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Speaker 1: A zone media.

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Speaker 2: Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let

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Speaker 2: you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode

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Speaker 2: of the week that just happened is here in one

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Speaker 2: convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to

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Speaker 2: listen to in a long stretch if you want. If

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Speaker 2: you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,

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Speaker 2: there's going to be nothing new here for you, but

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Speaker 2: you can make your own decisions.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. On

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Speaker 3: this show, we end up talking a lot about the

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Speaker 3: various ways of politicians, media personalities, and lobbying groups are

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Speaker 3: constantly trying to make life a living hell for trans people,

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Speaker 3: between restricting medical care, access to public spaces, as well

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Speaker 3: as banning and literally burning queer art. Basically a lot

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Speaker 3: of depressing stuff that's designed to make us trans people

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Speaker 3: go mad. We live in a transphobic society. All it

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Speaker 3: takes is one bet day for an aspiring comedian to

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Speaker 3: fall into a vat of estrogenizing chemicals and emerge a

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Speaker 3: jokerfied harlequin. Filmmaker Vera Dru's new movie, A Multimedia Queer

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Speaker 3: Fever Dream titled The People's Joker, takes this premise and

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Speaker 3: depicts what it's like trying to make a living as

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Speaker 3: an irony poisoned trans person in a Gotham city where

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Speaker 3: comedy has been made illegal. This isn't just an unauthorized

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Speaker 3: transgender parody of DC comics, though it is that as well.

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Speaker 3: The film is a wholly unique collaboration of dozens of

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Speaker 3: queer artists utilizing fair use to tell a trans coming

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Speaker 3: of age story with the gothic, queer coded imagery of Batman.

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Speaker 3: If you know anything about my tastes, you probably know

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Speaker 3: that this is incredibly up my alley. So in a

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Speaker 3: departure from this show's usual doom and gloom, I'm putting

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Speaker 3: together a few episodes on what it means to be

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Speaker 3: a queer artist in today's political climate. More episodes will

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Speaker 3: come out next week, but I wanted to get this

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Speaker 3: one out right now, in time for listeners to catch

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Speaker 3: the theatrical run of The People's Joker, hopefully in a

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Speaker 3: theater near you, right now or in the near future.

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Speaker 3: Last week, I was lucky enough to chat with the

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Speaker 3: clown Princess of Crime herself, Vera Drew, about the making

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Speaker 3: of the People's Joker.

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Speaker 4: My name is Via Drew. I'm the writer, director, and

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Speaker 4: I also star in the People's Joker. I also did

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Speaker 4: some of the visual effects too. You can get tickets

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Speaker 4: online at the People's Joker dot com.

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Speaker 3: I would like to just start with the origin of

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Speaker 3: the People's Joker project. Why is there a transgender Joker

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Speaker 3: and why does that make so much sense?

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Speaker 4: I'm glad you feel like it makes sense. I mean,

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Speaker 4: it kind of really started just because Todd Phillips was

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Speaker 4: like in the news talking about like woke culture and

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Speaker 4: how like it was too hard to make comedy now

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Speaker 4: and stuff, which is really funny coming from a director

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Speaker 4: who's made millions and millions of dollars making comedy and

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Speaker 4: like also like made Joker like the year prior, and

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Speaker 4: that is a comedy. Like it's a dark comedy, but

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Speaker 4: it's totally a comedy and it made a billion dollars.

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Speaker 4: But yeah, he was complaining about woke culture, as is

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Speaker 4: his right. But in my co writer, the person who

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Speaker 4: ended up becoming my co writer, bri LeRose, actually just

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Speaker 4: kind of jokingly commissioned me on Twitter to re edit

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Speaker 4: Todd phillips Joker and actually venmowed me twelve dollars, and yeah,

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Speaker 4: I started doing it. Like in earnest, I started like

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Speaker 4: actually re editing the movie. And I had worked at

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Speaker 4: Absolutely Productions for years as an editor and had kind

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Speaker 4: of come up as an alternative comedy editor, so you know,

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Speaker 4: at that point it was probably just going to be

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Speaker 4: like a lot of bart sound effects and woosh noises

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Speaker 4: and slips and slide whistles. But as I was working

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Speaker 4: on it and kind of just making this like big

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Speaker 4: piece of bound footage video art, like a narrative kind

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Speaker 4: of just like fell into place and it kind of

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Speaker 4: just came in an instant and I was just like, oh, okay,

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Speaker 4: I think I actually want to make like a coming

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Speaker 4: of age film, but I want to make like a

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Speaker 4: parody of The Joker, like in that process and kind

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Speaker 4: of just like tell like a really earnest and super

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Speaker 4: personal autobiographical story about my life and growing up in

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Speaker 4: the Midwest and coming out as trans and comedy and

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Speaker 4: you know, my relationship with my mom and toxic relationship

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Speaker 4: I was in and stuff, but kind of process and

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Speaker 4: mythologize all of that through through Batman characters. So that's

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Speaker 4: kind of the origin of the movie. Guess I had

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Speaker 4: also kind of been kicking around an idea for like

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Speaker 4: a body horror, like a trans body horror movie before

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Speaker 4: that that was basically like about a drag queen who

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Speaker 4: was physically addicted to irony and like couldn't like survive

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Speaker 4: without it, but it was also like destroying her from

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Speaker 4: the inside out. The two ideas kind of like merged

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Speaker 4: together into this sort of I guess.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that definitely comes through. One of my favorite parts

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Speaker 3: of this movie is that it gets to talk about

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Speaker 3: so many intimate aspects of trans experience, like trans misogyny,

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Speaker 3: the intersection of transphobia and misogyny that gets targeted against

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Speaker 3: transfems in particular, as well as trans for trans relationships

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Speaker 3: or T four T, and lots of other little things.

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Speaker 3: It's using the visual language of Batman as a shorthand

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Speaker 3: to get textualize parts of queerness that just don't often

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Speaker 3: appear in mass media. I showed my co host Mia

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Speaker 3: the film last week to get her thoughts on the

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Speaker 3: movie as a piece of queer art, since her and

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Speaker 3: my own tastes often greatly differ. What did you think

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Speaker 3: of the transgender clown.

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Speaker 5: It rips one of the things that was the most

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Speaker 5: interesting to me about it is like, so I'd read

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Speaker 5: some reviews of it, and because it's you know, because

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Speaker 5: it's sort of the sub media works, most of the

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Speaker 5: reviews are by those people. And it's really fun to

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Speaker 5: see a movie where you're reading it and you you

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Speaker 5: look at this and you're going, oh, these people didn't

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Speaker 5: get it. They how much. But they do not know

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Speaker 5: about T boy swag. They do not know about like

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Speaker 5: all of this stuff that's happening in this And yeah,

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Speaker 5: I mean, I think that's the thing about it that's

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Speaker 5: really interesting, because you know, transcoming of age story is

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Speaker 5: like one of the few kind of stories you're sort

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Speaker 5: of allowed to tell if you're trans, less so in film,

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Speaker 5: more so like in writing your stuff, allowed to do

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Speaker 5: this specifically. Yeah, Yeah, And it's really interesting the way

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Speaker 5: that this movie starts with a you know, for the

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Speaker 5: first maybe ten minutes, it's okay, this is like a

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Speaker 5: pretty standard coming of age story, and then it hits

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Speaker 5: the real shit in a way that doesn't ever show

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Speaker 5: up on this stuff.

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Speaker 3: Like I first saw this movie a year ago, and

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Speaker 3: I was shocked at the depiction of like T for

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Speaker 3: TA relationships, which you like never you never see so

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Speaker 3: being able to look at like emotional abuse within a

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Speaker 3: T for T relationship being depicted this way, You're like,

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Speaker 3: oh my god, it's like actually like showing something that

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Speaker 3: is literally never talked about like openly, like this is

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Speaker 3: something that we like people have experiences of, but it's

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Speaker 3: never really like shown or discussed. I found that to

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Speaker 3: be incredibly resonant and very like tastefully done.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I was just like weeping watching parts

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Speaker 5: of it. Absolutely. There's a line in there that is

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Speaker 5: I have never ever like one of the sort of

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Speaker 5: most real things that like you as a transwoman experience

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Speaker 5: is someone who's trans misogyny exempt saying they don't feel

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Speaker 5: safe around you. Yeah, and that being how they kick you,

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Speaker 5: like how you get ran out, how you get abused.

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Speaker 5: That the fact that that's in that's in film, and

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Speaker 5: you can see all of the people, like you can

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Speaker 5: see sis people like not getting it, like they just

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Speaker 5: they don't they don't understand what's going on. And that's

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Speaker 5: really incredibly powerful in a lot of ways.

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Speaker 3: All while in like Jared Letter Joker makeups, ye, Like

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Speaker 3: it's amazing, They're like getting into all of this like

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Speaker 3: extremely intense stuff. The gas landing scene was fucking phenomenal,

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Speaker 3: But it all looks like this, fucking like copy pasted

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Speaker 3: comic art spliced in with like Speed Racer and Return

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Speaker 3: from Oz. And it is with all of these like

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Speaker 3: adult swim asthetics, because ver Drew has been an editor

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Speaker 3: on a lot of like starting with like Tim and

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Speaker 3: Eric stuff to like Nathan Fielder to Tim Robinson, very

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Speaker 3: entrenched in this like layered allage like adult swim style.

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Speaker 3: So that's present all throughout the movie. It's extremely visually unique.

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Speaker 3: It's it's kind of like like it like an It

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Speaker 3: really is like an Internet meme, like brought to life

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Speaker 3: and like puppeteered by like an uncanny unseen hand. I

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Speaker 3: think it really embraces the aesthetics of like an ill

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Speaker 3: fitting Halloween Harley Quinn cosplay costume. It's like taking that

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Speaker 3: and like deeply interrogating what that visually represents and looks

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Speaker 3: like and why someone would wear an ill fitting Harley

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Speaker 3: Quinn costume. It deeply understands all of like the aesthetics

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Speaker 3: sensibilities behind an image like that. Extremely extremely fun. I

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Speaker 3: think it's worth talking about, at least in brief. The

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Speaker 3: trajectory of this movie's release because it is a very

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Speaker 3: comic book. Joker fied story from the idea of this

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Speaker 3: film to its premiere at a film festival, to all

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Speaker 3: of the uncertainty and legal chaos that came along the way.

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Speaker 3: So an earlier cut of this movie was originally set

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Speaker 3: to premiere at TIFF, the Toronto International Film Festival back

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Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two. Right before the first showing, Warner

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Speaker 3: Brothers sent a vaguely worded but threatening letter which resulted

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Speaker 3: in the People's Joker being pulled from the festival save

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Speaker 3: for one late night screening that got rave reviews. With

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Speaker 3: its legal status uncertain, the movie kind of went into limbo.

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Speaker 3: Here's Vera drew on what happened after the first Tiff showing.

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Speaker 4: I really put all I had into this movie, you know,

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Speaker 4: like I really I cashed in every favor I had

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Speaker 4: ever accumulated in Hollywood financially, Like I took out a

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Speaker 4: huge loan to finish it. And it was just this big,

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Speaker 4: deep personal thing that I had made that originally really

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Speaker 4: was just for me and my friends. Like it was

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Speaker 4: just kind of a thing that I had just made.

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Speaker 4: You know, maybe I would have shown it to like

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Speaker 4: my Patreon or something, but like it was, uh, you know,

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Speaker 4: after a certain point like it, you know, once we

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Speaker 4: had that like premiere, it was just like I need

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Speaker 4: to like I can't just post this to YouTube. I

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Speaker 4: can't like just dump it somewhere or like shelve it.

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Speaker 4: And what felt right really was like taking the movie

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Speaker 4: out just to festivals and kind of doing like a

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Speaker 4: secret screening tour, which is what we did, and that

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Speaker 4: was really exciting and kind of like a jokerfied way

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Speaker 4: of sort of getting this this movie out there. And

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Speaker 4: I was just surrounded by other filmmakers and the genre

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Speaker 4: community and you know who would see the movie at

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Speaker 4: this festival and be like you need to just wait.

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Speaker 4: The person who's gonna help you is gonna come.

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Speaker 3: So for a while the film was making surprise secret

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Speaker 3: screenings at film festivals across the US in Canada, and

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Speaker 3: now almost two years later, the queer distribution company Altered

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Speaker 3: Innocence picked up the film and it's now in movie

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Speaker 3: theaters and nationwide.

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Speaker 5: The thing that's I think is really interesting about this

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Speaker 5: is sort of the timing of it, because this originally

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Speaker 5: comes out in twenty twenty two right, sure it does

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Speaker 5: and then gets on came out by pushed back into

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Speaker 5: the closet by the corporate.

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Speaker 3: Ghouls of this discovery pushes the people's choker back into

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Speaker 3: the closet.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 6: But what I think is.

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Speaker 5: Really interesting about it is is its position in this

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Speaker 5: sort of arc of queer media.

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Speaker 7: Right.

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Speaker 5: I mean when I was a kid, there was nothing.

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Speaker 5: It was like, like the first queer thing I ever

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Speaker 5: saw in a show was the Cora Sami kiss at

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Speaker 5: the end of Legend of Korra. Like there was nothing,

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Speaker 5: and then suddenly it's funny. I just watched last night,

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Speaker 5: like three of the old Law and Order SVU trans episodes.

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Speaker 5: Oh god, oh boy, oh boy, do they have some

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Speaker 5: extremely extremely interesting moments.

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Speaker 3: I will leave it up to the viewer's imagination.

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Speaker 5: Yeah. But and what's interesting about the race is you

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Speaker 5: get this moment that I kind of recognize from you

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Speaker 5: have this sort of Asian American media too, where like

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Speaker 5: there was this you know it was if you go

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Speaker 5: back and watch something from two thousand and four that

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Speaker 5: has an Asian person in it, it is it is

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Speaker 5: like like there are people right now in the US

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Speaker 5: who will physically attack you for being Asian. And who

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Speaker 5: will say shit and who's whose level of verbal racism

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Speaker 5: will be less than the racism that's just in this

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Speaker 5: movie as a gag. Sure, and you know, and so

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Speaker 5: you get and eventually, like throughout the twenty tens, we

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Speaker 5: sort of got like, oh, there's like Asian Americans and

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Speaker 5: movies now, and that was kind of happening with with

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Speaker 5: with sort of you know and prickoling cartoons, things like

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Speaker 5: owl House. That was kind of happening in media with

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Speaker 5: queer people. And then there was the sort of the

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Speaker 5: twenty twenties backlash, and that's like you you can you

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Speaker 5: know it's it's in the same way the Huntress. Thompson

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Speaker 5: has this line about like you can see exactly where

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Speaker 5: the standing in Vegas. You can see the line where

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Speaker 5: the sixties receded, Like you can see the line where

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Speaker 5: all of the queer stuff just is like gone. And

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Speaker 5: this forces everyone. You know, you if you have two options, right,

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Speaker 5: you can fucking go back into the closet and you

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Speaker 5: can fucking work on whatever dog shit show that's just

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Speaker 5: going to be completely sisse hat now, or you can

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Speaker 5: just you can make the people's choker. Just to say,

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Speaker 5: you can just make you're just you can just go

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Speaker 5: and do it and you can make something. And I

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Speaker 5: think there's something that's very different than a lot than

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Speaker 5: the sort of wave that have come before. It is

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Speaker 5: it like this is this is the transmedia that is

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Speaker 5: made by trans people for trans people. And there's some

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Speaker 5: like trapping stuff for SIS people to sort of like

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Speaker 5: walk them along a little tiny bit, but.

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Speaker 3: Like it uses the language of DC comics to handhold

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Speaker 3: other audiences to understand what's going on.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, but but at its core, you know, and like

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Speaker 5: obviously like the yeah, there's you know, mix of plicks

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Speaker 5: like I'm butchering his name.

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Speaker 3: No, no one knows how to say That's that's the

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Speaker 3: whole bit, is that no one knows how to say it.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, like you know, so like there's like

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Speaker 5: there's like kind of deep cut like comic stuff in

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Speaker 5: there too, because you know, this is by people who, like,

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Speaker 5: unlike everyone who makes these fucking movies these days, people

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Speaker 5: who actually genuinely, like deeply love the source material that

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Speaker 5: they're pulling from, yes, and thus are willing to just

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Speaker 5: go off the walls with it and have like Jason

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Speaker 5: Todd t boy Swag emotional abuser Joker.

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Speaker 3: Who has any many such cases like so.

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Speaker 5: Much more interesting than any iteration of the Joker I've seen,

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Speaker 5: absolutely well.

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Speaker 3: And it also it also pulls on like the very

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Speaker 3: long history of the Joker being queer coded. Yeah, I

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Speaker 3: mean like if you go to like Grant Morrison's Joker,

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Speaker 3: extremely queer, the sixties Batman show is all very queer,

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Speaker 3: but like, the Joker has always been seen as this

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Speaker 3: kind of this like having this queer deviant element despite

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Speaker 3: really only having like heterosexual pairings, but even still in

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Speaker 3: his relation to Batman, it's always been a very queer

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Speaker 3: heavy thing. And that's something that DC Comics has definitely

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Speaker 3: shied away from intentionally and having something that so blatantly

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Speaker 3: embraces that well, not not just like does it for

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Speaker 3: like fun representation, like actually interrogates like queer relationships through that,

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Speaker 3: through that extremely like troubling power dynamic is really really fascinating.

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Speaker 5: There is no fucking CIS man, Like, there is no

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Speaker 5: white CIS dude who has gone through enough shit to

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Speaker 5: make them cruited to the Joker like come odd, It's like,

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Speaker 5: oh damn, I couldn't get on a comedy show, so

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Speaker 5: I became the Joker like wait, wait, wait, no, no,

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Speaker 5: this is insufficient. The Joker, Afi Mia. All it takes

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Speaker 5: is one bad day. I you know, I mean, I guess,

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Speaker 5: I guess.

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Speaker 3: I guess that is like, do you want to know

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Speaker 3: how I got these emotional scars.

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Speaker 5: It's really like like every cisman is okay enough with

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Speaker 5: violence that they think that they're one bad day for

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Speaker 5: just murdering everyone around them, and sometimes they snap and

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Speaker 5: it's like true, you know, but also come on, like

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Speaker 5: you want a fucker.

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Speaker 1: It's seen. Shit.

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Speaker 3: We've had a very like in cell embrace of the

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Speaker 3: Joker ever since he ledger, of course with the Joaquin

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Speaker 3: Phoenix movie, very in cell coded, both in conversation with that,

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Speaker 3: because this piece was made as a direct reaction to

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Speaker 3: Tom Phillips's The Joker Movie, but this is always it's

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Speaker 3: in conversation with that, while highlighting the actual like like

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Speaker 3: very very uh inherent queerness to this man who dresses

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Speaker 3: up like a clown to play with another man who

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Speaker 3: dresses up like a bat. I was lucky enough to

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Speaker 3: catch an earlier cut of the People's Joker at a

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Speaker 3: Canadian film festival last year, dressed in one of my

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Speaker 3: many Harley Quinn costumes. Again, if you know anything about me,

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Speaker 3: you know I love Batman on Gotham City. I do

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Speaker 3: my yearly queer Batman returns watch parties where I dress

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Speaker 3: up like Michelle Feiver's Catwoman. But the social groups I'm

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Speaker 3: often in can sometimes be a little bit weird about

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Speaker 3: Batman stuff, because he's like a fascist or whatever. But

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Speaker 3: I've always thought that Gotham City is really queer as

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Speaker 3: a concept, and I love that someone else appeared to

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Speaker 3: share that opinion and decided to explore Gotham City as

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Speaker 3: an aesthetic zone to operate in as a queer artist.

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Speaker 3: Here's Vera Drew talking about the connection between her queerness

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Speaker 3: and Batman.

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Speaker 4: I really am like a lifelong Batman comic fan, and

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Speaker 4: I've been working on this movie for four years and

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Speaker 4: I'm somehow still not sick of Batman, which is crazy

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Speaker 4: to me. Yeah, I mean, I think like the lore

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Speaker 4: has just kind of always been there in my life,

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Speaker 4: and it's always just felt very queer to me. I mean,

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Speaker 4: I guess most in like a subtext way, but you

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Speaker 4: just think back to like all the iterations, Like, I mean,

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Speaker 4: my my entry point into Batman was Joel Schumacher Batman

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Speaker 4: like I saw Batman forever when I was six and

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Speaker 4: I it was like, literally one of the first times

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Speaker 4: I realized I was trans was that moment was just

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Speaker 4: seeing Nicole Kidman. I wanted to look like her. I

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Speaker 4: wanted to be perceived how she was being perceived. I

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Speaker 4: wanted someone to look at me the way Batman looks

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Speaker 4: at her. And that was all very confusing for a

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Speaker 4: six year old, you know who up until that point

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Speaker 4: was pretty sure they were a boy. I grew up

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Speaker 4: in the nineties, so I didn't really have like my

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Speaker 4: representation was the Jerry Springer Show and Howard Stern. That's

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Speaker 4: where I saw trans people, and I think like comics

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Speaker 4: were just this space where I could I don't know,

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Speaker 4: it just feels very queer like and it's it's not

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Speaker 4: j subtext. I mean there is, there's a lot of

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Speaker 4: subtext obviously in like the Schumacher Batman's like his his

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Speaker 4: Gotham City just is a like gay Neon nightmare of beauty.

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Speaker 4: We're definitely like taking that aesthetic kind of in the

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Speaker 4: People's Joker like that was always kind of my vision

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Speaker 4: for Gotham. But even the sixties Batman, despite how absolutely yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 4: you know, it's it's super conservative, but like it's it's

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Speaker 4: so colorful and like it's.

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Speaker 5: Very gay, it's extremely gay.

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Speaker 4: It's and it's like, I because somebody actually described it

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Speaker 4: to me the other day as like you have like

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Speaker 4: a character like Riddler and like he's just surrounded by

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Speaker 4: like hot women. Like it's just everybody feels like kind

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Speaker 4: of like a weird, poly annoying person, you know, which

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Speaker 4: is me and my friends.

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Speaker 3: So I feel like Adam West is definitely playing like

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Speaker 3: a closeted gay man in that show as well, totally

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Speaker 3: who's like surrounded by much more like flamboyant queers and

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Speaker 3: he like doesn't know how to deal with it.

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Speaker 4: That's totally fair.

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Speaker 3: I really appreciated, like there's so many Batman Forever jokes

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Speaker 3: in this, Like you even use the Batman Forever font

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Speaker 3: like constantly throughout the film. There's so many like little bits.

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Speaker 3: I really appreciated all of the Alexander Knox jokes throughout

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Speaker 3: the film. I think feel like that's one of the

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Speaker 3: most underrated characters from the Tim Burton movies. And then

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Speaker 3: all of like the Grant Morrison super sanity bits also,

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Speaker 3: I found incredibly funny. When I was watching it, I

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Speaker 3: felt like a big strong sense I felt was like,

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Speaker 3: this is what a piece of art would look like

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Speaker 3: if it was made like within the DC universe. It

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Speaker 3: feels like something that comes like from that point and

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Speaker 3: is like somehow like emanated into our world.

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Speaker 4: Wow, thank you.

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Speaker 5: It was wonderful.

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Speaker 3: There's definitely some like speed racer elements, a little bit

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Speaker 3: of like David Lynch's Dune, especially like the Mister Mixelplex

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Speaker 3: scenes felt very much like all of like like the

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Speaker 3: Weird Spice visions. It was great seeing this progress from

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Speaker 3: the cut last year to this one. It flows a lot.

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Speaker 3: When I was talking with my co host Mia about

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Speaker 3: the film, we both pointed out how this movie doesn't

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Speaker 3: just feel like a movie with gay people in it itself,

399
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Speaker 3: feels like a piece of queer art, like the art

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Speaker 3: itself has a sense of inherent queerness. I think there's

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Speaker 3: a lot of reasons for that, the fact that it's

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Speaker 3: a collaborative project from dozens of queer artists sending in

403
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Speaker 3: background pieces, characters, voice acting, music, set design. It all

404
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Speaker 3: creates a very like DIY queer zine kind of feel,

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Speaker 3: but in a moving picture. So I wanted to talk

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Speaker 3: a little bit more about this difference between just queer

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Speaker 3: representation and queer art. You kind of touch on something

408
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Speaker 3: previously where like the difference between queer representation and like

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Speaker 3: art that is that the is queer. These are like

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00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:04,720
Speaker 3: two very different things, and the movie actually is in

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Speaker 3: conversation with this as well, being like the difference between

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Speaker 3: hiring a trans person to be on the SNL cast

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Speaker 3: versus a trans person doing their own comedy show, right,

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Speaker 3: and how those are two very different things with very

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Speaker 3: different politics. And I think this movie is a large

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Speaker 3: statement against that assimilation is to drive that a lot

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Speaker 3: of people kind of fall back on for like self

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Speaker 3: preservation reasons, self coping reasons, and like financial reasons. Sure,

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Speaker 3: it is extremely critical of that notion and reifiz like

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Speaker 3: this like diy approach towards queer people making our own art.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, And that's something I've been thinking about a lot, because,

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Speaker 5: like you know, like Asian Americans have like we got there, right,

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Speaker 5: like sis as and Americans, we we got our representation,

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Speaker 5: Like what is a representation? It's like, well, they found

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Speaker 5: a way to make like being East Asian the thing

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Speaker 5: you can sell to white people. By having it be

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Speaker 5: about food and selling the version of like a slightly

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Speaker 5: different version of the traditional family, and I you know

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Speaker 5: and like and you can you can sort of ask

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Speaker 5: what good has this done for Asian American people? And

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Speaker 5: mostly what it's done is that Asian American cinema there's

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Speaker 5: it's a wasteland, right like, and you know, and you

433
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Speaker 5: could see like there's a there's a version of sort

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Speaker 5: of of where the twenty twenties go that's different where

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Speaker 5: the assimilationist drive kicks in and we don't. And this

436
00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:26,880
Speaker 5: happens to Quimbidia where it's just this yeah, nothing, it's

437
00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:30,120
Speaker 5: just this void of sort of formless content that gets

438
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:31,440
Speaker 5: sold to the sist people.

439
00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:32,720
Speaker 3: I mean, and I think you could even look at

440
00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:34,359
Speaker 3: that from a lot of like twenty sixteen to twenty

441
00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 3: twenty stylings of queer media that does come off as

442
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:39,840
Speaker 3: very similationist. And now I feel like we are entering

443
00:24:40,119 --> 00:24:45,280
Speaker 3: this new age of trans cinema where we have a

444
00:24:45,280 --> 00:24:48,159
Speaker 3: lot of people either working with more independent production houses.

445
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:50,879
Speaker 3: I mc fairy excited for I saw the TV Glow

446
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:53,480
Speaker 3: coming out next month, but we have a lot of

447
00:24:53,520 --> 00:24:57,720
Speaker 3: other independent trends filmmakers starting out quite young getting into

448
00:24:57,720 --> 00:25:00,880
Speaker 3: filmmaking also not quite young, like into their thirties, who

449
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:04,640
Speaker 3: are working to actually produce films and media that don't

450
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:07,240
Speaker 3: just get thrown up on YouTube. That producing art that

451
00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:10,680
Speaker 3: does not just become another transgender video essay that floods

452
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 3: the site. Right, it's finding other ways to actually engage

453
00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:16,879
Speaker 3: artistically besides the very comfortable ways that we've gotten used to,

454
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 3: whether that's like, you know, what your average trans DJ

455
00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:23,800
Speaker 3: trans like electronic music or a trans video essay, which

456
00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:25,719
Speaker 3: feels like, really the only two ways to make art

457
00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:29,240
Speaker 3: is a trans person reliably are making YouTube videos making music,

458
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:32,280
Speaker 3: both of which can be very good. Absolutely, there's of

459
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:35,400
Speaker 3: some fantastic trans musicians. There's a lot of great video

460
00:25:35,520 --> 00:25:38,719
Speaker 3: essays out there, but the artistic landscape is so much

461
00:25:38,720 --> 00:25:42,159
Speaker 3: bigger than that. And being able to watch people realize

462
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:45,480
Speaker 3: that this YouTube thing is so self limiting and trying

463
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 3: to grow past that is incredibly cool to see. I

464
00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 3: know there's stuff like Nebula, just like this streaming service

465
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:53,959
Speaker 3: kind of built on YouTube but trying to do more

466
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:56,440
Speaker 3: of its own things. That's been interesting to watch grow.

467
00:25:57,040 --> 00:25:59,399
Speaker 3: But also a lot of people attempting just to actually

468
00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:03,400
Speaker 3: like take movies to film festivals and actually like engage

469
00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:06,560
Speaker 3: with this as like art and like having it be

470
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:08,520
Speaker 3: recognized as arts. Like it would have been so easy

471
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:11,680
Speaker 3: to turn the people's choker into like a YouTube fan film, right, yeah,

472
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:14,720
Speaker 3: fucking thousands of fucking Batman fan films on YouTube.

473
00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:15,879
Speaker 5: That would have been so easy.

474
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:18,600
Speaker 3: But the insistents are like, no, I'm actually gonna actually

475
00:26:18,600 --> 00:26:21,160
Speaker 3: going to use like fair use law, gonna actually do

476
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:24,240
Speaker 3: like a legal parody and push this through film festivals,

477
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:26,720
Speaker 3: get it in actual movie theaters. We are seeing a

478
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:29,959
Speaker 3: lot more transfilms at film festivals. We are seeing this

479
00:26:30,119 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 3: start happening, and I'm very excited to watch this grow.

480
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think what's ultimately happening here is that

481
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:39,000
Speaker 5: there's a combination of two things. One is that we

482
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:42,200
Speaker 5: were getting spat out by the traditional media machine, and two,

483
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:45,320
Speaker 5: the traditional media machine is rotting from the inside, right,

484
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 5: And it's not good that either of these things are

485
00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 5: really happening. But simultaneously, it also means that we're in

486
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 5: this position where, having been spat out, we can go

487
00:26:56,600 --> 00:27:00,600
Speaker 5: make the giant media monster. Yeah, we can go stab

488
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:03,320
Speaker 5: it and force a bunch of these like random CIS

489
00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:05,879
Speaker 5: critics to be like to try to figure out a

490
00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 5: tea for tea relationship, but just blow it.

491
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:11,159
Speaker 3: Something like this would have never been made by Warner Brothers.

492
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:14,920
Speaker 3: That's just like impossible. This art could have never never

493
00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:18,440
Speaker 3: been made under Warner Brothers, Right, that's just impossible, and

494
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:21,679
Speaker 3: being able to say no, I'm going to use these

495
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:25,280
Speaker 3: cultural iconography that we keep being told endlessly that this

496
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:27,960
Speaker 3: is this is our culture's version of mythology, of which

497
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:30,040
Speaker 3: is fucking people talk about superheroes like that all the

498
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 3: fucking time, like this, this is our Greek gods, this

499
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:33,840
Speaker 3: is our blah bla blah blah blah. Yet it's just

500
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:36,520
Speaker 3: owned by like two companies who control everything about it

501
00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:38,879
Speaker 3: and don't allow the public to actually engage with these

502
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:41,480
Speaker 3: as cultural thinkers and say no, we actually are going

503
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:43,919
Speaker 3: to find a way to use these characters in relation

504
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:48,439
Speaker 3: to someone's own life as an artist and using it

505
00:27:48,480 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 3: to talk about queerness and comedy and working in the

506
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:54,920
Speaker 3: comedy industry as a queer person to create a very

507
00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:58,360
Speaker 3: unique piece that yeah, literally could have there's no way

508
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:00,159
Speaker 3: wouldever be made. So this is this is this is

509
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:01,960
Speaker 3: a piece of art that could have never happened any

510
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 3: other way. And now we have it playing in a

511
00:28:04,800 --> 00:28:07,080
Speaker 3: local theater near you, and I think that's very cool.

