these are popular websites, subreddits like YouTube channels. These are
Speaker 4: people who are dealing with like, you know, pretty intense
Speaker 4: existentialism depression, who then channel it into this like semi
Speaker 4: niche like online community and online philosophy. Now, Guy's best friend,
Speaker 4: a self described quote vegan rad femme, anti datist, recently
Speaker 4: arranged her own suicide by having her boyfriend to shoot
Speaker 4: her while she.
Speaker 1: Was what what what?
Speaker 5: Correct?
Speaker 4: Yes, this was This was the themer's best friend who
Speaker 4: died very recently, like last month. And Guy claims that
Speaker 4: they were both quote unquote anti sex missandrists with borderline
Speaker 4: personality disorder, and he admits that her death quote unquote
Speaker 4: put him over the edge.
Speaker 6: This is the most. This is the most online like
Speaker 6: like like best best friend anti natalist has her boyfriend
Speaker 6: shoot her is the most.
Speaker 4: Even though her her anti natalist tumblr page has like
Speaker 4: women loving women, anti gender ideology, miss andry stuff and
Speaker 4: yet still has a sister gender boyfriend. In many such cases,
Speaker 4: so yeah, you can see how this type of a
Speaker 4: community gets like fostered, and people make online friends and
Speaker 4: then encourage their own self destruction. Yeah, you have to
Speaker 4: destroy the Internet. A quote that he has on his
Speaker 4: website is quote I've known for years now that I
Speaker 4: wasn't going to allow myself to make it past my
Speaker 4: twenties unquote, And like this is a sentiment I hear
Speaker 4: even a lot of like young people saying, is it's
Speaker 4: like this like belief that they're not going to survive
Speaker 4: their twenties, Like like their belief that like the world
Speaker 4: is so bent on destruction that I'm probably not going
Speaker 4: to make it out of my twenties right now, and
Speaker 4: that that that changes the kind of choices that young
Speaker 4: people are making. And this is this is getting increasingly common.
Speaker 5: Yeah, for sure. I think it's a very different world
Speaker 5: to be growing up in than like the late teenage,
Speaker 5: early twenties of you know, like millennial people.
Speaker 4: The millennial world. It's very it's very different. Yeah, And
Speaker 4: you even had manifestations of this in that millennial era, right,
Speaker 4: I think it got kind of pushed into this like
Speaker 4: like nihilistic school shooter culture, which you still see remnants
Speaker 4: of now in the true krime of community. There is
Speaker 4: some crossover between an act like this and and some
Speaker 4: of like the school shooter fandom, the Columbiner stuff, especially
Speaker 4: considering the resurgence of Columbiner culture that we're currently seeing
Speaker 4: right now in the United States. But yeah, the general
Speaker 4: sense of like widespread dread and the interconnectedness of this
Speaker 4: is more unique.
Speaker 10: Okay.
Speaker 6: I keep thinking about that Hunter S. Thompson quote about
Speaker 6: like those poor bastard troop bonever nine to eleven don't
Speaker 6: know the party's over.
Speaker 4: The party is over, and yeah, welcome to help. So
Speaker 4: the suspect's dad said to reporters that guy had a
Speaker 4: childhood obsession with pyrotechnics. He set the family home on
Speaker 4: fire and burned it down he was nine. He made rockets,
Speaker 4: stink bombs, smoke bombs as a child. Videos on YouTube,
Speaker 4: likely posted by Guy show m eighties exploding in the desert,
Speaker 4: a hydrogen balloon being set a blaze, and a bucket
Speaker 4: of radioactive uranium.
Speaker 5: Or is that what did he obtain that like out
Speaker 5: there in Wonda Valley.
Speaker 4: This is still being investigated. His voice in these videos
Speaker 4: matches the thirty minute audio manifesto explaining his motivation for
Speaker 4: the attack, saying quote, Basically, it just comes down to
Speaker 4: I'm angry that I exist and that you know, nobody
Speaker 4: got my consent to bring me here. Basically, I'm anti
Speaker 4: life and IVF is kind of like the epitome of
Speaker 4: pro life ideology.
Speaker 1: This is out there, is.
Speaker 5: There any information on the I'm just because a lot
Speaker 5: of explosives and other munitions have gone missing. Twenty nine
Speaker 5: Palms people, that familiar is a town near ish to
Speaker 5: Palm Springs, nearer to Joshua Tree. There's a pretty big
Speaker 5: military base. Yeah. Yeah, it's the big marine Corde, like
Speaker 5: desert warfare training.
Speaker 4: Explosives have gone missing there before. The basic claims that
Speaker 4: they've been recovered. It is unclear what explosives he used
Speaker 4: at this point. It was a pretty large explosion. Investigators
Speaker 4: are low key impressed at this explosion, like.
Speaker 5: It was it was what they what they said in
Speaker 5: that official statement.
Speaker 4: If you read between the lines, they're like surprised at
Speaker 4: how effective this car bomb was. Again, this was a
Speaker 4: guy who spent a lot of time online, a lot
Speaker 4: of time on Reddit. It seems like he got obsessed
Speaker 4: with this. He had a fascination with explosives at a
Speaker 4: young age. So that obsession combined with this anti natalist
Speaker 4: obsession and this urge for self destruction manifested in this action.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: This this week, Reddit banned anti natalist anti life subreddit
Speaker 4: allegedly frequented by bomber. Dude.
Speaker 5: Just want to say that this is I think the
Speaker 5: only IVS clinic in the Kachiello Valley, So like for
Speaker 5: people who are accessing those services, that's a serious disruption,
Speaker 5: right M Yeah, that sucks.
Speaker 4: So I, me and Robert are going to talk more
Speaker 4: about kind of this trend that we're seeing in in
Speaker 4: extremism or in extremist acts. I still don't like the
Speaker 4: nihilist buy an extremism term, but we are seeing elements
Speaker 4: of that getting more and more common, especially combined with
Speaker 4: the true crime community, which essentially tries to encourage young
Speaker 4: girls to commit school shootings.
Speaker 5: M h yeah, I guess. To finish up, I just
Speaker 5: want to say that, like, I know, it's a really
Speaker 5: hard time right now. A lot of people are trying
Speaker 5: to find wayte of cope or feeling like they can't cope,
Speaker 5: or feel that they're not enough.
Speaker 4: I guess hopelessness. This sort of like existential nihilism.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I'll combine that with a lot of people
Speaker 5: who work for the government fundly finding themselves out of work,
Speaker 5: and you know the economic pressure that puts on people,
Speaker 5: and I understand that people are pretty in a tough
Speaker 5: spot right now who want to save very briefly obviously,
Speaker 5: like the world is more beautiful with you in it.