512
00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:10,720
Speaker 3: Here's Vera Drew again talking about the theatrical run.

513
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:13,720
Speaker 4: We're playing a lot of cities. We keep adding more.

514
00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:16,359
Speaker 4: If you don't see your city, bother the theater in

515
00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:18,560
Speaker 4: your town and tell them you want them to play it,

516
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:21,120
Speaker 4: and you know, show them one of the many articles

517
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:23,719
Speaker 4: about this film and maybe they maybe they'll do it,

518
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:25,520
Speaker 4: or reach out to us and let us know. The

519
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:27,639
Speaker 4: People's Joker dot com and you can follow me at

520
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:31,879
Speaker 4: Vera Drew twenty two on Twitter, Instagram and now TikTok.

521
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 4: Don't know how to use it, but we're going to

522
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:35,400
Speaker 4: figure it out together.

523
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening again. You can check out The People's

524
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:41,479
Speaker 3: Joker at the People's Joker dot Com look for tickets

525
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 3: and showtimes. Hopefully they'll be one in your area. Next week,

526
00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 3: there'll be more episodes talking about the making of this movie,

527
00:28:48,840 --> 00:28:53,320
Speaker 3: as well as a few other transcomedian art projects that

528
00:28:53,360 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 3: are currently ongoing. See you on the other side.

529
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:13,920
Speaker 6: Welcome to Grappen Here, I'm Andrew Sage to future channel Andreism.

530
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:18,240
Speaker 5: I'm joined by Mia Wong. Did not miss your que

531
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:20,000
Speaker 5: this time? This will not make any sense to you

532
00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:22,480
Speaker 5: unless you've heard the previous episode in which I missed

533
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:22,720
Speaker 5: by you.

534
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:33,960
Speaker 6: But hello, indeed, indeed welcome, did missic you? So recently

535
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 6: I read Born a Crime by Trevoranoah. It was his

536
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 6: memoir of his childhood in South Africa and politics society.

537
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 6: Is a decent comedian and had me laughing out loud

538
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 6: and thinking a lot as well, and it really reignited

539
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:55,840
Speaker 6: my long pass and interest in South African history because

540
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:59,240
Speaker 6: he's given a lot of context when sharing his stories.

541
00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:04,040
Speaker 6: So I decided to look into the history of anarchism

542
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:07,240
Speaker 6: in South Africa and that's what we will be exploring today.

543
00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 6: Much of the information I gathered is thanks to the

544
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:14,880
Speaker 6: scholarship of Lucian van der Walt, a South African anarchist

545
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 6: and professor of sociology. Particularly, I'll be looking at the

546
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:25,480
Speaker 6: work on anarchism and Cynicalism Southern Africa from the International

547
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 6: Encyclopedia Revolution and Protest and Anarchism and Cynicalism in the

548
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:33,480
Speaker 6: colonial and post colonial world. Without getting into the lengthy

549
00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:36,640
Speaker 6: and storied history of the region, I do need to

550
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 6: provide some context, so we'll start in the mid nineteenth century,

551
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:44,680
Speaker 6: where the region that became South Africa was considered marginal

552
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 6: to the world economy. You had the poet of the

553
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:50,000
Speaker 6: Cape of Good Hope and Port Elizabeth, which handled me

554
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:53,640
Speaker 6: in the agricultural exports. And this was during the second

555
00:30:53,680 --> 00:30:57,360
Speaker 6: period of the British Cape Colony's existence, after it had

556
00:30:57,400 --> 00:30:59,960
Speaker 6: briefly fallen into the hands of the Batavia and Republic

557
00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:04,280
Speaker 6: during the Napoleonic Wars. None of that is particularly necessary

558
00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:07,640
Speaker 6: to know for our sake, but you know a little

559
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 6: fun fact. At this point, once again, under the British,

560
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 6: the land was broadly agrarian, and Britain's farms were worked

561
00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:21,160
Speaker 6: by colored and African workers. The neighboring Natal Colony, also

562
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:25,200
Speaker 6: under British rule, had its plantations worked by indentured Indians.

563
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:29,560
Speaker 6: The rest of the interior was under various Africana republics

564
00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:34,280
Speaker 6: and African kingdoms. For those not in the know, so

565
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:39,840
Speaker 6: African in this context refers to obviously Africans, Black Africans

566
00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 6: to be specific, Indians referring to the indentured laborers from

567
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 6: the Indian subcontinent, Africanas referring to the Afrikaans or Dutch

568
00:31:50,320 --> 00:31:54,520
Speaker 6: speaking white South Africans, and then we have, of course

569
00:31:54,560 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 6: the British, which are you know, white British people, and

570
00:32:00,840 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 6: the colored as a designation as a group as a

571
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:08,640
Speaker 6: self identified ethnic group referred to the people of mixed

572
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 6: European and African heritage that had begun to develop their

573
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 6: own identity in their own community. Because the settlement of

574
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:21,360
Speaker 6: South Africa had started centuries before, so other than the

575
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:25,400
Speaker 6: agricultural export and ports providing a respite for trade between

576
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:28,600
Speaker 6: the West and the East, the Southern African colonies weren't

577
00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:32,239
Speaker 6: particularly high up on anyone's list of priorities. But then

578
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 6: the economic landscape of the region transformed with the discovery

579
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:39,200
Speaker 6: of diamonds in Kimberley in eighteen sixty seven and gold

580
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 6: in Woodwater surround in eighteen eighty six. To make a

581
00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:46,040
Speaker 6: very long story short, this led to the rapid centralization

582
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:49,760
Speaker 6: of mining activities and the growth of towns like Johannesburg,

583
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 6: one of the most well known towns in South Africa.

584
00:32:53,640 --> 00:32:58,360
Speaker 6: Imperial interests intensified, resultant in the British Wars and Africans

585
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:01,720
Speaker 6: and Africanas and the lablishment of the Union of South

586
00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:06,400
Speaker 6: Africa in nineteen ten. An extremely diverse and polygoth society

587
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:11,280
Speaker 6: under British rule. By nineteen thirteen, almost half of the

588
00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:14,400
Speaker 6: world's gold output came from with waters Round area and

589
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:18,320
Speaker 6: with Watersrand Minds employed one hundred and ninety five thousand

590
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 6: Africans and twenty two thousand white workers. The working class

591
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:29,520
Speaker 6: clearly faced many racial and ethnic divisions. It was primarily

592
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:34,160
Speaker 6: composed of various Africans, which had their own divisions between them,

593
00:33:34,360 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 6: and there were also divisions between the largely skilled white

594
00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:42,280
Speaker 6: immigrants from Europe and the largely unskilled local white africaners.

595
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:46,200
Speaker 6: The marginalized African and colored middle classes that began to

596
00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:49,320
Speaker 6: form from the few free laborers involved in various grown

597
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 6: industries would come to lead early nationalist movements while grappling

598
00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:59,480
Speaker 6: with segregation, discrimination, and linguistic challenges. As van der Wald said,

599
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:02,840
Speaker 6: and they lived in a situation where a cheap African

600
00:34:02,920 --> 00:34:05,479
Speaker 6: labor formed the bedrock of the mines as well as

601
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 6: state industry and the crowing commercial farming and manufacturing sectors,

602
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:12,640
Speaker 6: and where the cheapness of African labor was primarily a

603
00:34:12,680 --> 00:34:16,239
Speaker 6: function of the black's historic incorporation into the country as

604
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:20,440
Speaker 6: a subject to people. In this sense, local capitalist relations

605
00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:25,319
Speaker 6: of exploitation were constructed upon colonial relations of domination. Fast

606
00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:27,719
Speaker 6: forward to the eve of apartheid in nineteen forty eight,

607
00:34:27,800 --> 00:34:30,880
Speaker 6: when African and nationalists took power and extended the segregation

608
00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:33,600
Speaker 6: policies in the first four decades of the Union even further,

609
00:34:34,320 --> 00:34:37,440
Speaker 6: you get two responses to the national question preceding the

610
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:40,319
Speaker 6: development of apartheid from the organized labor crowd at the time.

611
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:44,239
Speaker 6: The first response, known as white labourism, was associated with

612
00:34:44,280 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 6: the mainstream white labor movement leading back to the nineteenth century.

613
00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:52,680
Speaker 6: The South African Labor Party and South African Industrial Federation

614
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:57,319
Speaker 6: were key proponents of white labourism, and both organizations were

615
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:00,760
Speaker 6: born from the exclusiveness of early craft unions that later

616
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:06,560
Speaker 6: evolved into more pronounced racial exclusiveness. This white laborism approach

617
00:35:06,680 --> 00:35:12,360
Speaker 6: combined social democracy with segregation, promoting job reservation and preferential

618
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:18,720
Speaker 6: employment for whites, urban segregation and Asian repatriation white power

619
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:23,239
Speaker 6: for white workers. Basically, the other races can figure out

620
00:35:23,239 --> 00:35:26,560
Speaker 6: their own deal, of course, on the reservations that we

621
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:30,320
Speaker 6: put them in. So it's no surprise that the apartheid

622
00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:34,960
Speaker 6: government in part mainstreamed this white laborism movement, but the

623
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:37,400
Speaker 6: second response to the national question was linked to the

624
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:41,719
Speaker 6: Communist Party of South Africa the CPSA from nineteen twenty eight,

625
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:45,359
Speaker 6: when it adopted the Native Republic thesis under pressure from

626
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:49,840
Speaker 6: the Communist International. This approach advocated for the establishment of

627
00:35:49,880 --> 00:35:53,759
Speaker 6: an independent South Africa Native Republic as a precursor to

628
00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:58,080
Speaker 6: the Workers and Peasants Republic, separating national liberation specifically in

629
00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 6: the fourth of nationalism and then socialism into distinct stages.

630
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:07,640
Speaker 6: The CPSA initially considered leading both of these stages, but

631
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:11,040
Speaker 6: later abandoned this idea and opted for a united front

632
00:36:11,080 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 6: with the African National Congress, aiming for a unitary, democratic,

633
00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:20,799
Speaker 6: and capitalist state with land reform and partial nationalization. But

634
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:24,920
Speaker 6: there's a hidden history that goes unnoticed prior to the

635
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 6: rise of apartheid and the CPSA. All the way back

636
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 6: in the eighteen eighties, Henry Glass played a pivotal role

637
00:36:33,560 --> 00:36:38,080
Speaker 6: in establishing the local anarchist tradition in South Africa. He

638
00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:41,080
Speaker 6: was an Englishman born in India with a background in

639
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:44,719
Speaker 6: radical London circles. He moved to Port Elizabeth in the

640
00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 6: eighteen eighties and engaged in various jobs, including working on

641
00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:52,799
Speaker 6: the Witwatersrand minds among African people. He contributed to the

642
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:57,240
Speaker 6: Cape Labor Press, translated key works by Kropotkin into English,

643
00:36:57,600 --> 00:37:02,680
Speaker 6: and distributed anarchist materials through various organizations. Glass seems to

644
00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:07,000
Speaker 6: have taken a good look at clonalism, saw how Africans

645
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 6: were treated, and didn't shy away from calling it out

646
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:16,120
Speaker 6: now self. His writing did idealize pre capitalist cultures, for example,

647
00:37:16,200 --> 00:37:19,040
Speaker 6: pointing out in a letter to Kropotkin that you can

648
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:22,920
Speaker 6: still find amongst them the principle of communism, but his

649
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:25,600
Speaker 6: main focus was on pointing fingers at an order that

650
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:29,440
Speaker 6: treated Africans like second class citizens, and going even further

651
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:32,360
Speaker 6: to champion the idea of a working class movement that

652
00:37:32,480 --> 00:37:37,040
Speaker 6: bridged racial divides. He understood the foolishness of white workers

653
00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:40,239
Speaker 6: to try and pursue their liberation alone while sidelining their

654
00:37:40,239 --> 00:37:43,480
Speaker 6: colored comrades, and though Glass spent his time agitating in

655
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:46,880
Speaker 6: Port Elizabeth, this was also a perspective shared by the

656
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:51,680
Speaker 6: Social Democratic Federation or SDF, based in Cape Town, which

657
00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:57,040
Speaker 6: despite its name, was all about pushing anarchism and syndicalism. Actually,

658
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:00,799
Speaker 6: maybe more precise there was a dominant wing within the

659
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 6: SDF of Cape Town that emphasized anarchism and syndicalism. There

660
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:08,960
Speaker 6: will also moderate and status elements in the SDF as well.

661
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:13,360
Speaker 6: Cape Town was quite different at that time from Port Elizabeth.

662
00:38:13,920 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 6: Port Elizabeth was mostly African and white, but Cape Town

663
00:38:17,760 --> 00:38:21,560
Speaker 6: had a significant colored population, which created a situation where

664
00:38:21,680 --> 00:38:25,160
Speaker 6: much of Cape Town's working class was free labor rather

665
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 6: than bound to some form of slavery or dangure. Coloreds

666
00:38:29,239 --> 00:38:33,279
Speaker 6: were facing growing official segregation and popular discrimination from the

667
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:36,120
Speaker 6: late nineteenth century onwards, though, so there was a growing

668
00:38:36,200 --> 00:38:40,480
Speaker 6: discontent as the working class fractured even further. But there

669
00:38:40,520 --> 00:38:42,560
Speaker 6: was a key figure in the Cape Town SDF that

670
00:38:42,719 --> 00:38:46,960
Speaker 6: pushed anarchism and syndicalism, and that was Wilfred Harrison, another

671
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:50,200
Speaker 6: friend of Kopotkin, a carpenter, a trade unionist, and an

672
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:53,440
Speaker 6: ex soldier. He was known as a very dynamic speaker

673
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:56,320
Speaker 6: and a staunch anarchist communist who pushed for a future

674
00:38:56,600 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 6: where workers owned and controlled everything. With Harrison at the Helm,

675
00:39:01,640 --> 00:39:04,480
Speaker 6: the SDF set up shop in Adelaide Street, where they

676
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:08,120
Speaker 6: were organized in talks, events, and even standing in elections

677
00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:13,920
Speaker 6: for propaganda purposes. The sdf's events attracted thousands, creating truly

678
00:39:14,120 --> 00:39:18,160
Speaker 6: uniquely integrated public spheres that would bring Colors, white and

679
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:21,840
Speaker 6: Africans in some of the same spaces. They were holding

680
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:25,120
Speaker 6: speeches in Afrikaans, which was the most popular language of

681
00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:28,440
Speaker 6: the colors, and in eastingt Closer, the language of the

682
00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:35,600
Speaker 6: Mooser people. They had bookshops, reading rooms, refreshment bars, beach trips, choirs,

683
00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:39,480
Speaker 6: and even a few socialist christ Nets. At the various

684
00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:45,960
Speaker 6: talks they welcomed controversial figures, including a young Gandhi. Harrison's

685
00:39:45,960 --> 00:39:49,320
Speaker 6: wing of the SDF further sought to remove union color bars,

686
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:53,879
Speaker 6: unionize colors, secure equal pay, and build unions that would

687
00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:58,600
Speaker 6: unite all workers, regardless of race. In the early nineteen hundreds,

688
00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:02,160
Speaker 6: socialists and with Waters Round launched the Weekly Voice of Labor,

689
00:40:02,560 --> 00:40:06,080
Speaker 6: led by Archie Crawford and Mary Fitzgerald. The paper saved

690
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:09,600
Speaker 6: to connect socialists across cities from Duban to Kimberley, to

691
00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:14,720
Speaker 6: Cape Town to Johannesburg. Archie Crawford was a staunch anti segregationist,

692
00:40:15,040 --> 00:40:17,560
Speaker 6: pushing back against the South African Labor Party for its

693
00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 6: policies and organized in the neglected colored workers. In nineteen ten,

694
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:25,799
Speaker 6: the SDF hosted British synicolist Tom Mann, whose tours the

695
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:28,520
Speaker 6: region would inspire the founding of the Socialist Labor Party

696
00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 6: or SLP. In Johannesburg. They adopted the ideas of Daniel

697
00:40:33,040 --> 00:40:35,840
Speaker 6: de Leon, the American leader of the International Workers of

698
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:38,960
Speaker 6: the World, and were followed by the Industrial Workers Union,

699
00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:44,480
Speaker 6: which linked with the IWW in Chicago. The IWW's ideas

700
00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:48,279
Speaker 6: spread to Duban and Pretoria, but it was Johannesburg where

701
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:52,080
Speaker 6: they flexed their muscles with successful strikes and challenges to

702
00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 6: labor laws. The IWW's position carried the same as its forebears,

703
00:40:57,719 --> 00:40:59,960
Speaker 6: fight the class war with the aid of all workers

704
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:03,680
Speaker 6: to whether efficient or an efficient, skilled or unskilled, white

705
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:07,840
Speaker 6: or black. IWW organizer Jock Campbell would be the first

706
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:11,680
Speaker 6: to specifically make propaganda amongst the African workers in which

707
00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 6: waters Rand. But don't get me wrong, these efforts do

708
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:31,000
Speaker 6: not mean that they necessarily succeeded. The IWW and SLP's

709
00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:34,920
Speaker 6: struggle to recruit to cross racial lines semms not primarily

710
00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 6: from prejudice, but from their overall weakness as union organizers

711
00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:42,600
Speaker 6: outside the tram sector, where they saw the most successes,

712
00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:46,839
Speaker 6: and of course, the practical challenges of organizing the predominantly

713
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 6: unfree African workforce underwit Water's Rand. So they talked a

714
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:54,799
Speaker 6: good talk about reaching across racial lines, but not a

715
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:57,960
Speaker 6: massive success because they didn't have a strategy in place

716
00:41:58,280 --> 00:42:02,760
Speaker 6: to actually establish those actions between Africans, colored and Indian

717
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:06,600
Speaker 6: workers in this regard. Actually, the SDF in Cape Town

718
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:10,799
Speaker 6: was a lot more successful. However, something did happen in

719
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:15,480
Speaker 6: witwaters Rand. In May nineteen thirteen, a significant general strike

720
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:19,440
Speaker 6: erupted on the witwaters Rand, initiated by white miners and

721
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:24,040
Speaker 6: quickly spread in across industries. The strike was marked by

722
00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:28,280
Speaker 6: riots and gun battles and escalating on what's called Black Saturday,

723
00:42:28,520 --> 00:42:31,920
Speaker 6: July fifth, resulting in twenty five deaths at the hands

724
00:42:31,960 --> 00:42:36,239
Speaker 6: of the imperial troops. Subsequent strikes by African miners and

725
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:42,319
Speaker 6: Indian passive resistance campaigns further intensified the social unrest, with

726
00:42:42,400 --> 00:42:44,360
Speaker 6: the failure of a compromise in the aftermath of the

727
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 6: nineteen thirteen strike led to a second general strike in

728
00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:52,879
Speaker 6: January nineteen fourteen. The state responded swiftly, declaring martial law,

729
00:42:53,320 --> 00:42:57,600
Speaker 6: mobilizing forces and suppressing the unions, resulting the arrest and

730
00:42:57,680 --> 00:43:02,839
Speaker 6: deportation of key activists, including Archie Crawford. Then World War

731
00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:06,600
Speaker 6: One further disrupted things, with the country joining the British side.

732
00:43:07,080 --> 00:43:10,760
Speaker 6: While some organizations suspended activities to support the war efforts,

733
00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:15,759
Speaker 6: hardline African and nationalists launched an armed rebellion, leading to

734
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:18,600
Speaker 6: split within the SDF and the South African Labor Party.

735
00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:23,000
Speaker 6: Although anarchism synicalism played a role in these turbulent events,

736
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:27,319
Speaker 6: the actual syndicalist movement on the Witwaterstrand was weak and

737
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:31,279
Speaker 6: divided by nineteen thirteen, despite attempts to forge unity through

738
00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:34,600
Speaker 6: the United Socialist Party the USP, it fell apart due

739
00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:38,320
Speaker 6: to existing divisions and ideological differences among the constituent groups.

740
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:43,600
Speaker 6: While organized syndicalism struggled to lead the strikes, syndicalist ideas

741
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:48,960
Speaker 6: and slogans gained considerable traction in labor circles. The strikes

742
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:54,799
Speaker 6: and war issues reinvigorated existing anarchists and syndicalists, radicalized new activists,

743
00:43:55,000 --> 00:43:59,719
Speaker 6: and sparked widespread interest in radical ideas which would lead

744
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:04,280
Speaker 6: to an new development. In September nineteen fifteen, the Industrial

745
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:09,160
Speaker 6: Socialist League the ISSL emerged as a prominent syndicalist formation,

746
00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:13,200
Speaker 6: comprising of the syndicalist veterans and anti war South African

747
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:17,919
Speaker 6: Labor Party activists. The ISL quickly became the largest left

748
00:44:17,920 --> 00:44:21,880
Speaker 6: political group before the Communist Party of South Africa. The

749
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:26,200
Speaker 6: ISL rooted in the ISWW tradition, advocated for the organization

750
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:30,640
Speaker 6: of workers on industrial alliance irrespective of race, and envisioned

751
00:44:30,640 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 6: in an integrated revolutionary one big union for national liberation

752
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:39,000
Speaker 6: and class struggle. The ISL criticized whitecraft unions for the

753
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:43,120
Speaker 6: divisive practices and advocated of industrial unions to confront the

754
00:44:43,200 --> 00:44:47,800
Speaker 6: challenges posed by giant corporations and trusts. Racial prejudice, according

755
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:51,640
Speaker 6: to the ISSL, served the ruling class's interests insuring a

756
00:44:51,719 --> 00:44:55,879
Speaker 6: study supply of cheap, unorganized African labor at the same

757
00:44:55,880 --> 00:45:00,279
Speaker 6: time that the ISL was actively opposing discriminatory laws. The

758
00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:05,239
Speaker 6: ISL also doubted the efficacy of African nationalist programs in

759
00:45:05,480 --> 00:45:10,719
Speaker 6: genuinely emancipating the black masses. It contended that national oppression

760
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:15,200
Speaker 6: was rooted in capitalism, making national liberation unlikely under the

761
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:20,160
Speaker 6: prevalance system. The ISL aimed to reform white unions, but

762
00:45:20,239 --> 00:45:24,080
Speaker 6: while leading efforts to organize people of color, they faced challenges,

763
00:45:24,239 --> 00:45:26,800
Speaker 6: of course, in the form of opposition from white workers,

764
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:31,920
Speaker 6: electoral defeats, and hostility from established unions. They were evicted

765
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:35,960
Speaker 6: from Trades Hall in nineteen seventeen for resistant discriminatory policies,

766
00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:41,040
Speaker 6: but continued the activities cultivating links with people of color,

767
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:47,000
Speaker 6: particularly through its passionately anti Zionist Yiddish speaking branch. The

768
00:45:47,080 --> 00:45:50,640
Speaker 6: ISL played a pivotal role in establishing unions among people

769
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:54,080
Speaker 6: of color, launching the Indian Workers Industrial Union in Durban

770
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:57,680
Speaker 6: in nineteen seventeen and later through night schools for Africans,

771
00:45:58,000 --> 00:46:01,560
Speaker 6: initiating the Industrial Workers off in the same year, both

772
00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:04,520
Speaker 6: of which would be led by their own constituents. In

773
00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:07,799
Speaker 6: July nineteen eighteen, there would be another general strike, this

774
00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:12,360
Speaker 6: time primarily by Africans. Earlier that year, one hundred and

775
00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:16,200
Speaker 6: fifty two African municipal workers were sentenced to hard labor

776
00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:19,840
Speaker 6: for striking, leading to protests organized by the Industrial Workers

777
00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:23,640
Speaker 6: of Africa, the International Socialist League and the South African

778
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 6: Native National Congress and the South Africa Native National Congress

779
00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:32,480
Speaker 6: the SANNC, which was the precursor to the currently ruled

780
00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:37,560
Speaker 6: In African National Congress the ANC. The Joint Action Committee

781
00:46:37,560 --> 00:46:40,480
Speaker 6: proposed a general strike on the Witwatersrand for the release

782
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:43,800
Speaker 6: of the sentenced workers and better pay for African workers.

783
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:48,200
Speaker 6: Although the strike was canceled last minute, several thousand African

784
00:46:48,200 --> 00:46:53,360
Speaker 6: miners participated anyway, resulting in arrests for incitement to public violence.

785
00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:57,960
Speaker 6: The rested individuals included ISL members and a member of

786
00:46:58,040 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 6: both the Industrial Workers of Africa and the ESSAYNNC. A

787
00:47:02,239 --> 00:47:05,719
Speaker 6: year later, in March nineteen nineteen, ISL members played a

788
00:47:05,800 --> 00:47:09,439
Speaker 6: role in their civil disobedience campaign against pass lords, which

789
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:13,320
Speaker 6: required non whites in South Africa to carry documents authorizing

790
00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:18,480
Speaker 6: their presence in restricted white areas. That resistance campaign led

791
00:47:18,520 --> 00:47:24,160
Speaker 6: to nearly seven hundred arrests. That same year, in Kimberley,

792
00:47:24,520 --> 00:47:28,520
Speaker 6: the ISL established syndicalist unions among colored workers, such as

793
00:47:28,560 --> 00:47:31,720
Speaker 6: the Clothing Workers Industrial Union and the Horse Drivers Union.

794
00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:38,520
Speaker 6: These unions achieved significant successes, including wage increases in Cape Town.

795
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:42,360
Speaker 6: ISL members City Way and KREI aimed to organize the

796
00:47:42,360 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 6: Industrial Workers of Africa on the docks. They collaborated with

797
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:50,520
Speaker 6: the Industrial Socialist League the ind SL, a syndicalist breakaway

798
00:47:50,520 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 6: from the SDF, and played a role in the major

799
00:47:53,239 --> 00:47:57,000
Speaker 6: strike on the docks in December nineteen nineteen. Now the

800
00:47:57,040 --> 00:48:03,560
Speaker 6: strike ultimately disintegrated, but it's still mar significant event. All

801
00:48:03,600 --> 00:48:07,520
Speaker 6: in all, the ISL, heavily influenced by syndicalism, would play

802
00:48:07,520 --> 00:48:10,320
Speaker 6: a major role in the strikes of the late nineteen tenths.

803
00:48:12,000 --> 00:48:15,360
Speaker 6: The ISL's influence extended to the formation of the Communist

804
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 6: Party of South Africa CPS, alongside the SDF and the

805
00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:22,320
Speaker 6: INDSCEL and a few other groups in the nineteen twenties.

806
00:48:23,200 --> 00:48:26,520
Speaker 6: That party would go underground after the Anti Communist Act

807
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:29,760
Speaker 6: of the fifties and re emerge as the South African

808
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:34,759
Speaker 6: Communist Party the SAACP. For most of its history, it

809
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:40,920
Speaker 6: has been explicitly Marxist Leninist, heavily influenced by the Bolsheviks. However,

810
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:44,960
Speaker 6: when it first started, syndicalist concepts still lingered within the

811
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:49,560
Speaker 6: party for many years before was eventually excised. The internationalist

812
00:48:49,600 --> 00:48:52,160
Speaker 6: and multi racial vision of the syndicalist movement was later

813
00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:54,799
Speaker 6: taken over by the two stage strategy of the cpsa

814
00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:59,480
Speaker 6: slash SACP, which sought to establish an independent, democratic capitalist

815
00:48:59,560 --> 00:49:03,759
Speaker 6: republic as a precursor to a socialist order. This, of course,

816
00:49:03,800 --> 00:49:07,680
Speaker 6: diverges from the earlier anarchist and syndicalist strategy, which viewed

817
00:49:07,680 --> 00:49:12,200
Speaker 6: the anti colonial independence and class struggles as interconnected and

818
00:49:12,280 --> 00:49:15,839
Speaker 6: didn't see national liberation as solely the purview of nationalism,

819
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:20,280
Speaker 6: a view which to me is more sophisticated and revolutionary

820
00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:23,160
Speaker 6: than this one track status view that Marxist tend to

821
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:28,360
Speaker 6: adopt contrary to the organizing efforts of actual working class people. Interestingly,

822
00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:32,440
Speaker 6: Van der Walt argues that while CPSA undeniably contributed to

823
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:36,000
Speaker 6: working class struggles since the nineteen forties, a critical look

824
00:49:36,040 --> 00:49:39,880
Speaker 6: reveals that they made consistent cricketures of the pre CPSA left.

825
00:49:40,560 --> 00:49:43,520
Speaker 6: They sort of established themselves as the true vanguard in

826
00:49:43,520 --> 00:49:46,560
Speaker 6: the fight for South Africa's liberation. So they portrayed the

827
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:50,879
Speaker 6: pre CPSA left in two main currents, the Proto Bolsheviks

828
00:49:50,960 --> 00:49:55,760
Speaker 6: considered true socialists and everyone else The pre CPSA left

829
00:49:55,840 --> 00:49:58,960
Speaker 6: was deemed a failure, with the Proto Bolsheviks credited for

830
00:49:59,000 --> 00:50:03,320
Speaker 6: pioneer and socialist work among black workers. According to their narrative,

831
00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:07,160
Speaker 6: it was only in the late nineteen twenties the CPSAS

832
00:50:07,200 --> 00:50:10,280
Speaker 6: adoption of the Native republic thesis and Marxist Leninist ideas

833
00:50:10,560 --> 00:50:15,359
Speaker 6: that the national question was adequately addressed. Anarchism and syndicalism

834
00:50:15,719 --> 00:50:20,120
Speaker 6: are portrayed as marginal and bothersome predominantly white movements that

835
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:24,120
Speaker 6: at best underestimated the significance of national oppression were at

836
00:50:24,200 --> 00:50:29,920
Speaker 6: worst endorsed white supremacy and segregation. This interpretation, of course,

837
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:33,799
Speaker 6: positions a CPSA slash SACP as the sole bearers of

838
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:38,480
Speaker 6: revolutionary socialist solutions the national question, while ironically erasing the

839
00:50:38,520 --> 00:50:43,800
Speaker 6: history of early African socialist and syndicalist radicalism. So wrapping

840
00:50:43,880 --> 00:50:46,920
Speaker 6: up a bit here, we delved into the intricate history

841
00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:51,200
Speaker 6: of anarchism and syndicalism in South Africa, uncovering a movement

842
00:50:51,239 --> 00:50:53,840
Speaker 6: that played a significant role in Southern Africa from the

843
00:50:53,920 --> 00:50:57,840
Speaker 6: eighteen eighties to the nineteen twenties and consistently grappled with

844
00:50:57,880 --> 00:51:01,560
Speaker 6: the complexities of the national question. We've seen a multi

845
00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:05,840
Speaker 6: racial and internationalist movement marked by a steadfast opposition to

846
00:51:05,920 --> 00:51:10,279
Speaker 6: racial discrimination and a commitment to interracial labor organization and

847
00:51:10,320 --> 00:51:13,400
Speaker 6: the unity of the Wigan class. They had a vision

848
00:51:13,440 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 6: of a society rooted in class solidarity, of an industrial

849
00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:21,040
Speaker 6: republic distinct from the conventional nation state and in lockstep

850
00:51:21,080 --> 00:51:25,840
Speaker 6: with an international industrial republic. Now, despite the decline of

851
00:51:25,880 --> 00:51:29,200
Speaker 6: anarchism and cynicalism in the years following the founding of

852
00:51:29,239 --> 00:51:34,120
Speaker 6: the CPSA slash sacp Anarchism is still alive today in

853
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:39,800
Speaker 6: South Africa. The Zaba Laza Anarchist Communist Front or ZACF

854
00:51:40,400 --> 00:51:44,839
Speaker 6: is a specific anarchist political organization based in Johannesburg, South

855
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:48,080
Speaker 6: Africa and founded on May Day in two thousand and three.

856
00:51:49,080 --> 00:51:53,600
Speaker 6: The organization operates on an individual membership basis by invitation only,

857
00:51:54,160 --> 00:52:00,000
Speaker 6: emphasising theoretical and strategic unity among members. The Zaba Lazas,

858
00:51:59,800 --> 00:52:03,480
Speaker 6: a line with the anarchist communist Platformists and a specifistic

859
00:52:03,600 --> 00:52:06,920
Speaker 6: traditions within anarchism, subscribe in to the idea of an

860
00:52:06,960 --> 00:52:12,239
Speaker 6: active minority pushing anarchist ideas within larger movements. In fact,

861
00:52:12,360 --> 00:52:16,640
Speaker 6: unlike the anarchisynicalists, the Zablazas don't aim to build mass

862
00:52:16,640 --> 00:52:20,920
Speaker 6: anarchist movements, but rather to participate in existing social movements,

863
00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:28,319
Speaker 6: spreading anarchist principles within heterogeneous organizations. Zablaza advocates for direct democracy,

864
00:52:28,800 --> 00:52:34,919
Speaker 6: mutual aid, horizontalism, class combativeness, direct action, and class independence.

865
00:52:35,680 --> 00:52:38,439
Speaker 6: It emerged during a time of political closure within trade

866
00:52:38,480 --> 00:52:42,320
Speaker 6: unions which were controlled by the African National Congress government.

867
00:52:42,960 --> 00:52:47,000
Speaker 6: It oriented itself towards emerging social movements such as the

868
00:52:47,040 --> 00:52:51,239
Speaker 6: Anti Privatization Forum and the Landless People's Movement, aim into

869
00:52:51,239 --> 00:52:56,600
Speaker 6: advance anarchist principles within these movements. Sablas's work includes popular

870
00:52:56,680 --> 00:53:01,960
Speaker 6: political education, combatant reformists and authoritarians, tendencies, an advocation for

871
00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:06,520
Speaker 6: the independence of social movements from political parties and electoral politics.

872
00:53:07,800 --> 00:53:12,120
Speaker 6: So that's the story the history of anarchism and cynicalism

873
00:53:12,200 --> 00:53:16,440
Speaker 6: and South Africa. Obviously this is a summary, but it

874
00:53:16,480 --> 00:53:20,520
Speaker 6: goes to show the influence that these movements have had

875
00:53:20,719 --> 00:53:24,400
Speaker 6: in shape and the history of that often forgotten region

876
00:53:24,440 --> 00:53:28,560
Speaker 6: of the world. Thanks for joining me once again, or

877
00:53:28,640 --> 00:53:30,279
Speaker 6: Powell to all the people.

878
00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:47,920
Speaker 5: Yes, welcome to it could happen here a podcast that

879
00:53:48,040 --> 00:53:50,520
Speaker 5: much of the chagrin of my upstairs neighbors is being

880
00:53:50,520 --> 00:53:54,120
Speaker 5: recorded at almost three in the morning. Is being recorded

881
00:53:54,160 --> 00:53:55,960
Speaker 5: at three in the morning instead of at any normal

882
00:53:56,000 --> 00:53:59,240
Speaker 5: time because a bunch of protests broke out across college

883
00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:04,160
Speaker 5: campuses against the genocide and Palestine. We will cover that

884
00:54:04,960 --> 00:54:11,759
Speaker 5: at some point very soon. However, Comma, there is this

885
00:54:11,840 --> 00:54:14,319
Speaker 5: episode to be done. I'm your host, Mia Wong, and

886
00:54:14,480 --> 00:54:19,719
Speaker 5: this episode is something a little different. So there's an

887
00:54:19,760 --> 00:54:23,000
Speaker 5: element of Trump's Agenda forty seven that we didn't really

888
00:54:23,080 --> 00:54:27,120
Speaker 5: talk about in our episodes. That's actually a pretty significant

889
00:54:27,160 --> 00:54:32,160
Speaker 5: amount of the material, and that's Trump's trade policy. And

890
00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:36,080
Speaker 5: this is sort of surprisingly a very large part of

891
00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:38,960
Speaker 5: his pitch. The sort of gist of it is that

892
00:54:39,040 --> 00:54:44,720
Speaker 5: Trump's appeal to like the white working class TM is Okay,

893
00:54:44,719 --> 00:54:46,759
Speaker 5: we're going to do a bunch of protectionist terrorists. This

894
00:54:46,800 --> 00:54:48,960
Speaker 5: is going to bring jobs back to the US by

895
00:54:49,000 --> 00:54:52,760
Speaker 5: imposing costs and manufacturing in other countries, etc. Et cetera.

896
00:54:52,880 --> 00:54:56,240
Speaker 5: This will bring jobs back to America and it will

897
00:54:56,280 --> 00:55:00,360
Speaker 5: make America greater or some shit. Now, the center piece

898
00:55:00,440 --> 00:55:04,600
Speaker 5: of this is what's called the Reciprocal Tariff Bill, and

899
00:55:04,640 --> 00:55:09,120
Speaker 5: it's not that complicated. Basically, what it says is if

900
00:55:09,160 --> 00:55:12,279
Speaker 5: a country imposes a tariff on an American good, the

901
00:55:12,400 --> 00:55:16,160
Speaker 5: US imposes an identical tariff on that tariff. It's designed

902
00:55:16,160 --> 00:55:21,719
Speaker 5: to basically automatically start trade wars. Now, the reason we

903
00:55:22,040 --> 00:55:26,319
Speaker 5: didn't cover this in the original Legenda forty seven slate

904
00:55:26,360 --> 00:55:29,800
Speaker 5: of episodes is that even in the worst case scenario

905
00:55:29,800 --> 00:55:32,719
Speaker 5: where Trump takes power like a coup, and you know,

906
00:55:32,800 --> 00:55:36,960
Speaker 5: the sort of power of anyone to oppose the magnificantly curtailed.

907
00:55:37,000 --> 00:55:39,440
Speaker 5: I don't think you can get this one passed. And

908
00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:41,120
Speaker 5: the reason I don't think you can get this one

909
00:55:41,200 --> 00:55:45,560
Speaker 5: passed is because, you know, as it turns out, this

910
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:47,960
Speaker 5: package and we're going to sort of explore this a

911
00:55:47,960 --> 00:55:54,600
Speaker 5: little bit. Actually seriously, messing with tariffs is something that

912
00:55:55,760 --> 00:55:57,960
Speaker 5: is really really going to piss off a lot of

913
00:55:57,960 --> 00:56:03,520
Speaker 5: corporations that actually matter. Now, Okay, So like I could

914
00:56:03,520 --> 00:56:05,839
Speaker 5: have just done the episode anyways, led with that and

915
00:56:06,239 --> 00:56:08,880
Speaker 5: just given a sort of you know, just given the

916
00:56:08,920 --> 00:56:10,640
Speaker 5: disclaimer that like it's probably not gonna happen. But I

917
00:56:10,680 --> 00:56:15,760
Speaker 5: think there's a more interesting story here that hasn't really

918
00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:21,760
Speaker 5: been talked about about the origin of basically the framework

919
00:56:21,800 --> 00:56:24,319
Speaker 5: of modern American politics, both on the right and on

920
00:56:24,360 --> 00:56:26,920
Speaker 5: the left, because they both emerge I think from a

921
00:56:26,960 --> 00:56:32,160
Speaker 5: series of arguments about trade that has been kind of

922
00:56:32,280 --> 00:56:35,560
Speaker 5: broadly forgotten. I think that's to our detriment. And the

923
00:56:35,560 --> 00:56:38,480
Speaker 5: product of this is that there's been a sort of

924
00:56:38,600 --> 00:56:40,640
Speaker 5: raft of arguments and I've seen this as much from

925
00:56:40,640 --> 00:56:43,480
Speaker 5: the leftist from the right, that Trump's support for tariffs

926
00:56:43,520 --> 00:56:46,000
Speaker 5: and particularly the sort of trade spat he got in

927
00:56:46,000 --> 00:56:49,000
Speaker 5: with China from twenty eighteen to twenty nineteen marks the

928
00:56:49,160 --> 00:56:51,680
Speaker 5: end of the sort of like neoliberal free trade regime

929
00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:54,880
Speaker 5: and the emergence of like new nationalist protections against free trade.

930
00:56:54,920 --> 00:56:58,680
Speaker 5: That's like the neo economic system that's replaced neoliberalism. And

931
00:56:59,000 --> 00:57:02,919
Speaker 5: I am very skeptical of this. And the reason why

932
00:57:02,960 --> 00:57:06,759
Speaker 5: I'm very skeptical of this is because I, like when

933
00:57:06,760 --> 00:57:09,080
Speaker 5: I was coming up as a leftist, I spent a

934
00:57:09,120 --> 00:57:13,200
Speaker 5: bunch of time seriously became involved in like irl left

935
00:57:13,320 --> 00:57:15,640
Speaker 5: organizing around twenty seventeen. I'd done some stuff in like

936
00:57:15,640 --> 00:57:19,200
Speaker 5: twenty thirteen before then, but that meant that, you know,

937
00:57:19,320 --> 00:57:22,040
Speaker 5: a lot of the stuff I was reading was accounts

938
00:57:22,040 --> 00:57:24,480
Speaker 5: of what was called the global justice movements, which was

939
00:57:24,800 --> 00:57:27,440
Speaker 5: alter globalization, anti globalization. There's like it has it has

940
00:57:27,480 --> 00:57:30,160
Speaker 5: a million names, but it was it was a series

941
00:57:30,200 --> 00:57:33,760
Speaker 5: of mass protest movements against the sort of raft of

942
00:57:33,760 --> 00:57:39,240
Speaker 5: free trade agreements coming out of the nineties. So and

943
00:57:40,040 --> 00:57:43,680
Speaker 5: you get a very very different picture of the history

944
00:57:43,720 --> 00:57:46,400
Speaker 5: of free trade that is sort of broader and more

945
00:57:46,440 --> 00:57:48,960
Speaker 5: expansive in the history of the resistance to it. Then

946
00:57:49,000 --> 00:57:51,280
Speaker 5: you get if you just sort of like, you know,

947
00:57:51,440 --> 00:57:55,840
Speaker 5: assume neoliberalism has been the same always and Trump is

948
00:57:55,880 --> 00:57:59,360
Speaker 5: the sort of aberration to it. Now, Trump's status as

949
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:02,960
Speaker 5: an aberration something that I question. I mean, you know,

950
00:58:03,040 --> 00:58:06,280
Speaker 5: the trade war that he got into is something, you know,

951
00:58:06,560 --> 00:58:10,480
Speaker 5: it's it's it is different. But I think there's a

952
00:58:10,560 --> 00:58:13,600
Speaker 5: lot of there's a lot of sort of hype around

953
00:58:13,680 --> 00:58:15,960
Speaker 5: Trump's like opposition to free trade. And like one of

954
00:58:16,000 --> 00:58:18,520
Speaker 5: the big things you know that Trump ran on was

955
00:58:18,640 --> 00:58:20,520
Speaker 5: pulling out of NAFTA, and he did. He did pull

956
00:58:20,560 --> 00:58:24,880
Speaker 5: out of DAFTA. However, COMA he then set up a

957
00:58:24,960 --> 00:58:27,080
Speaker 5: new trade NAFTA. By the way, it's a North American

958
00:58:27,120 --> 00:58:31,400
Speaker 5: Free Trade Agreement. It's really shit. We're going to talk

959
00:58:31,400 --> 00:58:34,080
Speaker 5: a bit more about what exactly it did later, but

960
00:58:34,240 --> 00:58:38,800
Speaker 5: you know, it's broadly seen, I think rightly as something

961
00:58:38,800 --> 00:58:41,560
Speaker 5: that smashed both huge portions of what was left of

962
00:58:41,560 --> 00:58:45,200
Speaker 5: the American manufacturing economy and you know, the parts of

963
00:58:45,200 --> 00:58:47,880
Speaker 5: the economy that had been rebuilt in the eighties and

964
00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:52,800
Speaker 5: also just absolutely annihilating the mechicangy cultural industry. For reasons

965
00:58:52,800 --> 00:58:54,600
Speaker 5: that we will we will explain it a bit. It's

966
00:58:55,080 --> 00:58:59,480
Speaker 5: now becoming extremely deeply unpopular because unbelievable numbers of workers

967
00:58:59,520 --> 00:59:02,840
Speaker 5: lost their and you know, the the jobs that they

968
00:59:03,000 --> 00:59:07,360
Speaker 5: got afterwards had shittier wages. You know, entire communities are ravage,

969
00:59:07,360 --> 00:59:10,280
Speaker 5: et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So Trump, you know,

970
00:59:10,320 --> 00:59:12,560
Speaker 5: famously campaigns I'm pulling out of this deal, but he

971
00:59:12,640 --> 00:59:16,280
Speaker 5: replaces it with something called USMCA. Now here's the thing

972
00:59:16,280 --> 00:59:21,440
Speaker 5: about this deal. This is basically just NAFTA with slightly

973
00:59:21,480 --> 00:59:24,200
Speaker 5: stronger carve outs for the auto industry about like what

974
00:59:24,320 --> 00:59:26,280
Speaker 5: percentage of the parts of vehicles had to be produced

975
00:59:26,280 --> 00:59:30,600
Speaker 5: in the US and some like slightly stronger labored like protections,

976
00:59:30,640 --> 00:59:34,400
Speaker 5: which is like fine, but it's it's basically the same deal, right,

977
00:59:35,440 --> 00:59:38,320
Speaker 5: So you know you have to take this whole sort

978
00:59:38,360 --> 00:59:41,160
Speaker 5: of like a Trump is like the anti free trade

979
00:59:41,200 --> 00:59:43,800
Speaker 5: thing with a grain of salt. And look at again

980
00:59:44,080 --> 00:59:49,280
Speaker 5: this deal they negotiated, which is just NAFTA. It is literally,

981
00:59:49,480 --> 00:59:51,600
Speaker 5: after all of the hype of him pulling out of NAFTA,

982
00:59:51,800 --> 00:59:55,360
Speaker 5: he did NAFTA again. Now this something very interesting that

983
00:59:55,400 --> 00:59:58,880
Speaker 5: I don't think people remember. Obaba also opposed NAFTA, and

984
00:59:58,920 --> 01:00:01,800
Speaker 5: they came into office and then nothing ever fucking happened.

985
01:00:01,960 --> 01:00:05,560
Speaker 5: The NAFTA, So, you know, the sort of like the

986
01:00:05,920 --> 01:00:11,000
Speaker 5: rumors of naftas Dubais have been greatly exaggerated. But Comma,

987
01:00:12,200 --> 01:00:15,840
Speaker 5: the story of the building of opposition to NAFTA is

988
01:00:16,120 --> 01:00:20,160
Speaker 5: very very interesting. So something I don't think most people

989
01:00:20,240 --> 01:00:24,160
Speaker 5: understand is that the modern American left is descended from

990
01:00:24,160 --> 01:00:29,640
Speaker 5: the Zapatistas. Very specifically. We're gonna one day cover the

991
01:00:29,960 --> 01:00:33,000
Speaker 5: Sapatista uprising in some detail, but the sort of cliff

992
01:00:33,040 --> 01:00:35,960
Speaker 5: nosed version is that on January first, nineteen ninety four,

993
01:00:36,000 --> 01:00:39,960
Speaker 5: the Zapatistas, who are you named after the great Mexican

994
01:00:40,080 --> 01:00:45,840
Speaker 5: revolutionary hero Melio Zapata, staged in uprising in Mexico. They

995
01:00:45,880 --> 01:00:47,800
Speaker 5: seized a bunch of cities very quickly. They were sort

996
01:00:47,840 --> 01:00:49,960
Speaker 5: of driven out of those cities, but eventually they took

997
01:00:50,040 --> 01:00:52,480
Speaker 5: control of a decent part of the territory of the

998
01:00:52,520 --> 01:00:56,000
Speaker 5: Mexican state of Chiapas. The Zapatisa stage is uprising for

999
01:00:56,000 --> 01:00:58,000
Speaker 5: a number of reasons. The most famous of them is

1000
01:00:58,040 --> 01:01:02,320
Speaker 5: that January first, nineteen ninety four is the year the

1001
01:01:02,440 --> 01:01:06,320
Speaker 5: NATHA took effect. One of the things about this free

1002
01:01:06,360 --> 01:01:10,360
Speaker 5: trade agreement is that it in order to ratify it,

1003
01:01:10,400 --> 01:01:14,360
Speaker 5: the Mexican governments changed the constitution, and the part of

1004
01:01:14,400 --> 01:01:16,800
Speaker 5: the constitution they eliminated was the part that had secured

1005
01:01:17,200 --> 01:01:20,280
Speaker 5: collective ownership of a bunch of land for indigenous people,

1006
01:01:20,800 --> 01:01:23,640
Speaker 5: and this would allow corporations to seize and control the season,

1007
01:01:23,680 --> 01:01:26,600
Speaker 5: controlled the indigenous lands, exploit for resources, kicked the people

1008
01:01:26,640 --> 01:01:30,040
Speaker 5: off of it, and kill them. Now, this obviously was

1009
01:01:30,280 --> 01:01:34,480
Speaker 5: unacceptable to the Zapatistas. They go into revolt. What I

1010
01:01:34,520 --> 01:01:38,880
Speaker 5: think people don't realize is the zapatisis what the Zapatisis

1011
01:01:38,960 --> 01:01:41,120
Speaker 5: did next, which is holding these a series of these

1012
01:01:41,120 --> 01:01:46,520
Speaker 5: things called encuentros like encounters. Sorry, my Spanish is not

1013
01:01:46,640 --> 01:01:48,560
Speaker 5: as good as it once was, and it was never great,

1014
01:01:49,000 --> 01:01:52,600
Speaker 5: but you know, in which they invited you know, sort

1015
01:01:52,640 --> 01:01:55,240
Speaker 5: of leftist activists from all over the world to get together.

1016
01:01:56,080 --> 01:02:01,080
Speaker 5: And this is the thing that re built the left

1017
01:02:01,400 --> 01:02:05,400
Speaker 5: after the absolute catastrophe of the death of the old

1018
01:02:05,480 --> 01:02:08,280
Speaker 5: left around the collapse of the Soviet Union, which sort

1019
01:02:08,280 --> 01:02:13,600
Speaker 5: of annihilated like the sort of old left like communist

1020
01:02:13,640 --> 01:02:17,040
Speaker 5: political parties and you know Usherton, like the pure era

1021
01:02:17,200 --> 01:02:20,960
Speaker 5: of the march and neoliberalism, and the activists that came

1022
01:02:21,040 --> 01:02:24,520
Speaker 5: out of these encounters go back to you know, go

1023
01:02:24,560 --> 01:02:27,800
Speaker 5: back to their respective countries and they start and you know,

1024
01:02:27,840 --> 01:02:33,160
Speaker 5: they're they're organizing against these trade against you know, these

1025
01:02:33,200 --> 01:02:36,360
Speaker 5: series of free trade deals, and they start doing what's

1026
01:02:36,360 --> 01:02:38,600
Speaker 5: becalled what's become known as summit hopping. I think the

1027
01:02:38,880 --> 01:02:42,560
Speaker 5: most famous of these in America is what's become known

1028
01:02:42,600 --> 01:02:44,960
Speaker 5: as the Battle of Seattle, the nineteen ninety nine giant

1029
01:02:44,960 --> 01:02:49,040
Speaker 5: protest against the World Trade Organization summit. Yeah, and this

1030
01:02:49,120 --> 01:02:50,720
Speaker 5: sort of you know, and this starts from about nineteen

1031
01:02:50,760 --> 01:02:53,720
Speaker 5: ninety nine to nine to eleven. There's a huge wave

1032
01:02:53,960 --> 01:02:56,439
Speaker 5: of these well, I mean it goes on after nine eleven,

1033
01:02:56,480 --> 01:02:58,880
Speaker 5: but nine to eleven really damages it. But there's this

1034
01:02:59,200 --> 01:03:02,280
Speaker 5: massive it's like really the first sort of real like

1035
01:03:03,160 --> 01:03:07,400
Speaker 5: mass mobilizations and social movements like in the US sense,

1036
01:03:07,600 --> 01:03:09,440
Speaker 5: like there's a stuff in the anti nuclear whom of

1037
01:03:09,480 --> 01:03:10,959
Speaker 5: the eighties, but this is this is the first really

1038
01:03:11,000 --> 01:03:15,080
Speaker 5: big sort of like resurrection of the left. And I

1039
01:03:15,080 --> 01:03:19,200
Speaker 5: think importantly for us, like the people who people who

1040
01:03:19,240 --> 01:03:23,040
Speaker 5: found occupy like David Graeber for example, is someone who

1041
01:03:23,640 --> 01:03:28,120
Speaker 5: starts doing politics like during this period dream alter globalization,

1042
01:03:28,320 --> 01:03:32,920
Speaker 5: during these sort of protests, and those people, those are

1043
01:03:32,920 --> 01:03:37,200
Speaker 5: the people who build occupy, and you know, occupy for

1044
01:03:37,360 --> 01:03:40,680
Speaker 5: whatever whatever else you can say about it, Occupy is

1045
01:03:40,760 --> 01:03:43,720
Speaker 5: the single event that brought that like drag the American

1046
01:03:43,840 --> 01:03:47,720
Speaker 5: left kicking and screaming out of irrelevance and all of

1047
01:03:47,760 --> 01:03:50,040
Speaker 5: that shit. Everything, you know, every all of the sort

1048
01:03:50,080 --> 01:03:52,880
Speaker 5: of organizational tenets of occupy, all of its sort of ideology.

1049
01:03:53,400 --> 01:03:57,680
Speaker 5: That stuff is all stuff from multi globalization, right, and

1050
01:03:57,720 --> 01:04:01,000
Speaker 5: you know, the sort of tenants of like direct democracy,

1051
01:04:01,360 --> 01:04:05,040
Speaker 5: of the sort of like the sort of economic egalitarianism,

1052
01:04:05,160 --> 01:04:07,720
Speaker 5: this opposition to free trade. This you know, this whole

1053
01:04:07,720 --> 01:04:11,000
Speaker 5: thing about the way that the World Trade Organization and

1054
01:04:11,120 --> 01:04:15,280
Speaker 5: the World Bank, you know, use sort of economic structuring

1055
01:04:15,320 --> 01:04:19,680
Speaker 5: deals to devastate economies and like turn entire nations into

1056
01:04:19,720 --> 01:04:23,360
Speaker 5: sort of debt peons. This is all ault globalization stuff.

1057
01:04:24,160 --> 01:04:28,840
Speaker 5: And this movement is very, very powerful and very successful.

1058
01:04:29,080 --> 01:04:30,640
Speaker 5: Even the sort of arch like you know, by by

1059
01:04:30,720 --> 01:04:33,280
Speaker 5: by by the time you hit twenty sixteen, right, this

1060
01:04:33,360 --> 01:04:37,480
Speaker 5: has reshaped politics in the US to the extent that

1061
01:04:37,600 --> 01:04:42,040
Speaker 5: like arch neoliberal Hillary Clinton says she's openly in fa

1062
01:04:42,200 --> 01:04:44,880
Speaker 5: like openly says she's in favor of renegotiating NAFTA and

1063
01:04:44,960 --> 01:04:47,680
Speaker 5: opposes her own trans Pacific Partnership, which is the last

1064
01:04:47,720 --> 01:04:50,200
Speaker 5: of the sort of giant free trade deals that would

1065
01:04:50,240 --> 01:04:52,720
Speaker 5: eventually like die and go up and smoke with Trump. Right,

1066
01:04:53,160 --> 01:04:56,560
Speaker 5: I'm going to read a passage from David Graver's piece

1067
01:04:56,560 --> 01:05:00,840
Speaker 5: to Shock of Victory about what actually happened UH dreamed

1068
01:05:00,840 --> 01:05:05,600
Speaker 5: this movement. This is section about free trade agreements. All

1069
01:05:05,640 --> 01:05:08,600
Speaker 5: the ambitious free trade treaties planned since nineteen ninety eight

1070
01:05:08,640 --> 01:05:12,160
Speaker 5: have failed. The MIIA was routed the FTAA the focus

1071
01:05:12,160 --> 01:05:14,400
Speaker 5: of the actions in Quebec, and Miami stopped that in

1072
01:05:14,440 --> 01:05:17,280
Speaker 5: its tracks. Most of us remember the two thousand and

1073
01:05:17,280 --> 01:05:20,600
Speaker 5: three FTAA, some mainly for introducing the quote unquote Miami

1074
01:05:20,640 --> 01:05:25,520
Speaker 5: model of extreme police respression against even obviously nonviolent civil resistance.

1075
01:05:26,040 --> 01:05:28,760
Speaker 5: It was that, but we forget that this was more

1076
01:05:28,800 --> 01:05:32,000
Speaker 5: than anything, the enraged flailings of a pack of extremely

1077
01:05:32,040 --> 01:05:36,360
Speaker 5: sore losers. Miami was the meeting where the FTAA was

1078
01:05:36,400 --> 01:05:40,640
Speaker 5: definitively killed. Now no one is even talking about broad,

1079
01:05:40,680 --> 01:05:43,600
Speaker 5: ambitious treaties on that scale. The US is reduced to

1080
01:05:43,600 --> 01:05:46,400
Speaker 5: pushing from minor country to country trade packs with additional

1081
01:05:46,440 --> 01:05:49,520
Speaker 5: allies like South Korea and Peru, or at best deals

1082
01:05:49,560 --> 01:05:53,760
Speaker 5: like caf TA uniting its remaining client states in Central America.

1083
01:05:53,840 --> 01:05:55,840
Speaker 5: And it's not even clear we'll manage to pull that off.

1084
01:05:56,120 --> 01:05:58,160
Speaker 5: And this is what we've seen from you know, sort

1085
01:05:58,160 --> 01:06:00,520
Speaker 5: of projecting forward from the future, from the two thousands

1086
01:06:00,560 --> 01:06:03,520
Speaker 5: when this is written. Free trade was not killed by

1087
01:06:03,520 --> 01:06:07,120
Speaker 5: Trump or shijianping. These free trade agreements, if anyone, was

1088
01:06:07,200 --> 01:06:09,320
Speaker 5: killed by the Zappatistas and the global justice and the

1089
01:06:09,320 --> 01:06:11,600
Speaker 5: global justice movement. That the that, you know, the sort

1090
01:06:11,600 --> 01:06:13,840
Speaker 5: of like in contros and the Zappatista is built.

1091
01:06:15,200 --> 01:06:15,360
Speaker 4: Now.

1092
01:06:15,400 --> 01:06:17,920
Speaker 5: One things that Appatistas did not build is the producting

1093
01:06:17,960 --> 01:06:31,240
Speaker 5: services that support this podcast. And we are we are

1094
01:06:31,280 --> 01:06:34,800
Speaker 5: back from products and servicing, products and servicing. That is

1095
01:06:34,840 --> 01:06:39,480
Speaker 5: slightly ominous. Now, the modern left isn't the only thing

1096
01:06:39,520 --> 01:06:43,560
Speaker 5: that sort of descended from the backlash to free trade right.

1097
01:06:43,600 --> 01:06:45,880
Speaker 5: We've we've you know, we we've gone over the extent

1098
01:06:46,400 --> 01:06:48,400
Speaker 5: to which the left is built off of this stuff.

1099
01:06:48,880 --> 01:06:51,120
Speaker 5: But much of the modern right is descended from the

1100
01:06:51,160 --> 01:06:54,240
Speaker 5: sort of ross perrot like right wing nationalists backlash to

1101
01:06:54,400 --> 01:06:57,200
Speaker 5: the same stuff. I think probably the most the most

1102
01:06:57,240 --> 01:07:00,480
Speaker 5: famous link between that era and this era is Alex Jones.

1103
01:07:00,880 --> 01:07:03,080
Speaker 5: This is the reason that like Alex Jones, and people

1104
01:07:03,120 --> 01:07:06,480
Speaker 5: like him screaming about like scream constantly about globalists, right,

1105
01:07:06,920 --> 01:07:11,160
Speaker 5: because you know, the global justice movement has two kind

1106
01:07:11,200 --> 01:07:14,840
Speaker 5: of wings. There's or you know what was called anti globalizition.

1107
01:07:15,440 --> 01:07:17,520
Speaker 5: It's two wings. One wing is a sort is a

1108
01:07:17,600 --> 01:07:20,920
Speaker 5: leftist wing, which is like, okay, we actually support like

1109
01:07:21,200 --> 01:07:23,240
Speaker 5: the we know, we support the global like movement of

1110
01:07:23,280 --> 01:07:25,400
Speaker 5: ideas and people, but we but you know what, what

1111
01:07:25,400 --> 01:07:30,320
Speaker 5: what globalization and free trade actually means is locking people

1112
01:07:30,400 --> 01:07:33,200
Speaker 5: down in their countries with militarized borders while capital boost

1113
01:07:33,400 --> 01:07:36,440
Speaker 5: freely between them. And we think that's fucking bad. There

1114
01:07:36,560 --> 01:07:39,440
Speaker 5: was also another you know, there was also the right

1115
01:07:39,480 --> 01:07:42,680
Speaker 5: ring reaction, which is this incredibly right ring nationalist reaction,

1116
01:07:42,760 --> 01:07:45,680
Speaker 5: which is that like, ah, like these these like rootless

1117
01:07:45,720 --> 01:07:52,320
Speaker 5: cosmopolitan globalists are uh are like like you know, taking

1118
01:07:52,360 --> 01:07:55,720
Speaker 5: all of our jobs and moving them to like Mexico,

1119
01:07:56,520 --> 01:08:00,160
Speaker 5: and you know they've like sold they're like sold out

1120
01:08:00,200 --> 01:08:02,200
Speaker 5: the American people. And you know, like obviously this stuff

1121
01:08:02,280 --> 01:08:05,360
Speaker 5: is just it starts anti it starts like as anti

1122
01:08:05,360 --> 01:08:08,360
Speaker 5: semitic dog whistles and just gets I mean like like okay,

1123
01:08:08,400 --> 01:08:10,400
Speaker 5: these are like the loudest dog whistles of all time. Right,

1124
01:08:10,440 --> 01:08:14,280
Speaker 5: But you know, they get increasingly anti semitic, and this

1125
01:08:14,320 --> 01:08:16,280
Speaker 5: is the kind of stuff you know that Alex Jones

1126
01:08:16,320 --> 01:08:20,120
Speaker 5: is doing. And this is the kind of sort of

1127
01:08:20,160 --> 01:08:23,600
Speaker 5: writing politics that winds out over so sort of like

1128
01:08:23,640 --> 01:08:30,200
Speaker 5: neo conservatisms more like sort of hoorah free trade. We're

1129
01:08:30,240 --> 01:08:32,759
Speaker 5: going to use like the might of the American empire

1130
01:08:32,920 --> 01:08:36,160
Speaker 5: to like you know, spread sort of like this very

1131
01:08:36,200 --> 01:08:39,880
Speaker 5: specific model of capitalism to other countries. And you get

1132
01:08:39,880 --> 01:08:42,879
Speaker 5: the sort of Trump style like fuck every other country,

1133
01:08:42,960 --> 01:08:46,800
Speaker 5: We're gonna kind of do tariffs and stuff. Now, what

1134
01:08:46,880 --> 01:08:51,080
Speaker 5: I think is very interesting. So what Trump eventually sort

1135
01:08:51,080 --> 01:08:54,320
Speaker 5: of winds up, you know, producing as a discourse, I

1136
01:08:54,320 --> 01:08:56,839
Speaker 5: guess you could say, is is this is this image

1137
01:08:57,000 --> 01:08:59,560
Speaker 5: of Okay, so, like the thing that's holding back the

1138
01:08:59,600 --> 01:09:02,760
Speaker 5: American worker is China because all of our jobs are

1139
01:09:02,760 --> 01:09:04,519
Speaker 5: being sent to China, and so if we just put

1140
01:09:04,560 --> 01:09:07,400
Speaker 5: more tariffs on China and we defeat China geopolitically, everything

1141
01:09:07,439 --> 01:09:10,320
Speaker 5: will sort of like be great in the American nation.