Speaker 5: And if you're experiencing suicidal ideation or mental health struggles.
Speaker 5: A couple of resources I want to suggest the Fireweed
Speaker 5: Collective and the Jane Adams Collective. Adams spelled with two d's.
Speaker 5: There a double Dams. We will have links to both
Speaker 5: of them in the Showdoues. You can also put them
Speaker 5: into Dug dut go. And they were the first responses
Speaker 5: that came up for me. If you need those resources,
Speaker 5: reach out to those people.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's good to see the sunrise, and it's better
Speaker 6: to see the sunrise with everyone you love in it.
Speaker 6: And yeah, that's that's a thing that you can make
Speaker 6: sure you do every day.
Speaker 4: All Right, thank you, James thanking me. We're gonna go
Speaker 4: and break and then come back to discuss immigration. All right,
Speaker 4: we're back, James. I see the amount of text you have.
Speaker 1: This is a very long section jail of text.
Speaker 4: I assume this is all good news, so let's hear it.
Speaker 5: All right, Garrison, I'm so glad that you have seen
Speaker 5: my wall of text. Because I have been looking at
Speaker 5: court documents for days. So much fun on pacer.
Speaker 4: You have been pacer posting in the group chats.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah, I have been big the court listener
Speaker 5: as well. Okay, so this is one of the more
Speaker 5: insane things I've seen on pacer. In a minute, I'm
Speaker 5: talking about the case here of mister NM, who was
Speaker 5: identified at some point, and we'll get an m NM.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: It's not uncommon for migrancy in these kind of high
Speaker 5: profile cases to be anonymised where they can right, just
Speaker 5: for their safety. So NM received a final removal order
Speaker 5: in Nebraska in twenty twenty three, and on the seventh
Speaker 5: of May, DHS attempted to report to Libya. You'll remember
Speaker 5: that we colored that week's ed right. They did not
Speaker 5: manage to do that. And in this court case, we've
Speaker 5: seen from another detainee that one of these detainees was
Speaker 5: given a document to sign and told that he would
Speaker 5: quote be a free man in Libya after signing. Obviously
Speaker 5: unclear how one can be a free man when one
Speaker 5: is just dumped into a country, when one does speak
Speaker 5: the language, has no contact, there is a war.
Speaker 1: Doesn't make sense in any way.
Speaker 4: This man is not from Libya, that is correct.
Speaker 5: None of these people are Libyan.
Speaker 6: And again, whenever seven someone says the word Libya, you
Speaker 6: have to figure out which Libyan government you are talking about,
Speaker 6: because there are multiple of them, because there is a
Speaker 6: fucking civil war going on there right now.
Speaker 5: So yeah, and whenever someone talks about people being free
Speaker 5: in Libya, we should bear in mind that migrants are
Speaker 5: literally sold into slavery in Libya by both governments. Yes,
Speaker 5: M's English is limited. His main language is Karenne, which
Speaker 5: of course is a language that people speak in Cartule,
Speaker 5: the karen Home Lang, which part of Myanmar. On the
Speaker 5: nineteenth of this month, that's two days ago, I sent
Speaker 5: a notification to his lawyer saying that they'd read him
Speaker 5: a notice of removal in English that they were removing
Speaker 5: him to South Africa. Ten minutes later, they attempted to
Speaker 5: recall this message, and then later that same day they
Speaker 5: notified his lawyer that they'd once again read notice of
Speaker 5: removal to him in English that he was being removed
Speaker 5: to South Sudan. South Sudan the world's youngest country, if
Speaker 5: we're not familiar, a country that is in which conflict
Speaker 5: is escalating as we speak, government carrying out a barrel
Speaker 5: bombing campaign this very week. His council set up a
Speaker 5: video meeting at nine am on the twentieth, but just
Speaker 5: before that meeting, his council found out that he had
Speaker 5: already been removed. Mister m had refused to sign the
Speaker 5: order of removal to South Sudan. And we're seeing right
Speaker 5: now in a court case it's a class action. Mister
Speaker 5: NM is one of the members of the class right
Speaker 5: that there was a preliminary injunction against these people being
Speaker 5: removed because they are the same people who the Trump
Speaker 5: administration previously tried to remove to Libya, and at this
Speaker 5: point they tried to remove them to South Sudan. Before
Speaker 5: they are sent to these places, they're supposed to have
Speaker 5: a reasonable fear screening right. That is where someone can
Speaker 5: articulate if they have a reasonable fear of being removed
Speaker 5: to that country, right like if they will be persecuted there,
Speaker 5: they're likely to face torture or violence, or or be
Speaker 5: picked on because of who they are. Right then they're
Speaker 5: supposed to have a fifteen day opportunity to submit a
Speaker 5: motion to reopen. If the Department of Home out Security
Speaker 5: finds that they don't have reasonable fear. Right, So they're
Speaker 5: supposed to be this process where they can say I
Speaker 5: have a reasonable fear of going there, if I go
Speaker 5: there or be persecuted, and if the AHPs says nobody
Speaker 5: don't believe you, then they have fifteen days to submit
Speaker 5: more evidence.
Speaker 1: Right, are they being allowed to do that or no?
Speaker 5: No, got it? That is what this case hinges on. Right.
Speaker 5: So they were informed possibly hours before they were moved
Speaker 5: to South Sudan that they were being moved to South Sudan.
Speaker 5: Then they were taken to a secure facility where they
Speaker 5: couldn't contact their lawyers. And in at least the case
Speaker 5: of mister NM, he had scheduled an appointment with his
Speaker 5: lawyer and was deported before he could do so.
Speaker 4: Right, And this saven a few times before as well. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's correct in the past few months.
Speaker 5: That's right. Yeah, And specifically, there was a priminary injunction
Speaker 5: against this right. So, quoting from Judge Murphy, who is
Speaker 5: judging the Massachusetts District Court where this is being held,
Speaker 5: the government's actions are unquestionably violative of this court order.
Speaker 5: The government said they have complied with my order because
Speaker 5: they didn't hear anyone yelling at their jailers that they
Speaker 5: are afraid to go to South Sudan. This is clearly insufficient. Yeah,
Speaker 5: so what he's articulating here is like this chance to
Speaker 5: articulate reasonable fear right. I do want to point out
Speaker 5: that in Biden's asylum ban that he passed in twenty
Speaker 5: twenty four, they move from a question of are you
Speaker 5: afraid to go back to your home country to what's
Speaker 5: called a shout test where the migrant has to articulate
Speaker 5: that reasonable fear unprompted right to have a chance at
Speaker 5: asylum in the United States. So it's again, like all
Speaker 5: these immigration things, I'm not saying things what the same
Speaker 5: under Biden, by I'm saying that there is a pathway
Speaker 5: to how we got here, and it goes through Biden's
Speaker 5: executive boarder.