1142
01:09:11,000 --> 01:09:14,280
Speaker 5: Like you the white worker are going to have jobs again,

1143
01:09:14,400 --> 01:09:16,240
Speaker 5: Like everything's going to go back to the way they were.

1144
01:09:17,320 --> 01:09:21,280
Speaker 5: And what's fascinating about this is that, you know, as

1145
01:09:21,320 --> 01:09:23,880
Speaker 5: the trade war's intensifying, and then mid Light twenty tens

1146
01:09:24,720 --> 01:09:29,240
Speaker 5: in China, there is a parallel discourse which is almost identical,

1147
01:09:29,600 --> 01:09:31,920
Speaker 5: where Chinese nationalists will do this thing where they talk

1148
01:09:31,920 --> 01:09:35,280
Speaker 5: about like breaking through the Great Ming as a solution

1149
01:09:35,360 --> 01:09:39,280
Speaker 5: to evolution. We talked about involution on the show before.

1150
01:09:39,479 --> 01:09:41,759
Speaker 5: Is this concept that's very popular in China right now,

1151
01:09:42,200 --> 01:09:45,439
Speaker 5: where you know, it's becoming increasingly clear that like a

1152
01:09:45,479 --> 01:09:47,920
Speaker 5: working hard is not going to actually get you any

1153
01:09:47,920 --> 01:09:49,680
Speaker 5: more money than you're getting now, Like you're not going

1154
01:09:49,760 --> 01:09:51,280
Speaker 5: to get ahead in life. You're just sort of stuck.

1155
01:09:51,280 --> 01:09:53,280
Speaker 5: And so you're stuck in this condition of putting more

1156
01:09:53,320 --> 01:09:57,639
Speaker 5: and more effort into nothing. And the Chinese nationalist argument

1157
01:09:57,680 --> 01:10:00,200
Speaker 5: is that if you, if you can geopolitically dif feed

1158
01:10:00,280 --> 01:10:02,400
Speaker 5: the US, China will sort of like break out of

1159
01:10:02,400 --> 01:10:07,120
Speaker 5: its wage stagnation and economic stagnation. And so you know,

1160
01:10:07,160 --> 01:10:09,519
Speaker 5: what you have is this very very dangerous collision of

1161
01:10:09,560 --> 01:10:12,960
Speaker 5: these two sort of like right wing nationalisms that are

1162
01:10:13,120 --> 01:10:18,800
Speaker 5: like offering these really sort of categorically false assertions that

1163
01:10:18,880 --> 01:10:21,879
Speaker 5: if you just follow their sort of nationalists geopolitical agenda,

1164
01:10:21,880 --> 01:10:23,919
Speaker 5: then all of the sort of class issues that everyone's

1165
01:10:23,920 --> 01:10:29,560
Speaker 5: dealing with will suddenly magically work themselves out. Now contra

1166
01:10:29,800 --> 01:10:34,240
Speaker 5: this and contra I think the argument that even that

1167
01:10:34,400 --> 01:10:36,200
Speaker 5: sort of just you know, the argument that I was

1168
01:10:36,200 --> 01:10:39,360
Speaker 5: talking about before, that like Trump and the sort of

1169
01:10:39,479 --> 01:10:43,640
Speaker 5: nationalists like economic policy and discourse from China like represents

1170
01:10:43,840 --> 01:10:46,640
Speaker 5: something you know, seismic, like a seismic change, and like

1171
01:10:47,320 --> 01:10:51,080
Speaker 5: trade policy, that signals the end of neoliberalism. I want

1172
01:10:51,080 --> 01:10:53,320
Speaker 5: to come back to the point of will Trump actually

1173
01:10:53,400 --> 01:10:55,599
Speaker 5: be able to implement any of the stuff even if

1174
01:10:55,640 --> 01:10:58,760
Speaker 5: he had sort of near dictatorial power, And I think

1175
01:10:58,800 --> 01:11:00,599
Speaker 5: the answer to that is no. The reason I think

1176
01:11:00,640 --> 01:11:02,600
Speaker 5: the answer to that is no is that, you know,

1177
01:11:02,640 --> 01:11:05,320
Speaker 5: one of the old observations about quote unquote free trade

1178
01:11:05,320 --> 01:11:08,680
Speaker 5: from the global just movement is that, Okay, if you

1179
01:11:08,760 --> 01:11:13,719
Speaker 5: look at what quote unquote trade is, right, international trade,

1180
01:11:14,560 --> 01:11:17,799
Speaker 5: huge amount of it is literally the same company moving

1181
01:11:17,840 --> 01:11:21,840
Speaker 5: its own resources from one place to another. Now, the

1182
01:11:21,880 --> 01:11:24,360
Speaker 5: problem is the more expensive it is for corporation to

1183
01:11:24,400 --> 01:11:26,559
Speaker 5: do this, the more pissed off they get. Right, and

1184
01:11:26,600 --> 01:11:29,639
Speaker 5: this means that this kind of like tariff war bullshit,

1185
01:11:30,760 --> 01:11:32,840
Speaker 5: And this happened through the Trump administration that pissed off

1186
01:11:32,840 --> 01:11:34,280
Speaker 5: a lot of people. And if if you know, and

1187
01:11:34,840 --> 01:11:37,320
Speaker 5: Trump is you know, his intention is to start an

1188
01:11:37,400 --> 01:11:40,240
Speaker 5: even larger and more powerful series of trade wars. This

1189
01:11:40,439 --> 01:11:42,760
Speaker 5: is going to piss off a lot of people who

1190
01:11:42,800 --> 01:11:45,240
Speaker 5: actually matter in the sort of in the American political system,

1191
01:11:45,280 --> 01:11:48,080
Speaker 5: which is to say, a lot of shareholders and a

1192
01:11:48,120 --> 01:11:52,519
Speaker 5: lot of CEOs, and you know. And so I think

1193
01:11:52,560 --> 01:11:54,880
Speaker 5: the fairly obvious inclusion is that what actually happens here

1194
01:11:55,000 --> 01:11:56,880
Speaker 5: is you get exactly the same kind of shit that

1195
01:11:56,920 --> 01:11:59,240
Speaker 5: happened with Trump's like quote unquote pull out of NAFTA,

1196
01:11:59,680 --> 01:12:02,280
Speaker 5: where he makes like one or two symbolic gestures and

1197
01:12:02,320 --> 01:12:05,760
Speaker 5: then everything continues as normal and he declares victory. Now,

1198
01:12:05,920 --> 01:12:08,479
Speaker 5: the second problem I have with people looking at this

1199
01:12:08,560 --> 01:12:11,120
Speaker 5: as a sort of new regime is the way that

1200
01:12:11,160 --> 01:12:17,439
Speaker 5: they're thinking about this sort of like tiff and subsidy

1201
01:12:17,520 --> 01:12:20,679
Speaker 5: regime as something that's that's not a part of neoliberalism, right,

1202
01:12:20,720 --> 01:12:24,040
Speaker 5: Like the sort of theoretical ideal of neoliberalism is countries

1203
01:12:24,080 --> 01:12:26,240
Speaker 5: aren't supposed to do tarriffs. Countries aren't supposed to be

1204
01:12:26,240 --> 01:12:28,200
Speaker 5: able to do like quote unquote protectionism. So we're not

1205
01:12:28,200 --> 01:12:32,439
Speaker 5: supposed to give subsis and manufacturers and everyone's supposed to

1206
01:12:32,439 --> 01:12:35,400
Speaker 5: like compete on a free and equal trade playing field.

1207
01:12:36,280 --> 01:12:40,479
Speaker 5: This has never been true and in fact, what free

1208
01:12:40,520 --> 01:12:42,639
Speaker 5: trade has meant in practice, and this has been true

1209
01:12:42,680 --> 01:12:45,640
Speaker 5: since the founding of the World Trade Organization. What it

1210
01:12:45,720 --> 01:12:48,559
Speaker 5: means is that Western countries get to impose terriffs and

1211
01:12:48,600 --> 01:12:53,160
Speaker 5: manufacturing subsidies and non Western countries don't. Right, even in

1212
01:12:53,200 --> 01:12:56,000
Speaker 5: the WTO, there's a bunch of random carve outs for

1213
01:12:56,320 --> 01:13:00,680
Speaker 5: like fucking like random workers in Germany and stuff. This

1214
01:13:00,880 --> 01:13:03,400
Speaker 5: is also a part of like literally a part of

1215
01:13:03,439 --> 01:13:05,839
Speaker 5: what start of the Zapatista uprising. I mean we talked about,

1216
01:13:06,200 --> 01:13:08,439
Speaker 5: you know, the primary cause, like the elimination of collective

1217
01:13:08,439 --> 01:13:15,160
Speaker 5: ownership from Mexican constitution. But another huge problem is what

1218
01:13:15,160 --> 01:13:16,960
Speaker 5: what NAFTA was going to do is force a bunch

1219
01:13:17,000 --> 01:13:21,360
Speaker 5: of Mexican corn farmers to compete with American corn farmers. Now, okay,

1220
01:13:21,840 --> 01:13:25,080
Speaker 5: if it was literally just corn farmers from these two

1221
01:13:25,120 --> 01:13:28,840
Speaker 5: countries competing, like Mexican corn farmers probably eventually cauld out

1222
01:13:28,840 --> 01:13:31,960
Speaker 5: compete American corn farmers because Americans are fucking dogshit at farming.

1223
01:13:32,720 --> 01:13:35,880
Speaker 5: But under the terms of NAFTA, and this is again

1224
01:13:35,880 --> 01:13:37,840
Speaker 5: the thing that's been true of free trade this whole time,

1225
01:13:38,720 --> 01:13:42,520
Speaker 5: they have to compete with subsidized American corn. This is impossible.

1226
01:13:42,640 --> 01:13:45,400
Speaker 5: Mexican farmers got fucking annihilated. All of their land was

1227
01:13:45,400 --> 01:13:49,240
Speaker 5: seized by corporations, and you know, it has brought sort

1228
01:13:49,240 --> 01:13:51,599
Speaker 5: of devastation and ruined to the Mexican economy ever since.

1229
01:13:51,640 --> 01:13:53,719
Speaker 5: This has been absolutely great for the ruling class because

1230
01:13:53,720 --> 01:13:56,439
Speaker 5: all of these farmers who suddenly like you know, can't

1231
01:13:56,439 --> 01:13:59,479
Speaker 5: afford to keep their farms anymore, were forced into sort

1232
01:13:59,520 --> 01:14:02,280
Speaker 5: of like labor and a bunch of shitty sweatshops that

1233
01:14:02,320 --> 01:14:05,160
Speaker 5: were set up from NAFTA. So this worked great from

1234
01:14:05,160 --> 01:14:07,760
Speaker 5: the perspective of American capital. But again, if you look

1235
01:14:07,800 --> 01:14:11,000
Speaker 5: at what actually happened here, right, all of the sort

1236
01:14:11,000 --> 01:14:13,559
Speaker 5: of like rhetorica of free trade, you know, like sort

1237
01:14:13,560 --> 01:14:15,920
Speaker 5: of like fades into myst and face of the reality

1238
01:14:16,080 --> 01:14:21,040
Speaker 5: of one of the great industrial policy programs in the

1239
01:14:21,120 --> 01:14:23,919
Speaker 5: in the history of world economies, which is the American

1240
01:14:23,960 --> 01:14:27,240
Speaker 5: subsidization of its own fucking agriculture. And you know, this

1241
01:14:27,439 --> 01:14:30,680
Speaker 5: isn't considered in the quote unquote industrial policy or like

1242
01:14:30,720 --> 01:14:36,080
Speaker 5: industrial like government planning or whatever, like largely because people

1243
01:14:36,120 --> 01:14:38,639
Speaker 5: have this weird bias when they talk about government planning

1244
01:14:38,680 --> 01:14:41,519
Speaker 5: that it only is supposed to apply to like, oh,

1245
01:14:41,600 --> 01:14:44,200
Speaker 5: government planning means when like someone like plans steel outputs

1246
01:14:44,280 --> 01:14:47,360
Speaker 5: or some shit, but like, no, like the actual large

1247
01:14:47,360 --> 01:14:49,519
Speaker 5: scale economic plan that goes on the US is the

1248
01:14:49,840 --> 01:14:52,479
Speaker 5: unfat like billions and billions of billions and billions of

1249
01:14:52,479 --> 01:14:56,120
Speaker 5: dollars will be pour into the agricultural industry every year. So,

1250
01:14:56,800 --> 01:14:58,840
Speaker 5: you know, if if you look at the stuff that

1251
01:14:58,880 --> 01:15:01,240
Speaker 5: everyone's claiming of these sort of new innovations that are

1252
01:15:01,280 --> 01:15:04,240
Speaker 5: like the end of neoliberalism, right, it's like, oh my god.

1253
01:15:04,320 --> 01:15:10,160
Speaker 5: Other countries are putting up like protectionists subsidy things, Like

1254
01:15:10,160 --> 01:15:12,080
Speaker 5: they're having their you know, people are like trying to

1255
01:15:12,080 --> 01:15:15,000
Speaker 5: make microchips and they're having like state sponsored programs to

1256
01:15:15,040 --> 01:15:18,640
Speaker 5: do microshrips. It's like, well, they're just doing with microchips

1257
01:15:18,640 --> 01:15:23,320
Speaker 5: what the US has been doing with cord this entire time. Right.

1258
01:15:24,479 --> 01:15:27,720
Speaker 5: What's really changing to some extent is that, you know,

1259
01:15:28,080 --> 01:15:30,680
Speaker 5: the deal had always been that Western countries get to

1260
01:15:30,720 --> 01:15:33,960
Speaker 5: impost Harris and AD manufacturing subsidies and non Western countries don't.

1261
01:15:34,600 --> 01:15:37,200
Speaker 5: And I think part of what's weighing people out is that, like,

1262
01:15:37,240 --> 01:15:40,240
Speaker 5: you know, China has actually been kind of attempting to

1263
01:15:40,240 --> 01:15:43,120
Speaker 5: break the West monopoly on being able to do with

1264
01:15:43,160 --> 01:15:47,400
Speaker 5: industrial policy, and this has caused a bunch of people

1265
01:15:47,439 --> 01:15:51,320
Speaker 5: to really severely overestimate the extent to which like this

1266
01:15:51,439 --> 01:15:57,599
Speaker 5: is an actual break from previous regimes of trade and capital. Now,

1267
01:15:58,120 --> 01:16:00,519
Speaker 5: another point that I want to make that I I've

1268
01:16:00,520 --> 01:16:02,920
Speaker 5: talked about this before on the show, but I want

1269
01:16:02,920 --> 01:16:05,200
Speaker 5: to kind of briefly touch on it again because I

1270
01:16:05,200 --> 01:16:08,680
Speaker 5: think it's really important and it's really badly understood. Is

1271
01:16:08,720 --> 01:16:11,120
Speaker 5: that for all of the sort of discourse about how

1272
01:16:11,760 --> 01:16:15,320
Speaker 5: like a China's like entering into economic competition with the West,

1273
01:16:15,320 --> 01:16:19,000
Speaker 5: and it's like increasingly using the party to like pursue

1274
01:16:19,120 --> 01:16:22,600
Speaker 5: nationalist aims instead of like following the market, if you

1275
01:16:22,600 --> 01:16:25,200
Speaker 5: look at what's actually going on in China, despite all

1276
01:16:25,280 --> 01:16:28,000
Speaker 5: the hype about like China and the US are decoupling

1277
01:16:28,040 --> 01:16:30,439
Speaker 5: their economies, or like China is trying to make its

1278
01:16:30,479 --> 01:16:34,719
Speaker 5: own domestic silicon industry, the actual tendency in Chinese economic

1279
01:16:34,800 --> 01:16:39,439
Speaker 5: policy is towards further integration and increasing foreign otoship. China

1280
01:16:39,920 --> 01:16:42,600
Speaker 5: has a lot of provisions about foreign companies needing to

1281
01:16:42,600 --> 01:16:44,880
Speaker 5: be in partnership with Chinese companies in order to operate

1282
01:16:44,920 --> 01:16:48,000
Speaker 5: in China. There's always been massive restrictions on how much

1283
01:16:48,040 --> 01:16:51,599
Speaker 5: stock a foreign company can own in Chinese companies, and

1284
01:16:51,800 --> 01:16:56,880
Speaker 5: these restrictions in sector, sector after sector after sector are

1285
01:16:56,920 --> 01:16:59,880
Speaker 5: being lifted, and so you have to sort of look

1286
01:17:00,080 --> 01:17:03,360
Speaker 5: at this, you know, the sort of like surface level

1287
01:17:03,439 --> 01:17:06,720
Speaker 5: nationalist narratives about like, ah, we're entering an era of

1288
01:17:06,800 --> 01:17:11,920
Speaker 5: like warring like like warring mutually exclusive economic trading series,

1289
01:17:11,920 --> 01:17:15,799
Speaker 5: with the reality of China being like, no, please foreign capital,

1290
01:17:16,000 --> 01:17:19,640
Speaker 5: like you can operate here without us. It's going to

1291
01:17:19,720 --> 01:17:22,120
Speaker 5: be great just to keep keep keep pumping more capital

1292
01:17:22,160 --> 01:17:24,439
Speaker 5: in if we all, if we all work together, all

1293
01:17:24,479 --> 01:17:26,960
Speaker 5: of the sort of porgeows you will keep making money together.

1294
01:17:27,840 --> 01:17:31,120
Speaker 5: And I think all of this leads to something the

1295
01:17:31,200 --> 01:17:33,120
Speaker 5: last thing I want touch on, which is what's actually

1296
01:17:33,240 --> 01:17:37,680
Speaker 5: happening here and the thing that's actually happening here and

1297
01:17:38,000 --> 01:17:40,240
Speaker 5: the problem, the thing that's actually causing all of these

1298
01:17:40,280 --> 01:17:43,519
Speaker 5: sort of like all like the sort of focus on

1299
01:17:43,560 --> 01:17:49,760
Speaker 5: trade itself and the sort of Trumpian nationalists, we can

1300
01:17:49,800 --> 01:17:54,559
Speaker 5: solve all your problems by trade competition. What's happening is

1301
01:17:54,600 --> 01:17:58,080
Speaker 5: that after about the nineteen sixties, because of sort of

1302
01:17:58,160 --> 01:18:04,040
Speaker 5: structural manufacturing of a capacity under consumption production, you know,

1303
01:18:04,120 --> 01:18:07,519
Speaker 5: industrial production is zero sum, right, you can't increase production

1304
01:18:07,680 --> 01:18:12,600
Speaker 5: rates in a country without that, you know, without that

1305
01:18:12,640 --> 01:18:14,960
Speaker 5: production coming at the cost of another country. And this

1306
01:18:15,040 --> 01:18:18,160
Speaker 5: is this is because and wow, stop me if you

1307
01:18:18,160 --> 01:18:22,599
Speaker 5: heard this one before. This is because of fucking capitalism

1308
01:18:22,920 --> 01:18:25,040
Speaker 5: and what Trump is trying to do and what you know,

1309
01:18:25,080 --> 01:18:27,280
Speaker 5: to a lesser extent sort of xihiping, and what to

1310
01:18:27,640 --> 01:18:30,800
Speaker 5: you know, these sort of Chinese nationalists are trying to

1311
01:18:30,800 --> 01:18:34,240
Speaker 5: do is turn you know, they're trying to stand on

1312
01:18:34,280 --> 01:18:37,479
Speaker 5: a beach and order the tide to recede in order

1313
01:18:37,479 --> 01:18:40,240
Speaker 5: to stop the coming class war. They are trying to say, no,

1314
01:18:40,320 --> 01:18:43,000
Speaker 5: we can go back to the era where production wasn't

1315
01:18:43,080 --> 01:18:45,120
Speaker 5: zero s. We can do this as sort of terrorists.

1316
01:18:45,120 --> 01:18:48,400
Speaker 5: We can go back to the golden age of both

1317
01:18:48,479 --> 01:18:51,599
Speaker 5: corporations and unions making moor corporations and workers like making

1318
01:18:51,680 --> 01:18:55,000
Speaker 5: money together and the sort of like national collaborationist project.

1319
01:18:56,120 --> 01:19:00,840
Speaker 5: And they're doing this in large parts because they are

1320
01:19:00,920 --> 01:19:02,880
Speaker 5: watching the same thing that you and I are watching,

1321
01:19:02,880 --> 01:19:04,720
Speaker 5: the same thing. That's the reason this episode is being

1322
01:19:04,800 --> 01:19:06,600
Speaker 5: recorded at fucking three in the morning, is at of

1323
01:19:06,600 --> 01:19:09,799
Speaker 5: a normal time, which is that all across the US,

1324
01:19:09,840 --> 01:19:13,240
Speaker 5: and you know, increasingly all across the world. You can

1325
01:19:13,320 --> 01:19:18,080
Speaker 5: fucking see the working class starting to organize again. You

1326
01:19:18,080 --> 01:19:19,920
Speaker 5: can see it starting to wake up, you can see

1327
01:19:19,960 --> 01:19:25,679
Speaker 5: it starting to mobilize. And this whole fucking thing, all

1328
01:19:25,720 --> 01:19:30,680
Speaker 5: of Trump, right, this entire sort of racist, senophobic nationalist project,

1329
01:19:31,240 --> 01:19:36,320
Speaker 5: is just utter dread that Ferguson and the Black Revolution

1330
01:19:36,560 --> 01:19:40,160
Speaker 5: put into the fucking hearts of these people. And if

1331
01:19:40,200 --> 01:19:42,240
Speaker 5: we fight hard enough, we fight smart enough, and we

1332
01:19:42,320 --> 01:19:44,800
Speaker 5: fight organized enough in Shilah, we will see the fucking

1333
01:19:44,840 --> 01:19:47,040
Speaker 5: day when these people's nightmare comes true and we never

1334
01:19:47,080 --> 01:19:50,800
Speaker 5: have to hear another word from these fuckers again. It

1335
01:19:50,880 --> 01:20:07,120
Speaker 5: says been it could happen here. Hi.

1336
01:20:07,200 --> 01:20:10,439
Speaker 8: Everyone, welcome to the podcast. It's me today and I'm

1337
01:20:10,479 --> 01:20:13,439
Speaker 8: joined by Meghan Burdett, who is the director of research

1338
01:20:13,479 --> 01:20:14,799
Speaker 8: at the Kurdish Peace Institute.

1339
01:20:14,880 --> 01:20:17,040
Speaker 9: Hi, Meghan, thanks so much for having me.

1340
01:20:17,360 --> 01:20:19,560
Speaker 8: Yeah, thanks for joining us. So what we wanted to

1341
01:20:19,560 --> 01:20:21,880
Speaker 8: talk about today was these local elections that have been

1342
01:20:21,920 --> 01:20:25,000
Speaker 8: happening in Turkey in the last week or so. We're

1343
01:20:25,040 --> 01:20:27,680
Speaker 8: recording in very early aprils that it happened I think

1344
01:20:27,680 --> 01:20:28,360
Speaker 8: towards the end of.

1345
01:20:28,320 --> 01:20:30,599
Speaker 9: March, right, yeah, March thirty first.

1346
01:20:31,080 --> 01:20:35,160
Speaker 8: Yeah, So can you explain to listeners First of all,

1347
01:20:35,240 --> 01:20:39,720
Speaker 8: like I mean, I've heard about these Turkish local elections

1348
01:20:40,120 --> 01:20:42,439
Speaker 8: almost constantly for the past several months, because I hear

1349
01:20:42,479 --> 01:20:45,760
Speaker 8: about them from Kurdish migrants leaving Turkey. Almost every time

1350
01:20:45,800 --> 01:20:48,000
Speaker 8: I'm at the border, I meet people and they tell me,

1351
01:20:48,320 --> 01:20:50,720
Speaker 8: can you explain sort of the context of these elections,

1352
01:20:50,760 --> 01:20:52,640
Speaker 8: the concerns going into them.

1353
01:20:53,200 --> 01:20:56,639
Speaker 9: Yeah, of course. So first off, these are the first

1354
01:20:56,680 --> 01:21:00,679
Speaker 9: elections in Turkey following the presidential and parla mentory vote

1355
01:21:00,720 --> 01:21:03,800
Speaker 9: last year that was seen as a huge disappointment for

1356
01:21:03,920 --> 01:21:07,800
Speaker 9: the opposition and also for a couple of separate reasons

1357
01:21:07,840 --> 01:21:09,880
Speaker 9: and a couple of similar reasons for the pro Kurdish

1358
01:21:09,920 --> 01:21:14,920
Speaker 9: political movement as well. The Opposition underperformed last year. They

1359
01:21:14,920 --> 01:21:18,720
Speaker 9: were not able to defeat Erdowan as the polling and

1360
01:21:18,800 --> 01:21:21,439
Speaker 9: the sentiment in the country had suggested that they would,

1361
01:21:22,080 --> 01:21:25,599
Speaker 9: and the pro Kurdish political movement also underperformed as well.

1362
01:21:26,680 --> 01:21:29,240
Speaker 9: They did not win as many seats or as many

1363
01:21:29,280 --> 01:21:31,280
Speaker 9: votes as they usually do, and a lot of that

1364
01:21:31,360 --> 01:21:35,519
Speaker 9: was attributed to the very complex Alliance decisions they made,

1365
01:21:35,680 --> 01:21:38,400
Speaker 9: choosing not to run their own presidential candidate and instead

1366
01:21:38,439 --> 01:21:41,600
Speaker 9: ask their voters to vote for the CHP, which is

1367
01:21:41,640 --> 01:21:44,000
Speaker 9: the main opposition party that has a history of being

1368
01:21:44,160 --> 01:21:48,040
Speaker 9: very nationalist and violent and exclusionary towards Kurds. Though things

1369
01:21:48,080 --> 01:21:51,839
Speaker 9: have changed in these past twenty years, voters didn't understand

1370
01:21:51,840 --> 01:21:54,040
Speaker 9: that a lot of voters weren't happy with that. And

1371
01:21:54,080 --> 01:21:56,600
Speaker 9: then there were some local level issues with selections of

1372
01:21:56,720 --> 01:21:59,320
Speaker 9: candidates as well, and then of course the climate of

1373
01:21:59,760 --> 01:22:05,559
Speaker 9: very severe political repression, and had the opposition one there

1374
01:22:06,240 --> 01:22:09,040
Speaker 9: was a lot of hope that it would have started

1375
01:22:09,080 --> 01:22:12,960
Speaker 9: to change things on the Kurdish issue in Turkey. You know,

1376
01:22:13,000 --> 01:22:16,920
Speaker 9: from what I'd been hearing from people, there were prospects

1377
01:22:16,960 --> 01:22:20,960
Speaker 9: of political prisoners being released, of contact between the state

1378
01:22:21,120 --> 01:22:24,439
Speaker 9: and of delah Ojalon being re established, which could have

1379
01:22:24,479 --> 01:22:27,360
Speaker 9: been the opening of a new peace process if you

1380
01:22:27,400 --> 01:22:30,759
Speaker 9: follow this. You know, the PKK declared a ceasefire prior

1381
01:22:30,800 --> 01:22:34,479
Speaker 9: to the elections. They initially said that it was following

1382
01:22:34,560 --> 01:22:37,240
Speaker 9: the earthquake in order to not allow the conflict to

1383
01:22:37,439 --> 01:22:41,719
Speaker 9: intervene with humanitarian efforts, but they did very explicitly extend

1384
01:22:41,760 --> 01:22:45,280
Speaker 9: it through the elections. And the discussions around that that

1385
01:22:45,479 --> 01:22:48,880
Speaker 9: I heard in Iraqi, Kurdistan, in Northeast Syria and in

1386
01:22:48,920 --> 01:22:52,360
Speaker 9: Europe made it very clear that that was an opening

1387
01:22:52,520 --> 01:22:56,160
Speaker 9: to hopefully be able to leverage it into a larger

1388
01:22:56,200 --> 01:23:00,759
Speaker 9: piece process were there to be a political change happen.

1389
01:23:01,479 --> 01:23:06,000
Speaker 9: So for Kurds, the situation did not improve. Ardwan continued

1390
01:23:06,040 --> 01:23:10,360
Speaker 9: his crackdown and his military aggression against Kurds in Iraq

1391
01:23:10,439 --> 01:23:15,120
Speaker 9: and Syria, and for democracy in Turkey, for the condition

1392
01:23:15,360 --> 01:23:18,519
Speaker 9: of the opposition, for the condition of all the groups

1393
01:23:18,520 --> 01:23:21,759
Speaker 9: that pressed under Aerdowan's regime, whether that's women, whether that's workers,

1394
01:23:21,840 --> 01:23:24,599
Speaker 9: whether that's the earthquake victims that have been left behind,

1395
01:23:25,240 --> 01:23:28,800
Speaker 9: things didn't get better. So these elections were an opportunity

1396
01:23:28,880 --> 01:23:33,720
Speaker 9: for people to register their disapproval in a way that

1397
01:23:34,000 --> 01:23:36,439
Speaker 9: I think many might have wished that they could have

1398
01:23:36,520 --> 01:23:40,360
Speaker 9: a year ago. And that disapproval was registered for the

1399
01:23:40,400 --> 01:23:43,960
Speaker 9: first time. Air Dowon's party, the Justice and Development Party

1400
01:23:44,040 --> 01:23:48,599
Speaker 9: or the AKP, was not the first place party in Turkey.