Speaker 4: And like Miller is very willing to use anything in
Speaker 4: his toolbox.
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, and anything that look for decades,
Speaker 5: castal liberalism has built a series of tools which now
Speaker 5: lie in the hands of a very illiberal government right,
Speaker 5: and they are being used against people for whom those
Speaker 5: who supported castor liberalism may have some sympathy. That is
Speaker 5: how we got here.
Speaker 4: That's a good way of putting in.
Speaker 5: So the situation we are at right now is that
Speaker 5: these people were flown seemingly in a Gulf Stream jet.
Speaker 5: Gillian Brockhell, who's a formula Washington Post reporter who are
Speaker 5: going to have on the show next week, was able
Speaker 5: to identify this jet based on where it took off
Speaker 5: and its call sign. It's stopped in Shannon in Ireland. Notably,
Speaker 5: Shannon is an Irish civilian airport, right, It's not a
Speaker 5: US air Force base. This does raise some questions within Ireland,
Speaker 5: within Irish politics about Irish neutrality here. Right. The jet
Speaker 5: then flew onto Djibouti, which it is believed is where
Speaker 5: the migrants are right now, in court the discussion probably
Speaker 5: half an hour before we recorded this, DHS is claiming
Speaker 5: that they can do their credible fear interviews there on
Speaker 5: the tarmac in this plane, which people are saying is
Speaker 5: in Jibouti. Right, there's some suspicion that's in Djibouti. DHS
Speaker 5: is claiming that the location of the plane is classified,
Speaker 5: but this widespread belief that this plane is currently in Djibouti,
Speaker 5: including as I say, Julian was first and y T
Speaker 5: published something that didn't credit her, should have credited her.
Speaker 5: So to do the credible fear into you, right, they
Speaker 5: have to have a chance to research what will happen
Speaker 5: to them in South Sudan. They have to have access
Speaker 5: to a lawyer. Most of these people like mister NM
Speaker 5: will also have to have a translator. Right. Then will
Speaker 5: also have to have privacy, right, their credible fear may
Speaker 5: be something they don't want to share with everyone else
Speaker 5: on that plane.
Speaker 4: Because that could also put them in danger.
Speaker 1: Yes, also just like that's a baffling place to suggest
Speaker 1: somebody have that intimate or private of our conversation. It's
Speaker 1: just such a violation of their human rights.
Speaker 5: Yeah, many human rights being violated here. So yeah, I
Speaker 5: mean the US has a big base in Djibouti, right,
Speaker 5: so I imagine that's why they're there. Remember that they
Speaker 5: have that fifteen day period, So if DHS finds that
Speaker 5: they don't have credible fear, then they will have fifteen
Speaker 5: days right to bring another to reopen that. Where will
Speaker 5: they be housed somewhere in fucking Jibouti presumably if that's
Speaker 5: where they are, right, There are many many unanswered questions
Speaker 5: at this point. Now, last night we learned that one
Speaker 5: of the Burmese people, it appears that there are two
Speaker 5: Burmese people. We know this because the Department of Homeland
Speaker 5: Security today started tweeting shots of these people Jesus yeah
Speaker 5: and uh wow yeah, claiming that they were convicted of
Speaker 5: various crimes. Among them were Tubamese men and m appears
Speaker 5: to be Neio Miant and the other appears to be
Speaker 5: Cure Mea. Both of these men have been accused of
Speaker 5: various a big convicted, I believe of sex crimes. That's
Speaker 5: where they got their removal orders. Other people among the
Speaker 5: dozen or so people on the plane have been convicted
Speaker 5: of some of them like one of them is South
Speaker 5: Sudanese and he was convicted of removing the serial number
Speaker 5: from a firearm and of armed robbery, others, murder, and
Speaker 5: various other fairly serious crimes. Right, none of that means
Speaker 5: that you should just get dumped in seulth Sudan. Right,
Speaker 5: that's not a punishment in US, Lord, it is not
Speaker 5: a morally or legally acceptable thing to do.
Speaker 1: It's just truly baffling, honestly, Like, that's that's what they're doing,
Speaker 1: that's the move.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the move is to send Themselve Sudan, where it's
Speaker 5: worth noting that South Sudan's government have said it will
Speaker 5: probably send these people back to their home countries. Evidently
Speaker 5: the reason they are not being sent there is because
Speaker 5: they have articulated a fear of going there or they
Speaker 5: have protection it's called withholding of removal right, so they
Speaker 5: can't be removed to that country. And basically that is
Speaker 5: where we're at. Evdans they manage to remove apparently somebody
Speaker 5: to Burma today or late last night. I'm still waiting
Speaker 5: on my sources in mean Martin confirm that the Burmese
Speaker 5: hunter is as leaky as a sieve. Right, If those
Speaker 5: people are land that we will know about it pretty soon.
Speaker 5: We have pretty good sources in Burma, so if that happens,
Speaker 5: we will know. They also discussed another party, right, someone
Speaker 5: who goes by OCG a gay Guatemalon man who assertain
Speaker 5: credible fear of being returned while in immigration court. He
Speaker 5: was deported to Mexico, where he also asserted in credible fear.
Speaker 5: Mexico gave him a choice of remaining Mexico going to Guatemala.
Speaker 5: He went to Guatemala, where he is now in hiding.
Speaker 5: The DHS claimed he said he didn't have credible fear
Speaker 5: and then later reverse it, and so they didn't ask.
Speaker 5: So the judge is now asking how on earth they
Speaker 5: got this conclusion he didn't have credible fear and deported him.
Speaker 5: He's saying he might potentially put DHS officers on the
Speaker 5: stand to explain how this happened. In other immigration use
Speaker 5: ice just today, this is Wednesday has apparently been dismissing
Speaker 5: court cases against people who turn up before hearing an
Speaker 5: immigration court and then immediately arresting them. What the fuck?
Speaker 5: Right there is this fucking cross. Yeah, Like it's a
Speaker 5: little unclear what the move is here, but clearly they're
Speaker 5: trying to remove them in a more expeditious way. Right,
Speaker 5: they have a court case, try to remove this person,
Speaker 5: they're saying.
Speaker 4: Because the court case has, like you know, a certain
Speaker 4: amount of time needs to process. If they dismissed the
Speaker 4: court case, then they.
Speaker 5: Might have a right to appeal.
Speaker 4: And yeah, but if it's dismissed, then they can expedite
Speaker 4: other like non judicial removal.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well they can do what they're doing here. Yeah,
Speaker 5: they can try and get and run people out before
Speaker 5: they have a chance to get to their lawyer right like.
Speaker 5: That seems to be the underlying team of all of
Speaker 5: these things, which is that your due process and your
Speaker 5: rights under the law are too time consuming, so we're
Speaker 5: going to try and make and run around your rights
Speaker 5: by sending you to somewhere fucking horrific. That is the
Speaker 5: underlying theme here. Unfortunately, this removal will likely now affect
Speaker 5: a lot more people because a Trump administration has removed
Speaker 5: the twenty twenty three Temporary Protected Status for Nezuelan people.
Speaker 5: We talked about TPSS in my Darian series. The TPS
Speaker 5: provides protection from deportation to people who are already present
Speaker 5: in the USA when it passes. Generally, it's if a
Speaker 5: country has experienced war or other like instability that makes
Speaker 5: it dangerous. You have to apply to the TPS. They
Speaker 5: don't provide a pathway to permanence or citizenship, but they
Speaker 5: do give people work authorization, and they often have to
Speaker 5: be frequently renewed by the Executive Branch. You have to
Speaker 5: be in the US the date it's issued, so you
Speaker 5: can't enter after. Despite what you might have seen on
Speaker 5: Twitter or whatever, that's not the case. It also doesn't
Speaker 5: count as a legal entry, so you can't use the
Speaker 5: bridge to a green card. Trump stripped this protection from
Speaker 5: about three hundred and fifty thousand Venezuelans under the twenty
Speaker 5: twenty three TPS. This does not impact there are two
Speaker 5: different tpss for Venezuelan people. They're in a bit of
Speaker 5: a unique situation. The quarter of a million people covered
Speaker 5: by the twenty twenty one TPS are still for now
Speaker 5: covered by that, but it doesn't exactly bode well for them.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: This appears to be the largest blanket removal of legal
Speaker 5: status from a group of people in the United States history,
Speaker 5: and it's a little unclear what this means for the
Speaker 5: three hundred and fifty thousand Venezuelan people currently residing in
Speaker 5: the US under TPS. Right, but it's another case of like,
Speaker 5: by their compliance, isolatory probably knows where they live, so
Speaker 5: these people, it's possible that we will see deportations of
Speaker 5: these people back to Venezuela again. The situation in Venezuela
Speaker 5: is dire.
Speaker 1: It's a place where just so many people too.
Speaker 5: And like I think again, if people haven't listened to
Speaker 5: my Darien series, I would like that because I got
Speaker 5: a lot of myself into it, But I have a
Speaker 5: great affection for Venezuelan migrants. I've spent a lot of
Speaker 5: time in Caracas when I was younger, and I've spent
Speaker 5: a lot of time with them in the Darien Gap,
Speaker 5: and then when they arrive in the United States, and yeah,
Speaker 5: it's really fucking heartbreaking to hear. Like when you think
Speaker 5: of three hundred and fifty thousand people, understand that a
Speaker 5: good number of those people will be little children, Yeah, right,
Speaker 5: people who never had any agency, People whose parents risked
Speaker 5: their lives to give their kids a chance at a
Speaker 5: better future, and that's been ripped away from them right
Speaker 5: now with the consent of the Supreme Court.
Speaker 6: Like, if you're removing three hundred, like three hundred thousand
Speaker 6: people from from our country, that's just straight up and
Speaker 6: ethnic cleansing, Like that's what that is.
Speaker 5: It's about a third of the Venezuelans living in the
Speaker 5: United States right now, right, Like, it's it's way more
Speaker 5: than decimating. Yeah, obviously we will see what legal recourses
Speaker 5: people have, will see how this goes down, But obviously
Speaker 5: very concerning for these people whose country is falling apart
Speaker 5: and being writturned. There will be terrible for them, right,
Speaker 5: Not only will they likely have none of their savings,
Speaker 5: all of the resources they poured into getting here, but
Speaker 5: they're also likely to face political persecution. So yeah, that's
Speaker 5: all the exciting and uplifting news I have from the
Speaker 5: immigration side of things. Hey everyone, it's James with a
Speaker 5: pickup Today me and Mar now is reporting that the
Speaker 5: United States has deported twenty people since April. To Me
Speaker 5: and mar most of those people, seven of them have
Speaker 5: been released. The remainder of those people are being held
Speaker 5: by Burmese military intelligence in a prison that is notorious
Speaker 5: for torture, sexual violence, and the general inhumane treatment of
Speaker 5: incarcerated people that we've become very familiar with in our
Speaker 5: writing about Meanma. We don't know who these people are yet. Obviously,
Speaker 5: this is a story that I'm looking into and I
Speaker 5: will continue to get back to you on. But it
Speaker 5: seems like somehow we have not been aware of this
Speaker 5: until now, but dozens of people have been deported. They're
Speaker 5: saying that twenty seven people in total are expected to
Speaker 5: be deported, and twenty already have. So obviously this is
Speaker 5: very disturbing news and something we'll keep reporting on.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 4: Thankskeeping us updated on that. James, Yeah, we're gonna go
Speaker 4: on break and return to talk about the FBI, Palestine
Speaker 4: and some exciting new reality TV and turfs. I'm sad, okay,
Speaker 4: we are back. First, I want to do some quick
Speaker 4: updates about the FBI. A Cash Battel has announced that
Speaker 4: he's shutting down the FBI's DC headquarters in dj Edgar
Speaker 4: Hoover Building. Around fifteen hundred agents will be transferred around
Speaker 4: the country. In this same interview, Cash Brittel and Dan
Speaker 4: Bongino went on TV to say that Jeffrey Epstein died
Speaker 4: by suicide and of course Mega, yes, very normal to this.
Speaker 4: What do they have on this.
Speaker 1: To them?
Speaker 11: You said, Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide.
Speaker 4: People don't believe it.
Speaker 11: Well, I mean, listen, they have a right to their opinion.
Speaker 11: But as someone who has worked as a public defender,
Speaker 11: as a prosecutor, who's been in that prison system, who's
Speaker 11: been in the Metropolitan Detention Center, who's been in segregated housing,
Speaker 11: you know a suicide when you see one, and that's
Speaker 11: what that was. They killed himself again, you want me
Speaker 11: to get I've seen the whole file.
Speaker 5: He killed himself.
Speaker 1: I'm upset because I forgot that Dan Bongina was a
Speaker 1: person like me too.