1401
01:23:48,760 --> 01:23:53,040
Speaker 9: The main opposition CHP actually overtook them the pro Kurdish

1402
01:23:53,080 --> 01:23:56,160
Speaker 9: People's Equality and Democracy Party or the DEM Party, which

1403
01:23:56,360 --> 01:23:58,200
Speaker 9: used to be the HDP, So if I call it

1404
01:23:58,200 --> 01:24:02,920
Speaker 9: the HDP, I'm sorry. Went Actually their results were much

1405
01:24:02,920 --> 01:24:05,400
Speaker 9: more in line with what they had done in the past.

1406
01:24:05,600 --> 01:24:08,280
Speaker 9: They performed you know, right on standard, they actually won

1407
01:24:08,360 --> 01:24:12,280
Speaker 9: more municipalities than they did in twenty nineteen, and there

1408
01:24:12,360 --> 01:24:16,240
Speaker 9: was a lot of enthusiasm for change among Kurds, among

1409
01:24:16,240 --> 01:24:19,280
Speaker 9: supporters of the opposition, you know, among people who I

1410
01:24:19,320 --> 01:24:21,479
Speaker 9: think had wanted to see things start to move in

1411
01:24:21,520 --> 01:24:25,720
Speaker 9: a more democratic direction last year. So that was a

1412
01:24:25,800 --> 01:24:29,960
Speaker 9: very big deal for that reason. And it also shows

1413
01:24:30,200 --> 01:24:34,559
Speaker 9: the fact that Airedowan is not necessarily as invincible in

1414
01:24:34,640 --> 01:24:37,360
Speaker 9: twenty twenty eight as people feared he would be.

1415
01:24:38,240 --> 01:24:41,320
Speaker 8: Yeah, So talking of invincibility, I think that's a good

1416
01:24:41,640 --> 01:24:44,360
Speaker 8: kind of key into our next topic, which is that

1417
01:24:44,520 --> 01:24:49,760
Speaker 8: the elections weren't exactly like a smooth kind of I

1418
01:24:49,760 --> 01:24:53,120
Speaker 8: guess concession by Idowan and by his party. Right, can

1419
01:24:53,160 --> 01:24:55,639
Speaker 8: you explain to people who aren't familiar with this what happened?

1420
01:24:56,439 --> 01:25:00,000
Speaker 9: Yeah, So, to start, before the elections, over seventy five

1421
01:25:00,439 --> 01:25:04,200
Speaker 9: of voters who supported successful pro Kurdish mayoral candidates had

1422
01:25:04,200 --> 01:25:09,160
Speaker 9: their elected representation taken away from them. The government removed

1423
01:25:09,200 --> 01:25:13,400
Speaker 9: and imprisoned elected mayors and replaced them with regime loyalist

1424
01:25:13,479 --> 01:25:18,760
Speaker 9: trustees who essentially ruled these municipalities on direct orders from

1425
01:25:18,920 --> 01:25:22,840
Speaker 9: Erdowan in Ankarap. So this was on an unfair playing

1426
01:25:22,880 --> 01:25:26,960
Speaker 9: field for the Kurdish political movement to begin with, very

1427
01:25:27,040 --> 01:25:29,680
Speaker 9: unfair playing field for the main opposition as well. At

1428
01:25:29,720 --> 01:25:32,600
Speaker 9: Kreme Mamoluh's the very popular mayor of Istanbul, who just

1429
01:25:32,640 --> 01:25:36,360
Speaker 9: won reelection by a very large margin, as a criminal

1430
01:25:36,360 --> 01:25:38,920
Speaker 9: case against him that could have him banned from politics,

1431
01:25:39,720 --> 01:25:43,080
Speaker 9: So this was very difficult in the Kurdish regions. There

1432
01:25:43,120 --> 01:25:47,360
Speaker 9: were many many irregularities on election day. One that a

1433
01:25:47,400 --> 01:25:49,799
Speaker 9: lot of people were discussing were these so called mobile

1434
01:25:49,880 --> 01:25:53,680
Speaker 9: voters where the government actually sent members of these security

1435
01:25:53,720 --> 01:25:58,120
Speaker 9: forces predominantly from Western Turkey into Kurdish cities to vote

1436
01:25:58,200 --> 01:26:02,960
Speaker 9: in large groups for ruling Akap. You know, there's a

1437
01:26:02,960 --> 01:26:06,160
Speaker 9: lot of videos taken by local media, local politicians and

1438
01:26:06,200 --> 01:26:10,439
Speaker 9: activists challenging these people, asking them where they're from, and

1439
01:26:10,479 --> 01:26:13,040
Speaker 9: then videos of them all crowding into the airports and

1440
01:26:13,120 --> 01:26:16,360
Speaker 9: back on their buses flying back to Western Turkey the

1441
01:26:16,360 --> 01:26:18,160
Speaker 9: next day, so you know, they're not even making a

1442
01:26:18,200 --> 01:26:22,080
Speaker 9: pretense of being local voters. That shifted the results in

1443
01:26:22,120 --> 01:26:25,160
Speaker 9: some districts. In Chernock, which is a very heavily militarized

1444
01:26:25,200 --> 01:26:29,360
Speaker 9: province where the government bases a lot of its military campaigns.

1445
01:26:29,400 --> 01:26:32,000
Speaker 9: You know, into the occupied regions of Iraq and Syria

1446
01:26:32,040 --> 01:26:35,679
Speaker 9: from the pro Kurdish political movement alleges that these voters

1447
01:26:35,680 --> 01:26:38,719
Speaker 9: shifted the outcome. So you had that kind of outright

1448
01:26:38,960 --> 01:26:42,080
Speaker 9: attempts at theft in addition to the context of repression.

1449
01:26:42,840 --> 01:26:46,639
Speaker 9: And then most brazenly, just one day after the election,

1450
01:26:47,600 --> 01:26:53,240
Speaker 9: the local provincial election board denied a mandate of victory,

1451
01:26:53,320 --> 01:26:56,000
Speaker 9: you know, essentially the documents certifying that a candidate has

1452
01:26:56,040 --> 01:26:59,919
Speaker 9: won the elections and will be allowed to assume office

1453
01:27:00,400 --> 01:27:02,880
Speaker 9: to the pro Kurdish candidate of Billa Zaidon in the

1454
01:27:02,920 --> 01:27:06,519
Speaker 9: province of Vaughan, which is a heavily Kurdish province where

1455
01:27:06,640 --> 01:27:10,640
Speaker 9: the dem Party won all fourteen district municipalities and the

1456
01:27:10,680 --> 01:27:15,720
Speaker 9: metropolitan municipality as well. So the local election authority essentially said, no,

1457
01:27:16,200 --> 01:27:19,040
Speaker 9: you can't run. There's been a last minute legal finding

1458
01:27:19,080 --> 01:27:22,639
Speaker 9: that you're unfit to run for office, as there always is, right,

1459
01:27:22,840 --> 01:27:26,720
Speaker 9: and then they tried to give the municipality to the

1460
01:27:26,800 --> 01:27:30,599
Speaker 9: candidate from Erdowon's party, the AKP, who got less than

1461
01:27:30,600 --> 01:27:32,400
Speaker 9: half of the number of votes.

1462
01:27:32,800 --> 01:27:36,720
Speaker 8: Right yeah, so kind of yeah, and validating the results.

1463
01:27:37,120 --> 01:27:38,840
Speaker 8: We're going to break briefly for an advert here and

1464
01:27:38,880 --> 01:27:52,800
Speaker 8: then we'll be back, right, We're back. So when they

1465
01:27:52,800 --> 01:27:56,840
Speaker 8: tried to invalidate these results right into install representatives, I

1466
01:27:56,840 --> 01:27:58,640
Speaker 8: guess you could call them that who didn't win the

1467
01:27:58,640 --> 01:28:03,479
Speaker 8: popular vote. There was like a significant street response to that, right,

1468
01:28:03,800 --> 01:28:05,679
Speaker 8: can you talk us through that? And then the repression

1469
01:28:05,680 --> 01:28:06,880
Speaker 8: of it and the results of it.

1470
01:28:07,439 --> 01:28:12,400
Speaker 9: Absolutely so. There were mass demonstrations in Vaughan in other

1471
01:28:12,520 --> 01:28:16,400
Speaker 9: Kurdish provinces, and these are people coming out who not

1472
01:28:16,560 --> 01:28:20,080
Speaker 9: ten years ago saw the military raising their cities to

1473
01:28:20,120 --> 01:28:22,920
Speaker 9: the ground, killing civilians in the streets. This is a

1474
01:28:23,000 --> 01:28:26,880
Speaker 9: very costly endeavor for Kurdish people in these provinces to

1475
01:28:26,920 --> 01:28:29,559
Speaker 9: go protest. That's why you haven't seen it to such

1476
01:28:29,600 --> 01:28:32,320
Speaker 9: a degree as was seen in the nineties, in the

1477
01:28:32,360 --> 01:28:35,320
Speaker 9: early two thousands, since the collapse of the peace process

1478
01:28:35,400 --> 01:28:38,719
Speaker 9: and that violent military campaign in the cities. But last

1479
01:28:38,800 --> 01:28:42,280
Speaker 9: night they were out in full force, and very notably,

1480
01:28:42,360 --> 01:28:46,800
Speaker 9: they weren't alone. There were protests in Istanbul and solidarity

1481
01:28:46,840 --> 01:28:50,320
Speaker 9: as well, you know, carried out by Kurds living there,

1482
01:28:50,360 --> 01:28:55,840
Speaker 9: but also by leftist parties, by feminists, by Kurdish religious organizations,

1483
01:28:56,439 --> 01:28:58,720
Speaker 9: by all the segments of civil society that have sort

1484
01:28:58,760 --> 01:29:02,360
Speaker 9: of oriented around the pro Kurdish political movement, and there

1485
01:29:02,400 --> 01:29:06,599
Speaker 9: was also a pretty significant reaction from the main opposition CHP,

1486
01:29:06,720 --> 01:29:11,000
Speaker 9: which is not known for radicalism. You had the CHP

1487
01:29:11,200 --> 01:29:14,599
Speaker 9: party leader Osgara Ozel saying that it was illegitimate for

1488
01:29:14,680 --> 01:29:18,000
Speaker 9: the government to deny a candidate a mandate, and then

1489
01:29:18,040 --> 01:29:21,880
Speaker 9: you had Imamulu in Istanbul also criticizing the decision, saying

1490
01:29:21,920 --> 01:29:25,080
Speaker 9: it was illegitimate and calling on the government to respect

1491
01:29:25,080 --> 01:29:27,960
Speaker 9: the popular will. So at the same time you had

1492
01:29:28,000 --> 01:29:32,240
Speaker 9: this outcry across the Turkish political spectrum, you had tens

1493
01:29:32,240 --> 01:29:36,479
Speaker 9: of thousands of people out protesting, braving police violence. You know,

1494
01:29:36,520 --> 01:29:40,200
Speaker 9: there were armed pro government vigilantes caught on video shooting

1495
01:29:40,240 --> 01:29:45,160
Speaker 9: into crowds. There was very, very harrowing videos of beatings

1496
01:29:45,200 --> 01:29:49,200
Speaker 9: and torture of civilians. Journalists were attacked and prevented from

1497
01:29:49,280 --> 01:29:53,599
Speaker 9: covering the protests. This was a very difficult situation to watch,

1498
01:29:53,760 --> 01:29:56,000
Speaker 9: and a lot of people that I was speaking to

1499
01:29:56,120 --> 01:29:59,799
Speaker 9: were worrying about a return to the level of violence

1500
01:29:59,800 --> 01:30:03,000
Speaker 9: that seen in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen. Were things

1501
01:30:03,040 --> 01:30:06,280
Speaker 9: to escalate, But you know, sometimes there's good news in

1502
01:30:06,320 --> 01:30:10,559
Speaker 9: Turkey and Kurdistan. Not always, but sometimes you know, in

1503
01:30:10,920 --> 01:30:15,679
Speaker 9: Turkish you'd say da dyne kaslan Achaz will win by resisting,

1504
01:30:16,200 --> 01:30:19,599
Speaker 9: and in Kurdish you'd say behludan Jiana resistance is life

1505
01:30:20,000 --> 01:30:23,040
Speaker 9: and that sort of Those are very famous protest slogans

1506
01:30:23,640 --> 01:30:27,360
Speaker 9: that proved really accurate last night, because today Turkey's Supreme

1507
01:30:27,400 --> 01:30:31,960
Speaker 9: Electoral Council actually reversed the attempt to give the election

1508
01:30:32,160 --> 01:30:35,800
Speaker 9: to the losing pro government candidate and gave the Dun

1509
01:30:35,800 --> 01:30:38,519
Speaker 9: party candidate his mandate back. So they've said that he

1510
01:30:38,600 --> 01:30:42,240
Speaker 9: will be allowed to assume office, and I think they

1511
01:30:42,280 --> 01:30:47,000
Speaker 9: looked at this huge street protest, they looked at this

1512
01:30:47,040 --> 01:30:51,080
Speaker 9: opposition coming from not only the pro Kurdish political movement

1513
01:30:51,160 --> 01:30:55,320
Speaker 9: but many different political forces in Turkey, and the state

1514
01:30:55,479 --> 01:30:59,360
Speaker 9: decided to back down. They decided not to pick this

1515
01:30:59,479 --> 01:31:02,080
Speaker 9: fight now. And you know, that's not to say that

1516
01:31:02,200 --> 01:31:05,720
Speaker 9: voter suppression in other provinces wasn't an issue. That's not

1517
01:31:05,840 --> 01:31:09,280
Speaker 9: to say that there are still outcomes that are being contested.

1518
01:31:10,200 --> 01:31:12,120
Speaker 9: You know, the government's doing a lot of very unfair

1519
01:31:12,200 --> 01:31:14,760
Speaker 9: things right now to try to take districts from the

1520
01:31:15,040 --> 01:31:17,880
Speaker 9: CHP and from the pro Kurdish political movement. But what

1521
01:31:17,960 --> 01:31:22,559
Speaker 9: this does show is that when people insist on a

1522
01:31:22,560 --> 01:31:27,280
Speaker 9: democratic outcome and when they are willing to stand up

1523
01:31:27,320 --> 01:31:31,920
Speaker 9: for it in large numbers and face the consequences the

1524
01:31:31,920 --> 01:31:35,879
Speaker 9: difficulty of doing that that even regimes like air dons,

1525
01:31:36,000 --> 01:31:39,840
Speaker 9: these very you know, autocratic, far right governments have a

1526
01:31:39,880 --> 01:31:42,639
Speaker 9: point at which they will back down. And I think

1527
01:31:42,720 --> 01:31:47,200
Speaker 9: that that display of resistance and solidarity getting a government

1528
01:31:47,320 --> 01:31:49,439
Speaker 9: like that to back down is something that can be

1529
01:31:49,600 --> 01:31:51,760
Speaker 9: very hopeful for people around the world right now.

1530
01:31:52,200 --> 01:31:55,080
Speaker 8: Yeah, definitely. I mean we've seen like just to the

1531
01:31:55,080 --> 01:31:57,320
Speaker 8: stuff we've cold or obviously the United States, but also

1532
01:31:57,360 --> 01:32:01,439
Speaker 8: in Mianma, like increasingly it's harder and harder for states

1533
01:32:01,479 --> 01:32:04,960
Speaker 8: to deny people's right to be represented or to be heard,

1534
01:32:05,040 --> 01:32:08,000
Speaker 8: and like that's a good thing Germany for democracy.

1535
01:32:08,360 --> 01:32:08,599
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1536
01:32:09,160 --> 01:32:11,479
Speaker 8: I wanted to ask about you spoken a little bit

1537
01:32:11,479 --> 01:32:15,599
Speaker 8: about the Turkish military's incursions into northern Assyria and into

1538
01:32:15,880 --> 01:32:19,320
Speaker 8: like Iraqi, Curtistan, Curtis Donal, a potonomous region. Can you

1539
01:32:19,400 --> 01:32:22,960
Speaker 8: explain that there's a lot of like I think Turkey

1540
01:32:23,000 --> 01:32:27,040
Speaker 8: is pretty clearly like telegraphed plants for increased military activity

1541
01:32:27,080 --> 01:32:30,320
Speaker 8: in that region. So can you explain what's what's being

1542
01:32:30,520 --> 01:32:32,920
Speaker 8: proposed and what that means.

1543
01:32:33,120 --> 01:32:37,879
Speaker 9: So, I think because they have gone into this election

1544
01:32:38,360 --> 01:32:41,320
Speaker 9: and found themselves weakened. This is something that could make

1545
01:32:41,360 --> 01:32:45,080
Speaker 9: Airdon very dangerous. One thing that the government has always

1546
01:32:45,120 --> 01:32:49,000
Speaker 9: done when it's found itself weak is try to polarize

1547
01:32:49,000 --> 01:32:55,000
Speaker 9: society by attacking the Kurds both domestically and internationally in Iraqi,

1548
01:32:55,080 --> 01:32:58,360
Speaker 9: Kurdistan and in North East Syria. Of course, you have

1549
01:32:58,640 --> 01:33:02,559
Speaker 9: the AKP government loss of its majority in the twenty

1550
01:33:02,560 --> 01:33:05,960
Speaker 9: fifteen elections during the peace process becoming the reason for

1551
01:33:06,040 --> 01:33:09,439
Speaker 9: the government's abandonment of the peace process itself. Then in

1552
01:33:09,479 --> 01:33:12,880
Speaker 9: twenty nineteen after the local elections where the government lost

1553
01:33:12,880 --> 01:33:15,720
Speaker 9: control of Istanbul and Ankara for the first time. That

1554
01:33:15,840 --> 01:33:19,120
Speaker 9: was very quickly followed with the appointment of state trustees

1555
01:33:19,160 --> 01:33:22,400
Speaker 9: to Kurdish municipalities, and then the invasion of North and

1556
01:33:22,479 --> 01:33:27,000
Speaker 9: East Syria following Ardwan's agreement with Donald Trump about that.

1557
01:33:27,680 --> 01:33:31,479
Speaker 9: And so this does look like the kind of context

1558
01:33:31,600 --> 01:33:33,719
Speaker 9: in which he has lashed out against Kurds in Iraq

1559
01:33:33,760 --> 01:33:37,120
Speaker 9: and Syria before, and given these threats that you mentioned

1560
01:33:37,120 --> 01:33:40,120
Speaker 9: that he has been making. The diplomatic traffic between Turkey

1561
01:33:40,160 --> 01:33:43,280
Speaker 9: and Iraq, Turkey and Iran, Turkey and the US and Europe.

1562
01:33:44,160 --> 01:33:46,680
Speaker 9: They do appear to be preparing for something now. I

1563
01:33:46,720 --> 01:33:49,120
Speaker 9: was just on the ground in North and East Syria

1564
01:33:49,200 --> 01:33:52,479
Speaker 9: and in Iraqi Kurdistan, and I heard from many people

1565
01:33:52,760 --> 01:33:57,960
Speaker 9: that they're concerned. The threats that the government has been

1566
01:33:58,000 --> 01:34:01,320
Speaker 9: making appear to suggest that they might try to go

1567
01:34:01,560 --> 01:34:06,200
Speaker 9: for a geographically larger military operation this time. There's a

1568
01:34:06,280 --> 01:34:10,280
Speaker 9: chance that instead of only conducting their typical spring offensive

1569
01:34:10,479 --> 01:34:14,040
Speaker 9: into Iraqi Kurdistan, which usually gets them nowhere, they might

1570
01:34:14,080 --> 01:34:18,200
Speaker 9: also attempt to invade northern Syria as well. Of course,

1571
01:34:18,280 --> 01:34:21,320
Speaker 9: that's very internationally contingent. They would need a green light

1572
01:34:21,479 --> 01:34:24,320
Speaker 9: from the Americans and from the Russians to be able

1573
01:34:24,360 --> 01:34:27,880
Speaker 9: to violate those cease fires and go in there. But

1574
01:34:27,920 --> 01:34:30,920
Speaker 9: the threats very real. It's something that people are very

1575
01:34:30,920 --> 01:34:33,280
Speaker 9: concerned about on the ground, and I think that it's

1576
01:34:33,320 --> 01:34:36,559
Speaker 9: worth paying attention to, and particularly for those of US

1577
01:34:36,600 --> 01:34:39,439
Speaker 9: and countries that are allied with the Turkish government making

1578
01:34:39,479 --> 01:34:41,720
Speaker 9: noise about, you know, opposing trying to get onto the

1579
01:34:41,760 --> 01:34:45,439
Speaker 9: agenda so that permission is not given here and they're

1580
01:34:45,479 --> 01:34:46,680
Speaker 9: not incentivized to do this.

1581
01:34:47,600 --> 01:34:49,720
Speaker 8: Yeah. I think that's a very good point, because, like

1582
01:34:50,400 --> 01:34:52,439
Speaker 8: Curtish issues are ones that don't come up very much

1583
01:34:52,479 --> 01:34:54,679
Speaker 8: in the press in the United States for the most part,

1584
01:34:54,920 --> 01:34:58,639
Speaker 8: and people and their representatives don't hear about them very much.

1585
01:34:58,680 --> 01:35:00,559
Speaker 8: But this is one of those like be right to

1586
01:35:00,640 --> 01:35:03,160
Speaker 8: your your rep things like that, that doesn't a lot

1587
01:35:03,160 --> 01:35:05,000
Speaker 8: of shit isn't going to get changed with an email

1588
01:35:05,120 --> 01:35:08,920
Speaker 8: to your elected officials, but especially like certain officials who

1589
01:35:08,920 --> 01:35:11,400
Speaker 8: are on you know, foreign relations, to committees or something,

1590
01:35:11,520 --> 01:35:14,479
Speaker 8: as well as as like other forms of political activism

1591
01:35:14,520 --> 01:35:18,360
Speaker 8: could help here, right like, especially in an election year

1592
01:35:18,520 --> 01:35:20,960
Speaker 8: like that. That's a way to stop that.

1593
01:35:21,960 --> 01:35:24,479
Speaker 9: Now, this is something that needs to be made into

1594
01:35:24,520 --> 01:35:26,639
Speaker 9: an issue. And one thing I hear time and time again,

1595
01:35:26,680 --> 01:35:30,439
Speaker 9: whether I'm speaking to people from the Autonomous Administration, the

1596
01:35:30,560 --> 01:35:34,360
Speaker 9: YPG and the YPG or pro Kurdish politicians in Turkey

1597
01:35:35,080 --> 01:35:36,800
Speaker 9: is they know, you know, the weapons that are being

1598
01:35:36,880 --> 01:35:39,720
Speaker 9: used against them, the tear gas canisters, you know, the

1599
01:35:39,800 --> 01:35:42,960
Speaker 9: drone parts, the bombs, the equipment, the military training that

1600
01:35:43,000 --> 01:35:47,599
Speaker 9: these personnel get. It all comes from Europe, the United States,

1601
01:35:47,720 --> 01:35:50,599
Speaker 9: NATO countries that are allied with Turkey. There's a lot

1602
01:35:50,600 --> 01:35:53,600
Speaker 9: of leverage and you know, pushing to end that military

1603
01:35:53,600 --> 01:35:56,120
Speaker 9: support is something that could be done right now, that

1604
01:35:56,160 --> 01:35:59,040
Speaker 9: could be very important. And really, you know, this is

1605
01:35:59,080 --> 01:36:03,160
Speaker 9: something where one feels almost when one makes these calls,

1606
01:36:03,200 --> 01:36:05,240
Speaker 9: like once constantly asking you know, you should do this

1607
01:36:05,360 --> 01:36:08,120
Speaker 9: for these people because they're being oppressed and your government

1608
01:36:08,200 --> 01:36:10,280
Speaker 9: has a say in it. But we really benefit from

1609
01:36:10,280 --> 01:36:12,920
Speaker 9: this too, Right if you look at what the Kurdish

1610
01:36:12,960 --> 01:36:15,400
Speaker 9: people and their allies in Turkey have done and standing

1611
01:36:15,479 --> 01:36:18,720
Speaker 9: up for democracy in getting the government to reverse this

1612
01:36:18,760 --> 01:36:21,639
Speaker 9: attempt to steal an election, you know, that's one small

1613
01:36:21,720 --> 01:36:25,439
Speaker 9: example of the very powerful democratic tradition that they have.

1614
01:36:26,280 --> 01:36:28,080
Speaker 9: That is something that we can learn from, you know,

1615
01:36:28,120 --> 01:36:29,960
Speaker 9: whether you're in the US or in Europe, in many

1616
01:36:29,960 --> 01:36:32,400
Speaker 9: different countries around the world right now, the threat of

1617
01:36:33,439 --> 01:36:36,760
Speaker 9: authoritarianism and the sort of far right politics of which

1618
01:36:36,800 --> 01:36:40,920
Speaker 9: Airedwan is an example, it's an international threat, and you know,

1619
01:36:41,000 --> 01:36:44,360
Speaker 9: standing with the people who've been able to resist it

1620
01:36:44,400 --> 01:36:48,040
Speaker 9: is something that you know can benefit us all around

1621
01:36:48,040 --> 01:36:48,720
Speaker 9: the world as well.

1622
01:36:49,280 --> 01:36:52,360
Speaker 8: Yeah, and like it presents a vision for a future

1623
01:36:52,439 --> 01:36:56,320
Speaker 8: in which we all stand united against state violence around

1624
01:36:56,360 --> 01:36:59,760
Speaker 8: the world, rather than being isolated and gradually destroyed by

1625
01:37:00,160 --> 01:37:04,200
Speaker 8: various states and violent actors. Talking I guess of violent actors.

1626
01:37:04,960 --> 01:37:07,280
Speaker 8: The one more thing I wanted to cover with we're

1627
01:37:07,320 --> 01:37:09,200
Speaker 8: jumping around a little bit was but like I think

1628
01:37:09,200 --> 01:37:12,920
Speaker 8: people will probably have seen at least maybe their social

1629
01:37:12,960 --> 01:37:15,280
Speaker 8: media timelines are different than mine, But there was a

1630
01:37:15,280 --> 01:37:18,960
Speaker 8: lot of violence against Kurdish people in Northern Europe recently,

1631
01:37:19,040 --> 01:37:21,799
Speaker 8: right in Belgium, I think, I think maybe in Germany

1632
01:37:21,840 --> 01:37:25,040
Speaker 8: as well. Explain a little bit of that. Like it's

1633
01:37:25,479 --> 01:37:27,200
Speaker 8: we get into a little bit of like like Turkish

1634
01:37:27,240 --> 01:37:29,920
Speaker 8: fascist politics as well, but can you explain what was

1635
01:37:29,960 --> 01:37:30,639
Speaker 8: going on there?

1636
01:37:31,360 --> 01:37:36,280
Speaker 9: So this all began when some far right Turkish nationalists

1637
01:37:36,320 --> 01:37:40,200
Speaker 9: started threatening a Kurdish family after returning from nol Rose

1638
01:37:40,280 --> 01:37:44,400
Speaker 9: or Kurdish New Year celebrations, and escalated into you know,

1639
01:37:44,520 --> 01:37:48,559
Speaker 9: essentially these far right vigilantes prowling the streets looking for

1640
01:37:48,680 --> 01:37:52,280
Speaker 9: Kurds and Kurdish businesses to attack. And this is not

1641
01:37:52,479 --> 01:37:55,680
Speaker 9: something new at all. The Turkish government has invested a

1642
01:37:55,680 --> 01:37:59,759
Speaker 9: great deal in allowing these structures to operate in Europe.

1643
01:38:00,320 --> 01:38:04,080
Speaker 9: You have the Gray Wolves, which are a fascist paramilitary

1644
01:38:04,800 --> 01:38:09,120
Speaker 9: actually the paramilitary wing of the party with which Airdwan

1645
01:38:09,240 --> 01:38:11,479
Speaker 9: is currently allied and with which he has a majority

1646
01:38:11,520 --> 01:38:15,120
Speaker 9: in parliament, the National Action Party or the MHP. You know,

1647
01:38:15,160 --> 01:38:18,200
Speaker 9: this is a group that's been responsible for murders and

1648
01:38:18,800 --> 01:38:23,600
Speaker 9: assassinations and all kinds of attacks on Kurds, other minorities, dissidents,

1649
01:38:24,200 --> 01:38:26,719
Speaker 9: and has been responsible for violence in Europe as well.

1650
01:38:27,400 --> 01:38:32,320
Speaker 9: You have the government encouraging religious fundamentalism through its network

1651
01:38:32,400 --> 01:38:35,960
Speaker 9: of religious institutions in Europe and trying to make that

1652
01:38:36,280 --> 01:38:42,040
Speaker 9: very extreme and very politically instrumentalized vision of religion popular

1653
01:38:42,439 --> 01:38:45,400
Speaker 9: amongst the Turkish community. And then you have you know,

1654
01:38:45,439 --> 01:38:51,040
Speaker 9: Turkish intelligence assets able to freely operate and conduct all

1655
01:38:51,160 --> 01:38:56,640
Speaker 9: kinds of attacks on Kurdish dissidents, you know, within the

1656
01:38:56,720 --> 01:38:57,719
Speaker 9: very center of Europe.

1657
01:38:57,800 --> 01:38:57,920
Speaker 10: Right.

1658
01:38:57,960 --> 01:39:00,720
Speaker 9: We all remember in twenty thirteen the assass nation of

1659
01:39:00,880 --> 01:39:04,120
Speaker 9: Sakinah Johnson's in front of the Kurdish Community Center in Paris.

1660
01:39:04,920 --> 01:39:08,160
Speaker 9: That murder was never solved. The perpetrator, who they caught

1661
01:39:08,360 --> 01:39:11,200
Speaker 9: very conveniently died in prison before he was set to

1662
01:39:11,200 --> 01:39:15,519
Speaker 9: go to trial. Turkish responsibility has never been proven in court,

1663
01:39:15,880 --> 01:39:18,960
Speaker 9: I think, because there are a lot of people who

1664
01:39:18,960 --> 01:39:21,479
Speaker 9: don't want a full investigation of a case like that

1665
01:39:21,640 --> 01:39:24,400
Speaker 9: to come out. And then, just I believe yesterday or

1666
01:39:24,400 --> 01:39:26,759
Speaker 9: maybe the day before, it came out that a Belgian

1667
01:39:26,800 --> 01:39:33,680
Speaker 9: court found alleged Turkish operatives responsible for planning attacks on

1668
01:39:34,080 --> 01:39:38,759
Speaker 9: two very senior Kurdish diplomats in Belgium who are members

1669
01:39:38,760 --> 01:39:41,479
Speaker 9: of the Kurdistan National Congress, which is sort of like

1670
01:39:41,520 --> 01:39:45,960
Speaker 9: the de facto foreign ministry of the Kurdish diaspora in Europe.

1671
01:39:46,479 --> 01:39:49,799
Speaker 9: You know, these individuals had been spying on the Kurdistan

1672
01:39:49,880 --> 01:39:53,719
Speaker 9: National Congress building, They'd been in contact with Turkish officials,

1673
01:39:53,760 --> 01:39:58,400
Speaker 9: They'd been planning assassinations very senior politicians. This is a

1674
01:39:58,439 --> 01:40:01,160
Speaker 9: real problem. You know, these groups and the state itself

1675
01:40:01,200 --> 01:40:06,160
Speaker 9: are able to freely attack civilians, plot murders and do

1676
01:40:06,320 --> 01:40:09,880
Speaker 9: violence and really cause chaos. And that's something that's very dangerous,

1677
01:40:10,439 --> 01:40:13,080
Speaker 9: not only for the Kurdish community, but for really anybody

1678
01:40:13,120 --> 01:40:13,800
Speaker 9: living in their way.

1679
01:40:14,400 --> 01:40:14,639
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1680
01:40:14,800 --> 01:40:17,160
Speaker 8: Yeah, and there are a lot of people who would

1681
01:40:17,280 --> 01:40:20,040
Speaker 8: rightly want that to stop. I think, so, like, what's

1682
01:40:20,080 --> 01:40:22,519
Speaker 8: the current situation is a number of people were like beaten.

1683
01:40:22,640 --> 01:40:26,000
Speaker 8: Was somebody kidnapped? Did I see or was that? I

1684
01:40:26,040 --> 01:40:28,400
Speaker 8: didn't see any further reporting on that than one photo.

1685
01:40:29,240 --> 01:40:32,240
Speaker 9: It was very serious. I mean, there were people were attacked.

1686
01:40:32,479 --> 01:40:36,280
Speaker 9: I'm not exactly certain of the extent of kidnappings or

1687
01:40:36,320 --> 01:40:39,599
Speaker 9: other instances like that, but this was some very serious

1688
01:40:40,080 --> 01:40:43,280
Speaker 9: violence and we know what these groups are capable of.

1689
01:40:43,880 --> 01:40:47,320
Speaker 9: They have killed people and they have essentially gotten away

1690
01:40:47,320 --> 01:40:51,800
Speaker 9: with it. So it may have died down for now,

1691
01:40:51,880 --> 01:40:54,880
Speaker 9: which is certainly good. And obviously, you know, we saw

1692
01:40:55,000 --> 01:40:57,400
Speaker 9: a lot of calls for a restraint, you know, from

1693
01:40:57,439 --> 01:41:00,439
Speaker 9: the Kurdish community, a lot of calls for or these

1694
01:41:00,439 --> 01:41:03,599
Speaker 9: European governments essentially to do their job and prevent these

1695
01:41:03,640 --> 01:41:09,000
Speaker 9: groups from you know, importing their nationalist campaigns against a

1696
01:41:09,040 --> 01:41:11,759
Speaker 9: persecuted minority to a place where you know, these cords

1697
01:41:11,800 --> 01:41:13,559
Speaker 9: have fled to be free from that sort of thing.

1698
01:41:14,200 --> 01:41:16,479
Speaker 9: So it's stopped for now, but it's very much not over,

1699
01:41:16,640 --> 01:41:19,400
Speaker 9: you know. I when you see the Kurdish community in

1700
01:41:19,400 --> 01:41:20,880
Speaker 9: Europe and spend time with them and look at the

1701
01:41:20,920 --> 01:41:23,360
Speaker 9: security precautions that they have to take just to hold

1702
01:41:23,400 --> 01:41:27,120
Speaker 9: conferences and cultural festivals, Yeah, it's really quite disheartening.

1703
01:41:27,760 --> 01:41:30,280
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, especially like you say, in northern Europe, like

1704
01:41:30,280 --> 01:41:32,920
Speaker 8: they're not in Turkey. Left Turkey to avoid that stuff.

1705
01:41:33,479 --> 01:41:34,719
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1706
01:41:34,800 --> 01:41:37,360
Speaker 8: We'll take a second outbreak here and then we'll be

1707
01:41:37,400 --> 01:41:52,360
Speaker 8: back to finish up. So for the last part, do

1708
01:41:52,400 --> 01:41:54,080
Speaker 8: you have anything you want to add that we haven't

1709
01:41:54,120 --> 01:41:54,800
Speaker 8: got to yet.

1710
01:41:55,920 --> 01:41:59,160
Speaker 9: I think that you know, overall, looking at the situation

1711
01:41:59,720 --> 01:42:03,280
Speaker 9: in Turkey following these elections, looking at the situation in Europe,

1712
01:42:03,840 --> 01:42:07,400
Speaker 9: we're seeing that the Turkish government continues to be an

1713
01:42:07,400 --> 01:42:11,720
Speaker 9: example of the danger of these kinds of far right, nationalist,

1714
01:42:11,800 --> 01:42:16,479
Speaker 9: religious fundamentalist regimes that are on the rise everywhere. These

1715
01:42:16,520 --> 01:42:20,120
Speaker 9: are political trends that are growing around the world, and

1716
01:42:20,520 --> 01:42:26,120
Speaker 9: Airdowan and his current Turkish government are a very clear

1717
01:42:26,200 --> 01:42:29,840
Speaker 9: example of the danger that that causes, not to just

1718
01:42:29,920 --> 01:42:33,800
Speaker 9: the population of a country, but to neighboring countries, to

1719
01:42:34,080 --> 01:42:38,120
Speaker 9: diaspora communities that have left, that have gone elsewhere, that

1720
01:42:38,240 --> 01:42:41,840
Speaker 9: maintain their culture and maintain their interest in political organizing.

1721
01:42:42,439 --> 01:42:44,519
Speaker 9: So these are threats that people are going to be

1722
01:42:44,560 --> 01:42:46,920
Speaker 9: looking at around the world, and I think it's very

1723
01:42:46,960 --> 01:42:49,679
Speaker 9: important to be following the situation in Turkey for that reason.

1724
01:42:50,400 --> 01:42:52,919
Speaker 9: But at the same time, looking at how the Kurdish

1725
01:42:52,920 --> 01:42:56,240
Speaker 9: people and their allies in Turkey, you know, on the left,

1726
01:42:56,680 --> 01:42:59,439
Speaker 9: in workers' movements, in feminist movements, in all of these

1727
01:42:59,479 --> 01:43:03,120
Speaker 9: sort of grews that have also been victimized by Erdowan's regime,

1728
01:43:03,760 --> 01:43:07,639
Speaker 9: we're seeing that resistance is possible, that people can stand

1729
01:43:07,680 --> 01:43:11,719
Speaker 9: up for democracy and they can win and that look right,

1730
01:43:11,840 --> 01:43:14,920
Speaker 9: nobody's giving up on their work. You know, the KMK

1731
01:43:15,080 --> 01:43:19,360
Speaker 9: doesn't stop advocating for Kurdish interests in a diplomatic capacity

1732
01:43:19,960 --> 01:43:22,240
Speaker 9: because their members face threats. You know, these people go

1733
01:43:22,280 --> 01:43:24,920
Speaker 9: to work every single day, you know, in Wilsheva, in

1734
01:43:24,960 --> 01:43:29,320
Speaker 9: North and Eastsyria, in Iraqi, Kurdistan, Kurdish groups, you know,

1735
01:43:29,360 --> 01:43:34,360
Speaker 9: Kurdish political organizations, Kurdish politicians and activists, they continue building

1736
01:43:34,439 --> 01:43:36,640
Speaker 9: up their project. You know, I said, I was just

1737
01:43:36,680 --> 01:43:39,920
Speaker 9: in northern Syria. It's extremely difficult right now. People don't

1738
01:43:39,920 --> 01:43:42,640
Speaker 9: have electricity, people don't have water because Turkey bombed all

1739
01:43:42,640 --> 01:43:46,160
Speaker 9: the infrastructure. But still they're celebrating now Rose. You know,

1740
01:43:46,160 --> 01:43:49,160
Speaker 9: they're talking about their upcoming local elections that they want

1741
01:43:49,200 --> 01:43:51,320
Speaker 9: to hold and how to hold them in the best way.

1742
01:43:51,479 --> 01:43:53,680
Speaker 9: You know, they're talking about their new social contract and

1743
01:43:53,720 --> 01:43:58,799
Speaker 9: how they can implement it. They're moving forward constantly despite

1744
01:43:58,840 --> 01:44:02,599
Speaker 9: the threats that they're facing. And I think that you know,

1745
01:44:03,160 --> 01:44:05,240
Speaker 9: many of you listening to this are people who are

1746
01:44:05,280 --> 01:44:09,160
Speaker 9: probably looking to improve and change the society that you

1747
01:44:09,200 --> 01:44:12,679
Speaker 9: live in. And so when we look at what's going

1748
01:44:12,720 --> 01:44:15,639
Speaker 9: on in Turkey and in Kurdistan, we can see both

1749
01:44:15,920 --> 01:44:18,400
Speaker 9: very clear examples of what it is that people who

1750
01:44:18,400 --> 01:44:20,720
Speaker 9: want change are up against, but also what they can

1751
01:44:20,760 --> 01:44:22,920
Speaker 9: accomplish even under those conditions.

1752
01:44:23,280 --> 01:44:25,920
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think like one of the things I took

1753
01:44:26,120 --> 01:44:30,200
Speaker 8: from going to Kurdistan was like how invested, like how

1754
01:44:30,240 --> 01:44:33,680
Speaker 8: genuine the solidarity that those people have with other like

1755
01:44:33,720 --> 01:44:37,679
Speaker 8: oppressed groups. It's like I spent as much time answering

1756
01:44:37,760 --> 01:44:40,799
Speaker 8: questions about me and ma as I did like asking

1757
01:44:40,880 --> 01:44:44,320
Speaker 8: questions about Kurdistan, which was surprising to me, but obviously

1758
01:44:44,760 --> 01:44:47,000
Speaker 8: happy to do it. But like it would be nice

1759
01:44:47,040 --> 01:44:50,439
Speaker 8: to see some of that solidarity come back from the US, right,

1760
01:44:50,520 --> 01:44:53,240
Speaker 8: So are they're like, I mean, I guess you can

1761
01:44:53,240 --> 01:44:55,200
Speaker 8: come down to the border and help Kurdish people literally

1762
01:44:55,240 --> 01:44:57,160
Speaker 8: any day of the week if you'd like to do

1763
01:44:57,280 --> 01:45:00,639
Speaker 8: that all the time. But what concrete actions people take,

1764
01:45:00,760 --> 01:45:05,600
Speaker 8: especially with regard to like helping their self administration in

1765
01:45:05,640 --> 01:45:08,200
Speaker 8: North and East Syria, right, Like they're facing constant attacks,

1766
01:45:08,360 --> 01:45:10,640
Speaker 8: power stations get bombed, Like all my friends there are

1767
01:45:10,680 --> 01:45:14,760
Speaker 8: always struggling to have power, internet or even like electricity,

1768
01:45:15,200 --> 01:45:18,160
Speaker 8: and they got flooded recently on top of all that. Yeah,

1769
01:45:18,320 --> 01:45:20,759
Speaker 8: so like their concrete actions people can take to help

1770
01:45:21,040 --> 01:45:24,560
Speaker 8: to be in solidarity Oh absolutely.

1771
01:45:24,600 --> 01:45:27,280
Speaker 9: I mean, I think one thing, if you have expertise

1772
01:45:27,680 --> 01:45:30,400
Speaker 9: on anything to do with, you know, power grids that

1773
01:45:30,439 --> 01:45:34,160
Speaker 9: are resilient to these kinds of attacks, on alternative clean

1774
01:45:34,240 --> 01:45:38,680
Speaker 9: energy sources, anything that could possibly help people in a

1775
01:45:38,720 --> 01:45:42,599
Speaker 9: situation like this live. They want expertise. There's a lot

1776
01:45:42,720 --> 01:45:45,800
Speaker 9: of problems that they're facing that they simply because of

1777
01:45:45,840 --> 01:45:49,080
Speaker 9: the war, don't have the capacity not only to solve,

1778
01:45:49,120 --> 01:45:51,639
Speaker 9: but even to start thinking about how it is that

1779
01:45:51,680 --> 01:45:55,320
Speaker 9: one solves a problem like this because there just aren't

1780
01:45:55,320 --> 01:45:57,720
Speaker 9: that many societies in the world going through it. So

1781
01:45:57,920 --> 01:46:05,599
Speaker 9: any kind of in addressing energy issues, environmental issues, these

1782
01:46:05,680 --> 01:46:08,400
Speaker 9: kinds of problems, the second and third order effects of

1783
01:46:09,320 --> 01:46:14,280
Speaker 9: the attacks on infrastructure, on oil and gas, on power facilities,

1784
01:46:14,840 --> 01:46:16,880
Speaker 9: that would be very important. They really do need that,

1785
01:46:16,960 --> 01:46:18,479
Speaker 9: and that's something you know, you can write to us

1786
01:46:18,479 --> 01:46:20,880
Speaker 9: at the Kurdish Piece Institute. We can connect you with people.

1787
01:46:21,400 --> 01:46:23,360
Speaker 9: If you have contacts on the ground there, you can

1788
01:46:23,400 --> 01:46:26,599
Speaker 9: talk to them. That's one thing. Then at the end

1789
01:46:26,640 --> 01:46:29,479
Speaker 9: of the day, you know, they have these elections coming

1790
01:46:29,560 --> 01:46:32,840
Speaker 9: up that is a big step for them. They've just

1791
01:46:32,880 --> 01:46:35,760
Speaker 9: put out a new social contract. They're really trying to

1792
01:46:35,880 --> 01:46:38,439
Speaker 9: listen to some of the internal criticisms that they get

1793
01:46:38,479 --> 01:46:42,120
Speaker 9: and really build up the civil, social political side of

1794
01:46:42,160 --> 01:46:45,400
Speaker 9: their system. You know, there's a belief among many people

1795
01:46:45,400 --> 01:46:47,520
Speaker 9: there that I've talked to that because of the existential

1796
01:46:47,560 --> 01:46:50,120
Speaker 9: nature of these wars that they're fighting, they haven't been

1797
01:46:50,160 --> 01:46:53,599
Speaker 9: able to really pursue the political elements of their revolution

1798
01:46:53,880 --> 01:46:56,759
Speaker 9: to the degree that they want to. And they're trying

1799
01:46:56,800 --> 01:46:59,280
Speaker 9: to do that now. They have this new social Contract.

1800
01:46:59,280 --> 01:47:02,040
Speaker 9: It's an incredible document. You can read it. They're going

1801
01:47:02,080 --> 01:47:06,160
Speaker 9: to hold municipal elections on May thirtieth, I believe is

1802
01:47:06,160 --> 01:47:09,640
Speaker 9: the date that was announced. So any if you know

1803
01:47:09,760 --> 01:47:13,160
Speaker 9: a lot about electoral systems, if you have done election

1804
01:47:13,280 --> 01:47:16,519
Speaker 9: observation before, if you want to help them do that

1805
01:47:16,720 --> 01:47:19,479
Speaker 9: right and get international attention for what it is that

1806
01:47:19,520 --> 01:47:22,519
Speaker 9: they're doing. That's another way that people have been telling

1807
01:47:22,560 --> 01:47:25,320
Speaker 9: me that you can help. And then finally, you know,

1808
01:47:25,320 --> 01:47:28,719
Speaker 9: if you're here listening in the US, Airdwan is coming

1809
01:47:28,800 --> 01:47:32,440
Speaker 9: to the White House on May ninth. According to reports

1810
01:47:32,680 --> 01:47:37,360
Speaker 9: from Turkish and international media, there is going to be

1811
01:47:37,479 --> 01:47:40,800
Speaker 9: a demonstration. There will probably be a lot of campaigns

1812
01:47:40,880 --> 01:47:45,360
Speaker 9: around that demonstration as well, on things like conditioning and

1813
01:47:45,520 --> 01:47:49,080
Speaker 9: ending arm sales and security assistants on calls for peace,

1814
01:47:49,240 --> 01:47:53,840
Speaker 9: on calls for the US to end its support for

1815
01:47:54,200 --> 01:47:57,960
Speaker 9: and enablement of Turkey's occupation of Iraq and Syria. It's

1816
01:47:58,000 --> 01:48:01,160
Speaker 9: repression of its Kurdish people at home, and so anything

1817
01:48:01,200 --> 01:48:03,360
Speaker 9: that you can do to join those actions in those

1818
01:48:03,400 --> 01:48:06,840
Speaker 9: campaigns would be very helpful. You know, this is going

1819
01:48:06,920 --> 01:48:10,000
Speaker 9: to be an opportunity to let both Airdowan and the

1820
01:48:10,040 --> 01:48:13,960
Speaker 9: White House hear what the American people think about US

1821
01:48:14,000 --> 01:48:18,040
Speaker 9: support for what the Turkish government is doing. So be there,

1822
01:48:18,160 --> 01:48:21,040
Speaker 9: get involved. That's one way that we can, you know,

1823
01:48:21,080 --> 01:48:23,800
Speaker 9: make our voices heard and try to push for a

1824
01:48:23,880 --> 01:48:24,599
Speaker 9: change in policy.

1825
01:48:25,120 --> 01:48:26,920
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think it's great. I think people should like

1826
01:48:27,720 --> 01:48:30,880
Speaker 8: if you want an example of I guess the US complicity.

1827
01:48:31,120 --> 01:48:35,799
Speaker 8: Like while I was in Kurdistan, there was a bombing

1828
01:48:35,880 --> 01:48:39,479
Speaker 8: that killed thirty nine SIH like internal security forces, and

1829
01:48:40,080 --> 01:48:43,160
Speaker 8: that was like a plane that your tax dolars if

1830
01:48:43,200 --> 01:48:44,760
Speaker 8: you live in the US, developed, right, like an F

1831
01:48:44,800 --> 01:48:48,920
Speaker 8: sixteen with munitions, so you probably sold to them, and

1832
01:48:49,200 --> 01:48:54,240
Speaker 8: the US is selling has sold more F sixteen since then, right, yes, Yeah,

1833
01:48:54,360 --> 01:48:56,400
Speaker 8: So like that is a thing that we could stop,

1834
01:48:56,560 --> 01:49:00,200
Speaker 8: and that would concretely stop. Like I spoke to a

1835
01:49:00,479 --> 01:49:02,320
Speaker 8: mother who lost her son. He was a little I

1836
01:49:02,360 --> 01:49:05,920
Speaker 8: think it was like fourteen fifteen, a little football player.

1837
01:49:06,040 --> 01:49:07,960
Speaker 8: They had pictures of him all over the house, right, Like,

1838
01:49:08,000 --> 01:49:10,320
Speaker 8: it was really heartbreaking stuff. And I know that this

1839
01:49:10,400 --> 01:49:12,120
Speaker 8: happens a lot in other parts of the world. I'm

1840
01:49:12,120 --> 01:49:14,400
Speaker 8: not saying that's not important too, but yeah, it's it's

1841
01:49:14,439 --> 01:49:16,679
Speaker 8: always hard to talk to parents who have lost their kids,

1842
01:49:16,680 --> 01:49:20,400
Speaker 8: and you can stop that happening. Like, if we don't

1843
01:49:20,479 --> 01:49:22,479
Speaker 8: sell them the f sixteens that do that, then they

1844
01:49:22,760 --> 01:49:24,519
Speaker 8: don't have the ability to do it, at least not

1845
01:49:24,600 --> 01:49:25,040
Speaker 8: as much.

1846
01:49:25,680 --> 01:49:28,320
Speaker 9: And this is one way that we can connect struggles

1847
01:49:28,320 --> 01:49:30,800
Speaker 9: and causes as well, because it's all the same companies

1848
01:49:31,200 --> 01:49:34,080
Speaker 9: that are providing equipment to all of these states that

1849
01:49:34,160 --> 01:49:37,559
Speaker 9: are doing this. You know, the targets are the same

1850
01:49:37,800 --> 01:49:41,160
Speaker 9: for these kinds of campaigns. And look, you know, all

1851
01:49:41,200 --> 01:49:44,320
Speaker 9: of these governments, all of these corporations, they know that

1852
01:49:44,320 --> 01:49:46,680
Speaker 9: they're on the same side. We don't always know that

1853
01:49:46,720 --> 01:49:49,080
Speaker 9: we're on the same side too, And so I think

1854
01:49:49,120 --> 01:49:53,040
Speaker 9: that getting together and pointing out the patterns and standing

1855
01:49:53,040 --> 01:49:55,760
Speaker 9: against you know, these arm sales and security assistants in

1856
01:49:55,800 --> 01:49:59,760
Speaker 9: the context of Kurdistan, alongside many other contexts where they're

1857
01:49:59,760 --> 01:50:02,720
Speaker 9: also very destructive is an important way that we can

1858
01:50:02,760 --> 01:50:04,920
Speaker 9: sort of amplify our efforts to do that.

1859
01:50:05,520 --> 01:50:07,880
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, I think that's a very good, very good point.

1860
01:50:07,920 --> 01:50:11,679
Speaker 8: Like I live in San Diego. Almost every single bomb

1861
01:50:11,760 --> 01:50:13,679
Speaker 8: that has fallen on Palestine and many of the water

1862
01:50:13,760 --> 01:50:16,880
Speaker 8: full on Kurdistan. Have you know the company that sold

1863
01:50:16,920 --> 01:50:20,759
Speaker 8: that has an office here, Like if they're the places

1864
01:50:20,760 --> 01:50:23,599
Speaker 8: where you can apply pressure in places where you can

1865
01:50:23,600 --> 01:50:26,960
Speaker 8: hopefully make a change, Megan, where can people you mentioned

1866
01:50:27,000 --> 01:50:29,160
Speaker 8: like emailing you? Where can people find you? How can

1867
01:50:29,200 --> 01:50:31,520
Speaker 8: people keep up to date with what's happening in Kurdistan?

1868
01:50:32,160 --> 01:50:36,040
Speaker 9: Yeah, of course. So you can go to Kurdishpeace dot org.

1869
01:50:36,200 --> 01:50:39,320
Speaker 9: That's the website of our institute. If you go to

1870
01:50:39,520 --> 01:50:42,160
Speaker 9: our about page, my contact is on there. You can

1871
01:50:42,200 --> 01:50:44,479
Speaker 9: always reach out to me whether you have a question

1872
01:50:44,520 --> 01:50:47,880
Speaker 9: about Kurdistan, you want to read our research and analysis.

1873
01:50:47,920 --> 01:50:49,840
Speaker 9: You know you're a journalist or an analyst and you

1874
01:50:49,880 --> 01:50:52,960
Speaker 9: want to submit something yourself. We can help you there.

1875
01:50:53,400 --> 01:50:57,880
Speaker 9: We're also on Twitter at Kurdish Peace Org. And yeah,

1876
01:50:57,960 --> 01:51:00,200
Speaker 9: that's a great way for you to follow. In the

1877
01:51:00,240 --> 01:51:02,799
Speaker 9: English language. If you're looking for resources on the ground,

1878
01:51:03,400 --> 01:51:06,960
Speaker 9: you can follow North Press Agency which publishes in English,

1879
01:51:07,040 --> 01:51:10,840
Speaker 9: the Rojeva Information Center, which publishes in English. And then

1880
01:51:11,200 --> 01:51:13,680
Speaker 9: you know, get involved with your local Kurdish community in

1881
01:51:13,800 --> 01:51:15,680
Speaker 9: a lot of major cities in the US. If you're

1882
01:51:15,680 --> 01:51:17,880
Speaker 9: in New York, if you're in Boston, if you're in

1883
01:51:17,920 --> 01:51:20,880
Speaker 9: the DMV area, if you're in California, like you know,

1884
01:51:21,720 --> 01:51:26,280
Speaker 9: there are active Kurdish communities, and you know, go to

1885
01:51:26,320 --> 01:51:30,120
Speaker 9: a cultural event, go to a demonstration, you'll find both

1886
01:51:30,320 --> 01:51:32,760
Speaker 9: great ways to get connected and really get plugged into

1887
01:51:32,800 --> 01:51:36,240
Speaker 9: solidarity efforts. But also you know, a wonderful community and

1888
01:51:36,280 --> 01:51:39,920
Speaker 9: a wonderful culture that I think, you know, anyone would be.

1889
01:51:40,800 --> 01:51:44,560
Speaker 9: I've certainly been, you know, very happy to have experienced.

1890
01:51:44,920 --> 01:51:48,320
Speaker 8: So yeah, likewise, yeah, great, Thank you so much, Megan,

1891
01:51:48,360 --> 01:51:49,120
Speaker 8: that was great.

1892
01:51:50,040 --> 01:52:00,000
Speaker 9: Thank you.

1893
01:52:04,280 --> 01:52:06,680
Speaker 5: Welcome to Dick It Happen Here, a podcast coming to

1894
01:52:06,800 --> 01:52:09,599
Speaker 5: you from a week where decades are happening. I'm your host.

1895
01:52:09,680 --> 01:52:11,519
Speaker 5: Nia Long with me is James Stout.

1896
01:52:12,360 --> 01:52:14,120
Speaker 8: Hi, man, I'm great to be here.

1897
01:52:14,760 --> 01:52:17,879
Speaker 5: And also with us as Talia Jane an independent journalist

1898
01:52:18,160 --> 01:52:21,040
Speaker 5: covering social movements and protests who is currently covering the

1899
01:52:21,080 --> 01:52:25,360
Speaker 5: Gazza solidarity encampments at Columbia University. Talia welcome to the show.

1900
01:52:25,800 --> 01:52:27,280
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, guys.

1901
01:52:28,160 --> 01:52:29,639
Speaker 8: Yay, thanks for doing us.

1902
01:52:30,160 --> 01:52:31,880
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, yeah.

1903
01:52:31,920 --> 01:52:34,639
Speaker 5: So I'm excited. I'm excited to talk about the Columbia occupation.

1904
01:52:34,760 --> 01:52:37,680
Speaker 5: I also want to briefly mention that there are a

1905
01:52:37,800 --> 01:52:41,280
Speaker 5: lot of there's been a wave of occupations of campuses

1906
01:52:41,520 --> 01:52:45,759
Speaker 5: across the country just right now. This is being recorded

1907
01:52:45,760 --> 01:52:48,360
Speaker 5: on Wednesday night. By the time this goes up on

1908
01:52:48,560 --> 01:52:51,000
Speaker 5: like Friday, a lot of the stuff we're going to

1909
01:52:51,000 --> 01:52:52,360
Speaker 5: be saying is probably going to be at a date

1910
01:52:52,400 --> 01:52:55,240
Speaker 5: because everything's moving really quickly. But I mean there's occupations obviously,

1911
01:52:55,280 --> 01:52:59,080
Speaker 5: like Columbia. There's like CSU, Humblet, University of Texas at Austin,

1912
01:52:59,120 --> 01:53:04,000
Speaker 5: Ohio State, Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, some university in Italy, Emerson, Tuft's, MIT,

1913
01:53:04,520 --> 01:53:07,839
Speaker 5: NYU City, University of New York, the New Schools, University

1914
01:53:07,840 --> 01:53:11,479
Speaker 5: of Rochester, University of Pittsburgh, USC, University of Minnesota, University

1915
01:53:11,479 --> 01:53:16,120
Speaker 5: of Michigan, Vanderbilt, UNC, Chapel Hill. I mean, there's so

1916
01:53:16,280 --> 01:53:18,280
Speaker 5: many of these. By the time that this goes up,

1917
01:53:18,360 --> 01:53:21,240
Speaker 5: there will be more of them. Yeah, it's been wild,

1918
01:53:21,640 --> 01:53:25,880
Speaker 5: there's been a lot of I mean at Humboldt, there

1919
01:53:26,320 --> 01:53:28,240
Speaker 5: was a lot of very intense fighting with the police.

1920
01:53:28,880 --> 01:53:31,080
Speaker 5: A bunch of kids occupied a building. They beat the

1921
01:53:31,080 --> 01:53:33,519
Speaker 5: shit while Okay, that's going a bit too far, but

1922
01:53:33,560 --> 01:53:36,320
Speaker 5: they barricaded it, kept the cops from coming in, cops

1923
01:53:36,360 --> 01:53:42,200
Speaker 5: ran off of campus. So, lots of incredibly wild stuff happening. Yeah,

1924
01:53:42,240 --> 01:53:46,080
Speaker 5: which I guess brings us to the Gauza. The I

1925
01:53:46,080 --> 01:53:48,400
Speaker 5: guess the original one, the first one. They got a

1926
01:53:48,400 --> 01:53:51,440
Speaker 5: lot of media attention, the Gauza Solidarity acampment at Columbia.

1927
01:53:52,000 --> 01:53:52,200
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1928
01:53:52,240 --> 01:53:55,120
Speaker 5: So, Telly, I wanted to ask you, so, how did

1929
01:53:55,120 --> 01:53:57,240
Speaker 5: this sort of start and what's kind of been making

1930
01:53:57,280 --> 01:54:00,479
Speaker 5: it different from the really pretty large number of other

1931
01:54:01,560 --> 01:54:04,919
Speaker 5: free Palestine anti genocide protests that have been on campuses

1932
01:54:04,920 --> 01:54:10,360
Speaker 5: and off campuses for the past like time, Yeah, six

1933
01:54:10,439 --> 01:54:11,200
Speaker 5: seven months.

1934
01:54:11,600 --> 01:54:15,840
Speaker 10: Yeah, Well, I think the genesis of this was that

1935
01:54:15,960 --> 01:54:20,240
Speaker 10: Columbia University, as we've seen in universities across the country,

1936
01:54:20,320 --> 01:54:26,040
Speaker 10: suspended a number of pro Palestine advocacy student groups. They

1937
01:54:26,560 --> 01:54:30,960
Speaker 10: were very slow to move their feet about targeted attacks

1938
01:54:31,160 --> 01:54:35,560
Speaker 10: against students who were demonstrating for Palestine, including an incident

1939
01:54:35,640 --> 01:54:38,840
Speaker 10: where someone was allegedly sprayed with a chemical irritant or

1940
01:54:38,880 --> 01:54:43,840
Speaker 10: people were sprayed with a chemical irritant by former IOF

1941
01:54:44,240 --> 01:54:49,160
Speaker 10: soldiers who are also students here, and just this, you know,

1942
01:54:49,400 --> 01:54:54,760
Speaker 10: building tension of there is a actual genocide occurring, and

1943
01:54:55,720 --> 01:55:01,680
Speaker 10: universities are being forced to and towards the people committing

1944
01:55:01,680 --> 01:55:05,080
Speaker 10: the genocide instead of standing on the right side of history,

1945
01:55:05,920 --> 01:55:08,680
Speaker 10: or they're actively choosing to do that too, because their

1946
01:55:09,280 --> 01:55:12,600
Speaker 10: whole thing is not about actually educating people and preparing

1947
01:55:12,600 --> 01:55:19,720
Speaker 10: them to be tomorrow's leaders and managers or baristas, but

1948
01:55:19,960 --> 01:55:23,560
Speaker 10: to get people, you know, to give them money to

1949
01:55:23,640 --> 01:55:29,200
Speaker 10: fill their coffers and portray this image of you know,

1950
01:55:29,760 --> 01:55:32,040
Speaker 10: exceptionalism and elitism and whatnot.

1951
01:55:32,360 --> 01:55:34,080
Speaker 1: So that was the genesis.

1952
01:55:34,120 --> 01:55:38,800
Speaker 10: And then on Tuesday night I got a text at

1953
01:55:38,840 --> 01:55:41,960
Speaker 10: like eleven pm, I want to say, asking me if

1954
01:55:42,000 --> 01:55:45,880
Speaker 10: I wanted to come cover a late night slash early

1955
01:55:45,960 --> 01:55:50,000
Speaker 10: morning de occupation demo. And this was from someone I'd

1956
01:55:50,000 --> 01:55:52,000
Speaker 10: never talked to before. I had no idea who it was,

1957
01:55:52,680 --> 01:55:55,200
Speaker 10: but they said it was a Columbia and they said

1958
01:55:55,200 --> 01:55:56,760
Speaker 10: it was late night, early morning. I thought I'd be

1959
01:55:56,760 --> 01:55:59,360
Speaker 10: out of here at you know, ten am the next day,

1960
01:56:01,680 --> 01:56:05,680
Speaker 10: and then you know, standing there witnessing it all unfold,

1961
01:56:05,720 --> 01:56:09,400
Speaker 10: it became pretty evident that that was not the case.