Speaker 4: Oh, I have not forgotten. This is my beat. I
Speaker 4: forgot it. So yes, of course, uh, Mega is acting
Speaker 4: very normal about about uh the affirmation that Epstein killed himself. Quote. Okay,
Speaker 4: now I'm losing confidence in them both. This is not
Speaker 4: good at all.
Speaker 1: Cool. Let me read one, Let me read one. Let's
Speaker 1: do this. This is fun. Sad to see Cash and
Speaker 1: Bengino have been compromised.
Speaker 6: Yeah, your turn, Dahn blink twice if they threatened you
Speaker 6: or your family.
Speaker 5: Now I got to do one right, Yeah, yeah, deep
Speaker 5: state traitor d Ei.
Speaker 4: Higher Oh classic class.
Speaker 5: There it is, there, it is. I knew it was coming,
Speaker 5: as much as he likes to wear his CU hunting gear.
Speaker 4: But no, there's there's thousands, thousands of comments from these
Speaker 4: like like mega Q, people who feel feel the trade
Speaker 4: that people like Patel and Bungino have spent years doing
Speaker 4: content creation talking about this grand Epstein conspiracy that now
Speaker 4: now they claim isn't real or they are in fact
Speaker 4: covering up the real conspiracy that Donald Donald Trump's friends
Speaker 4: with Jeffrey Epstein's. So yeah. There's also an interview clip
Speaker 4: where where Trump. I was asked if he was going
Speaker 4: to release the whole file, and at first he said yes,
Speaker 4: and then he caught himself and was like, well, actually no,
Speaker 4: we'll probably be We'll probably be careful about releasing the
Speaker 4: whole file because it could compromise people, Like what kind
Speaker 4: of people you're talking about? Their don Anyway, we have.
Speaker 6: A chance of swinging the Epstein demographic, that is her
Speaker 6: time division to our enemies.
Speaker 1: The next thing of the doc is I found interesting Gerson.
Speaker 4: Oh, this is just one piece of uplifting news. Yeah,
Speaker 4: this is I'm just gonna read the headline from the
Speaker 4: NBA because I simply can't improve on it. No, it's perfect.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 4: Suspected serial killer shouts out Trump in last words before
Speaker 4: he's put to death. Keep making America great. Glenn Rogers
Speaker 4: once told police he had killed about seventy people. He
Speaker 4: was executed by lethal injection Thursday in Florida.
Speaker 1: That's the way that I knew it would be Florida.
Speaker 4: Literally seconds before he got the lethal injection, he said,
Speaker 4: President Trump, keep making America great. I'm ready to go.
Speaker 4: Last words. Wow. So that kind of shows you the current,
Speaker 4: like wellspring of Trump's support right now. That's really hitting
Speaker 4: his prime demographic of suspected serial killers.
Speaker 1: I just have to say that had big Florida energy.
Speaker 5: For real.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's time to hear the lucid lullaby
Speaker 4: of tariff talk.
Speaker 3: Rocking jazz Bob, Rocky jazz Bot, Sorry, locking rocking jazz bomb.
Speaker 6: Rocking jazz Bob, you know, all right, before everything gets
Speaker 6: so so like, I do the most depressing segment I've
Speaker 6: maybe ever done on.
Speaker 4: Here terriffs that can't be true.
Speaker 6: No, not the teriff, but the next I genuinely think
Speaker 6: is the most impressing thing I've ever done on here,
Speaker 6: but the tariffs. So our negotiations with China that we're
Speaker 6: supposed to like solve all of the tariff problems are
Speaker 6: already breaking down. Both sides are like sniping at each other.
Speaker 6: This is not going to work. It structurally cannot work.
Speaker 6: That the US's demands on the negotiating table, which is again
Speaker 6: the political we're economic rationale behind this, is that the
Speaker 6: US should not have a trade deficit with China that
Speaker 6: can't be solved, and it's already breaking down. The talks
Speaker 6: are going almost certainly going to fail, and we're going
Speaker 6: to be right back to where we were. It's also
Speaker 6: worth talking about a bunch of companies have been doing
Speaker 6: price raises, and I think it's worth going back a
Speaker 6: little bit to some of some of the economic work
Speaker 6: we've done in this show with the people at Strange
Speaker 6: Matters and talking about in our previous episodes about inflation,
Speaker 6: about how price works, because this is really really badly
Speaker 6: understood by just about everyone, which is that the way
Speaker 6: that people think about tend to think about price is
Speaker 6: as like, okay, it's supply and demand.
Speaker 4: There's two axes they meet on a graph.
Speaker 6: That's not how price is set. Price is set by
Speaker 6: like specific people in supply chains, right, Like they're constrained
Speaker 6: by certain factors. And one of the biggest things, and
Speaker 6: one of the things, the biggest things they're constrained about,
Speaker 6: is that if you raise prices, people get pissed at you.
Speaker 6: But the way that they actually do pricing strategies is
Speaker 6: cost plus markup.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 6: There's a cost of of of the physical good and
Speaker 6: then they do a markup and the markup is a
Speaker 6: profit margin. And the thing about tariffs, right, is that
Speaker 6: the way the tariffs affect supply chains is that each
Speaker 6: part of the supply chain now, that's movings, that's importing stuff. Right,
Speaker 6: each part of those things now has an additional cost
Speaker 6: that they have to have to put into their costless
Speaker 6: markup ratio.
Speaker 4: Now, Trump wants all.
Speaker 6: These companies to just fucking eat shit and eat eat
Speaker 6: the price of the tariffs. He's been tweeting about this
Speaker 6: or posting a bit and I think on truth social
Speaker 6: and possibly also on.
Speaker 4: T again, all of his truths have been re reposted
Speaker 4: on exos.
Speaker 6: Now, yeah, retruthed, but the thing is right and in theory,
Speaker 6: right like Walmart could just like take this right in theory,
Speaker 6: like like you know, like they're really some of the
Speaker 6: really really big company could in theory do this. They won't,
Speaker 6: like they a lot of any other. Thing is like
Speaker 6: these companies have an incentive not to raise prices because
Speaker 6: it pisses consumers off. And also because Trump is just
Speaker 6: direct like directly threatening sanctions on companies that raise prices. Mattel,
Speaker 6: for the people who make Barbie, said that they were
Speaker 6: gonna raise prices on toys, and Trump is now threatening
Speaker 6: them with one hundred percent sanctions or one hundred percent tariffs.
Speaker 4: Only three dollars yeah, so that's the government limited.