1962
01:56:09,440 --> 01:56:12,160
Speaker 10: And I think the reason why this stands out is

1963
01:56:12,160 --> 01:56:16,720
Speaker 10: because this is an elite university where you can't say, oh, well,

1964
01:56:16,720 --> 01:56:20,200
Speaker 10: these are just dumb TikTok kids. These are kids who

1965
01:56:20,200 --> 01:56:23,160
Speaker 10: have like the these are like adults who have you know,

1966
01:56:23,200 --> 01:56:29,320
Speaker 10: they have incredible resumes, really high academic excellence. They got

1967
01:56:29,360 --> 01:56:33,560
Speaker 10: into an extremely difficult school to get into, and they

1968
01:56:33,640 --> 01:56:38,480
Speaker 10: are joining the ranks of the you know, frazzled fringe,

1969
01:56:38,640 --> 01:56:45,120
Speaker 10: stinky anarchists and the silly kids who are being brainwashed

1970
01:56:45,160 --> 01:56:48,400
Speaker 10: by TikTok. And they said like, no, those people are right,

1971
01:56:48,560 --> 01:56:51,440
Speaker 10: like this is bad and you need to disclose and

1972
01:56:51,560 --> 01:56:53,680
Speaker 10: divest and we're not going to stop until you do.

1973
01:56:54,480 --> 01:56:58,440
Speaker 10: And I think that that stance from a position of

1974
01:56:58,640 --> 01:57:05,080
Speaker 10: privilege really shook things up. What followed also set a

1975
01:57:05,200 --> 01:57:08,880
Speaker 10: tone of the university deciding to call the police and

1976
01:57:09,360 --> 01:57:14,480
Speaker 10: claiming that this encampment was it posed a clear and

1977
01:57:14,600 --> 01:57:19,880
Speaker 10: present danger to the safety of students on campus, which,

1978
01:57:20,320 --> 01:57:23,560
Speaker 10: you know, anyone who has spent any length of time

1979
01:57:23,960 --> 01:57:26,200
Speaker 10: in or around the encampment can plainly see that that

1980
01:57:26,320 --> 01:57:27,680
Speaker 10: is nonsensical.

1981
01:57:27,720 --> 01:57:28,280
Speaker 1: It's absurd.

1982
01:57:28,360 --> 01:57:30,480
Speaker 10: These are kids that are studying on a lawn, but

1983
01:57:30,560 --> 01:57:33,120
Speaker 10: that choice of bringing the NYPD in and having one

1984
01:57:33,160 --> 01:57:37,360
Speaker 10: hundred and eight students arrested by the NYPD Strategic Response Group,

1985
01:57:37,720 --> 01:57:40,960
Speaker 10: which is their you know, counter terrorism goon squad that

1986
01:57:41,440 --> 01:57:45,400
Speaker 10: violently represses protests pretty consistently, to have them arrest one

1987
01:57:45,480 --> 01:57:49,400
Speaker 10: hundred nate people, including carrying them out from by their

1988
01:57:49,480 --> 01:57:52,040
Speaker 10: arms and lengths and arresting legal observers.

1989
01:57:52,600 --> 01:57:54,200
Speaker 1: You know that that was like.

1990
01:57:55,360 --> 01:57:58,200
Speaker 10: This is that it was an outsized response for something

1991
01:57:58,280 --> 01:57:59,520
Speaker 10: that was pretty straightforward.

1992
01:57:59,560 --> 01:58:01,240
Speaker 1: There hanging out on a lawn.

1993
01:58:01,600 --> 01:58:04,760
Speaker 10: They have everything set up to sustain within that space.

1994
01:58:05,280 --> 01:58:08,080
Speaker 10: They are not going out and roaming around and you know,

1995
01:58:08,560 --> 01:58:11,920
Speaker 10: breaking things or assaulting people or anything like that. And

1996
01:58:12,040 --> 01:58:15,760
Speaker 10: they're just using this to call attention to their cause,

1997
01:58:15,800 --> 01:58:20,720
Speaker 10: which is divestment from genocide and from you know, war profiteering,

1998
01:58:21,160 --> 01:58:27,480
Speaker 10: and to and the school's gentrification of Harlem, and to

1999
01:58:27,840 --> 01:58:32,880
Speaker 10: you know, at institute, an academic boycott of Israel and

2000
01:58:33,160 --> 01:58:37,360
Speaker 10: Israeli campuses that are in community with Colombia, like their

2001
01:58:37,360 --> 01:58:42,320
Speaker 10: satellite schools that bring the IOF soldiers to Colombia to

2002
01:58:42,440 --> 01:58:45,120
Speaker 10: commit harm against students here. And you know, so these

2003
01:58:45,120 --> 01:58:48,640
Speaker 10: are these are very basic asks and they were met

2004
01:58:48,720 --> 01:58:53,520
Speaker 10: with state force signed off by the president of the school,

2005
01:58:54,160 --> 01:58:57,840
Speaker 10: and seeing that, I think is what provoked a lot

2006
01:58:57,840 --> 01:58:59,960
Speaker 10: of other schools of like, well, if Columbia's doing it,

2007
01:59:00,040 --> 01:59:03,680
Speaker 10: than we definitely got to because you have a major

2008
01:59:04,080 --> 01:59:08,200
Speaker 10: elite institution taking this step, making clear that this is

2009
01:59:08,240 --> 01:59:12,880
Speaker 10: not just a cause that you know, the scrappy little

2010
01:59:12,920 --> 01:59:16,440
Speaker 10: weirdos at the bottom like me care about, you know.

2011
01:59:17,000 --> 01:59:19,520
Speaker 10: And so I think that's what set it off. And

2012
01:59:20,920 --> 01:59:25,160
Speaker 10: the fact that they returned they just took over the

2013
01:59:25,240 --> 01:59:31,320
Speaker 10: other lawn while while their classmates were being processed after

2014
01:59:31,360 --> 01:59:33,680
Speaker 10: being arrested. They just took over the other lawn and

2015
01:59:33,720 --> 01:59:35,240
Speaker 10: they're like, all right, we're going to set it up

2016
01:59:35,280 --> 01:59:41,400
Speaker 10: here was such a hilariously like based move that it

2017
01:59:41,480 --> 01:59:47,520
Speaker 10: was like the defiance and the determination was undeniable. And

2018
01:59:47,880 --> 01:59:51,080
Speaker 10: when you see a group like with the students at Humboldt,

2019
01:59:51,480 --> 01:59:54,400
Speaker 10: where the cops with the riot shields are trying to

2020
01:59:54,400 --> 01:59:56,839
Speaker 10: barge in and they're pushing them back and they're screaming

2021
01:59:56,880 --> 01:59:59,600
Speaker 10: get the fuck out, and they're bonking them over the

2022
01:59:59,640 --> 02:00:02,840
Speaker 10: head with the empty water jug, when you see things

2023
02:00:02,880 --> 02:00:05,200
Speaker 10: like that, Yeah, when you see things like that, it's

2024
02:00:06,240 --> 02:00:11,360
Speaker 10: very like there is an energy to this that has

2025
02:00:11,400 --> 02:00:13,760
Speaker 10: always been there, but that has not been very easily

2026
02:00:13,800 --> 02:00:20,280
Speaker 10: seen by the masses, and we're now seeing it show

2027
02:00:20,320 --> 02:00:22,920
Speaker 10: its head of like, no, we're not fucking around, like

2028
02:00:22,960 --> 02:00:24,240
Speaker 10: you need to listen to us.

2029
02:00:24,280 --> 02:00:26,600
Speaker 1: We're tired of the song and.

2030
02:00:26,640 --> 02:00:30,280
Speaker 10: Dance game that you're doing, dismissing all of our valid concerns,

2031
02:00:30,320 --> 02:00:34,560
Speaker 10: because we know concretely and statistically that we are on

2032
02:00:34,600 --> 02:00:36,880
Speaker 10: the right side of history, and we're going to make

2033
02:00:36,920 --> 02:00:40,960
Speaker 10: you listen and trust that if you beat us up,

2034
02:00:41,000 --> 02:00:44,240
Speaker 10: we're coming back, like we're not going away. It doesn't

2035
02:00:44,280 --> 02:00:47,440
Speaker 10: scare us, which is what the kids at a UT

2036
02:00:47,600 --> 02:00:50,960
Speaker 10: Austin were chanting I think when they brought the horses

2037
02:00:50,960 --> 02:00:51,920
Speaker 10: in the state troopers in.

2038
02:00:52,000 --> 02:00:53,200
Speaker 1: It's like, we're not scared of you.

2039
02:00:54,240 --> 02:00:59,080
Speaker 10: And that tone has permeated throughout the demonstrations for Palaestinian

2040
02:00:59,120 --> 02:01:03,640
Speaker 10: liberation since in prior to October. But if you don't

2041
02:01:03,640 --> 02:01:06,240
Speaker 10: follow the protests, or if you only go by what

2042
02:01:07,080 --> 02:01:10,200
Speaker 10: the major news outlets are saying about them, you don't

2043
02:01:10,240 --> 02:01:13,120
Speaker 10: see that tone. So this, for me is not surprising.

2044
02:01:14,400 --> 02:01:18,920
Speaker 10: This is a continuation of an energy that has not

2045
02:01:19,080 --> 02:01:21,920
Speaker 10: ceased for upwards of six months. I think it's the

2046
02:01:21,960 --> 02:01:26,880
Speaker 10: two hundred and first day of the genocide. So it's

2047
02:01:26,880 --> 02:01:30,360
Speaker 10: not surprising for people who've paid attention. It's a relief

2048
02:01:30,520 --> 02:01:33,960
Speaker 10: for kids who are here and who have been involved,

2049
02:01:34,000 --> 02:01:36,920
Speaker 10: and who have been silenced and ignored and written off

2050
02:01:36,920 --> 02:01:37,560
Speaker 10: this whole time.

2051
02:01:38,240 --> 02:01:39,280
Speaker 1: It's a very long answer.

2052
02:01:39,280 --> 02:01:40,400
Speaker 5: I now that's a.

2053
02:01:40,320 --> 02:01:43,720
Speaker 8: Good one, though. I think it's a It's great to

2054
02:01:43,760 --> 02:01:45,440
Speaker 8: have your perspective if someone who's been on the ground.

2055
02:01:46,080 --> 02:01:49,080
Speaker 8: One thing I wanted to ask is, like, obviously this

2056
02:01:49,200 --> 02:01:52,200
Speaker 8: is a protest that its core is about state violence,

2057
02:01:52,360 --> 02:01:55,640
Speaker 8: and it has predictably enough been responded to with state violence.

2058
02:01:56,160 --> 02:02:00,520
Speaker 8: And like you said that people were generally not weighed

2059
02:02:00,560 --> 02:02:02,640
Speaker 8: by that. I wonder if you've seen people who kind

2060
02:02:02,640 --> 02:02:06,320
Speaker 8: of had the opposite reaction, Like I kind of remember

2061
02:02:07,160 --> 02:02:09,400
Speaker 8: the student protests that I had been involved in. I'm

2062
02:02:09,440 --> 02:02:11,640
Speaker 8: just going to say that, and I can remember like

2063
02:02:11,720 --> 02:02:17,200
Speaker 8: the reaction by students when seeing that fellow students being

2064
02:02:17,200 --> 02:02:19,840
Speaker 8: assaulted by the police was like, Okay, fuck this, Like

2065
02:02:20,440 --> 02:02:22,280
Speaker 8: you know, like Georgio Wah has this thing about like

2066
02:02:22,840 --> 02:02:24,640
Speaker 8: when I see a real flesh and blud worker of

2067
02:02:24,720 --> 02:02:26,600
Speaker 8: fighting is natural. Letting me the policeman. I don't have

2068
02:02:26,640 --> 02:02:29,080
Speaker 8: to ask myself what side I'm on, did you find

2069
02:02:29,120 --> 02:02:32,040
Speaker 8: the same thing with students where they were like, okay,

2070
02:02:32,520 --> 02:02:34,520
Speaker 8: I wasn't out here, And now I've seen the way

2071
02:02:34,560 --> 02:02:36,520
Speaker 8: the university and the cops have responded to this, and

2072
02:02:36,520 --> 02:02:38,320
Speaker 8: now I'm coming out because it's not okay.

2073
02:02:39,560 --> 02:02:45,280
Speaker 10: The encampment went up Wednesday and it was forcibly removed

2074
02:02:45,320 --> 02:02:48,760
Speaker 10: with arrests on Thursday, I think, or was it Friday.

2075
02:02:49,120 --> 02:02:52,160
Speaker 1: I don't remember. It was a long time ago. For me.

2076
02:02:53,360 --> 02:02:57,480
Speaker 8: It's fine, But.

2077
02:02:55,960 --> 02:03:01,640
Speaker 10: Prior to the encampment being taken down, the possibility of

2078
02:03:01,680 --> 02:03:05,760
Speaker 10: it provoked a significant response from the student body here

2079
02:03:05,800 --> 02:03:10,640
Speaker 10: at Columbia to show up and rally around the encampment

2080
02:03:10,720 --> 02:03:15,440
Speaker 10: all night. They did this march, this daisy chain where

2081
02:03:15,440 --> 02:03:18,000
Speaker 10: they were chanting. The more you try to silence us,

2082
02:03:18,000 --> 02:03:21,480
Speaker 10: the louder we will be and disclose, divest, We will

2083
02:03:21,480 --> 02:03:24,480
Speaker 10: not stop. We will not rest all night around the

2084
02:03:24,560 --> 02:03:26,640
Speaker 10: encampment to keep it safe and to show that they

2085
02:03:26,680 --> 02:03:30,040
Speaker 10: had larger support beyond the students who chose to stay

2086
02:03:30,040 --> 02:03:33,400
Speaker 10: on the lawn at risk of being arrested. After they

2087
02:03:33,400 --> 02:03:37,880
Speaker 10: were arrested, more students came onto the other lawn and

2088
02:03:37,960 --> 02:03:42,480
Speaker 10: have continued to occupy that second lawn so absolutely it

2089
02:03:42,480 --> 02:03:43,440
Speaker 10: was a strissand effect.

2090
02:03:43,480 --> 02:03:44,400
Speaker 1: They tried to shut.

2091
02:03:44,160 --> 02:03:47,480
Speaker 10: It down, and it made people feel very strongly that

2092
02:03:47,520 --> 02:03:50,040
Speaker 10: they need to show up and put themselves on the

2093
02:03:50,080 --> 02:03:54,040
Speaker 10: line as well. And they also I think they saw

2094
02:03:54,640 --> 02:03:57,800
Speaker 10: what I think it also showed them what the state

2095
02:03:58,240 --> 02:04:02,320
Speaker 10: does and what the university does, and seeing it firsthand

2096
02:04:02,800 --> 02:04:05,880
Speaker 10: eliminates a lot of the mystery that, you know, the

2097
02:04:05,920 --> 02:04:09,520
Speaker 10: fear that can circulate of like the uncertainty of it.

2098
02:04:09,800 --> 02:04:11,040
Speaker 1: Seeing what it looks.

2099
02:04:10,800 --> 02:04:14,560
Speaker 10: Like, they're like, oh whatever, And now they're seeing, you know,

2100
02:04:14,720 --> 02:04:19,720
Speaker 10: videos of protesters being brutalized on other campuses, and like

2101
02:04:19,760 --> 02:04:22,240
Speaker 10: I heard so much told me last night they said

2102
02:04:22,280 --> 02:04:25,280
Speaker 10: that they overheard someone like talking to another student on

2103
02:04:25,320 --> 02:04:27,640
Speaker 10: the lawn and they were like, oh, so you a

2104
02:04:27,720 --> 02:04:31,040
Speaker 10: jail support, Like, yes, you're there, Like it's it's this

2105
02:04:31,160 --> 02:04:34,480
Speaker 10: sort of they're gonna they're gonna do what they're gonna do.

2106
02:04:35,800 --> 02:04:40,080
Speaker 10: We don't care, like because these are the threat of violence.

2107
02:04:40,120 --> 02:04:43,960
Speaker 10: Physical harm is a threat to cease whatever it is

2108
02:04:43,960 --> 02:04:47,080
Speaker 10: that you're doing, of academic harm. These are things that

2109
02:04:47,120 --> 02:04:49,640
Speaker 10: are trying to get you to stop doing what you're doing.

2110
02:04:49,720 --> 02:04:51,960
Speaker 10: And when you know that they are being deployed as

2111
02:04:52,000 --> 02:04:55,320
Speaker 10: tools and tactics. You're not gonna stop because they're not

2112
02:04:55,400 --> 02:04:55,960
Speaker 10: scary to you.

2113
02:04:56,960 --> 02:04:57,840
Speaker 1: Well, what are you gonna do?

2114
02:04:57,880 --> 02:05:02,360
Speaker 10: You're gonna suspend me for joining in a historic protest?

2115
02:05:02,480 --> 02:05:05,880
Speaker 1: Okay, see if I care. You know, I think that's

2116
02:05:05,880 --> 02:05:07,440
Speaker 1: the energy for a lot of students.

2117
02:05:07,840 --> 02:05:10,360
Speaker 5: Yeah, unfortunately we need to go to ads for a second,

2118
02:05:10,560 --> 02:05:13,440
Speaker 5: but I don't know, skip them and we'll be back

2119
02:05:13,800 --> 02:05:15,920
Speaker 5: in however long it takes you to press the forward

2120
02:05:15,960 --> 02:05:31,560
Speaker 5: button like six times and we are back. So, something

2121
02:05:31,600 --> 02:05:34,680
Speaker 5: I wanted to ask about. I've been seeing a lot

2122
02:05:34,720 --> 02:05:38,720
Speaker 5: of stuff floating around about the negotiations that are happening

2123
02:05:38,760 --> 02:05:41,560
Speaker 5: between the university and the students, and I want to

2124
02:05:41,600 --> 02:05:45,520
Speaker 5: know what have you actually heard about these because the

2125
02:05:45,560 --> 02:05:48,120
Speaker 5: statements that have been coming out don't seem to really

2126
02:05:48,160 --> 02:05:51,520
Speaker 5: be matching anything else I've seen going on on the ground.

2127
02:05:52,840 --> 02:05:53,720
Speaker 5: Do you know what's happening?

2128
02:05:55,000 --> 02:05:58,760
Speaker 10: So the university has taken a stance of this is

2129
02:05:58,800 --> 02:06:01,720
Speaker 10: a clearing present day, it is disruptive, it is harmful,

2130
02:06:01,760 --> 02:06:06,040
Speaker 10: et cetera. That's because it's impeding with them building stairs

2131
02:06:06,680 --> 02:06:09,520
Speaker 10: and stadium seating for the commencement that's happening in a

2132
02:06:09,560 --> 02:06:16,600
Speaker 10: couple of weeks. So you know, It's like that's that's

2133
02:06:16,680 --> 02:06:19,040
Speaker 10: the clear and present danger is that it's costly for

2134
02:06:19,120 --> 02:06:23,200
Speaker 10: them to have to wait to complete this this setup.

2135
02:06:23,920 --> 02:06:27,640
Speaker 10: But my understanding is that the students are very much

2136
02:06:27,960 --> 02:06:31,200
Speaker 10: holding their ground, very firm, and their their demands are

2137
02:06:31,280 --> 02:06:34,960
Speaker 10: very reasonable. It's saying like, tell us where your money

2138
02:06:35,000 --> 02:06:37,520
Speaker 10: comes from, so we can look into it and see

2139
02:06:37,560 --> 02:06:42,040
Speaker 10: that you're keeping your nose clean. This isn't a difficult

2140
02:06:42,160 --> 02:06:45,600
Speaker 10: to ask. I think if you ask to see my receipts,

2141
02:06:45,600 --> 02:06:48,560
Speaker 10: I could jump to you. Although I'm not an elite university,

2142
02:06:48,640 --> 02:06:52,920
Speaker 10: but I'm also not you know, profiting off of weapons manufacturing.

2143
02:06:53,920 --> 02:06:59,120
Speaker 10: And so the university's stance is very much trying to

2144
02:06:59,200 --> 02:07:06,000
Speaker 10: kind of spook them into quitting. And there was a

2145
02:07:06,120 --> 02:07:09,440
Speaker 10: statement released by the president last night at four am

2146
02:07:09,520 --> 02:07:13,480
Speaker 10: saying that the students made some concessions, two of which

2147
02:07:13,520 --> 02:07:16,360
Speaker 10: were things that they're already doing. One of which was

2148
02:07:16,480 --> 02:07:19,440
Speaker 10: an easy adjustment that's not a concession, which was just

2149
02:07:19,960 --> 02:07:24,840
Speaker 10: making the camp more ada accessible and in compliance with

2150
02:07:25,200 --> 02:07:29,600
Speaker 10: FDN Y regulations for fire safety, which I think would

2151
02:07:29,600 --> 02:07:35,000
Speaker 10: be crazy if a fire broke out at this camp. Anyway,

2152
02:07:35,240 --> 02:07:39,000
Speaker 10: I was a tangent. And then there was a thing

2153
02:07:39,080 --> 02:07:42,360
Speaker 10: saying that they're going to be ending negotiations in forty

2154
02:07:42,400 --> 02:07:45,720
Speaker 10: eight hours, and with the students reported out from those

2155
02:07:45,760 --> 02:07:49,120
Speaker 10: negotiations at the time was at the university at around

2156
02:07:49,120 --> 02:07:51,800
Speaker 10: midnight threatened to call in the National Guard and to

2157
02:07:51,800 --> 02:07:55,560
Speaker 10: call in the NYPD, and that shut down negotiations. And

2158
02:07:55,720 --> 02:07:59,640
Speaker 10: it was only after they put out these widespread calls

2159
02:07:59,760 --> 02:08:03,160
Speaker 10: and thousands of people gathered on the lawn in support

2160
02:08:03,240 --> 02:08:08,160
Speaker 10: of the encampment that that was changed and the university

2161
02:08:08,360 --> 02:08:11,880
Speaker 10: agreed in writing to not call the YPD and to

2162
02:08:12,000 --> 02:08:14,760
Speaker 10: not mobilized National Guard, which I don't think they have

2163
02:08:14,760 --> 02:08:18,480
Speaker 10: the authority to do regardless, but it was this written

2164
02:08:18,520 --> 02:08:24,200
Speaker 10: concession from the university, and their perspective of it was

2165
02:08:24,200 --> 02:08:28,240
Speaker 10: that the students provided concessions. And I think it's kind

2166
02:08:28,240 --> 02:08:32,200
Speaker 10: of it speaks to who each side is speaking to.

2167
02:08:32,280 --> 02:08:35,160
Speaker 10: The students are speaking to the movement that they have

2168
02:08:36,120 --> 02:08:40,760
Speaker 10: kind of shepherded into existence, and the university is speaking

2169
02:08:40,920 --> 02:08:45,520
Speaker 10: to their donors and their trustees and the right wingers

2170
02:08:45,520 --> 02:08:49,680
Speaker 10: who are having nuclear meltdowns on Twitter.

2171
02:08:50,640 --> 02:08:52,520
Speaker 5: That's something else I wanted to sort of ask about

2172
02:08:52,520 --> 02:08:55,200
Speaker 5: because I it's kind of hard for me to a

2173
02:08:55,320 --> 02:08:59,040
Speaker 5: sense of it, like, Okay, so Speaker of the House

2174
02:08:59,080 --> 02:09:04,440
Speaker 5: Bike Johnson, who is a utterly deranged session Zionist.

2175
02:09:04,880 --> 02:09:10,240
Speaker 7: Yeah, like you mean the new Churchill mea godly real weirdo,

2176
02:09:10,760 --> 02:09:15,560
Speaker 7: like anti evolution guy he's been, he said, He said that.

2177
02:09:15,560 --> 02:09:17,800
Speaker 5: Like he's going to go to Congress and call for

2178
02:09:17,920 --> 02:09:19,840
Speaker 5: the National Guard deplay, which also doesn't make any sense

2179
02:09:19,880 --> 02:09:23,560
Speaker 5: because Congress. I don't can't do it either. But I

2180
02:09:23,600 --> 02:09:25,200
Speaker 5: think you're trying to get like the governor, but like,

2181
02:09:25,240 --> 02:09:27,280
Speaker 5: what what do you think of the actual odds of

2182
02:09:27,320 --> 02:09:29,000
Speaker 5: a National Guard to point? Because I've heard a lot

2183
02:09:29,000 --> 02:09:32,000
Speaker 5: of talk about it and I can't gauge it at all.

2184
02:09:32,920 --> 02:09:34,360
Speaker 1: So Hochel has said.

2185
02:09:34,160 --> 02:09:38,320
Speaker 10: That that's not on the table, I believe, And there's

2186
02:09:38,400 --> 02:09:43,200
Speaker 10: no interest from what I can tell of the actual

2187
02:09:43,480 --> 02:09:47,680
Speaker 10: elected reps in calling in the National Guard. There's interest

2188
02:09:47,720 --> 02:09:50,839
Speaker 10: from Eric Adams, who is a former cop and basically

2189
02:09:50,880 --> 02:09:54,600
Speaker 10: still a cop, to use the NYPD, and the NYPD

2190
02:09:54,680 --> 02:09:57,520
Speaker 10: has been very allergic to when the National Guard comes

2191
02:09:57,560 --> 02:10:00,720
Speaker 10: out here because they want to be the ones skulls

2192
02:10:01,280 --> 02:10:04,600
Speaker 10: and being in charge of brutalizing New Yorkers, and they

2193
02:10:05,040 --> 02:10:07,920
Speaker 10: take a great offense when someone else comes in and

2194
02:10:07,960 --> 02:10:10,360
Speaker 10: does it for them. So they wouldn't really be on

2195
02:10:10,360 --> 02:10:13,280
Speaker 10: board with the National Guard mobilizing here either. The school

2196
02:10:13,280 --> 02:10:15,400
Speaker 10: doesn't have the authority to do that. It's only the governor.

2197
02:10:15,440 --> 02:10:18,280
Speaker 10: The governor hasn't made any indication, and Mike Johnson is

2198
02:10:18,320 --> 02:10:23,160
Speaker 10: doing conservative stunt work. He was joined by Elie Staphonic,

2199
02:10:23,240 --> 02:10:28,280
Speaker 10: who is a conservative, and you know she regularly disseminates

2200
02:10:28,320 --> 02:10:34,560
Speaker 10: disinformation and inflammatory propaganda to demonize unhoused people, migrants, queer people,

2201
02:10:35,000 --> 02:10:38,720
Speaker 10: so it's no surprise that they're you know, banging this drum,

2202
02:10:38,920 --> 02:10:42,720
Speaker 10: which was also pushed by Shy davidy or however he

2203
02:10:42,760 --> 02:10:45,960
Speaker 10: pronounce his name, who was an assistant professor here who

2204
02:10:46,000 --> 02:10:49,680
Speaker 10: attempted to hold a rally in the center of the

2205
02:10:49,800 --> 02:10:53,760
Speaker 10: Cause of Solidarity encampment with a slew of Zionists and

2206
02:10:53,880 --> 02:10:58,480
Speaker 10: his ID card was deactivated and he found out in

2207
02:10:58,560 --> 02:11:00,880
Speaker 10: real time in front of a bunch of cameras that

2208
02:11:00,960 --> 02:11:07,240
Speaker 10: he called to come watch him. It was It's one

2209
02:11:07,280 --> 02:11:09,000
Speaker 10: of those things that you witness in real time that

2210
02:11:09,040 --> 02:11:12,280
Speaker 10: you feel like you're you're living in a movie. But

2211
02:11:12,400 --> 02:11:15,880
Speaker 10: it was great, and he had a nuclear tantrum and

2212
02:11:16,000 --> 02:11:18,040
Speaker 10: claimed that it was because he wasn't safe on campus

2213
02:11:18,400 --> 02:11:21,120
Speaker 10: when he was told that his protest was not safe

2214
02:11:21,160 --> 02:11:24,840
Speaker 10: for their students. So, you know, I think it's we're

2215
02:11:24,880 --> 02:11:26,920
Speaker 10: seeing a lot of rhetoric and a lot of saber

2216
02:11:27,000 --> 02:11:31,400
Speaker 10: rattling from the far right, from conservatives, from people who

2217
02:11:31,480 --> 02:11:36,960
Speaker 10: have never had any kind of support for Palestinians or

2218
02:11:37,000 --> 02:11:40,320
Speaker 10: for the cause of Palestinian liberation. You know, Mike Johnson

2219
02:11:40,400 --> 02:11:44,080
Speaker 10: makes he receives over a quarter million dollars from APAC.

2220
02:11:44,680 --> 02:11:48,040
Speaker 10: You know, these are these are not people whose statements

2221
02:11:48,040 --> 02:11:51,080
Speaker 10: should be taken seriously in the context of what is possible,

2222
02:11:51,480 --> 02:11:56,720
Speaker 10: what is reasonable, and what is you know, reality.

2223
02:11:57,720 --> 02:11:58,280
Speaker 1: To put it.

2224
02:11:58,240 --> 02:12:03,120
Speaker 8: Nicely, Yeah, yeah, I think a reason it's fascinating, like,

2225
02:12:03,160 --> 02:12:06,120
Speaker 8: at least to me, Like I went to a fancy university,

2226
02:12:06,160 --> 02:12:09,360
Speaker 8: you know, and engaged in plenty of including pro Palestine

2227
02:12:09,480 --> 02:12:12,840
Speaker 8: actions when I was there. But a thing that I see,

2228
02:12:12,880 --> 02:12:15,440
Speaker 8: like as a journalist now, is that the right wing

2229
02:12:15,520 --> 02:12:18,480
Speaker 8: and wealthy folks generally seem to see that ivy league universities,

2230
02:12:18,520 --> 02:12:21,360
Speaker 8: particularly in the US, is like their safe space. And

2231
02:12:21,400 --> 02:12:23,680
Speaker 8: I think the reason that they're so mad at this

2232
02:12:23,960 --> 02:12:26,520
Speaker 8: is that they feel like it's not just that it's happening,

2233
02:12:26,640 --> 02:12:30,160
Speaker 8: it's where it's happening, and like that that's called them

2234
02:12:30,200 --> 02:12:32,800
Speaker 8: to have these massive tantrums like you've reported on.

2235
02:12:33,760 --> 02:12:38,760
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, there's, there's, there's it's it's all hypocrisy

2236
02:12:38,800 --> 02:12:40,600
Speaker 10: for them because on the one hand, these are liberal

2237
02:12:40,720 --> 02:12:43,880
Speaker 10: universities who are ushering in an era of DEI and

2238
02:12:43,920 --> 02:12:46,640
Speaker 10: purple hair and queer kids. And then on the other side,

2239
02:12:46,680 --> 02:12:49,720
Speaker 10: these are sacred spaces of learning and higher education that

2240
02:12:49,760 --> 02:12:52,280
Speaker 10: no one should have access to unless they're you know,

2241
02:12:52,320 --> 02:12:55,400
Speaker 10: grandparents are in the Arian Brotherhood. So it's it's one

2242
02:12:55,400 --> 02:12:58,480
Speaker 10: of those things where it kind of depends on the

2243
02:12:58,600 --> 02:13:03,080
Speaker 10: day about how they feel about really elite campuses of

2244
02:13:03,760 --> 02:13:04,480
Speaker 10: higher learning.