Speaker 6: Dolls, completely handed situation. We've gotten here. We're gonna have
Speaker 6: doll quotas. But you know, again again it's it's worth
Speaker 6: mentioning right that, like in theory, for a little bit
Speaker 6: of time, some of these companies can sort of eat
Speaker 6: this or they can fuck with their supply chains. So
Speaker 6: they companies have been publicly talking about this. The problem
Speaker 6: is the suppliers, because the the the distributors tend to
Speaker 6: have pretty high margins, right, like your Walgreens, like Amazon
Speaker 6: a sub except like their margins are okay, and like
Speaker 6: Amazon makes most of us money from government computing contracts anyways,
Speaker 6: so it's not as catastrophic. But the supply years operate
Speaker 6: on very low margins. The shipping companies, everything else along
Speaker 6: the supply chain operates on really really low margins, right,
Speaker 6: And those people have to raise their price because otherwise
Speaker 6: they are just going to die. And when they raise
Speaker 6: their price right in, that's an increase to the next
Speaker 6: company's costless markup, which increases the next company's costless market,
Speaker 6: which increases the next companies. And we're starting to see
Speaker 6: this ripple to the supply chain. Things are disappearing from
Speaker 6: grocery stores. They're going to continue disappearing from grocery stores.
Speaker 6: And as as this goes on, and as presumably the
Speaker 6: teriffs from China come back into effect, when these negotiations
Speaker 6: break down and the next round of tariffs goes into
Speaker 6: effect and deliberation day tariffs come off their ninety day
Speaker 6: pause and go to effect, this is all gonna get worse.
Speaker 6: This has been tariff talk lovely U. This unfortunately was
Speaker 6: the fun part of the episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gonna get worse free two one.
Speaker 6: Okay, So when I said this might be the bleak
Speaker 6: at segment I've ever done on this show, we need
Speaker 6: to do an update on Palestine because things have gotten
Speaker 6: ye Like, when I was kind of opening this episode,
Speaker 6: I thought it was going to mostly be about Trump's
Speaker 6: plan to deport the entire popula to its like deport
Speaker 6: most of the polation of Palestine to Libya. That's not
Speaker 6: even the immediate crisis. The immediate crisis is that and
Speaker 6: that that's not even sure what I'm saying the immediate crisis.
Speaker 6: Last week, I thought the crisis was going to be
Speaker 6: the eleven week blucket of Gaza and the fact that
Speaker 6: everyone is about to starve. Yeah, and so the actual
Speaker 6: specific thing that we're getting to right now is Israel
Speaker 6: it is attempting to evacuate. That's their wording. What they're
Speaker 6: actually doing is ethnically cleansing basically the entire population of
Speaker 6: Conunis by just forcing everyone out of the city. Right
Speaker 6: The United Nations has said that nearly one hundred thousand
Speaker 6: Palestinians have been displaced in Gaza in the last four
Speaker 6: days as Israel has been expanding its its ground invasion
Speaker 6: to the Gaza strip. This has been combined with the
Speaker 6: eleven week long blockade of Gaza. I think by the
Speaker 6: end of this week, on the week twelve, this has
Speaker 6: set off an enormous risk of famine. I'm just going
Speaker 6: to read this from Al Jazeira. Quote some sef days
Speaker 6: after the Israeli military halted the entry of food, water, medicine,
Speaker 6: and all other life saving supplies into Gaza, the report said.
Speaker 6: This is a report from a UN a UN back
Speaker 6: set of food security group of analysts. The report said,
Speaker 6: quote goods indispensable for people's survivals survival are either depleted
Speaker 6: or expected to run out in the coming weeks.
Speaker 4: Quote.
Speaker 6: The entire population is facing high levels of acute food insecurity,
Speaker 6: with half a million people one in five facing starvation.
Speaker 3: It said.
Speaker 6: Approximately ninety three percent of Gaza's population is experiencing acute
Speaker 6: food shortages. It added. The report also said that like
Speaker 6: one in five people could starve between now and November.
Speaker 6: People have already started starving to death. Israel has been
Speaker 6: blocking AID from getting through. They symbolically allowed a small
Speaker 6: number of trucks in, but AID groups on the ground
Speaker 6: and I want to emphasize that this reporting is coming
Speaker 6: directly from the Times of Israel. If you want to
Speaker 6: understand how bad the situation is, the Times of Isael
Speaker 6: is reporting that a groups from the ground say that
Speaker 6: none of the ilia's gotten through and none of it
Speaker 6: has been attributed. This is I don't know how to
Speaker 6: convey how bad it is. Indescribable. Numbers of people are
Speaker 6: on the verge of starv and go death in the
Speaker 6: Israelis are simply not letting any food arrive. They keep
Speaker 6: talking about how they're going to let food arrive because
Speaker 6: this is actually, this is the first thing I've seen
Speaker 6: them do that's actually seriously gotten. I mean not even seriously,
Speaker 6: but it's like gotten A lot of their Western allies
Speaker 6: pissed at them because they're just very obviously trying to
Speaker 6: exterminate entire population by starving them the death. And this
Speaker 6: has caused the UK, Canada, and France to issue a
Speaker 6: joint statement coming out against the Israeli policy and telling
Speaker 6: them to fucking stop and let food through so these
Speaker 6: people don't starve. The UK is talking about suspending free
Speaker 6: trade agreements with Israel, they're talking about like sanctions at
Speaker 6: West Bank settlers. The whole group has threatened that they're
Speaker 6: going to take more actions unless the Israelis let food in. Now,
Speaker 6: the Israelis, because of the Israelis shot at a bunch
Speaker 6: of diplomats who were visiting a refugee camp in Janine.
Speaker 4: This was like a few days ago.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's like a few days ago. Yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 6: so that's that's not been like making anyone less angry
Speaker 6: at them. It's genuinely remarkable to we've reached a place
Speaker 6: where like the UK, Canada in France, who are all
Speaker 6: major weapons suppliers to Israel, are like talking about sanctions,
Speaker 6: like even targeted actions, like yeah, you know, and like
Speaker 6: the like the UN's like Human Rights Commission was like well,
Speaker 6: This is bullshit. You can't juste targeted sanctions.
Speaker 4: It is the entire government doing this.
Speaker 6: But like you know, the fact that they're doing something
Speaker 6: is an indicator of just how apocalyptically bad the situation
Speaker 6: is right now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I want to.
Speaker 6: Read this quote from the Guardian from just Perennial, most
Speaker 6: fascist guy in the Israeli government.
Speaker 5: That's he's saying something.
Speaker 6: Yeah, who's their fucking finance minister who said quote, Now,
Speaker 6: we conquer, cleanse and stay until Hamas is stroy he
Speaker 6: told him news conference. Along the way, what remains of
Speaker 6: the strip is also being wiped.
Speaker 4: Out, plants conquered, the normal things.
Speaker 6: To say, the extent to which they are simply doing
Speaker 6: a genocide here has reached a point where even a
Speaker 6: bunch of Israel's closest allies are going, what the fuck?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 6: I really hope that people are able to force their
Speaker 6: governments to actually fucking do something about this, because if
Speaker 6: they don't, it's going to continue to get really bad. Yeah,
Speaker 6: And I mean I guess right now, that's mostly like
Speaker 6: if if you're if you're in like the UK, Canada
Speaker 6: or France, and you think you can apply more pressure
Speaker 6: on your government, like go for.
Speaker 4: It, do do it? Do that.
Speaker 6: Like, I don't know, I don't know to what extent
Speaker 6: pressure can even be mounted on the Trump administration.
Speaker 4: But it's yeah, I think that's pretty much a dead end,
Speaker 4: right Yeah, Like but seeing these countries align outside of
Speaker 4: any US influence to I potentially recognize the Palestinian state,
Speaker 4: according to Lemonde, right, like is significant.
Speaker 5: And yeah, people in those countries should absolutely like stay
Speaker 5: in the streets.
Speaker 6: Yeah, because like like and this is this is the
Speaker 6: thing here, right, Like these countries the stuff that there's
Speaker 6: stuff are threatened you is not enough to really make
Speaker 6: a difference here, but like if they're willing to do this,
Speaker 6: they can be pushed further.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So yeah, you have to get your foot in the door.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And Carney has also seemed susceptible to this, Yeah, as
Speaker 4: there has been a block on armsteels to Israel for
Speaker 4: the past few months in Canada.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're going to close with another story of like
Speaker 4: anti humanity, but just a slightly different flavor. And I
Speaker 4: know this this does the show does often just end
Speaker 4: up feeling like a bad news round up, and that
Speaker 4: is because there's a lot of bad news.
Speaker 5: I have good news for the end.
Speaker 4: Actually, that's a good thing. We'll have some good news, yeah,
Speaker 4: as a treat. And part of the good news here
Speaker 4: is that this probably will not end up happening, but
Speaker 4: it's still useful insight into the minds of these ghouls.
Speaker 4: And I've long advocated that reality TV is basically inherently Satanic.
Speaker 4: I think it's a spiritual darkness. This is offensive to Satanists.
Speaker 6: It is a.
Speaker 4: Spiritual darkness that has played the United States for far
Speaker 4: too long. I think it's ushered in a degree of
Speaker 4: evil that is nearly unfathomable. And the current administration is
Speaker 4: essentially a reality TV administration on a very clear and
Speaker 4: obvious level.
Speaker 1: Yes, but did I enjoy watching the Secret Lives of
Speaker 1: Mormon Wives?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 4: I did. I think watching it stuff is actually a
Speaker 4: personal moral failure. I think you're channeling darkness into your soul.
Speaker 1: And love it it.
Speaker 4: Last week, multiple outlets reported that the Department of Homeland
Speaker 4: Security was considering participating in a reality TV show where
Speaker 4: immigrants compete against each other to gain US citizenship. The
Speaker 4: proposed series would be called The American This nightmare has
Speaker 4: been dreamed up by Duck Dynasty producer Rob Warsof, and
Speaker 4: apparently he's been trying to make this since Obama's second term,
Speaker 4: but only now has made progress on getting the necessary
Speaker 4: backing from the DHS. After sending Trump's DHS a thirty
Speaker 4: five page pitch, Warsof wants it to be quote unquote
Speaker 4: the biggest loser for immigration, which again, reality TV is
Speaker 4: inherently evil. That's fucking insane. It should not be tolerated
Speaker 4: on any aspect of human society. No, the Wall Street
Speaker 4: Journal header reads, quote, this isn't the Hunger Games for immigrants,
Speaker 4: says the producer behind the pitch. If you have to
Speaker 4: say this isn't the Hunger Games for immigrants, that means
Speaker 4: this is the Hunger Games for immigrants. Getting a lot
Speaker 4: of questions about my this isn't the Hunger Games for
Speaker 4: Immigrants shirt already answered by the shirt to quote the
Speaker 4: Wall Street Journal quote. DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said that
Speaker 4: she had spoken to the producer of the proposed television
Speaker 4: reality show and that consideration of the idea was ongoing.
Speaker 4: It is quote in the very beginning stages of that
Speaker 4: vetting process, she said, adding that quote each proposal undergoes
Speaker 4: a thorough vetting process prior to denial or approval unquote.
Speaker 4: McLoughlin was also quoted in The Daily Mail as saying
Speaker 4: she thought the television show was quote unquote a good idea.
Speaker 5: Jesus, Jesus.
Speaker 4: The pitch details that the immigrant contestants would board a
Speaker 4: train called the American and ride across the country to
Speaker 4: meet quote unquote interesting Americans and learn about the local
Speaker 4: history and culture while competing in region specific quote unquote
Speaker 4: heritage challenges to prove they are the most American. Such
Speaker 4: cultural contests include balancing on logs in Wisconsin, building a
Speaker 4: rocket at the Florida NASA headquarters, assembling a model t
Speaker 4: Ford in Detroit, and collecting gold in a San Francisco
Speaker 4: mind shaft. Prizes would be quote unquote iconically American, like
Speaker 4: one million American Airlines points, a ten thousand dollars Starbucks
Speaker 4: give card, or a lifetime supply of seventy six gas.
Speaker 4: Immigrants would be split into teams that compete head to
Speaker 4: head across one hour episodes, ending with an elimination challenge,
Speaker 4: followed by a town hall and a final vote to
Speaker 4: quote the producer quote along the way, we will be
Speaker 4: reminded what it means to be American through the eyes
Speaker 4: of people who wanted most.
Speaker 5: I feel like even this will it will humanize migration
Speaker 5: to the United States too much for them, and like
Speaker 5: if that they will be afraid of that, like of
Speaker 5: these people articulating their desire to be here and what
Speaker 5: it means to them, And I feel like that that
Speaker 5: doesn't end well for the administration, that they this might.
Speaker 4: Be too liberal for the Trump administration.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it could be too I'm not even joking.
Speaker 6: This is a concept just should be the death knell
Speaker 6: for the idea of America. Like, oh, yeah, if America
Speaker 6: has an experiment, we tried it.
Speaker 4: It failed. This is the most America thing I've ever heard, Like.
Speaker 6: It's yeah, as an experiment, the American Project was a
Speaker 6: fucking disaster, and we need to it needs to stop
Speaker 6: because this is what it's done. No more, No more
Speaker 6: American Project. The Hitch has pre vetted contestants. First arriving
Speaker 6: at Ellis Island a board a boat called the Citizenship,
Speaker 6: They are greeted by the show's host quote a famous
Speaker 6: naturalized American who was also born in another country unquote.