2245
02:13:04,760 --> 02:13:06,920
Speaker 1: But it doesn't matter either way. They don't care. They

2246
02:13:06,920 --> 02:13:07,800
Speaker 1: don't actually care.

2247
02:13:08,200 --> 02:13:13,600
Speaker 10: They just hate the cause and will do anything they

2248
02:13:13,600 --> 02:13:17,680
Speaker 10: can to bring it to a halt. But the DNA

2249
02:13:17,760 --> 02:13:20,640
Speaker 10: of this cause is to keep going regardless of the

2250
02:13:20,680 --> 02:13:21,800
Speaker 10: efforts to stop it.

2251
02:13:23,120 --> 02:13:25,880
Speaker 8: Right, And it wasn't so long ago that everyone was

2252
02:13:25,960 --> 02:13:27,840
Speaker 8: up in arms, when I say everyone on the road

2253
02:13:27,920 --> 02:13:29,840
Speaker 8: was up and arms about campus free speech, which is

2254
02:13:29,880 --> 02:13:33,040
Speaker 8: something that seems have likely been forgotten in the last

2255
02:13:33,040 --> 02:13:35,800
Speaker 8: couple of weeks. It's like that we've all seen videos

2256
02:13:35,840 --> 02:13:39,320
Speaker 8: in Texas today right of the DPS and state troopers

2257
02:13:39,360 --> 02:13:43,640
Speaker 8: and horses and bikes that live to misuse bikes. But yeah,

2258
02:13:43,880 --> 02:13:46,680
Speaker 8: it's as I guess, the hypocoty is kind of the

2259
02:13:46,720 --> 02:13:47,880
Speaker 8: point with those people.

2260
02:13:49,360 --> 02:13:52,200
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, like Mike Johnson made his speech today

2261
02:13:52,240 --> 02:13:55,360
Speaker 10: on the steps of the Low Library. He was talking

2262
02:13:55,440 --> 02:13:57,520
Speaker 10: about how you know there was a repression of free

2263
02:13:57,560 --> 02:14:00,680
Speaker 10: speech on campus, but then in the same breath he

2264
02:14:00,720 --> 02:14:02,320
Speaker 10: said that and that's why I want to call in

2265
02:14:02,360 --> 02:14:06,000
Speaker 10: the National Guard to eliminate this protest. Their argument is

2266
02:14:06,040 --> 02:14:09,920
Speaker 10: that this protest is inherently anti Semitic because it rejects

2267
02:14:09,960 --> 02:14:12,880
Speaker 10: the state of Israel and the genocide and apartheid that

2268
02:14:12,920 --> 02:14:16,080
Speaker 10: the state has been doing since its inception and prior

2269
02:14:16,160 --> 02:14:21,960
Speaker 10: to its inception of the Palestinian people. And in the IHR,

2270
02:14:22,440 --> 02:14:27,920
Speaker 10: in the IHR definition of anti semitism, it is any

2271
02:14:27,960 --> 02:14:31,080
Speaker 10: criticism of the State of Israel, which would include people

2272
02:14:31,120 --> 02:14:36,120
Speaker 10: who are living in Israel criticizing their own government, would

2273
02:14:36,120 --> 02:14:39,800
Speaker 10: be labeled as anti Semitic. And they're trying to redefine

2274
02:14:40,480 --> 02:14:44,360
Speaker 10: reality in real time by claiming that these students who

2275
02:14:44,600 --> 02:14:47,840
Speaker 10: just don't want for mass death to be occurring and

2276
02:14:47,880 --> 02:14:51,720
Speaker 10: they don't want their university to be responsible in facilitating

2277
02:14:51,760 --> 02:14:56,680
Speaker 10: that are somehow anti Semitic. Meanwhile, a large number of

2278
02:14:56,680 --> 02:15:00,880
Speaker 10: them are Jews themselves. Who you know they held satter

2279
02:15:01,920 --> 02:15:03,320
Speaker 10: at the start of Passover.

2280
02:15:04,240 --> 02:15:07,200
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think, uh and maybe do you know bing one,

2281
02:15:07,480 --> 02:15:11,160
Speaker 8: a photojournalist, Yeah, withual friend being being took this photo

2282
02:15:11,160 --> 02:15:12,880
Speaker 8: which went viral on Twitter. I source in the New

2283
02:15:12,960 --> 02:15:15,640
Speaker 8: York Times of a Jewish graduate student just like sitting

2284
02:15:15,720 --> 02:15:17,680
Speaker 8: on a folding chat being like, now I'm fine, I

2285
02:15:17,680 --> 02:15:18,800
Speaker 8: don't feel unsafe here.

2286
02:15:19,360 --> 02:15:22,960
Speaker 10: Oh yeah, I mean that's like, that's the thing is

2287
02:15:23,000 --> 02:15:25,400
Speaker 10: that the people who feel quote unquote unsafe are also

2288
02:15:25,680 --> 02:15:30,640
Speaker 10: the people who are known antagonizers of pro Palestine demonstrations.

2289
02:15:30,840 --> 02:15:34,360
Speaker 10: These are the kids that bought like fart spray from

2290
02:15:34,400 --> 02:15:39,720
Speaker 10: Amazon to spray on students who were demonstrating peacefully. These

2291
02:15:39,760 --> 02:15:42,960
Speaker 10: are students who show up with giant flags outside of

2292
02:15:43,040 --> 02:15:48,200
Speaker 10: Columbia University to antagonize people. They brought thick wooden poles

2293
02:15:48,680 --> 02:15:52,200
Speaker 10: with flags fixed to them to a demonstration on Wall

2294
02:15:52,240 --> 02:15:56,440
Speaker 10: Street the week prior to this encampment launching, and they

2295
02:15:56,440 --> 02:15:58,920
Speaker 10: were antagonizing people. They were getting in, they were trying to,

2296
02:15:59,000 --> 02:16:02,560
Speaker 10: you know, instigate arguments with people, and you know, they

2297
02:16:02,560 --> 02:16:04,840
Speaker 10: were just kind of trying to incite, and then they

2298
02:16:04,840 --> 02:16:08,360
Speaker 10: claim to be victims when people respond to their inciting behavior,

2299
02:16:08,760 --> 02:16:13,440
Speaker 10: and it's very much like an abusive mentality that they have.

2300
02:16:14,120 --> 02:16:17,160
Speaker 10: But in terms of like actual anti Semitism, all of that,

2301
02:16:17,760 --> 02:16:20,600
Speaker 10: all of that rhetoric ends up being a distraction from

2302
02:16:20,640 --> 02:16:24,360
Speaker 10: actual instances of anti Semitism. And the more that you

2303
02:16:24,480 --> 02:16:29,320
Speaker 10: try to fuse the political ideology of Zionism with the

2304
02:16:29,520 --> 02:16:32,840
Speaker 10: prejudice against Jewish people for being Jewish, the more you

2305
02:16:32,840 --> 02:16:36,280
Speaker 10: try to fuse those together as one thing, like, you know,

2306
02:16:36,360 --> 02:16:40,519
Speaker 10: fusing Jewish identity to Zionism, the more you see instances

2307
02:16:40,600 --> 02:16:44,600
Speaker 10: of anti Semitism actually anti Semitism. So if anything, like

2308
02:16:44,640 --> 02:16:49,400
Speaker 10: the students who are coming in cheering on Israel and

2309
02:16:50,480 --> 02:16:55,440
Speaker 10: boasting about the murderers of you know, tens of thousands

2310
02:16:55,480 --> 02:16:59,240
Speaker 10: of children, the starvations, and the displacements of millions of people,

2311
02:16:59,560 --> 02:17:02,039
Speaker 10: the more that they do that, the more that that

2312
02:17:03,600 --> 02:17:06,320
Speaker 10: teaches people like, oh, maybe all Jews are like that,

2313
02:17:06,760 --> 02:17:08,200
Speaker 10: maybe all Jews are bad.

2314
02:17:08,560 --> 02:17:09,400
Speaker 1: And then I.

2315
02:17:09,360 --> 02:17:12,920
Speaker 10: End up getting DMS from people photoshopping my face into

2316
02:17:13,080 --> 02:17:15,959
Speaker 10: an oven calling for my death when you know, I

2317
02:17:16,000 --> 02:17:17,920
Speaker 10: don't give a fuck about the state of Israel. I

2318
02:17:17,920 --> 02:17:21,200
Speaker 10: don't give a fuck about any states, you know, So

2319
02:17:21,240 --> 02:17:23,360
Speaker 10: it's just it's one of those things like this is

2320
02:17:24,240 --> 02:17:28,200
Speaker 10: like they are they are planting toxic seeds and then

2321
02:17:28,640 --> 02:17:31,800
Speaker 10: flipping out when they sprout.

2322
02:17:32,520 --> 02:17:35,520
Speaker 8: Talking of toxic seeds, now is the time for some

2323
02:17:35,600 --> 02:17:38,160
Speaker 8: marketing professionals to plant some toxic seeds in your mind

2324
02:17:38,240 --> 02:17:51,720
Speaker 8: as we take our second advertising break. All right, well

2325
02:17:51,720 --> 02:17:55,760
Speaker 8: we're back, hopefully. I haven't bought anything since we last spoke, Tylia.

2326
02:17:55,879 --> 02:17:58,920
Speaker 8: I wanted to talk a little bit about a thing

2327
02:17:59,200 --> 02:18:02,760
Speaker 8: that we've seen a lot. It's like this idea of

2328
02:18:02,800 --> 02:18:05,160
Speaker 8: like the universe, and this happens at every protest movement

2329
02:18:05,240 --> 02:18:08,120
Speaker 8: right like the state, the university, whatever, will seek to

2330
02:18:08,680 --> 02:18:11,600
Speaker 8: appoint people leaders and allow them to negotiate on behalf

2331
02:18:11,640 --> 02:18:13,840
Speaker 8: of everyone, even if those people have not consented to

2332
02:18:13,840 --> 02:18:17,400
Speaker 8: be negotiated for, and then they'll use that to corupt

2333
02:18:17,400 --> 02:18:20,280
Speaker 8: the movement, offer concessions that these particular people might want,

2334
02:18:20,480 --> 02:18:24,240
Speaker 8: and in doing so kind of defang the original sort

2335
02:18:24,280 --> 02:18:28,280
Speaker 8: of protest. Is that something that you've seen happening or

2336
02:18:28,280 --> 02:18:31,320
Speaker 8: the university's tried to do to like divide people or

2337
02:18:31,360 --> 02:18:34,080
Speaker 8: to kind of pull people out and appoint them as leaders.

2338
02:18:35,080 --> 02:18:39,400
Speaker 10: They've suspended the people that they believe to be primary

2339
02:18:39,440 --> 02:18:43,560
Speaker 10: student organizers, but in terms of other divisions, they have

2340
02:18:43,680 --> 02:18:47,080
Speaker 10: not been successful. These are students organizing with their classmates.

2341
02:18:47,120 --> 02:18:51,520
Speaker 10: It's not possible for some outside group to infiltrate that

2342
02:18:51,600 --> 02:18:56,400
Speaker 10: space because they are not students at this university. You know,

2343
02:18:56,440 --> 02:19:01,680
Speaker 10: there's SJP chapters that students are members of in their schools,

2344
02:19:02,640 --> 02:19:05,040
Speaker 10: but they are ultimately making the choices of what their

2345
02:19:05,200 --> 02:19:08,680
Speaker 10: SJP chapter is doing, and you know a lot of

2346
02:19:08,720 --> 02:19:12,280
Speaker 10: those SJP chapters have been suspended. So, you know, I

2347
02:19:12,320 --> 02:19:16,440
Speaker 10: think in terms of the possibility of the university having

2348
02:19:16,480 --> 02:19:20,039
Speaker 10: any sort of in to build some sort.

2349
02:19:19,879 --> 02:19:21,920
Speaker 1: Of op is very low.

2350
02:19:22,360 --> 02:19:26,280
Speaker 10: The solidarity that we're seeing is I don't think I've

2351
02:19:26,320 --> 02:19:30,480
Speaker 10: seen levels of people on the same page and able

2352
02:19:30,560 --> 02:19:36,520
Speaker 10: to organize. The literacy of it is just phenomenal. You know,

2353
02:19:36,640 --> 02:19:39,920
Speaker 10: there's people who are just they're all very like clearly

2354
02:19:40,000 --> 02:19:43,560
Speaker 10: knowledgeable about what it is that they're organizing for, what

2355
02:19:43,640 --> 02:19:46,400
Speaker 10: the risks are, what the history of the movement is,

2356
02:19:46,760 --> 02:19:49,560
Speaker 10: and they've spent a lot of time learning those things

2357
02:19:50,240 --> 02:19:52,400
Speaker 10: to make sure that when they decide to take a

2358
02:19:52,440 --> 02:19:55,720
Speaker 10: step forward, that they are doing so fully informed and

2359
02:19:55,760 --> 02:19:59,720
Speaker 10: fully empowered and trying to break that down is something

2360
02:19:59,760 --> 02:20:03,320
Speaker 10: that has not been successful. And we've seen that, you know,

2361
02:20:03,440 --> 02:20:05,800
Speaker 10: time and time again. They have this chance. The more

2362
02:20:05,840 --> 02:20:07,520
Speaker 10: you try to silence us, the louder we will be.

2363
02:20:07,600 --> 02:20:12,279
Speaker 10: And it's true, and these institutions should probably start believing

2364
02:20:12,360 --> 02:20:15,520
Speaker 10: it because it would save them a lot of trouble

2365
02:20:16,080 --> 02:20:18,400
Speaker 10: by you know, trying to write this off is something

2366
02:20:18,440 --> 02:20:20,680
Speaker 10: that you know, people don't know what they're doing or

2367
02:20:21,040 --> 02:20:24,480
Speaker 10: you know, whatever it is, because they are they know everything,

2368
02:20:24,480 --> 02:20:26,959
Speaker 10: They know everything. These are kids that all they do

2369
02:20:27,000 --> 02:20:31,920
Speaker 10: is study, you know, like you're talking about huge nerds

2370
02:20:32,280 --> 02:20:38,440
Speaker 10: joining into a massive, you know, decades long social movement.

2371
02:20:38,520 --> 02:20:39,600
Speaker 1: They've done the reading.

2372
02:20:41,560 --> 02:20:44,160
Speaker 8: Yeah, talking people who's done the reading. I wanted to

2373
02:20:44,240 --> 02:20:46,760
Speaker 8: talk about like faculty because I know a lot of

2374
02:20:46,760 --> 02:20:49,360
Speaker 8: people who are faculty at university's listened to this podcast,

2375
02:20:50,360 --> 02:20:53,280
Speaker 8: and I'm sure they're interested in, like how faculty have

2376
02:20:53,600 --> 02:20:56,120
Speaker 8: been in solidarity with students there, how they can be

2377
02:20:56,160 --> 02:20:58,960
Speaker 8: in solidarity with their own students. So have you seen that?

2378
02:20:59,040 --> 02:21:00,480
Speaker 8: Have you seen faculty up?

2379
02:21:01,560 --> 02:21:01,760
Speaker 4: Oh?

2380
02:21:01,840 --> 02:21:05,760
Speaker 10: Oh yeah, there was a massive faculty walk out the

2381
02:21:05,800 --> 02:21:09,840
Speaker 10: other day between Barnard and Columbia faculty members. The schools

2382
02:21:09,840 --> 02:21:13,000
Speaker 10: are kind of related. They're right across the street from

2383
02:21:13,040 --> 02:21:15,040
Speaker 10: each other, and they have a lot of overlap. Barnard's

2384
02:21:15,080 --> 02:21:18,960
Speaker 10: kind of under slightly under the university the Columbia umbrella,

2385
02:21:19,000 --> 02:21:21,720
Speaker 10: but still has the un president and things like that.

2386
02:21:21,800 --> 02:21:24,360
Speaker 10: And there was a huge faculty walk out from both

2387
02:21:24,440 --> 02:21:27,720
Speaker 10: campuses that gathered on the Low the steps of the

2388
02:21:27,720 --> 02:21:31,640
Speaker 10: Low Library, and it was easily hundreds I would say,

2389
02:21:31,640 --> 02:21:34,160
Speaker 10: maybe like five hundred people and.

2390
02:21:34,120 --> 02:21:35,680
Speaker 1: That was it. That was it Columbia.

2391
02:21:35,720 --> 02:21:38,640
Speaker 10: And then at NYU, the students set up an encampment

2392
02:21:38,720 --> 02:21:42,400
Speaker 10: and they were surrounded by faculty who had linked arms

2393
02:21:42,520 --> 02:21:45,280
Speaker 10: as a as a dazy chain around the encampment to

2394
02:21:45,400 --> 02:21:49,400
Speaker 10: protect the students. So we're seeing a very real, you know,

2395
02:21:49,560 --> 02:21:54,000
Speaker 10: multi layer of solidarity emerging in these spaces. And I

2396
02:21:54,040 --> 02:21:57,560
Speaker 10: think it's you know, even if the even if professors

2397
02:21:57,720 --> 02:22:02,000
Speaker 10: and faculty don't necessarily wholly or wholly understand they're not

2398
02:22:02,480 --> 02:22:06,760
Speaker 10: fully on the same wavelength as the student organizers, necessarily,

2399
02:22:07,160 --> 02:22:09,360
Speaker 10: they're still showing up on the basis of like, these

2400
02:22:09,360 --> 02:22:14,000
Speaker 10: students of the right to express their opinions and they

2401
02:22:14,360 --> 02:22:18,640
Speaker 10: should not be getting met with severe academic or state

2402
02:22:18,800 --> 02:22:23,320
Speaker 10: discipline for doing so. Because we've seen these same campuses

2403
02:22:23,360 --> 02:22:26,879
Speaker 10: open their doors to people like Charlie Charlie Kirk and

2404
02:22:27,080 --> 02:22:30,400
Speaker 10: Gavin McGinnis, and you know, like white supremacists and white

2405
02:22:30,480 --> 02:22:33,520
Speaker 10: nationalists who are able to go on their campuses and

2406
02:22:33,560 --> 02:22:36,520
Speaker 10: spread hate and you know, right going disinformation and try

2407
02:22:36,560 --> 02:22:41,720
Speaker 10: and recruit people through their you know, young Republican school chapters.

2408
02:22:41,879 --> 02:22:45,199
Speaker 10: Those chapters aren't being disbanded. You know, there's there isn't

2409
02:22:45,560 --> 02:22:52,440
Speaker 10: an urgent rush to prevent the hosting of white nationalists

2410
02:22:52,480 --> 02:22:57,599
Speaker 10: and white supremacists, and you know, people who are actually

2411
02:22:58,520 --> 02:23:03,320
Speaker 10: politically and intense anti Semitic to an extreme, they're not

2412
02:23:03,360 --> 02:23:07,039
Speaker 10: doing anything to actually like prevent those people from appearing

2413
02:23:07,080 --> 02:23:10,600
Speaker 10: on campus. So I think that there's there's a lot

2414
02:23:10,600 --> 02:23:13,119
Speaker 10: of layers to it, but there is a very strong

2415
02:23:13,600 --> 02:23:16,240
Speaker 10: surge of faculty saying like, hey, this is this is

2416
02:23:16,640 --> 02:23:19,400
Speaker 10: fucked up, and we're not We're not going to let

2417
02:23:19,440 --> 02:23:21,320
Speaker 10: you think that this is just kids that you're picking on,

2418
02:23:21,400 --> 02:23:24,600
Speaker 10: Like you're also attacking your own staff, who you know,

2419
02:23:24,720 --> 02:23:29,080
Speaker 10: has a longer relationship to the university, has a you know,

2420
02:23:29,120 --> 02:23:30,800
Speaker 10: as hard as it is as it is for these

2421
02:23:30,879 --> 02:23:32,840
Speaker 10: kids to get into the school, it's harder to get

2422
02:23:32,920 --> 02:23:34,600
Speaker 10: hired to work.

2423
02:23:34,360 --> 02:23:37,000
Speaker 1: Here, and so you know, we're seeing a lot of that.

2424
02:23:37,040 --> 02:23:40,800
Speaker 10: There's also security people who were put in charge of

2425
02:23:40,920 --> 02:23:44,520
Speaker 10: evicting students from their rooms at Barnard.

2426
02:23:44,560 --> 02:23:48,279
Speaker 9: Because Barnard has chosen that students at Barnard.

2427
02:23:48,120 --> 02:23:51,240
Speaker 10: Participated in this demo, they weren't only going to be

2428
02:23:51,720 --> 02:23:55,199
Speaker 10: suspended temporarily, but evicted from their housing, banned from campus,

2429
02:23:55,280 --> 02:23:58,240
Speaker 10: unable to access any food or meal plans, whereas the

2430
02:23:58,320 --> 02:24:01,080
Speaker 10: Columbia students have been suspended are still able to access

2431
02:24:01,080 --> 02:24:02,920
Speaker 10: housing and meal plans, but they aren't allowed to go

2432
02:24:02,959 --> 02:24:06,480
Speaker 10: to class or any campus events, which is fine because

2433
02:24:06,480 --> 02:24:09,320
Speaker 10: the only one that's happening right now is the encampment.

2434
02:24:09,920 --> 02:24:12,440
Speaker 10: But you know, there was there was a security person

2435
02:24:12,480 --> 02:24:16,160
Speaker 10: who sent an email to the school at Barnard saying,

2436
02:24:16,200 --> 02:24:18,400
Speaker 10: like I quit, Like this is this is inhumane, this

2437
02:24:18,440 --> 02:24:21,880
Speaker 10: is undignified, this is crazy. You're giving these students fifteen

2438
02:24:21,920 --> 02:24:26,080
Speaker 10: minutes to uproot themselves from their rooms. They might not

2439
02:24:26,200 --> 02:24:28,520
Speaker 10: have another place to go. These you know, these might

2440
02:24:28,560 --> 02:24:33,000
Speaker 10: be students who don't have a family's house.

2441
02:24:33,320 --> 02:24:36,800
Speaker 1: Nearby, or you know, or the funds or the.

2442
02:24:36,800 --> 02:24:41,840
Speaker 10: Means to live somewhere else and not worry about the

2443
02:24:41,840 --> 02:24:44,960
Speaker 10: cost you're you know, destabilizing people's lives in a very

2444
02:24:45,000 --> 02:24:49,800
Speaker 10: severe way. And this this you know, security person resigned.

2445
02:24:49,840 --> 02:24:52,760
Speaker 10: They're like this is nuts. So I think there's there's

2446
02:24:52,800 --> 02:24:58,880
Speaker 10: the fact that just the the overall what is of

2447
02:24:58,920 --> 02:25:03,600
Speaker 10: how these universities responding has provided a type of solidarity.

2448
02:25:03,680 --> 02:25:05,520
Speaker 10: And then there's also the fact that a lot of

2449
02:25:05,560 --> 02:25:09,560
Speaker 10: people just generally understand that genocide is bad, and it's

2450
02:25:09,959 --> 02:25:13,160
Speaker 10: gotten to a point where there's a lot of rhetoric

2451
02:25:13,360 --> 02:25:17,640
Speaker 10: trying to obscure that and obfuskate like what is genocide?

2452
02:25:18,000 --> 02:25:20,800
Speaker 10: And you know, Israel isroid truxs and all this other

2453
02:25:21,240 --> 02:25:26,880
Speaker 10: like bullshit like propaganda and disinformation and you know, fear

2454
02:25:26,959 --> 02:25:27,959
Speaker 10: mongering and all these things.

2455
02:25:28,120 --> 02:25:30,480
Speaker 1: And people can see very clearly what the game is.

2456
02:25:31,160 --> 02:25:33,480
Speaker 10: And so we're kind of at a pivotal moment for

2457
02:25:34,760 --> 02:25:37,840
Speaker 10: just common reality and critical thinking.

2458
02:25:37,920 --> 02:25:39,039
Speaker 1: And I think that we're seeing a.

2459
02:25:39,000 --> 02:25:44,640
Speaker 10: Lot of people show that the efforts to alter what

2460
02:25:45,160 --> 02:25:48,240
Speaker 10: our established common reality is is not working.

2461
02:25:48,959 --> 02:25:50,480
Speaker 5: And the Springs means is the thing I wanted to

2462
02:25:50,480 --> 02:25:52,960
Speaker 5: close on, which is where do you see this going?

2463
02:25:54,440 --> 02:25:58,879
Speaker 10: Oh, I'm an need a minute on that one. I mean,

2464
02:25:59,360 --> 02:26:02,000
Speaker 10: you know, we're at a very pivotal moment in history.

2465
02:26:02,000 --> 02:26:05,960
Speaker 10: There's a lot of comparisons being made to protests against

2466
02:26:05,959 --> 02:26:09,080
Speaker 10: the Vietnam War, and in those protests there was a

2467
02:26:09,120 --> 02:26:12,480
Speaker 10: lot of state violence, a lot of state repression, but

2468
02:26:12,560 --> 02:26:16,680
Speaker 10: there was also a lot of people willing to throw.

2469
02:26:16,520 --> 02:26:20,920
Speaker 1: Down in a very intense way. And you know, we're

2470
02:26:20,959 --> 02:26:22,199
Speaker 1: already seeing.

2471
02:26:23,440 --> 02:26:28,800
Speaker 10: Levels to that that have very very strong parallels, you know,

2472
02:26:28,840 --> 02:26:32,200
Speaker 10: with Lake Aaron Bushnell, which is also a story that

2473
02:26:32,240 --> 02:26:37,960
Speaker 10: I ended up breaking, And you know, like, so this

2474
02:26:38,120 --> 02:26:41,600
Speaker 10: is this is big, and I think that right now,

2475
02:26:41,720 --> 02:26:44,840
Speaker 10: in the midst of it, it's hard to guess what's

2476
02:26:44,840 --> 02:26:47,560
Speaker 10: going to happen two weeks from now or six months

2477
02:26:47,560 --> 02:26:50,879
Speaker 10: from now. But I guarantee you we all know what's

2478
02:26:50,920 --> 02:26:53,200
Speaker 10: going to happen fifty years from now. We're all going

2479
02:26:53,240 --> 02:26:55,359
Speaker 10: to look at this fifty years from now and be like, Wow,

2480
02:26:56,360 --> 02:26:59,680
Speaker 10: stay was on some dumb shit. Those protesters were right,

2481
02:27:00,360 --> 02:27:03,280
Speaker 10: and it's good that they didn't stop totally.

2482
02:27:03,360 --> 02:27:05,920
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think that's a great place to end, Talia.

2483
02:27:06,160 --> 02:27:08,440
Speaker 8: I wonder if you would like to let people know

2484
02:27:08,480 --> 02:27:10,360
Speaker 8: where they can find you, where they can read your work,

2485
02:27:10,360 --> 02:27:11,720
Speaker 8: how they can support your work.

2486
02:27:12,840 --> 02:27:17,000
Speaker 10: Sure, so I mostly report live on Twitter talia otg

2487
02:27:17,400 --> 02:27:20,120
Speaker 10: as in on the ground, and you can support me

2488
02:27:20,240 --> 02:27:24,240
Speaker 10: by signing up on Patreon for hopefully more than five

2489
02:27:24,320 --> 02:27:29,039
Speaker 10: dollars a month. Those those small donations cover the entirety

2490
02:27:29,080 --> 02:27:34,640
Speaker 10: of my living and survival and allow for me to

2491
02:27:34,920 --> 02:27:37,360
Speaker 10: do this work for the past four years. So I'm

2492
02:27:37,400 --> 02:27:40,480
Speaker 10: like incredibly grateful. You know, people can support on Patreon.

2493
02:27:40,560 --> 02:27:42,480
Speaker 10: They can also if you just want to do like

2494
02:27:42,520 --> 02:27:45,920
Speaker 10: a one time heard you on the pod loved it.

2495
02:27:46,320 --> 02:27:48,680
Speaker 10: I have like a PayPal and a Venmo and all

2496
02:27:48,680 --> 02:27:51,680
Speaker 10: that other shit on my Twitter account if people want

2497
02:27:51,720 --> 02:27:56,240
Speaker 10: to send a couple couple bucks that way, and you know,

2498
02:27:56,240 --> 02:27:59,600
Speaker 10: another way to support is send me tips if you

2499
02:28:00,080 --> 02:28:03,320
Speaker 10: if you decide that you're gonna do something, feel free

2500
02:28:03,320 --> 02:28:05,400
Speaker 10: to you know, email and bio.

2501
02:28:07,360 --> 02:28:08,480
Speaker 1: I always, I always want.

2502
02:28:08,320 --> 02:28:12,120
Speaker 8: To know send all your all your tips, especially if

2503
02:28:12,120 --> 02:28:15,360
Speaker 8: you're at Columbia University. Anything else do you want to

2504
02:28:15,680 --> 02:28:17,760
Speaker 8: plug or me or anything else need to do before

2505
02:28:17,760 --> 02:28:17,959
Speaker 8: we go.

2506
02:28:18,600 --> 02:28:21,640
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that my voice sounds really like this.

2507
02:28:23,480 --> 02:28:26,880
Speaker 10: It's I don't think I've I haven't gotten a lot

2508
02:28:26,920 --> 02:28:30,359
Speaker 10: of sleep, and I hope that everything I said was coherent,

2509
02:28:30,400 --> 02:28:32,920
Speaker 10: even though I was just giving you essay after essay

2510
02:28:32,920 --> 02:28:33,600
Speaker 10: after essay.

2511
02:28:34,920 --> 02:28:37,400
Speaker 8: It was fantastic. Thank you so much, Shatie.

2512
02:28:37,480 --> 02:28:41,000
Speaker 5: Thank you so much, and thank you guys. It's something

2513
02:28:41,040 --> 02:28:43,360
Speaker 5: I could say from everyone. I could happen here, from

2514
02:28:43,400 --> 02:28:46,240
Speaker 5: the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. Fuck him,

2515
02:28:46,400 --> 02:28:47,640
Speaker 5: fuck him up, keep.

2516
02:28:50,560 --> 02:28:54,040
Speaker 8: Yeah, fucking get him.

2517
02:28:54,760 --> 02:28:54,960
Speaker 1: Hey.

2518
02:28:55,040 --> 02:28:58,160
Speaker 2: We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from

2519
02:28:58,160 --> 02:28:59,840
Speaker 2: now until we heat Death of the Universe.

2520
02:29:00,480 --> 02:29:02,840
Speaker 11: It could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.

2521
02:29:03,040 --> 02:29:05,720
Speaker 11: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website

2522
02:29:05,760 --> 02:29:08,880
Speaker 11: Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

2523
02:29:08,920 --> 02:29:12,080
Speaker 11: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can

2524
02:29:12,120 --> 02:29:14,800
Speaker 11: find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at

2525
02:29:14,840 --> 02:29:18,080
Speaker 11: Coolzonmedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.