Speaker 6: The pitt recommends Sophia Vrighera or Ryan Reynolds. Upon arriving,
Speaker 6: the host would give each of them a personalized baseball
Speaker 6: glove America's past time.
Speaker 1: There's no way Sophia Brigata or Ryan Reynolds would ever
Speaker 1: fucking do a show like this. That's batshit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I fucking hope so to quote the producer's pitch.
Speaker 4: Quote will join in the laughter, tears, frustration, and joy
Speaker 4: hearing their backstories as we are reminded how amazing it
Speaker 4: is to be American through the eyes of twelve wonderful
Speaker 4: people who want nothing more than to have what we have.
Speaker 7: Quote.
Speaker 4: This is one of the most evil things I've ever
Speaker 4: I've ever heard of. Yeah, the live finale would have
Speaker 4: the winner getting sworn in on the steps of the
Speaker 4: US Capital by a quote top American politician or judge
Speaker 4: with F sixteen's flying overhead. Quote. There won't be a
Speaker 4: fuck me sorry, there won't be a dry eye in
Speaker 4: the house unquote.
Speaker 5: There have actually been like high spectacle single individual awards
Speaker 5: of citizenship before I'm thinking For example, Hermann Bodger was
Speaker 5: a He's often known as like the one man army
Speaker 5: of BOONA John Butcher. He was I believe, living as
Speaker 5: an undocumented person in the United States when he joined
Speaker 5: the Abraham Lincoln Brigade volunteered to fight in the Spanish
Speaker 5: Civil War, where he was an officer. He then joined
Speaker 5: the United States military and fort again in World War II.
Speaker 5: During the Battle of Bune, he personally led a charge
Speaker 5: against several Japanese pillboxes, which he eliminated with grenades. He
Speaker 5: then had his ear drum perforated, and I believe he
Speaker 5: was shot in the arm. He was awarded, I think
Speaker 5: he wasn't ordered the Medal of Honor. He was recognized
Speaker 5: for his bravery. Congress pass and act to make him
Speaker 5: a citizen, and he declined to attend the ceremony because
Speaker 5: he wanted to get back to the front lines. That rules, Yeah,
Speaker 5: a bit of a legend.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a little bit cooler than the live grand finale
Speaker 4: of the American The pitch clarified that the losers would
Speaker 4: not be immediately deported and that the contestants would have
Speaker 4: a leg up in applying for citizenship the more traditional
Speaker 4: way based on being pre vetted for this show. So
Speaker 4: it's good that it's good that he had to clarify
Speaker 4: that they would not be immediately deported upon on getting eliminated.
Speaker 4: That's that's a good sign.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, another thing that you should always have to
Speaker 5: craifind a TV page.
Speaker 4: At a Tuesday congressional hearing, Christineome denied having knowledge of
Speaker 4: the reality TV show despite reporting to the contrary, while
Speaker 4: also defining hebeas corpus in this hearing as a quote
Speaker 4: constitutional right that the president has to be able to
Speaker 4: remove people from this country unquote. So there you go. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's not what that means, Christineome is a disaster that
Speaker 4: is kind of the opposite of what Abe's corpus is.
Speaker 4: And there is there is substantial reporting showing that DHS
Speaker 4: staff are looking at this pitch. It might not go
Speaker 4: through now based on all this backlash, but they were
Speaker 4: looking through the pitch, including possibly Corey Lewandowski. But yeah,
Speaker 4: that is that is the Reality TV news. James, Do
Speaker 4: you have anything anything to end on here.
Speaker 1: Please, James, please?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I know something a little bit nice. So for
Speaker 5: those of you who like me, enjoy a strawberry ice.
Speaker 5: Agents arrived at the West Coast Berry Farms facility in Oxnard, California,
Speaker 5: earlier this month, where they were met by a gatekeeper
Speaker 5: who demanded a warrant and refused to let them enter
Speaker 5: the facility without one and eventually managed to turn them away.
Speaker 5: So this is a rare dub I guess. Clearly, as
Speaker 5: we enter the time of year when things need to
Speaker 5: be picked in the fields, this will be a place
Speaker 5: where ICE sees the opportunity to conduct its enforcement operations.
Speaker 5: And like it is genuinely positive to see that this company,
Speaker 5: I guess, critical support to this company that obviously underpays
Speaker 5: and takes advantage of migrant labor that they have provided them,
Speaker 5: according to an anonymous source in sf Gate with know
Speaker 5: your rights training, and in this case, the gatekeeper was
Speaker 5: able to not let the ICE agents enter and eventually
Speaker 5: they left.
Speaker 4: Like ICE isn't impervious. Like all week, ICE has been
Speaker 4: releasing statements complaining about being compared to to the to.
Speaker 5: The well once again, right, like another thing that you
Speaker 5: shouldn't have to be releasing statements about I am.
Speaker 4: Not the Gestapo shirt has people asking a lot of questions. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and they're also publishing false stats about ICE officers being
Speaker 4: assaulted in the line of duty, So like obviously they are.
Speaker 4: They're facing some kind of like fear even among their
Speaker 4: own agents. That's why they're all like covered up wherever
Speaker 4: they go. They're trying to prosecute people for posting information
Speaker 4: on ICE agents in your area.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, but like I say, they're not impervious. There
Speaker 5: is a difference between a judicial warrant and a warrant
Speaker 5: that ICE has essentially made itself right, the latter not
Speaker 5: being signed by a judge. And it appears that the
Speaker 5: gatekeeper was aware of that. We still have courts, you still,
Speaker 5: in theory have rights, and you know, well it depends
Speaker 5: but yeah, yeah, yeah, theoretically that was a pivotal word.
Speaker 5: But yeah, shout out to the gatekeepers at the Oxnad
Speaker 5: strawberry plant.
Speaker 6: And they could be stopped by a door keeper, Like,
Speaker 6: they can be resisted, they can be stopped from doing things.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and like, it is genuinely important that this person
Speaker 5: unders the difference between a judicial warrant and these documents
Speaker 5: that ICE might produce. And it does illustrate the value
Speaker 5: of being educated and educating people in your communities about
Speaker 5: these things if they might be at risk for this.
Speaker 4: All right, we reported the news.
Speaker 1: Boy, howdy did we We reported the news.
Speaker 2: Hey, we'll be back Monday. With more episodes every week
Speaker 2: from now until the heat death of the universe.
Speaker 1: It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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